wrestling / Video Reviews
The Name on the Marquee: Smoky Mountain Wrestling (7.24.1993)
Loading...-Originally aired July 24, 1993. For those of you who are curious, this would be the point where Jim Cornette joins forces with the WWF. He debuts at the RAW taping the following night.
-We’re in Council, VA.
-Your hosts are Bob Caudle & Dr. Dutch Mantell. They draw the name for the TV Title match this week, and it’s Dirty White Boy’s old nemesis, Tim Horner. Interesting.
ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS vs JIMMY JANNETTY & JEFF DANIELS
-Express is plenty pissed off about losing their belts and uncharacteristically attacks before the bell, clearing the ring. Back inside, the Express elbows Daniels down and Robert Gibson drops a knee for two. Ricky Morton follows with a clothesline in the corner. Double dropkick finishes without Jannetty ever entering the match.
-Express says they’ve figured out the Bruise Brothers’ kryptonite. It’s the double dropkick, so they’re going to use a double dropkick the next time they face the Bruise Brothers. Three weeks of research and the strategy they come up with is “Let’s try the same damn move we always use.”
-We go to Johnson City, TN, where Tracy Smothers is defending the SMW gold against Brian Lee. Referee Mark Curtis gets wiped out by an Irish whip gone wrong. Tammy Fytch enters the ring and tries to blind Smothers with a bottle of hairspray. Smothers gets it away from her and bends her over for a spanking, but Tammy drops a glove on the mat when Smothers grabs her, and he doesn’t notice. Lee clobbers Smothers with the glove. Smothers is out, Brian Lee gets the pin, and Brian Lee is your new SMW Champion.
-In the locker room, Tammy Fytch promises that now that she’s in charge, she’s going to introduce her own staff of wrestlers who will do her bidding, just like Hillary Clinton did six months ago when she became president. For you young’uns out there, every Bill Clinton joke anybody made after 1997 was about Monica Lewinsky, but before that whole scandal erupted, the whole joke about Clinton was that everybody suspected that Hillary was smarter than him and that Bill was just a puppet for his wife was actually the president. Actually, the joke was also that Bill Clinton liked French fries. I was a huge Letterman fan.
-Armstrong’s Army is ready for house show action against Cornette’s, uh, Coast Guard.
BRUISE BROTHERS (Tag Team Champions with Jim Cornette) vs MIKE SAMPSON & ROBBIE EAGLE
-Heel crowd pops for the Bruise Brothers and Jim Cornette. Robbie Eagle gets destroyed with a chair out on the floor and the crowd LOVES it. Cornette dashes over to do some guest commentary, then runs back to the ring to rub a title belt in Sampson’s face. He WHAPS Sampson with the tennis racquet, but the noise is so deafening that Curtis can’t ignore it, and the jobbers get the win by DQ.
-Kanemura’s eye injury is improving, but it will still be some time before he can wrestle. SMW still will not allow the tape of The Incident in Japan to air because it’s much too violent, however, Kevin Sullivan’s attorneys are still petitioning SMW to air the tape because they believe that Sullivan was provoked. Sullivan is still banned from wrestling in America and Japan, per an agreement among all promoters.
-Weirdness: Bob Caudle throws it to “Down and Dirty with Dutch,” but instead we get ring announcer Brian Matthews interviewing Tracy Smothers. Smothers says he would only come out for an interview with Matthews because Dutch would only make a mockery of Smothers while he was trying to make his point. Okay folks, place your bets about the truth: “Down and Dirty” had audio problems, or Dutch & Tracy just did a really shitty segment together and Corny didn’t want to air it?
-Tammy Wytch-With-a-Capital-B is a tramp and a hussy who brainwashed Brian Lee. Yes, Brian Lee is the champion, but he’s going down real soon, and Smothers will take his belt back up.
-Vote for SMW’s Most Popular Wrestler!
-We head to Knoxville for highlights of Armstrong’s Army vs. Jim Cornette & The Heavenly Bodies.
-Cornette maces Scott before the bell, blinding him and knocking him out of the match before we’ve even started. So now it’s a handicap match. Cornette and the Bodies proceed to have an easy night with the competition until Steve manages to faceplant Cornette. Cornette is so dazed that he tries to tag an empty corner. Bob Armstrong tags in and cleans house on the Bodies while Cornette (the legal man) ducks out to the floor for a breather. Armstrong notices and drags him back inside, and Cornette takes a Heenan-style bump on an Irish whip.
