The Name on the Marquee: Smoky Mountain Wrestling (6.26.1993)

-Originally aired June 26, 1993.

-Your hosts are Bob Caudle & Dr. Dutch. Dutch draws Bobby Blaze and Dirty White Boy for Beat the Champ to determine your NEW champ.

ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS vs JEFF DANIELS & “Nature Boy” PAUL LEE
-Express works Daniels’ arm. Lee gets knocked around. Jobbers are Irish whipped into each other, and the double dropkick finishes with no trouble.

-The Rock & Roll Express says that everybody has a weakness no matter how big or how bad. All the Express has to do is figure out the Bruise Brothers’ kryptonite, and they’ll be set.

-We go to house show action in Johnson City, Tennessee, with Tracy Smothers battling Kevin Sullivan. Smothers is about to finish off Sullivan when Dirty White Boy attacks Smothers with a chair. Smothers miraculously beats Sullivan anyway, but then a 2-on-1 assault ensues. DWB and Sullivan demolish Smothers with no trouble at all, until Brian Lee shows up to make the save. Lee fights off Sullivan and DWB, clearing the ring, then props up the chair in the ring, helps Smothers to his feet, lets him have a seat in the chair, and raises his hand in a token of victory…

-And then Lee Orndorffs him. Really funny crowd reaction too, perfectly split between the genders. The women are freaking out, and the men give him a standing ovation. Lee stomps a mudhole into Smothers and spits on him. Lee drives a series of knees into Smothers, and then calls it a…no, wait, he gets back into the ring just to stomp him one more time. Awesome.

-Chip Kessler is in the locker room afterward and tries to get some words with Brian Lee. Lee says he’s too big a man to spend his career in the shadow of a wrestler smaller than him, and that’s all he has to say. The heel turn is visibly doing good for Lee as he just instantly comes off 500% more confident and more charismatic.

-Jim Cornette says that Bob Armstrong, a former Marine, former firefighter, and former wrestler couldn’t stand up to him and his tennis racquet, and on July 8 at SummerBlast, Armstrong’s decrepit ass is going back into retirement.

“Suicide Blonde” CHRIS CANDIDO (WWA Champion) vs CHRIS COMET
-SMW still refuses to recognize the WWA Title as a legitimate belt, despite Dutch Mantell’s repeated assurances that he’s looked into it and it’s a credible title. Candido grabs the mic before the bell and announces that this is a title match.

-Comet hiptosses Candido, and follows with an armdrag and a dropkick. Candido demands a time-out. Comet dropkicks him out to the floor and meets him out there with a plancha. Comet slingshots him back into the ring for two. Candido turns a charge into a powerslam and suddenly comes to life from that. Candido tosses Comet out to the floor and comes off the top with a bodypress.

-Back in, Comet still has some fight left in him, but Candido crotches him on the top rope and finishes with the Suicideplex for three to, uh, retain the WWA Title. Pretty good little bout, though!

-Candido complains that wrestling in SMW is too easy, so he’s thinking of leaving and going back to New Jersey. He insists that the WWA is a legitimate organized body of professional wrestling, and WWA President Dennis Coralluzzo(!) will be in touch with SMW shortly to hash things out.

-The Summer Blast tour is coming to seven towns this July. The Heavenly Bodies & Jim Cornette face Armstrong’s Army; Rock & Roll Express defends the tag team belts against the Bruise Brothers, no DQ; The SMW and the $20,000 bounty are on the line as Tracy Smothers faces Tammy Fytch’s Bounty Hunter. Tim Horner meets Chris Candido. And in Knoxville and Johnson City ONLY, Kevin Sullivan battles Kanemura! I’m curious to know if those matches actually end up happening, because from what I can find, Kanemura never showed up again after the gory attack in March.

DOWN AND DIRTY WITH DUTCH
-Tracy Smothers and Tim Horner are both guests this week. He recaps this whole feud via videotape, and Smothers & Horner continue their little lovers’ quarrel and promise to settle things on JOO-lie the second.

-Bob Caudle is with Tammy Fytch, who says she has signed SOMEBODY to a contract and she’s kinda giddy about it. She will only identify him as “Bounty Hunter” and promises to take the belt and the $20,000, although the cash isn’t important to her because $20,000 wouldn’t even pay for a semester at Wellesley. Okay, the logical answer to the mystery is that it’s Dirty White Boy, since the bounty was put up by Ron Wright to begin with, but that’s too obvious. Brian Lee is freshly heel turned, so it could be him. And Tim Horner isn’t getting along with his ex-friend. Oooooh, a mystery with multiple solutions!

HEAVENLY BODIES (with Jim Cornette) vs ROBBIE EAGLE & LARRY SANTO
-Santo gets some early offense on Pritchard, but Pritchard leapfrogs a backdrop and takes control from there. Del Ray (clean shaven, and he’s actually not that bad-looking without the ‘stache) hammers away and tags Pritchard back in.

-Eagle throws forearms at Pritchard but runs right into a perfect superkick from Del Ray. Pritchard suplexes Eagle into position for a top rope splash from Del Ray to finish.

-Bob Armstrong sends words from his living room. The letter from his doctor just arrived in the mail. In July, he’ll be cleared to wrestle, and the Heavenly Bodies…well, they aren’t exactly going to heaven.

-Cornette has his entire stable, including Killer Kyle, who we haven’t seen in a while. Cornette’s group is going to make Armstrong’s Army look like Jerry’s Kids.

-We get words from Kevin Sullivan “in Japan,” who cryptically promises that Kanemura won’t make it to America for his scheduled matches.

VACANT BEAT THE CHAMP TV TITLE: BOBBY BLAZE vs DIRTY WHITE BOY (with Mr. Ron Wright)
-Blaze gets off to a good start but misses a corner charge in a NASTY way and DWB takes control. Dutch livens things up with an incest joke and Bob Caudle tries to act disgusted but can’t stop himself from laughing.

-DDT by DWB gets two, but DWB pulls Blaze up just to punish him. He tries a diving headbutt. Blaze has enough strength to do a sit-up, so DWB misses the diving headbutt and knocks himself loopy, and the still-hurt Blaze slumps back and lays on top of DWB…for three. GIANT upset, and Bobby Blaze is your SMW Champion. DWB is so pissed off that he chokes Blaze unconscious with his chain.

-Tracy Smothers is excited about Summer Blast, and he says “I can’t wait to see all them pretty ladies in the crowd, whether they’re 8 or 80!” There is no way for that declaration to come off a right way.

-DWB warns Blaze that he’d better get out of wrestling for good, because the next time DWB sees him, it’ll be the last time, too.

7.2

The final score: review Good

The 411

GREAT week all around for angles. July's gonna be a fun month, I think.