Cox

Somewhere out there, the entire house show run of SMW '94 exists on tape, as one of my friends has all of the tapes and I've been trying for years to get him to send them to me so I can convert them to DVD. Hopefully, maybe someday we will finally be able to put this together.

If you are who I think you are, sure.

I would say that Bill Watts is probably a bigger Cornette influence than Dusty, though that becomes more apparent later on than at the point I'm at right now.

Makes sense. It seems like Smoky Mountain's early business plan is to wait for WCW to fire their underneath guys so they can bring them in and make them stars here. They would get Ricky Morton by the summer and Tracy Smothers by the end of the year, so those were good gambles. They never did get Bobby Eaton except for a short run when they were trading talent with WCW, and didn't get Brad Armstrong until they were at the end. I kind of wonder if the original plan for the Bodies was to wait and hope Bobby Eaton would be released by the spring so they could reunite the MX, and when that didn't work out, they got Prichard. Can't wait to get to this point too. I've seen that angle and I'm a big fan too. I can't really argue with this. I've watched the first four episodes, and they've all featured some sort of screwy finish. In episode one, Ron Wright gives Ivan Koloff a foreign object which he uses to KO Bobby Fulton (though the ref eventually finds it and DQ's him). In episode two, Dutch Mantell uses his whip as a weapon in full view of the referee and loses to Scott Armstrong by DQ. In episode three, Ron Wright again gives a wrestler a foreign object, this time Dutch Mantell, but they change it up some this time with Brian Lee taking it from Mantell and getting caught with it for the DQ. Episode four has two screwy finishes, with Ron Wright distracting the ref so Killer Kyle can throw a jobber into his violin case for the win, and then Vladimir Koloff making a "surprise" run-in to cost the Fantastics a match against Ivan Koloff and Jimmy Golden. That said, I'm more accepting of a screwy finish than most, as long as it leads somewhere. The Ron Wright stuff is all building to something at least, where he eventually debuts his first wrestler. The Vladimir Koloff run-in continues the Koloffs/Fultons feud, though I don't know why they went through the trouble of saying that Vladimir Koloff was in Russia and introducing Jimmy Golden as Ivan Koloff's new tag team partner since that comes off as a particularly silly ruse. Only the Dutch Mantell DQ win against Scott Armstrong comes off bad to me, but even that one continues the Brian Lee/Dutch Mantell program, though I think they could have let Mantell beat Scott Armstrong before Brian Lee makes the save. It would be nice if they went one TV show without doing a cheap finish for sure. I'm guessing Ivan introduced a new Koloff so he could work tags as he was pretty old by this point. I don't think he's related. He looks a lot like Nikita, actually, but isn't very good at all. He's lumbering and clumsy and seems like he's constantly out of position.

