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.

Prime Time Wrestling
Date: July 10, 1989
Hosts: Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Lord Alfred Hayes, Jesse Ventura, Vince McMahon

We continue our trip through the late 80s with a look at the post Wrestlemania V era. In other words, Hulk Hogan is the WWF Champion again and probably dealing with Zeus and former champion Randy Savage. Throw in a bunch of other matches to fill in some time and we should be in for a fun show. Let’s get to it.

Opening sequence.

Bobby Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon immediately get in an argument over who is the host of the show. Heenan wants more members of the Heenan Family around but Monsoon says there will be no members on the show this week. Instead, Heenan is stuck here with all of this Hulk Hogan stuff, so Monsoon threatens him with violence. That’s enough to make Heenan look at the run sheet instead. To the first match!

From the War Memorial in Rochester, New York on June 28, 1989.

Akeem vs. Chris Allen

Slick is here with Akeem, who hammers away with forearms to the back. A running crotch attack to the back connects and Akeem tells him to come on while calling him a big dummy. Some corner splashes set up a running corner splash and Air Africa (the big splash) finishes Allen at 2:05.

Bobby is still annoyed at the host/co-host stuff and says he’ll make Gorilla the host as well. For now though, Heenan sends us to the next match….or actually a break.

And now, Update with Gene Okerlund. This week we’ll be going back to the Brother Love Show, where Rick Martel introduced us to Slick as his new manager. Tito Santana came out and got called some various taco related names, earning Slick a right hand to the face. Santana and Martel got in a big brawl, with Santana getting the better of things.

Rick Martel is annoyed at Tito Santana and promises to teach Tito some manners. Slick knows Martel will fight for him.

Tito Santana says he slapped Martel’s manager and now he’s coming after Martel with all of his energy.

Back in the studio, Gorilla says Heenan should just get his own show. Heenan says he’s talented enough to do so but throws us to the next match instead.

From the Niagara Falls Convention Center in Niagara Falls, New York on June 27, 1989.

Brutus Beefcake vs. Chris Evans

Evans (whose name is given as Greg and Chris in various places) runs away from Beefcake to start and then gets punched in the face for his cowardice. A slam sets up the sleeper (with Brutus saying Macho Man is next) and Evans is done at 1:24.

Post match, Evans gets a hair cut.

Heenan complains about Gorilla bringing in all kinds of people on the show but he brings Brother Love on and gets mocked. Gorilla is having none of this.

From the Dane County Coliseum in Madison, Wisconsin on June 6, 1989.

Dino Bravo vs. Brad Perry

Jimmy Hart is here with Bravo and Ronnie Garvin is guest referee. Perrry is in rather good shape and even Jesse acknowledges that he’s impressive looking. Bravo shoves him down with straight power to start so Perry tries a wristlock. That earns him a hard clothesline to keep Bravo in control, setting up a piledriver. Garvin’s very slow count only gets one as Perry’s feet are in the ropes so Bravo hits the side slam. Bravo picks him up at two and then ties Perry in the Tree of Woe. The stomping is on and Garvin shoves Bravo away….before saying Perry wins by DQ at 2:27.

Post match, Garvin gets in a fist fight with Bravo so referees have to break it up.

Heenan isn’t pleased with Garvin but Gorilla says that a referee has the discretion to do what he thinks is right. Bobby takes this as Gorilla saying Garvin is biased, with Gorilla saying he could be perfectly fine without Heenan around. Heenan: “You could do time without me and be happy.” Well that escalated in a weird direction.

It’s time to talk about Summerslam, with Heenan saying Gorilla will be there because he has nothing else to do. Monsoon no sells it again.

From the War Memorial in Rochester, New York on June 28, 1989.

Bushwhackers vs. Barry Hardy/Sonny Austin

After the traditional head rubbing, Luke confuses Sonny so Butch can come in from behind. The distracted Sonny gets bitten on the trunks, allowing Butch to hit a clothesline. Hardy comes in and gets his arms tied up so Butch puts a hat on him before hitting him in the ribs. The Battering Ram drops Austin and the double gutbuster finishes for Luke at 2:27. Total squash with some comedy thrown in.

Back in the studio, Heenan is yelling at the director and fires him. Monsoon says that as the host, he has to deal with what Heenan does. He goes on a rant to Heenan and MONSOON SWEARS AT HIM, with Heenan saying no one could replace him. It would leave Monsoon trying to be the Brain and the Gorilla but Monsoon isn’t having this.

Sean Mooney talks about how Rick Rude has finally brought some gold to the Heenan Family by winning the Intercontinental Title.

Rude talks about how there are a lot of people sitting on a couch with their woman, but she “has a headache”. Just tell her to think about Rude and they’ll be set for the evening. Heenan laughs off the idea of anyone actually being a threat to Rude.

Jim Neidhart is very happy because he has Bret Hart as his partner. They’re great on their own but then it’s like a tank and a Ferrari when they get together as a team. It’s strange to hear him in a solo interview, especially when he’s talking about Bret.

Monsoon tells Heenan to jump if he’s feeling froggy. Heenan: “Ribbit.” Monsoon laughs before again mocking the lack of any Heenan Family members on the show.

From the War Memorial in Rochester, New York on June 28, 1989.

Honky Tonk Man vs. Al Bermice

Just after the bell, we get an inset interview from Jimmy Snuka, threatening Honky Tonk Man for a recent guitar attack. Honky Tonk Man kicks him down and drops some ax handles to the back to set up some neck cranking. Some elbows set up the Shake Rattle And Roll for the easy pin on Bermtice at 2:19.

Monsoon yells at Heenan for buying a black chair and sending him the $800 bill. Heenan promises to pay for it but Monsoon thinks he’ll be dead by then. That would mean Monsoon would need pall bearers to carry him, but Heenan has been carrying him for years. The ranting about how important Heenan is to the show continues, as does Monsoon cutting him off and sending us back to Sean Mooney, who sends us to Hercules for a chat.

Hercules talks about how he’s a real American who is ready for a hot summer. He thinks it’s funny that people like Dino Bravo and the Brooklyn Brawler can come after him, but he’ll cool them off.

The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers, with Jimmy Hart, make it clear that they are fabulous and brothers. They don’t think much of the Rockers, who have no class or style.

Mooney says no one seems to like the Rougeaus.

Remember Heenan and Gorilla bickering? They do it again here.

From the Metro Center in Rockford, Illinois on June 7, 1989.

Greg Valentine vs. Koko B. Ware

Jimmy Hart is here with Valentine. They circle each other for a bit before Valentine armdrags him down, much to Tony’s surprise. Back up and Valentine times him into the corner for the chops and elbows (kind of hammer-esque really). Ware is right back with some shots of his own, including a headbutt, which has Hart losing his mind.

A dropkick puts Valentine into the corner, setting up an atomic drop for that selling you only got in the 80s. Valentine rolls outside for a breather and comes back in off the top, including quite the slip, to hit Ware with a clothesline/fist. They slug it out again with Ware getting the better of things but Valentine sweeps the legs for a rollup and puts his feet on the ropes for the pin at 4:49.

Rating: C. This was a bit better as it had a mixture of some star power (or close to it) on both sides and some time, which is a lot better than you have been getting so far around here. It ended pretty quickly though, which isn’t exactly the best thing, but this was a longer match for this era of Prime Time. Throw in a Frankie cameo and it’s even better.

Post match here is Ronnie Garvin to say what happened, meaning it’s a reversed decision to give Ware the win.

Heenan isn’t sure if Koko or Frankie look smarter. Heenan: “Do you know how many people walk this earth that need to be insulted?” Monsoon doesn’t like the idea of Heenan lumping him in with that as tensions continue to rise.

We go to an undisclosed arena for a platform interview with Demolition. They don’t think much of the Twin Towers (Akeem/Big Boss Man) because they demolish things. The bigger they are, the harder Demolition can kick their teeth in. The Towers have Slick out here talking and jiving all the time, but if you want to impress someone, get your names on a contract. If the Slim Towers are that serious, meet them in the ring.

Heenan thinks the Brain Busters are going to end Demolition’s record reign as champions. He would be right actually, and it would happen before the end of the month.

Post break, Gorilla is on the phone, reiterating that none of the Heenan Family is going to be on the show this week. Heenan goes into the same rants he’s been on all show, saying he is staying here to keep the show on the air. Monsoon says anyone could fill his spot, so Heenan actually walks out. Gorilla isn’t convinced.

From the Dane County Coliseum in Madison, Wisconsin on June 6, 1989.

Jimmy Snuka vs. Tom Stone

We get an inset promo from the Genius, who doesn’t think much of Snuka. They circle each other to start until Stone grabs a lockup. That doesn’t last long as Snuka hits a crossbody for a fast two, setting up the big chop. Another big chop sets up a backbreaker and the Superfly Splash finishes Stone at 1:53. Not too bad considering they didn’t make contact for the first thirty seconds.

Gorilla is so impressed that he throws it to Sean Mooney for the Event Center.

Sean explains the (rather complicated) concept of Mr. Perfect, who is sick to his stomach about the lack of competition around here. Yes he is still perfect but no one can give him any kind of competition, so he’ll be staying perfect.

The Ultimate Warrior isn’t happy with losing the Intercontinental Title to Rick Rude but also wants to take out Andre the Giant. We shall conqueror the giant.

It’s time for Coliseum Corner, so Tony Schiavone runs down the 1989 Royal Rumble. For a preview, we see a few minutes of the six man tag from the show. Here’s the whole thing:

Dino Bravo/Fabulous Rougeaus vs. Jim Duggan/Hart Foundation

2/3 falls here. Anvil vs. Bravo gets things going and they collide a few times with no one going anywhere. Both guys miss elbows and it’s off to Duggan for a BIG reaction. Ray Rougeau comes in and is immediately slammed down and hit by a knee drop. Hart comes in to a small but audible reaction and gets two each off a small package and a sunset flip. Jacques comes in and things break down a bit with all three heels being caught in one corner where Anvil drives shoulders into them, crushing Ray against the corner under two other guys.

Ray FINALLY gets something in by low bridging Bret to send him to the floor. At the end of the day, when you need someone to sell something you call on Bret. Dino’s side suplex puts Bret down and The Rougeau Bomb gets the first fall. Bret and Ray start things off in the second fall with Hart in big trouble. Jacques comes in and sends Bret into the corner for the traditional chest first bump in the corner which gives Dino two.

Bravo puts on a bear hug for a bit before it’s back to Jacques. A sunset flip gives Bret a quick breather but he’s immediately put in a camel clutch. Anvil makes the save but as he’s being put back in the corner, Ray comes in and puts the same hold back on. That’s good stuff there. The heels take turns working over Bret until Jacques puts on a Boston Crab. Gorilla wants Duggan or Neidhart to come in and break the hold up, because you’ve got five seconds. I love the hypocrisy you would get from him at times.

Bret breaks the hold and tags in Anvil but the referee didn’t see it. That’s such a basic spot but you don’t see it much anymore. Ray puts on an abdominal stretch before it’s off to Jacques for the exact same hold. Bret FINALLY hits an atomic drop to break up the momentum and there’s the white hot tag to Duggan. Anvil hits a slingshot shoulder on Ray and a Duggan elbow drop ties the match up at a fall apiece.

Duggan pounds on Ray to start before going to the wrong corner to try to beat up both guys. Bravo hammers away a bit but rams Duggan’s head into the buckle for no effect at all. Duggan gets punched over into the corner and there’s the tag to Hart. Everything breaks down and Duggan hits Bravo with the board to give Hart the pin.

Rating: C. This was fine but Duggan’s reactions are amazing. The guy was probably the third most over guy in the company at this point, which is covering a lot of ground given how over some of the guys were in 1989. This was fine for an opener but the ending was never quite in doubt, which is ok.

Summerslam is still coming. They haven’t changed anything.

Monsoon has found a replacement host for next week but won’t say who.

From the War Memorial in Rochester, New York on June 28, 1989.

Ultimate Warrior vs. Mike Williams

Tony thinks Williams (though commentary sounded like the said Graham, even though that is not Mike Graham) is stupid for taking the match and there’s a big running clothesline to put Williams on the floor. Rick Rude gives us an inset interview to brag about beating Warrior at Wrestlemania. Warrior throws Williams back inside, signals for the gorilla press, hits the gorilla press, and drops the splash for the easy pin at 1:56.

Post match, Warrior carries him to the back. I’m not sure I want to know.

Gorilla tells the production staff to increase security to keep the Heenan Family out of the studio.

It’s time for the Brother Love Show (which used to scare the daylights out of me back in the day) with special guest Sensational Sherri. We’re not done though, as Sherri brings out Randy Savage, who brags about how great he is. Neither Hulk Hogan nor Brutus Beefcake can beat him so maybe they’ll jump him in a parking lot.

That could be a problem but Savage is the world’s greatest problem solver. Therefore, here is Zeus, the Human Wrecking Machine (and character from No Holds Barred, because that’s what they’re actually doing). Zeus looks rather disturbed as Savage issues the challenge for the tag match. Even Zeus is in on the challenge and promises to destroy Hogan and Beefcake. Love is thrilled too, as you might have expected, and demands an answer from Hogan and Beefcake.

Dusty Rhodes is now working in a butcher shop (with an apron over his bare chest) and has his coworker Ernest explain what kind of meat we’re seeing here. They make some ground beef and you can’t beat Dusty’s prices. Or his meat. I want more Ernest.

Heenan returns to the studio and Monsoon is not the slightest bit surprised. Actually Heenan isn’t back but rather just stopping by, because next week, Heenan is getting his OWN SHOW. He rips up a bunch of the set and even takes his name plate with him. Monsoon will be begging him to be on the show and he’ll be able to smell the bananas coming out of his pores.

From the War Memorial in Rochester, New York on June 28, 1989.

Ted DiBiase vs. Mario Mancini

DiBiase taunts him with the Million Dollar Title to start and gets armdragged down for running his mouth too much. That earns Mancini a shot to the face and a clothesline as DiBiase gets more serious. A powerslam sets up the Million Dollar Dream to finish Mancini at 1:25.

Here’s the address where you can send get well cards to Jake Roberts, which is certainly not the way WWE refreshes its mailing list.

Brutus Beefcake is ready to cut Randy Savage and Sherri’s hair. Then he’ll beat them up.

The Brooklyn Brawler can’t believe high Bobby Heenan has taken him and he can’t believe how many wins he has.

The Bobby Heenan Show will indeed be on next week and Gorilla is as excited as we are.

From the War Memorial in Rochester, New York on June 28, 1989.

Hillbilly Jim vs. Boris Zhukov

Boris bails from the threat of a horseshoe and then bails again due to being a scared Russian. Back in and they lock up for the first time after more than a minute and take turns backing the other against the ropes. Jim stomps on his foot (which seems appropriate from him) and we hit the headlock.

With that broken up, Jim cartwheels away from the threat of a backdrop and stomps on Boris’ foot again. It’s time to start in on Boris’ leg but he comes back with a shot to the face. There’s a headbutt to rock Jim again but hold on as he needs to go look at the horseshoe. The distraction is enough for Jim to fight up, only to be sent into the corner. Boris charges into a raised boot in the corner to give Jim the pin at 4:38.

Rating: D+. He got pinned off running into a boot in the corner. What kind of a rating did you expect a match like this one to get? Nothing to see with the match, but the country boy beating up the Russian is going to work very well in the 80s. That’s the kind of thing you don’t get enough of today: very easily identifiable characters who you can understand in five seconds.

Monsoon promises a new cohost.

Monsoon again promises a new cohost to wrap up the show.

Overall Rating: C-. I know there isn’t much in the way of quality wrestling on the show but that’s not the point of Prime Time. This show is about making the people in the company look good and letting you know what you might be seeing if you take in a house show. Think of it like window shopping via television, and in that regard, it worked rather well. Fun show too, especially with such a focus on Monsoon vs. Heenan, which always worked.

 

 

 

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Royal Rumble 1990
Date: January 21, 1990
Location: Orlando Arena, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 16,000
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Jesse Ventura

We hit the 90s and there’s a bit of a new feel to the company with that new decade. Things are now being made to look a little newer and it’s probably a good thing that they are. Oh and there’s also probably the biggest moment in the Rumble for…..arguably ever actually so there’s that to look forward to. Let’s get to it.

We get the list of almost everyone in the Rumble to start just like last year.

Jesse Ventura in Mickey Mouse Ears is a scary sight.

Buschwhackers vs. Fabulous Rougeaus

We get ALL AMERICAN BOYS for the Rougeaus and Jacques has his MANLY beard. This is a Wrestlemania rematch from the previous year. We start with Butch vs. Ray and while this may sound like a stretch, I think this might be a comedy match. A quick sleeper by Ray is broken up and it’s time to bite the trunks as well as the referee for some reason. The Whackers clear the ring but Jacques hits the floor to avoid the Battering Ram.

Off to Luke vs. Jacques, with Luke taking a bite out of his nose. Jacques says hit me in the face, so Luke charges with a clothesline and hits Ray instead. Things slow down again and the Rougeaus easily distract Luke, allowing Ray to jump him for two. Ray comes in for real and kicks Luke down for two more. Luke is sent to the floor and goes back first into the apron. This match is already dragging.

Back in and Luke bites some more but it doesn’t get him anywhere. Luke gets rammed into the corner a bit, drawing Butch in which allows even more double teaming. We hit the chinlock followed by an abdominal stretch from Jacques. Now it’s off to a reverse chinlock to keep things slow.

We get the Arn Anderson cannonball drop onto a guy on the mat but the guy on the mat gets his knees up to crush Arn’s balls spot, followed by a hot tag to Butch. The Rougeaus are sent into each other and Jimmy Hart gets involved and beaten up. Jacques gets a quick rollup for two and Ray puts a Boston Crab on Butch. With the Rougeaus hugging for some reason, the Battering Ram to the back of Ray is enough for the pin by Butch.

Rating: D+. This was WAY too long at nearly fourteen minutes. The idea behind comedy matches is to keep things quick so that people don’t realize that half of the stuff you see here is stupid. The Rougeaus clearly didn’t care anymore and this would be the last match of Ray’s career. Jacques would go on to be the Mountie and win the Intercontinental Title, in one of the biggest surprises ever. Well not really but it was pretty surprising.

Gene is with DiBiase and Virgil and Ted is annoyed. Gene brings up the shenanigans last year with Ted “drawing” number thirty, but this year there’s additional security. Virgil drew the number for DiBiase and he got number 1. DiBiase’s “Let me tell you something little man” is a GREAT delivery as he’s so great at talking down to people.

The Genius vs. Brutus Beefcake

If you’re not familiar with Genius, think Damien Sandow if he read WWF themed poetry. Oh and he’s a jobber. And Macho Man’s real life brother. Genius offers a left-handed handshake but Brutus isn’t interested. Jesse gets on Tony about Genius beating Hogan via countout on SNME. Tony: “Well…..” Jesse: “WHO WON THE MATCH???” Genius heads to the floor for a cartwheel and we finally get the first lockup.

We get a clean break and Beefcake tells Genius what he can kiss. They lock up again and Genius goes to the eyes to get the first advantage. Beefcake comes out with an atomic drop and Genius gets to do his way overdone selling. I miss that. Back in and Genius fires off some shockingly good punches so Brutus comes back with an even bigger punch. Expect to hear the word punch a lot in this match.

