Oh man watching the FBI work the crowd into a frenzy here is awesome. Rich trying to tag in and getting mandhandled by the ref was awesome. As a match this was slow developing but in a good way as Smothers seemed like he was working Lynn's workrate turf with a sort of tentativeness. Rich was absolutely tremendous stiffing Lynn with the spine of a chair to the face, jawing with the crowd, et and I have give Lynn credit for bumping pretty hard. Lynn winning with the Rich Italian Flag was a nice touch. I really don't think this is as good as the best Tracy solo matches from ECW and I don't even think it's as good a Tracy match with FBI bullshit as the Al Snow match from the Arena. On the other hand this is a really great performance from Rich as a second and it was a good match. I'm nominating primarily because of Rich.

Jerry Lynn vs. Tracy Smothers (10/23/98)

 

God damn this was fun as it was all part of the Tommy Rich show as he denounced the Steelers and the entire city of Pittsburgh before the match then trying to tag in and getting beat up by Jim Mollineaux, then just nailing Lynn with a chair followed up by more shit talking to the fans. The match took a backseat to Rich's greatness which IMO negates it as a nomination because we have better matches with similar schtick but this is a definite extra to me.