wrestling / Video Reviews
The Name on the Marquee: Smoky Mountain Wrestling (8.21.1993)
Loading...-Originally aired August 21, 1993.
-We’re coming to you from an empty studio.
-Your hosts are Les Thatcher & Dutch Mantell.
-All of this week’s matches are joined in progress and come to us from Johnson City, TN.
STATUS MATCH: STEVE ARMSTRONG vs JIMMY DEL RAY (with Jim Cornette)
-Status match, once again, means that the winner of the match determines which team has the advantage in the Rage in the Cage (War Games) match later. This really is such a better way to do that than 13 years of heels having extraordinarily good fortune with coin flips.
-Armstrong & Del Ray criss-cross until Armstrong connects with a series of dropkicks that send Del Ray out to the floor. Del Ray goes back in and runs right into a rock bottom, and Del Ray goes outside again. Del Ray heads back in and takes control with some closed fists and a thrust kick. Del Ray goes upstairs for a splash, but Armstrong moves and gets to work with rapid fire kicks—and I can’t stress that enough, no human should be able to throw kicks this fast. Top rope clothesline takes Del Ray’s head off, but he’s close to the ropes and Jim moves the foot to save Del Ray.
-SLICK finish to this one, as Cornette argues with referee Mark Curtis. Del Ray whips Armstrong into the ropes and aims right for Curtis. Curtis dives out of the way, but that means he doesn’t see Cornette smack Armstrong with the tennis racquet, and Del Ray pins him immediately.
-Chris Candido fights back tears, saying Buddy Rogers would turn over in his grave if he saw the way a world champion is being forced to wrestle in a baby bottle match.
BABY BOTTLE MATCH: TIM HORNER vs “Suicide Blonde” CHRIS CANDIDO (WWA Champion)
-Candido slams Horner and goes upstairs, but he gets slammed off face-first. Clothesline sends him over the top rope. Horner goes extreme, meeting him out there with another clothesline from the top rope.
-We jump ahead to Candido countering the natural bridge by forcing himself backward and causing Horner to stumble out of the ring. Back in, Candido is in control with an overhead belly-to-belly. Candido looks to finish with the suicide-plex, but Horner counters it with a spinebuster off the top! Pump splash gets two.
-Later in the match, Mark Curtis is on the floor after some kind of bump. Horner looks down to the floor to check on him. Candido suddenly just flings himself over the top rope and crashes on the floor for seemingly no reason…but then Mark Curtis calls for the bell and DQs Horner, thinking Horner threw him. Candido ties Horner to the ropes and shoves the bottle in his mouth.
-Tim Horner storms into the locker room and cuts the best promo on Candido: “All you did tonight was squirt a little milk! Lemme tell you, I’m comin’ for you and when I get my hands on you, I’m gonna squirt somethin’ on you, and IT AIN’T GONNA BE MILK!”
-Kevin Sullivan says the Big Boss Man is the enforcee, not the enforcer.
BIG BOSS MAN vs KEVIN SULLIVAN
-For those trying to keep track, Boss Man has been gone from the WWF, with full burial, since February, but they continued using him in marketing for the longest time afterward (merchandise, and the album that they released that year, that awful “Wrestlemania” music video), and now that Corny and the WWF have a relationship, I guess the WWF signed off on letting him use the character for a run in SMW, but oddly enough, NOT his theme music. Boss Man enters to the “Cops” theme.
-Series of punches by Sullivan. Irish whip, but Boss Man does a great slide out to the floor, back in, and a hard right sends Sullivan out to the floor. Sullivan tries to make the best of it by crotching him on the post, but Boss Man actually finds a way to reverse it, and Sullivan is reeling. Boss Man takes off his belt and uses it as a weapon, whipping Sullivan and punching him with the buckle.
-Brawl goes outside and Boss Man goes into the barricade. Boss Man posts Sullivan, and before long, they’re battling in the crowd. Boss Man rams Sullivan head-first into a wall. They brawl their way up a staircase. Boss Man goes over a wall and lands in the next level down. They eventually brawl their way back to the ring, with Sullivan sandbagging him—I don’t mean Sullivan fucked up a slam, I mean Sullivan literally hits Boss Man in the face with a sandbag.
-Sullivan tosses Boss Man out of the ring and sends him into the commentary table. Boss Man Irish whips him into the table and rams his face into it over and over, then just topples the table so that it lands on top of Kevin. Dutch is so exasperated he yells “Hell, I’m leaving!”
