Smugly watches random major WWF and WCW (and maybe other American promotions) shows/collections from before 2001 (when he feels like it)

SirSmUgly · February 22

WHEREAS writing about pro wrestling is legitimately good practice for me and makes me happy, and

WHEREAS I've got to go about finding all the material for the next longform project that I plan to do, and

WHEREAS I ain't got time to do that right now, but I still like writing about pro wrestling, and

WHEREAS this is the WWE board, which is probably the best place for this sort of thing as opposed to the general board where I eventually put my random Euro matches thread, and

WHEREAS I have access to Netflix and YouTube anyway, so what the hell, and,

WHEREAS I have no desire to watch much wrestling at all from this still shiny-and-new millennium,

THEREFORE, I decree this to be a thread that I shall update through the years with notes on various shows from 2001 or earlier put on by WWF, WCW, and JCP, including (but not limited to):

WWF and WCW PPVs (the latter will not include PPVs already covered in my Nitro Era thread)
WWF Coliseum Video Collections (I don't expect to spend a lot of time on these, but maybe there's an interesting couple of them worth writing about in there)
WCW Clash of the Champions shows (addendum w/r/t Nitro Era thread applies here)
JCP Omni shows and Crockett Cups (AW YEAH)
Any other major shows from other major U.S. and Canadian territories and promotions that existed before then (with potential lead-in episodes of weekly television written up alongside them when I think it's important or just feel like it)

THEREFORE, I now decree this thread open for much commentary on wrestling of the semi-distant past.

SIGNED,

Sir Smelly McUgly, Esq. (disclaimer: I do not have an official title and am not a lawyer).

SirSmUgly · February 22

WWF One Night Only (20 September 1997)

A show in which Shawn Michaels ruins the hopes and dreams of a terminally-ill young lady

Hype package: The opening hype video for this show (a show which I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen in full) puts over Davey Boy Smith as the babyface of all babyfaces (except for in the United States, where things are backwards and topsy-turvy *cough*). Of course, this show will end (according to Bret Hart) with Davey losing his European Championship to a pill-addled Shawn Michaels after thinking he’d win and promising as much to his dying young niece or cousin or sister, whichever it was, in attendance. So there’s that meta-drama going on…

…but also, the WWF missed a trick by not having Bret Hart lose his SummerSlam match to the Undertaker, be banned from wrestling in America, and then win the WWF World Championship from the Undertaker at this show (or at one of the untelevised shows in their Western Canada swing they went upon at the end of August). Having Bret essentially holding the title hostage because he was barred from defending it in the United States, and watching as a harried Vince McMahon stacks the deck more and more against Bret in the Hitman’s mandatory title defenses each time WWE leaves the country would have been incredible. I believe the guy who wrote the Rewriting the Book series also had that same idea, but I can’t remember if I even read that story or what it entailed. In any case, my rewriting of this book is Bret winning the title in Victoria, BC on 29 August 1997 (making sure to tape and plaster that match all over the weekly television after it happens), barely surviving a defense against the Undertaker in a rematch here at One Night Only, and basically driving Vince up a wall by threatening to hold the belt forever and destroy his company until Vince is forced to turn to the one guy with the same burning, seething hatred of Bret that Vince has now developed – Stone Cold Steve Austin. Austin wins it in Montreal, Vince gets in the ring to gratefully shake his hand, kick-wham-Stunner, and we’re off with Austin/McMahon a few months earlier than it happened!

(Of course, assuming that I have the hindsight to do this, I also tell Owen Hart to nix any ideas about hitting piledrivers on Austin at SummerSlam '97.)

Match: Anyway, let’s talk about what actually occurred at this show. First off, here’s Chyna! Oh yeah, and her heat drain Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Trips is entering to his best theme (“Ode to Joy”) instead of rock music that I do not enjoy, and I apologize to you Motorhead enjoyers for feeling this way, but I am anti-listening-to-Motorhead in my personal life. I hope that you can forgive me. His opponent, Dude Love, does a terrible British accent and drops a couple of dad puns in an interview before his entrance (“I know, I know, I’m missing two teeth. Actually, they’re gone, but I don’t miss them! HO HO HO, jolly good fun!”). I note here that Dude is introduced as being from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, but no, that’s where Cactus Jack is from. Dude seems like he’s just a guy from Long Island who strikes out at clubs a whole lot.

Dude starts out by using power (shoulderblock) and guile (stopping short on a rope run as Hunter leapfrogs, then punching Trips right in the face) to control. He backs Hunter into the corner, yanks him out of it by his feet, and lands a huge stump piledriver. No, scratch that last move - he lands a huge 23 Skidoo. That’s it. Hunter manages to poke Dude in the eye, but he just goes right back to getting his ass whipped rather than pressing his advantage. The story early on is that none of Hunter’s heel tricks work. He tries an eye gouge – nothin’. He leaves the ring, circles it, and jumps in the other side – he’s cut off. Dude is rolling as he drops a leg across HHH’s arm, bars it, and drives a couple of knees into the crook of Trips’s elbow. Over at the desk, Lawler calls Vince and Jim Ross a couple of pillocks. He then giggles about it. Yep, that’s our 1997 WWF announcing team!

Ross is surprised that Dude continues to outwrestle HHH, but Mick’s got moves. Dude has wrapped on an Indian Deathlock at this point and uses his leverage to snap Hunter’s ankle. Dude gets Hunter back to his feet, throws a few forearms at him, and shoots him into the corner; Hunter does a version of Flair’s corner bump in which he hangs himself in the Tree of Woe position so that Dude can punch at his knee and ankle before landing a running forearm smash to Hunter's grill. Dude loads up for Sweet Shin Music, but HHH dodges it, escapes to the floor, and then sends Dude on a merry chase around the ring and right into a Chyna lariat. This is absolutely the right way to book this match – Hunter is an inept dolt who needs his charisma machine and outside-the-ring lariat thrower Chyna to help him do anything at all.

Chyna casually throws forearms at Dude from her spot outside the ring as Hunter tries to press his advantage; Dude attempts one comeback that is stuffed by a knee to the face; Hunter follows by wrapping Dude in an abdominal stretch and then yanking the ropes for leverage, but not in the fun way that Scott Hall does where he slowly snakes his arm out. I do appreciate, though, that Hunter screams SHUT UP at the crowd while they try to alert the ref to Trips's cheating. Ref Mike Chioda in fact catches Hunter at it, breaks up the rope grab, and then wins a shoving match with HHH after he does. Trips’s Ric Flair cosplay is working for this crowd, so I’m okay with it.

The whole ordeal totally unfocuses Hunter, who loses track of Dude and eats a pair of punches when he finally reengages with him. Dude whips Hunter forcefully into the corner and hits him with a face crusher on the rebound, but only earns two on the cover. Dude tries another whip to the corner, but Hunter’s seen that move twice this match and finally reverses it, then scores a swinging neckbreaker as Dude stumbles out of the corner. Hunter curtsies to the crowd, then sets Dude up for a Pedigree, but Dude escapes with a double-leg trip, then slingshots Hunter face-first into the corner buckles.

Both men get up around the count of seven in the ref’s standing ten-count. Dude wins a punch-up and then bashes Hunter “nose-first,” as Ross pointedly puts it, into the buckles ten times. Dude scores one corner clothesline, gets booted away from a second one, and manages to catch Hunter trying to follow up with a top-rope move and super arm drags him to the mat. Dude loads up Sweet Shin Music, hits it, and follows with a Kobashi DDT, but when he covers, Chyna casually reaches into the ring and puts Hunter’s boot on the ropes to break the count. Dude gets up and jabbers at the ref, which gives Hunter time to get to his feet and meet Dude with a boot to the gut and a Pedigree as soon as Dude turns away from Chioda. One three count later, and Hunter Hearst Helmsley wins this match, but really, we all saw that Chyna actually won this one because she rules. Solid opener, but Mick playing Dude Love for comedy has him basically stuck as a midcard joke. He needs Cactus to come back soon to give him that third dimension.

Chats with ham ‘n eggers: OK, since this show is the UK, I’m temporarily naming this version of our section on segments in which fans share their predictions on the outcomes of the night’s matches Chats with bacon sandwich gobblers. It’s a close enough approximation.. Of course, there’s a stereotypical mopey British dude who is bummed about his country (“Well, there’s not too many good things to come out of Britain: Frank Bruno, then rubbish.”). Otherwise, there's a lot of Bulldog support in the crowd, naturally. Wait, except for the women. Almost all the ladies are like YEAH, SHAWN MICHAELS. The teen and adult males are Bulldog backers. The kids are split maybe 60/40 Bulldog? I mean, these are selectively chosen and edited, but I’m interested to see if the wider crowd reactions when they make it to the ring at all mimic the responses in this segment [Editor's note: Not entirely, but the response of the ladies definitely held].

Match: Sunny walks to the ring, and Jim Ross notes that she’s Page 3 girl-level. Look, fuck the Sun, and also, you can call the whole thing regressive, but I cannot tell a lie: Page 3’s online site definitely helped sustain me as a teenager. Even so, fuck the Sun. Ross also suggests that Sunny could be a Spice Girl (mmm, I don’t know about that), and then he notes that Page 3 girls and the Spice Girls are the extent of his knowledge about British pop culture, which is a real shame as the UK had some pretty good pop culture going at the time (and does now, for that matter). Get outside of your little Oklahoma box, buddy! There’s a whole world out there!

The wrestlers that Sunny introduces are Leif Cassidy and Tiger Ali Singh (w/Tiger Jeet Singh). Ah, they have Sunny out here to soften the blow. Cassidy/Al Snow is pretty much Terry Taylor – solid mechanics, boring as shit. Tiger Ali Singh is dogshit. Ali Singh, uh, is babyfacing for the folks in the audience here, but being a heel for anyone watching from the U.S., I think? He calls himself the messiah and tells the kids to stay “drug free” while flexing his Dianabol-enhanced arms, but he also calls himself a proud Asian-Canadian and insinuates that he also thinks the U.S. has gone too far with their love of angry white dudes who love to destroy everything they can get their hands on. Then Tiger Jeet speaks Punjab, which I’d think would be a heel move for most of this crowd in Birmingham. I don’t know, I’m from the U.S., so I don’t feel that I can criticize UK-based racism with the same fairness or authority that I can U.S.-based racism (like Lawler saying that Tiger Jeet “looks like a New York cab driver," and I know you’re a heel, but FUCK OFF, LAWLER anyway because you’d say the same thing as a babyface in Memphis).

Still, this bored crowd seems to slightly prefer Al Snow has he leads the shitty, can’t-even-lift-his-legs-properly-to-be-hoisted-onto-the-top-rope Singh through a match that ends with Singh scoring the pinfall after somehow landing a better looking top-rope diving bulldog than Rick Steiner regularly did, which says something about Rick Steiner (and it ain’t good). Lawler pervs on Sunny at commentary after Singh covers for three; Sunny walks over to the commentary desk and shows some love to the fellas.

Recap: At In Your House: Ground Zero, a show that I’ll probably get around to reviewing at some point in this thread, Stone Cold Steve Austin hit Owen Hart with a Stone Cold Stunner during Owen and Bulldog’s tag title defense against the Headbangers, and now the Headbangers are your new WWF World Tag Team Champions.

Match: The Headbangers (Mosh and Thrasher) embark upon a tag title defense against Los Boricuas (Savio Vega and Miguel Perez). The Headbangers are one of those acts in the WWF Dark Ages that people sorta forget about, but who were perfectly solid workers who also had a gimmick that helped form a bridge between the New Generation and Attitude Eras. They are also pretty over with this Birmingham crowd, and I do remember them being fairly solidly over as a team throughout the era until they were pushed into the background as the New Age Outlaws came to the fore. I feel that the Headbangers shifting their gimmick to be drug-addled dudes who go to shows more to get a free chance to stomp someone out in a mosh pit than to enjoy the music would have been a perfectly reasonable way to frame and use them throughout the Attitude Era.

Both teams trade headlocks and headscissors to start; when they get to running, Savio manages to clobber Thrasher on a rope run and put him in FIP jail. The Boricuas heel control segment is fine; the crowd’s HEAD-BANG-ERS chant is high-pitched, indicating that the kids and/or ladies are most into their act. They work a spot in which the heels draw Mosh into the ring so that they can double up on him behind the refs back, but most of this is headlocks and nerve holds. I know that Savio and Perez have better in them than this. Thrasher gets a flash pinfall attempt off for two, but is kicked in the head immediately after Savio kicks out; Savio gets two, then tags in Perez, who shoot whiffs on a second-rope dive and makes up for it immediately with a nice standing moonsault follow-up for two. Lawler gets his obligatory “Miguel Perez is quite hairy” comments in here.

More nerve holds! Let’s move it along to the hot tag, fellas! But no, they do more ref distraction spots instead, including a couple of “heels don’t tag, but clap their hands, and the ref allows it even though he didn’t see it, while the babyfaces get an actual tag and the ref disallows it because he didn’t see it.” The best babyface tag teams do the “don’t tag, but clap their hands” thing to annoy the heels who are mad that the babyfaces are stealing from their playbook. The Rock ‘n Rolls and Fantastics would do this, and I always appreciated it as a kid because it showed that they weren’t stupid and that they could be as petty as the shitheads they were forced to wrestle each week.

This FIP segment goes on for so much time that at one point, I wondered if I could now legally collect Social Security (or if it still exists to collect at all). While I ponder my financial future, Thrasher gets another two count off a flash pinfall attempt and then goes back to, oh man, being a face in peril, though at least it’s only for another minute. He dodges a Savio corner charge, lands a back suplex, and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE MAKE THE HOT TAG, and thank the good Lord, he does. Mosh is an abode engulfed in flames as he clears out Savio and lands a top-rope Frankensteiner on Perez for two. He next tries a nice floatover powerslam on Perez, but Savio breaks it up at two. Mosh disposes of Savio at ringside while Perez struggles to powerbomb the illegal man Thrasher in the ring. Perez pulls it off, but turns right into Mosh’s diving seated splash that earns a three count for the reigning champs. OK, cool, but can we have a good match next? The last two have been a bummer.

Interview time [w/Jim Ross]: Oh no, it’s Davey Boy’s sister who has the terminal cancer, and Davey Boy gets in depth about how bad her battle has been. Well, now I definitely don’t want to see Shawn Michaels win this fucking match! Dammit! Davey also talks about his training regimen and his plan to slim down a bit to counter Michaels’s quickness while also still holding the power advantage against him. This is actually a pretty solid little interview.

Match: Flash Funk dances to the ring for the entertainment of one Vince McMahon Jr., whom you should know also dances pretty good (for a white guy) and who also at the time had his black wrestlers working either Black Nationalist or Huggy Bear gimmicks. His opponent, and the heel for the night, enters to what would become Kurt Angle’s “Medal:” The Patriot, Del Wilkes. This show was a prime chance for the Brits to originate the YOU SUCK chants, and honestly had they started up as the Patriot made it to the floor, I frankly wouldn’t have been surprised that they were the ones to actually innovate the chant. It’s kind of what they do. Funk and the Patriot shake hands and then get to the graps. This match should be a palate cleanser after the past couple bouts. They go all catch as catch can on the mat, have a stalemate, shake hands once again, and then fight over a side headlock.

The Patriot sends Funk into the ropes and wins a shoulderblock to boos. They engage again and have a nice series of trips, counters, and dodges that leads into a Funk dropkick. Funk follows up with an arm drag, but his spinning back kick attempt when the Patriot gets back to his feet whiffs, and Wilkes lands a nice lariat and puts Funk in a chinlock. Nah, keep the pace up, fellas.

There we go; they get to moving again. The Patriot keeps neutralizing Funk’s kick game; this time, he catches one and shoves Funk to the mat before going back to the chinlock. Funk works to his feet; the Patriot shoots him into the corner, but his corner charge is ducked. Funk skins the cat all the way onto the top rope and hits a diving crossbody for two. Funk tries another spinning back kick, and it is again caught by the Patriot; Funk lands a clothesline instead for two, but I kinda hope the finish is Funk not being able to stop with all the kicks that are a major aspect of his offensive arsenal and losing because the Patriot has scouted that part of his game thoroughly. That would be a nicely-built finish.

This is a pretty good match! The Patriot Americas up, shrugs off some Funk chops, and eventually lands a nice atomic drop/back suplex combo. Wilkes wastes time firing himself up before covering and only earns a two count, so he goes to the body scissors as a follow-up. I’m not sure how Vince feels about this match: “Flash Funk and the Patriot…somewhat of a different style of match than we’ve seen of late.” Meanwhile, Funk squirms away from the body scissors and locks on a surfboard, then transitions into an armbar. That’s a mistake, as the Patriot leverages to his feet and shoots Funk in, but Funk manages to finally land a spinning front kick for two.

Funk tries to follow up by bouncing off the ropes, but runs right into a floatover powerslam for two. The Patriot sends Funk into the ropes, but Funk fires off a kick on the rebound and manages a sunset flip for two. Upon kicking out, the Patriot lands a nice clothesline and then goes up top for a diving shoulderblock that only earns two on the cover.

Yeah, I absolutely dig this match. Funk makes a comeback and lands a diving splash for two; he goes back up and launches a gorgeous moonsault, but not a successful one! The Patriot gets his knees up pn contact and then quickly scores an Uncle Slam on the winded Funk for three. This was a total Hidden Midcard Gem of a match. The crowd boos the victorious Patriot even though the UK is pretty much the U.S. with fewer guns no matter how much they want to deny it!

