Prime Time Wrestling
Date: February 1, 1988
Hosts: Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Nick Bockwinkel, Bobby Heenan, Jesse Ventura, Vince McMahon, Bruno Sammartino, Lord Alfred Hayes, Pete Doherty

We’ll try a few more of these and this one is from the usual Monday night. The fact that it premiered two days before I did has nothing to do with my pick for watching this one. We’re just after the first Royal Rumble and that means we are four days away from the first ever Main Event. Let’s get to it.

Opening sequence.

Vince (not Gorilla Monsoon for some reason) and Heenan get straight to it by talking about Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant’s contract signing at the Royal Rumble for Friday’s Main Event. The first match at Wrestlemania III is brought up and Heenan is clearly not over it.

From Madison Square Garden, October 16, 1987.

Sika vs. Don Muraco

Mr. Fuji is here with Sika and this might be the closest we ever get to Roman Reigns vs. The Rock. Feeling out process to start as commentary goes over the history between Muraco and Fuji. Sika gets shoved around so we take an early breather on the floor, because even island savages need to take a break every now and then. Back in and Muraco gets a sunset flip out of the corner for two before starting in on the leg. Some leg/foot twisting has Sika in some trouble but Muraco just lets go, allowing Sika to come back with an elbow to the jaw.

Commentary keeps talking about various issues involving islanders and Samoans and Polynesians, which would probably get them in quite the trouble today. Muraco gets knocked outside and Sika keeps kicking him off of the apron. Muraco’s comeback consists of moving forward as Sika hits him and then running him over. Some chops in the corner have Sika in trouble and Muraco goes up top to drive a knee into Sika’s face (as in he grabs Sika’s hair, puts the knee on his face, and jumps down) for the pin at 8:23.

Rating: C-. Not a great match, but that was a really unique looking finish. I’m not sure how Muraco’s knee survived crashing into something as hard as a Samoan’s head but at least he didn’t scream in agony on the cover. Muraco’s muscles were out of control here and it’s no surprise that he wasn’t around much longer, as he just looked nuts at this point.

Vince likes Muraco’s win but Heenan hates Muraco’s change in philosophy.

Post break, commentary talks about Wrestlemania IV and how excited they are to meet Donald Trump.

From the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto on September 20, 1987.

Harley Race vs. Koko B. Ware

Race is the King at this point so Heenan handles his introduction. If nothing else, we get a good bit of Piledriver so the entrances are great. Heenan is worried about being allergic to Frankie the bird but Gorilla thinks Frankie might be allergic to weasels. Feeling out process to start as Heenan wants to hand Race a hammer. Ware leapfrogs him and Race seems confused about where Ware went, meaning it’s a dropkick to put Race down. The headlock goes on so Race drops to a knee and drives a headbutt into the ribs.

We get the traditional exchange of headbutts and neither goes anywhere, meaning Ware goes with a punch to the nose. Race goes back to the stomach and grabs a belly to belly for two. Some knees to the back keep Ware down and a piledriver gets two, with Monsoon wondering how much effect that would have had. The chinlock goes on and let’s cut to Frankie as Koko tries his comeback.

Koko gets sent to the ramp (near Frankie, whose feathers go up as Koko lands), where Race misses a falling headbutt. Race is fine enough to hit a brainbuster (which Gorilla seems to think was a bad suplex) but they take their time getting back in, allowing Koko to hammer away. A sunset flip gets two on Race and a shot to the face means they both need a breather. They collide for another double knockdown and we take a break. Back in the studio, Heenan seems to be calling in horse racing bets to a bookie, much to Vince’s annoyance.

We take a break and come back with Race missing a headbutt so Koko slams him face first into the mat. Some right hands have Race knocked even sillier and a dropkick gives Ware two. Back up and Race punches him down, setting up some knee drops for two of his own. They head outside with Race sending him face first into the ring bell for a great sound (Heenan is very pleased).

Ware posts him though, sending Heenan into a rant demanding a DQ (because Heenan is awesome). Back in again and Race gets tied in the ropes but manages to avoid a fist drop. Now the vertical suplex is a bit more to Monsoon’s liking and there’s a neck snap across the top. The camel clutch goes on as Race continues going through whatever basic things he can think of.

Koko slips out and sends Race head first into the mat (again). A belly to back gives Race two and Ware’s knee lift gets the same as this is still going for no logical reason. Back up and a clothesline knocks Ware down before Race sends him to the floor. Heenan gets up off commentary so Race can hit Ware in the throat with a microphone. That’s still not enough for the countout so Ware comes back in with a top rope punch to the head….as time expires at 22:29 (I have no idea what kind of time limit they were shooting for there. Twenty five minutes? What kind of a time limit is that?).

Rating: C. This was a weird one as the match was VERY long and slow, but it wasn’t exactly bad. Instead, it was two guys doing entertaining enough stuff as they kept hanging in there, but nothing ever got that interesting. It wasn’t much to see on TV and I’m almost scared to imagine how dull this might have been to watch live. Then again, that’s the point of matches like this and it makes this show more interesting to see oddities like this one.

Post match Race looks at Frankie and reaches for him before Koko scares him off. Was he going to grab it? Maybe eat it? We have 22:29 for the match but not another fifteen seconds to see Harley Race stealing and perhaps devouring a bird?

Back to the studio, where Vince asks Heenan if he really knows Donald Trump. Apparently Heenan and Trump are like THIS, but Heenan is on the top because he’s the Brain. With that out of the way, it’s time to talk about the upcoming Main Event this coming Friday.

Back from a break, Heenan promises that Andre the Giant is taking the WWF Title at the Main Event. Well kind of.

It’s time for UPDATE with Craig DeGeorge, with Craig running down the Main Event card. We see a clip of Honky Tonk Man shoving down Elizabeth, becoming the most evil human in the history of ever. Honky Tonk Man has to defend the Intercontinental Title against Randy Savage, but there is something even bigger.

We see a clip of Andre the Giant choking Hulk Hogan out (Andre’s face is one of the all time terrifying sights in wrestling). Ted DiBiase, who has purchased Andre’s contract, says Andre is his ticket to the WWF Title. Andre promises to win the title and hand it over to DiBiase.

Back in the studio, Heenan says Honky Tonk Man is the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time and knows he will show Randy Savage his place. Vince thinks Savage is going to win the title again, which isn’t quite fair when he is booking the show.

Now it’s on to the Tag Team Title match with Strike Force defending against the Hart Foundation, who they took the titles from a few months ago. Heenan says Jim Neidhart never gave up, because the referee asked if the Boston crab hurt and rang the bell when Neidhart said it did in fact hurt. Vince finds this rather stupid.

Some fans give their Main Event picks.

Vince doesn’t like Ron Bass’ bullwhip, but Heenan is more worried about Billy Jack Haynes’ hat. You never know what’s in it!

From the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto on June 28, 1987.

Billy Jack Haynes vs. Ron Bass

Joined in progress with Haynes working on a headlock and then getting two off a sunset flip. The fans chant BASSHOLE, which is downright clever and something I haven’t heard before. Back up and Haynes starts in on the arm as Monsoon calls Bass fat. The armbar keeps Bass down as Monsoon and Heenan debate Oregon vs. Beverly Hills (the classic argument). Bass fights up and grabs the bullwhip, which is taken away without much drama.

Hayes gets sent chest/throat first into the ropes as Heenan keeps ranting about the bad officiating at Wrestlemania. Monsoon tries to sell this as a huge match for both of them and I’m not sure he’s getting that one over. Bass sends him outside and the arm is rammed into the barricade, though Heenan wanted more of a running start.

There’s a posting to make Heenan a bit happier and the arm is bent around the ropes back inside. The comeback starts as Hayes walks around the ring and shrugs off a bunch of forearms. We get a rare bit as Heenan badmouths the other evil managers as Hayes hits an elbow to the face but can’t get the full nelson. Bass hits him in the throat, grabs the bullwhip, and shoves the referee down for the DQ at 8:41.

Rating: D. While the Race vs. Ware match was at least competent, this was two bigger guys walking around with a pretty sluggish match that never got started and then had a lame finish. The good thing is that commentary was helping carry the thing, but you’re only going to get so much out of these two. Neither exactly looked thrilled to be out there either and it was showing badly.

Bobby and Vince talk about the newly debuted Bad News Brown, who Heenan thinks could use a manager.

From January 5, 1988 in Huntsville, Alabama.

Bad News Brown vs. Brady Boone

This is Brown’s debut, assuming you don’t count his nearly year long run in 1979. Brown slugs away as Vince talks about the beauty of Harlem, where his dad was born. Boone doesn’t seem interested in being whipped across the ring so Brown hits him in the ribs. We get an inset interview from Brown, who says he takes no prisoners and gives no mercy, as we are now in a 90s0 B movie. Bruno Sammartino says his first words over a minute into the match, as I was actually surprised he was there. A hard clothesline finishes for Brown at 1:37.

Post match Brown throws him through the ropes.

Here’s Hulk Hogan for a platform chat in some unspecified arena. Hogan is ready for the rematch with Andre and it shouldn’t be a surprise. He was never going to sell out but everyone knew Andre had his price. Hogan slammed Andre at Wrestlemania III and beat him, but maybe he had an unfair advantage with Bobby Heenan being in Andre’s corner.

Since then, he has heard so many people talking about the controversial count that he wants the rematch. You have people like Ted DiBiase, who puts all his money in one place, unlike the good people like Donald Trump who spreads the money around. Hogan answers to the big bank teller in the sky and he thinks that the bottom is falling out on Andre and DiBiase.

Back in the studio, Vince talks about the 93,173 fans in Hogan’s corner at Wrestlemania but Bobby still insists that Andre had Hogan pinned. Heenan insists that Andre is getting the title because Hulkamania is dead and over.

After a break, Vince promises a report on Matilda (the British Bulldogs’ mascot) but Heenan has no idea what happened to her in the first place.

The British Bulldogs say Matilda is doing ok but she isn’t responding to the treatment. They read all of the cards and letters to her and it makes her tail wag.

Vince shows us where you can send such cards and letters for Matilda, which was in no way, shape or form a way to rebuild WWE’s mailing list.

Heenan goes on a hilarious rant about how stupid you have to be to own an animal, because you would have to be stupid/crazy to write letters to an animal. As for he and the Islanders dognapping Matilda a few weeks ago, it was because she was scared and vicious.

We go back to the Royal Rumble for the contract signing between Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant. They both sign and then Andre beats Hogan up by turning the table onto him.

From Madison Square Garden on August 22, 1987.

Intercontinental Title: Honky Tonk Man vs. Ricky Steamboat

Honky Tonk Man, with Jimmy Hart, is defending in a lumberjack match. Steamboat rubs George Steele’s head for luck and Honky Tonk Man hits the required stall button. Honky Tonk Man starts striking away about a minute in but Steamboat skins the cat and dropkicks him over the top. Back in and Honky Tonk Man is tossed outside again, where Steele throws him back inside.

They head outside again with Steamboat beating him up some more before the lumberjacks throw them back inside. We take a break and come back with Steamboat stomping him on the apron as Hart gives a frantic rant about his gang attack on Honky Tonk Man. Steamboat rams him into the buckle ten straight times and then does it ten more times just to make a point. Honky Tonk Man comes back with a snapmare and elbow drop to show off his variety of offense.

The Islanders trip Steamboat down so someone trips Honky Tonk Man right back down to set up the comeback. A belly to back suplex drops Honky Tonk Man but he breaks up a monkey flip, heaving Steamboat landing on his face. We take another break, with Heenan describing it as “eh” before coming back with Steamboat getting whipped over the top to the floor.

This time Honky Tonk Man follows him out, only to have the lumberjacks throw them back in (nice to see people doing their job for a chance). The neck crank goes on for a bit but Steamboat is right back with some chops. There’s the top rope chop to the head but Hart has the referee. Therefore Steele comes in and counts the pin, which Steamboat seems to think counts. Why to faces have to be so dumb? The melee allows Honky Tonk Man to hit Steamboat with the megaphone to retain at 12:28.

Rating: B-. This was a fun match and the kind of thing that the two of them could work together so well. That’s what you need for a show like this and it felt like something special. The fans were behind it too and the lumberjacks made it that much better. Good stuff here and the best match on the show by far.

Post match the big brawl is on with the good lumberjacks clearing the ring. The fans are LIVID at this one, as an MSG crowd will be.

Vince and Bobby talk about the Main Event Intercontinental Title match, with Heenan thinking Honky Tonk Man is going to retain the title. Oh and he’ll leave with Elizabeth too.

Post break, Bobby wants a dinner bet on Hogan vs. Andre but Vince says he would lose by having to go anywhere with Heenan. That’s a harsh one.

Ted DiBiase and Andre the Giant recap everything with Hogan and promise to get the title. The amazing thing is that after so many people promised to do this, they actually pulled it off.

Vince and Bobby talk about the title match one more time, with Vince getting in some jabs at Heenan’s tie to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. This is a good example of a show where the overall presentation worked a lot better than the pieces. The show was built to set up the Main Event card and I would think that thirty three million viewers would suggest that they did fairly well. The wrestling itself wasn’t all that great, though the main event was good house show fare. Nice enough show here and it set up one of the most famous matches in the history of the company.

 

 

 

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Royal Rumble 1988
Date: January 24, 1988
Location: Copps Coliseum, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Attendance: 18,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

So this is the first of the Rumbles and it aired on live TV instead of on Pay Per View. The battle royal tonight is twenty men instead of thirty and we also have three other matches on the card on top of that. We also get a bench press demonstration from Dino Bravo (just go with it) and the contract signing for Hogan vs. Andre II at the first live Main Event which would happen in twelve days. In a KB related story, I would happen in about ten days. Let’s get to it.

Vince does the intro over what I thought was Rude’s music. Oh it was Rude’s music. No wonder they sounded alike.

Rick Rude vs. Ricky Steamboat

This should work well with a career face vs. a career heel. That’s another thing you never get anymore: matches for the sake of having a match. You know what? It could work today too. For the sake of simplicity, Rick will only be used for Rude and Ricky will only be used for Steamboat. Rude pounds away to start but Steamboat fires off chops in retaliation. Rude throws him over the top because he’s still new at this WWF thing. Steamboat skins the cat back in and throws Rude to the floor.

Steamboat does Rude’s pose and Rude complains of a pull of the tights. Back in and Rude wants a test of strength and Dragon, ever the slow one, accepts. Down goes Ricky but he finally hits a knee to the hand to break the grip, followed by a wicked spin out to take Rude to the mat. Steamboat cranks on the arm and does so for a good while. The crowd is pretty much quiet here, so we can hear the individual shouts from fans which give Vince and Jesse something to talk about.

Rude escapes but Steamboat chops him right back down and armdrags him down as only Ricky can do. An elbow puts Ricky down for a bit and Rick pounds away some more. Steamboat comes back with chops and another armdrag into an armbar. More slugging out occurs with chops vs. punches dominating the action. In something you don’t often see, Steamboat seems to botch a spot, resulting in him backing into a knee from Rude and falling (intentionally) to the floor.

Rick sends Steamboat back first into the apron and slams him down as Steamboat is in trouble. There’s a camel clutch by Rude as he finally has a body part to work on. Steamboat taps but that wouldn’t mean anything else for about six years. The referee checks the arm and they make a BIG error as Ricky lets his arm fall three times before stopping it on the fourth drop. Jesse FREAKS as only he can but the match just keeps going. Gotta love that live TV thing right?

Anyway Steamboat stands up and drops Rude on his back to put both guys down. It’s Steamboat up first but a splash hits knees. Back to the chinlock but Ricky makes the ropes and sends Rude into the buckle ten times. A chop to the face gets two and we hit the mat for some technical stuff and a pinfall reversal sequence. By that I mean about five pin attempts each and the crowd is waking up now. Ricky suplexes Rude down but Rude pulls the referee in the way of the cross body. Rude puts on the over the shoulder backbreaker (his move before the Rude Awakening) but it’s a DQ win for Steamboat.

Rating: C. The main issue here was the length. This runs about eighteen minutes and a lame ending didn’t help things either. At least you had two talented guys in there to make the match work a bit better. Still though, cut about five minutes off of this one and it’s WAY better all of a sudden. Steamboat would be gone in just a few months.

It’s time for the bench press lift record attempt. Dino Bravo is doing the lifting (in wrestling gear) and Jesse is spotting. Frenchy Martin, Dino’s manager, is here too. Dino presses 415 to start but first demands complete and utter silence. The 415lbs are easily lifted ten times. We’re going for over 700 by the end so this may take awhile. Next up is 505, which I believe is what Yokozuna weighed when he debuted. That one only goes up eight times as we’re at six minutes spent on this so far.

This time it’s going to be 555. Great this is going to take even more time now. Dino stops to yell at the fans a bit first and now we’re going to the lifting. This one gets about seven reps as this continues to take time. Now it’s 595. They keep talking about a world record, even though there’s no official there to confirm this is happening or anything like that. Wait let’s yell at the fans some more before he lifts it three times. We’re at ten minutes now.

Jesse yells at McMahon a bit and Bravo takes forever to do 655. Gene doing the used car salesman selling of this segment helps a bit due to how over the top and ridiculous it is. Now they go for 715, but the record would be unofficial because the bar will have to be weighed later. We stop to yell at the fans of course first though and storms off. As Bravo goes to finish, Ventura reaches down and pulls the bar up. Yep, that’s the actual payoff of over fifteen minutes of this nonsense.

Women’s Tag Titles: Jumping Bomb Angels vs. Glamour Girls

These are real titles (held by the Glamour Girls at this point) which have perhaps the most confusing history ever, as the belts were literally bought and sold between two wrestling companies. Anyway, they’re here now and the Angels (Tateno and Yamazaki) beat the Glamour Girls (Judy Martin and Lelani Kai) in the finals of the Survivor Series match which basically set this up. This is also 2/3 falls.

I’m not entirely sure which is which on both teams but Vince doesn’t even know the names of the Angels at all until someone tells him later on. The Angels immediately charge at the Girls and hit stereo dropkicks to take over. For those of you unfamiliar with the Angels, basically imagine the Hardys before they became poster children for what drugs can do to you but with long hair and wearing one piece female swimsuits.

We start with Kai vs. Yamazaki (the one in pink. Got it) and a knee to the back from Martin gives the Girls control. Yamazaki Matrixes out of a cover and rolls Kai up for two. Off to Tateno for a kind of suplex out of a piledriver position for one. Jesse asks Vince the names of the Bomb Angels and Vince has NO idea. He suggests calling them pink and red. Yamazaki tries a cross body but it literally bounces off the shall we say rotund Martin.

Off to Kai again so Yamazaki knees her down before bring Tateno back in. Both Angels fire off forearms to take Kai down and there’s an Octopus Hold (a freaky kind of abdominal stretch from Japan) from Tateno. The Angels put on stereo figure fours before it gets down to just Tateno on Kai. There’s a legdrop between the legs ala Jeff Hardy but instead Tateno spreads her own legs to spread Kai’s into the splits as well.

Yamazaki hooks something like a Sharpshooter while being off to the side of Kai. That’s incredibly painful looking and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it otherwise. The Angels get in a tug of war over Kai with Martin losing the war. Martin makes a tag but it doesn’t count because her feet weren’t on the apron. There’s a rule you never see enforced. Not that it matters as there’s the regular tag anyway. Martin comes in and beats on Tateno a bit before hitting a falling backwards facedrop out of a powerbomb position for the first fall. Big Show called that the Alley Oop if it wasn’t clear.

Martin pounds on Tateno after the break but Tateno bridges out in the Matrix move from the mat. Martin misses a splash and there’s Yamazaki again. A middle rope clothesline puts Martin down for two as Vince knows the Angels’ names now. The Angels cause some heel miscommunication but Martin loads up the same move that won her the first fall. In a classic example of PSYCHOLOGY, Tateno rolls through it into a sunset flip for the second fall this time. See? She LEARNED over the course of the match. That shows thinking, which is psychology! It’s not that hard! She slipped a bit on the flip but I’ll forgive it this time.

The third fall begins with a double clothesline from the Angels for two on Kai but Lelani pounds away on her in retaliation. Off to Martin who blocks a fisherman’s suplex and escapes a backslide out of the corner. A slingshot sends Yamazaki into the wrong corner and double teaming gets two on her.

Off to Tateno who is thrown around even more than Yamazaki was. Tateno comes back with a pair of release atomic drops minus the knees and it’s off to Yamazaki for a top rope knee for two. A double underhook suplex gets two on Kai but a senton backsplash misses for Tateno. With Kai trying to get in, the Angels hit stereo missile dropkicks on Martin for the pin and the titles.

Rating: B. For the late 80s and women’s wrestling, this was off the charts. The Angels are every bit as good as any male cruiserweight not named Mysterio you’ll ever see and when they’re against people like the Girls, their skills are shown off even better. This was beyond state of the art for this time period and is still amazing today. Check these chicks out and you won’t be disappointed.

We recap Hogan vs. Andre at Wrestlemania by getting the opening minute or so which saw Hogan trying the slam and Andre getting a “controversial” two count. Andre wants a rematch and has been sold to DiBiase, who wants to buy the world title. Andre showed how evil he was by attacking Hogan on SNME and easily choking him down, setting up the rematch in about two weeks and a match which drew an INSANE 15 rating on LIVE national TV on NBC. Today Vince would lose his mind at a 5 on cable, so this was unthinkable back then.

Oh and now we get the contract signing between Andre and Hogan on tonight’s show for the match on February 5 in Indianapolis. DiBiase is here too as Jesse points out how stupid the fans are for cheering for a song called Real American here in Canada. Even Jack Tunney is here. For those of you unfamiliar, picture Johnny Ace if he wasn’t dripping with charisma.

Gene actually calls Andre Mr. Roussimoff here, which you NEVER hear on WWF TV. Andre won’t sit down and then he won’t sign. Hogan signs but Andre wants to read the whole thing first. One thing to note: Gene has probably said the date of the match about ten times. It’s so simple yet so effective. Andre signs and beats up Hogan for fun to end this after a LONG time.

Jesse and Vince talk about the Rumble and say that if you go over the top, it doesn’t matter where your feet touch because you’re out. I’m assuming that means you have to hit the floor but it’s not exactly clear.

Royal Rumble

Okerlund explains the rules and the intervals are every two minutes here. If you don’t know the Rumble rules, you have no business reading this. It’s a battle royal, people come in every two minutes, there are 20 people in it (this year only) last man standing wins. #1 is Bret Hart and #2 is Tito Santana, and wouldn’t you know it their tag teams are feuding right now. I mean what are the odds?

They slug it out to start with no one having any kind of advantage. Bret finally takes him down and heads towards the rope as Butch Reed comes in at #3. This is a different kind of Rumble as heels don’t fight heels and faces don’t fight faces yet. They just kind of work together as you would expect them to. Tito is almost thrown out by Reed but he escapes and beats on both heels for a bit.

It’s Neidhart in at #4 as not a ton is happening so far in this match. This leaves Santana more or less down 3-1 and everyone pounds away on him. The clock is pretty lenient so far as there’s no way they’re going two minutes between each of these entrants. We get some slow triple teaming and after a choke on the ropes, here’s Jake Roberts in at #5 to quickly toss out Reed. We’ve got Roberts/Santana vs. the Hart Foundation which is quite the tag match when you think about it.

The Harts get beaten down and then thrown into each other but Neidhart breaks up the DDT. Bret piledrives Santana down and Harley Race is in at #6. The crowd is staying way into this which is a good sign for the future. Things kind of slow down a bit as the faces and heels beat on each other for a little while. Here’s Jim Brunzell at #7 to make it a six man tag for all intents and purposes.

Roberts goes EVIL by pulling on Neidhart’s beard. Only Reed has been eliminated so far. The good guys are in control at the moment with Race almost being thrown out. Here’s Sam Houston, Jake’s real life half brother, coming in at #8 to beat on everyone in sight. Well every heel at least. The Harts finally get together and throw out Santana to get us down to six people in the ring.

After about 90 seconds, here’s Danny Davis at #9. To be fair he’s barely a jobber so it’s not like this is going to give the heels any significant advantage. Oh wait he’s fighting Sam Houston so yeah, the heels are in control. Race gets caught in the ropes and Jake keeps knocking him back and forth in a funny bit. Davis tries to kick Jake and gets his leg caught, followed by a suplex from Roberts.

Danny escapes a DDT as we get Boris Zhukov at #10, maybe 80 seconds after Davis came in. Things continue to go slow as we’re trying to build up to a regular battle royal. Race goes after Boris in the first instance of heel vs. heel in this match. Race and Hart double team Brunzell for a bit as this continues to be slow. Don Muraco comes out as #11 but Nikolai Volkoff follows him out, apparently thinking he’s #11. Now there’s a story you don’t see that often but which could work.

Brunzell puts out Zhukov and apparently Nikolai is going to be #12 in a few moments. After way too long of nothing happening, Nikolai is officially #12. Brunzell is put to the apron but gets back in just as Race is eliminated by Muraco. We’ve got eight in there at the moment, which would be Hart, Neidhart, Roberts, Brunzell, Houston, Davis, Muraco and Volkoff. Race won’t leave ringside so as Duggan comes out at #13, he beats Race up on the way. This would lead to one of those so ridiculous it’s hilarious moments at the Slammys.

