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

This really is a different era in the WWF as we’re moving more towards a child friendly product with more over the top and at times cartoonish characters. It’s not the most interesting all the time, but with the way business was going at the time, it was clear that something had to change. Luckily that gives us a twenty six minute Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels main event. Let’s get to it.

Slick is behind a pulpit in the interview area to start and talks about how great this show was. He goes into preacher mode and talks about spreading joy and peace. I have no idea what this has to do with wrestling and I don’t think he does either.

Vince and Bobby run down the card. There are multiple gimmick matches tonight.

Headshrinkers vs. High Energy

High Energy is Owen Hart and Koko B. Ware in really ugly pants. The Headshrinkers (Samu and Fatu, more famous as Rikishi) don’t get an entrance. Samu and Owen start things off with Owen being thrown around pretty easily. Things speed up a bit and Owen avoids a big clothesline and hits a cross body for two. The fans are getting fired up.

Off to Koko who makes Samu miss a right hand which hits Fatu. Koko stomps on Samu’s bare feet but he tries to ram the Headshrinkers’ heads together but due to racial stereotypes, there’s no effect whatsoever. Afa, the Headshrinker’s manager, CRACKS Koko in the back with his staff and Koko is in trouble immediately. Owen is draw into the ring by some Samoan bragging, only causing Koko to get beaten down even more.

Vince tries to talk about the main events and Heenan says stick to the subject. That’s a new one. Samu hooks a nerve hold on Koko but he’s too dumb to feel pain so it’s a clothesline instead and Ware is still in trouble. A chop gets two and Samu chokes a bit. Samu misses a corner splash and there’s the hot tag to Owen. Owen dropkicks both guys down and hits a top rope cross body on Samu for two. A spinwheel kick takes Fatu down, only to get caught in a powerslam. Fatu hits a GREAT looking top rope splash to crush Owen and get the easy pin.

Rating: C+. I liked this match a lot more than I should have but I love the Headshrinkers. That top rope splash looked great and Owen sold it like the master that he was. Other than that this was a very basic match with power vs. speed and that’s the right choice for an opener. Good stuff here and I liked it a lot.

Boss Man is getting ready in the back. He says Nailz is a bad man and that he’s committed a lot of crimes and has to be punished for them.

Sean Mooney issues us a warning about how violent the upcoming match is going to be. I don’t think that’s going to be necessary. Nailz comes in and says he’s been waiting for this for a long time and now he’s out of prison. The story was that Nailz was an allegedly innocent convict that was abused by Boss Man in prison and now he’s here for revenge. It’s corny but it’s as good as anything else.

Boss Man (in his second promo in about two and a half minutes) says he’ll take out Nailz tonight. He sees Nailz in the ring and runs out to the arena.

Big Boss Man vs. Nailz

This is a nightstick on a pole match, which means you can get it down and use the stick on the other guy. Is it a DQ if the person that doesn’t pull it down uses it? That’s how the rules sound at least. Nailz tries to get to the stick but Boss Man runs out for the save. Nailz isn’t a wrestler so him using nothing but chokes and punches makes perfect sense. He chokes Boss Man down but still can’t get the stick.

A right hand puts Nailz down and Boss Man gets his hand on the stick but he gets slammed down off the top. Nailz works on Boss Man’s back a bit and chokes away some more but Boss Man shoulders him down. A splash misses and Nailz goes for the corner again, only to get crotched as this is already getting slow. A double clothesline puts both guys down and Boss Man quickly gets to the corner to get the stick. Nailz barely sells a stick shot to the face but Boss Man no sells one to the ribs and hits the Boss Man Slam for the pin.

Rating: D. This was terrible with the no selling looking awful. I mean, it’s a nightstick to the head. There are only so many ways you can get hit with that and be up twenty seconds later. Nailz never did anything other than this although he was scheduled to feud with Undertaker. Boss Man would be gone after the Royal Rumble and wouldn’t be back for years.

Nailz chokes Mooney and says that was injustice.

Tatanka, a Native American, is chanting to get ready for his match with Martel, which is over some stolen feathers. It was a different time.

Flair and Ramon are with Gene. This is a pairing that came out of nowhere but they’re in one of the main events tonight. Ultimate Warrior was supposed to team up with Savage to face these guys but Warrior went nuts and bailed on the company again, leaving Savage without a partner.

Savage was on Prime Time Wrestling (the forerunner to Raw, even though they’re very different shows) and offered the spot on his team to Flair’s manager Mr. Perfect. Heenan, Flair’s other manager, immediately said no and Perfect snapped on him and accepted the offer, causing Heenan to slap him. Bobby begs for Perfect to stay and gets water poured on him for being pathetic.

After the clip is over, Flair is all fired up and wants to know what Perfect is thinking. Perfect basked in Flair’s glory but it was only because Flair allowed it. Now Perfect has made a decision and stepped to the other side and it’s time to pay to the Nature Boy and Razor. Flair looked all kinds of fired up here and it was awesome.

Razor, still in his original persona of Al Pacino from Scarface (funny story about that: Vince is known for not seeing almost any big time movies. When Ramon was interviewing with Vince, McMahon asked him to come up with a character on the spot. Ramon went into a Tony Montana imitation from the movie Scarface without knowing Vince had never seen the move. Vince immediately thought Ramon was a genius and push him), makes generic threats. Flair was AWESOME here.

Tatanka vs. Rick Martel

Tatanka is undefeated at this point and remember this is over stolen feathers. They trade chops in the corner with Tatanka taking over via a backdrop. Martel bails to the floor and I have a feeling this is going to be a long one. Rick gets knocked to the floor again and the fans don’t seem to be that interested. Martel is incorrectly called a former Intercontinental Champion. Nice job Vince.

Back inside and Martel pounds away a bit before hitting a hot shot to take over. Off to a front facelock as the fans are distracted by a fight in the crowd. Tatanka suplexes out of the hold but gets put right back in it. The yet to be named Doink the Clown pops up in the aisle making balloon animals. It’s as random of a cameo as it sounds. Another suplex puts Martel down but Rick hits Tatanka in the throat to take him down. It’s back to the stupid facelock as Doink keeps making animals. Tatanka escapes and clotheslines him down before avoiding a charging Martel in the corner.

This is going nowhere at all. Tatanka works on the arm and gets two off a backslide. Back to the arm although it’s fairly late in the match to do so. Doink is tormenting fans now. Martel sends Tatanka over the top to the floor and things somehow get even more dull. Back in and Tatanka goes on the war path and hits a top rope chop. Because he’s an Indian you see. The Papoose To Go (Samoan Drop) finally pins Martel.

Rating: D. This was a long match that wasn’t bad. It was worse than bad: it was BORING. That’s the problem with Tatanka: he only had so far that he could go and they pushed that limit WAY farther than they should have. He wasn’t anything interesting and his in ring stuff wasn’t that great. Martel was kind of hanging around at this point and he would be gone soon.

Doink pops the animals he made. That’s not nice.

Perfect talks about being in Flair’s shadow, which he finds laughable. He says Flair has wanted to be like Mr. Perfect since Flair got here, but there can only be one Mr. Perfect. Perfect says he can beat Flair and Ramon with no trouble. Savage says he knows more about surviving than anyone else. Ten days ago he had no partner but now he has Mr. Perfect. He doesn’t trust Perfect, but he thinks they could be the perfect tag team. This did a very good job of hyping up the match in short order.

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

Perfect comes out separately to give Heenan momentary hope that he bailed. He comes through the curtain and Heenan ERUPTS, going on a rant that lasts through Perfect and Savage’s very slow walks down the aisle. Perfect and Ramon start things off in an AWA reunion. This is one of Perfect’s first matches in over a year so he may be a bit rusty. Perfect takes Razor to the mat and slaps him in the back of the head, sending Flair into a fit.

Ramon takes him into the corner and gets slapped in the face, which brings in Flair for the big showdown we’ve been wanting for. Perfect beats him into the corner almost immediately and pounds away. We get a Flair Flip out of the corner and Flair runs right into Savage who gets a tag a second later. Savage slaps Flair in the face to tick him off even more. Then he does it AGAIN.

Ramon and Flair both come in and get punched in the face. A couple of clotheslines take Flair down until FINALLY Ramon gets a knee in the back of Savage to slow him down. Razor tries to go for the leg but Randy kicks him off both times. When all else fails, Ramon chokes away to keep Savage in the ring. Off to Flair for more stomping and it’s Ramon in again to work on Savage’s back.

We get Ramon’s signature abdominal stretch with help from his partner spot. Vince tries to imitate Monsoon by saying Ramon needs to hook the toe but it’s just not the same. Savage hip tosses out of it but gets stomped right back down. Flair throws him over the top and tot he floor where Ramon rams Savage into the steps. Back to Ramon for a half crab and Perfect goes for a walk up the aisle. Heenan is ESTATIC.

Never mind though as he turns around and comes back. Well it was a cool moment while it lasted. Randy is busted open and Ramon pounds away on the face even faster. Flair starts covering a lot faster as he’s getting frustrated. Razor comes in and drops an elbow for two and a chokeslam gets the same. With the heels completely in control, Flair goes up top. The man may be a master in the ring, but he NEVER LEARNS.

Savage superplexes him down and Ric is suddenly in trouble. There’s a tag to Ramon and one to Perfect as well. Perfect hits the Hennig neck snap and a knee lift to both guys. Everything breaks down and Flair hits Savage with a chair to make it two on one. Perfect gets knocked into the official but he flips out of the Razor’s Edge and hits the PerfectPlex on Ramon for a delayed two as Flair makes the save. The PerfectPlex to Flair gets the same result and we have two referees in there. One of them calls the match for a DQ, much to the annoyance of the crowd. Savage and Perfect win to calm things down a bit.

Rating: B-. This was a good match that was bordering on great until the lame ending. I wouldn’t see a problem with Flair getting pinned by the PerfectPlex here. They would have a great match on Raw that would send Flair packing soon enough, but for now this was a great return to the ring for Perfect who hadn’t wrestled in quite a while.

Post match Flair puts Hennig in the Figure Four and Razor gets a chair, but Savage makes a save and chases both guys off.

Flair and Ramon rant in the back.

Yokozuna vs. Virgil

Yokozuna is listed as being from the Polynesian Islands here. This is when Yokozuna is only 505lbs and he had padding in his outfit to make him look fatter. Yokozuna immediately shoves Virgil away and chops him down. Some dropkicks do some good for Virgil but Yokozuna superkicks him (and gets his foot higher than Virgil did on his dropkicks) to take over.

Virgil pounds away a bit but a Rock Bottom takes him down. Some more shots stagger Yokozuna but a sidewalk slam and a legdrop make things all better again. Yokozuna misses a charge and like an IDIOT, Virgil tries a rollup. The big man falls on him and it’s BANZAI (middle rope seated senton) for the pin.

Rating: C-. For a big time debut, this could have been better but it’s clear that no one is going to stop this guy for a long time. Yokozuna would get the rocket to the stars push soon, winning the Royal Rumble in two months and the World Title at Wrestlemania in another two months. Virgil was a jobber to the stars here and nothing more, which is all he should have been. Somehow he would keep a job until 1994.

Savage and Perfect brag a lot.

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

The Natural Disasters are Earthquake and Typhoon, formerly known as Tugboat. Money Inc. (IRS and Ted DiBiase) has the Tag Team Titles and are about to fight the Nasty Boys. This is one of those “when one guy gets pinned, both team members are out” deals, so it’s a max of three falls to end this match. We start with Typhoon vs. Blake Beverly and it’s a strut off. Typhoon starts throwing Blake around and puts him in an over the shoulder backbreaker so he can hand him off to Earthquake for a bearhug.

Beau tries to cheat to help his brother but it only results in a double splash from both Disasters in the corner. Off to Knobbs as the fans aren’t interested in this match in the slightest. Knobbs runs Blake over with clotheslines and brings in Jerry who finally allows a tag to Beau. A pumphandle slam puts Beau down but he no sells it for some reason. Off to DiBiase who can’t suplex Sags, so Sags suplexes him.

Off to IRS who Jerry hiptosses down. The limited selling continues as IRS gets up and brings in Beau for a powerslam and it’s off to Beau again. Off to a chinlock from Blake as the Beverlies keep tagging in and out very quickly. Jerry tries a quick sleeper but they wind up slamming heads to put both guys down. There’s the tag to Earthquake and Blake is in trouble. Earthquake takes out all four of them and everything breaks down. For some reason Beau tries a crucifix on Typhoon and gets crushed for his efforts. The Earthquake from Earthquake eliminates the Beverlies and it’s 4-2.

DiBiase comes in to face Earthquake but gets beaten up by all four opponents in short order. Back to Earthquake who misses a splash in the corner and Money Inc double suplexes the fatter man down. IRS gets two off the suplex and picks him up to freak Bobby out again. Back to DiBiase as the fans are all over IRS. IRS chokes away on Earthquake some more and it’s back to DiBiase for some chops.

A middle rope double ax by Ted gets two so here’s IRS again. The champs do tag in and out quite well. Quake clotheslines IRS down and finally makes the hot tag to Typhoon. House is cleaned and a splash crushes IRS. DiBiase trips up Typhoon and IRS gets the easy pin to tie it up, but Jerry runs in and rolls up IRS for the fast pin to win.

Rating: C. Not bad here but the ending kind of sucked. What was the point in having the Nasty Boys beat Money Inc that fast when the majority of the match was about the Disasters vs. Money Inc? The Nasty Boys were basically there to fill in a spot instead of being the focus of the match for their team. Odd indeed but it was entertaining enough.

Virgil warns Bret Hart about Yokozuna. Of course Bret wasn’t in the same room.

We recap Kamala vs. Undertaker. Undertaker beat him at Summerslam so Kamala crushed him with a bunch of splashes to a very limited effect. This set up the Coffin Match tonight, which is a regular match but the winner gets to put the loser in a coffin.

Undertaker is building a special coffin.

Undertaker vs. Kamala

Kamala immediately runs from Undertaker and they head to the floor for more not fighting. Back in and Kamala pounds away with almost no effect. Undertaker hits the yet to be named Old School and Kamala is in trouble again. A clothesline sets up some choking by the Dead Man but Kamala chops him to the floor. This is really dull so far. Kamala rams Undertaker head first into the steps and hits him in the back before we head inside. A kick to the chest puts Undertaker down for all of a second. Kamala slams him a bunch of times and three splashes. The urn is knocked into the ring and Undertaker sits up, followed by an urn shot to the head for the pin.

Rating: F. Seriously, that’s it. That’s IT? This is one of the biggest matches on the show and this is all we get? Just a dull match with nothing more than a few shots to the back and a quick ending. This didn’t even make six minutes and Undertaker didn’t even break a sweat in crushing Kamala. Nothing to see here and it was completely worthless, much like Kamala.

Undertaker nails the coffin shut.

Shawn brags about winning the Intercontinental Title a few weeks ago and says he doesn’t need Sherri. Shawn says he beat Davey and Davey beat Bret so Shawn can beat Bret.

Kamala’s managers Harvey Wippleman and Kim Chee get Kamala out of the coffin and he’s catatonic. This would lead to the arrival of Giant Gonzalez.

Bret is ready for Shawn. Gene lists off all of the micarders Bret has defended the title against with the idea being that Bret will fight anyone.

WWF World Title: Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels

Shawn still has the original version of his music as sung by Sherri and this is champion vs. champion, but only one title is on the line. For the sake of clarity, only Bret will be referred to as champion. Feeling out process to start and they hit the mat with Shawn getting in way over his head. Shawn works on the arm and pulls Bret to the mat but Bret nips up. So that’s where Shawn got it from. Bret cranks on the arm and Shawn cranks on the hair. Things speed up and Shawn trips Bret up but it’s right back to the arm. This technical stuff isn’t working for Shawn so far.

