The Name on the Marquee: Smoky Mountain Wrestling (11.13.1993)

-Originally aired November 13, 1993.

-We’re in Newton, NC.

-Your hosts are Bob Caudle & Dutch Mantell. Killer Kyle is drawn for the TV Title match, but suddenly, Dirty White Boy strolls in, all smiles and with a chain slung around his neck, reminding us we got ourselves a Heavyweight Title match today!

BOBBY BLAZE vs JASON WEST
-Blaze takes down West. West slips out and applies a side headlock, but Blaze turns it into a top wristlock. Spinning heel kick by Blaze. West tries a corner charge, but crashes, and Blaze finishes with an overhead suplex into a bridge for three.

-Blaze complains about the Turkey Title match at Thanksgiving Thunder, a concept significantly beneath the dignity of the WWA Championship.

-Tracy Smothers is here now. He admits he’s a little frustrated because he promised the fans MONTHS ago that he was going to get the SMW Title back and he hasn’t done it yet, so he challenges the winner of the upcoming match. Bob asks him to stick around and provide color commentary, but Tracy has trouble talking about DWB. The fans cheer him and everyone just assumes that means Tracy likes him too, but Tracy makes it clear, even if the fans think DWB has changed, he still doesn’t trust the man.

SMW HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: “Prime Time” BRIAN LEE (Champion, with Tammy Fytch) vs DIRTY WHITE BOY
-Something up because Brian Lee has his arm in a “sling,” but SMW is so low budget it’s not even a medical sling, they’ve just tied a towel around his neck and arm. Tammy announces that because of a small accident yesterday, Brian Lee has an injured wrist and will not be able to defend the title for at least eight months.

-But Dirty White Boy is still DIRTY, so he punches an injured man, and something comes flying out of the sling when contact is made. Dirty White Boy grabs the foreign object and KOs Lee. Tammy comes in and pulls a perfume bottle out of her purse, but when she tries to blind DWB, he grabs her wrist and twists it, which causes the spray to go a little wayward and now the referee is blinded. DWB takes Tammy over his knee and gives her a spanking until Lee revives and they take turns choking each other with the towel.

-Tammy wallops DWB with the purse, and DWB grabs it and adds a few more shots. Color commentators kind of lean on Tracy Smothers to come to the rescue, but Smothers stands by his principles here and refuses to help.

-But there’s no need to because THE DIRTY WHITE GIRL shows up and clears Tammy from the ring. She attacks Lee as DWB starts coming back to life, so Tammy and Brian both get the hell out of town, and we are desperately out of time!

-Oh, wait, we’re only fifteen minutes in the show. Brian Matthews, now without mullet, talks to Jim Cornette, who invites us to come to the Thanksgiving gang fight after we’ve all enjoyed our Thanksgiving SPAM.

-Confirmed: Dirty White Girl will be at ringside for the SMW Title rematch. “She gives thanks anytime she gets a blood test and it comes back negative!”

-DWB says that he’s done enough bad stuff in his life that he has no one left to turn to, except for one person. Dirty White Girl has “resting bitch face” down to a science and promises that she’s coming for Tammy Fytch wherever she goes. And no sooner do I type that joke than Dirty White Girl whips out “bitch” for threatening Tammy!

ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS vs ROBBIE EAGLE & JOHN HITCHCOCK
-Okay, one of the jobber names is an inside joke and it’s kind of a cute story. “John Hitchcock” here is actually a worker named Dan Grondy. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the real John Hitchcock, he was part of a group of Mid-Atlantic region fans who followed the group around for years, wearing suits and hats and pissing Dusty Rhodes off by cheering for the heels and making elaborate but very demoralizing signs trashing Dusty, Magnum TA, and the rest of the forces of good; a lot of the guys, particularly the heels, warmed up to John when they realized he was smart to the business. When Cornette launched SMW, he gave Hitchcock a job making signs for whatever babyfaces he was trying to get over at the TV tapings that week (“A lot of fans are bringing Tracy Smothers signs to the building, but make some Rock & Roll signs for me”).

