wrestling / Video Reviews
The Name on the Marquee: SMW Volunteer Slam 1
Loading...-This was a VHS release that presumably got very, VERY limited distribution at the time.
-It’s May 22, 1992, which means Johnny Carson is 3 ½ hours away from retirement, but first, let’s crowd a Smoky Mountain Wrestling Heavyweight Champion!
-We’re LIVE from the Knoxville Coliseum.
-Your hosts are Les Thatcher & Phil Rainey.
-Your locker room correspondents are Dutch Mantell and Mark Aston.
FIRST ROUND: DIXIE DY-NO-MITE vs. DIRTY WHITE BOY (with Mr. Ron Wright)
-It’s the first SMW supercard and Corny has sprung for pyrotechnics, by which I mean Dixie brings sparklers to the ring.
-Dixie gets off to a good start with a dropkick and a hiptoss. Another dropkick sends Dirty to the floor, where he does a Flair flop on the concrete. Commentators talk about the incredible response Dixie got on a recent appearance on “Fox 43 Kids Club.”
-Dixie tries to finish, but DWB gets a handful of mullet and jerks him into position for headscissors. Dixie springs out and clamps on a side headlock. DWB fights out of it and grounds Dixie with a HARD clothesline. Slam and a legdrop for two. Neckbreaker follows, and now DWB is just toying with Dixie, with a series of punches and knees.
-DWB could probably finish any time, but he just keeps dishing out punishment. DDT by DWB could get 1-2-3, but Double-D won’t do that J-O-B, and a sunset flip sets him free without getting the three.
-DWB misses a corner charge and follows with rapid fire kicks and an elbow. Confederate Kick looks for sure like it’s going to end things, but DWB just barely gets a foot on the ropes. Dixie misses a dropkick, and DWB gets the Bucksnort Blaster to finish. 1 for 1. Decent start.
-Dutch Mantell is in the locker room talking to “fan favorite Buddy Landell.” Brian Lee might look good in a gym, but weights don’t fight back.
FIRST ROUND: “Prime Time” BRIAN LEE vs. “Nature Boy” BUDDY LANDELL
-Landell gets a nice flurry of offense to start; punches, kicks, chops, and a clothesline, but all it gets is a two-count. Front facelock with a foot on the ropes, and the ENTIRE COLISEUM tattles on Landell, with referee Mark Curtis doing just a great sell of it, looking around and trying to figure out why the fans are so riled up.
-Clothesline has no effect on Lee and he suddenly lifts Landell and chokes him out. He charges but meets a boot to the face. Landell goes off the ropes but runs into a powerslam. Lee comes off the top rope with a knee, but misses, and Landell pounces. He works the leg and tries for the figure four, but Brian counters with a cradle for three. 2 for 2. Landell put in a good showing and Lee looked like a star with him.
-Mark Aston talks to Tim Horner. All Paul Orndorff wants to do is degrade and injure people, but Horner’s got something waiting for him, and it’s his very best.
FIRST ROUND: “White Lightning” TIM HORNER vs. “Mister Wonderful” PAUL ORNDORFF
-Bell sounds and Horner instantly shoves Orndorff on his ass. Horner applies a side headlock. Orndorff fights out but gets knocked right back down with a shoulderblock. Orndorff tries mat wrestling but Horner gets the better end of that too, applying a hammerlock and headscissors. Orndorff tries closed fists, but Horner tops him on that, knocking him out of the ring with a single right. Orndorff is getting pissed off and deals with it by arguing with an old woman.
-Orndorff gets back in and immediately gets bodypressed for two. Now Orndorff’s REALLY pissed, and he lays into Horner with boots to the ribs and an elbow to the throat. On the floor, he strangles Horner with a camera cable, which the commentators can’t see because they’re on the other side of the ring and they don’t have monitors!
-Back in the ring, Orndorff targets the neck with elbows and punches. Orndorff appears to do something to his kneepad, then applies a chinlock with one knee being driven into the back. Tim fights for his life and gets free, but Orndorff blocks the comeback with a clothesline. Fistdrop gets two, which infuriates the Wonderful One. He argues with the referee while Horner recovers and rolls him up for two.
