History of Saturday Night's Main Event with KB

[klunderbunker]

A few notes. First of all, this isn't going to be a daily thing. If i can find a full show, I'll review it. Second, it's unlikely I'll finish this as 36 shows is just a lot to do. Finally, they won't be in any order other than whatever order I can find them in. With that being said, let's get to it.

Saturday Night. Not a lot happens on those night for the most part as far as wrestling goes. At least in today’s wrestling world that’s how things go. Back in the 80s though, that was the furthest thing from the truth. In a day where there was no Raw or Smackdown, the biggest shows of the year other than PPVs were on Saturdays. Saturday Night’s Main Event was the king of all shows back then, as the masses got to see Hulk Hogan wrestle on television. The shows were on NBC so a much larger audience was allowed to see them. The version you see today is complete and utter crap so don’t put anything into them. These are the originals though, but I’ll have the modern ones too at the end. This should be interesting as these were the supershows to an extent at least of their day. Let’s do it.

Saturday Night’s Main Event 8
Date: November 29, 1986
Location: Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, Los Angeles, California
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

Much like with other shows of this time frame, there’s not a ton of backstory to most of these matches. Hogan is on second here facing Hercules in what is for some reason a semi famous match. The card looks pretty weak other than the opener which looks good, so let’s get to this.

Jesse says that the pleasure belongs to the audience.

Jake says that the snake needs to squeeze Savage really hard to get the title out of him.

Macho Man says that he’s the best in the world. In a cruel bit, he asks Liz if he’s the best. Liz agrees and he tells her to shut up and keep polishing the belt.

Hall of Famer Koko B. Ware is making his SNME debut tonight and he says he’ll beat the Russian.

Piper, just barely a new face here, says he’ll beat up Piper and Orton.

The Hart Foundation do a cool interview of close-ups to their faces and then cutting to all three (Jimmy was their manager) for one liners. I like that. They’ll squash the Bees later.

Hogan, who looks coked out of his mind, says he accepts Hercules’ challenge, which I didn’t know was ever made.

The intro continues to be pure 80s greatness. To show the time frame here, Hogan is shown only in white tights. Of the first 10 seconds or so, all you see is Hogan. The next person you see that isn’t getting beaten up by Hogan: Roddy Piper. And people say he wasn’t a big deal. Ok so to be fair the only people in the video are people on the show that night, but Piper was second so there.

Vince and Jesse show off their great chemistry. Not as great as Ventura and Monsoon, but not bad.

Gene is with Jake Roberts and Damien. Roberts was an incredibly hot heel at this point as no one had seen anything like him. Oddly enough he’s fighting Macho tonight here in a heel vs. heel match. Roberts on the mic was like a gift from Heaven or something. Roberts says he’s the one Savage’s mother warned him about. That’s a great line.

Vince sounds like he’s reading off a script for some reason. Jesse says Gene was shaking so hard he might as well have been holding a vibrator. Yes that made air.

Gene is with Savage and Liz. Liz gets cut off again because Savage is a prick to her. Savage threatens to skin Jake.

Intercontinental Title: Jake Roberts vs. Randy Savage

This would be the feud of the year in about 5 or 6 years. Vince is head over heels for Liz which is fair as she was the only attractive woman in wrestling back then. The fans are chanting DDT and chanting it loudly. Roberts would be face by spring. The snake really was a brilliant gimmick when you think about it. Even after that chant, Vince asks who the fans will like. I love his biased announcing. Vince says Savage has the willies. I give up. Jake’s whole offense is to get the DDT. That was such a revolutionary move that it’s uncanny. Until then everything was about long set ups for moves like the leg drop or the elbow. The DDT was sudden and quick which is the best thing you can ask for. The fans are WAY behind Jake here. This has been almost all Savage. We go to a commercial as Savage is hiding the snake bag. We come back and the tape starts just where it left off. I love that. You get the commercials that the company needs but you don’t miss anything. It’s the beauty of a taped show. Despite hiding Damien, Roberts knows right where he was making the bit about hiding the snake completely pointless. Jake has gone for probably 5 DDTs in less than 10 minutes. I’m not sure if I like that or not as it’s making his offense look limited. He’s getting pops for it though so I can’t complain. With Jake standing up, Vince says Savage was going for the elbow, and Jesse doesn’t correct Vince. Welcome to 80s announcing. After a ton of brawling that I was really getting into, both guys shove the referee for the double DQ. I can get that as both guys were hot at the moment and you want to keep them that way. Savage gets covered by the snake before running. Fink says that both parties have been disqualified. That’s just odd sounding.

Rating: B. This was solid for the time it had. There was pretty much no way one guy was going over the other here, but for the time they had this was quite intense stuff. I was into it, mainly because I had forgotten the ending. It’s a shame that there never was that definitive blow off that these two needed so much.

We see a clip of a segment at a bank between Slick and Heenan where Heenan buys Hercules’ contract for an undisclosed amount. This is a good deal for Heenan as it leads directly to this.

WWF Title: Hercules vs. Hulk Hogan

Before the match we have promos from both. Heenan says that his credit is good anywhere which means very little. Hercules says he’s already the champion just without the belt yet. We cut to a shot of Hogan’s chest doing the pec dance with hard nipples. He says he’s checked Hercules out and Hercules might be a Greek god. To continue his completely insane promos, Hogan says he’s been hanging out in the Garden of Eden with his main squeeze Eve to prepare to face a greek god before going 20,000 leagues under the sea to see the Titanic. Apparently the power lies in the palm of his hand. If there has ever been proof that cocaine was rampant in the 80s, this is it. Back in the arena, Jesse is only confused about the power in his hand part, which might be the most normal part of what he said. He thinks Hogan has lost it and will lose the title here. This is a standard title defense, but Hogan apparently said this is his ultimate title defense. Remember this is before Mania 3 and Hogan is in the middle of his multi-year long feud with Heenan and his goons. We hit the test of strength and it’s the same as happened at Mania 6. Even Jesse is having a hard time trying to sell Hercules as a major threat to Hogan. He’s still called Hernandez here which was phased out almost completely soon after this. Hogan has yellow tights and boots and blue kneepads. That just looks odd. In a cool looking spot, Heenan is being chased by Hogan and dives over the top rope in a great looking jump. I mean he cleared that thing and landed on his feet in one movement. For your unintentional comedy of the match, Jesse says that Hogan looks good on his knees. After some very brief work on the back which was more or less back breaker and bear hug, Hercules goes to the backbreaker submission, more commonly known as a torture rack. Jesse of course can see and hear Hogan quit but in this case Hercules lets him go early. That’s just flat out stupid from a kayfabe sense. Hogan hits the power kickout and you can connect the dots from there. Vince says this is a celebration of Hulkamania. Well that’s better than saying Wrestlemania was a celebration of life. Vince sucks on Hogan so much here you would think it was a porn movie.

Rating: D+. This was what it was. It’s about 8 minutes long and is Hogan with a very generic title defense. This was to do nothing more than get Hogan on television and have him look good, so if nothing else it accomplished that goal. Hercules was as cookie cutter of a wrestler as you could ask for, so this went well enough. It’s nothing special but it did its job. The length was good too as it got the story told in a brief method.

We get a short interview with Orton and Hart and Ventura at a Mexican restaurant where Orton has no shirt on for no apparent reason. This was nothing special.

We get a recap of Piper and Orton’s overly friendly relationship. That was some of the best stuff I can ever remember.

Piper goes on this great rant about how Orton owes Piper for everything and that Orton is SO much happier now being with Muraco, who he equates to Fat Albert. Also, Piper was rowdy before being rowdy was cool.

Roddy Piper vs. Bob Orton

Adrian Adonis attacked Piper earlier in the day apparently. Muraco is out at ringside too and is wearing a kilt for some reason. That’s inconsequential though as he’s sent to the back. Piper’s punches and fists are insanely fast. He looks kind of fat here for some reason. To end this very short match, Piper rams Orton into Hart for the rollup and the pin. This was all of two minutes long.

Rating: N/A. Way too short to properly rate but it was just a brawl with punching and some other basic strikes so it would have been low anyway.

After a commercial Gene is in the back with Piper who says the war has just begun. He would go on to feud with Muraco and then more famously Adonis in a few months ago. He also talks about how all of a sudden he’s popular but he doesn’t really care. Piper finishes this with the line of when I’m good I’m good but when I’m bad I’m much better. Is this guy just a walking catchphrase machine?

Hart Foundation vs. Killer Bees

According to Bret, these teams fought about 400 times at least so they know each other very well indeed. The Harts say they want the belts. Well that’s a great shocker. The ring looks small for some reason. Apparently this is a number one contenders match, or at least I think it is. They say the Bulldogs who had the belts at the moment are waiting n the winners. Should be noted that around this time that the Bees were wearing masks where no one could tell who was who. We get an inset interview of them with Gene where they argue over who is Jim Brunzell and who is Brian Blair. That’s different I guess. Wasn’t this supposed to be an elimination match? They mentioned that in the opening of the show but I haven’t heard anything about it here. You know, in every match we have with Anvil in it, he does a dropkick and everyone busts a nut over it. It’s not like it never happens. Also apparently the Harts haven’t worn pink before. This is being written just after Jesse and Vince did commentary on Raw so I’m all happy about that. Vince was so much better back in the day. He didn’t have that annoying gravelly voice. We go to a break and when we come back we’re right where we were a second ago. Ok, now this is just to get into the tag title scene. I don’t get half of what’s going on here. The heels are dominating here. Has there ever been a better spot than having the referee miss a face tag? The Bees go under the ring and put on their masks and do the obvious switch. Bret takes out the illegal Bee and they do another switch. The legal one pins Bret, which Jesse of course panics at. So much for the elimination bullshit. Vince uses the horrible line of to Bee or not to Bee. Yeah and he was considered good on the mic.

