[1993-08-14-SMW-Fire on the Mountain] Tracy Smothers vs Brian Lee (Coal Miner's Glove)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Another really good match between these two. Is this the best match of Brian Lee's life? They kept a good pace and had good energy for the whole match, and I really like all the drama surrounding the climbing, believe it or not. Lee gets the win when DWB interferes behind the ref's back and hits Smothers with a chair. Lee and DWB beat up Smothers after the match until Mark Curtis threatens to suspend them for life.

[El-P]

Brian Lee's offense is not always the best, and there is a little bit of downtime in the middle of tha match, but once it picked up it because excellent. Brian Lee's best stuff is actually being a Terry Gordy like bumping heel, he takes some awesome looking bump in this one. Excellent drama at the strecht to the finish, and excellent post-match beatdown too. The postmatch interview sows the seed for a future Brian Lee vs DWB feud. Tammy already shows great presence and character by this point. I could do without Tracey calling Lee a faggot in mid-match (and getting tons of cheers for it), and violence against women is always kinda awkward coming from a babyface, but outside of that, it's excellent.

[Kevin Ridge]

Yeah, Smothers choice of word towards Lee was a bit perplexing. It's not like Lee plays up an effeminate gimmick/character. Must have been they first thing that popped into his head. Liked this a bit better than their previous match. Was some slow spots when Lee was in control. He does take some good bumps from Tracey though. Good stuff going for the the glove on the pole.

[PeteF3]

Fytch, looking good in her women's sports coat and bow tie, is disgusted and horrified at being involved in something associated with dirty, greasy, filthy coal miners. Lee constantly invoking his height actually makes sense in this context. Another good match between the two, very similar to the match the previous night with a few added spots revolving around climbing the pole. The glove plays pretty much no role in the actual match, as the Dirty White Boy clobbers Smothers with a chair as soon as he gets it, leading to a Lee victory. I thought the match the previous night was a bit better, but that could be a bit of bias talking as the spots were fresher then.

 

A Confederate flag-waving babyface calling his opponents faggots and abusing women. Southern professional wrestling!

 

Oops, there's some added intrigue after the match, as Lee and White Boy both want credit for Ron Wright's bounty. SMW feels really hot right now.

[soup23]

Really strong match and Lee looks more and more comfortable carrying the SMW heavyweight title which sounds bizarre going into 1993 as a whole. Say what you will about Tracy's persona around this time and that is a heated debate, but his babyface mannerisms are awesome vs. Lee and he plays up Lee's strengths perfectly. The finish was pretty substandard but DWB getting involved doesn't bother me either and continues Smothers plight against the men doing him wrong. ***3/4

[DR Ackermann]

I thought this was a little long. They started getting a bit repetitive and I think the crowd would agree as they went dead until Smothers and Lee FINALLY went for the finish. I liked the action and smothers can braw but I'm mixed on him at this point. He seems to run out of ideas when the match goes more than 10 to 15 minutes and really telegraphs his spots.

[garretta]

As a match, this was very good. As a coal miner's glove ​match (note the emphasis), this was terrible. Simply put, what did they even need the glove for? It played no part in the match whatsoever, and even Les said on commentary that Tracy and Brian forgot about it for long stretches of time, which they did. It's almost like they had a regular bout and threw in a few half-hearted climbing spots because they knew they had to (and as an excuse to give each other low blows). In a match like this, the whole bout should be built around climbing the pole, getting the glove, then using it, I'd rather see a total climbing contest with almost no other action than what we got. As I said, this was a very good regular brawl, but it wasn't designed that way, which makes the match a failure for what it was meant to be.

 

Another problem I had was that it took ten minutes to get to the action. Was Brian that limited that he had to be protected even in a big match like this? Apparently so, and if that's true he shouldn't have been champion no matter how good his act with Tammy was.

 

The battle of words was a three-way draw; each had their good and bad points. Tammy has incredible natural instincts for promos and such, but she needs to learn how to get her wrestlers over first and herself second. Tracy being in love with her wasn't the focus of the match; she should have been talking about how Brian was going to stuff that glove down Tracy's throat. That will come in time, though. She also needs to learn to talk over the crowd instead of stopping dead when they boo her, which slowed the prematch to a crawl. Brian's improved from his face days, but he's still not great. As for Tracy, could we please stop with the "witch with a capital B" routine? That sounds like fifth-grade stuff, especially since he out-and-out called Brian a faggot during the match. "Bitch" is by no means a nice word, but it was more acceptable than "faggot" in 1993 and still is today, especially since, as Kevin said, Brian's character had nothing whatsoever effeminate about him.

 

I liked the finish, especially since I remember what's coming. Corny sure must have thought a lot of Tammy even then, because she's going to get to work alongside a legend like Ron and a tremendous talker like Tony, which can only aid in her development. About the only thing better for her would have been a spot with a tag team opposite Corny and the Bodies, which she never got because the Armstrong feud and all of its offshoots ran for so long that she was already Sunny in the WWF by the time it finished. Tony ought to teach Brian something about working in the ring as well. I also think we start to see Candido on a more regular basis, which will only add to the fun, as he was great both by himself and with Tammy.

 

I had no problem with Tracy spanking Tammy after how she'd interfered throughout the match. Yes, the spanking spot's offensive to women, promotes domestic violence, and just plain looks lousy, but they were determined to have it, and they set it up well enough so the fans could understand why Tracy did it. As I said, though, if respect for women doesn't stop promoters from using it (and it didn't), the fact that it looks terrible should. Tracy couldn't (and presumably didn't want to) really smack Tammy hard, so he basically played patty-cake with her behind until Brian attacked him, which he could have done without Tammy ever being touched.

 

Les and Dutch were great here. Dutch has really toned down the heelishness noticeably since Fuller and Golden left, and here he was almost neutral, even to the point of encouraging Tracy during his (Tracy's) time on the mic. He and Les had a nice little dialogue about what role the fans actually play during matches, and they even talked about the matches they had against each other way back when. Les is probably the best part-time play-by-play guy in the business; when Corny trots him out, you know it's a big card, and Les always lives up to it.

 

Dutch's best segment came when he talked about how Brian had to take all the breath out of Tracy's body before he could attempt to climb the pole; it made a routine reverse chinlock sound like smart strategy. I still say Jesse Ventura's the best color guy in the business, but between Dutch and Larry Zbyszko, the margin's getting smaller every day.

 

I loved Les showing enough respect for Tammy's womanhood to call her "Miss Tammy". Almost any other announcer would be frantically searching his mental thesaurus looking for vile names to use that wouldn't get him thrown off the air. I also liked Dutch complaining about how some of the previous matches tore down the announce position; they must have had some real donnybrooks that didn't make the set for some reason.