The Furious Flashbacks – Smoky Mountain Wrestling TV Episodes #15 & #16

Posted by Arnold Furious on 04.18.2008

Jim Cornette does some world class goading then some world class shilling

The Furious Flashbacks – Smoky Mountain Wrestling TV Episodes #15 & #16

Jim Cornette does some world class goading then some world class shilling

EPISODE #15. AIRDATE – 9th May 1992.

We’re in Harrogate, Tennessee. Hosts are Bob Caudle & Dutch Mantell. The latter has the title belts for the upcoming Volunteer Slam championship matches. They plug Volunteer Slam. Odd they’ve not mentioned Volunteer Slam before. That’s on May 22nd.

Barry Horowitz v Robert Gibson

Your standard jobber opening match. Horriblewitz never beats anyone. He can bump though so Gibson pops off the babyface basics. Jimmy Golden joins the commentary to talk about his forthcoming match against Gibson at Volunteer Slam. That’s a first round match in the SMW title tournament. Golden slates the Rock N Roll Express claiming they never had any competition. Barry gives him a serious shoeing here and pops off a few suplexes. Golden continues the abuse claiming to have beaten Gibson’s “entire family”. Say, do they have a match coming up? On May 22nd? At Volunteer Slam? In Knoxville, Tennessee? Tickets are on sale you say? For May 22nd? These guys LOVE shilling so much. When it’s May 22nd this year I’ll be sitting around thinking I should be doing something because the date has been burned into my psyche. Gibson counters standing and busts out a bulldog out of nowhere for the winning pin. *1/2. Fun job match. Barry was always really good at losing. No wonder the WWE hired him.

BACKSTAGE We continue to talk about May 22nd and Volunteer Slam. Jim Cornette and his Heavenly Bodies run down the Fantastics. Cornette saying he’s hated Bobby Fulton since he met him in 1984. He says the whole Fulton family is trash and Bobby’s Dad is an unemployed alcoholic bum. The Fulton’s bust in to demand a match right now. “I’ll tell you something about else about your Mama. She was never lonesome while your Dad was out begging because there were plenty of people with 30 minutes to kill and ten bucks to spend” – Cornette continues the abuse instigating a pull apart brawl. “Don’t you forget about May 22nd” – Bobby Fulton. I’m sure no one did. They want a title match right now. Bob Armstrong says it’s not official and this isn’t a sanctioned match but it’s happening anyway.

Heavenly Bodies w/Jim Cornette v The Fantastics

IMPROMPTU! Jackie cleans house with babyface basics. Mostly dropkicks. Caudle says the winners of this match WILL win the tag titles. EARLY! The Bodies continue to have trouble with Jackie because he’s big and fast. Of course he’s also inexperienced and immature but he sure learned babyface basics off his brother. The tag teaming skills are superior on the Bodies though even if the Fulton’s are brothers. Jackie gets himself caught out and clotheslined by Stan Lane. Jackie gets thrown over the top rope behind the refs back and Cornette nails him with the racket. Mantel makes the very good point that the unprepared Fulton’s were baited into this match by Cornette’s very deliberately offensive comments. We interrupt the match to hear from Brian Lee shilling his match in some stinkwater berg against Dirty White Boy. We return with Bobby taking a beating, which makes me think it was him right before the break and they just got the name wrong. Lane misses a corner charge and Jackie gets the hot tag. BABYFACE BASICS~~!!! I think he runs through every babyface basic in the babyface basic book (available from all good book shops). Lane gets caught in a sleeper but the ref is busy with the other guys and Cornette waffles Jackie with the tennis racket! BODIES WIN THE TITLES! **3/4. Great formula match for free TV.

POST MATCH Bobby lays Cornette out and the Fulton’s clean house with the title belts. Cornette nails Bobby in the leg though and they trap Jackie in the Figure Four. Pritchard splashes it a bunch of times and he looks hurt. Babyfaces run in from the back to prevent the further crippling of the Fulton Brothers but the damage is done and the Heavenly Bodies are the tag team champions.