Rating: C-. It got a decent amount of time, but it wasn’t that great. They’ve wrestled each other so many times that if nothing else they’re going to be smooth out there and that was the case this time. This wasn’t bad at all, but the ending was predictable as hell.

Gene is with Koko B. Ware who is a newcomer at this point. He dances like the Hall of Famer that he is. Frankie doesn’t like Russia apparently. I already hate him more than I used to.

Koko B. Ware vs. Nikolai Volkoff

Naturally we get a song from one of the best jobbers of all time. This is like the ass of the 80s being shoved down our throats. We get a quick interview with Slick and Volkoff, where Slick talks about nothing out of the ordinary. Nikolai says that he’s happy with his new manager. In a stunning turn of events, the heel jumps the face. How is this a battle of Hall of Famers? I don’t get it and never will. Koko does some weird rollup thing that as I think that it looked ok but did no damage, Jesse says that it looked good but it did no damage. I think like a politician apparently. They’re flying through this match and it’s still bad. After having Koko down, Volkoff goes over to talk to Slick and Koko rolls him up, which more or less is the same ending as the piper match from earlier. That’s not a good sign on a show with this little on it.

Rating: N/A. This is like two and a half minutes long so it’s really hard to grade. It was sloppy as hell though and I don’t like either guy, so we’ll go low on it and say it would have been about a D. That’s pretty low for people that are in the prestigious Hall of Fame wouldn’t you say?

Hogan, whose eyes would still say he’s ingested some of Columbia’s finest, say he’s like Superman when he has his Hulkamaniacs behind him.

Gene is with Don Muraco who says he’s not afraid of Dick Slater. This leads to Mr. Fuji singing a country song. You read that right. It makes this whole show.

Dick Slater vs. Don Muraco

Slater is the Rebel here, which means he wears the Confederate flag on his jacket. Yeah that’s going to go over great as a character. How did he land a piece of ass like Madusa? It’s always amusing when the jobber is allowed to get in offense. It makes him feel important I guess. Actually the jobber is dominating here. That’s just odd indeed. Muraco hits a bad clothesline…and gets the pin. Yeah, after dominating the majority of the two minute match, Slater gets pinned by a botched clothesline. He left the company like a day after this.

Rating: N/A. It’s shorter than Koko’s match and somehow worse. This was awful.

Jesse and Gene wrap up the show, with Jesse saying he thinks Hogan is in big trouble and is running out of steam as champion. He would hold the title almost another year and a half. The closing credits have a guy saying to watch ALF. That’s awesome.

Overall Rating: D+. This wasn’t much. The first match is good, the rest are quite predictable. SNME had a habit of showing the big matches first which was just a weird dynamic. I never got that. Anyway, there’s nothing of real note here, so unless you’re a fan of this era, check out the IC match and pass on the rest.

[Dre Guevara]

back in the day, I would look 4ward 2 SNME coming on TV, just 2 see Hulk Hogan, but this one in particular, had me worried as I was a die hard Hulkamaniac, & seeing how Hercules actually beat him in that match, I guess U can say I was in denial @ the time, & one of my cousins asked me afterward if I though Hogan lost that match, I had no choice but 2 disagree, when I knew 4 a fact he was pretty much done. IMO, the best matches on this show had 2 be Macho Man vs. Jake The Snake & the Harts vs. The Killer Bees. 4 the WWF 2 be as popular as they were back then, I think it was a gyp that the champion was rarely seen on TV aside from cutting a promo 4 the upcoming card that was coming 2 town, meanwhile, Ric Flair was always on the NWA shows whether he was wrestling, cutting a promo or even coming out 2 help the Horsemen jump on Dusty Rhodes. getting back 2 SNME, I never understood Y they had Hogan wrestle early in the show if he was the champion.

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 26
Date: April 28, 1990
Location: Frank Erwin Center, Austin, Texas
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

This is the first show after Mania 6, so Warrior is your new world champion. Jesse Ventura is in one of his final shows tonight I think. Actually he would be around until August. For those of you that don’t know, he left because he made a deal with Sega to let them use his face in a video game, but the WWF had a deal with Nintendo, so Vince had to let him go. This would be considered a landmark show I would think, as we are in a new era of the company here. However, there’s one major reason as to why this era didn’t last long: Hulk Hogan. After he lost to the Warrior, Hogan didn’t step aside. He stuck around instead of going to make a movie or something like that. By sticking around, he made it impossible for Warrior to be taken seriously as the top guy because Hogan was just a bigger star. Think of it like 2000 when Austin took time off for neck surgery. Rock got huge, but he wouldn’t have been able to with Austin still around. Other than that, nothing really has changed. Everything is the status quo, which means it should be good on wrestling and bad on angles. Let’s get to it.

Warrior says he will walk where no man has ever been. This was surprisingly coherent.

Haku, his challenger tonight, has Heenan say that he’s ready.

Mr. Perfect says Hogan isn’t perfect and tonight he’s going to prove it.

Hogan, or more commonly known as he who will not leave, says tonight he’s the professor and tonight Perfect and Genius are going to the principal’s office. Yes, that was the point of his promo.

The opening video is the traditional highlight package of guys fighting tonight, which if you caught onto the trick really was a great way of saying what you could expect tonight. We open with Vince and Jesse on horses. As they said on the Best of SNME DVD, Jesse looks perfectly fine up there while Vince looks scared to death. They run down the card from horseback, which is kind of cool actually.

Mooney is with Perfect and Genius. I think they just gave up on trying to convince anyone that Genius was straight and just let him act gay. Apparently ping pong, chess and horseshoes are sports. Perfect says Hogan is different since Mania, and he’s going to prove it.

Mr. Perfect vs. Hulk Hogan

Damn, he main events Wrestlemania and less than four weeks later he’s opening a TV taping. I miss the awesome logos everyone used to have. They were so simple yet so cool at the same time. That gum slap never gets old. Hogan says that they’re perfect fools and that Hulkamania will never die. It’ll never retire either. Gene is wearing one of those southern ties where it goes into two parts if that makes sense. I hate those things. Jesse points out something very funny by saying Hogan must be hard of hearing since it takes him four tries to hear the roar of the crowd. That’s very true. This was allegedly supposed to be the main event of Mania 6 after Perfect won the 1990 Rumble, but that show’s main event was changed so many times I’ve heard of at least 4 different possible main events that Vince was contemplating even up to the new year. Compared to the previous year and Mania 5 where the main event was set in stone about 18 months in advance, that’s saying a lot. In a stunning turn of events, Perfect is in trouble at first but then takes over and the fans are SCARED! It’s weird hearing Vince and Jesse like this after hearing them on Raw three days ago. They’re almost perfect here and it’s sad that they didn’t use this formula on Monday night. I love how Vince defended Hogan forever back then but today more or less hates his guts. We’re on the floor at this point with Hogan beating up Genius. This allows Perfect to get the scroll and blast him in the head with it. We take a break with Hogan in trouble and apparently this show is called the Tussle in Texas. I can’t stand gimmick names like that. They just sound stupid. Perfect is on control and you can hear the hearts of fans breaking everywhere. This match feels really accelerated as Perfect controls for about two minutes before he Hulks Up and everything you expect to happen ends it. He beats up Genius afterwards to restore the glory of Hulkamania despite it never being gone in the first place. In a very interesting line, Vince calls Hogan the Brahma Bull. Holy shit. Vince mentions to Jesse we have a Barbecue, and Jesse is none too pleased.

Rating: B-. This was Hogan 101 and it worked fine. It’s just weird as hell seeing Hogan opening a show. This was fine as it was just a little TV match, but it was a perfect example of how to make Hogan look great and get a solid pop from the crowd. He was in trouble but he came back and defeated Perfect with relative ease. However, that’s the problem: he defeated Perfect with relative ease. Perfect was supposed to be a big deal but he looked like a jobber here. He would win the IC Title in a mostly fake tournament soon enough though, so that means enough I guess.

After a commercial we come back for…another commercial. This one is for Arrogance though, that new cologne for wrestlers who don’t want to smell like a taco salesman from Tijuana. That sounded a lot better in my head.

Jesse is with Earthquake and Jimmy Hart. Quake was a total monster at this point and would be made the top heel over the summer. He’s got Hillbilly Jim tonight, which I’m sure will be a classic encounter. They reference Deliverance, and say they’ll make Jim squeal like a pig. For those of you that don’t know, in the film Deliverance, that’s what a crazed hillbilly says to one of the main characters before raping him.

Hillbilly Jim says Quake reminds him of a hog that won the Mudlick county fair last year. For anyone from Kentucky, this is one of the funniest promos you will ever hear because everyone knows someone just like Hillbilly and it’s dead on. For anyone not from here, it’s mindless babbling that you won’t understand more than two words of. I loved it of course.

