Wow, this smokes their I Quit Match from a few nights before. The early parts of this are all really awesome as Smothers is working the crowd and they are doing this bit with Anderson challenging Smothers to amateur grappling contest and vice versa and naturally the "wrestlers kids" Anderson keeps getting taken to school by the stupid redneck time and time again. Anderson ends up rolling through on an armbar and hitting Tracy with a vicious elbow to the jaw to set up the heat segment. This is an Anderson, so he targets Smothers arm. There is nothing outstanding about the armwork, but Tracy bumps and sells for it well and it provides a good base for Anderson to work from. Anderson does a weird arm crank thing and Smothers forward rolls him for a good nearfall before drilling Smothers with a clothesline. Tracy bridging out of pinfall attempts and then getting stiffed from the blindside with a knee was pretty great. It helps that the crowd really seems to buy Anderson as someone who could snap Smothers arm off and they really stay hot for Tracy after every comeback attempt gets thwarted. Smothers armdrag hope spot really got a pop out of my daughter which bumps this match up even more for me. Anderson does the bodyslam on the arm spot but Smothers ends up schoolboying him for a quick win shortly thereafter. Really good match for what it was.

I really dug this. the wrestlers got a ton out of the amateur challenge on the mat. The crowd was eating it up. Anderson's arm work later in the bout was effective. Smothers was great with his hope spots. His selling really gave Anderson the aura of shooter. I liked how Anderson went to the well one to often and it caused the veteran to score the duke by the rookie mistake. Solid nomination.

"Wild Eyed Southern Boy" Tracy Smothers vs. Bryant Anderson (12/30/94)

 

One thing I've noticed about SMW is there are a good amount of matches that are better in front of the smaller crowds than in front of the bigger ones and this is another example as this match is way better than their I Quit match from 4 days before. It also didn't hurt that the camera work was better which is always a plus. The amateur challenge was fun as the crowd was all over Bryant for letting Smothers work him before he would take control working over the arm. Bryant's offense was predictable but effective and made sense since he was an Anderson. Smothers was also a good opponent for him as he was solid at selling and was just as good at his hope spots keeping the fans into it. Tracy made a short lived fired up comeback before Bryant went back to work on him leading to Tracy sneaking a schoolboy for the win which was fun. Best match of their series and moves forward fairly easily.