BACKSTAGE Doug Furnas is interviewed and he says that Jackie Fulton is badly hurt. He looks VERY muscular. Great star in Japan and all over the place really before the WWF had a bash at him and that was the end of that.

Joe Cazana v Doug Furnas

OH, YEAH! Doug is billed as the “world’s strongest man”, which is a bit of a stretch even if he holds some weight lifting records. Shame he’s got lumped with that sack of crap Joe Cazana. He controls amateur style and Cazana is way out of his depth. Furnas just starts throwing this guy around. Ok, here’s a takedown! WHOOMP. Cazana bounces off him a couple of times and Furnas looks incredible here. He presses Cazana. I’d have pushed this guy to the moon. The crowd respond to him like crazy for a debut because he’s big, strong and has great wrestling skills. Furnas pops off a rana for the win in short order. *. Furnas looked FANTASTIC out there. Just a class act all round.

BACKSTAGE Caudle has Bob Armstrong and Hector Guerrero. He really does look like Eddie with a goofy wig on and glasses. He congratulates Bob on banning the piledriver. Bob is upset about Jackie Fulton being injured and says he’ll never legalise the piledriver. But here’s PAUL ORNDORFF. He tells Hector if he isn’t man enough to take a piledriver then he shouldn’t be wrestling. Tim Horner gets in Orndorff’s face and Paul tells him he’s going to fuck up his neck on May 22nd. How many awesome segments in a row is that? SMW on a roll here. Bob Caudle continues to plug Volunteer Slam. He also says there’s an 18 man over the top rope match in 2 weeks on SMW TV. Neat.

Ben Jordan v Dirty White Boy

There’s no Ron Wright. Apparently he’s in care until Volunteer Slam. Heh. Much like with Furnas the little jobber gets manhandled here. Jordan battles back with babyface basics, as your basic babyface does. DWB just catches him with a sideslam. He’s overwhelming on the power stakes against a smaller guy. DWB adds in some cheating as he chokes and the chokes on the ropes for variety. DWB lays in with punches. He could probably finish this match at any time but he just wanted a longer workout. Jordan just absorbs one shot after another. Bucksnort Blaster finishes. ½*. That really was a total squash.

BACKSTAGE Bob Caudle has Dixie Dynomite. He flubs his promo something fierce. He also has stupid gimmick catchphrases. He shills Volunteer Slam and his bout with DWB at said show. We get an update on Jackie Fulton and he’s being taken to hospital. Yeah, not a medical facility but a fuckin’ hospital. We get a look at the bracket for the title tournament at Volunteer Slam. We get a word with Brian Lee after that with him cutting a promo on Buddy Landell, his first round opponent.

Buddy Landell v Danny Davis

This would be the main event for this week’s show. Landell is in the tournament but Davis isn’t. Landell makes sure there’s heat on this by pulling Davis’ hair while working at the arm. Landell borrows the Naitcha Boy strut. Davis comes back working the leg with stomps. We’re running a little short on TV time. Davis briefly attempts a bearhug and then realises he’s a midget and stops it. They do a roll counter spot and Landell pulls the tights for the win. *1/4. That was ok. But compared to the earlier tag match it wasn’t much of a main event.

POST MATCH Landell gets interviewed. He shills Volunteer Slam. “I’m gonna rip your head off and dump in your neck” he says to Brian Lee. Is he cross eyed? And what’s the Volunteer Jam? How many drugs is he on? You can tell why he never got a big push anywhere because he’s a fucking mess. His promos are horrible.

BACKSTAGE Jim Cornette & the Heavenly Bodies join us for some gloating. Stan Lane is so cool he gets to wear sunglasses. Bob Armstrong also gets a word saying that the Heavenly Bodies are in fact the tag team champions. Bobby Fulton is there. He says they’re coming back after the Bodies to get those straps. He’s going to wait until Jackie is healthy though.