Hillbilly Jim vs. Earthquake

First of all, let it be known that Jim’s music is freaking amazing on all levels. Jim wasn’t much in the ring, but he wasn’t supposed to be. He was a gimmick character that worked as well as any ever has. Can you think of a single time that he didn’t get a pop and a half? He was just so ridiculously over because of nothing more than the clapping thing he would do. Like I’ve said before, he found something that worked and he ran with it. I would almost guarantee that if he came back today as a guest host, he would get the roof blown off almost any arena in the country. The key thing to him was that he was never taken seriously. He wasn’t shoved down our throats as a major player ever and because of that we never got sick of him. Look at Eugene. He was originally an awesome character that a lot of people marked out for. Then they put him in an 18 minute match with HHH at Summerslam, and to the shock of no one, he got booed out of the building. The point is, keep the comedy characters in the right place. As for the match, it’s a 90 second squash as Hart distracts Hillbilly and Quake hits a corner splash and two earthquakes to end this. That’s how it should have been. As usual, Quake’s opponent is taken out on a stretcher. That more or less was his gimmick which was fine.

Rating: N/A. It’s far too short to grade, but it did its job so this would have been a positive rating.

We get a quick promo about Rick Martel being in a match at the Maple Leaf Gardens. That’s odd indeed. He talks about Garvin, but I’m confused as hell about having a promo for a match in Toronto which would be a house show. The Bushwackers have comments about the show also, which is about Rhythm and Blues.

Jesse is with the Harts and says they were smart to challenge for the titles before the title match at Mania happened. Anvil literally says 5 words and that’s the promo. That was a bit of a waste if nothing else.

Hart Foundation vs. The Rockers

The Rockers say they’re ready and be prepared for a broken heart. We get a Dallas reference, as in of the TV show from the late 80s to really date the show. The horses are still at the broadcast booth. Let’s get this going. Given the guys in here, this is your standard great early 90s tag match. Seeing Bret vs. Shawn never gets old. You could tell that these two were going to be something awesome. After about three or four minutes of solid back and forth stuff, the real interesting part happens as Demolition comes out. Somehow after being huge faces at Mania they’re tweeners here just four weeks and no television appearances later. Even Jesse isn’t sure why they’re here. They don’t actually do anything but they distract everyone in there. Since it’s a Rockers match, Shawn gets beaten on for a long while before Marty gets the tag. Both teams are faces here so the crowd is a bit divided. The Rockers were a great team but they never got that big push for some reason. As influential in the WWF as they were, they were nothing more than jobbers when you think about it. I’ve always loved that slingshot splash the Harts did with Anvil. Actually it was typically a shoulder block and not a splash but whatever. Anvil comes in and cleans house as Demolition is still on the floor. Shawn gets thrown to the floor where Demolition tries to put him back in. Marty runs over and gets into a fight with Smash, leading to the inevitable 6 man brawl for the double DQ. That’s a shame and everyone, including the announcers and audience hate this.

Rating: B. It’s a shame they went with the angle here because this really was a good match. I get that they were going for the Demolition heel turn and they didn’t want to have either team lose, but still it’s a disappointment to say the least. These teams had undeniable chemistry and it’s another shame that they never had the big PPV match to show off how great they could be. This was good though.

Earthquake says he loves the environment and proves it by getting rid of waste like Hillbilly Jim. He calls out Hogan, setting up the summer feud, which didn’t happen over the summer for the most part as Hogan took months off due to an “injury.” He really made a movie.

Hogan says he’s not afraid of Earthquake and that Hulkamania is more powerful.

We come back from a break to see clips from Mania of Warrior taking the title.

Haku and Heenan make fun of being in Texas and that for once there’s going to be something good to remember in Texas: Haku winning the title. HAKU SPEAKS ENGLISH??? Heenan manages to coherently convince us that Rosemary Clooney, George’s mother, was at the Alamo.

Gene is with Warrior who says something about an hourglass and being the chosen one. Seriously, what in the hell went on in his head? This goes on for about three minutes and I have zero clue what he said. You know that Gene just wanted to shout BITCH WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???

WWF Title: Haku vs. Ultimate Warrior

The pop for Warrior is there as the challenger has no entrance and is just shown warming up in the ring. Yeah this is going to be an even match if there ever was one. Vince had Perfect and DiBiase and Rude and Savage and even Rhodes on the roster and he picked this guy to replace Hogan. Unbelievable. Surprisingly, we start fast. Who would have guessed that in a Warrior match? Continuing the surprises, Warrior is odd, sloppy and a bit dangerous. They keep referencing the Mania 5 match where Rude managed to beat Warrior, which was apparently his only loss to date. That’s surprising indeed, which isn’t a joke this time. We hit the slowdown mode as Haku goes through his incredibly generic power midcard guy offense. Jesse claims a slow count to get some very cheap yet basic heel heat going for him. That’s something he and Lawler were great at. They could say something so simple like that and go off about it for a few minutes and it worked like a charm every single time. Using the exact same formula in the Hogan match, Warrior makes his comeback and takes over on Haku to hit his signature set of moves to end this. For some reason this isn’t the main event but whatever.

Rating: C. This was the epitome of average, but it did the job it was supposed to, which was getting Warrior a little credibility as champion. There’s nothing wrong with having him beat a midcard guy in an otherwise worthless title match and that’s exactly what he did here. This went fine and Warrior looked good, despite it being about five minutes long. That was his status quo and it worked out for him here so that balances out the boring as hell match.

We get a Bad News Brown promo about that Toronto show. Seriously, what the hell is up with these things? He talks about Roberts which was his feud at the time so that works fine. Apparently Jake doesn’t fear himself?

We get another Arrogance commercial, this time the tennis one which is a bit better known.

We see a clip from Mania where Boss Man got jumped by DiBiase before his match with Akeem. Ted beat him down which led nowhere for no apparent reason. Since Boss Man didn’t get a fair shot, we have Boss Man vs. Akeem in a rematch here. There’s just one flaw with that plan: BOSS MAN WON CLEAN. Why have a rematch if an already attacked Boss Man beat Akeem? Is a full strength one supposed to not be as good?

Slick and Akeem say that DiBiase has offered them a lot of money to beat Boss Man. That’s odd as well because unless it was on house shows and lasted all of a month, they never feuded over it. That’s the early 90s for you. Jesse throws it to Gene, who he says is the illegitimate father of all four mutant ninja turtles. WHERE IN THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM??? I don’t know but I want to go there because it’s the land of awesome. Boss Man says he’s going to destroy Akeem in a Texas sized beating.

Big Boss Man vs. Akeem

If nothing else, they have sweet music. Vince and Jesse argue over whether or not Gene looks like the turtles. Jesse says if you put a mask and a shell on him he would. Seriously, what in the hell brought this completely random and absurd debate on? I remember DiBiase not taking a bribe from Boss Man which was why DiBiase beat on Boss Man at Mania, but other than that, there was nothing that happened between them. Jesse insults the Texas Democratic Primary and says it was dirty. Yeah it was so dirty that no democrat has won in probably a few centuries or so. Boss Man throws him around but gets caught with some bad punches. He uses the same movements as Hogan when he Hulks Up but with amazing eyes while he does it. Those things are around the level that Edge would have. Boss Man manages to backdrop Akeem over the top rope. He had some freaking scary power. The Boss Man slam, which in this case was more like a clothesline and a leg sweep puts Akeem down but here’s DiBiase and Virgil for the beatdown. Seriously, I don’t remember these two feuding in an actual match ever. They cuff Boss Man to the rope and the booing is insane. Virgil gets the nightstick but Boss Man is the only smart wrestler of all time as he has the key to his own cuffs. He gets loose before he gets sticked and takes out the heels as we go to a commercial.

Rating: N/A. While Boss Man had some good power stuff in there, there simply wasn’t enough to go on here to grade it properly. The DiBiase run in is odd as it led nowhere unless I’m completely blanking on something. Either way, the angle at the end was far more important than the match, and since the angle was good this would have been a decent grade.

After the last commercial, we come back for our fourth Martel bit of the night as once again he’s talking about Arrogance. This is either a bad theme for the night or dumb booking and I’m leaning towards both.

Heenan says that Rude is coming for Warrior and the title.

Warrior says something about a disease being out of control.

Vince and Jesse talk about Rude being able to beat Warrior and Hogan running wild and eventually facing Earthquake before plugging the next SNME in three months to take us out.

Overall Rating: B+. They packed a lot into two hours here. They got over the main angles which is all you can ask for I suppose. The matches were at least ok and the whole show came off as good television. It wasn’t great, but it certainly wasn’t bad at all. Hogan and Warrior continue their domination, Demolition more or less turned heel or at least took a big step towards it, and everyone came off looking good. This was a solid follup to Mania and it set up the summer feuds. Overall, this is a good show and worth watching if you’ve got some time on your hads.

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 6
Date: May 3, 1986
Location: Providence Civic Center, Providence, Rhode Island
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan

We’re about a month removed from the abomination that was Wrestlemania 2 and I’m fairly sure that this is the first major show since then. Upon further review, yes it is. Since this is the first show after it, there really isn’t a lot to say. Since this is a SNME, there isn’t much of a flow to the show at all and the last match isn’t normally the main event. The opening match is Hogan and JYD vs. the Funks. JYD and Tito had fought them at Mania but lost so I guess JYD got tired of having great wrestlers like Tito in there so he got Hogan. It’s the 80s so blame it on cocaine like I always do. Anyway let’s get to it.

