[2001-02-03-IWA-MS-1st House of Hardcore Anniversary] Tracey Smothers vs Little Guido

[GSR]

No Harry Palmer with Tracey tonight, instead he’s got Chris Hero seconding him.  A big ovation for Guido who is announced as coming to them from Extreme Championship Wrestling.  Tracey gets a “Freddy Joe” chant which leads him to telling the fans to “shut the fuck up”, and how he’ll come out there and slap someone if he hears any “Tracey sucks” chants, his usual stuff that always gets a fair bit of heat.  Any “Where’s my pizza?” chants though and he’s committing mass homicide!  He puts over Guido as one of the rising stars in the sport today, but tonight he’s going to give him the wrestling lesson of his life.  A feeling out process from the former tag team partners, Tracey complaining of a hair pull when Guido got the better of the lock up.  Smothers is now wanting to wrestle, telling Guido to get on all fours, which he does.  He gets behind him, as if he’s working out how to go about this, but just stomps him in the back instead.  Guido gets the better of the scramble and Tracey goes to the ropes.  Hangman’s neckbreaker for a one, nice to see that for a change as opposed to kicking out on two like 99.9% of pin attempts.  It’s also early in the match so it makes sense to kick out on one as he’s not going to be as tired as if it were later.  Tracey is back complaining of non-existent hair pulls.  Guido’s got his number when it comes to the wrestling and you can see Smothers is visibly pissed, kicking at the bottom rope, realising he needs to alter his game plan.  He goes to slap Guido, who blocks the shot and hiptosses him as the two roll about on the mat paint brushing each other, eventually rolling out the ring.  Smothers gets the jump on him when they return inside, Hero providing interference from the floor and even in the ring when Tracey distracts the official.  Big reaction to Guido kicking out of the Hero Driver-come-slam after one such instance.  Spinning DDT.  The crowd quietens on the rear chinlock, so Tracey yells “Where’s that ‘Guido’ shit at now?”  That’s brilliant from him, the crowd naturally start chanting for Guido and they’re back involved.  Guido escapes and they trade forearms in the middle.  ‘Sicilian Slice’ for a two.  He’s warn down more, so now do the kick outs on two.  Smothers escapes the Fujiwara armbar and levels Guido with a clothesline.  Someone in the audience with a random shout of “Shaquille Ali”!  Guido catches him on the tip up and pancakes him to the mat.  Tracey blocks the ‘Kiss of Death’ with a mule kick and gets a two of his own after a ‘Flatliner’.  Another Fujiwara armbar attempt but they’re too close to the ropes.  Hero’s up on the apron so Guido goes over to nail him, but then Tracey yanks him by the trunks sending him through the ropes to the floor.  As the referee starts counting him out, Suicide Kid runs from the dressing room and hits ‘Sliced Bread #2’ on Smothers.  For some reason I didn’t get, Hero throws Guido into the ring, however Tracey kicks out of the cover anyway.  They’re back to trading in the centre, this time chops.  Kid hooks Smothers’ ankle from the outside and Guido with the ‘Kiss of Death’ for the win.  There’s something poetic about that after Hero did the exact same to Guido earlier in the match, stopping his momentum.  Guido gives Hero a baseball slide post-match and assists Kid on the ‘Rocket Launcher’ from the top turnbuckle to the floor.  Smothers acts as though he’s going to clock Hero for costing him the match, really milking it, but they hug before he goes on to challenge Kid to a match on Wednesday.

Tracey is having an awesome start to the year and while I was unsure about his previous bout with Kid, he was the best thing in it, and the year continues in the same vein with the one man show he puts on in CAPW in just over a week’s time (which I’ve already seen from when I started watching a bunch of stuff from 2001 early when I had yet to finish 2000).  I was so impressed with him here, they way he got the crowd back into when they would quieten down, little things like kicking out on one rather than two.  Great match and a great performance by Smothers.

[soup23]

Smothers is the master of working the crowd here. I had watched this before and was disappointed because Guido can go but he really stayed in the backseat here and let Tracey shine. Overall, the crowd is really rampant against Tracey and this felt like the perfect mixture of old school shtick and updated moves. ***1/4 (6.7)