[1994-02-19-SMW-TV] Down and Dirty: The Thrillseekers

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

"Hello, and welcome to Down and Dirty with Dutch. I am John Bobbitt, and WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT KNIFE?"

 

The Thrillseekers officially sign a contract to wrestle for SMW in a press conference setup. They didn't do a Q & A, but we know how annoyed Lance Storm always seems by those. Jericho is thrilled by how nice the REFEREES and everyone have been to them so far, and they're looking forward to proving themselves against the top teams.

 

Massive hype coming.

[Cox]

It's really too bad the Thrillseekers didn't really make it in SMW. It wasn't due to a lack of trying by Cornette, that's for sure.

[Kevin Ridge]

We start with Dutch with his great line about John Bobbitt and the knife. Curtis really examining the contract signings here to make sure things are official.

[shoe]

This is done pretty well. Storm and Jericho just aren't very good at this stuff yet. They get a huge push out of the gate. I will say after watching a lot of SMW is that the Thrillseekers squashes were a lot of fun. They weren't good on the stick yet. Lance is a natural heel, Jericho with his pandering to the camera makes him a heel. Having Well Dunn as their 1st program was just a bad idea.

[Exposer]

This is a cool little segment. Storm and Jericho aren't polished enough yet though. Dutch is entertaining as always.

[soup23]

I did like how SMW made th contract look like a high school recruit signing his letter of intent for college and they way they pushed the Seekers over on their Canadian work.

[El-P]

The best tag team coming in the last 20 years. Hum... Overhyping a bit much, don't you say ? Lance already looks as boring and wooden as he'll end up being during his entire career. Jericho has classic blond hair.

Best part is Dutch's intro with the Bobbitt joke.

[PeteF3]

"One of the greatest teams of all-time," says Dr. Dutch Bobbitt, which is a little over-the-top. This is all nice and official-looking, but Storm in his white shirt and necktie looks about as "thrill seeking" as your average middle manager. Jericho is a long, long, long, long, LONG way away from having legions of Jerichoholics at his beck-and-call, but he's instantly more glib than Storm.

[GSR]

‘I am John Bobbit and what are you doing with that knife?’

 

It was announced earlier in the week that Smoky Mountain Wrestling had signed, according to experts, ‘one of the greatest teams of all time and more than likely, the team of the 90s’, The Thrillseekers, Chris Jericho and Lance Storm. We go to footage of that signing and all the SMW officials and dignitaries like Sandy Scott, Tim Horner, Mark Curtis and Pam Lawson are there, whilst The Thrillseekers are sat at the table alongside Dutch Mantel and Bob Armstrong. It’s a proud moment for Armstrong to have The Thrillseekers in SMW, as to come here they’ve had to vacate the tag team titles that they held in Canada. This is their first venture into the United States and from the film that he’s seen, he thinks they’re the hottest team to come along in the last 20 years. Storm says SMW is the most tag team rich promotion in the world twith the likes of the Rock & Roll Express and the Heavenly Bodies and that’s why they are happy to be here, so they can prove themselves against the best and show everyone that they are the tag team of the future. The Thrillseekers and Armstrong sign the contract and the deal is finalised (to rapturous applause from the SMW officials).

 

This is the first time that they’ve ever done a contract signing for newcomers so they clearly had big things planned for them (especially when you consider Well Dunn debuted on the same TV show to no such fanfare). I would’ve preferred a music video in there somewhere showcasing them and some of their high spots, as this talk of ‘greatest tag team of all time’ reeked of hyperbole.

[garretta]

Did Lance and Chris actually have to vacate a Canadian tag title of some sort? I didn't think there were any major (or even minor) promotions unique to Canada by this point.

 

These two were obviously going to be the replacements for Rock 'n' Roll, although Ricky and Robert really hadn't slowed down a lot by this time. Actually, I wonder if they may not have been heels in the long run once they got over, because it almost seems like the hype we see here was supposed to grate on the fans' nerves eventually.

 

It's an ingenious strategy, really; push the Seekers, who are about as southern as Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik, down the people's throats until they rebel and start praying for Ricky and Robert to take them down a few notches. If they were just another team to fill the roster, they wouldn't have been hyped to this extent right out of the box, that's for sure. Chris was definitely the better promo of the two, and whose dumb idea was it to stick Lance in that conservative suit, which is about as far away from the thrill-seeking image as one can possibly get?

 

I loved the John Wayne Bobbitt reference from Dutch, but it was strange seeing him as SMW's answer to Todd Pettengill at the press conference. I guess Brian Matthews (their interview specialist) was busy that day.

 

Seeing Tim Horner as a suit reminded me of Corny's stories about how Tim took advantage of his rather modest stardom in SMW to scam every dollar he possibly could, to the point where Corny got fed up and fired him. If you look Corny up on YouTube, you're bound to run into the clip somewhere, and it's not only hilarious but very enlightening.