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This message was edited by The Avenger on November 28th, 2023 19:53 GMT
Quoted from: BattleRoyal, November 27th, 2023 14:15 GMTThis past weekend was the 28th anniversary of the final Smoky Mountain card.
For four years from late October 1991 until late November 1995 Jim Cornette gave old school pro wrestling fans four years of great regional pro wrestling.
Thanksgiving Thunder – Johnson City, TN – Freedom Hall – November 25, 1995 (550)
Included opening in-ring segment in which Buddy Landel announced that Jos LeDuc was not in the building, with Bob Armstrong appearing and saying he would find a replacement partner for Landel later in show
Flash Flanagan pinned Headbanger Thrasher with backslide
Sgt. Rock pinned Wolfman with kick to groin and DDT
Tommy Rich (sub. for Terry Gordy, said to have suffered a concussion) (w/ Jim Cornette) pinned SMW Heavyweight Champion Brad Armstrong to win title after hitting him with chain thrown to Armstrong by Cornette; prior to match, Rich and Cornette came out and said Armstrong was coward unless he agreed to title match
Butch Cassidy defeated Jim Cornette by DQ when Sgt. Rock attacked Cassidy; during match, Cornette argued with ref Mark Curtis, with Curtis knocking Cornette from ring with dropkick; after bout, Wolfman made save
Buddy Landel/Bullet (sub. for Jos LeDuc) defeated SMW Heavyweight Champion Tommy Rich/Punisher when Landel pinned Rich with corkscrew elbow drop; after match, Robert Gibson ran in but Brad Armstrong cleared ring with baseball bat to make save
Robert Gibson, SMW Tag Team Champions Tom Prichard & Jimmy Del Ray (w/ Jim Cornette) fought Ricky Morton (sub. for Bob Armstrong), Tracy Smothers, & Dirty White Boy to no contest when all six men began brawling; prior to bout, Smothers & DWB brought their partner out with blanket covering his face; Jim Cornette hit man with his tennis racquet, then revealing it to be Flash Flanagan; moments later, Morton came through crowd to start match
Well, the first year was good (outside of pushing Tim Horner as a top guy). I don't think Cornette is that great of a booker though. It seemed like he had bitten off more than he could chew with this promotion. He was already working for the WWF by August of 1993. That had to be an ominous sign, at best.
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Post: #1069543
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Rubin. Jim's money mark, stopped writing the checks. SMW never made money. It was only going to continue as long as somebody was paying for it. Jim was burned out anyway. It would have been bad for his health to keep going because he couldn't delegate, he had to do everything
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 PeteF3 |
December 30th, 2023 19:17 GMT |
 
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Post: #1069547
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Smoky was still great up through '94. It jumped the shark when Cornette turned heel again in the beginning of '95 and re-started the Armstrong feud. Plus the Cornette Militia gimmick was a loser. The Buddy Landel stuff was absolutely transcendent and spectacular but even after the great turn he was kind of booked as a goof.
Cornette did say he finally broke even or even made a profit on SMW by selling the tapes overseas.
He had 3 years of good ideas and he's good at breaking down why things do or don't work, but his actual booking since the beginning of '95 has been more bad to terrible than good. OVW was not a good product, his Guest Booker shoot interview was terrible, and he didn't book ROH well, either.
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How much was SMW struggling? A story Cornette told is one time he let whoever was SMW. champion book themselves defending the belt on a USWA show in Memphis to make some money because he hadn't paid them that week. After the show in Memphis, whoever had the belt took it to a local pawn shop and pawned it! Then gave Corny the pawn slip! Cornette had to drive over to Memphis and buy the SMW title back from the pawnshop. Well if you had the title belt and hadn't been paid, that is a way to get money. 
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| PeteF3 |
January 17th, 2024 18:44 GMT |
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Unless you cite that directly, I'm going to assume you're mixing that story up with the Snowman pawning the USWA title. Or possibly Pedro Morales pawning his WWWF belt to pay for gambling debts. I'm not aware of Tommy Rich or Brad Armstrong or Terry Gordy pawning the SMW title in its latter days.
