Tony Anthony

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This article is about the pro wrestler. For other uses, see Tony Anthony (disambiguation).

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Tony Anthony
Statistics
Ring name(s)	Dirty White Boy Grappler 2 Uncle Cletus TL Hopper The Mighty Yankee Tony Anthony
Billed height	5'10" (182 cm)
Billed weight	300 lbs. (136 kg)
Born	April 12, 1960 Bucksnort, Tennessee
Resides	Knoxville, Tennessee
Trained by	Steve Keirn
Debut	1977

Tony Anthony (born April 12, 1960 in Bucksnort, Tennessee) is a professional wrestler, best known for his appearances with Smokey Mountain Wrestling as the Dirty White Boy and his short runs in the World Wrestling Federation under the gimmicks TL Hopper and Uncle Cletus.

1 Career
2 Managers
3 Finishing/Signature Moves
4 Championshipships and accomplishments

Tony Anthony spent most of his professional wrestling career working in the Southern United States for smaller independent promotions. His most well known run came with Smoky Mountain Wrestling from 1992-1995, where he had notable feuds with Eric Embry, “Prime Time” Brian Lee, and “Wild Eyed Southern Boy” Tracy Smothers.

Anthony won the SMW Heavyweight title for the first time from Brian Lee on August 8, 1992 at the “Fire on the Mountain” event in Johnson City, Tennessee. At the time, Anthony was working as a heel. His reign was ended on April 2, 1993 by Tracy Smothers at “Bluegrass Brawl II” in Pikeville, KY. After a controversial “Coward Waves the Flag” match on May 15, 1993, between Anthony and Smothers the belt was held up. Smothers defeated Anthony in the finals of a tournament on June 11, 1993 in Knoxville, Tennessee, to win the title once again.

After turning babyface, on February 13, 1994 in Knoxville at “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, Anthony regained the SMW title by defeating Brian Lee in a Chain match. On May 2, 1994, Anthony was upset by Jake Roberts in Harriman, TN, and lost the SMW title. Anthony regained the belt from Roberts on July 5, 1994 in Warrensville, NC, only to lose it for a third time to "The King" Jerry Lawler on January 28, 1995 in Knoxville. At this point Anthony formed a tag team with long time enemy Tracy Smothers. Known as “The T.H.U.G’s.” (“T is for Terrible, H is for Hell, U is for Ugly and G is for Jail, cause a THUG can’t spell!”) they feuded with several teams and eventually won the SMW tag team championship from Al Snow and Unabomb (who went on to become Kane in the WWF) in Jellico, TN on July 6, 1995. The duo dropped the belts less than a month later to the Heavenly Bodies, on August 4, 1995 in Knoxville. SMW was on its last legs by this point, and the promotion officially ceased operations in December, after being absorbed by the United States Wrestling Association (USWA).

Around this time, Anthony made his way to the WWF, where he was given the character of “The Wrestling Plumber” T.L. Hopper. Considered by many to be one of the true low points of the WWF, Hopper along with characters like Freddie Joe Floyd (Tracy Smothers), The Goon (Bill Irwin), Who (Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart), and Duke “The Dumpster” Droese (the wrestling garbage man) were all introduced within weeks of each other. Hopper never achieved much success and was used mostly as a lower card jobber heel. He was released by the WWF and returned to working Southern independents. He made a surprising return to the WWF in the fall of 1997, under the gimmick of Uncle Cletus, manager of Henry O. Godwinn and Phineas I. Godwinn as the hog farmers turned heel to feud with the Legion of Doom. That run did not last long either, as Henry Godwinn suffered a neck injury, Anthony was once again released, and Phineas was repackaged as Dennis Knight. At this point, Anthony once again headed back to his home state and worked for several local wrestling groups.