History of Saturday Night's Main Event with KB

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 17
Date: October 29, 1988
Location: Baltimore Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

So we’re still in the Savage reign here and this is the last major show before Survivor Series. That being said, nothing of note is on the card. This looks really weak to say the least so I guess it’s one of those shows we just have to get through. I hate them too but then again I’m trying to do every major show ever so I have to get these two I guess. Let’s get to it.

Jake Roberts says Rick Rude will know pain but never some pleasures, implying Jake’s wife who is next to him. More on that later.

Rude disagrees.

Boss Man is here to enforce the laws. Not as good as beatings will continue until morale improves.

The Hart Foundation say they’ll win the tag titles. Neidhart says hell.

Demolition is ready for the Harts.

Hogan says he’s the real king, not Haku. Liz is with him.

Let me hear some theme music!

Jesse is in a SUIT. Wow that’s weird looking. Haku is defending his crown against Hogan. Why do I think we won’t see King Hogan?

We recap Roberts vs. Rude. The idea is that Rude had a gimmick going of giving a woman a kiss after his matches. He picked a woman in the front row and she declined. She said her husband was a pro wrestler. His name is Jake Roberts. Rude started wearing tights with Cheryl’s face on the crotch and ass. Jake literally ripped them off of him and it was censored. In reality he was wearing a thong but you get the idea.

Rude says he’s never embarrassed of his body. Heenan talks about snake charmers hypnotizing snakes and hypnotizes Gene until Rude shouts RUDE AWAKENING. Funny.

Jake and his wife say really generic stuff.

Jake Roberts vs. Rick Rude

What a natural paring this is. No theme music for Jake yet. Rude is wearing those tights again. Jake goes for the tights nearly immediately. Is Cheryl not satisfying him? I’ve watched nearly six minutes of this match and there’s just nothing to say about it. Cheryl gets thrown out for slapping Rude. Vince saying that she shouldn’t be because it didn’t hurt him is very funny for some reason.

Jesse goes on a rant about Vince playing favorites and it’s just freaking boring. I don’t know why but this just isn’t interesting at all. It’s not bad or anything. It’s just not getting my attention at all. Rude dominates for the most part with Jake just punching and looking for the DDT. Rude Awakening is blocked. Jake totally fakes him out by pulling back a punch and there’s the DDT. Instead of the cover though he goes for the tights.

Heenan comes in for the DQ. And here’s Andre, who would beat RVD in any match they had I think should be mentioned, to beat Jake up. Jake gets the snake out and since Andre is a heel, he’s terrified of it. The look on Andre’s face is priceless. Jake throws the snake at him in a smart move. Andre then has a heart attack. WOW.

Rating: D+. Not bad, but just not that interesting really at all. They would have what I guess was supposed to be the other big match at Mania 5 but this was just not a very good match. Oh yeah Rude was involved here. Yeah I couldn’t really care less. Match was ok though.

The Harts talk about Jimmy Hart rather than Demolition. They more or less just turned face.

Jimmy Hart says Demolition will win the tag match. This was a REALLY short partnership. Fuji is still there too. The closeups of Demolition’s faces are creepy.

Tag Titles: Hart Foundation vs. Demolition

No entrances for the challengers. The Harts that is. Smash vs. Neidhart starts us off. I don’t think Demolition has ever lost on TV before. At least not by pin. This has nothing on Summerslam 90. The fans seem unsure who to cheer for. Also, Bret is called a powerful young man. Ok then.

Anvil comes in and cleans house. This isn’t that interesting at all. Vince says you can feel the titles about to change, sealing the titles’ safety. The Rougeaus are here for no apparent reason. They throw in the Megaphone for the shot on Neidhart so Demolition retains.

Rating: D+. Again, not bad but just not interesting at all. This was just to have a title match on the show and nothing else. This whole show just feels completely uninteresting and thrown together. To be fair though, how much do you expect them to do this close to a PPV?

We see the spot that more or less ended Race’s career.

Bobby talks about how Haku is going to beat Hogan. Right. They trick Gene into bowing. Pointless.

Hogan says he won’t bow to Haku. Liz says they have to go.

King Haku vs. Hulk Hogan

Remember, this is FOR THE CROWN as they mentioned earlier. Bets on Hogan winning and not being king? Haku jumps him and you can smell the comeback from here. Yep there it is. I’d also bet on a shot from Haku taking him down to set up the inevitable. Hey what do you know I’m right. Heenan gets taken out and not a lot of people care. Haku hits a suplex for two, and now Hogan can’t get hurt. I’m not wasting my finger energy on filling in the ending here.

Rating: D+. Standard Hogan match but just lackluster. To be fair though, no one believed Haku would win here and it was just to get him on the TV show. Why mess with what works I suppose. Nothing great at all, but certainly watchable and bearable.

Dino Bravo is ready for Ken Patera. Oh joy.

Patera says he’s really strong.

Dino Bravo vs. Ken Patera

Patera had been given the advice to retire by Monsoon on commentary. Literally, Gorilla said he needs to retire due to a lack of skill. This is pretty bad. Patera can only do basic strongman stuff and just tries to get the Full Nelson. Side Slam ends this in like three minutes, most of which was punching.

Rating: F+. You could always tell when SNME was ending as the matches just started to suck and have no purpose. This was definitely one of those occasions. This just was bad in general and Patera would be gone really soon, likely for his own good.

Slick says Boss Man is awesome. He was new around this time. He was also far fatter than he usually was.

Big Boss Man vs. Jim Powers

No entrance for Powers of course. Seeing the massive pit stains on Boss Man is kind of funny. Standard squash formula as Boss Man beats on him for a few minutes until the quick offense does nothing but set up the Boss Man Slam. Nightstick attack follows.

Rating: N/A. Just a nice little squash to make Boss Man look good. Not a thing wrong with that either. He would get a nice little push very soon too, including knocking Hogan out of the next Rumble.

We see clips of Boss Man beating Hogan up on the Brother Love Show. Hogan calls him out. Yeah this was the next big feud for Hogan after Savage. Actually he had two mini feuds with Boss Man, which was odd.

We go to Jesse with Andre and Heenan. Andre doesn’t like having his fear of snakes being mentioned. Heenan’s rant is pretty funny. And that’s it.

Overall Rating: F. This was bad. There was nothing at all of note on here and only minor feuds were really started. Jake and Andre was a big deal but the blowoff wasn’t for over five months. This just wasn’t a good show at all. Survivor Series hadn’t even been mentioned yet and just nothing happened. Total throwaway show that went nowhere at all.

 

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 28
Date: October 13, 1990
Location: Toledo Sports Arena, Toledo, Ohio
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Roddy Piper

This is just after Summerslam 90 where Hogan made his triumphant return. He has his big match tonight teaming with Tugboat against Rhythm and Blues. Other than that there’s just Sgt. Slaughter being evil and beating up Koko B. Ware. There just isn’t much on this card as we’re in a transitional show to an extent as we’re waiting on a new top heel to come up. Let’s get to it.

It’s Oktoberfest. We get to hear the production guy saying we’re on the air. Oh dear. Piper shows up in lederhosen.

I still love that theme song.

Demolition says they’re going to beat up the LOD.

The LOD say Demolition doesn’t scare them. This is interspersed with Oktoberfest jokes. Warrior, their partner, pops up. Yeah I have no idea what he said.

Ultimate Warrior/Legion of Doom vs. Demolition

Has there ever been a better collection of theme music in one match? The LOD cost Demolition the tag belts and Warrior is there….uh because. This would be a Survivor Series match in a month with Hennig and Tornado joining them. Piper points this out. We get a shot of Dustin Rhodes in the crowd. Keep that in mind as it’ll come into play later on. Warrior comes in and just destroys people.

The splash misses Axe though and he’s Smash. Demolition was more or less worthless by this point and would get squashed at Mania and be done. Hawk comes in and just wipes them out. You can see the crushing of them beginning. He continues the trend of beating all of Demolition by himself. Everybody comes in and brawls but Smash is more or less dead and gets caught by the splash for the pin. This was domination in every sense of the word.

Rating: D. Just not interesting at all as Demolition was made to look like a bunch of jobbers here. I don’t think anyone ever bought them anymore once the LOD showed up. Not the worst match ever, but a little challenge would have been nice.

We go to the Oktoberfest celebration and a lot of wrestlers are there. Alfred Hayes is talking about beer with a German guy.

Randy Savage vs. Dusty Rhodes

This is a rematch from Summerslam. Savage wanted a shot at Warrior and DiBiase was about to feud with Rhodes. Dusty looks like a fucking moron, wearing a big black shirt with red polka dots. Now remember, Dustin is in the front row. After about three minutes of NOTHING interesting, Ted DiBiase is in the front row.

He starts paying people off so he can have the whole front row to himself. I get images of Cartman from the episode where he gets his own theme park here. Dustin of course isn’t for sale and stays in his seat. This just isn’t interesting. Savage can’t slam Dusty. That’s just funny.

He’s a power guy according to a lot of you. DiBiase and Virgil jump and beat the living hell out of him, which is about as clean cut of a definition of assault and battery as you could ask for but we’ll ignore that for storyline purposes. Rhodes goes to save his son and gets counted out. This led to a tag match at the Rumble which was Dusty’s last WWF match.

Rating: D. This was an angle rather than a match. They were just killing time in the ring until the angle could get going. There just wasn’t much at all going on here, but at the same time this was just to set up DiBiase vs. Rhodes so that’s fine.

Tugboat and Hogan say their usual stuff. Hogan dances. Yeah. They want Earthquake and Bravo. They want to know what’s going to happen when Hogan and Tugboat Bavarian Cream Rhythm and Blues. Oh dear.

The Bushwackers are making cheese. It turns into cutting cheese jokes. Alfred still won’t talk as he’s telling stories to the German guy.

Rhythm and Blues vs. Hulk Hogan/Tugboat

Rhythm and Blues are Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine in a dumb tag team. Tugboat is here because he got the people to try to make Hogan feel better when he got hurt. Do you ever feel sorry for Fred Ottman? Can we buy this guy a decent gimmick? Not even a good one but a decent one? This goes exactly how you would expect it to: Hogan destroys them by himself and they bail.

This is about as weak of a match as you could ask for. Naturally Tugboat gets caught by a Valentine axe handle which he sells like a hatchet to the head. Vince says that Tugboat is beached. You know, like a whale. The Blowhole Kid dodges some elbows and gets Hogan in to clean house. Hogan goes for the legdrop but here come Earthquake and Bravo.

They don’t get to the ring or anything though. Back to the match after a commercial, Tugboat takes a guitar to the back for the DQ. Here comes your monster heel and it’s a big beatdown. Tugboat is off somewhere in search of a Twinkie. Tugboad FINALLY realizes he’s at work and pops Quake with the guitar to send them running.

Rating: D+. Again, just more of an angle than a match as no one cared about who won or lost here. This was just to set up more Survivor Series stuff which is fine I suppose, but at the same time I wish they could have had a better way of doing it. Not sure what that way would have been though.

It’s time for a sausage stuffing contest and Gene says Genius is a master of it and is in the sausage stuffing hall of fame. Gay jokes were easier in the early 90s I guess. It’s Hacksaw and the Hart Foundation vs. Fuji and the Orient Express. Who would believe that Bret would have a title today? It’s the most you can do in a minute. Gene says we’re getting down to the short strokes. It goes like 45 seconds and there’s no winner. Hayes is still telling jokes to the German guy.

Intercontinental Title: Texas Tornado vs. Haku

I think this happened at Mania also. I love how at this point taking a match on ten days’ notice is a huge deal. Now you get matches on hours or even minutes notice. This is really short as Haku goes to the nerve hold early on but shifts to a sleeper. Tornado comes back and hits the Claw and the Tornado Punch to retain.

Rating: N/A. Just a way to make his title reign seem legit before he dropped it back to Hennig soon enough. I think it was in December or so.

Hogan and Tugboat make sailing jokes and talk about how his ribs are.

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Koko B. Ware

I wonder how this is going to go. Slaughter just became a major heel at this time and we were in Desert Storm at the moment. You could always kind of tell that Piper hated this angle and supported the troops. Koko starts off kind of hot then realizes he’s Koko and gets beaten on.

He makes the short comeback but takes a hotshot and actually just drives his knuckles into the side of Koko’s head. It’s the dumbest looking finisher I’ve ever seen but it works. Then in a cool moment as Slaughter is waving the Iraqi flag, Stars and Stripes Forever kicks on and Nikolai Volkoff is waving the American flag. Awesome visual if nothing else.

Rating: D-. More dullness as I want this show to end. Koko continued his tradition of jobbing like there was no tomorrow. Slaughter wound up being world champion out of this so there you go.

Neidhart and Slick have a bit of a dance off. And now there’s a food fight. Hayes still isn’t paying attention.

Warrior says he doesn’t like Sherri for slapping him and that he’ll fight Savage.

Savage and Sherri say Savage will be champion again.

Hayes yells at Gene and gets pied.

Allegedly the next SNME would be just after Survivor Series. That didn’t happen. Ah apparently it did but it was The Main Event and on a Friday. That makes sense I guess.

Overall Rating: F-. Just boring beyond belief with nothing of note and nothing being any good. This was a weird cross between a buildup show and a transitional show but neither worked. Probably the worst one yet which is saying a lot. Terrible show with nothing worth seeing.

 

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 10
Date: March 14, 1987
Location: Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, Michigan
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

This is taped on February 21 of February, but they ran Detroit five weeks before Wrestlemania? To be fair they ran MSG a week before Mania I back in 85 so I don’t know why I’m so surprised. Anyway, the only thing to mention here is a 20 man battle royal where Andre and Hogan are both in it. That is the be all and end all of this show: we get to see those two in a match together. Let’s get to it.

Liz is a prize in a title match between Savage and Steele. Can Savage gain anything here?

The Harts laugh at Santana and Spivey. I would too.

Jake says Damien is going to eat Bundy.

We immediately talk about Hogan vs. Andre and go to Hogan. Mania might not have been made yet at this point. This is why the Superstars tapings are fun to see as we get every bit of build for it.