Michaels gets to the arm but Bret easily sends him to the floor to escape. Hart takes over on the arm again and Shawn can’t get anything going in the first five minutes or so. A cross body gets two for Bret as does a sunset flip. It’s back to the arm and Shawn is getting frustrated. They hit the ropes and Shawn catches Bret in a hot shot to finally get in some offense. A thumb to the eye puts Bret back in trouble and he charges into the post to make it even worse.

Shawn DDTs the arm as the roles have completely reversed now, although it’s due to evil ways now instead of technical and good ones. See how good psychology can be when it’s done right? Bret’s chest to the buckle spot gets two for Shawn and it’s chinlock time. They fight over a top wristlock but Shawn uses the hair again to pull Bret back to the mat. Bret fights out of the chinlock but gets dropkicked right back down for two. Shawn is one step ahead of Bret in everything the champion is trying right now.

A backbreaker gets another two for Shawn and let’s hit that chinlock again. Shawn ducks his head and a swinging neckbreaker puts him down. It doesn’t last though as cheating by means of a shot to the throat stops Bret again. A front facelock goes on and Bret rams Shawn into the corner with some shoulders to counter. Shawn charges into a boot and a bulldog puts him down. Bret misses a middle rope elbow and both guys are down again.

Michaels connects with a jumping back elbow to the face for two and it’s back to the front facelock. After two arm drops for Bret, he pulls off the fastest small package you’ll see in a long time for two. A suplex by Hart puts both guys down but things start speeding up anyway. Shawn gets sling shotted into the corner and hits the post as is his custom. Bret launches him into the corner and kicks Shawn so hard that Shawn gets crotched on the top rope.

A BIG back body drop gets two on Shawn and Bret is surprised at the kickout. Russian legsweep gets two for the champ and a backbreaker sets up the middle rope elbow for the same. Bret superplexes Shawn down but he can’t cover immediately and it only gets two. There’s a sleeper from Hart and the referee gets bumped. That goes absolutely nowhere and he’s up a few seconds later.

Bret tries another sleeper but Shawn sends him to the floor in the exact same way that Bret sent Shawn to the floor earlier in a nice bit of storytelling. Bret gets posted and we head back inside for a whip to the corner for two. The problem here for Shawn is that he doesn’t have a big time finisher as his only big move was a lame suplex. Just as I type that, Shawn superkicks Bret down. It’s not a finisher yet though so he doesn’t even cover.

Bret blocks the tear drop suplex (Shawn’s finisher, basically a high angle belly to back suplex) but the second attempt connects for two. Bret uppercuts Shawn into the ropes but Hart misses a charge and crotches himself on the top. Shawn goes up to the middle rope but he jumps right into the Sharpshooter (in the EXACT same sequence that ended regulation of the Iron Man Match at Wrestlemania XII) for the submission to keep the title on Bret.

Rating: A. It’s Bret vs. Shawn with almost 27 minutes. Were you expecting anything but a scientific war? If you make the superkick a finisher instead of a regular move, there’s no way this isn’t even better. Great match here with both guys trading great psychology the whole way through. Really good main event and a great way to show that Hulk isn’t needed to fire up a crowd as they were all kinds of into this match.

Post match here’s…..Santa Claus? He puts a hat on Bret and it starts snowing in the arena.

Post ending of the show, Bret asks Santa for better competition. Ok then.

Overall Rating: B-. This isn’t a great show but if you have about two hours to kill and a good fast forward button on whatever device you’re using, there are far worse shows you could watch. The main event is great stuff and the tag match isn’t bad either, but it’s better if you know the backstory and watch the build. This was a good show and considering there was no Hogan or Warrior on it, it was a pretty bold yet necessary step for WWF at the time. Good stuff.

Ratings Comparison

Headshrinkers vs. High Energy

Original: C+

Redo: C+

Big Boss Man vs. Nailz

Original: D+

Redo: D

Tatanka vs. Rick Martel

Original: C-

Redo: D

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

Original: B

Redo: B-

Yokozuna vs. Virgil

Original: C
Redo: C-

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

Original: D

Redo: C

Undertaker vs. Kamala

Original: C+

Redo: F

Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels:

Original: A-

Redo: A

Overall Rating:

Original: C+

Redo: B-

Dang I must have really grown to hate Kamala since then. Overall it’s roughly the same though.

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

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/11/11/history-of-survivor-series-count-up-1992-bret-vs-shawn-at-survivor-series/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

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

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: 16,000
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Roddy Piper

This is a somewhat different show that in recent years as we have a main event of sorts. It was never tried again and that’s probably the best idea. It’s called the Grand Finale Match of Survival in which the survivors of each team meet in one final Survivor Series match. The winners get absolutely nothing, which continues to prove that these shows are pretty worthless. Let’s get to it.

Sean Mooney welcomes us to the show and talks about the Grand Finale. He’s standing in front of a giant egg which apparently is going to hatch because of the heat from the crowd. Nothing good can possibly come from this.

The nifty squares intro theme open things up again.

Gorilla and Piper chat about the show for a bit.

The Warriors vs. The Perfect Team

The Warriors: Ultimate Warrior, Texas Tornado, Legion of Doom

The Perfect Team: Mr. Perfect, Demolition

This is the three man version of Demolition, including Crush. Perfect is feuding with Tornado (Kerry Von Erich, the Intercontinental Champion) and the LOD is feuding with Demolition after the LOD cost them the titles. Warrior, the WWF World Champion, is there because he has nothing else to do save for a minor feud with Perfect. His team is in the back before the match and says they’ll win.

The name Warriors is appropriate as you have the Ultimate Warrior, the Modern Day Warrior (Von Erich’s nickname in WCCW) and the Road Warriors (the LOD’s NWA name). I’ll never understand why the LOD and Demolition never had a big proper match. Perfect immediately goes to the apron and lets part of Demolition start. It’s Animal vs. Smash first in major power battle. They get to the fight immediately with Animal taking him to the mat. Animal throws him into Hawk for a right hand and the other Warriors get in a shot as well.

Smash comes back with a powerslam for two and it’s off to Perfect. That doesn’t last long so here’s Smash again, and he walks right into a powerslam. Everything breaks down and the Warriors clear the ring. Tornado comes in to face Smash who is taking a beating in this so far. Off to Ax who has much better luck for about ten seconds. There’s the Claw from Tornado but for some reason Warrior gets the tag and hits a series of awkward looking shoulder blocks before finishing Ax with the splash.

Crush immediately comes in to jump Warrior and take over. Smash gets in a slam on Warrior and Crush drops a top rope knee for two. Perfect is freaking out in his trademark over the top style. Warrior gets up a boot in the corner and clotheslines Crush down. Off to Hawk who always looks like he could murder someone in the ring. Perfect tries him out and is immediately slammed down.

Hawk counters a reversal to send Perfect into the corner but his shoulder goes into the post HARD to give the evil ones the advantage. Demolition pounds away on him but Hawk punches right back. A big flying shoulder puts Smash down and Hawk doesn’t tag when he has the chance. The top rope clothesline kills Smash and everything breaks down. Hawk kicks the referee and somehow this disqualifies not only Hawk but also Animal, Smash and Crush. We’re down to Perfect vs. Warrior/Tornado.

It’s going to be Warrior starting the handicap match but Perfect wants Tornado instead. Perfect immediately jumps him and is clotheslined out almost immediately after the jumping. Warrior bangs Perfect’s head into Heenan’s and sends Bobby into the front row. Tornado charges at Perfect and slams into the post to give Perfect the advantage for a bit. A buckle gets exposed somewhere in there and Tornado’s face goes into the steel, setting up the PerfectPlex to make it one on one.

Perfect tries the PerfectPlex again on Warrior which doesn’t work at all. Instead he hammers Warrior down and hits a great looking dropkick for two. Having Perfect run things out there for as long as possible is the best idea they’ve got. Warrior starts grabbing the ropes and shrugging off all the offense from Perfect. A shoulder block and the splash get the final pin for the Ultimate one.

Rating: D. This was probably the worst Survivor Series match so far in the four years they’ve been running this show. Not only was the match lopsided from the start, but half of the people in it were gone seven minutes in. Perfect never had a chance and Warrior had no reason to be in this match at all.

Ted DiBiase has a mystery partner for his match. Oh boy does he ever.

Million Dollar Team vs. Dream Team

Million Dollar Team: Ted DiBiase, Rhythm and Blues, ???

Dream Team: Dusty Rhodes, Koko B. Ware, Hart Foundation

Rhythm and Blues are Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine and they’ve been challenging the Hart Foundation for the Tag Team Titles. Dusty and DiBiase are feuding for obvious character reasons. Now we get to the legendary part of the match: the mystery partner. DiBiase gets on the mic and introduces for the first time ever…..THE UNDERTAKER. Who on earth would have imagined what this guy would become over the next twenty two years? Unreal indeed. The look on Undertaker’s face is eerie and he stands there like a zombie to make it even better. Undertaker has his own manager here in the form of Brother Love.

Quick sidebar: the Undertaker is probably the greatest example ever of someone being the only person that could pull off his character. Mark Calaway is PERFECT as the Undertaker with the look and the size and the dead looking eyes and the tattoos and everything like that. Before this he was just Mean Mark Callous in WCW and was a generic big villain. Sometimes it’s about finding what works and Undertaker has worked for a very long time. Also a bit of trivia: he debuted at a Superstars taping three days before this under the name Kane the Undertaker.

Undertaker and Bret start with the newcomer pounding the tar out of Bret. Well if you want to make someone look like a killer, call Bret Hart. Bret hits the ropes and charges at Undertaker, only to get caught by the throat and slammed down. It was more like a clothesline that Undertaker went to the mat with than the usual chokeslam here but he did have Bret by the throat.

Off to Neidhart who can’t move Undertaker in the slightest and gets slammed for trying. Jim looked TERRIFIED and tags out to Koko, who is too stupid to be afraid. Koko misses a charge and clotheslines himself on the top. The Tombstone (I believed named by Gorilla on the spot here) debuts but isn’t exactly the famous version yet, as Undertaker has both of Koko’s legs on one side of his head and covers with the folded arms but from the sides. It looked and sounded great though.

Bret comes in and hammers on Undertaker who just stares at him. Undertaker tags in Valentine and gives one of the most evil glares you’ll ever see at Bret. Off to Dusty who starts gyrating. They chop it out in the corner and it’s off to Neidhart. The Foundation take their turns working over Valentine’s arm but Greg gets a knee up in the corner. Off to Honky who is rapidly on his way out of the company. Bret makes a blind tag to Neidhart who sneaks in and powerslams Honky out.

DiBiase comes in to jump Neidhart but it’s quickly off to Dusty for the big showdown. Dusty tags out to Neidhart quickly but Virgil trips Jim up, allowing DiBiase to clothesline Neidhart for the pin. Here’s Bret again who pounds away on DiBiase and it’s back to Rhodes for more of the same. Back to Undertaker who gets some HEIGHT on a jumping stomp to the back of Dusty’s head.

Undertaker chokes Bret in the corner and somehow shows no emotion while at the same time looking angrier than any wrestler I’ve ever seen. Bret fights the now legal DiBiase out of the corner and it’s off to Dusty. Undertaker comes in, goes up, walks (a little way) down the rope with no one to hold onto, and hits a double ax to eliminate Dusty. Brother Love stomps on Dusty a bit so Dusty chases him off. Undertaker stalks Dusty to the back to get counted out, which is the only thing they could have done with him here.

Back in the ring Bret rolls up Valentine very quickly and it’s DiBiase vs. Hart. Bret pounds on DiBiase and atomic drops him to the floor, followed by a pescado to take Ted out again. DiBiase’s shoulder goes into the post and his head goes into the steps and they head back inside. They slug it out but DiBiase sends him chest first into the buckle to take over.

A quick backslide gets two for Hart and now it’s time for a classic: Bret trips over DiBiase and fakes a knee injury, resulting in a small package for two. Virgil interference messes up and another rollup gets two for Bret. The backbreaker and middle rope elbow get two for Hart but DiBiase rolls through a cross body for the pin.

Rating: C+. This is a very interesting match as you could see stars being made and stars going away. DiBiase clearly didn’t mean as much as he used to and would shift into a tag team run soon after this. Dusty would be gone in January as would Honky. On the other hand you can see the rise of Bret Hart on the horizon as the crowd was LOSING IT over those near falls at the end. Oh and the Undertaker. That’s kind of a big deal.

The Vipers (Jake Roberts’ team) are ready for Martel’s team. Why they’re in the shower I’m not sure.

The Vipers vs. The Visionaries

The Vipers: Jake Roberts, Rockers, Jimmy Snuka

The Visionaries: Rick Martel, Warlord, Power and Glory

Power and Glory are Hercules and Paul Roma. This is built around Martel vs. Roberts, which is based on Martel blinding Jake with cologne and Jake not having full vision yet. This was a BIG feud which they screwed up with a horrible match at Wrestlemania VII. It wasn’t that the wrestling was bad, but that it was a blindfold match and they spent about 2 minutes in contact with each other.

Marty and Warlord start as Piper is singing I Am The Walrus. Warlord powers Marty around but misses a charge in the corner. Warlord is now out of his Powers of Pain phase and is now shiny and bald. Both Rockers try to outmaneuver him but it just results in bringing in Martel. Shawn handles him with ease and brings in Jake, causing Martel to scamper away.

It’s Roma instead and Jake picks him apart like he’s not even there. He works on Roma’s arm and brings in Snuka to keep it up, but the afro apparently weighs down Snuka’s brain to the point where he can’t maintain a wristlock. Off to Hercules who gets chopped down so it’s back to Warlord instead. Snuka tries his stuff but when that gets nowhere it’s off to Marty. Jannetty opts for speed but jumps into a great looking powerslam for the pin.

Off to Shawn whose leapfrog is caught but he hurricanranas Warlord down instead. Jake comes in and the fans wants a DDT. A bunch of clotheslines take Warlord down and it’s back to Shawn. Roma comes in with an elbow drop to the back of the head as Gorilla talks anatomy. Warlord comes in and backdrops Shawn before tagging out to Hercules. Martel comes in just as fast and drops a knee for two. Roma sends Shawn into the corner and Shawn of course sells it like he’s dead. Martel’s shoulder hits the post and here’s Snuka again.

A flying headbutt to the standing Martel gets two, but Rick grabs a small package for the pin out of nowhere. Jake comes in again and Martel immediately runs and brings in Hercules. Roberts is getting frustrated because he can’t get his hands on Martel, but he still manages a knee lift and a failed DDT attempt. Jake starts pounding away on Hercules but Martel clotheslines him down instead.

Roma comes in for some stomping but he misses a middle rope punch. There’s the hot tag to Shawn who suplexes Roma down and hits a middle rope elbow for two. Shawn does what he can but Hercules comes in off a blind tag and pounds away even more. Power and Glory hook up the Powerplex (superplex from Hercules immediately followed by a top rope splash from Roma) eliminates Shawn and it’s 4-1. It’s Hercules in first but Jake is in trouble. Warlord comes in with a bearhug but Jake escapes and DDTs him out of nowhere. Jake says screw it and gets the snake out. He chases Martel to the back for the countout loss.

Rating: D+. There wasn’t much to see here but other than Jake vs. Martel, there was nothing here at all. To the best of my knowledge, Warlord and Snuka never interacted before or after this so they were just tacked on. The Rockers and Power and Glory had fought at Summerslam but that’s about it. The Visionaries are the first ever team to survive intact.

The Hulkamaniacs are ready for the Natural Disasters. This is a continuation of Hogan vs. Earthquake, with Hulk’s team facing Earthquake and Jimmy Hart’s and Bobby Heenan’s cronies. Hogan says they can go get rid of Sadaam Hussein. Remember that this is during the Gulf War.

