The Name on the Marquee: Smoky Mountain Wrestling (2.20.1993)

-Originally aired February 20, 1993.

-Your hosts are Bob Caudle & Dr. Dutch Mantell. We have the random drawing for Beat the Champ, and it’s the Night Stalker. Dirty White Boy gleefully runs out and gloats that Tracy Smothers can’t possibly collect the $5,000 bonus if his opponent is Night Stalker.

DIXIE DY-NO-MITE, RENO RIGGINS, & LEN FIELDS vs THE HEAVENLY BODIES (with Jim Cornette)
-Man, this is like an ‘80s WWF TV match. Pick the guy who gets pinned. Although if they give this time it could be a pretty decent match. This would be the official debut of the three-man unit version of The Heavenly Bodies, although Bobby Eaton never REALLY looks like a member of the team, he has his own look. Dutch asks that the Bodies not consider enlisting in the military, in light of President Clinton’s recent announcement of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

-Dixie and Pritchard trade holds while Dutch goes off on Jim Cornette for being unprofessional by ambushing another company’s television show and using it to draw attention to himself, which is worthy of a big fine.

-Impressive rapid-fire dropkicks by Dixie and he tries to work the arm. Pritchard manages to back him into the corner and the Original Bodies do some double-teaming work. Pritchard and Eaton try a double-team move next, but Pritchard accidentally knocks Eaton off the apron, and there is major tension in the Bodies. Match comes to a screeching halt as Cornette runs in the ring to get everybody settled down, and the faces just stand back and watch as they smooth things over. What is this, Saturday Night’s Main Event?

-Dixie hiptosses Eaton and follows with flying headscissors. Len Fields tags in and the fans’ interest just instantly dies off. Fields hiptosses Eaton, which completely surprises the crowd. Fields tags in Riggins. Riggins slingshots himself in and Bobby instantly mows him down with a clothesline. Stan Lane tags in and gets dropkicked down. Riggins has the edge until Lane does some choking.

-Midnight Express double-teams Riggins and tags in Pritchard so he can feel like he’s helping. Riggins kicks Pritchard in the face and tags Fields back in. Boot to the gut and a sit-down powerbomb by Pritchard, and Eaton finishes with the Alabama Jam. This WAS pretty good for a squash!

-Bob Caudle talks to the Rock & Roll Express. The Heavenly Bodies have some gold that belongs to them, and they’re coming to get them back real, real soon.

-Commissioner Armstrong is here, wearing an official SMW baseball cap, and he’s getting caught up with everything that broke out while he was in Japan. #1, Three guys can’t defend a two-man championship. For NOW, the Heavenly Bodies have a three-man unit but Armstrong says he’s looking at a few different ways to kill that. #2, Paul Orndorff is suspended from SMW indefinitely and he can come back when he learns how to follow the rules. #3, an insurance form came to the SMW office a few days ago and the secretary signed off on it, thinking it was a standard form, and it turned out to be a bill for Kevin Sullivan’s psychiatric treatment. They got screwed on this deal and they can’t get out of it, but Sullivan better not do it again.

-So this leads to a WEIRD skit where Sullivan orders a drink from a hotel bar. The creepy bartender refuses to accept money, and Sullivan says he recognizes the bartender as “The Caretaker,” a guy who once stabbed the entire Armstrong family with a Singapore spike. The bartender says, “No, YOU’RE the caretaker,” and hands him a spike. I feel like there’s a key bit of info missing here and no effort was made to provide it to me.

-So now we go to Kevin Sullivan’s house and we meet Dr. Michael Phillips, Sullivan’s psychiatrist, who promises that Sullivan can be fixed, but it’s going to take long and multiple sessions. Dr. Phillips calls in his sexy nurse, Nurse Cratchett, to serve Sullivan a drink and calm him down. Incredibly funny goof here, as the cameraman is trying to only show the sexy nurse from the neck down, but he bungles his framing exactly long enough for us to see that it’s Nancy Sullivan.

“Prime Time” BRIAN LEE vs LARRY SANTO
-Santo attacks during the ring intro, but gets clotheslined down. Cancellation finishes in under a minute.

-Tim Horner is ready for the Night Stalker in Williamsburg!

-Bob Caudle asks Kevin Sullivan about some weird mail that they got from somebody named Tommy Starr. Sullivan says there was an incident shortly before he began getting psychiatric treatment, but that’s all in the past now. Night Stalker says he’s hungry and he needs to be fed!

-We recap Tracy Smothers’ TV Title record. If he wins this next match, he wins $1,000 plus the $5,000 bonus, and he surrenders the title undefeated.