Duggan goes right after Neidhart because HE wants to be the Jim in this match. The place is way into him too so the crowd reaction is good. After maybe a minute here’s Ron Bass at #14. Volkoff dumps Brunzell as Jake and Neidhart collide. The clock gets even shorter as B. Brian Blair is #15. There are way too many people in the ring now. Everyone fights everyone as Hillbilly Jim is #16, and the fourth person in this match named Jim. He also dumps out Jim Neidhart to empty the ring a tiny bit.

Dino Bravo is #17 as Bass dumps Houston. Back to slow motion mode with everyone pounding on people near the ropes without really doing much. Ultimate Warrior (doesn’t mean anything yet) is #18 and Bret is FINALLY put out by Don Muraco. I timed this next one, and the One Man Gang comes out at #19, 53 seconds after Warrior. They’re not even trying here. Gang immediately pounds on Roberts so Warrior jumps on the big man’s back. This is WAY before he would have been able to slam him anyway.

Gang dumps Blair and Roberts in about ten seconds, which is the best thing that could happen in this match. The Junkyard Dog is #20, giving us a final group of Davis, Volkoff, Muraco, Bass, Hillbilly Jim, Dino Bravo, Ultimate Warrior, Gang, Duggan and Dog. Hillbilly and Gang hammer on each other as Duggan puts Volkoff out. Gang tosses Hillbilly as Bravo and Davis double team Duggan. This ends badly for Davis as Duggan dumps him to a BIG pop.

Bravo and Gang dump the Warrior as we’re down to six pretty quickly. Bass jumps the Dog and tosses him to get us down to five. Muraco dumps Bass and we have a final four of Muraco, Gang, Duggan and Bravo. Gang splashes Duggan in the corner, leaving Muraco to have to fight off both guys. He even takes Frenchy Martin down with a dropkick, only to have Gang clothesline him out to get us down to three.

Jim gets double teamed for awhile and Bravo drops an elbow on him. The same clothesline sequence the heels tried earlier backfires and Bravo gets clotheslined out. Duggan pounds on Gang in a Mid-South reunion but a single shot from Gang takes him down. Gang beats on him next to the ropes, so Duggan low bridges him to win the first Royal Rumble.

Rating: C+. This is one of those matches where the words “well, they tried” come to mind. That’s the best way to put this match: they didn’t really know what they were doing yet, but they tried. The lack of star power hurt this one as only Duggan and maybe Dog were big names here. It wouldn’t be until next year when the star power came into this and it became a main event thing. Still though, it’s certainly not a bad match and they would get better as time went on.

We recap (see? It even happened back then) the contract signing from earlier tonight.

Hogan is in the arena (in jeans, which is a weird image for some reason) and says that he wants Andre. Standard hype interview for a big match but it’s Hogan in the late 80s so you know it’s awesome.

Islanders vs. Young Stallions

Another 2/3 falls match here just to fill in the final part of the show. The Islanders have recently kidnapped Matilda and are recently back off suspension for returning the dog. Tama and Powers (It’s Haku/Tama vs. Jim Powers/Paul Roma) start things off and no one can get a real advantage in the early going. The Stallions beat on Tama a bit, with shots to the head for some reason, before it’s Haku in off the tag.

A cross body gets two for Roma and the Stallions work on the arm for awhile. Off to Tama who gets in like one shot before we cut to a camera angle from over the announcers shoulders. That’s a new one. Powers gets caught by a double headbutt and Haku hammers away on him some more. This continues to go nowhere so I think out of boredom it’s off to Roma vs. Tama.

Roma dropkicks Tama down but Haku low bridges Roma, sending him to the floor and injuring the knee. That’s good enough for a countout for the first fall and the Stallions take Roma to the dressing room to get his knee looked at. In other words, we need a reason to show the contract signing again and let Andre talk a bit. Just like Hogan, Andre doesn’t have much to say but it hypes up the Main Event.

Back to the match after the promo, the recap and a pair of breaks and it’s basically Powers in a handicap match now. You can see big gaps of seats where fans have left. For this one, I can’t say I blame them. Powers dropkicks him down and we hear about Giant-A-Mania from Jesse. Off to Tama who pounds away even more and kicks out of a small package at two. Tama’s jumping back elbow takes Powers down and it’s a little Samoan trash talk for good measure. Haku’s dropkick gets two and there’s a gutwrench suplex for two more.

It’s off to an abdominal stretch but Powers finally hiptosses out of it to get a breather. Haku misses a splash and things slow down again, but there’s no one for Powers to tag because of Roma’s knee injury. Roma finally tags himself in and Haku casually kicks the leg out to take over. Jesse wishes that was Vince’s knee because that’s the kind of guy he is. Tama puts on a half crab and the referee stops it.

Rating: D. This match is a victim of its spot on the card. The problem here is that everything else is done and this was the textbook definition of filler. It’s hard to care about something like this when there’s no story and no interest in this match, and on top of that it wasn’t even anything decent. This is one of those matches though where you can’t blame a lot of the problems on the wrestlers.

Jesse and Vince chat a bit about what we saw to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. There’s one major thing to keep in mind about this show: it was on free TV. On PPV, this would have been bad, but to be fair they had no idea what they were going for here so anything good, which a lot of stuff on here was, was a surprise. This was a decent entry into the show, but they did WAY better next year when they had an idea what they were doing. Good first effort though.

As I did with the last series of reviews, I’ll be comparing the new ratings to the original ones and posting a link to the original review.

Ratings Comparison

Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude

Original: C+

Redo: C

Jumping Bomb Angels vs. Glamour Girls

Original: B-

Redo: B

Royal Rumble

Original: C-

Redo: C+

Islanders vs. Young Stallions

Original: C-

Redo: D

Overall Rating

Original: C+

Redo: C+

This show hasn’t changed much other than a few tweaks here and there.

Here’s the original review:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/08/royal-rumble-count-up-1988/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

AND

Remember to check out Wrestlingrumors.net for all of your wrestling headline needs.

Prime Time Wrestling
Date: June 17, 1987
Hosts: Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan
Commentators: Dick Graham, Lord Alfred Hayes, Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan, Vince McMahon, Gorilla Monsoon, Bruno Sammartino

Oh boy it’s Prime Time. This was one of the big shows from the WWF, as it featured various matches from major house shows. That might not sound like much, but at the time, this was a pretty awesome deal. What makes it better is Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan as the hosts, giving us the legendary banter that made them one of the best duos of all time. This is from my favorite era in wrestling so hopefully I can have some fun with some of these. Let’s get to it.

This is a special Wednesday edition (as opposed to Monday) and dig that old desk with the old WWF toys!

Gorilla and Heenan (in a neck brace) welcome us to the show and run down the card, with Gorilla saying Brutus Beefcake could give Heenan a trim. Heenan says there is no way he’ll get back in the ring, even after his neck heals. To the ring!

From May 9, 1987 in at the Philadelphia Spectrum.

Corporal Kirschner vs. Nikolai Volkoff

Man these guys were fighting more than a year ago at Wrestlemania II. Kirschner charges the ring to prevent the Russian National Anthem and gets hit with the flag pole for his efforts. Kirschner comes back in and hammers away as Graham is already a bit rough to sit through. It’s like his voice is in slow motion. Volkoff gets in a cheap shot and ties him into the Tree of Woe (In 1987?) for a running knee to the ribs.

That’s enough for Kirschner to need a breather on the floor, with Volkoff following for a slam. A running knee keeps Kirschner outside and it works so well that Volkoff does it again. The third attempt earns Volkoff a crotching against the post and we take a break (with Monsoon and Heenan chiming in for a few seconds).

Back with no time having passed and Kirschner dropping a leg between the legs, plus a middle rope elbow for two. Volkoff is back up with a spinning kick to the ribs and a drop across the top like an evil Russian would. Some whips into the corner set up a bearhug (as is Volkoff’s custom), followed by a quick bow and arrow to stay on the back. That’s broken up so Kirschner dropkicks him to the floor and follows him out to hammer away. Back in and an elbow drop gives Kirschner two but he misses a charge into the corner. Volkoff is right back up with the gorilla press backbreaker for the pin at 10:17.

Rating: D+. This was pretty rough as they seemed to run out of things to do to each other by the end. It’s not like these two were exactly cut out for a longer match and it didn’t work out all that well in this case. Kirschner wasn’t exactly great in the ring, but he was so tough that no one was going to tell him no. You don’t get many people like that, but he was kind of done when he replaced Sgt. Slaughter but was a lower rank.

Bobby Heenan thinks Kirschner never had a chance but Monsoon doesn’t buy it. Monsoon moves on to Heenan signing the Islanders, which has Heenan rather proud. That makes sense to Monsoon, because Heenan is going to take all of their money.

It’s time for….a segment that doesn’t seem to have a name but tells you what is going on at the moment. We open with the Islanders having a technical match with the Can-Am Connection until Heenan showed up, which caused the Islanders to beat the fire out of them. A headbutt from the apron knocked Tom Zenk silly for a countout and Heenan was rather pleased.

Heenan is all fired up about his new team and wants the Tag Team Titles. Heenan: “I’VE DONE IT AGAIN!”

Back in the studio, Monsoon asks why Heenan has to turn everything into a big deal and why he couldn’t just say he has signed the team. Heenan says he likes the shock value, which sends Monsoon into a video on Superstar Billy Graham trying to learn how to walk again after a variety of injuries. Heenan can’t help it and goes into a series of jokes about how Graham can’t sue anyone because he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

We go to the Arizona desert where Graham is moving around on a walker, as he talks about how he needs to get back. We also see him going through some rather tough physical therapy but Graham has insisted that he’ll be back.

Monsoon and Heenan talk about a FREE calendar you can get….if you’re one of 100 post cards they select. This was a move they would do every now and then to restock their mailing list and it’s kind of brilliant.

I think this is from May 13, 1987 at the Sports Arena in San Diego, California but it’s not clear. It also seems to be from Wrestling Challenge, which wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for Prime Time.

New Dream Team vs. Young Stallions

The New Dream Team (Dino Bravo/Greg Valentine) have Johnny V in their corner. Bravo drives Roma into the corner to start but he’s right back up with a dropkick, meaning the Dream Team needs a breather on the floor. We get a quick inset promo from the Fabulous Rougeau Brothers promising to be everywhere the Dream Team goes. Except here it seems.

Back in and Valentine takes over on Roma, including a suplex for two. A middle rope ax handle to the back sets up a jumping elbow for two but Valentine misses his big forearm. The hot tag brings in Powers to clean house, only to have Bravo get in a cheap shot from the apron. Valentine drops an elbow for the pin at 4:23.

Rating: D+. Well that was short. This wasn’t much of a match as it was mainly the Dream Team beating on Roma until Powers got to come in for a few seconds at the end. Commentary was hyping up the Stallions as future stars and then they just lose. I get that the Dream Team was new, but it was a weird way to go given the commentary.

Heenan is glad the Dream Team got rid of Brutus Beefcake but Monsoon doesn’t think Heenan’s memory is quite right.

Ken Patera is happy that he is out of prison and has paid his debt to society. Now all he wants is a second chance but that isn’t going to include Bobby Heenan. While Patera was in jail, Heenan was nowhere to be seen because weasels don’t make it through tough times.

Heenan says he doesn’t feel sorry for Patera (who put him in the neck brace), because Patera is the one who landed himself in jail. That ended their relationship and Heenan doesn’t care what happened to Patera’s family. Now Patera is blaming him, so Heenan will be taking care of him soon.

From the Philadelphia Spectrum on May 9.

Pedro Morales vs. Steve Lombardi

It’s weird seeing Lombardi without a shirt. Said shirtless Lombardi runs away from Morales to start as Pedro is all fired up (as is his custom). Back in and Lombardi forearms away, earning himself a slam from Morales. That’s enough for Lombardi to bail to the floor again as more breathing is needed. Back in again and Morales hits another slam, meaning Lombardi heads outside for the third time in less than three minutes.

Lombardi gets in again and this time claims a sore back to stall even more. Therefore we pause for some stretching before Lombardi misses a right hand and gets atomic dropped out to the floor (again). This time Lombardi comes back in with a rake to the eyes and a ram into the buckle but commentary isn’t buying Lombardi as a threat. On cue, Morales hits him in the ribs and adds a backdrop, setting up a backbreaker for the pin at 5:47.

Rating: D. This was a good example of a match that worked well for the live crowd but wasn’t much if you’re not a big Morales fan. It’s also a lesson in how to get through a match without doing much, as this was more than half Lombardi stalling on the floor. They didn’t bother trying to do anything more than the minimum here, which wasn’t the most thrilling stuff. The live fans seemed to like it though and that was the point of something like this.

Monsoon is glad that Heenan wasn’t around as a manager when he was in the ring. He knows Heenan would dump any of his clients at the drop of a hat, just like Patera. As you might expect, Heenan shrugs off the suggestions and we move on.

From the Convention Center in Anaheim, California on May 12, 1987. This seems to be from the June 6 Superstars.

Brutus Beefcake vs. Tim Patterson

Monsoon and Heenan make Pat Patterson/Terry Garvin jokes about Patterson in their intro for the not so subtle jabs. Brutus gets his own inset promo, promising to give the New Dream Team another cut. Patterson gets punched and slammed down to start as commentary talks about Beefcake’s gear. Vince: “Barbers are a little eccentric in general aren’t they?” The beating continues as commentary talks about Honky Tonk Man getting an undeserved Intercontinental Title shot next week. I’m sure that won’t go anywhere. Patterson fights back with some running shoulders but Beefcake is back with the sleeper at 2:40.

Post match, Patterson gets a haircut, possibly for taking a long time to go down from the sleeper.

Monsoon and Heenan bicker over how legitimate of a neck injury Heenan really has.

Gene Okerlund talks to Slick, who has quite the fashion sense. Slick says Gene has high class opinions of high class people and calls Gene “Holmes” before threatening to smack him in the head. Nikolai Volkoff and Butch Reed come in, with Slick saying they are the best of the best around. Reed thinks there are some jive turkeys running around here like Tito Santana and Junkyard Dog. Those people are trying to take money from him, and he gets mean when he has money. Volkoff thinks Americans should be proud that he is here in America. Buy Russian war bonds! This is still one of the oddest groupings ever and it’s great.

From the San Diego Sports Arena, May 13, 1987.

Don Muraco/Bob Orton Jr. vs. Sivi Afi/Corporal Kirschner

Mr. Fuji is here with Muraco and Orton and why are we getting two Kirschner matches on one show? Afi shoves Orton outside to start and it’s time for an early breather. Back in and Afi no sells some rams into the buckle (he’s foreign so he has a hard head you see) so it’s off to Kirschner. This means a discussion of being drafted, with Heenan saying he was 3Q, meaning too smart for the military. He could have been a six star general if he had actually gone in though, which Monsoon somehow manages to no sell.

Orton sends Kirschner outside and a distraction lets Muraco get in a cane shot to take over. A top rope shot to the back drops Kirschner again as Monsoon talks about how Kirschner has been pretty worthless as of late. It’s back to Afi, who gets taken down with a neckbreaker but comes right back with a high crossbody.

Kirschner gets to come in and glare at Muraco, setting up a clothesline. A dropkick sends Muraco over to Orton, who cuts Kirschner off with an atomic drop as Heenan praises the villains’ intelligence (kind of his thing). Muraco sends Kirschner into an elbow from Orton but it’s off to Afi anyway. The pace picks up for all of ten seconds before Muraco charges into a powerslam. What would become known as the Tombstone finishes Afi at 7:19.

Rating: D+. Muraco and Orton weren’t going to be the top team but they were fine as a pair of villains to give an up and coming team some trouble. That wasn’t exactly what they had here, making this a fairly long and not entirely squashy squash. Then again, what are you expecting from the forces of Afi and Kirschner?

Monsoon likes the new WWF Magazine, including a look at Ken Patera. Heenan wants to know where the prison number is.

Monsoon and Heenan introduce a women’s tag match and Heenan has no idea who they are.

From the Boston Garden on March 8, 1986.

Crush Girls vs. Donna Christianello/Judy Martin

Well this is a surprise. The Crush Girls (normally Gals) are Lioness Asuka/Chigusa Nagayo and in short, Christianello/Martin are going to be in a lot of pain. Nagayo isn’t having any of this getting hammerlocked thing and takes Christianello down into a hammerlock of her own. It’s back to Martin, who has to avoid Asuka’s kick to the head. Asuka gets the better of an exchange of kicks to the ribs and it’s a very fast sunset flip for two.

Christianello comes back in for a front facelock but a forearm sends Asuka over to Nagayo as Hayes can’t keep track of these names. An elbow to the head sends Martin outside and she looks rather scared of what she’s gotten herself into. Back in and Christianello offers a handshake, which of course suckers Asuka in so the villains can take over. We take a break and come back with Martin elbowing Asuka in the face, only to have her nip right back up.

Nagayo comes back in but gets kicked in the chest for a quick knockdown. Some choking in the corner has Nagayo in more trouble as commentary brags about all of the international media here. A few right hands allow the tag off to Asuka though and it’s time to clean house in a hurry. Asuka dropkicks Martin and hits a slam for two as the beating is on.

Nagayo gets on the middle rope so she can be tagged in (you know Monsoon isn’t having that) and it’s a Sharpshooter as Monsoon can’t remember if Nagayo is a tiger or a lioness (with Hayes having to make the save). Asuka accidentally clotheslines Nagayo down but they’re both back up for a double punch (I think?) to Martin’s ribs. A bunch of elbows keep Martin….well not really in trouble as she pops up to hit Asuka in the face. Christianello comes in and gets caught in a giant swing for the pin at 15:31.

Rating: C+. This is such an odd match, not just for the participants but also the fact that it got some serious time. You don’t see modern women’s matches breaking fifteen minutes but here you have this one, in 1986 no less, getting far more time than anything else on the show. Martin and Christianello weren’t exactly a seasoned team like the Girls, but dang this was a fun surprise.

Heenan claims to be on the phone with the Crush Girls before moving on to this week’s main event. Monsoon asks what George Steele has to do to get by Kamala, and Heenan suggests buying a machine gun. Or give up during the instructions. Then the Hogan figure on the desk falls over, which Heenan says is how he’ll be kneeling before King Harley Race. That’s the kind of quick wit that made Heenan a legend.

From the Philadelphia Spectrum on May 9.

Kamala vs. George Steele

Kim Chee and Mr. Fuji are here with Kamala. Steele looks confused (as is his nature) but he knows to avoid a charging Kamala as the bell rings. A few right hands put Kamala on the floor and it’s time for an early breather. Kim Chee gives some instructions (“Don’t look directly at the hairy chest.”) and Steele scares Kamala right back into the ropes. Steele starts poking at Kamala, who runs off again as this isn’t exactly an action packed spectacle.

Back in and Steele destroys a turnbuckle so Kamala runs away from the pieces of padding. Kim Chee’s distraction finally lets Kamala get in a shot from behind and Steele goes shoulder first into the exposed buckle. Since Kamala doesn’t quite know how to follow up, Steele grabs a foreign object to knock Kamala silly. Another Kim Chee distraction, this time in the form of a trip, lets Kamala hit a splash but a top rope version misses. Steele, ever the easily distracted one, chases Kim Chee off and that’s a countout at 6:03.

Rating: D+. I know it wasn’t very good and was little more than a comedy match, but this was the kind of goofy fun that I like from a show like this one. This was a lot better than seeing these two try to have a regular match and it’s nice to see that they understood the limitations they were under. Not a good match, but it was entertaining in a wacky way.

Post match Steele comes back with Kim Chee’s cane and pith helmet. He hits Kamala in the ribs with one and puts another on his head. I’m assuming you know which is which.

Heenan doesn’t think much of Steele but Monsoon isn’t convinced.

Try to get that calendar!

Heenan wants to tell us what’s coming next Wednesday but finds out that they’re going back to the regular Monday time to mess with him one more time.

Roll credits.

Overall Rating: C-. Prime Time Wrestling isn’t a show you often go to for classic action, but I had a great time with this. It was the big show of its day and you could see some of the top stars and goings on of the time. I’ll be doing some more of these, just for the sake of having some fun. That’s what wrestling is often supposed to be and that’s what I was getting out of this, despite it not having the best wrestling in the world.

 

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

AND

Remember to check out Wrestlingrumors.net for all of your wrestling headline needs.

Survivor Series 1989
Date: November 23, 1989
Location: Rosemont Horizon, Chicago, Illinois
Attendance: 15,294
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura

We’re at a major changing point with this show, as we now have four man teams and five full matches, instead of the previous years with four matches. The matches are shorter now, but there are some kind of head scratching booking choices here. We do however get the greatest Survivor Series team ever on this show though, so we have that to look forward to. Let’s get to it.

Also stay tuned after the end for a special BONUS MATCH REVIEW!

We open with a video shot from a car going up to the arena, going through the doors, at the souvenir stands (12.99 for a shirt. Today that might get you a sleeve) and now it’s time for opening show promos.

Hogan is thankful for time with his family and to be the strongest force in the universe. And for his team.

DiBiase is glad he’s rich.

Jake likes his snake and the DDT.

Demolition is glad they don’t have to fight each other.

Savage is glad he’s the Macho King.

Duggan is proud to be an American.

Bravo is glad Earthquake is on his side.

Dusty is thankful for his polka dots.

Beefcake for cutting hair.

Martel for his looks.

Rude for his body.

Piper because he’s not Ricky Rude. Burn.

Genius for being the smartest man in the world.

Perfect for being his name.

The Bushwackers for sardine stuffing.

Heenan for being surrounded by the Heenan Family.

Warrior should be thankful that Ritalin is soon to be available.

We run down the cards with those nifty squares.

Dream Team vs. Enforcers

Dusty Rhodes, Brutus Beefcake, Tito Santana, Red Rooster
Big Bossman, Bad News Brown, Rick Martel, Honky Tonk Man

This is mainly over Dusty vs. Bossman which is Dusty’s first big feud in the company. Dusty stole the nightstick and the hat which has ticked Bossman off. The rest of the guys are there because it’s Survivor Series and we need six more guys. Brutus’ music was awesome, just like the names for the teams. Tito and Honky start things off and for the third straight year Honky and Brutus are in the opening match on this show. I’m not sure what that means.

Tito takes over quickly but Honky gets in one kick before RUNNING over to make a tag to Martel. Rick dropkicks Tito down as Jesse talks about the now broken up Strike Force. Tito atomic drops Martel for two and everyone but Bad News gets in the ring at once. Nothing happens but it’s cool to see. Brown not getting in is perfect for his character too. Off to the Boss Man who is immediately armdragged down by Tito.

Off to Dusty who pounds away as the fans go nuts. Chicago was a big NWA town so it’s easy to see why he’s popular. Brutus comes in to another pop but Boss Man takes him down with a few shots to the back. Honky comes in but misses a fist drop. Beefcake hammers away but Martel makes a blind tag and takes over on Brutus. Rooster comes in and the place goes quiet. When you can’t get a reaction in Chicago, things aren’t that good for you.

Martel hits some knees to the face and it’s off to Honky who dances a lot. Boss Man comes in and they slug it out with the big man taking over with ease. Martel comes back in and drops some knees but gets rolled up for two. Back to Honky as Rooster is in trouble. I’m digging these four man versions already as the match seems less crowded and the guys can stay in the ring a little longer. Rooster and Honky collide and it’s a double tag to give us another battle of Strike Force.

Tito goes loco on Martel and beats him down, but Martel breaks the figure four. Santana tries an O’Connor Roll but Martel rolls through and grabs the trunks for the first elimination. Dusty comes in next and hits a dropkick (and a decent one) followed by the big elbow…for two? We must be in the WWF. Brutus comes in to work on the arm and stomp on Martel’s face when he tries a reverse monkey flip.

Rooster comes in and can’t seem to figure out what to do with a headlock. Martel is like screw you you nitwit and backbreaks him down. Off to Boss Man who slaps on a bearhug. Gorilla keeps calling Brutus the team captain but the team is called the Dream Team and Dusty came out last. Rooster bites out of the hold and Boss Man tags Bad News who isn’t interested in coming in.

After Bad News gets pulled in he takes over because he’s fighting a freaking rooster. Just like last year though, Bad News accidentally gets hit by his partner and he walks out. It’s three on three now and we have Boss Man vs. Brutus. After the Barber gets beaten on some more it’s off to Honky for a belly to back suplex. Out of nowhere Brutus hits a high knee to Honky for the fast pin, making it 3-2 (Brutus, Dusty and Rooster vs. Boss Man and Martel).

Martel immediately comes in and puts a chinlock on Brutus which doesn’t last long. The second version of it does though as the match slows down a lot. A backbreaker puts Brutus down and he goes into the buckle a few times. Brutus grabs a sunset flip again out of nowhere to eliminate Martel and it’s 3-1. Brutus tags in Rooster to throw a bone to Boss Man and after some punches from Rooster, the Boss Man Slam gets the fast pin and it’s 2-1.

Dusty is in next but it’s quickly off to Brutus for some knees to the chest. Back to Dusty as the good guys are using some intelligence (yes, Dusty and Brutus are using intelligence) with the fast tags. Boss Man gets whipped into the ropes and Dusty takes him down with a cross body, likely rupturing at least three vital organs of Boss Man and getting the final pin. I may have been right about those organs.

Rating: C+. Nothing special here but it was fine for an opener. The fans liked most of the good guys and other than Rooster, that was a solid set of guys. The match wasn’t competitive or anything for the most part after the first five minutes but there was nothing particularly bad about it I guess.

