Smokey Mountain Wrestling

[Guest Sting Fanatic]

I live in Southwest Virginia and when SMW was running, I got to watch their television show weekly on a local NBC affiliate (11 am Sunday morning!).  I don't remember the show having a specific name (like Raw or Nitro), but what they did do was really make you interested in coming out and seeing the house shows.  From where I live, they always made a trip to a couple of the high school gyms that were nearby (two specifically).  And they ran a whole lot of their big shows around Bristol and Johnson City, TN.  Unfortunately I never saw a show live, but I do remember the TV somewhat.

 

Kevin Sullivan and his spike.  Details are scarce in my mind, but I do remember this being something that was really brutal (or at least made out to be).  I even remember a Spike in the Box match where they put a box on a pole above all 4 ring corners.  3 of them were empty (or had other random weapons, I'm unsure) and 1 had the spike (golden spike as they called it, I think).

 

And even more, I think I remember a Ring of Fire match that Sullivan MIGHT have been involved with.  It looked like a sumo wrestling ring with the pyro ring around it.  Anybody remember details on this?

 

Beat the Champ TV Title.  If you defended the belt 5 weeks consecutively, you vacated the title and recieved 5000 dollars.  I thought it was very interesting.  I remember Tracy Smothers and the Dirty White Boy (with the guy in the wheelchair, Ron Wright or something) fighting a lot over this title.  Somebody won the 5000 bucks, but who it was I forget.

 

Rock 'n Roll Express.  My goodness were they ever over.  I know people who got items autographed by them and thought it was the most awesome thing ever.

 

Heavenly Bodies were always cool in the heel side of things.  I really hated them and you know what that means (they did their job!).

 

Sadly, I do not remember people like Jericho and Lance Storm being there, nor any WWFers from that time.  Must have been AFTER they quit airing the show here.

 

Thoughts anybody?

[Guest Mark4steamboat]

Jericho and Storm were the Thrillseekers if im not mistaken. SMW was the last great regional promotion. Awesome action with 80s style booking and a ton of blood. One of my favorite promotions of all time though i never got to go to a house show(they never took 50 miles to come to Upstate South Carolina) My saturday morning were always, Wcw at 9, wwf at 10,SMW  at 11, and USWA at 12. Great times they were.

[Guest EI Cubano]

Smokey Mountain was just an AWESOME promotion. SMW was a territorial promotion in the days that territories no longer existed and really was a portal to the past with booking style, ring style, angle progression and just all aspects in general. Honestly it was easy to tell that the promotion wouldn't last considering that it appealed only to true wrestling purists and the general consensus by casual fans was that the promotion was boring and outdated. The Rock N' Roll Express and the Heavenly Bodies feud embodied everything that classic 80's tag wars were about. Jim Cornette was a little bit crazy playing the race card so strongly in really "southern" (aka prejudiced) towns via the Gangsta's but it made for some pretty compelling veiwing.

[Guest fouronthefloor77]

I'm bummed I never saw SMW when it was running,My only exposure to SMW was through the Apter mags,and tapes that were over a year old before I got them.

  I still find it hard to believe the Rock n' Roll Express were still over in the mid-nineties they seemed to be pretty old and out of date.

Is Jim Cornette's OVW as good as SMW?

[Guest Slingshot Suplex]

What little bit I got to see of SMW was great.My favorite memory of the promotion is a skinny Al Snow being such a glorious heel in feuding with the Rock n Roll Express.

[Guest Kevin Sullivan Booked My Divorce]

SMW was what helped me realize that, as lame as this sounds, wrestling is my life.  I recall watching it once and my dad came in and saw a few seconds and said "Wow you must really like wrestling to watch this stuff, it looks like they are wrestling in a supermarket."

[Guest flair113]

In the Spring of 1993 Smokey Mountain Wrestling came to my old High School in Cumberland, Ky. They were doing TV tapings and the show lasted at least four hours. It was weird how they would tape a show and then have a intermission and come out and do interview segments and talk about what happened last week and it would be something that happened 10 minutes before. Some things I remember from that show.

 

1) Tammy Sytch was there and this was right after she debuted on TV. She looked great and it is really sad how she has turned out.

 

2)Chris Candido made his Smokey Mountain Debut and they were doing a angle similar to Flair's WWF angle in 1992. Candido was World Champ of some promotion in New Jersey and was claiming to be the real World Champion.

 

3) I marked out when I saw Referee Tommy Young, simply because I remember all the Flair matches that he ref and he and flair had great chemistry.

 

4) The moment of the night was when Jim Cornette nailed a fan who jumped over the railing on him. I know for a fact it was legit because I know the guy and he went to jail. He hated wrestling and was drunk trying to impress every one.  Old Corny tore him up!!!!

 

I also attended a SMW show in Harlan, Ky but it was not as good as this one.

[Guest Loss4Words]

This angle has been done countless times in countless territories, but I loved the way that they debuted Bobby Eaton, when the Rock & Roll Express were scheduled to defend the tag titles against the Stud Stable in the main event of the show. 45 minutes into the show, still no Stable, so Cornette appeals to Sandy Scott to give the people a title match since one was promised and insert the Heavenly Bodies into the main event. Scott grants his request and they are having their match when Bobby Eaton appears out of nowhere, helps the Bodies win the titles and gloats afterward at Cornette's side. The Stable showed up about three minutes before the end of the match and had a ringside altercation with Bob Caudle and Cornette's group where they revealed that they were late because they had a flat tire. Cornette then gave them away when he said "too bad you guys got four flat tires", since they never mentioned that they had FOUR flat tires, they said A FLAT TIRE! Classic!

 

This led to a three-way six man at Bluegrass Brawl '93 with Eaton & the Bodies against the Stable & Dutch Mantel (who was simply awesome on color in the above match) against the Rock & Roll Express & ARN ANDERSON, who showed up in SMW to help the R & R's even the sides. Great angle debuting him too.

 

My favorite SMW memory, however, is actually a WCW memory, when the Heavenly Bodies and Jim Cornette showed up on TBS and threw a fit since footage had aired of them jobbing the week prior to the Rock & Roll Express. Cornette and Watts had one of the most awesome verbal confrontations I've ever seen, and the whole thing was supposed to lead to a WCW v SMW feud with an "invasion" (sound familiar?) before Bischoff replaced Watts and nixed the idea.

 

Another great memory is the 04/94 Loser Leaves Town cage match between the Rock & Roll Express & Heavenly Bodies. It's probably the second best US tag match I've ever seen, right behind the Midnights v Fantastics at Clash I. Cornette's interview where he admits defeat to the Rock & Rolls after ten years of fighting is priceless and actually sent chills up my spine. That match is an all-time underappreciated gem.

 

Another underappreciated gem is a ladder match Tracy Smothers and Chris Candido had about a week before Wrestlemania X on a little house show. Funny that Shawn and Razor stole SEVERAL spots from that match, whether it was intentional or not I'm not sure.