So I've been talking about starting a project for several years now where I go back and watch every episode of Smoky Mountain Wrestling in order. With the summer here and a real lack of things on my DVR to watch, I thought there would be no better time than the present. I've watched the first four episodes over the last two days and here are some early impressions. -The first show is all about establishing the top babyfaces that Cornette wants to build around. Brian Lee, Tim Horner, and Robert Gibson all have squash matches, and Bobby Fulton is in the TV main against Ivan Koloff. Through the early episodes, it's clear Lee is the guy that Cornette is building around as the top guy, as he's the only singles wrestler to get a program right out of the chute (vs. Dutch Mantell). It's also clear very early on that he's not a great fit for the spot. He's got a good look, but he just seems disingenuous as a top face, like he's trying too hard to be a good guy, and he isn't much in the ring at this point either. Granted, their other choices at this point aren't too great; Horner isn't a good promo at all, and clearly they had Gibson in a holding pattern waiting for Ricky Morton to get fired so they could put the Rock 'n' Roll back together. Still, Brian Lee sucks. Worth pointing out: the first SMW TV taping was in October '91. Lee worked a WCW squash in November '91 and a WWF dark match in December '91. Neither company wanted him, not even to fuck with Cornette after they built an entire TV taping around his program with Dutch Mantell. -Also from show #1, they establish their top heel managers, Cornette in the tag ranks and Ron Wright in the singles. I'm not sure if they knew at the time of the first TV taping who they were going to manage, as the first TV taping was about three and a half months before it aired, but it's clear both will manage top guys. Pretty sure Cornette at least knew he was going to manage a team that included Stan Lane, though, since he had spent the last year managing Lane with various partners in Global and in the USWA. -They're also positioning Bob Holly to be something of a player. He looks ridiculous with that wispy mustache, though. Also, I'd think he was ripping off Bret Hart with his pink and black singlet/long tights look, but this was in '91 when Bret was still not that big of a deal yet, so I doubt he's directly influenced by him. I wonder how Holly's career would have played out had he remained here. He never did wind up being much of a promo, but working under Cornette for two years in a territory probably would have helped him. It sure feels like Holly is being set up to be the top heel here down the line from the first few shows, much like it felt like Lee was being set up to be the top babyface. Kind of a shame he couldn't make enough money to stick around. -Besides Lee/Mantell, the other top feud they establish from show #1 is the Fantastics (Bobby and Jackie Fulton here) vs. the Koloffs (Ivan and Vladimir). Weird moment in the first show where Ron Wright gives Ivan a foreign object which he uses to beat Bobby Fulton, Jackie comes out and basically beats the hell out of Ivan for a solid minute or two, almost making it seem like the Fultons are giving Ivan a two on one beatdown until Vladimir comes out to even the odds (even though Bobby is selling the foreign object the entire time). Felt like Vlad missed a cue to hit the ring and made it come off awkwardly. At least Ivan and Vlad hang Jackie in the ropes with the chain to establish heeldom. Anyway, I liked the temporary Jimmy Golden/Ivan Koloff team that formed in Week 4, too bad that didn't last. -The other major character they establish right out the chute is Commissioner Bob Armstrong (see avatar). I like that they're making sure he's no-nonsense and laying down the rules after every show, making every heelish action sound like it has consequences. They've done a lot to subtly tease the Armstrong/Cornette feud, which doesn't even kick off for more than a year, so it will be interesting to trace that. -In show #1, a jobber named Paul Miller beats "The Black Scorpion" with an inside cradle, kicking off the first in a series of WCW inside jokes that will continue throughout the years. I'm pretty sure Black Scorpion was Carl Styles under a mask, but not sure. Hard to miss the symbolism of the little scrappy underdog overcoming the big bad gimmick guy by having superior talent and drive. Too bad for Cornette that isn't how this story ended. -Speaking of, lots of promos about how wins and losses matter here, and how this isn't like those other guys, here they wrestle and don't try to sell dolls or commercials, etc. Clearly, Cornette is still smarting from both his WCW run and his talk with Vince when he was trying to woo the Midnight Express a few years earlier. Still, in hindsight, it's kind of hard to take Cornette seriously about how they're treating wrestling like a sport here, when two years later he'd be standing at ringside as The Undertaker is summoned to the heavens at the Providence Civic Center. -Other guys who are here around this time: Paul Orndorff (who debuted as a face, but you can tell were kinda subtly setting up for a turn), Rip Rogers, Barry Horowitz (doing TV jobs here despite being the GWF Light Heavyweight champion at the time, and that's with the GWF still kinda/sorta meaning something at this point), Scott Armstrong (who I was surprised had worked without the mask as himself, not as Dixie Dynomite), Hector Guerrero (who facially looked like he was in his 50s, and was called "Hector Gomez" by Bob Caudle), Joey Maggs, and Killer Kyle (who had the honor of losing the first ever SMW TV match to Robert Gibson). They also started airing promos in Week 2 that featured Terry Gordy, Danny Davis, and Buddy Landell (who cut an amazing vintage coked up rambling Buddy promo about if any of the promoters in the major promotions ever stopped short, a bunch of wrestlers would break their nose, and accidentally namedropped Stan Lane despite the fact that he was supposed to be a surprise debut as part of the Heavenly Bodies) despite none of these guys having debuted on TV yet. -As far as who looked good in the ring...I liked Horner's work, Hector looked pretty good, Dutch looked like he had maybe slowed down a step or two but still knew exactly what to do in there, Holly had a nice top rope kneedrop, and the Fantastics did some good work in carrying a past-his-prime Ivan and a never-had-a-prime Vladimir to a decent match. I'd say Lee was the only one who actively sucked, though Carl Styles gave him a pretty tepid beatdown in an angle on the fourth show where he debuted as Dutch Mantell's bodyguard. Not looking forward to that eventual match. Robert Gibson wasn't bad, but I kind of never want to see Robert Gibson without a tag team partner. This is probably a bit more rambling than I anticipated, so sorry about that. Looking forward to watching more as storylines develop. Can't wait until the Bodies debut in a few weeks and until Dirty White Boy comes in to spice things up. Smothers and Morton will also be around before too long, so whatever issues I have with Lee as top babyface will be resolved before too long.

