Ice Train was all we had
When I woke up this morning, I thought that most of today's wrestling news would surround CM Punk and Cody Rhodes' segment from Raw last night. That was before The Rock joined the TKO Group board of directors (and got his name back), which was about 30 minutes before the news of Netflix winning the Raw rights war—and my subsequent writing about it. Within minutes of that piece going up, word hit the BRP group chat: Ice Train had passed away.
For what it's worth, the work of people like Ice Train sparked the desire to start Black Rasslin' in the first place. Growing up as a Black pro wrestling fan at the time—be it on WWF, WCW, or other federations—you learned to root for the Black person, primarily because there were only so many of us able to compete. And for all of the Rocky Kings or Virgils who have done the damn thing in the squared circle, cats like Ice Train felt different.
In a match from August of 1993, Ice Train (who was accompanied to the ring by Thunderbolt Patterson) obliterates Wrecking Crew Rage in less than a minute. It took Train longer to get to the ring at the Disney / MGM Studios (and get his Malcolm X cap off) than it did for him to make light work for Rage. CHOO CHOO!
His career was an interesting one; after making his WCW in July of 1993, he was completely gone by the end of January 1994, making his return to WCW in February 1996 to begin the "Fire & Ice" program with Scott Norton, taking these two from formidable opponents to a lighting hot tag team to, you guessed it, bitter rivals.
That led to Norton eventually joining the nWo by the end of 1996; funny enough, Norton isn't the only person who had nWo dealings to get mixed up with Ice Train. While trying to recruit Diamond Dallas Page, the Outsiders jumped Train to help hand DDP a victory. And while that was just part of a larger DDP-Outsiders storyline, Page and Ice Train shared a long friendship, which DDP opened up about during his Instagram post on the passing of Harold Hogue, aka the pro wrestler we knew as Ice Train (or M.I. Smooth, for those who know).
These days, it's getting better for Black wrestlers. There's still a long way to go (for Black wrestlers and their peers across the board), but one has to wonder what a performer built like Ice Train would have been able to do in WWE. It's why we rejoice when we see brothers like Oba Femi obtain championship gold this early in their careers. We grew up hoping Ice Train would get TV time; we knew better than to think he'd win, especially when it mattered, but folks like Ice Train? We didn't have a lot of Ice Trains around, so we made them our champions. We hoped that Train linking with Teddy Long could possibly net Train some gold.
Ice Train really only wrestled for two organizations during his eight-year career, trading time back and forth between WCW and the Catch Wrestling Association (where he won the Catch Cup in 1995). Train's other main contribution to the pro wrestling history books was his time as M.I. Smooth, during his final run in WCW. After an 18-year gap in activity, his final match was a no-contest against Dave Taylor in December of 2019 at a card in Germany.
The squad at BRP sends our deepest condolences to Harold Hogue's friends and family, and any fans of the one and only Ice Train. If you want to see more of his work on WCW from '93 through '97, this YouTube playlist is all you need. RIP Ice Train.