Boss Man destroys Dusty with the nightstick and cuffs him to the ropes to keep up the beating. Brutus makes the save with the clippers.

Boss Man brags about what he just did.

The King’s Court, Savage’s team, is read.

The 4x4s say the same thing but much louder.

4x4s vs. King’s Court

Jim Duggan, Ronnie Garvin, Bret Hart, Hercules
Randy Savage, Earthquake, Dino Bravo, Greg Valentine

The 4x4s all jog to the ring with boards in their hands. This would be the second or third time that Bret was teased as a singles guy but it wouldn’t click for another year and a half. The only major feud here is Savage vs. Duggan over the crown but that’s about it. The board carriers clear the ring and stand in the ring for awhile. It looks like we start with Garvin vs. Savage but Duggan chases Savage to the floor before it’s Hercules who actually starts for the 4x4s.

Herc pounds away and slams Savage down, but right into the King’s corner and it’s off to Valentine. Greg gets atomic dropped and it’s off to Bret. Bret works on the arm for a bit and it’s off to Duggan for some right hands. Garvin comes in and I forgot about this feud. That’s likely due to me trying to block anything Garvin related from my mind. Garvin gets taken into the heel corner and it’s off to Bravo for some power.

Hercules comes back in to make it power vs. power with the dark haired guy (Hercules for you young’uns) taking over. And never mind as Earthquake comes in, kills Hercules with a shot to the head and hits the Earthquake for the elimination. Duggan comes in and collides with Quake (he’s still Canadian Earthquake here but that didn’t last long at all) but can’t do anything to him. Bret, being the smart guy that he is, sneaks up on Earthquake and school boys him so Duggan can take him down.

Off to Garvin who pounds away but Earthquake is like boy I’m gonna make you my pizza toppings. Bravo comes in to pound away on Garvin as does Valentine. The Figure Four is countered and Garvin rolls Hammer (Valentine) up for two. Savage drops a knee and it’s back to Bravo to work Garvin over a bit more. A backslide gets two for Ronnie and it’s back to Savage very quickly.

It’s back to Valentine even faster and they chop it out but Garvin makes a blind tag to Duggan who hits the three point clothesline to eliminate Valentine and tie things up. Bravo comes in again and is quickly followed by Savage and then Earthquake. Quake misses a big elbow and there’s the tag to Garvin. He beats on whomever he can and headbutts Bravo down. Here’s the still stupid Garvin Stomp (Orton does it now) and he tries the Sharpshooter (Garvin used it before Bret) but Dino breaks it up.

NOW we get somewhere with a double tag to Savage vs. Hart. These two had an awesome match on SNME a year or so before this and Bret takes over with an atomic drop. Bret loads up something on the legs but Savage dives away and tags in Bravo again. The middle rope elbow gets two for Bret and it’s back to Garvin who immediately walks into a side suplex to make it 3-2.

It’s Duggan vs. Earthquake again with Jim pounding away in the corner. Bret gets the tag and a double clothesline puts the big man down. Savage comes in and Bret is all like BRING IT ON. Well maybe not that loud but you get the idea. Savage gets tied up in the ropes and Duggan chokes away like the hero he is. Randy gets Bret down and misses a knee drop, allowing Hart to hit a backbreaker for two.

A small package gets two for Bret and Savage charges into a boot. Bret misses a middle rope elbow and it’s off to Bravo again. Dino puts on a bearhug because this match hasn’t dragged enough already. Off to Earthquake for some high powered choking followed by an elbow drop for two. The crowd popped a bit for the kickout which is more than can be said for most of this match.

Bret finally breaks free and tags Hacksaw in again so he can slam Savage. And never mind as Bret tags back in about 15 seconds later. Bravo works over the mostly beaten Bret and Hart misses a charge, going shoulder first into the post. A shoulder breaker sets up the Savage Elbow to make it 3-1.

It’s off to Quake to beat on Duggan in the corner but he misses a charge and everyone comes in. Duggan throws everyone into the corner into Earthquake and the Court all bails to the floor. Savage and Bravo get clotheslined down but Quake jumps Duggan to take him down. A big elbow gets two on Duggan and it’s back to Bravo. Duggan avoids a charging Savage but Sherri lowbridges him and it eventually draws a countout.

Rating: D+. For the life of me I don’t get why Duggan didn’t get pinned here. The ending is rather lame and it doesn’t help a match that ran WAY too long anyway. You could easily cut ten minutes out of this and no one would have missed anything at all. The match was dull outside of the moments when Bret was in there, which is something we’ll touch on more later.

Duggan chases them off with the board.

The Million Dollar Team is ready for a Thanksgiving feast in the form of the Hulkamaniacs.

Dusty Rhodes is hurt badly.

The Genius reads a poem about Thanksgiving.

Hulkamaniacs vs. Million Dollar Team

Hulk Hogan, Demolition, Jake Roberts
Ted DiBiase, Zeus, Powers of Pain

My goodness that’s an amazing face team. Ok, so now I get to explain Zeus. A month or two ago, WWE released No Holds Barred, a movie Hogan made in the late 80s, on DVD. The villain in the movie is named Zeus and you may notice he’s here. Zeus is played by an actor (not a wrestler mind you) named Tom Lister and the idea is that he’s living his character and is coming to beat Hogan up “in real life” because he lost in the movie. This would be like the guy who played Goldfinger trying to get revenge on Sean Connery. To make things even better, this was originally going to be the main event of Wrestlemania 6.

I’m sure you can see the problems mounting up already, with the main one being that Zeus doesn’t know how to wrestle. Other than that, there’s the idea that the movie barely broke even so a lot of people didn’t get the idea of the story. A positive twist to this is that a lot of people didn’t get the idea of the story, which probably kept the company from being laughed at more than they already were. Zeus wrestled like four matches ever, most of which were short or tag matches so he wasn’t in the ring long. WCW, the geniuses that they are, brought him back seven years later and put him in the main event of another PPV.

Anyway back to the match. The Million Dollar Team won’t let them get inside until Jake fires in the snake to chase them all away. Hogan and Demolition are the champions that you would expect them to be at this point. Zeus wants to fight Hogan one on one but their respective partners hold them both back. Jake starts with Zeus but the actor wants Hogan. They stare each other down and Hogan bounces off Zeus. Hogan pounds away but nothing hurts Zeus at all.

Instead Hulk finds the one weak spot on Zeus by raking the eyes. He slams Zeus down and amazingly enough, IT DOESN’T REALLY DO MUCH. Barbarian hits Hogan in the back of the head and Zeus twists Hogan’s neck around. He starts choking away and it’s a DQ for Zeus who is only pulled off by DiBiase and the promise of money. Just to clarify, we’re giving the Hulkamaniacs, an 80s dream team, a man advantage. Also why would DiBiase get Zeus off Hogan? Wouldn’t Hogan’s pain and agony make DiBiase happy?

It’s DiBiase vs. Hogan now and Hulk is in big trouble. DiBiase hammers away in the corner but Hulk gets a boot up in the corner and there’s the tag to Jake. A clothesline puts DiBiase on the floor and it’s off to Ax who demolishes DiBiase with ease. Smash comes in and they both pound Ted down. Back to Hogan who triple teams DiBiase along with Demolition. Back to Ax with a clothesline but DiBiase elbows him down out of desperation.

Off to Warlord as these two teams are still feuding even a year later. Come to think of it there wasn’t much else in between for those guys either. Dang did the division fall that fast in just a year? A shoulder breaker puts Ax down but Barbarian misses a middle rope elbow. Off to Warlord again but he gets clotheslined down. Fuji trips Ax up and a basic elbow drop is enough to tie the score.

It’s Smash vs. Warlord now but it’s quickly off to Hogan. Hulk softens him up to bring in Jake, which Jesse calls a mismatch. That’s likely based on power but I’m pretty sure Jake is taller than Warlord. Off to Smash but Warlord pokes him in the eye to take over. Back to Barbarian whose big boot is caught but Smash misses the elbow. DiBiase comes back in with those falling punches of his which get two.

It’s chinlock time with a knee in Smash’s back. DiBiase misses a middle rope back elbow of all things but Smash won’t tag for some reason. Barbarian makes a blind tag so the hot shot Smash hits on DiBiase doesn’t count and Barbarian takes his head off with a top rope clothesline for the pin. Jake comes in next but he can’t DDT Barbarian. Barbie whips Jake into the corner with authority although I’m not sure who’s authority it was.

Back to Warlord as things slow down a lot due to exhaustion. Jake dives for a tag but DiBiase slaps Hogan to draw him in instead. DiBiase piledrives Jake but Roberts gets a foot on the ropes to Jesse’s annoyance. Barbarian misses a headbutt and there’s the hot tag to Barbarian. He cleans house and gets two on Barbarian off a big boot. A suplex gets the same and my goodness how rare is it to see Hogan get a two count? Hogan fights off both Powers of Pain but they catch him in a spike piledriver which is good for a DQ for both of them, making it Hogan/Roberts vs. DiBiase.

Dibiase drops knees on Hogan before slapping on the Million Dollar Dream. That eventually gets two arm drops and Jake makes the save. That’s actually a nice touch as it makes the hold look stronger by needing a save instead of Hogan saving himself. Hogan finally breaks the hold and punches a jumping DiBiase. Hot tag brings in the Snake who cleans house. Jake drives in knees on DiBiase’s head as Hogan is dying in the corner.

Here’s Virgil to interfere and take the DDT. DiBiase drops a fist on Jake and puts his feet on the ropes to steal the pin. Ted pounds on Hogan who is still reeling from the long Million Dollar Dream. I’ll give him credit as that’s some great selling of a hold like that. Off to a chinlock and Hogan taps, which wouldn’t mean a thing for years. Hogan breaks the hold but they clothesline each other. DiBiase belly to back suplexes him and it’s Hulk Up time. You know the rest and there’s the legdrop.

Rating: C. There’s one major problem with this match: the first four minutes of this match give away the ending almost immediately. How can you give Hogan, Roberts and Demolitio a man advantage that fast? I’m not saying Hogan should have lost, but the Zeus stuff could have come later in the match and worked much better. Have Zeus stand on the apron most of the match and it would have worked fine. The fans finally reacted though.

Savage and Zeus are ready for their tag team cage match on PPV two days after Christmas. More on that later.

Hogan and Brutus do the same. They’re facing Savage and Zeus in case that wasn’t clear. Sherri shows up and throws powder in their faces so that Savage and Zeus can jump them.

Jesse and Gorilla talk about the tag match and Jesse mentions that there’s trouble in the Heenan Family, which is code for Arn Anderson about to go back to the NWA and Tully got busted for cocaine.

The Rude Brood is ready for Roddy’s Rowdies. These promos are pretty much the same all around.

This one however isn’t. Roddy is talking to Gene when the Bushwhackers and Snuka come up and are all holding turkey legs. Roddy says after the match they can have lunch. Then they all scream about breaking big bones.

Rude Brood vs. Roddy’s Rowdies

Rick Rude, Fabulous Rougeau Brothers, Mr. Perfect
Roddy Piper, Bushwhackers, Jimmy Snuka

If nothing else we get to hear All American Boys, perhaps the best theme song in wrestling history. There’s no Heenan with Rude, which is part of the issues the Family is having. Luke and Perfect get things going but after a single slam it’s off to Butch who bites on Perfect’s thigh. Luke comes in and does the same and Snuka matches suit. Butch bites as well and it’s off to Snuka.

Jacques comes in as well and they stall a lot. Jacques poses a lot so Snuka headbutts him down and follows up with a big chop. A slam puts Jacques down and it’s a Superfly Splash for a quick elimination. Rude comes in next and swivels his hips, only to get headbutted into a tag from Perfect. Rude accidentally low bridges Perfect so Snuka rams them together and the Brood is in trouble.

Off to Piper vs. Perfect and the Brood’s luck continues to go bad. Luke comes in and drops a knee before it’s off to Snuka for more shots to the head. Back to Luke for more biting and Butch beats on him a bit more. Piper comes in to face Raymond and for some reason Rougeau tries to slug it out with Piper. A superkick puts Piper down for two but he piledrives Raymond for the easy pin and it’s 4-2.

Perfect comes in with his neck snap for two and for the first time, Piper’s team is in trouble. Piper comes back with a slingshot to send Perfect into the post. Butch comes in for some basic stuff but it’s quickly back to Luke. Piper comes back in for some rapid fire punches and Perfect is in trouble. Back to Butch for more biting but he poses too long and Perfect rolls him up for the elimination.

Piper tries to steal a pin on a rollup to Perfect but it only gets two. Off to Snuka before Luke headbutts Perfect in the stomach. Rude makes a blind tag but jumps into a punch to the gut. Luke ducks his head and the Rude Awakening ties us up at two each. It’s Piper/Snuka vs. Rude/Perfect which is a heck of a midcard tag match.

Rude vs. Snuka starts the final four off and Rude swivels a bit more. Perfect comes in and taunts Piper, drawing him in so Snuka can get double teamed. Snuka finally gets in a shot to break Perfect’s momentum but Rude gets the tag before Piper can come in. Snuka grabs a quick small package for two before taking Perfect down with a flying headbutt. They hit head to head and both guys go down, followed by a double tag.

We finally get Piper vs. Rude which is what this whole match is based on. Piper easily wins a slugout and backdrops Rude down. They fight to the floor and it’s a double countout, getting us down to Snuka vs. Perfect. Perfect hits a great looking dropkick to put Snuka on the floor which eventually gets two. Snuka gets in a chop in the corner and a cross body for two. The Perfectplex out of nowhere gives Perfect the win.

Rating: C-. They did the right thing by having the tag teams get knocked out quick because they didn’t mean anything in this at all. Other than that though there was nothing of note here. Piper and Rude were both counted out to make sure they stayed strong and Snuka didn’t mean anything at this point. Nothing to see here but it wasn’t bad or anything.

The Rude Brood celebrates and Rude says don’t worry about Heenan being gone.

The Ultimate Warriors are very fired (and likely coked) up. Warrior’s topic of the night: orga donor cards.

Ultimate Warriors vs. Heenan Family

Ultimate Warrior, Jim Neidhart, Rockers
Andre the Giant, Arn Anderson, Haku, Bobby Heenan

Andre can barely move and it’s sad to see. Neidhart and the Rockers start before anything happens and Jim is in trouble early. Here’s Warrior without any music (he’s IC Champion here) and a big clothesline puts Andre on the floor, which draws a countout because when the bell rang, Andre was the only Heenan Family member in the ring. We’ve already got the same problem the Hogan match had.

Warrior and Haku get things started for all intents and purposes but it’s quickly off to Anvil vs. Arn. Andre (in blue instead of black) yells incoherently at the Warrior as he leaves. It’s Haku vs. Anvil now with Haku in control. A superkick puts Neidhart down and eliminates him like it’s a squash match. Off to Shawn to make Haku miss him and now it’s off to Jannetty.

Haku tries a double clothesline but only hits Shawn. He picks up Marty but Shawn dropkicks Marty down onto Haku for a near fall. Off to Arn who tries a double suplex with Haku on Jannetty, but Shawn catches his partner in a nice move. Double superkicks put the wrestlers on the other team down and it’s off to Marty vs. Haku. Warrior gets a tag in a few seconds later and Haku immediately goes for the eyes.

Haku backs Warrior into the corner and Heenan points to Arn for the tag in a funny bit. Arn immediately gets taken down and Marty hooks an armbar. Anderson brings Marty to the corner and brings in Heenan for a single punch before it’s back to Haku. Arn knees Marty in the back and Haku superkicks him down so Heenan can drop a knee on Jannetty for the pin. You could loudly hear them calling spots on that sequence for some reason.

Warrior comes in so here’s Anderson again. There’s a bearhug by the Champ and Haku gets one as well. Off to Shawn who gets knocked to the floor with a few shots. Shawn moonsaults out of the corner over Arn and Anderson is in trouble. Warrior and Michaels both punch Anderson at the same time and Arn backs away from Warrior. A splash from Shawn gets two and it’s off to Haku.

That doesn’t last long at all as a cross body eliminates Haku to get us down to Warrior/Shawn vs. Heenan/Anderson. Heenan tries to get in some cheap shots on Shawn which draws in Warrior. Why? Was he that afraid for Shawn’s safety? Arn dumps Shawn to the floor and Heenan goes up….and then regains his sanity and climbs back down. Arn keeps asking for help from Heenan because he’s getting tired so it’s finally back to Bobby who runs at the first sign of trouble.

Shawn rams his head into the back of Arn’s head and both guys are down. They slug it out but Shawn walks into the spinebuster (called the Anderson Drop) for the elimination. Warrior fires off some shoulders but Arn ducks and sends him to the floor. Heenan goes up again but thinks better of it again. Off to Heenan but Warrior quickly Hulks up so we see some more Anderson. Warrior fights him off as well and whips Arn into Heenan to knock Bobby to the floor. The gorilla press and splash get us down to one on one. Warrior sneaks up on Heenan and what do you think happens here? A shoulder block and splash ends this.

Rating: C-. I think it was watching the whole show before this but this was another dull match. Warrior was never in any danger and I think everyone knew it. To be fair, this would have been better with Tully out there and you can’t fault the guys for that. Heenan being in there had to turn it into a comedy match and I can’t hold that against them. Still though, another dull match in a series of them tonight.

Warrior sprints up the aisle and clotheslines Heenan as he leaves to end the show.

Overall Rating: D. There are multiple problems associated with this show. First of all, nothing here is what you would call good. The matches are all ok at best and nothing beyond that. I guess the best match would be the opener, but even that was just ok. This was a really weak time in the company as they had Hogan but he had beaten everyone already so there’s nothing for him to do really.

However there’s a bigger problem with Survivor Series overall. In short, what’s the point of any of this stuff? No stories are advanced here, other than the first match there was no clean fall between the people the feuding people, and there’s nothing to build off here. Look at Hogan. If you have Hogan lose in that match with DiBiase putting him to sleep after that much of a beating, you have a new opponent for him.

Instead, we have Hogan standing tall again which is nothing new at all. That’s the problem with the first few shows other than the first one. Survivor Series went nowhere and the appeal died very quickly. That wouldn’t change until 1991 so 1990 was somehow even more boring to sit through.

Wait I’m not done.

So as I mentioned, there was another match talked about inside a cage between Hogan/Beefcake and Zeus/Savage. This was a dark match at a TV taping in I believe Nashville. It was released as a PPV special called No Holds Barred: The Movie and The Match. Let’s get to it.

Hulk Hogan/Brutus Beefcake vs. Zeus/Randy Savage

This is one of like three matches Zeus ever had. Both guys have to escape to win. Vince and Jesse are on commentary. Beefcake gets in first but Sherri slams the door on Hogan to keep him out of the cage. Savage chokes Hogan through the cage as Zeus destroys Beefcake. Sherri locks the cage as Hulk punches Savage through the bars. The crowd is on fire for this. Hogan comes in over the top and makes the save as it’s time for the big showdown with Zeus.

Hogan slams Zeus into the cage a few times and down goes the monster. Savage gets whipped HARD into the cage by Brutus and both heels eat Hogan boots in the corner. Zeus gets double teamed but he sends both Hogan and Beefcake into the cage to take over. Savage tries to climb out but Beefcake stops him. Sherri tries to help Savage but Beefcake rams their heads together to keep Savage in the match.

Savage and Zeus ram both guys into the cage over and over which is a very basic yet very smart strategy for a match like this. Beefcake comes back and rams Zeus and Savage into the cage and all four guys are down. The referee unlocks the door to see what he should do, but Sherri rams the cage onto Hebner’s head and slides Savage the cage.

We load up the big spot of the match as Savage climbs the cage. Vince is freaking out. Jesse: “Well who’s going to stop it McMahon? You can’t do nothing about it.” Savage goes up to the top of the cage and wraps the chain around his hand. He dives at Beefcake but Brutus hits him in the ribs on the way down.

Beefcake gets the chain and pounds on Savage as Hogan can’t slam Zeus. Savage and Beefcake climb at the same time and it’s Hulk Up time. Beefcake gets over the top as Savage goes through the door and it’s one on one. Hogan slams Zeus, rams him into the cage about four times, slams him again, drops an insane THREE LEGS and Zeus is DEAD. The pin is academic.

Rating: B. That’s likely high, but this was absolutely perfect for what it was supposed to be. This was a TV taping main event and the fans got to see Hogan DESTROY his biggest rival at the time. The match was a ton of fun with Hogan in his late 80s goodness. Hogan vs. Zeus was actually going to be the Mania 6 main event for awhile until Vince woke up and put Warrior in there instead.

Ratings Comparison:

Dream Team vs. Enforcers

Original: B-
Redo: C+

King’s Court vs. 4x4s

Original: B+
Redo: D+

Hulkamaniacs vs. Million Dollar Team

Original: D-
Redo: C

Rude Brood vs. Roddy’s Rowdies

Original: D
Redo: C-

Ultimate Warriors vs. Heenan Family

Original: C+
Redo: C-

Overall Rating

Original: D+
Redo: D

Bonus Match

Original: B-
Redo: B

I think the difference here is that with the original I didn’t like it at all but with the new one I got bored by it because it just keeps going and going.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

Survivor Series Count-Up – 1989 (Original): What A Weird Match

 

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Survivor Series 1989
Date: November 23, 1989
Location: Rosemont Horizon, Rosemont, Illinois
Attendance: 15,294
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura

Well, a year has passed and you all know how Wrestlemania 5 went. Hogan is champion again and Savage is a heel now, but Ultimate Warrior is on the rise and it’s very fast. Not a lot other than that has really changed. The first four shows can really be grouped together as it’s not until 1991 and the fifth show where we have anything other than a Survivor Series match at one of these shows.

Until then all we’ve had is matches that further the main feuds along. The other things that have changed as far as the style of the show is that the tag match idea has been dropped which is great to me. It makes room for a fifth match which means there’s no match on the card that cracks 28 minutes, meaning that the pointless filler goes WAY down. The matches are now 4 on 4 and they have team names sot this is far closer to the traditional style that we’re accustomed to.

The style works better as it allows for more matches which means less stupid ones. This was a huge step in the evolution of the show which therefore makes it much better in my mind. All that being said, let’s do it.

We get a two minute and twenty second video of clips of the city, the fans, the production truck, and the arena. The souvenirs are oddly called novelties here. It just looks odd. There’s no commentary for this, but only a late 80s WWF theme song playing in the background. Back in the day, all of the shows had their own themes that you would hear once a year. It was kind of a nice touch I always thought. We go to a montage of wrestlers saying what they’re thankful for.

Hogan: health, family, Hulkamania. He speaks for the other members of his cult as well. Somehow this takes a minute for him to say.

DiBiase: he’s rich and you’re not.

Jake Roberts: Damien and the DDT.

Demolition: that they don’t have to fight each other.

Savage: that he’s worthy of being king. And that he’s not in Memphis where an army of Lawlers would miss punches thrown at him.

Duggan: that he lives in America.

Bravo: that Earthquake is on his side.

Dusty Rhodes: his polka dots. And for not having to pretend to have talent against Flair anymore.

Boss Man: for justice. And for the League. And for America. Yeah that was terrible.

Beefcake: his cutting and strutting. And that Hogan lets him keep a job.

Martel: his good looks.

Rude: having a great body.

Piper: that he’s not Rick Rude. Ooo burn.

Genius: for being smart.

Perfect: for being perfect, duh.

Bushwackers: for having stuffing. They practically kiss after saying this. There’s something a bit odd about these two.

Heenan: spending Thanksgiving with the Heenan Family.

Warrior: for war? I have no idea what he said.

Vince runs down the card, which looks ok. I’ll save this for later. This is a montage of pics, introducing every member of each team and every team’s name. It sounds long and boring but this is quick and solid. I like this actually.

Gorilla is the only person that can rock a red sports coat.

The captains will be listed first.

Note: the heir to the throne, Shane McMahon, at the ripe old age of 19 here, is the outside referee all night long.

Enforcers vs. Dream Team

Enforcers: Big Boss Man, Bad News Brown, Rick Martel, Honky Tonk Man

Dream Team: Dusty Rhodes, Tito Santana, Brutus Beefcake, Red Rooster.

First things first: Dusty and Beefcake’s music was AWEOME. No Sapphire at this point so my world is still awesome. Ah yes the feuds for this. Dusty and Boss Man are feuding, mainly due to Dusty stealing his hat and both guys needing a feud. Santana and Martel are STILL feuding years later over a team that was together less than a year. Beefcake and Rooster are just there, as are Honky and Brown.

To be fair though, Brown is a substitute for an injured Akeem, who was Bossman’s tag partner at the time, so it’s not like he’s even supposed to be there. Yes, despite what happened last year, Honky and Brown are fine again. We’re starting with Tito vs. SWT (Santino With Talent), the Honky Tonk Man. See, you need talent to play a character like they do. Honky has it which is why he’s memorable. He’s a wrestling Elvis impersonator. That’s saying something.

Jesse says that this is a main event anywhere in the country. Maybe at a bad indy show but that’s it Jess. Strike Force is going at it AGAIN, which even I’m sick of. Jesse says they’re now defunct. I won’t make fun of that as they’ve only been broken up for about 7 months at this point which isn’t that long ago right now. They’ve also not had the big televised match so that’s fine. I think they finally met on SNME but never on PPV, at least not one on one.

