Volunteer Slam I

Volunteer Slam (sequentially known as Volunteer Slam I) was the first Volunteer Slam professional wrestling event produced by Smoky Mountain Wrestling (SMW). It took place on May 22, 1992 at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum in Knoxville, Tennessee. The event drew a crowd of 1,000 fans in attendance and was the first major supercard produced by SMW.
Nine professional wrestling matches were contested at the event. The event featured a tournament to determine the first-ever SMW Heavyweight Champion, with Brian Lee defeating Paul Orndorff via disqualification in the tournament final to become the inaugural Heavyweight Champion in the . Other featured matches on the featuring The Heavenly Bodies defending the Tag Team Championship against Davey Rich and Johnny Rich as well as Joey Maggs and Hector Guerrero taking on Rip Rogers and Barry Horowitz.
Production
Background
On the March 28 episode of SMW TV, the on-screen SMW Commissioner Bob Armstrong announced that SMW would be holding its first major supercard event Volunteer Slam on May 15, 1992 at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum in Knoxville, Tennessee. Storylines between the characters played out on SMW's self-titled television program.
On the March 28 episode of SMW TV, the SMW Commissioner Bob Armstrong announced that a tournament would take place at Volunteer Slam for the new SMW Heavyweight Championship, with the inaugural champion being crowned at the event and named the twelve participants who would be participating in the tournament and announced that three of the participants would be determined through qualifying matches taking place on television. The qualifying matches took place as Brian Lee defeated Dutch Mantel on April 4, Paul Orndorff defeated Hector Guerrero on April 11 and Dixie Dynamite defeated Carl Styles on April 18.
On the May 9 episode of SMW TV, The Heavenly Bodies (Stan Lane and Tom Prichard) defeated The Fantastics (Bobby Fulton and Jackie Fulton) in the finals of an eight-team tournament to become the first-ever SMW Tag Team Champions after Heavenly Bodies' manager Jim Cornette hit Jackie with a tennis racket. Heavenly Bodies attacked Fantastics after the match, which led to Jackie getting injured. The following week, on SMW TV, it was announced that Heavenly Bodies would defend the Tag Team Championship against The Party Patrol (Davey Rich and Johnny Rich) at Volunteer Slam.
Event
Quarterfinals
The opening match of the event was a tag team match featuring Joey Maggs and Hector Guerrero against Rip Rogers and Barry Horowitz. Guerrero pinned Horowitz for the win.
Next, the first match of the quarter-final round of the SMW Heavyweight Championship tournament took place as Dixie Dynamite took on The Dirty White Boy. DWB avoided a dropkick by Dynamite by holding on the ropes and nailed a Bucksnort Blaster for the win.
Next, Brian Lee took on Buddy Landel. Landel tried to apply a figure four leglock on Lee after Lee missed a diving knee drop but Lee countered by pinning Landel with an for the win.
In the next match, Tim Horner took on Paul Orndorff. Near the end of the match, Orndorff trapped Horner's leg in the ropes and pinned him to win the match.
It was followed by the fourth and last match in the quarter-final round of the tournament featuring Robert Gibson against Jimmy Golden. Gibson's knee was injured during the match but he managed to nailed a bulldog on Golden for the win.
Semifinals
The first semifinal match of the Heavyweight Championship tournament featured Brian Lee against Dirty White Boy. Lee pinned DWB after avoiding a diving headbutt by DWB from the middle rope. DWB attacked Lee after the match by repeatedly hitting him with a chair.
In the next semifinal, Robert Gibson took on Paul Orndorff. Orndorff dominated most of the match by targeting Gibson's knee until Gibson made a comeback into the match by hitting a bulldog but got a and then Orndorff hit a chop block on Gibson and pinned him by grabbing the tights for leverage to advance to the final round.
In the penultimate match, The Heavenly Bodies (Stan Lane and Tom Prichard) defended the SMW Tag Team Championship against The Party Patrol (Davey Rich and Johnny Rich). Near the end of the match, Johnny had applied a sleeper hold on Lane but Prichard kicked him from behind, allowing Lane to pin Johnny to retain the titles.
Final
The tournament final for the SMW Heavyweight Championship was the main event of the show pitting Brian Lee against Paul Orndorff. The referee was knocked out during the match after Orndorff hit a big elbow smash, which led to the Commissioner Bob Armstrong taking over officiating duties. Dirty White Boy tried to interfere in the match but Lee attacked him. Orndorff wore a pair of brass knuckles and hit Lee with it to gain a near-fall until Armstrong noticed the brass knuckles in Orndorff's hand and disqualified him for using them, which led to Lee being awarded the title and becoming the first-ever Heavyweight Champion.
Reception
Volunteer Slam received mixed to negative reviews. Bob Colling of Wrestling Recaps rated the event 4 out of 10, considering it a poor event as he wrote "Honestly, it’s a disappointing first big show for Smoky Mountain Wrestling. The positives were the Lee/DWB story advancement and Orndorff continues to be a great heel. However, the booking of the tournament final was confusing and just makes Lee look like he couldn’t have beaten Orndorff by pin fall. The action throughout was heavily on the brawling side with very little exciting action taking place."
Adam Nedeff of 411Mania gave it an average rating of 6.3, writing "Man, they were on a roll there and the show just ran out of gas near the end. It felt like a better-than-average Prime Time Wrestling and it's worth a look if you can find it."
According to Garth Holmberg of Scott's Blog of Doom, "the finishes were strong and even the losers were protected well enough to be kept as reasonable contenders. There weren’t any show stealing performances, but this was more about crowning Brian Lee and cementing him as the top babyface in the territory. The Tag Title Match was a nice bonus to break things up a bit, but it was one of those place-holder challenger situations where any reasonably intelligent fan could tell they were buying the Heavenly Bodies time for the return of the Fantastics. Nothing to blow you away, nothing that outright stunk, just a solid 90-minutes of rasslin’."
Aftermath
Brian Lee continued his feud with Paul Orndorff and The Dirty White Boy after his SMW Heavyweight Championship win at Volunteer Slam. Lee and DWB had a match against each other on the June 13 episode of SMW TV, in which DWB was disqualified after hitting Lee with a pair of brass knuckles and Orndorff joined DWB in attacking Lee. Lee brought Ron Garvin to SMW as his partner against DWB and Orndorff on the June 27 SMW TV, which led to a match between the two teams at Summer Blast, which Lee and Garvin won. Garvin moved onto feuding with Orndorff while Lee began a rivalry with DWB, leading up to the next big supercard Fire on the Mountain on August 8 where Garvin defeated Orndorff in a Piledriver match while DWB defeated Lee to win the Heavyweight Championship.
The Heavenly Bodies moved on to a feud with The Fantastics after Volunteer Slam, stemming from Heavenly Bodies having beaten Fantastics, with the help of their manager Jim Cornette in the finals of a tournament to become the inaugural SMW Tag Team Champions and having injured Jackie Fulton. At Fire on the Mountain, Fantastics defeated Heavenly Bodies in a barbed wire steel cage match to win the Tag Team Championship.

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