One of the great things about being an obsessive wrestling fan is the intellectual curiosity it inspires. On the surface this may seem like a curious statement, but consider this - how many six year olds know the meaning of "cardiovascular?" I did and it was entirely due to professional wrestling.
While a somewhat impressive/obnoxious vocabulary is something that many young wrestling fans probably picked up from listening to Jim Ross and Gorilla Monsoon on a weekly basis, my love for pro wrestling also worked hand-in-hand with my love of geography. Sure I likely would have been an almanac reading, atlas gazing weirdo without the influence of the Apter mags, but absent the tabloids of Stanley Weston I wouldn't have encountered terms like "Pacific Northwest" with the sort of regularity necessary for a second grader to start obsessing over the physical boundaries of the Puget Sound.
Sometimes these overlapping interests worked in others ways, which brings me to the the real topic of this entry - Ozark Mountain Wrestling.
I first encountered Ozark Mountain Wrestling as a promotional name in one of the aforementioned Apter mags, and though I was only thirteen I remember reading the name and immediately thinking "who the fuck thinks it is a good idea to run a wrestling promotion in the Ozarks?" This of course is a doubly dickish opinion for a tween to express, but that's really the point of being a tween. And the point of all of this was that I became very interested in this bizarre wrestling promotion that had sprung up seemingly out of the blue largely because of the fact that it had emerged in a place that was considered backwards even by the standards of a kid born in East Ridge, Tennessee.
Having said all of this, it is important to remember that while it was no doubt an insane idea to try to run a territory in Northeastern Arkansas in 1995 (by the way, the bulk of the towns advertised on the television show I'm about to review fall in an area outside of what is usually identified as "the Ozarks") it wasn't really that insane. At the time the USWA was still running a territorial loop based out of Memphis which is not even 75 miles away. Though Smokey Mountain Wrestling would close by years end, at the time OMW popped up Cornette and company had been successfully running a real wrestling territory in a thinly populated, rural, mountain landscape for several years. The key to the success and survival of both groups was that they had a weekly television presence. So did OMW and today we will look at the pilot episode.
Yes I said the pilot episode because that is precisely what this was. The show comes to us courtesy of the Highspots Wrestling Network and lacks a date. Notably it is after they have run at least some shows as there is footage from live events on this broadcast, though only a very small amount. In fact the bulk of the show is Bert Prentice in full blown infomercial mode, holding a mic, looking deep into the eyes of the viewers, and letting us know there is "real hot wrestling" to be seen in the Jonesboro, Arksansas area.
There are no full matches on the show at all. In and of itself I understand this, as wrestling without context is a hard sell for most people. That said, the company does not go the route of music video packages, or true highlight reels to spark interest. Instead you get several promos, a whole lot of Bert (as noted above), and the strangest clips of live events I've ever seen. This is not an exaggeration.
The first clip comes nearly a quarter of the way into the show and consists entirely of the promotions ace, The Colorado Kid, working over an unidentified opponents arm in a rudimentary fashion. This lasts for approximately twenty seconds. Then there is a random second long clip of a heel tag team, The Spiders, who are in the back of a room doing god knows what. Then it's back to Bert. There is probably no bigger advocate of matches based around limb work than me, but even I know Mike Rapada doing an arm wringer isn't how you hard sell an upstart wrestling company.
The second clip comes later in the show. This features shots of fans clapping, and a couple of slightly out of sync highspots involving the Colorado Kid and....someone. While this is a mild improvement over the first effort, it is also well under a minute long, and presents nothing exciting, engaging, or dramatic.
For actual wrestling content that is all you get on the pilot episode. On the other hand there are several other things worth noting that don't occur in a wrestling ring.
- Prentice's impassioned plea to fans to get out and support local wrestling is actually really entertaining. As one might expect he appeals to tradition and localism, at times sounding like Russell Kirk, at other times like Bill Kauffman. That said when he notes that the wrestlers live in Arkansas and it comes on the heels of him talking about the youth and looks of the Colorado Kid, one can't help but wonder if he is advocating for communal loyalty or making note of how easy it would be to stalk an OMW wrestler if one were so inclined.
- There are promos from both Cactus Jack (who is coming in to wrestle The Colorado Kid on the show) and Sean Morley. The Cactus promo is very good, as all Foley promos from this era are. It is most notable because he compares himself to a garbage man, invoking images of Foley as wrestling's Larry Bird, taking out the trash in Wynne, Arkansas (his French Lick in this shitty analogy) after "dropping out" of mainstream wrestling, before eventually becoming one of the biggest stars in the history of his athletic discipline. Morley's promo is suitable and outlines his troubles both with the Spiders who have injured his partner Shane Diamond, and his difficulties with a grizzled (to put it mildly) man named JR Alzado who mocks Sean by calling him "Poorly." Morley's belt is hanging loose in a decidedly phallic fashion and he says some variant of "LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING RIGHT NOW..." to let you know he's serious business. This is something modern wrestling lacks, and I am not trying to be funny.
- We are introduced to the evil manager Freddie Fargo. More on him in the coming episodes I hope. We are also introduced to the Spiders who amazingly come across as a low rent Ding Dongs if that is something you can even imagine. If you are reading this and don't know who the Ding Dongs are good for you. Don't Google it.
- There is a wonderful segment where Prentice sits down with a lady from United Pawnbrokers to discuss their sponsorship of OMW. It wasn't explicitly stated, but it kind of felt like the implication here was "steal stuff, pawn it, and buy wrestling tickets with it." Or maybe I just always assume the worst.
I'm not sure how much more I have in me, but here we are. More to come.
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