Dusty and Bossman go at it now, renewing a rivalry from WAY back in the NWA days. In one of the coolest moments I’ve ever seen in wrestling, Dusty shattered a wooden chair over Bubba (Bossman). What did the big man do? He straightened his tie. Dusty, the massive face at the time, had no clue what to do and ran. Ok so he kind of stepped with a bit more speed but you get the idea.

Brutus comes in, which is odd as it’s his first time not being the first face in the match, but he’s still in the opener. That’s either really good or really bad and I’m not sure which. You can really see the old 80s look here but the 90s are wanting to break through and start up. How in the world has Terry Taylor kept a job this long? Was Little Beaver, which has to be the best name ever for a wrestler, not available? Gorilla says he can dance like Honky. That’s an image I might want. Not sure though.

Jesse’s pro-cheating stuff is just greatness. They’re mentioning the lone wolf aspect of Bad News already so I think we know how he’s going to be eliminated. The fans are popping for Santana against Martel. Why we never got the big Mania match with these two is beyond me. We did however get the epic Martel vs. Koko squash to open Mania 6 though, so that’s nice. Santana jobbed to Barbarian in that match. Why they didn’t just wrestle each other is beyond me.

I think it was planned for them at Summerslam 90, NEARLY A YEAR AFTER THIS, but it didn’t happen as Martel was injured. Martel pins Santana using the tights to finally get rid of someone after 9 minutes. This was far better though as it at least makes things go faster. We have 7 people left instead of 9 so we’re far closer to being done as opposed to the past two years. They keep referring to Bossman vs. Rooster as a mismatch and that’s true.

It’s talent vs. no talent which is a mismatch if I’ve ever heard of one. Bad News doesn’t want to get in the ring as the foreshadowing is absurd at this point. And there it is. In the EXACT SAME SPOT as last year, Bad News gets hit by his partner. Yep after an argument Brown is leaving. See, Dusty’s team is smart here as they don’t do anything to Brown or the other team. If they’re going to go after each other why not just let them? It’s what I’d do.

It never ceases to amaze me how much bigger of a star a wrestler can become by just simply hanging out with Hulk Hogan. What is so great about Beefcake? He has some kick great theme music, but other than that what has he ever done on his own? He’s a barber for crying out loud, yet he’s a major star simply because of Hogan’s association with him. That’s how you know you’re a big star: when by simply being around someone else you make them a major star. That’s saying a lot.

You could say the same thing about Hillbilly Jim too. He got big because of Hogan but he then carried it himself. Anyway, Beefcake takes out Honky with a high knee, doing something that no midcard guy could do for over a year: pin him. That’s actually quite impressive when you think about it. Honky went a LONG time without losing to someone on his level. We’re at 3-2 with the Dream Team in the lead now. Brutus takes care of Martel after being beaten on for awhile.

It made sense though as it was on a sunset flip, which at least makes it look like it’s a surprise. Rooster lasts about 20 seconds against Bossman so thank goodness he’s gone after a Bossman slam. Brutus hits a very odd looking spot as he comes is whipped in and comes back and just kind of raises his knee into Bossman’s chest. He doesn’t jump or anything so it’s not technically a high knee, but instead he just knees him in the chest. It just looked odd, but effective.

Dusty jumps at him and the bell rings twice to end this. Post match Dusty gets beaten half to death by the nightstick. The epic fatness saves him though. Dusty’s overselling here is great. Brutus helps Rhodes out as his music plays and an ugly woman cheers him on. This woman would soon be known as Sapphire.

Rating: B-. See, this is similar to last year’s, but it’s 8 minutes shorter. That makes this miles better. We don’t have 8 minutes of chinlocks or armbars, but rather much faster stuff and less time between eliminations. There were periods of almost 20 minutes with 2 eliminations last year. That’s just dull. This was MUCH better organized as far as time goes and it made for a much more interesting and much better match. It’s still not great, but it’s far better than last year.

Boss Man says Dusty got what he deserved.

The King’s Court all say they’re going to win and that they’re liking this team. The old interview area was always awesome.

King’s Court vs. 4x4s

King’s Court: Randy Savage, Earthquake, Dino Bravo, Greg Valentine

4x4s: Jim Duggan, Ronnie Garvin, Bret Hart, Hercules

Two things: Either Earthquake or Bravo is replacing Widowmaker, who is more commonly known as Barry Windham. I’ve heard either answer so it could very well be either one. Earthquake was a rookie at this point so my guess would be him as Bravo had been around for at least 3 years at this point. Second, Bret and Neidhart are being tested here to see how they do in singles stuff, and Neidhart is actually in the main event. Third and most importantly: Ronnie Garvin still sucks.

Oddly enough the captain leads his heels down the aisle. I like that as it looks like he’s leading them into battle. There’s actually a point to this feud as Hacksaw lost the crown to Savage and he wants it back, leading to this feud. Other than that there’s no real point to these matchups. Based on the commentary, Earthquake is the replacement as it sounds like Jimmy Hart was bought off for this. All of the faces have 2x4s.

That’s either really smart or really stupid and I’m not sure which. In spite of what Gorilla would tell you, the people are not literally hanging from the rafters. Hercules is showing off all kinds of power out there which is actually pretty impressive. Dang Bret is getting a reaction. For a career tag team guy, that’s impressive. Oh yeah Garvin and Valentine are feuding here so it’s only four pointless guys out there. Somehow, Garvin is a former world heavyweight champion.

I think Earthquake and Hercules had a match at Mania and Bret and Bravo had some house show matches if I remember right, so there’s at least some minor stuff from all of these guys. Earthquake sits on Hercules’ chest in about 4 minutes to end him. How awesome of a finisher is that? He just sits on you to get rid of you. I love that.

Yeah Bravo went after Hart so I’d assume they were having a small feud at this point. Ah nice it’s beat on Garvin time! I officially love the King’s Court. It’s weird hearing Jimmy Hart cheering on Savage. Jimmy really is a great manager when you think about it. You can see he’s having a blast out there every time he’s in the arena and that’s all you can ask for out of a performer. Dang it doesn’t last long as he slips a blind tag to Hacksaw who hits the three point clothesline to beat Valentine and even us up.

Earthquake and Hacksaw do some stupid looking brawling for awhile until both tag out so we get more Garvin. Oh yay. He jumps in the air and slams his head into Bravo’s. Yeah that was stupid. Why was the Garvin Stomp supposed to mean something? It’s the same thing that Orton does now where he goes around in a circle with kicks, but Garvin does it somehow more slowly than Orton does. Let that sink in for a bit.

It also looks even stupider than when Orton does it. He’s just kicking the guy. Why is that supposed to be some awesome move? Holy crap it’s Savage vs. Hart. In a GREAT looking scene, Savage runs at Garvin with reckless abandon but as soon as Hart is tagged in Savage stops dead and backs away. The pop is there and Hart all of a sudden looks like a god. Right there, that is how you build somebody.

You take a veteran and an a-list guy like Savage and you have him make Hart look like they’re even. That was perfect. The announcers are helping too by implying Bret can match Savage move for move, which he could, but how many people noticed it for the first time because of what Gorilla said? Of course, they screw it up by having the camera on Sherri for about 10 seconds so we miss the initial contact. Thank you horny Vince.

The crowd is going freaking off for Bret so at least they know what they’re talking about. Savage of course bails in about 40 seconds to bring in Dino Bravo. What was the appeal of this guy anyway? Did he ever actually do anything? Not that I can remember. Correction: he just eliminated Garvin so he is now on my all time top 5.

It’s time for more brawling with Duggan and Quake. Seriously, why is this the thing we keep going back to? It didn’t work the first time so why are we seeing it again? Why not more Bret and Savage, since they’re the most talented people in this match? Of course that’s what I get when I say it. Now for the main thing: Bret wins here. He doesn’t eliminate Savage, but he certainly out fights him here. What more can you ask Savage to do for Bret here?

It kind of worked too as after another run with Neidhart, Bret would begin his singles career. WOW. They fought for about 2 minutes and I don’t think Savage had any offense. He was only able to tag because he got out of the way of an elbow from the middle rope. That’s probably the best job of putting someone over I’ve ever seen. That was absolutely perfect. You have to remember that just 7 months prior to this, Savage was on the end of a yearlong world title reign.

It’s not like he was just a guy that was hot at the time. This would be like Miz or Swagger beating on Cena for a few minutes and Cena not getting in a single blow for the whole times. The announcers argue about Duggan with Gorilla saying he doesn’t know the meaning of the word quit. Jesse responds in perfect timing with the gem of so what? There’s lots of words he doesn’t know the meaning of.

I’ve always wondered why wrestlers didn’t watch the tapes and kill Jesse for what he said about them. Same goes for today. Announcers insult people all the time, so why don’t the wrestlers go after them? I certainly would. Ok so I’d get fired and arrested for it but I’d still do it. Geez, Bret takes a beating for about 5 minutes from Bravo but Savage comes in and Bret makes his comeback. I hope Bret bought Savage dinner after this. He owes him either that at least.

Now you’re going to see the brilliance that is Jim Duggan and his great leadership. Bret is out of it after that huge beating but he FINALLY gets the tag so that Duggan is in. Duggan is in for FIFTEEN SECONDS before tagging Bret back in. At this point, Duggan deserves to lose. That’s just freaking stupid.

Now we get something you might never see again. Bret hits the post with his shoulder, and Bravo ACTUALLY FOLLOWS UP ON IT! He hits a shoulderbreaker, which is actually making sense. My goodness people, the WWE guys today need to watch Dino Bravo matches as that was the best psychology I’ve ever seen from him. He had something handed to him and he followed up on it. He then tags to Macho who gets the elbow for the pin.

Jesse swears no one can kick out of that, obviously forgetting Hogan doing just that earlier in the year. It’s Duggan against three guys now. Jesse says Duggan wants the capacity house to get behind him. That’s some weird wording. They really make Duggan look good here as the heels don’t tag for a bit and he holds them all off. Macho is really putting people over tonight, which makes sense as he certainly was the most accomplished person in this match and it wasn’t even close.

Other than Savage only Valentine and Hart had won titles, with Hart’s tag title reigns and Valentine being a completely different character at this point. His IC title reigns are completely forgotten. This is basically just Duggan trying to survive…which I guess is the point of the whole show so maybe Duggan is smarter than all of us.

He gets knocked to the floor and due to the managers and Earthquake he doesn’t get back in time. That’s saying a lot. They didn’t have him get pinned. He clears the ring with the board. Now, is that his board, or did he steal it from someone else from earlier? What a great American role model.

Rating: B+. I really liked the psychology here. Duggan not getting pinned, Bret being made to look AWESOME, Hercules not lasting long at all and Garvin getting killed means this was fun. The heels more or less dominating was fine here and this was exactly what it should have been. Savage was 10x anything on the other team and there was no reason his team should have lost. The best way to describe this match was that it made sense, which means a lot in my mind.

DiBiase is with his team and says that his team is awesome and that Hogan will lose. Now that would be possible if he wasn’t going up against perhaps the greatest Survivor Series team ever assembled. More on that later.

Over to Gene who has a report on Dusty’s condition. He says it’s bad but that Dusty will be back.

The Genius has a poem. It’s catchy I guess.

Million Dollar Team vs. Hulkamaniacs

Million Dollar Team: Ted DiBiase, Powers of Pain (Warlord/Barbarian), Zeus

Hulkamaniacs: Hulk Hogan, Jake Roberts, Demolition (Axe/Smash)

See what I meant by greatest team ever? Seriously, show me a better four man team EVER. This was the second Demolition reign as they had just gotten the belts back from the Brainbusters. Hogan is the world champion, and Roberts didn’t need a title to be a huge name. I defy you to find me a more balanced team. Also, for ONCE, this is perfectly done.

Hogan and Zeus are feuding, and there was actually a glimmer, and I do mean a glimmer, of a chance that those two would have headlined Wrestlemania 6. To fans like we are in that era, this scared the heck out of us. Everyone that knew anything knew that Zeus was bad, but the Hollywood aspect of this was actually getting Vince believing that it would work in front of 65,000 people. That speaks volumes about how big this feud was.

For every fan out there, you should be thanking whoever booked tonight’s show, because this was Warrior’s main event audition. If this failed, it would have been Zeus vs. Hogan at Wrestlemania. Demolition and the Powers of Pain were feuding earlier in the year so this was either the very end of it or it was already over and we were waiting on their transition to facing the Heenan Family of Haku and Andre. Finally, DiBiase and Roberts are going at it.

Amazingly, no entrance for the heels as they’re in the ring at the end of the poem. I knew Genius couldn’t get that kind of heat on his own. Anyway, all of the faces here have awesome music here. The pops for all four faces are huge, as I really don’t get why this is in the middle of the show. Chicago is notorious for hot crowds and this is no exception.

Good grief the people loved Hogan. The heels won’t let the faces get in. You know what the solution is. BIG FREAKING SNAKE! I am in full mark out mode here as this is just awesome. Hogan’s music is playing the whole time just to make it even cooler. The bell ringing kind of brings me back to reality.

Gorilla’s commentary about Zeus is cracking me up. “Is that big Z on the side of his head in case he gets lost or something?” Gorilla and Jesse are perhaps the best duo of all time. They just are perfect together to say the least. Hogan and Zeus start us off, giving us that epic wrestling encounter we all know they have inside of them. Zeus is actually the same height as Hogan. That surprises me a bit.

I would have thought Hogan was taller. Gorilla will not let up on Zeus as he’s now talking about his belt. Zeus completely no sells everything. Even a jumping knee to the chest does nothing as apparently Hogan is now an MMA guy. He goes to the eyes and slams Zeus who pops back up. This stuns Hogan. Why? It’s a freaking bodyslam, not a Jackknife. Barbarian interferes and Hogan has his head and neck twisted.

That move by Giant in 1995 would put Hogan on the shelf for 3 months, yet here he keeps fighting. What that tells me is that Giant (Big Show for all you newcomers out there) is WAY stronger than Hogan. Zeus chokes away but throws the referee across the ring for the DQ. Everyone runs in and it takes DiBiase promising money to get Zeus off of Hogan. Now some of you might not get why this was the right thing to do. I’ll explain it to you. Zeus makes Khali look like Lou Thesz.

Now, I’ve explained the whole issue with Zeus in far greater detail in my Summerslam review, but in short, Zeus was an actor from the movie Hulk made called No Holds Barred. He wasn’t a wrestler and therefore couldn’t do much in the ring. This would be like having Shaq be in the main event of a PPV. Now, having him do one or two matches would be fine as he could get a crash course in wrestling and his natural athleticism could carry the rest of it.

However, imagine Shaq vs. Cena for the world title at Mania. It’s crazy to even think of. Thankfully, Hogan and Zeus had their feud blown off on a special PPV which was the movie No Holds Barred followed by Hogan and Beefcake against Savage and Zeus in a cage. Hogan hit three legdrops and pinned him to end it and save for a short promo, Zeus wasn’t seen in a ring again for over 6 years.

DiBiase comes in and beats the tar out of Hogan, which shows why this wasn’t the smartest booking in the world. Instead of Zeus going out first, you should have the other guys eliminate each other and put Hogan’s team at a disadvantage so that Hogan can make more of a superman comeback. Jake gets in and he half kills DiBiase. I’ve always loved Demolition’s style: hit people a lot. There’s no thought to it and it’s just mindless violence. What more can you ask for?

They beat down Andre the Giant, so I’ll take them over anyone else as far as brawling goes. Now here we have the stupidity of the way this match was booked: Hogan is already fine about 2 minutes after that horrible beating. I get that they were trying to hold out for Hogan vs. Zeus, but give me a break here. Now the ending is completely obvious as Hogan of course is going to survive, so why should I watch the next 20 minutes of this match?

Now I already know how the rest of it goes, but even if I hadn’t I could call this a mile away. Hogan’s team will get eliminated and he’ll beat DiBiase one on one for the “huge comeback” win. This is what I hate about late 80s booking. The ending works fine most of the time, but getting there makes NO SENSE. However, we do get a fun spot where Hogan and Demolition beat down DiBiase. Why did Hogan and DiBiase never have that big match?

If there has even been one major match that was built up for years and never had the trigger pulled on it, that was it. They just never got to it and that’s not good. They had a match on SNME, but never that big blowoff match on a major show. I would have made that the main event of Mania 6, with DiBiase saying he had enough of paying people to get the job done and he was going to do it himself.

Now for the key: I would have had DiBiase win it. Hogan loses at Mania anyway, so why not to DiBiase? Then have Warrior take it at Summerslam or whatever to lead up to Mania 7 like always. See it’s not that hard. My booking train of thought is completely derailed here by a Monsoon line. “I don’t care if you have a Big Z on the side of your head, that’s not legal.” The greatness of this line cannot even be put into words.

That line is so corny, so horrible, and so freaking stupid that is completely AWESOME. Jesse has NO CLUE what to say to that, so Gorilla keeps complaining about Zeus. Does Tom Lister owe him money or something? Now we move on to the completely stupid elimination of Axe. Fuji trips him, Warlord drops a standard elbow on him, and he’s out. He was relatively fresh so it’s not like he was worn out or something.

If he was worn out completely then that ending makes sense, but why was that all it took? It was a simple elbow drop. That’s the issue I have with the People’s Elbow. It’s an elbow drop. It takes 20 seconds to set up and the effects of the Rock Bottom are wearing off, so it’s a basic elbow. Why should that be able to win matches? That was just freaking stupid.

Yep, Hogan is still fine and this match still sucks. I think that was the issue with this team: they were too good. There’s no way that the heels were going to be able to win here, so therefore, the faces should have lost. That choke thing should have gotten rid of Hogan and the faces should have gone down. How big of a shock would that have been? It sets up Hogan to beat Zeus at the special PPV and DiBiase at Mania, like I SAID WOULD WORK.

Why did I have to be not even two back then? Despite not doing anything for most of the time, we get a rest hold. Good night this is just boring. DiBiase does a weird looking falling elbow from the middle rope which misses. Barbarian clotheslines the heck out of Smash to pin him. It’s Jake and Hogan against the Powers of Pain and DiBiase. I’ve always loved Jake’s blind punches. If he ever hit one of those he would probably half kill someone. That’s better than killing someone I guess.

Roberts, being the better at selling, gets his snake loving head nded to him. Barbarian misses the diving headbutt as Hogan looks like his doggy has been run over as he always does. Hogan fights off both of them as I’m about to snap if I hear Gorilla call Hogan the champ one more time. The referee disqualifies both Powers of Pain for double teaming to make this 2-1 as this is just freaking stupid at this point. Jesse is pissed off and I can’t blame him.

Gorilla is just blatantly being biased at this point and even I’m pissed off too. Why does Hogan have to be pushed THIS strong? He’s the freaking world champion and a single loss in a team match isn’t going to hurt him one freaking bit. Immediately after this, Hogan survives a LONG Million Dollar Dream as even I’m sick of this stupidity at this point. Jake comes in and beats the tar out of DiBiase. I love Ted’s flips. Watch him get knocked around sometime and you’ll see what I mean.

They’re perfectly fluid and they look excellent. Virgil interferes and takes a SWEET DDT to knock him out, but DiBiase drops the falling punch and uses the ropes to pin Jake. At least with the ropes it makes a bit more sense, but Jake not even moving until the three is on the way down was just stupid looking. Did he wake up all of a sudden?

So it’s one on one and Hogan is spent. Gee, I wonder what this is going to be like. Could it be, oh I don’t know, THE SAME FREAKING THING I SAID IT WOULD BE??? Gorilla once again calls Hogan the champ as I feel like I’m watching a Flintstones cartoon. It was always the champ that they wanted to watch on TV. The booking here is just awful as we have our comeback but the double clothesline kills that off.

Yep the legdrop ends this THANK GOODNESS. Hogan poses for TWO AND A HALF MINUTES while holding the belt in DiBiase’s face. See, wouldn’t that be a great buildup for WRESTLEMANIA in 4 months? Heck no let’s just have Hogan reign supreme AGAIN when he didn’t need to.

Rating: D-. Now I’m a Hulkamaniac and I always will be despite what he did in WCW and all the politics he played etc. He’s the greatest and biggest wrestler of all time and he always will be, but this was AWFUL. The booking was just completely stupid here and it backed them into a corner so that the main event had to be Hogan against either Zeus or Warrior. As Gilbertti said, if someone is pinned clean, why should we want to see that match again? I certainly wouldn’t.

DiBiase and Hogan was the money match that had been teased since at least Mania 4, so why did we never get it? Instead we got Hogan and Warrior, which was fine, but they completely blew this one. Why does Hogan, the world champion, have to win here? If Zeus is supposed to be this unstoppable monster, why should Hogan pop up and be fine two minutes later? This just could have been done so much better than they did it, and I don’t get and, nor do I like anything about it.

Savage and Zeus are in the back now as they’re back to being BFFs and they plug the special PPV.

Hogan and Beefcake do the same, but the heels run in and beat them up.

We run down the rest of the card as we have to be at an intermission at this point.

Jesse runs down Hogan and talks about how stupid that was, as well as talking about how the Heenan Family is arguing.

Sean is with Rude’s team and they all say they’ll win. This takes a long time and The Rougeaus are funny.

Roddy leads his team down the hall as all three of them try to smuggle turkey to the ring and leads them in a song/chant. This is bizarre but actually funny.

Rude Brood vs. Roddy’s Rowdies

Rude Brood: Rick Rude, Mr. Perfect, Rougeau Brothers

Roddy’s Rowdies: Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka, Bushwackers

So let’s take a look at these teams. First of all they mostly match up with Snuka and Perfect not feuding but they at least are on about the same level. However, let’s break this down. Rude’s team. Here we have Perfect and Rude, both IC and US champions and two of the best to never win one of the two big world titles. They’re teaming with the Rougeaus who are some of the most athletic and crisp guys you’ll ever see.

On the other team we have four guys that have a combined two titles in WWE. Piper has both of them, with the IC title in 1992 and the tag titles with Flair in the 2000s. Yep, if there’s ever been a perfect distribution of talent, this is it. Seriously, even on paper this match looks like a joke. Perfect is with the Genius here. He and Hogan would have a small feud, but no one bought it. Now if that happened a few years later, we’d certainly be on to something. The Rougeau music is AWESOME.

They’re All American Boys! This is one of my all time favorite wrestling songs and is just pure awesome. Rude comes out sans Bobby. This went nowhere really as Heenan stayed with him until he left the company in about a year. He did pick up Henning in a bit though. Snuka has done nothing ever in WWE. Name one match that he won that wasn’t a squash.

He had the cage dive that apparently influenced about half of the wrestlers active today though. Bushwackers, called the marching morons by Jesse, never won anything either. Piper, who won all of two matches that meant anything in WWF, is by far and away the most accomplished member of his team. His pop is great. The bagpipes are completely awesome as always.

We start off with Perfect and Luke. Rude’s tights put RVD’s to shame on all levels. They’re completely awesome. Everyone bites Perfect. I wonder if he needs salt. Jacques does the Jeff Hardy head over heels rope flip which always looks awesome. He then lays down and does a kip up. Yeah these guys were awesome as far as athleticism. They came in during the apex of tag wrestling though and it was hard for them to really break though.

Take my word for it though: they were sweet. Superfly really isn’t all that impressive to me. He had some flashy moves but there’s not a ton of substance here for me. He does have a sweet big splash though and that ends Jacques as Jesse can’t say the name of the face team. They beat up on Perfect for awhile as this is remaining ok I guess. Now no one believes that the Bushwackers are going to beat Perfect, but it’s at least not a bad waste of time.

He finally gets out and it’s Raymond against Piper now. Well this should be….different. Piper eliminates him in about a minute after Ray beats on him for awhile to make it 4-2 and now even I can see how this is going to end. We know it’ll get down to 2-2 and it’ll be the big stars left. Yeah, it’s not hard to figure out at this point. I love how the Bushwackers are completely insane yet they’re trained wrestlers. That’s always been amusing to me. What was training them like?

In case you can’t tell, I’m quite bored at this point as we’re just filling in time before we get down to the big names. Piper and Perfect is a pretty interesting matchup actually. It’s a complete clash of styles and it works very well. What more can you ask for out of this match? I know that we’ve got a gimmick show here but there’s a lot of singles matches that I think would have been better here. Granted they weren’t feuding here but still that’s a feud I’d like to see.

Rude is flat out ROCKING that porn stache. Butch bites Perfect’s trunks. Seriously dude, that’s just getting stupid. Perfect takes him out with a rollup. I wonder if Bobby ever motivated him like that. Bite him on the trunks and he’ll start fighting better. Luke bites Rude on the face and it leads to the Rude Awakening to get it down to the predictable ending.

The heels beat on Snuka for awhile here as it’s quite boring at this point. Piper yelling come on Jimmy makes me think of the movie The Wizard and Video Armageddon. I hate this match. It’s so bad. I better get some Lee rep for that one. Anyway, Snuka powers out of a cover and Perfect lands on the referee with the back of the referee’s head in Perfect’s crotch. When is tea time anyway? Jesse keeps saying Snooka and it’s getting annoying.

Rude rakes the back and Jesse calls it a Piper move. That’s a Hogan move actually Body. The future governor says that this is a standard tag team match now. That’s not true either as it’s elimination, not standard. Why does Jimmy wrestle barefoot? That has to be annoying at times. What if he stubs it or something? Yoda Monsoon says “head to head they hit.” I guess the hand next to the head when Roddy punches is a boxing thing. That’s all I can think of.

