The Name on the Marquee: Smoky Mountain Wrestling (8.15.1992)

-Originally aired August 15, 1992.

-We’re in Avery County High School in Newland, NC, and again, SMW manages to pack the largest audience you could fathom into a high school gym.

-Your hosts are Bob Caudle & Dutch Mantell. Dutch Mantell announces “good news and bad news”: the good news: the Dirty White Boy is the new SMW Heavyweight Champion. The bad news: The SMW Tag Team Titles are vacant. (Bob: “The Fantastics are the champions.” Dutch: “You can’t really call them champions, though.”)

-And so we start off with Fire on the Mountain and highlights from the SMW Title match.

SMW HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: “Prime Time” BRIAN LEE (Champion) vs. DIRTY WHITE BOY (with Mr. Ron Wright)
-Joined in progress from Fire on the Mountain. If DWB loses, he leaves SMW.

-DWB gets elbowed out of the ring and Mr. Wright slips him a foreign object on the way back in. He clocks Lee with it, but can only get two. Lee dodges a clothesline and gets some impressive air on a flying clothesline, looking not unlike a certain Deadman as he does it.

-Action goes out to the floor. DWB gets his face rammed into the table, and Lee wins a very one-sided fistfight before they head back inside. Ron Wright distracts the referee with a minor heart attack during the Cancellation and misses the pin, and suddenly, a big bald guy in baggy pants runs in the ring, drops an elbow on Lee, and leaves him laying. Dirty White Boy gets the three-count and a bit of a pop.

-Post-match, Lee clarifies that he’s felt a million elbows in his day, and none of them felt like that. It was a loaded elbow, but that’s all Lee knows. He doesn’t recognize the guy who attacked him.

-Bob Caudle talks to Mr. Ron Wright. Apparently, some passionate fan got tired of seeing Brian Lee get away with so many dirty tactics and did something about it. Mr. Ron Wright feels silly for forgetting his medication and his heart monitor in the locker room and wishes the referee had been quicker about getting an ambulance to the arena.

-And Commissioner Bob Armstrong is here. He’s investigating and trying to figure out who the mystery attacker was, and he says he finds ANY evidence of a connection between the attacker and Dirty White Boy, he’s stripping him of the belt immediately.

-Bob Caudle hypes the next big card in Knoxville, and it’s apparently all gimmick matches: a boxing match, a submission match, a piledriver match, and a Texas Death Match. Mr. Ron Wright says every ambulance in Knoxville should be waiting at the exit to carry all the different pieces of Brian Lee’s body.

-The Stud Stable arrives and Robert Fuller cuts the most caffeinated promo of his career. The only words I totally understood were “Elvis Presley.”

-Tim Horner says that he’d like a shot at the SMW Title. He’s not saying for sure he can win, but he thinks he deserves a shot, and he promises to be a champion that these great fans can be proud of.

BARBED WIRE CAGE MATCH, SMW TAG TEAM TITLE: HEAVENLY BODIES (Champions, with Jim Cornette) vs. THE FANTASTICS
-Joined in progress from Fire on the Mountain. Bob Armstrong is your guest referee. “Barbed wire steel cage” sounds awesome and there is legit danger to it, but an actual barbed wire cage is less than impressive visually, looking every bit like the “it look-a like chicken wire” cage from the story in Mick Foley’s first book.

-Pritchard goes face-first into the wire again and again. Jackie’s already a bloody mess, as we’re joining this one at about the ten-minute mark. Corny throws powder in Jackie’s eyes from the outside. Armstrong sees the residue on the mat and looks at the crowd. The fans tattle on Cornette, and Armstrong bounces him.

-Bodies try a double suplex on Bobby, but Jackie dropkicks the Bodies down to stop it. Pritchard breaks out a sit-down powerbomb, but the pin gets broken again. Bobby gets rammed into the cage. Pritchard tries a DiBiase elbow from the top, but misses. Cornette shows up again and tosses his racquet in the ring, but Armstrong snatches it right out of Prithcard’s hands, and Pritchard is so surprised that he gets rolled up immediately for three. Fantastics are the new champs.

-Bodies cut a fiery promo. Armstrong stacked the deck and they knew that this whole night was set up for the Bodies to lose the gold. Cornette demands a rematch signed within 24 hours, or else he’s going to sic the lawyers on Bob Armstrong.