Lots of moves that would be legit KO strikes in martial arts make for shitty pro wrestling finishes.

Shane was the first guy to comfort McIlroy when he lost at the Masters back in April, so they are tight in some way. I think they are involved in some business venture together.

This was one of my favorite angles from SMW. Before this segment, Candido had wrestled Dark Secret (Road Dogg under a hood) in a match where if Candido lost, he could take the baby bonnet off of his head (which he was wearing as the result of a match he had with Tim Horner). Candido and Secret work the lightest match you'll ever see, kind of a forerunner to the Fingerpoke of Doom type stuff, except they somehow got a whole match out of it, and Candido wins to take the bonnet off. I love Candido's reaction when Les Thatcher brings out the letter telling Cornette he was being promoted, and Dutch did some great work with Cornette here as well.

Had the Quebecers even worked syndies yet? I remember Gene Okerlund was talking about house show matches in the tri state area featuring "The Quebecers, Jacques and Pierre" and I recognized Jacques Rougeau, but had no idea who Pierre was, and they hadn't worked any TV, so it felt especially weird at the time that The Mountie and his fat new tag team partner showed up out of nowhere and won the tag titles from the Steiners.

Johnny Polo had debuted a few months earlier, managing Adam Bomb. They moved him to the Quebecers at this point and moved Adam Bomb to Harvey Wippleman.

Since I haven't blatantly plugged my own stuff, Diego Corleone-style, in a while... Episode 11: (Warhead and The Orphan vs Legion and Big Rig, Unholy Alliance vs. Short Bus Express)Episode 12: (Twiggy Ramirez vs Geoffrey Bravo, what a lot of UWC fans considered to be the best match we've had since the "TV" started)Episode 13: (Biggie Biggs vs. CB4 Bubba for the UWC heavyweight title, which apparently nobody watched for reasons I haven't been able to figure out)Episode 14: (Staten Island Wrecking Crew vs. Mind and Muscle, goofy backstage "UWC Board of Directors" meeting)Episode 15: (Commissioner Grimaldi is "fired," Secret Society vs. Unholy Alliance for UWC tag team titles)Episode 16: (Biggie Biggs vs. Big Rig vs. Silly Billy for the UWC heavyweight title)Episode 17: (Jael Rose and Stephon Smith vs. Staten Island Wrecking Crew, Big Rig and Legion vs. Orphan and Warhead rematch)Episode 18: (Secret Society vs. Blackhearted Justice vs. Unholy Alliance for UWC tag team titles, Philly Madison vs. Silly Billy, winner gets the #20 spot in the Browns Mills Rumble, loser gets the #1 spot)

TNA is far worse than the UWF. At least the UWF had the good sense to go out of business quickly. TNA just doesn't seem to care how much money they piss away on a shitty television product that few people watch.

Wait, are people still surprised at Mick Foley's startling lack of self-awareness? Hasn't anybody read his blogs before? I have no doubt in my mind that the guy is legit bummed out that he can no longer ride the roller coasters at Universal for free and really believes he deserves sympathy for this, because if his blog has shown anything, it's that he doesn't have even a thimbleful of self-awareness and has no problem looking like a whiny baby over ridiculous shit.

Wasn't Taylor pretty much credited for getting Kimona hired by WCW?

When I was a kid, I knew that whenever Rene Goulet came out, some serious shit was going down.

Are there really people out there who would be surprised that a tag team with the Dirty White Boy and Tracy Smothers would be awesome? Maybe it's my own biases talking since I'm a huge fan of both guys (and of Smoky Mountain) but I kinda just took that as obvious.