Natural Disasters vs. Hulkamaniacs

Natural Disasters: Earthquake, Dino Bravo, Haku, Barbarian

Hulkamaniacs: Hulk Hogan, Big Boss Man, Tugboat, Jim Duggan

There’s some actual drama here as Hogan hadn’t pinned Earthquake before this and the other guys balance out somewhat well. Boss Man and Bravo are the captains’ friends at the moment and the other four are really just filling in space. Tugboat is a big guy called the Sailing Superstar. You can’t get much lamer than that. Haku vs. Duggan start us off as the announcers talk about the Grand Finale. It’s such a different time when they automatically know who is going to be on what side. Today you would be waiting on the swerve. Duggan pounds away on Haku and a clothesline gets two.

Bravo and Barbarian come in to get some shots but it’s quickly off to Haku vs. Boss Man. Haku dropkicks him down for two but the Boss Man Slam eliminates Haku quick. Barbarian comes in next and Boss Man runs him over. Heenan gets taken off the apron and Boss Man punches Barbarian a bit before walking into a suplex. Barbarian misses a middle rope elbow and it’s off to Duggan vs. Bravo. Scratch that as Earthquake makes a blind tag and crushes Duggan in the corner. Duggan keeps trying to knock Earthquake down but Jimmy low bridges him. Duggan brings the board in with him and hits Earthquake for the DQ.

It’s Hogan vs. Earthquake but Hulk beats up all three guys because he can. Hogan easily slams Earthquake and fires off ten punches in the corner. Earthquake comes back with a powerslam and tags in Bravo who stomps away, only to get small packaged for the pin. There’s the tag to Boss Man who hits his rapid fire punches in the corner. Boss Man goes up for a cross body and oh my goodness Earthquake caught him. That is SCARY power. Hogan shoves Boss Man on top of Earthquake for two but Barbarian kicks Boss Man in the back to put him down. An elbow from Earthquake eliminates Boss Man.

Hogan vs. Earthquake again and Hulk tries to drop the big guy. Hulk tries another slam but can’t get Earthquake up. The third attempt results in Earthquake falling on Hogan for two. Hulk avoids an elbow and there’s the tag to Tugboat, causing everyone to shout TOOOOT which sounds like booing.

Hogan pulls Earthquake to the floor and Earthquake and Tugboat get counted out. That leaves Hogan vs. Barbarian and things don’t look good for the Disasters. Barbarian goes after Hogan on the floor and doesn’t hit a piledriver well at all. It gets two and they clothesline each other. Barbarian hits the top rope clothesline, but it’s Hulk Up, legdrop and we’re done.

Rating: C-. This was a lot more fast paced and energetic than you would expect. The continued practice of just teasing the encounter that the match is based on is getting REALLY old though as I guess they want to preserve the house show draws, because who would want to see a feud continue after a single match right? My goodness have things changed in the last twenty years.

Hogan beats up Heenan post match and poses. Piper cheering for Hogan is just wrong.

Some fans talk and have little to say. Well one fan signs who he likes which is cool.

Here’s Savage with something to say. He’s still the King at this point which has been going on for awhile. Savage doesn’t have a match tonight and he doesn’t like not being recognized as the future WWF World Champion. He promises to take his title back from Warrior and talks about Sherri slapping The Ultimate Chicken a few times. There’s nothing of note here but it reinforced that they have issues. That’s something you never hear today: promos to just remind you that people don’t like each other.

Alliance vs. Mercenaries

Alliance: Nikolai Volkoff, Bushwhackers, Tito Santana

Mercenaries: Sgt. Slaughter, Boris Zhukov, Orient Express

This is during the Iraqi Sympathizer period for Slaughter and the idea here is military themed with the other four being a group of international wrestlers banding together to fight Slaughter and company. Before the match, Slaughter tells Gene about having a Thanksgiving dinner with the Mercenaries and not having to be inconvenienced by being in the desert. That’s better than being in the Army and eating K-Rations right? This was a pretty edgy angle at the time. Questionable but edgy. This interview is in the arena with the Mercenaries’ music playing. That must be a pretty dull period for the crowd.

The Bushwhackers torment Boris to start and the flying forearm from Tito eliminates him in about 20 seconds. Sato (half of the Orient Express, along with Tanaka) comes in and is accidentally superkicked by Tanaka. The Battering Ram puts out Sato and it’s 4-2 inside of two minutes. Tanaka comes in and the forearm from Tito makes it 4-1 in less than 2:15. Volkoff pounds on Slaughter with his usual stuff but gets punched in the face for his efforts as Slaughter takes over.

After a long beating, Slaughter eliminates Volkoff with an elbow. There were about three minutes of beating in between there but there was absolutely nothing of note to talk about. The Bushwhackers double team Sarge for a bit but Slaughter beats them down and gutbusts Luke for an elimination. A clothesline takes out Butch about 30 seconds later and it’s one on one.

Tito immediately dropkicks Slaughter into the post and things speed up with by far the two most talented guys in the match in there. Tito hits a top rope forearm for two and stomps away even faster. Piper is trying not to curse and Slaughter slams Santana’s head into the mat. A neckbreaker and backbreaker combine for two on Santana.

After some more beating, Tito gets a quick forearm attempt but hits the referee by mistake. The forearm hits the second time but General Adnan (Slaughter’s manager/boss) hits Santana with the flag and Slaughter puts on the Camel Clutch. The referee saw the flag though and it’s a DQ win for Tito.

Rating: D-. Well that…..happened I guess. They went through seven eliminations inside of eleven minutes and the match was awful. Basically this could have been Slaughter vs. either Volkoff or Santana and gotten the same payoff. I have no idea what they were going for here, but my guess is that they had nothing else to fill in fifteen minutes with (the show only runs two hours and twenty minutes and we’ve got something else to go before the main event).

DiBiase and the Visionaries say Warrior and Hogan (no mention of Santana) can’t work together. Sean says it’s going to be these five against Warrior and Hogan.

It’s time for the Egg Hatching. Gene talks about the fans being hot tonight and the egg starts to hatch. There’s no way around this: it’s the Gobbledygooker, a humanoid turkey who square dances to Turkey in the Straw with Gene Okerlund, does a bunch of flips and is played by the WAY too talented for this Hector Guerrero. The fans IMMEDIATELY start booing when it hatches, as there is absolutely no point to it. This was rumored to be anything from Undertaker to Flair (about a year early for him) to some Playboy Playmate. Total time spent on this: over seven minutes.

Hogan, Warrior and Santana are ready.

Hulk Hogan/Tito Santana/Ultimate Warrior vs. Ted DiBiase/Visionaries

Oddly enough, Hogan comes out before Tito. Tito and Warlord start and a forearm ends Warlord in less than 30 seconds. Roma immediately powerslams Tito and brings in DiBiase. My goodness a 20 minute Santana vs. DiBiase match would freaking rock. Tito misses another forearm and a hot shot gives DiBiase the pin.

Hogan comes in and beats the tar out of DiBiase for a bit before ducking his head too early. A kick to Hogan’s face slows him down and it’s off to Roma for a top rope forearm for two. Back to Hercules who pounds away on Hulk even more, followed by the same from DiBiase. The Powerplex hits Hogan…..and has basically no effect. Roma is immediately pinned by a clothesline and it’s 3-2.

Martel comes in to beat on Hogan but gets kicked in the face. Off to Warrior who fires off a bunch of kicks in the corner and backdrops Martel. Rick tries to hit him in the head and boy are you really that dumb? Hogan knocks Martel to the floor and Rick walks off for the countout. Hogan beats on DiBiase a bit and there’s the legdrop. Warrior beats Hercules with the splash about 40 seconds later to win.

Rating: D. What in the world was the point of this? I mean……am I watching a house show? These are the kind of matches you hear about at the end of shows to send the fans home happy, not to main event a PPV. It was clear that this show wasn’t needed and that something had to be done.

Posing ends the show.

Overall Rating: F. This show has some moments of ok, but can you imagine PAYING for this show? Undertaker debuts here but no one had any idea what that would mean. Nothing is changed at all, mainly because the company was afraid no one would want to see the house show matches after this.

This show runs two hours and eighteen minutes and nearly eight minutes of that are the Gobbledygooker. On top of that the main event runs about ten minutes in total counting entrances. You’re looking at about two hours for the non main event stuff and that’s ridiculous for a PPV. This is another show that doesn’t need to exist.

Ratings Comparison

Warriors vs. Perfect Team

Original: C-

Redo: D

Dream Team vs. Million Dollar Team

Original: C+

Redo: C+

Vipers vs. Visionaries

Original: D+

Redo: D+

Hulkamaniacs vs. Natural Disasters

Original: C+

Redo: C-

Alliance vs. Mercenaries

Original: F

Redo: D-

Grand Finale Match of Survival

Original: D-

Redo: D

Overall Rating

Original: F

Redo: F

It sucked four years ago and it still sucks now.

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

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/11/09/history-of-survivor-series-count-up-1990-title-removed-due-to-anger-issues/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

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

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. I’m going to step away from this for a second to put this up, as it’s a fairly infamous video that went absolutely nowhere at all.

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.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

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

 

Monday Night Raw
Date: March 8, 1993
Location: Manhattan Center, New York City, New York
Attendance: 1,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Randy Savage, Rob Bartlett

As long as Bartlett isn’t Elvis here, everything should be fine. We are now less than a month away from Wrestlemania and that means we are going to be hearing more about Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna and the other match which might be treated as a bigger deal, with the Mega Maniacs vs. Money Inc. for the Tag Team Titles. Let’s get to it.

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

The Mega Maniacs and Jimmy Hart are ready for Money Inc. at Wrestlemania because they know Jimmy is the #1 Hulkamaniac. He knows all of Money Inc.’s weaknesses, but Brutus’ face isn’t weak at all. Hulk has been hitting him in the face with a metal briefcase all week and can’t put a dent in him. They’re planning to have the titles on their motorcycles as they ride up and down the highway because they’ve been training to the song Getting To Know You. They have a surprise too, but for tonight, from New York, it’s Monday Night Raw.

Opening sequence.

Thankfully Bartlett is just himself this week. On the downside, Bartlett is still here.

Virgil/El Matador vs. Money Inc.

Non-title. They take their time circling each other to start, with Ted mocking Virgil for old times’ sake. Matador and DiBiase start things off with Matador hitting an elbow to the face for a fast two. The headlock goes on for a bit and it’s quickly off to Virgil, who backs DiBiase into the corner for the tag off to IRS. Some hiptosses into some clotheslines send IRS outside but it’s right back in for a double back elbow. The arm cranking is on as I keep failing to black Bartlett out on commentary.

Virgil and Matador take turns working on the arm with an exchange of wristlocks and armbars. We take a break and come back with Matador fighting out of a headlock but getting forearmed down by DiBiase. A head to head collision sets up the double tag, meaning Virgil can come in for another clothesline. Bartlett: “How come IRS wears a tie and DiBiase doesn’t even wear a shirt?” Everything breaks down and IRS hits a belly to back suplex to finish Virgil at 11:03.

Rating: C. It wasn’t the most thrilling match but you can only do so much with the situation they were in. Money Inc. getting a clean win helps build them up for Wrestlemania, even if it isn’t a match that carries any significant weight. If nothing else, it’s always nice to see Tito Santana, even when his career is winding down.

We recap Tatanka beating Shawn Michaels in some tag matches to set up his Intercontinental Title shot at Wrestlemania.

Rick Martel comes out and takes over the Raw Girl’s duties because he’s a better model. Makes enough sense.

Tatanka vs. Phil Apollo

Apollo would later take over as Doink once he turned face. Tatanka hiptosses him outside to start and chops away before heading back inside. The match is enough of a backdrop that Shawn Michaels can call in to say Tatanka is going to roll snake eyes at Wrestlemania. Apollo gets in a few shots as Shawn guarantees he is the only sure thing in the WWF. Tatanka goes on the war path and finishes with the Papoose To Go at 2:42. Shawn’s promo was very simple but it did all it needed to do.

It’s time for the Wrestlemania Report, with Gene Okerlund talking about the double main event.

Bret Hart talks about studying the undefeated Yokozuna. He knows Yokozuna and Mr. Fuji have no respect for him but he likes going in as the underdog.

Fuji and Yokozuna promise to leave with the title.

Undertaker and Paul Bearer are ready to destroy Giant Gonzalez.

Back in the arena and Martel takes over another modeling job, with Bartlett making Gilligan’s Island references (fair enough given Martel’s attire).

Papa Shango vs. Mike Edwards

Shango slams him down and hits a jumping elbow, followed by the running splash in the corner. A belly to back suplex gets two with Shango letting him up. Shango headbutts him between the legs and hits the shoulder breaker for the easy pin at 2:31.

Bob Backlund vs. Tony Demoro

Demoro is in good shape but won’t shake hands to start. Backlund takes him down with ease and then does it again to show off the grappling. Demoro is sent outside as Bartlett is sent off to interview Martel (thank goodness). Some grappling on the mat goes well for Backlund but Demoro backs him into the corner for the break. A butterfly suplex into a cradle finishes Demoro at 3:47.

Rating: C-. I can go with Backlund’s amateur stuff as he is one of the best ever at making it look natural. That being said, this version of Backlund did not work out that well in this generation. It wasn’t the right time and fans didn’t care, but it isn’t like it’s insane to give someone who was that successful before another run.

Rick Martel insults Rob Bartlett and can’t believe that there is such little class around here. As for tonight, Martel is ready to prove that he is a better wrestler than Mr. Perfect.

Rick Martel vs. Mr. Perfect

Martel slams him down to start but gets kicked away and we have a standoff as commentary talks about rapping. Back up and Martel cartwheels into some jumping jacks, only to have perfect cartwheel away as well. Martel suplexes him into an armbar but Perfect sends him outside without much effort.

We take a break and come back with Martel’s gutwrench suplex getting two. The reverse chinlock goes on (Bartlett: “He’s riding him like a horse.”) for a bit until Martel’s slingshot splash hits knees. Perfect comes back with some atomic drops, giving us the awesome Martel selling. We take another break and come back with….Perfect having won during the commercial? We’ll say it was about 10:00.

Rating: C. You knew that these two were going to be able to do something nice but the ending was a rather rare sight. Or not so much a sight as we didn’t see it but you get the idea. Perfect was still quite a valuable member of the roster and Martel could make anyone look good, so it’s hard to find much to complain about here. Save for missing the ending of course.

Post match we see the finish, which was a clean PerfectPlex. We couldn’t just watch that as it aired?

Post break Perfect brings the Raw Girls back out to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. Not the worst show but at the same time there is only so much that can be done with the mess that is Wrestlemania IX season. There is a reason that this is seen as one of the darkest times in company history and it is still a mess. That being said, the early days of Raw are still fascinating in a way, as you can feel the changes taking place that would make the show what it would become. This wasn’t very good, but it’s so early in Raw that you can’t really complain too much.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

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

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 pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

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

Summerslam 1992
Date: August 29, 1992 (aired on PPV August 31, 1992)
Location: Wembley Stadium, London, England
Attendance: 80,355
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan

We’re a year removed from the nearly complete and utter crap that was Summerslam 1991. After Warrior was fired, he was back a mere 6 months later to save Hogan from getting beaten up by Sid. After a feud with Papa Shango, he was given a world title match at Summerslam against Macho. However, Flair and Perfect were still mad that Flair had never gotten his title match, so they’ve injected themselves into this.

The story goes like this: Flair says that they’ll be in the corner of one guy, but they won’t say whom. Both Savage and Warrior think someone is going to turn and the fans bought into it completely. Even I thought someone was going to turn. That’s main event #1. #2, and the real main event, was Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith for the IC Belt. This had another great storyline attached to it as Smith’s wife was Bret’s sister.

The angel was that she couldn’t decide whom to cheer for, which makes sense as who are you supposed to side with in a match like that? There’s no right or wrong answer and she eventually went with she hoped no one got hurt. That match is considered by many to be the greatest match of all time.

