Smoky Mountain Wrestling is a Southern-fried professional wrestling company with a lot of interesting stuff going on, and is generally a compelling hour of television. If you think pro wrestling appeals to rednecks and haven’t seen SMW, I recommend seeing SMW – as Vince McMahon’s circus is practically European compared to this. Tag team wrasslin’, angles around women fighting, a top heel based off of Hillary Clinton, a top babyface named Dirty White Boy (along with his valet, who’s obviously named Dirty White Girl), blatant race-baiting with The Gangstas, Tracy Smothers, Dirty Dutch Mantel and a lot more, all with a Southern twang.
Like AWA for Shawn Michaels and USWA for Steve Austin, the 10 episodes of SMW are mostly here to showcase Chris Jericho’s tag run with Lance Storm as The Thrillseekers. And oh what a run it is. They run a few wildly insane music videos with them doing “thrillseeking” stuff like playing arcade games and riding horses together, and it’s some of the weirdest stuff available on the WWE Network – and I know damn well what kind of weird stuff is available ont he WWE Network. A young, bright-eyed Chris Jericho hams it up while Lance Storm is along for the ride, just smiling at everything. The matches are fun, though they’re mostly squashes. When they have a little time, they’re an impressive team, like a less polished version of The Rockers or The Rock & Roll Express. Their match with The Heavenly Bodies (reviewed below) is an easy highlight.
The promos are angles here are a lot better than the matches. Well Dunn cuts a promo on SMW’s tag teams on 2/19/94 that’s intense and annoying and dickish and puts over the tag division. There’s plenty of Cornette promos here, of course… he’s not as fired up and annoying as he was in the mid-80s, as he’s oolder and angrier and still tremendous. There’s a typical classic Cornette rant alongside The Heavenly Bodies on The Rock & Roll Express (who else?) on the 2/19/94 show as well. The 3/19/94 has a fun rasslin’ angle with Dirty White Girl brawling with Tammy Fytch leading to Dirty White Boy attacking Brian Lee and stripping his clothes. The introduction of Prince Kharis, who is a wrestling zombie, on 4/2/94 by Darl Van Horne, who went on to become the Sinister Minister, is a wild time. On the 5/7/94, they run a video of Bruiser Bedlam doing bench presses while Cornette aggressively hypes up his strength, all in advance of a Bedlam match against Macho Man Randy Savage. Just a classic example of revival church-like wrestling promotion. “Bullet” Bob Armstrong is also on a quite few of these shows, and though he was an old grizzled man a decade ago he’s somehow even more fired up here. On the 7/9/94 episode, a bleeding Armstrong steps down as commissioner to form a new stable and it’s an incredible promo. And of course there’s The Gangstas, who I’ll get to.
A lot of these TV shows are spent hyping up local arena shows, as they did back in the day. And with their relationship with the WWF, SMW brought in some WWF guys to headline the shows… so here you get random Macho Man and Lex Luger promos, as well as a few severely disturbing but amazing Jake the Snake promos where he sits in a recliner with his gut popping out of a bright blue tracksuit.
There are quite a few clipped arena matches that give you some insight into SMW, though not a lot to chew on. The full matches are kind of ugly, as they’re mostly weak TV squashes in a high school gymnasium. There’s a solid outing here and there and one truly great match between The Thrillseekers and Heavenly Bodies. The angles surrounding those ugly matches though are pretty sensible and either intense or unintentionally funny. This is the “you took my wife!” version of professional wrestling.
Dirty White Boy along with Dirty White Girl is an interesting thing. First of all – they’re named Dirty White Boy and Dirty White Girl. Second of all, Dirty White Boy is the ace of the company. They don’t show a ton of his matches, but the promos and angles are pretty great. For part of this he’s feuding with “Primetime” Brian Lee, Chris Candido and Tammy Fytch alongside Dirty White Girl in a trailer park masterpiece, and for the other part it’s a promo battle with Jake “The Snake” Roberts, and he actually holds his own. White Boy placed #25 in the PWI 500 for 1994, and a couple years later he’d become wrestling plumber TL Hopper in the WWF, so that’s a thing.
Brian Lee, Chris Candido, Tammy “Sunny” Sytch (then known as Fynch) are all over these shows and the main bad guys of the company. Fytch as a Hillary Clinton acolyte was inspired stuff for Tennessee-based company. I’ve always been a big Candido fan, and at this point he was really starting to put it together… solid wrestling and promos, just a fun worker to watch. Big Brian Lee was a solid heater, and I’m undecided on whether it surprises me or not that Vince chose him to be the fake Undertaker while these shows were going on.
As expected with a Cornette project, the tag division is strong – Well Dunn, The Heavenly Bodies, The Rock & Roll Express, The Thrillseekers. You get a lot of good promo work from Cornette and The Rock & Roll’s, as well as the aforementioned Thrillseeker videos and matches. A lot of the Bodies/Rock & Roll tags are clipped, so you see some fun sequences and hot crowds but that’s about it.