We see clips of Steele kidnapping Liz back in January. Great to see kidnapping being encouraged. I don’t think we ever heard how she got back to Savage.

Savage cuts Liz off like always. They imply that Liz and Savage like to fuck. That’s rather odd as an image. Seriously imagine Savage fucking and see how weird you feel about it.

Intercontinental Title: Randy Savage vs. George Steele

The winner gets the title and Liz. Liz says she’s worried and Steele comes up and babbles. And this man is in the Hall of Fame people! We go back to Liz again as we have to be stalling for time. She only thanks Gene and we head to the ring. Liz sits on a lifeguard chair for no apparent reason. Savage jumps George on the floor to get us going. Savage tries to run and here’s Steamboat for the save.

Vince says we have to have this match to find out who the rightful owner of Elizabeth is. WOW. George is dominating and stops to eat a turnbuckle. This is just freaking bad. I know it’s Steele but it’s still just awful even by those lowered standards. George gets beaten down and following a comeback he eats another buckle. He goes for Liz but gets jumped again and there’s the countout. This was awful. George beats him up afterwards.

Rating: F+. Seriously, this was terrible. It was sloppy as all hell and did nothing at all worth anything. At least it was short. Just a horrible match that served little to no purpose at all. Get to anything else.

Hogan uses a flex bar and yells about various heels with a focus on Andre.

Andre says he’ll beat Hogan.

The entrances take forever and it’s ALL about Hogan and Andre. Ok to be fair that makes sense.

Battle Royal

André the Giant, Ron Bass, Demolition (Ax and Smash), Billy Jack Haynes, Hercules, Hillbilly Jim, Hulk Hogan, The Honky Tonk Man, The Islanders (Haku and Tama), The Killer Bees (B. Brian Blair and Jim Brunzell), Blackjack Mulligan, Paul Orndorff, Lanny Poffo, Butch Reed, Sika, Nikolai Volkoff, and Koko B. Ware.

So in other words, it’s everyone but Savage and Steamboat plus a few tag teams. Smash is the original Smash and not Barry Darsow and Honky is wearing suspenders. Andre won’t let Hogan get in. Orndorff jumps Hogan to prevent the showdown. More or less all of the heels jump Hogan and all of the faces jump Andre. Honky is out thanks to Hogan. Andre puts Sika out.

These are hard to commentate on as it’s just eliminations and fights. Haku, a face at this point, is out. Andre headbutts Lanny Poffo and he’s BUSTED OPEN, and I mean BAD. Totally hard way too. That is a sick cut. They have to get a stretcher to get him out. That’s impressive. Other than that it’s pretty much you punch me and I’ll punch you in the ring. Ron Bass is out as is Mulligan.

The ultimate Hogan jobber, Volkoff, is gone. We’re just killing time to get to Hogan vs. Andre as Blair is out. HERE WE GO! Hogan blocks a punch…and Koko jumps on Andre to be annoying. Hogan throws out Orndoff but gets jumped by Andre who does the headbutts to the back of the head and throws him out easily. WOW.

In a VERY funny moment, Hogan and Andre are doing a staredown and Koko tries to jump Andre. Giant just smacks him in the head without even turning around. That was hilarious. Everyone gets together to throw Andre out.

Ok we’re down to Koko, Reed, Smash, Billy Jack Haynes and Hercules. Koko puts Reed out and we get faces vs. heels. Koko is out thank goodness and then we get rid of Smash too to get us down to the full nelson guys. Haynes goes for Bobby and there he goes for Hercules to win, which is probably the biggest win of his career somehow.

Rating: D. This was about Hogan vs. Andre and while that did happen, it was all of ten seconds long. Before and after that though, no one cared. This just wasn’t that interesting at all and it was about ten seconds out of eleven minutes. That can’t be a good sign.

Andre says he won. Heenan says they won. I say Hercules won. To say Heenan is fired up for Mania is an understatement.

We recap the only important part of the battle royal.

Jake cuts one of his usual promos.

The Harts cut a FREAKY quick promo about it being their first time. They mean title defense. I think.

Jake Roberts vs. King Kong Bundy

Heroes of Wrestling all over again!!! ANYTHING BUT THIS! Neither get intros. Ok then. Most of this is them feeling each other out if that makes sense. Jake is an idiot and tries a test of strength. What the hell? With stupid stuff going on, Bobby runs off with the snake.

Back from commercial and Jake has it back. This is a terrible match. Nothing of note at all has happened despite almost four minutes of wrestling. Jake starts fighting back and knees the referee for no apparent reason. Jake gets a horrible DDT and goes for the snake. Bobby gets Bundy out and the referee freaking tackles Jake.

Rating: G. That’s below an F. This was worse than a failure. I have no freaking clue what this was supposed to be but it completely failed. Just a horrible match that I was begging to end. I have no idea what the point was here but it failed huge.

We see how the Harts stole the tag titles.

The Harts say Danny Davis, the referee that stole the belts for them will be at ringside.

Tag Titles; Tito Santana vs. Dan Spivey

Yeah if I were the Harts I’d be scared to death too. The two power guys start us off in case you’re interested. Santana is in red here which is odd as hell but still cool since it’s Tito. The champions beat Spivey up I guess since he’s the less talented one.

I love that slingshot splash they would do. It’s just cool looking. We get heat grabber #1 in a tag match as the referee doesn’t see the tag. Tito gets the hot tag as we close in on the finish. The forearm puts both champions down but it’s only kind of the finisher yet. Figure Four on Bret but Davis slips in with the Megaphone for the pin by Bret.

Rating: D+. Somehow this is by far the best match of the night so far. This was actually watchable although not really good. It’s pure formula stuff but just five minutes long. Somehow, this is a classic by comparison.

Steamboat says he’s ready for Sheik even though his throat hurts.

Ricky Steamboat vs. Iron Sheik

Savage comes out to yell at Steamboat but it goes nowhere. Sheik jumps Ricky as Savage comes up for commentary. Savage is PISSED OFF. Steamboat of course completely outmoves Sheik as we have a ton of S’s in this match. Savage is FREAKING OUT FREAKING OUT FREAKING OUT on commentary and it’s rather amusing. The match is pretty much unimportant as the highlight is Savage being hilarious on the mic. Sheik hooks a decent abdominal stretch which lasts just a few seconds. A chop off the top rope ends it.

Rating: N/A. This was short and sweet as we were out of time. Savage was cracking me up with how pissed off he was about this though so I can’t complain about that at all. It led to one of the greatest matches ever though so I can’t complain.

Hogan says Andre cheated in the battle royal. What the hell? It’s an over the top battle royal and he got thrown over the top rope. What can he bitch about? Oh yeah it’s Hogan so of course he can bitch about stuff. Oh and Hogan can win because he has God on his side. Hogan says you have to win fair in the title match. That’s why he tried to piledrive Andre on the floor. I love Hogan freaking out like this.

Since Piper is retiring at Mania, we get a tribute to him set to My Way by Sinatra. Piper says he loves wrestling but he’s going out on top. That’s actually close to accurate. The song is perfect if nothing else as no one did things like Roddy did back in the day. Some of his stuff absolutely had me in stitches at times. Also he’s right when he says without him there wouldn’t have been a Mania.

People just wanted to see Hogan beat the hell out of him. Hogan had headlined MSG a bunch of times before this but it was never this special because it wasn’t a huge fight like it was to see him vs. Piper. Piper actually convinced me of that over the years which is surprising to me. That ends the show.

Overall Rating: F. Oh just no. When the highlight of the show is a series of clips of a guy that is retiring, that’s just not a good sign. I get that this is the final major show before Mania but at the same time these matches were just idiotic. I couldn’t stand watching it but at least it seemed to go fast. Stay FAR away from this as it was just horrible and you could tell that other than the battle royal no one cared other than maybe Savage in the last match. This was bad.

 

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 5
Date: March 1, 1986
Location: Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Phoenix, Arizone
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

Something tells me this is going to be pretty weak. It’s the setup show for Mania 2 which to put it mildly, sucked beyond belief. We have a boxing match with Mr. T. vs. Bob Orton and Hogan vs. Muraco for the title. Other than that there’s nothing of note here. This is a very weak time for the company but I want to do all of these shows, even these that are terrible so let’s get to it.

We open with Mr. T. beating up a punching bag and yelling at Okerlund. Cue the theme song.

Vince slips up a bit on the intros which is rather funny. We see a clip of Piper and Hogan yelling at each other and Hogan saying he has a friend that wants to box Bob Orton. The contract says Mr. T. and Piper FREAKS.

Piper and Orton make fun of Mr. T.

Mr. T. isn’t afraid of Orton or Piper.

Mr. T. vs. Bob Orton

Remember this is boxing. Orton jumps him before the bell with forearms and the referee is fine with it. The fans of course like T. Naturally we have all kinds of stuff that would have them disqualified inside of 9 seconds in a real fight but this is “boxing” so it’s fine. Orton hits him with a thumb in the eye and of course he wants to keep going. The bell rings with nothing resembling a clock.

Piper jumps him in between rounds and Orton pops him. In the second round T fights back and then Orton uses knee lifts before T knocks him to the floor to get a countout win. My head hurts. Post match Piper comes in and wants to fight T. T goes for it and of course we get the 2-1 beatdown. We got Piper vs. T in more boxing at Mania.

Rating: N/A. Just idiotic and a waste of time if there has ever been one. This could have easily been set up in a beatdown after a promo or something but I guess this was a different time so it’s passable. Still rather idiotic though.

T says he wants Piper.

Heenan and Bundy say they want Hogan.

King Kong Bundy vs. Steve Gatorwolf

I’ll explain the point of this later on. This is 35 seconds long and of course Bundy wins with the splash.

Rating: N/A. Bundy needed something to show he was at the show. That’ll come into play later.

Should be noted that we’re 20 minutes into the show and that was the best match so far.

Don Muraco says his manager Mr. Fuji has the flu and he blames Hogan. Heenan is taking Fuji’s place tonight.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Don Muraco

Real American is used for the first time here. That’s rather cool. Apparently the music video debuts tonight as well. Muraco is number one contender for some reason. This screams generic Hogan match to me but I’ve been wrong before. This wouldn’t appear to be one of those times though. Actually Hogan is dominating here which isn’t something you often see. Hogan has white kneepads. That’s rather odd.

Muraco takes over and this isn’t anything of note at all, but somehow this is by far and away the best match of the night thus far. Muraco uses a move called the Asian Spike twice. I’d assume it’s a thumb to the chest or something like that. Hulk Up time and Heenan runs in for the DQ after the leg drop.

And here’s Bundy to beat up Hogan and break his ribs, setting up the terrible Mania 2 main event. Yeah they actually did just a four week build to Mania. It was a different time I guess. Some faces make the save including the British Bulldogs.

Rating: C-. Not bad but just a filler match to set up the ending angle. Much like the rest of the stuff around this time, there just wasn’t much here. Hogan did his usual stuff which to be fair was still huge back then. This was fine for what it was though.

Tag Titles: British Bulldogs vs. Dream Team

The Dream Team has Beefcake and Valentine and are the champions. If you’ve seen Mania 2, you know the ending here. The Dream Team comes out to We Are the Champions. That’s very awesome. Johnny Valiant, the manager for the champions talks about how losing in a non-title match means nothing.

Smith and Valentine start us off which should be good if nothing else. They’re going fast paced which is always fun. The 80s were the glory days of tag team wrestling and this is no exception. I love this kind of stuff so don’t expect a lot of play by play here. Albano and Valiant are about to fight on the floor and the teams join them as we hit a commercial. And now the heels take over.

Valentine even goes to the middle rope so you know he’s into this one. Dynamite comes in and cranks it up. He’s like Benoit so you know he’s going to be intense out there. In a creative ending, Valentine and Kid ram heads and Valentine lands on him for the pin to retain. I like that.

Rating: B-. Not bad at all here. They went with the formula and it worked quite well and when you throw in a solid finish, what more can you ask for? Like I said, this was the best time for tag wrestling ever so this was light years ahead of the best you see today. This is real tag stuff, not four singles guys having a 2-2 match.

Update on Hogan: there is no update.

We prevent this show from being a total loss by having the debut of the greatest wrestling music video and song ever as Real American and its video debut here. Sweet damn the 80s were awesome at some times.

Adrian Adonis and Jimmy Hart aren’t worried about Junkyard Dog.

Junkyard Dog vs. Adrian Adonis

I tried to avoid watching this one but they caught up with me at the border. This is my punishment. I begged for something simpler like electrocution or being a large man named Bubba’s girlfriend in prison but no go. JYD makes fun of Adonis as you would expect him to. Dog just beats the living hell out of him here and it’s just not that interesting.

To be fair, these two both absolutely suck so that might have something to do with it. Hart ties JYD’s leg to the rope and no one sees anything wrong with this apparently. The referee pulls Adonis’ hair to get him off. Of JYD you freaking perverts. And there goes the referee. Adonis takes the Megaphone to the head and we’re done.

Rating: F. Oh this was bad. It’s the standard we’ve got nothing left of importance but we have 15 minutes left so here you go before we can talk about Hogan some more. Again though, I can’t stand either of them so that has something to do with the grade I think.

A “doctor” tells us Hogan has a bunch of injuries. That would continue through Mania.

We recap the night and we’re done.

Overall Rating: C+. Ok, so the wrestling was pretty damn bad, but this was designed to set up Mania 2 and it did that exceptionally well, giving us the three main events for the three cities (still a dumb concept if there ever was one) very well. If nothing else Mania Monday (scratch that initial claim of dumb concepts and replace it with this one) is pretty much set so I can’t complain.

While it was a horrible Mania, they didn’t know what they were doing yet and this was a weak time for the company as they were pretty much booking day to day as there were no real long term plans. That would change in about a year though as we had Hogan vs. Orndorff a few months away which drew insane money and then Hogan vs. Andre which drew even more insane money. As for this show, the wrestling is bad but it did its job, hence the good grade.