Now I’m not sure if I’d go that far, but it’s way up there. However, that’s more or less the only match most people remember from the show. This was the first PPV in a country other than the US or Canada, so let’s see how the first truly international show is.

So yeah, screw this up and had written all the way up to the start of Warrior/Savage and the computer died, ending my file which is going to have to be redone. I’m a bit ticked off about that. Actually I’m a lot ticked off about that. Let’s get this freaking thing going…again.

We open the show outside for no apparent reason as we hear the opinions of the fans of whose corner Perfect would be in. Dang some of these people are hard to understand. Learn English people. One of the kids says Bulldog is going to win, whether he wants to or not. Uh, I’m not the smartest wrestling fan in the world, but wouldn’t you want to win every match you’re in?

We hear some horns playing and more random shots of London before going to the stadium. The only thing I can say: DANG! This place looks awesome as the whole place is full and it’s second only to WM 3 as far as I can remember. Heenan is wearing a crown of course. Vince says this is the Summerslam you thought you’d never see.

I know 91 sucked but were they not planning on having another one after it? Were there issues in the company that I just didn’t recall? That’s Vince for you though as he rarely made sense. I have three dark matches on my tape, so let’s get to them.

Jim Duggan/Bushwackers vs. Mountie/Nasty Boys

Matches like these, which are usually not shown on official releases, are always cool to see because they’re unique. Not to mention it’s bonus wrestling so how can it be a bad thing? Mountie’s music is just nothing short of great. He sings it on the way to the ring, adding in commentary to it as he goes. That’s either brilliant or stupid. Heenan makes a Michael Jackson reference.

This is being written for the second time on the 4th of July, ten days after his death, and it still is hard to comprehend that the King of Pop is dead. Heenan goes on to say that New Zealand is a suburb of London as Shadow is face palming. For some reason Duggan, one of the biggest patriots in wrestling history, is cheered. Only a British crowd would chant USA in London for a team mainly made of people from New Zealand.

Both teams try to get cheers from the crowd in a bit of a contest to start. After two of these we get going. I always loved the Bushwackers, mainly because one of them, I believe Luke, licked me at a house show when I was 3-4 years old. Bobby is on fire here with the jokes. This is following a very simple formula: little wrestling, little brawling, lather rinse and repeat. The heels take over or it wouldn’t be a traditional tag match.

As this happens, the fans chant Butch. There’s a bunch of jokes there but I’d get banned for them. The Wackers use their battering ram on a pile of the guys in the corner, bringing forth the really bad Earl of Sandwich jokes from Vince. The bias from Vince is just flat out sad as he cheers when faces cheat and claims it’s horrid when heels do it. I get that he’s a face commentator but this is boarder line Gorilla Monsoon territory.

In a bit of a weird spot, Knobbs and Mountie lock hands for a double clothesline but instead use a boot to the stomach. Just looked odd to me. The announcers argue over the rules again and Heenan asks what’s in Vince’s book? That’s a very interesting idea actually. Can you imagine what a real Vince McMahon autobiography, as in not a WWE-PG one would be like? Some of the stories in there would be insane.

Duggan comes in and amazingly enough we get a big brawl. I think they botch the spot at the end again here as Duggan is set for the three point clothesline but Mountie doesn’t get up. Duggan goes to pick him up but Mountie gets up on his own and Duggan gets back in position, so maybe he was just late. Sags misses a top rope elbow onto Mountie to end it as Duggan gets the pin.

Rating: B. This was perfect for an opening dark match. It wasn’t serious in the slightest and was there to do nothing but get the crowd into the show. That’s just fine and it worked perfectly. Nothing great, but to open the action for a major PPV, this was just fine.

Papa Shango vs. Tito Santana

Now with Shango you have someone that absolutely scared the living tar out of me. He was the voodoo guy and he actually beat up the Warrior. That’s saying a lot when you think about it. Their blowoff match was in Rupp Arena so I was likely there for it. Shango was coming off a huge program with Warrior and they weren’t sure what to do with him at the moment as is evidenced here with him in a dark match.

Santana was in his El Matador gimmick at the time which was the height of stupidity. These two might add up to being the dumbest collection of gimmicks in one place at one time until being eclipsed by the gimmick battle royal. Santana was a guy a lot like Finlay or Regal today in that he could have a very solid match with just about anyone. Since he can do that, why would you ever get rid of him?

That’s what Vince realized so even once Tito was no longer a major player, you could still put him into a program and get a solid performance that you could depend on out of him. That’s a great asset to have and will almost always guarantee you at least employment. Santana gets NO reaction at all. They go back and forth for a bit, but Shango more or less no sells the big forearm, meaning that the move that nearly knocked Savage out isn’t good enough to get a two on a guy like Shango.

The ideas around finishing moves apparently depend on your place on the card which has always seemed bogus to me. He’s rocking the pink boots here, offering further proof that only Bret Hart can pull that off.

Now he hits another forearm and it’s a move of death, so thanks for the continuity there guys. I watch this match and the idea of how absurd Shango’s character is begins to dawn on me. A voodoo medicine man is supposed to have tights, wrist tape, weigh in and have boots? Anyway, he hits what has to be the worst finishing move possible: the shoulder breaker, to pin Santana.

Rating: D+. Yeah this was bad. It just never felt like it got going at all. Shango just didn’t know how to make a match work and with the shoulder breaker, he looked absurd out there. A character like his could have worked very well, but he just didn’t get the way the thought process should have been going at all.

Tatanka vs. Berserker

If you recall what I said about two gimmicks never being more absurd, forget it. These two are miles beyond what the last match had to offer. Tatanka is the Native American and Berserker is a Viking that wants to stab people. I say this with all sincerity: I wonder how many people there had no clue what Tatanka was. Apparently quite a few as he gets a big pop.

I think this match was actually filmed after the show as it’s completely dark except for the lights now, as opposed to the previous matches where sunlight could have lit the arena. For no good reason at all, Tatanka beats him up for the opening of this match. In the only interesting thing you’ll hear from Vince all night, Tatanka means Raging Buffalo. The structure to the ring is kind of weird as there’s the aisle and then some steps to get to what we would call the outside.

I kind of like that, but it’s similar to the setup that caused the end of Rick Rude’s career. They fight on the floor and the racial stereotype takes Berserker down the mini stairs to slam him and then comes back up them. After that waste of time it’s more stereotyping as the Papoose To Go ends it. I wonder if I can get a Papoose for eating in?

Rating: C. It was better than the previous match but that’s really not saying a lot. There was just a weird flow to this match and while it wasn’t horrid, it certainly wasn’t something you wanted to see more of.

Now it’s time for the real show as we get a very standard yet good early 90s opening. In something I like we just go straight to the first match.

Money Inc. vs. LOD

This was in the middle of the interesting three way feud over the tag titles between these four and the champions, the Natural Disasters. Of course, that would all be thrown out the window so Hulk and Beefcake could fight the mega heels at Mania. Part of the reason that match wasn’t the LOD somehow was because of what you’re about to see here: Rocko the Dummy. Yes you read that right.

For some reason that only Vince would know, the LOD were given back their old manager Paul Ellering (which was fine, although it would have been nice for them to tell us who in the world he was as he was their manager in the NWA). The problem came with Ellering’s friend Rocko. Rocko was a ventriloquist dummy. There was nothing more to it than that. He was a wooden dummy that the manager would bring with him and he would talk in the promos.

At least with Head and Al Snow it was a joke. This was with a serious tag team. Hawk got sick of it and quit very soon, maybe even at this show but I’m not sure. Anyway, the intro for the LOD is sweet as all three come in on Harleys. That’s actually really awesome looking, aside from the dummy being on the fornt of the first bike.

As if that’s not enough, Paul carries the stupid thing around at the ring. No wonder Hawk quit over this nonsense. Vince says that the LOD are known for being strong and for their great psychology. Excuse me for one second.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

LOD having freaking PSYCHOLOGY??? WOW, and I thought the people that want Kane to remask were imbeciles. They hit people hard. That’s their psychology I supposed. Yeah, that’s just a freaking joke all around. After I laugh very hard at that, I come to a screeching halt as I see something that’s just an ungodly abomination upon mankind.

Ted DiBiase, the Million Dollar Man, to me the greatest heel of all time, is wearing WHITE TIGHTS!!! WHAT IN THE HECKIS THIS NONSENSE??? DIBIASE, A HEEL, DOES NOT WEAR WHITE!!! EVER SINCE HE DEBUTED IT’S BEEN BLACK WITH DOLLAR SIGNS, BUT NOW HE’S WEARING WHITE??? THAT JUST DOES NOT WORK!!! After about three minutes of frustration, I think I’m ok now.

After Hawk beats him up for a minute (absolutely right he should get beaten up) both tag, as Vince says Animal will now start the match for his team. Riiiiiight. The LOD get beaten up with sleepers and a slam on the floor by white tights Magee over there. Not only that but his kneepads are long so it looks like he’s wearing stripper boots. Hart is yelling at Paul about the puppet on the floor which shows that Hart is always thinking out there.

He’s a bit annoying but the guy has always been around and always works as hard as he could. The heels dominate much of this which makes perfect sense here as they’re the thinking wrestlers and all they had to do was wait for LOD to make a mistake. Wow both the heels are over 260? That’s a big surprising.

Eventually Animal gets tagged in and the LOD starts throwing Money Inc. all over the ring. The ending comes out of almost nowhere as they get DiBiase up but IRS dropkicks Animal so he drops him. DiBiase gets powerslammed and pinned to end it. Just a very abrupt ending.

Rating: C+. Certainly not a bad match, but it just didn’t have any flow and while it was a 12 minute match, it felt like about 5. DiBiase’s tights are something I just can’t let go as it’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a long time. This just felt really fast and the ending looked odd to me. Not bad, but just didn’t work that well in my eyes.

In the back, Flair, in his wrestling attire despite not wrestling that night, which is a thread in and amongst itself, is with Gene. I really like this promo by Flair as Gene is demanding to know where Mr. Perfect is. He asks if Perfect is with Savage. Flair opens his mouth and then chuckles. He asks if Perfect is with Warrior.

Flair opens his mouth and then chuckles. Gene demands to know the whereabouts of Mr. Perfect. Flair says “why, he’s in the dressing room of course!” Whose dressing room? “Why, the dressing room of the winner of course. WHOO!” This comes off really well as Flair is just epic on the stick here.

We go over to Sean Mooney and Virgil, who is fighting Nailz tonight. More on Nailz later. Virgil is REALLY bad at promos. He shouts on weird words, he moves around too much, and I think he had 5 catchphrases inside of a 40 second promo. I feel sorry for the heat he gets though. I’ve heard stories of him being at wrestling conventions and autograph shows where he’ll sit at his table for 5 hours and maybe get 4 people that talk to him.

No he wasn’t ever a big star but he’s bigger than that. He’s wrestled at Wrestlemania and Starrcade, so it’s not like he’s never done anything of note. I’d certainly talk to him for awhile. Apparently he’s trying to get revenge for his best friend (WTF??) the Big Boss Man.

Nailz vs. Virgil

Nailz is a character that it’s very possible a lot of you don’t remember and that’s very understandable as he was on the roster less than a year. He had a great bit of psychology to him because he was supposed to be a convict that Boss Man had beaten up in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit. Therefore, Nailz had no training and only used punches, chokes and kicks etc. That makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

After a match Boss Man had with a jobber, Nailz ran out and beat up Boss Man, putting him out for about 5 months. This match is for Virgil to try to get some revenge for his buddy, and you can guess how this is going to go. Before we get to this match though, let’s go over how Nailz left the company because it’s a story unlike any you’ve ever heard. Nailz tried to kill Vince McMahon. I mean that literally, as in he was choking Vince and Vince was turning blue.

Nailz wanted money but Vince wouldn’t give it to him. Obviously, he was fired immediately thereafter. Nailz was also a guy at the steroids trial that was one of the big witnesses, but his testimony was so far over the top that it actually helped Vince out. Nailz was scheduled for a big feud with Taker as they were on the cover of the WWF magazine, had a staredown on Superstars and had some house show matches.

It’s saying a lot that he was being given Taker to work with and then all that other stuff happened. He was in WCW for all of a week, jobbing to Sting before he was out of the mainstream. Kind of sad as I always liked him.

As for the match, what are you expecting here? It’s a guy that needs wins to prove himself against a glorified jobber. Nailz dominates early but Virgil takes over, leading to the chokeout win. I know that’s really short but that’s the commentary for the whole match. It’s like 3 minutes long and there’s just nothing at all of note in it. Afterwards Nailz beats up Virgil with the stick.

Rating: C. This was really hard to grade so we’ll call it average I guess. It was a squash and it got the point it was trying to make. Virgil fights but loses while Nailz looks dominant, leading up to the return of the Boss Man and their blowoff match at the Survivor Series.

Alfred Hayes can’t get into Savage’s dressing room.

Shawn Michaels vs. Rick Martel

There’s a very interesting pair of twists here. First of all, both guys are heels. Second, there’s an agreement not to hit each other in the face. That’s not something you hear very often. This is still the boy toy era for Shawn as he wasn’t a huge deal yet but was getting there. Sherri’s outfit has no back so she’s more or less in a thong which Vince notices IMMEDIATELY.

Martel cartwheels out of the way of a backdrop and does some jumping jacks. Shawn takes over for the most part early on and Martel is in trouble. And never mind as it’s more or less even. Shawn pulls back to throw a punch but stops. Martel is the de facto face here which is interesting as he was a pretty solid heel.

Shawn is down on the floor as Martel asks Sherri to come with him. They hug and Shawn doesn’t really see it. The cameraman keeps getting shots of Sherri’s back which isn’t that bad I guess. Both guys use the tights as it’s kind of interesting to see all of the heel vs. heel tactic. Also do you think that’s enough back shots in one match?

Sweet chin music hits the chest which makes sense here. Shawn hits a knee to the face and goes for the ropes with his feet but can’t reach them so the referee stops the count before he got there. In other words he’s not counting because they’re following the rules. Ok then. They start slapping each other and Sherri starts to freak.

They square off with fists up as Sherri “faints”. Dang she falls really well. Vince of course thinks she’s had a heart attack. Shawn DRILLS Martel when he tries to give her mouth to mouth. They slug it out in the aisle and it’s a double countout. Sherri gets up to see what’s going on and then pretends she’s out again.

Shawn comes back to carry her off as Vince and Heenan make jokes. Martel runs down and drills him, sending Sherri crashing to the floor. He picks her up and Shawn drills Martel, sending Sherri flying sprawling to the floor again. This is kind of funny as it’s coming off almost like a Weekend At Bernie’s thing which is meant as a good thing. Martel comes out and throws water on Sherri for no apparent reason.

Rating: B. I really liked this actually. It’s definitely a different kind of idea and it worked very well I thought. It’s not often you get a good heel vs. heel match but you certainly did here. This worked very well and the post match stuff was funny yet good at the same time. I liked this far more than I expected to and it worked well.

The Nasties say they’ll get their tag title shot, but for no reason at all they talk about the world title match. You see the beginnings of Jimmy’s jumping to Money Inc and the to his face turn.

Tag Titles: Beverly Brothers vs. Natural Disasters

I’m sure most of you know who the Natural Disasters are, but how many of you know who the Beverly Brothers are? I’m guessing not many of you, because I can fairly safely say that this is the highlight of the WWF run. I think their gimmick was being spoiled rich kids but that was never really explained. They were really just tag team jobbers and little more.

They were a huge deal in the AWA where they were the only tag team to win rookies of the year. They were gone in less than two years and no one noticed they were gone. Anyway, this is a standard tag with the Naturals dominating early but then the heels taking over as Heenan makes fat jokes. BREAKING NEWS: SHAWN MICHAELS HAS LEFT WEMBLEY! Since Typhoon sucks more than Quake, he’s the face in peril.