Beefcake steps on Genius’ fingers like a total jerk and crotches Genius on the top rope. Half of Beefcake’s taunts would get him fired today for suggesting that Genius is effeminate. We go back to the standard story of the match: Genius gets in some strikes, Brutus hits him once to take over again. A dropkick gets two for Genius as does a rollup, but Brutus catches him coming off the middle rope with a punch to the ribs.

There’s the sleeper but Genius quickly escapes. Another sleeper attempt is quickly countered, but the Genius is knocked into the referee. Ref bumps weren’t cliched back in the 80s, so this is kind of a big development. Anyway the sleeper goes on again and Genius is going down quickly. Brutus puts him out and starts cutting his hair, but Genius’ buddy Mr. Perfect comes out for the save and the DQ.

Rating: D. This is one of those matches that was bad but it was energetic. For as much of a mess as Brutus would become in real life, the guy could get the fans fired up. That’s pretty impressive as he was almost all punching and a sleeper. This was pretty lame stuff but the fans loved it which is the right idea.

Perfect and Genius DESTROY Brutus’ ribs with the chair post match.

Sean Mooney is with the Heenan Family and suggests that they could fight each other. An argument ensues. That’s what Mooney was good at: ticking people off.

A show is coming. It’s called Wrestlemania.

Greg Valentine vs. Ronnie Garvin

This is a submission match as they both use submissions for a finisher. See? Not that complicated. Now the interesting thing here is that both guys have shin guards (Garvin even has his named: the Hammer Jammer) which blocks the pain of a Figure Four. They slug it out to start with Valentine being rammed into the buckles repeatedly. Greg comes back with chops and they slug it out in the middle of the ring.

It turns into a boxing match until Valentine goes after the leg. That gets him a thumb in the eye and they slug it out some more with both guys going down via a Garvin headbutt. Ronnie tries a sunset flip for reasons of stupidity and Valentine tries a cover of his own. Both guys go down again as this match is already running too long. Garvin rolls him up again to REALLY make it clear that it’s a submission match. See, wrestling fans are stupid and can’t understand the basic explanation of the rules.

Valentine adjusts his own shin guard (the Heartbreaker) and puts Garvin in the Figure Four. Ronnie’s guard blocks the pain, so Garvin makes funny faces at Valentine. Since that doesn’t work, Valentine puts on an over the shoulder backbreaker, much to Jesse’s delight (his old hold). Garvin pounds away in the corner and puts on an Indian Deathlock which has an effect on Greg but Valentine finally makes a rope.

They slug it out for the fifth time, although this one is at least on the floor. Valentine backdrops out of a piledriver on the concrete and we head back inside. Garvin misses a dropkick in the corner and gets caught in the Tree of Woe. That goes nowhere so they collide again and both guys go down. Hart steals Garvin’s shin guard and there’s the Figure Four. After a rope is grabbed, Garvin can’t even stand up.

Valentine goes up and Garvin slams him down from one leg. He takes off Valentine’s shin guard and tries a rollup because Ronnie is STUPID. Valentine gets tied up in the ropes so Garvin beats up Hart for fun. A shin guard shot to the head knocks out Valentine and the Sharpshooter (called a reverse Figure Four) makes Valentine give up.

Rating: C+. Not a bad match here and it was even good at times, but MAN it was long, running nearly seventeen minutes. On top of that, the stupid pin thing went WAY too long into the match. This is probably the best Garvin match I’ve ever seen, but that doesn’t really mean much as he absolutely sucks most of the time.

Mr. Perfect doesn’t like Beefcake trying to take advantage of the Genius and we get a look at the chair attack from earlier tonight. Perfect says he got #30 in the Rumble. Well he is perfect after all.

It’s time for the Brother Love Show. You might know Love as Bruce Prichard, or one of the Gut Check judges on Impact. This is his most famous role, as a parody of 80s televangelists. He talks about what it means to be a lady, and brings out the woman whose picture is in the dictionary next to the word lady: Queen Sherri. Love sucks up to her and says he also looked up the word peasant in the Book of Love. The Book of Love is the dictionary?

Anyway the point is Sapphire (Dusty’s chick) is the definition of a peasant, making her fat and ugly. Sapphire comes out and they make fun of her looks, clothes and whatever else you would expect them to make fun of, while not letting Sapphire say a word at all. Now they make fun of Dusty for being fat and Sapphire finally blasts Sherri. Savage and Dusty come out and it’s a big brawl. Even Brother Love gets in on it until security breaks it up. A dance party ensues between Dusty and Sapphire, resulting in Love being thrown to the floor.

Duggan doesn’t have much to say about his match with Boss Man.

Big Boss Man vs. Jim Duggan

Boss Man has clearly lost a TON of weight since last year and he looks much better as a result. Duggan knocks him to the floor in a bump that Boss Man couldn’t have taken a year ago. They slug it out on the floor with Duggan taking over for a bit. Back inside and Boss Man reverses a whip before crushing Duggan with a splash. Boss Man busts out an ENZIGURI to put Duggan down again. It really is amazing to see how much better Boss Man looks after being a big fat blob last year at this show.

Boss Man hits his running crotch attack on the ropes to keep Duggan in trouble but he makes the mistake of ramming Jim face first into the buckles. Duggan’s comeback is short lived though as Boss Man hits him in the back to take over again. He cannonballs down on Duggan’s ribs as this is a good physical fight so far.

That of course comes to a screeching halt as we hit a neck crank by the cop. Duggan fights up and makes a quick comeback, only to get caught by a knee lift to the ribs. Back to the neck crank followed by a bearhug which Duggan fails to break with some smacks to the head. Instead he falls into the ropes and the brawl continues.

They slug it out some more and Duggan clotheslines him out to the floor. Back in and more punching (notice a theme here?) ensues by Jim. Boss Man comes back with a clothesline but misses a top rope splash. They collide again to put both guys down but Slick slips the nightstick to Boss Man which draws the DQ.

Rating: C+. They definitely made the right move here by going with a pure brawl instead of anything resembling a wrestling match. The fans absolutely love Jim Duggan so there was no way the crowd wasn’t going to be into this. Not a good match from a quality standpoint, but it was very fun which is the better way to go sometimes.

Wrestlemania is still coming.

We get some promos from guys in the Rumble, most of which are spent talking about whoever they’re feuding with at the time: Earthquake, Bravo, Demolition, Bad News Brown, Dusty Rhodes, the Rockers, Hercules (calling it the Rumble Royal, which was the original name for the show actually), Rick Martel, Tito Santana, Snuka, Akeem (Slick does the talking) and Warrior (Intercontinental Champion), who talks about Hulk Hogan. This would have given fans chills up their spine at the thought of it happening but then they would say “Nah, that couldn’t happen.”

More promos as we’re in intermission: Savage, the Powers of Pain (Fuji does the talking), Roberts, the Hart Foundation, Honky Tonk Man and Hogan (WWF Champion of course) who looks either bloated or high as a kite.

Royal Rumble

DiBiase is #1 and Koko B. Ware is #2. Ted jumps Koko as he gets in and stomps him down. The beating goes on for awhile until trying to ram Koko’s head into the buckle, which has no effect. See Koko is black and in WWF logic, that means he has a hard head. Koko fights back and misses a charge, sending him to the floor. Marty Jannetty is in at #3 and in literally one second less time, basically the exact same thing happens as did to Koko (minus the racial aspects) and Marty goes out.

Jake Roberts is #4 and they fight on the floor which I think is a first in the Rumble. DiBiase slams him on the floor before they head back inside. A backdrop puts DiBiase down but the DDT is countered into another backdrop. They keep brawling and #5 is Randy Savage. DiBiase and Savage forget their past hatred to double team Jake for awhile until Roddy Piper is #6, setting up one of those AWESOME tag matches we never got. Seriously, that would be excellent on a Coliseum Video.

Piper and Jake beat up the heels, nearly punch each other, and then beat up the heels even more. The energy for this match is WAY better than the previous two years, which is saying a lot. Warlord is #7 and he should be solid cannon fodder for some of these guys. Piper pairs off with him as DiBiase and Savage continue their beatdown on Roberts. Roddy makes the save until Bret Hart is #8, drawing a BIG pop.

We get a six man tag for all intents and purposes, which would be another pretty interesting one with Bret being there to bump like crazy for Warlord. Bret goes after Savage, which would be great like their match on SNME. Bad News is #9 as the good run of talent continues. Jake loads up a DDT on DiBiase but Savage clotheslines him out, which is probably a good idea given how many people we’ve got out there.

Dusty Rhodes is #10 and the place continues to erupt. He heads right for Savage as you would expect him do and it’s elbows a go-go. A backdrop puts Savage out and we get Brown vs. Dusty for awhile, which I’m not sure what to think of. DiBiase takes Brown’s place which is probably the right idea. Andre is #11 and the fans aren’t sure what to think of this. Warlord goes right to him and gets tossed to a big pop. The fans still love the Giant.

Heenan and Fuji get into a fight on the floor as Andre rams Piper and Dusty’s heads together before crushing them in the corner. They come back on him and it’s the Red Rooster at #12. Even HE gets a bit of a pop before people realize that’s who just came out. Piper eliminates Brown but Brown comes back to the apron and eliminates Piper. They brawl to the back, setting up one of the strangest matches you’ll ever see at Mania.

Andre beats up Rooster and tosses him out as Ax is #13. Their teams are fighting over the tag titles at this point so there’s a story there. Hart and Rhodes try to throw out DiBiase and we get the traditional Andre is tied up in the ropes spot. Haku, Andre’s partner, is #14. Andre stands on Ax as Haku beats on Dusty. Things slow down a bit, which is understandable after the very hot first twenty minutes.

Smash is #15, giving us a group of Ax, Smash, Haku, Andre, Hart, DiBiase and Dusty. Demolition demolishes Andre down for the second time in two years before going off to beat on Haku. Rhodes and Hart beat on Dusty as people swap partners a bit. Akeem is #16 to give us another big fat guy in there. He goes after the Giant, but it’s a Demolition double clothesline that eliminates Andre. I’ve always loved that moment. Bret went out somewhere in there too.

Here’s Snuka at #17 to go after Akeem and take him out with a running headbutt. Ted and Dusty hammer away on each other a bit more until Dino Bravo is #18 with his manly powder blood trunks. Demolition beats up DiBiase and Earthquake is #19. There’s another team getting back to back numbers. Rhodes is out at Earthquake’s hands, as is Ax. Neidhart is #20, giving us Neidhart, Earthquake, Haku, Bravo, Snuka, Smash and DiBiase. Everyone gangs up on Earthquake and eliminates him, much to Bravo’s chagrin.

Neidhart and Smash work together on DiBiase, which would be unthinkable in about eight months. Here’s Warrior at #21 to go right after Bravo. They’ve got a bit of a feud going right now so Warrior dumps him with ease. Things slow down until Martel is in at #22. Haku backdrops Smash to the apron and superkicks him out. We were getting too many people in there so that’s a good idea.

Tito is #23 and of course we get a Strike Force battle, as they feuded for like, ever. Honky Tonk Man is #24 as things slow down a bit. We need another blast of energy in this soon. A bunch of people get together and dump Neidhart and Warrior clotheslines DiBiase out, giving him a new Iron Man record at just under 45 minutes. At the moment we’ve got Warrior, Honky, Martel, Santana, Snuka and Haku. Remember that blast of energy I said we needed? Hulk Hogan is #25.

Snuka goes after him and is immediately put out. Haku takes a big boot and is gone. Warrior and Martel dump Santana and we’re down to four in the ring. Shawn Michaels is #26. Hogan dumps Honky and it occurs to me that for some reason the entrance music for people stopped after like #6. Hogan dumps Honky, Warrior dumps Shawn and Martel and there are only two left in the ring.

This is the moment that changed the course of wrestling for a LONG time. You often hear the expression “everyone is on their feet”. In this case, that’s literally true as the place goes nuts and everyone in unison stands up. It’s a really cool visual and proof that this would work for Wrestlemania. They collide a few times and no one moves.

We get a criss cross to set up a double clothesline to put both guys down and the place is eating this up. As I said, this changed wrestling because we now have a Wrestlemania main event, instead of the potential Hogan vs. Zeus or Hogan vs. Perfect. Perfect is great, but it wouldn’t have worked as the main event in front of 67,000 people. Anyway Barbarian comes in at #27 and doesn’t do much so Rick Rude comes in like twenty second early at #28. I’ve always wondered if that was intentional to prevent more of just Hogan vs. Warrior.

The heels double team Hogan to put him down but Warrior saves. They beat up Warrior a bit until Hogan Hulks Up and goes to the corner, eliminating Warrior in the process. Hercules is #29, which is pretty awesome luck as he got #28 the year before. Hogan tries to put Barbarian out but gets poked in the eye. Perfect is #30, giving us a final five of Hogan, Rude, Barbarian, Hercules and Perfect.

Hercules backdrops Barbarian out to get us down to four and we pair off with Herc vs. Rude and Perfect vs. Hogan. Rude backdrops the power dude out and we’re down to a handicap match. I think you can see how this is going to end. A quick double team ends with Perfect getting punched to the apron by Rude. Perfect low bridges Rude out and we’re down to two. Hennig pounds away and hits the PerfectPlex but it’s time for more Hulking Up. Slingshot into the post, clothesline, Hogan wins.

Rating: A-. THIS IS MORE LIKE IT! They totally got the formula down here and had a white hot crowd to do it in front of. The first twenty minutes or so here are just about perfect with a ton of talented guys working HARD. The next big drags just slightly but certainly aren’t bad, and then things went through the roof with Hogan vs. Warrior and the ending. Perfect was supposed to win here, but Hogan vetoed it and got the win himself. The more I think about that the less I dislike it because after the first two matches, you almost had to have a main eventer win this. Either way, great stuff here and one of the best Rumbles ever.

Overall Rating: B-. This is one of those tricky shows to rate as you have four pretty weak matches to start things off, but the Rumble is great and is longer than all four other matches combined. The Rumble is all that mattered here anyway and we got a great one to really establish a standard for the match for years to come. Also Wrestlemania is shaping up really well, so I don’t have many complaints here at all. Good stuff.

Ratings Comparison

Bushwhackers vs. Fabulous Rougeaus

Original: D+
Redo: D+

Brutus Beefcake vs. The Genius

Original: C+
Redo: D

Ronnie Garvin vs. Greg Valentine

Original: F (Biased). B- (Unbiase).
Redo: C+

Jim Duggan vs. Big Boss Man

Original: C+
Redo: C+

Royal Rumble

Original: A-
Redo: A-

Overall Rating

Original: C-
Redo: B-

Dang the weight of the Rumble has gone way up in the last few years.

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

 

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Survivor Series 1992
Date: November 25, 1992
Location: Richfield Coliseum, Richfield, Ohio
Attendance: 17,500
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan

Ok so for once we really do have a ton of changes here. For one thing, this is far closer to a standard PPV. There’s one Survivor Series match which is kind of one I guess, but it’s two tag teams and if one member is eliminated both members are gone so it’s kind of a Survivor Series match but not really. The other huge difference here is that there’s no Hogan or Warrior. Warrior is on the box of the tape, but he wasn’t on the show.

He was supposed to be in half of the double main event, a tag match with Savage against Razor Ramon and Flair. However, he bailed a week before the show and the WWF had to use Mr. Perfect in what I thought was a great angle that I’ll get to later. Other than that, your main event is Bret vs. Shawn. This was a real gamble for Vince as we had never tried having two standard wrestlers go at it in a major show’s main event.

There’s no big muscle head to go out and have a match, but Vince put his faith in what he had left and to me, it worked. Other than that, this isn’t going to look like the Survivor Series. With what’s been happening lately at this show, it can’t be worse, so let’s see how this is.

We open with the Reverend Slick saying…ummm…I have no idea what he’s talking about. I think it was something about spreading light. Yeah this was a strange character but he was very energetic so I can’t complain. Vince and Bobby go over the double main event and we’re ready to go.

Headshrinkers vs. High Energy

High Energy is Koko B. Ware and Owen Hart in really bright and baggy neon pants and suspenders. Headshrinkers are two Samoans that are monsters. Guess what this is. Yep, it’s a squash, however, oddly enough the Headshrinkers are in the ring before High Energy is introduced so they look like the jobbers. That’s just odd. I’ve always been a mark for the Headshrinkers so if nothing else I’ll probably like this match.

Fatu is more commonly known as Rikishi. Vince is needling Bobby about Perfect’s face turn which is just great. How in the world is Koko a Hall of Fame member? That just boggles my mind every time I think about it. Vince says that High Energy has been very successful so far. That’s nonsense but oh well. Heenan asks Vince if the Headshrinkers will be at his house for Thanksgiving. That’s an amusing thought and oddly enough I think Vince would have fun with it.

After Koko gets the tar beaten out of him for a good while, he makes the hot tag to the most talented guy in the match, Owen. Owen comes in and beats up the Headshrinkers for a bit, but the overall mass of the fat one is too much for Owen and he’s pinned after a big splash from the top.

This was fairly long at about seven and a half minutes but it was really just an extended squash. Post match Heenan uses his Brain Scan, a telestrator, the white pen thing on the screen, to show how Owen is a turkey. In other words, he draws pictures with it.

Rating: C+. It wasn’t bad, but it was a nice breath of air compared to most Survivor Series matches. It was a standard tag team squash, which isn’t something that you see very often anymore, mainly because the tag team division sucks. Anyway, this was at least ok. It’s not great but it’s not bad. It’s certainly acceptable and a fine choice to open the show.

Alfred Hayes is with Boss Man who says he’s going to beat Nailz.

Sean Mooney says that viewer discretion is advised for the following match. Now there’s something you don’t see every day. Nailz implies Boss Man was abusive and that he’s been waiting for this. He says he’s a good climber, so does that mean he’s an escaped convict? Yeah that’s just kind of stupid.

Boss Man cuts a promo…again. He says the exact same thing. I think only one was shown on the live broadcast, but I really don’t get why they did two in a row like this. The second is better.

Nightstick on a Pole: Big Boss Man vs. Nailz

During that second promo, Boss Man runs off mid sentence to catch Nailz who is trying to get the stick early. That at least makes sense. Yep it’s a big brawl. That’s all this was supposed to be. Boss Man was more or less worthless at this point, but Nailz was going to be given the Undertaker of all people next, as he had several house show matches followed by being on the cover of the WWF Magazine. However, after nearly murdering Vince McMahon (literally) he was fired.

As you would expect, both guys go for the post but neither can get it. The pole is too short though and all you have to do is stand on the top rope. Of course since this is a pole match and all they have to do is standard climbing, it takes 20 seconds to get up there. Nailz at least has the psychology of it right as he uses mainly chokes and punches. He’s not supposed to be a polished wrestler and he’s not wrestling like one.

He’s a street fighter and he’s acting like one. At least he’s smart enough to do that. This is just a sloppy match all around. They’re worn out after about three minutes with no big bumps yet. The way Bobby and Vince are talking about it you would think this was a Hell in a Cell match or something. See, if I were in this match, I’d let the other guy get the stick and then jump him on the way down, but then again I’m not a professional.

Boss Man gets the stick and beats Nailz with it, but a shot to the head isn’t enough to keep him down apparently. Nailz gets it and hits Boss Man in the side with it. He then waits for him to get up, misses a shot, gets punched twice, whipped in and the Boss Man Slam ends it. Yep that’s it. This was a waste of time.

Rating: D+. This was just awful. There was no point at all to it and it should have been a standard match instead of this mess. The nightstick served next to no purpose but of course it looked like it was awesome. It just wasn’t entertaining at all and ended without the stick being a factor. Just make it a one on one next time people.

