SMW Ongoing Thread

[Cox]

So I wound up pretty disappointed by the Volunteer Slam overall. This was the commercial version, which clipped most of the matches on the show, in some cases severely (Brian Lee/Buddy Landell and Robert Gibson/Paul Orndorff are barely on here). Here's thoughts from what I did see:

 

-Was disappointed that DWB/Dixie Dynomite was clipped, as I thought that looked like the best match on paper. Too bad.

 

-I know there was a thread about this on the board, but Paul Orndorff sucks. There just seemed to be places in his match with Tim Horner where he didn't know what to do, so he'd stand around for a while before doing whatever it is he decided to do next. I think I'll like SMW more later in the year because they'll have a talent infusion (Morton, Smothers, Sullivan, Candido) but they'll also stop using Orndorff, who I won't miss at all.

 

-Lee/DWB was probably the best match that they showed, with Gibson/Golden second. Gibson/Golden was good but not anything special, but I liked Lee/DWB, and thought it was a good brawl. They'll get plenty of other chances to be rematched in the future and I look to see how their matches progress, particularly when they switch roles 2 years later.

 

-The finish was a total clusterfuck, though. First, Brian Lee wins the SMW heavyweight title on a DQ? What the H? They're pushing Lee as their top babyface and he can't win the tournament final by pinfall? Second, when Orndorff and DWB jump Lee after the match, Bob Armstrong runs in and pretty much singlehandedly clears out the ring and starts beating up pretty much everybody, I'm pretty sure I saw him take out Joey Maggs for absolutely no reason in the post-match brawl. Why is the commissioner coming out of this show looking stronger than the guy they were planning on building around? I'm not the biggest Brian Lee fan, but he deserved better than this. The poor guy needed all the help he could get, and this show did him no favors. No wonder he never got over as the top babyface. And I get that they probably wanted to protect Orndorff so they could do rematches, but if that's the case, beat Orndorff in the semifinals and let Lee pin DWB to end the tournament. I dunno, this left a bad taste in my mouth.

[Dylan Waco]

Totally disagree on Orndorff. I'm not a huge fan of the guy over all, but I thought he was very good in early SMW. In fact I thought over all he was the best guy in the company during the early going.

[Cox]

I like his promos and such, but I just find him to be a bore in the ring. Who knows, maybe some of his TV matches will change my mind, but his match with Horner did nothing for me, and I'm a Horner fan.

[shoe]

After Volunteer Slam 1 the shows begin to pick up. It really isn't till 93 when the big shows begin to really deliver. Which of course is when the talent is upgraded. I can't begin to stress how important the Rock N Roll, and Smothers were for the promotion.

[Dylan Waco]

After Volunteer Slam 1 the shows begin to pick up. It really isn't till 93 when the big shows begin to really deliver. Which of course is when the talent is upgraded. I can't begin to stress how important the Rock N Roll, and Smothers were for the promotion.

Totally true. Really SMW to me will always boil down to five acts - The RnR's, Smothers, DWB, Corny and Bob Armstrong. Once all of those elements were in play it became a consistently good promotion. Prior to that it was more hit or miss.

[shoe]

After Volunteer Slam 1 the shows begin to pick up. It really isn't till 93 when the big shows begin to really deliver. Which of course is when the talent is upgraded. I can't begin to stress how important the Rock N Roll, and Smothers were for the promotion.

Totally true. Really SMW to me will always boil down to five acts - The RnR's, Smothers, DWB, Corny and Bob Armstrong. Once all of those elements were in play it became a consistently good promotion. Prior to that it was more hit or miss.

 

 

You hit it right on the head. Throw in the Bodies too, but their heat came from Corny. Bob Armstrong was such a great promo and foil for Cornette. Those guys you listed could all work, and all could cut promos. The way they used Bullet Bob was amazing. Who in 1993 would have thought Armstrong could still be a draw. Sure it was on SMW yardstick. When he was positioned right he could still draw on occasion.

[Cox]

I'd say of the stuff I've seen so far, the clear highlight for me is Ron Wright. His promos are really great, and they've somehow managed to make the crippled guy in a wheelchair and made him villified for it. Between that and DWB bringing it in the ring every show, the two of them have been a real highlight.

[Negro Suave]

-Something that could never happen today, and was pretty questionable even in 1992: Jimmy Golden using a dropkick as his finisher. Granted, Jimmy Golden throws a hell of a dropkick, especially impressive for a guy his size, and because he's so big, it looks believable enough for a guy with that height to be able to generate good power on a dropkick. But still...I'm guessing this is pretty much the last time any wrestler ever used a dropkick as a finish ever again, at least until I talk somebody in UWC into using it as a finish.

 

Overall, fun stuff...I'm looking forward to checking out the Volunteer Slam.

Missle Dropkick maybe... or even Jumping Bomb Angel style Drop kick, regular drop kick... nah it's seen too often.

[Cox]

I think a regular standing dropkick could get over with our crowd. I bet the old lady with the cane would love it!

[rainmakerrtv]

-Doug Furnas makes a random TV appearance. I don't think he comes back again until '94 to introduce his brother Mike, who as far as I know, never really made it anywhere outside a small prelim role here.