 

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night Main Event 12
Date: October 3, 1987
Location: Hersheypark Arena, Hershey, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan

Well we’re just around the bend from Survivor Series 87 so we’ll be getting a few pushes for that here tonight. The main thing here is Honky vs. Savage for the IC Title which has a very important thing afterwards which we’ll get to later. Other than that we have Hogan vs. Sika, who is replacing Kamala. Yeah that was weird. Also we have the premiere of the Piledriver video. Let’s get to it.

Honky isn’t afraid of Savage and he’s going to take Liz away.

Savage says he’s going to beat Honky up.

Bundy is going to beat up Orndorff for Heenan.

Sika wants to eat a chicken.

Hogan says he’ll beat Sika.

HIT THAT THEME SONG!

All three titles are on the line. Heenan promises a surprise.

Honky says nothing of note.

Savage says something about the danger zone which is south of Mars and north of hell. Ok then. Oh it was the late 80s. Did you expect sobriety? Honky apparently doesn’t know the difference between a guitar string and a g-string. That’s kind of good.

Intercontinental Title: Honky Tonk Man vs. Randy Savage

This is a BIG grudge match as these two flat out cannot stand each other. Honky is reaching his most annoying here as people would pay to see him get beaten up. Somehow he would hold the title almost a year longer. Savage kicks him in the hand which is called the neck but whatever. Jimmy goes after Liz and the save by Savage lets Honky smack him to take over.

Honky goes after Liz which of course doesn’t work and Savage takes over again. So that’s twice that Liz has changed the course of the match. Hart interferes three times in less than a minute. That’s got to be something close to a record. We need more managers like that today.

Vince and Bobby are rather funny together. Jimmy goes down and here comes the Hart Foundation to check on him. This has been a better match than I was expecting it to be actually. Jimmy is carried to the back as the match more or less completely restarts. I’m really surprised by how back and forth this has been as Savage is making a fair few mistakes.

Honky misses a middle rope fist, which used to be his finisher if you can believe that. That was back when he was a face. His heel turn was probably the most unique ever: they had the fans write in and say if they would give him a vote of confidence. When most said no, he turned heel. Now THAT is an original angle. The Harts beat up Randy but it only gets two.

The elbow hits after the shortest comeback ever and there’s the run-in for the DQ by Bret and Jim. This would never get a proper blowoff as the final match and the title change was set for Mania 4. Honky threatened to jump ship if he had to drop the title so he kept it for another 4 months. Savage got the world title instead.

Liz comes in and gets in between the guitar and Savage’s head, but then Honky becomes the new Satan by SHOVING DOWN ELIZABETH. Savage takes the guitar shot anyway. Liz runs off as the 3-1 beatdown ensues and comes back with one Hulk Hogan. With the jaws of Hulkamania flaring (Seriously look at how much Hogan’s jaws go up and down. It’s insane) Hogan fights them off.

For you trivia geeks, this is the ONLY time ever that Bret and Hogan fought. Savage and Hogan shake hands, forming the Mega Powers and officially becoming a face.

Rating: B-. This was WAY better than I was expecting. The key thing here though is the historical aspect of it, as that shove would fuel this feud for a long time and obviously Hogan and Savage being friends would last for a good while also. Still though, this was a back and forth match that back in the day would have drawn serious money on a house show.

Hogan, Savage and Liz all pose for a long time afterwards. This would be like Orton and Cena becoming partners or friends.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Sika

We cut to a Sika interview from earlier today, even though he knows what just happened not a minute ago. Sure why not. Sika is a savage. That’s all you need to know about him really. Somehow he’s number one contender.

Oh and Hogan went to the back despite there being no transition between the matches. Crowd is white hot here. Apparently Hogan is tired or something after that run in. Sika is the consummate savage. That’s a good line actually. He has the same tights Umaga wore, and he’s one of the Samoan family so there you are.

Fuji gets a cane shot in that does nothing. Oh why am I doing commentary here as it’s Hogan vs. a monster in 1987. What are you expecting here? A song and dance routine? Hogan does the spinning punch which works, meaning Hogan can defy stereotypes.

Apparently Sika is Umaga’s uncle so there’s the continuity of the tights. Hogan tries a splash. Well that’s a new one on me. It doesn’t work or anything, but Hogan tried something new so take that Hogan haters. Did I just tell myself off? Sika squeezes Hogan’s armpit for no apparent reason other than the invisible nerve in there I guess.

Hogan gets up as apparently he has magic pecs. They’re not as good as Masters’ but whatever. Sika hits a headbutt and Hogan Hulks Up. Fast forward about 40 seconds and we’re done. He beats up Fuji and Kim Chee post match.

Rating: C. Like I said it was Hogan vs. a monster in 87. What were you expecting here? Hogan gets an easy win on TV so everyone is happy. Yeah that’s all I’ve got.

Orndorff hates Heenan. This is the second time that he’s hated him I believe. Orndorff wants to beat the hell out of Heenan apparently rather than beating up Bundy.

Bundy says he’ll take care of Orndorff for Heenan.

King Kong Bundy vs. Paul Orndorff

Heenan is on commentary here which is odd. Paul is managed by Oliver Humperdink so this is very close to the end of his run here. A dropkick misses very early and Bundy is dominant. I never got the appeal of Bundy. He’s right up there with One Man Gang for incredibly generic heels. Vince and Bobby arguing is rather amusing.

Bobby finally gives in and heads to the ring, leaving us with the hell that is more commonly known as Vince on solo commentary. And here’s Andre. This won’t end well. This is really not that good at all. It’s more or less a glorified preview for Survivor Series so at least there’s a point. Orndorff makes his comeback but Andre hooks the tights in the corner so Bundy can hit the avalanche although it was just for a three count which is rare for Bundy.

Rating: D-. Oh this was boring. It just came off as pointless as hell to me with no point at all to it. Also, this is the epitome of a clash of styles if there ever was one. Bundy never was anything special and this was no exception. Nothing good at all here.

The Harts are upset about not having Jimmy with them. Amazing that Gene and Bret were on Raw last night nearly 23 years after this.

Tag Titles: Young Stallions vs. Hart Foundation

The Stallions are Paul Roma and Jim Powers. They never really got above jobber status so there you are. This is a glorified squash and is mostly about Brain making fun of the Stallions and saying how they could be good with him as their manager but they suck otherwise.

Powers hits a leap frog and either gets hurt or is great at selling his back and I’m not sure which it is. I’m betting on selling. We get the “new champions momentarily” line which seals the retaining of the belts. And all of a sudden Roma takes the Hart Attack. I didn’t even seen how that happened. Literally 2 seconds later we’re talking to Hogan and Savage.

Rating: D. Just a very fast match to say there was a title defense. Strike Force would get the belts off the Harts in like 3 weeks and hold them until Mania. The Stallions never were worth much at all and this is a fine example of it.

Hogan loves Savage. Savage loves Hogan. Mania 5 was more or less set in stone already at this point. They’re officially the Mega Powers too.

We get the music video of Piledriver. Here it is.

[youtube]nXlOWjobOZU[/youtube]

If anyone can find a point to that, please let me know.

Overall Rating: D+. Honky vs. Savage is pretty good and the stuff after it is huge to say the least. Other than that though, there is very little to talk about there. The other three matches are completely forgettable and not a lot is said about Survivor Series, which might not have even been announced at this point. Anyway, this wasn’t great but it’s historic which is worth something I suppose. Find the Mega Powers formation for historical purposes if nothing else.

 

[The Brain]

Saturday Night Main Event 12
Date: October 3, 1987

This was it. This was the event that turned me from little kid who liked wrestling because of Hogan and the toys to a fan who understood and followed storylines. I must have watched this a hundred times in 1987. There was a certain electricity in the air that night. I was completely caught up in the drama. You could just feel the hatred between Savage and Honky. It may seem tame now, but Honky shoving Elizabeth down was big time back then. This was followed by the guitar shot and of course the save from Hogan. Superman just joined forces with Batman. I went from flavor of the month fan to fan for life that night.

I notice a lot of these shows have received a low grade. While I understand that I don’t really agree with that. Anyone who watched these today for the first time would probably agree, especially if they weren’t fans 20 years ago. To me they were great. I remember getting excited when these events would randomly pop up. I remember being able to stay up late to watch them. Any little kid loves an excuse to stay up late. Also remember there were only a few ppvs back then so these felt special. So while the action may not have always been great these events always had a fun atmosphere and felt special.

 

[klunderbunker]

Well you have to remember that back then prime time TV wasn't an option for the most part. Getting an hour and a half on NBC was huge. Today we get a minimum of 5 hours a week of WWE TV in prime time. Back then 9 hours a year was mind blowing. The rarity that these shows came on in made them far more interesting which was why you got such odd matches. The thing is today they're far worse by comparison. It's far more about the angles than the matches, which is something we're not used to today.

 

[The Brain]

I agree. That's why the SNME from 2006 and 2007 didn't stand out. With raw, smackdown, and at least 12 ppvs those events are easily forgotten. The ones from the 80s did stand out. At least they did at the time. TV was different back then. Televison was used to build angles to get people to buy tickets to house shows. Now televsion is used to get people to watch televsion next week. I'm not saying that's better or worse, just different. I can see why some would say SNME of the 80s don't hold up over time. That may be true. I have always been able to put myself back in time when watching an old event. If I were to watch that event today it would be 1987 in my mind and I wouldn't compare it to future events. In my opinion it's ok to compare 2010 to 1987 but it's not fair to compare 1987 to 2010 if that makes sense.

 

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 22
Date: July 29, 1989
Location: Worchester Centrum, Worchester, Massachusetts
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

This show is kind of a mess on paper. It has Hogan vs. Honky and the Brain Busters vs. Demolition so the card isn’t that bad, but at the same time there’s nothing here that makes me want to watch the show. It doesn’t look bad but this was a weird time for the company as there was no real challenger to Hogan so we were kind of just waiting around on something to happen, which would take about 6 more months. Let’s get to it.

Savage invites us to a barbecue.

Beefcake says he’ll cut Savage’s hair.

Heenan says the Busters will win the titles.

Demolition says the Busters won’t win the titles.

Honky says he’ll win.

Hogan says he’ll win. Epic promos here indeed.

Theme song is played at this point.

Somehow Honky is #1 contender. How in the world did that happen? We see his greatest hits which is of course a collection of guitar shots before they became clichéd.

Honky says he’s great and that he’ll win while using about 89 Elvis lyrics.

Hogan talks about keeping his priorities straight and how he’s going to beat Honky here.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Honky Tonk Man

Even Jesse admits that Hogan is the favorite. You know this is going to be one sided when even he admits to something like that. Honky goes for the guitar shot immediately and of course it doesn’t work. Jimmy goes for Hogan of course and it doesn’t work. That was a big problem I had with WCW Hogan. He and Hart were enemies for years and now they’re best friends?

That just doesn’t work in the slightest. I could watch Honky take atomic drops all day. Jimmy pops Hogan with a guitar to take over for the first time. I’d love to be the guy that made the guitars for wrestling companies. You would be a freaking millionaire.

A guitar and table shop would clean up next door to Titan Towers. Honky hooks a camel clutch that gets him nowhere and Honky is actually in control. The Shake Rattle and Roll connects and Honky dances. Hogan Hulks Up after two and you know the ending. Hogan even throws in a guitar shot and the referee doesn’t seem to care. Hogan’s posing actually goes through a commercial. Wow indeed.

Rating: D. This is your standard Hogan match from this era as Hogan completely dominated. Honky was about a year removed from meaning anything at all here though so it’s not like this really meant much. To be fair though, this was just to get him on TV which worked fine. Match was horrible though.

Ronnie Garvin comes down to be referee for the next match so we see Garvin losing a retirement match to Valentine. This was a long angle that went nowhere and sucked completely. Ah never mind that was just Garvin in general. We get a long video of Garvin being a referee and beating people up. If Garvin does it again he gets suspended.

Greg Valentine vs. Jimmy Snuka

I smell and angle match. Actually I see it as there’s no real smelling aspect to this match but you get the point. It’s a bad sign when I have to explain my own jokes isn’t it? Oh never mind they started. Snuka dominated early but Valentine hits him in the head with his shin guard somehow to take over.

tells me this isn’t going to be very long. Valentine won’t let Snuka back in so Garvin shoves Valentine like an idiot. Wait, he is an idiot so there’s no like to it. He his Valentine and Snuka hits a cross body off the top for the pin. At least it was short so I didn’t have to put up with much of him. Any is too much though so take that for what it’s worth.

Rating: F-. Anything involving Ronnie Garvin is a failure and that’s all there is to it.

We recap Savage vs. Beefcake which started when Savage jumped him on the Brother Love Show.

Savage says he was defending his woman and that he’s doing this to get Hogan’s attention. The main event of Summerslam was Savage and Zeus vs. Hogan and Beefcake so there’s your noticing. Savage says he has a surprise which I’d bet on being tall, bald, black and horrible in the ring.

Brutus says something weird about hair which makes me want to get to the match.

Randy Savage vs. Brutus Beefcake

Was there ever any more awesome music for such a bad wrestler as Brutus’? Brutus has the big hedge clippers of course, which I’ve always wondered what kind of barber would use. OH! Hey I got a joke. Sweet and it only took me 21 years. Damn I feel old now. The bell rings while Savage is in the air after Brutus throws him over the top.

Beefcake hits a standing double axehandle to the head which looked a lot better than it likely was I’m assuming. Ah there we go: Savage is….losing before I can finish typing that. Beefcake was actually becoming decent by this point which is weird to type. There’s the high knee which was one of his finishers at the time but it gets two only.

There’s another one so you can tell he’s running out of offense already. Sherri blasts him in the head with her shoe as he’s in trouble already but she likes hurting people I guess. If that’s the case why not just look at him? This is about as standard of an 80s match as you can ask for.

She takes her stocking off to choke Brutus as Jesse says Liz wouldn’t disrobe at ringside to help, which is odd since Jesse was the referee for that match. Sherri interferes for about the 9th time in 5 minutes and finally gets knocked out by a miscue from Savage. I love the bump Savage takes when he goes over the top to the floor. It’s downright elegant.

