[1992-11-21-SMW-TV] Heavenly Bodies & Jim Cornette vs Rock & Roll Express & Ron Garvin

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Cornette blinds Ricky Morton with something before the match, making the match 3-on-2. Not a good match, but a hot one, and I think in my mind, before I started watching all this SMW, this is what I imagined most of it being like.

[Tim Evans]

Pretty basic match. Why would Jim let himself get in this match opposite Garvin? Was Killer Kyle unavailable?

[shoe]

Match was o.k. Morton's promo afterwards was great though.

[El-P]

Match suffered from heavy editing. I love to see Cornette working, because he's actually good at it. Good looking punches, good bumps. The timing of Cornette being afraid and offering a sudden handshake to Gibson is just hilarious.

[Kevin Ridge]

Taking Morton out of the match hurts things as he's the guy you'd want in there on a 3 on 2 disadvantage.

[PeteF3]

Decent TV match with a hot pre-match angle. Garvin fits in perfectly with this outfit, and he surprisingly is the one to take the Morton role in Morton's absence. They take great, contrived pains to have Mark Curtis distracted so Cornette can whack Gibson with the tennis racket, then Curtis turns around and calls for the bell anyway. So what was the point? Ricky Morton comes back with one eye taped up to run off the heels. Strong, effective table-setter for the Thanksgiving Thunder tour. Incidentally it's ridiculous how good Cornette's punches are.

[WingedEagle]

Cornette sprays Morton in the eyes at the start to give the heels a 3 on 2 advantage. Its really something how over the RNR are. Morton appears afterwards with a bandaged eye for the save and to deliver a great promo.

[GSR]

This was a 'dream match' requested by one of the fans, and Ron Garvin was a replacement for Bob Armstrong who claimed a 'conflict of interests' and wouldn't be able to wrestle in it. Cornette immediately sprays something in Ricky Morton's eyes (what he had foretold in the earlier episode of Down & Dirty) and he is taken from the ring and it becomes a handicap bout. Garvin utilises a back rake, chest rake and a wedgie on Prichard whilst Cornette spends most of his time on the apron. When Gibson is hurt enough he finally tags in, punches him a couple of times although these just seem to wake Gibson up and Cornette sensing he's about to get pounded offers Gibson his hand in a moment which made me laugh out loud. The finish comes when Cornette hits Gibson in the back with the tennis racket (somehow behind Mark Curtis' back), Curtis then turns round, see him holding it and DQ's them. They continue to attack them after the bell until Morton, now wearing an eye patch, dashes back to the ring and chases after Cornette. Morton then cuts an interview saying that it's going to be 'eye for an eye' and they'll have to kill them if he thinks they're not going to show up for Thanksgiving Thunder.

 

This seemed more angle than match to me. It could've been really good, had some nice moments but a crap finish and the overbooked nature of some of the matches and screw job endings are really starting to get to me (to the point that you know they are coming). I can see the criticism about taking Morton out of the match, but it was all done to further the storyline for Thanksgiving Thunder so I don't have any issue with that.

[garretta]

I didn't care for this at all.

 

First, if this was really a dream match voted on by the fans, they deserve to see some sort of definitive finish. If I'd suggested a match like this and it had been picked, and I'd waited all week to watch it, I wouldn't have wanted to see a rather unimaginative DQ. I can understand not wanting Rock 'n' Roll or the Bodies lose clean before Thanksgiving Thunder, but couldn't one of the babyfaces have pinned Corny? Why shouldn't he be the designated loser when he's in the match and one is called for? What could he possibly be protecting himself for? Is he going to book himself as SMW champion or what?

 

Second, if we can't have a good finish, could we at least see the match in full? This isn't just another TV main event; this is (ostensibly) a match asked for by the fans. Even if it really isn't, you're presenting it as such, and no one's any the wiser. So why clip it so drastically? If it's a long match, rearrange the rest of your show so it can be seen in its entirety.

 

The more I see of SMW, the less I like Corny the booker, particularly since he's made a living in the last few years attacking other promotions for being too violent, not catering to the fans, bot following through on stips, and a hundred other things, most of which he does just as flagrantly as McMahon or Heyman or Russo. He's not really any more old-school than any other promoter is, he's just longer-winded and more of a showman.

 

By the way, Ricky was the one eliminated because the Bodies and Corny had already messed up Robert's hand. This way, each member of Rock 'n' Roll would have a (hopefully) serious injury heading into Thanksgiving Thunder.

 

Also, Curtis disqualified Corny for possessing the racquet in the ring, not necessarily because he'd used it (although he had). I'd rather have had Curtis see the racquet being used, though.

 

Anybody have any idea what Corny blinded Ricky with? The can it came in was an aerosol, like the ether can, but it couldn't have been that.

 

I wonder if Rock 'n' Roll will bother to sell their injuries throughout the Thanksgiving Thunder series; Robert certainly didn't sell his bad hand in this match, but the Bodies didn't work on it either, which was a major booking oversight.

[PeteF3]

Don't see how you can give a big revenge spot on Cornette away on TV. Fans should have to pay for that, too.

[garretta]

If you're going to run a dream match segment, it should be something that fans would normally have to pay for, complete with definitive finish. It's a promotion's way of saying, "Thank you for supporting us, and as a reward, we're going to give you something you wouldn't ordinarily get on TV." That means a title changes hands, a feud ends once and for all, a face gets final and lasting revenge on a heel, or whatever else. Simply running any match with two main eventers isn't enough under the circumstances.

 

You can run any match you want to on TV if you know you're not going to give the fans a finish; hell, Vince could have run Hogan-Andre as a main event on Superstars the month before Mania III if all that was going to happen was a Heenan run-in for a DQ. If a promotion isn't willing to sacrifice some money as a gesture of goodwill to the fans (and thus make more money when they run other matches and angles at house shows in the future), then it shouldn't run a contest like this. That may be why most promotions didn't.