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This message was edited by Darth Sidious on January 17th, 2024 19:26 GMT
Quoted from: PeteF3, January 17th, 2024 18:44 GMTUnless you cite that directly, I'm going to assume you're mixing that story up with the Snowman pawning the USWA title. Or possibly Pedro Morales pawning his WWWF belt to pay for gambling debts. I'm not aware of Tommy Rich or Brad Armstrong or Terry Gordy pawning the SMW title in its latter days.
No this was a separate incident that Jim.discussed on his podcast. It was Tommy Rich and he may have gotten the idea from Snowman having done the same thing. Believe it or not,not every incident that occurred in a territory is meticulously reported on the internet. This was a private matter between Cornette and Tommy. Jim.only mentioned it because he was asked if and how many times the SMW belt was lost or stolen. His answer was twice. The second time it was lost for several years after the promotion closed until.he said Dennis Coraluzzo found it for sale somewhere and bought it back for him
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This message was edited by Darth Sidious on January 17th, 2024 20:38 GMT
Okay here is the clip. There weren't two incidents there was one. Tommy sold the SMW belt for $1,200 to a dealer because he said Jim.owed him the money even though a) he wasn't SMW champion at the time and b) Jim denies he owned him the money. Jim found about it but wasn't able to buy the belt back because he had moved up to Connecticut and couldn't physically go down there to deal.with it. A year or two later Coraluzzo found the belt for sale,bought it and gave it back to Jim.aa a birthday present
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOfkmupvk4E&t=390s&pp=ygUVVG9tbXkgUmljaCBzZWxscy BiZWx0
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| PeteF3 |
January 17th, 2024 22:37 GMT |
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Post: #1070628
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If Cornette had already moved up to Connecticut, then that means SMW had already shut down and thus there was no active champion.
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Quoted from: PeteF3, January 17th, 2024 22:37 GMTIf Cornette had already moved up to Connecticut, then that means SMW had already shut down and thus there was no active champion.
By the end of SMW Cornette was moonlighting with WWE. He was doing his SMW schedule and working WWE tv tapings and in the office in Connecticut on off days or off weeks. He needed the WWE money to offset his SMW losses. I think this was right after SMW stop doing television but the fact that Jim hadn't taken back the belts might indicate that he hadn't ruled out doing more SMW house shows.
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| PeteF3 |
January 18th, 2024 19:36 GMT |
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Cornette was not working in the office until the promotion shut down. He was doing TVs only. He really didn't have "off days" or "off weeks" running Smoky--he was running himself ragged. If he wasn't actively at a show, he was formatting TV, editing TV, booking cards, booking buildings, etc. He was only away from Smoky to fulfill his WWF commitments which were only the TV tapings and PPVs, and maybe a day or two per month to shoot localized promos.
No, Smoky did not run house shows after their TV ended. Their final episode said they would show highlights from Thanksgiving Thunder next week. The Thanksgiving Thunder cards were the final SMW events and no further TV aired. The promotion may have technically lived on as part of the USWA feud for a few more weeks, but that was it. It was only then that Cornette started actually working in the WWF front office and doing anything besides TV work.
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Quoted from: Darth Sidious, January 17th, 2024 20:36 GMTOkay here is the clip. There weren't two incidents there was one. Tommy sold the SMW belt for $1,200 to a dealer because he said Jim.owed him the money even though a) he wasn't SMW champion at the time and b) Jim denies he owned him the money. Jim found about it but wasn't able to buy the belt back because he had moved up to Connecticut and couldn't physically go down there to deal.with it. A year or two later Coraluzzo found the belt for sale,bought it and gave it back to Jim.aa a birthday present
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOfkmupvk4E&t=390s&pp=ygUVVG9tbXkgUmljaCBzZWxscy BiZWx0
I remember Cornette talking about this situation on his podcast. Surprisingly, Corny didn't have any hard feelings with Rich over the whole incident.
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Super Mod
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Personally - I didn't get him pushing Bruiser Bedlam as the de-facto monster heel. He wasn't worth the spot.
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The problem in SMW was Jim never had a top singles Babyface good enough to carry the company. Neither Dirty White Boy or Tracy Smothers worked. He kept having to get sixty year old Bob Armstrong to wrestle because no other faces were good enough to work singles on top
He had no top singles babyface to build around.
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