Savage sends Sherri to the back to get Zeus. Even Jesse knows what’s going on so you know it’s not that hard to figure out. Beefcake gets the sleeper but Zeus comes in for the DQ. Hogan pounds on Zeus and it doesn’t work. Hogan can’t hurt him and the heels are winning. This might be the end of civilization. Beefcake rakes his eyes and we have a weak spot. Hogan cracks Zeus with a chair and it does nothing. The heels leave but don’t run if that makes sense.

Rating: D+. Not much here as this was all about the angle rather than the match. This was built as more or less the main event of the show if that tells you anything. It wasn’t bad or anything but it’s certainly just them going through the motions to set up the angle where Hogan can’t hurt him at all. This is really basic booking but it works quite well.

Savage, Sherri and Zeus gloat.

Tag Titles: Brainbusters vs. Demolition

So last SNME there was a solid match where the Busters had Demolition in trouble but Demolition got disqualified, intentionally or not is up for debate. Demolition says they’ll demolish them. They’ve held the belts since Mania 4 so it’s been a LONG time, actually the longest reign with the belts ever. This is 2/3 falls mind you. Tully and Axe start us off. I never felt comfortable with the Horsemen in WWF. It just didn’t feel right at all.

It’s ALL Demolition to start which should tell you something. Smash grabs a boot coming down at him which is something straight out of an 80s action movie. Smash apparently has an injured knee. Uh, sure. They just kind of said it was injured and then it isn’t anymore. Ok then. Anderson hits the spinebuster which doesn’t have a name yet. Smash gets a hot shot on Arn for a pin to get the first fall. That came a bit out of nowhere.

After a break it’s time for the second fall. There was no rest though as the perk of SNME was that since it was taped there was no wrestling during the break. As in it would pick up right where it was left off. We get a lot of double teaming on both sides and it gives the heels the advantage. A horrible camel clutch does nothing of note. In the middle of the insanity, Andre comes down and does nothing and Demolition is disqualified for double teaming to tie us up. This is a mess to put it mildly.

Now if Demolition is DQ’ed or counted out here, the titles don’t change hands. The heels do the old British Bulldogs move of ramming one guy’s head into his own partners’ which works well here. Axe takes over again but in a stupid looking moment he hits an atomic drop and rams his head into Arn’s. Both get hot tags though and this needs to end. It’s ANOTHER big mess but Andre throws in a chair for Tully which gets the pin and the titles to end the nearly year and a half reign with the titles for Demolition.

Rating: D. WOW this was a mess. It’s not particularly bad, but we get it: THEY CAN BRAWL. There’s far more brawling in this than wrestling which is rare as hell for this era. The match could have worked as it’s not like the Brainbusters couldn’t wrestle or something like that. This was just a mess the whole time and it didn’t do it for me.

The Heenan Family celebrates and Arn cuts a (of course) great promo saying how they were told they couldn’t do it.

Brutus and Hogan say Zeus is awesome but they’ll be fine. Oh and they want to protect Liz.

And that’s it.

Overall Rating: D. This was just not working for me at all. It’s mainly about Summerslam 89’s main event, but I didn’t like that match so there we are. This didn’t do it for me as it was just a mess all night. There was no direction for the company at the time and they were actually in real financial trouble to the point where they were on the verge of going under. Then Vince had this idea of Hogan vs. Warrior. They weren’t in trouble for long after that. Anyway, the show sucked, avoid it.

 

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 3
Date: November 2, 1985
Location: Hersheypark Arena, Hershey, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

This is in between the first and second Manias so you can tell that this isn’t going to be anything really special. The main thing here is that it’s Halloween and Roddy Piper is a jerk. There’s also Hogan and Andre vs. Studd and Bundy which would become one of the more important matches for them in their feud as clips of it were played about a dozen times before Mania. All that being said let’s get to it.

Bobby is getting ready for some contest as the Halloween movie music plays in the background which is a nice touch.

Hogan says it’s going to be a fair fight tonight and Andre agrees.

Roddy Piper is dressed as a superhero and Ventura is proud of how Piper messed up their wedding at the last SNME.

Terry Funk is brand new here, as is some guy named Jimmy Hart. Wow that’s weird to say. Funk says he’ll house train the JYD.

Cue theme song. That song and video made this feel special and it really was. The fans are all dressed as wrestlers which is pretty cool.

We see a clip of Funk beating up a ring attendant while there’s a female referee. Well ok then. Jimmy says that was because of television tricks.

We go to another clip of Funk beating up JYD in Madison Square Garden. Monsoon was great at making things feel epic.

JYD says tonight is his day to get revenge.

Junkyard Dog vs. Terry Funk

Grab Them Cakes is a fun song. I can’t stand the guy but he had cool music. JYD jumps him early on and here we go. Funk gets crotched and I have a bad feeling about this already. Any kind of logic or fairness says Funk wins here. It’s ALL JYD to start here and the reaction is great so I guess something is working here.

Funk grabs Hart, thinking he’s JYD. Didn’t the hair or jacket tip him off at all? I guess not. It’s still all JYD here as he beats up Jimmy. Funk comes back and my faith in the universe is restored. Hart comes in again and drops the Megaphone. You know what comes next I’m assuming. Post match Funk tries to brand JYD but it doesn’t work. JYD steals Jimmy’s pants and brands his ass afterwards.

Rating: D. Pretty weak here as it was about as paint by numbers as you could ask for. Funk got a weird short push around this time as he was a great heel that WWF didn’t really ever capitalize on. To be fair though he was gone soon so it’s not like it really mattered. This was more of a comedy match but the right guy won so my complaints will be limited.

It’s time for round one of the Halloween competitions. The wrestlers in costumes are rather funny. Iron Sheik is Batman of all people. The captains are Heenan and Albano. I wonder who is going to win this, which is a pie eating contest. Hogan is Hercules, Bundy is Abraham Lincoln, Albano is in a toga.

Savage and Liz are Tarzan and Jane (Liz in leopard REALLY works), Volkoff is Robin, Heenan is Davy Crockett, Tito Santana is Zorro, Gene is a pumpkin, the Hillbillies are the 3 Musketeers and this is awesome. Albano is Caesar apparently. Albano vs. Bundy in pie eating. This could cripple the pie market. It’s most consumed in 90 seconds. Albano is declared the winner. That was rather disturbing to watch.

Piper’s Pit

The guests are Hillbilly Jim, Cousin Junior and Cousin Elmer. The latter two were brought in because Jim broke his leg and they wanted to keep the angle going. We recap the last main event where Piper and Ventura were jerks. Piper has ridiculous heat at this point as he was the most evil man alive back in the mid 80s.

Elmer keeps saying things are none of Piper’s business. Piper says it was Ventura that said all those things and Jim calls Ventura out. Here’s the future governor which is just hilarious in hindsight. Damn that ring is huge. Piper shoves Junior over Orton for a school boy thing and it’s on. The Hillbillies get Jesse’s hat and stomp on it.

It’s time for round two: the Pumpkin Dunk. It’s Cousin Junior vs. Heenan. JYD is a mummy. He sucks at that too. It’s like bobbing for apples but in chocolate and with pumpkins. Heenan is whipping that hillbilly ass so far which is weird. Heenan actually wins fairly which is weird as hell. Good freaking night Liz was perfect.

Gene is with Studd, Bundy and Heenan. Heenan brags about his team as he was so good at. The heels say nothing interesting.

Hogan and Andre say they’re ready.

Hulk Hogan/Andre the Giant vs. King Kong Bundy/Big John Studd

Hogan in white is always interesting. This was the main house show main event at the time so you would see this quite often around this time. It’s still Eye of the Tiger for Hogan which is weird as hell to say the least. He’s rocking an Abyss shirt as it says American Made. Who would have thought ripping a shirt off would get such a pop?

Hogan vs. Bundy starts us off. Hogan of course can’t slam him and hurts his back. That lasts less than two seconds and it’s ALL Hogan. Ok make that Andre, called the Big Boss Man here which is something I’ve heard before. I love Andre’s punches since he has to swing down to connect due to his height.

Hogan does the majority of the match due to Andre already being injured. Ventura says he’ll be in a six man on the next SNME with the previously mentioned guys. Andre accidently hits the referee and of course we get a huge brawl. It’s weird when Hogan is the smallest guy in there. Actually it isn’t as he commonly was. Another referee comes in since the original is more or less dead. Vince’s overselling of all this stuff is great. After a commercial we have Studd vs. Andre.

Hogan spits at Studd after knocking him down. What a nice guy. Andre gets tied up in the ropes and Bundy hits the avalanche on Hogan and the double team begins. The referee throws it out as Hogan makes the save. Hogan and Andre win by DQ.

Rating: D. This was a glorified squash as the heels controlled for a combined 9 seconds I think. This was just to have a TV spectacle and nothing more which is fine I guess. It’s a tag team main event match, but this was just different and didn’t work in the slightest. The historical aspect helps it a bit though.

Andre rambles on a lot afterwards and is difficult to understand. I think he wants the pastrami on rye.

We now get the debut of the Land of 1000 Dances video, which for any nostalgic fan like me is must see.

That was just awesome, if nothing else for seeing Bret Hart try to dance.

Gene asks Savage why he has a woman for a manager. Savage says anyone that asks that is blind or stupid. Savage was brand new at this time and wouldn’t mean anything until he made it to the finals of the Wrestling Classic less than a week after this aired. Gene stares at Liz’s ass as she leaves. Can’t blame him.

Intercontinental Title: Randy Savage vs. Tito Santana

Oh hell yes! Liz’s cleavage makes this work. Santana doesn’t even get an intro? These two had some freaking WARS on the touring circuit and they never ceased being awesome. Savage stalls and the heat is GREAT. Savage nails him with a right and Santana looks like he got shot. Was there a point to that clap Savage would do before throwing a back elbow? I always guessed rhythm or something. Damn this is fast paced.

Savage was just completely awesome at this point and Santana wasn’t far behind. You have to keep in mind that Savage was completely revolutionary in what he did. The heels on this show so far are Roddy Piper, Bob Orton, Terry Funk, Bundy and Studd. None of them are incredibly athletic guys. Piper was more of a talker than a wrestler at this point, Funk was brand new, Orton was a bodyguard that occasionally wrestled and Bundy and Studd were Bundy and Studd.

Savage came out there as this small guy that was completely insane and could go move for move with guys like Santana. He was a completely new kind of heel as he had a mean streak but wrestled like a face but with insane speed. He was exciting yet deadly, which made him AWESOME. Liz didn’t hurt either, as women managers simply didn’t happen that often, at least not in WWF.

Savage runs away and catches Santana coming back into the ring and the fight is on on the floor. Savage goes for a piledriver out there, channeling his inner Memphis. It’s a double count out to set up the final blowoff match I believe in Boston where Savage won the title about three months later, holding it until he lost it to Steamboat.

Rating: B-. Short but exciting as hell. These two are another pair of guys with mad chemistry together and this was no exception. This is another of those matches that you simply can’t screw up, even in a 4 minute TV match. It was another of their many battles and while it’s not great, some of their others were utterly fantastic.

Mr. Fuji makes funny sound effects and grinds his knuckles into his head.

Steamboat breaks cinder blocks and wood. There’s a Kung Fu Challenge coming up.

We go to Roddy Piper’s house to see how he spent Halloween. Piper is making candy apples out of bowling balls and chocolate out of bricks. Piper is completely insane here and it’s hilarious. He looks like the villain in a decent comedy/horror movie. Some kids come up and Piper HAS to be on coke here.

No one could talk this fast otherwise. One of the kids is dressed as Hogan. Piper drops bowling balls in their candy bags and steals some of their candy. He’s COMPLETELY insane here and then it turns out the kids give him chocolate covered red peppers. This was funny yet oddly creepy.

Hogan thinks it was funny.

Fuji is ready for the Kung Fu Challenge.

We see a clip of Steamboat being hanged by Fuji and Muraco. Steamboat says nothing of note.

Mr. Fuji vs. Ricky Steamboat

There are different rules here apparently. Don’t worry: they’re not important or anything since we aren’t told what they are. Basically it’s an overly long striking contest with little of note to it. Steamboat hits a missile dropkick from the top for the win. Muraco and Fuji beat up Steamboat afterwards.

Rating: N/A. This was definitely something different so I’ll give them points for that. That doesn’t mean it’s good or anything though.

It’s time for the finals of the Halloween Games. This is the Pumpkin Pass where you have a line of guys and you put a pumpkin under your chin and between your chest and pass it to the next guy and so on and so forth. Furthest down the line wins. The faces allegedly cheat but there’s no proof of it. HOGAN FUCKS IT UP!

They score five passes. The heels then go and have Roddy with them, apparently giving them an advantage somehow. The heels keep covering things up with capes and we get an upskirt shot of Liz as we more or less see her in a bikini. Oh yes. They only get four and therefore the faces win. Savage blames Liz of course.

Vince and Jesse close us out as Monster Mash plays in the background.

Overall Rating: C+. This is FAR more about comedy here than anything else but it had that 1980s charm to it that worked pretty well. Again the wrestling is freaking bad but to be fair it wasn’t supposed to be that kind of show. There was no direction here so they improvised and it worked well I thought. Not really recommended, but the comedy is solid and they didn’t try to be anything impressive here, which made this work I think.

 

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 11
Date: May 2, 1987
Location: Edmund P. Joyce Center, Notre Dame, Indiana
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

It’s the first big show after Mania 3 so Hogan isn’t wrestling. Don’t you just love the brilliance in the booking here? There really isn’t a big match on the card but it’s late 80s WWF so how bad can it be? We’re getting low on shows left here so savor these while you can. This is the first one ever sans Hogan so really savor it while you can. Let’s get to it.

Savage is going to get back at Steele for costing him the IC Title at Mania. It’s a lumberjack match.

Steamboat says he’ll melt Hercules’ chains.

Harts vs. Bulldogs tonight for the titles.

Duggan says no singing for Volkoff tonight.

Heenan says Andre is the real champion.

Hogan says he’s the real champion.

They should bring back the whole only show guys fighting tonight intros. It’s a great idea.

We see clips of “earlier today” where Heenan got beaten up by Ken Patera after a debate and has a bad neck because of it.

Kamala is of course afraid of snakes so he’s got Roberts tonight. Fuji says it’s no problem.