Gab Gab Gab: Animal and Hawk yell about some nefarious attack that the Godwinns perpetrated upon them at a previous show. Hawk shares a strange poem about that attack and the upcoming beatdown that he plans to visit upon the Godwinns’ personages in response. It’s silly.

Match: Oh yeah, Henry Godwinn legitimately almost drove his own spine through his asshole after taking a terrible bump off a Doomsday Device a few months before this show, which explains why the Godwinns (Henry O. and Phineas I.) are in the ring looking for more revenge against the Legion of Doom (Hawk and Animal). Jim Ross asks who could ever forget the LoD’s appearance at SummerSlam ’92, but I’d assume that Hawk maybe forgot it, what with all the pre-show consumption of Placidyls and then the wandering away after the show and getting lost somewhere in the UK, ghosting Animal, and not popping up to tag with him again until they reunited in 1996 WCW.

The conservative-leaning commentators at the desk compare these hog farming slowpokes in the ring to Rhodes Scholar Bill Clinton. Sure, you can argue that Clinton and the Godwinns are both total heels, but there’s no reason to pretend that they all share the same lack of brainpower simply because they’re from Arkansas. No politics, you fucks. Especially not you, McMahon.

There are a lot of headlocks tonight! Phineas tags in and immediately works one. Quite honestly, Henry Godwinn is an underrated worker. Is it because he got most of his TV time in the lightly-watched early ‘90s WCW and then received the rest of it in lightly-watched mid-‘90s WWF? I think so. Also, the complete loss of the Southern territory system probably doesn’t help. I feel like Godwinn/Shanghai Pierce ends up with a much better reputation and career if he enters the business in 1973.

This is another pretty dull tag match. Henry has a nice elbowdrop, though. I’ll tell you when something interesting happens besides this arm work on face-in-peril Animal that I don’t expect to go anywhere interesting. OK, Animal soon earns a hot tag to Hawk, who lands a series of body slams before scoring a reverse neckbreaker on Phineas for two. Henry makes the save and the match breaks down; Henry manages a Slop Drop on Hawk and then knees Animal off the ropes, but he also celebrates a bit, and that extra bit of delay gives Hawk enough recovery time to kick out.

Hawk is now our FIP; Jim Ross gives the UK fans watching this on Sky Sports a very benign and barely detailed history lesson about the Confederate flag patches that the Godwinns are wearing. I didn’t hear the words “slavery” or “traitors” or anything like that. You might as well have said nothing at all, Ross. Seriously though, I don’t even think he used the word “Southern states!” I’m not asking him to explain why there is a West Virginia or who John C. Calhoun is or anything, but come on, man. Anyway, the babyfaces make a comeback and land a Doomsday Device on Phineas, who thankfully rotates all the way upon taking the bump and thus only destroys his knees a little bit rather than his spinal column a whole lot. The Legion of Doom scores an easy pinfall off the move and head back down the aisle the victors.

Interview time [w/Jim Ross]: After Lawler freaks out about his screwy hairline over at the desk, we go to the ring, where Ken Shamrock joins Ross. Shamrock was supposed to wrestle tonight, but Shamrock was apparently legit injured while taking a classic stiff-ass Faarooq spinebuster in a previous match. Shamrock says that he has a punctured lung and the doctors won’t allow him to wrestle tonight, but he’ll be back IN THE ZONE, RAAAAAGH soon enough.

At this point, Shamrock is interrupted by Rockabilly. Shamrock confusingly tries to insult Rockabilly Gunn by saying that he “didn’t know the Harlem Globetrotters were in town.” Um, what? Gunn makes fun of Shamrock for being a soft bitch with a shitty ankle lock, but while Shamrock is not cleared by the doctors for a full match, he is cleared by the doctors to quickly beat the hell out of Gunn and put him in the ankle lock before being shooed off by an array of referees.

Interview time [w/Vince McMahon]: Bret Hart gets about 70/30 cheers to boos in this live interview; the Undertaker is a popular dude in the UK. The Hitman cuts a boilerplate babyface promo in which he gives the Undertaker respect as a competitor before reasserting that he will win, no matter how badly the Undertaker wants to pummel him for the aftermath of their SummerSlam title bout. Vince tries to pretend that the crowd is against Bret – they are not, being 70/30 for him – and Bret blames the fact that the UK only sees what American television shows them about him before saying that he cares what they think of him. They like you dude, don’t worry. It’s just that some of them like the Undertaker a bit more. And also, I suppose there could be a few scumbag Americans in the crowd.

Match: Vince points out that Vader actually garners a decent face pop, unlike the Patriot. Well, yeah, man. Vader’s not out here flaunting his American heritage like an annoying fuckhead. On the other hand, Owen Hart gets a pretty big babyface pop, which Lawler notes is bigger than the one Bret got during that previous interview. Again, the Undertaker was a very popular babyface! Owen walks over and annoys the desk by waving his large Canadian flag right in their faces. I mean, literally. He musses up Lawler’s hair with it, much to Lawler’s dismay.

I assume this match will rule. Vader wins a lockup by shoving Owen into the corner with a bit of mustard. He celebrates; the crowd boos. Vader then shoves Owen crisply onto his back upon their second collar-and-elbow. This exchange works to get the crowd fully behind Owen rather than there being any discernible split in the crowd. Owen is bouncing around like a pinball off these Vader shoulderblocks; it rules. Ross talks about Vader’s weight advantage, and Lawler claims that Ross understands how it feels when someone imposes themselves by leaning on their considerable weight advantage against because of the time he spent with “that slapper” last night. Hold on, Ross is as stumped as I am on this one, and I’m usually fairly good with my UK slang. Let’s see: Slapper (n.) – A highly sexually active or promiscuous woman (slang, pejorative). That’s a new one for me! Also, we are firmly in Attitude Era Jerry Lawler commentary territory!

Vader misses a butt splash, and Owen tries to use his speed and agility to mount a consistent attack. He manages a nice Frankensteiner, visibly working to avoid being counter-powerbombed as he does so. Yeah, this match is obviously quite good, with Owen keeping Vader off balance and trying to wrap on a Sharpshooter even as Vader powers out of them or prevents being turned with his weight and strength. Owen manages a flash pinfall for two, but when he tries a crucifix, Vader plants his legs and lands a reverse slam to counter.

Vader scores an elbow drop and then goes slowly up to the second rope, where he (much to my surprise) successfully completes a diving splash, though only for about 2.5 on the cover. Vader shoots Owen into the corner; Owen takes his big bro’s signature chest-first corner bump. Vader clubs Owen down; Owen tries a body slam, but no dice. He tried a vertical suplex earlier to no avail before transitioning into that flash pinfall I previously mentioned.

It’s time to feed the next sequence of spots, so Vader goes into an armbar and then a chinlock, checks on Owen, and then whispers what seems like a long sequence into his ear that ends up just being a successful Vader clothesline and body splash before Vader goes back to the arm bar on the mat. When Vader yanks Owen to his feet, he shoots Owen into the corner and misses a splash, but blocks another Owen slam attempt and gets right back on top, scoring another clothesline for two.

Man, Vader clubbing Owen down with forearms and clotheslines is great. Vader tries a kneebar this time, but that leaves Owen’s upper body free; Owen twists around and punches his way out of the kneebar, but Vader quickly takes control of the situation and eventually wins that strikefest before scoring a big splash for two more. Vader’s next move is to attempt the powerbomb, but Owen is able to flip out of it, score a quick counter enziguri, and then locks on the Sharpshooter. Vader is near the ropes and manages to crawl close enough to snag the bottom rope and force the hold to be released. However, his back is racked enough that Owen finally manages to body slam him.

Owen’s cover only gets two, though, and he runs himself right into a big body check after shooting Vader in. Vader goes up for a Vader Bomb, but Owen manages to knock Vader's wind out by getting his knees up. Owen scrambles to the top rope and lands a front missile dropkick, then fires up and lands a wheel kick for two more. Owen goes up again to try and finish Vader with a risky dive, but he leaps right into Vader’s arms; Vader smoothly floats over right into a powerslam and earns three off the effort. This match was pretty damned great, and that’s considering that Vader’s confidence is pretty much shot at this point in his WWF career. It’s another Hidden Midcard Gem because no one talks about it, really, but it’s a fun watch with a nice smaller babyface/large monster heel dynamic.

Recap: That fuckup Shawn Michaels accidentally yammed the Undertaker in the head with a chair at SummerSlam and pretty much handed the WWF World Heavyweight Championship to the Hitman.

Gab Gab Gab: The Undertaker is confident that he’ll be able to win the world title back from Bret Hart tonight considering that fuckup Shawn Michaels isn’t the special guest referee for this match!

Match: The Undertaker receives his rematch for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship against Bret Hart. Yep, ‘Taker is way over. This is where Owen injuring Austin hurt things from a matchup standpoint; Austin should be wrestling the Hitman at this show because Austin would get a uniformly negative response from the crowd rather than this good, but somewhat mixed response against a guy who the UK crowd also sees as a conquering babyface hero.

Bret immediately jumps in on ‘Taker, lays in fists, and gets slightly booed in the midst of the considerable cheers. ‘Taker reverses it, throws hard rights, and is pretty much universally cheered. Yeah, so this match will be good, but it’s a mistake to have the Undertaker in this position. Bret also exposes the corner turmbuckle as the ref backs ‘Taker off, which would be fine if he were facing Austin (give the scumbag heel some of his own medicine), but which probably doesn’t help if he does it against ‘Taker (wait, is Bret the cheating scumbag heel?). I will say that at least ‘Taker starts to get booed a bit more as he aggressively lands offense, but this “heel in the U.S., babyface everywhere else” deal is a delicate balance, and the Undertaker is too over as a babyface to make the reactions work exactly right overseas.

Now, I write this, but I recognize that I am failing to note the quality of the match itself, which comes off as a pretty hateful and violent contest. Bret baseball slides ‘Taker backwards into the announcer’s table; he tries to dive onto the Undertaker from ringside, but gets caught and hit with a spinebuster on the mats. It certainly feels like these dudes don’t like one another! They brawl up the ramp, trading fists, and the ref lets it slide because, come on, we all want to see where it goes. They get back in the ring and continue to put on a nice show; Bret hits a counter DDT off an Undertaker duckdown and then rains a series of forearms and elbows onto ‘Taker’s dome…and then covers his face with his hands when ‘Taker sits up.

The Hitman finds his inner cool again and goes right back to throwing an array of strikes at ‘Taker’s face and ribcage. Then, Chekhov’s Exposed Turnbuckle goes off when Bret tries to shoot ‘Taker into the exposed corner, but ‘Taker reverses and Bret takes his signature chest bump into the exposed metal. ‘Taker then follows up with a fucking HEART PUNCH for extra radness before stepping on Bret’s chest and using the ropes as leverage to bear down harder on Bret’s bruised chest muscles. I loved everything about that sequence of events. This is what I mean about a match that feels violent and hateful, and look at that: They don’t have to hit each other in the head with chairs or gig themselves to engender that feeling.

The Undertaker scores a two count off an elbowdrop; Bret tries to strike his way out of trouble after kicking out, but gets laid out with a huge punch and summarily eats a ribbreaker that ‘Taker transitions into a backbreaker. ‘Taker suddenly releases the backbreaker and tries a quickie pinfall attempt, but Bret slides a shoulder out from under him. Taker tries to continue his assault, but Bret goes back to Undertaker’s knee with flat kicks and gets some space, though he rushes the limping Undertaker and runs right into an elbow; Bret hits the mat and has to kick out at two on the Undertaker’s cover.

Alas, ‘Taker’s knee, which Bret has worked on tenaciously all bout, goes out when he misses a high knee in the corner. Bret immediately leaps on the error, attacks the knee with more strikes, and then uses the ropes to butt splash ‘Taker’s injured leg once, then twice. Bret continues to surgically attack the leg with a focus on the knee, dropping elbows on it and eventually dragging ‘Taker to the corner for a ringpost Figure Four. ‘Taker struggles, but he can’t kick the Hitman away, and Bret wraps his knee around the post and then locks on the Figure Four for as long as he can before the ref forces him to release it.

Helpless without his wheels, the Undertaker can’t stop Bret from locking on a Figure Four in the center of the ring. The Hitman even jubilantly throws up the bullhorns while he’s got the Undertaker trapped. ‘Taker survives, is able to get his shoulders off the mat at two, and manages to turn the hold after quite a struggle. Bret quickly grabs the bottom rope to break the hold, and his knee is injured enough from the reversal of the hold that ‘Taker is able to get to his feet and quite literally beat him to the punch. Alas, when he shoots Bret in, the Hitman ducks a big boot and immediately kicks ‘Taker in the leg before going right back to dissecting ‘Taker’s knee. ‘Taker tries to fight up, but Bret headbutts him in the small of the back and lands a side Russian for two. Bret next tries a vertical suplex as a match ender, but ‘Taker’s shoulder is again up at two. Bret’s now firmly in Five Moves of Doom territory, but ‘Taker throws a wrench into the plan when, after Bret puts him down with a backbreaker, he tries his second-rope elbowdrop and receives a boot to the face.

The Undertaker slowly gets to his feet and shoots Bret into the ropes, where they clothesline one another on the rebound. The ref’s standing ten-count gets to six before the Undertaker sits up; ‘Taker is on his feet before Bret has even twitched, and ‘Taker’s legdrop to the abdomen and lower extremities gets two on the cover. ‘Taker tries another one, but Bret blocks it, keeps hold of ‘Taker’s leg, and turns ‘Taker into a Sharpshooter in the middle. The Undertaker gins up all the strength remaining in his legs and powers out of the hold, but Bret hops right back on him with headbutts to the abs before attempting another Sharpshooter that ‘Taker blocks with a goozle. Bret lands a kick to the knee to block a chokeslam attempt, but 'Taker fights up with a flurry of punches and manages to land a big boot and a legdrop for 2.7.

This is one of those classic title matches that starts out hot and hateful before slowly transitioning into a war of attrition as two great champions try to unload their arsenal before they run entirely out of gas. It’s better than their SummerSlam ’97 match and quite honestly is probably the best of any of their singles matches by a decent amount. I believe that Bret said this was his last great WWF match, and I can see why he feels that way.

Speaing of this war of attrition, Bret’s about ready to settle it, so he rolls outside and grabs a ring bell, but before he can swing it at ‘Taker, ‘Taker plants another big boot into his face. However, Bret’s plan is multifaceted; had he connected with the bell, he would have gotten out of dodge with his title on a DQ loss. Now that he’s been stopped, he’s unsettled the Undertaker enough that ‘Taker prepares to hit him with the bell in plain view of the ref, thus helping Bret retain his title through a DQ victory. The ref, not wanting that to happen, rips the bell away from ‘Taker, but this distracts ‘Taker enough for Bret to enact Plan C, which is chop blocking ‘Taker's gravely injured knee from behind as ‘Taker pursues the referee.

Bret drags ‘Taker to the ropes and tries to butt splash the knee again, but after about five past successful attempts at landing this move, ‘Taker has timed the Hitman's movements and pulls his leg away; Bret ends up crashing through the ropes and into a cameraman. The Undertaker follows him outside and tosses him into the ring steps, then puts him back in the ring and tries to shoot him into the exposed buckle. Bret blocks the first whip attempt, but he has to make a business decision when ‘Taker powers him out of the corner on the second whip attempt and slides back first into the post instead of taking another exposed buckle bonk. That turns out for the best as he is able to recover and avoid ‘Taker’s Old School rope walk attempt by yanking him to the mat.

Holy shit, what a bout. Taker tries a Tombstone that Bret squirms away from; Bret counters by scoring a roll-up for two. Bret disrespectfully tries to hit ‘Taker with a Tombstone; ‘Taker reverses. Bret grabs at the ropes to break the hold, so ‘Taker simply drops him across the ropes, and Bret gets his neck hung up between the first and second ropes. The Undertaker punches at Bret as he hangs there and simply refuses to let the referee release Bret from his entanglement in the ropes, so the ref finally is forced to disqualify the Undertaker. ‘Taker lays out the ref and then chokeslams Gerry Brisco for good measure (to clear boos, finally), but Bret escapes with the gold. Don’t allow the letdown of a finish keep you from watching this monumentally rad match.

The Undertaker hears the ring announcer’s relaying of the referee’s decision, and ‘Taker turns away from pursuing Bret up the ramp to go rough up the poor ol’ announcer, the latter of whom promptly hops into the crowd to avoid a sound beating.

Gab Gab Gab: Annoying-ass Shawn Michaels claims that he will become the first ever Grand Slam winner in the WWF, and he would certainly know since he’s influencing the booking meetings.

Match: Annoying-ass Shawn Michaels is loved by the lady fans and is harassed by a dude fan smushing a British Bulldog action figure into his face. He yanks the figure away and stuffs it down his pants like Joey Ryan rubbing a lollipop against his dick while Vince McMahon intones, “And the Bulldog…goes down.” Uh huh. Michaels awaits the arrival of the reigning and defending European Champion Davey Boy Smith (w/sister Tracey), and yeah, it’s like 90/10 for the Bulldog outside of the ladies who frankly just want to smash Shawn Michaels.

