10 Forgotten WWE Upsets

Freddie Joe Floyd defeats Justin ‘Hawk’ Bradshaw (June 29th, 1996)

The late, great Tracy Smothers is one of the most underappreciated talents in wrestling history. A fiery tag expert in both the Young Pistols and Wild-Eyed Southern Boys in WCW and as a preposterously outplaced member of the FBI in ECW, he only truly reached his potential in Jim Cornette’s Smoky Mountain Wrestling. A 2-time SMW world champion, his run in the WWF is easily the most forgettable, with the company completely changing his identity.

Now renamed the bombastically jobber-like Freddie Joe Floyd, he was a certified journeyman often losing to the top stars on Raw tapings, taking losses to everyone from Vader to Billy Gunn. On a Superstars taping in June 1996, the bluegrass Tennessean faced the still fairly new burly Texan Justin ‘Hawk’ Bradshaw. The future JBL, managed by Uncle Zebekiah (himself the future Zeb Colter), took an unexpected loss.

Countering a body slam, Freddie Joe Floyd performed a meathook cradle pin to get a botched, but nonetheless successful pinfall. Getting a big win over the future WWE champion, Smothers later recalled JBL deliberately kicked out multiple times of the pin due to Tracy not executing a proper pin, the result of which was the ending looked rugged and disjointed. It was likely the highlight of his career as he would not go on to have many other moments in either of his 2 WWF runs.