-Steve gets knocked out to the floor and the Bodies double-team Bob. Scott Armstrong returns with a baseball bat. Bodies get the hell out of the ring and run to the locker room, and suddenly all that’s left is Bob vs. Cornette. Bob straight murders Cornette and leaves him laying, but Tom Pritchard returns with a folding chair, KOs Bob, and drags Cornette on top for the three-count, and the crowd is totally disgusted at the sight of Jim Cornette getting a pinfall victory.
-After the bell, the Bruise Brothers arrive and attack Bob Armstrong, and that brings out the Rock & Roll Express and they brawl. Heavenly Bodies return to try and turn the tide back for Cornette’s men, but that draws the Armstrong Brothers back out. Bob Armstrong gets his hands on the baseball bat and takes a few swings until Cornette’s Cavalry gets out of town.
-In the locker room, Jim Cornette cuts a hilarious promo where he talks about how great it felt to beat up Bob Armstrong and get a decisive victory over him; awesome stuff, as Cornette is sobbing, coughing, and clutching his lower back as he brags about what an easy night he had. Cornette is feeling so cocky that he challenges Hulk Hogan to a match in the main event of Wrestlemania X.
-Bob Armstrong proclaims that he wants a rematch and that he’ll chew up Jim Cornette and spit out cellulite nails. He cryptically promises that he knows EXACTLY how to get his vengeance.
-Mr. Ron Wright STILL has a $20,000 bounty on Tracy Smothers. He says that it looks like Brian Lee will finish the job for him, and that he’s looking forward to cut the $20,000 check in the very near future for Brian Lee and Tammy Fytch.
BEAT THE CHAMP TV TITLE: DIRTY WHITE BOY (Champion, with Mr. Ron Wright) vs TIM HORNER
-Horner limps to the ring, not dressed to wrestle. I think I already see where we’re going here. Horner says he pulled a hamstring while lacing his boots and he’s no longer fit to wrestle, so he introduces a substitution, The Underdog, a masked wrestler who’s pretty unmistakably Bobby Blaze.
BEAT THE CHAMP TV TITLE: DIRTY WHITE BOY (Champion, with Mr. Ron Wright) vs THE UNDERDOG
-DWB goes right for the mask, and Underdog retreats to the floor to keep him from getting it. Dutch Mantell is outraged that Tim Horner made a mockery of the very real injury that he suffered last week just for something underhanded like this.
-DWB takes control with boots and a suplex. Headbutts by DWB while Dutch casually mentions that fans in Tennessee might recall that Bob Armstrong used to wear a mask and call himself “The Bullet” to hide his identity, and I have the craziest feeling that this is going to come up again down the road. Atomic drop as an “Underdog” chant goes up. Worth noting: the crowd actually popped for Dirty White Boy during his entrance, but they’re loving this angle so much that as soon as The Underdog showed up, they switched sides.
-DWB chokes Underdog and backdrops him. He tries to finish it with a lazy pin and he’s irritated when Blaze has enough energy left to kick out. DWB chokes him out, but Underdog surprises him with a kneelift. DWB ducks a charge and Underdog flies through the ropes and crashes on the unforgiving parquet.
-Blaze makes it up to the top rope and connects with a top rope bodypress, but the bell abruptly sounds. Camera catches Ron Wright ringing the bell, but the referee doesn’t realize it, so he declares the match a draw and gives DWB his $1,000 for retaining the title. DWB leaves Underdog laying with a DDT.
-Tammy Fytch asks women from Kentucky to stop writing her for beauty tips, because Kentucky women can’t afford the necessary plastic surgery.
-Tim Horner starts to cut a promo until WWA Champion Chris Candido storms out, complaining about how SMW fans keep calling him “Crybaby” and how Horner encourages it. He’s leaving SMW and going back to New Jersey. He walks off, but then clobbers Horner from behind with the belt and Horner’s out cold. Candido pulls out a baby bottle and shoves it in Horner’s mouth to get back at him for all the “Crybaby” chants he’s had to endure.