I mean, Michaels is going ahead and playing up the fact that as a straight dude, I want to see Bulldog punch him repeatedly about the head and face while also inflaming the passions of the straight ladies who, y’know, wanna smash. He should be! I have to give him credit! I don’t actually think there’s any discernible line between Michaels the performer and Michaels the human being at this point, so it’s probably not all that challenging for him to pull off. HBK also throws mini-tantrums at the crowd’s BULL-DOG chant, which is genuinely funny.

Bulldog shoves Michaels around; Michaels tries to use the ropes for leverage purposes, but gets tossed to the mat and basically eats a series of tackles and clotheslines before flopping to the floor like a bass yanked suddenly from his home in the sea. Naturally, he gets to his feet, stands in the aisle, and tries to call a time out. Michaels does manage to gouge Bulldog’s eyes while trying to re-enter the ring, but Davey quickly bashes his head into the corner buckles, hits a nice gourdbuster to force Michaels back into the ring, and then scores a sweet press slam in which he casually launches Michaels backward after teasing that he’s going to toss the guy into the crowd and being stopped by referee Earl Hebner.

So, yeah, that sequence was pretty tight. Bulldog locks on an abdominal stretch in the center of the ring; Michaels manages to hip toss his way out and score a series of stomps. Michaels bounces off the ropes and rushes Davey Boy, who ducks and backdrops him all the way to the floor. Bulldog slingshots Michaels back into the ring, arm drags him to the mat, and drops a couple of knees on his outstretched arm. Bulldog works the arm and, after HBK works to his feet, powers him easily back to the mat. Michaels finally manages to get to his feet and forearm his way out of the hold, but he tries two shoulderblocks and gets stuffed. He hits the ropes, ducks a Bulldog leapfrog, bounds toward Bulldog again and…pokes Bulldog in the eye as Bulldog lands after another leapfrog attempt.

Pretty good stuff, but Michaels immediately attempts a Frankensteiner and Bulldog counters with a sitout powerbomb, so things are going poorly for the ol' Heartbreak Kid! Michaels kicks out at two; he tries to slow the match down, but soon runs himself right into a Samoan Drop. Davey Boy even puts Michaels in a surfboard for good measure. We got two separate surfboard spots on this show, so I deem it a success! Bulldog’s shoulders are on the mat, and Hebner counts them, so Bulldog breaks the hold (and screams YOU SON OF A BITCH at Hebner for his correct decision to make a count). This marks the transition point at which Michaels can finally get enough shots in on a rattled Bulldog to put him down on the ma—wait, hold on, Michaels shoots Bulldog in and gets caught on the rebound in a stalling vertical suplex for two.

Okay, here be the point that the fuckery begins: Rick Rude walks purposefully down to ringside and first turns the leverage of a Bulldog flash pin in favor of Michaels before then yanking down the cables as Bulldog hits them and giving Michaels room to club Bulldog out to the floor at Rude’s feet. Rude quickly takes the opportunity to shove Bulldog into the post while Michaels distracts Hebner; Michaels follows up with a double-axehandle from the top.

Man, Rude is brazenly beating the hell out of Bulldog with impunity here at ringside. Bret’s complaint in his book that logically, he and Owen would have come down here to battle Michaels's seconds makes a gigaton of sense. Y’know, I don’t think Pillman or Neidhart is in the building, so Bulldog and the Hart Foundation are still outnumbered four to three by D-Generation X. They should have had everyone from those factions come down and battle around ringside, distracting the ref enough for Chyna to be the free woman who drills Bulldog with a chair. That’s much better layout.

Michaels finally manages extended control of this context and chooses to lock on a sleeper in the center of the ring. I get why Bret is upset about Shawn exerting his influence upon the booking meetings, but outside of that issue, this match itself is quite good. Bulldog fights up from the sleeper, but is immediately whipped forcefully into the corner buckles before Michaels wraps on an arm scissors. Naturally, Bulldog pulls a Bob Backlund and lifts Michaels up on one arm before slamming him to the mat to escape.

Both men run the ropes and clash heads; Hebner starts a standing ten-count. Ooh, here comes Chyna. Oh, also Triple H is here. I almost forgot to mention him. Anyway, Bulldog begins his fiery babyface comeback in the ring. He lands a slingshot for two, but he tries to bury a shoulder into HBK’s midsection on a corner charge and eats post when Michaels slides out of the way. Michaels follows with a quick slam and a Savage Elbow, then another. HBK signals for the end of the bout and starts stomping his foot, but he becomes impatient and drags Bulldog to his feet, propping him up in the corner, so that he can more quickly hit it.

Bulldog ducks the Sweet Chin Music attempt and lifts Michaels for a running powerslam, but Rude hooks Bulldog’s foot to prevent him from starting the move. Davey manages to knock Michaels to the floor with a clothesline and fend off a Triple H attack when he follows HBK outside, but when Bulldog loads up for another powerslam, he gets his foot caught against the guardrail. Trips, Chyna, and Rude rush Bulldog, bash the guardrail into his injured leg, and make room for Trips to land a Pedigree on the mats before rolling Bulldog back into the ring. Michaels rips Bulldog’s leg brace off, tosses it at Diana Hart at ringside, and gets her some more desperately-craved camera time before locking Bulldog in a Figure Four. Chyna and Trips give Michaels a ton of leverage from their spot outside the ring, but Bulldog survives and even turns the move…until Rude pops him with a hard right to the temple. That knocks Bulldog onto his back again. Hebner should be counting a pinfall, but he’s an inconsistent man with questionable principles. Whether I am talking about his kayfabe or real-life personage is up to your discernment. Anyway, Bulldog finally passes out in the hold; Hebner awards the bout and the WWF European Championship to HBK in front of a visibly bummed crowd. Well, a visibly bummed crowd except for the folks who let off a noticeably high-pitched shriek of joy.

After the match, HBK proves that he was, in fact, a serial sexual harasser of Diana Hart in that 1996 storyline by lasciviously dedicating this victory to her. Diana gets in the ring and is quickly corralled by Chyna before the cavalry of Bret and Owen Hart show up about ten minutes too late like a couple of fucking doofuses. The Birmingham crowd rains trash upon D-X as they leave the ring. We get a shot of Diana shaking her head and complaining to Bret, “They were out there for the whole match!” She’s not wrong! Where were you two to counter this? Oh yeah, I almost forgot: Michaels is in the booking meetings.

I thought this show was pretty good despite a couple of clunkers, but Vince McMahon really needed to get over his strange infatuation with the mentally unstable Michaels. My distaste for Michaels on this show is a strange mélange of legitimate dislike for what a prick he genuinely seems to be and general dislike for his heel work, and while I think that’s a big part of how people attempt to get heat in modern wrestling, by blurring the lines as much as possible regarding their public and private personas, I think I just like my heels to be heels in the ring and not in real life. This is an example of how Knowing Too Much about pro wrestling makes me a worse fan. 3.75 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

Edited February 23 by SirSmUgly

zendragon · February 24

A good bit of that show was cut from the home video release. The Bret v taker match got released on Bret's DVD. According to Davey and Dynamite the Euro belt was created to capitalize on Bulldog's popularity so that he could headline shows over there, instead they did something that could have really hurt the territory. I'll point out HBK also beat Davey for the IC belt in 92 and other than the double pin never gave the win back.

I wonder if the large Indian population in the UK would make the Singhs babyfaces?

for no reason here's my photos of Lemmy's Boots hat and Rig from my trip to the Las Vegas Punk Rock Museum

Also I always found it Ironic that you had two bald dudes called "the headbangers"

SirSmUgly · March 1

WWF Royal Rumble 1993 (24 January 1993)

A show in which the Macho Man goes sadly un-elevated

One of the neat things about this thread is that within it, I can complete some mini-projects that probably aren't worth threads on their own. One such mini-project that I've been thinking about for a while is based on the fact that I own on VHS a WWF set of The Big Five PPVs of 1998. This Big Five PPV lineup represents the era of WWF wrestling that is most near and dear to my heart, even if a huge chunk of it sucked real bad. The Big Five PPV lineup - Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, which you know, but which I am listing out anyway for the sake of clarity anyway - first existed as a thing in 1993. This thread is covering shows up through the year 2000. You can see where this is going, right?

Before I got going, I realized that I wrote about a few of these shows already. I went back through my reviews and felt that there wasn’t much to add outside of a final score and clarifying some of the segments that those reviews covered, so I’m adding them with slight updates, but otherwise keeping them word-for-word. I’ve seen most of these shows since I wrote about them anywhere from two to four years ago – the 1993 Royal Rumble was streaming incessantly back in January on the WWE Vault – so the way I feel about them in these reviews basically matches how I feel now.

In any case, we’ll go through the Big Five in chronological order from 1993 up through 2000, but of course, we’ll get some WCW (and other) shows intercut in there because a WWF-only thread would be pretty boring!

Time is such a strange thing. I was but a child in 1993 and a recently-turned teenager in 1997. The changes that I experienced still feel as though they came at a glacial pace even now. But four years is nothing, I realize, and so I look at this show in 1993 and think how in 1997, this company would be barely recognizable from what it was at this time. The Monsoon/Heenan PPV pairing is at its end, with this the last show (IIRC) that these two would do together. Shawn Michaels is still finishing his break-up with Sherri. Razor Ramon is a fresh face now, but he'd be nWo four years later. This show doesn't feel completely like the end of an era - I think the rest of 1993 still feels as though it's clinging to the Hulkamania/Rock 'n Wrestling era, at least on PPV - but man, does it feel like the beginning of the end? Yeah, and to be fair, that's because it is.

It's a weird PPV for that reason, but it's also one of my favorite PPVs because I had it on tape as a kid and therefore have seen it many times. It's a comforting show, like split pea soup when you've got a cold.

Match: Steiner Brothers vs. Beverly Brothers is still one of my favorite PPV openers. It's just real good tag work between two teams that know their business. I don't get turning the Destruction Crew into prissy dudes from Ohio, but whatever, they can work. Their awesome entrance music is (mostly) excised from the Network version of this show. BOOOO. I also never get sick of watching Scotty piledrive himself on these Frankensteiner attempts, one of which earns his team a pinfall.

Match: Shawn Michaels’s defense of his WWF Intercontinental Championship against erstwhile tag partner Marty Jannetty has the hurt limb mix-up, but honestly I don't think I even noticed as a kid. It's still a great match! Jannetty sure seems like he's got a shot to win this thing. I've talked about how good Sherri is, and she's excellent at ringside here because she's oddly subdued, which is such a change from her normal bombastic nature that it's actually really effective. I'm totally on board with a continuing evaluation of Sherri's awesomeness because she was pretty awesome at the pro wrestling and is one of my favorite pro wrestling actors because she acts juuuuust big enough, but not so over the top that you roll your eyes at it. She's very good at soap opera. Shawn Michaels wins it with Sweet Chin Music, or as Gorilla calls it, "that crescent kick." I find it strange that Shawn stuck to doing teardrop suplexes for so long when the superkick is easy to do for a guy his size and credible as a finish.

Match: I think I read somewhere that babyface Big Boss Man didn't lose a PPV match until this one, in which he puts over Bam Bam Bigelow on the way out of the territory. I haven't bothered to check that myself, but man, they could have gotten more out of a babyface upper-midcard gatekeeper like Boss Man than one loss on PPV to Bam Bam in 1993. This match is perfectly fine because the two dudes in it are perfectly fine. Boss Man is still mobile, so he's quite good. I feel like almost as soon as he went back to WCW, he had a sharp decline in his agility and mobility and became tougher and tougher to watch in the ring. There were fewer and fewer bright spots until at some point late in his WCW run, he's pretty much the shits, which he definitely was as Blackwater/Xe-employee Boss Man upon his second WWF run. As for Bigelow, he wins it with a flying headbutt, but he wasn't fun to watch in the U.S. until his ECW run (at which point he immediately broke down physically for good), so yeah, not excited about watching him going forward for the rest of the shows that I'm covering in this mini-project.

Match: Razor Ramon’s title match against WWF Champion Bret “Hitman” Hart is also good. I can guess why Vince panics a bit and takes the gold off Bret at WM because the crowd in Sacramento is somewhat subdued for a lot of this match and only really wakes up toward the end as Bret goes into his Five Moves o' Doom to set up for a Sharpshooter attempt. I think part of the issue is that no one takes Razor as any threat to win, though. That's not really Bret's fault. They didn't have the heel challengers to line up for him. No one believes that Shawn Michaels or Razor Ramon is winning the big gold in 1993. In 1996, yeah. Not in 1993. Once again, Bret over Flair here, Bret over Savage at WM IX - it's proactive booking to cement Bret as an ace that is so obvious that of course Vince panicked and put the belt back on a post-peak Hulk Hogan instead.

Gab Gab Gab: Bobby Heenan is the avatar (not Al Snow) for Vince McMahon in this creepy introduction of Lex Luger as the Narcissist during which Heenan sounds desperately like a guy looking to get a peek at Lex's total package while Luger flexes in the mirror. I feel that Luger’s color coordination during this extremely short heel run (white and blue) somewhat recalls the narcissus flower that bears the legend’s name, but that he should have somehow worked the actual flower design onto his tights or boots. Anyway, this sucked and Vince McMahon once again used his pro wrestling show to work out his carnal desires along with the rest of us, which NO THANK YOU, Vince, unless you’re going to put on some sort of segment in which consent is properly discussed, in which case I’ll take that journey along with you just in case it maybe keeps you from being a predator.

Match: This is a weird Rumble and it has notable wrestlers like Tenryu (whose name no one on commentary can pronounce) and Carlito Caribbean Cool Sr. and Bob Backlund (for damned near an hour) and no one really cares, man, no one really cares. This Rumble needed to do the "if you had a match earlier in the night, you can still be in the Rumble" thing so Shawn and Marty and the Steiners could be in here, at least. It doesn't help that the little star power it has is booked poorly for the purposes of the match - the Undertaker clears the ring and then gets destroyed by Giant Gonzalez, and Randy Savage a) comes in late and b) forgets how the match works solely to take a shitty, fake looking final elimination from Yokozuna (who, as a note, is the first Rumble winner to receive an automatic world title shot at WrestleMania). I don't think this Rumble is any good or anywhere near it. The best sequence is probably Earthquake and Yoko facing off, which the crowd is hot for and also, hell yeah, I'm into it. But yep, rough Rumble.

The show reminds me of another favorite Rumble of mine that I have seen many times on VHS, the 1998 Royal Rumble, in which the Rumble itself kinda sucked (except for the end), but the show had a hot opener and was consistently fun elsewhere, with a very good WWF Championship match to boot. 3 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

zendragon · March 1

I don't know if I mentioned it before but supposedly Kevin Nash said to Shawn "Why don't you just us the superkick for a finish its your best move?)

SirSmUgly · March 1

WWF WrestleMania IX (4 April 1993):

A show in which what’s old is still old, but Vince McMahon seems to quite enjoy antiquing

When I was watching 1992 - 1993 WWF Superstars a few years back, I stopped to watch the PPVs as I went. I'm starting with the PPVs again, but I don't know if I can suffer all that many episodes of mid-'90s Superstars, a show that I actually liked and watched fairly religiously as a kid at the time.

Gab Gab Gab: Vince made Jim Ross don a toga on his debut, and he points out his gold sandals and intimates that they’re too, uh, “fabulous” for the apparently closed-minded people of the metro Tulsa area. I think Jim Ross becoming the voice of the WWF is one of the unlikeliest things to happen in the company’s history. This dude is so out of place in 1993 WWF. Then again, his ability to call the late '90s WWF matches of old WCW dudes he probably liked and would have been glad seeing pushed on top when he worked there is not duplicable work. It could only be him. Anyway, Ross talking about Hannibal using elephants like utility vehicles is certainly something. I think I’m going to be obsessed with Ross’s commentary on this showing.

Also, the lady playing Cleopatra is looking fantastic, let me tell you. I’m settling down.

Gab Gab Gab: Macho Man comes to the booth looking like a cowboy hat-wearing Hedonism Bot from Futurama. This is one of the dumbest things at any WrestleMania ever. No, not the Roman theming, the fact that they booked Macho to get rolled by Yokozuna on the RAW before WrestleMania instead of using Macho as a wrestler at this show. I feel like you can see Macho slowly wilting inside with every show he commentates.

They put Bobby Heenan on a camel and seated him backward. Honestly, I felt bad for the elephant and the camel they brought out here. Imagine being trained by a bunch of likely negligent trainers just so you can show up and do tricks for the crowd at one of the worst WrestleManias ever produced.

The Ross-Savage-Heenan booth, short-lived as it was, is one of my favorite three-man booths in wrestling. Mostly, I like it because it’s a mishmash of styles so that even when they’re off, they’re entertainingly off because they don’t work well with one another.

Match: Hey, Luna Vachon! Oh, and Shawn Michaels. I forgot that Luna was tagging around with Michaels for a minute there in ’93. Sherri shows up to back Tatanka. Savage crudely insinuates that no one would fuck Luna because she’s ugly. That was a totally unnecessary comment! Tatanka is a league-average wrestler, so he needs Michaels to be on to elevate this match, and he also needs it to have an interesting finish. Michaels is bumping around like a maniac, but the finish stinks (the ref signals for the bell when Tatanka’s got Michaels beaten because HBK attacked the ref earlier – though they end up ruling it a count out victory for Tatanka, which is complete nonsense). That finish is so bad that this match is a match that I always forget happened before at this show. The crowd seems to enjoy it well enough, though, especially the near falls at the end. It’s solid work, mostly thanks to Michaels killing himself to produce something good.