Nailz, while choking Mooney, says that was more injustice.

Tatanka is in the back with Alfred Hayes. He says that tonight he’ll get back his eagle feathers and honor his people. Well at least it’s borderline original.

Gene is with Flair and Razor. Gene talks about how there was a big swerve going on and how Perfect is the new partner. We go to the tape of Prime Time Wrestling where Perfect turned. This was just after Warrior had left and Savage was on satellite from Florida. He says that his partner could be perfect for him.

The design of the show was a round table with Vince, Hillbilly Jim, Jim Duggan, Heenan and Perfect there discussing various things in the company and talking about matches that were shown. That’s actually a pretty cool idea when you think about it. Anyway, Vince says do you mean Mr. Perfect and Savage says he does. Heenan speaks for Perfect, saying that they both take orders from Flair and that Perfect isn’t wrestling anywhere.

Perfect takes offense to this and says that he’s tired of being ordered around before accepting. Heenan slaps him which causes Perfect to grab him by the tie and pour water over him, saying that Flair is afraid of him. We cut back to Flair, who is TICKED over this. He talks to Perfect, saying that he had it all and is throwing it away.

There’s a hint of fear in his voice which is just great as this is a heck of a promo. Ramon says that his team will win. He really wasn’t that good yet and it showed in his promos. He would get a lot better. The partnership here was always kind of a weird one as it was never really explained.

Tatanka vs. Rick Martel

This is happening because Martel stole some feathers from Tatanka which were important. Well it’s better than nothing I guess. This is a bit of a departure from the Survivor Series idea wouldn’t you say? Heenan goes on a huge rant about life in general, mainly focused on Perfect. Martel chokes and Heenan shouts out that HE HAS TIL FIVE!

Sgt. Slaughter is now an enforcer of rules or something like that. A front facelock by Martel gets him nowhere. Scratch that as it gets him suplexed. Ok so it failed him once so now we go right back to it. Doink is here now as he has only been here for about five weeks now. Amazingly enough the facelock leads to ANOTHER suplex. That’s just appropriate.

Doink makes a balloon animal for a kid and steals it. That’s straight up awesome. Martel uses the hold AGAIN. Dude three times with the same hold in 3 minutes? Seriously? Are you that bored? A cop shows up in the front row and takes a sign as we cut away. It probably said WCW or something like that, making that person EVIL!

Martel hits the post with his shoulder so the stereotype goes after it, showing some intelligence. Backslide gets two which of course Vince swears is a pin. Doink continues to be a big focus here but I don’t think anything ever came of his involvement here. How weird is it to think that Vince has been WWF Champion but neither of these guys were?

Martel works on the back now as Tatanka is in trouble. Decent little match so far if nothing else. Double axe off the middle rope eats fist though and here comes the warpath thing. Top rope chop hits Martel and he’s in big trouble. Samoan drop ends it and Tatanka gets the feathers back. Doink pops the kids’ balloons just to be evil.

Rating: C-. This was fine for what it was: a midcard match that nothing ever really came of. It was the end to this mini-feud and nothing else ever came of it. Both guys were at least ok in the ring and it went fine I guess. Nothing ever came of the Doink thing though, which means it was indeed, completely pointless, for him to be out there at the end.

We go to Mooney who is with Savage and Perfect, who say that they’re a strange team but they respect each other. In some weird way, this match actually looks decent enough I guess. Perfect gives a WOO at the end which ticks Bobby off during the intros.

Razor Ramon/Ric Flair vs. Mr. Perfect/Randy Savage

The faces get a HUGE pop, especially Savage. How in the world did Vince not push him as top face once Hulk left? I’ll never get that for the life of me. He had everything: the look, the ability, the resume, yet for no apparent reason he was put behind the announce desk. That just doesn’t make sense to me. Heenan is so angry about this match that it’s hilarious. We start with Perfect against Ramon which gets yet another pop.

This AWA reunion begins with Perfect being all over the place and outmaneuvering Razor. The forgotten aspect is that these two are former AWA World Tag Team Champions. Perfect nails Flair and we get the big showdown. Savage and Flair is one of the best feuds ever. Both guys can go in the ring and it offered proof that the company could work without the big orange man to help them out. The heels take over now as Ramon puts on an abdominal stretch.

Vince has apparently been hanging out with Monsoon too much as he criticizes it for a lack of the hook of the toe. Has anyone ever done that hold properly? The heels are dominating Savage now, which makes sense as Perfect hasn’t been around for about a year now so it makes sense that he’s on the apron for a lot of the match. As Savage is being beaten on, Perfect turns to walk away. This makes limited sense as there’s no point to it really.

The heels do the smart thing and point Savage’s face at Perfect leaving, which would I guess work to break his spirit a bit. See, that’s why Flair is better than most wrestlers: he had the mental aspect of wrestling down. That’s a critical key to a wrestler that most people don’t have. Heenan ranting about Perfect is flat out awesome. This has been a pretty good match so far. It’s not great, but it’s what you would expect from a main event level tag match I suppose.

Razor hits a chokeslam which doesn’t have a name yet. Heenan says that he’s seen Ramon do that to the people on the streets of Miami. What area of Miami is Ramon from? I’ve never been there but apparently 6’6 men chokeslam you on the cement there. That’s fairly cool. Also, as Ramon goes for the cover and Perfect looks for the save, Bobby yells “GET OUT OF THE RING YOU LOWLIFE!”

That’s just an awesome line if there ever was one. He sounds so ticked off which is all you can ask for here. Flair goes to the top, and I’ll give you two guesses as to what happens. Actually you would be wrong because Savage does something different here. He climbs to the middle rope before going back to the bottom rope to slam him. That wouldn’t really add anything to the move I don’t think, but whatever, it looked cool.

This lets Savage get the hot tag to Perfect who proceeds to clean house. It’s chair time as Savage gets taken out by a shot from Flair. The referee gets bumped and apparently the other one was just behind the curtain because he’s out there in like 4 seconds. Perfect and Ramon are going at it and Razor sets for the Edge. Perfect gets a sweet counter by kicking off the top rope and backdropping Ramon.

He hits the Perfectplex but only gets two because of Flair. He hits another on Flair but no pin again with Razor making the save. Since both guys are in the ring forever, we get the DQ in a cheap ending. Flair puts him in the figure four and eventually Savage makes the save with a chair as the faces win. The face celebration takes way too long as they’re channeling Hogan I guess.

Rating: B. The ending hurts it a bit, but this was solid. It was a good tag match and while it didn’t have a definitive ending, it might be better that it didn’t here. Perfect looked good while Ramon looked pretty good as well. This was what you would expect from these four in this kind of a match. It went fine though, and I can’t really complain about anything other than the ending I guess. Bobby’s rants are great here.

Flair and Ramon are angry of course and they vow revenge.

Yokozuna vs. Virgil

This was the not incredibly fat Yoko, as he’s only 505 at this point and the monster that we know him as. He’s billed from Polynesia here which is just odd in all respects. We get a segment from earlier in the day where Hayes goes to Yoko’s room for an interview but Yoko is getting a massage. Fuji offers to let Alfred get a massage. He’s liking it as Fuji throws him out. Vince tries to make this match sound good. That’s just funny.

Despite being Polynesian apparently, Fuji has the Japanese flag. Vince says he hasn’t been tested yet. Apparently that’s going to be the case after this match too. Naturally, Virgil really can’t do much here. It’s basic jobber offense with punches and dropkicks that fail more and more every time. Yoko hits a sweet kick to the face that knocks him down with ease. He crushes him with a sweet spinning rock bottom suplex.

The squashing continues as Virgil tries to out move him. Vince says he’s trying to stay away from him as he’s running right at him. I love that classic Vince commentary. In a spot I’ve always wanted to see, Virgil goes for a school boy and Yoko just sits on him. That’s as simple as you could get and it worked perfectly. Within a few seconds the Banzai ends this one.

Rating: C. It’s a squash so I guess we’ll call it average. Virgil of course stood no chance here and it was nothing more than a way to get Yoko over and there’s nothing at all wrong with doing that here. It gave him a win over a somewhat big name and Virgil gets to eat tonight, so things are fine here. It was short, under four minutes that is, so what can I really complain about?

We go to the back with Savage and Perfect who say that was great. They say Ramon and Flair are the turkeys.

Nasty Boys/Natural Disasters vs. Money Inc./Beverly Brothers

This is the elimination tag I was talking about earlier. Money Inc. are the tag champions here and are in the middle of a feud with the Nastys that I don’t remember in the slightest. DiBiase is wearing the stupid white attire again which if you’ve read my thoughts on Summerslam 92, you know my take on. The other two teams had fought at Summerslam so I guess that constitutes a feud, despite it being a squash. Yeah that makes sense.

The Nastys are WAY over. That’s quite surprising to me. Again, this is a very boring match indeed. I don’t get the point in having these kinds of things, although I guess in this case only having one works fine. This is even a switch from the normal stuff and it’s still rather pointless. Vince asks if Heenan will be on an upcoming European tour. Heenan says he might but it’s really none of Vince’s business.

I love lines like that where given what we know now the meanings are far different. Yep, this match sucks as well. Why can’t there just be interesting matches on a show? I don’t get how hard that is to accomplish. Anyway, after about five minutes of people just beating on each other with the freaking Nasty Boys being the most over out there (I will never get wrestling fans at times), we get to what we knew was coming: the wild brawl.

Out of this, the Beverlies go down to the Earthquake from Earthquake. He really needed a better name for that move. My goodness Typhoon was worthless. Actually that’s not true. He was good for comedy, as he’s more commonly known as the legendary Shockmaster. Good grief this will just not end.

The heels dominate for a few minutes until Typhoon comes in to clean house a bit. This works for awhile until IRS rolls him up to eliminate the Disasters. Within five seconds, Knobbs rolls him up for the win. I kind of like that ending I think.

Rating: D. Oy this was another horrible match. There’s just no point to this match other than to further Nasties vs. Money Inc., which begs the question of why not just have them go at it by themselves? Wouldn’t that make things a lot easier? I’d certainly think so. Either way, this was nothing special and for the most part was just flat out boring. That seems to be a trend here.

We recap Taker vs. Kamala with the main thing being Kamala is scared of caskets. Why does that not surprise me? We see Taker building a massive casket before we go to the arena for the match.

Undertaker vs. Kamala

This is different than the traditional casket match with the rules here being that you have to get the pinfall and THEN put them in the box. Yeah that’s just redundant. The intros here are long but not modern day Taker long as it only takes about five minutes for both guys to come out. Taker and Bearer have the massive coffin with them which is always cool looking, but this one is way too bright for my liking.

Immediately we see the two major issues in this match. First of all, Kamala sucks, badly. Even for a monster he sucks. Second, the coffin aspect is just stupid since it’s pinfall first. Due to that, there’s really no point to the box aspect. They should have made it one or the other, but granted this was a first so they were really in the dark at this point. So far this is your standard monster vs. monster match. Taker beats on both managers but gets chopped by Kamala. This was a very odd time in Taker’s career.

They knew that he was a huge asset and talent, but they had absolutely no clue what to do with him. Since they didn’t know all they did was throw him against monster after monster whom Taker would usually beat after losing an initial encounter. This feud in particular since after this at the Rumble, Whippleman would bring in Giant Gonzalez who would destroy Taker for a bit before Taker put him away at Summerslam.

About 12 years later, the feud was completely recycled but with Muhammad Hassan and Mark Henry combining to play the role of Kamala and Great Khali being Gonzalez. The IWC HATED this feud because we were literally calling every single thing that was going to happen and we were right. Now to be fair, they waited over 10 years so I guess it’s ok, but still it was a very boring 8 months as far as we were concerned when it came to Taker.

Kamala starts taking over and hits some of the worst splashes ever. Like I’ve said, unless it’s from the top rope, for the most part if you use a splash for a finisher, odds are you’re not a very good wrestler. With Taker down, Kim Chee and Kamala literally play hot potato with the urn. Taker sits up and nails Kamala with it for the pin. See, after that they ring the bell, which shows how stupid this is. They roll Kamala into the coffin and literally nail it shut. Yep that’s it.

Rating: C+. Eh, given what they had this was about as good as it was going to get I suppose. Taker winning was never in doubt at all, but it was ok. It certainly could have been worse but they kept it short and that was a big plus for these guys. There’s really not a lot that they’ll be able to do, so I’m happy with this overall. The gimmick was a bit stupid, but they didn’t know what they were doing, so this is slightly above average.

Shawn cuts a pretty bad promo, talking about how he beat Bulldog for the IC belt, who beat Hart for the belt at Summerslam. Apparently Bret has defended the title the most times in history, which is impressive since I think he won it about 6 weeks before this. He was brand new to the big time and you could see he was very nervous.

We get a pointless bit about Kim Chee and Harvey opening the casket and Kamala not being able to move. And that’s about it.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels

After Shawn’s intro, we go to the back for an interview with Bret. Since winning the belt he’s defended against Mountie, Berzerker, Rick Martel, Papa Shango and Virgil. And people have the nerve to ask why his first reign wasn’t taken seriously. Bret talks about how thankful he is for what he’s done and how he’s gotten this far. This had the potential to be a great promo, but Bret just wasn’t that good on the mic yet, which is understandable.

It fit his character really well as he was supposed to be the best pure wrestler in the world and while he couldn’t talk he could go in the ring. That’s what he did, and it worked very well. Like I said, this was a huge gamble for the company as they had no clue how to do a big show without Hogan or Warrior. This could have sunk the company for Vince, but thankfully he stuck to his guns and put two of his best young guys out there.

Bret gets a solid pop but not huge. Vince of course tries to make it sound bigger than Hogan ever got. Heenan gets in a great line. Vince says that Bret is likely the most scientific champion of all time. Heenan in his most condescending and annoyed voice says wrong. Vince asks who. Heenan: Flair. He sounds so snobby and annoyed here that it’s perfect. They start with a lengthy feeling out period, which makes sense here and works well since both of these guys can do just about anything.

Also, at this time Shawn doesn’t use the kick as his finisher, but rather a weird suplex move. The kick is in his arsenal but it’s just a run of the mill move. He’s kind of like a rookie MMA Brock Lesnar. He had everything else but he couldn’t finish people. Bret gets a hammerlock and Shawn actually taps but since it’s 1992 no one gets that. Dang maybe he’s more like Lesnar than I thought. Heenan mentions he gets paid a lot of money to do his job.

Vince’s “I’m sure you do” response is full of sarcasm which again is funnier now given that we know he signs Heenan’s checks. Given that this is a pretty long opening part of the match, the fans are staying into it which is a very good thing. Shawn uses that same rolling counter for a hip toss that he’s used before and it’s still completely awesome. Vince really likes talking about how Bret won the title.

How they evolved into what they became just five years later amazes me. We pick up the pace a bit which makes the match more interesting. Granted it was fine before but now it’s a bit better. Bret takes the standard momentum turning bump of having his shoulder hit the post at full speed.

Shawn shifts into a standard heel offense and this is working pretty well. These two have a natural chemistry between them and it’s never once failed to deliver at least a very good match. Even the Montreal match was at least good before the ending.

They continue the debate over who is stronger which never was answered I don’t think. Heenan, talking about Shawn, says this man is hot. Where’s Becca when I need her? I love how Vince orders the referees around. I wonder if he criticizes them about it later on. They kind of mention that Bret has won the Triple Crown but they don’t call it that. Pedro Morales had already done it so they can’t really say much about Bret.

Bobby goes to some classic insults about Bret’s family, which are likely what he was best at. We’ve been in this chinlock far too long now as Shawn just doesn’t have the variety in his offense to be able to pull off a nearly half hour match like this is. Given another year or two though he easily could, but he just wasn’t there yet. It seems that all he knows are rest holds, which I guess he’s using to just stall for time.

That’s fine I guess, but he needs to do some standard stuff in between them to prevent it from becoming boring. Heenan’s random talk of Razor and Flair is amusing. He played the role perfectly. You can tell Vince just can’t keep up with Heenan on the mic and it’s great to hear. Of course, Vince believed he was ten times the commentator that Gordon Solie was so who cares apparently.

Now that we’re out of the rest holds we’re turning it up a bit and now we’re getting good. Shawn of course gets hit with a sling shot which is one of his standard bumps that always works. Vince mentions that Bret has what a champion is made of. Vince, they’re both champions. Of course that’s not mentioned, so I guess even back then the IC Title was being buried. Dang I love that Russian Leg Sweep that Bret does.

For some reason Vince says what is going on. Well Vinny, it’s called a wrestling match. You might have seen one before but apparently not. The referee gets bumped in the corner but is up about 3 seconds later. I think that was unintentional. There’s just something missing from this match and I can’t put my finger on it. What I guess it is would be that neither of these guys are really huge stars yet.

Yes Bret is world champion, but he’s held it for such a short time that he’s still kind of viewed as a midcard guy. That’s what happened to Eddie during his run with the belt and it’s a hard thing to shake off. It’s a good match, but still there’s just an x factor that isn’t there. I think it’s a combination of Bret not going for the legs and Shawn having no finisher to end things with.

Today he would have the kick that he could hit from nowhere. He it looks like both guys are hoping to hit a rollup or something, and that’s what I think is missing. Shawn gets tied up in the ropes but is out in time for Bret to miss some big move and kind of get crotched. Apparently Bret is running himself too thin and whoever fights him next will beat him.

In the exact same ending to regulation time in the iron man match, Shawn misses a top rope dropkick and Bret gets the Sharpshooter to end this. That’s interesting that they would use the exact same ending sequence for regulation in the Iron Man match. And here comes…Santa Claus? What the heck? Yes, Santa is coming down the aisle, the night before Thanksgiving. What in the world? He puts a Santa hat on Bret’s head as it starts snowing in the arena.

I think I’m in one of X’s trips as this makes zero sense. Maybe it’s not snowing. Vince says it is but I don’t see any of it. Oh there it is. Vince says ho ho ho as we end it. After it ends, Bret is with Santa and he says he wants big and bad opponents for Christmas. That’s kind of cool I guess, but still, WHAT THE HECK?

Rating: A-. The lack of a Shawn finishing move here really hurt things. There was never a moment where you really felt that Shawn could pull it off because even though he sets for the suplex at one point, it’s a freaking belly to back suplex. Why should that be considered special?

It wasn’t and thankfully he changed to the kick…a few years later. Other than that, this was a good match. It’s not great, but it’s certainly worth seeing. These guys would go on to have classic after classic, but this one is really forgotten I think.

Overall Rating: C+. Well it’s better than anything that this show has done since the first one, so it gets a passing grade but not by much. This just flat out wasn’t that great. There’s two very good matches in the double main event, but the rest of the show is just above average at best. It was a gamble and it worked, but it didn’t feel like the Survivor Series at all. It worked, but not great like I said. It’s recommended though, but not very strongly at all.

 

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Survivor Series 1990
Date: November 22, 1990
Location: Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, Connecticut
Attendance: 16,249
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Roddy Piper

Well, we’re in the 90s now and that’s about it. Warrior is world champion, but other than that just about everything is exactly the same. It’s been a pretty bland year actually as nothing of note has happened. Your main feuds are Warrior against no one in particular and Hogan vs. Earthquake. Hogan of course wants the title back but that’s nothing new. The big thing here of course though is the debut of the Undertaker who is Ted DiBiase’s mystery partner. Let’s get to it.

The other two big things here is the infamous giant egg which I’ll get to, and the Match of Survival, which is all of the winners being grouped into one final match at the end to determine the Grand Survivors. Yeah, it’s dumber than it sounds. Let’s do this. Oh and Jesse is gone.