So we have our two captains and it lasts a minute and a half as they go to the floor for the double count out to make it one on one. Yeah I’ll spoil it for you: Perfect is going to win. They tried so hard to build him up as credible but he just failed in house shows against Hogan as no one thought he was a legit challenger which is why Perfect never was a real option for a PPV opponent, despite the AWESOME set of promos about how Perfect he really was.

Yeah Perfect is dominating and it’s looking like a squash. Short comeback should happen in about a minute or so. Yep I was right. I officially hate this match. I’ve called half the sequences in it and this is just boring me to death at this point. We get a decently fast paced sequence, but naturally the savage falls victim to the Perfectplex. Why would you ever put your head down in front of a guy that uses a suplex as his finisher? Even Snuka is smarter than that isn’t he? Snuka beats up the Genius afterwards.

Rating: D. I HATED this match. It was just flat out awful and the lineup gave away the ending the whole way. You knew the tag teams would cancel each other out and it would get down to the main guys. At that point, there was no way that we were going to have a face team win. Snuka was a jobber to the stars as you remember him being the first victim of the Streak. This was no exception and it was a lot of filler as well, so I’m certainly not impressed.

The Rude Brood celebrates but Rude won’t talk about Heenan.

The Ultimate Warriors, a pretty bad team, says they hope they spoil Thanksgiving for the Heenan Family.

Heenan Family vs. Ultimate Warriors

Heenan Family: Andre the Giant, Bobby Heenan, Arn Anderson, Haku

Ultimate Warriors: Duh, Rockers, Jim Neidhart

This was the epitome of a last second switch. The Brainbusters, Anderson and Blanchard, were being thrown out as they were just too good and Vince knew it. However, Tully failed a drug test earlier in the day and that was all the reason needed to fire him. Bobby was put into this match as a result. He’s dressed like Andre which amuses me. Even the announcers sound generally surprised about Bobby being out there, so maybe there was something to the idea of this being a legit surprise.

I can’t believe this. I like the Rockers’ music. Yeah Shawn Michaels is in the main event of the Survivor Series. What’s with the high knees in this show? Andre jumps the faces and beats the tar out of them until Warrior comes out and saves them, clotheslining Andre three times to knock him out cold on the floor. That’s how banged up he was. That was as long as he could last at the moment.

Yes, that man would be a champion before the year was over though, giving Andre a completely token title reign to end his career. That would actually be the main event of a LOT of house shows around this time: Warrior beats Andre in less than a minute. So let me get this straight.

We have a young tag team and a powerhouse teaming with an unstoppable force in the Warrior in his main event tryout against a good wrestler in Anderson, a strong guy but more or less a career jobber to the stars in Haku, and a manager. Yeah, this is a FINE way to end the show. What is so special about Jim Neidhart? You hear no real complaints about him, but what did he ever do? He and Bret were a great team, but Bret is obviously the more talented guy.

Neidhart was a jobber for awhile as I don’t remember him winning any singles matches, yet he’s remembered FAR more fondly than his counterpart, Marty Jannetty. However, Jannetty has a pretty decent resume of his own: IC and tag champion. That’s not a bad little career. Now of course it’s nothing great, but that’s not bad either. How many wrestlers don’t have that kind of record? Andre looks downright depressing.

He can’t stand up straight, he’s hobbling around and he’s just shouting unintelligibly. Why was he allowed near a ring at this point? A simple two and a half years before this and he looked fine at Mania 3. This is just sad to see though. Jesse talking about how great and tough Heenan is has me cracking up. Haku hits a kick to the back of Anvil’s head to even us up at three.

Shawn is in there now, and it’s just amazing to think that he’s by far the biggest star left in this match. Who in their right mind would have guessed that? Now we get to some solid stuff as it’s Rockers vs. real wrestlers. I’d LOVE to see this be against the Brainbusters instead of Arn and Haku which is as odd of a pairing as you could ever imagine. Other than a short Warrior thing which was also ok as I like power vs. power at times, this is the best part of the whole show.

The Rockers are really underrated as a team in my eyes. They can bring it with the best of them. Also, they hit a double superkick. Shouldn’t Arn be out cold at this point? That’s a move that I could actually give a break to for Shawn about how it knocks people out now but not then. You could argue that he started practicing it more and got the mechanics of it down better and worked his leg harder to get it stronger, so I can live with that actually.

Heenan comes in, hits a knee, gets punched in the ribs and is out. If Santino did that every week, I’d almost like him. Ok that’s a lie but it would amuse me. Haku and Anderson KILL Marty so that Brain can come in and hit a few stomps and a knee to win it. We have an answer as to why Neidhart is remembered more fondly. He lost to Haku, who got a few world title shots in the next year. Jannetty lost to a guy that tripped over the tail of his weasel suit.

What is this book they keep talking about? I’d love a copy of that book. Warrior comes in and within 12 seconds it’s rest hold time! We get another one a few seconds later. Both are bearhugs by the way. You really can see that Shawn is the star in the making. He has that look in his eyes that people talk about. Actually that might be cocaine, not sure.

The faces use the Midnight Express’ Rocket Launcher which has to make Arn laugh, as he and Tully dropped the titles to them so they could leave the NWA. Shawn with a GORGEOUS high cross body takes out Haku. We now have Bobby Heenan against Shawn Michaels. That is just hilarious. Heenan goes UP TOP! Make that the middle rope. Ok it’s the apron. Yeah he’s not doing anything.

This is the epitome of the coward and it’s working perfectly. OH NOW I GET IT! He’s using his brain! So he’s using himself? Is he his own pimp? Is Godfather needed? Ok I’m done. Shawn and Arn are going at it now as that’s a fine match. Arn with the Anderson Drop, takes out Shawn. Wait the what? When in the world did the spinebuster have a name??? I love that. That’s what it should be called. It’s an awesome name.

More or less it’s Arn by himself against Warrior which leads to at least one funny moment: he goes for a tag and Heenan says no way. Arn is PISSED. For his troubles he gets gorilla pressed and splashed for the pin, and guess who’s the last heel standing. The look on his face is priceless. Warrior goes commando and sneaks up on Heenan which is funny as well. Sadly this is a borderline comedy match.

Heenan’s face is killing me as that could be an avatar with ease. I could be convinced to give up Link for a shot of that. Heenan is running as much as he can but it’s not working. He almost gets up the aisle but it doesn’t work. You know the ending already. Warrior, the jerk he is, chases him up the aisle and clotheslines him in the back of the head which I don’t think Heenan knew was coming, which is not only unprofessional but very dangerous. Yeah Warrior was kind of horrible.

Rating: C+. The comedy here is just ok and again, WE KNEW WHO WAS GOING TO WIN! Andre simply had no business being out there and it’s just plain sad. Now this would have been miles better had Tully been in it, but on mere hours’ notice, what can you ask from Vince? It’s ok and the fans went home happy, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt here. Also, the Rockers/Heenan Family stuff was pretty sweet.

Overall Rating: D+. And that’s being VERY generous. The first two matches are pretty good, but the last three have some of the worst major show booking that I’ve ever seen in my life. It made little sense, it accomplished nothing at all, and it was as predictable as possible. This was just awful at the end. Unless you’re a hardcore 80s WWF fan, stay away from this. However, next year we get a few twists and a HUGE debut.

WAIT!

Just so I can say I reviewed it, you’re getting a bonus match. No Holds Barred was later shown on a special PPV called The Movie and the Match. All it consisted of was the movie and then a special cage match between Hogan and Beefcake vs. Savage and Zeus. That’s all it was: a movie and a match, but it was the closest thing to a definitive blow off between Hogan and Zeus that we ever got so let’s give it a shot.

Hulk Hogan/Brutus Beefcake vs. Randy Savage/Zeus

We start with Sean giving a very brief introduction, saying that this is a real challenge to Hulkamania etc. This was in Nashville at a Wrestling Challenge taping in December of 1989 with the PPV on December 27. The heels are already in the ring when we start this up, which can’t be a good sign. Hogan is world champion here. Your commentators are Vince and Jesse. Hogan brings his own chain to lock the cage. That’s just odd.

Beefcake gets in first but as Hogan is getting in, Sherri slams the door on him so it’s 2-1. Savage grabs Hogan to hold him on the ground. The referee runs over to help him, despite having no actual authority here. As he’s doing this, Sherri locks the door so Beefcake is stuck. However it’s the late 80s so we have to make this completely pointless to close out the decade, so Hogan gets loose and climbs in about a minute later.

Beefcake is down now though, so I guess there was at least a thought there. The cage is moving a lot, which is a flaw of the old school kind. The faces are all of a sudden dominating. Dang Hogan liked raking men’s skin. He did that a lot. However, Zeus rams both guys’ heads into the cage to turn it around for the second time in less than four minutes. The rules here are both guys have to get out to win. There’s no pins or submissions.

Savage nearly gets out but Beefcake makes the save. Here’s Sherri though showing off that tremendous figure of hers. I really think Brutus was underrated as a worker. He suffered from having his career turned upside down by the face injury and some of the absolute dumbest gimmicks of all time. Savage and Zeus are completely dominating here. They both try to go up though and the faces make the saves and here’s your comeback.

All four are down after a quadruple cage shot. For no apparent reason, the referee opens the cage, and Sherri slams the door on his head in one of the SICKEST sounding things I’ve ever heard. I mean there was a thud when that door hit him. Despite it being no holds barred, we need to keep the official out of the way. Sherri slips Savage the chain. In a laugh out loud moment, Jesse says Vince has no authority here. I love lines like that.

Savage jumps off the top of the cage with the chain around his hand but misses Beefcake and here come your faces again. A chain shot takes Savage down but of course doesn’t knock him out. You’d be amazed how immune to pain cocaine can make you. Zeus pounds on Hulk. I’ll give you two guesses as to how that goes for him. Beefcake gets up the cage after knocking Savage off and does this big celebration before leaving. Thanks for leaving your partner you freaking traitor.

He pulls Savage out. So let me get this straight: Beefcake leaves Hogan and then tries to help the other team win. What kind of a freaking excuse for a friend is he? What’s next: joining the heel stable as a completely over the top character that can only say two words and apparently losing his calling as a barber? Good grief I love wrestling. Only in wrestling could that even resemble making sense. Four cage shots leads to three leg drops. WOW he must have hated Zeus.

Three Hogan leg drops is equal to the combined power of the militaries of Bolivia and the Death Star. Wait, Hogan gets the pin? There were no pins mentioned before. At least the 80s are going out in style: a short cage match with over the top characters and rules that are changed on the fly. Jesse’s line of “I don’t believe it he did it again” cracks me up.

Rating: B-. This was literally just a match at a TV taping that was thrown on at the end, so what do you expect from it? It’s about ten minutes long and exactly what you would expect it to be. It’s nothing great but it sent the fans home happy and ended Hogan vs. Zeus so there we go. It did what it was supposed to do also: gave the people a reason to buy the movie. This was eventually put out on a home video compilation tape called Supertape, so it’s whatever. This was perfectly fine.

 

 

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Monday Night Raw
Date: January 25, 1993
Location: Manhattan Center, New York City, New York
Attendance: 1,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan, Rob Bartlett

We are done with the Royal Rumble and I wouldn’t expect to hear much about that, as this show was taped last week. As for what we will be seeing this week, we have the Repo Man vs. Randy Savage in a battle over a hat, plus Mr. Perfect vs. Ric Flair in a Loser Leaves the WWF match. One of these things is not like the other so let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

Repo Man is outside and REALLY excited about getting to fight Randy Savage so he can repossess Savage’s career.

Opening sequence.

Commentary runs down the card.

Randy Savage vs. Repo Man

Hat’s off to them for starting with a big one. Makes sense as they are in Man-Hat-Tan. Savage charges in and the beating is on, with Savage knocking him outside to keep up the pain. Back in and Repo Man gets choked down as we hear about how close Savage got to winning the Royal Rumble (in commentary that was probably recorded later). The running knee sends Repo Man outside as Bartlett mocks Repo Man’s bald spot.

Repo Man tries to leave but gets pulled back in for some choking in the corner as the total squash continues. They head back to the floor, with Savage being sent face first into the steps to give Repo Man a breather. A posting keeps Savage down as Bartlett talks about Repo Man’s…feet. Heenan: “Where did you get this guy?” The chinlock with a bodyscissors goes on but Savage fights up and blocks a kick to the ribs as we take a break.

Back with Repo Man dropping a leg for two as Bartlett talks about Savage writing a letter to Jodie Foster. The bodyscissors keeps Savage in trouble and it’s time to choke away on the ropes. Commentary talks to politics as the chinlock goes on to keep Savage in trouble. A backbreaker lets Repo Man walk around and talk trash, only to get clotheslined out of the air. He takes so long that Savage clotheslines him out of the air and drops the elbow for the pin at 12:31.

Rating: C-. What were you expecting from Randy Savage vs. the Repo Man in a fight over a stolen hat? This felt like a way to set something up for a short form story early on in the show’s history. Savage added some star power, but you’re only going to get so far with a story that is this silly. The match was fairly slow too, but an intense Savage is always worth seeing.

Bob Backlund thinks you need to help him put a Headlock On Hunger.

Wrestlemania is coming in April.

Kamala vs. Brooklyn Brawler

Slick is here with Kamala. Brawler actually gets in some shots to start but makes the mistake of trying a slam. A chop into a kick to the face into another chop puts Brawler in the corner so Kamala can hit a reverse Banzai drop. Another knockdown sets up the reverse cover as Vince thinks Kamala and Suzanne Somers would make an interesting couple. Kamala kicks him in the face and slides into the corner for another reverse cover. The chop sets up the splash but Kamala rolls him over four times before finally getting the pin at 3:36.

Rating: D. It takes something special to get repetitive in a three and a half minute match but Kamala made it work here. Kamala’s face turn is so goofy that it is hard to not draw at least a smile, but egads it was not easy to watch him in the ring. It was a total squash and somehow hard to watch, which isn’t something you see very often.

Post match Slick thanks the fans for Kamala being converted. Kim Chee and Harvey Wippleman need to stay out of Kamala’s way though because they may not like what happens if he sees them.

We get the Royal Rumble Report, with recaps of Bret Hart and Yokozuna winning their respective matches to set up the main event of Wrestlemania. Gene Okerlund talks about the debuts of Lex Luger and Giant Gonzalez, the latter of whom destroys the Undertaker. It still feels so weird to hear Okerlund talking about the Undertaker. Such a clash of generations.

Ric Flair vs. Mr. Perfect

Loser leaves WWF and Heenan gets up and watches at ringside. They stare each other down to start with Perfect slapping him in the face a few times. Flair drop toeholds him down but gets slapped in the face, allowing Perfect to bust out a quick shuffle. That’s enough to send Flair outside for a breather, plus a meeting with Heenan. Back in and they go technical, with Perfect taking him down for a hammerlock.

With that broken up, Perfect wins a chop off as Heenan goes back to commentary to suggest Perfect is going to be in trouble. Back up and Flair backs into the corner, leaving Perfect to take down one of the straps. Flair finally gets it together and tosses Perfect outside, setting up a chair shot to the back.

We take a break and come back with Perfect being tossed over the corner for a messy crash out to the floor. Perfect is busted open (that’s not something you saw very often at this point) and Flair starts hammering away, setting up a chinlock with feet on the ropes. Back up and they strike it out again with Perfect hitting him in the face for two. Perfect finally gets him down for a backslide before pulling Flair out of the corner. The right hands in the corner have Flair in more trouble until he atomic drops his way out of trouble.

Perfect suplexes him off the apron for two more, only to have Flair come back with a sleeper. That’s good for two armdrags until Perfect manages to send him into the corner. Perfect tries….a jumping sleeper to take it to the mat (they mistimed something there but it worked out well enough) and now it’s Flair in trouble. Flair powers up again and sends him into the corner, setting up a Figure Four, complete with a grab of the rope. The referee finally catches him so Flair kicks away at the knee in the corner. Flair goes up and comes crashing back down as we take another break.

We come back with Flair getting in a right hand with a foreign object but Perfect gets his foot on the rope. A chop in the corner wakes Flair up and the comeback is on. Clotheslines abound, including one to knock Flair out of the air for two. Flair sweeps the legs in the corner and puts his foot on the rope for a bunch of near falls, only to duck his head and get PerfectPlexed for the pin at 24:58.

Rating: A-. You were expecting something less? This was a heck of a match as the two of them had time to do something great and were allowed to do whatever they wanted. Perfect really can have a great match when he is given the chance and the first half of 1993 might be the best run of his career. This was it for Flair in the company (mostly) for about eight and a half years and he went out on an absolute classic. Great match and the best one that the show would have for a LONG time.

Post match Heenan goes into a long bleep as Flair walks out.

Vince tells us that Ric Flair will honor all of his commitments for the weekend before leaving.

Overall Rating: B. You can tell that the company is trying to figure out what to do with the show so they’re throwing everything they can at the wall so far. That’s a good thing as we get something like this, which is one of the best Raw matches ever. I’m not sure what is coming next, but we can start the long form build towards Wrestlemania, which should be a good way to go. Check out Flair vs. Perfect though as it absolutely holds up.

 

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Monday Night Raw
Date: January 11, 1993
Location: Manhattan Center, Manhattan, New York
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Rob Bartlett, Randy Savage

Since the random months deal isn’t working whatsoever, let’s just go with doing them straight through. I have twenty months left in the first four years so we might as well start off with the first year. It’s a shorter month because the show started in the second week. Oh and it’s also the show’s debut so let’s get to it.

Sean Mooney is on the streets of Manhattan and welcomes us to the first ever show but has to stop one Bobby Heenan from going inside. He has been replaced by Rob Bartlett and since Mooney is security, Heenan stops to bicker.

Opening sequence.

Commentary welcomes us to the show and Bartlett is already getting annoying.

Yokozuna vs. Koko B. Ware

So here’s your first trivia of the night as we have the first ever match in the history of the show. Bartlett: “This guy has his own no fly zone!” Savage: “He doesn’t even have a zipper.” We also get some Japanese/fat jokes from Bartlett until Ware is shoved across the ring. It works a second time but Koko is back up with a dropkick. A big charge misses though and Ware is sent HARD into the top rope. The big legdrop sets up the corner splash and the Banzai Drop finishes Ware in a hurry.

Rating: D+. Total squash and a good example of the Yokozuna who was that scary of a monster. He looked great and could still move around out there, with the running splash coming off as athletic. This is the Yokozuna who could be the top heel for a long time, and it’s easy to see why he was pushed so hard.

Bobby Heenan talks about Narcissus, who has Mr. Perfect scared. Yes, Narcissus is beyond perfect and comparing the two of them is like comparing ice cream to horse manure. Narcissus will be unveiled at the Royal Rumble and Perfect will think he is from another world.

Steiner Brothers vs. Executioners

Scott isn’t playing around and tilt-a-whirl slams #1 as Doink the Clown is playing around a bit in the audience. Rick comes in and whips #2 into the ropes so hard that #2 falls down. #2 is driven ribs first upside down into the corner and it’s a double noggin knocker from Scott on the floor. Back in and the referee has to get out of the way of a Scott belly to belly and there’s the tiger driver to make it worse. The Steiner Bulldog ends the masked goons.

Rating: C-. I could watch the Steiners beat up goofs forever and this was a good example of how effective it can be. Those suplexes and the bulldog had the Executioners flying all over the place and it was absolutely glorious. They were brand new at this point and even 1993 WWF couldn’t screw them up.

Bobby Heenan, this time in drag, still can’t get into the building. He thought he was getting into the building normally, so he just had that in his bag?

Here is Razor Ramon for a chat with Vince McMahon. He is happy to have a WWF Title shot at the Royal Rumble because it has his name written all over it. Vince says it took Bret eight and a half years to get his title shot but now Razor is happy with getting his shot after eight and a half months. That’s not good enough for Vince, who wants to know why Razor jumped Owen Hart over the weekend. Razor says it was fun and there is nothing Bret can do about it. You know what else Bret can’t do anything about? Razor winning the WWF Title. Good interview here, as Razor was still in serious mode.

There will be a Headlock On Hunger show later this month, with Randy Savage not exactly knowing what is on the card (“Shawn Michaels vs. Bob Backlund for another title. The Intercontinental Title!”).

Tatanka wants us to put a headlock on hunger.

Intercontinental Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Max Moon

Shawn is defending. Moon flips around a bit as Bartlett does a bit about the WWF version of the Amy Fisher story and Savage….thinks Heenan looked good in drag? Shawn gets thrown into the corner and can’t figure out what to do here, so Moon armdrags him down. We take a break and come back with Shawn dropping him throat first across the middle rope as commentary gets in “uncooked, uncut and uncensored” as many times as they can.

Shawn hits…something as Doink comes out to watch again and Bartlett “calls in” with a bad Mike Tyson impression. This gag keeps going as Shawn sends him face first into the buckle as Bartlett (still as Tyson) makes up matches for the Royal Rumble. Moon grabs a small package for a quick two and gets punched in the face some more. The chinlock goes on and Tyson wants to know what it’s called.

Back up and Moon catapults Shawn over the top and out to the floor (Bartlett: “He disappeared!”) for the crash. Moon scores with a spinwheel kick in the corner and a cradle gets two. Shawn is back up with the superkick, which isn’t his finisher yet so here it’s just a thing. Instead it’s the tear drop suplex (kind of a cross between a belly to back suplex/Angle Slam) to retain Shawn’s title.

Rating: C. The wrestling was fine but the commentary was one of the dumbest, most annoying things I can imagine. The bit itself, a confused Mike Tyson calling in, is fine enough but it JUST KEPT GOING and wasn’t all that funny in the first place. It’s not the kind of comedy that fits in on a wrestling show and that’s why Bartlett never fit. He was funny in a different format, but here it feels so forced and it never worked.

WATCH WWF MANIA! I liked that show.

It’s time for the Royal Rumble Control Center. This week we’re talking about the Intercontinental Title match between Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty. The question is whose corner Sensational Sherri will be in, with both guys saying she’s going with them. Marty and Sherri were never a thing so this always felt a bit weird.

Moving on, Gene Okerlund runs down the Royal Rumble lineup, with Mr. Perfect saying he isn’t worried because no one else in the match is perfect. On the other hand, Mr. Fuji says no one can get Yokozuna over the top so he’ll win. Oh and Jim Duggan thinks he’ll….fight. He might not win, but he’ll fight. Of note: this segment went on so long that Tito Santana beat the Brooklyn Brawler in a dark match as it aired.

Bobby Heenan, now as Rob Bartlett’s uncle Morty, still can’t get in. The stereotypes here are rather strong.

We look at Kamala’s face turn, as he leaves Kim Chee and Harvey Wippleman and joins up with Reverend Slick. That pairing could bowl some people over.

Undertaker vs. Damien Demento

Demento is a weird guy and billed “from the Outer Reaches Of Your Mind”. Vince and Bartlett go into a bit about Paul Bearer being from a famous family and needing an iron supplement. Demento’s right hands have no effect and the very Young School connects, with Vince ignoring it to talk about the Royal Rumble. Demento gets in a few shots out of the corner but Undertaker sits up and hits the jumping clothesline. The Tombstone finishes without much trouble.

Doink talks about enjoying making kids cry but Crush comes out and threatens him with that Hawaiian accent. If Doink keeps it up, his bad arm will have another arm and both legs for company in that cast. Doink squirts him with water and the chase is on.

Bobby Heenan is allowed in now that the show is over.

Overall Rating: C-. I don’t think I’m breaking any new ground by saying that this first show is not very good. The wrestling was more miss than hit and Bartlett was a nightmare, but what mattered here was that they had to start somewhere. It’s the first episode of the most famous wrestling series ever and it took place live from New York City. The content isn’t important here, but rather the fact that the show happened. Not a terrible show, but it’s all about the history instead of the content.

 

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Wrestlemania V
Date: April 2, 1989
Location: Trump Plaza, Atlantic City, New Jersey
Attendance: 18,946
Commentators: Jesse Ventura, Gorilla Monsoon

It’s back to the same arena as last year for an even longer show. Yes after the marathon that was Wrestlemania IV, this show is actually a bit longer despite there being no tournament. The main event scene is really just a sequel to last year’s match though so the same setting makes sense. Let’s get to it.

WWF Women’s Champion Rockin Robin (half sister of Jake Roberts) sings America the Beautiful and does a decent job. Jesse of course isn’t impressed and doesn’t bring up Donald Trump in the front row again this year.

King Haku vs. Hercules

This is as high as Haku ever got on his own as succeeded Race as the King due to Race’s injuries. This isn’t for the crown though and Hercules is now a face (Heenan had tried to sell him to DiBiase, who referred to Hercules as a slave. This didn’t sit well and Hercules claimed that he was his own man) in powder blue trunks. Haku jumps him from behind to start but Hercules comes back by throwing Haku into the air and just letting him crash to the mat.

Heenan’s advice doesn’t do Haku much good as Hercules drops some elbows but stops to walk around. A second Heenan distraction works a bit better though and Haku gets in some cheap shots to take over. Back in and we hit a bearhug on Hercules to fill in some time but he breaks free and gets two off a cross body. Some clotheslines set up something from the top but Haku gets up a good looking superkick to knock Hercules silly. Back up and Hercules grabs a belly to back suplex but rolls his shoulder up to pin Haku at 6:53.

