During its four years of existence, Smoky Mountain Wrestling was the "old school" wrestling option that was available for wrestling fans.
The WWF was still in their goofy character age, WCW was plenty silly in their own right and the newer ECW was presenting a new style of wrestling based around storylines and lots of violence that was innovative for its time but when I look back at ECW, a lot of their promotion doesn't seem to hold up well over time.
That left an opening for a niche' promotion like Smoky Mountain for owner Jim Cornette for those fans that were looking for wrestling that fit the SMW motto- "Wrestling the way it used to be and the way you like it!"
In 1994, the only access that you had to the "inside" world of Pro Wrestling came from Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer and Cornette saw an opportunity to make some money from the 'smart fans' that knew more about wrestling than the average fan.
Cornette put together SMW Fan Week with a short and long tour version that covered hotel, travel to the various events, tickets to those events, along with behind the scenes dealing with the wrestlers themselves in different environments away from the ring.
Cherie and I signed up for the short version, which would cover four evenings, Smoky Mountain's top two cards in Night of the Legends and Fire on the Mountain, a television taping, and a house show.
Traveling to Knoxville, Tennessee wasn't difficult as I've written in the past because it is almost a straight shot from Hagerstown to the home of the Volunteers.
Our hotel was across the street from the West Town (I think) Mall and that was neat to go over to that to kill some time in the days when malls still mattered.
It's funny because I visited the same mall when I visited Knoxville years later and wasn't all that impressed!
We had some time before the evening card at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum and rested a bit after the car ride before catching the bus for the arena.
The downside to tours like this can be a lot of downtime and we were in the arena for a few hours before the doors opened to the public.
However, when the doors did open for the near-sellout crowd for SMW's "Night of the Legends" that wait was worthwhile as one of the two best cards that I've attended live took place.
The Night of the Legends has been noted by Jim Cornette as the night that made his tenure with SMW worthwhile as he was able to pay tribute to the stars of his youth.
For me, it was a hell of a wrestling show complete with the debut of the controversial New Jack, a legends tag team match with two favorites of mine in Bob Orton and Dick Slater taking on Ronnie Garvin and the Mongolian Stomper. and the Rock N Roll Express against Chris Candido and Brian Lee as part of an excellent card.
The main event was a strong one with Bob Armstrong, Tracy Smothers, and Road Warrior Hawk facing the Funk Brothers (Dory.Jr and Terry) with their partner Bruiser Bedlam in a Coward waves the Flag match in which the chief second at ringside (Ron Wright and Jim Cornette ) would have to wave a flag to end the match.
However, the match that stood the test of time was the Heavenly Bodies (Tom Pritchard and Jimmy Del Rey) matched against the Thrillseekers (Lance Storm and Chris Jericho).
SMW was the first big break for Storm and Jericho and this is the famous match that saw Jericho break his arm earlier in the day and then bleed with one of the worst cuts that you'll see in a pro wrestling match.
It's that match that is a big deal being there for Rachel, who has been a Jericho fan since she was very small.
It was such a good time being there live and when the DVD became available, I quickly purchased it.
The following day saw a lunch at Hooters with Tracy Smothers and I think the Rock n Roll Express (I'm really not sure on the attendees other than Smothers).
Hooters has always been more sizzle than steak for the actual food that you eat, but the reason I'm not sure who was there beside Tracy Smothers is that Tracy Smothers spent a lot of time talking to me!
When I told him I was from Maryland, Smothers suddenly wanted to talk to me about football, especially the Baltimore Colts (this was before the Browns moved to Baltimore) and the Bert Jones led Colts with their top-notch defensive line.
I've noticed with celebrities from different fields that more often than not, they would rather not talk about themselves or what they do and would rather talk about things that they enjoy or are a fan of.
After some hotel time, we boarded the bus for Johnson City for the "Fire on the Mountain" card.
Knoxville to Johnson City is about an hour and forty minutes drive. I've made it a few times on baseball tours and it's not a hard trip.
That's when everything is going well and it was apparent that the bus was having problems.
Not as in moving, the bus still moved.
It just moved slowly as in maybe 25 MPH and a cooling system that was not working, which was not really terrific timing for a bus filled with riders!
For me, it would get worse.
I've written here that since I was very small, a book of some type would accompany me on every trip and continues today with E-Books.
On this trip, I was reading Truman by David McCullough, a gift given by Joe Plum and if you've ever read Truman you know that the book weighs about the same as a VW Beetle!
Anyway, this one guy decided to take this time to "entertain" us all by strolling through the aisle, which was annoying enough, but he kept stopping in front of me.
That meant since he was standing and I was sitting that I was on armpit level with a man on a bus without air conditioning!
Yuck!
It took all I could do to not tell him to sit down, but in a rare case of discipline for me at that age (26), I assessed the situation and figured out quickly that the other attendees knew this fellow, didn't know me and therefore I could tell the side that they would take in an incident!
The bus did make it to Johnson City's Freedom Hall in about twice the time that it normally would have taken, so things could have been worse as it could have stranded a bus full of people on the side of the road!
Freedom Hall is the basketball home of the East Tennessee State Buccaneers of the Southern Conference,
ETSU has been a hat stop on the Fred Landucci hat tour since then!
Fire on the Mountain was another excellent card with Dick Slater challenging the Dirty White Boy for his Smoky Mountain title, Doug Furnas, who was so underrated, battling Cowboy Bob Orton, the six-man main event from the Knoxville card lining up again, but this time under Texas Death Match rules and the Thrillseekers minus Chris Jericho after his injury on the previous injury against the Heavenly Bodies.
The most remembered match on this card was the loser loses their hair match between Chris Candido and Brian Lee against the Rock N Roll Express with the hair of Tammy Sytch (later to be known as Sunny and manager of Candido and Lee) and Ricky Morton at stake.
This match resulted in an upset as the heel team of Candido and Lee won the tag titles, but the Rock N Roll Express pulled a surprise as Ricky Morton dodged his trimming and instead cut the hair of Candido lightly as the hair trimmers didn't work well.
We had another day to go, but the television taping was in Chilhowie VA, which was quite a hike from Knoxville and the TV taping promised to be a long evening.
From the best that I can remember, they were going to use the same bus ( it's been a long time folks) and we were a little leery of that trip after the ride to Johnson City!
So we decided to stay in Knoxville, do some shopping, and enjoy a nice dinner.
I don't remember many particulars there either other than buying several books at a Knoxville bookstore including a Bill Musselman biography that I didn't know existed at the time and that still resides on my bookshelf today!
We drove home the following day and that proved to be the final wrestling card of note that I've ever attended.
SMW would go out of business the following fall and I slowly lost interest in wrestling.
I'd watch some with the kids during the "Monday Night Wars", but the passion was gone and once the WWE bought WCW, my interest was almost empty than reading the Observer for a special issue based on someone passing away or a historical feature.
It was only the advent of the internet that returned pro wrestling to me somewhat with the videos of territories and matches that I wasn't able to see from my childhood days along with listening to podcasts from stars of my youth telling old business stories that I've never heard before.
It's the memories of a time gone by more than anything else when I watch pro wrestling and looking back now, the Smoky Mountain trip sewed together my wrestling fandom- starting in sixth grade and ending fourteen years later in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Beginnings and endings.
Part of all tales and inevitable to avoid.
Back later with either the next installment of the Friends and Family series or cleaning out a rapidly accumulating inbox.
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