I'd like to get Cortez on too but I just don't know if I have sufficient understanding of him.

 

Cortez would have absolutely made it if I was still submitting a list, had him third (behind Grey and Breaks) on my WOS guys at the time I dropped out of things. He was a part of my favourite WOS match in both the 70s (against Breaks) and the 80s (Grey from 07.27.81) and the latter is a huge recommendation if you have not seen it yet.

 

I watched Veidor vs Davies. There's only the one, right?

 

Yeah, 05.26.76 from Royal Albert Hall. Jon Cortez vs Jim Breaks from that same show is also well worth watching if you've not seen it yet. Probably my favourite WOS match from the 70s.

 

Hayes vs Veidor was one of the first WOS matches to air on TWC when they started to air the old British stuff (may well have been the first but I can't remember). As someone who had only seen Hayes as a WWF announcer, this match was a complete eye opener for me. A tremendous heel performance from Hayes and the crowd were completely into it. As Matt said, if you haven't seen this match you really need to.

Tommy Noe is outside an apartment in the affluent part of Knoxville as this is where Tammy Fytch is residing during her stay in Smoky Mountain Wrestling, and she has called a press conference to announce who she will be managing. Noe knocks on the door and is greeted by Fytch who is in her gown and she tells him to go round the back as this is where she will be holding the conference. They’re poolside and Fytch tells Noe that her man has some topics that he wants to discuss, so don’t ask him any questions as he won’t answer them. Fytch says how these hillbillies round here have been saying some bad things about her, knocking her a bit and whilst it got to her at first, she then realised that Hilary Clinton’s first 100 days were just like that too. Everyone knocked her, but now she is settled in the White House and ready to govern the country. Fytch says she is now ready to become the first lady of Smoky Mountain Wrestling and introduces her first charge and next SMW Heavyweight champion, Brian Lee. Noe can’t believe it, but Lee says that he is tired of being a big man living in a little man’s shadow. He says that Tracey Smothers gets everything handed to him, while Brian Lee never has anything handed to him. When Tracey Smothers was cheated for the title Smoky Mountain Wrestling held the belt up, yet when he was cheated for the belt they didn’t even recognise it happened! When the bounty was put on Tracey Smothers the Rock & Roll Express, Tim Horner and the Armstrong’s were all out to watch his back. Where were they when Kevin Sullivan put the bounty on him? Nowhere. He was put in hospital and laid up for two months and no-one watched his back, well now he will be watching his own back. He then plays footage of him defeating the Dirty White Boy for the Beat the Champ title, but claims Smothers was only out there to try and steal his thunder and hog the limelight. He talks about how Smothers interrupted his interview time when he had become the first undefeated TV champion and he did that because he was jealous of him. Lee says that he is the top dog in Smoky Mountain Wrestling and got tired of that glory hound Smothers and gets them to show the video of his attack (the heel turn) on him. He tells Smothers that he is a pushover, is going to get the $20,000 bounty, the Heavyweight title and he’s going to regret the day that he crossed Tammy Fytch. Fytch says that you do a few favors for a man and they will do anything for you! When Now questions her about how will she be able to control a man like Brian Lee, she says that she has no problem controlling any man before stripping down to her bikini.

Excellent interview with Robbie Brookside on this week's episode. If you have even the vaguest of interest in the British scene around the late 70s through the 80s this is a must listen. Plenty of funny stories and they spend a bit of time talking about when they met and worked in Germany, New Japan, WCW and on to NXT. Hopefully he will get Brookside back for a second part is out felt like they were only just scratching the surface here.

Tom was a really great guest.

 

I knew about Mickie shooting on BB Walls in that Queen of the Death match tournament, but learning that Walls was pregnant when she did that match? Holy fuck!

With the likes of Breaks, Cortez, Grey, Jones I could reel off a handful of matches that I would recommend should people want to get into WOS and give these guys a look. Whilst not as extensive, I could do it to a lesser degree with Saint, Haward, Sarjeant and Boscik. I wouldn't know where to start with Nagasaki and can't recall one match I've thought was good.

 

It's easier said that done. I have chemistry with Kelly built up over 50+ shows, just as Justin has chemistry with Scott and Graham has chemistry with this lads.

 

Watching footage while talking is not like doing a regular podcast, and needs that chemistry already to be in place. And while we might have done guest spots on each other's shows over the years, we move in different circles.

 

I say this from experience. The first time Chad and I "met" Will and Johnny on a show was during an AWA watching party. It was awkward as hell. I've now done dozens of shows with Will and Johnny and could talk to them while watching any footage. But it takes time to build up chemistry with anyone.

Yeah overtime is fine, but it could be done, it could be any combination. Also, I know this is out of the TOW time frame, but please you & Kelly do a video on the Tom Magee Arn Anderson match.

 

 

What is your fascination with that match? The amount of times I've seen you posting about people wanting them to review it.

 

Finish watching the complete run of SMW on TV. I've got somewhere in the region of just over two and a half years to go.

Another excellent episode and roll on part 3. I never had any idea whatsoever about Bambi and Peggy Lee Leather which is talked about here!

In regards to something Bix commented on, Col. Brody worked over here in the UK as Magnificent Maurice before becoming Brody.

Really good listen here. Heard so much of Cornette on this type of thing but felt fresh here.

