From Larry Goodman: Southeastern Championship Wrestling ran their debut television taping at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium Ballroom...
Southeastern Championship Wrestling ran their debut television taping at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium Ballroom Saturday night drawing a full house of close to 200.
SECW is the brainchild of David Marquez and is part of his United Wrestling Network. Marquez secured a time slot on the Knoxville FOX affiliate and brought former SAW booker/promoter Paul Adams to handle those duties for SECW. Tom Prichard and Beau James are also involved in advisory roles. Todd Kenely is on board to handle the commentary.
By any measure, this first taping was a huge success. It’s safe to say that Knoxville hasn’t had a wrestling promotion with the talent roster and production values that SECW possesses since Smoky Mountain Wrestling closed up shop in 1995. The crowd liked what they were seeing and responded well all night long. Given the current wrestling landscape, what this means going forward is anyone’s guess. The television debut is July 26 and the promotion has monthly tapings scheduled through the end of year.
It helped that it wasn’t a long night. They managed to tape three hours of television in two hours -- very impressive and a far cry from some of the dreaded marathon tapings that SAW used to do. The Ballroom is tailor-made for TV. Ron Fuller ran tapings for the original Southeastern there on Sunday afternoons, and Jim Cornette did some SMW tapings there as well. The lighting, the set up and the animated crowd should make for good looking TV.
No big surprise that the SECW talent roster features key players from the latter part of Adams’ SAW run. Chase Stevens, Chris Michaels, Vordell Walker and Shane Williams are all in the mix. The format of the show was squash matches to introduce the characters, followed by angle development and competitive matches stemming from the angles. The formula worked. All of the major characters got over well in their respective roles, and SECW goes into their second taping with three angles already clicking.
The only glaring negative was the officiating. The best of the bunch was Doug Markham from Nashville. I did not catch the names of the other two but they appeared to woefully lacking in experience. Lousy refereeing is tantamount to sacrilege in Knoxville. SMW couldn’t have been what it was without Brian Hildebrand as the third man in the ring.
(1) Vordell Walker defeated Shane Andrews in 7 minutes even. Andrews worked on Walker’s leg until Walker knocked him out of the ring and fired up. Andrews escaped from Walker’s tombstone driver the first time around but got nailed on the second attempt. I knew Andrews was a small guy but Walker dwarfed him. Walker got over as a babyface and the crowd popped big for his finisher.
(2) Washington Bullets defeated Street Dreams (J-Mac & Shawn Streets) in 4:35. The crowd took an immediate dislike to the Bullets’ uber arrogance. Bullets back jumped Street Dreams and beat on J-Mac with double teams. Streets cleaned house and had Jon pinned but was not the legal man owing to a bind tag by J-Mac, who then crashed and burned on a dive. Bullets pinned Streets with the Marion Barry (backcracker/cutter combo).
(3) Tate Twins (Brent & Brandon) defeated The Saints (Tyler Jett & Joseph Knight) In 4:10. Crowd wanted to know what was up with Saint’s shiny vinyl pants? The Tates hit a slew of cool tandem moves before Knight provided distraction to get heat on one of them. I have no idea which one. The Tates are identical twins and they wear completely matching gear. A missile dropkick on both Saints popped the crowd and set up the hot tag. The Twins used a neckbreaker/top rope splash combo to pin Jett. The Tates also got over well.
(4) Chase Stevens defeated Chris Michaels in 6:10. Stevens’ entrance got the superstar pop. Michaels abused Stevens with heelish tactics until he took his signature flying crotch bump on the buckles and the comeback was on. Stevens got two with the ax kick. Michaels answered with the Double Shot and went for the superkick. Stevens ducked and hit Krytonite Krunch for the 1-2-3. Nice match. Michaels was so woozy it required all three refs to help him to the back.