Dutch Mantel is around for about half of these shows doing commentary and hosting an in-ring segment called Down and Dirty with Dutch. Dutch is an old pro and it’s awesome watching him do his thing… bringing credibility to what deserves it, and mocking what doesn’t.
A fun gimmick they do weekly is the Beat the Champ TV Title. The title is defended every week in a 10-minute match, and the challenger is determined by drawing out of a hat at the start of the show. And it’s usually like a guy named The Hornet or Inferno Brimstone. And everybody knows Inferno Brimstone is only the second best Inferno. At one point Robbie Eagle, who became the Maestro, holds the title. While nothing great happens with it, it’s a perfectly fine way to kill time and about damn time pro wrestling had some rules.
Tracy Smothers is all over this set as a young and fired up babyface. Here you get to see him with some light in his eye before he became the riot-inducing madman he is today.
THE GANGSTAS. There is just nothing that speaks to the beating heart of professional wrestling than a promoter bringing in black guys dressed in gold chains and bandanas into a promotion where fans wave confederate flags around to support the good guys. The Gangstas are only on two shows here, but you get their debut and a crazy promo where Jim Ross interviews New Jack, who rants about their new disclaimer (seen above), hillbillies, and the NAACP. It’s really something that has to be seen. For their debut, they come out with their own security because they don’t trust the police force. Then the Gangstas come out wearing Raiders jackets and hoodies, and beat a team using their finisher, which obviously is named the Drive-By. New Jack’s first promo starts, “30 years ago, we would’ve been hung up in somebody’s tree” and he continues talking shit about the South and threatens to set people on fire while Saed makes scary faces. Truly a legendary time in professional wrestling. Must-watch stuff.
If you’re going to watch one show, go with 8/5/94 – there’s a sweet Legends Tag Match with Dick Slater & Bob Orton vs. Ronnie Garvin & Mongolian Stomper, Jim Ross interviewing the Gangstas, a legendary Thrillseekers match with the Heavenly Bodies where Jericho’s arm is broken and he bleeds small lake of blood, and clips from The Rock & Roll Express against Brian Lee, Candido and Tammy Fytch feud, which was solid stuff. Amazing, stacked TV.
You can find detailed matchlists and recommendations on the SMW page. Below are some quick reviews of a few highlighted matches.
The Rock & Roll Express vs. “Primetime” Brian Lee & Chris Candido w/ Tammy Fytch (4/2/94) – Just a great example of Smoky Mountain Wrestling. Fans in the crowd wearing confederate flags, “Primetime” Brian Lee with bleached blonde hair wearing a bandana and sunglasses, Tammy Fytch carrying a small purse to the ring, basketball hoops a few feet away from the ring, fans freaking out for the Rock & Roll Express, big armdrags and headlock takeovers and back body drops. Classic Rock & Roll stuff in a high school gymnasium.
SMW Beat the Champ TV Title: Bruiser Bedlam [c] w/ Jim Cornette vs. Tracy Smothers (4/30/94) – So here’s the thing about Bruiser Bedlam. He wrestled in the 80s and 90s for Stampede, AWA, a bit of Japan, and eventually SMW. Then he got into motorcycle clubs and murdered a guy. Anyways, this is a fun match! Bedlam is all big and mean and credible, and Tracy is a fine babyface, bumping big and firing up the crowd. I mean yes, he has a confederate flag on his tights, but in this context he was a good guy. Cool angle after the match, with Cornette and Bedlam beating on Tracy with the tennis racket, then Bob Armstrong making the save but getting hurt, then Tracy getting shots in but getting powder thrown in his face. Then after the match, Tracy cuts an awesome promo with his face covered in flour. Fuck yeah.
The Thrillseekers vs. Well Dunn (5/7/94) – This is only around 5-minutes, but it’s a fun little tag match, with Jericho being all fired up and Storm just hitting shit perfectly like he’s a 20-year pro already.
Legends Tag Match: Ronnie Garvin & The Mongolian Stomper vs. Dick Slater & Bob Orton Jr. (8/13/94) – The tagline is there for a reason – just a bunch of pros doing their thing. Mongolian Stomper is like 60-years-old and looks like he could kick anybody’s ass. Orton and Slater are begging off and being pieces of shit working over Garvin, who sells like he’s in the biggest fight of his life. Stomper’s sell of a false tag is incredible. Finish isn’t very fan-friendly but this is a good match.
Street Fight: The Thrillseekers vs. The Heavenly Bodies w/ Jim Cornette (8/13/94) – This is the match Jericho talks about in his book where he broke his arm practicing a Shooting Star Press earlier in the day. Match starts with a racecar coming down the aisle and the Thrillseekers attacking the Bodies from beyond, of course. Awesome tag stuff early on with the Bodies taking Thrillseekers offense, and then Storm takes the heat. It’s fine. It’s good pro wrestling. And THEN Jericho cuts a gusher and has blood all over his face and only a small cast protecting his broken arm as he takes an assbeating for like 10 minutes. Match hits another level at that point, going from good tag match to freaky spectacle. Must-watch.