Thanks. If there's one thing I accomplish at all with all of this UWC stuff, it's getting people to realize that The Ripper is really good. Just one of those guys who seemed to fall through the cracks in wrestling, since he's been around 20 years, working in the Northeast to boot, and I doubt anybody knows who he is.

Maybe it was one of those things he felt like he had to do, since Philly fans were naturally going to cheer him? Maybe the only way he felt like he could get over would be to take up TV time and make fans sick of him so that somebody would take the King of Philadelphia thing from him? Just playing devil's advocate here - I haven't seen the footage (though I'd like to get in on these yearbooks since they sound great).

Their timing was awful in retrospect. Had they came along in the 80's, we'd have footage of PG-13 in a bunch of territories: Memphis, World Class, Florida, Crockett, Georgia, AWA, Mid South, Oregon, Continental...you have to figure they get at least small runs in most of those territories. Had they come along ten years later, their size would not be nearly the detriment that it was in the 90's, and since every two-bit, podunk indy promotion tapes their shows these days, their stuff would be all over the place. Either way, the footage problem gets solved. While 90's USWA was stylistically the best possible promotion for them (other than SMW, and it's kind of a shame they didn't get a longer run there, maybe if SMW had made it to 1996 they would have), that's probably the promotion with the least amount of footage out there, since they aired a bunch of stuff on TV but it was mostly clipped.

I see your point, but would a larger body of footage matter in a major promotion if they aren't getting a chance to do what they do best? Working WWF for sure, they'd be 3-5 minute jobber fodder simply based on size. They might have had a shot at being more than that in WCW, but it still seems likely that they'd wind up not showcasing their strengths and being basically the world's best State Patrol/Men at Work-level tag team. I like PG-13 and I wouldn't argue against them, but to a degree, I think USWA was the perfect promotion for them to shine, and perhaps some of these other teams never found that perfect promotion. It might have sucked for their bank account that working Memphis was their best promotion, but I'd say it enhances their rep to a degree, even with (unfortunate) lack of footage.

Here's something that might be worth thinking about: does PG-13's lack of major league success actually help them to a degree? They don't have the exposure they would have had working WWF or WCW in the 90's, but they also would have been working much shorter TV matches every week had they been with WWF or WCW circa 1993-1997. It might not have been as big a deal working Worldwide or Pro, but in WWF, they would have been used as job guys who worked 5 minute squashes while getting little in the way of offense. Certainly, a team like the Armstrongs, a team that on paper might be better than PG-13, doesn't have the resume of good matches PG-13 might have because they were mostly cannon fodder on WCW syndies, with only a short SMW run (~6 months).

Hey SLL, as the biggest Unholy Alliance fan on the internet, which of the Unholy matches that you've seen over the past few months would you think would work best on a Best of Unholy Alliance DVD? I'm working on one at the moment, and am going to include a few older clips as well, but I wanted to include 1-2 current matches as well so I was curious as to what you think is their best work.

As far as Bundy and DiBiase goes, I wonder if that was just a WWF philosophy, where you get one run and only one run as a top heel, and then you're cycled down the cards for eternity. Looking back, Savage is really the only heel who had two runs as a main event heel, and the second run (against Warrior) was still lower profile than the run with Hogan two years earlier. Andre's run was longer than most (from early '87 to mid '88) but even he wasn't immune; once he was out of the World title picture, he was a midcard guy. It's a philosophy that didn't really change until the mid 90's, when there were fewer wrestlers to program at the top of a show, but more PPV events that required main eventers.

Most important thing learned from Tough Enough: wrestling shows with Steve Austin are more entertaining than wrestling shows without Steve Austin, even if they are in a shitty reality show format with a bunch of dudes nobody will ever care about ever again.

It is probably telling that they ran the Allied Powers breakup as a vehicle for Davey Boy moreso than Luger. Now, maybe they knew Lex was leaving, but honestly, they hadn't done a thing with him other than they Davey Boy turn in almost a year, so clearly, he had stopped being a big deal. I just don't think Vince ever got what Luger brought to the table.