EPISODE #16. AIRDATE – May 16th 1992.

This is a special Volunteer Slam preview show. Host is Phil Rainey with Jim Cornette. We’re outside the Civic Coliseum in Knoxville. They plug the card and Cornette talks about the history of the building (the Briscos, the Funks) and the title belt. He says it represents the best wrestler in SMW. Or Brian Lee. Yanno, whichever.

CLIPS – We see Dixie Dynomite beating Carl Stiles complete with Dutch Mantell’s tremendous commentary. Dixie Dynomite gets a promo. At least this one is pre-recorded so its not as bad as the live one but “all my little firecrackers” is a poor name for your fans, not that you have any, and “the south with rise again” is not a babyface sign-off. More clips follow of Dixie’s opponent DWB as he whips Joey Maggs for a while. He gets a promo too. He reiterates that Ron Wright is in a home until the show. He says Dixie is “real fancy” but DWB gets hit in the face with chains and he’s fine. He seems far more confident.

CLIPS – We see Buddy Landell’s win over Danny Davis from last week’s show. Thanks for that. Landell gets a promo telling how Brian Lee is a loser who hangs out with other losers. He makes several shoot-style remarks that were probably lost on Smoky’s audience. Once again, I’m not shocked he failed to catch on anywhere. We then get clips of Brian Lee set to his music. Urgh. Apparently he’s the “most popular wrestler” in SMW. So, who’s winning that tournament again? He does the shoutiest promo to date. In fact it’s so boring and cookie cutter there’s nothing to even recap. Can’t someone else win?

The director of the Civic Auditorium says it’s an honour for them to host Smoky Mountain Wrestling’s show on May 22nd. Cornette complains about ringside being sold out and the ticket office slams the door on him. Heh. We learn the Bodies will face Johnny & Davey Rich and Cornette drops back into character to make fun of Jackie Fulton’s injury. That’s accompanied by clips from last week. Great. Cornette is quite happy that Bobby Fulton isn’t coming back until Jackie is fit. He says they’re gutless and they’ll get hurt worse next time. Cornette cuts a great wrestling promo to go along with his assortment of other promos this evening.

CLIPS – We get a look at Robert Gibson as he defeats Joe Cazzzzzzana. Gibson gets a gruff voiced promo where he talks at speed using the word “boy” a lot. Terrible mumbloid promo. Next we get a look at Jimmy Golden winning a jobber match. Golden, wearing a pimp hat, shades and a lumberjack shirt says he’ll take care of Robert Gibson. He looked like a geriatric Blue Brother. I love it. Cornette is whinging to Ticketmaster about the lack of front row seats. Heh. They stop off to plug the 18 man Battle Royal, which is exactly like the Royal Rumble. Only with less men. Mountain Mayhem is the name coined for it. I’m looking for to it.

CLIPS – Paul Orndorff being unimpressed about being a wildcard. In fact most of that whole angle is on there where Orndorff turned heel and piledrived everyone. I fucking LOVE that angle. The headspike that Hector took was awesome. In fact every piledriver he did was awesome but the one on Hector was especially great. Next is a look at Tim Horner who also beats Joe Cazana. That guy will job for food! Hector Guerrero gets a word with Tim Horner. Hector wants Horner to leave some of Paul Orndorff for him. I imagine they’ll be plenty left. Horner says he doesn’t like Orndorff running down the locals because he’s one of them. And we leave the scene with a shot of the bracket for the show on May 22nd. Next up is Volunteer Slam.

The 411: The first hour is brilliant, brilliant TV but the second clip show from SMW is a disappointment. There’s almost nothing in terms of new content in show 16 just like there was next to nothing in show 14. The difference in rating is due to show 15 being so damn good. New tag champs!

Final Score:  5.0   [ Not So Good ]