First off, you should buy Supertape 3. Mean Gene says so.

Jesse says you should buy WWF toys. I did.

Jesse says you should but the WWF ring. I did that too.

Mooney plugs the Grand Finale thing and the egg.

A Vince voiceover sets up the lineup. Demolition’s pictures make them look like they’re in a bondage session.

Piper goes on a big rant about the military, which I’m not huge on. Don’t do that on PPV Roddy.

Perfect Team vs. Warriors

Perfect Team: Mr. Perfect, Demolition

Warriors: Ultimate Warrior, Texas Tornado, LOD

Warrior is the world champion here, Tornado is IC champion, and the LOD cost Demolition the tag titles at Summerslam. There’s no reason at all for Warrior to be in this. This match screams train wreck to me. Gene is with the Warriors who say everything you would expect them to say. Warrior might be less coherent than Hawk. After the faces enter, it takes forever to actually get anything going. Is it that hard to figure out who is going to start?

Animal spears Crush to start this out which I like. Roddy can’t tell Demolition apart. Seriously, it’s not that difficult people. The heels beat up on Animal for a decent amount of time which isn’t surprising as he’s likely worn out after being in the ring over a minute. The wildness ensues as Perfect is in and being beaten up by all of the faces at once, which is of course, perfectly legal. So I guess Warrior and Perfect was supposed to be the main feud but that simply wasn’t the case at all.

They never had a feud that I remember unless it was a short one. Warrior would go on to face Slaughter at the Rumble while Perfect would just kind of do nothing as Boss Man feuded with the entire Heenan Family. I really don’t get the point of him being in here. I’m assuming that he had a short feud over the last few months with Warrior that this is the blow off for.

That would make sense as Warrior had a more or less one off match with Rude at Summerslam but Rude was now gone, so maybe they threw Perfect in because he was part of the Family as well. That’s the best I can come up with. Warrior gets beaten on by Demolition which amuses me as I just didn’t like Warrior that much. Wait, he’s already out and Tornado is in. I always was a mark for him. Wait now Warrior is back in.

He knocks out Axe with the splash as the ending to this match is already becoming fairly obvious, which I’m never a fan of. Crush, the most successful of Demolition arguably, comes in and beats on Warrior which I enjoy. For some reason Crush’s face push, which was supposed to result in the WWF Title was aborted for no reason at all. I never got that. Hawk and Perfect are in now, and Hawk is just freaking SCARY looking. He just looks awesome on all levels.

Somehow they botch a whip in as Perfect slips I think and goes almost into the opposite turnbuckle on his knees. It just looked odd to say the least. Hawk hits one of the hardest shoulders I’ve ever seen into the post, which is almost word for word what Piper says so at least I have someone agreeing with me. Crowd is very hot to say the least. He makes his comeback but of course he refuses to tag.

At least he’s been paying attention to old Survivor Series tapes. Crush and Animal come in and we have four guys disqualified. Yeah, that’s as dumb as it sounds, and it’s 2-1 with Tornado and Warrior, the two singles champions, against Perfect. What a great match this should be. Piper constantly saying he’s writing it down makes me chuckle. Warrior presses him and Piper says he’s up and down more than a toilet seat. And we’re moving on.

Tornado hits the exposed turnbuckle and gets Perfectplexed for the pin despite having his shoulder up. Warrior breaks the suplex with relative ease as Heenan is losing it. Perfect is beating on him with relative ease so the ending is getting clearer and clearer. Ref gets a bit bumped as Warrior kicks Perfect out onto him. I love how there’s instances where that would take the referee out for five minutes and other times where it does nothing.

The announcers say that the heat in here could hatch the egg as I’m getting those headaches I used to get. Traditional Warrior comeback ensues and the splash ends this. Gorilla says that the Warrior is the surviving team. Why do so many commentators make zero sense? Surprisingly the celebration takes very little time. Warrior is on to the grand finale.

Rating: C-. This was pretty bland. It really made little sense and just felt thrown together. Perfect was trying to get the IC title back, LOD was feuding with Demolition after costing them the tag belts, and Warrior….yeah you get the point. There was just no need to have him in there and it made the match lopsided.

I get that they didn’t really have another major option, but this was a classic example of where two regular matches would have been better suited here and the WWF Champion doesn’t really have a lot of need on a show like this. That would change next year.

The Million Dollar Team (can you please get a new name Ted?) says that they’ll win. There’s still no mystery partner though.

Million Dollar Team vs. Dream Team

Million Dollar Team: Ted DiBiase, Honky Tonk Man, Greg Valentine, Mystery Partner

Dream Team: Dusty Rhodes, Koko B. Ware, Jim Neidhart, Bret Hart

Ok, a few things. Number one, why would you have Koko on your team? Two, Dusty gets a great pop. Three, the Mystery Partner was assigned to Koko, since the captains cancel each other out and then you have the two tag teams? Wow he really started on the bottom of the ladder didn’t he? Dusty has also finally dropped the polka dots.

He would be gone very soon, heading back to the NWA where he belongs. Rhythm and Blues theme song, Honky Love, is either going to start a riot or is the best song I’ve ever heard. Shockingly, he’s offered bonus money if his team wins. Yeah he’s done that every year now. Of course, the mystery partner is the debuting Undertaker.

I would say this warrants a bit of a section of its own. Now this is by far and away the most important thing to happen at this PPV to this point and likely is the most important thing to happen at Survivor Series ever. Taker, as IC (I think) said, wasn’t designed to be the next major star like Hogan or Warrior, but rather the next phenom, ala Andre the Giant. I’d say that it’s been a success as he’s still around and in big storylines nearly 20 years later.

This is being written the night before Summerslam, so I’m going to go out on a short limb and say that Taker has returned by this point. This Taker was different than the traditional one. To begin with, he’s managed by Brother Love, not Paul Bearer. Also, he’s more of a western mortician kind of guy rather than what you all know and love. Either way, he’s completely intimidating and this was his first televised match.

He had actually been around at house shows, going by the name of Kane the Undertaker. I’d think it’s safe to say that the name of his brother wasn’t that big of a coincidence. Also, it’s good that they shortened the name I’d say. Anyway, let’s get to the match itself.

Koko is wearing bright pink. Do I need to make fun of him anymore? Now for all you trivia people, Taker’s first opponent in the WWF: Bret Hart, as he beats on him with relative ease. Another interesting fact: to the best of my knowledge, Taker has never beaten Bret clean. He hits the first chokeslam which doesn’t have a name yet, but it’s really more of Bret running at him and more of a clothesline with Taker’s hand on Bret’s throat.

Neidhart can’t do anything, so he tags in the offensive genius known as Koko. This is great as Taker no sells the dropkick and picks him up for the first ever tombstone, which is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Koko is clearly gone, as the announcers actually try to convince us that it’s a big deal that he beat Koko. That just amuses me. We get more Bret vs. Taker which there’s nothing at all wrong with.

Taker gets hit with some good shots and just stares at Bret before reaching over and tagging out. That’s just awesome as it looks like even Bret can do nothing against him. Dusty comes in now that the real threat is gone. Piper insists that the faces can figure Taker out. Well not many people have in 19 years so I think the Scot is wrong here. Honky comes in rocking red tights which just don’t look right on him. They say Heartbreak Hotel.

It’s good to see Shawn’s interview segment getting free advertising like that. The Harts do a quick tag and Honky walks into a powerslam from Anvil to tie us up at 3-3. DiBiase runs in immediately and pounds away on him. It’s nice to see the captain leading his team like this. Gorilla has forgotten about trying to be fair here. Rhodes is in as the main feud is going at it. You know, considering it was over Sapphire, I have to wonder, WHERE IS SHE?

She left immediately after Summerslam, which always made me scratch my head. I get that she was the catalyst for the feud, but did DiBiase just release her back into the wild? Virgil interferes to eliminate Neidhart. It’s Bret and Rhodes against Valentine, DiBiase and Taker. That’s….not that bad of a match actually.

Roddy calling Love Blubber Love amuses me. We get a Blow Away diet reference that makes me smile. Nothing ever came of this as I think Rose was little more than a jobber at this point. However, he was in the first ever Wrestlemania match, albeit under a mask. Seriously, what was the point of this? Anyway, that’s what Roddy references, which brought it to my head. It was one promo, this one, and then it was never mentioned again. It’s one of the great WTF moments in wrestling history.

Anyway, the faces beat on DiBiase as Piper implies Dusty isn’t too smart. Again, I don’t have to make fun of this one. Taker eliminates him with a fairly generic double axe from the top rope. Now we get to something that I just don’t get at all. Bret comes in to beat on Taker as he’s the last face remaining. They go back to the corner and we cut to Brother Love beating on Dusty who is still down on the floor. That all makes sense.

We cut back to the ring and Valentine is in with Hart and Taker is on the apron. The referee is fine with this and it’s business as usual. Naturally, I’d assume that while Taker was in the corner, Taker tagged out and made Valentine legal. That makes perfect sense. Taker though goes to the floor and fights Dusty up the aisle, and the bell rings. Taker has been counted out as he was the legal man? That makes no sense at all.

I completely understand that they didn’t want Taker to survive and they certainly didn’t want him to get pinned and I have no problem with him beating Dusty to the back to have him get counted out. That makes perfect sense and is perfectly acceptable to have him eliminated. What I don’t get at all is having the weird I guess non-tag. Taker threw Rhodes to the floor.

Why didn’t he just follow him out and then we get the count out? It would make sense at least. Anyway, within 45 seconds Valentine gets rolled up and it’s 1-1 with DiBiase vs. Hart in what should be a good match. I have yet to see someone that can go over the rope or do a flip like DiBiase. It’s just so crisp every single time and I love it. Bret just goes off on DiBiase, beating the living crud out of him.

That’s a big deal as Bret has only been given small pushes here and there but is still known as a tag guy. Very soon though, his singles push would begin and the rest is history. Ted takes over though as would be expected. Bret wasn’t going to win here, but Ted was the perfect choice to make Bret look awesome in a losing effort. They really got it right with Bret as they built him up ever so slowly and once the push happened, everyone was ready for it and it went perfectly.

DiBiase accidentally nails Virgil. Their feud was right around the corner as Virgil would turn on him at the Rumble, leading to the feel good moment of the year (save for Macho/Liz) at Mania 7 with Virgil beating him. DiBiase reverses a cross body for the win, which works well as it was his experience that beat Bret. Both guys look good, but the bigger star comes out with the win as he should have.

Rating: C+. Clearly, this is more important for Taker than who won. Looking back, this might trump Jericho for best debut of all time. The people were legit stunned and had no clue what to think of Taker and a lot of people still don’t to this day. Taker is a character that just works, plain and simple. It’s a lot like Stone Cold in that way. They knew they had something with both guys, but no one could predict just how big they would become.

They hit this one so far out of the park though that it’s amazing. The interesting thing is that earlier in the year, Taker was Mean Mark Callaway and jobbing to Luger for the US Title. He was just a generic big man that was a heel, and then they turn him into one of the most famous gimmicks of all time. To me, it’s no longer about is he the best big man ever.

It’s how far up do you rank him on the best of all time list, because he’s certainly on it. As for the rest of the match, it’s just there. Bret and DiBiase is good, but the rest is just ok. Certainly not bad, but nothing to go out of your way to watch. Taker’s debut and time in the match certainly is worth seeing though, just from an historical perspective.

We go to the back with the Vipers, meeting with Gene in the shower. This is just odd. This is another infamous team, but we’ll get to that later on. Jake talks about how they’re all survivors. Jimmy Snuka has a mustache. It looks weird. Jake still has the messed up eye, which is the point of this feud. One day on the Brother Love show, Martel tried to spray his cologne on Damien and Jake went after him, getting sprayed in the eye. This led to him being “blinded”, which was just a bad feud. It inspired the blowoff match, the infamous blindfold match at Wrestlemania which was just bad. It also explains the team name for the heels: the Visionaries.

Vipers vs. Visionaries

Vipers: Jake Roberts, Marty Jannetty, Shawn Michaels, Jimmy Snuka

Visionaries: Rick Martel, Hercules, Paul Roma, Warlord

Apparently Jake is wrestling against doctor’s orders. You have to love how much Vince loves his wrestlers as he’d rather have the money they could produce than their health. Rockers had been feuding with Power and Glory, as Shawn had an injured knee, costing them the match at Summerslam. Jake picked them for his team because they had “survived” the injury. Yeah they’re really stretching a lot of these.

Warlord and Superfly…yeah there’s no real point other than they’re both in the midcard. The announcers try to put over how great the card has been and how Jake is half blind here. Amazingly this was considered cool back in the day. Piper gets a facepalm by saying the team is called the Plymouth Rockers. This isn’t much in the way of talent/title success. We start with Warlord (who Piper calls walrus and makes I Am the Walrus references which I love) against Marty.

Snuka, Robers, Warlord, Hercules and Roma never won anything in the company. Jannetty has two forgotten reigns and Martel won as a tag guy. There’s just not much on either team with Shawn being not much yet either. Piper says the Rockers are going to be the team of the 90s. That amuses me. Shawn with an AWESOME counter to a hiptoss as he more or less does a rotating flip without touching the ground off a hiptoss. It’s hard to describe but it looked sweet.

How in the world was Roma a Horsemen? Seriously, what were they thinking? Hercules needs to pull his tights down a bit as he’s approaching thong territory. Warlord takes out Marty off a powerslam that he got in a very cool looking counter to a cross body. It’s nothing that you haven’t seen before but it’s one of the best executions of it I can ever remember.

On to Jake vs. Warlord, which could have been a decent mini-feud. Jake knocks him down and then tags Shawn who goes for the cover. Um, ok? I’ve always loved Gorilla’s highly intellectual terms about parts of the body. They make him sound almost cocky without being completely so though. At least Martel dropped a knee after getting tagged in before covering. Piper surprises me and says that Martel has some brains. That came from nowhere.

I like Shawn’s look around this time. The black and yellow was a cool looking combination on the team I thought. Snuka comes in wearing tights and boots, which looks completely wrong. He belongs in no shoes and trunks. What kind of a respectful savage wears shoes? First person to make a Macho Man joke here gets red rep. Snuka is gone after a reversed cross body as he makes his standard jobbing appearance.

We finally get Jake vs. Martel for all of 8 seconds but they never make contact as Martel runs. That’s even more building for the eventual showdown, which works. Piper calls Hercules a cheap skate. That’s odd indeed. Roma, of course, screws up and costs his team the advantage. Good to see he hasn’t forgotten his place. Shawn hits a move that you don’t see often: an elbow off the second rope. I’m not talking about a Bret Hart style one.

I’m talking about the kind Savage uses, but from the middle rope. It looked different but in a good way. Shawn gets knocked out by the Power-Plex, so we’re down to 4-1. Yeah this has been very bad so far. The fans try to give Jake the big comeback cheers but it’s just not going to work. Piper says the fans are standing up for what Jake is doing. Right now he’s getting his face kicked in. That’s 1990 WWF fans: fighting for your right to get a beating.

Jake gets an AWESOME DDT on Warlord but Martel goes for the cologne to the face so Jake chases him with the snake for the count out. That’s a sneaky way to leave without looking like a coward. The Visionaries win in a clean sweep, which I think has happened 3 times ever?

Rating: D+. This was really boring. Nothing of interest happened, the main feud never had anything happen, and the faces got beat into the ground. This is one of the least interesting matches of all time in the series, and it took me an hour to get through a 17 minute match. That’s how uninterested I was here. One last thing here.

Ok, I get it: Jake is the only star there and without him, the team sucks. But seriously, he can’t either knock out one or two of the four or just get pinned? It’s not like there’s any shame in losing to four guys.

Ad for the Rumble, which is on a Saturday for some reason.

Sean is with the Hulkamaniacs. Hogan and his latest team of glorified jobbers say they’ll survive. Ok Boss Man wasn’t a jobber. Duggan has yellow ribbons on his board. Why is that? Hogan is going to tell you. It’s for the soldiers in the Persian Gulf. Cool. Hogan volunteers his team to go fight in the war. Yeah, that’s a bit much.

Hulkamaniacs vs. Natural Disasters

Hulkamaniacs: Hogan, Boss Man, Duggan, Tugboat

Natural Disasters: Earthquake, Haku, Dino Bravo, Barbarian

Before the match starts, the announcers point out that it’s Warrior against 5 guys at the moment. I love how they don’t even try to imply that it’ll be anything other than faces vs. heels. It makes sense for the heel team that survived together to be together though, and DiBiase would side with whoever had the better odds. Warrior of course would go into a 5-1 contest thinking he’s the favorite too, so this somehow makes sense.

All four faces get their own entrances, and it amuses me to think that without Hogan, this team is little more than glorified jobbers. Boss Man would be getting a huge singles push soon, but for reasons that I flat out never got, he didn’t get the IC belt from Perfect at Summerslam. He just annihilated every member of the Heenan Family to get that match and then he won by DQ, never getting another major shot. He slowly became a jobber after that and then went to WCW.

It really was odd indeed. Tugboat would be leaving for WCW in a few years, becoming the legendary Shockmaster. Hogan of course gets a massive pop. Piper can’t understand the Hogan chant. Gorilla points it out to him and you can tell Piper is legit embarrassed. We start with Duggan and Haku. Haku is jumping off the ropes. Not bad since he weighs almost 300.

Over to Dino Bravo, who has to be the biggest waste of a wrestler of all time. He’s just pointless. What did this guy ever do other than having a fake championship? Dang Jimmy Hart had some sweet jackets. Boss Man comes in and Haku hits a SWEET dropkick. He nails him right in the head with it. Of course it barely hurts him and Boss Man takes him out with the Boss Man Slam. He then runs over at the heel corner to beat up all three other guys. That’s either brilliant or very, very stupid.

It’s Barbarian next and Boss Man is beating the heck out of him too. DAng why did he never win the IC belt? That just makes no sense. That move that I mentioned Shawn doing earlier apparently isn’t so rare as Barbarian tries it as well. Now Duggan is back in. Seriously, we’re 6 minutes in and it’s been Duggan and Boss Man for the faces the whole time. Duggan tries to knock down Earthquake but just can’t do it.

Eventually he gets the top rope pulled down by Jimmy Hart and picks up the board. Then, because he’s a genius, he whacks Earthquake with it to be eliminated. Dude, you’re an IDIOT! Seriously, he just ran in and hit him with it. Where is the thought process from either him or the booker here? It’s just random attacking that makes no sense. After that, Hogan immediately runs in for the showdown. Unlike the previous match, this actually happens.

Hogan had already won at Summerslam, but it was just by count out. He easily slams him as the crowd is wild. The fans were just WAY into Hogan in a way that’s insane. Hogan hits the classic 10 punches in the corner which needs to be done more often. It’s one of the easiest ways possible to get cheered. Of course it has no effect and Hogan is in trouble. I’ve always loved Earthquake’s powerslam.

He does that little thing where he hooks in the guy’s head right before he slams the guy and it just always works. Quake running on his knees to the corner is kind of funny looking. See, that worked. It was about a minute and a half long but it was at least solid contact. Hogan takes Bravo out with a small package. Piper curses again as Tugboat still hasn’t been in. Piper has a great line: Boy that Hulk Hogan is almost as smart as Roddy Piper. Is that true? I’m not sure.

Anyway, in one of the maybe 10 moves ever that have made my jaw drop, Boss Man, weighing well over 300lbs, goes to the top and comes off with a cross body. EARTHQUAKE CATCHES HIM WITH EASE. He doesn’t stumble, he doesn’t almost drop him, he catches him clean. That was absolutely amazing. Earthquake takes him out with a pair of elbows.