I just don’t get the need to protect Tatanka’s winning streak for as long as they did. They ended up breaking it for Ludvig fucking Borga instead of, say, Michaels here. Had this ended with the spot where Michaels hits the SCM on a diving Tatanka, I think this match is much better remembered.

On another note, did they set the Luna/Sherri stuff up solely on RAW? This is around the time that, as Cobra Commander noted earlier, they would split angle stuff up between RAW, Superstars, and Wrestling Challenge with little consistency. Some angles seeped through from RAW to the B- and C-shows, but not all of them.They go so far as to set up a Luna/Sherri feud that after Luna attacks Sherri in the post-match of the opener, Ross announces that Luna attacked Sherri again off-camera during the Headshrinkers/Steiners match.

Match: I was genuinely excited for Headshrinkers/Steiners, by the way, and my excitement was rewarded. There’s a wild spot early on where Samu grabs Scotty and backs up to hotshot him, but Fatu pulls the ropes down and Scotty just goes flying face-first to the floor. Afa follows up with a cane shot to Scotty. Sweet fuck, that ruled.

So, Scotty’s the FIP, and I think the Headshrinkers are pretty enjoyable in control. I do prefer Scotty as the hot tag and not the FIP, though. The FIP segment is long and only ends when Samu finally whiffs on a top-rope headbutt attempt. Rick doesn’t know that in pro wrestling, Samoans have very hard heads that cannot be harmed with a headbutt, though, so when he smashes his opponents’ heads together, they just headbutt him back. We get another nice spot where Rick reverses a Fatu top-rope crossbody attempt into a powerslam while he's seated atop Samu’s shoulder; after that, the match breaks down and Scotty lands on his own neck hitting a Frankensteiner for three. That was easily the match of the night.

Match: Matt Bourne is pretty great in this Doink persona. He’s endlessly entertaining. He cuts a promo before coming to the ring and making Crush look like a complete doofus. Doink basically outsmarts Crush at every turn during this feud to the point that turning Crush heel was the only move left. It’s weird because, as not-good as Crush is, he’s got a finisher and a theme that people genuinely like, and I don’t understand why they booked him like this.

We get some wandering brawling at ringside to start and it looks like Crush should cruise to victory. Crush rolls Doink while I wonder what psychological trauma, in kayfabe, that Big Josh went through that made him become Doink? Do you think it was wearing that unflattering flannel, jorts, and work boots look every night? Do you think it was that he was driven to change his own name as a failed Rat Pack member and wrestle for relative pocket change in front of five hundred people in Alpharetta, Georgia while Ted DiBiase and Jim Duggan got to keep their names and make big money in the WWF? I wonder.

Anyway, Doink does get some control eventually before Crush makes his comeback. Crush even gets a Cranium Crunch on for a second. However there’s a ref bump off that Cranium Crunch attempt and soon enough, there appears a second Doink. The most fabulous one of the Doinks runs out and clocks Crush with another fake cast twice and the Doinks do a mirror image deal. I enjoy it immensely. Doink gets three and it gets a small pop. Oops! That’s what happens when you book the heel to be smarter at every turn than the dopey face with the shitty Hawai’ian accent! Bill Alfonso has to come out here and tell on Doink – Alfonso and his incessant rulebook bullshit, dammit - but the refs can’t find the second Doink, so the result stands, fuck you Alfonso!

Gab Gab Gab: Jim Ross calls Todd Pettengill “Todd Pettengale,” which is still too much respect shown to Todd Pettengill. I’m bummed that we’re in the Todd Pettengale era, by the way.

Match: Razor Ramon wins a semi-competitive squash over Bob Backlund. Not much to say about this, but the booking of Razor sucks. He’s another heel who is getting over as a face because of his music, his toothpick throwing, his finisher, and his promos. As shitty as Crush’s Hawai’ian accent is, uh, well actually, Hall’s Cuban accent is also shitty, but the Latin wrestling fans I've known adopted Razor as one of their own anyway. At least the Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Central American ones I’ve known have. The crowd cheers when Razor toothpicks Backlund and then chants RA-ZOR RA-ZOR RA-ZOR. Turn him face already! Razor doesn’t even hit a Razor’s Edge in this thing; he small packages Backlund for three. We should have gotten a Razor’s Edge on Perfect for three instead, but whatever.

Backstage beat ‘em up, beat ‘em up, break their neck, break their neck: I forgot that Luger jumped Bret and hit him with the metallic forearm at the press conference before this show. I would have been interested heel Luger vs. babyface Bret, but it didn’t happen (and wouldn’t happen until 1999 WCW!).

Match: At least we get this Money Inc./Hogan and Beefcake match over in the middle of the card. Ah, once this is over, no more Hogan on this show. I look forward to a Hogan-free main event. This match has a post-Mid South DiBiase, a Hogan who is past his physical prime, Beefcake, and Rotundo/a. As you might guess, it’s not very good.

Hogan shows up with that black eye that he got for sordid reasons, right? Hold on, let’s Google it: Oh yes, allegedly, Randy Savage was being incredibly creepy to Liz, even for him, and Liz left and hid out with Linda Hogan, and then Savage found out and put it to the Hulkster. I believe it because I want to believe it (even if Hogan almost certainly got the shiner from participating in some sort of outdoor activity). Maybe it’s also because on commentary, Savage is like OH YEAH LOOK AT IT LOOK AT IT LOOK AT THE HULKSTER while the camera is close up on Hogan’s fucked-up eye. Haha, yes. Let’s all look at this dickhead Hulk Hogan and his busted eye.

So yeah, Money Inc. gets beaten up, walks away to save their titles, and then – and I guess the head ref can do this? – the ref (via the Fink) is like, You can lose your titles on a count out now LOL and so we’re subjected to more of this match. Hogan plays FIP. Money Inc. stinks in control. There should be a double-countout, but Hogan steals the Undertaker’s whole sit-up deal at nine and, though Hogan’s not on his feet, Hebner stops the count anyway. Hogan is an adequate FIP I guess, and finally…oh no, now Beefcake is FIP. Beefcake’s selling is peak cartoon ‘80s, and it’s bad. Finally, there’s another hot tag and then Jimmy Hart flips his jacket so that it's lining side out, and the lining happens to be striped like a ref’s shirt, and Hart counts the three. The whole sad affair ends with a second ref DQ’ing the nominal babyfaces and said nominal babyfaces trying to beat the hell out of the ref. Hart stops them to do it himself. I judge everyone in this Vegas crowd who enjoyed even a second of that.

Gab Gab Gab: Nat King Cole’s supremely talented daughter Natalie, R.I.P. to both, is shocked that Hogan and Beefcake opened up the Halliburton that Money Inc. left behind and tossed the money inside to the crowd – “It was real money!” – and I think she’s actually sort of enjoying this show. Wait, I want to revise my previous statement. I judge Natalie Cole for nothing except positively for her excellent singing.

Match: So, let’s bounce back after that nadir with…oh man, Mr. Perfect vs. The Narcissist Lex Luger. It should be good on paper, but actually as an older fan, I realize that Luger and Hennig are both best with the right opponent, and they are not the right opponents for one another.

This match isn’t bad, but it’s a little plodding. It’s at least relatively short, so the plodding nature of the thing doesn’t set in too much. Perfect finally unloads a ton of okay offense on Luger and cuts Luger's comebacks off at every turn. Perfect swings his forearm at Luger’s dome, but it only gets two. Luger swings his forearm at Perfect’s dome and knocks him clean out. Between those two events, Perfect lands one of the uglier missile dropkicks that you’ll ever see and then goes for a backslide, but Luger reverses and gets three after using the ropes for leverage.

Backstage beat ‘em up, beat ‘em up, break their neck, break their neck: Post-match, Hennig runs Luger down backstage. Luger is casually talking to Shawn Michaels, and Perfect gets transitioned into a feud with Michaels after HBK grabs a mop and wallops Perfect with it. Two guys whose best qualities are wildly bumping for good offense and whose worst qualities are trying to hit good offense. How did I not see that this would be a series of disappointing matches as a kid?

Match: Undertaker wins the only match in his streak that he scored victory in by DQ against Giant Gonzalez. It stinks. Formaldehyde gets involved. The crowd chants for Hogan to come out here and right this wrong, which I blame for giving Hogan certain ideas about writing wrongs in tonight’s main event. Anyway, I think they should have just run the SummerSlam match between the two here instead and given ‘Taker an opponent of a higher quality. I still like Bam Bam as an Undertaker opponent who has decent enough matches with him instead of all this Kamala and Gonzalez stuff.

Gab Gab Gab: Hogan cuts an ominous promo before the main event in which he talks a whole lot about Bret Hart and makes sure to verbally place the Hitman beneath himself (“I know [Hart is] a Hulkamaniac!”). Then, he challenges the winner to a title match and racially slurs Yokozuna *sigh*. As infuriating as the slur is, it’s extra infuriating because in kayfabe, Yokozuna is a Samoan guy who went to Japan to become a star sumo wrestler, not a Japanese person. Should it matter? No. But it does to me.

Match: Here is the first part of our main event between Bret Hart and Yokozuna for the WWF World Championship. What’s lost in all this is that Bret and Yoko had excellent chemistry and could probably have a good match together in their sleep. It’s also wild that they had two straight WM main events against one another that no one ever talks about because, even though the matches themselves are good, the finishes are so bad that we’ve just mindwiped these matches from our memories. WM IX itself is full of terrible finishes, actually, which is a big part of what I think makes this card so derided. Sure, Hogan on top again at the end of the night is a big part, too, but boy was this card unsatisfying from the perspective of match finishes. Only the Steiners tag and Razor/Backlund had anything resembling a clean finish (and the second of those matches had a totally unsatisfying clean finish where we didn’t even see a Razor’s Edge, the wildly over finishing move of the winner). When it comes to fuck finishes, the Doink/Crush match is the only one that made sense and was effective in any fashion.

Yoko just annihilates Bret early on. The crowd chants U-S-A. Shall I be charitable and assume that they’re doing it to annoy the America-hating Yokozuna? No. I won’t. This crowd is sort of dopey and doesn’t realize that Bret is Canadian, that’s what it is. Bret working from underneath against a bigger opponent is one of the most enjoyable types of match in pro wrestling, in my humblest of opinions. Bret dodging the Yoko corner splash and then firing off the Five Moves o’ Doom and scoring successive two-counts gets some nice pops. So does Bret knocking Yokozuna down with a flying clothesline. I think my second-biggest complaint about this match is actually how short it is. I get it – Yoko’s conditioning is probably not great even at this early point in his run – but this is a good match that has glimmers of something really good if only it got more time. And yet, we move to the finish pretty quickly; I think Yoko should have at least had to drop a leg to get three. I don’t think mere salt is putting the Hitman down for the count.

So yeah, the post-match crap has been talked about to death. It sucks, yeah. I guess at least it leads to the excellent KotR ’93 where both Bret and Yoko have excellent performances and are booked like they should be booked?

This show is as awful as advertised, though Headshrinkers/Steiners is a Hidden Midcard Gem. At least Hogan isn’t much longer for this company. I’ll watch Diesel’s babyface title reign as he tries to work compelling matches against Sid and Mabel ten times over before I suffer the fucking Hulkster on top again. 0.5 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

Edited March 23 by SirSmUgly

SirSmUgly · March 1

34 minutes ago, zendragon said:

I don't know if I mentioned it before but supposedly Kevin Nash said to Shawn "Why don't you just us the superkick for a finish its your best move?)

I think it was over in your thread. Yeah, Nash was right about that one. It surprises me that Michaels took so long to settle on it and needed someone else to tell him to use it as his finish.

SirSmUgly · March 6

WWF King of the Ring 1993 (13 June 1993):

A show in which Bret Hart is the absolute fucking man and Hulkamania dies (in other words, it’s my favorite ever WWF/E PPV!)

WELCOME TO THE HEARTLAND OF AMERICA

TONIGHT, EIGHT OF THE TOUGHEST SUPERSTARS OF THE WWF WILL BANG HEADS IN A GRUELING SINGLE-ELIMINATION TOURNAMENT TO DETERMINE ONCE AND FOR ALL..

…WHO IS THE KING OF THE RING!!

IN FIRST ROUND ACTION…

…FORMER WWF CHAMPION HITMAN BRET HART WILL SQUARE OFF AGAINST HIS OLD NEMESIS, RUTHLESS RAZOR RAMON

PURE PERFECTION MEETS PURE POWER, AS MR. PERFECT TAKES ON THE SINISTER MR. HUGHES

HACKSAW JIM DUGGAN WILL BUTT HEADS WITH THE MASSIVE BEAST FROM THE EAST BAM BAM BIGELOW

THE UNDEFEATED NATIVE AMERICAN TATANKA GRAPPLES WITH THE NARCISSIST LEX LUGER

WHO WILL SURVIVE THIS GRUELING TEST OF STRENGTH AND ENDURANCE?!!

WHO WILL BE CROWNED…

THE KING OF THE RING?!!

*ahem*

FUCK YEAH, LET’S DO ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Match: After our three-man booth of Jim Ross, the criminally underutilized Randy Savage, and Bobby Heenan run down our two title matches that are in supplement to the big KotR tournament, Razor Ramon makes his way to the ring to the sounds of 1-2-3 for his first round matchup against Bret Hart. Can you believe this dumbfuck Vince McMahon ran Bret/Razor on PPV all of twice during their time in the company with this match being the second and final time? And then I don’t recall that WCW ran Bret/Hall on PPV in their time together in that company. Does nobody like booking interesting matchups between charismatic guys who have good matches together?

The over-tanned Razor demonstrates his power advantage by shoving the Hitman out of a couple of opening lockups while Heenan pitches a fit at Savage over the Macho Man encouraging crowds to chant at Razor over the 1-2-3 Kid’s upset victory over Razor on Raw a couple of weeks before this show. Meanwhile, Bret wins an arm drag and goes to work on his outclassed fake Cuban opponent. Razor uses his long legs to escape damage, first landing a knee to the gut to escape an armlock before planting his boots to block a Bret arm drag and countering with a lariat. Bret is quick to his feet and wins another arm drag, then another after Razor escapes and whiffs on a corner charge.

Bret torques the arm and doggedly holds onto it, even rolling through a Razor slam escape attempt. What gets Razor out of trouble? Why, an eye poke, of course! Razor gets some momentum, gets a quick two count on a lateral press, puts on a headlock…and is immediately reversed into a hammerlock. Razor needs to get this match to standing, which he does with a back elbow to escape. Razor wins a short exchange and posts Bret, then lands some boots to his head outside the ring.

Back in the ring, Razor shakes off the crowd’s insistent 1-2-3 chants and stomps Bret in the head, then considers that Bret’s been using his hands to score elaborate counters on him and stomps the Hitman’s fingers for good measure. A Razor fallaway slam gets two; a Razor running power slam, British Bulldog-style, gets two more.

It’s going to be hard to place matches on my lists. This match is a Hidden Midcard Gem on its own, I think, but it’s also made better in conjunction with the matches that come after it as the finger injury that Razor inflicted with those stomps comes into play in Bret’s later matches tonight. The issue is that I’m not a huge Hitman/Bam Bam fan (sorry for the future spoilers, readers who stumbled upon this review via Google search and who have never seen the show), so placing that match on its own wouldn’t happen, but it does function as an important crescendo to Bret’s PPV-long quest in context.

Anyway, Bret dodges a couple of Razor elbow drops, gets to his feet, and makes a furious comeback in which he fires off most of his Five Moves ‘o Doom. The side Russian gets two; the backbreaker gets two; hell, even the second-rope elbow drop only gets a fairly well-timed 2.8. Bret tries a different tack, easily ducks a Razor haymaker, and rolls up Razor for two. Trying to continue his advantage – man, these fellas are making this fifteen minute time limit feel pressing as hell – Bret tries a bulldog, but is shoved chest-first into the buckles in a counter. Razor signals for the Razor’s Edge, but when he hoists Bret up, Bret slithers out of the back and tries a backslide. Razor fights it, so Bret uses the turnbuckles to help leverage himself over Razor’s back and then puts on a small package…for 2.9.

This match is sick as hell, man. It’s on the “best openers on a WWF/E PPV” shortlist for sure. Razor goes to a trusted and well-worn signature move of his, the super back suplex, but Bret turns in mid-air and crashes down on top of Razor’s chest, then manages to hold him down for three. I just posted in a different thread about a Brad Armstrong/Tully Blanchard TV title match with a ten-minute time limit that was dope because Armstrong leapt the champion Blanchard and the bell and piled on the offense. The sense of urgency infused the proceedings with a ton of thrill. The same exact type of energy drove this match as well!

Previously on…: Previously on Superstars, Vince McMahon made the Undertaker/Giant Gonzalez feud "even better" by adding Mr. Hughes to it! What a creative genius! I especially love how it took him until 1996 to figure out how to book Undertaker against dangerous-seeming opponents who could also work at a high level! What a mind for the business!

Match: The sinister Mr. Hughes (w/Harvey Wippleman) stands in the ring. Hughes stole ‘Taker’s urn in that Previously on… segment, and he holds it as he awaits his opponent. It’ll come into play in the finish after a brief matchup in which Mr. Perfect bumps around and basically does just enough to keep me from drifting off and imagining myself taking a weekend trip with my wife or something more pleasant. I do note that poor ol’ Heenan almost calls Ross “Monsoon” from sheer habit (Heenan, after Ross criticizes the Brain's shitty light pen drawing: “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna cut off an ear for you, Mons—wait, you’re not Monsoon. You look like him though.”). I also respect the culturally elevated Van Gogh reference that Heenan was trying to fit in there. Must be that UCLA education.