A shot to the back with the metal scroll of the Genius has no effect which makes me wonder what the point of that was. Quake beats up the Beverly Brother so Typhoon is on his own and can make the tag. Naturally, the talented Disaster known as Earthquake kicks some Beverly faces in. A brief double team leads to the Earthquake to end this.

Rating: D+. The low rating is for one reason: there is a total and complete lack of drama in this. No one believed the Beverlys had a chance and they didn’t at all. It was a title match for a title match’s sake, which never turns out to be anything good. This was a waste of time, but I guess the match itself was fine.

Gene interviews the Bushwackers who want to talk about Perfect being in someone’s corner. Gene makes some dumb British jokes which aren’t funny.

Alfred Hayes can’t get in Warrior’s dressing room either.

Repo Man vs. Crush

Crush is once again a guy that could have been a big star but he never got a push that he needed. It’s a Demolition reunion here as Smash meets Crush. This is pure filler and nothing but a way to kill some time before the world title match. Repo’s offense is about 9 punches, a thumb to the eye, and a belly to back suplex. That’s it. Other than that, we get Crush using the head vice and dominating the whole thing. Boring and quick match which was just a filler, so how much can I complain?

Rating: C+. This was pure filler so what do you really expect from it? Crush looked dominant so he’ll be getting a bit better push. Oh wait he’s about to start feuding with Doink. Nevermind.

We hit the recap button on Warrior and Savage’s feud which is WAY too long. There’s two holes I see in this storyline. For one, Perfect tells both guys he’ll be in their corner. Ok, that’s fine, but couldn’t either guy put two and two together and get they’re being played? I guess that one’s forgivable though as either guy could have planned to lie to the other one.

However, the one thing I can’t get: if Perfect’s such a great manager, WHY IS THE GUY HE’S MANAGING NOT CHAMPION ALREADY? Since when did Perfect become this hot commodity all of a sudden? Savage’s line of “I’m the WWF Champion and you’re not!” is just great stuff.

WWF Title: Randy Savage vs. Ultimate Warrior

Oh apparently it’s the Ullllllllllllllllllltimate Warrior according to Vince. Of course Perfect doesn’t come out with either guy at first to build even more suspense which is actually a good move. It’s twilight in London so the scene of the whole stadium is really cool looking. Huge staredown to start which shows off the point that Warrior is now wearing a flesh colored singlet. This was huge for the theory that Warrior was on steroids which he pretty much was a guaranteed user of.

The start of this is a style that I like as nearly the first ten minutes is almost completely back and forth work. Neither guy can get anything substantial going and they just hammer away on the other one, looking for an advantage. Savage is getting booed here so I guess he’s supposed to be the heel? Anyway, eventually he takes a slight advantage as he knocks Warrior to the floor.

They come back in and I guess Warrior botches a spot as Savage is trying to pull him into the turnbuckle but Warrior falls short. You can tell it was a botch as they do the exact same thing about two seconds later. In a weird spot that I kind of like, Savage hits the double axe but Warrior does his hulk up thing. The second takes him down, but he catches the third in a powerslam. Just kind of a weird looking sequence.

Anyway, Warrior takes control as we get a nice little story going of neither guy being able to get a definitive advantage going for them. Warrior hurts Savage’s back and Savage hurts Warrior’s neck. They slow it down now with Warrior having a slight advantage. This is a slower paced match which is fine, as it’s going longer so the slow page helps it a lot I think. After a minute or two of this, Perfect and Flair come down.

This is where I really wish they hadn’t been involved, as Warrior and Savage were putting on a great match so far that had me very interested in it. Warrior does something weird (stunning right?) as he slams Savage, goes to the apron, and turns right back around and comes into the ring. What the heck? He misses a splash which he sells like he got shot in the ribs. Vince freaks because Perfect hasn’t gone to either corner.

Since when are there designated corners for a singles match? Perfect pulls the leg of Savage as Warrior is instantly the heel. I know my jokes have been lacking here, but this has been a great match and it’s hard to make fun of something that you really like. I think Warrior has set a record for most body slams in one match. After another one he goes to the top which I guess was the spot he wanted to do earlier. Maybe he stopped because Perfect and Flair were coming.

That would make sense I guess. Oh the ref is down too. He gets up and Warrior argues with him, leading to a much bigger ref bump. Piledriver from Savage which looks awesome. This time Perfect holds Warrior as Flair hits him with, well I guess since we’re in England it’s a natural born object. Savage however doesn’t see it. After slam #38 the elbow hits but due to no referee, we get a two despite Savage pulling the tights which is acknowledged.

Hulk up by Warrior as he starts the sequence that ended Mania 7’s match. Perfect tries to grab his foot during the set up for the splash but Flair gets him with a chair to the back on the other side as everyone is sure Savage is the guy that bought Perfect’s services. Apparently the crack of a chair, Flair moving away suddenly, and the Warrior suddenly falling down on his face aren’t enough proof that he did anything for the referee.

There’s another very nice little touch to this as Savage hasn’t seen anything that Flair or Perfect have done. Earlier the piledriver could have put Warrior down for as long as Savage was helping the referee, but this time he knows he didn’t touch Warrior, so someone else must have. That’s a nice little touch to add to it. Savage is ticked off that someone is helping him, so no one knows what’s going on.

He sets for the elbow but can’t take the win that way, instead jumping at Flair, WHO HAS A CHAIR! The obvious happens and Savage jumps into the chair, knocking himself nearly out as I can barely believe how stupid that was. This leads to the fastest count out of all time in an ending that I’m really not wild about at all. Apparently the chair hit Savage in the knee as Flair and Perfect destroy Savage soon thereafter but Warrior makes the save.

This would lead to the injured knee of Savage that would eventually cost Savage the title to Flair on a match that is very hard to find. The announcers conclude that no one sold out, which is about as obvious as the statement that Vince is an imbecile at times. He goes on to say that both men are champions. Not really Vince, not really. Savage would lose the belt two days later, before one Hitman would win it about a month and a half afterwards.

Warrior hands him the belt and helps him to the back with the music playing as we go to Perfect and Flair in the back. Since this is integral to the match, I’ll lump them together. They say that the deal was made, but it was between Perfect and Flair. They mention Plan B but won’t say what it is. Spoiler: it’s getting the title back to Flair. Gene thinks this is earth shattering news when it’s really not.

Rating: A. The only thing keeping it from being an A+ is the lack of a definitive ending, which I guess was required to have Savage drop the belt two days later. Anyway, this was an excellent match as both guys beat the tar out of each other and neither really gave an inch.

It may not have been as epic as their Mania match, but it’s good on its own. Perfect and Flair added something to it and I’m very glad neither guy turned as it would have hurt the match in my mind. Great match, but somehow this isn’t the best match on the card.

Official Attendance: less than Mania 3 so who cares?

Undertaker vs. Kamala

Harvey Whippleman does Kamala’s intro, saying he’s from the dark continent of Africa. I was under the impression that there’s lots of sunlight in Africa, so is that a very sly racial joke? I was under the impression that Africans’ skin darkened as a natural defense to the amount of sunlight on that continent. Racial stereotypes rule I guess?

Anyway, this is really just a mini-feud for Taker before the Giant Gonzalez shows up, much like, oh I don’t know: THE SAME FREAKING THING THEY DID WITH DAIVARI, MARK HENRY, MUHAMMAD HASSAN AND KHALI??? Could that be it? Could it be that they just took the EXACT same stupid story and redid it, hoping that no one was watching 13 years ago? Yep, that’s exactly what they did.

I swear these jokes write themselves when you’re making fun of WWE’s writing. Kamala used to scare the HECK out of me when I was like 2 years old. The dude was just freaking creepy. He wants to cook Taker apparently. Taker comes to the ring in the back of a hearse that I think has a sunroof. Oh never mind he’s standing on the bumper. There’s a coffin in the hearse, which is foreshadowing the coffin match at Survivor Series in a month or two.

This is a very quick match and is only to fill in time between the two main events and let the crowd catch its breath for a bit. Taker absolutely destroys him and as he’s going for the tombstone, Kim Chee runs in and hits Taker with his helmet for the DQ. Kamala hits three splashes, including one from the top rope and Taker just sits up. Kamala runs, and we set up for the main event.

Rating: C. I think I’m going to start giving C’s to matches that are too short to grade. The problem is there’s just not enough time in a 3 minute match to tell whether its good or not. It did its job I guess which is to set up the big match next PPV and fill in time here, so I can’t complain I guess.

Mooney is with Davey Boy Smith, talking about the family pressures which was a nice touch that I think the match needed. He says that once they get into the ring, Bret isn’t his brother, but a stranger. Mooney says what will the pressure of wrestling in front of 80,000 people be like. “That’s not pressure. That’s a dream.” That line is either epic or clichéd. Not sure but I’m leaning towards the former.

Bret says that Smith wouldn’t be anything without Bret as Bret introduced Davey to his wife and got him started in the WWF. He says Smith is ungrateful and I am completely hyped for this match.

Some bagpipe players play Roddy Piper’s theme music, which is ALWAYS cool. Oh they’re the Balboa Highlanders. Piper is with them, and the marking out continues as he gets a huge pop. This is actually really cool looking as Piper gets a solo and isn’t half bad. Granted I know nothing about the bagpipes. They play Scotland the Brave, which is an awesome song so this is sweet.

Mooney is with Diana Smith, who says nothing that you wouldn’t expect her to say. Mooney rudely cuts her off and asks who she thinks will win. He cuts her off AGAIN as you can tell she really doesn’t want to do this, or she’s a great actress. Could be a combination of both as this actually isn’t that bad of an interview. She sounds really upset about this, which she should be. Mooney cuts her off a THIRD TIME to send us to ringside. Dang, Mooney was a jerk in this.

Intercontinental Title: Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith

Smith comes out first to the hero’s pop. Lennox Lewis carries the flag for him as a relative unknown at the time which is always cool. The pop for Smith is huge, while Bret gets the textbook definition of a mixed reaction. He’s not exactly a heel, but he’s certainly not the guy the crowd wants to win. As for the match, I’ll be brief about it. I’m sure you’ve all seen it, but if you haven’t, WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

This is an absolute classic and is in the running for greatest match of all time. While it seems that there’s no doubt who would win looking back, at the time, this was a huge upset. Smith had never really done anything of note but was getting the singles push for over a year leading up to this night. Everyone knew Hart was a god in the ring and this was the blowoff match to launch him into the main event scene where he would be for the rest of his career in the WWF.

I’m going to skip the play by play here as I can’t do it justice and go straight to the end of the match. It runs over twenty five minutes as opposed to the already forgotten near 30 minute masterpiece we saw earlier for the world title. Both guys are absolutely spent as this has been back and forth the whole time with Smith wrestling a different style than he usually did and throwing off Bret.

Bret is his traditional perfectly timed self with a balanced assault all around, mainly working on the back though to set up for the Sharpshooter. The crowd is hot the whole match as they pop over every single move. This is a match where it’s two guys doing any move they can think of instead of using the same standard stuff that they always use. Clothesline puts both guys down and Bret tries to do the same thing he did last year to Perfect to get the title in the first place.

Smith does something that’s allegedly never been done and gets to the ropes. Someone else might have done it before but I’m not sure. The announcers royally screw this up by making it sound like Bret had him in a headlock. Hart hits the ropes and goes for a sunset flip and Smith goes for the famous counter of dropping to his knees to get the pin and the title as the place erupts.

The music not playing lets things sink in a bit better as Bret can’t believe it. They announce Smith as the new champion to another epic pop. Bret gets up and eventually holds up Smith’s hand as Diana comes in and they all pose to end the show.

Rating: A+. This is one of the greatest matches of all time and is required viewing for anyone that calls themselves a wrestling fan. That’s all that needs to be said.

Hart would go on to win the WWF Title in October in a complete shock in Canada while Smith would really be a transitional champion, losing to Shawn in about two months to launch Shawn’s singles career. This match and title change was really just for the English fans, but dang, what a treat for them and the moment is certainly worth it.

Overall Rating: A+. This is a fantastic show and unless there’s something I’m completely missing, the best Summerslam ever. The only one that pops into my mind to even approach it would be 2002, but that’s way too far in the future to worry about. There’s two absolute classics along with some other very good stuff.

The fans went home happy, there was a huge crowd, and not really a single bad match as everything is at least watchable. The worst match is by far the tag title match, but even it’s not that bad. Excellent show and it gets my highest recommendation.

 

 

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

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Survivor Series 1990
Date: November 22, 1990
Location: Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, Connecticut
Attendance: 16,000
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Roddy Piper

This is a somewhat different show that in recent years as we have a main event of sorts. It was never tried again and that’s probably the best idea. It’s called the Grand Finale Match of Survival in which the survivors of each team meet in one final Survivor Series match. The winners get absolutely nothing, which continues to prove that these shows are pretty worthless. Let’s get to it.

Sean Mooney welcomes us to the show and talks about the Grand Finale. He’s standing in front of a giant egg which apparently is going to hatch because of the heat from the crowd. Nothing good can possibly come from this.

The nifty squares intro theme open things up again.

Gorilla and Piper chat about the show for a bit.

The Warriors vs. The Perfect Team

The Warriors: Ultimate Warrior, Texas Tornado, Legion of Doom

The Perfect Team: Mr. Perfect, Demolition

This is the three man version of Demolition, including Crush. Perfect is feuding with Tornado (Kerry Von Erich, the Intercontinental Champion) and the LOD is feuding with Demolition after the LOD cost them the titles. Warrior, the WWF World Champion, is there because he has nothing else to do save for a minor feud with Perfect. His team is in the back before the match and says they’ll win.

The name Warriors is appropriate as you have the Ultimate Warrior, the Modern Day Warrior (Von Erich’s nickname in WCCW) and the Road Warriors (the LOD’s NWA name). I’ll never understand why the LOD and Demolition never had a big proper match. Perfect immediately goes to the apron and lets part of Demolition start. It’s Animal vs. Smash first in major power battle. They get to the fight immediately with Animal taking him to the mat. Animal throws him into Hawk for a right hand and the other Warriors get in a shot as well.

Smash comes back with a powerslam for two and it’s off to Perfect. That doesn’t last long so here’s Smash again, and he walks right into a powerslam. Everything breaks down and the Warriors clear the ring. Tornado comes in to face Smash who is taking a beating in this so far. Off to Ax who has much better luck for about ten seconds. There’s the Claw from Tornado but for some reason Warrior gets the tag and hits a series of awkward looking shoulder blocks before finishing Ax with the splash.

Crush immediately comes in to jump Warrior and take over. Smash gets in a slam on Warrior and Crush drops a top rope knee for two. Perfect is freaking out in his trademark over the top style. Warrior gets up a boot in the corner and clotheslines Crush down. Off to Hawk who always looks like he could murder someone in the ring. Perfect tries him out and is immediately slammed down.

Hawk counters a reversal to send Perfect into the corner but his shoulder goes into the post HARD to give the evil ones the advantage. Demolition pounds away on him but Hawk punches right back. A big flying shoulder puts Smash down and Hawk doesn’t tag when he has the chance. The top rope clothesline kills Smash and everything breaks down. Hawk kicks the referee and somehow this disqualifies not only Hawk but also Animal, Smash and Crush. We’re down to Perfect vs. Warrior/Tornado.

It’s going to be Warrior starting the handicap match but Perfect wants Tornado instead. Perfect immediately jumps him and is clotheslined out almost immediately after the jumping. Warrior bangs Perfect’s head into Heenan’s and sends Bobby into the front row. Tornado charges at Perfect and slams into the post to give Perfect the advantage for a bit. A buckle gets exposed somewhere in there and Tornado’s face goes into the steel, setting up the PerfectPlex to make it one on one.