AGAIN Hogan is in. Gorilla literally forgets about Tugboat. That’s just funny. He has to be injured or something like that. They imply he’s been in but if he was I blinked and missed it. The fans are either chanting TOOT or booing him out of the building. I’m not sure which. Oh he’s finally in by the way. He and Quake “brawl” to the floor and both are out. He was legal less than 45 seconds. Yeah, definitely thinking injury there.

Oh well, at least it lasted longer than the helmet stayed on. Ok, so for no apparent reason, we’re down to Hogan and Barbarian. Uh, why? Why is this not Hogan and Earthquake? That’s your main feud, Hogan has already beaten him once and it wasn’t clean and you could argue that a one on one win here wouldn’t be clean either. I don’t get the point of it not being Hogan and Quake. Barbarian tries a piledriver but it wasn’t that good at all.

We get the WAY too common Hogan double clothesline spot that I’m hating more and more every time. Barbarian gets a great big boot to the face. I’m liking him more and more every match he has. He hits the top rope clothesline that was his de facto finisher and Gorilla is surprised that Hogan kicks out. Again, do I need to make fun of that? The Hulk Up begins and you know what’s coming next. Piper talks about how real men wear kilts. That’s why I don’t wear one.

Some annoying fan is screaming really high pitched and it’s annoying me. Hogan immediately beats up Heenan to no commentary. That was random and over the top violence. Some role model eh? Posing goes on for way too long as Piper again talks about how pro-American he is. It’s ok I suppose though.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t awful but it wasn’t great. The ending was a bit odd but we knew Hogan would win it. The Boss Man looked dominant as it took a kick from Barbarian who was on the apron to slow him down. Tugboat I guess was hurt? Either way he would become Typhoon soon enough I guess and then on to being the Shockmaster. Can we get this guy a good gimmick? Anyway, the match was just ok, but I’m not sure why it was booked like it was. Same result though so that’s fine.

Ad for the Royal Rumble. I can’t wait for that.

Fans talk about who they’re here to see. Um, ok? There’s an 8 or so year old on there that is FIRED UP! A very cool thing, we have a guy signing who he wants to win. Anyone that can speak sign language is awesome to me.

Randy Savage comes out and talks about wanting the title back from Warrior. This is setting the stage for the eventual epic showdown at Mania 7, as well as the reunion with Liz which is one of it not the most emotional moments in wrestling history. This is completely over the top and likely very cocaine induced.

Mercenaries vs. Alliance

Mercenaries: Sgt. Slaughter, Boris Zhukov, Orient Express

Alliance: Nikolai Volkoff, Tito Santana, Bushwackers

So yeah Nikolai is the captain of a team. That’s just amusing. Piper says the last egg he saw that was that big was the one Milli Vanilli laid, which has Gorilla about to completely lose it on air. This is the jobber match of the evening, although Slaughter would be about to get the world title in January. This was the patriotic match if you can’t tell. I guess it’s the everyone but American team vs. the team with only one American who hates America team.

They keep talking about the egg. I’ll save the surprise for you though. Slaughter is an Iraqi sympathizer here and has some old dude from the AWA with him. Eventually he’d pick up the Iron Sheik and they would be the least feared stable of all time. Gene catches up with Slaughter in the aisle (like that was a hard thing to do) and Slaughter says that he and his men had a good turkey dinner while the soldiers in the Middle East had a bad holiday.

This took three minutes somehow. Slaughter was going really far with this gimmick and it was actually very controversial and to this day it’s still a bit rough. This is the original Orient Express, meaning the far worse one. It wouldn’t be until the masked Kato came in that the team got very exciting and started tearing the house down with the Rockers on a regular basis. Boris is gone in less than a minute to the forearm of Tito.

Good to see that in 4 years Boris has risen so high above jobber status. It makes me wonder why he keeps getting spots on people’s teams. Sato of the Orient Express comes in and beats the tar out of Tito, but Butch of all people beats him up. The other Orient Express guy is tagged in, but the Bushwackers hit the Battering Ram on the non legal guy and pin him so it’s 4-2. Holy crap Tito is tagged in and after two and a half minutes it’s 4-1. Geez.

Anyway, it’s now the only guy that could actually do anything in this match, Sgt. Slaughter, vs. all four guys. It’s captain vs. captain to start with Slaughter vs. Volkoff. The Russian/American/Lithuanian is on offense for all of 10 seconds and now Slaughter is killing him. I’ve never gotten why he was considered any good. I guess it’s his gimmick that carried him. That makes sense. In a fairly unique move, Slaughter gets a side headlock and runs his head into the turnbuckle. I like that.

He hits a bad dropkick and then after spitting on him, an elbow pins him. Well that was pretty freaking weak. The Bushwackers run in and double team him but it lasts about 20 seconds and a stomach breaker ends Luke. Yeah it’s one of those kinds of matches. Butch is gone about 30 seconds after that so we get down to 1-1, with the two most talented guys in the match, in less than 7 minutes.

Tito hits the forearm from the top but of course that doesn’t end it, nor is it even acknowledged as a huge move. More or less, this came down to a one on one match, which is what it likely should have been the whole time, even though there’s no heat between these two. Piper makes some racial stereotypes about Latinos as Tito gets beaten on even more.

After about two minutes of Slaughter beating on him, he hits the forearm to bring us right back to where we started. The referee gets bumped and Sheik runs in and hits Tito for the DQ to make Tito the winner. Ok I guess, but this was just a weird match overall.

Rating: F. This had no business being 4-4. It had a talented guy on both teams and it wound up being 1-1 as it likely should have been all along. The other 6 were just window dressing and they meant nothing at all. This was a horrible Survivor Series match, but a decent little three and a half minute one on one match. However, that’s not how it was billed, so this was a failure.

The heel team for the Grand Finale says exactly what you would expect them to say. Actually just Martel and DiBiase talk but that’s likely the best choice.

And now it’s time for the white elephant in the room: the egg. For weeks if not months now, this thing has been around. The idea was the more lively the crowd gets, the faster it will hatch. As stupid and contrived of a concept as that is, we can go with that. Gene gets to be the master of ceremonies here for lack of a better term. All over what would evolve into the IWC back then, the speculation was on. Could it be Undertaker debuting? What about Ric Flair?

That was actually a very real possibility, even though he wouldn’t be there for about a year. Maybe a manager or a celebrity? No one knew. There was a rumor that it was the returning Jesse Ventura. Seriously, this was a secret that Vince actually kept very well for a change. That would turn out to be a good thing. The idea of who laid the egg was never touched on, but this egg was about 8 feet long so there had to be a person inside of it.

Gene speculates that it could be a dinosaur, a rabbit, or balloons. WHAT THE HECK? Number one, A FREAKING DINOSAUR? Come on Gene. Second, rabbits are mammals, and therefore don’t hatch. Balloons? Why would inanimate objects be in an egg? He also speculates it could be this month’s Playboy playmate. Yeah that’s even dumber. Gene’s acting here is flat out awful but he’s trying his best given what he’s working with.

The egg hatches and there he is: the Gobbledygooker. Yes, after over 6 weeks of buildup, it’s a guy in a turkey suit. WOW. After all that, it’s a stupid Thanksgiving mascot. Needless to say, this is booed out of the freaking building. Monsoon and Piper have the very fun job of trying to care at all. They apparently weren’t told what it was going to be. Gene makes bad jokes to try to pass the time.

It takes two minutes to get out of the eggs and now he’s making turkey sounds. Somehow Gene knows its name. Gene understands him too. Now, to make this even dumber, we get a rock version of Turkey in the Straw, and they go to the ring. It’s never explained if the turkey is male or female. Amazingly, the turkey can jump the top rope. Piper tries to imply that the kids like this guy as I feel so sorry for him.

As if that’s not enough, Gooker and Gene commence to dance in the middle of the ring. I kid you not, they begin to square dance. Gene rolls around after Gooker does some tumbling. Okerlund hitting the ropes and falling is the funniest part of this. The booing is off the charts here as Gorilla tries his hardest to make this passable. This goes on for EIGHT MINUTES. I kid you not, this segment almost went into double digits on the clock.

They leave, and the Gooker is crowned the worst gimmick of all time. Seriously, what in the heck was the point of this thing? They built it up for months so it’s not like they couldn’t have changed it at the last minute. They had all kinds of time to make this into something at least interesting. Given that it’s a massive egg, there’s only so much that they could do with it, but dang man seriously? This was the best they could come up with?

There’s a reason he made like two house show appearances and then wasn’t seen again for 11 years. Hector Guerrero deserves a medal for doing this. And Vince wonders why he was in serious financial trouble at this time.

The face team for the final match says they’ll survive. This takes about two and a half minutes as you can tell they’re stalling for time.

Grand Finale Match of Survival

Heels: DiBiase, Martel, Power and Glory, Warlord

Faces: Hogan, Warrior, Santana

Seriously, that’s the best name they could come up with? The ending here is fairly obvious and I’m not sure what the point of this was. DiBiase was a midcard guy by this point and he’s easily the biggest star on the team. The intros of course take forever so since the end of the gimmick segment, we’ve killed almost 8 minutes with intros and interviews. That’s not half bad. This might have been done by Vince to keep the fans from realizing that this is, say it with me, COMPLETELY POINTLESS!

Piper gets some sneaky lines in saying that he could care less about this and that the show is horrible. Warlord is out in less than 30 seconds to a forearm. Tito goes for it again on DiBiase but he crashes and burns. Gorilla saying missed it made me laugh. A stun gun takes out Santana about 8 seconds after that. Now it’s Hogan vs. DiBiase and if this was two years ago this could main event Wrestlemania. Instead, no one is interested.

Power and Glory really was a solid idea for a team. It might have worked had they both not sucked so much. What follows is about five minutes of jobber offense with the occasional elimination here and there. You know the faces are both going to survive and the fans know it too. Hogan was just not what he used to be at this point as the act was old.

He had been doing the same thing for over 6 years now, so of course Vince would keep using it for another year before the best idea he ever had next year, which we’ll get to tomorrow. After Hogan no sells the Power Plex, Roma is out to a clothesline. Yes I said a clothesline. HOW IN THE WORLD WAS HE A HORSEMAN??? Martel gets annihilated by Warrior after a hot tag but he bails after Hogan and Warrior beat on him forever.

So let me get this straight. We have a guy that was at his peak two years ago, and a guy that used to hate him because DiBiase called him his slave. Of course, that’s not mentioned here. DiBiase goes out to the big boot and legdrop and Hercules takes the splash of death to end him and end this horrid show. Hercules walked in, got powerslammed, clotheslined twice, shoulder block, splash. It took about 20 seconds. Massive roided up posing takes us out.

Rating: D-. Seriously, WHAT WAS THE POINT TO THIS? It’s just the big faces beating up on jobbers for 9 minutes. The fans aren’t interested, clearly, but Vince refused to do anything different and that’s why it sucked.

Overall Rating: F. This show was AWFUL. The first match made no sense from a booking perspective, the second is only important for historical aspects and not the wrestling involved, the third is a freaking squash match that made NO SENSE, the fourth is Hogan doing his old routine, and the fifth is a one on one match billed as a Survivor Series match.

The Gooker was SO STUPID and the finale was a waste of 9 minutes because Vince didn’t want to think. That’s how I would summarize this show: uninspired. It’s just there and NOTHING HAPPENS ON IT. Taker debuts, but no one knew that he would become what he is today. This whole thing was just a waste of time and the concept was a failure to this point, and that was the case for one clear reason: other than the first show, no heel team ever won a major match.

The first Survivor Series worked because the ending was a big surprise. Hogan…lost…on PPV…that just did not happen in big matches back then, period. Since then though, the faces have dominated every time. This could have been a huge show every year but instead, Vince decided to just push his top faces even harder which ultimately hurt business badly.

The buyrate for this show was horrid and Vince FINALLY woke up and did a more traditional show the next year with Hogan vs. Taker, which was interesting to say the least, but we’ll save that for tomorrow. Even I, the old school enthusiast that I am, say SCREW THIS SHOW. It’s just awful all around and not worth your time. Check out Taker’s match for the historical aspect and a passable match, but other than that go watch an old Thunder.

 

 

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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 18, 1993
Location: Manhattan Center, New York City, New York
Attendance: 1,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Randy Savage, Rob Bartlett

This is the less famous show, as it’s kind of hard to follow a famous debut. Now we get to see where Raw can go from there, as have another live show, which is also the go home show for the Royal Rumble. This is getting into some mostly forgotten territory and that can make for some fun moments. Let’s get to it.

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

Rob Bartlett rips up a picture of Bobby Heenan and says “fight the real enemy” in a reference to Sinead O’Connor on Saturday Night Live about three months earlier. This isn’t funny.

Repo Man jumps Randy Savage and steals his hat. That feels like your big angle for the show.

Opening sequence.

Mr. Perfect vs. Terry Taylor

Taylor is replacing Papa Shango for no apparent reason. Bartlett talks about his car, so Vince says Perfect is “a man who doesn’t need a parking space”. Perfect takes Taylor down and unfortunately doesn’t laugh at him about getting the Red Rooster instead of Mr. Perfect back in 1988. Taylor tells him to “show me something big daddy” so Perfect slaps him in the face. A dropkick puts Taylor on the floor as Savage rants about how he has been hit harder than that and wants Repo Man.

Back in and Perfect snaps off a headlock takeover as Bobby Heenan calls in to complain about Bartlett’s photo ripping. An armdrag into an armbar has Taylor in more trouble as Savage thinks Heenan sent Repo Man after his hat. We take a break and come back with Taylor using the single to send Perfect outside as Heenan sings the praises of Ric Flair. Vince cuts the call, but only after Heenan reveals that it is a collect call so Vince is getting the bill.

Taylor snapmares him down into a chinlock before catching Perfect in a spinebuster. Bartlett: “Can’t we all just get along?” Savage: “I don’t think so.” A slugout goes to Perfect as commentary switches over to the Royal Rumble. Perfect hits an atomic drop into the necksnap…but here’s Ric Flair for a distraction. The referee argues with Taylor so Flair can hammer away on the floor. Back in and Taylor tries a suplex but gets reversed into the PerfectPlex (not a superplex Vince) for the pin at 9:24.

Rating: C+. Perfect had an awesome 1993 as the face run worked very well. This was a good example of what he could do, and it helped that he was in there against a good hand like Taylor. The Flair interference will set up more with Perfect, though him shrugging off everything Flair did and easily pinning Taylor was a nice ending.

Here is WWF Champion Bret Hart for a chat. He can handle Razor Ramon talking about him but he doesn’t like Razor jumping Owen Hart or talking about slapping his father. Bret thinks any wrestler would respect Stu Hart, who is 78 years old. Razor is the lowest scum of the World Wrestling Federation and you have to tilt the barrel over to see him. This title says he is the best wrestler, but the rule book is going out the window at the Royal Rumble. The Hart Family name will redeem himself and Razor will find out why he is the champion. Very to the point promo here and it sold the idea of the match just fine.

Paul Bearer and Undertaker want you to help put a Headlock on Hunger in Somalia. That’s a weird thing to hear from them but charity is always good.

Marty Jannetty vs. Glen Ruth

That would be the future Headbanger Thrasher, who is unrecognizable with hair and no face paint. Ruth sends him into the corner to start but charges into an elbow, setting up a middle rope bulldog. The armdrag sets up an armbar as Bartlett thinks Shawn Michaels is in Yokozuna’s corner for reasons of Bartlett not being great at this job. Shawn actually calls in to talk about his upcoming Intercontinental Title defense against Jannetty.

Michaels takes credit for the Rockers’ success as the armbarring is on again. Since he isn’t in much danger, Marty stops to yell at the camera about how he’s going to win the title. The third armbar goes on as commentary goes over their list of un-adjectives about the show, with Bartlett screwing it up again. A hammerlock takes Ruth down as Shawn wraps up the call, with Vince sounding pleased. Ruth tries a comeback but gets caught in the Rocker Dropper for the pin at 5:16.

Rating: D. This was very dull as it was Marty working the arm for four minutes before finishing Ruth, seemingly out of boredom. It was all there for the sake of the Shawn call, which wasn’t exactly top level stuff anyway. I was rather bored here and it didn’t exactly make me want to keep going with the show.

We look at Doink the Clown attacking Crush with a fake arm on Superstars in an angle that took them all the way to Wrestlemania.

WWF Mania is caffeine free! Yeah they’re stretching for ideas with that show.

Sean Mooney is outside and finds Repo Man, who puts on Savage’s hat. Savage is late on his payments (Who buys a hat on credit?) and Repo Man doesn’t like Savage ignoring him. That’s cool with Savage, who is ready to go right now but Repo Man says he has his hat. Repo Man: “You want to wrestle?” This was rather low on the talking pole for both guys.

It’s time for the Royal Rumble Report, with Razor Ramon mocking Bret Hart being so upset. We get a quick rundown of the rest of the card to wrap this up in a hurry.

Randy Savage runs outside to find Repo Man but winds up with traffic around him instead.

El Matador vs. Ric Flair

This should be good as Tito Santana can still go with anyone and an annoyed Savage is back for the bell. Santana drives him into the corner to start as Vince talks about Bret Hart being on Live With Regis And Kathy Lee. A slam sets up a headlock to have Flair in trouble as the New York crowd is WAY behind Ric. The trouble continues for Flair and we take an early break.

Back with Flair blocking a monkey flip out of the corner as things settle down a bit. There’s the big running knee as Flair stops to shout down at Savage on commentary. The right hands in the corner fire Santana up enough to score with a backdrop, allowing Bartlett to say Flair has fallen and can’t get up. Flair pokes him in the eye and goes up, only to get slammed right back down. The Flair Flip in the corner lets Flair fall out to the floor, setting up a running knee back inside. Santana scores with the flying forearm to put them both on the floor….and here is Mr. Perfect to jump Flair for the DQ at 9:47.

Rating: C+. This is what happens when you can put talented wrestlers in the ring together and let them have some time. Santana was past the peak of his career but he was still more than capable of working at a high level. The ending was fine too, as Santana was just an opponent to keep Flair busy before the important stuff, but at least he was a good opponent.

Post match the brawl is on and they head to the back as we take a break. Post break they fight back into the arena until security breaks it up. Flair goes on a rant about how this place isn’t big enough for the both of them. Next week, he wants a match with Perfect where the loser leaves the WWF. Flair going over to kiss some girl in the audience mid-rant is as Flair as it gets.

With Flair gone, Perfect comes out to say he’s in.

Repo Man, still with Savage’s hat, tows Bartlett’s car away. Bartlett had been asking about his car all show, but I had been ignoring it because it was, you know, stupid.

Overall Rating: C. They took things in a bit of a different direction this week and it worked out fairly well. The opening and closing matches were both good, though the Jannetty match was so dull. We also got a focus on the Royal Rumble and some angles this week, though Perfect vs. Flair was balanced out by Repo Man stealing a hat. We’ll call it in the middle, but WOW this was different than anything else going at the moment and that is a good thing.

 

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WrestleFest 1990
Host: Sean Mooney
Commentators: Sean Mooney, Lord Alfred Hayes, Gorilla Monsoon, Hillbilly Jim, Tony Schiavone

This is the kind of thing that I love to watch: a compilation video featuring a bunch of stuff from television tapings which is cobbled together with almost nothing in the way of a theme. There might be a wrestler getting a few matches in a row, but this is kind of a sampler platter of the company at this point in time. Let’s get to it.