Gene runs down the card instead of us getting quick promos. That’s most odd indeed. Hogan gets the interview of course, and if this man isn’t strung out on drugs, then my name is Sharona. His eyes are as big around as Dusty’s ass if not bigger and he’s just raving to no end. He talks for all of five seconds though before we hit the intro which is really smart as it has all of the wrestlers on it. That’s just smart as it’s a preview. On Raw or Smackdown you see a bunch of guys, but you’re not sure if you’ll be seeing them or not.

We see the Funks in the ring and then go back to the locker room to hear from them again. We get a clip from Mania where JYD gets nailed in the head with the megaphone which shouldn’t have hurt since there’s nothing there but whatever.

We throw it to Gene again with the faces. They have the Haiti Kid, a midget wrestler, with them to take care of Jimmy Hart. This is JYD’s reward for winning the Wrestling Classic. You can tell it really made it for him. Now am I being sarcastic or not?

Hulk Hogan/Junkyard Dog vs. Funk Brothers

The Funks are Dory Jr. (called Hoss here for no reason whatsoever) and Terry and they have Jimmy Jack with them, but he’s no relation so there we are. Hogan has chains around him for the intro. That’s very odd as I’ve never seen him carry anyone else. Hogan gets on all fours and rams the Funks’ heads. Oh this is going to be a long night. Why is it called the WWF Heavyweight Championship? There wasn’t a light heavyweight title on American soil, so what’s the point? I guess it just sounds better or something. Hogan is in white here. If nothing else we get Heenan ranting on midgets, so that’s going to help a lot. Oh poor Dory. What the hell happened to you man? Heenan goes on a rant and says Hogan and Dog aren’t wrestlers. Oh I want to buy this man a ham sandwich. Terry goes after Haiti Kid and I would pay big money to see them in a cage. The biases here are just hilarious. Terry beats on Dog and I like him even more now. Jimmy nails Haiti Kid and I like him even more now. JYD still lives here so I still can’t stand him. Heenan is just on fire here and he’s easily the most entertaining person or thing out here. JYD takes the Kid to the back, throwing him over his shoulder like a 12 pack. Hogan gets a branding iron to the ribs once we get back from commercial, which might still be hurt from a few months ago. One nice thing about SNME is that the footage picks up where we left off at the break so we don’t miss any action. Dog is back now. I didn’t notice but whatever. Oh dear the Kid is back and has a big bandage on his head. It looks freaking ridiculous. Terry misses what I’m assuming was a splash which allows Hogan to get the tag and pin him in about 4 seconds. The heels beat up the Kid as I cheer.

Rating: C+. It’s a standard 80s tag match. I’m not sure I get the point of Hogan opening the show when he’s the star attraction, but then again the 80s were a weird time. JYD continues to reach new levels of uselessness every time I see him so he was worthless. The Funks were just not right for the WWF and were gone soon after this. This was fine and would have main evented any house show at any given time so it’s fine I guess. Nothing serious and it ends Funks vs. JYD, an epic feud if there ever was one.

King Kong Bundy vs. Uncle Elmer

Elmer was kind of the Mabel of his day, but somehow even worse in the ring. Let that sink in for a bit. This is what Bundy got after being in the main event of Wrestlemania. That’s just not a good sign at all. We go to a clip of the weigh in from earlier in the day. Heenan manages Bundy mind you. Bundy weighs 468. Elmer is eating from a big bucket labeled Uncle Elmer’s Fried Pig Parts and says that it’s going into his stomach anyway so weigh it too. He weighs 430. What is Vince’s fascination with hillbillies? He’s had Elmer, Jim, Luke, Festus, the Godwins and more that I’m sure I’ve missed. Heenan doesn’t like Elmer that much. They can’t even do a big man showdown right as Elmer just has nothing. This is exactly what you would expect it to be with all kinds of ass shots and splashes. Bundy hits an elbow drop and wins which is apparently a surprise. Bundy was in the main event of Wrestlemania and Elmer jobbed to Adrian Adonis. Why is this surprising?

Rating: N/A. Way too short to grade here as this went about two and a half minutes. Someone get Elmer a Twinkie before he passes out.

We go to the back where Adrian is hitting on a cardboard cutout of Orndorff who he’s wrestling tonight. Adrian is in a dress but says he can be vicious. And this guy was considered a killer in his time. We go to a clip of Orndorff training in a sweat box, resulting in shirtless Gene Okerlund. Paul would soon turn heel in an absolute epic run and become the top heel in the company, being right on par with Flair for heel heat.

Paul Orndorff vs, Adrian Adonis

The commentary here is great as they dance around the word gay as well as anyone I’ve ever seen. If you ever need a great set of euphamisms for gay, watch this match. Paul is just kicking ass here as this is just a glorified squash. We hit a commercial and again we miss nothing so there’s no point to even announcing them happening. Adrian has had no offense. Jimmy Hart and a shot from the megaphone changes that though. It took five minutes to get to that though. After Adonis takes over for a bit, Orndorff makes the comeback and ties him in the ropes, but it’s backwards as he’s behind the bottom rope instead of the traditional sitting down look. Paul beats the hell out of him and rips the dress off before shoving the official and drawing the DQ. This was the first real sign of his heel turn and the hottest feud in the world as Hogan was working out and couldn’t answer the phone, causing Paul to just go insane and nail him, leading to them fighting around the country for the title with Orndorff getting 20,000 a night with ease. His arm was fucked to hell and back and it is still noticeably small to this day, but at that kind of money, how do you stop?

Rating: D. This was WAY too long. It’s about the same length as the opener, but as you can see I had much less to say here. There’s just nothing to talk about in it as it’s very repetitive and boring as hell. It’s more or less a 12 minute match to get to the point where Paul just snaps and goes towards the dark side. This should have been 7 minutes, not 13.

Hogan and Gene are sitting in an otherwise empty arena and we recap Bundy jumping Hogan to set up the Mania match. Why do they do this? I have no idea but whatever. Hogan says his usual stuff and then we get a clip of Hogan vs. Bundy from Mania, which wasn’t so much a bad match but kind of a match where you have to wonder why this was the main event. My guess was that they kept having to change things as they didn’t know what to go with. Since Bundy was put in there about three weeks before Mania, you can tell they had no clue what they were going to do and that Bundy was as much of a last choice fill in as they could have found. I’ve heard about ten different stories about who was getting the shot from Nikita Koloff to Savage to another tag match to Terry Funk. They had no clue and I guess Bundy was all they had left. To be fair though, nothing else on that show meant anything as they didn’t know what they had with Mania. You kind of have to forget about that show as the next one is the defining Mania and sets the standard.

Steamboat says he’s ready for Jake. That’s a hell of a match actually as Jake was the best new heel in forever as he was creepy and thinking instead of some big fat man going full speed ahead.

Jake talks to Damien and says he needs the snake to squeeze Ricky tonight.

Jake Roberts vs. Ricky Steamboat

Jake is undefeated here. And before the match starts Jake jumps him and we hit the floor where Roberts drops him with the DDT on the exposed concrete. Steamboat is DEAD. I remember on the SNME DVD Roberts said he was just dead weight here. I mean his head slammed into the concrete. Roberts warned the management that he could legitimately kill Steamboat here and he did hurt him badly. This set off a feud between the two, namely here because Jake puts the snake all over Ricky. He would come back with a Komodo Dragon that could eat the snake. That’s quite cool actually. The replay shows that Steamboat legitimately slammed onto the concrete.

Rating: N/A, for obvious reasons.

After another commercial, we hear from Gene, Albano and the Bulldogs, who won the titles from Beefcake and Valentine at Mania. Tonight is their first title match against former champions the Sheik and Volkoff and for some reason it’s 2/3 falls, which I guess is just to fill in time. Lou says that they’re gymnastic wrestlers. That’s a very odd description. We get a clip of them winning the titles which was by far and away the best match of the night. Gorilla and Gene’s reactions are great. Albano is freaking insane.

Tag Titles: Nikolai Volkoff/Iron Sheik vs. British Bulldogs

First thing that pops into my head about this is that the fans aren’t going to be stupid enough to chant USA. Old school fans were just smarter, period. The singing of the anthem was just priceless every time. We get ANOTHER interview with the heels who say that they’ll win and everyone will be happy. The fans start barking which at first I thought was booing. And inside of two minutes Davey taps to the camel clutch. GREAT JOB of making your champions look strong there Vince. That was Cena vs. Punk territory there. That’s just freaking stupid. Vince gets in a line saying that one more fall and the tag tiels leave the free world. No one can ever accuse Vince of being low key. Sheik actually gets an abdominal stretch that has the toe hook so maybe Gorilla wouldn’t have complained. I doubt it though. The Bulldog (Dynamite hasn’t been in yet) is getting destroyed here as we have all kinds of 80s references. Volkoff thinks the match is over and comes up fast and gets rolled up, prompting Vince to call him an idiot twice. Albano and Dynamite help Bulldog to his feet and when we come back for the third fall, it’s still Smith in there. Apparently Dynamite has a torn knee ligament. Dynamite FINALLY comes in. In an ending that has my mouth hanging open, Sheik puts Dynamite in the clutch and Davey comes in for the save, then rolls up Sheik for the pin. Note: Smith is wearing LIGHT BLUE and Dynamite is wearing DARK RED. Seriously, this is just freaking stupid and sounds like something out of ECW.

Rating: D-. I have NO IDEA what the point of this was. The champions look like jobbers, the referee looks like an idiot, and the should be jobbers tag team looks completely dominant. I don’t get this at all and it was boring and sloppy on top of that. This was just bad.