Rating: D+. Not the worst match here but this was a strange choice for an opener. I mean did they really think that it made sense to push Hercules as something special? At the time they were actually pushing him as a third Mega Power, which meant “the guy that would take a fall in a six man” but it was really just in name only. This was a pretty pedestrian power match but that superkick to stop Hercules was a nice touch. Haku always had a good superkick and it was cool to see him use it, even in a nothing match like this.

The latest pretty boy tag team called the Rockers refer to themselves tag team specialists and say they’re ready for the Twin Towers (Akeem, formerly known as the One Man Gang and now a dancing African along with the 6’6 380lb Big Boss Man).

Rockers vs. Twin Towers

The Rockers are hungover beyond belief here. Boss Man goes after Marty (Jannetty, partner of Shawn Michaels in case you don’t know the Rockers) and gets decked by Shawn from behind. Shawn punches Akeem to get the big man’s attention before doing the same thing to the Boss Man. The Rockers start in on Akeem’s arm but he throws Marty into a bearhug from Boss Man and adds a standing splash to crush Jannetty between the two of them.

More splashes connect and the Towers’ manager Slick says they need a black referee. Why he wants this isn’t clear but he was shouting it pretty loudly. Marty finally avoids a charge to send the Towers together and Shawn gets the tag to help double team Akeem. They whip him across the ring over and over before a double shoulder gets two. It finally gets down to one on one and Akeem just ends Shawn with one of the hardest clotheslines I’ve ever seen. Jesse: “I think he irritated Akeem!”

Boss Man misses his top rope splash though and the Rockers double dropkick Akeem to the floor. They mostly miss stereo missile dropkicks to Boss Man and everything breaks down with Boss Man catching a diving Shawn in a spinning powerbomb. That awesome landing isn’t enough so it’s Air Africa (running splash) from Akeem for the pin at 8:05.

Rating: C+. This was fun for how well the Rockers bumped for the monsters here. That clothesline and the powerbomb to Shawn were particularly awesome as Shawn looked dead off both moves. The Twin Towers had just come off feuding with Hogan/Savage but for some reason it never led to the Tag Team Titles or even a serious shot at them.

DiBiase loves getting to be around the rich people in Atlantic City, even if he’s wrestling a commoner like Brutus Beefcake.

Ted DiBiase vs. Brutus Beefcake

DiBiase’s Million Dollar Title (he couldn’t win the WWF World Title so he made his own) isn’t on the line because Brutus hasn’t earned a shot. Ted shakes hands with Trump before coming in and Donald seems intrigued by the belt. Brutus has his awesome theme music now and it makes his entrance a lot better. Virgil stays in the ring for the first minute or so of the match while DiBiase talks trash to Beefcake.

Brutus gets tired of waiting and backdrops DiBiase out to the floor, followed by some slams and a clothesline to put him right back to the floor. This really hasn’t been a good return to Wrestlemania for DiBiase. He’s already gone from the main event to the third match on the card and now he’s getting beaten up.

Back in and even more right hands stagger Ted until Virgil trips Brutus to give the boss an opening. A middle rope elbow gets two for DiBiase and a suplex sets up the Million Dollar Dream. Brutus grabs the rope and makes his comeback, sending Ted face first into the buckle ten straight times. DiBiase finally knocks Brutus to the floor where Virgil gets in a few shots. Ted follows and they brawl to a double countout at 9:57.

Rating: D+. Well that happened. There wasn’t much of a story to this one and they just did moves to each other for about ten minutes. It’s strange as these two would work well together with Brutus’ great charisma being able to power a sweet comeback. Brutus was never great but the fans loved him and he was adequate enough to work a passable and fun match. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case here but at least they tried.

Post match Brutus cleans house with the hedge clippers to claim a moral victory. As usual, Jesse is on point by calling that assault with a deadly weapon.

Earlier today the Bushwhackers were at the annual Wrestlemania brunch and ate a lot. This isn’t particularly funny.

Fabulous Rougeau Brothers vs. Bushwhackers

The Rougeaus are now managed by Jimmy Hart and All American Boys from Memphis. Butch trips on the way to the ring (to be fair the aisle has steps) and Jesse accuses Gorilla of being drunk in the casino the other night. The Bushwhackers steal Jimmy’s jacket but the Rougeaus save it from being destroyed. So they are good for something. Jimmy gets inside to collect his jacket and gets crushed between the brothers to send him right back to the floor.

Luke and Raymond officially get going as Gorilla questions the Rougeaus being Americans just because they moved here. Jesse: “So as far as you’re concerned, tear down the Statue of Liberty?” That escalated quite quickly. The brothers double team to take over as Butch is being forced out of the ring and we get to the bizarre part of the match (yes the bizarre part of a Bushwhackers’ match). Raymond lifts Luke up for a slam and Luke intentionally rubs Raymond’s crotch. His hand moves up and down multiple times and that’s all it could have been. I’m guessing it was a rib but it’s quite the jarring visual.

Jacques puts on an abdominal stretch and Raymond flips in over the top for a superkick to Luke’s ribs. They stop to pose though, allowing Luke to crawl over to tag Butch, setting up the Battering Ram (Butch holds Luke’s head and drives him into the ribs) and a double stomach breaker to pin Raymond at 5:09.

Rating: D-. This was a comedy match minus most of the comedy. The Bushwhackers are the definition of a comedy team for kids and there’s nothing wrong with that. These teams feuded for the better part of ever and it was the same result almost every time. You could have cut this out and no one would have missed a thing. Well Raymond might have without that slam but I don’t want to think about that anymore.

The Bushwhackers lick interviewer Sean Mooney on their way up the aisle. Mooney: “Words cannot describe what it’s like to be licked by a Bushwhacker.” I speak from experience to agree with him.

Mr. Perfect vs. Blue Blazer

This is the debut of Perfect’s trademark singlet. Perfect trips on the same step that got Butch. Blazer is Owen Hart in a mask, meaning this has potential to be really good. Feeling out process to start with Perfect taking him into the corner and slapping him right in the mask. Blazer will have none of that and dropkicks Perfect over the top with Perfect doing his awesome bumping to get outside. A baseball slide (nowhere near common yet) staggers Perfect even more and there’s a second dropkick to put him down again.

Blazer’s top rope splash hits knees and Perfect finally gets a breather. These are quite the high spots for 1989. A reverse chinlock doesn’t get Perfect anywhere and Blazer gets two off a belly to belly. Blazer’s crucifix gets a VERY close two but Perfect just blasts him in the face with a forearm. The PerfectPlex ends Blazer at 5:51 and keeps Perfect’s record spotless.

Rating: C+. Good match here but they could have done something really special with more time and a more main event style. Blazer was an excellent high flier (especially for this time) and Perfect was already looking like a polished veteran. It’s not great but this was a fun match while it lasted.

Jesse is presented to the crowd for the third year in a row. For some reason Gorilla is surprised and says he was set up for this one.

Yesterday, Mr. Fuji ran a 5K in a tuxedo and snappy bowler hat while barely breaking a sweat. This is to prove that he’s ready for the handicap match for the Tag Team Titles at Wrestlemania as they try to make this mean something.

Run-DMC performs the Wrestlemania Rap. Was Gladys Knight busy this year?

We recap Demolition vs. the Powers of Pain (Warlord/Barbarian) which started back at the Survivor Series. Mr. Fuji turned on Demolition to join the Powers of Pain, leading to a title match at the Main Event. Fuji threw salt in Ax’s eyes for the DQ, which somehow resulted in the Powers of Pain getting a rematch here in a 3-2 handicap match where Fuji can help his team win the titles.

Demolition is ready to beat up Fuj the Stooge.

Tag Team Titles: Demolition vs. Powers of Pain/Mr. Fuji

Demolition is defending but Fuji isn’t the worst addition to the challengers. It’s not that well known but he spent more days as a member of the World Tag Team Champions than anyone in company history at over two and a half years holding half of the titles. He’s 53 here and was a champion as recently as 1982 so it’s not like he hasn’t been out there in 20 years. Fuji throws his salt and bows before we’re ready to go.

Warlord and Ax get things going with Ax taking over and quickly handing it off to Smash for an early neck crank. Gorilla calls the challengers a mongrel team. Demolition is a pair of brawlers but the Powers of Pain are mongrels? That’s quite the stretch Monsoon. Barbarian comes in but gets elbowed in the face three times in a row for his efforts. It’s all Demolition to start until Barbarian chops Smash down to the mat in a pretty rare sight. Warlord comes back in and is immediately double clotheslined but Ax makes the mistake of going after Fuji to change control for the first time.

Fuji comes in for a chop and a falling headbutt which looked a little bit low. Slow stomping ensues, which you have to expect from guys like this. Fuji actually goes up top and misses a…..I’m not sure if it was a legdrop or an elbow and it’s Smash coming in to clean house for some polite applause. Everything breaks down and Fuji throws salt in Warlord’s eyes by mistake, setting up the Demolition Decapitator (backbreaker/middle rope elbow combination) to pin Fuji and retain the titles at 8:55.

Rating: D. Boring match but it was two teams who wrestled the same style which almost never works. Fuji being in there was a nice way to keep the Powers of Pain from getting pinned, probably to allow for house show rematches. Still though, nothing to see here and the fans have made no secret about the fact that they’re just sitting around waiting for Hogan vs. Savage.

Tony Schiavone (he had a pot of coffee for the company in the late 80s and early 90s) is thrown out of Savage’s locker room as the champ shouts that he’s ready for Hogan.

Dino Bravo vs. Ronnie Garvin

Garvin is a brawler who didn’t do much in the company. Before the match, we have to pause for the return of Jimmy Snuka. It has nothing to do with the match but he’s back after nearly four years away. Totally pointless cameo that makes me think it wasn’t meant to air here.

Bravo attacks from behind and forearms Garvin in the back as Gorilla and Jesse argue over how strong Bravo really is. A kick to the chest gets two for Dino and even Jesse rips on Bravo for thinking that would get the pin. Garvin suddenly starts his comeback with a bunch of right hands (his finisher back in the NWA) and a sleeper but Bravo is right in the corner. A sunset flip gets two for Ronnie but he walks into the side suplex for the pin at 3:55.

Rating: D. This would have been a lame match on Superstars and it makes Wrestlemania? Like I said, so much of this card feels like they’re trying to fill in time and that really shouldn’t be happening on the biggest show of the year. This easily could have been cut off to save about six minutes and keep the crowd from getting so bored.

Garvin beats up Frenchy Martin because he’s a sore loser.

Brainbusters vs. Strike Force

The Brainbusters (Gorilla: “Two really tough dudes!”) are Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard with Heenan in their corner. Strike Force has been inactive for a long time due to Martel being injured but he begged Tito to reform the team. Blanchard starts with Martel and Arn is cheating just a few seconds in with a knee to the back. Everything breaks down and stereo dropkicks put the Busters on the floor.

Back in and Martel takes Anderson, the power of the team, to the mat in a test of strength. Blanchard fights up but Tito gets in a blind tag to put Tully in a Figure Four. Martel puts Anderson in one as well but the threats of a disqualification breaks them up. Strike Force tries another blind tag but Santana’s flying forearm hits Martel by mistake, knocking him out to the floor.

The Busters take over on the distracted Santana but he gets two off a middle rope cross body. Arn puts him back down with a knee in the corner as Martel is still shaken up by the forearm. Tito slams Anderson off the top (that might have been a mini tribute to Flair) and goes for the tag but Martel drops to the floor and walks out. So Tito is alone against the Brainbusters and this doesn’t bode well. The yet to be named spinebuster plants Tito, who is still looking over at the empty corner. A spike piledriver puts Tito out of his misery at 9:13.

Rating: C+. Fun match here which was more of a way to set up the Martel vs. Santana feud which went on for well over a year. It’s a simple story and a great way for Martel to look like a jerk, which made for a solid heel turn. The Brainbusters were going to become a much bigger deal and would finally end Demolition’s title reign by the end of the summer.

Martel says he’s tired of carrying Santana, who has always been holding him back. Gene is livid over Martel’s actions. Like more livid than he is on a day to day basis.

It’s time for Roddy Piper’s big return with a live Piper’s Pit. Fink gives Piper a big introduction but we get Brother Love (a heel character who parodied TV evangelists of the 80s) in a kilt instead. Love says his guest is brother Rodney and we get an outstanding Piper impression as Love plays both host and guest. This doesn’t last long so Love brings out the real guest: loudmouthed talk show host Morton Downey Jr. who was a forerunner to Jerry Springer and chain smoked (cigarettes, which Gorilla calls weed).

After a few insults from Downey, here’s the real Piper to wake the fans up. Piper starts asking Love questions but won’t let him answer because he didn’t want to know that badly. He makes fun of Love’s red face but Love stands up to him. Love: “You can’t scare me!” Piper: “WAH!” Guess what happens. Piper brings up all the gifts that DiBiase has given Love and thinks Love is wearing a fake Rolex. Downey throws cigarettes at Piper as Roddy asks if Love is any part Scottish. If he is, there shouldn’t be anything under that dress.

They argue over who is wearing a dress and who is wearing a kilt with Piper threatening to bite Love’s face off if Love touches Piper’s kilt. Piper rips Love’s kilt off to reveal red underwear and Love bails. So it’s just Piper vs. Downey now and Morton starts blowing smoke in Piper’s face, which Piper doesn’t approve of. Piper asks why Morton Downey Jr.’s father isn’t named Morton Downey so Morton implies he slept with Piper’s mother. Apparently Morton used to have a bunch of warts on his face but he gave them to a homeless warthog. Piper: “I didn’t know your girlfriend was homeless.”

Downey does his ZIP IT catchphrase and they just keep going. Fan: “THIS IS STUPID!” Downey thinks Piper is a transvestite and blows even more smoke. He says it’s healthy and that Piper could live as long as Downey could (Downey would eventually die of lung cancer). Piper asks for a cigarette of his own but instead sprays Downey with a fire extinguisher. This ran nearly SIXTEEN MINUTES or longer than any Wrestlemania match to date. It’s also aged horribly as Downey’s show would be canceled by the end of the summer.

Preview of Hulk Hogan’s cult classic movie No Holds Barred.

Donald Trump thinks this has been a great event for the Trump Organization and that the casinos have been doing very well. Sean Mooney sounds incredibly nervous here.

Jesse is LIVID that Hogan is invading Hollywood. He’s so mad that he looks at the wrong camera when he starts ranting about how scared Hogan is of Savage. Hogan can drive Jesse’s limo in Hollywood and Jesse storms off, only to return about ten seconds later.

We’re in intermission if that’s not clear.

Long recap of the Mega Powers forming and splitting to get us to the main event. Like I said, Hogan was taking a bit too much of the spotlight, including getting the win at Survivor Series after Savage did most of the work. It was finally too much for Savage and he snapped to set up the Mega Powers exploding.

Hogan can’t believe we’re here just a year after it all started. He should have been able to see it coming though as Savage just wasn’t ready to handle the pressure. Savage made Hogan believe that he believed in Hogan’s demandments (train, say your prayers and eat your vitamins) and that he was in Hogan’s corner. That line right there sums up why Savage is pretty justified: why should the WWF World Champion be in Hogan’s corner and have to follow Hogan’s rules? As I said for Wrestlemania III: Hogan only has himself to blame for so many of his problems.

Hogan isn’t done yet as he talks about Trump sending a team of scientists to check the arena’s foundation because the people in the building might be swallowed by the earth. What is up with Hogan worrying about the world falling apart whenever he’s in Trump Plaza? That’s two years in a row now. Anyway, he wants Savage at his best and promises to take the title back.

Jake Roberts vs. Andre the Giant

Big John Studd returned around the beginning of the year and is guest referee here. As you can probably guess, Andre’s career hasn’t done so well lately as his mounting injuries have pretty much rendered him to limited appearances and little more. The idea here is Andre is terrified of snakes, much like so many of Jake’s opponents. That’s rather evil of Jake but we’ve already established that heroes can be horrible people in the world of wrestling.

Andre jumps Jake to start and sends him face first into an exposed buckle, which lost its padding somewhere during the entrances. Somehow being sent into the exposed buckle by ANDRE THE GIANT doesn’t even knock Jake to the mat. Jesse thinks Jake is cunning but he’s in there with a giant. Gorilla: “Didn’t you ever hear the story of David?” Jesse: “Sure. He used a foreign object.” Point to Ventura. Andre gets him into the corner and crushes him with the power of fat.

Heenan yells insults as Andre stands on Jake’s chest. Jake slugs away and knocks Andre into the ropes for the tie up but Heenan gets the Giant’s arm’s loose for some choking. Andre tries a shoulder in the corner but “catches a short knee” and staggers backwards, even though Jake never moved his leg. To this day I’m still not sure what happened there. A big chest bump knocks Jake to the floor but Studd won’t let him bring the snake inside. Andre and Studd get in a fight and here’s DiBiase to steal the snake, triggering their feud. Jake chases him off as Andre chokes Studd and that’s a DQ at 9:40.

Rating: D. These matches are feeling longer and longer, even if it’s a bigger match like this one. Jake was an act that people never got tired of, even if he was eternally stuck in the midcard. Andre was into sad territory here as he could barely move and was really just shouting and using his fat instead of doing anything of value.

Jake catches DiBiase and brings in the snake to clear the ring.

Sean Mooney gives us a worthless report from the cheap seats.

Sensational Sherri is going to take the Women’s Title back from Rockin Robin and hopes Elizabeth gets hurt in the main event. That’s just evil.

Honky Tonk Man/Greg Valentine vs. Hart Foundation

Honky Tonk, now firmly down the card after losing the Intercontinental Title at the first Summerslam, gets beaten up by Hart to open things up. Valentine comes in and gets dropkicked as well, followed by Neidhart’s slingshot shoulder for two. It’s back to Bret who walks into a backbreaker as the bad guys finally over. A kind of fireman’s carry suplex and some elbows from Honky Tonk have Bret in trouble as Jesse calls Pat Patterson a relic of the past.

There’s the Shake Rattle and Roll but it’s off to Valentine for the Figure Four instead of a cover. Bret easily breaks out of the hold and cross bodies Honky Tonk, only to fall out to the floor. Back in and Bret loads up an O’Connor roll on Greg but runs over for the tag to Neidhart instead of covering. That’s rather smart and something you would only expect from someone like Bret. The Harts take over and Bret starts with the prototype of the Five Moves of Doom. Everything breaks down and Neidhart throws in Jimmy’s megaphone for a shot to Honky Tonk’s shoulder for the pin at 7:39.

Rating: C. Totally meaningless filler match here but at least it wasn’t bad for a change. The Harts were still finding their groove as a face team, including not blatant cheating with foreign objects to beat a thrown together team like this. We’ll be seeing Valentine and Honky Tonk together as an actual team later on.

We recap Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude, which started in a pose down at the Royal Rumble. Rude was about to lose so he attacked Warrior with an exercise bar. Warrior wasn’t pleased and this is the result.

Intercontinental Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude

Warrior won the title at Summerslam in a big surprise and has been dominant ever since. Rude tries to jump him at the bell but his knee hits Warrior’s belt. To be fair, Rude didn’t get smart until he went to WCW. Warrior LAUNCHES him across the ring over and over before throwing on a bearhug. Some fingers to the eyes break the hold and Rude comes off the top with a missile dropkick of all things for two.

Warrior comes right back with another bearhug and the referee is even nice enough to stop Rude from poking the eyes again. Rude gets out off something we missed because the camera was on Heenan and a piledriver gets a very delayed cover. The kickout is a lot weaker this time and Rude follows up with a jawbreaker.

Rude cranks on both arms at once but Warrior makes the ropes and shoves Rude away. The champ throws him into the corner a few times but misses a splash. He’s still able to break up the Rude Awakening though and Rude is in trouble. Warrior knocks him to the floor for a suplex but Heenan trips Warrior up so Rude falls on top, leaving Bobby to hold the foot down to give Rick the pin and the title at 9:41. That’s Warrior’s first loss and somehow that’s Heenan’s first title as a manager in the WWF.

Rating: B. This was a pairing that never made sense as neither guy was known as the best in ring performer on their own but they meshed together very well and produced some good stuff. Rude was still goofy and Warrior was still insane so this was a major upset and big surprise all around. Good match too.

Warrior beats Heenan up because he’s a sore loser.

Bad News Brown vs. Jim Duggan

Just a brawl here. Duggan slugs away to start and clotheslines Brown out to the floor. Back in and it’s Brown’s turn to hammer on Duggan but the shots to the head have no effect on Jim. The Ghetto Blaster misses though and Brown rolls outside to grab a chair. Duggan gets his 2×4 and it’s a double DQ at 3:45.

Rating: D. This could have been fun if it wasn’t at Wrestlemania. Instead it’s yet another way to fill in time before the match on the show that everyone wanted to see. Thankfully they kept this short but that doesn’t mean it has any business actually taking place. Bad stuff here that could have been a fun garbage brawl.

Duggan hits him with the 2×4 to send Brown staggering away. The announcement of the double DQ crushes the crowd all over again.

Red Rooster can’t wait to beat up Bobby Heenan and it’s going to be a great day in the barnyard. The idea is Rooster is a walking chicken who used to be managed by Heenan. Bobby said he could take anyone to success, even someone as untalented as Rooster. I think you can piece the rest together yourself.

Red Rooster vs. Bobby Heenan

Heenan can barely walk after the beating from Warrior. Right hands, Heenan misses a charge and hits the post, Rooster pins him in 30 seconds.

Post match the Brooklyn Brawler comes in but gets beaten up by Rooster. This is really the last match before the main event at WRESTLEMANIA.

Elizabeth says she’ll be in a neutral corner for the main event. All she hopes is that neither man is injured.

Tony Schiavone says the locker room has all gone into the arena to watch the match.

Sean Mooney polls fans on who is going to win. My goodness ENOUGH FILLER ALREADY.

WWF World Title: Randy Savage vs. Hulk Hogan

Savage is defending and comes out first. Elizabeth gets her own entrance. Jesse sums it up very well by saying “This is truly what the term main event was invented for. This is the MAIN EVENT.” Savage bails to start and poses on the corner. Hogan easily shoves him down and it’s time to stall some more.

The announcers get into a heated argument over how important Elizabeth really is until Hogan shoulders Savage to the floor where he hides behind Elizabeth. Jesse: “With what Elizabeth has pulled, a punch in the nose might be what she needs.” Back in and Hogan gets technical (huh???) to take Savage down into a front facelock. Some right hands are more Hogan’s style but Savage snaps him throat first across the top rope for two.

We hit the armbar from the champ but Hogan fights up and uses the trunks to pull Savage to the floor. Back in and Hogan drops a bunch of elbows for two but Savage pulls him into a chinlock. Hulk has a cut over his eye and Savage knees him into the buckle for two, even with a handful of trunks. Hogan fights up again and just slams Savage over the top to the floor.

Randy wants nothing to do with Elizabeth’s help so he pulls Hogan to the floor and posts him. Now Elizabeth goes to check on Hogan and gets ejected to make it one on one. Savage ax handles Hogan throat first into the barricade followed by a knee drop for two. With that not working, Savage just chokes him down instead. The top rope elbow gets two and it’s time to Hulk Up. The three punches set up the big boot and the legdrop to give Hogan the title back at 17:54.

Rating: B. It’s a good match but there was no way they were going to be able to live up to the hype they had created for this. This was one of the biggest matches of all time and there was really no way they could get much higher than they did here. I can accept Hogan winning for the safe move and the good feeling, but can you imagine if Savage had cheated to win (maybe involving Elizabeth somehow) and kept the title until Summerslam? Still though, I understand why they did this as it wasn’t exactly a time when heels could get the last laugh of a major show.

A lot of posing and raving from Jesse take us out.

Overall Rating: D-. This is by far the worst Wrestlemania to date and in the running for the worst of all time. I understand the idea of a one match card but they weren’t even trying to do anything more than fill in time. Look at some of these matches and tell me which ones deserved to be on here aside from the main event. You have Andre vs. Roberts, the Intercontinental Title and Tag Team Title matches, and maybe the Brainbusters vs. Strike Force.

In other words, about two thirds of this show ranges from worthless to not needing to be on the card. The main event is good but there’s no way they could make up for the disaster that was the rest of the show. It’s way too long, not any good most of the time, and a show that only needed to be about one match. Throw in the WAY too long Piper segment and this was a disaster. Absolutely horrible show.

Ratings Comparison

Hercules vs. King Haku

Original: C-

2013 Redo: C-

2015 Redo: D+

Twin Towers vs. Rockers

Original: C

2013 Redo: C

2015 Redo: C+

Brutus Beefcake vs. Ted DiBiase

Original: D+

2013 Redo: C-

2015 Redo: D+

Bushwhackers vs. Fabulous Rougeau Brothers

Original: D-

2013 Redo: D

2015 Redo: D-

Mr. Perfect vs. Blue Blazer

Original: B-

2013 Redo: C+

2015 Redo: C+

Demolition vs. Powers of Pain/Mr. Fuji

Original: C-

2013 Redo: D

2015 Redo: D

Dino Bravo vs. Ronnie Garvin

Original: F

2013 Redo: D

2015 Redo: D

Brain Busters vs. Strike Force

Original: B-

2013 Redo: B-

2015 Redo: C+

Jake Roberts vs. Andre the Giant

Original: D

2013 Redo: D

2015 Redo: D

Hart Foundation vs. Honky Tonk Man/Greg Valentine

Original: D+

2013 Redo: D+

2015 Redo: C

Rick Rude vs. Ultimate Warrior

Original: B

2013 Redo: B

2015 Redo: B

Jim Duggan vs. Bad News Brown

Original: F

2013 Redo: D-

2015 Redo: D

Red Rooster vs. Brooklyn Brawler

Original: N/A

2013 Redo: N/A

2015 Redo: N/A

Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage

Original: C+

2013 Redo: B-

2015 Redo: B

Overall Rating

Original: D+

2013 Redo: D

2015 Redo: D-

It just keeps getting worse.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/03/12/history-of-wrestlemania-with-kb-wrestlemania-5-hogan-vs-savage-and-thats-about-it/

And the 2013 Redo:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2013/03/14/wrestlemania-count-up-wrestlemania-v-the-first-wrestlemania-sequel/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

AND

Remember to check out Wrestlingrumors.net for all of your wrestling headline needs.

