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The Name on the Marquee: Smoky Mountain Wrestling (10.16.1993)

June 29, 2016 | Posted by Adam Nedeff
2.9
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The Name on the Marquee: Smoky Mountain Wrestling (10.16.1993)  

-Original airdate: October 16, 1993.

-Your hosts are Dutch Mantell and the returning Bob Caudle.

-All of this week’s matches come from the big run of house shows that they had in the past week.

-Darryl Van Horne storms in and reminds everyone that he’s bringing a seven-foot-tall Egyptian prince into SMW at some point.

-Bob Caudle reports that the US Jr. Heavyweight Title has bounced back and forth between Chris Candido & Bobby Blaze multiple times in the days leading up to Parade of Champions.

U.S. JR. HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: BOBBY BLAZE (Champion) vs CHRIS CANDIDO (WWA Champion)
-Joined in progress. Again, the deal here is each man has promised to throw the other man’s title belt over a bridge after the match.

-Candido comes off the apron with an axehandle on Blaze. They fight on the floor and Blaze whips him into the barricade. Back in, they engage in “Fist City” and a bodyslam by Blaze BARELY gets two. Candido fights back and plants Blaze on the top turnbuckle for the suicideplex, but Blaze turns it into a Gourdbuster and sunset flips him for three. Clean as a sheet.

U.S. JR. HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE RE-MATCH: BOBBY BLAZE (Champion) vs CHRIS CANDIDO (WWA Champion)
-Joined in progress from Barbourville. Blaze is writhing on the floor and Candido tries for a springboard moonsault but crashes on the barricade. Blaze capitalizes with a plancha and brings him back inside for a series of corner splashes, but Candido catches him in a bearhug and falls backward toward the turnbuckle to make it snake eyes, and pins Blaze clean as a sheet to take the Jr. Heavyweight Title.

U.S. JR. HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE RE-RE-MATCH: CHRIS CANDIDO (Champion and WWA Champion) vs BOBBY BLAZE
-Joined in progress from Johnson City. Not much to this match. They have a pretty even battle in the ring until Candido goes for a backdrop. Blaze counters with a cradle and gets the three-count to take his title back.

-So after ALL that, neither belt has gone over a bridge, and Caudle announces that they’ve signed for a rematch on next week’s TV show.

-Brian Matthews talks to Tracy Smothers about his big match in Pigeon Forge, TN. Tammy Fytch is a tramp and Brian Lee is a punk who needs to learn some respect. The Rock & Roll Express is on their way to Pigeon Forge, too!

-Darryl Van Horne promises his new man will defeat all of the top contenders in SMW, including Mahatma Ghandi and Heidi Fleiss.

TIM HORNER vs DIRTY WHITE BOY
-Joined in progress from Johnson City. Right hands by DWB, followed by an elbow as the fans chant for Horner. Later in the match, DWB powerslams Horner two. Still later in the match, Horner has finally made a comeback with an elbow in the corner. He bulldogs DWB from the second rope and goes for the natural bridge, but DWB rolls through and grabs the tights for good measure, getting the three-count and the win. DWB, as of this win, is your number-one contender for the SMW Title.

-We go to Bob Caudle, who is with Dirty White Boy. He’s the number-one contender and that’s good news not just because he wants the title but because he now has a chance to beat up Brian Lee, run Tammy Fytch out of town, AND get Mr. Wright back. Bob Caudle mentions Tracy Smothers and DWB assures us that he and Smothers aren’t friends just because they both hate Brian Lee. DWB is looking forward to kicking Tracy Smothers’ ass too.

SMW HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: “Prime Time” BRIAN LEE (Champion, with Tammy Fytch) vs. “Wild Eyed Southern Boy” TRACY SMOTHERS (with Sherri Martel)
-It’s a special night, so Sherri grabs the house mic, calls Tammy a bitch, and warns her that if she interferes at all, she’s going it at her own risk.

-So Tammy interferes IMMEDIATELY, tripping Smothers, but Lee runs to the apron and blocks Sherri from attacking. Lee goes off the ropes for a clothesline, but Sherri takes a turn tripping him, and Tammy complains about how unfair that is, of course. Lee gets the advantage with punches and headbutts, but Smothers connects with a flying forearm for two. Lee is dazed, so Tracy goes to the top and connects with a double axehandle for another two.

-Later in the match, Lee hits a running powerslam and a kneedrop on Smothers for two. Jawjacker by Smothers. Enziguiri follows. Smothers goes upstairs for another jawjacker, but he’s too close to the ropes and Fytch drapes Lee’s leg over the bottom rope to break the count. She goes up to the apron and tosses her purse into the ring, and Sherri has had enough of this. She goes up to the apron, and for the only time that I can remember seeing this in my life, Tammy takes bumps! Sherri chokes her out and punches away on the apron. The referee struggles to break them up while Lee gets something from the purse, puts it in his fist, and hits Smothers right between the eyes for a three-count.

-After the bell, Sherri runs in, hops on Lee’s back, and applies a chokehold, and once Smothers regains his bearings, he clears the ring, but Lee hangs onto the gold.