Perfect tries the PerfectPlex again on Warrior which doesn’t work at all. Instead he hammers Warrior down and hits a great looking dropkick for two. Having Perfect run things out there for as long as possible is the best idea they’ve got. Warrior starts grabbing the ropes and shrugging off all the offense from Perfect. A shoulder block and the splash get the final pin for the Ultimate one.

Rating: D. This was probably the worst Survivor Series match so far in the four years they’ve been running this show. Not only was the match lopsided from the start, but half of the people in it were gone seven minutes in. Perfect never had a chance and Warrior had no reason to be in this match at all.

Ted DiBiase has a mystery partner for his match. Oh boy does he ever.

Million Dollar Team vs. Dream Team

Million Dollar Team: Ted DiBiase, Rhythm and Blues, ???

Dream Team: Dusty Rhodes, Koko B. Ware, Hart Foundation

Rhythm and Blues are Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine and they’ve been challenging the Hart Foundation for the Tag Team Titles. Dusty and DiBiase are feuding for obvious character reasons. Now we get to the legendary part of the match: the mystery partner. DiBiase gets on the mic and introduces for the first time ever…..THE UNDERTAKER. Who on earth would have imagined what this guy would become over the next twenty two years? Unreal indeed. The look on Undertaker’s face is eerie and he stands there like a zombie to make it even better. Undertaker has his own manager here in the form of Brother Love.

Quick sidebar: the Undertaker is probably the greatest example ever of someone being the only person that could pull off his character. Mark Calaway is PERFECT as the Undertaker with the look and the size and the dead looking eyes and the tattoos and everything like that. Before this he was just Mean Mark Callous in WCW and was a generic big villain. Sometimes it’s about finding what works and Undertaker has worked for a very long time. Also a bit of trivia: he debuted at a Superstars taping three days before this under the name Kane the Undertaker.

Undertaker and Bret start with the newcomer pounding the tar out of Bret. Well if you want to make someone look like a killer, call Bret Hart. Bret hits the ropes and charges at Undertaker, only to get caught by the throat and slammed down. It was more like a clothesline that Undertaker went to the mat with than the usual chokeslam here but he did have Bret by the throat.

Off to Neidhart who can’t move Undertaker in the slightest and gets slammed for trying. Jim looked TERRIFIED and tags out to Koko, who is too stupid to be afraid. Koko misses a charge and clotheslines himself on the top. The Tombstone (I believed named by Gorilla on the spot here) debuts but isn’t exactly the famous version yet, as Undertaker has both of Koko’s legs on one side of his head and covers with the folded arms but from the sides. It looked and sounded great though.

Bret comes in and hammers on Undertaker who just stares at him. Undertaker tags in Valentine and gives one of the most evil glares you’ll ever see at Bret. Off to Dusty who starts gyrating. They chop it out in the corner and it’s off to Neidhart. The Foundation take their turns working over Valentine’s arm but Greg gets a knee up in the corner. Off to Honky who is rapidly on his way out of the company. Bret makes a blind tag to Neidhart who sneaks in and powerslams Honky out.

DiBiase comes in to jump Neidhart but it’s quickly off to Dusty for the big showdown. Dusty tags out to Neidhart quickly but Virgil trips Jim up, allowing DiBiase to clothesline Neidhart for the pin. Here’s Bret again who pounds away on DiBiase and it’s back to Rhodes for more of the same. Back to Undertaker who gets some HEIGHT on a jumping stomp to the back of Dusty’s head.

Undertaker chokes Bret in the corner and somehow shows no emotion while at the same time looking angrier than any wrestler I’ve ever seen. Bret fights the now legal DiBiase out of the corner and it’s off to Dusty. Undertaker comes in, goes up, walks (a little way) down the rope with no one to hold onto, and hits a double ax to eliminate Dusty. Brother Love stomps on Dusty a bit so Dusty chases him off. Undertaker stalks Dusty to the back to get counted out, which is the only thing they could have done with him here.

Back in the ring Bret rolls up Valentine very quickly and it’s DiBiase vs. Hart. Bret pounds on DiBiase and atomic drops him to the floor, followed by a pescado to take Ted out again. DiBiase’s shoulder goes into the post and his head goes into the steps and they head back inside. They slug it out but DiBiase sends him chest first into the buckle to take over.

A quick backslide gets two for Hart and now it’s time for a classic: Bret trips over DiBiase and fakes a knee injury, resulting in a small package for two. Virgil interference messes up and another rollup gets two for Bret. The backbreaker and middle rope elbow get two for Hart but DiBiase rolls through a cross body for the pin.

Rating: C+. This is a very interesting match as you could see stars being made and stars going away. DiBiase clearly didn’t mean as much as he used to and would shift into a tag team run soon after this. Dusty would be gone in January as would Honky. On the other hand you can see the rise of Bret Hart on the horizon as the crowd was LOSING IT over those near falls at the end. Oh and the Undertaker. That’s kind of a big deal.

The Vipers (Jake Roberts’ team) are ready for Martel’s team. Why they’re in the shower I’m not sure.

The Vipers vs. The Visionaries

The Vipers: Jake Roberts, Rockers, Jimmy Snuka

The Visionaries: Rick Martel, Warlord, Power and Glory

Power and Glory are Hercules and Paul Roma. This is built around Martel vs. Roberts, which is based on Martel blinding Jake with cologne and Jake not having full vision yet. This was a BIG feud which they screwed up with a horrible match at Wrestlemania VII. It wasn’t that the wrestling was bad, but that it was a blindfold match and they spent about 2 minutes in contact with each other.

Marty and Warlord start as Piper is singing I Am The Walrus. Warlord powers Marty around but misses a charge in the corner. Warlord is now out of his Powers of Pain phase and is now shiny and bald. Both Rockers try to outmaneuver him but it just results in bringing in Martel. Shawn handles him with ease and brings in Jake, causing Martel to scamper away.

It’s Roma instead and Jake picks him apart like he’s not even there. He works on Roma’s arm and brings in Snuka to keep it up, but the afro apparently weighs down Snuka’s brain to the point where he can’t maintain a wristlock. Off to Hercules who gets chopped down so it’s back to Warlord instead. Snuka tries his stuff but when that gets nowhere it’s off to Marty. Jannetty opts for speed but jumps into a great looking powerslam for the pin.

Off to Shawn whose leapfrog is caught but he hurricanranas Warlord down instead. Jake comes in and the fans wants a DDT. A bunch of clotheslines take Warlord down and it’s back to Shawn. Roma comes in with an elbow drop to the back of the head as Gorilla talks anatomy. Warlord comes in and backdrops Shawn before tagging out to Hercules. Martel comes in just as fast and drops a knee for two. Roma sends Shawn into the corner and Shawn of course sells it like he’s dead. Martel’s shoulder hits the post and here’s Snuka again.

A flying headbutt to the standing Martel gets two, but Rick grabs a small package for the pin out of nowhere. Jake comes in again and Martel immediately runs and brings in Hercules. Roberts is getting frustrated because he can’t get his hands on Martel, but he still manages a knee lift and a failed DDT attempt. Jake starts pounding away on Hercules but Martel clotheslines him down instead.

Roma comes in for some stomping but he misses a middle rope punch. There’s the hot tag to Shawn who suplexes Roma down and hits a middle rope elbow for two. Shawn does what he can but Hercules comes in off a blind tag and pounds away even more. Power and Glory hook up the Powerplex (superplex from Hercules immediately followed by a top rope splash from Roma) eliminates Shawn and it’s 4-1. It’s Hercules in first but Jake is in trouble. Warlord comes in with a bearhug but Jake escapes and DDTs him out of nowhere. Jake says screw it and gets the snake out. He chases Martel to the back for the countout loss.

Rating: D+. There wasn’t much to see here but other than Jake vs. Martel, there was nothing here at all. To the best of my knowledge, Warlord and Snuka never interacted before or after this so they were just tacked on. The Rockers and Power and Glory had fought at Summerslam but that’s about it. The Visionaries are the first ever team to survive intact.

The Hulkamaniacs are ready for the Natural Disasters. This is a continuation of Hogan vs. Earthquake, with Hulk’s team facing Earthquake and Jimmy Hart’s and Bobby Heenan’s cronies. Hogan says they can go get rid of Sadaam Hussein. Remember that this is during the Gulf War.

Natural Disasters vs. Hulkamaniacs

Natural Disasters: Earthquake, Dino Bravo, Haku, Barbarian

Hulkamaniacs: Hulk Hogan, Big Boss Man, Tugboat, Jim Duggan

There’s some actual drama here as Hogan hadn’t pinned Earthquake before this and the other guys balance out somewhat well. Boss Man and Bravo are the captains’ friends at the moment and the other four are really just filling in space. Tugboat is a big guy called the Sailing Superstar. You can’t get much lamer than that. Haku vs. Duggan start us off as the announcers talk about the Grand Finale. It’s such a different time when they automatically know who is going to be on what side. Today you would be waiting on the swerve. Duggan pounds away on Haku and a clothesline gets two.

Bravo and Barbarian come in to get some shots but it’s quickly off to Haku vs. Boss Man. Haku dropkicks him down for two but the Boss Man Slam eliminates Haku quick. Barbarian comes in next and Boss Man runs him over. Heenan gets taken off the apron and Boss Man punches Barbarian a bit before walking into a suplex. Barbarian misses a middle rope elbow and it’s off to Duggan vs. Bravo. Scratch that as Earthquake makes a blind tag and crushes Duggan in the corner. Duggan keeps trying to knock Earthquake down but Jimmy low bridges him. Duggan brings the board in with him and hits Earthquake for the DQ.

It’s Hogan vs. Earthquake but Hulk beats up all three guys because he can. Hogan easily slams Earthquake and fires off ten punches in the corner. Earthquake comes back with a powerslam and tags in Bravo who stomps away, only to get small packaged for the pin. There’s the tag to Boss Man who hits his rapid fire punches in the corner. Boss Man goes up for a cross body and oh my goodness Earthquake caught him. That is SCARY power. Hogan shoves Boss Man on top of Earthquake for two but Barbarian kicks Boss Man in the back to put him down. An elbow from Earthquake eliminates Boss Man.

Hogan vs. Earthquake again and Hulk tries to drop the big guy. Hulk tries another slam but can’t get Earthquake up. The third attempt results in Earthquake falling on Hogan for two. Hulk avoids an elbow and there’s the tag to Tugboat, causing everyone to shout TOOOOT which sounds like booing.

Hogan pulls Earthquake to the floor and Earthquake and Tugboat get counted out. That leaves Hogan vs. Barbarian and things don’t look good for the Disasters. Barbarian goes after Hogan on the floor and doesn’t hit a piledriver well at all. It gets two and they clothesline each other. Barbarian hits the top rope clothesline, but it’s Hulk Up, legdrop and we’re done.

Rating: C-. This was a lot more fast paced and energetic than you would expect. The continued practice of just teasing the encounter that the match is based on is getting REALLY old though as I guess they want to preserve the house show draws, because who would want to see a feud continue after a single match right? My goodness have things changed in the last twenty years.

Hogan beats up Heenan post match and poses. Piper cheering for Hogan is just wrong.

Some fans talk and have little to say. Well one fan signs who he likes which is cool.

Here’s Savage with something to say. He’s still the King at this point which has been going on for awhile. Savage doesn’t have a match tonight and he doesn’t like not being recognized as the future WWF World Champion. He promises to take his title back from Warrior and talks about Sherri slapping The Ultimate Chicken a few times. There’s nothing of note here but it reinforced that they have issues. That’s something you never hear today: promos to just remind you that people don’t like each other.

Alliance vs. Mercenaries

Alliance: Nikolai Volkoff, Bushwhackers, Tito Santana

Mercenaries: Sgt. Slaughter, Boris Zhukov, Orient Express

This is during the Iraqi Sympathizer period for Slaughter and the idea here is military themed with the other four being a group of international wrestlers banding together to fight Slaughter and company. Before the match, Slaughter tells Gene about having a Thanksgiving dinner with the Mercenaries and not having to be inconvenienced by being in the desert. That’s better than being in the Army and eating K-Rations right? This was a pretty edgy angle at the time. Questionable but edgy. This interview is in the arena with the Mercenaries’ music playing. That must be a pretty dull period for the crowd.

The Bushwhackers torment Boris to start and the flying forearm from Tito eliminates him in about 20 seconds. Sato (half of the Orient Express, along with Tanaka) comes in and is accidentally superkicked by Tanaka. The Battering Ram puts out Sato and it’s 4-2 inside of two minutes. Tanaka comes in and the forearm from Tito makes it 4-1 in less than 2:15. Volkoff pounds on Slaughter with his usual stuff but gets punched in the face for his efforts as Slaughter takes over.

After a long beating, Slaughter eliminates Volkoff with an elbow. There were about three minutes of beating in between there but there was absolutely nothing of note to talk about. The Bushwhackers double team Sarge for a bit but Slaughter beats them down and gutbusts Luke for an elimination. A clothesline takes out Butch about 30 seconds later and it’s one on one.

Tito immediately dropkicks Slaughter into the post and things speed up with by far the two most talented guys in the match in there. Tito hits a top rope forearm for two and stomps away even faster. Piper is trying not to curse and Slaughter slams Santana’s head into the mat. A neckbreaker and backbreaker combine for two on Santana.

After some more beating, Tito gets a quick forearm attempt but hits the referee by mistake. The forearm hits the second time but General Adnan (Slaughter’s manager/boss) hits Santana with the flag and Slaughter puts on the Camel Clutch. The referee saw the flag though and it’s a DQ win for Tito.

Rating: D-. Well that…..happened I guess. They went through seven eliminations inside of eleven minutes and the match was awful. Basically this could have been Slaughter vs. either Volkoff or Santana and gotten the same payoff. I have no idea what they were going for here, but my guess is that they had nothing else to fill in fifteen minutes with (the show only runs two hours and twenty minutes and we’ve got something else to go before the main event).

DiBiase and the Visionaries say Warrior and Hogan (no mention of Santana) can’t work together. Sean says it’s going to be these five against Warrior and Hogan.

It’s time for the Egg Hatching. Gene talks about the fans being hot tonight and the egg starts to hatch. There’s no way around this: it’s the Gobbledygooker, a humanoid turkey who square dances to Turkey in the Straw with Gene Okerlund, does a bunch of flips and is played by the WAY too talented for this Hector Guerrero. The fans IMMEDIATELY start booing when it hatches, as there is absolutely no point to it. This was rumored to be anything from Undertaker to Flair (about a year early for him) to some Playboy Playmate. Total time spent on this: over seven minutes.

Hogan, Warrior and Santana are ready.

Hulk Hogan/Tito Santana/Ultimate Warrior vs. Ted DiBiase/Visionaries

Oddly enough, Hogan comes out before Tito. Tito and Warlord start and a forearm ends Warlord in less than 30 seconds. Roma immediately powerslams Tito and brings in DiBiase. My goodness a 20 minute Santana vs. DiBiase match would freaking rock. Tito misses another forearm and a hot shot gives DiBiase the pin.

Hogan comes in and beats the tar out of DiBiase for a bit before ducking his head too early. A kick to Hogan’s face slows him down and it’s off to Roma for a top rope forearm for two. Back to Hercules who pounds away on Hulk even more, followed by the same from DiBiase. The Powerplex hits Hogan…..and has basically no effect. Roma is immediately pinned by a clothesline and it’s 3-2.

Martel comes in to beat on Hogan but gets kicked in the face. Off to Warrior who fires off a bunch of kicks in the corner and backdrops Martel. Rick tries to hit him in the head and boy are you really that dumb? Hogan knocks Martel to the floor and Rick walks off for the countout. Hogan beats on DiBiase a bit and there’s the legdrop. Warrior beats Hercules with the splash about 40 seconds later to win.