-Orndorff tinkers with the kneepad again and connects with a running kneelift. Fisticuffs are traded and Orndorff wins that battle with a low blow. Pump splash by Orndorff, but Horner blocks it with raised knees, which frustrates Orndorff so much that he holds the grudge for three years and then gets a guy known for his pump splash fired from WCW.
-Horner makes a comeback with clotheslines, but Orndorff elbows him down. Neckbreaker by Orndorff is turned into a backslide by Horner for two. Small package by Horner gets another two as we get the two-minute warning. Horner applies a sleeper and Orndorff starts to fade, but he gets a hand on the ropes to force a break. Handful of trunks and Orndorff tosses Horner to the floor.
-Orndorff follows him out there to try and finish him off, but he gets rammed into a table. Horner heads back in. Orndorff barely beats the count and dives onto Horner for a pin, and the referee doesn’t see Horner’s legs on the ropes so Orndorff gets the win. Oooooooh, crowd’s not happy. 3 for 3. This match had a real STORY to it. The guy who’s “too big a star” for this hick company shows up unprepared, gets embarrassed by the opponent that he underestimated, and has to get ultra-aggressive to even have a chance at it. Good stuff!
FIRST ROUND: “Rock & Roll” ROBERT GIBSON vs. JIMMY GOLDEN
-Ring announcer introduces Golden “from Alabama, Montgomery.”
-Golden attacks from behind and punches away. Gibson catches him in a hiptoss. Bodyslam makes Golden retreat to the floor and ponder this big blue marble that we’re all just borrowing time on.
-Back in, Gibson hammers him in the corner. Referee forces Gibson away and Golden seizes the opening by clipping the leg. Stepover toehold by Golden. Gibson fights it but Golden won’t let him get free and he keeps working the leg. He rams the knee into the post. Commentators have been talking about how long Gibson has been wrestling and how much experience he has, but the way I see it, he’s gonna be real hard to injure because he spent the past ten years on the apron while his partner got all the injuries, so it’s going to be hard to inflict anything serious on any part of this guy’s body.
-Golden keeps working the leg, but Gibson manages to throw an enziguiri with his good leg. Golden manages to block the comeback and tries a clothesline, but Gibson dodges and bulldogs Golden outta nowhere for three. 4 for 4. Pretty good first round.
SEMI-FINAL: DIRTY WHITE BOY (with Mr. Ron Wright) vs. “Prime Time” BRIAN LEE
-Lee attacks before the bell with a pile of punches. DWB goes to the floor and Lee follows him out, ramming him into the table before bringing him back in for a backdrop. DWB goes out to the floor for a rest. Lee follows him out but poor crippled Mr. Wright courageously uses his wheelchair to block Lee’s path.
-Wright distracts the referee while DWB takes Lee on a tour of ringside, ramming him into table, bell, and post, then biting away, and Lee is bleeding. Back in the ring, DWB chokes him out. Clothesline and a series of right hands. Brian is clinging to life and a “Go Brian Go!” chant goes up.
-Lee tries a few weak punches, but DWB just steps back and avoids each one. He slaps Lee, and makes it a point to slap him lightly just to show how not concerned he is with Lee at this point. Lee gets tangled in the ropes and can’t even hold his head up. He only gets free when DWB punches him so hard that the ropes come untangled. Neat visual.
-Lee gets to come back to life. Punches are traded and Lee wins that duel. Dropkick by Lee. He sends DWB into the corner but meets a boot. DWB slams him down and comes off the second rope for a diving headbutt, but Lee rolls out of the way, and DWB is just dazed enough that Lee can get a three count from that. 5 for 5. DWB doesn’t take it too well and unloads on Lee with a chair after the bell.
-Dutch Mantell talks to Dirty White Boy, who’s upset about losing his shot at the belt because of the biggest fluke win Brian Lee ever got.
SEMI-FINAL: “Mister Wonderful” PAUL ORNDORFF vs. “Rock ‘N Roll” ROBERT GIBSON
-Orndorff goes after the knee, but Gibson is expecting him to do that, so he lands on top and ties Orndorff up, and Orndorff gets free and backs off.