-Sullivan brings the belt back into play, whipping Boss Man with it until Boss Man just snatches it out of his hand in mid-whip. Boss Man just lights into him with fists and a Boss Man legdrop. Bubba slam gets two. Bruise Brothers and Jim Cornette show up because Cornette wants to get to work on kissing up to Boss Man for the main event. Cornette goes up to the apron to chat with his old friend. Boss Man calmly snatches the racquet out of Cornette’s hand, slaps Sullivan across the face with it, pins him, spits in Corny’s face, and walks off. Oh my god, I need a cigarette after that. After the “Battle of the Belts” brawls the other day where the guys would start to do interesting stuff just to tickle your balls and then end it with a crappy finish in three minutes, these guys delivered a hot match to a hot crowd and DELIVERED a match that the fans paid to see. Just fantastic. More of that, please.
DOWN AND DIRTY WITH DUTCH
-Back from commercial, Cornette is outside Boss Man’s dressing room, pounding on the door and congratulating him on what a great, hard-fought victory that was. Cornette gets really desperate, offering Boss Man some candy if he’ll just open the door. Boss Man won’t open the door and Cornette already looks completely defeated, knowing how doomed he is in the match later tonight.
-Dutch walks up to Cornette and taps him on the shoulder to get his attention, and Cornette lets out a hilarious scream. He says he just needs five minutes to talk with his old friend Boss Man. Boss Man won’t return his phone calls or telegrams. Jim says that he’s in the WWF now, challenging the Steiner Brothers to title matches with the Heavenly Bodies, and aligning himself with Yokozuna & Mr. Fuji. Cornette is on the verge of cornering the market on American professional wrestling, and Bob Armstrong is desperately trying to prevent it.
-Tammy Fytch thinks coal miners’ gloves are gross, but at least Tracy Smothers won’t be able to molest her anymore after tonight.
-Tracy Smothers says yeah, he’s a dirty hillbilly, but he never said he wasn’t.
COAL MINER’S GLOVE MATCH, SMW HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: “Prime Time” BRIAN LEE (with Tammy Fytch) vs “Wild Eyed Southern Boy” TRACY SMOTHERS
-Series of moves are dodged and countered by both guys until they’re both sprawled out on the mat. Smothers comes back first, with right hands and an elbow off the ropes. Handful of hair by Lee grounds Smothers, but Lee crashes on an attempted kneedrop. Smothers goes to the top rope, apparently getting ready to grab the coal miner’s glove, but instead he tries a bodypress, and Lee ducks, so it’s a pretty costly mistake. Tammy gives Smothers a slap across the face and is just giddy with herself for doing it. Brian goes for a Boss Man leg drop but crotches himself on the rope.
-Smothers gets fired up, backdropping Lee and giving him a savate kick to the back of the head. Smothers goes to the top rope and goes for the coal miners’ glove because he learned his lesson this time, but a fist in the nuts causes him to fall off. Lee goes to the top to get the glove himself, but Smothers shakes the ropes until Lee loses his balance and crotches himself. Smothers goes off the ropes but gets tripped by Tammy.
-Brian Lee goes to the top, grabs the coal miner’s glove, and climbs back down without putting the glove on yet; big mistake, because Smothers dropkicks him and the glove goes flying out of his hand. Smothers puts it on. Smothers KOs Lee with the glove while Fytch distracts the referee. Dirty White Boy runs in, knocks out Smothers with a chair, then switches the glove from Smothers’ hand to Lee’s hand, and Lee gets the pin.
– After the bell, Smothers kicks DWB’s ass, then takes Tammy Fytch over his knee and gives her a spanking. DWB and Brian Lee make the save and gang up on Smothers, destroying his leg with a figure four and a series of splashes. Mark Curtis threatens both of them with suspension, so they lay off Smothers for now.
-DWB and Lee come to the locker room cackling. Tammy Fytch says the fans just saw that Tracy Smothers beats women, and nobody should have any sympathy for that. Lee jubilantly claims Mr. Ron Wright’s $20,000 bounty for putting Tracy Smothers out of wrestling…which has Dirty White Boy a little perplexed, because his offense was clearly what caused the injury. Lee reasons that it was HIS match, so he deserves the credit for the injury and therefore, the bounty. And we close the show with Dirty White Boy and Brian Lee getting into a pretty heated argument over which one of them deserves Mr. Wright’s money. TO BE CONTINUED…