Hughes controls with a mélange of neck vices and hair pulls, with Perfect bumping himself literally from one corner post to the other off the impact of a corner whip. We get a cool little inset interview with the Hitman during the match in which he innocuously says that he prefers wrestling someone hold-for-hold rather than wrestling a guy whose only game is power, so he’s rooting for Perfect. Gene Okerlund, that agent of discord, was listening to this interview and taking notes, as we’ll see later.

Anyway, Hughes misses a sitdown splash against the ropes, sells his injured taint with a goofy look on his face, and gets sick of eating offense on Perfect’s comeback. Rather than try to turn things around, he just grabs the urn and clocks Perfect in the jaw within clear view of the referee, earning Perfect the DQ victory. It was short and we got an inset interview from Bret, so even though it was the worst thing on this show by far, it wasn’t so shitty that it’s going to make a bad list of mine.

Interview time [w/Gene Okerlund]: Close up: A Sony boombox, made by those dastardly Japanese people who brought us cool transistor radios that outcompeted our American crap, and then who used that profit to buy CBS Music and Columbia Pictures right out from under us. Wow, that really sets the tone! I feel now that I should absolutely hate this Polynesian-American Yokozuna who was born in fucking CALIFORNIA because he represents Japan on account of the fact that he is good at one of their national sports. Except we’re not supposed to know that Yokozuna is from California because he’s either ambiguously Polynesian or Japanese depending on how the WWF feels that day, so we get Mr. Fuji cutting promos that are absolute dog water instead of just letting Yoko speak for himself. Okerlund wants to know how Fuji and Yoko are feeling before Yokozuna meets Hulk Hogan for the WWF World Championship again considering how badly it went for Yoko at the end of WM IX. Fuji cuts a boilerplate whatever promo, and then Yokozuna declares that TONIGHT, [HOGAN] AND AMERICA WILL GO DOWN. He tries to cadence his words as though he’s not a native English speaker, but he’s obviously a native English speaker. Fuck outta here, Vince, I’m not buying it.

Match: Bam Bam Bigelow meets Hacksaw Jim Duggan in our third first-round KotR match of the night. This match may have happened at some point in 2000 WCW, and I bet it wasn’t appreciably better or worse than this match will be. I do have to say, having watched Bammer in ECW recently, he was never better stateside than he was then, and as soon as he went to WCW, it was like his knees decided that they were done carrying all that weight and he turned into a pumpkin overnight. This is where I will also note that I’m going to be adding a few ECW reviews to this thread in the near-ish future, by the way!

Back to this match, which starts with Hacksaw and Bammer trying to impose their wills upon one another. Hacksaw denies Bam Bam a shoulderblock and then wins a lariat, sending Bammer to the floor. Bammer gets back in the ring and immediately rakes Hacksaw’s eyes, then sends Duggan into the corner, where Duggan takes a side bump so that he can sell a rib injury. The match is then worked around that rib injury. It’s not strictly good as a match, but I appreciate that it has a clear narrative in which Bam Bam attacks the ribs and Duggan’s fired-up comebacks can’t be completed because the rib injury keeps him from hitting the big move that would help him to victory. It’s just a shame that Bam Bam’s primary rib attack are a pair of shitty bearhugs. I like that Duggan is desperate enough to bite Bam Bam on the bridge of the nose to escape the second one – it reinforces that he’s hurt enough to resort to desperate measures – but Bam Bam kinda stunk in this thing and Duggan was the superior worker. Duggan manages to power Bammer up and into a body slam, but Bigelow moves out of the way of a Duggan corner charge, then quickly goes up and drops a diving headbutt on Duggan’s injured ribs and earns the three count. Yeah, I’ve seen this show a billion times, but on this viewing, I’ve realized that Duggan had a nice outing in his single match on the show!

Interview time [w/Terry Taylor]: Man, I can’t stand this mayonnaise fuckhead Taylor. He interviews the Steiner Brothers and the Smoking Gunns backstage (a Coliseum Video exclusive!) before their eight-man tag match with Money Inc. and the Headshrinkers later on this show. Fiercely debated fringe top-200 worker Billy Gunn says some mundane shit in a silly drawl. Then Bart Gunn says some mundane shit in a silly drawl. Thankfully, Scott Steiner talks. Even while not saying anything crazy, he’s entertaining. It’s not hindsight: He was my favorite Steiner Brother as a kid and always had that “possible main eventer” aura to me. Anyway, Rick Steiner wants to GET DOWN IN THE DOG POUND HOO HOO HOO HOO or something like that, you know how that guy is. This wasn’t a bad way to spend sixty seconds.

Match: Vince McMahon is currently wasting Lex Luger in this Narcissist gimmick, but it’s only like a couple weeks from this show before he’s wasting Lex Luger in that All-American gimmick. The referee makes Luger cover his metal-plated elbow with a pad before his first-round match against Tatanka on pain of disqualification. Tatanka runs out here while Luger poses in front of his mirror; Luger tosses him to the floor, then goes back to posing, and that energetic goof Tatanka hops right back in the ring and shoves the full-length mirror onto Luger.

This might be the most mundane match that I’ve ever loved, or at least really liked. I’ve probably written this before when talking about this show elsewhere, but what I liked about it is that the match was worked just like you’d think their characters would work this match. Tatanka is all boisterous babyface energy, which he set the tone for by running to the ring, getting tossed over the ropes, and immediately getting back in the ring without even selling so that he could resume his attack.

Meanwhile, Luger gets control and is immediately lackadaisical as fuck, much as heel Luger often is. Luger has the gift of looking like he barely gives a fuck and is just planning to get by on his natural talent rather than pressing his advantage or looking to finish off his opponent. We get an inset promo from Bam Bam in which he declares that in his next match, he wants THE INDIAN, but I hate to inform him that the Great Khali isn’t in the company yet, and neither is Jinder Mahal, so I don’t know who he—oh, he means Tatanka. Yeah, almost forgot it was 1993 for a second there. On the other hand, at least it was a heel saying that! In just a few weeks, the newly babyface Luger is going to call the extremely Californian Yokozuna a “rice chomping, blood-sucking leech.”

Yet I love pro wrestling in spite of its sometimes regressive nature, and this match is the most fun I’ve ever had watching something that is objectively boring. Luger gains control, hits measured offense, and scores a lax cover. He keeps control, hits measured offense, and scores a lax cover. He did get a low murmur from the crowd on an elbow drop in which he leapt high into the air. I think this match is what led me to using the word “sternum” as an active part of my vocabulary on account of how many elbows Luger landed to that spot on a prone Tatanka (and of course because Ross helpfully named the body part).

This match isn’t good, no, but it fit with how these two would wrestle this match and is easily their best match against one another. Take that for what you will! Luger doesn’t appear to understand the concept of time limits in kayfabe and continues to slowly hit offense, then cover, then only get two, then do that cycle again even as time ticks down. Tatanka, who managed to get three near falls of flash pinfall attempts within the midst of the beatdown that Luger gave him, finally fires up late and scores a well-timed 2.9 off a chop that the crowd bit on a little bit, actually. Tatanka scores two more rapid-fire nearfalls that the kids in the crowd seem to especially buy, based on the hard cam side and the sound of the OOOHs. Alas, he crashes and burns on a top-rope diving chop attempt, which leaves Luger to slowly hit offense and then cover for two for the final two minutes of the match. The bell rings; both men are eliminated on a draw (and both remain undefeated in a WWF ring because of the result). Luger asks for five more minutes he won’t get, then figures that since the bell rang and he’s now out of the competition, he might as well land that running metal elbow that he likes to hit so often. He slips off the elbowpad and pops Tatanka square in the temple with it, then leaves the ring to boos. I liked it, but no, I cannot call this a Hidden Midcard Gem no matter how much I’d like to.

I still love this show dearly, by the way.

Interview time [w/Gene Okerlund]: As a result of the draw in the previous match, Bam Bam Bigelow waltzes through the semis on a bye and is in the finals against the winner of the other semi-final match between Bret Hart and Mr. Perfect. Okerlund recalls the Hitman’s inset interview from a couple of matches ago in saying, “Bret Hart, did you not say earlier on that you would prefer to wrestle Mr. Perfect over Mr. Hughes and why?...You think he’s an easier opponent than Mr. Hughes would be?...I mean, is that what you said? I think you probably kinda intimated it.” Ah, there’s the Gene Okerlund that I know, making up arguments no one actually said and creating discord with various lies and slanders. He’s like a tuxedo-wearing Nelly Dean. Anyway, this duplicitous fuck has the nerve to tell Bret and Perfect to cool it when they start arguing over the strawman claims that Okerlund introduced in the first place, then tosses the “whose dad beat the other in a match” grenade into this interview. Bret and Perfect are hilarious to me because they immediately revert to third graders with claims about whose dad is better before Perfect does a handshake fake out. Hilarious, man, Bret and Perfect are so good together. I mean, except for in 1998 WCW.

Match: The Anchorage house show match between Bret Hart and Mr. Perfect probably isn’t on film, but if it actually is, that’s a huge holy grail of wrestling for me. Without that match on tape, I think this is their best match. Bret wrote that the Anchorage match is even better than this one, which if true would make it a top-ten WWF match all-time. This KotR match is borderline for me on that list.

Perfect and Hart start out trying to outwrestle one another, countering into and out of headscissors and side headlocks before Perfect opens up with a nasty chop. Bret counters with a slam, but Perfect kicks away from a follow-up; they struggle over another slam that Perfect wins, but Bret kicks him away when he advances and then wins another side headlock. The little bursts of activity in between the mat work are building a sense of excitement for when they get off the mat and just go all out.

Back to his feet, Bret almost steals a flash pinfall on a crucifix before grounding Perfect again with a side headlock takeover. I do a lot more play-by-play on these Hitman matches; it’s because Bret matches have always helped me slip into a sort of Real Sports Mode as a viewer, which is something that I value above almost everything else when watching a wrestling match. I sort of envy fans who can enjoy styles that maybe trade more on artifice. Actually, using that term might be unfair; an Irish whip is artifice as much as a series of dives in a trios tag or, for that matter, an invisible hand grenade being tossed into the ring. What I mean is that there are some fans who can accept the peculiarities of a given style for what they are and find enjoyment in it much more easily than I can, at least when it comes to pro wrestling. Whereas my tastes in other things – books, food, visual arts – have expanded as I’ve grown older, I find that my tastes in pro wrestling have contracted. The fewer wrestling tropes that I am able to accept and enjoy, the more boxed in I become in terms of what I can enjoyably view. This is an issue because that Real Sports feel is important to me, but it's not enough – I also need involved storylines with personal emotional stakes, or at least matches that trade on past history and character development like this one, which means that while there’s quite a bit of pure-sports-y type wrestling out there, a lot of it fails to connect with me in a meaningful way.

I digress, though, and as I’ve embarked upon this digression, Mr. Perfect has decided that he’s sick of all these notions of fair play and respect that Bret Hart seems to be holding to. He first yanks Bret’s hair to escape yet another side headlock, then hits a sweet standing dropkick that knocks Bret to the floor. As Bret re-enters the ring, Perfect is the picture of sportsmanlike behavior when he holds the middle rope open to help the Hitman along. Then, he becomes more like the picture of Dorian Gray as a busted up and ugly shrivel of a man when he takes the opportunity to stick the point of his boot into Bret’s solar plexus as Bret gets a foot over the rope.

Perfect’s series of follow-up stomps, kicks, and even a kneelift earn him two; Perfect knocks Bret to the floor and chops the crap out of him again before bashing him against the apron head-first and then rolling back into the ring to try and score a count-out victory. That doesn’t work because Bret’s back on the apron by five, but Perfect walks over and launches Bret off the apron and into the guardrail. It’s a pretty wild bump for 1993 WWF! Bret sells a knee injury in addition to the finger injury from the Razor match he’s already selling with his heavily-taped fingers.

The Hitman still manages to get back to the apron, so Perfect meets him with more strikes and another kneelift that earns Hennig two on the cover. Perfect lands a few hard rights, then goes up top and waits for Bret to rise from the mat; he hits a missile dropkick that Ross should call “bowling shoe ugly,” but hey, Hennig’s a big dude and doesn’t bust out moves like that often. That’s how you can tell how serious this match is to him.

Henning earns only another two count, so he shoots Bret hard into the corner; Bret takes his signature corner bump, and Perfect covers…for two. Perfect goes up top again, but this time, Bret is playing possum and quickly rises from the mat and cuts him off. The Hitman lands a superplex, but his lateral press is only enough to earn 2.7. Bret’s up first and he targets Perfect’s knee with a few targeted kicks and a Figure Four, applied dead in the center of the ring. Perfect tries to turn it, can’t, and attempts to stick a knuckle in Bret’s eye. That doesn’t work either, so Perfect finally has to slither toward the bottom rope and grab it.

After the break, Bret doggedly goes right back to attacking Perfect’s knee with a trip, and elbowdrop to the crook of said knee, and a grapevine. Perfect wriggles into position to drop his free leg over Bret’s jaw; this breaks the hold, and Perfect is able to pursue Bret into the corner, chop him, and then hair beal him to the mat.

Perfect sells the knee with a limp; he shuffles over to Bret, drags him to his feet, shoots him in, and catches him in a sleeper hold on the rebound. Bret sells the hell out of his blood supply to his brain being cut off and almost stumbles into the ropes. Perfect won’t break it until 4.5, then stumbles backward, falling to the mat, and frustratedly slaps at his kayfabe injured knee to get some circulation back into it. These dudes look like they’re half dead. Man, this rules. The selling, the psychology, the desperation to win – this match is exquisite. Perfect locks on another sleeper and backs toward the ropes so that he can use them for leverage, but Bret manages to marshal all his strength, struggle to his feet, and then fling himself forward toward the corner buckle as Perfect hangs on for dear life; Perfect’s head snaps into the buckle and breaks the hold.

Now the Hitman lights Perfect up with a huge lifter that sounds like it might have knocked Hennig clean out. Unlike the many dogshit modern workers who don’t bother to hide their bicep or thigh slaps on a huge strike, the Hitman is so subtle about it (he hides it within the full-body whirling motion that he uses to load up and land the shot) that I replayed it four times and still didn’t totally see him do it. Man, I need stop here and apologize to Bret for criticizing his late 1998 because after watching that part of his WCW run, I re-read his book and he was going through his divorce at the time and was totally depressed and thus unmotivated. I got on him (and Sting, who was going through serious marital issues at the same time) for that Havoc ’98 match, and you know what? I should have been more understanding, dammit. It’s matches like this KotR bout that remind me to give this dude some damn grace and that also keep Bret securely in my S+ tier of workers all-time.

In a bit of revenge, Bret grabs Hennig’s hair and returns the hair beal out of the corner from a few moments ago, but he sort of sideways slings Perfect rather than hitting a traditional beal, and Perfect goes sliding across the mat…and keeps sliding until he is only stopped by the contact of his nards against the opposite corner post. The crowd is enjoying this match as am I; they watch as Bret grabs Perfect and lands an inverted atomic drop, then a side Russian leg sweep for a two count. Bret drops a crisp leg, hauls Perfect up and into a back breaker, and then goes up and launches for a second-rope elbow that gets two more. Bret thinks that it’s time for the Sharpshooter; in desperation, Perfect grabs Bret’s taped fingers that Razor injured, bends them back to escape the hold, and then stomps on them.

This match has practically everything, including Bret blocking a PerfectPlex attempt and then managing a vertical suplex which tumbles both men over the top and to the floor. Perfect makes it back into he ring at about seven, but the Hitman is in at nine. Perfect sells that his leg was further injured in the tumble, so he looks to steal a quick win before he eats any more damage by small packaging Bret. That move only gets two for him, but when Bret shifts his weight and reverses it, it scores a three count for the Hitman. Goddam, what a fantastic match. Perfect leaves the ring and angrily yells to himself before climbing back in, shaking Bret’s hand, and clapping him on the back. On any given day, you might ask me what my favorite WWF/E match of all-time is, and on at least some of those days, it’ll be this one. I remember how I felt when I first saw it as a kid, and I’d go so far as to say that this match has no small part in why I still watch wrestling as an adult. I’ll call it a semi-main for the purposes of the list I’m keeping, but man, I sort of wish they’d have booked this as the finals and not the semis.

Interview time [w/Gene Okerlund]: Say buh-bye to the sorry-ass Hulkster! He and Jimmy Hart cut a whatever promo in which we get a long shot of the Hulkster’s face lovingly airbrushed onto the back of Jimmy Hart’s jacket. PACK THIS CORNBALL HOGAN ON UP AND SEND HIM DOWN SOUTH, SECOND-CLASS!

Actually, don’t send him down south. I like WCW and don’t want him to ruin it, which he eventually did. Anyway, here’s a direct line from a frothing-at-the-mouth Jimmy Hart: THIS MAN HAS RED, WHITE, AND BLUE RUNNING THROUGH HIS VEINS, AND HE WAS BORN AND RAISED IN THE U.S.A! I see Hart’s already drumming up lines for “American Made,” which I hope that we can all agree is one of the worst wrestler theme songs of all time.