BEAT THE CHAMP TV TITLE: “Wild Eyed Southern Boy” TRACY SMOTHERS vs NIGHT STALKER
-Dirty White Boy waffles Smothers with a chair on the way to the ring and targets his arm with a shot to the post. Smothers is injured and might not be fit to wrestle. We’ll be back to see if we have a match.

-Back from the break, Commissioner Armstrong comes to the ring to announce that DWB is fined $1,000. He says it’s a shame that Smothers is in no shape to wrestle and earn that $5,000, so he pledges to Smothers that he’s going to plead his case to the board of directors to see if he can give Smothers the $5,000 anyway. Smothers appreciates the offer, but he didn’t come here to forfeit anything, he came here to EARN $5,000. He sprints into the ring before Armstrong has a chance to stop him, and Armstrong leaves in shock.

-Smothers gets the early edge, but Night Stalker goes over the injured arm with a hammerlock and a shoulderbreaker. Stalker tosses Smothers out to the floor and keeps working over the shoulder as the commentators question Smothers’ logic. Is it worth proving a point to Dirty White Boy if it means risking your career?

-Armbar by Stalker. Smothers hiptosses out, but Stalker just kicks him right in the arm before he can do anything else. Back to the armbar and referee Mark Curtis looks ready to stop the match, but Smothers gets free and mounts a comeback first. Stalker stops the comeback with a powerslam. Smothers keeps fighting back. His offense is enough to daze Night Stalker, but there’s not very much to it.

-Dirty White Boy comes to the ring and tries to distract Smothers by cutting up the Confederate flag with a pair of scissors and stuffing it in a garbage can, and Smothers is so…not outraged or upset by it, but Smothers sees it…Smothers is so aware of what’s happening to the flag that he falls victim to a powerbomb, and Night Stalker pins him to become the new TV Champion.

-After the bell, DWB handcuffs Smothers to the ropes while Night Stalker holds the locker room door shut to stop anyone from making the save. DWB puts the flag remnants in the garbage can, douses it in lighter fluid, and burns the flag. Tim Horner finally makes it out with a fire extinguisher, and DWB calls it a night, stopping to let out a sarcastic “Yeehaw!” before he exits. God, if the WWE really wanted to bring back “shades of gray,” they could try this angle again today during a RAW in the south. Of note, and maybe I’m misreading it here, but these southern fans didn’t seem particularly outraged to my eye and ear.

DIRTY WHITE BOY (SMW Champion, with Mr. Ron Wright) vs TED ALLEN
-Tommy Young escorts DWB to the ring for some reason. It’s not even as a security measure, they’re doing the old school TV taping layout where no fans are seated on the side where the wrestlers enter.

-DWB doesn’t bother removing his entrance gear or his belt. DDT for Allen. Allen tries to fight back with weak kicks, but DWB hammers and chokes him down. Tracy Smothers comes to the ring, with four guys trying to hold him back. Smothers makes it up to the apron and DWB simply boots him off and leaves. Referee calls for the bell, apparently giving the win by DQ to DWB for outside interference, even though Smothers never made it into the ring.

ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS vs STUD STABLE (with Dutch Mantell)
-Winners get a title shot. Jim Cornette sits in on commentary, bragging about how fun it is to watch women fight over you.
Heavenly Bodies show up at ringside with chairs, sodas, and popcorn, and decide to enjoy the show. Corny lobs another inside baseball, saying that the Bodies are sitting in “Front Row, Section D” for this match.

-Gibson and Fuller trade punches while Caudle takes time out on commentary to offer his condolences to all family and friends of Andre the Giant. Bodies taunt the guys in the ring by throwing popcorn at them as they’re wrestling. Golden gets armdragged by Morton.

-Mantell offers a trip from the outside to turn things around. Stable gangs up on Gibson behind the referee’s back. Morton tags in and collides with Golden. Golden winds up on the floor, snatches Eaton’s popcorn, and throws it in his face. He heads back in and Eaton throws a soda in Golden’s eyes, and since carbonation is so abrasive to the eyes, Golden is blinded and quickly rolled up for three.

-Jim Cornette is coming to Williamsburg, where a boy and his dog often have sex with each other, or something. He’s bringing the Bodies to Williamsburg so the women will have something to look at.

-Stud Stable warns Jim Cornette that he made a fatal mistake, and this weekend in Johnson City, TN, people are going to pay. It’s amazing how WCW managed to turn both of these guys into total clowns within two years. Dutch ends the show with the most bizarre warning I’ve ever heard, threatening to bring out Shoobaby and “whip Jim Cornette like a ham.”

6.4

The final score: review Average

The 411

Smothers/White Boy and the tag team situation were bright spots, but man, the Sullivan stuff was weird. And not weird in the desired way.