05/20/1995: Street Fight: The Thugs (Tony Anthony & Tracy Smothers) def. The Gangstas in 9:25

The Thugs’ self-created acronym remains one of my greatest wrestling memories of the ‘90s, so I’m probably partial to this. This was a handheld from Charlotte Memories, a SMW show that drew two hundred people to the Grady Cole Center. Hence, the building was pretty empty, allowing everyone more room to brawl around the arena safely. The handheld aspect hurt that part in this case because it’s harder to keep an eye on everything. The brawling outside was more New Jack than Mustafa on the Gangstas’ side, because where you want Mustafa Said is constantly in the wrestling ring. Hm. New Jack bladed to send these two hundred people home happy, and threw a nice clothesline off the apron at one point, which was more than Said’s dreadful punches and “kicks” (note the quotations). Smothers wore a pair of denim overalls to pander to the locals, who may have been in a bar tussle or two in a pair of overalls. The crowd seemed like they mostly murmured amongst themselves during the match, but did react strongly when New Jack gave Smothers a piledriver through a table that broke perfectly. D-Lo Brown was in the Gangatas’ corner and helped them maintain the upper hand, but the finish came when he accidentally gave Mustafa a top rope splash instead of Dirty White Boy. They continued to brawl after the match. There were chairs, trash cans, and the aforementioned broken table, so many staples of the Monday Night War in a few years. All of that stuff looked good for the most part, but there’s no real flow to this, and the crowd heat was disappointing, even with the small crowd. Plus, Mustafa working too much in the ring didn’t make a ton of sense to me. **