-So John makes some Rock & Roll signs; meanwhile, they’re preparing for the match in the locker room, and Grondy, a friend of Hitchcock’s, suggested calling himself “John Hitchcock” for the match. Cornette immediately pipes up “From Parts Unknown! PARTS UNKNOWN!” And that’s exactly how he’s introduced to the fans here.

-Now the Rock & Roll Express come to the ring, and as you may remember, they were top babyfaces for Jim Crockett in the 80s, so they were on the receiving end of Hitchcock’s anti-babyface signs dozens of times in their careers. Ricky and Robert get in the ring here and the camera catches Ricky pointing to the real Hitchcock in the crowd and yelling “I always wanted to kick your ass!”

-Eagle starts off with Robert Gibson and gets an early edge over him until Gibson fights back with armdrags. Double elbow by the Express. Hitchcock (who would be a dead ringer for Blackjack Mulligan if he grew his hair out) tags in. Morton drops a fist on him and the Express gets a double backdrop on him. Double dropkick finishes, and the Express successfully avenges the years of snarky heel-touting signs. Really funny too, as “Hitchcock” just sells the shit out of it, lying on the mat motionless for a long time after the bell.

-THANKSGIVING THUNDER, COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOU!

DOWN AND DIRTY WITH DUTCH
-Tammy is apparently out of tips, so Dutch gets his old spot back. We get a musical tribute to the Bruise Brothers set to the incredibly catchy “Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job.” Bruise Brothers cut a raging redneck promo, even whipping out the word “ass” because Thanksgiving Thunder is a special occasion.

-Jim Cornette brings the Moondogs to SMW, blowing a whistle to control them. From the looks of them, Jim forgot to bring his whistle to Wendy’s. Cornette says that the Moondogs aren’t licensed to wrestle in SMW, but there are two jobbers standing in the ring right now, and there’s no good reason that the Moondogs can’t just wrestle those guys…

-So the Moondogs head to the ring with a trash can and a chair and they just destroy them with weapon shots that make your spine go cold in this post-Benoit era. Bob Caudle’s incredibly wooden delivery of “No! No!” when a vacuum cleaner is used is pretty damn funny. Cornette conducts a ringside interview with one of the jobbers, who’s unconscious, and then notices the other one has a blonde mullet, so he has the Moondogs practice what they’re gonna do to Ricky Morton.

-We hear from The Bullet, with a bandage covering his eye underneath his mask, so now he has the peripheral vision of Walker, Texas Ranger during a plot twist. He wants revenge on Kevin Sullivan at Thanksgiving Thunder!

-We go to Kevin Sullivan, who reminds us that Bob Armstrong wouldn’t pay for his psychiatric treatment and now he has all these mental problems that he’s got to take out on SOMEBODY. Might as well be the Bullet.

-We watch some footage of Tim Horner training Mike Furnas to become a professional wrestler. It’s mildly interesting and it makes the sport look “real,” I suppose, but it was like watching Babyface Bob Backlund training himself.

BEAT THE CHAMP TV TITLE: “White Lightning” TIM HORNER (Champion) vs KILLER KYLE
-James Van Horne is doing guest commentary and promises Thanksgiving Thunder will be “hotter than a jalapeno enema.” God, the language has been giving ECW a run for its money this week. We even get a Ron Jeremy reference; I swear, I feel like there’s some bet going on about the first one to finally make Bob Caudle bust out laughing, and he doesn’t come close.

-Horner works the arm over. Kyle escapes and catches Horner in a side suplex for two. Kyle tries a press slam, but Horner wriggles out and goes for the natural bridge. Killer hangs on tight to the ropes to keep him from doing it, but Horner just goes back over and sunset flips him for three.

-Tammy Fytch pouts about being TOUCHED this week, wondering who’s going to pay for the doctor’s treatments she needs to get for the rash she probably has now. Tammy calls Dirty White Girl a “slut,” and holy CRAP Smoky Mountain Wrestling has attitude!

6.4

The final score: review Average

The 411

The dipping of the toe in the ECW water was interesting, but a bit cringe inducing knowing that this group has already come close to losing their TV twice. Main event continues to be pretty compelling stuff.