Sean Mooney welcomes us to the show and runs down the lineup, including a profile of the Hart Foundation. Mooney promising that the Harts will “calmly” discuss their recent matches and then seeing a clip of Jim Neidhart talking a mile a minute was funny.

From Miami on January 22, 1990.

Randy Savage vs. Roddy Piper

Yeah this should work. Savage yells a lot to start while Piper stands in the middle of the ring. Sherri offers a distraction and tries to look up Piper’s kilt, earning herself a spank. An attempted kick to Piper sees her leg swatted away, sending both her and her shoes flying. That’s finally enough to get Savage to come off the top with an ax handle to get things going but Piper clotheslines him right back down.

A sunset flip gives Piper two and a not great looking small package is good for the same. Savage tries to bail but gets pulled back inside, only to have a Sherri distraction let him jump Piper from behind. Now the top rope ax handle works far better and a second one connects on the floor to put Piper down again. Sherri even gets in a high kick to the back of Piper’s head (impressive when she’s in a dress and high heels) so Savage can choke away back inside.

Piper catches him on top though and gets Savage in the yet to be named Tree of Woe for some….well something involving Savage’s face. We go old school with an airplane spin to drop Savage for two, who is right back with an airplane spin of his own (and even faster, because Savage is very competitive). Savage is so dizzy that he falls out of the ring, with Piper following him out and hammering away even more. Sherri tries the save and it’s a double countout at 9:29.

Rating: C. The match wasn’t great but the people involved alone was more than enough to make this work. What really stood out though was Savage turning an airplane spin into a contest, which is so totally appropriate for him. It wasn’t a classic or anything, but this is a pairing between two all time masters and that’s worth seeing.

Post match Piper grabs the sleeper on Savage and then another on Sherri. That’s broken up (with the camera getting a rather long/gratuitous shot of Sherri’s dress coming up, which is rather risque in 1990) and Piper grabs a belt to clean house.

We have a fan requested match, with Dino Bravo and Ultimate Warrior both promising to win.

From Tuscon, Arizona (that’s what Mooney says, though everything else I see says Phoenix) on February 13.

Intercontinental Title: Dino Bravo vs. Ultimate Warrior

Bravo is challenging and has Jimmy Hart and Earthquake (in that hideous brown gear) with him. They start fast with Warrior snapping off a powerslam and adds a top rope ax handle to make it worse. Back up and Bravo can’t get anywhere off a shoulder block so Warrior sends him into the corner again. Earthquake offers a distraction though and Bravo clotheslines Warrior out to the floor. That’s fine with Warrior, who chases Hart underneath the ring and….yeah Hart comes out missing his pants.

Back in and Warrior hits a suplex but the Warrior Splash hits knees. The test of strength puts Warrior down and a bearhug makes it even worse. Warrior reverses into one of his own but gets broken up in a hurry. Bravo misses an elbow so Warrior hits a slam, only to come up holding his back. Mooney isn’t sure what’s wrong, apparently forgetting the last three minutes. Some ax handles to the back trigger the Warrior Up and there is the clothesline comeback. The Warrior Splash connects and draws in Earthquake for the DQ at 8:12.

Rating: D. You mean to tell me that DINO BRAVO can’t take a pin from the Intercontinental Champion and the guy who would be WWF Champion in less than two months? In something you don’t get to say very often, Warrior deserves better than that, as it’s not like Bravo has ever meant anything, whether he is in or outside of Canada.

Post match the beatdown is on until Earthquake loads up the middle rope Earthquake, drawing out Hulk Hogan for the save. This was shown during the hype video at Wrestlemania.

It’s time for the Manager’s Profile, this time on Mr. Fuji, who likes his wrestlers to hurt people. We see some clips of Fuji N Pals beating up wrestlers, plus Fuji himself cheating to run a 5K race over Wrestlemania V weekend. This seems to be it, as there isn’t much to say about Fuji most of the time.

Brutus Beefcake is ready for Rick Martel, who won’t leave as pretty as he came in.

Rick Martel knows he is better looking than Brutus Beefcake and has what it takes to back it up.

From New York City on December 28, 1989.

Brutus Beefcake vs. Rick Martel

Martel hits the stall button to start, allowing Beefcake to take his gear off. We get into a mini pose off with Martel not being happy that the fans aren’t impressed with his (better) physique. Beefcake slowly strips his shirt off and Martel finally charges, right into a hiptoss for the first contact about two and a half minutes in. The threat of a right hand sends Martel bailing to the floor though and it’s time for more stalling.

Back in and they circle each other some more until Martel offers a handshake. Note that we’ve had a hiptoss and slam in the four minutes of the match so far, which has felt rather fine as they have kept it entertaining. That is such a lost art today and they are making it work well here. They do shake hands but Beefcake kicks him in the ribs and hammers away in the corner as we finally get out of pre-gear.

Martel’s monkey flip attempt is countered with a kick to the face and there’s a head knocker to make it worse. An atomic drop gets Martel out of trouble and Martel slowly starts stomping away. The chinlock goes on as they don’t exactly seem interested in doing much in the way of physicality tonight.

Beefcake fights up and gets two off a small package but Martel hits a backbreaker. For some reason Martel goes up, allowing Beefcake to shake the rope for the (always hilarious from Martel) crotching. The atomic drop does it again but Beefcake is sent to the apron. Beefcake tries a sunset but Martel drops down and grabs the ropes for the cheating pin at 12:38.

Rating: C-. This wasn’t exactly thrilling with neither of them being that interested in trying. You can stall a lot and get a good amount out of very little, but they weren’t exactly doing that here. That being said, this was about as late 80s of a WWF match as you could get, with two guys in great shape not really doing much. I can always go for that, and the match could have been a lot worse.

Post match Beefcake keeps hammering away and grabs the sleeper. The scissors are loaded up but Bobby Heenan runs in to save Martel from a haircut.

Now it’s time for a profile on the Hart Foundation, which should bring things up a bit.

The Hart Foundation isn’t sure if they’re happy with being profiled, as Bret Hart thinks it is cool but Jim Neidhart loses it over the idea of not being Tag Team Titles. To our first match!

From Miami, Florida on January 23.

Hart Foundation vs. Powers of Pain

We pause for Bret to give his sunglasses to an older lady at ringside before Neidhart and Barbarian get things going. They shove each other around until Barbarian kicks him in the ribs. An exchange of shoulders doesn’t go anywhere but Neidhart manages to knock him down to take over. Bret comes in to pick up the pace and it’s quickly back to Neidhart for an armbar. Barbarian knocks him down though and brings in Warlord, who misses an elbow drop.

The Harts take turns on Warlord’s arm but Bret gets pulled into the wrong corner. Warlord hits an elbow to the back, setting up Barbarian’s jumping headbutt to keep Bret in trouble. Some choking on the ropes makes it worse and Barbarian forearms away at the back. Bret gets his feet up in the corner though and the tag brings in Neidhart to clean house. A air of shoulders put Warlord down and Barbarian elbows him by mistake in a save attempt. Everything breaks down with Mr. Fuji hitting Warlord with his cane by mistake, though it’s a countout to give the Harts the win at 10:36 anyway.

Rating: C. It’s a little weird to see a featured team winning via countout but it’s better than a loss. The Powers of Pain weren’t exactly the most versatile team in the world but they were big and strong enough to be rather good villains for something like this. The Harts made this work and Neidhart could match power with the two of them, though it was only going to be so good.

The Harts don’t think much of their next opponents, who are just lacking experience.

From Oakland, California on August 8, 1989.

Hart Foundation vs. Honky Tonk Man/Dino Bravo

Honky Tonk Man and Bravo have Jimmy Hart in their corner. Bret and Bravo start things off with a hard shoulder giving Bravo the good opening. Back up and Bret sends him into the ropes for a clothesline from Neidhart, setting up a crossbody for two. It’s off to Honky Tonk Man so Neidhart comes in for the shoulders to the ribs. We hit the bearhug, which is broken up in a hurry thanks to a rake to the eyes.

Bravo comes back in for an atomic drop and draws Bret (who was looking at the crowd for no apparent reason) so some double teaming can put Neidhart in more trouble. The reverse chinlock doesn’t last long so Honky Tonk Man elbows him down instead. A fist drop misses though for Honky Tonk Man though (I wonder if his cousin could teach him better) and Bret gets the tag to clean house. Bret scores with the middle rope elbow for two and everything breaks down. The megaphone is tossed in and Neidhart steals it to knock out the villains for the DQ at 8:57.

Rating: C-. What is with this selection of matches for the Harts? I know they have had some better stretches but you can’t show them getting a pin over a couple of Jimmy Hart’s guys? Bravo and Honky Tonk Man were about as lame a pair of opponents as you could have found and I didn’t quite buy the idea that they were going to win. Granted the Harts didn’t get pinned, but Bravo can’t take a fall in a tag match?

The Harts aren’t overly impressed by the Rockers.

From Springfield, Massachusetts on August 29, 1989.

Hart Foundation vs. Rockers

Well ok. Bret and Marty (that could have been a heck of a singles match) start things off but don’t make any contact just yet. We get the lockup with Bret driving him into the ropes and of course giving us a clean break. Hayes thinks these guys have watched tapes, probably Coliseum Video tapes of course, to know what to expect, which in this case would be Jannetty hitting a crossbody. Shawn comes in and starts working on Bret’s arm, with the referee asking if Bret wants to submit. Mooney: “That is something I don’t think we will ever see.” Especially against Shawn Michaels.

Bret gets over to Neidhart, who plants Shawn for a fast two and grabs a chinlock. That’s broken up and Shawn manages to flip away from Bret, who gets slammed down. Neidhart comes back in for a heck of a dropkick and a near fall. Michaels avoids a splash but charges into Bret’s knee in the corner, only to have Bret miss a middle rope elbow. That’s enough for the hot tag to Jannetty and the pace picks up all over again.

Jannetty powerslams Bret for two and the double dropkick gets the same with Neidhart making the save. A clothesline gets Bret out of trouble and it’s back to Neidhart to run Shawn over. In the melee, Bret gets knocked hard into the barricade…and here are the Rougeaus to jump the Rockers for the DQ at 11:17.

Rating: B-. The ending was a little annoying but I get the idea of not wanting either of these two to take a loss. The Rockers were rapidly rising the card and the Harts were almost done with their road to redemption. When in a pinch, have the annoying heels come in to be a nuisance.

Post match the big brawl is on with the Rougeaus being cleared out.

We get a pretty cool look at all of the production trucks that take everything from one arena to another. I remember being fascinated by this when I was a kid.

From New York, New York on January 15, 1990.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Mr. Perfect

Perfect, with the Genius, is challenging and we’re in the Garden. Hogan powers him into the corner to start and then slams Perfect down in a hurry. Genius comes in and gets crushed by a flying Perfect, followed by the atomic drop for the rather funny sell. Hogan knocks Perfect into the ropes, with his head getting caught in between. More right hands send Perfect flying outside before Hogan tosses him back inside for the huge bump off the turnbuckle.

Perfect finally gets in a kick to the face for a breather before sending Hogan outside. The threat of a posting takes too long though and Hogan whips him in instead, allowing Perfect to continue his pinball impression. Like any good villain, Perfect goes to the eyes and we hit the sleeper. Perfect lets him go though and heads up for some questionable posing, allowing Hogan to shake the ropes for a crotching. Bouncing ensues to make things work and there’s a kick to the leg to send Perfect flying.

Hogan misses an elbow and gets caught in the PerfectPlex, which means it’s time for the Hulk Up. The big boot sends Perfect outside with Hogan following, where he has to avoid a big chair shot. Perfect gets thrown back in and pulls out a foreign object to knock Hogan off the apron and out cold for….not the countout. Instead, Hogan comes back in and takes the object from Perfect to knock him out. The legdrop connects but the referee DQ’s Hogan at 13:39.

Rating: C+. These two always worked well together, with a lot of that being based on Perfect bouncing around like crazy for Hogan every time. I’m not sure how much of a real threat Perfect was looking back, but he was as good of a challenger as Hogan had at this point. They even left the door open for a rematch here, which I’m sure took up some nice space on the marquee.

Hogan being stunned at the DQ while he still has the object on his fist is as Hogan as it gets. The villains escape the threat of another beating so posing can ensue.

From Sacramento, California on March 6, 1990.

Ultimate Warrior/Jake Roberts vs. Akeem/Ted DiBiase

Now this is the Coliseum Video kind of match I’ve been waiting on. Big Boss Man is guest referee to boost the star power a bit more, with the announcement being treated as a big deal. Mooney points out that Akeem and Boss Man are former partners to keep up the tension. Roberts can’t get far on DiBiase’s arm to start so he goes with punching DiBiase in the face.

The threat of the DDT sends DiBiase bailing out to the floor as we’re already on a breather. Back in and DiBiase gets sent shoulder first into the buckle, meaning that the arm cranking works that much better. Another DDT attempt sends DiBiase outside and now it’s off to Akeem for a change. Some shots to the arm slow Akeem down in a hurry, allowing Warrior to come in for a jumping shoulder.

That’s not enough to set up the DDT though as Akeem backdrops him down. Akeem chokes away in the corner but gets yelled at by Boss Man, meaning DiBiase can come in and stomp away instead. The running crotch attack to the back on the ropes crushes Roberts again but he jawbreakers DiBiase away. The short arm clothesline drops DiBiase and there’s the hot tag to Warrior. House is cleaned and the Warrior Splash finishes DiBiase at 6:47.

Rating: D+. I’m not sure if I can call this disappointing as it’s not like a match like this is going to have very high expectations. It’s a good example of how to send the fans home happy on a video release, especially after the heroes have not had the best time with this one. Warrior barely did anything here, but at least we got the DDT to finish things off.

Post match the brawl is on with Roberts DDTing Virgil and whipping out Damien for a bonus.

Mooney wraps us up.

Overall Rating: C. The wrestling was pretty typical for this era but what matters the most here is the star power. This was a near who’s who of this time for the WWF and I had a good time with the whole thing. I had a good time with it and that’s the idea, as this was the Coliseum Video formula: put out a pretty random collection of wrestling with some star power and watch the money come in every month. Nice enough here, but as was the case most of the time, don’t expect to be blown away.

 

 

 

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Summerslam 1993
Date: August 30, 1993
Location: Palace of Auburn Hills, Auburn Hills, Michigan
Attendance: 23,954
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Vince McMahon

Well, it’s a different time for the WWF now, as there’s no Warrior, no Hogan and Savage is commentating. This presents a big problem: there’s no one to lead the company as the top face. After Hogan bailed and never put Bret over which is something that I know isn’t for sure as to whom to blame, but something still isn’t sitting right with me about it, Bret was the top face by default. However, the top heel was Yokozuna, who beat Bret already.

Due to his size and allegedly (nonsense) the fact that Bret couldn’t have a good match with him, Lex freaking Luger of all people is turned face to try to slay the giant. This all happens on the Fourth of July weekend on the USS Intrepid where there was a body slam contest. No one can manage to slam Zuna, and the contest allegedly ends.

OR DOES IT?

A helicopter lands on the boat and the fans chant for Hogan. Nope, not him. Macho Man? Already made an attempt. Ultimate Warrior? One last guess. …Andre the Giant? He’s already dead, so no one knows. It’s….Lex Luger? Yes, it’s Flexy Lexy, the guy that had been a pompous jerk of a heel since the day he got there. Apparently he’s now very proud to be an American and he wants to stand up for America and slam the AMERICAN Samoan.

Of course he does it to a huge pop and an instant mega face push. However, Yoko doesn’t want to give him a title match. So what’s a newly top face to do? Rent a bus and drive around the country of course! Yes, Luger comes up with the Lex Express and drives around the country meeting fans like he’s trying to win the 1872 Presidential election. It’s somehow dumber than it sounds as Luger even has a theme song called I’ll Be Your Hero.

This may in fact be the most obnoxious thing that has even been attempted by Vince McMahon. There’s pushing someone down our throats, and then there’s this. The one problem: Luger never won the belt. He never even pinned Yoko that I recall. He was supposed to get the epic win at Mania 10, but he got drunk at a bar the night before and blabbed the plans to everyone, so there was a last second change and Bret got the title to close Mania 10, leading to his real reign with the belt.

Luger was gone in about a year, running back to WCW where people got closer to caring about him. This is the first encounter with him and Yoko. Other than that, there’s really nothing going on at all. Bret and Lawler are finally starting their two year feud so that’s kind of the second big match on the card I guess. Let’s get to this.

Our opening is…a music video of Lex Luger and his trip around America. He wears stars and stripes shirts and sleeps with a folded up American flag in his arms. This actually could have been an epic victory for him, had he you know, WON THE FREAKING BELT! That’s what makes this look so bad in hindsight: he never won the title. Had he done that, it’s the payoff for all the over the top nature of this angle.

Ted DiBiase vs. Razor Ramon

The Million Dollar Man was done on PPV after this, injuring his neck early in 1994 and being forced to immediately retire. Razor here is mad over as he’s getting that big push that he’s most known for. Coming soon: the IC Title feud with Shawn that got Shawn his jump up the ladder and yes that was intentional. This is over DiBiase offering Razor a job as a servant and Razor having that pesky pride of his.

It’s cool because I reviewed the go home show of Raw a few weeks ago so I actually know some of the buildup for these matches, or at least what there is of it. Anyway, this is probably Razor’s biggest match to date. DiBiase is looking a bit chubby here. This match is really just kind of boring. DiBiase dominates for the majority of the match, which isn’t saying much as it runs about seven and a half minutes total.

It’s mainly just slow paced and standard DiBiase stuff which is fine as he’s always very solid, but the fans are just dead for this. Now near the end of the match, Ted takes the cover off of the buckle and gets slammed into it, leading to the Razor’s Edge. The crowd is losing it for this as I hardly ever remember seeing a crowd go from dead to insane that fast. Naturally this is the end of the match, and the end of DiBiase’s time in the ring.

While he was certainly far from his prime, he was hardly falling apart out there. His stuff was solid, but it might be good that he got out when he did, given the new direction the company was going in. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have had a place, but his style is slower and more thought out than what was wanted in the new era. It’s sad to see one of the greats have to go, especially when two days ago he was with his time as GM of Raw.

Rating: C-. It was a bit boring and that hurts it a lot. DiBiase was there to put Razor over and that’s exactly what he did, so points for that. Razor was on the rise and this was another match that put him over even more.

Todd Pettingill (the man that replaced Sean Mooney) is with the family of the Steiners, which is cool I think. He’s interrupted by Jim Cornette in the ring.

Tag Titles: Steiner Brothers vs. Heavenly Bodies

Steiners are the home town boys so their pop is of course epic. Now the Heavenly Bodies are an interesting subject. They were the Dudleys of Cornette’s Smokey Mountain Wrestling, meaning that they were the undisputed biggest thing there, but unlike the Dudleys, that didn’t translate in the big companies. As for SMW, that place rocked. All kinds of guys were there and a lot of them got over because of their work there.

Guys like Lance Storm, Kane, Jericho and Foley mixed with some veterans, some local guys and Cornette calling the shots, and how can you go wrong? The problem was the business as a whole was in deep trouble at that point and Cornette, while being successful to an extent, only lasted about four years. However, in those four years he co-promoted with Vince, which was a pretty big deal at the time. SMW could have worked very well, if the timing and business as a whole had been better.