-We jump ahead a bit to Orndorff laying into the knee with elbows and kicks. He stretches the leg over the ropes, then steps back to admire his handiwork. Gibson gives Orndorff the finger and rams him into the turnbuckle a few times. Bulldog by Gibson, and he’s so close to the corner that the referee has to go to the floor to count it, but Orndorff naturally makes the rope to stop the count. Gibson gets distracted arguing with the referee, and Orndorff takes out the knee and rolls him up to get the pin. 5 for 6. Editing might be to blame, but there wasn’t much here to get into.
-The Heavenly Bodies don’t come to Knoxville to party. They come to fight. Also, all you big fat ugly farm-fed women, keep your hands away from the expensive robes that the Bodies wear to the ring, please.
SMW TAG TEAM TITLE: HEAVENLY BODIES (Champions, with Jim Cornette) vs. PARTY PATROL
-The Party Patrol are Johnny & Davey Rich, who call themselves Party Patrol because announcing “We’re jobbing!” into a megaphone would have been a breech of kayfabe. Corny tells the husbands at ringside that he won’t tolerate their big fat wives groping his champions, so the menfolk had better keep an eye on them.
-Patrol gets to work with dropkicks and hiptosses to clear the ring right off the bat. Corny starts to take the belts and go home, but the referee threatens them with something-or-other and they head back.
-Davey and Stan Lane go at it. Davey takes a shot right at Lane’s face. Pritchard chokes Davey to take control. Lane comes back in with a clothesline and Davey sells it like he just changed his last name to Hennig. Bodies double-team Davey but can’t finish him off. Davey winds up on the floor, where tennis racquet meets windpipe. Lane wraps a microphone cord around Davey’s neck while Corny stomps away on him while the referee is distracted by Dr. Tom.
-Back in, Davey gets clotheslined down. Lane chokes and dances, and the dance is so dorky that the crowd pops instead of booing. Pritchard tags in and goes to the top rope for a DiBiase elbow, but Davey rolls out of the way and finally makes the tag.
-Johnny cleans house and we have a brawl. Action in the ring, action on the floor, Cornette interferes from the outside, but it only gets two, stunning him. Corny gets on the apron and gets punched off by Davey, while Pritchard loads his boot and kicks Johnny in the back of the head, knocking him out for three. Bodies retain. Loooooooooooooooong squash. 5 for 7.
-Back in the locker room, Bodies cut a “post-match” promo. See, WWF always made it a point to have a mister so the guys could look sweaty when they recorded these. Here, it appears that the Bodies cut their pre-match promo, then took off their robes and cut the post-match promo.
-Commissioner Bob Armstrong comes out and says that due to the extensive injuries that Brian Lee suffered earlier in the night, he feels that Lee isn’t fit to wrestle, and he hands the belt to Paul Orndorff, declaring him the winner. Lee, staggering to the ring and bandaged up, says he’s come too far to let a doctor tell him that he can’t wrestle.
FINAL: “Mister Wonderful” PAUL ORNDORFF vs. “Prime Time” BRIAN LEE
-They trade punches, but Orndorff raises a boot and clotheslines Lee down. Elbow from the second rope by Orndorff. Lee’s bandages have come off and he’s a bloody mess. Out on the floor, face meets chair, face meets table. Lee fights back with his own shot into the table. They trade punches and head back inside.
-Suplex by Lee, but he’s too hurt to capitalize. Orndorff gets back to his feet and tackles Lee. He stomps all over Lee’s cut. They trade Irish whips and a clothesline leaves both men laying. Referee is on the receiving end of a stray elbow and Bob Armstrong bolts to the ring to check on him. Orndorff tries for a piledriver behind the commissioner’s back, but Lee backdrops out. Armstrong is still tending to the referee when the Dirty White Boy shows up to provide some outside interference, but Orndorff knocks him off the apron with one punch. Orndorff gets out some brass knuckles and knocks out Lee. Armstrong turns around and counts the pin, but Lee barely kicks out. Orndorff rears back to throw another punch, but this time, Armstrong notices the foreign object, and he calls for the bell. The tournament ends on a DQ. I’m gonna GUESS Orndorff balked at laying down, because holy shit. 5 for 8. Good match, but good GOD that finish…Insane post-match brawl erupts with every wrestler emerging from the locker room to get involved, and Commissioner Armstrong beats the crap out of Barry Horowitz for some reason.
-Orndorff calls the finish “a Smoky Mountain rip-off” and threatens to do something about it.