After a clip of the Snake Pit from a few months ago, Roberts says Damien wants Kamala.

Kamala vs. Jake Roberts

The snake clears things out immediately. WWF should have paid for a snake fear seminar or something given how afraid half the roster was of them. Well not Kamala though as he just completely sucks. He scared me to death when I was a kid though so he can do whatever he wants. Jake gets out of a bearhug by stomping on Kamala’s foot. That’s just mean.

Vince wants to know about Kamala’s dental plan. Was there a face commentator that could stay on the match for more than 8 seconds in this era? This is a pretty basic match with Kamala dominating before Jake makes a short comeback. Kim Chee, Kamala’s other manager, runs in and blasts Jake in the back of the head and a splash ends Jake. Chee unmasks as Honky Tonk Man for a beatdown on Jake.

Rating: D. Not much at all here. This was just to do the ending angle which is odd as Honky won at Mania and yet he’s the one continuing the feud. Anyway, Kamala was always pretty awful and this was no exception. Just a boring match all around and nothing of note at all.

Randy Savage vs. George Steele

It’s a lumberjack match, some of which are the Harts and Bulldogs. George does one of his promos that is interesting if nothing else. Honky and Chee are lumberjacks too. Steamboat comes in with Steele again as Gene tries to explain how a lumberjack match works. Steamboat will be in his corner. Hacksaw, Hercules and a bunch of other unimportant guys are the lumberjacks. No one out of the ordinary.

These two feuded for well over a year and this actually is the final match in the rivalry, or at least the last major one. Savage says he’s forever the champion in a typical promo for him. I wish I could yell at Liz and tell her to go down. That aisle of course. It’s weird to think that Savage would be the second biggest face in the company in like 6 months. Steele does the Hogan YOU in an odd moment.

We hit the brawl and Duggan chases Sheik and Volkoff into the ring with the board and gets thrown out as a result. Steele takes over and eats a turnbuckle instead of going after Savage. After some more insanity, Danny Davis comes in and pops Steele with the bell. The elbow ends it. Everyone goes at it afterwards. Jake and the snake clear the ring as he goes after the real Kim Chee in some nice continuity.

Rating: D+. Still a bad match but the insanity makes it more fun. This was fine for what it was which was a catalyst the big brawl at the end. This was a weird kind of match that always seemed to work for some reason. Again it’s nothing great at all but it was ok for a 6 minute TV match.

Heenan and Andre have a sit down interview where they say they have film proof of Hogan losing to Andre. They show the opening of the match of the slam where Hogan almost didn’t get out in time. It really is close and Heenan actually has a point: from the referee’s vantage point, Marella couldn’t see Hogan’s arm pop up but called it a two anyway. This would fuel the main event up to Mania 4.

As the Bulldogs come in, Jesse says he isn’t sure now. This was a twist as most of the time he would be on Andre’s side the entire time. Him being unsure made this seem like something could be up.

The Hart Foundation says they’ll get the Bulldogs and end it tonight. Davis jumps Gene for no apparent reason.

Tag Titles: Hart Foundation vs. British Bulldogs

This is 2/3 falls. Before the match Hart gets bitten by Matilda which looks cool for obvious reason. Davey and Bret start us off. It’s interesting that Anvil is by far and away the worst wrestler in there and he’s hardly terrible. He’s not particularly good but he’s certainly watchable. The Harts are champions here and this is the official rematch for when Davis cheated to give them the titles.

The heels dominate early as they’re not doing much of note here. It’s fine though, mainly based on just pure raw talent. Dynamite and Bret crank things up a bit. The crowd is way into this too so they have that going for them. The champions get to double team Dynamite and the champions get disqualified eventually, making it 1-0 Bulldogs.

This really isn’t all that great of a match but it’s not terrible. Davey chases like five people around the ring as it looks like a weird comedy skit. I need some Benny Hill music in there somewhere. Bret goes for a cross body on the ropes and winds up getting the crotch from hell. Hot tag to Smith and it’s on all over again. He gets the delayed vertical on Neidhart which is rather impressive.

Vince gets PISSED at Jesse, telling him to shut up. Now that’s your Mania match right there. Tito pops Davis for a huge pop and then Kid is picked up and thrown at Bret for a cross body to win in two straight falls to blow the fucking roof off the place. Jesse laughs because the first fall was a DQ so no title switch. They would switch that in 89 so the Brainbusters could win the belts. Holy Dusty Finish Batman.

Rating: B-. Fun match but the ending hurts it a lot. These teams always worked quite well and this was definitely no exception. The ending was a nice way to get the fans going and also to continue the feud since now it’s clear that the Bulldogs can beat them. Strike Force would jump in soon and win the belts, taking the Can-Am Connection’s spot after Zenk went insane.

Hogan says that he was telling Andre that he wasn’t afraid of him. They only show stills of the slam. Of course if you want to see the most famous move in wrestling history, BUY THE TAPE!

Ricky Steamboat says he’s going to burn Hercules and isn’t afraid of Heenan.

Intercontinental Title: Hercules vs. Ricky Steamboat

We see a clip of Savage in the back watching the match and cutting this insane promo about wanting the title back. Gene standing there is funny in some weird way. Savage cheers for Steamboat so that he can take the title from Steamboat. Hercules dominates early on but there is about as much chance of a title change as there is of TM getting admin. I need a minute to recover from that thought.

Hercules gets the Full Nelson and here comes Savage to break it up so that he can take the title from Steamboat. This planted some very small seeds of a face turn for him later on down the line. After Mania he was far too over to continue being a heel that much longer. Hercules goes for a top rope splash and eats knees. Heenan hands Hercules the chain and of course gets disqualified in a freaking stupid looking moment. Savage pretends to help him up and then drops the elbow on him just to be a dick.

Rating: D+. Not much here at all and really just a continuation of the Savage/Steamboat feud which was aborted soon after this so that Honky got the belt. I think Steamboat said he wanted to take some time off for his son being born and Vince flipped over it, causing Honky’s year plus title reign. Anyway, this was just a little TV match that set up an angle.

Duggan has a ticket (the size of a stamp) and is in the front row, promising that no one can sing the Russian anthem here. I’ve always wondered if someone got a second row seat instead of front.

Sheik and Volkoff and Slick say you’re denying their freedom of speech.

Can-Am Connection vs. Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff

He tries to sing and gets hit in the head with a 2x4. Isn’t that called massive assault? Zenk and the Sheik start us off. Duggan, after BASHING VOLKOFF IN THE HEAD WITH A BOARD just sits right back in the front row. Sheik gets a good abdominal stretch on Sheik. This show needs to end. Duggan runs in AGAIN and Martel rolls up Sheik for the pin.

Rating: N/A. This was just insanity and nothing at all of note. Then again it’s the end of the show so it’s not like anyone was watching here anyway.

Overall Rating: D+. Well they definitely did a good job of setting up the angles but the wrestling is more or less horrible. Then again they’re likely still trying to breathe after Mania anyway so it’s understandable. They really didn’t have anything to do until the fall anyway so don’t expect much here. Take a pass.

 

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 23
Date: October 14, 1989
Location: Riverfront Coliseum, Cincinnati, Ohio
Commentators: Jesse Ventura, Vince McMahon

This is more or less the buildup show for Survivor Series which meant very little. The main attraction here is Hogan vs. DiBiase for the belt which never got the big match treatment but could have drawn a ton of money with DiBiase as champion and Hogan chasing him. Other than that it’s pure Survivor Series stuff which is fine. Let’s get to it.

Piper says he’s going to make Haku cry.

Savage and Sherri say they’re going to give royal pain to Snuka.

The Bushwackers are happy to be on national TV.

DiBiase and Zeus are ready for Hogan.

Hogan has millions of fans to match millions of dollars.

I firmly believe that the awesomeness of this theme song could rival that of Mr. T, Hulk Hogan and Chuck Norris being in the same room at once.

We see Savage getting the crown after beating Duggan. He would hold that for about a year and a half.

Savage gives his first interview where he proclaims his amazingness.

Randy Savage vs. Jimmy Snuka

Is that a squash I smell? The throne being carried out by jobbers was always a great sight. Snuka says he has no king or queen. Savage jumps him to start and it doesn’t go that well for him. He dominates as I wonder why Snuka was so popular. He just wasn’t that good of a worker and had one big move. I guess he was popular as hell though so it’s hard to really complain with him being up there.

Snuka makes his comeback and gets Savage in the Tree of Woe which is a new thing at the time. Why do so many faces kiss heel managers? Snuka doesn’t do it but he looks like he might and it’s just a weird idea for some reason. The loaded purse to Snuka ends this. What could have been in there? Savage beats him up more after the match but misses the elbow.

Rating: D+. This was short and not very good. It’s a late 80s match so it can only be so good though. It was just to let Macho get a win as king and since Snuka was more or less a jobber to the stars at this point it fits pretty well. Savage was perfect for this roll and his mild insanity helped a lot.

We recap Zeus vs. Hogan, which went more or less nowhere. The cage match that blew it off was in December I think.

DiBiase says he only gets the best, despite Zeus never winning a match.

Gene and Hulk try to explain the Zeus angle and it just doesn’t work at all. I’m still trying to figure out how it was supposed to make sense. He goes into this big business-related promo that goes way over the heads of most kids I’m betting. He also talks about God a bit, calling him the big check signer in the sky.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Ted DiBiase

Hogan fights him off early but Zeus keeps distracting him. I’d be distracted by the big bald man with a Z on his head too. Hogan punches DiBiase but the referee pulls Hogan’s hair to get him off. Well that’s a new one. How do wrestlers survive being choked so long? Roberts comes out to even out Zeus somehow. DiBiase takes over and his elbow drops look weird too.

Jake was on Hogan’s Survivor Series team in case you’re wondering about the connection. Virgil grabs his snake though to distract Jake. I’m not sure I want Virgil grabbing my snake. Oh come on I had to do that one. DiBiase is fun to watch when he jumps. I don’t remember a heavyweight being that smooth every time like that. They try to do a spot where Zeus is supposed to hit Hogan as he hits the ropes. Somehow Zeus can’t get this right either which is just kind of pathetic.

They repeat the thing which doesn’t look good at all but at least he managed to time it right this time. Hogan starts to Hulk Up but Zeus comes in and hooks the arm on the punch, which somehow doesn’t get a DQ. Hogan dodges a clothesline and rolls up DiBiase for the pin. We get the showdown that was supposed to headline Mania 6 at one point until DiBiase puts the Million Dollar Dream on him. Jake makes the save.

Rating: C-. Not bad here but Hogan vs. DiBiase is never a bad thing. This was more about Hogan vs. Zeus though as DiBiase hasn’t really meant much in about a year or so. It was a glorified buildup for Survivor Series and that’s all that it was supposed to be. One thing does occur to me: why are we clamoring for a Hogan vs. Zeus match when Zeus lost the showdown with Rip in the end of No Holds Barred? We’ve already seen it and we know the ending.

We do a recap of Piper vs. The Heenan Family, which is mainly Rude. Tonight he has Haku, who Heenan says they’ll enjoy themselves tonight.

Piper talks about fixing the weasel and how he’s not going to hit Haku in the head because that isn’t going to work. See, Piper was SMART.

Roddy Piper vs. Haku

This is Piper’s first match back after his retirement about two and a half years earlier. Of course he’s insanely popular because of it which is an unwritten rule of retirements in wrestling. Piper in red elbow pads is a weird look. It’s ALL Piper to start as his hands are ridiculously fast. Naturally he goes for the head just as he said he wouldn’t, likely to mess with their heads a bit.

Haku makes a comeback once Piper chases Heenan. I’ll put the over/under at a minute for this to work. Yep there’s the missed splash to end the comeback. Piper hits a suplex of all things to get the pin. Piper could win with anything and that was always something I liked about him.

Rating: C-. Short but they got a lot of stuff in there. This was about as clear of an ending as you could have asked for, but it got Piper his comeback win which was a huge thing. This did its job very well and got the crowd happy so there we are. Also, anyone find it funny that Piper rebelled against Hollywood in the Rock N Wrestling Connection and then left to join in 2-3 years later?

DiBiase yells at Roberts and says he’ll get him, which he never really did. Zeus yells about Hogan.

Rick Martel, with Slick of all people (I don’t remember that at all) says this feud with Santana will never be over. That’s the absolute truth as they feuded for about a year and a half. Slick talks about having backup.

Rick Martel vs. Tito Santana

Martel comes out with Jimmy Hart, Boss Man, Akeem and Honky. Santana says he has his own backup, which perfectly is his Survivor Series team. That would be Red Rooster, Rhodes and Beefcake. If this match sounds odd to you, Akeem wasn’t at the PPV and was replaced by Bad News Brown. I think he was fired but I’m not sure.

The go right for it and I could watch Martel sell atomic drops all day. This is more or less a glorified lumberjack match with 6 guys not counting managers around the ring. They do some basic stuff and here are Dusty and Boss Man to try to get in and fight. Another refere comes down to help get the people out of the ring and we take a break.

Martel beats him up for a bit. Can we just get to the big brawl already? Vince of course thinks a two is a three as this is a longer match than I expected. Martel goes up but Santana channels his inner Warrior and shakes the ropes to get him down. And there it goes as all 8 guys come in and it’s all thrown out.

Rating: B-. Better than I expected here as they gave this a lot of time, although the ending was far too predictable for it to really mean anything. This was a backdrop for setting up the whole big brawl at the end which is just fine. It’s nice to see a good match to bridge the gap which is what we got here.

Piper talks about wanting the Heenan Family and namely Rude.

Rougeau Brothers vs. Bushwackers

Yeah it’s the catchiest theme song in a long time as the Rougeaus are here for what has to be a quick one as we’re almost out of time. The wacking is always great. They start early as we have 6 minutes left in the tape and a Hogan statement promised. The good guys chase Jimmy around and there go his pants. He’s wearing Rougeau underwear with the Fleurs-de-lis on it. That does make me wonder if when he’s managing Honky if he wears ones that say Love Me Tender on his ass.

The heels control early but a missed high knee ends that. Hot tag to Luke and the dominance is on. The gutbuster ends it soon thereafter.