Match: Yokozuna banishes Hulk Hogan from the Dub until 2002 as a result of their WWF World Championship Match. There are planted Japanese photographers around ringside, which seems like an obvious Chekhov’s Gun from the perspective of an American viewer, but which might have only seemed a neat touch for Yoko’s character if I’d have been watching puroresu shows full of ringside photogs back in the day. Savage notes that Hogan is “lean and mean” on his entrance, and Ross later says that Hogan “slimmed down” for this match. Hogan indeed looks small as hell compared to his usual gassed-up standards, and yet, he’s still in absurd shape compared to most of us, especially at, uh, 39? I mean, Hogan looked like he was basically a 45-year-old man for about thirty years of his life. But he looked like a buff 45-year-old-man, to be fair!

You know what? I’m kind of glad that Bret Hart didn’t get that Hogan match he wanted at KotR because then we wouldn’t have gotten that classic Bret had against Perfect, but on the other hand, Bret and Hogan having one of Hogan’s better career matches before Bret caught Hogan with a flash pin to win the title, followed by Hogan shaking the Hitman’s hand and passing the mantle along to him as the lead babyface, would have been incredible.

Yoko hits slow offense while he’s got Hogan trapped in the corner. Hogan previously tried a body slam and failed, and Heenan says that “even Triple A couldn’t pick up Yokozuna.” The captioner processes that comment as “even Triple H couldn’t pick up Yokozuna.” Well, no, Triple H couldn’t even last ninety seconds with the Ultimate Warrior, so I doubt he could pick up Yokozuna. In any case, this match is built around Hogan trying to slam Yoko, but being off the gear and therefore not having the muscle to do so, and also there’s a boring Yokozuna bear hug spot in the middle of this that goes on too long, but I’m probably underrating this match a bit. On the third slam try, Yoko only keeps one foot on the ground before he escapes. That’s pretty good escalation.

Also, Hogan does a lot of work to basically come off as overmatched against Yoko even considering the camera explosion spot that helps Yoko beat him. Two of the Hulkster’s clotheslines don’t equal one of Yoko’s when it comes to knockdown power; in another spot, Hogan launches himself at Yoko with a shoulderblock, but he’s the one to take the crisp back bump. Even with the cheapie camera explosion finish that comes when one of the planted photogs gets on the apron and distracts that dipstick Hogan before (literally) firing his faulty camera into the Hulkster’s eyes, Yoko fairly dominates Hogan throughout, kicks out of Hogan’s legdrop before the explosion, and even finishes Hogan off with his very own legdrop. Yeah, when you manage victory by stealing your opponent’s finisher, everyone remembers that instead of the fact that you got a little assistance from a camera-wielding interloper. Yoko sees Hogan off with a post-match Banzai Drop just to add a cherry on top of this glorious metaphorical sundae.

In conclusion: Hulkamania is DEAD (for now). Hooray!

Interview time [w/Terry Taylor]: Mr. Perfect is annoyed with Taylor’s stupid-ass questions about how he feels after losing a grueling match to the Hitman. Taylor sounds like he’s going to cry after Perfect’s only somewhat fiery tirade.

Interview time [w/Gene Okerlund]: Shawn Michaels gives Yokozuna props for getting that “dinosaur” Hulk Hogan out of the way. He does it in a traditionally corny Shawn Michaels way that I think is meant to reference the then-popular Jurassic Park, but instead is more in line with a reference of the distantly-popular Flintstones. Oh yeah, Kevin Nash is here, standing sentinel behind HBK, and I think this is the exact point in Nash’s WWF career where he gets his name: Diesel, according to Shawn, or in other words, “that which makes a mack truck go.” Shawn feels pretty sanguine about his chances to defend his WWF Intercontinental Championship successfully against Crush, especially with the big man backing him up.

Match: Our cooldown eight-man tag match pitting the Smoking Gunns (Billy and Bart) and the Steiner Brothers (Scott and Rick) against Money Incorporated (Ted DiBiase and Irwin R. Shyster) and the Headshrinkers (Fatu and Samu, w/Afa) is next. It’s fine. Scott Steiner hits a nice dropkick early on, then plays ping-pong with DiBiase by repeatedly sending him to the floor so that Rick can send him back into the ring. Hell, even Bart and Fatu have a nice exchange in which Fatu leaps over a foot sweep attempt (!) before being felled by a dropkick. Fatu manages to turn the tide with a superkick that puts Bart in FIP jail, and you know what, while I don’t like Money Inc., these other tag teams range from “great” to “consistently fun.” This is an easy watch.

My favorite part of this match comes after the finish, in which DiBiase manages to slump Billy Gunn with a Hot Shot and a Million Dollar Dream after Billy gets a hot tag and makes a spirited comeback. Rather than putting Billy out completely and garnering the win, he drops Billy on the first hand-raise check of the ref, then celebrates, picks Gunn up for a slam, and gets reversed into a flash cradle for three. Savage declares THAT’S WHAT YA GET FOR BEIN’ STUPID on commentary, which gives me a kick. The babyfaces clear the ring, and Scotty screams THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR BEIN’ COCKY, which cracks me up even more. Can you believe that WCW booked a match between ’99 “What up, Mach-”era Randy Savage and Big Poppa Pump Scott Steiner on Nitro, and it went ten seconds with a fuck finish after a lockup? I don’t care if Savage doesn’t have working hips at that point; you don’t tease that match and then not deliver, dammit!

Interview time [w/Gene Okerlund]: Jack “Worst President since Noriega” Tunney stands by with the new WWF World Champion Yokozuna and his unfortunately talky manager Mr. Fuji. A phalanx of cameramen take pictures of the champion with his belt as Tunney congratulates Yoko and Fuji; Fuji then cuts a decent enough promo for him in which the best part is, of course, his evil laugh. Yoko screams BANZAI! The captioner hears it as BULL’S EYE! Fuji mentions a Japanese royal who is STEALIN’ YOUR AMERICAN WOMEN to try and garner some heat. Mmm, nah. Let’s move it along.

Match: Crush and his rad fucking theme are up next; he’s wrestling Shawn Michaels (w/Diesel) for the WWF Intercontinental Championship. Ross and Savage claim that Hogan’s eyesight is okay and that Hogan will one day be right back in Yokozuna’s face. Well, no, and that’s only because Yoko was too unhealthy to go get a huge WCW payday in 1998 or thereabouts by allowing Hogan to get his win back. Crush and Michaels had fun matches on the house show/Coliseum Video circuit around this time, and this match, while not mind-shatteringly good or anything near it, is also fun! That’s partly because Michaels bumps himself around wildly for all of Crush’s power moves; the first Crush shoulderblock that catches him sends him rolling across the mat, through the ropes, and to the floor like he’s Neymar trying to buy a penalty.

The other part of what makes this matchup good is the simple power vs. speed dynamic, but behind that, a clever heel vs. dumbass babyface dynamic that makes things even better. Can the slowpoke babyface keep from being outmaneuvered by the scheming heel? It’s Crush, so absolutely not! Crush leapfrogs Michaels on a rope run and flashes some agility, then ducks a Michaels Sweet Chin Music attempt and knocks HBK to the floor.

Nothing Michaels is doing works; he rushes in and gets tripped, rushes in and gets tripped, rushes in again and gets hip tossed, and stubbornly rushes in again once more and is military pressed to the mat. Savage claims that Crush can slam Yoko – he’ll sure try in a month or so – as Crush lands a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker and signals for the Cranium Crunch. Diesel yanks Michaels to safety on the floor, and on cue, just as Heenan points out that Crush “ain’t too bright,” Crush follows to the floor, where he is distracted fully and totally by Diesel and never notices Michaels reentering the ring, then exiting again right behind him and shoving him face first into the post. Diesel waits for the ref to turn around and admonish Michaels, then sends Crush right back into the post. The ref peers at Diesel, who begs off while HBK goes back outside and repeatedly slams Crush’s head into that very same post. Oh, Crush, you’re so susceptible to trickery because you are soooooooooooooooo dumb.

Michaels lugs the completely-out Crush back into the ring. It takes him a bit, and even though Crush seems cooked, he kicks out of HBK’s lateral press at two. Michaels stomps at Crush’s head before landing a top-rope double axe, again straight to Crush’s noggin; he lands a boot to the temple and once again covers, and once again, his cover only gets two.

The defending champion locks Crush in a front facelock. He at least works it a bit, and Crush works up to a base after not very long. He even breaks it by powering out and tossing Michaels away; Michaels is pugnacious (right, Ross?) in locking it on again, but Crush tosses him away, and then after Michaels tries again, Crush tosses Michaels over the top rope. I say “over,” but really, it was “onto.” Michaels hit it with his stomach, but bumped in a way that he slid his face across it while falling, and it looked like he snapped his neck pretty violently.

Crush lands a run of offense to score close two counts, including a backbreaker, a high boot, and legdrop. Heenan rants about how Michaels should have left Crush knocked out on the floor instead of dragging him back into the ring, but HBK’ll be just fine because two Doink the Clowns walk slowly to ringside. This quickly distracts Crush, who stands in the corner of the ring and screams at them; he never sees Michaels recover and hit him right in the back of the head with Sweet Chin Music. Well, it was more like Sweet Base of the Head Music in this case. Michaels manages to hold Crush down for three, the latter of whom takes off and chases the Doinks to the back immediately after the three count. That SCM barely kept the big man down, Shawn. You might want to work on that kick in the lab a bit more.

Interview time [w/Gene Okerlund]: Bam Bam Bigelow yells out a brief promo in which he assures the audience both in the Nutter Center and at home that he shall take advantage of his fortuitous luck and ride his semifinal bye to a victory in the King of the Ring tournament.

Match: Bret Hart walks out to meet Bam Bam Bigelow in the King of the Ring finals limping and with the fingers of his left hand re-taped. This match never really did it for me, and another watch of this bout reveals that it’s perfectly fine, and that Bammer’s offense in control – which he spends a lot of time scoring since Bret has wrestled almost a half-hour longer and taken more kayfabe damage – is generally okay, I suppose. Bam Bam in All Japan or ECW is so much more interesting than Bam Bam in the WWF or WCW as an offensive wrestler, and if I had my druthers, I’d spend time explaining why. Honestly, I hadn’t seen Bam Bam in ECW in maybe two decades or more before a couple months ago, and I haven’t seen him in All Japan in a few years, so this assertion probably warrants further exploration at some point.

See, look, here’s another Bam Bam bearhug spot, though at least this one doesn’t look completely terrible because Bret is smaller and Bam Bam can actually sink it in. This match is mostly Bret kicking out of slow Bammer offense, with the inclusion of an unnecessary false finish when Luna Vachon rushes out and helps her man by attacking Bret from behind with a folding chair, leading to Bam Bam dropping a diving headbutt on Bret and gaining a three count…until a referee rushes out and gets the original ref to rescind his decision and restart the match. OK, so why didn’t any of the refs do this in the Hogan bout? Just have Bret win it without any of this nonsense, Vince. I’ve never seen a booker so begrudgingly push his top guy as Vince McMahon did with Bret. All these caveats and other such bullshit, man. Just have him win convincingly! Maybe even against your top guys! This idiot is out here sandbagging Bret and benching Savage in ’93 and ‘94, with his stupid-looking on-trial ass wearing his dumbass neck brace. No, I don’t feel sorry for you or your neck, Vince. Fuck off.

After the match restarts, Bam Bam hits some more slow offense. Dammit, there’s another bearhug. Bam Bam should have put Spike Dudley or Taz in endless bearhugs in front of the ECW mutants just to see what would happen. At least after his umpteenth bearhug, he switches it up and puts Bret in an overhead backbreaker. Hart eventually wriggles away and hits a side Russian, then later lariats Bammer to the floor and scores a slingshot crossbody over the top before landing a few punches. Bret goes up once and lands a second rope clothesline for 2.8 before starting his Five Moves ‘o Doom with a side Russian; he follows with a diving bulldog from the second rope, but Bammer kicks away from his Sharpshooter attempt and then…catches Hart in a bearhug. Bret bites his way out, but his back suplex is countered by Bammer with a shift of his considerable weight. Bam Bam lands on top, but only earns two on the cover. Bam Bam shoots Bret into the corner and follows with a charge, but Bret gets a boot up, hops onto the second rope, hoists himself onto Bam Bam’s shoulders, and then flips forward into a victory roll to sneak a three count and become the reigning King of the Ring. I sure hope his baby brother Owen was watching Bret’s last move and storing it away for later strategic consideration!

Gab Gab Gab: We can’t even get a single moment of unbroken triumph, Hitman fans. Here comes Jerry Lawler to proclaim himself the One True King of the WWF. Hart retorts that King's claims to the throne are a giant WHOPPER (on account of the fact that according to him, “the only king Lawler is, is the BURGER KING,” y’know), so Lawler sneak attacks him, then picks up the heavy king’s throne and literally drops it from over his head and right onto the Hitman’s lower back. That was insanely reckless! I believe Bret said it hurt like a motherfucker in his memoirs, and boy, do I believe him. Even as a kid, I thought it looked nasty. Why Lawler wouldn’t, you know, protect the guy by guiding it into his body rather than letting gravity do the job, I cannot imagine. No offense to Lawler, who legitimately is one of wrestling’s great performers, but no one wants to see him wrestle the fucking Hitman in the upper-midcard in 1993. This was the best you had for Bret at this point, bookers?

Despite these complaints about Bret’s direction, this show is still my favorite WWF/E PPV ever. I love it, and even though it peaked with Hitman/Perfect and probably didn’t have enough Razor on the show (and maybe not even enough Luger), it had a surprisingly fun non-KotR run of matches and Hart’s night-long performance is impeccable and a high-point for his in-ring career. Though I wouldn’t spit at you if you said that KotR ’98 was better than ’93, that argument is not for me, sir, madam, or non-binary folk! Not for me! 4.75 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

Gorman · March 7

I'm glad you loved this show, because I was there! What a wild night, especially with Yoko beating Hogan for the title.

SirSmUgly · March 8

WWF SummerSlam 1993 (30 August 1993):

A show in which Lex Luger’s WWF career is killed dead less than a year in

Let’s just shoot through these 1993 WWF Big Five PPVs before taking a little break because I’m not out here trying to follow up with the 1994 and 1995 Big Five PPVs like some kind of psycho. I’d like the opportunity to pepper my viewing of questionable shows with a viewing of questionable shows from other companies, at least. And maybe even some good shows!

Maybe.

Hype package: Lex Luger travels the country that he loves so much, though I must say that he's looking incredibly irritated by the citizens of that country whom he seems to barely tolerate. Same, Luger. Same.

Gab Gab Gab: Well, I have to suffer Vince McMahon on PBP because this is one of those points at which he has fired Jim Ross, I think. Maybe? [Editor's note: Not yet!] I always get the timelines mixed up on when McMahon fired Ross (both times). Anyway, going from a Ross/Heenan/Savage booth at KotR ’93 to a McMahon/Heenan booth on this show is the very definition of the word suboptimal!

Both men run down exactly two matches on this card: The Lex Luger/Yokozuna main event for the WWF World Championship and the Bret Hart/Jerry Lawler grudge match to determine the One True King in the WWF. We quickly move to…

Match: …the opener that pits Ted DiBiase against a freshly babyfaced Razor Ramon. Razor and DiBiase are beefing over how embarrassing it is to drop a fall to the 1-2-3 Kid. Ouch! Y’know, the Kid is just undersized and young, not untalented! Geez, man, give him his props in kayfabe as we should all give him his props for real because Sean Waltman rules at the scientific art of pro wrestling.

DiBiase jumps Razor at the bell, but his punches are ineffective, and Razor quickly takes control with a back bodydrop, a fallaway slam, and a single hard right that sends DiBiase spilling to the floor. The early story is that DiBiase keeps trying to bring the heat to Razor, who eats his strikes for breakfast before firing off some quick offense and knocking DiBiase to the floor. After this happens a second time, DiBiase changes tack; he begs off to sucker Razor in before yanking him by his tights into a face-first buckle bonk. DiBiase does some dull heel offense. I have tried to appreciate DiBiase more because quite a few DVDVR users think highly of him, but man, he just bores the shit out of me. He’s a lot like Randy Orton to me in that he’s mechanically sound (and in DiBiase’s case, has an especially sweet fistdrop), but I just do not care about what he's doingmmost of the time. There are exceptions from Mid-South: The heel turn on JYD to snake the North American title from around his erstwhile friend’s waist, for one. For another, the wild sequence of events in which Dick Murdoch opened up a head wound in his pre-match attack on DiBiase before DiBiase wrestled Ric Flair for the NWA title, complete with Murdoch reappearing and piledriving DiBiase on the concrete floor after DiBiase bled out while valiantly trying to wrestle Flair anyway are the two exceptions. I don’t even love the silly tuxedo cage match against Hacksaw Jim Duggan the way everyone else does. And man, did he lull me right into a sound sleep in pretty much every mid-‘80s All Japan match I’ve ever seen him wrestle.

All this is to say that this DiBiase heel control segment, while mechanically fine, is BORING, let’s MOVE IT THE FUCK ALONG. I want to see Scott Hall his all his cool signature offense. We’ve only gotten that fallaway slam so far. But no! Razor escapes a Million Dollar Dream attempt, but gets knocked to the floor instead of making a prolonged comeback. It’s shortly after that when Razor makes a truncated comeback; DiBiase unbuckles the pad on a turnbuckle strut, but his buckle bonk attempt into that corner is immediately reversed, and Razor hoists DiBiase up for a Razor’s Edge that gets three. There wasn’t enough shine for Razor and his comeback was too short besides. Gimme a second-rope back suplex in there, at least. At least Razor finally won a match on a 1993 PPV with a Razor’s Edge. And it only took him four shows and until the very end of August!

