Topless Club Owner Big Daddy: The Birth of SPEW Wrestling

At Big Daddys Cabaret in Missouri the strippers wrestle nude in jello, biscuits and gravy, soul food, hot oil or just about anything that Big Daddy’s fertile mind can come up with.  On nearly every Saturday night, a Marine, U.S. Army soldier, or serviceman from another branch of the military puts his manly prowess on the line against two of the night club’s strippers. Nearly always the U.S. military winds up on the short end of the stick. But wrestling here at Big Daddys which stems from the club’s proximity to Fort Leonard Wood and the club owner’s love for the sport has come a long way. Wrestling at Big Daddys gave birth to S.P.E.W. (Sexy Professional Exotic Wrestling) that fateful weekend Big Mike journeyed down to Missouri to investigate first hand the opportunities for his club, “The Lumberyard” out of Des Moines, Iowa, by facing off against the girls of Big Daddys. That weekend, an Iowa entertainer calling herself “Dirty Heather” faced off against Killer Kloe’, the scourge of Fort Leonard Wood. From that weekend on, each month pitted the Lumberyard girls against Big Daddys crew of Missouri female ruffians.

Since then S.P.E.W. has grown with monthly matches at the Iowa Playhouse, a new club in Council Bluffs, and is now slated to auger in the 2005 Nudes-A-Poppin pageant in Roselawn, Indiana. But we’ve got a whole web site to talk about S.P.E.W. as well as to sell S.P.E.W.’s riveting videos of hot babes in oil. This article is about Big Daddy, the man who started S.P.E.W.

Growing up in the South in the 1980's, Big Daddy’s boyhood started out typically enough for a young man from Mississippi who believed himself to be “9 foot tall, green and bullet proof”. Majoring in Law Enforcement, Big Daddy had graduated from High School weighing 268 pounds and uncommonly strong for his tender years. Back in those days professional wrestling was big time down in Mississippi, much like NASCAR racing is today. This was before the days of cable television and of the Internet when everybody who is anybody has an e-mail address and instant messaging handle.

Big Daddy became one of the Assassins, a pair of wrestlers wearing hoods billing themselves as two of the baddest asses on the wrestling circuit. At this time Big Daddy’s fervent hope was to become one of the U.S. Marshall’s fugitive recovery team. The Assassins had just lost their titles for the Tag Team championship to the Road Warriors after which they wrestled for Pay per view in the Star Cade in Atlanta, Georgia. It was there that Big Daddy was knocked over the top rope onto a chair and injured his hip so severely that even today he wears a plastic hip.

He continued to wrestle sporadically until his former partner killed himself when his wife ran off with another man. By this time Big Daddy had started dj-ing in night clubs to pay for his education expenses. Having worked the bars in Atlanta, Big Daddy moved to Memphis where his brother was working as daytime D.J. for a topless club. Not in favor of his younger brother getting into the wild unbridled adult entertainment world, brother Terry reluctantly told his first wife, Amber, “Train him.” after Steve Cooper, club owner who started the Tiffany’s chain decided to hire Big Daddy as a promising prospect. For a time the two Eubanks brothers prove to be a dynamic team with Terry dj-ing the day shift while Big Daddy ran the night shift crowd. One of the finest D.J’s to ever run his mouth off at the mike. Brother Terry was more polished and artful than his rough and ready younger but larger brother. But Big Daddy was soon moved across town to East Memphis to one of the other Tiffany’s clubs, Cherokee Rose, more commonly known as Fort Apache, since it had gained a well deserved reputation as a very rough place. The manager was Charles Capps. It was at Fort Apache that Big Daddy formed a life long friendship with the Capps brothers.

Eventually Big Daddy winds up being head D.J. for the Gold Club where he starts making more money than God (according to Big Daddy who must have copies of God’s tax returns since this is a direct quote). By this time chasing women, drinking and partying heavily and DJ’ing had taken precedence over college. Big Daddy dropped his criminal justice major. After all, how could he become a member of the U.S. Marshall’s recovery team with a plastic hip? Eventually ending up with a four year degree in Business Administration, Big Daddy receives a position for a club in San Antonio, Texas.  IN 1991 he becomes a manager, 

Which is in or around 1992. But it is in Texas where he meets Hawkeye who is destined to become Big Daddys number one D.J. and web site developer. Big Daddy’s career with Baby Dolls comes to a halt when he receives a phone call from Charles Capps. Back in Memphis Big Daddy and Charles had agreed that if either of them ever became a club owner, he would offer his friend a job.

Which brings Big Daddy to Evansville, Indiana where he started off dj-ing at a former Playboy Club which had just been acquired by the Capps brothers. The two Evansville clubs were to be the first of the Regina’s chain of topless clubs which would ultimately comprise 14 clubs in 6 states. It was here that Big Daddy demonstrated a flair for club management, which eventually led to his becoming general manager over the entire Regina’s chain, which would later change its name to Stephanie’s.  In 2000 came the throat cancer scare while Big Daddy was firmly in the saddle at Reginas.  Three times he had polyps removed from his vocal cords.  But it's not until 2001 at Exotic Dancer's Expo in Las Vegas, that he found out he didn't have throat cancer.   With weakened vocal cords, it's the end to his aspirations of being a full time D.J., a career which Big Daddy still describes emphatically, "Is one in which I made more money than God."  His throat problems would destine him to being a club owner.  But his stint at being general manager over the entire Reginas chain cemented a lifetime friendship with the Capps brothers, yet ultimately he would wind up starting his own club at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, Big Daddys.  (Click here for an earlier Looking Glass article about Big Daddy's Cabaret)

But his lifelong passion for wrestling never waned. As Big Daddy very recently put it:

“All my life I’ve been the center of attention whether as a club D.J., manager, or club owner, but I’ll tell you what, when you put that hood on and enter that ring and you’ve just beat up on the crowd favorite, and now that crowd is booing you, well, there’s nothing quite like the feeling. It beats everything, and even with my plastic hip and other injuries, I’d still do it today, just to hear the roar of the crowd.”

Which pretty much sums up what Big Daddy’s all about. Although he’s a complex man–a man who is widely respected in the profession of adult entertainment, the founding President of the Missouri Chapter of A.C.E. (Association of Club Executives), hosted several opening parties at Exotic Dancer’s annual Expo, and served on several legal panels in the club owners’ seminars at the Expos, Big Daddy is first and foremost a man of action, in perpetual quest of excitement and doing new and stimulating things.