Marquez attempted to interview Stevens at ringside but Shawn Shultz and that massive chip on his shoulder hijacked the spot. Shultz accused Marquez of passing him over yet again. Shultz was enraged that Marquez left him off the debut episode in favor of that screw up Chase Stevens. The screw up remark got Stevens fired up and the refs had to hold him back. Shultz told Stevens to go drink his sorrows away and told Marquez that Stevens was touching his officials and was a liability. “I’m going to take my spot!” said Shultz. The fans started chanting for Stevens. Marquez finally had had enough and gave Shultz what for to end the segment. Stellar stuff from Shultz, reminiscent of classic Memphis TV.
Week 2 opened with a Nitros Noise segment where Michaels announced his retirement. Say what you will about Nitros’ overly amped style, he’s unique and the crowd took to his act. Michaels said SECW wouldn’t last more than two weeks tops without him. It was fine except Nitros botched the last line and called the town Kingsport instead of Knoxville.
(5) Shawn Shultz squashed Logan Mills in 1:30 pinning the job guy with a DDT. Shultz looked good and got heat.
Marquez granted time to Shultz. That brought Stevens out. Stevens tapped Shultz in the forehead and said he had dealt with punks like him all of his life. Stevens said he wanted Shultz anytime, anywhere. Shultz walked off. Stevens asked Marquez to sign the match for next week. Simple, straightforward and very effective because it felt real.
(6) “King” Shane Williams defeated Brandon Scott in 5:30. Williams came out to the Rocky theme. Scott was easily the best of the jobber corp. He’s not physically impressive but all of his offense looked crisp. Scott gave Williams a run for his money but in the end, he was done in by “King” Williams piledriver.
The Bullets came out with their braggadocio in full effect, saying they were the best in the world. The Tates took exception and attacked. They had to improvise for a while because the ref took his sweet time getting out there, but eventually this lead to…
(7) Tate Twins defeated Bullets by count out in 7:05. This match had bell-to-bell heat like nothing else on the card. The kids in the crowd were hating on the Bullets. Using the Williams brothers as heels and matching them against the twins was a fairly brilliant idea. The action was solid enough; although I’m pretty sure they have a better match in them than this. Both teams were hitting combo moves all over the place. The Bullets messed up down the stretch with Trey eating two knee strikes from Jon. When the Tates went for their finisher on Jon, Trey crotched one of the twins on the top turnbuckle and the brother walked out.
Postmatch, The Bullets disrupted the Tates’ celebration and left them both laying with the Marion Barry, then tore a fan’s poster to shreds on their way out.
(8) Vordell Walker defeated Ricky Valentine in 1:57. Valentine tried a sneak attack. It did him little good. Walker dropped him on his head with the overhead belly to belly suplex and won it with the tombstone driver. Valentine didn’t sell the devastation much at all and Prichard was yelling at the ref to help him to the back.
Ring announcer Scott Hensley touted the return date of July 19 with $5 tickets if bought tonight.
(9) Shane Williams defeated Vordell Walker in 12:55. A competitive, hard hitting match. Both men had their works shoes on. Williams missed the Lawler fist drop and Walker came back with an Olympic Slam. Williams blocked the tombstone driver and hit a hangman’s neckbreaker but Walker kicked out. The crowd was chanting hard for Walker, who blasted Williams with a shoulder block, knocking him the apron. When Walker tried to suplex Williams back to the inside, Williams clocked him with a chain and landed on top for the pin. The ref was totally in the wrong position on the finish such that the gimmick was directly in his line of sight.
Hensley announced a rematch for July 19.
(10) Chase Stevens defeated Shawn Shultz in 14:27. Stevens worked an armbar early on and was winning the wrestling battle. Shultz busted out the kick, punch and choke offense. Stevens was more than willing to fight fire with fire, so Shultz resorted to an eye poke and a hair pull takedown. Shultz grounded Stevens with a sleeper. Shultz threw a Muta elbow drop in the mix. It turned into a slugfest won by Stevens. But Shultz evaded the ax kick and countered with a northern lights suplex. The finish saw Stevens escape from the DDT and go for the Kryptonite Krunch. Shultz slipped out of it and tried to roll Stevens up but Stevens reversed to score the pinfall. Good match with a really well done finish.
Shultz was in a state of shock after the match and stood in the ring mumbling “that wasn’t supposed to happen”.
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