Interview time [w/Todd Pettengill]: FUCK, it’s Todd Pettengill, SHIT, FUCK, DAMMIT, NO, and he’s talking to the Steiner Brothers’ mom and sister, and Big Mama Pump is very clearly from the Midwest; you can hear that as soon as she starts speaking. Big Poppa Pump Sr. is sick at home and won’t be attending to watch his sons kick the shit out of some poor lost tag team. Hilariously, Pettengill does a whole annoying fucking bit in which he basically asks how hard it was to keep the young Steiners from breaking all her furniture at home while they were roughhousing as kids, but he takes so long to get through the bit that when he finally SHUTS THE FUCK UP, she pops on a polite Midwest smile and responds thusly: “Sure, whatever you say!” That cracked me up.

Match: I also cracked up as soon as Jim Cornette piped in from the ring to introduce the Heavenly Bodies. I actually said out loud while chuckling, “Oh God, it’s Jimmy Del Ray.” Cornette is wearing a neck brace for some reason. I presume that Luger attacked him at some point over the past couple of weeks? Anyway, Cornette’s out here giving that doofus Vince a few ideas with the “have sympathy for me” neck brace he’s got on. Oh, speaking of Vince, he mentions that Cornette’s wearing the brace because he's been recently attacked by someone in Smoky Mountain Wrestling, which of course is the company thathe is currently running. Was it Bullet Bob who attacked him, or was that another feud? Or another company? I can scarecely recall. Anyway, SMW is the exact company that I’m trying to gather as much TV for as possible because I would like it to be my next long-form pro wrestling reviews thread. I’ve seen bits and bobs in the past, but I’d love to run through the whole promotion's television over a year or two of steady reviews.

Anyway, the Bodies are the poor lost tag team who are going to eventually get fucked up by the Steiners, the latter of whom I note are the current WWF World Tag Team Champions. The Bodies jump the champs right at the start of this title defense, and it’s all quite energetic. Del Ray tosses Scotty to the floor, and then he and Prichard land a double pancake on Rick. Scott tries to get back in the ring, but they immediately jump him, then go back to Rick. The Bodies seem to realize that they need to kill the Steiners off quickly before the champs can gather themselves, and in fact, Scott makes it back in the ring and lands a monkey flip on Del Ray, a belly-to-belly on Prichard, and a tilt-a-whirl side slam on Del Ray. Rick threw a lariat in there, too! He wasn’t useless or anything. This show is in Auburn Hills, by the way, so suffice it to say that the crowd is going bananas for all this.

The match settles down into a typical tag, and Scott’s out here tossing guys around with military presses and back body drops and such like. It’s rad. Don’t get me wrong; Rick Steiner connecting with a wild lariat at Del Ray’s ear is also entertaining. It’s just that I want to see Scotty fling dudes around.

Cornette is really active outside the ring; he almost hits the Cornette Face when he hears the crowd HOO HOO HOO in unison to support Rick, and he almost hits his “having a coronary yelling about Vince Russo on a podcast” level of flushed skin when he screams at the camera to back off while he tutors his men outside the ring.

This match could theoretically go south in quality, but it almost certainly won't, and I remember liking it a ton the last time I saw it. I think, as Scotty hands out inverted atomic drops to these Smoky Mountain goobers before they run a sweet misdirection in which Del Ray baseball slides under a Scotty lariat and then Prichard hits a bulldog while Scott’s held in place by his ankles, that it’s time to talk about the pure wrestling value of the Steiner Brothers so far on WWF PPV in 1993. They had what I think was the best match on the Royal Rumble against the Beverly Brothers. They had what I think was the best match by far at WrestleMania against the Headshrinkers. They are in the process of having what I suspect will be the best match on this show, or at worst the second best behind Hitman/Doink [Editor's note: Bret/Doink and Bret/Lawler were also very good, but this tag match was indeed my favorite match on this card]. Basically, they were quite important to keeping these cards at least somewhat watchable and, though I’m not watching them kill jobbers on RAW or Superstars alongside these PPVs, I would guess that they are consistently entertaining there and should probably be put on a very short list alongside Bret Hart, Razor Ramon, and Shawn Michaels for feeling like complete acts worth looking forward to in 1993 WWF.

This is not to take away from any of their opponents, by the way. The Beverlys and the Headshrinkers are both exce;lent tag teams. So are the Bodies, actually, who hit a lot of fun offense and have some creative double-team spots during this control segment. Del Ray hits a double sledge off the top and finally scumbags it up with his weird erotic dance. He then gets reversed on an Irish whip, but lands a floatover DDT (!!!) as a counter when Scotty ducks down. Wow, a floatover DDT in 1993 WWF! Basically, this is more proof that this stupid company failed the Steiners by not maintaining a strongly booked and positioned tag division for them to work within. I mean, the Steiners had some awesome matches against the Quebecers as well, but the tag division isn’t framed as important enough and should have been centered more during this time period.

Del Ray lands a superkick that drops Scotty and then tags out to Prichard, who scores a back rake. Even Cornette is able to jab the handle of his racket into Scott’s throat. Del Ray tags back in and tries another floatover DDT, but Scotty blocks him as he floats into front facelock position and hits a huge overhead suplex. Prichard tags in, but Scott soon catches him in a double-underhook suplex, and that gives Scott the space to make a hot tag to Rick, who puts some sauce on those Steinerlines as he knocks the Bodies down. Rick drills Del Ray with a top-rope bulldog, but it only gets two because Prichard breaks up the pinfall. The match breaks down and Cornette tosses his racket to Prichard, who tees off on Rick, but his cover only gets two. Del Ray tries to moonsault Rick as Prichard holds him in place, but Scott pulls Rick out of the way; the brothers shoot Del Ray in, and Del Ray rebounds right into a leaping Scotty’s Frankensteiner. Rick covers for three, and oh look, the Steiners once again are one of the best – if not the best – parts of a WWF PPV.

Interview time [w/Joe Fowler]: Joe Fowler is in the company for all of like four months or whatever! Vince churned through interviewers and weekend show personalities at quite the rate during this period, didn’t he? Fowler thanks Vince McMahon “for bringing [him] onboard,” and between little cracks in the façade like Fowler’s comment that appeared from time to time and all the times that Vince McMahon was in the news for ringboy sex assault incidents and steroid trials and the like, is it really that likely that the vast majority of WWF fans didn’t know that he was the owner? Like, really? Even I knew that by the time I was about ten years old!

Anyway, Fowler is a little too yell-y for my tastes as he asks Shawn Michaels (w/Diesel) about his upcoming title defense against Mr. Perfect. Fowler questions whether or not Michaels can be a greater Intercontinental Champion than Perfect was if he needed Diesel’s help to re-secure the title from Marty Jannetty, but Diesel speaks! He reassures Fowler that Shawn is the man and that he’s really just around to keep the ladies from literally riding the guy’s dick all the time. Okay, then!

Match: When I first saw this Shawn Michaels (w/Diesel) vs. Mr. Perfect match as a kid, I was incredibly disappointed in it. I did come in overhyped, though. I was certain that this match would be possibly one of the best I’d ever seen. This match was pretty much like a wrestling version of Breath of the Wild, come to think of it. I overhype myself > thing as it actually is doesn’t come close to living up to my own hype > what I’m left with is actually pretty solid upon further consideration, but that sharp edge of disappointment never quite goes away. It’s my own fault. I can admit that.

But also, the problem is that both guys are best at being dynamic bumpers. Look back at my review of King of the Ring 1993, and I highlight that both men made matches against lesser talent (Perfect against Mr. Hughes, Michaels against Crush) better than they otherwise would have been just by bumping wildly and entertainingly. Bumping is the thing each guy does the best. Landing offense, though, is not a thing that each guy does the best. It takes about ninety seconds before there's an ugly offensive spot that is maybe supposed to be a hip toss or something out of a rope run, and it’s visually unclear who is supposed to be hurt. Heenan even asks, “Who got the worst of that?” Vince has to clarify that Michaels did since Perfect was the one to arise and press the advantage.

I respect that a guy as big as Perfect does a pretty good job of keeping his cardio up and doing quite a bit of running and quick counters along with Michaels, who of course makes his trade off of being speedy and bumping around. They trade chops in the corner – Perfect’s sound more impactful before they do two straight corner charge spots in which Michaels dodges Perfect, though on the second one, Hennig ducks out of the way of his moonsault and lays him out.

This is a strange match. They have these fairly pacey spots and rope running galore in between lots of work in the corner. Michaels dives off the top into one arm drag and then another; Perfect covers for two, then locks on an armbar. HBK works up to his feet and they do some more rope running before Perfect ends up slingshotting Michaels over the top rope and to the floor. Perfect follows, which is when Diesel pops up behind him like a villain in a slasher flick. This distracts Perfect; Diesel backs off, and Perfect turns around and right into Michaels’s Sweet Chin Music, which at this point he’s still using as a transitional move as well as a finisher.

Michaels dumps Perfect back in the ring and targets Perfect’s lower back with elbowdrops and whips into the corner. Michaels lands a sitdown splash on the small of Perfect’s back, and the mic clearly picks up Hennig barking out a pained OH GODDAMMIT upon impact, which the captioner put on assignment dutifully also notes in the text. What is this, the Attitude Era?

HBK has perfect in an over-the-knee backbreaker now, but Perfect fights his way out of it, and then wins a dropkick out of a leapfrog on a rope run. Perfect’s next offensive sequence includes a back body drop, knee lift, and inverted atomic drop into a cover for only two. There’s a lot of energy in this match, at least. Both guys are trying to have a midcard epic that stands out as the best match on the card over the much-hyped main event. The problem is that the Steiners and Bodies beat them to it.

Anyway, they have a neat sequence at the end where they fight over a backslide, and Perfect maneuvers Shawn into PerfectPlex position. Diesel saves Michaels’s title by dragging Perfect out of the ring by his leg; Hebner both misses this and misses Nash posting Perfect. Michaels retains the Intercontinental title by countout, but he doesn’t have long to celebrate as Perfect attacks both he and Diesel from behind. Luckily enough for him, he’s got the numbers advantage, and he eventually props Perfect up for a knockout punch from Diesel. Annoying-ass Todd Pettengill accosts Michaels in the aisle regarding his method of victory, but HBK is unmoved by Pettengill’s whining about the injustice of blah blah blah.

One final comment on this match: I stand firmly by my Breath of the Wild analogy from earlier.

Interview time [w/Joe Fowler]: Hey, it’s the 1-2-3 Kid, and man, speaking of people who are obviously from the Midwest when they open their mouths, this dude is so obviously from Minnesota when he speaks about his first WWF PPV match upcoming against Irwin R. Shyster.

Match: Hey, Irwin R. Shyster seems like a somewhat Jewish-coded name, which I don’t feel good about since his gimmick is that he’s a money-grubbing dude (but for the U.S. government). Am I off here? Has anyone else made this point before, or am I on an island? Maybe I’m off. Unlike his former partner in Money Inc., IRS is going to be on WWF television into 1995, stinking up the joint and sweating all over everything and everyone. He’s the most boring possible first PPV opponent for the 1-2-3 Kid. I mean, he’s a total pro and everything, and he does a decent job of helping the Kid bump himself around. The Kid takes a face plant off of one press, but he dropkicks his way out of another one.

I wouldn’t call myself the biggest Sean Waltman fan on the internet, but I would certainly say that I’m a bigger fan of his than most seem to be. I love his Lightning Kid stuff pre-WWF, this 1-2-3 run, and he was one of the few guys able to consistently work solid matches on TV even in 1999/2000 WWF hellscape of matches being two-to-four minutes long. I saw him Tombstone Vampiro into an exploding casket on WSX and loved it. But there’s nothing I love more than his brief run as Syxx in WCW. Man, that era of the nWo with Hall, Nash, and Syxx easily covering for how corny Hogan, Bischoff, and the Giant were was the best. Those three invading the commentary desk on Nitro was great in and of itself, and Syxx worked awesome singles and tag matches and had fun feuds with Ric Flair, Dean Malenko, and Chris Jericho besides.

Suffice it to say that I like this match well enough, though the Kid being treated like an extreme underdog because he’s lanky is some bullshit. Us tall lanky dudes deserve better representation on television! The Kid has to survive a lot of basic offense from IRS. He fires off a dynamic flash pinfall counter, gets caught in IRS’s long and interminable abdominal stretch spot (that thankfully isn’t that long, but that transitions immediately into a long and interminable chinlock spot), and then fights up and hits a nice kick and a pretty moonsault for about 2.7. the Kid tries a La Magistral next, but again only gets a close two count. Kid gets his front kick caught, but lands a kick with his other leg and covers for one more close two count…and then he jobs to IRS’s Write-Off. Fuck outta here, Vince. Jobbing the Kid to IRS in late 1993, can you believe this shit?

Interview time [w/Todd Pettengill]: Bruce and Owen Hart are in attendance, but not papa Stu and mama Helen on account of some Lawler attack on Stu from a few RAWs or Superstars episodes back. You can tell that Bruce is speaking Canadian English because he says that Stu is “in hospital” and not “in the hospital,” but he says it in a Canadian accent and not a British or Australian or Irish one. You can also tell that Todd Pettengill is struggling to get his words out as he incessantly chatters because he calls Lawler’s attack “veetreeolic” instead of vitriolic, as the word is commonly pronounced. I hate Todd Pettengill. Anyway, Owen Hart goes off about that dastardly Lawler, but I’m momentarily distracted because all I can see when I look at this guy now is Woodstock of Peanuts fame. That’s how Bret described baby Owen in his memoirs, and as soon as he said it, I laughed because man, it’s still an apt descriptor even when Owen is an adult.

Match: Yeah, let’s put Bret Hart, the most popular guy in the company, on in the middle of the card to wrestle a guy in Jerry Lawler who is presented as a joke in the WWF! If Lawler had come in as a heel, but in his sort of dismissive and snarky and mean manner as he usually was when heeling in Memphis, I would have been more into this feud. It’s the cartoonish Lawler with the crown and the high-pitched squealing and all that nonsense that makes this feud seem like a total joke. Tonight, Bret gives Lawler a receipt for Lawler recklessly dumping that heavy throne on his back at King of the Ring! But before that, Lawler fakes a knee injury just like the one he kayfabe gave papa Stu to try and bow out of his match against the Hitman. Instead, he sends Doink the Clown out to wrestle in his stead. Look, Matt Bourne in the clown makeup is fantastic, but cartoon Lawler sending a clown out to wrestle for him is not helping this feud to look like less of a fucking joke.

Meanwhile, while Lawler and Vince act like complete clowns on WWF television, back in Memphis, they’re having awesome, realistic-feeling promo battles. Man, I would love to re-watch some McMemphis, and it occurs to me that maybe in that big Memphis folder that Kris Zellner made available, I can skip ahead to 1993 and watch some for this thread. Sure, they’re not big shows, but I can make an exception. Hmmm…

Anyway, Doink walks down here carrying two buckets. The first one, which has confetti in it, scatters harmlessly over the heads of a few fans. The second one, which is full of water, ends up completely on Bruce Hart, and again let me refer to Bret’s book in which Owen, knowing of this spot beforehand, told Matt Bourne that he was in for the rib of all ribs if even one drop got on him. Bourne apparently took Owen’s prank skills seriously because he completely and absolutely missed Owen. His aim was immaculate.

Bret and Doink unsurprisingly proceed to have a really good match! Bret fires off a few rights when Doink enters the ring before clotheslining him to the floor. Of course, Bruce has to get a punch in on Doink on the floor before being backed away by WWF officials. Back in the ring, Bret continues to fire off very unscientific punches and kicks, working out his rage at Lawler by peppering Doink with strikes that send him right back to the floor. Lawler hobbles forward on his crutches to support Doink, and his support…uh, doesn’t really work. Doink sticks a shoulder into Bret’s gut upon re-entering the ring. Bret sells it as if his wind was knocked out, which spurs Doink to take the risk of going up top, but Bret quickly snaps to his feet after Doink takes the bait. Bret grabs him by his clown hair, hangs him by his toes on the top rope, and hits a face crusher.

It’s really fun watching angry Bret dismantle Doink in this opening. The Hitman tries to get Lawler to enter the ring and fight him, which is the only thing that gives Doink an opening. The first time, the Hitman out-strikes Doink, but the second time, Doink is able to catch Bret from behind with a knee as Bret stalks Lawler on the floor. Heenan makes me laugh with a mean joke in which he notes that Stu and Helen have been married for years and never considered divorcing – not because they love each other deeply, mind you, but because “no one wanted custody of those ugly kids.” Uncalled for, Heenan! Also, funny. Very funny.

Doink gets Bret back in the ring, but again, he briefly loses control of a punch-up and has to maneuver Bret into a kneebreaker to maintain dominance. He then wraps the Hitman’s knee around the post twice. Doink covers for only two, so he works Bret’s knee with an STF that he transitions into a headlock as Bret fights out. Bret still makes it up to his feet, but he hits the ropes and runs right into Doink’s knee in his solar plexus. The clown drops an elbow; his lateral press gets two. Doink next busts out his signature Stump Puller, and he uses the ropes for balance until ref Bill Alfonso spots it and kicks his hand away.

