SUPERECWFAN1
02-02-2007, 11:27 AM
The USWA was a territory that was pretty much the old CWA ( Jerry Lawler) and World Class. The 2 merged and it pretty much was ran by Lawler & Jerry Jarrett.
Now before this gets into a massive history lesson. The USWA seemingly dissapeared from this world 10 years ago. Has it been that long ? The stories of how and why it dissapeared is a wild story. One ex-referee/booker claimed that Jerry Lawler had killed the promotion himself with his countless title reigns .
And if people think Vince Russo moved the WCW World title around a lot , they surely haven't seen the USWA Heavywieght title's movement. Because that title in one year moved 9 times in one year ( 1996) .
In all Lawler got the title 28 times. From everyone from Sid Vicious to Superstar Bill Dundee held the title at some point. Looking back thru Wipia's title history we see Koko B Ware and Kamala even held the USWA Heavyieght title.
Did the frequent title switching and Lawler's clown act on WWE TV kill the promotion finally ? Because at one point it seemed like the promotion was huge in Tennesse. Watching old tapes my uncle bought from magazines I have to say the most boring wrestling show is the USWA morning show that was on Saturday mornings. My god.... this passed for enertainment ?
Smokey Mountain Wrestling was ran by Jim Cornette and it was leaps and bounds over USWA in terms of what I've watched. The show actually for being a small budget had some great things ran on TV. In a shocker its revealed music industry record producer , Rick Rubin was one of its money backers !
SMW had Jim Ross & Les Thatcher as annoucers and it was a pretty damn interesting show. This was before Ross got bells palsey and his skills started to slip. SMW had talent like Balls Mahoney ( as Boo Bradley ) , Mick Foley , Chris Candido , Tammy Sytch and others.
Cornette seemingly had money issues and signed a deal with the WWF which irked many backstage. Who saw this as selling out what SMW was supposed to be. It was 1995 afterall and SMW was pretty much a radical departure from the WWF.
The funniest guy on SMW in a sad way was Chip Kessler ( I believe thats his name ) who would read about future cards coming to your town. The man looked and sounded like a machine. Plus he rarely blinked and you'd watch wondering if Jim Cornette had created this guy like some Dr.Frankenstien.
In all I miss SMW. I used to go to cards and Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson were sweet cool guys. They would joke around and talk. I met Morton years later and he remembered SMW and us who had went to see him countless times. He even said he missed it.
In a touch of twisted irony Cornette sold SMW to Lawler & Jarrett and Lawler proceeded to make himself the last SMW World Champion. :p
Now before this gets into a massive history lesson. The USWA seemingly dissapeared from this world 10 years ago. Has it been that long ? The stories of how and why it dissapeared is a wild story. One ex-referee/booker claimed that Jerry Lawler had killed the promotion himself with his countless title reigns .
And if people think Vince Russo moved the WCW World title around a lot , they surely haven't seen the USWA Heavywieght title's movement. Because that title in one year moved 9 times in one year ( 1996) .
In all Lawler got the title 28 times. From everyone from Sid Vicious to Superstar Bill Dundee held the title at some point. Looking back thru Wipia's title history we see Koko B Ware and Kamala even held the USWA Heavyieght title.
Did the frequent title switching and Lawler's clown act on WWE TV kill the promotion finally ? Because at one point it seemed like the promotion was huge in Tennesse. Watching old tapes my uncle bought from magazines I have to say the most boring wrestling show is the USWA morning show that was on Saturday mornings. My god.... this passed for enertainment ?
Smokey Mountain Wrestling was ran by Jim Cornette and it was leaps and bounds over USWA in terms of what I've watched. The show actually for being a small budget had some great things ran on TV. In a shocker its revealed music industry record producer , Rick Rubin was one of its money backers !
SMW had Jim Ross & Les Thatcher as annoucers and it was a pretty damn interesting show. This was before Ross got bells palsey and his skills started to slip. SMW had talent like Balls Mahoney ( as Boo Bradley ) , Mick Foley , Chris Candido , Tammy Sytch and others.
Cornette seemingly had money issues and signed a deal with the WWF which irked many backstage. Who saw this as selling out what SMW was supposed to be. It was 1995 afterall and SMW was pretty much a radical departure from the WWF.
The funniest guy on SMW in a sad way was Chip Kessler ( I believe thats his name ) who would read about future cards coming to your town. The man looked and sounded like a machine. Plus he rarely blinked and you'd watch wondering if Jim Cornette had created this guy like some Dr.Frankenstien.
In all I miss SMW. I used to go to cards and Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson were sweet cool guys. They would joke around and talk. I met Morton years later and he remembered SMW and us who had went to see him countless times. He even said he missed it.
In a touch of twisted irony Cornette sold SMW to Lawler & Jarrett and Lawler proceeded to make himself the last SMW World Champion. :p