Rating: N/A. Just a filler match to end things here.

Hogan talks about the fans cheering for him when Zeus hurt his neck. Oh and hey there’s a PPV where these two will be fighting rather soon. What a coincidence!

Vince and Jesse wrap things up.

Overall Rating: C. For a show that’s supposed to be hyping the Survivor Series, there’s not a lot of talk about the, you know, Survivor Series here. They did a good job about setting up the PPV but they didn’t really talk much about it. This was a weird one as it’s like they were trying to hype a show and then were scrambling to remember the name of it. Good show, but just a weird bit of stuff going on in the overall concept.

 

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main 2
Date: October 5, 1985
Location: Meadowlands Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

We’re back for the sequel here and the main thing is a legit wedding between Uncle Elmer and his real life fiancé. We also have Orndorff and Piper in their fallout match from the original Mania. Hogan defends the title and we have a big blood feud with Orndorff and Piper too. Let’s get to it.

Volkoff says he’ll win the title tonight and then will push the button and destroy us all.

Hogan says America has nothing to worry about.

Hillbilly Jim and Uncle Elmer aren’t worried. Piper comes in to make fun of them. The theme song cuts him off.

Vince runs down the card while Jesse says nothing for awhile.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Nikolai Volkoff

I love the smelled of squashed Russians in the morning. After a long national anthem, here’s Hulk. He promises to win and keep the title and defend America. He comes out to Stars and Stripes Forever here in a nice touch. It’s a standard Hogan 80s match vs. a monster as Hogan gets jumped early but then makes his amazing comeback. Hogan knocks him over the top and Volkoff’s ass rings the bell.

A ram into the post though has the powers of Russia in the lead and Hogan is in trouble. Jesse isn’t talking much at all here. Volkoff slams him and Hogan makes his comeback and finishes with a spinning legdrop. Yes I said spinning. Hogan spits on the flag and uses it to shine his shoes.

Rating: C. This was a run of the mill Hogan match which is what this was supposed to be. It got Hogan on national TV and let him beat up someone that most people were going to naturally boo. This is the epitome of what SNME was supposed to be about in the old days and it worked very well.

Hogan says he’ll get Volkoff again if he has to and calls him baby doll. He plugs the wedding too.

The Hillbillies say they aren’t worried at all.

Jerry Valiant vs. Uncle Elmer

Elmer and Cousin Luke were brought in since Jim broke him leg. After some dancing, Elmer literally just slams him and lays on him for the pin in like 6 seconds. Well that was short. We show the Bundy match that set the “9 second record” which if you have a watch on you can tell is more like 21 or so.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is here. Well ok then. That’s the extent of camera time he gets and it’s the side of his head. It’s clearly him though and they mention his name.

Body Shop

This is Jesse’s interview show and the guest is Heenan. He has a bounty on Orndorff’s head for firing him which I don’t think was ever collected. This is like a minute long.

Orndorff says Heenan just made things complicated for himself and says Piper won’t collect it.

Piper says he doesn’t need the money and that he’s pretty. He makes fun of Elmer which isn’t that hard to do.

Paul Orndorff vs. Roddy Piper

This was on the SNME DVD which is well worth buying. Piper has ANOTHER Scottish band with him. Big feud here as these two had been partners against Hogan but they blamed each other for the loss at Mania, resulting in Orndorff turning face eventually and then turning heel again to light the company on fire including a 60,000 person house show in Toronto.

This is a total brawl and not resembling a match in the slightest. They just beat the hell out of each other with punches, kicks and chokes. To be fair though that’s what this is supposed to be so they’re hitting the mark on that front. We hit the floor maybe a minute and a half in and it’s just nuts. Today this isn’t much but at this time it’s a big old brawl. Orndorff busts out a suplex and Jesse points out it’s the first wrestling move.

The referee puts the fastest ten count in recorded history on them but they’re both up. We hit the floor again and the fans are into this. We head up the aisle for the double countout which is the right thing to do. This never got a proper blowoff for some reason which is a shame. They fight into the back and Piper hides in a locker room as we go to a break.

Rating: C+. From a wrestling perspective this is awful but from a brawling perspective this was great. The idea was to just have these two want to kill each other and that’s how it went. This was one of the hottest feuds possible and it worked very well in that sense. It was a good brawl but FAR too short to be great.

We do the wedding with the wrestlers in their gear. If I remember right this was a legit wedding. I wonder if this is the dry run for the PPV wedding that Vince wanted to do for Stephanie. Vince is doing commentary on a wedding of all things. Oh and the groom is called Uncle Elmer as the minister.

Elmer can’t hear the minister and keeps fumbling over his lines. Jesse is cracking up over this and is clearly having a blast with this. We get to the end and Piper can’t hold his peace. Well you knew this was coming. Hogan, in a sleeveless shirt, glares at Piper and gets him to leave and there’s the end of it. This was just kind of odd as he was a total comedy character and this was a HUGELY hyped segment. I still don’t get this.

Heenan, who fell at his home recently and is badly hurt, says Bundy and Studd will beat Andre and Atlas.

Big John Studd/King Kong Bundy vs. Tony Atlas/Andre the Giant

The heels cut Andre’s hair and beat him up in Toronto so he picked some random partners to try to fight back. By the way that’s Abraham Washington’s Tony Atlas in there. Andre and Bundy start and the bigger fat man is MAD. He rams Bundy’s head into Atlas’ which is kind of mean but whatever. Somehow Atlas, a big old man, is the smallest in this match by far.

He gets beaten down and the splash from Bundy half kills him. Andre and Studd……uh…….I guess you could call it fight. Everything goes insane and Andre gets the hell beaten out of him. I think the match has been thrown out. Oh and Atlas got posted so he’s out. AND HERE COMES HULK! The faces clean house as Andre and Hogan begin their year and a half long angle that would culminate at Mania in Detroit.

Rating: D. Match was awful, but this was about starting a huge angle. Now at the time no one knew how big, but this is a very historic moment no matter how you look at it. Andre and Atlas win apparently, I’d guess by DQ.

Hogan says he has something planned but won’t say what.

We go to a zoo with Gene who is looking for George Steele who recently turned face. We see clips of his turn and go on a comedic tour of the zoo. He sees a camel and says it’s Sheik. There’s also a clip of an absolutely hilarious bit from Tuesday Night Titans where Captain Lou gave him electroshock therapy and he became normal for a bit. Then they fried him again and he became Steele one more time.

George imitates an elephant. He’s then asked what kind of a tiger they have here. George’s answer: Detroit. We see some lemurs which are half monkey and half weasel. Their name is Bundy apparently. Hippos resemble Bundy which is kind of funny. This is a lot cuter than it sounds.

We get clips of the Dream Team stealing the tag titles from Windham and Rotundo (Husky Harris’ dad).

Tag Titles: Tony Garea/Lanny Poffo vs. Dream Team

Beefcake and Valentine in case you’re a young gun. This is the standard dominating first title defense on SNME where there was no chance of the titles changing hands. Only once did a title ever switch on this show and it wasn’t until 1989 when the Brain Busters beat Demolition in a shocker. Poffo, more famous as the Genius, busts out a moonsault which is a huge spot back in the day. I think he debuted it in the company but I’m not sure.

Poffo was a jobber to the stars and Garea used to be a tag champion way back in the day. The crowd is kind of dead here as this has been a long show but then again there was rarely anything of note at the end of these shows. I usually can’t stand the ads everywhere but I really want a Coke given that sign up there. The US Express, the former champions, are in the front row. Figure Four ends this glorified squash.

Rating: D. Nothing at all of note here but to say they weren’t shooting for a classic is an understatement. This was short and relatively painless as it’s only about three and a half minutes long. Nothing terrible here but boring for the most part.

We go to the back for the reception of Elmer’s wedding. Hogan, Orndorff, Vince and Jesse are at a table together and only Orndorff doesn’t look like an idiot. Jesse is writing a poem and won’t shut up at all. This is your usual insanity of an 80s gathering of wrestlers. Poffo, all sweaty and in his tights, reads a poem.

There’s a special guest: Tiny Tim. He was a weird non-celebrity that played the ukulele and was married on TV for no apparent reason. No one ever got the point of him but he played a song called Tiptoe Through the Tulips. Elmer sings a song for a few minutes and then Jesse reads a poem bashing the whole thing. He gets beaten up and thrown into the cake.

Hogan/Andre vs. Bundy/Studd is announced for next time to close the show.

Overall Rating: D. This was pretty weak with no particularly good matches or anything like that. I’m not sure if the wedding was supposed to be a funny bit or not but nothing ever really made me laugh in it. It took up nearly a third of the show counting the reception and nothing at all of it was funny. It was supposed to be tongue in cheek I guess but it never clicked. Bad show but they didn’t know what they were doing yet so that’s a bit excusable I guess. Pass on this though.

 

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 18
Date: November 26, 1988
Location; ARCO Arena, Sacramento, California
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

We’re in the middle of Savage’s title reign here and tonight he defends against Andre. That’s a match that you don’t get that often but it sounds interesting if nothing else. This was a time where we were just getting ready for Hogan vs. Savage to set up Mania 5 which was kind of disappointing. Also on this show is the Super Ninja, who contrary to popular belief was NOT the Great Muta. You can tell that by the size difference if nothing else. Let’s get to it as I try to get done with SNME today.

Warrior says he’s going to go to war with Super Ninja and Mr. Fuji.

Heenan and Andre say they’re going to win the world title back.

Savage isn’t worried about Andre.

DiBiase doesn’t believe in Thanksgiving but only buying and selling like he did with Hercules.

Hogan talks about Thanksgiving and being on Brother Love’s Show.

The theme song wants you to know that it’s awesome.

Jesse wants top billing since we’re in Hollywood which is his town.

Fuji says he’ll win and makes a Pearl Harbor reference. Ninja is apparently a master of the seven arts. Would that include watercolors?

Warrior says he’s seen an unseen enemy. I love these promos as they were definitely entertaining.

Intercontinental Title: Super Ninja vs. Ultimate Warrior

Ninja looks like Spawn. The comic book character, not the annoying poster. Ninja goes after him and nothing at all works. Warrior gets a leapfrog and I’m not sure if I believe it or not. Vince talks about horse manure ice cream. Go ahead and try to convince me that he wasn’t on drugs. Total squash here that last two minutes or so and the splash ends it. Ninja was never seen again.

Rating: N/A. Not sure what the point of this was as Warrior could have beaten someone better than this just as easily without having to bring in some random guy that was never heard from again. Whatever though.

We recap Heenan selling Hercules’ contract to DiBiase which turned Herc face as DiBiase kept calling him a slave.

DiBiase says Hercules isn’t being American because he’s turning down the business deal that was made. Virgil gets Hercules tonight.

Hercules says he’s a free man.

Virgil vs. Hercules

Anyone else think this is a squash in the making? Back from a break and the heels are jumping Hercules. This works about as well as Rogaine worked for Virgil and the fans are on fire for this actually. I love knee lifts for some reason. I always have. We’re about a minute and a half in and Virgil hasn’t had a single shot yet. Apparently this is for Hercules’ freedom. A powerslam ends it. TOTAL domination here.

Rating: N/A. This somehow never led to Hercules vs. DiBiase. I’m not sure why they never had a proper blowoff but it could be due to the lack of talent from Hercules. This was just kind of odd as Virgil got totally squashed and it wasn’t even close. Just odd.

Twenty minutes so far and nothing but squashes.

We see Andre having a heart attack due to Jake and the snake last time.

Heenan and Andre insist that Andre is champion.

Savage says if Hogan can do it, he can do it. We have a huge world title match and it becomes about Hogan somehow. Why am I not surprised at all?

WWF World Title: Randy Savage vs. Andre the Giant

Savage runs at him like a crazy man and of course it doesn’t work at all. Andre was a shell of his former shell and couldn’t really do anything other than bare bones stuff by this point but damn he was trying. This is all Andre to start as Savage tries stupid things that never work in the slightest.

A short comeback gets him nowhere other than ticking Andre off. FINALLY he wakes up and goes to the air which actually works and he beats Andre down. Here’s Jake to distract Andre and Heenan. Savage makes Jake leave which is a weird moment for some reason. Jake’s height always is tricky. The match loses anything resembling focus as Heenan looks for the snake.

After a few minutes he finally finds it and Jake comes down again….resulting in a double DQ? Andre is in the ropes and Bobby gets beaten up. The snake is busted out but Heenan gets his out of there just in time. Savage seems cool with the whole costing of the match by Jake. Ah maybe he isn’t. The 80s were always confusing.

Rating: D. The opening stuff was good but as soon as Jake came out this became a circus and not the kind with the cool freaky clowns or bearded lady that resembled my aunt John. This was just a mess and never went anywhere at all. Savage vs. Andre could have been a bit match but it gets like 8 minutes where the focus was on Jake than anything else.

Duggan isn’t worried about Bravo in his flag match vs. Zhukov.

Boris Zhukov vs. Jim Duggan

This is a flag match where the winner gets to wave the flag. Other than that it’s a regular match though. They slug it out and Duggan wins of course, as Jesse points out that punching him in the head isn’t going to get him anywhere. Boris beats on Duggan but that does nothing at all. Short comeback and then the three point clothesline ends it.

Rating: N/A. Another two minute squash. Is this a theme or something tonight? Yet again this went nowhere at all and had absolutely no point. Vince crying at the presenting of the flag is kind of funny though.

We recap Boss Man beating up Hogan on Brother Love’s show which was the filler feud until Mania happened and Hogan got his real feud. It was a pretty good beating though.

Brother Love Show

The guest is Hogan. Love always scared me to death back in the day. He was just freaky as hell. Instead of Hogan he brings out Slick. Hogan is PISSED and overacts beyond belief. We get to hear Jive Soul Bro as a consolation prize, making this show substantially better. Ah here’s Hulk. Nothing Love says means anything here as we’re just waiting on Boss Man to come in.

Love asks Hogan questions but keeps cutting him off before he can answer over and over again. He lets Slick answer because something tells me he’s not a nice person. Slick is as tall as Hogan. Never would have guessed that. The look on Hogan’s face is great actually as he’s not used to BLATANT DISRESPECT like this. Finally Hogan just grabs the mic and yells a lot.