Wrestlemania V
Date: April 2, 1989
Location: Trump Plaza, Atlantic City, New Jersey
Attendance: 18,946
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura

Given how this year’s (2013) Wrestlemania is more or less a sequel to last year’s, this is an appropriate show to get to. This is more or less the followup to Wrestlemania IV as Savage has snapped on Hogan, claiming that Hulk is jealous of the title and all that jazz. That’s really all you need to know about this show as it’s the only match that means anything at all. Let’s get to it.

Rockin Robin, the reigning Women’s Champion, sings America the Beautiful.

Hercules vs. King Haku

The crown isn’t on the line here. Haku jumps him from behind to start but Herc comes back with a hip toss and a slam followed by a release flapjack. A clothesline puts Haku on the floor but Hercules suplexes him right back in. Some elbow drops keep Haku down but Hercules goes after Heenan like an idiot. Haku jumps him from behind and we head back inside for a pair of backbreakers for a pair of counts.

Since this is a power match we hit the bearhug as even Jesse says this isn’t going to get a submission. Gorilla criticizes Haku’s technique, prompting Jesse to ask what a gorilla would know about bearhugging. Herc breaks the hold and the King yells at the referee, only to get caught by a cross body. Hercules pounds away and hits a running knee lift followed by some clotheslines. A powerslam gets two but Hercules jumps off the top into most of a superkick. Haku misses a top rope headbutt and Hercules wins with the belly to back suplex with a last second shoulder raise.

Rating: C-. Nothing special here but it was a basic enough match to get things going. Hercules was a generic power guy so there wasn’t much to get interested in with him. Haku would join up with Andre to win the tag titles by the end of the year. I’m not sure if there was much of a feud here other than Hercules vs. Heenan which was only touched on.

The Rockers say they can handle the Twin Towers.

Rockers vs. Twin Towers

That would be Big Boss Man/Akeem. Shawn makes his Wrestlemania debut by starting against Big Boss Man and the little guy takes over quickly. He also decks Akeem in the corner and gets to face the bigger man (Akeem, the former One Man Gang). The Rockers start flying in and out of the ring as they work over Akeem’s arm. The arm cranking continues but Akeem makes a blind tag. Marty gets tossed into Boss Man’s arms and crushed by both big men. This is back when Boss Man weighed about 400lbs so it’s a big more painful than it sounds.

The Towers take their turns with fat man offense as Marty is in big trouble in a hurry. Akeem avalanches him in the corner and it’s back to Boss Man. We get heel miscommunication though and Boss Man is knocked to the floor by his own partner. Off to Shawn who pounds away in the corner before both Rockers hit a series of whips into the corner. A double middle rope shoulder finally takes Akeem down for two and it’s back to Shawn on his own.

Akeem KILLS HIM with a clothesline (Jesse: “I think he irritated Akeem!”) but Boss Man misses a top rope splash. The Rockers hit some double dropkicks (one of which sees Shawn completely missing Bossman) but a top rope rana is countered into a wicked powerbomb by Boss Man. Akeem crushes Shawn with a splash for the pin.

Rating: C. Considering how hungover the Rockers were in this match (as confirmed by Shawn), this came off pretty well. The Rockers sold the power offense like few others could, which made for some awesome visuals. They would get a lot better over the coming years but this wasn’t their best performance.

Ted DiBiase talks about hanging out with Donald Trump and having them here to see him beat up Beefcake.

Ted DiBiase vs. Brutus Beefcake

This isn’t for the Million Dollar Title which ticks Gorilla off. Brutus has his AWESOME music at this point. Beefcake jumps DiBiase to start to tick off Jesse as well. Ted bails to the floor and comes back in for some chops, only to be knocked right back to the floor by a right hand. Back in again and Brutus wins a slugout but Vigril trips him up to give DiBiase his first control.

DiBiase pounds away (there’s a lot of punching in this match) and hits the falling punch for two. I love that move. A middle rope ax handle puts Brutus down again but Beefcake reverses a suplex to put DiBiase down right next to him. A double clothesline does the exact same thing but Ted is up first. He tries another suplex which actually works this time, followed by the Million Dollar Dream.

Brutus gets to the rope so they slug it out some more with the barber taking over. Now Beefcake throws on his own sleeper but gets sent out to the floor in a counter. Virgil interferes a bit to distract Beefcake but DiBiase stupidly goes out to the floor as well. They brawl to a double countout to a big boo from the crowd.

Rating: C-. This was mainly a punching match as well as a pretty big fall for DiBiase. To go from the main event to the third match on the card in a year is a pretty big fall, which is saying a lot as DiBiase was still a very evil heel. Brutus was getting very popular very fast and would be paired with Hogan soon after this for a BIG rub.

Brutus beats up Virgil post match and chases them off with the hedge clippers. You know, assault with a deadly weapon as Jesse calls it.

We go to the Wrestlemania brunch with the Bushwhackers eating a lot and trying to talk about their match with the Rougeaus.

Bushwhackers vs. Fabulous Rougeau Brothers

ALL AMERICAN BOYS BABY! That would be the Rougeau’s theme song and one of the most awesome entrances in company history. Seriously, go Youtube that thing. Jimmy Hart loses his jacket somehow but the Rougeaus save it in a humane act. Not that it matters as the Bushwhackers clear the ring a second later. Luke and Ray start things off and Ray quickly takes him down. I turn my head for a minute and come back to hearing Jesse say “So as far as you’re concerned, tear down the Statue of Liberty?” Like I said, commentary was a bit different back then.

Luke and Butch clear the ring of Rougeaus again before it’s down to Luke and Jacques. Butch tries to interfere for no apparent reason and Luke gets caught in a Boston Crab. In a sequence that has haunted me for years, Ray loads up Luke for a slam and while Luke is upside down, he rubs Ray’s crotch. There’s nothing more to it than that and to this day I don’t know why he did that.

Anyway Ray puts on an abdominal stretch as a fan or two chants USA. In theory that would be for the Rougeaus here who are the All American Boys facing the guys from New Zealand. The Rougeaus prematurely hug and get caught by the Battering Ram and a double gutbuster is good for the pin on Ray out of nowhere.

Rating: D. It’s a comedy match and not a very fun one. This is called a big upset but I don’t really see how you can call it that. It’s not like either team is great or even good here and the Bushwhackers were still brand new here, so presumably they had won most of their matches up to this point. I don’t get it but whatever.

Sean Mooney is licked by the Bushwhackers and says words can’t describe it. As someone who has been licked by one as well, that’s very true.

Mr. Perfect vs. Blue Blazer

That would be Owen Hart in a kind of superhero gimmick that eventually led to his death. Perfect is pretty new here too and I believe is debuting his singlet look. Hennig hits a quick hiptoss that doesn’t do much at all. Blazer blocks a slap and takes Perfect down to stagger Hennig a bit.

They slightly botch a flip out of a hiptoss and Blazer dropkicks Perfect to the floor. Blazer hits a quick hiptoss (why is that so popular here?) of his own and a dropkick for no cover. A modified northern lights suplex gets two for Blue but a top rope splash hits knees. Off to a reverse chinlock for a few moments by Perfect but Blazer fights up and hits a standing powerslam and a belly to belly for two each. A crucifix gets two more but Blazer spends too long arguing with the referee and the PerfectPlex ends this clean.

Rating: C+. This match is popular for some reason but it’s only pretty good. Owen would get to show off a lot better later on and the Blazer gimmick didn’t stick around that long. The ending here was clean too which is what Perfect would get quite often around this time. He wouldn’t really do anything of note for about a year though until having a house show feud with Hogan.

Jesse is presented to the crowd again like last year.

Mr. Fuji allegedly runs a 5K run in a tuxedo.

To really make this show feel bloated, here’s Run DMC with the Wrestlemania Rap.

We recap the double tag team turn at Survivor Series 1988 with Fuji leaving Demolition to hook up with the Powers of Pain.

Demolition says they’re ready for Fuj the Stooge.

Tag Titles: Demolition vs. Powers of Pain/Mr. Fuji

Demolition is defending and this is a handicap match. Warlord and Ax get things going with Ax pounding him down quickly. Smash comes in for a double beatdown and it’s off to a neck crank. Back to Ax for the same move and he yells at Fuji a bit. The Demolition beatdown ensues but Warlord powers Ax over to the corner for a tag to Barbarian. He shoves Smash into the corner and is immediately clotheslined down by a fresh Ax. The crowd is dead here.

Barbie gets double teamed by the champions and Ax hooks a neck crank. Back to Smash who gets chopped down before it’s back to Warlord. The advantage lasts for all of three seconds before the Powers finally get some successful cheating going on. Off to Fuji for the first time for some old man offense that is far better than Heenan or Hart at least. Barbarian comes in again and the yet to be named Kick of Fear puts Ax down again for no cover.

The match continues to stay in second gear at best with both teams barely moving at all. Fuji tries the flashiest move of the match by going up top, only to miss Ax. Gorilla: “He hasn’t wrestled in years, just like us.” Jesse: “Us? For Fuji and I it’s been years. For you many years.” Barbarian gets clotheslined down again and it’s off to Smash as everything breaks down. Fuji loads up his salt but hits Warlord by mistake. The Demolition Decapitator is enough to end Fuji and retain the titles.

Rating: D. I’m a fan of Demolition but this was a REALLY weak performance by both teams. The Powers would split soon after this which was the best idea for both guys as they were never going to break through the ceiling with Demolition on top. The title reign would continue to go on for another two months or so, reaching at nearly a year and a half.

Randy Savage has nothing to say other than he’s ready for Hogan.

Ronnie Garvin vs. Dino Bravo

For absolutely no apparent reason, Jimmy Snuka is brought out after the wrestlers’ intros. Bravo jumps him from behind to open the match before it’s off to a bearhug. That goes about three seconds do Dino loads up a powerbomb instead. Garvin escapes and starts a flurry of offense and gets two off a jackknife cover. A sleeper is easily broken up by Bravo and he breaks up a piledriver as well. Garvin tries to pound away in the corner but gets caught in an atomic drop and the side suplex for the pin by Bravo.

Rating: D. This didn’t do anything to get the crowd going which is a big problem with this show: the crowd doesn’t care about most of this stuff and why in the world would they? This is a random match between two guys that have no reason to fight and have no future as a main talent. Nothing to see here at all.

Frenchy Martin, Dino’s manager, gets beaten down by Garvin post match just because.

Brain Busters vs. Strike Force

This is the return of Strike Force after Martel had a bad injury. Blanchard and Martel start things off and Rick almost immediately has to punch out of the wrong corner. Off to Anderson who gets rammed face first into the mat before being put in his own test of strength on the mat. Arn catches Martel in a body scissors but Rick turns it over into his signature Boston Crab.

Blanchard makes the save but Tito immediately comes in to put him in the Figure Four. Martel puts one on Anderson as well as things break down. We get some near falls by Tito but he accidentally hits the forearm on Martel to take him out. Rick gets ticked off as Tito is basically in a handicap match. The Busters get to take over on Tito but you know Santana can hang with either guy.

Arn goes up but gets slammed down, allowing Tito to set up a hot tag to….no one. Martel drops down to the floor and walks out on his partner, officially making it a handicap match. The yet to be named spinebuster from Anderson plants Tito and it’s back to Blanchard. Tully blocks a monkey flip and the spike piledriver kills Tito dead for the pin.

Rating: B-. Best match of the night so far as all four guys were moving out there. Tito could go with the best of them and he had some of the best of them to do that with in this one. Martel and Santana would feud on and off for about a year until they just stopped fighting out of nowhere.

Martel says he’s tired of carrying Tito and that’s that.

It’s time for the return of Roddy Piper in Piper’s Pit, but after a long introduction by Fink, we get Brother Love in a kilt instead. You younguns might know him as Bruce Prichard from Gut Check. Love interviews “himself” and does one heck of a Roddy Piper impression in the process. Morton Downey Jr., a kind of forefather to Jerry Springer, is the actual guest. He runs to the ring and immediately lights up a cigarette and gay jokes abound about Love.

Now the real Piper comes out to make fun of Love for being feminine. Roddy won’t let Love answer any questions by saying he doesn’t really want to know that badly. Morton is on his fifth cigarette or so at this point. This goes on FOREVER until Love says he’s a bit Scotch. You know, as in from Scotland. Piper rips off Love’s kilt and the Brother sprints off. Finally we get to Downey who implies he slept with Piper’s mom.

Morton keeps blowing smoke in Piper’s face as Piper makes fun of Downey for having warts on his face. Piper gets annoyed with the smoke and Downey calls him a transvestite. Roddy asks for a smoke of his own and sprays Downey with a fire extinguisher. This took FIFTEEN MINUTES, as in longer than all but the main event tonight.

We get an ad for No Holds Barred, Hogan’s acting debut.

Donald Trump likes hosting Wrestlemania.

Ventura goes into a hilarious rant against Hogan for invading Hollywood because Hogan needs a job after Savage beats him tonight. Jesse shouts that Hulk can drive his limo and storms off.

We recap the Megapowers feud as intermission continues. Basically Savage won the title at Mania 4 then teamed up with Hogan. Hogan kept getting the pins and finally at Main Event II, Savage accidentally wiped out Elizabeth. Hogan took Liz to the back to get attention but it left Savage alone. Finally Savage slapped Hogan and turned heel again, leading to the heel promo of a lifetime as he ERUPTED on Hogan, letting out every bit of his pent up rage and jealousy before blasting Hogan with the title in the medical room.

Hogan says it was Savage eaten alive by the jealousy and the title is coming home tonight. This somehow turns into a talk about destroying the Trump Plaza, which I think he touched on last year too.

Andre the Giant vs. Jake Roberts

Big John Studd is referee and comes out to what would become Jim Duggan’s music. This was supposed to set up Andre vs. Studd but Studd left before it went anywhere. Sometime before the match, Andre and Heenan get the turnbuckle pad off and Jake goes face first into the steel. Ventura and Gorilla talk about David vs. Goliath (Jesse: “He used a foreign object.”) as Jake reaches for the snake bag. That goes nowhere so Studd crushes him in the corner.

Andre looks so different than he did two years ago. In Detroit he looked like a killing machine but here he looks like a lumbering oaf. Giant steps on Jake a few times but Roberts comes back with some strikes. He knocks Andre into the ropes and chokes away, only to see Andre get his arm loose and choke Jake right back.

In a moment that I’ve never seen explained, Andre fires some shoulders into Jake in the corner, only to stagger backwards. I’m guessing Jake was supposed to knee him (the announcers suggested he did) but Jake’s legs never moved. Either way, Roberts pounds away a bit before being knocked to the floor. Studd and Andre get in a shoving match as Ted DiBiase runs out to steal the snake. Andre chokes Studd until Jake chases DiBiase down and gets the snake back. He slides Damien in and the giant runs from the smaller referee giant, giving Jake the DQ win.

Rating: D. ANOTHER match that didn’t go anywhere here as it was hard to buy Jake as being a threat to Andre while at the same time it was hard to be intimidated by the Giant due to how old and banged up he was. Nothing match here which was supposed to set up Andre vs. Studd, but instead Studd retired so Andre got a tag title reign instead.

Sensational Sherri wants to fight Rockin Robin and hopes Liz gets hurt today.

Greg Valentine/Honky Tonk Man vs. Hart Foundation

Valentine and Honky aren’t Rhythm and Blues yet. Bret and Honky start and it’s atomic drops all around. Honky sells his hilariously but Greg plays it a bit more serious. Off to Anvil for some power but Bret misses the middle rope elbow. The beating begins and you know Hart is going to sell things very well. Valentine gets to pound away as Gorilla says Greg isn’t warmed up yet.

Honky hits the Shake Rattle and Roll but tags in Valentine for the Figure Four instead. Greg gets rolled up for two instead as Gorilla goes NUTS complaining about Honky not covering. The hot tag brings in Anvil again to clean house on both heels. A great clothesline gets two on the Hammer before it’s back to Bret for the middle rope elbow. Everything breaks down and Bret gets Jimmy Hart’s megaphon to drill Honky for the pin.

Rating: D+. Enough filler matches already! This is probably the fourth match out of ten so far that have been there with no particular reason for it to happen. The show is already well over two and a half hours now and there are still four matches to go. That’s one of the problems with the late 80s: they made the shows long for the sake of having them be long.

We recap Rude vs. Warrior which is basically just because Rude attacked Warrior at the Rumble Super Posedown and the champion wants revenge.

Intercontinental Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude

Warrior is defending but Rude has the belt imprinted on his tights. Rude tries a knee to the ribs but hits the belt by mistake. Warrior immediately takes over with the power game and LAUNCHES Rude into the corner. The champ throws on a bearhug for a bit until Rude finally pokes him in the eyes to escape. Rude busts out a MISSILE DROPKICK for two but gets launched off Warrion on the kickout.

Back to the hearhug but Rude gets out the same way as he did the first time. Warrior responds by biting Rude in the face but the splash hits knees. A piledriver puts Warrior down but Rick can’t immediately cover. It only gets two but the kickout is much weaker than earlier. Rude tries to swivel his hips but his back is too messed up. He cranks back on Warrior’s arms but the champion gets to the ropes and starts shaking away.

Here come the shoulders from Warrior and he plants Rude face first into the mat a few times. Warrior tries a slam or something but drops Rude and almost puts him on the floor. Rude gets a boot up in the corner to stop a charging Warrior but the Rude Awakening is broken through pure power. Rick is clotheslined to the floor and Warrior suplexes him back in, only to have Heenan trip Warrior up and hold down his foot for the shocking upset and the title to Rude. This might have been Warrior’s first televised loss but I don’t think it was.

Rating: B. This is one of those pairings that just worked no matter what you had them do. You often hear about people having chemistry and that’s what you had here: these two could just work well together for no apparent reason and this is a fine example. Warrior would get the title back later in the year before moving to the world title scene a few months later. Good match here.

Warrior beats up Heenan post match. Remember that for later.

Bad News Brown vs. Jim Duggan

This show MUST continue! Again no reason to this match and they’re just fighting to fill in another five minutes on this already WAY too long card. They punch each other a lot and Duggan knocks him to the floor. Brown comes back in with his judo stuff but misses the Ghetto Blaster (running enziguri). Bad News gets annoyed and goes to the floor for a chair but Duggan hits it with the board for the double DQ.

Rating: D-. This is the twelfth match on this show and we’re over three hours and three minutes into it already. There is no reason at all for this to be continuing but it is anyway just because. Duggan would go on to feud with whoever he could find as would Brown, showing why this match didn’t need to happen at all.

Red Rooster says he’ll beat Heenan and it’ll be a great day in the barnyard.

Red Rooster vs. Bobby Heenan

There’s actually a backstory: Heenan managed Rooster but said he was limited so Rooster dumped Heenan. Bobby is hurt so he brings the Brooklyn Brawler with him. Those sentences take as long to type as the match lasts as Rooster hits him once, Heenan misses a charge into the post, gets whipped into the buckle and the match is over in 30 seconds. To recap, Rooster beat him with an Irish whip.

Just to drag this out EVEN LONGER, the Brawler beats the Rooster up, because WE HAVE TO PUSH BROOKLN FREAKING BRAWLER.

Liz says she’ll be in a neutral corner tonight and won’t cheer for either guy in the main event.

Tony Schiavone and Sean Mooney fill in even MORE time.

WWF World Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage

This is huge and Savage is on fire here. As I said Liz is in a neutral corner despite never being Hogan’s manager as a singles guy ever. Savage comes out first for no apparent reason. Savage immediately heads to the floor to stall as you would expect him to do. The fans HATE him at this point after loving him like crazy a year earlier. Hogan finally shoves Savage down and it’s time to stall some more.

Back up and Hogan shoulders him down again for the third trip to the floor for Savage. As Jesse and Gorilla get in an argument over the value of managers, Savage grabs a headlock. Hulk shoves him off and Randy heads outside, only to hide behind Liz in a truly evil move. Back in again and Hogan actually uses a nice amateur move and hooks a front facelock. That wasn’t bad at all. Savage powers out of it (surprising as well) and pokes Hogan in the eye to take over.

A top rope ax handle gets one on Hogan and it’s off to an armbar. In something you don’t often see, Hogan is pulled down to the mat by his hair. It feels weird even typing that. Hulk uses a handful of trunks to launch Randy out to the floor and Jesse freaks out. Back in and a clothesline puts Randy down, followed by a series of elbow drops. Hulk is bleeding above the eye.

Randy gets in a shot to the face and puts on a fast sleeper which is transitioned into a chinlock. Hulk comes back with an atomic drop but an elbow drop misses. A shot into the buckle sets up a rollup with trunks for two on Hulk. Savage stomps on his fingers which ticks Hogan off. Hogan slams Savage to the floor where the champion doesn’t want Liz’s help. Hulk follows him out and rams Randy’s face into the barricade.

Savage escapes being posted and sends Hogan in by mistake. After sending Hulk back in, Randy yells at Liz a bit more and shoves her up the aisle. The referee ejects Liz, making the only interesting factor a nonfactor. Back to the floor and Savage drops the ax handle off the top to send Hogan throat first into the barricade. Savage goes after the throat with various evil measures but the elbow only gets two. Hulk Up, big boot, leg drop, new champion.

Rating: B-. It’s Hogan vs. Savage so these two are always going to have at least a watchable match, but at the end of the day this was pretty much designed to be a Hogan win and that’s what it wound up being. The smart move would be to have Savage keep the title by DQ or something, causing Hulk to chase the title until Summerslam for the title change. But instead we go with the easy (and not horrible) ending. It’s a good match here but not great.

Hogan celebrates forever to end the show.

Overall Rating: D. This was pretty terrible. The main words you probably heard me say in here were things like “it keeps going” or “filler”. That’s the problem with this show: there’s WAY too much stuff going on with 14 matches, that stupid rap, and the fifteen minute Piper segment. This show runs nearly three hours and forty minutes which is WAY too much for a single show given what they had going on at this point. Probably five matches at minimum could be called filler here. That’s WAY too much and I can see why this is considered such a lame show.

Ratings Comparison

Hercules vs. King Haku

Original: C-

Redo: C-

Twin Towers vs. Rockers

Original: C

Redo: C

Brutus Beefcake vs. Ted DiBiase

Original: D+

Redo: C-

Bushwhackers vs. Fabulous Rougeau Brothers

Original: D-

Redo: D

Mr. Perfect vs. Blue Blazer

Original: B-

Redo: C+

Demolition vs. Powers of Pain/Mr. Fuji

Original: C-

Redo: D

Dino Bravo vs. Ronnie Garvin

Original: F

Redo: D

Brain Busters vs. Strike Force

Original: B-

Redo: B-

Jake Roberts vs. Andre the Giant

Original: D

Redo: D

Hart Foundation vs. Honky Tonk Man/Greg Valentine

Original: D+

Redo: D+

Rick Rude vs. Ultimate Warrior

Original: B

Redo: B

Jim Duggan vs. Bad News Brown

Original: F

Redo: D-

Red Rooster vs. Brooklyn Brawler

Original: N/A

Redo: N/A

Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage

Original: C+

Redo: B-

Overall Rating

Original: D+

Redo: D

Wow that was a rather boring redo.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/03/12/history-of-wrestlemania-with-kb-wrestlemania-5-hogan-vs-savage-and-thats-about-it/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

AND

Remember to check out Wrestlingrumors.net for all of your wrestling headline needs.

Wrestlemania 5
Date: April 2, 1989
Location: Trump Plaza, Atlantic City, New Jersey
Attendance: 18,946
Announcers: Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura
America The Beautiful: Rockin Robin

This show is more or less the WWF waking up and realizing that not announcing your main event until 20 minutes before it happens isn’t really a good idea. The tagline for this show was very simple: The Mega Powers Explode! Simple concept that’s as old as wrestling itself: Hogan helps Savage become champion, Hogan gets the spotlight even without the belt, Savage’s jealousy gets the best of him and he snaps over a certain incident.

In this case, the incident was on my first birthday in a tag match with Akeem and Big Boss Man against the Mega Powers. Savage got tossed through the ropes and landed on Elizabeth. Hogan carried her back to get help and Savage was left all alone. They argue in the back with Savage cutting the best promo of his life as all of the anger he had stored up inside him erupts and he attacks Hogan to set up this showdown for the gold. Liz says she’s going to try to remain neutral in the main event.

The Women’s Champion sings America the Beautiful and does an ok job at it. Kind of a bland voice though.

