The Name on the Marquee: Smoky Mountain Wrestling (4.9.1994)

-Originally aired April 9, 1994.

-We’re in a venue never to be identified.

-Your hosts are Bob Caudle & Dutch Mantell. Dutch is tired of how easy Mike Furnas has had it defending his TV Title and promises to draw a REAL challenger. He draws Larry Santos, and he’s so annoyed that he goes through all the names in the hat trying to find the good wrestlers.

THRILLSEEKERS vs THE HORNET & MIKE SAMPSON
-Storm and Sampson have a really bad sequence with two obvious edits, and there’s still a blown spot left intact after that. Jericho goes in and lets out a primal shout and circles the ring like he’s trying to win the fans back.

-Well Dunn sits in on commentary as Hornet tags in. Overhead belly-to-belly like Jericho. Moonsault gets two. Storm comes in to help with a double elbow while Well Dunn complains about how they didn’t get ANY opportunities in the WWF, and now they come to SMW and see the Thrillseekers being handed everything on a silver platter.

-Jericho comes off the top with a double axehandle, and the Thrillseekers finish with a Doomsday Device, with a bodypress in place of the clothesline.

-We get a music video showing a day in the life of the Thrillseekers. They’re portrayed as an Odd Couple here, with Jericho getting distracted by Beavis & Butthead and proper hair care, while Lance is the sensible one. We see Jericho getting into wacky predicaments at bar after bar, while Lance repeatedly has to be the one to fix everything by apologizing to the bouncer. This was actually really funny stuff, and after watching them waiver back and forth about what exactly their characters WERE, this skit is pretty clearly finding a good balance. Are You A Chris or a Lance? Take This Test And Find Out!

-We go to the Bluegrass Brawl; Jim Cornette’s mystery partner is…uh, a guy, who is not identified for a while. It’s Bruiser Bedlam, formerly WWF jobber Johnny K-9 with about 50 extra pounds packed on. His Wikipedia page is also the goddamn scariest entry for a pro wrestler you’ll ever read, and for my own safety, I pledge never to make any snarky comments about him.

-Bedlam beats the piss out of Armstrong, then tags in Cornette. Cornette stomps away at Armstrong and celebrates. Armstrong starts making a comeback. The tennis racquet is no sold, so Cornette goes to plan B, the handful of powder, but he accidentally blinds Bedlam. Armstrong lights into Cornette and nearly finishes him off, but Bedlam comes off the top with an axehandle and scores the pin. Bedlam tries to dish out more punishment after the match, but Tracy Smothers and Lance Storm come to the rescue.

-Bob Armstrong concedes defeat and admits he needs to stand back and do some homework before he gets back into the ring with Bedlam. He promises he’s never giving up, however; every man has a weakness. He just hasn’t found Bruiser Bedlam’s weakness yet.

-Jim Cornette says he met Bruiser Bedlam in Detroit the night before Summerslam last year. Bedlam said he wanted to be a pro wrestler, Cornette took one look at him and put him into training, but kept it a secret, waiting to unleash him at just the right moment. He explains that “John Bedlam” was a hired goon for a few local unions, but Bruiser, as his friends called him, wanted to go into business kicking asses for himself.

-We go back last week to the surprise debut of Peggy Lee Leather.

-Dirty White Girl says that Peggy Lee got the better of her the first time, but Dirty White Girl will know she’s coming next time, and that makes all the difference in the world.
-Peggy Lee says she’s gonna squash DWG and then drink a beer.

DOWN AND DIRTY WITH DUTCH
-Dutch is with Darryl Van Horne & Prince Kharis. Darryl Van Horne says his man doesn’t feel pain, and to prove it, he pulls out some scissors and cuts off Kharis’ thumb, causing sand to pour out. Dirty White Boy comes out and craps on the gimmick once more, saying that nobody believes this is a 3,000-year-old mummy. Kharis lumbers toward him, but he’s too slow and DWB sees him coming. He pounds away at Kharis, but Van Horne blinds him with sand while Kharis twists the wrist again and takes down DWB with a suspicious forearm blow. He applies a cobra clutch and it takes three guys to get Kharis to release the hold.

BEAT THE CHAMP TV TITLE: MIKE FURNAS (TV Champion) vs LARRY SANTO
-This will be Furnas’ fourth win, and Caudle kinda shits on the accomplishment by saying it’s mostly due to Dutch drawing such bad opponents for him. Hiptoss by Santos, and the three point stance finishes in a few seconds. He gets a pretty mixed reaction post-match and I’m thinking the fans don’t really buy into this.

-Tammy Fytch is upset because Ricky Morton probably gave her cooties last week. Chris Candido says Morton kissed Tammy because otherwise, he couldn’t get a date from a tombstone.

-We go to highlights of the Loser-Leaves-Town chicken wire cage match. We’re 20 minutes in when Del Ray DDTs Morton for two. Morton is bleeding as Del Ray punches away at him. Bodies double-team Morton in the corner. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Robert Gibson runs into the ring and hiptosses his own partner across the ring just so Morton will be where he needs to be to make a tag. Gibson tags himself in, essentially and we wind up with a pier sixer.

-Ref gets bumped. Double dropkick connects but the referee is still out. Another referee comes to ringside, shocking fans who didn’t realize SMW has another referee. The cage is unlocked so the second referee can get in, and instead of officiating, he’s trying to revive Mark Curtis. Moonsault by the Bodies only gets two. Tennis racquet shot connects. Second referee tries to count the pin because he didn’t see the racquet, but Mark Curtis just woke up and caught it, so he stops the count. Del Ray goes for a powerbomb, but Morton switches it in mid-air to a Frankensteiner and pins Jimmy Del Ray. The Heavenly Bodies are finished in SMW, and the Rock & Roll Express are once again your SMW Tag Team Champions.

-Bob Armstrong personally congratulates the new champs in the locker room.

-Brian Matthews is filing a report at the offices of the SMW Board of Directors, who mysteriously have a row of lockers next to the doors of their conference room. Matthews says he’s filing this report three days after the Loser Leaves Town match. It’s an emergency meeting, and he knows for certain that the Heavenly Bodies are in there. The Heavenly Bodies finally emerge from the office and the meeting accomplished nothing. The Bodies are gone. Cornette says he’s been on a ten-year mission to get rid of the Rock & Roll Express because he knows in his heart that every tag team he’s ever managed has been the best he could find, and the Express somehow manages to steal the glory and the belts from EVERY SINGLE TEAM. Cornette wants them gone because the Rock & Roll Express are literally the only thing that have ever stopped him from managing the number-one team on Earth. Awesome promo from Cornette, as he waivers back and forth between pure hatred and being grief stricken. Bodies gather their stuff and leave the office building, passing a number of classrooms on the way out. They’re probably wrestling class rooms.

7.0

The final score: review Good

The 411

Good week for character building, actually, with the Thrillseekers finally showing some signs of life, the origin story of John Bedlam, and I honestly like what they're doing with Prince Kharis, where everyone acknowledges what bullshit the character is, but then he's still a killing machine, so it leaves you asking, "If he's not a mummy, then what the hell IS he?"