What the World Was Watching: USWA Championship Wrestling – November 18, 1995

Lance Russell and Corey Maclin are in the booth for today’s show, which is a special “on the road” broadcast because of repairs being made to the WMC-TV5 studio. The matches on this show come from the November 13 card in Memphis.

Opening Contest for the USWA Unified World Championship: Ahmed Johnson (Champion) (1-0) pins Tracy Smothers (w/Downtown Bruno) (5-6) after the Pearl River Plunge at 4:24 shown:

The match between these two in Memphis went for nearly twelve minutes so the television version only shows a third of the match. What they do show is good, though, as Smothers and Bruno cheat to put Ahmed in a vulnerable position. Smothers delivers his spinning elbow smash off the top rope, but Ahmed kicks out at two and capitalizes on heel miscommunication when Smothers tries to hit him with the Confederate flag to win his first title defense. Rating: **

Footage recaps the USWA-SMW feud, focusing on the Eddie Marlin beatdowns and Jeff Jarrett’s return on last week’s program.

A match between Jeff Jarrett and Chris Curtis from the 1980s airs. Jarrett won this squash match after about four minutes with a missile dropkick.

Russell interviews Jarrett, saying that Jarrett is a nice, hardworking guy. Jarrett talks about how he is going to beat Jesse James Armstrong again in Memphis. While he says it is great for the USWA to take control of SMW, he never talks about what the USWA plans to do with it.

Jesse James Armstrong delivers a taped promo to hype the rematch with Jarrett. In the rematch it is winner-take-all again and this time Armstrong’s hair is on the line.

USWA Southern Heavyweight Championship Match: Tex Slazenger (w/Downtown Bruno) (1-0) beats Brian Christopher (Champion) (40-15-6) via disqualification when Christopher uses a chain at 2:36 shown:

Only the finish of this match airs, picking up with Christopher making the comeback after a Slazenger chinlock. Overbooking kicks in once Christopher flattens Slazenger with a superkick and clotheslines him over the top rope. This leads to Slazenger scoring the winning fall when Jesse James Armstrong runs down and trips Christopher when he tries to suplex Slazenger into the ring. When the referee finds Armstrong hiding outside after the bell, he restarts the match, but right after the restart Christopher pulls out a chain and nails Slazenger for a pin, with THAT result overturned when the referee finds it following a complaint by Armstrong. Due to these developments the referee decides to hold up the title.

In a taped promo, Christopher justifies using the chain because of the SMW interference that preceded it.

Footage of the USWA Tag Team Championship match between PG-13 and the Rock N’ Roll Express at A Night to Remember in Louisville airs.

The Last Word: Getting a break from the WMC-TV5 studio was not a bad thing and it gave this program a special feel. However, it would have been good for the USWA to keep the program focused on ongoing developments rather than doing a callback to A Night to Remember or showing a really old Jeff Jarrett match.

Instead of having the Mid-South Coliseum show on Monday, the USWA experimented with a Wednesday show on November 22. Wednesday was an open date because of the USWA losing the Evansville market to the Ozark Mountain promotion. Attendance grew, with 1,150 fans paying a gate of $7,800 to see the following event, with results provided courtesy of prowrestlinghistory.com:

-Wolfie D (7-1-2) beat Reggie B. Fine (0-13)

-Steven Dunn (17-6-4) beat Tony Williams (2-4)

-Miss Texas (16-9-1) defeated USWA Women’s Champion Tasha Simone (2-0) to win the title.

-SMW Champion Brad Armstrong (0-2) beat King Cobra (1-1)

-Doug Gilbert (24-14-3) wrestled Moondog Cujo (3-1) to a no contest

-PG-13 (47-20-3) beat Tracy Smothers & the Smoky Mountain Massacre

-Brian Christopher (40-16-6) beat Tex Slazenger (2-0) via disqualification

-Brian Christopher won a battle royal

-Jerry Lawler (23-6) beat USWA Unified World Champion Ahmed Johnson (2-0) via disqualification

-Jesse James Armstrong (7-7) beat Jeff Jarrett (1-0) in a “winner take all” match to give SMW control over the USWA. Armstrong’s hair was also on the line during the match.

Backstage News*: The good attendance figures in Memphis are likely to convince the USWA to move its weekly shows to Wednesday nights. Bad attendance in Memphis on Mondays despite good attendance in other towns like Louisville and Nashville appears to show that the USWA cannot compete against free wrestling on television from the WWF and WCW. If the USWA opted to go to Wednesdays permanently, they could use Jerry Lawler on a regular basis again.

*Next week’s episode of USWA Championship Wrestling will be taped as well due to remodeling at WMC-TV5 studios.

*The Memphis broadcast of USWA Championship Wrestling on November 18 cast Ahmed Johnson as a heel as Vince McMahon hyped him as a WWF creation who was getting more cheers than Jerry Lawler in Memphis.

*Backstage news is provided courtesy of Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer for November 27.

Up Next: USWA Championship Wrestling for November 25!