Even still, it did quite well all things considered. Big brawl starts as the heels take over early but the Steiners start taking over as Scott takes over and dominates which is always fun to watch. He was the prototype for what the modern day athlete was supposed to be but due to what has to be steroid abuse, he’s now a shell of his former self. Cornette has a neck brace on for no reason at all.

Eventually the heels take over on Scott and you can put the rest together from there. We go to the melee with Rick taking over to fight off the forces of evil as the fans are freaking out for the hometown boys. After Rick gets his with the tennis racket and Scott saves him the Frankensteiner ends it.

Rating: B-. This was fine. It’s nothing special and was just a token defense but is that really a bad thing for the hometown boys? I certainly don’t think so. It’s about 10 minutes and the faces were in a bit of trouble, so what more can you ask for out of this? Solid little match that did its job well.

We go to some guy named Joe Fowler who is a new interviewer that I don’t ever remember again. He’s with Shawn and Diesel and asks about how Shawn can’t hold onto the belt and that Diesel got it back for him from Perfect. Fowler actually wasn’t that bad at this and while he was a bit too perky, he wasn’t awful.

IC Title: Mr. Perfect vs. Shawn Michaels

This is the blowoff of the feud that had been built up……….4 months ago. The buildup for this match was nothing short of a masterpiece but by the time they got to the match the interest was pretty much long gone. I’ve never figured out why they waited but I’d assume an injury or something like that. Either way it was a bad idea for waiting so long as it could have been the hottest feud in the business at the time.

Anyway, this is your main midcard match of the show. Perfect, even probably past his prime, still just rocks on all levels. We get a plug for Radio WWF out of nowhere which was one of the oddest ideas I’ve ever heard of. Ross and Monsoon would call the show on the radio. Heenan apparently gets hit in the eye by something and isn’t happy about it. Very fast sequence to start and it of course ends in a botch as I have no idea who did what or what they were going for but it looked absolutely horrid.

Anyway, they go into a standard sequence as they jockey for position and Heenan talks about how Diesel will be the big factor here. This referee counts WAY too fast. If he had worked for WCW they would have won the wars. After they go to the floor, Shawn lands a stiff thrust kick to Perfect’s chin. That kick was so sweet that it was almost like music. Shawn continues his perfect streak of being too loud about calling spots which gets annoying after awhile but is part of the business.

I’m kind of skipping over a lot but a good match makes me do that. There’s little to complain about here which makes it hard to come up with jokes. Perfect hits a move that I always thought would be insanely hard to pull off: a running dropkick. That just looks hard to do and makes Perfect look even better. The ending to this is just flat out bad. Perfect gets the Perfectplex but Diesel pulls him outside and they start fighting in what could have been a very interesting feud.

Anyway, Shawn jumps at Perfect but he gets punched for his efforts. Shawn rolls in and lands on the referee, breaking up the count, but after Diesel rams Perfect’s shoulder/head area into the post, the referee continues his count and we get a count out. That was either a botch or running out of time, either way it didn’t work.

If you want to do the screwjob finish then let Diesel interfere and let Shawn get the pin but don’t just go with the count out. Post match Perfect gets the double beatdown and Shawn says he’s the greatest IC Champion.

Rating: B-. This was a very fun albeit short match. This really could have been something good with more time and a finish. That being said it was far from bad with one pretty bad botch that was at least in the beginning of the match. It just was too short and I hated the ending though.

Fowler is with the 1-2-3 Kid who says he’s nervous but ready. Again, Fowler is too perky but he seems solid enough.

IRS vs. 1-2-3 Kid

This is the other feud that comes from DiBiase vs. Razor. Kid was the indy darling at the time and when he got signed what would become the IWC exploded in excitement. What the heck happened to this guy? He became so completely worthless later in his career. Kid was Colin Delaney of his day, but unlike Colin, Kid actually had some skill and would win some matches. He was also far less annoying.

This is really short and not that interesting as even the commentators don’t want to talk about it as you can hear. The big deal about it is that the fans make fun of IRS’ name. Eventually he hits a clothesline of all things to get the pin. That’s really the best they can come up with? Heenan makes some dumb jokes to end this.

Rating: F. No one cared, it wasn’t interesting, and it sucked. What kind of grade did you expect here?

Todd is with Bret’s family, namely Owen, who is rocking one of the worst mullets ever, and Bruce. Stu had knee surgery and can’t be there tonight. They talk about the Hart/Lawler feud, which leads us to this.

Bret Hart vs. Jerry Lawler

This is for the title (more like name) of undisputed king of the ring. There’s no real title or anything which is good. Bret is one of 12. DAng Stu was tearing it up yo. Lawler is on crutches as he comes out. Todd asks him what’s going on. Apparently he’s injured. Gee you think? Never would have been able to figure that out without the crutches, the ice pack on the knee or the limp. The heel heat that he gets is so basic and so good that it’s uncanny.

Lawler blames his injury on his car as he talks forever. Apparently he’s not allowed to wrestle here tonight. Vince is ticked off over this. Imagine, a guy changing the match at the last second, especially one over a knee injury in a Bret Hart match. Yep, Vince has every right to be upset. Instead, he’s going to let his court jester fight Bret instead. This leads to…

Bret Hart vs. Doink the Clown

This was random as all goodness. Doink had been just beating up jobbers and all of a sudden he’s fighting a former world champion at Summerslam? This made no sense and I’m still not sure why they picked him. He does his confetti/water trick, which leads to one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen at a wrestling show. He throws water on Bruce Hart, so Owen easily opens the railing up and walks through to ringside.

That’s a GREAT lesson to teach people: how to get past the guardrail. Anyway of course Bret is ticked off and beating on Doink early. The clown was such a great gimmick that it’s unreal. Think of the Joker from Batman and make him a wrestler. There’s Doink. This incarnation of him was someone that was a great wrestler that hid behind clown makeup because he was so mentally disturbed. How great of an idea is that?

He dominates most of the match which is Bret at his best: getting beaten up. Doink even puts an STFU on Bret as the young John Cena eats a sausage. He puts the Stump Puller on Bret and grabs the top rope for “additional leverage”. I get home sometimes that would help, but how in this case would that help?

Maybe I’m just missing something but I don’t see it at all. Here’s Bret’s comeback and you can connect the dots yourself here. Sharpshooter goes on, but GASP, Lawler comes in and hits Bret with the crutch! WHO THOUGHT THAT WOULD HAPPEN? Vince’s commentary here is hilarious as he’s panicking over this, thinking that such a thing could never happen.

Rating: B. This was actually pretty good. The in ring work with both guys was solid as Doink really was good in the ring, or at least until he turned face just after this match. Bret of course was great and Lawler made himself look evil here, continuing the feud that wouldn’t end until Summerslam 1995.

The heels head to the back but WAIT! JACK MOTHER TUNNEY is here to stop them! That leads us to this.

Bret Hart vs. Jerry Lawler

This is going to be quick. What are you expecting here? It’s maybe 5 minutes long and it’s Bret beating the tar out of him, a short heel dominance and a Sharpshooter for the tap out. The main thing here though is that Bret leaves the hold on for OVER THREE MINUTES as apparently he wants Lawler’s grandkids to have knee problems. A small army of suits and referees get rid of him but naturally the decision is reversed to give it to Lawler. Owen’s cowboy boots are making me crack up with laughter.

Rating: B+. It was Bret beating up his enemy which is always fun to see. That’s just not something you can’t beat as Lawler is such a great cowardly heel that working with Bret was perfect. The post match thing made you believe Lawler’s career was over, but this feud would go on for two years, on and off.

We see a promo from Borga, talking about how Luger is stupid for wanting to save America when it has slums like the one he’s in. This was I guess on location in inner Detroit.

Bret and co. says it’s not over with Lawler.

Ludvig Borga vs. Marty Jannetty

Oh dear this is going to be bad isn’t it? Borga is just a beast that was only there about 8 months before being let go for no apparent reason. It was rumored that he would take the title from Taker (not sure where he would have gotten it, maybe at the Rumble?) and then lose it to Luger at Mania 10. I’ve never heard any concrete plans on that but I’ve heard rumors similar to that too many times to not think there’s at least some credibility to them.

Marty of course has his head handed to him here as the Finn is a boxer and just punches Marty’s ribs into oblivion. This is a pure squash here and Marty lands a couple of super kicks that meant nothing at all. Borga’s finisher was the torture rack, which I would have nearly died of laughter from if he’d beaten Luger with.

Rating: D+. It’s a squash and a long, drawn out one. Marty was ok in the ring I guess, but this was better suited for a Raw or something I think. Ludvig would dominate jobbers for a few months before being placed in a real feud, but the ankle injury was too much for him and for some reason he got let go. It was one injury. I’ve never gotten why he never came back.

Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez

This is a Rest In Peace match which means street fight. This is the blow off match that no one really wanted to see. The Giant had run in at the Rumble to beat up Taker on behalf of Harvey Whipleman, who I still need clarification on whether or not he’s a human being. They had the worst Taker Mania match ever (not Taker’s fault) and they waited 4 months to have the rematch….for no apparent reason.

No transition at all as Borga’s music is still playing as Fink is announcing. Was there really a point to the caveman look? I never got that. Oh, for the 100th time someone has stolen the urn. The pop for Taker is epic of course. I’m starting to get the reason why Taker got so big so fast, among the obvious reasons: Bobby Heenan. The things Heenan would say about Taker made him just awesome sounding.

As soon as the gong strikes, Bobby says: “See ya!” That’s such a tiny thing but it works so well. He’d always do that and it would always work. No Paul Bearer for no apparent reason. We’ve clearly seen that Gonzalez is taller and that Taker is walking normally, yet Vince says Taker is towering above all and gliding to the ring. Vince, pay attention please. Heenan: I bet Johnny Cash has a picture of him in his pocket. Norcal will love that line.

Apparently Bearer being gone has been the case for awhile now. This is a lot better than at Mania, mainly because Gonzalez has figured out a bit more of his own style and isn’t as horrible as he was before. Also the lack of rules suit them both better in a match like this. Taker looks tiny which is saying a lot. It’s mainly back and forth with Taker continuously reaching for the urn “like it’s a tag partner.” Eventually Bearer returns with a black wreath.

Whippleman and Bearer “fight”, resulting in Bearer getting the urn back. Heenan says NO NO NO, Bearer says OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS! Taker sits up of course and it’s on. Taker hits about 5 clotheslines before hitting one from the top to get the pin. Gonzalez I guess turns face after the match by beating up Harvey. That went nowhere.

Rating: C+. This was FAR better than what they did back in April. The rule changes saved this along with the shorter match. It just flowed much better and looked more like something these two would do, as it was a brawl and not a match. Not great, but compared to what they had done before, this was Savage vs. Steamboat.

Fowler is with Yoko, Fuji and Cornette. Cornette says his typical great heel stuff here and puts over Yoko.

Smoking Guns/Tatanka vs. Bam Bam Bigelow/Headshrinkers

Yeah to put it mildly this is filler. The Guns were pretty new at this point. It’s great to see the cowboys and Indian getting along so well here. Ross and Monsoon are on radio here. Ah it’s for the Armed Forces Network. I can live with that. SHAWN MICHAELS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING! Samu and Tatanka start us off. Heenan makes fun of the Cleveland Indians and Dallas Cowboys, which makes me be irritated.

Both Tatanka and Bigelow go for cross bodies at the same time which is a weird looking visual but it worked rather well.  Billy punches Rikishi and gets kicked in the face as a result. Why couldn’t he have been kicked out of the company instead? Vince insists they are REAL cowboys. Oh dear. Samu kicks him into the corner to get a tag to Bart.

Crowd is DEAD of course. Bigelow hits a dropkick to take him down for two. Not quick Jim Nedihart’s but close enough. This is just boring beyond belief. It’s like a long Superstars match rather than a long TV match which is REALLY bad for 93 standards. Bigelow rams Bart’s head into Fatu’s which is rather funny.

Bart dodges and Bigelow hits the post so that Tatanka can come in and hopefully end this nonsense. Slam to Bigelow which is kind of impressive. Top rope cross body gets two. Tatanka starts up his racial stereotypes and Bigelow just hits him to stop such idiocy. A triple headbutt hits but a triple splash misses so Tatanka can roll up Fatu for the pin.

Rating: F+. That triple splash was cool looking but this was AWFUL. Like I said, total Superstars match here and nothing more. Horribly boring match and no one cared at all.

We interview Luger’s bus driver. Let me repeat that. We interview Luger’s bus driver. He has a monitor and is watching Summerslam from inside the bus. That….might be the funniest thing I’ve seen since Summerslam began. Yeah, it is. He’s driven Lex around the country for 2 months and he can’t get a bleacher seat to the show? He talks about how great Luger is in what might not have been scripted. He’s talking like this is a real thing, so either he’s not scripted or he needs a job in WWF.

Fowler does something that I like here: he says he’s going to ask a stupid question. Can I get a Hallelujah chorus? We have an interviewer that knows he asks stupid questions. WHY DID THIS GUY LEAVE???

Todd interviews some of the fans.

To further shove the red white and blue down our throats, there are American flags sitting on top of the commentators.

In something else that makes me laugh. Fink asks for the fans to please rise. He gets booed. He then asks if the people will show some respect. When did Fink become a heel manager? The Japanese national anthem is sung. We have a master of ceremonies for the main event, and for no reason at all, it’s Randy Savage. He brings out some guy to sing the National Anthem. Savage looks like the Incredible Hulk meets the Uncle Sam poster.

WWF Title: Lex Luger vs. Yokozuna

And here we go. Yoko’s entrance takes FOREVER. Luger of course gets the pop of pops as he enters to Stars and Stripes Forever. This is easily one of Yoko’s best matches ever. Luger wasn’t much, but he could fight big guys with the best of them. His power game worked perfectly against Yoko, and when it’s USA vs. the evil foreigner, it’s hard to mess it up. WWF managed to screw up the ending, but not the match.

I can sum up this whole match with ease: Bobby Heenan praises Lex Luger. Heenan, perhaps the greatest heel manager of all time, is praising a face. Luger kicks out of everything but never quite hulks up. The crowd is red hot the whole match, which runs nearly 18 minutes for easily one of Yoko’s longest. He’s moving really well here as he hadn’t ballooned to his massive girth yet. The idea is that Yoko simply can’t put him away no matter how close he gets but he can’t hit the Drop either.

They beat on each other with Luger making comeback after comeback but never being able to slam Yoko. After Heenan is losing his voice, Luger makes his final comeback and “slams” Yoko. Heenan screams that it was a hip block, which is actually more impressive as you’re slamming someone using one arm instead of two, but who am I to poke at the Brain? Now, we get to the ending, which for the life of me might be the stupidiest thing I’ve ever seen.

Luger hits the steel forearm and knocks Yoko out of the ring and out cold, drawing the count out. Why? What in the world was the point of not giving Luger the belt here? The tag line of the show was “Someone has to stop him” with a picture of Yoko Banzai Dropping the American flag. Dude, this was a layup and they blew it. Seriously, why would you not give Luger the belt in this case?

He was wildly over, he had a whole storyline that lasted all summer, and the buildup was perfect for that Hogan/Andre moment. However, they waited 8 months to give Luger another shot and in between Luger feuded with Yoko and Fuji’s team still. Why not give him the belt here? For the life of me I do not understand this booking.

Luger may not be a great worker but the fans were WAY into him and the storyline would have been perfect. Anyway, of course we have balloons and confetti falling as Luger and Savage celebrate winning nothing to go off the air.

Rating: B-. This is a fine example of a match that needs two ratings, one for the match and one for the ending. The match was actually pretty good but the ending makes no sense at all. I’ve ranted on it already so I’ll spare you another one here. Yoko looked excellent here and far better than usual.

Luger was feeling it out there as this was one of his better matches, despite using his old stuff. In this case it worked and the crowd was hyped. Very good match that if it had a legitimate finish could have saved the show.

Overall Rating: D+. This show just sucks. Nothing of note happens, the matches are just head scratchers, and the ending is AWFUL. The show just has nothing huge happening at all as Bret’s matches were a combination of solid but random and short but intense. Taker was a feud that I though ended half a year ago. Shawn’s match was good but forgettable, and I’ve ranted on the main event already. Just a bad show overall which is reflective of the company as a whole at this point. Avoid this.

 

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Summerslam 1992
Date: August 31, 1992
Location: Wembley Stadium, London, England
Attendance: 80,355
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan

This is probably the most famous of all the Summerslams even to this day as we’re not only outside but for the first and only time ever, a regular PPV is being held in England. It’s another double main event tonight with Savage vs. Warrior for Savage’s world title, along with Davey Boy Smith challenging Bret for the Intercontinental Title. This show was originally going to be held in Washington D.C. with Shawn winning the title from Bret in the first ladder match but the change was made very close to the date of the show. Let’s get to it.

Also note that this is on a two day tape delay, which you would NEVER see for a PPV today.

For reasons I’m not quite clear on, nearly every version of this show you can find online has the dark matches included, so you’re getting some bonus stuff tonight.

We open with kids arguing over whether Warrior or Savage sold out to Perfect and Flair. Another kid says British Bulldog is going to win whether he likes it or not.

Heenan puts on a crown and declares himself Sir Bobby, King of England.

Dark Match: Nasty Boys/Moutnie vs. Jim Duggan/Bushwhackers

The aisle to the ring is REALLY long so the entrances take extra time this year. Duggan is so beloved that he can get a USA chant going in London. Both teams take turns playing to the crowd before we get going. It’s a big brawl to start with the heels being rammed together in the middle of the ring before rolling to the outside. We finally start with Knobbs vs. Luke but everything breaks down almost immediately with the heels running away.

Things finally settle down with Sags clotheslining Butch down….and everything breaks down a third time in less than five minutes. Duggan sends the Bushwhackers into the corner with the battering ram to all three heels at once to fire up the crowd even more. The Nasties and Mountie are whipped into clotheslines from Duggan but a Jimmy Hart distraction finally lets the heels jump Luke from behind to take over.

The fans chant USA as Mountie hits a jumping back elbow to take down the New Zealander Luke. The Nasties choke away in the corner as Vince is freaking out over the rules being broken this badly. Sags and Mountie both hook reverse chinlocks as the classic six man tag formula is in full effect. Knobbs comes in for a hard whip into the corner but a middle rope splash hits boot. The hot tag brings in Duggan to clean house with clothesline after clothesline. Everything breaks down again and it’s a Battering Ram, the three point clothesline and a missed top rope elbow from Sags to Mountie for the pin by Duggan.

Rating: C+. This was an extended but nicely done tag match. The fans were WAY into Duggan and the pop for the win was a nice response for a dark match. I was surprised by how well this match worked. Most dark matches just drag along and are nothing but rest holds and punching/kicking but this went nearly thirteen minutes and never got dull.

Dark Match: Tito Santana vs. Papa Shango

Shango used to scare me to death. Tito is El Matador so he has the awesome gold jacket. Papa jumps him from behind to take over and hits a splash in the corner to have the bullfighter in trouble. Tito comes back with some clotheslines and a dropkick to send Shango out to the floor. They head back inside where Tito gets two each off a middle rope clothesline and a cross body before hooking a sleeper.

Shango sends him into the buckle to escape as Heenan makes bull jokes about Tito. The voodoo guy keeps up the generic power offense by headbutting Santana down and walking around the ring. Santana avoids a middle rope elbow and makes his comeback but the flying forearm only gets two. Shango pops up and hits a shoulder breaker for the pin.

