[1993-09-25-SMW-TV] Bob Armstrong vs Black Ninja

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Finish of a recent match where after a ref distraction, the Black Ninja switches out with the one that's been in the ring and the fresh one pins Armstrong. SMW had way too many run-ins. Anyway, as a result of the finish, Bob Armstrong must leave SMW.

[El-P]

Bad booking for Cornette after weeks of promising a "secret weapon". This was lame.

[Kevin Ridge]

With the tease of big name wrestlers possibly being opponents it was a let down for a generic guy in a ninja suit. Second one ends up getting in ring and Bob Armstrong must now leave SMW.

[PeteF3]

Cornette has had a terrific week--days after becoming Commissioner, he's sent Bob Armstrong out of SMW entirely. After weeks of hype and teasing of Abdullah the Butcher or Yokozuna, Cornette's "secret weapon" is a dumpy-looking guy in all black. Really underwhelming. Two Black Ninjas conspire to pin the Bullet to a noticeable babyface reaction.

[soup23]

Yeah, this felt like a bit of a mis-step and overbooked without really accomplishing much but stacking the deck even more against Bob.

[GSR]

So Jim Cornette’s ‘secret weapon’ is just a generic masked man? After promising it could be anyone, including anyone from the WWF, this is an almighty anti-climax. The Bullet has the Ninja in a sleeper when Cornette gets in the ring and is about to hit him with the tennis racket, but Mark Curtis grabs it and stops him. Armstrong turns his focus to Cornette and puts him in the sleeper while the Ninja just walks round the ring and doesn’t appear to be overly concerned! Armstrong goes back to the Ninja and again puts him in the sleeper while Curtis tries to get Cornette out of the ring. A second Black Ninja shows up and comes off the top turnbuckle with a shot to Armstrong’s head. He rolls the original Ninja out the ring, makes the cover and Curtis counts the fall meaning Bullet Bob Armstrong must leave Smoky Mountain Wrestling forever.

 

Cornette does address the Black Ninja in the follow up interview, pretty much saying that by him being this 'generic masked man' it meant he could swap and replace him during the match. Still doesn't get over the fact that it is a let down mind.

[GSR]

Just something of note that I read from the Observer of this time, the two Black Ninja's were played by Larry Santo and Brian Armstrong respectively, so Brian ended up pinning his old man.

[garretta]

Wouldn't it have been something if Corny had actually run with Brian being the Black Ninja? Imagine Corny getting the last word in by convincing Brian to not only turn on Bullet Bob, but wrestle him in a match (albeit under a hood) and drive him out of SMW. Imagine the shock of the fans as Brian was revealed as the man who'd just ended his dad's career. Then imagine the follow-up matches between Brian on one side and Scott or Steve on the other. Instead, we get just two guys in generic costumes and a finish with so much bullshit that the even the village idiot knows it's not going to stand up for long.

 

The worst part was, most of the people probably assumed that it was going to be Yoko, since Corny was already associated with him and wouldn't have to do anything special to bring him in. They could have even put the WWF title on the line to make it more interesting. Anything would have been better than what we got, including Corny getting in the ring himself.

 

Corny trying to save the whole thing the way he did shows that he knew he screwed up. It was actually a pretty clever way to couch the disaster, and I'm fairly sure that his intended audience bought it back then, even if we don't today.