Rating: D. What in the world was the point of this? I mean……am I watching a house show? These are the kind of matches you hear about at the end of shows to send the fans home happy, not to main event a PPV. It was clear that this show wasn’t needed and that something had to be done.

Posing ends the show.

Overall Rating: F. This show has some moments of ok, but can you imagine PAYING for this show? Undertaker debuts here but no one had any idea what that would mean. Nothing is changed at all, mainly because the company was afraid no one would want to see the house show matches after this.

This show runs two hours and eighteen minutes and nearly eight minutes of that are the Gobbledygooker. On top of that the main event runs about ten minutes in total counting entrances. You’re looking at about two hours for the non main event stuff and that’s ridiculous for a PPV. This is another show that doesn’t need to exist.

Ratings Comparison

Warriors vs. Perfect Team

Original: C-

Redo: D

Dream Team vs. Million Dollar Team

Original: C+

Redo: C+

Vipers vs. Visionaries

Original: D+

Redo: D+

Hulkamaniacs vs. Natural Disasters

Original: C+

Redo: C-

Alliance vs. Mercenaries

Original: F

Redo: D-

Grand Finale Match of Survival

Original: D-

Redo: D

Overall Rating

Original: F

Redo: F

It sucked four years ago and it still sucks now.

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

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/11/09/history-of-survivor-series-count-up-1990-title-removed-due-to-anger-issues/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

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

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. I’m going to step away from this for a second to put this up, as it’s a fairly infamous video that went absolutely nowhere at all.

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.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

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Hidden Gems #10
Date: 1985, 1987, 2000

I’m FINALLY finishing up these Christmas shows and, again, it includes an AWA show because apparently there is nothing else to do on Christmas night in Minnesota. There is one little surprise in there as well though with a one match Gem instead of a full show. With luck, I can get this done by Halloween. Let’s get to it.

ECW World Title: Sandman vs. Justin Credible vs. Steve Corino

Date: December 23, 2000

Location: ECW Arena, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Corino is defending (though Sandman has the title) and this is from the final ECW event at the ECW Arena so it’s certainly historic. Before the match, Sandman says let’s make it a three way so I’m not sure who wasn’t originally in the match. Corino jumps Sandman from behind to start so the champ fights back and sends everyone outside. Credible sends Corino over the barricade as Sandman starts bringing out the toys.

The fans tell themselves to throw in their chairs before switching to the tried and true ECW chant. As the other two fight in the crowd, Sandman loads up six chairs with a piece of barricade on top of them. Credible comes back in for an ugly piledriver from Sandman, who then superplexes the bloody Corino onto the steel setup. Sandman is back up with the cane to the head and Corino hits the Old School Expulsion (basically a reverse Twist of Fate) to eliminate Credible at 3:54.

Sandman throws in chairs and the fans follow suit, throwing in probably 100 chairs. Eventually Sandman has to call them off as the mat is nearly covered, meaning a DDT onto the chairs gets….two as Corino’s lackey Jack Victory makes the save. Sandman’s Swanton only hits chairs and the Old School Expulsion on the chairs gets two. Victory belts Corino by mistake so Sandman can get two. A cowbell to the head retains Corino’s title at 7:22.

Rating: D. The chairs thing made for a cool visual but multiple ones being launched from the further seats and landing in the closer seats were lawsuits waiting to happen. Sandman was crazy over here and Corino was a great heel for wanting to be a wrestler. Credible was just there, which is often the case for him.

AWA House Show

Date: December 25, 1987

Location: Minneapolis Auditorium, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Attendance: 1,800

Commentators: Ron Trongard, Nick Conch

The ring announcer tells us to make sure to register for a prize drawing. Given how many empty seats are behind him, you probably have a good chance of winning something.

Mitch Snow vs. Nick Kiniski

There is a guest ring announcer who donated a bunch of money to a charity. Nick is Gene’s son and hopefully he’s more interesting than his dad. Oh and this is JAMMIN Mitch Snow because it’s the 80s and Jammin is a cool name. That being said, he has Madusa in his corner so there’s something to him. Kiniski chills on the floor to start before being driven into the corner and falling out to the floor. Back in and Snow works on the arm before taking Kiniski down and pulling on the arm.

We’re clipped to Kiniski putting on a chinlock as the arena looks darker and the camera is pulled back for some reason. It’s off to a front facelock with the bigger Kiniski laying on him quite a bit. Back up and Kiniski misses a charge into the corner, which didn’t even start until after Mitch had moved. It’s off to the reverse chinlock for a good while until Snow fights back up. We get the two minute warning and Kiniski grabs a rollup with trunks for the pin at 7:45 shown.

Rating: D+. Pretty dull match here but that’s kind of the point of an opener like this. All they were doing here was getting the crowd warmed up a little bit so it’s not like the standards were all that high. At least they went to a finish instead of just another time limit draw. Not very good, but I’m not exactly thinking they had the highest expectations.

Alan West vs. Kevin Kelly

Not that Kevin Kelly, though this one is better known as Nailz. West is substituting for DJ Peterson, who had won Madusa’s (Kelly’s manager) services for a month, which ends tonight. Madusa is in West’s corner and wearing an elf costume, which the announcers ridicule/praise in a somewhat disturbing way. Feeling out process to start with Kelly posing a lot and Trongard talking about West’s football career. Kelly works on an armbar as I try to figure out what happened to him until he became Nailz. He’s chiseled here while Nailz looked to be almost husky, which is quite the change of pace.

The announcers talk about how bored Madusa looks at ringside as West starts in on the arm. Back up and Kelly sends him into the corner, setting up a front facelock as the slow pace (read as the AWA style) goes on. The BORING chants send us off to a chinlock for far too long as the fans are getting bored in a hurry. They head outside with Kelly stomping away but having to come back in after the threats of a nagging referee. Back in and Kelly’s very slow offense continues and we hit the backbreaker.

Slam, misses elbow, slam, elbow connects for two. That somehow ate up over a minute and a half. West finally makes a comeback off a dropkick, with Kelly jumping into it for some reason. A backdrop gives West two and a powerslam gets the same with Kelly getting his foot on the rope. They do the same thing off a backbreaker, which looked like a setup for Madusa to sweep the leg. West picks him up again and this time Madusa does sweep the leg, allowing Kelly to fall on top for the pin at 10:55.

Rating: D-. From the boring “action” to the botched finish, this was one of the most uninteresting matches I’ve seen in a long time. West’s comeback was decent enough, but other than that this felt about three hours long and needed to be about seven minutes shorter. Terrible match here as the AWA continues its tradition of REALLY boring stuff.

Nord the Barbarian vs. Soldat Ustinov

A local radio announcer introduces this one. Nord is better known as Berzerker and Ustinov is one of those Russians from Minnesota. If Nord wins, he gets five minutes with Adnan Al-Kaissie. Nord grabs a headlock takeover and we’re immediately cut to the two of them fighting to the floor. They go into the crowd with Nord getting the better of it and somehow beating the count back in. A big boot gives Nord two and we’re clipped again to Ustinov charging into a boot in the corner for the same.

The front facelock goes on and we’re clipped again, this time to Ustinov raking the eyes. Ustinov grabs a chinlock as the announcers keep comparing this to a boxing match. They can clip everything else but not a two minute chinlock? The camera goes out for a bit as Nord fights up and hits a dropkick (which we only hear about). Nord misses a middle rope legdrop but Ustinov misses a middle rope clothesline to give Nord the pin at 5:45 shown.

Rating: D. Well what we saw was bad at least and were you really expecting anything else? You’re only going to get so much stuff out of a battle of the giants like this and that’s usually not the best recipe in the world. Neither of these guys were exactly interesting but the whole deal with the manager fight is more than enough to make something like this worth it.

Nord the Barbarian vs. Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie

The chase is on and Ustinov’s interference earns himself a ram into the post. Sheik gets in and the beatdown is on with Sheik’s comeback cut off by a boot to the face. Ustinov comes in and some double teaming works a bit better on Nord….and everyone walks out at 2:08.

Tag Team Titles: Midnight Express vs. Midnight Rockers

For the sake of clarification, I’ll go with the Midnights vs. the Rockers here. The Express (Randy Rose/Dennis Condrey with Paul E. Dangerously) is defending here. Of note here, Shawn is starting to grow out his hair and has what would be his classic look for the next thirty years. The brawl is on before the bell with the Midnights being sent outside. We settle down to Shawn vs. Condrey to start, even though I don’t think I heard a bell in there.

A right hand knocks Condrey down and it’s time to complain about the closed fists. Given that referee Scott LeDoux is a former boxer, this doesn’t go very well. We settle down and get clipped to Shawn punching Condrey out of the corner. For some reason Rose shoves LeDoux and gets shoved back, meaning the champs need to bail, only to come back to see the Rockers holding the belts. A headlock takeover sends Condrey outside and it’s time to stall some more on the outside.

Back in and Dennis takes his time locking up, allowing Jannetty to get in the corner and block Shawn from being whipped into the corner. Rose tries the same thing and gets kicked in the ribs because Shawn is rather smart. The ring announcer says we’re at ten minutes, though it’s about six and a half, which makes me think the big time limit draw is coming. Rose comes in and gets monkey flipped before taking over on Shawn’s arm.

We’re clipped (that’s more like it) to Shawn hanging Rose up in the ropes and punching away for the rocking chair effect. Condrey comes back in and gets whipped into the corner as well, allowing the tag to Marty. A rope walk headlock takeover has Rose in trouble at the fifteen minute announcement, or ten shown. Marty’s crossbody gets two and the Rockers take turns with some headlock takeovers.

Rose gets up and manages to punch Condrey by mistake as the Midnights can’t get anything going. Marty knocks him into the corner again and we’re clipped again to Condrey not wanting to tag in. Clipped again to Condrey getting headlocked as well and we hit twenty minutes in (about twelve shown). Dangerously offers a distraction so Shawn can be knocked out to the floor. The champs finally take over on Shawn with a gutbuster making it even worse.

We hit the chinlock (you knew that was coming) and we’re clipped again to Shawn making his comeback. A clothesline takes care of that though but we’re clipped AGAIN to the hot tag bringing Marty in to clean house. Condrey blocks a sunset flip as we have two minutes left. Trongard freaks out because he thought it was an hour time limit but it’s only half an hour, which should be a detail they have down.

Marty gets two off a small package with a minute left. Condrey begs off so Marty wastes a long time before hammering away. Everything breaks down and the Rockers put on a freaking rowboat hold before realizing they’re out of time and covering with two seconds left as time expires at 18:18 shown of 30:00.

Rating: B-. What we got was working but my goodness the Rockers looked like morons at the end there. They just waited around forever and then realized how dumb they were at the end. The clipping hurt quite a bit though and while what we got was good, I never bought that the titles were in real jeopardy. Oh and just to make this worse: the Rockers won the titles TWO DAYS LATER, because why do it on Christmas night when you can….not?

Adrian Adonis vs. Wahoo McDaniel

Adonis has Dangerously in his corner and is looking like a cross between his most famous gimmick and the tough guy version. He even throws in a peck on Dangerously’s cheek to mess with the announcers. Adonis works on a headlock as the announcers talk about how much Adonis weighs, with Trongard seriously trying to say that Adonis weighs 458. I mean he’s fat but that’s Earthquake levels.

Adonis takes him down into an armbar but the referee breaks it up for no apparent reason. McDaniel comes back with a chop to the nose but gets driven into the corner with a splash crushing his arm. Another splash hits the referee though and Dangerously gives Adonis the phone for a shot to the head. Adonis’ splash gets two as Wahoo gets a foot on the rope. Adrian makes the mistake of going after the referee, allowing Wahoo to grab Dangerously. Wahoo steals the phone and knocks Adonis down before shoving the referee for the DQ at 5:42.

Rating: D-. This match felt like it belonged in 1983 at the latest as Adonis was just embarrassing. McDaniel looked better but that’s not saying much given who he was in there against. The two of them did not belong in a ring at this point but they were names so of course they were put on the show.

AWA World Title: Curt Hennig vs. Greg Gagne

Curt is defending of course and Greg doesn’t get an entrance. Both of their fathers are here at ringside so for the sake of simplicity I’ll only call them Larry and Verne. There are three referees for some reason and Larry Hennig wants Scott LeDoux out of here. After the Big Match Intros, Larry and Verne have to be tied together to prevent any cheating. I’m sure absolutely no shenanigans will take place.

Curt works on an armbar to start and gets shoved away in a hurry as the announcers recap the previous issues between the two with the fathers interfering in previous matches. Why can’t they do that in more matches? Greg gets in a right hand to knock Curt outside as the fathers are shoving each other on the floor. Back in and Curt gets two off a sunset flip but the threat of a right hand sends him bailing out to the floor. He gets back in again as the stall is in full swing here, allowing the announcers to list off possible challengers for the winner.

Hennig takes the leg and gets in a spinning toehold, setting up some pulling on the leg. Since the hold goes on for several minutes, it’s a BORING chant but Hennig seems to be paying attention and grabs a rollup for two. Gagne misses a dive onto the ropes and it’s a Figure Four to work on the leg even more. That gets turned over so Curt goes to the rope before starting right back in on the leg.

Gagne sends Curt shoulder first into the post and it’s time for the armbar. The arm goes into the buckle as the dads are about to fight again. A hammerlock slam has Hennig begging off in the corner but it’s a collision to put both of them down. Back up and the slugout goes to Curt and a middle rope splash gets two. Hennig knocks him outside and eventually is smart enough to let the referee count.

Back in and Greg turns it on with forearms and a backdrop as Larry is freaking out. The sleeper goes on and Verne finally punches Larry for trying to interfere. Larry punches him right back and breaks the hold, meaning it’s a dad fight on the floor. That’s enough for the DQ at 18:30.

Rating: C+. This was a long match and while it was dull at times, it was far from bad with the battle of limb work and the dads being extra factors on the floor. I wasn’t wild on the long form holds but at least the match could have been a lot worse given how things have gone around here before. Hennig was very good in the ring, though just having him as a regular guy wasn’t the most thrilling character. Gagne wasn’t too bad either, but he was in over his head here.

The brawl stays on and some wrestlers come in for the save as the dads keep fighting. Curt even beats up Verne, meaning it’s time for Verne to open his shirt and beat up everyone because that’s what he does. Hennig even breaks the belt over Greg’s head to brawl some blood. Things are finally settled down to end the show.

Hold on though as we’ve got some interviews to do.

The Midnight Rockers don’t like the thirty minute time limit and didn’t get to give the fans the Christmas present they wanted.

Dangerously says the Rockers had their chance and it’s on to another team. Why was it a thirty minute match? It’s because Dangerously is smarter than the Rockers. Hearing Dangerously talk here is such a striking difference between his more famous work as Paul Heyman.

Greg Gagne says he’s beaten Curt three times now and this time Larry had to save his son’s title. There is only one way to settle this and….I guess we’ll find out what that is later.

Verne Gagne, still with the open shirt despite this being in the empty arena, says Greg got cheated. And yes, of course he’s willing to come out of retirement. Well only if you beg him of course.

The Hennigs think the Gagnes are dumb because the Hennigs still have the title. Curt is more than down for a rematch.

Adrian Adonis says he put out Tommy Rich’s fire and Roddy Piper is nowhere to be seen. Now Wahoo is a former great Indian wrestler.

We go to the opening of All Star Wrestling….which is the same shot with Adonis and Dangerously in the same places and talking about Rich, Piper and McDaniel again. What an odd way to end another night that wasn’t all that great in the first place. The wrestling was fine (mostly) but the dim arena is killing them. This is less than a month before the first Royal Rumble and it looks like it’s 1978. That’s not going to work.

AWA Nite Of Champions II
Date: December 29, 1985

Location: Meadowlands Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey

Attendance: 13,000

This is officially an AWA show but it’s actually Pro Wrestling USA, meaning it’s the AWA/NWA on the same card. At least we’ll get some flavor out of it.