Vince and Bobby wrap things up and we’re out.

Overall Rating: D. This was the epitome of a throwaway show. Nothing of note at all happens here other than Orndorff showing signs of going heel which wouldn’t happen for a few more months. There’s just nothing here and it wasn’t entertaining in the slightest. You could tell they didn’t have any clue where they were going next as this was all fallout from Mania. When the show you’re falling out from sucked, the fallout is going to be even worse. This was awful and you should stay away from it.

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 1
Date: May 11, 1985
Location: Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Long Island, New York
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

So I figured this was a good one to get around to. This is the fallout show from Mania but there isn’t a ton of fallout. No one really knew what this was going to be like but it was an experiment worth trying at least. It was the first chance a lot of people would have to see these guys on television as it was shown on NBC in prime time which was unheard of back then. Either way, this should be fun so let’s get to it.

As usual we open with the main faces for the night talking. Wendi Richter and Cyndi Lauper are talking about the match with Moolah tonight and Hogan and Mr. T. say they’re ready for Bob Orton tonight. As always, the music kicks lots of ass. Jesse is in pink. He can get away with it though.

Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff/George Steele vs. Mike Rotunda/Barry Windham/Ricky Steamboat

That’s quite the face tag team. This was on the SNME DVD (kick ass DVD that should certainly be picked up if you can find it. Awesome stuff on it) as an extra. Blassie is with the heels and Albano is with the faces. The two foreigners had taken the tag titles from the US Express at Wrestlemania for a token tag title change. About a year prior to this, the US Express had been using Real American for their theme music. That went to Hogan of course and here they use Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen which works like a charm for them as it’s perfect. We start with Windham and Steele which is an odd matchup if there ever has been one. Sheik was hitting the end of whatever usefulness that he had at this point. Rotundo would soon head to WCW and become a member of the Varsity Club, ending in an awesome moment with Rick Steiner taking the TV Title from him after months of being talked down to by him. Wow what a tangent that was. Oh and he's more commonly known as I.R.S. Oddly enough the faces dominate early on. We go to commercial with the faces dominating. We begin the awesome SNME tradition of not having action during commercials so we don’t have to be all confused about how we got to a point during a break. Wow there are four hall of fame wrestlers in here and two on the floor. That’s rather impressive, especially considering that the two that aren’t in there are two of the three most talented. Steele comes in and his teammates abandon him, allowing Windham to get a quick rollup for the pin. Steele eats a turnbuckle and the tag champions beat him up. That doesn’t last long as Albano comes in to calm him down and Steele is a face.

Rating: C-. Eh this was fine. It wasn’t meant to be anything special other than a way to get Steele out of the dark side, but the heel offense consisted of about four Volkoff punches and other than that it was a complete squash. I don’t get why it was so one sided, but it did its job and wasn’t bad at all so for the first match in show history this was perfectly fine.

The heels blame Steele for the loss and Steele and Albano scare them off.

Piper’s Pit

The guest is Paul Orndorff, who was Piper’s partner in the main event of Wrestlemania. Orton is there as well. Paul more or less says go ahead and try to beat me up to Orton which Piper tries to defuse quickly. Piper has to be high on something. Either that or he’s just completely insane. I’m not sure which it is. Piper keeps insulting Orndorff and then he would jump up and yell at both guys who run and scream. Piper finally gives up and calls Orndorff a piece of garbage and Paul cleans house. A piledriver is blocked by a cast shot from Orton. Mr. T. makes the save. Ok, we get it: Mr. T. is in a wrestling company. Let it go already.

Hogan says he dedicates the match tonight to his mother. Ok then. He’s also happy about Paul’s recent face turn.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Bob Orton

Hogan coming out to Eye of the Tiger is some combination of odd, awesome and epic. You figure out the proportions. Naturally it starts out with Hogan completely dominating Orton. This was also on the DVD but the color and picture quality were WAY better there. It looks bad here to say the least. This is exactly what you would expect it to be: Hogan works the arm and then a shot from Orton gives him control. Our hero is in trouble. WHAT IS HE GOING TO DO??? Well at the moment he’s going to get his ass kicked a little more. And of course there’s the comeback and you know the finish. Actually I typed too soon. Hogan drops an elbow and uses a headbutt of all things. Orton takes over again. This is most odd indeed. Hogan fights out of the superplex and comes off the top rope! He goes for the leg but Piper runs in for the DQ. The heels beat up T and set for the double team but Orndorff runs out for the save and the full face turn.

Rating: C. This was just pure average. It was what you expected but the DQ was kind of odd. It’s not like a pin would have been odd here but whatever. This was fine for what it was. Hogan gets on TV and the biggest star got to showcase himself.

After a break we come back to the three of them posing and you can just tell that Vince wants to fuck the hell out of all of them.

Gene is with Cyndi Lauper and Albano. Lauper has a VERY annoying voice. These two started the Rock N Wrestling Connection and launched wrestling into the stratosphere.

They air her new video which has about ever wrestler with a cameo in it other than Piper who shows up to yell about it. That was awesome actually.

Women’s Title: Wendi Richter vs. Fabulous Moolah

Before the match, Moolah says she’s tired of the interference so Lauper is barred tonight. The reading of the announcement that Lauper is gone tonight takes the better part of forever to get through and FINALLY we get to the match. This was match number two that fueled the mega run that wrestling went on. We’re on the floor nearly immediately. To say Richter was popular at this time was the understatement of all time. She would actually main event house shows if you can believe that. Surprisingly, Moolah is being beaten down for the most part here. Considering she was champion for about 30 years, that’s saying a lot. Yes I know she didn’t really hold it that long but that’s kayfabe for you. Richter gets a quick small package for the pin.

Rating: D+. This is just long enough to grade but there isn’t anything of note here. It’s ok but that’s about it. Women’s wrestling back then was more of a clusterfuck than it is now, but the women could work MUCH better than they can today for the most part. Ok not really but these two had a feud going and that was better than nothing. Yeah the match sucked and I’m rambling.

JYD has his mother here for Mother’s Day. Her name is Bertha.

Pete Doherty vs. Junkyard Dog

Take a wild guess who wins here. Grab Them Cakes is a decent song if nothing else. Them Cakes means a woman’s ass in case you were wondering. Oh never mind that’s Another One Bites the Dust. Wow my hearing must be off. And it’s a three minute squash with Doherty being on the floor for a lot of that. JYD and his mom dance afterwards.

Rating: N/A. This was just thrown in for filler as a lot of stuff was around this time.

We come back to see Cyndi Lauper’s Mother’s Day party. It’s just a long line of wrestlers with their “mothers” including Hogan. They all say they love them and then a food fight starts.

Jesse and Vince wrap things up.

Overall Rating: C+. It got the big names on TV other than Andre but he was a very sporadic guy at this point. This was fine for a debut but you could see that it was a lot of rehashing Mania which to be fair was so groundbreaking that they didn’t have a lot of other stuff to go with. Also, that was the hottest thing in the world back then so they were right to go with it I guess. Not bad but a lot more for entertainment than wrestling which is fine. Great job of showing who everyone is though so that’s a major plus. Check it out because it’s a huge deal as far as starting a big tradition so there we are.

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 7
Date: October 4, 1986
Location: Coliseum at Richfield, Richfield, Ohio
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

This is more or less the beginning of Hogan vs. Orndorff and not much else. We’re not quite to the build for Mania but we’re getting closer. Not a lot is going on here as this is pretty much the end of the summer series of matches. Back in the day you had a lot more summer feuds as you had two sets of house shows touring the country. For example you would have Hogan vs. Orndorff in half the country and Roberts vs. Steamboat in the other. That’s kind of cool when you think about it and they were far big enough matches to carry the fans’ interest. Either way this is just kind of an off the wall show where they just kind of threw it together with whoever they had there. Let’s get to it though.

Roberts, in regular tights which just looks odd, says he’s ready for Steamboat and he’ll win.

Johnny V. says the Dream Team will win tonight.

Kamala is a savage.

Orndorff is ready.

Hogan says he’ll get back at Orndorff.

Damn I love this intro.

Piper is hurt apparently. Adonis, Muraco and Orton hurt him. Piper is freaking PISSED and says he’s fighting anyway. This was great.

Hogan says that he’s mad at Orndorff but he’ll get him back tonight. Hogan says he’s old. This was 23 years ago. For those of you that don’t know, Orndorff had turned face to help Hogan fight Piper and Orton and they were best friends. One day Heenan started saying Hogan didn’t care about him so he called his house saying he could get him any time. Hogan couldn’t come to the phone as he was working out. This made Orndorff think he wasn’t important and Heenan accepted him. Basically Orndorff just wanted appreciation which isn’t asking for much is it? Orndorff does something most interesting; he steals Hogan’s music. There’s a great feud there somewhere.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff

We start off very fast but some cheating from Heenan has our hero in trouble! We go to the floor and they beat on each other quite a bit. Ok make that Hogan takes a beating including from the microphone cord. Vince says there are over 20,000 people here, which is what the first Survivor Series brought there in about a year. I find that a bit odd. Paul gets more offense in than I would expect but there’s your traditional comeback by Hogan. Heenan grabs the foot though and cops show up to throw him out. That’s original back then I guess. They literally pick him up and carry him off and we go to a break with Heenan trying to get out of the cell thing they put him in. Paul beats on him a bit more but then the piledriver is reversed and Hogan does his usual. Adrian Adonis runs in for the DQ and Piper comes in to save Hogan. That’s just odd as hell to type. Adonis has a bad arm injury as it’s just hanging there. Ventura hates Piper as a face.

