Memphis' BBQ contests face off hog-to-hog. We visited both to see who brought the smoke.

The Suspicious Rinds barbecue team convened in Memphis this week with something unusual packed among its gear, alongside the expected smokers and sauces and chicken wings and pork ribs.

That something was what funeral directors call "cremains" and what civilians generally call "ashes" — in this case, the ashes of John Thomas "Tom" Richardson III, who died three days before Christmas at the age of 85.

A Baton Rouge civil engineer who built bridges not unlike those on the Mississippi River that flank Tom Lee Park, Richardson was the father of Suspicious Rinds team leader John Harrell Richardson, who made the decision this year to participate in the upstart SmokeSlam barbecue competition rather than to remain with the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.

"I'm going to spread some of his ashes on the river," said Richardson, a 58-year-old Baton Rouge schoolteacher, whose Suspicious Rinds team — with its name borrowed from an Elvis hit and its roster boasting members from Memphis, Chattanooga, Baton Rouge, Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, and Guatemala City, Guatemala — had been part of the Memphis in May event since 2007.

"Could I imagine myself throwing ashes on Tiger Lane?" he asked. "No."

Richardson said switching to SmokeSlam after almost two decades with Memphis in May was "a tough decision. But the whole thing for me has always been the river. That was the catalyst."

This weekend, Memphis for the first time hosts head-to-head, hog-to-hog barbecue cooking contests.

A production of Mempho Presents, the inaugural SmokeSlam event is in Tom Lee, on the river, while the Memphis in May fest, which dates to 1978, has moved eastward and inland to the Liberty Park/Tiger Lane space, after disputes with the Memphis River Parks Partnership, which manages Tom Lee.

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For competitors, the choice seemed to be prestige and loyalty vs. novelty and location. With 129 cooking teams from 22 states and four foreign countries vying for a shoulder-high "Grand Champion" trophy topped by a stylized model of the Earth, the Memphis in May competition works to affirm its "World" status. Thursday, Liberty Park was extraordinarily active, with professional cooks demonstrating how to make "smoked pork barbecue sushi," pitchmen hawking state-of-the-art grills and other products, pedestrians in head-to-toe pig costumes strolling among the barbecue booths, and other signs of what was not just a competition but a barbecue convention. Printed fold-out brochures and maps available at the festival identify every competing team and its location.

Meanwhile, SmokeSlam on Thursday was comparatively mellow, its 50-plus teams distributed intermittently along the roughly mile-long stretch of Tom Lee Park, without the congestion of past barbecue festivals. The Mempho strategy is not entirely food-oriented: The attractions include pickleball courts, and — held over from Mempho's inaugural RiverBeat Music Festival, earlier this month — a Ferris wheel and carousel.

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James Daniels, 58, whose All Star Ten Pin Porkers team of bowling buddies turned 'cue cookers has been competing at Memphis in May since 1998, said Mempho's decision to host a festival the same weekend as the long-running World Championship contest was an unnecessary provocation and an "insult." He said his team was loyal to Memphis in May, and would demonstrate this by bringing "hundreds" of friends to Liberty Park, to enjoy the Porkers' hospitality — and to marvel at the team booth, inspired by this year's choice of France as the Memphis in May International Festival's "honored country."

Designed by Daniels, who owns Balton Digital Printing, the booth is fronted by a 24-foot-tall, 17-foot-wide reproduction of an aerial view of Paris, with a pair of Notre Dame gargoyles looming in the foreground. The two-dimensional vista perhaps compensated for the lack of a river view, but Daniels said Tom Lee Park is sometimes more challenging than pretty. Meanwhile, the easy access, the convenient parking and the wide streets in Liberty Park can be a plus, especially for serious competitors with heavy barbecue rigs.

"When it rains, you go to Tom Lee, it's a mudpie," he said.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: What's different between Memphis in May and SmokeSlam BBQ contests?