The Name on the Marquee: Smoky Mountain Wrestling (7.8.1995)

-Originally aired July 8, 1995, and holy god, even by high school gym standards it’s a small crowd.

-Your hosts are Les Thatcher & Chip Kessler.

-We go straight to footage from July 1, 1995, Buddy Landell defending the SMW Title against Brad Armstrong. Armstrong with a Russian legsweep, but when the referee counts two, Jim Cornette rings the bell, which confuses the referee. The referee turns to the timekeeper to make sense of what happened. Unabom sneaks down to ringside and hands some brass knuckles to Buddy Landell just as the referee tells the timekeeper to restart the match. Buddy knocks out Brad Armstrong and gets the three-count to retain.

-BUT WAIT! Tracy Smothers tattles on Landell, and Mark Curtis surveys the crowd and they all agree that Smothers is telling him the truth, so Mark Curtis restarts the match AGAIN, and Armstrong does the Russian legsweep again, and this time he gets three to take the SMW Heavyweight Title.

-In the locker room, we get the timekeeper’s account of the incident and Mark Curtis’s account of the incident. Both of them stand by what they’ve done. We also get words from Tracy Smothers, wearing a Royal Rumble 1993 t-shirt. Buddy Landell threatens to call the police unless his stolen property is returned. Jim Cornette is so mad, he punches a wall and hurts himself. Brad Armstrong is defiant and insists he’s the true champion.

-So the last word on the matter comes from Commissioner Bob Armstrong, who is really trying his hardest to stay neutral and do the right thing. He’s holding up the title. He clarifies that because Buddy Landell was the most recent champion, he gets the Intercontinental Title match on August 4, guaranteed.

THE THUGS vs D-LO BROWN & LARRY SANTO
-I’m surprised they don’t have more in mind for D-Lo than TV jobber.

-Tracy Smothers locks up with D-Lo as Randy Hales joins commentary to speak up for himself, since SMW spreads so much false information about him and USWA. SMW also has the worst fans ever.

-Big boot by DWB. D-Lo is on the receiving end of a double backdrop for two. Santo tries to help his partner and all four men wind up in the ring. D-Lo and San-To get whipped into each other, and the jawjack finishes Santo for three.

-Tracy Smothers declares PG-13 to be a couple of Vanilla Ice wannabes, and DWB promises to pull their pants down.

THE PUNISHER (with General Jim Cornette) vs MIKE MASON
-Mason unleashes a flurry of punches and elbows, all casually shrugged off by Punisher. Chokeslam and a gorilla press by Punisher. Legdrop off the top rope by Punisher gets three in less than a minute.

-We revisit last week’s wanton destruction of an innocent teddy bear.

-Boo Bradley is trying not to cry as he recaps all the friends that he’s lost in SMW, like Boots the Cat and now Bobo the teddy bear. Bob Armstrong told him recently about a wrestler that used to come to Knoxville years and years ago, and Boo vows to hunt down this legendary wrestler from the past to help him get revenge. Oh, okay, I know what they’re setting up here and it fell through! Jim Cornette wanted to bring back an old favorite from the territorial days, the wrestling bear, for a comedy match, only to discover after he had already launched the angle that at some point, Tennessee went ahead and put a law on the books explicitly stating that bears couldn’t legally wrestle.

-General Jim Cornette announces that Terry Gordy is touring Japan but he’ll be back real soon. Meanwhile, Tommy Rich is stepping forward to take care of Boo Bradley. Buddy Landell promises to take the Intercontinental Title from whoever has it on August 4, even if it’s Razor Ramon or Marty Janetty.

-Brad Armstrong cuts a promo and tells quite a story: he grew up idolizing his dad, trained, became a tag team with his father, and then broke out and became quite a successful singles wrestler. He got a guaranteed-money contract with WCW, but as the years went by, he noticed that other wrestlers got title shots, and finally one of the corporate suits told him “You’re not marketable.” Okay, that sucks, but still Brad had guaranteed money, so instead of walking away, Brad did what he calls the responsible thing and just showed up, wrestled, and collected his guaranteed paycheck. The result, Brad says, is that wrestling turned into a job and nothing more for him, and he just didn’t care anymore. Seeing Cornette throw a fireball in his dad’s face, however, woke something up inside Brad, and he vows that not only does he give a damn now, but that he’s not going to give up until he’s won a world title, something his dad could never do. This would have been one hell of a promo if it wasn’t for one glaring issue that actually made me go back and watch this a second time. There were no fewer than 15 visible edits as Brad was telling this story.

BRAD ARMSTRONG vs KILLER KYLE
-Armstrong still has the stolen tennis racquet and chases Kyle out of the ring with it. Match starts proper and Armstrong gives Kyle a big right hand to knock him on his ass. Kyle punches back and they duel for a backslide. That goes nowhere, so Brad clotheslines him down. Kyle fights back with an elbow and applies a bearhug. Brad bites his way out, but Kyle powerslams him for two.

-Back to the bearhug. Weird quirk, every time Kyle applies a bearhug, they cut to a shot of a fan, and then cut back to Brad breaking the hold. So I think I owe a thank-you to whoever did the post-production on this episode. Russian legsweep by Brad gets the win.

AL SNOW & UNABOM (Tag Team Champions, with General Jim Cornette & The Punisher) vs THE WOLFMAN & LEE THOMAS
-Cornette declares that this is a title match because Al and Unabom want to demonstrate that they’re fighting champions. As Cornette declares this, the Rock & Roll Express sneaks into the ring and tells the jobbers to take a hike, so when everyone turns around and looks, suddenly, Al and Unabom are defending the gold against actual competition.

-Unabom gets sent out to the floor. Flying headscissors by Gibson gets two, and Al Snow screams for his life as he tags Unabom in. Gibson slams Unabom. All four men wind up in the ring and Al Snow sends Ricky Morton over the top rope for anticlimactic DQ finish. If they had more time for Cornette to cut the promo, this would have been a MUCH better angle, and actually it would have been an awesome way to change the belts.

5.2

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

The championship bruhaha was pretty fun, but the rest of the show just laid there, like the fans. Silent crowds in the SOUTH are a cause for concern, and it's been consistent the past few months on the TV shows.