Haku vs. Hercules

This match is part of a very unnoticed storyline where Hercules was part of the Heenan Family but was then “sold” to Ted DiBiase. This upset him and Hercules said he was a free man. He went on a small war with Heenan’s stable and I guess you’d call this the climax of that. The feud was nothing at all and it went nowhere as Hercules just wasn’t over at all. This is a power vs. power match that pleasantly surprised me as it has a fair amount of solid wrestling on it and not just all power.

The powder blue tights just don’t do it for a guy with the name of Hercules. Donald Trump is in the front row again which makes sense as he owns the place. Haku is really getting outworked here. Hercules’ offense is a lot more diverse as opposed to chops and bearhugs with a kick thrown in here and there. That’s kind of the storyline of this whole match too and you can see that in the ending.

Haku is the King of Wrestling here and for some reason that isn’t on the line in this match. It was an odd kind of semi-title where you would be proclaimed king and get to wear a crown and have a bunch of muscle jobbers bring you out on a throne but other than that it never really went anywhere. Savage got it and held it for like a year or so and it more or less died after that.

This is about as bland as you can get but it’s surprisingly decent. Hercules worked better as a face because here he has something to fight for in his own pride. Back when he was a heel he had nothing special about him and was just a generic henchman. He’s more interesting and well rounded here though which is what a turn is supposed to accomplish.

Hercules lands a belly to back suplex into a bridge but shoots his shoulder up to avoid the double pin, which was exactly the same thing he lost to the year before. That’s a very subtle touch to his character that a lot of people don’t realize. It shows that he’s capable of learning something new and has adapted a new style over the last year.

Rating: C-. There’s a story here and there’s some decent action, but at the end of it all it’s just not that great. Good and not boring, but not great. This wasn’t much at all from a ring work standpoint but it was surprisingly good. I’m not sure why I like this match but I kind of always have and while it’s certainly an odd choice to open Wrestlemania with, it’s not bad.

In the back we see a team called the Rockers. This Marty Jannetty guy is a freaking STUD. I could see this guy winning something like the IC title, maybe some tag titles or something like that. His partner just does nothing for me though as he’s very bland.

Twin Towers vs. The Rockers

Twin Towers are Big Bossman and Akeem, aka the One Man Gang in case you weren’t sure. Rockers had been around for a few months at this point but as they would wind up doing for their whole run they were still trying to find themselves as a team.

This is about as simple of a story as you can get: power vs. speed and it works fairly well here. Akeem seriously may be the greatest gimmick of all time. For those of you that don’t know, One Man Gang and his manager Slick found out that he was of African descent, despite being the palest Caucasian you’ll ever find.

He starts embracing his African roots and doing these weird dances and wearing weird outfits. To see him doing this is just hilarious and something that you should check out for a good laugh and I’d like to give whoever thought it up a ham sandwich.

Cool spot where Bossman has Jannetty up in a bear hug position and Akeem just slams into him. Simple yet effective. Jannetty gets his head handed to him the majority of the match. Slick screaming about how a black referee would count faster and wouldn’t cheat is just such a great touch when his wrestlers are whiter than snow.

Becca shouldn’t watch this match as Akeem just about kills Shawn with one of the best clotheslines I’ve ever seen. Bossman kills him even worse with a spinning powerbomb and then a splash by Akeem and Shawn is finally given a break as the pin goes down.

Rating: C. This was a solid performance by the Rockers but they really didn’t stand much of a chance. Some good spots make this quite passable though. What’s with the back to back generic matches to start off the biggest show of the year though? Is this really the best they could find?

Ted DiBiase is rich and likes to talk about it. He’s also got a new belt that he likes showing off.

Ted DiBiase vs. Brutus Beefcake

Hearing DiBiase having different homes for each season is just a perfect touch to the gimmick that makes him so much more fun to hate. Still say he’s the best heel of all time. Brutus finally has his awesome music here. Jesse describes Brutus’ pants perfectly: it looks like a grenade went off in his pockets. Ted talks to Trump before we start.

What exactly did Brutus expect to do with those huge hedge clippers? This is a balance of the sleepers. According to Gorilla this is one of the reasons the fans are here for. Something tells me that’s not the case. DiBiase cheats almost immediately as the heel he is. What a fall he’s taken in a year. From the main event to this. Wow.

We get a pretty nice back and forth sequence to start as both guys are moving pretty well out there. Jesse drops some names as they slug it out. It’s turned into a standard kick and punch match which isn’t interesting or anything but it fills in time pretty well I suppose.

DiBiase gets a nice shot off the middle rope but doesn’t cover or anything. Why do that anyway? No one gets pins off moves like those anyway. Brutus gets a small package for two. Double clothesline and Ted gets up first. There’s the Million Dollar Dream but Beefcake gets the rope. More kicking and punching sets up Beefcake’s sleeper. Virgil gets Beefcake on the floor and DiBiase follows, leading to a double countout. Gorilla kind of scoffs at the ending.

Rating: D+. They were just kind of there. Pretty boring too. Nothing interesting here at all. I’ve always loved the falling punch DiBiase used. Just something sweet about it. This is power versus technician but it just doesn’t come off that way. Beefcake was supposed to be a power guy I think but he wasn’t that good at it. It’s also not a power move to use a sleeper. Yeah this match was pretty weak.

There used to be a thing called the Bagels and Biceps Brunch. What the point of this was, I’m not sure but it apparently was a tradition. The Bushwackers, one of which licked my face at a house show, are about to face the Rougeaus.

Bushwackers vs. The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers

The Rougeau’s music of We’re All American Boys is nothing short of amazing. Just an awesome song and one of Jimmy Hart’s great touches. The Bushwackers are just out there even by today’s standards. How these guys lasted nearly 6 years in a completely different gimmick than they started with is beyond me.

The Battering Ram is one of the dumbest yet most awesome moves I’ve ever seen. Now this is a match that I remember only one thing about. During a scoop slam, Luke of the Bushwackers clearly rubs Ray Rougeau crotch. It’s not on accident either. He puts his hand there and rubs up and down. Just a disturbing sight.

Other than that this is nothing but a comedy match. The 80s were so awesome in the area of tag wrestling that they even managed to have jobber tag teams on a regular basis. There’s nothing going on here with the Bushwackers running around for a minute, the Rougeaus controlling for two minutes and the finish. To end this in a hurry, Bushwackers win with their rib breaker move.

Rating: D-. The crotch rub never fails to surprise me. Just not something I want to think about. The match completely sucked though and just never went anywhere at all. What is with all these fillers? DiBiase vs. Beefcake is by far the biggest matchup so far and even it is nothing special and could have been on any house show that year. Weak show so far and a weak match here.

Sean Mooney, one of my all time favorite broadcasters gets licked by a Bushwacker while talking to some fans in a pointless segment.

Mr. Perfect vs. The Blue Blazer

Yes that’s Owen Hart under the mask. This is another match that is more or less just there for the sake of being there but it should be pretty good. Perfect is still undefeated here. Jesse thinks this is going to be tremendous. Hennig gets a nice hiptoss to start.

He slaps the Blazer and doesn’t get drilled as a result for some reason. Ah there’s the slap and Owen speeds things up a bit. And then we slow them right back down. Baseball slide hits Perfect. Owen was WAY ahead of his time here as he could move like no one else could and was busting out Japanese and European stuff which was unheard of in America at this time.

Blazer is dominating here as Perfect has no idea what to do with him. BIG top rope splash eats knees though. That looked awesome as he got way up in the air and nailed the knees perfectly. Jesse has a surprise for Gorilla.

Powerslam by Blazer gets two and a belly to belly gets two as well. Jesse thinks Perfect has Mania jitters. Crucifix gets two for Blazer. And then a big shot gets Perfect the advantage. Perfectplex gets the easy pin.

Rating: B-. Pretty solid little match here with both guys moving very well. It was speed/flying vs. technical style out there and it worked very well. It helps having two guys that can work a variety of styles. Perfect hit two moves the whole match which hurts this though. Still solid stuff and Owen looked awesome in this.

Yet again, Jesse is introduced to the crowd as a “major Hollywood star” (he had done some supporting roles in some fairly big movies like Predator). There was apparently a 5K run with Mr. Fuji, in tuxedo and bowler hat, running in a decent time. He’s in the handicap tag title match later on if you’re wondering what the heck this is for. He finishes without even breathing hard and Lord Alfred Hayes suspects shenanigans.

Now for something just completely out of place, Run DMC performs the Wrestlemania Rap. This thing goes on and on and on.

Tag Titles: Mr. Fuji and Powers of Pain vs. Demolition

Storyline on this: Demolition was by far and away the most dominant tag team the late 80s had ever seen. They held the titles for about a year and a half which is still the longest amount of time ever. They were brought in as heels around Wrestlemania 3 and won the belts at Wrestlemania 4. Sometime between 3 and 4, they got Mr. Fuji as a manager.

Over the course of the summer, the fans realized how truly awesmoe Demolition was and they began to cheer them. Around the same time, the Powers of Pain, comprised of the Warlord and the Barbarian debuted as faces. The problem was more people liked Demolition than the PoP. So what was the solution you ask? The answer was the incredibly difficult and even rarer double turn.

At the 1988 Survivor Series, the teams had been feuding over the tag belts and were captains of their respective Survivor Series teams. Late in the match, Fuji pulled the top rope down and Smash fell over the ropes and landed on the floor. Ax got in Fuji’s face about it and Fuji answered with I’m The Boss! Demolition beat up Fuji and were counted out. The Powers of Pain helped him up and soon thereafter he was their manager.

So all of that leads us here to the showdown with Fuji and his team in a 3-2 match with Demolition for the tag titles. Fuji does what Heenan did last year with a shot here and a shot there, but at least with Fuji he had a very successful tagging career, including a reign that at the time was the longest in the history of the title. This match is what you would expect from it.

The formula is exactly what you would expect in a match like this. Demolition beats down the Powers, they beat them back, Fuji comes in and beats them up a bit, which is to say he kicks them twice, and then he runs away. This isn’t anything we haven’t seen a thousand times before and it’s not particularly entertaining. Naturally it gets about 9 minutes.

Demolition holds their own but eventually gets beaten up by all three, until Fuji makes a mistake. He misses an elbow from the top rope which is impressive in its own right, then eventually throws salt that was his trademark but misses. He’s then hit with the Demolition Decapitation, which might be the worst double team move of all time, and pinned.

Rating: C-. I liked this match but then again I like Demolition. Fuji actually knew how to wrestle and was only in his early 50s at the time so he still could go in the ring to an extent. Demolition is a simple team at heart: beat the tar out of their opponents. That’s hard to mess up and they did it as well as any team ever did. The lack of drama hurts it a good deal though and it shows.

Tony Schiavone tries to talk to Macho Man but gets thrown out.

Ronny Garvin vs. Dino Bravo

Umm, ok? What the point to this match is I have no idea, but after the introductions, Jimmy Snuka is introduced to the crowd for some reason. Literally, they announce Bravo and Garvin, and then the Fink says there is a special guest tonight. Snuka comes out in full apparel and to his music and gets in the ring and poses. He has absolutely nothing to do with this match and isn’t seen again all night.

Anyway onto the match. I have never liked Ronny Garvin. The man just absolutely bores me to tears in the ring. How he became the NWA Champion and even defended it at Starrcade 87 is beyond me. Bravo was ok in the ring but just never really did it for me either. As I say that, Garvin puts on a sleeper which is perfect because I’m falling asleep watching this.

In a strange ending (Thank God) Garvin is up in the corner punching Bravo but gets caught with an atomic drop and is side suplexed to pin him. Garvin gets up and hits Bravo and then uses what has to be the stupidest finisher of all time on Bravo’s manager, the Garvin Stomp. Randy Orton I believe has used this recently. He starts at the arm and goes around the body stomping the opponent. Just looks bad.

Rating: F. I was bored to tears and don’t like either one. This is a biased rating and I could care less. This is a Ronnie Garvin match and therefore it sucks.

Strike Force vs. The Brainbusters

Strike Force (a breath of fresh air after that awful match that just aired) is teaming together for the first time in a long time. Martel was injured by Demolition and was gone for almost a year. In the time off, Santana wrestled in singles matches. Upon Martel’s return, he asked Tito to reform Strike Force which he eventually did. This is their first match back against Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. After this match, the Busters would go on to feud with Demolition over the tag belts.

It sounds wrong to hear Gorilla talking about a Horsemen match and calling them a couple of really tough dudes. Jesse and Gorilla bickering is always funny. it says a lot when Martel is by far the worst technician in a match. Big brawl to start and surprisingly Strike Force wins it.

Martel gets a very nice counter from a body scissors into the Boston Crab. That was impressive. Everything breaks down and Strike Force gets a pair of Figure Fours which has to be at least a mini-rib on the Horsemen.

And now we get the meat of the match as Tito accidentally drills Martel with his flying forearm and down he goes onto the floor. After about a minute Martel gets back up but he’s all shaken up. The Busters work the referee and the tag rules like the masters that they are.

Santana keeps trying to come back and finally does by slamming Arn off the top. Yeah that has to be a rib. Tito finally gets away and goes for the tag but Martel won’t tag and then leaves, heading to the dressing room.

Arn yells at Santana WHERE’S YOUR PARTNER to just be a jerk. The ramp/aisle is really long here so it takes Martel like two minutes to get back. Tito fights back as well as he can but he’s outnumbered and after a few minutes the spike piledriver ends it.

Rating: B-. Half tag and half handicap so it’s unique if nothing else. I always liked both teams and I like what I see here. The post match promo is solid too so it gets a good grade. Very interesting here as this obviously causes the split between the two. They would feud on and off for nearly two years after this with neither one really winning the feud. What’s forgotten in this is the Brainbusters. They are their usually great selves and but on a solid match.

Martel blames Tito and says it was Tito’s idea to reform the team and all that jazz. This is his heel turn if you didn’t get that. He wouldn’t be a face again for like 8 years until he was in WCW.

Piper’s Pit

This gets one of the biggest pops of the nights. One of the funniest lines I’ve heard in a long time from the Fink: I am pleased to introduce to you a man who needs no introduction. We get a really long intro for Piper and out comes the man that creeped me out more than anyone else as a kid: Brother Love.

Seriously, the guy had a red face. That’s just incredibly scary looking to a two year old. Throw in his voice and it’s just scary. His character was based on high energy Christian televangelists such as Jimmy Swaggert. You all might know him better as Bruce Pritchard who was a creative team member until a few months ago.

Love then says his guest on the Brother Love show is Rodney Piper. He then imitates Piper in something that is either dead on or awful and I can’t tell which. He asks questions as Love and takes his glasses off and changes chairs to be Piper. Then out comes the guest, Morton Downey Jr.

This show aired nearly 20 years ago and until I looked him up just seconds ago, I had no freaking clue who this guy was and I’ve seen this PPV at least 30 times. Turns out he was a talk show host that was the inspiration for Springer, Maury etc. His show was viewed as amazingly Right Wing based and he would often berate anyone that disagreed with him. He was later replaced by Rush Limbaugh.

Anyway, Downey is smoking a cigarette which Gorilla refers to as weed. This made my jaw drop. Gorilla said he was puffing on weed. Gorilla Monsoon isn’t supposed to talk about weed blast it! Downey trash talks with Brother Love until they’re interrupted by the Fink who says Piper really is here. Out comes Piper for his first WWF appearance in 2 years.

Piper talks down to Love because of the kilt that Love is wearing. He asks him questions but keeps pulling the mic away saying he doesn’t want to know that badly. I’d forgotten how funny Piper was in his prime. He turns his attention to Downey who is still smoking and keeps blowing smoke into Piper’s face which Piper doesn’t approve of. Downey keeps using the standard insults.

My favorite line: Piper mentions that Downey used to have warts all over his face. Piper: What did you with the warts? Downey: I gave them to a homeless warthog. Piper: (without missing a beat) I didn’t know your girlfriend was homeless. Downey calls Piper is a transvestite before blowing more smoke in his face.

Piper asks for a cig for himself. Downey turns to light it and for no reason at all, Piper has a fire extinguisher under his chair. In probably his second most famous bit after the coconut, Piper sprays him down and leaves.

About as appropriately as possible, Downey would die of lung cancer in 2001.

BREAKING NEWS-Hulk Hogan is making a movie! It’s called No Holds Barred. That movie truly was nine kinds of awesome.

Sean Mooney is talking to Donald Trump. Apparently WM 4 and 5 have been successes.

Jesse is TICKED OFF. Hogan is invading his territory because after he loses to Macho he needs a job. Jesse says he can drive his limo and storms off. Gorilla plugs the movie again and recaps the show so far. We get a video recapping the Mega Powers rise to glory and their split.

Hogan says he can’t believe how this all came about in just a year. He goes into another of his insane promos about everyone being swallowed up by the Earth when the Trump Towers fall apart. Makes little if any sense. Then he talks about winning the title.

Andre the Giant vs. Jake Roberts

Big John Studd is the referee here for no apparent reason. He comes out to what would become Jim Duggan’s music oddly enough. No real reason is given as to why he’s the referee here. Andre is back with Heenan. The point of this match is Andre is terrified of snakes.

This resulted in a scene on television where Andre had a “heart attack” when Jake put the snake on him, yet he’s wrestling again just a few months later. Remarkable. Around this time, Jake was insanely popular, arguably the third biggest face in the company after only Hogan and Warrior.

Somehow before the match starts one of the turnbuckle pads is off and Roberts gets slammed into it. Gorilla says that Jake is like David against Goliath and Jesse says David had to use a foreign object to beat him which makes me want to write the Bible from a wrestling perspective one day. In a funny bit Andre chokes Jake in the corner and Studd goes to count Andre and you literally can’t see Jake other than his feet. Jake stood 6’5.

It’s your standard Andree match from this era. He just could not move to save his life at this point and was a complete shell of his former self. They do the tied up in the ropes spot and Andre is reeling. More pain and punishment goes in until Heenan gets the arm loose and here comes your unfriendly and not likely from your neighborhood Giant.

Something happens in this match that I’ve never been sure of. Andre is throwing shoulders to Jake’s ribs in the corner and falls backwards and down to one knee. He doesn’t hit his head on anything that I can see. Always thought that was just odd. Andre and Studd finally fight while DiBiase of all people runs out and steals the bag with the snake in it. Roberts catches him and throws the snake in the ring to get rid of Andre. Jake wins via DQ.

Rating: D. This is just a strange combination. Andre just didn’t mesh well with most because he was too big. Roberts tried his best but it didn’t go that well. Studd served no real purpose here at all either. They tried but it didn’t work that well.

Sherri will get the title back apparently and doesn’t like Liz at all.

Rhythm and Blues vs. The Hart Foundation

The newly face Harts face off with their old manager’s new team of Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine. To me this was just before Bret’s prime. He’s so smooth in the ring that I’m gaining a new respect for him. The announcers refer to Pat Patterson as a relic. That’s just amusing.

This is the most basic of basic tag matches I can remember in a long time. I mean NOTHING happens here. The faces start in control, the heels take over and dominate for a bit, then we get a hot tag and the finish begins.

Honky hits the Shake Rattle and Roll on Bret but he tags in Hammer for the figure four which clearly is a mistake. Back and forth and Jimmy tosses in the Megaphone which is intercepted. After a solid shot to Honky’s shoulder Neidhart pins him.

Rating: D+. Bret makes this one pretty good for a glorified squash. This went nowhere at all and it’s MORE FILLER. We’ve had ONE match break ten minutes tonight: the Beefcake match got up to 10:01. That’s saying a lot. Just another match that went absolutely nowhere at all.

We get a recap of the Warrior/Rude feud. It involves a posedown and a lot of talking.

Intercontinental Title: Rick Rude vs. Ultimate Warrior

The idea of this is the two competed for who had the best body. They had a pose off at the Royal Rumble and Rude attacked the Warrior with a steel exercise bar. Not much of a story but this was the second biggest match on the card.

For some reason that God alone knows, these two had freaks chemistry together. It’s rare to ever see a bad match between them. I have no idea why this is the case but that’s how it always was with them. To have one of the worst workers ever and another who’s character was great but in the ring wasn’t great but wasn’t bad either be able to put on such solid matches really is a strange thing.

Warrior beats the tar out of Rude early on. This is a solid beating and Rude sells it like there’s no tomorrow. Warrior works the back with some very powerful whip ins and a BIG bearhug. It looks like it’s going to be a quick little match but a piledriver slows Warrior down and it’s Rude in control.

Rude’s back is injured but he stays in the game as long as he can. Rude beats on him for nearly four or five minutes as he becomes one of the only people to actually beat down the Warrior and have success at it.

And so much for that as Warrior makes his comeback but as he’s trying to suplex Rude back in Heenan hooks his leg and holds it for the pin and the huge upset. Heenan gets beaten up by Warrior afterwards and because Warrior was so bad in the ring he legitimately hurt Bobby in this.

Rating: B. While not the best workers and a weak story, they again manage to put on a good match. I didn’t give it the description it deserves but that’s really all there was to it. Very well done though. The freaky chemistry these two had continue and I have never gotten it at all.

Jim Duggan vs. Bad News Brown

This is the epitome of a filler. Nothing of note happens here at all as it’s a brawl that the announcers don’t care about at all. It’s about 3 minutes long and ends in a chair vs. 2×4 duel that Duggan wins.

Rating: F. No one cared and they knew it.

Red Rooster vs. Bobby Heenan

Backstory: Rooster, who has what to me is the worst gimmick of all time, (he literally acted like a rooster, complete with going cock-a-doodle-doo and strutting like one. He passed up the Mr. Perfect gimmick and got this instead) used to work for Heenan but Heenan said he wasn’t that good. This is the Rooster trying to get revenge.

Heenan comes out with the Brooklyn Brawler. This match literally doesn’t last a minute. Heenan jumps the Rooster and whips him into the corner. Rooster gets out of the way and Heenan hits the post and is covered for the pin. Brawler comes in and beats up Rooster who fights back and wins. Wow.

Rating: N/A. This was a total waste of time. But hey, the Brooklyn Brawler got PPV time!

We recap the WWF Title match. Hogan helped Savage win it a year ago and then more or less stole the spotlight for the next year. Liz got involved and Savage thought she was sleeping with Hogan. He went off on him on February 3 (I was turning 1) and turned heel, setting this up.

Hogan says Savage went crazy. That’s just amusing. This is the promo where Hogan absolutely loses his mind and goes on a rant about the building being swallowed up by the Earth or something and Donald Trump being worried about falling into the ocean.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage

They were trying to make this the second coming of Hogan/Andre but there was far less mystery of who was going to win. Liz is at ringside as an independent observer and she actually does just that: nothing. This match has the big match feel to it but looking back it was obvious which way it was going. Savage comes out first if that tells you anything.

Liz gets her own entrance and Jesse says she’ll leave with whoever wins. Gorilla says that sounds smart to him. To say this match is huge is a dramatic understatement. Jesse: this is what the term main event is used for. This is the main event. He’s absolutely right too as this drew INSANE money as they had built up the mega match between these two forever.

Hogan shoves Savage with ease and there he goes. The announcers argue about managers which is kind of funny. Savage keeps running in fear from Hogan and it’s basic stuff so far. He throws Liz in front of a Hogan punch but Hulk stops in time.

There’s Hogan’s wrestling quota for the year as he uses a four move combination to break down Savage and get a front facelock. Savage overpowers him in a surprise by backdropping him. Savage takes over a bit by getting a top rope double axe in. The champion works the arm for some reason. LONG sequence with the arm and then a headlock as we fill in time.

Hogan gets an atomic drop to counter but misses an elbow drop. Hogan’s eye was cut earlier on and it gets rammed into the buckle to open it up even worse. Savage slaps him and here comes Hulk. He slams Savage to the floor and Liz helps him up. They fight on the floor and Hogan gets rammed into the post.

Now Liz helps Hogan up. I guess she wants a double team later on. Hebner, the cock blocker that he is, throws Liz out. Savage hits the double axe off the top to send Hogan’s throat into the railing. Steamboat was out for three months because of that. It doesn’t even get two on Hogan. Savage slams him and there’s the big elbow. Hogan shoves him off, three punches, big boot, big leg, you know the drill I think. Lots of posing ends the show.

Rating: C+. Well it’s not bad, but the problem here is that it is completely underwhelming. This was supposed to be the biggest match ever and it’s just pretty standard fort he most part. Hogan wins the title again and shrugs off Savage’s best move. Not a fan of that at all but it’s the 80s so what are you going to do?

Overall Rating: D+. This is the first of the second era of Wrestlemanias that follows the now traditional Wrestlemania formula. There’s some ok stuff on here and it probably has the oddestok card yet. Pretty much every big star is here, the titles have good matches, the midcard matches are bad, and you have the WM main event.

This show also has the first instance of setting the stage for the future. 1989 was the first year of the big four PPVs so there were other feuds that would be needing to be closed at big shows. Feuds like Hogan and Perfect which sparked Hogan and Warrior, Roberts against DiBiase, and the continuation of Warrior and Rude which led to Warrior against the Heenan Family all spawned from this.

You could arguably call this the first standard Wrestlemania, and I would just barely give it that name over WM 3. Overall this is pretty weak show and the problem with it is mainly the match lengths. TWO matches broke ten minutes and one went past 10:01. I used to really like this one but it doesn’t hold up at all. Pretty bad show but it’s watchable I suppose. That’s about it.

 

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