And rightfully so, Mike Furnas was dreadful.

[Mad Dog]

I hated the Tim Horner stuff. He was an awful promo and they practically had him kissing babies on the side of the road to try and get him over.

[goodhelmet]

Tim Horner's Feature was AWESOME... with the unintentionally bad recording of "Shameless" to cap it off.

[Cox]

I put this on YouTube:

 

[Cox]

I'll have more thoughts about various stuff later, but I just love how at one of the TV tapings, they have a wrestler flat-out wearing a swastika called "The Stormtrooper" and neither Bob Caudle nor Dutch Mantell find this particularly heinous. He's just casually a Nazi wrestling for Smoky Mountain Wrestling doing job work.

[Cox]

Just watched the first Fire on the Mountain card. This show wasn't as clipped as the Volunteer Slam video, which was a plus, since they only showed five matches. From what aired:

 

-Tim Horner/Buddy Landell was a disappointment. This was an I Quit match and it just wasn't violent enough to be a good I Quit match. I can understand saving some of the gimmicks for later in the show, but the next match showed just how to be a violent wrestling match with limited use of gimmicks. The problem seems to be Tim Horner got in too much offense, when one of his strengths is selling, and he's not great at bringing the hate-filled violence needed to make an I Quit work. Landell is pretty good at the hate-filled violence but wasn't bringing it like he normally does, maybe because he knew he was finishing up after this tour. They tried to do more of a mat-wrestling I Quit match, and after they had done a good job establishing this as a blood feud, it just didn't feel right.

 

-Ron Garvin/Paul Orndorff was pretty enjoyable. Garvin rarely disappoints, and it's kind of surprising he didn't carve out a niche here in SMW as a babyface's tough-guy tag team partner for big events, as I think he could have excelled as a special attraction 1-2 times a year. Orndorff also brought it here more than I had seen in the past. Only downside here is the finish, this was a "piledriver" match where you had to hit the piledriver to win, and somehow Garvin won this match on a DQ, which seemed pretty lame. If you promote a piledriver match, you pretty much have to have one of the guys eat a piledriver, the only guy who got piledriven was Danny Davis.

 

-Really enjoyed Rock 'n' Roll/Stud Stable, but I'm a Stud Stable mark so that was to be expected. One thing that was quite noticeable here was how much better the Rock 'n' Roll are than the Fantastics. Better workers, better double-team moves, oodles more charisma...this match was clearly the beginning of the end for the Fultons, especially since Japanese tours kept them from being around full-time. For their part, the Stud Stable unleashed a nice beating on Ricky and made this one fun. Looking forward to more stuff between these teams.

 

-DWB/Lee wasn't as good as their match from Volunteer Slam, but wasn't bad. Lee took most of the match since he was losing, and Dirty White Boy did a good job selling for him and making him look good before the interference finish, which started the Sullivan/Lee feud. With DWB selling most of the match, it didn't have as much of his awesome beatdowns as I'd have liked, but it was overall an OK match. Looking forward to both of these guys doing other things, since I'm sure I'll have plenty of Lee/DWB matches to watch in '93 and '94.

 

-Fantastics/Bodies was a fun hate-filled barbed wire cage with lots of blood. The Fultons both hit gushers in the barbed wire, and it felt like both teams were really trying to maim each other in the barbs. This might not hold up in a post-death match world, but I'm sure in 1992, this seemed crazy violent and scary. The post-match interview with Bobby and Jackie Fulton with them both looking bloody and scarred was pretty ghastly, and made it seem like they went through hell to win the tag team titles.

 

Overall, a better show than the Volunteer Slam, though it felt a little overdone with gimmick matches. Every match on the show had some sort of gimmick, with White Boy having to leave SMW if he lost the match to Brian Lee, and an unaired taped fist match with Killer Kyle and Dixie Dy-no-mite also on the show, and it disappointed me that it didn't make the commercial video as I bet that was probably pretty good. It did make the show seem overcrowded, though, and I think it did hurt the Landell/Horner match since they couldn't use much in the way of gimmicks to get over the I Quit match. But overall, a good show.

[Cox]

As an aside, if anybody has episodes 33 and 34 of SMW TV or knows where I can get them, please drop me a PM. As it turns out, my set was missing those two episodes.

[Mad Dog]

One of my discs disappeared from the move last year. Of course it was the next episode I was going to watch. Guess I'll start over at episode 1 and hope it turns up before I get back there. I'll have to go check my parents house, that's the last place I remember seeing the disc.

 

I have episodes 33 and 34 but I don't have the ability to duplicate DVDs anymore. Sorry, wish I could help.

[Cox]

I've trudged on without them, I'm a little disappointed I missed the first Bodies/RNR match, but lord knows I have enough of those on this set.

 

Man, Tim Horner pretty much speaks in cliches. His interviews can be painful to watch. Fortunately, Tracy Smothers just arrived and will help the top of the cards in the charisma department. Can't wait until his program with the Dirty White Boy starts up.

