[1999-06-19-KAW-TV] Tracy Smothers vs Motley Cruz

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Awesome that Motley Cruz is showing up here - he was a local Arkansas wrestler in this rinky-dink group called IPW that ran in Little Rock and had local TV in late ’89. He was the top heel there. Smothers puts Cruz over as a great brawler before the match but challenges him to have an actual wrestling match this time. It’s 1999, so the fans in the bar don’t seem too enthusiastic about that. Smothers wants Cruz to turn back the clock and show these people what he can do in a straight up wrestling match. Ok, I’m already digging the presentation of this so much that this will have to be pretty horrible for me to say no. Cruz slips into all the typical heel stuff and his very Southern valet interferes liberally. Cruz doesn’t execute everything great, but his timing is really good and he has nice range to his offense. Smothers of course looks awesome. Cruz does bring a table into this at the end and tries to drop an elbow through a table but Smothers moves, does an awesome football tackle and then gets the jawjacker until Cruz’s partner The Hellraiser interferes and gives Cruz the win. Nice old school match (for the most part) and really good display of what Smothers could do.

[Tim Evans]

Smothers wants a straight match vs Motely cruz. I've been watching a lot of this promotion lately and almost every match had weapons like ECW. This was a nice match with Smothers looking good and Cruz holding his own. Tasha Simone comes in and it turns into a brawl with guys running in. Cruz's manager Tasha started in Memphis in the early 90's. She was billed as Miss rodeo when she got attacked by Moondog Fifi back in 91ish. She was also the women's champ in 96/97 feuding with Jackie. I think she still wrestles to this day.

[soup23]

This match was fine but between the bar aesthetics and Cruz seemingly out of his comfort zone, it wasn't much more than a decent look at an actual match in this ridiculous feud. **

[PeteF3]

Better than it had any right to be. KAW's methhead announcer actually does a decent job keeping up with the old-school work and lamenting how Cruz got his win in a rather Styles-esque manner. The Hellraiser appears to be future NXT prospect Bam Neely if wrestlingdata is to be believed. The IPW that Loss talks about is the same promotion as the infamous Jumpin' Jeff Farmer promo.