Yee haw!! Ain’t nithin’ better than a country bumpkin to get the rubes to come out to see rasslin’!
And so must have been the thinking of Vincent K. McMahon when he rechristened ring veteran Tracy Smothers as Freddie Joe Floyd. After all, good ol’ boys are always good to sell tickets, right?
Well, no. Tracey went out and did his best to be everybody’s favorite hilljack. He had the enthusiasm. He had the look. Hell, he even cut cornball promos like this one!
The problem is, no matter how much Tracy, err, excuse me, Freddie Joe shilled and played to the crowd, no one seemed to care. He was never given any big wins, and languished in the midcard, competing in heartstoppers against the likes of Uncle Zebekiah and the Grimm Twins.
Fortunately for Smothers, he was able to rebound somewhat in ECW, as the Tennessee representative of the Full Blooded Italians.
That may not have made a lot of sense, but at least it was more entertaining than what Vinnie Mac came up with!