Hogan talks about how fake Love is. This is going absolutely nowhere and I’m bored out of my mine. Hulk talks about being a judge and sentencing Love for something or other. He finally beats up Slick and Love. No Boss Man or anything which makes this a HUGE waste of time. Love gets handcuffed somewhere in there. Moving on.

The Rougeaus say they’re American citizens now. They live in Memphis now and say they’re American Boys. Damn I could go for that theme song of theirs.

Young Stallions vs. Fabulous Rougeau Brothers

Considering we have 9 minutes left in the show, something tells me this is going to go this fast. The Stallions never were anything other than jobbers and I can’t imagine this is going to be anything else. How in the world did Roma become a Horseman? I will never understand that and I don’t think anyone else will. Powers ducks a cross body to finally break the dominance and makes the tag. Everything goes insane and the Rougeaus hit their finisher to end this. It went nowhere at all and it wasn’t supposed to.

Rating: N/A. An up and coming heel team beat a jobbing team. What did you expect this to be?

Andre says he’ll get the title and he’ll get Jake. Andre grabs Jesse twice and is a damn scary looking man.

Jake says he’s smart or something. I don’t care a bit at this point.

Hogan says being the executioner turned him on. GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODY!

Overall Rating: F+. This was AWFUL. I know I don’t have many of these left but this was something I just wanted to end the entire time. There isn’t a good match to be found nor is there anything that meant anything. This was almost like a house show card but not a good one at all. Just flat out terrible and I was just counting down the time until it ended.

 

[X]

Paul Orndorff vs. Roddy Piper

This was on the SNME DVD which is well worth buying. Piper has ANOTHER Scottish band with him. Big feud here as these two had been partners against Hogan but they blamed each other for the loss at Mania, resulting in Orndorff turning face eventually and then turning heel again to light the company on fire including a 60,000 person house show in Toronto.

This is a total brawl and not resembling a match in the slightest. They just beat the hell out of each other with punches, kicks and chokes. To be fair though that’s what this is supposed to be so they’re hitting the mark on that front. We hit the floor maybe a minute and a half in and it’s just nuts. Today this isn’t much but at this time it’s a big old brawl. Orndorff busts out a suplex and Jesse points out it’s the first wrestling move.

The referee puts the fastest ten count in recorded history on them but they’re both up. We hit the floor again and the fans are into this. We head up the aisle for the double countout which is the right thing to do. This never got a proper blowoff for some reason which is a shame. They fight into the back and Piper hides in a locker room as we go to a break.

Rating: C+. From a wrestling perspective this is awful but from a brawling perspective this was great. The idea was to just have these two want to kill each other and that’s how it went. This was one of the hottest feuds possible and it worked very well in that sense. It was a good brawl but FAR too short to be great.

Having recently cycled through most of the 80s SNME episodes, I recall this match distinctly as being just absolute mayhem, it was barely 5 minutes long but it was nonstop bell-to-bell hardcore brawling, reminiscent of a Moondogs match in Memphis, where the sheer brutality of the brawl mixed with the intense heat of the crowd made for just a thrilling match. Great short little match that I was happy to give *** to. I miss THIS Piper, the one that would stiff the fuck out of his opponents with lefts and rights in Portland (or in this case, New Jersey).

I will never understand why they turned Orndorff heel after this, he was SUPER over after his post-Wrestlemania face turn in '85. Seemed like they just turned him heel just to feed someone else to Hogan, which basically killed his character and inevitably his career. Not that I mind, because Orndorff was apparently a huge asshole.

 

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 9
Date: January 3, 1987
Location; Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, Connecticut
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

Well we’re around the time of Mania 3 but first Hogan has a big feud to end. This time it’s Paul Orndorff who he’s feuded with forever and it’s in a cage. Other than that there isn’t much at all, but that’s a semi-famous match if nothing else so it more than makes up for it. Two more after this as I try to finish this series off today. This is really just filler until we get to Mania so don’t expect much. Let’s get to it.

Orndorff says Hulkamania dies tonight. That needs to be copyrighted as whoever owned it would make a fortune.

Hogan says he’ll win from inside a cage.

Adonis says Piper will pay tonight.

Steele has a surprise for Savage.

Race says JYD will bow to him.

JYD says he’ll bow to no one.

All other theme songs bow to this one though.

Vince says welcome to the insurance capital of the world. Are you kidding me?

Orndorff, with his right arm clearly being smaller already, refuses to be interviewed. He was making $20,000 a night at times so how can you turn that down?

WWF World Title: Paul Orndorff vs. Hulk Hogan

This is the first cage match on network TV apparently. Well that’s kind of cool. Paul has stolen Hogan’s music at this point which is such a great heel tactic and someone needs to steal it today. Hogan says it’s time for a new start but the cage is a dead end for Orndorff. His eyes are bugging out of his head so he’s liked coked half to death.

Today this would be the main event of a major PPV like the Rumble with ease, if not Mania. In other words, this was HUGE. Orndorff jumps him early and we’re off to the races. Jess says the winner is the new champion. Does that mean the title is vacant? There are two officials here so keep that in mind as it’ll come into play later. Orndorff gets over the top but Hogan grabs him by the hair, allowing Jesse to get my favorite of his lines ever: Hogan would not be champion if Mr. Wonderful was bald. The delivery of it is just great.

Jesse is oddly hypocritical here by saying anything goes in a cage but then bitching about Hogan choking with a bandana. Vince keeps calling Hogan Champion Hogan. He’s done it at least 5 times in as many minutes. Danny Davis, the future evil referee, has the door locked for Hogan but unlocked for Orndorff. In a rather stupid moment, Hogan blocks a shot into the cage and rams Orndorff in, but Hogan winds up going in as well. Weird.

We get to the famous finish as both guys climb up on opposite sides and hit the floor at the seemingly same time where Davis names Orndorff as referee but Marella (Gorilla Monsoon’s son in some not that well known trivia) says it was Hogan. Jesse and Vince got at it over this. Fink says it’s a tie so we’re going to continue!

One key thing here is Orndorff is taking it to Hogan. He’s not a bit afraid of Hogan at all and isn’t your traditional challenger as he’s smaller than Hogan. One thing I’ve always wondered: why doesn’t Orndorff throw Hogan in and then just step back out and win the title? Davis is taken away thanks to Hogan hitting him earlier. Hogan Hulks Up and beats the living hell out of Wonderful, just completely destroying him for a long time before a leg drop (set up by a backbreaker of all things) lets him get out. He beats up Heenan for fun afterwards as a total dick since Heenan wasn’t even facing him.

Rating: B. You need the context of this match to get why it’s so good. This was the final blowoff to this feud that went on for at least half a year. It was the undisputed top feud in the company and drew a TON of money. Also keep in mind that this was the first televised cage match ever on national TV. It was a PPV-level main event on free TV so how could it not be huge? However, it was only the appetizer as soon after this, Hogan would get a trophy for being world champion for three years. Andre would get a smaller one for being undefeated for fifteen years. The Frenchman wasn’t happy with it.

Replays show Hogan won the tie by about a tenth of a second. Jesse talks about their legs being straight or bent which makes no sense but whatever.

Savage is listed as the Intercontinental Champion of the World. Savage tells Liz to shut up and threatens to slap her. He was PISSED here.

Intercontinental Title: George Steele vs. Randy Savage

Vince wanted Liz like no other. To be fair she does look great here. George again says he has a surprise and comes out with an action figure of himself. He gives it to Liz but Savage takes it and throws it down. Soon thereafter he’s flying through the air as Steele throws him all over the place. Savage comes back and sets for the elbow but some music hits and the roof gets blown off. RICKY FREAKING STEAMBOAT makes his return and stares down Savage. Macho loses his mind and no one can get Steamboat back. Steele gets the advantage as they finally get Ricky back to the locker room.

Steele kidnaps Liz and carries her away before he finally comes back. A buckle gets ripped open which was always a weird thing. Vince: “He’s only salivating on him.” It was a different time I guess. Steele bites his arm a bunch of times for some reason as Jesse asks why isn’t he being better fed. Savage gets hit by a foreign object but clocks Steele with the bell to retain. A post match beatdown is attempted but Steamboat comes down for the save.

Rating: D+. Match was a glorified comedy match but most of the encounters for these two were. The main thing here obviously is that it set up Savage vs. Steamboat in the legendary showdown at Mania III. Back in the day they built up shows from a far longer away time which made them feel more epic. That and Mania was the only PPV of the year so it really was the huge show to build up to.

Harley Race and Heenan talk about how everyone will bow. They even make Gene bow in a strange moment.

JYD says he won’t bow. I could go for some Breaking Benjamin now.

Junkyard Dog vs. Harley Race

JYD jumps him early but the evil referee is in there again. Belly to belly hits but Race drops a headbutt and hurts himself to let JYD take over. Race could bump like few others. It was just like an acrobat or something. Dog puts the crown and robe on so Heenan jumps him for the DQ. Heenan and Race beat him down afterwards and make him bow which doesn’t work at all.

Rating: D+. Nothing special here at all but since JYD is in there what did you really expect? This was again just a setup for Mania where they had a somewhat better match. I wasn’t wild on this one at all but I never liked the feud as a whole.

Heenan tells Paul he’s the world champion and he’ll get the tape to prove it. We see the video again and it’s still the same.

Adrian Adonis is back after Piper beat him up.

Piper says he has heart.

Roddy Piper vs. Adrian Adonis

Adonis is the Rico of this era so Piper of course can’t stand him. He gets hooked in the ropes and is having the hell beaten out of him. This is another really short match as Piper beats him up for a good while and they fight to the floor. Adonis blasts him with his perfume in the eyes and Piper gets counted out. The idea wasn’t to have a good match but to set up the real match at Mania again.

Rating: N/A. Nothing of note here as like I said this was just a setup for Piper’s retirement match at Mania which was a much more entertaining match which likely is because of it getting more than 3 minutes.

Hogan, in a swank Hulk jacket, says he isn’t worried about Heenan’s plan. His voice sounds awful here.

Blackjack Mulligan vs. Jimmy Jack Funk

Mulligan is the father of Barry Windham, father in law of IRS and grandfather of Husky Harris. This is the battle of Texas or something like that. Funk is in some Lone Ranger style mask and we have a female referee. There’s an inset interview with Mulligan where he blasts Funk and makes some stupid jokes. For you lucha libre fans, Funk is the older brother of Art Barr. A jumping back elbow wins for Mulligan.

Rating: N/A. Neither of these guys ever meant anything.

Overall Rating: C-. This wasn’t about the wrestling other than the opener but it set the table for Mania in a big way as Adonis vs. Piper and Savage vs. Steamboat are now set. The opener is a famous match and worth seeing for the sake of history if nothing else. The rest of the show is weak wrestling-wise, but it was about storyline building and on that front it wins. Good enough show though and nothing horrible.

 

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 24
Date: November 25, 1989
Location: Kansas Expo Center, Topeka, Kansas
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

The Survivor Series just happened and while it had the most awesome team in history (Hogan, Demolition and Jake), there isn’t much going on here. Because this was taped in October there won’t be any discussion of the show so this is really just a placeholder show. The Rumble stuff wouldn’t start until later on as that wasn’t a big deal yet either for the most part. Also the world title match and the only damn thing that mattered at Mania would be started up. Let’s get to it as this is the next to last one of these I have to do.

This show is about 20 minutes longer than the others so it was likely a two hour show. Very interesting.

Warrior says Andre better remember Jack and the Beanstalk.

Heenan says Andre is real, not a fairy tale.

Dusty is going to teach Boss Man about justice.

Boss Man and Slick say Rhodes is a common thief.

Genius wants the world title.

Hogan thinks Genius isn’t that smart.

This theme song is brilliant.

We get a quick recap of Warrior going after Heenan and Andre nearly killing him because of it. Heenan basically says Andre will win and Rude won’t be upset because it’s in the family. Andre is terrifying and funny at the same time.

Intercontinental Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Andre the Giant

This was booked on a few dozen house shows but the key was it never went past like two minutes. Warrior says he isn’t afraid. One good thing about Warrior: he never wasted time on an intro. Andre jumps him to start which is odd for him and even Jesse sees that. Warrior actually chokes Andre down and in a funny moment Andre ducks out of the way and Warrior goes flying over the top. Just funny that he did something so basic for the stop.

One of the good things about Andre is his size lets any basic move look awesome. The problem is that Warrior is still insane here and Andre is FAR past his prime here and he needs someone capable in the ring to make him work. Andre gets knocked to the floor and it’s on out there. Warrior uses a bearhug back in the ring and it looks ridiculous. Has Andre not brushed his teeth in like 9 years or so?

Andre hooks a bearhug of his own and is on the mat with it. This is FAR too long as all of Warrior’s energy which is what makes this win look possible is gone at this point and nothing at all works for either guy. Andre is tied up in the ropes to just extend this even longer. Heenan comes in for the DQ and thank goodness for it.

Rating: F. This was just bad in general. It went on nearly eight minutes which is longer than Andre was in the ring for his entire tag title reign I think. This was a bad idea because of the length. At house shows, it was maybe two minutes at most which is what made it work. This was just horrible and it didn’t go well at all.

Genius says he’s smart.

Hogan says a poem and does some math. As good as it sounds.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. The Genius

Genius kind of prances around and this is definitely going to be a comedy match. He even uses a nip up which just wasn’t done back then. All Hogan here and Genius stops to write something on his scroll. He was incredibly athletic and skins the cat to get back in. And then Genius slaps Hogan in the face. Hogan gets tired of Genius doing his stuff and takes his head off with a clothesline.

Hogan is killing him now and then prances around the ring. Like him or not, the guy knew how to play to a crowd like no one else in history could. And here’s Mr. Perfect to mess everything up. He looks at the belt and says it’s not perfect and puts gum on it. Hogan gets posted and back in the ring a moonsault gets two. He Hulks Up and Genius goes to the floor. Perfect clocks Hogan with the belt and GENIUS WINS! THE GENIUS BEAT HOGAN! WITH THE TITLE ON THE LINE! Perfect runs away with the title in hand.