Tony Schiavone recaps the Road Warriors vs. the Russians. The Road Warriors and Paul Ellering come in to talk about how serious they are. Of course they haven’t bitten off more than they can chew with the Russians. The Road Warriors have told Ellering what they want to do to the Russians and it is rather intense. Animal doesn’t like hearing about the Russians and the beating is coming soon.

Tully Blanchard, with his head bandaged after Starrcade, is coming to get the US Title back. He’s coming to get the US Title back and for Magnum TA’s eye.

The Rock N Roll Express want the Long Riders and will retain their titles. Not that they’re wearing any titles here. Ricky Morton wants to get hot and nasty and speaks in what sound like a lot of song lyrics. Or he’s just really high.

We hear the New Jersey Athletic Commission members. I’m assuming it’s for the record but I really don’t need to hear that Dr. Shaw is at ringside. Unless it’s Dr. Zahorian, just move on.

No commentary here, as expected.

Ron Bass vs. JJ Dillon

Bass is a cowboy who has been chasing Dillon (a manager) for a good while now. Dillon actually gets a home state reaction but not the biggest in the world because he’s quite the heel. Bass sends him into the corner and then grabs a quickly broken hammerlock. An armbar on the mat works better as Dillon seems to be in way over his head. A hair pull gets Dillon out of trouble for a split second but the fans dub this boring. Could you wait until we’re three minutes into the match?

The armbar goes back on but Dillon reverses into one of his own as the crowd reactions are much more prominent here with the lack of commentary. Back up again and Dillon chokes away in the corner, followed by a nerve hold and more BORING chants. Bass makes the comeback as I try to get my head around him being a face. The Claw goes on and Dillon is done at 5:23.

Rating: D. This is a match where commentary could have helped a lot with selling the hatred and history between these two. As a regular match it’s rather bad but for a nice moment for Bass, it worked well enough. Again though, it feels completely wrong to cheer for Bass, who is as heel of a character as you can get.

World Midget Title: Cowboy Lang vs. Little Tokyo

Tokyo is defending and starts by hiding behind the referee, including a pull of his pants. I wouldn’t be expecting much in the serious department here but that’s to be expected. Tokyo grabs a flying headlock takeover but runs into a dropkick. A test of strength goes to Lang and he backflips over Tokyo for some more frustration. Tokyo stomps on the referee’s foot in frustration/protest so Lang kicks him into the corner.

Some stomping in the corner keeps Lang down until he bites Tokyo’s bare foot. Lang’s delayed vertical suplex gets two and an atomic drop has Tokyo bouncing very high into the air. A backdrop and running stomp to the head gives Lang two but Tokyo rolls him up and puts his feet on the ropes to retain at 6:56.

Rating: D-. Yeah what is there to say about this one? The match was just a spectacle for the sake of having an attraction in there and that isn’t the most interesting thing in the world. The wrestling wasn’t any good and there was no flow to it, minus a few comedy spots. These things don’t age well and this was quite the downer.

AWA Women’s Title: Debbie Combs vs. Sherri Martel

Sherri is defending. The referee takes a LONG time checking Sherri for weapons and yelling at her in general. The lockup goes to Sherri and she grabs a front facelock to take over. Debbie takes her down by the leg, followed by Sherri taking her down by the leg to mix things up a bit. The fans don’t seem pleased with this one but they like Combs being tossed to the floor.

That means some choking with a camera cable but Combs is right back with stomping and a hard slam. Back in and Sherri misses a charge into the corner but she’s fine enough to knock Combs outside again. As was the case before, she doesn’t seem phased by it and tries a front facelock, which fans again find boring.

Sherri’s necksnap sets up….well nothing actually as she gets knocked into the corner and catapulted face first onto the mat for two. Sherri takes her down by the arm as the back and forth continues. Combs gets up again and knocks her to the floor followed by an airplane spin of all things back inside. She gets a bit too dizzy though and Martel grabs a rollup for the pin at 10:25.

Rating: D. This was a rough one to watch but the women were both trying as hard as they could have. Women’s wrestling was, much like the previous match, little more than a sideshow act at this point with no women’s wrestling (in America at least) meaning anything for a very long time. The WWF was trying, but it’s not like it was anything from a quality standpoint.

Universal Title: Carlos Colon vs. Konga The Barbarian

Colon is defending the WWC (Puerto Rico) World Title. That would be the Barbarian with Konga The as a bonus, plus Paul Jones (one of the worst managers of all time) in his corner. There’s no contact for the first minute as the referee objects to what looks like a spiked bad on Barbarian’s forearm. Colon slugs away to start and then grabs a headlock to grind away. This is dubbed as boring as well, as the fans are far from the most patient people in the world.

Barbarian slams him down for the headbutt, followed by the contractually obligated bearhug. This one is broken up in a hurry but Barbarian kicks him down for two more. The top rope headbutt misses so Barbarian sends Carlos outside where Jones gets in some stomping. Back in and Colon grabs the worst small package of all time (he doesn’t even touch a leg) to retain at 6:39.

Rating: D. See, I know there is a lot of variety on here and some big stars, but it doesn’t matter when the matches are all somewhere between bad and boring. This was another bad match with Barbarian being as standard of a villain as you can find (though he would keep doing this same role for the next fifteen years so he was doing something right) and the ending was awful. Can we please find something to help this show?

Post match Jones says they will be back. Can you not?

Buddy Roberts vs. Paul Ellering

Roberts is a Freebird and Ellering, in a neck brace here, is best known as the Road Warriors’ manager, though he did wrestle before an injury ended his career. Roberts jumps him to start and is knocked into the corner without much effort. A kick to the face has Roberts tied up in the ropes and it takes an assist from the referee to get him out.

Back up and Roberts goes after the knee, including wrapping it around the post. Not to be outdone, Ellering crotches him against the post to take over again. Roberts is fine enough to get in a shot to the neck though and the pace slows a bit. Forearms to the back set up a middle rope elbow to the back of the head and Roberts sends him neck first into the ropes. The piledriver is loaded up but the Road Warriors run in for the save.

Rating: D+. This still wasn’t great but it was better than the matches that came before it. It’s a lot more understandable that the match didn’t last long and had the ending it did given the circumstances they were under here. If nothing else, the Road Warriors running in was a nice bonus as the show has needed a burst of energy.

Post match the Warriors beat the heck out of Roberts, even hitting a Hart Attack of all things.

NWA Tag Team Titles: Long Riders vs. Rock N Roll Express

The Riders (Scott and Bill Irwin, a pair of bikers) are challenging. Robert and Scott start things off with Robert working on a headlock. Bill comes in to try a save and gets taken down with a headscissors at the same time Scott goes down with a headlock takeover. It’s off to Bill vs. Ricky with the latter’s armbar keeping things a bit slow. The champs start taking over on Bill with a full nelson and a dropkick that completely misses.

Bill finally gets in a slam but Roberts rolls through with it into a small package for no count. Instead it’s Ricky coming back in for a much better looking dropkick. It gets even worse with another full nelson into an armbar from Robert as this is one sided so far. A clothesline out of the corner finally puts Robert down and it’s back to Scott for a variety of choking. Bill’s middle rope elbow gets two and the fans give Robert the most polite pleas for a comeback I can ever remember seeing.

The bearhug is less well received, mainly because it’s a bearhug in the first good match of the card. Robert finally gets over to the corner for the hot tag to Ricky but the referee doesn’t see it (always a classic). The beatdown continues as I try to get my head around seeing Robert taking the beating for a change. Scott’s splash hits knees and the hot tag brings in Ricky, who starts punching before he gets back inside. Everything breaks down and it’s a double elbow to Robert, leaving Ricky to grab a sunset flip for the pin on Bill to retain at 11:04.

Rating: C. Definitely the best match of the night here as the Rock N Roll Express can work a formula like no team in history. I’m not sure why Robert was the one getting the heat here but it was a rather different change of pace from the traditional Express match. The Long Riders weren’t great but the Express knew just what to do against a team like them. Not a bad match, and great compared to everything else so far.

Post match the Express bails but the Riders say they aren’t leaving. Then they leave.

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Boris Zhukov/Chris Markoff

Slaughter’s Americas Heavyweight and tags are required. Markoff if your classic Russian by way of Minnesota and from what I can find, has been wrestling since 1964. We get straight to the choking in the corner with Markoff just standing there with his hand on Slaughter’s throat while Boris holds him. We finally settle down to Boris being thrown hard into the corner and Slaughter choking Markoff down, all to a USA chant.

Markoff pulls out a belt of some kind and hits Slaughter in the head as this is already getting dull. Slaughter is busted open and choking with the belt ensues, though the USA chants don’t slow down a bit. The choking keeps going as this is either a No DQ match or the referee is rather blind. Boris joins Markoff for some stomping to put Slaughter on the timekeeper’s table as they’re not veering out of their comfort zone. Slaughter finally Hulks Up….and gets choked down by the belt again.

Boris’ clothesline gets two and he drops some elbows so Markoff can get two of his own. Forearms to the back just wake Slaughter up and he takes the belt for a real whipping. A big shot with the belt gets two but the heels take him down AGAIN, this time with a double backdrop. Slaughter sends Boris outside though and finishes Markoff with the Slaughter Cannon at 11:50.

Rating: D-. HOW IS THIS SHOW GETTING WORSE? The crowd came close to pushing this up a bit but it was just so much choking that cut off the momentum every single time. They needed to cut about four minutes out of this to make it work and even then it wasn’t going to be very good. This show is death so far and this show dragged it right back down even further.

US Title: Magnum TA vs. Tully Blanchard

I’ll give it an A+ if it’s even close to what they can do. Magnum is defending and Tully has Baby Doll with him. Tully gets punched in the face and gorilla pressed to start so it’s time for some Doll time on the floor. Back in and Magnum punches away some more with a great look of intensity. Tully goes villainous with a poke to the eye and a throat drop across the barricade though and the champ is down on the floor.

Kicking and stomping keep Magnum down as they’re doing an outstanding job of making you feel the hatred. Magnum gets back up and wins the slugout on the floor before winning another one back inside. They’re both busted open as Magnum gets two off a suplex. A superplex attempt is shoved off though and Tully starts in on the back for the first actual wrestling of the match. With that box checked off, Tully goes back to hammering on the cut but runs into a dropkick for two. The belly to belly finishes Tully completely clean at 11:11.

Rating: B-. The ending was as sudden and surprising as you could get as Magnum just hit the dropkick, threw some punches, and finished. You would expect more out of these two for an ending but maybe that’s just the modern fan in me talking. What mattered here was the intensity and you could feel the hatred between the two of them. That’s what sold the feud and it was on full display here. It’s a nice followup to their masterpiece at Starrcade and for a big house show match, it was more than good enough.

NWA World Title: Dusty Rhodes vs. Ric Flair

Flair is defending of course and it’s almost strange to see him in anything but the Big Gold Belt. Dusty mocks Flair’s slick back the hair taunt and dances a bit, much to the crowd’s delight. The first elbow to the head gives us an early Flair Flop and it’s already time for a breather. That means more yelling at the fans, which Flair has turned into an art form over the years.

Back in and the dancing punches have Flair in more trouble, meaning we need more breathing (after he accidentally rolls onto the timekeeper’s table). Back in again and Dusty grabs a hammerlock into the boot rake to the face as you can feel how into this the fans really are. A kick to the leg gets Flair out of trouble and it’s time to get back to the basics. Dusty staggers around the ring off the shots to the leg and Flair cannonballs down onto it as only he can make look perfect.

The referee gets in his face over the cheating to a nice reaction but Flair lets it go and puts on the Figure Four. Dusty manages to turn it over and Flair is smart enough to let go almost immediately. Back up and Flair misses a charge into the corner, meaning it’s time to beg off. Dusty’s running clothesline gets two as Flair puts a foot on the rope. Flair begs off again so Dusty hammers away and we’ve got some blood.

A sweep of the legs lets Flair grab a rollup with feet on the ropes for two, because he has to get in that classic cheating where he can. Dusty slaps on his own Figure Four until a rope is grabbed. Back up and Dusty throws him over the top for a second, only to have Flair hit the referee. Oh yeah you know where this is going. Dusty nails the elbow and a second referee comes in to count the pin at 14:50.

Rating: C. Their matches might not be great but you can’t deny the natural chemistry between these two. The fans are going to get behind Dusty because of the all time charisma and Flair is Flair. There’s a reason these two were as perfect together as they knew exactly what they were doing, but the constant Dusty Finishes made it hard to care. Dusty would finally win the title in July, so at least they did pay it off at some point.

Say it with me: and there’s no title change Flair was thrown over the top earlier on, meaning it’s a DQ.

Road Warriors vs. Russians

Ellering is here with the Warriors. That would be Ivan Koloff/Krusher Khrushchev with Nikita Koloff on the floor. Animal wastes no time in gorilla pressing Koloff and hands it off to Hawk for some right hands. Krusher comes in and cranks on a wristlock but Hawk shoves him away without much trouble. A big boot and backdrop have Krusher in trouble and Animal gets in a slam to make it even worse.

Koloff comes back in and slugs away at Hawk, who chokes him to take over instead. Animal even sneaks in a low blow to keep him down, followed by more choking. Krusher finally embraces his inner evil Russian by low bridging Animal to the floor for the first opening. We hit the neck crank but Animal rakes the eyes to escape, which is something so simple that few ever think of it.

That and a hot shot aren’t enough for the tag to Hawk though and it’s a double clothesline with Koloff for a double knockdown. Animal finally gets over for the tag and the house cleaning is on. Koloff is busted open and the blood all over Hawk’s chest is quite the visual. Everything breaks down and the Russians try to switch but Ellering stops the count and points out the switch, meaning it’s a DQ win for the Warriors at 10:45.

Rating: C-. It might not have been the best match in the world but the energy was there and this is another match that gives you a layup on paper. How can you not get fired up about an American power team against a trio of EVIL Russians (who happen to be monsters in their own right) in 1985? Hence why this feud lasted for a long time.

Post match the brawl continues with Ellering getting knocked down until the Warriors clear the ring.

AWA World Title: Rick Martel vs. Stan Hansen

Hansen is challenging. They slug it out at the bell, because slugging it out with STAN HANSEN is a good idea. Martel hits a crossbody to send him outside so Hansen throws in a chair, which is quickly disposed of. Back in and Martel armdrags him into an armbar, which is probably smarter than trading punches. Naturally the fans declare this boring, because they’re quite a fickle bunch.

Hansen breaks the armbar without much trouble and dumps him outside to keep up the brawling. That doesn’t last long as Martel is right back to the arm with a legdrop and a short armscissors. Hansen gets up and slams him down again as it’s the back vs. the arm so far. To mix things up a bit, Martel takes him down and drops a leg on the arm. At least this time he goes with an armbar for something a little different.

Hansen comes up with a backbreaker and some ax handles to the back. A gutwrench suplex gets two but Hansen’s splash hits raised knees. Martel’s own slam gets two but his back gives out on a suplex attempt. The abdominal stretch goes on until Martel can get out with a small package for two. His back is done though and Hansen puts on a Boston crab but leans his head onto the turnbuckle (completely legal) so Martel can’t kick out. Martel taps like crazy and finally gives up 14:00.

Rating: D+. The back vs. arm stuff was a fine idea but the execution was lame. There is only so much that you can get when the match is spent on a series of armbars and armscissors with Hansen hitting him in the back in between. The ending was very smart though and something I don’t remember seeing done again. Martel was a nice breath of air for the title but was anyone buying him as a top star?

Overall Rating: D. That’s how you end Christmas I guess. The ECW match was nothing, the AWA show was your usual boring event that only appealed to the hometown fans and the Pro Wrestling USA show was one of the worst things I can remember save for one or two bright spots. This is another situation where you can understand why things were hidden and it’s better if they stay that way in cases like this one.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s History Of In Your House (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

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