-Bob Caudle is with Brian Lee, Tammy Fytch, and Mr. Ron Wright. He doesn’t care what DWB says, Brian Lee decides who Brian Lee defends his title against. Tammy models the new dress that Ronnie got him. Mr. Wright is about to sign the adoption papers to formally put her in the Wright family, and then he’s going to see his lawyer about re-writing his will.

THE BULLET vs KILLER KYLE (with Jim Cornette)
-Cornette distracts Bullet. Kyle attacks with fists and a headbutt. Elbow misses and Bullet goes to work with headbutts and chops. Bullet charges but Kyle dodges and Bullet flies out of the ring. Cornette drags a ringside table over and tries to Irish whip the Bullet into it, but Bullet reverses and Cornette takes a NICE bump, doing a Dukes of Hazzard slide completely across the table and crashing on the floor.

-Cornette jumps onto the apron and throws his tennis racquet into the ring while distracting the referee, but when Kyle bends over to pick it up, Bullet just schoolboys him for three.

-After the bell, Cornette throws powder into Bullet’s eyes and Kyle beats him nearly unconscious. Kyle rips his mask off, but Bullet has enough presence of mind to cover his head with his arms; Rock & Roll Express bolt to the ring with a towel, clearing Kyle from the ring and covering Bullet’s head at the same time, so Cornette STILL can’t prove that it’s Bob Armstrong.

TAG TEAM TITLE: ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS (Champions) vs ARMSTRONG BROTHERS
-Again, both teams have agreed to a clean scientific match even though Dutch Mantell and outside forces have been trying to push them into a feud.

-Armstrongs double team Robert Gibson with axehandles. A backbreaker by Steve Armstrong gets two. Steve does an obnoxious strut and hip thrust after the move, giving us some clear heels for this match. Sweet behind-the-back tagging by the Armstrongs during an abdominal stretch. Scott goes or a submission hold and Morton makes the save. Scott and Gibson crash on simultaneous dropkick attempts, and we have double tags.

-Steve and Ricky Morton slug it out, and now they collide on a shoulderblock. Gibson tags in and the Heavenly Bodies show up and attack Morton as he gets out of the ring. Mutual enemy sighting causes the Armstrongs and the Express to leave the ring to go beat up the Bodies, and the referee counts everybody out. What a weird, weak “feud.” They didn’t want to pull the trigger on a real face/face feud so we get a half-assed version of it for three weeks and then it totally craps out with a non-finish.

-The Bullet thanks the Rock & Roll Express for their help, and promises that his mask is never coming off.

STEINER BROTHERS (with Arnold the Pitbull) vs HEAVENLY BODIES (with Jim Cornette)
-Arnold immediately clears the ring, with Cornette trying to use the timekeeper as a human shield in a funny visual. Bodies and Cornette do about three laps around the ring running from this dog. Again, how did this never make its way to the WWF with the Steiners? This is totally a WWF thing.

-Arnold is actually IN THE RING for the entire match, with his leash hooked to the bottom turnbuckle. Pritchard gets clotheslined down and the Steiners drag him to the corner so Arnold can bite him on the foot.

-Later in the match, Jimmy Del Ray DDTs Scott and throws him out to the floor. Pritchard and Cornette ram him into a table. Scott is dragged back into the ring and the Bodies double-team him. Moonsault by Del Ray gets two. Del Ray tries another DDT but gets backdropped this time. Hot tag to Rick and we got ourselves a donnybrook of epic proportions until referee Mark Curtis gets KOed by a clothesline.

-Cornette throws his tennis racquet in the ring and Del Ray clocks Scott with it. Scott’s out and Del Ray goes for the pin as the referee wakes up and counts one…two…and when his arm comes down for three, it comes down on the tennis racquet. Referee refuses to finish the count as Rick enters the ring and gets his hands on the racquet and cleans house with it. Referee SEES that clearly, though, so he has no choice but to DQ the Steiners.

-Heavenly Bodies gloat about whoopin’ the Steiners so bad that they’re running back to the WWF to hide from them for a little while longer. Cornette announces that he has a NEW tag team on the way to SMW to finally, finally, finally, finally get rid of the Rock & Roll Express once and for all. Bob Caudle interrupts and says that a different tag team contacted SMW and requested a match against the Heavenly Bodies next week to determine the number one contenders for a tag team title, and that match WILL happen next week.

-Darryl Van Horne cuts a promo to close the show. Bob Caudle comes as close as I have ever seen him come to breaking up, as Van Horne says that his lawyers, “so talented that they got a sodomy charge reduced to tailgating,” helped arrange the Egyptian prince’s arrival into the United States, so he’ll be debuting shortly.

2.9
The final score: review Very Bad
The 411
I dunno, everything about this week felt like a cop-out, we didn't get the promised pay-off for the Battle of the Made-Up Championships, the tag team match was just a huge non-finish, the face vs. face tag team match felt like Cornette painted himself into a corner and the weird thing is he really hadn't. It's not that the matches themselves were bad but the storylines and the culminations were just the thinnest, worst ones that I've seen from this company to date.
legend