Rating: D. Shango was all character and no substance in the ring. This is a good example of what most dark matches are like: short, dull and nothing that I’ll remember in about five minutes. Santana was good in this kind of role as he makes everyone look good, although there was only so much he could do with a guy like Shango. Who knew the answer was to make the voodoo guy a pimp?

Dark Match: Tatanka vs. Berzerker

This is the final dark match and is held right before the main event but I’m putting it here for the sake of simplicity. Berzerker wants a test of strength to start and easily takes the smaller Tatanka down. The Native American comes back by easily shoving Berzerker to the floor before they slug it out back inside. They collide after a crisscross but Berzerker misses a dropkick, allowing Tatanka to fire away on the leg.

A World’s Strongest Slam gets two on Tatanka before a regular slam puts him down outside the ring. Back in and Heenan makes Indian jokes as Berzerker kicks Tatanka in the ribs. A backdrop puts Berzerker on the floor before Tatanka starts his war dance back inside. The Papoose to Go is enough for the pin on the viking.

Rating: D. To give you an idea what this match was, think of nothing. Now take away any possible interest that nothing has and you’ll have this match. It was very dull and uninteresting and the fans clearly wanted to see the main event instead of more worthless wrestling. Tatanka would become a pretty big deal against Yokozuna in about a year.

Money Inc. vs. Legion of Doom

This is on the main card with no real fanfare at all. The LOD comes to the ring on motorcycles along with manager Paul Ellering and……dang it…….Rocco the Dummy. There’s nothing more to it than that: it’s a ventriloquist dummy named Rocco who was the team’s “inspiration.” DiBiase is in his white trunks which I couldn’t stand when I first did this show but for some reason they work for me now. Vince gets in one of my favorite lines ever: “The Legion of Doom is well known for their psychology in the ring.” I’ll pause for a minute to let that one sink in.

Hawk starts with DiBiase and it’s Ted sliding to the floor to avoid a right hand. Animal jumps DiBiase on the floor and sends him back inside, only for Hawk to clothesline him right back to the floor. The fans are WAY into the LOD here. Off to Animal vs. IRS with Animal whipping him into the corner and standing on the tie like a smart man would. A gorilla press gets two for Animal before it’s back to Hawk for some arm work.

Irwin comes back with a sleeper but it’s only good for two arm drops before Hawk rams him into the buckle. The top rope clothesline misses IRS though and Hawk falls out to the floor. IRS drops some elbows as for two the fans won’t stop chanting for LOD. Back to DiBiase for some knee drops followed by a chinlock. Jimmy Hart, one of the greatest managers of all time, is yelling at Rocco the dummy. Money Inc. changes off without tagging to send Vince into his usual hysteria.

Hawk finally fights up and rams Ted into the buckle but the hot tag is broken up. The place is going to go nuts when Animal gets in. Ted drops some knees on Hawk and puts on a front facelock but the bird man carries him over towards Animal. IRS breaks up ANOTHER hot tag attempt but gets caught in a double clothesline with Hawk. Animal FINALLY gets the hot tag and cleans house but IRS breaks up the Doomsday Device. Not that it matters much as Animal powerslams DiBiase down for the pin about three seconds later.

Rating: C-. The crowd was HOT for this but it wasn’t much of note. This was part of the three way tag team feud with the Natural Disasters over the fall which ultimately saw Money Inc. coming out with the titles. This was the last appearance for this incarnation of the LOD for years in the WWF because of Rocco. Seriously, Hawk snapped over the idea and didn’t go back to America (to be fair though everyone knew the snap was coming sooner or later).

Ric Flair, in ring gear despite not being in action tonight, is happy to be in London. Gene asks him whose dressing room Mr. Perfect is in. “He’s in the dressing room of the winner of course. WOO!” Touche.

Virgil is ready for Nailz tonight.

Virgil vs. Nailz

There isn’t much to Nailz. He was an escaped convict who wanted revenge on Big Boss Man for abusing him in prison and that’s about it. He attacked Boss Man with the nightstick and Virgil is standing up for his injured friend. Nailz immediately chokes Virgil into the corner but Virgil comes back with some jobber offense. A rollup gets no count on Nailz and it’s back to choking from the convict. We head to the floor and Virgil is rammed into the apron, sending him into a bad acting session. Back in and Nailz hooks a standing chinlock/choke for the win.

Rating: F. There isn’t much to say here. Neither guy was interesting and the match was little more than a way to set up the blowoff match against Boss Man. The problem with that is no one cared about Virgil so all we had was a Nailz squash. Nailz just wasn’t any good and after the Boss Man feud he didn’t have much, other than a horrible sounding feud with Undertaker. Then he went nuts and choked Vince in his office and said he wanted McMahon dead during the steroids trial, basically saving Vince from prison. That’s Nailz’s entire WWF career for all intents and purposes.

Nailz lays Virgil out with the nightstick post match.

Alfred Hayes can’t find Mr. Perfect, nor can he get into Macho Man’s dressing room.

We recap Shawn vs. Rick Martel. Shawn cost Martel an IC Title shot, so Martel started hitting on Shawn’s manager Sherri. Sherri then started coming out to support Martel, setting up the showdown tonight. However since Sherri thought both guys were handsome, she made the rule that there was to be no hitting in the face.

Shawn Michaels vs. Rick Martel

This is the rare heel vs. heel match. Rick is dressed for tennis for some reason I don’t quite grasp. The back of Sherri’s dress is missing, sending Vince into a frenzy over the sight of a thong. Martel grabs a headlock to start and avoids a right hand before doing some jumping jacks. Shawn slides between Martel’s legs and takes over with a dropkick. Apparently dropkicks to the face are legal.

Martel misses a cross body and Shawn cranks on the arm to take over. They trade nip ups but neither guy can bring themselves to throw a punch. Instead Martel, playing the face in the match, sends Shawn over the top to Sherri’s feet. Rick heads to the floor and hugs Sherri who seems very pleased with both men. Back in and they trade rollups with handful of tights each, resulting in Shawn’s tights barely staying on.

Sweet Chin Music to the chest gets two for Shawn and a knee to Martel’s face gets two. Martel rolls him up as well and now they’re ready to fight. They trade slaps to draw Sherri up to the apron…..and she faints. The guys get in a fight over who gets to give her CPR with the fisticuffs breaking out, resulting in a double countout. Sherri pokes her head up to reveal she’s playing possum.

Rating: D+. This didn’t do much for me but it was more of an angle than a match. Sherri would be gone soon after this which kept the story from going anywhere but the match here wasn’t terrible. Shawn would be launching through the roof soon after this by dominating the midcard for the next few years while Martel wouldn’t do much else in the company.

They fight up the aisle until suits break them up. Shawn carries Sherri out but Martel knocks him down, dropping Sherri to the floor in the process. Martel picks her up and carries her a few feet but Shawn decks Martel, knocking Sherri to the floor yet again. Martel finally runs out with a bucket of water to wake Sherri up.

The Nasty Boys talk about the world title match for some reason. They ask Jimmy about a title shot but Jimmy Hart, also the manager of Money Inc. is notably anxious, which is hinting at his face turn.

Tag Titles: Natural Disasters vs. Beverly Brothers

The Brothers are managed by the Genius and are challenging here. Genius messes up his poem by getting some dates wrong but the fans are already cheering for the fat champions anyway. The challengers try to jump the big guys early on but the champions take their heads off with clotheslines. Both Brothers (Beau and Blake) are crushed in a fat man sandwich, leaving us with Typhoon to start against Blake.

Typhoon pounds away on the smaller man but Blake manages to lift him up for a slam. He can’t turn it over but it was a nice try at least. Everything breaks down for a few seconds until we’re back to more Disaster dominance. Quake accidentally splashes Typhoon in the corner and the ocean themed guy is down. The Brothers double team Typhoon with a splash but he launches Beau to the floor on the kickout.

Hang on a second: Shawn Michaels has left Wembley Stadium!

Back to the match with Blake hitting a middle rope headbutt for a delayed two. Beau holds Typhoon on the ropes so Blake can jump on his back in a move later used by Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin. The Brothers take turns pounding on Typhoon and draw Earthquake in, allowing them to double team Typhoon even more. A headbutt gets two for Blake and it’s off to a front facelock.

Typhoon finally makes a tag but the referee doesn’t see it, likely due to being bored by the match so far. Beau drops an ax handle onto Typhoon’s back but the big man FINALLY clotheslines both Beverlies down but stops to slam Beau instead of tagging out. Blake dropkicks his brother into a cross body on Typhoon for two and Quake has had enough. His save attempt is broken up by Genius’ metal scroll to Typhoon’s back as this match just keeps going. Quake breaks up he cover and gets the hot tag to clean house. A powerslam and the Earthquake are enough to retain the titles.

Rating: D. This just wouldn’t stop as the Brothers got WAY too much offense in here. The problem is the same as it was last year: there was no doubt as to who was walking out with the belts and that makes for a rather boring match. Also, the Beverlies are pretty average size guys so there’s only so much they can do against people like the Disasters.

The Bushwhackers speculate on whose corner Perfect will be in. Gene Okerlund makes some very bad British jokes.

Hayes can’t get into the Warrior’s dressing room either. He tries to barge in and calls Warrior rude for locking the door. Even HEENAN points this out to him.

Repo Man vs. Crush

Repo tries to jump Crush but has no effect and earns himself a gorilla press slam. We head to the floor for a clothesline from Crush before heading back inside for some kicks to Repo’s ribs. Crush pounds on the ribs even more and hits a backbreaker, only to be poked in the eye to break the momentum. Repo hits a belly to back suplex but Crush no sells it and snaps off a belly to belly. A top rope knee drop misses and Repo goes after the knee with some very basic stuff. An elbow drop gets two and Crush easily fights up, catches Repo coming off the top in a powerslam and hooks the Head Vice for the submission.

Rating: D. This was a glorified squash to make Crush look good. They were this close to making Crush the next big thing in 1993 so seeing him look good here isn’t surprising at all. Repo Man is really impressive as he went from Smash to the new gimmick so smoothly that I didn’t realize it was the same guy until years later.

We recap the world title match which is summed up in one question: who sold out? This was THE story of the summer as everyone was wondering if Savage would sell out to be able to beat the man that ended his career a year earlier or if Warrior sold out to guarantee his second WWF Title. Why both guys would want a manager who wasn’t even managing the world champion is anyone’s guess. Savage’s line of “I’m the WWF Champion and you’re not!” is great stuff.

WWF World Title: Randy Savage vs. Ultimate Warrior

There’s no sign of Perfect or Flair with Warrior. Warrior is also in a singlet here instead of in his usual trunks. There’s no one with Savage either though, meaning we have to wait even longer to find out who sold out. Savage offers a handshake to start but Warrior accuses him of selling out and won’t shake. Scratch that as he does shake but they pull each other together and it’s on.

It’s a feeling out process to start with Savage shoving him away and hitting a knee to the ribs. A clothesline to the back of Warrior’s head puts him down as the fans are booing. Savage goes up top but Warrior punches him in the ribs to break up a double ax handle. A pair of atomic drops puts Randy down and some shoulder blocks do the same. Savage pounds away and hooks a chinlock, only for Warrior to break it up with a jawbreaker.

A bit right hand staggers the champion in the corner and Warrior stomps away for good measure. Warrior hits a clothesline but Savage ducks away, sending Warrior chest first into the buckle. The champion clotheslines him out to the floor for a bit before hitting the top rope ax handle back inside. It has no effect at all though as Warrior starts marching around the ring. Savage elbows him in the face to put him back down though and goes up again, only to dive into a backbreaker for two.

Warrior whips the champion hard into a corner a few times before putting on a bearhug. Instead of hanging onto it though he lets Savage go almost immediately and gets a two count. Another backbreaker gets two but Savage comes back with a small package for two of his own. A neckbreaker puts the challenger down but a delayed cover only gets two for Randy. Warrior comes back with a hard clothesline and starts pounding away on Savage’s weak back.

A suplex puts Savage down for a close two as the fans are getting into these near falls. Warrior charges at Savage but falls out to the floor by mistake. Randy goes up and drops yet another double ax onto Warrior’s back before sending him into the steps for good measure. Back in and a sunset flip gets two for Savage but Warrior slams him down. Here are Flair and Perfect to ringside as Warrior’s splash hits knees.

Savage and Warrior clothesline each other down which gets two each for both guys. Randy is up first but Perfect trips him down, signaling that Warrior is the sellout. Back up and Warrior punches him down before choking Savage into the corner. Warrior throws Savage into the corner again but the referee is bumped in the process. A slam puts Savage down and Warrior goes up top for a right hand to the head, although there’s no referee.

The referee finally comes over to count the two and Warrior is visibly frustrated. Back up and Savage hits a knee to send Warrior into the referee again before hitting a piledriver on the Ultimate one. There’s no referee again though so Savage goes to check on him. As Randy is out on the floor, Flair and Perfect take out Warrior behind Savage’s back. Randy drops the big elbow but the referee isn’t there in time for a count. Flair and Perfect are huddling on the floor.

Warrior starts his comeback with Savage pounding away on his back but to no effect. He runs over Savage with clotheslines and the flying shoulder block before loading up the gorilla press. Savage is in big trouble but as Warrior sets up the splash, Flair hits him in the back with a chair. Note that Savage didn’t see what Flair did.

Savage doesn’t know what to do now but he realizes Flair and Perfect did something. The champion goes up top but he isn’t sure. Instead of dropping the elbow though he dives at Flair, but gets knocked out of the air by a chair shot, injuring Savage’s knee in the process. Savage is counted out but retains the title.

Rating: B+. This was another really good match between the two and a great rematch from their first classic a year and a half earlier at Wrestlemania 7. The idea of having someone turn was a great incentive to watch the show, and having neither guy do the turn was the right move. The ending of the match is important soon after this.

Post match Flair puts Savage in the Figure Four with Perfect adding in more shots to the leg. Warrior finally saves Savage with a chair and helps him to his feet.

The official attendance is announced.

Undertaker vs. Kamala

Kamala was Undertaker’s Monster of the Month at this point and is managed by Harvey Whippelman. Undertaker rides to the ring on the back of a hearse to kill even more time. Taker fires off uppercuts to start and chokes away in the corner before avoiding a charging Ugandan. Harvey breaks up Old School but Kamala can’t hurt Taker at all. He clotheslines the dead man to the floor but Taker no sells everything Kamala throws at him. Back inside and Taker easily chokeslams him down and hits the Tombstone but Kamala’s other manager Kim Chee comes in for the DQ.

Rating: D. Nothing to see here as it was setting up the coffin match at Survivor Series. This was during the bad period for Undertaker as he fought a bunch of monsters with no particular rhyme or reason. Kamala was nothing special and spent most of his career trying to be intimidating but getting destroyed every time.

Post match Kim Chee helps Kamala lay Undertaker out and the big man hits a top rope splash to Undertaker, but the Dead Man pops up a few seconds later.

Tatanka vs. Berzerker happened here.

British Bulldog talks about fighting hard for two years to reach this point. Yes Bret is the Champion and his brother in law but when they get in the ring together, Bret is a stranger to him. He hopes the families reunite after the match but he’ll be the champion.

Bret says that Davey might not know him but he can look Bret in the eye and see the man that got Smith his start in the company. This is a total heel promo from Bret, which is the right move given where they are tonight. Tonight, Smith’s dream becomes a nightmare.

Here are some Highlanders playing the bagpipes. Their featured performer: Roddy Piper of course.

Diana Hart-Smith, Bret’s sister and Davey’s wife, will be neutral tonight. She just wants them to get along after the match.

Intercontinental Title: Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith

Bulldog has British Commonwealth boxing champion Lennox Lewis leading him to the ring and carrying the Union Jack. The place comes unglued for Davey but Bret isn’t booed at all, as his style is perfect for a crowd like this. Bulldog shoves him into the corner to start before hitting a hard shoulder to send the champion to the floor. Back in and they head to the mat with Bret grabbing a headlock to take over. Bret gets a few near falls off some rollups and it’s right back to the headlock.

Back up again and Davey grabs a hammerlock but Bret hits a HARD elbow to the face to escape, drawing the ire of the fans. Davey takes him down with basic technique and cranks on the armbar. The hold stays on for a good while with the fans getting louder and louder the longer Smith has control. Bret finally sends him into the ropes to escape and drives a knee into Smith’s ribs. The fans boo Hart out of the stadium for a basic move like a knee and boo even louder for a chinlock.

An atomic drop (called a reverse piledriver by Vince) puts Smith down and Bret blocks a crucifix (which worked earlier) in a Samoan Drop for two. Another chinlock is quickly broken but Davey charges into a boot in the corner to put him down again. A bulldog puts Bulldog down but he slams Bret off the top a second later. Davey misses a top rope splash and is sent to the outside, drawing a ton of heat for Bret.

The champion tries a dive to the floor but lands on Davey’s back, nearly breaking several bones in the process. Bret sends him into the post before heading back inside pounding away with European uppercuts. Hart hooks a chinlock for a good while before loading up the Five Moves of Doom. He pulls Bulldog up by the hair to show how evil he is and it’s off to a sleeper. This stays on for a LONG time as well but Smith rams him into the corner to escape again.

They slug it out but Davey drops him out of a gorilla press into the ropes. Three straight clotheslines get two for Smith and a gorilla press gets the same. The delayed vertical and the chest first bump into the buckle get the same. Bulldog hits his powerslam finisher but Bret gets out at two, with far less of a reaction from the crowd than you would expect. Bret rolls through a suplex for two of his own, only to get superplexed down for a near fall.

Back up again and a double clothesline puts both guys down, giving the fans a needed breather. While laying on his back Bret hooks the Sharpshooter ala last year against Mr. Perfect, terrifying the fans. Smith gets the rope so Bret tries a suplex, but Davey drops to his knees and hooks both legs for the pin and the title. The place ERUPTS on the three count.

Rating: A+. This took awhile to get going but once those near falls started it turns into an instant classic. Davey had to win here and it was a perfectly clean pin in the middle of the ring. Bret, ever the critic, doesn’t like this match and basically blames the whole thing on Smith for being spent five minutes in. Those of us in the real world see it for what it is: a masterpiece.

Bret, Davey and Diana embrace to end the show.

Overall Rating: B+. This is a show where the matches don’t add up to the whole rating. The thing to remember is this show is less than three hours (not counting dark matches which I don’t count towards the show’s rating) and nearly an hour of that is spent on two great matches. The rest of the bad stuff is pretty short and the two main events more than make up for it. This is easily the best Summerslam so far and one of the best ever. Check this out if you’ve somehow never seen it.

Ratings Comparison

Jim Duggan/Bushwhackers vs. Mountie/Nasty Boys

Original: B

Redo: C+

Papa Shango vs. Tito Santana

Original: D+

Redo: D

Tatanka vs. Berzerker

Original: C

Redo: D

Legion of Doom vs. Money Inc.

Original: C+

Redo: C-

Nailz vs. Virgil

Original: C

Redo: F

Shawn Michaels vs. Rick Martel

Original: B

Redo: D+

Beverly Brothers vs. Natural Disasters

Original: D+

Redo: D

Repo Man vs. Crush

Original: C+

Redo: D

Ultimate Warrior vs. Randy Savage

Original: A

Redo: B+

Kamala vs. Undertaker

Original: C

Redo: D

British Bulldog vs. Bret Hart

Original: A+

Redo: A+

Overall Rating

Original: A+

Redo: B+

I was WAY too nice to this show the first time. It’s great but it’s not THAT great.

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

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/07/26/history-of-summerslam-count-up-1992-a-tape-delayed-ppv-yes-really/

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.