 

Agree fully with this and I could've listened to him talk for hours about the tape trading days. The lengths that he would go to in order to record everything when he was in Charlotte especially was incredible. I imagine that there is a whole host of stuff in his 'vault' that isn't out there so to speak, especially with the various feeds he was trading for and getting from the likes of Ken Wayne and Danny Davis.

 

Also enjoyed the Smoky Mountain talk and again a bunch of new things that I had never heard him talk about before. It's a shame that Armstrong ten man tag never came to fruition and the promotion folded a month or so before it was planned and also that Bryan Clark was pretty much Paul Orndorff's driver as they would both travel down from Atlanta together.

 

Excellent job by both Bix and Brian on this one.

 

I've been putting off starting on this podcast due to an huge backlog, but a Cornette interview pushed things over the edge for me.

 

Same here. With so many podcasts on the market these days and so little time my end this is one that I hadn't got round to taking in yet. Tape trading and Cornette is right up my street so I'm downloading this as I type to listen to later on today at some point.

 

It's Dave considering he got into the business in 1963 and Earl in 1977.

 

If you know the answer why on earth have you started this terrible thread?

I think it's UFC 4, if you get there parv... Just skip Shamrock/Gracie. No questions, hit skip, it's 36 minutes of Gracie in Shamrock's guard and you'll never watch another MMA fight again.

 

Shamrock/Gracie is UFC 5. On a similar vein Shamrock/Severn from UFC 9 is 30 minutes of nothingness.

 

Ken Shamrock vs. Patrick Smith

 

Smith has a record of 250-0!!!! He's a kickboxing dude.

 

Shamrock gets him grounded immediately. Leglock by him. Shades of Dory Jr. Ha ha.

 

Oh he's going for the ankle lock. And Smith taps out.

 

There goes 250 and 0 for Smith.

 

These fights are extremely short.

 

Ooooooh, we get some post-match and Smith is pissed!

 

I forgot about these 'fantasy' records that they created for the fighters! In UFC 8, Thomas Ramirez is announced as 'undefeated in over 200 challenge matches on the Islands' (no idea what this means!). He proceeded to get sparked and KO'ed in 7 seconds by Don Frye.

 

 

Big hype for old man Gracie now with the entire Gracie clan behind him. This gives some credibility to PeteF3's claim just now that this whole thing is just one big pimping showcase for the Gracies.

 

Can you say a bit more about this Pete?

 

Rorion Gracie was part owner in the company. They carefully selected the Gracie that was going to fight in the UFC for maximum effect.

 

 

There was also some condition that they wanted to face Jimmerson in the first round to prove that Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was superior to Boxing.

 

There's some fun and pretty brutal stuff in the early UFC's (Patrick Smith/Scott Morris, Kimo/Royce, Melton Bowen/Steve Jennum, Tank Abbott/John Matua, Tank/Oleg Taktarov, Gary Goodridge/Paul Herrara and Don Frye/Amaury Bitetti) whilst at UFC 14 you've got Mark Coleman vs Maurice Smith, which pitches an NCAA/Olympic wrestler against a world champion kickboxer in an excellent fight.

 

Who is Dan Spivey married to made me laugh far more than it had any right to! Bambi? Despina Montagues? Jazz???

 

Another excellent show and Phil was a great guest. Only slight complaint was with Bix's sound levels dropping quite a bit and it at times was a struggle to hear him, but roll on next week!

And this is why I miss the 'comments that don't warrant a thread' thread

Kris references a Smoky Mountain set. Is there a definitive best of SMW out there?

 

Send a pm to Goodhelmet.

 

 

Did somebody just call Virgil a hot babyface? As in over? As in not a laughing stock? I'll respectfully pull an agitated Gorilla Monsoon on that call. Will you stop.

I guess you haven't seen SummerSlam 91 then.

 

Or Royal Rumble 91.

I've got about twenty minutes left in this and it has been fantastic.

 

An interesting point from Dylan that I never picked up on regarding that first TV taping. When watching I was surprised at how different it was to the subsequent tapings, to the point that I remember commenting that it was almost like a WCW Saturday Night taping from that era, but I didn't pick up on the fact that this is what Cornette would be shopping to the various networks and as a result had a more glossy, professional look to it than what would follow.

 

Doug Furnas did work one taping before coming in to help his brother (who I'm perversely looking to see for the first time) back in May 1992 wrestling and it was actually Scott Anthony who was announced for the Volunteer Slam title tournament on TV but never ended up making it (I'm sure I've heard Cornette explain why but forget) and not Furnas.

Bruiser Bedlam wasn't good either and I think he was around a bit longer than Kharis. Still, he was at least capable of a few tricks that Cornette did his best to capitalize on. Lee seemed to flip a switch when he turned heel--that run was the best of his career.

 

I'm just past the Lee heel turn in my watching of the TV for the first time and it was noticeable the minute that he turned on Smothers that he had been horribly miscast as a face for the first year and a bit of the promotion. I'm not sold on Killer Kyle as a talent and Jimmy Golden is very hit and miss, but without question in that first year alone probably the best array of talkers ever assembled in a promotion (Cornette, Wright, Armstrong, Mantel, Orndorff, Prichard, Lane, Anthony, Fuller, Landell, Morton, Bobby Fulton for starters).

 

Pretty sure someone on Crazy Max put together a four disc comp of this tour with the matches, media etc.

Re: Adams - in Meltzer's obituary of him, he says that he suffered a career ending spine injury in All Japan in 2003 and was believed to be collecting on a Lloyds of London permanent disability settlement.