 

It's strange, in that it feels like at this point (late October/early November) that they started phasing out the Stud Stable, moving them down the card to a feud with the Fantastics with the Rock 'n' Roll feuding with the Bodies. I had thought the three way program started up immediately, but I guess they thought they'd have the Fantastics around longer than they did. Speaking of helping out the top of the cards, while there's nothing wrong with the Fantastics in the ring, they definitely pale in comparison to the Rock 'n' Roll. Big leap in quality, particularly in interviews and charisma, from Brian Lee, Tim Horner, and the Fantastics to Tracy Smothers and the Rock 'n' Roll Express.

 

The Orndorff/Garvin program is starting to heat up. How did Ron Garvin never get a random WCW Saturday Night run in the late 90's? He can still go here. I mean, it feels like a crime that we never got a Ron Garvin/Finlay match on WCWSN sometime in 1998. I know folks talked about him in the Fall From Grace thread, but in the ring, he can still bring it as late as 1992 here in SMW. It's kind of a shame this wound up as his one big run in SMW. Maybe he didn't want to work a full schedule, but it'd still be cool to see Tracy Smothers or Dirty White Boy bring him in once a year as their special tag team partner against the various top heels in the territory. Oh well.

[Mad Dog]

I can't find my disc with a month of episodes. I have no clue where it fucking went. Guess I'll just keep an eye out for it.

[Mad Dog]

Found my lost disc. It was hiding in with the 1986 World Championship Wrestling DVDs.

[Cox]

I've watched through Thanksgiving Thunder now. Some more comments:

 

-I gave Orndorff a hard time earlier, but I'm really digging him now as he is pretty great at being a pissed off asshole. Ron Garvin and Danny Davis are almost being booked like heels. They taunt him by calling him Paula, they stole his robe and cut it up to bits, Davis is clearly a huge pussy for being out of action for six weeks after one piledriver (Ben Jordan took a piledriver from Orndorff a few months back and he was back doing jobs the next week), and then they started working a handicap match program around the horn, but Orndorff does a great job at making himself such an asshole that nobody could possibly root for him. Doesn't hurt that Garvin remains pretty awesome, and once again I have to ask, how did he not get a random WCW run in the mid to late 90's? All the shitheads they signed and they can't find a spot for Ron Garvin?

 

-The Rock 'n' Roll/Heavenly Bodies stuff is all great. It really feels like the first truly hot feud since SMW opened up, even hotter than the Bodies/Fantastics feud, which was good, but didn't have the long history of Rock 'n' Roll vs Cornette, and the Fantastics just aren't as charismatic as the Rock 'n' Roll (not an insult, few wrestlers are as charismatic as Ricky Morton). Hot matches, hot angles, some great brawling...probably the first feud that got SMW on the map.

 

-Somebody must have felt that the Horner/DWB program would have problems drawing, because they really seemed to go all out to put Horner over. First, they did back-to-back big heat injury angles to make him sympathetic, first hanging him with a noose from a ringpost, and then the very next week, DWB hits him with a beer bottle. Then, when Horner comes back after selling for maybe a week, they resort to making DWB into a wimpering pussy by having him run away from Horner at every turn. I mean, I get that Horner is a good worker but bland as hell, and he speaks in cliches, but it still felt like they were trying a little too hard.

 

-Oh, and Brian Lee was spiked a few weeks ago, and that is still violent and bloody as all hell. There's no way anything this violent could air on non-cable television today. This also felt like a bit of an extreme way to get over a top babyface by having him butchered to hell, but if it means having awesome Kevin Sullivan promos, I can ignore some stuff. Speaking of promos, can Brian Lee go one promo without mentioning his height and weight? And can he at least keep the height consistent? When SMW opened up, all his promos would mention how he's "6'7, 280 pounds." Then around Volunteer Slam, he'd mention how he's "6'8, 280 pounds." Now, after getting butchered by Sullivan, he's "6'6", 280 pounds." Did Kevin Sullivan somehow beat him so badly, he lost two inches of height? And can't he have a better catchphrase than his height and weight? C'mon Brian, I want to like your stuff but you have to work with me here.

[Mad Dog]

Horner still had the book around this time so that probably answers several of the questions to how they booked that feud. The whole Horner feud seemed to be trying too hard.

[shoe]

I always got the feeling that Cornette booked the promotion. I can see Cornette allowing Horner to book his own stuff. (like the ninja stuff) Plus you can totally see Sullivan booking his own program. Yet to say Horner had the book was a stretch. I might be wrong though.

[Mad Dog]

Horner was booking for awhile but to quote Cornette "he couldn't book the fart after a meal at Taco Bell" so that all fell apart fairly quickly. I don't know how far or wide his actual booking was though. Horner had a stake in ownership too.

[shoe]

That I knew about the ownership aspect. It just seemed to me that their was a lot of fingerprints on certain angles. You can see Cornette running old MX angles, Sullivan was like it was Florida again. The t.v's were booked like a quasi Memphis/Mid-South t.v show. Horner putting himself against the best heels in the territory to get over. Landell, Orndorff, DWB, and getting put in programs with the beat young talent like Candido. These are just some thoughts.