On the heels of Jim Crockett Promotions era (1985-1988) NWA World Championship Wrestling episodes being uploaded to WWE Network last week, it looks like there’s a lot more to come. About 40 minutes after tonight’s episode of Monday Night Raw went off the air, the WWE Network Updates Twitter account started to catch uploads of episodes of Smoky Mountain Wrestling from 1994 and Mid-South Wrestling from 1984. Only a few episodes of each are up so far, but if other recent TV show uploads in “The Vault” are any indication, there’s more to come, with gaps being filled along the way.
Mid-South Wrestling was “Cowboy” Bill Watts’ promotion in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, which ran from 1979 to 1987. Having bought out former boss/business partner Leroy McGuirk, he soon brought in the Junkyard Dog and the territory caught fire. Their TV was considered by many to be the best of the era, with great wrestling, episodic storytelling, and an emphasis on credible booking.
Smoky Mountain Wrestling launched as a promotion in late 1991, with TV starting in 1992, before closing in November 1995. Jim Cornette ran the promotion with financing from record producer Rick Rubin (who was a huge fan of southern style wrestling), running shows primarily in east Tennessee and other parts of the old Southeastern Championship Wrestling/Continental territory. Like Mid-South, it was considered to have some of the best TV of the era, with Cornette booking the shows as something like a cross between Mid-South and the Memphis wrestling that he grew up on.
