Match of the Day - "Hood" Tracy Smothers wrestles as Shaquille Ali in USWA

Tracy "Shaquille Ali" Smothers w/the Nation of Domination vs. Jerry "The King" Lawler Unified World title match - USWA (1997)

Don't let Corey whats-his-name foul you on commentary, Tracy Smothers might be the name given to him at birth, but Smothers around 1997 was now known as Shaquille Ali, a member of USWA's Nation of Domination. Smothers, known for being a down-home southern boy most of his career decided to join the Nation, led by PG-13 of Faarooq's original WWF stable, and live out the life of "the hood".

While this Nation of Domination was not as well written as WWF's version, USWA had something that could have been really good with the individuals involved. In a way, this Nation was more like the original Full Blooded Italians gimmick that ECW had created where most of the members were not really full blooded just really hot blooded. Most of the Nation were not really from the hood or had any business being in a Malcolm X like stable. I should also point out that Tracy Smothers was in the original Full Blooded Italians stable.

One thing that this Shaquille Ali gimmick lacked was a heel commentator to help drive home the fact that Tracy Smothers was no longer the country boy that he used to be and now known by his nation name, Shaquille Ali. This heel figure could have also strengthened the gimmick by explaining just what the "Nation of Domination" was and what they were all about.

Personally, I find Tracy Smothers to be one of the most underrated wrestlers of his time. He's a great heel, he's capable of playing something other than a cowboy even though he's from the south, he's been named after two of the greatest athletes of all time, and - on top of all that - he once wrestled a bear! An un-muzzled bear!

If that doesn't spell championship material... a don't know what does.

The match: Smothers as Shaq Ali gets a shot at the Unified World title against Jerry "I own this company so I'm King" Lawler. Smothers almost wins the match due to interference by Wolfie D of PG-13, but Brian Christopher, Lawler's son, comes out to stop the 3 count. Unfortunately for Lawler, referee Downtown Bruno (Harvey Wippleman) only sees the interference by Christoper and reverses the discussion of the match. Shaq wins but Lawler retains the title. 

Match of the Day - USWA's Christmas Creature

The Christmas Creature vs. Trey Keller - USWA (1992)

Before Glenn Jacobs found the perfect role for himself as "The Big Red Machine" Kane, this 7 ft tall individual had many unsuccessful and forgettable gimmicks including: Isaac Yankem D.D.S. (yes, the evil dentist) in WWF, "fake" Diesel (as WWF owned the rights to Kevin Nash's 'Diesel' character in the early 90's and could do whatever they wanted with it), and Bruiser Mastino (a WCW jobber). Jacobs even began his career as "Angus King", the name of my home state of Maine's senator-elect... But none of these personas can possibly hold up to the bad taste that was "The Christmas Creature".

The Christmas Creature was a gimmick given to Jacobs while he was with Jerry Jarrett's Memphis-based rasslin promotion, United States Wrestling Association (later owned by Jerry Lawler). And while Jacobs would eventually hold the companies' Heavyweight title in 1997 as the masked Doomsday, this first little stint as the red, white, and green tinseled-monster, was not as successful. I mean, he wins his match shown above against Trey Keller, but overall this whole evil-looking wrestling Christmas present has to be one of Jacobs' worst gimmicks to date.

Overall reaction to whatever this was: USWA was a development company that experimented with a lot of bad gimmicks. Gimmicks such as Ninja Turtles, Freddy Kruger, The Spider, The Candyman, and even Spellbinder (better known as that magician named Phantasio who only appeared once in WWF - he actually did fairly well in USWA). With that being said, it's no wonder that this creature from Christmas past was thought up and thrown together like so. For the other stuff that goes on before the Trey Keller squash -  including Brian Christopher (AKA Grandmaster Sexy AKA Jerry Lawler's son) yelling about who-knows-what this week and Bert Prentice kicking Santa's fanny, well, this was USWA remember; there wasn't a whole lot of time or room for explanations.