-Fantastics say they’ve had a long, difficult road to the belts. Fantastics have heard the demand for the rematch, but they make a good point: because of the initial attack by the Heavenly Bodies, the Fantastics had to wait for their chance at the gold. So you know what? If the Heavenly Bodies want another shot at the belts, now THEY have to wait. The Fantastics are only obligated to defend the belt once every 30 days, and they’re going to sit dead on ass for every minute of that 30 days.

DOWN AND DIRTY WITH DUTCH
-Dutch introduces his guest Killer Kyle, who surprisingly has Jim Cornette with him. Corny says that Kyle never talks because there’s nobody in the Smoky Mountains worth talking to. Cornette finally managed to get Kyle to talk, off-camera of course, and says he’s going to do all the talking for him.

-Dixie Dy-no-mite has a boxing match signed against Killer Kyle, but Kyle has a canned-ham fist and a jackhammer punch that’ll knock you colder than a banker’s heart. Corny brings in a good, solid, Kentucky wood board, held in place by jobber Mike Sampson, and Kyle splits it in half with one punch.

-Bob Caudle talks to “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff, who hates little kids and people with full-time employment. Commissioner Armstrong shows up because he knows about the problems that Orndorff had with Brian Lee earlier this year. Does Orndorff know anything about the guy who interfered in the title match at Fire on the Mountain? Orndorff looks surprised and says he truly doesn’t know who that guy was.

ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS vs. STUD STABLE
-From Fire on the Mountain. Rock & Roll Express get a 1985 pop as they storm to the ring. Stable attacks before the bell, but the Express immediately turns it around and whips Golden & Fuller into each other.

-We jump ahead a few minutes, and if you can believe it, Morton is bleeding and getting his ass kicked. I know, I had to watch this match a second time to make sure. Hot tag to Gibson and he gets to work. Stable attempts a double-team move, but Golden accidentally knocks Fuller out of the ring, and Express double-dropkicks Golden. That looks to finish, but Fuller yanks the referee out to the floor to break the pin.

-Sleeper by Gibson. Fuller comes off the second rope with an axehandle. Gibson goes down with the unconscious Golden slumped on top of him. Fuller tells the referee to count. The referee won’t count until Fuller is out of the ring, but while he’s waiting for that, Ricky Morton dashes in and switches the bodies around so Gibson is slumped on top of Golden, and that’s the pin that the referee counts.

-Stable attacks after the bell and totally murders, kills, and assassinates the Express.

-Stable says they didn’t want the Express feeling like they won a match, and they’ll be happy to give them a rematch.

-Bob Caudle talks to the Express. They took care of business before and they’ll do it again. They’re ready for action any time.

SMW TITLE: DIRTY WHITE BOY (Champion, with Mr. Ron Wright) vs. DIXIE DY-NO-MITE
-He may be dirty, but he’s no closet champion.

-DWB starts with a hard chop and he just laughs right in the scrawny Dixie’s face. Dixie fires back with a series of even harder chops, and a dropkick that sends DWB to the floor, and this crowd totally believes Dixie’s got a shot at this.

-Back in, DWB tries to work the arm. Dixie armdrags out and follows with a dropkick, and DWB retreats to the corner and realizes he should have taken this kid seriously. Dixie dropkicks him again and DWB heads out to the floor while Caudle goes on an uncharacteristically passionate rant about how DWB is a disgraceful, unfit champion and somebody should park Ron Wright on a plane and drop him somewhere in the middle of Nigeria just to get rid of him.

-DWB tosses Dixie out to the floor, and Killer Kyle calmly walks out, Giloolys Dixie with a blackjack, and walks off. Back in, Dixie throws a series of jabs to stay alive, but he stupidly tries for a slam and his now-injured knee buckles, with DWB landing on top for the three-count to retain. Pretty hot and, given how short it was, pretty fun.

-Brian Lee is ready for his rematch in Knoxville.

-Bob Caudle talks to the Rock & Roll Express. Ricky Morton warns the Stud Stable that they’re here to wrestle, not to impress anyone. You want to impress anyone? Eat an apple and spit out fruit salad.

7.1

The final score: review Good

The 411

I hate to say it, but Brian Lee wasn't doing anything for me as champion, so getting the belt off him was a step in the right direction, and Dirty White Boy was the right choice. Tag team angles continue to be Jim's obvious strong suit, but the mystery of the unknown bald guy is pretty intriguing.