Rating: C-. This was hard for them to mess up as they had it about 200 times in a year. They raked in money though so it was worth it. They would have a far more famous cage match in two SNMEs to blow it off before Andre returned for the angle with Hogan. This was fine though.

Jake Roberts vs. Ricky Steamboat

This is a Snake Pit match which means nothing at all. Gene interviews Jake and Damien in the shower of all places. Roberts had dropped Steamboat on his head at the previous SNME and then Steamboat had beat him at a huge show called The Big Event in Toronto which is coming up soon. This is match three I guess. Steamboat has a bag of his own and Jake doesn’t even get an entrance. Ricky has his own dragon that can eat snakes I guess. Steamboat is freaking moving out there. Steamboat’s bag is moving like crazy. This is all Steamboat until a top rope splash misses. It becomes a battle of the bags as both guys try to get to theirs’ first and it’s not working so we try the wrestling thing again. It amuses me that Vince is a former world champion and Jesse isn’t. There’s something just hilarious about that. This is fairly back and forth until Ricky gets a crucifix for the pin. Jake of course jumps him and then we have the showdown of the animals. The Dragon wins.

Rating; C-. This was ok but just ok. There was nothing special here but in just over six minutes there’s not a ton you can get going. This was the other hot as hell feud in 86 so having it on TV made a lot of sense.

Hogan says that he was really turned on and turns it into a courtroom analogy of some kind. He also tells Piper to not save him again.

We go to earlier in the day to see Slick and Sheik arriving and saying they’re ready for whoever is replacing Piper tonight. Sheik has to take his clothes off to pose.

Pedro Morales vs. Iron Sheik

It’s apparently 1983. Piper comes down anyway and says he’s fighting here. Piper starts going after Slick and then after getting pounded on for about 30 seconds Piper gets a small package for the win.

Rating: N/A. No clue what the point of this was. Apparently this was a great victory for him.

We hear from the Dream Team who say they’ll win.

Piper calls out Adonis like a freaking CRAZY man. This never gets old as his attention to detail was second to none.

Tag Titles: Dream Team vs. British Bulldogs

To the shock of no one this is 2/3 falls. We start with Dynamite and Valentine. Oh yeah it’s Valentine and Beefcake making up the Dream Team. Somehow this is a higher profile match for Beefcake than the main event of Starrcade 94. The Bulldogs are hard to tell apart but Davey is bigger if nothing else. Not by much though. You can definitely see Dynamite in Benoit. Valentine can’t decide if he wants to work on the arm or the knee. Your finishing move is the figure four. Use your blonde head buddy. Dynamite gives up in the figure four, making it two straight matches on SNME where the Bulldogs have tapped out.

We cut to the locker room where Gene says that Adonis might have a separated shoulder and we go to a replay showing how it likely happened.

After a commercial we have fall 2. This is more or less heel dominance even though they have as much of a chance of winning here as X and I do. Davey gets the hot tag and dominates. I love that vertical suplex. The powerslam puts Valentine down and then Brutus comes in for the save. He gets caught in a fireman’s carry and after a tag, Dynamite jumps on top of his back and hits a super diving headbutt for the pin to tie us up. After a commercial we have Dynamite and Valentine. Dynamite’s knee was hurt for the better part of a year as steroid abuse just went crazy. Adonis has a shattered elbow apparently. The heels are completely dominating here until we get a brawl as Davey makes the save after a high knee. With Dynamite on Valentine, Davey gets a fisherman’s suplex for the pin.

Rating: B. Solid stuff here with the psychology of the knee working through the entire match and the great balance here. It was another win for the champions which is never bad. This worked pretty well though and it was four good workers so there we are.

Kamala vs. Lanny Poffo

Ok what are you expecting with three minutes left in the show? It’s a total 80s squash, making it AWESOME.

Rating: B+. All for being quick and Kamala scaring the hell out of me back in the day.

Overall Rating: B+. This was a far more fun show than others. It’s got a good tag title match and the two hottest feuds on the planet at the time. Ok so it doesn’t have Magnum vs. Flair but whatever. This is worth seeing though as we approach some epic feuds. Check this out.

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 31
Date: November 14, 1992
Location: Hulman Center, Terra Haute, Indiana
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan

This is the last show for nearly 14 years as Raw would debut in January so there was no point at all in having both shows running. Tonight is a night of champions with all three matches being title matches. Yeah there are only three matches tonight. This is really just filling a contracted date with FOX but whatever. Let’s get to it.

Of all people, AL BUNDY does the intro. He says tonight should be great so let’s get to it since he says to.

Tag Titles: Money Inc. vs. Ultimate Warrior/Randy Savage

You should know the ending already by this point. The faces run to the ring and beat the hell out of the champions just because they can. Heenan has the Brain Scan again which is still funny. He uses it to turn this into a Ross Perot joke, making him my hero. Warrior, wearing a singlet, comes in. Warrior misses a shoulder tackle and humps the mat which looks odd as hell. IRS’ finishing move was a flying clothesline. What does that tell you about his career chances? Flair and Ramon are happy about the faces losing which makes no sense as they’re fighting them at Survivor Series anyway, so why not hope it becomes a title match? Warrior would bail about three days before the show so the match never happened and Perfect would get the spot in a great angle. Savage gets the hot tag and takes over. IRS takes the big elbow but DiBiase makes the save to start the big brawl. The Maniacs just kick ass and the heels run for the CHEAP count out. The challengers chase him out and then Ramon and Flair show up for a six man brawl in the aisle.

Rating: C+. It was pure domination by the faces which is kind of stupid as it makes the champions look weak as hell but they were booked as smart and cowardly anyway so that’s all well and good. This was really just to give the Maniacs some ring time together for experience which didn’t matter at all as it became Perfect and Savage anyway.

Music video for Bret Hart, which I thought was from YEARS later.

Intercontinental Title: Shawn Michaels vs. British Bulldog

This match might have set a record for being on the most DVDs in wrestling history. It launched Shawn into being a midcard champion and made Bulldog a transitional champion if there ever has been one. This match is a picture perfect example of both psychology and storytelling. After they mill around for a bit, Shawn hooks an arm lock on Davey. Davey stands up and lifts Shawn with one arm (which someone else who wasn’t a power guy at all did in another show I reviewed, showing that it’s really not anywhere near as impressive as it’s made out to be here) and hurts his back. Now keep that in mind as it comes into play later on. Shawn’s face is PERFECT when he does that. Now, for the next few minutes, what does Shawn do? He works on the BACK! Davey threw in something there that his back was injured and Shawn went with it. That’s the best example of psychology I can give you. Shawn was thinking as he wrestled and it made the match seem much more realistic. If you were in a real fight like this and you saw the other guy’s arm bleeding or him favoring it would you go after his leg? Of course not. You attack the enemy where he’s weak which is what Shawn does here. After a LOT of back work, Smith of course makes his comeback with all his traditional moves like the big delayed vertical suplex and holds his back afterwards. He sets Shawn for a suplex from the top but his back gives out and Shawn falls on him for the pin and his first title. That is great psychology and thinking out there and always the first example I use when asked for a definition of psychology in a match.

Rating: B+. For all the reasons stated above, plus this was more or less the debut of Shawn on the national stage. Bulldog would be in WCW inside of three months. This was an excellent match and it made perfect sense, which you might get a match a year that does that anymore.

Flair and Ramon say exactly what you would expect them to say. For the life of me I never got this partnership.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Papa Shango

Bret says he’s not overlooking Shango here before he gets Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series. Damn those two were just joined at the hip. Hart had won the title in a TOTAL shocker at a house show in Canada as Flair more or less said he wasn’t resigning when his contract was up. I mean it was just like a token title defense for Flair and Bret made him give up to just stun the hell out of the crowd. Unfortunately that wasn’t on home video for years and I only saw it within the last two years or so. Bret wasn’t ready for the spot yet, but they realized he was all they had because they couldn’t, KEEP THE BELT ON THE VETERAN SAVAGE or anything like that. They made Savage the commentator despite him holding the title all summer long. Why in the world they never did Bret vs. Savage is beyond me. This is more or less a Bret Hart 101 match. He starts off hot then messes up before getting the living hell beaten out of him for a good while. It’s amazing how good Bret was at selling for big guys. We have a long sequence, as in about 4 minutes of Shango beating up Bret. Shango is more commonly known as Godfather to younger fans by the way. Anyway, Bret of course makes the comeback and hits his signature series to get the Sharpshooter for the tap out.

Rating: C+. It was a standard TV match and that’s fine as it got Bret some national exposure which is what the whole point of these shows were. He would have a forgotten classic with Shawn in about two weeks at Survivor Series before eventually moving on to Yoko and Wrestlemania. Damn Bret never really had the defining moment in his title reign come to think of it.

We have the Funeral Parlor with Taker talking about the casket match and Kamala comes out to run away. This was four minutes I’ll never have back.

Bret and Shawn have a showdown.

Heenan says one of the Ultimate Maniacs won’t wrestle at the PPV and that one will have a new partner. I guess they knew already.