Rating: B-. Total comedy match that set up Hogan vs. Perfect for a few months if nothing else. This wasn’t supposed to be a serious match and you flat out can’t grade it as one. This was a hilarious match at times as someone for once tried to outsmart Hogan and it worked like a charm. This was perfectly played and while the match was nothing, the comedy and thinking was great. I liked this a lot but most people wouldn’t.

We recap Dusty vs. Bossman which is Dusty stopping Bossman from beating people up after his matches.

Slick says Dusty is in trouble.

Dusty is here to fight for justice. Does he mean Prince Justice? He looks like he hasn’t slept in a year.

Dusty Rhodes vs. Big Bossman

Dusty wants Slick thrown out but can’t get that. Bossman dominates to start with the help of Slick. Dusty gets to lay on his back for awhile so something must be working. A short fat woman at ringside yells at Slick. Dusty has gotten NOTHING in here at all. His comeback only lasts a bit as Slick gets the nightstick. Bossman yells at the lady from earlier and gets rolled up for the pin. The lady gets to dance in the ring and would become Sapphire.

Rating: D. Total domination here but Dusty got punches in and then a rollup to win the match. I hate that booking and always have. It makes Bossman look kind of weak since he managed to lose to a quick rollup like that and little of his offense did anything. This was just bad, but I’d put that on Dusty.

Red Rooster says he’ll beat Mr. Perfect.

Perfect says he’ll reveal the whole belt thing later tonight.

Red Rooster vs. Mr. Perfect

Genius reads a poem mocking Rooster and introduces Perfect. Rooster goes for an over the top chickenwing which doesn’t work. Perfect beats him up for a little while until Rooster makes a quick comeback. And then the Perfect Plex ends this. Can I get this four minutes of my life back please?

Rating: N/A. This was nothing at all but a squash for Perfect. Taylor would be in WCW in about a month.

Rockers say they’re really keen.

Heenan is arguing with the Brainbusters over who is the talent here.

Brainbusters vs. The Rockers

This is 2/3 falls. Before the match we have a commercial and since this is from 1989, there’s an ad for Batman now on VHS! Tully was in black before the break and is in red now. I love stuff like that. Jannetty and Blanchard start us off and it’s all drug addict. Wait…might need some more explanation there. Blanchard was forced to retire just after this due to a failed test. Jannetty gets a sunset flip for the pin on Tully for the first fall in like a minute and a half after some basic stuff.

Bobby is PISSED at them and leaves them on their own. The Rockers clean house and work on Arn. This is the sharpest they’ve ever looked and it’s working great. Shawn goes too fast and gets a hot shot to even us up as Jesse leaves to talk to Heenan.

Back from the break and Jesse has found Bobby. He says this is the worst team he’s ever worked with, which is saying a lot given that he had Red Rooster and Brooklyn Brawler for awhile. Bobby fires them more or less which makes sense as this is their final match with the company.

Shawn is hurt to start the third fall and is in there with Tully. I feel sorry for him. SICK spinebuster on Shawn which didn’t have a name at this point. Shawn plays Ricky Morton here but makes the tag and literally brings the crowd to their feet. Shawn stops a spike piledriver and hits a high cross body on Arn to win it.

Rating: C-. Not great but this was about the angle more than anything else. The Rockers could have been any team here but they were fun and exciting and were in the Heenan Family match at Survivor Series so they made the most sense. This was a decent enough match but really was a squash. That’s not something that happens to the former Horsemen that often.

Perfect is destroying the belt with a hammer. That would of course become the Hardcore Title. Perfect wants a title shot and would get a ton on house shows.

Hogan gets the busted up belt and is all sad over it. The belt they replaced it with was the same design which makes sense as it was like two and a half years old at that point. He does a big dramatic promo about it and throws the belt down in anger.

Vince and Jesse do their usual wrap-up.

Overall Rating: D+. I had this a bit higher than remembered that opener. This was more of a transitional show than anything else and the wrestling was pretty subpar. The highlight by far is Genius vs. Hogan and other than that it’s pretty much downhill. This was an ok show at best but there wasn’t much going on in the ring. Only one to go and I hope it’s better than this.

 

[klunderbunker]

Saturday Night’s Main Event 20
Date: March 11, 1989
Location: Hersheypark Arena, Hershey, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

We close it out with this. This would be the go home show for Mania 5. The Mega Powers have officially split and tonight Liz has to pick one of them. I feel like I’m on Springer or something. We also have Hogan vs. Bad News Brown which is kind of a controversial match as it more or less caused Brown to realize he was never going to be a main event guy. He wound up leaving a year and a half later but this was kind of the first straw. Other than that we have nothing of note, so let’s get to it.

We recap the Mega Powers breaking up about a month or so ago and the show is titled the Decision of a Lifetime.

Jesse sort of takes over the intro and sends us to Gene which makes Vince upset.

Bobby says he wants to get rid of Beefcake to protect the image of Rude.

Beefcake threatens to cut Rude’s hair.

Brutus Beefcake vs. Rick Rude

This is like the dream match of the 80s midcard. I mean think about it: these two were the guys that were always dominating either side of the midcard and yet they never got a huge feud together which is a shame. Rude has Warrior’s face on his tights, which I guess means the feud hadn’t started yet since Jesse isn’t sure why it’s there. Beefcake gets the sleeper early but lets it go for no apparent reason. I guess you can chalk it up to a lack of intelligence.

Ok so apparently Rude vs. Warrior is already set. Rude takes over for a little while and here comes Andre, perhaps looking for a hot sandwich or maybe a side of beef. I love Rude’s overselling of atomic drops. Andre gets Brutus on the floor and chokes him. Cue Jake for the run-in and the natural DQ. John Studd, who would ultimately referee Andre vs. Roberts, makes the save.

Rating: D+. This never really went anywhere as it just couldn’t get off the ground. The whole run in ending didn’t help this either. There was no real structure and definitely no story going on in it. I really would have liked to see a long program from these guys but alas it never happened.

Hogan says he’ll win.

Brown says Hogan needs to worry about Savage. There’s also a hint of Liz sleeping with Tunney for helping Savage. That went nowhere.

Hogan says stuff about Savage.

Hulk Hogan vs. Bad News Brown

Liz is with Hogan. The arena is weird looking as there’s no entryway but rather what looks like a hockey board that they open up. Brown takes over to start as is the tradition for a lot of Hogan matches. This only lasts a few minutes as I’m amazed at what Brown was back in this era. If he had been around say 8 years later, he would have been pure gold. Hogan goes to the head but it doesn’t work, making me really wonder how many of these stereotypes were unintentional.

Brown accidently punches the post and this has been pretty one sided so far with Hogan dominating for the most part. Hogan no sells a chair shot and Brown leaves, saying hang on a second. He comes back shortly….with a broom? It goes nowhere and Brown FINALLY takes over with a clothesline. Brown gets a legdrop for two but it’s only kind of a power kickout.

Hogan gets beaten up and then Brown grabs the mic and goes Rock, talking to Hogan and telling him it’s Ghetto Blaster (his finisher, a running enziguri) time which of course misses. Maybe it would have hit if he hadn’t told him that. Hogan hits a high knee to set up the leg drop to end it. Well that’s different. He and Liz pose a lot.

Rating: C+. Not bad at all here. Again, Brown was an AWESOME character and could have been a great heel both here and ten years later. Him vs. Rock or Austin would have sold great and the fact that he was a legit fighter (Bronze medal in judo in the Olympics) would have easily opened the door to MMA if he wanted to go there. Decent little match and different than what you’re used to from Hulk which is a nice change of pace.

Savage wants Liz’s answer.

Ted DiBiase unveils the Million Dollar Belt.

Blazer says he’s going to fly, even from the rafters if he has to. Holy shit.

Ted DiBiase vs. Blue Blazer

Blazer is a kind of superhero character played by Owen Hart. Blazer backflips into the ring and DiBiase just drills him with a clothesline. This is more or less DiBiase being his usual awesome self and Blazer trying to get out of the blocks. He manages to land on his feet coming out of a backdrop which was very nice. Cross body gets two and DiBiase is in trouble. In a very quick ending, Blazer is dominating but gets caught in a powerslam for the pin.

Rating: B-. Given that this was less than four minutes long, this was very good. Owen had a knack for fast matches that only went a few minutes and making them awesome. This was a great example of that as in less than four minutes there are two distinct advantages and then an ending which makes sense for the match as Blazer said he would go higher and higher but DiBiase caught him going too high and got the win because of it. And that my friends, is why DiBiase was one of the best ever as far as psychology goes.

Liz comes out for the announcement and cops out by saying she’ll be in both. At first she says no about Hogan so Savage comes out and is a dick, so of course she says no to him too. Savage’s insanity was just perfect, especially since he could more than back it up in the ring. Hogan comes out and we have the big standoff with Liz in the middle. It’s still an awesome visual to see this showdown. If Savage had held the belt at Mania, the rematch could have drawn MILLIONS.

Quick cameo: Pat Patterson (with BLACK hair) stops Savage from going insane. Well more insane I guess.

Heenan is tired of the Rockers and the Brainbusters are going to win the titles. Odd that the last show was their exit and this is their (TV) debut.

The Rockers, also in their national TV debut, say they’ll steal the show.

Brainbusters vs. Rockers

Slingshot suplex is countered maybe 2 seconds in. This is insanity from the get go. Shawn nips up and catches Arn coming off the top. Just incredibly fast paced stuff here with Shawn and Tully putting on a clinic out there. One of the reasons the Brainbusters were awesome was that they could wrestle absolutely any style from fast to slow to ground to aerial to submission to brawling or whatever. Heenan pulls the top rope down and Shawn goes over so Brain is tossed.

After a break the Busters get a blind tag and Arn drills Jannetty to take over for his team. Marty gets beaten down for a little while but the hot tag to Shawn evens things out all over again. It falls apart and Shawn freaking DIVES over the ropes to get at Arn, throwing punches as he goes down. It’s a double count out but that’s fine as neither team should lose here.

Rating: B. I really liked this and thought about going a bit higher. This was a very fast paced match and a way to show off both of these teams for how awesome they really were. The Rockers would remain awesome for a good while as would the Busters. How did the Rockers never officially win the tag belts? It’s saying a lot that the Harts and other teams were that much better.

We recap Red Rooster turning face with even less people caring somehow. This led to the Brooklyn Brawler joining the Heenan Family in one of the funniest backhanded compliments ever. Heenan picked him to push against Rooster because he could take anyone and make them as good as he made Rooster. In other words, no talent required!

Heenan says Brawler is a bigger and better nobody than Rooster. This was probably a rib somehow but it was great.

Rooster says he’s a somebody. And he’s good enough, he’s smart enough, and doggone it, people like him.

Red Rooster vs. Brooklyn Brawler

The match starts while we’re in a break and it’s a squash. It’s a minute long and Rooster wins with a small package. I think that’s longer than the “blowoff” of Rooster vs. Heenan at Mania.

That’s the last match I get to review for SNME. That’s kind of pitiful.

Savage is pissed off and says he doesn’t need Liz to end the show.

Overall Rating: B. This is a fairly high grade but this was a good show. Four matches and a minute long whatever with some nice build to Mania thrown in. What more can you ask for, including a rather good tag match. This worked all around and is a great way to cap off this series. This was kind of a weird time for the company as Mania 5 kind of sucked but better days were coming. Good way to close this out though.

And that’s Saturday Night’s Main Event. The older shows are definitely the more important ones as later on there just wasn’t a need for these. The final of the old run was less than two months before Raw debuted. There simply wasn’t a need for them anymore, which is why the last four of them in the new era completely and utterly bombed.

Back in 1985 when this show debuted it was as a reaction to the explosion of wrestling due to the Rock N Wrestling Connection. To go from maybe getting syndication in a city here or there to getting an hour and a half on Saturday night on NBC, a national network, was a massive step up for Vince. It made wrestling a thing that you could see anywhere in the country which changed everything as this went beyond cable, which had been the big thing.

This was a chance for the masses to see these guys like Hulk Hogan or Randy Savage or Ricky Steamboat or Demolition etc. It opened up the doors to the masses and Vince spared no cost in making the show look great. They were in huge arenas with expensive productions and everything worked. The shows may not have been great but they didn’t need to be.

They were on network TV and the idea was to get people’s attention. To say it worked is an understatement as it gave birth to Monday Night Raw, which is of course the longest running episodic cable television show in history. Did You Know that?

Anyway, the show needs to stay dead now as it means nothing, but to say it made a big old impact is an understatement. I've spent over eight months reviewing these shows and it was hard to end the series, but it frees up more time to do other stuff, which is always fun. Once I can find them I'll do the five spin-offs called The Main Event.

 

[GIMH]

Thanks for these reviews KB, I can honestly say I have never seen any of these shows right through but am very much considering the SNME DVD on the back of these.

One question about the last one though, you mentioned that it was the TV debut for both the Rockers and Brain Busters? Is this correct? Only that it's thrown me given that they were both on the 88 Survivor Series, had a massive brawl with each other in fact.

 

[klunderbunker]

National TV debut. Before then everything was syndicated. Maybe it was just network. It was one of those.

As for the DVD, well worth the purchase as you get every high point on there but none of the bullshit. One of the best they've ever released.

 

[pyrusane]

Savage comes back and sets for the elbow but some music hits and the roof gets blown off. RICKY FREAKING STEAMBOAT makes his return and stares down Savage. Macho loses his mind and no one can get Steamboat back. Steele gets the advantage as they finally get Ricky back to the locker room.

I've been waiting for you to get to this one. I watched this one live as a kid (meaning when it originally aired, not live like Raw is live, of course) and when Steamboat came out I lost it. I didn't even know who he was except for they had talked during the match about how Savage had used the ring bell on Steamboat's throat. So when I saw this guy come out and they said it was him I freaked out. I was too young to realize that it wasn't real so I thought it was the coolest thing ever. It was this moment that I became both a professional wrestling fan as well as a lifelong Ricky Steamboat fan. For that reason alone this is my absolute favorite of all your reviews, KB. Thanks for the memory...