Overall Rating: C+. I just got done with the first Raw which more or less was the reason that SNME went off the air and to say it’s a completely different era is an understatement. You can clearly see the jump forward with Raw, but this show was WAY better. I don’t know if it was based on the quality of matches or what, but this felt like a major show while Raw felt like something that could air at 2am on a Friday night. Oddly enough, Raw would get better and this would be far worse when it returned so there we go. It’s 45 minutes minus commercials so check it out if you’re bored as it’s not an awful show at all.

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 27
Date: July 28, 1990
Location: Omaha Civic Auditorium, Omaha, Nebraska
Commentators: Jesse Ventura, Vince McMahon

So this is more or less just the buildup show for Summerslam, as Hogan is returning from another injury (read as he was making Suburban Commando) and is here to confront Earthquake (read as making a match for Summerslam so that people will pay to see it. Are you listening TNA?). Warrior is world champion here. We have a theme of Wild Kingdom here and we’ll have Alfred Hayes and Gene Okerlund going through the “jungle”. This is really infamous for its stupidity but it’s really not that bad. Let’s get to it. The card sounds stacked actually.

That theme song simply does not get old to me.

Heenan and Rude say that Rude is the real king of the jungle. Yeah these are going to get really old really fast.

Warrior talks about the food chain or something like that,

WWF Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude

It can never be said that these shows had boring openers. Rude is the only person to ever beat Warrior? Wow indeed. I’ll give Warrior this: he could get a crowd going faster than anyone else could other than Hogan. Rude sneaks up for a sneak attack to get us going. Well at least he got that part right. Other than Honky, no one could sell an atomic drop like Rude. This is all Warrior so far. And now he goes to the top. This won’t end well at all. Actually it did as I’m very surprised. The splash misses though so there we are. A belt shot to the head and the evil one is in control. Rude and the mustache of doom get Warrior down with a sleeper and the referee checks his leg for the three drops. Wait what? Yeah, he uses the leg instead of the arm for no reason that I can see at all. Warrior WARRIORS UP but Rude just punches him down which is very odd indeed. The Rude Awakening only gets two and the kickout gets a solid pop. He initiates his ending sequence as Vince is orgasming right in front of our ears. Heenan breaks up the pin though and we go to the floor. Heenan gets beaten up and I guess that’s enough to DQ Rude. We’ll get more from this later.

Rating: C+. Good stuff here as these two just had freaky chemistry together for no apparent reason. They simply didn’t have bad matches and this was no exception. Rude would be gone in two months. The ending freaking killed this thing though. If it was clean or even not clean but with less Heenan, this is up in B-/B territory.

Hayes and Gene get ready to go on safari.

Boss Man has the slam of the night.

We get a video tribute to Hulk Hogan. This is like 4 minutes long.

It leads to Hogan making his epic return from injury (I’d be hurting too if I had to make Suburban Commando but that’s just me). He thanks the fans for the cards and letters and he says that he’s going to answer them all. Something tells me that’s bullshit. Even if they sent a standard thing back, that would have been cool. Hogan just looks weird in the red shirt here. He says Tugboat will be in his corner. It wound up being Boss Man for no apparent reason. The evil heels come out but Tugster makes the save. This was the buildup for my first ever PPV so to me this stuff is epic to me.

Hayes and Gene are on safari. For some reason everyone thinks Gene’s name is Gene. This is more or less set up like some old school jungle hunt documentary with Hayes narrating as they go. They run into Koko B. Ware who is looking for a mate for Frankie, who he implies is a female bird. That’s most odd. Gene trips and sees a snake who is picked up by Jake, who in the “wild”, is in full wrestling gear and cuts a promo on Bad News Brown who he’s feuding with. They come to a railroad track and cross, just in front of the Bushwackers who are walking along the tracks. This whole thing was on the SNME DVD and it cracked me up both then and now.

Tag Titles: Rockers vs. Demolition

Demolition are freshly heel here and are using the Freebird Rule to defend the tag titles. Crush has just debuted to become the third man. They would drop the belts to the Harts in a classic at Summerslam. Naturally the Rock N Roll…oh sorry wrong company. The Rockers use a ton of speed moves to get an early advantage but Smash just beats the fuck out of Marty. I think you know what’s coming and of course the third guy on the floor (Ax in this case) interferes and the heels take over with nothing but power. The reason for bringing in Crush was Ax had a heart problem and they needed someone to give him a break in the ring so Crush was brought in to eventually become the new main guy along with Smash. Jesse being such a complete asshole is always funny. The faces make their comeback and after a double superkick (which amusingly would more or less seal the thing in about 5 years or so but here it means nothing) and the double fistdrop, Ax makes a switch and gets the pin. The Harts and the LOD run out to protest. If there was a four corners match back then, this was the perfect candidate for one of them.

Rating: C-. This was the epitome of a basic TV match. There was no way the Rockers were winning but they were (I guess) credible challengers and over with the fans so there was no reason not to give them a shot. It was all to build to Summerslam so that was fine. Boring match but it was just filler anyway.

Gene gets bit by a bug and thinks he’s various animals. They’re really pushing this whole jungle thing.

Intercontinental Title: Mr. Perfect vs. Tito Santana

This should be good. They start off very fast which is always a good sign. Tito was in the middle of being depushed, even though he was still better than most of the company by a few miles. Perfect could throw dropkicks with the best of them. Jesse’s borderline racist jokes about Tito selling tacos in Mexico always crack me up. Tito comes back and the referee hurts his knee which might be legit actually. Actually I’m thinking no as Santana gets the figure four but there’s no referee. The timing there is too good to be real. Tito hits the forearm but the referee takes forever to get there so it’s just a long two. I love how the referee is in agony and no one comes down to help him at all. Three minutes after he gets hurt another referee comes out as Hebner gets no help at all. Perfect getting a towel offered to him by Bobby is amusing for some reason. Perfect uses a sidekick of all things, more or less Sweet Chin Music. Where in the hell did that come from??? Tito comes back now for about the 3rd comeback of the match. They’re working hard out there too. Perfect is bumping like a wild man out there which is one of his old trademarks. Tito hooks a small package but Perfect reverses to get the three.

Rating: B. This was great stuff as they literally don’t stop other than for about 30 seconds near the beginning. Santana was awesome as always and they hammered each other out there so I can’t complain a bit. I would have loved this getting twenty minutes on PPV rather than Warlord squashing Santana and Perfect jobbing to Von Erich.

Earthquake and Bravo say they’re not worried about Tugboat. It’s rather disturbing to talk about a guy named Earthquake as the Haiti one was a few days ago.

Back in the jungle, they see Snuka and then Slick and Akeem. One thing I’d like to know: in the jungle, how are they recording the show? Do they just have a really long extension cord? Gene falls into the water but Hayes saves him. What in the hell was the point of this?

Buddy Rose vs. Texas Tornado

This was more or less Von Erich’s debut. Screw the more or less part actually. Rose is one of two that opened the first Wrestlemanias actually. Vince makes a ton of fat jokes for Rose which are annoying. This is ALL Von Erich as it’s a squash. He gets in the basic stuff but Rose makes a short comeback, leading to the Tornado Punch for the pin.

Rating: N/A. It’s a squash to end the show. Von Erich would win the IC Title in a few weeks.

Rude talks about caging the animal that is the Warrior. Warrior isn’t afraid.

Gene and Hayes play with a monkey to end this.

Overall Rating: B+. This was a great show as it’s about an hour long without commercials and had good wrestling, advancing of stories and some comedy. Probably the best I’ve reviewed yet, so check it out if you have time. Very good show.

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 36
Date: August 2, 2008
Location: Verizon Center, Washington D.C.
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Welcome to the end of an era, as no one at all cared about this. We might not have even had an LD for it and if we did it was all of five posts. This is nothing but a joke as it’s three matches long with one being Yang vs. Khali. This was treated like nothing and it came off like nothing. This was the Jenny McCarthy show where she was there to talk about autism. The problem was simply that no one wanted to watch this show and WWE put zero effort into it. It’s I think an hour long but it could have easily been a thirty minute show. This was a formality so let’s get to this so we can get it over with.

They changed the theme song to Here Comes the Boom by P.O.D. Good song, but it’s got jack on the first theme which I grew up on.

JBL/Kane/Priceless vs. John Cena/Batista/Cryme Tyme

Punk is at ringside and is world champion here. We of course can’t have him get an intro or anything since that’s not important here. Priceless is more commonly known as Legacy in case you were confused. The feuds here match up as the tag teams, JBL is about to fight Punk and Cena is against Batista, which makes no sense but whatever. Batista of course gets the big old hometown face pop. Adamle is the new GM and Cena vs. Batista has been announced for Summerslam. I would say this is the buildup show for that but that would be a lie so there you are. Kane and Batista start us off. This was before Legacy had anything resembling credibility even though they’re the Raw tag champions at the moment. We go to commercial with the heels dominating and come back with the heels dominating some more. There’s not a lot to talk about here as you can see no one is really interested out there. More or less we’re just shifting back and forth between heels that get to beat down Shad. Cena gets the hot tag and then after a big brawl JBL hits JTG with the Clothesline From Hell for the pin. He stares at Punk for awhile afterwards. I think he wants a Punk shirt.

Rating: D. This was just crap. It felt like a post show dark match after a Raw or something. You can really tell that there’s not a lot of thought being put into the show. JTG was never even legally in the match. Thankfully we’re over 1/3 of the way done already though.

Jeff Foxworthy talks about autism.

Smackdown and ECW will be in England.

Carmen Electra talks about autism.

Great Khali vs. Jimmy Wang Yang

Khali gets a video about how great he is while he’s coming to the ring. It goes longer than I thought as Yang actually makes it 90 seconds. This was to build Khali before his underrated match at Summerslam with HHH.

Rating: N/A. Good idea, but how about someone with a big more credibility than Yang?

More celebrities read scripts about autism, which is fine. I have no problem with charity/health research stuff being done.

McCarthy comes to the ring for what is I guess the big thing for the evening. Or actually she doesn’t come to the ring but rather just stands on the stage. This was like a minute long and she didn’t even get in the ring. Ok then.

We read off the card for Summerslam, which wasn’t bad at all.

Edge vs. Jeff Hardy

No real point to this, just a match between two guys that have a good match. Since I’m arguing with X over Genesis right now, I’ll say it here too: that’s fine on a free show, but not for one you have to pay for. This is the night after Foley’s EPIC promo on Edge where he said that Edge would get killed by Taker in the Cell if he went in with the attitude he had then. This is another example of a match that rarely is bad and this is no exception. There’s just a natural chemistry here. Hardy hurts his leg on a big spot so Edge of course pounces on it. They go back and forth for a good while until Hardy makes his comeback. Hardy sells the knee throughout which is all I can ask of him. He gets Edge on the floor and while he’s not looking MVP runs out and gets a shot to the head of Jeff, allowing Edge to spear him for the pin.

Rating: B-. Again, this is hard to screw up. I really hate MVP running in but it makes sense with the stories I guess. This was their usual good stuff but this was a standard TV main event. It was fine for what it was but it was nothing that great overall, which fits this show perfectly.

Post show on WWE.com, Grisham interviews McCarthy who says nothing at all of interest.

Overall Rating: F+. The main event if that’s what you really insist on calling it was decent but overall this was nothing more than filling a commitment. No one cared about this and the rating was through the floor. It’s also been the last one in about 18 months and I don’t expect any more for a long time. On a side note, it’s likely a coincidence but does anyone else find it odd that Vince brought these back and went to 36, which is one more than Clash of the Champions which went to 35? It very well most likely is a coincidence but I wouldn’t put it past Vince to have just done these to pass this show’s counterpart. Either way, this was a show that died and no one cared about it, so that’s about it. Clearly stay away from it as there’s nothing at all of note here and Edge and Hardy have had about ten other far better matches.

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 35
Date: August 18, 2007
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Commentators: Michael Cole, John Bradshaw Layfield, Jim Ross

Again we’re setting up for Summerslam here which was a pretty decent show at the end of the day. Again though there’s very little effort put into this one seemingly although we do have an hour and a half here instead of an hour like last time so this should be a bit better in theory. We’re looking for Vince’s son here which could have been great but Kennedy screwed it up and since WWE had zero patience they messed it up. Also Evander Holyfield is fighting Matt Hardy in a boxing match here. Let’s get to it so I can get to the next show quickly.

We open Coach and Vince setting up the story of the illegitimate son and saying tonight they’ll be going through most of the roster. See how that one thing tying the whole show together could help the whole show get a bit better? Coach implies he could be the son and Vince says it’s going to be a long night. You can feel like this is at least a decent show on paper as we’re in the world’s most famous arena and Vince is here. That just makes the show feel bigger.

Batista/Kane vs. Great Khali/Finlay

Khali is champion here and Finlay is about to turn face in a few months. Batista would get the his shot at Summerslam while Kane and Finlay would have a fight there too that sucked. The faces beat the hell out of Finlay before we go to commercial and come back to have Khali beating up Kane. Khali puts the claw on the injured ribs. My head hurts. He’s just squeezing his side. Could he be any lazier? I mean come on now. If you ever want a reason to know what Khali is said to be unable to wrestle, HERE IT IS! GOOD NIGHT that was a poorly worded sentence. Batista comes in and beats up Finlay. And here’s Horny who is a heel here so Batista just throws him into Kane. They get Khali tied up in the ropes and just ram Horny into him like a battering ram. That was funny actually. A double chokeslam on Khali leads to Finlay being ended with Batista’s usual stuff.

Rating: C. This could have main evented any given Smackdown if you added three minutes to it. It was fine for what it was and it came off pretty well I guess. It’s certainly not a great match but it works for an 8 minute long show on a completely thrown away show I guess.

Vince is looking in a mirror and it turns into a picture of him from the 80s. Simmons shows up to say DAMN. That made NO sense.

HHH is coming back at Summerslam.

Holyfield talks to MVP about nothing in particular.

Coach and Vince are in the ring and it’s time for another of the illegitimate son angles. These were funny at first but at the same time they more or less didn’t know who they were going with once Kennedy got suspended and it just got stupid. Coach talks about Vince’s sex life and Vince snaps at him. That made me chuckle for some reason. Coach thinks that the child could be from Kentucky. WOOT! And it’s Eugene, which would mean that Vince fucked Bischoff’s sister. That seems a bit too stupid to believe. Vince says he slept with a woman, not his cousin. They mention Uncle Eric and apparently Eric got into wrestling for Vince nailing his sister. That’s creative if nothing else. Good night they messed up that character to hell and back. Coach asks Vince if he remembers the Mania 2 after party in LA (even though Vince was in the New York portion of the show but whatever) and Melina is brought out. Both seem very nervous and it’s implied they slept together. Can I get a Mackenzie Phillips joke? Coach says he has one more and Vince insists they come out. Cue glass shattering and an eruption from the crowd. Austin wearing sneakers just doesn’t look right for some reason. They had to go here eventually and I can’t blame them. These two simply belong together. Austin looks like he’s in great shape as compared to when he was in the ring. He says that Vince could have been a good dad and lists off some things that Vince might have been able to do with him, including talking about the birds and the bees. This is amusing if nothing else for the look on the face of Vince, and Austin is always good for a one off appearance. The fans pop at the idea of a Stunner. Coach gets it after Vince takes two low blows “to calm down his grapefruits”. Beer is consumed and is poured on Vince’s balls. Of course Vince gets a Stunner as well. Apparently Balls Mahoney was in this segment as well but was edited out for time I guess.

Holyfield is still warming up.

John Cena vs. Carlito

These two always wind up together for some reason. They had split two matches thanks to Orton and this is match #3. Well it’s quick if nothing else. This is exactly what you would expect from these guys as they have a decent little match but there’s nothing at all to get excited about. Carlito starts in control and the comeback hits for the STFU tap out. Orton comes in and gets a belt shot in and an RKO on a chair. Wow they actually did storyline advancement. I’m in shock.

Rating: D+. This was ok at best and bad at worst. It’s also about 5 minutes long so there was just no meat here at all. This was pretty weak though. It did however close an angle and builds on Orton vs. Cena so that was a major perk. Still though, not very entertaining.

And now we replay half the match for no apparent reason.

Orton says he’s coming for Cena at Summerslam.

A bunch of the Divas are here to watch the boxing. I can’t believe they’re going through with this.

Matt Hardy vs. Evander Holyfield

Again, this is boxing. They call Holyfield the best ever. He wasn’t even the best of the 90s. This was about contest #298 between MVP and Hardy as Hardy was supposed to fight MVP but since both guys kept getting hurt and he couldn’t beat MVP for the US Title like he was supposed to. Michael Buffer is here. Come on man you have a career man! Oh Holyfield has a title fight for one of about 4 world titles floating around at this time. The idiocy of this astounds me. In case you don’t get why, Holyfield is one of the best boxers in the last 40 years, but apparently a guy that has never boxed in his life is supposed to stand a damn chance against him. There is no reason this should go past 30 seconds in any sort of reality. Holyfield has no headgear on while Hardy does. That helps a tiny bit I guess. After a video package on Hardy we’re back. The rounds are two minutes long. And Hardy is in trouble 20 seconds in. That’s better than nothing I guess. He’s down again after a minute. He’s down again after a minute and a half. This needs to end like now. Hardy is either a hell of an actor or he got the hell knocked out of him. Oh the Divas are the ring girls. I got it. Holyfield refuses to punch him anymore. Ok that’s better than nothing if nothing else. MVP tells him to attack so he gets punched.

Rating: N/A. This was just odd as hell but of course they gave it more time than anything else tonight. At least Holyfield completely dominated so that’s better than nothing.

Tazz comes out for commentary.

CM Punk/Boogeyman vs. John Morrison/Big Daddy V

These two both had matches at Summerslam I think. Scratch that, only the two with talent had a match. This is about as boring of a tag match as I could imagine. There’s nothing of note happening as it’s Morrison for about 90% of this as BDV is so freaking fat that he can’t move much let alone have a good match. This is more or less all Punk and Morrison which makes sense if nothing else. It was really short if nothing else and they actually had a commercial in here. This was boring as hell though and nothing of note is happening. And Punk gets a small package for the pin.

Rating: D. I just wanted this to end at this point. There was nothing at all of note going on and they were just out there to fill in time. The match did I guess give Punk momentum going into Summerslam so I’ll give them that. Still a very poor match though.

A video highlight reel of the show ends us.

Rating: D. Well there was some ok stuff here I guess. Nothing great happened here though and more or less you could have skipped this show and been fine. That’s what I did and I was fine on the next shows. Not a good show at all but it could have been far worse, like the next one. The show and concept were dead at this point though and it showed badly.