The hold is broken, but Doink is undeterred. He slams Bret into position for a Whoopee Cushion. He goes up and comes down…onto Bret’s knees. Bret takes advantage of Doink and his torn and tortured taint, going right into a few of his Five Moves o’ Doom. Side Russian, second-rope elbowdrop, Sharpshooter, and…Jerry Lawler hops in the ring and absolutely fucking CLATTERS Bret with a crutch right into the side of the neck, handing the win to Bret by disqualification. I’m shocked that Bret didn’t legitimately fucking murder this dude Lawler at some point after all these nasty weapon shots. Goddam!

Match: Lawler helps Doink to the back, but he’s met in the aisle by Jack “On the Take” Tunney, who demands that if Lawler is actually not injured, he get in the ring and honor the contract for a wrestling match against Bret Hart that he signed. Bret is up and making his way toward Lawler in the aisle; Tunney tells Howard Finkel to announce that if Lawler doesn’t wrestle Bret, Lawler’s catching that Pete Rose ban. Faced with such a ban, Lawler, uh, doesn’t really get a choice in the matter because Bret finally gets to him, beats the hell out of him, and drags him back to the ring.

Bret gnaws on Lawler’s forehead and then hits a back body drop and a legdrop, followed by a legdrop to the lower abdomen. I always did like how Bret would tease a Sharpshooter, get the crowd a bit fired up, but then choose to land that headbutt instead just to get us a bit more excited to see the real thing.

The Hitman lands a crutch shot that actually seems pretty safe; both guys attack each other with the one still intact crutch as well as pieces of the broken one. Lawler chokes Bret with a piece of one crutch outside the ring. Lawler crotches Bret on the post, then grabs a crutch piece and hides it for some reason because Alfonso has watched these fellas attack each other with the crutch outside the ring already. He points at something in the crowd to distract the ref and use the crutch on Bret’s throat, but all Alfonso does after figuring out what happened is to yell NO MORE at Lawler. That spot was nonsensical and illogical, but the crowd did get antsy about Lawler’s cheating, so it at least elicited an emotional reaction!

Lawler thinks he’s on top and lands some punches, but Bret punches back and then he pulls down the straps like prime Kurt Angle, and Lawler freaks out about it before Bret mows him down: punches, back body drop, back breaker, two count. Bret steals Lawler’s own finishing move – DISS – and sticks him with a piledriver, then drops a second-rope elbow, gives the crowd a thumbs up, and wraps Lawler in the Sharpshooter and really sits down on it as he gets a submission. He continues to really sit down on it, and the decision is eventually reversed, giving a win by disqualification to Lawler, but I think Bret’s made his point in both kayfabe and as a shoot. I mean, he really sat down on that thing. Lawler was trying to get up onto his forearms and take some of the pressure off about a minute in.

What a waste of the Hitman at SummerSlam. I still think we should have gotten Lawler/Hulk Hogan at some point in 1993 instead of Lawler/Hitman. At least this goofy version of Lawler’s character would have been right at home doing his cowardly, cheek-puffing act against fellow cowardly cheek-puffer Hulk Hogan!

Gab Gab Gab: Weird Finnish dude Ludvig Borga shits on the deindustrialized neighborhood in Detroit that he is touring. It’s not as entertaining as Kofi Nahaje Kingston complaining about America not being as clean as Jamaica or Ghana or wherever. Borga complains about Welfare recipients. Of course.

Match: Marty Jannetty winning the Intercontinental Championship a few weeks ago was useful because now when they trot him out here to job to the newest guy who's getting an immediate push on the WWF roster, Vince can hype Jannetty up as a former IC champ to make the new guy seem like a threat for beating him. Two guys in the crowd hold up a banner with the words LARDWIG’S HATE SECTION on it. I mean, this guy sucks too much to bother using any energy to hate. I’m not spending a lot of words on Jannetty trying to make Ludvig Borga look good. Vince and Heenan have a discussion that sets up for Tatanka eventually feuding with (and losing his undefeated streak to) Ludvig fucking Borga on commentary. Meanwhile, this extended squash is just a tad too extended for my tastes. Borga uses an inexcusably shitty-looking Torture Rack to win, which is fucking uncalled for since LEX LUGER is on this roster and Luger does a GREAT-looking Torture Rack that he has long used as a finisher. Did Vince McMahon look at Lex Luger and think of as many ways as possible to neuter him? What is Vince’s fucking problem?

Match: The Undertaker (w/o Paul Bearer, interestingly) and Giant Gonzalez (w/Harvey Wippleman, which isn’t interesting at all) finally close out their crappy feud with something called a Rest in Peace Match. Ol’ Harv’s got that urn, which you may recall from our KotR '93 watch that Mr. Hughes originally stole and gave to Harvey. I think the Undertaker qualifies for “great worker” status and in fact could be the greatest U.S. worker I’ve ever seen who stands over 6’7 or whatever (what is he, a legit 6’8?), but no one is good enough to get a decent match out of poor old Gonzalez. Gonzales really is trying his best. He just sucks.

‘Taker’s out here bumping around and trying his best to make Gonzalez’s weak offense look good. They work around the Undertaker trying to use the urn’s power to survive Gonzalez’s assault, but Wippleman’s got possession of it…until Paul Bearer comes out here, retrieves it from Harv, and then holds it up so that the Undertaker can draw his power from whatever’s in there, the souls of his dead parents who he burned to death or maybe a bunch of peyote that he got on one of his Harley trips into the desert to break in a new recruit. It doesn’t matter. It’s like whatever’s in Marsellus Wallace’s briefcase. ‘Taker wins it with a flying clothesline off the top. Apparently this is a Rest in Peace match because Bearer, uh, brought a floral arrangement with him and put it in the ring after the match? Sweet baby Jesus lying swaddled in a manger, please book the Undertaker against someone who doesn’t suck or isn’t so obese as to be nearly immobile, Vince.

Oh yeah, back in the ring, Gonzalez gets mad at Harv for fucking up at keeping control of the urn and chokeslams him. No one cares.

Interview time [w/Joe Fowler]: Jim Cornette screeches about how unfair it is that the Heavenly Bodies got beaten earlier tonight and the whole world is against them and he’s gonna lodge a complaint and at least he’s a much better mouthpiece for Yokozuna than Mr. Fuji. Cornette is convinced that Yokozuna won’t be meeting the same fate against Lex Luger as his Bodies did against the Steiners. Joe Fowler sounds like he’s trying too hard, by the way. I don’t think he’s a natural at pitching himself to the bombastic nature of pro wrestling. It’s not just that you raise your voice to gin up excitement, but it’s in how you do it.

The Smoking Gunns are still in midcard multi-man tag purgatory on PPV. They fire off their cap guns and await the arrival of their six-man tag partner Tatanka. Their opponents are the Headshrinkers and Bam Bam Bigelow (w/Afa and Luna Vachon). I don’t remember anything about this match and didn’t recall it being on this card. Note: Jim Ross is still in the company; he’s just on Radio WWF duty with Gorilla Monsoon as we find out in this quick cutaway. I always get my timeline mixed up, but was this after his first bout of Bell’s Palsy? I know he gets released after that first bout, is hired back when Vince is too wrapped up with his trial to do PBP, and then gets fired again, maybe? And then re-hired for good through whenever he finally left in the New Tens? I just heard a podcast about Ross’s first two runs in the company and should have a better command of this timeline. OK, I quickly looked it up, and Ross doesn’t get his first attack until January ’94, which of course I should have remembered because I think he's talked about watching the Super Bowl (or preparing to) when it happens. Anyway, Bell’s Palsy attack or no, if Ross is available to do PBP, Vince should never usurp him on the microphone. McMahon should have relegated himself to Radio WWF.

This match is fine, by the way! It’s not particularly memorable, and I feel that I’d rather have seen Tatanka/Bam Bam and Headshrinkers/Gunns instead. I don’t think we needed Kid to job to IRS on this show; nor did I need to see a Ludvig Borga squash go as long as it did. This show has felt very long and dragged out, unfortunately, and that’s because it didn’t optimize its matchups and match lengths. Bart ends up in FIP jail, and since a lot of this period involves the Headshrinkers hitting nice, impactful offense, it’s just fine. This match is okay! It fills time! No one will ever watch it again out of the context of viewing this whole show unless they’re doing a comprehensive Tatanka retrospective review thread!

Bart finally dodges a Bam Bam corner splash attempt and gets the hot tag to Tatanka. Tatanka hits a few chops, slams Bammer, and lands a DDT on the big man before going up and hitting a huge diving crossbody for two. Bammer has to go to a desperation gut shot to get control, but his buckle bonk is ineffective. Tatanka chants and dances up…and into a front wheel kick that knocks him flat. That was pretty good, as was Bam Bam looking around desperately to try and spot Tatanka before eating that crossbody earlier, I should note. Samu tags in and the match breaks down; the heels rid the ring of the Gunns and then perpetrate an effective triple team on Tatanka. Bammer hits that corner splash; the heels hit a triple headbutt. They all then go up top and try a synchronized triple diving headbutt, but Tatanka moves! The Gunns take out Fatu and Bam Bam, leaving Tatanka to steal a quick schoolboy on Samu for three. OK, that was a very fun finishing run in which Tatanka and his unpinned streak seemed very much in danger at points.

Interview time [w/Joe Fowler]: Fowler interviews the Lex Express bus driver, Hank Carter. Carter thinks that Luger loves the kids – but not in an Epstein List way – and generally speaks glowingly about Luger’s love for the ham ‘n eggers in general.

Interview time [w/Todd Pettengill]: Speaking of ham ‘n eggers, Pettengill talks to some dork in the audience named Bruce Blur who’s wearing red-white-and-blue stained bedsheets as a toga. Man, this Luger push sucks, and it ain’t because Luger sucks.

Match: Before this failure of a main event, Heenan gets Hank Carter, the bus driver from the previous interview, and Jimmy Carter, the former POTUS, mixed up. Then, we cut to the ring so the crowd can boo this guy who is singing the Japanese national anthem off-key. Fuck off, WWF. I can proudly say that I always disdained this nationalist nonsense, even as a kid. That’s part of the reason that I used to root hard against Hulk Hogan (the other part being that he won all the time, and it annoyed me).

Macho Man Randy Savage, who was not used as a color commentator OR a wrestler on the second-biggest WWF show of the year because Vince is a doofus, comes out here with Aaron Neville. They wave a huge American flag. I suppose that I should be glad that Vince didn’t book Savage on this show because he probably would have had the guy job to Ludvig Borga or some such nonsense. If you’re not going to have Bret wrestle as champion (or at least challenger) on this show, you could at least have Savage do it! This rushed Lex Luger babyface turn was a massive mistake, and even if Luger had won the title here, WWF crowds weren’t going to buy this nonsense in the long-term. Vince just chose to kill Luger’s run dead immediately rather than when he took the belt off Luger in a quick course correction at Survivor Series '93 or maybe Royal Rumble ’94.

Aaron Neville can sing, but I’m not sure about some of his choices in the cadence of some of these lines. Man, we have a dogshit national anthem. It’s a song about the British kicking the shit out of us in DC during the War of 1812 with lyrics taken from a bad longform poem! Why is that our national anthem? Then I have to hear other countries who have anthems like “O Canada” or “La Marseillaise” and just be envious, man. That latter song goes hard as fuck, too.

Yokozuna (w/Jim Cornette, Mr. Fuji and Japanese flower girls) makes his way to the ring to defend the WWF World Championship against Lex Luger, the latter of whom is personally introduced by Randy Savage. All this hullabaloo, and you don’t even crown Luger at the end of the night. Amazing.

I think the other issue I have is that I’ve seen Luger have awesome matches with huge dudes, but they need to be huge, athletic dudes. Yoko is too large at this point to really retain his once awesome athleticism. I can see an alternate reality where Luger has a match approaching the quality of his Starrcade ’96 bout against the Giant (sidenote: This match absolutely fucking RULES and is worth watching if you’re looking for something from that period to revisit), but this match is sort of hamstrung by the fact that even this early in 1993, Yoko is a far cry from where he was when he came into the company at the end of 1992 from an athletic standpoint.

It is impressive what Yoko is still able to do at his rapidly expanding size, mind you. I’m not trying to say that he’s total dog water or anything. But though this match is fine, I don’t think it reaches the level that it could have. Luger is working hard out here as is his way when he feels that he can start or extend a hot babyface run with a good performance in a big match. A lot of the match is built around Fuji and Cornette trying to surreptitiously cheat and Luger trying to avoid it. Luger finally loses control when he attempts his first body slam and is denied.

Here’s where Yokozuna’s diminishing mobility and athleticism are the big problem; when Yoko came into the company in late ’92, he had some of the best squash matches that I’ve ever seen in my life. He hit all this dynamic, impactful offense at a shockingly consistent pace for a man so big. That’s sort of gone by mid-late ’93 even in shorter sprints and jobber squashes, and his heel control segments get steadily worse as he gets larger and works longer main events. He misses a chair shot outside the ring and Luger gets him back inside the ring and tries to knock him down with top-rope forearms. The first two only wobble Yoko, but the third one knocks him down, and Luger covers for a really nicely timed 2.9. Luger lays a lariat in on Yoko’s shoulders and neck and gets another close two count. He tries yet another lariat, but he runs into a double clothesline.

This match remains solid. Cornette distracts the ref on one side of the ring while Fuji tosses the salt bucket to Yoko on the other side. Yoko hammers Luger in the side of the head with it, but he sells being too fatigued to immediately cover after getting rid of the evidence, and his late lateral press and hooked leg are only enough for a pretty well-timed 2.85. See, these fellas have good timing and are working hard in here.

Yoko takes over with chops and a huge belly-to-belly; Luger slides out late, at around 2.85 again, after Yoko covers on that second move. Yoko continues his heel control segment with lots of chokes and face gouges. Can the dreaded Yokozuna nerve hold that bores the fuck out of me be far behind? Thankfully, Yoko chooses to hit a nice back suplex for a two count instead…and dammit, there's the fucking nerve hold. Let’s all take a bathroom break, maybe get a drink, possibly mop your kitchen floor or unload the dishes, and by the time we get back, Luger will still be in this nerve hold. Nothing will have progressed.

I shouldn’t complain; it only takes about 75 seconds for Luger to fight up and elbow his way out of the hold. He tries another slam, but Yoko shifts his weight and lands on top of Luger for another close two count. Yoko lands the most devastating leg drop in the business for two more and decides that it’s time to go to his best move. He drags Luger to the corner, goes onto the second rope, and launches with a Banzai Drop that hits nothing but mat when Luger scooches out of the way.

To elucidate on my point regarding Yoko: That was a worse heel control segment than he might have put together in February of ‘93, but it’s better than what he’ll be putting together by the time he loses the title in March of ’94. Luger makes one comeback, avoids a Yoko corner charge, and then lands a struggle body slam for two. Fuji hops on the apron and feeds for a Luger punch, and then Luger hits the metal forearm on Yoko. Yoko spills to the floor and Luger just stands there and watches the ref count, then punches Cornette for good measure instead of, you know, breaking up the count, hauling Yoko back in the ring, and pinning the big man for three.

The celebration here is incongruent because the crowd half-realizes that they didn’t see the title change that they thought they were going to see. A bunch of babyfaces hop in the ring and parade this kayfabe dumbass choker Luger (who didn’t remember that he couldn’t win the title on a countout) around the ring while Vince screams YOKOZUNA’S THE WINNER in a verbal slip that pretty much sums up my evidence on why Vince is currently in the midst of the worst booking run of his career until maybe the New Tens,and even then, he’s more boring than baffling as a booker.

Why are there balloons falling from the ceiling?! Yokozuna is still the champion!

Hype package: The song “7:26” by Michael Nappi plays over a bunch of video of renowned American leaders like JFK and MLK Jr. and also Luger slamming Yokozuna on the U.S.S. Intrepid and video of the Lex Express tour and HOLY SHIT, this is dumb as FUCK, man. Also, I can confirm that I hate the song “7:26” by Michael Nappi.

Interview time [w/Joe Fowler]: Lex Luger is way happier than he should be as he talks about how rad it was to win that match – but not the title – and to cap the night off, Ludvig Borga busts in and claims that he’s not impressed with Luger at all. Oh man, Luger could have stayed a heel and wrestled champion Bret Hart at SummerSlam instead of failing to win the title in his big babyface moment and then being set up for a Ludvig Borga feud after the bout. We could have had the former instead of the latter. But no!

Only two more years until you get to show up at the Mall of America wearing a billowy white dress shirt, Luger. You’re almost there. You just have to spend the next twenty-four months barely making the money to pay for your Motel 6 room in Tonawanda or wherever. 2.5 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

Stefanie Sparkleface · March 8

2 hours ago, SirSmUgly said:

Match: I also cracked up as soon as Jim Cornette piped in from the ring to introduce the Heavenly Bodies. I actually said out loud while chuckling, “Oh God, it’s Jimmy Del Ray.” Cornette is wearing a neck brace for some reason. I presume that Luger attacked him at some point over the past couple of weeks? Anyway, Cornette’s out here giving that doofus Vince a few ideas with the “have sympathy for me” neck brace he’s got on. Oh, speaking of Vince, he mentions that Cornette’s wearing the brace because he's been recently attacked by someone in Smoky Mountain Wrestling, which of course is the company thathe is currently running. Was it Bullet Bob who attacked him, or was that another feud? Or another company? I can scarecely recall. Anyway, SMW is the exact company that I’m trying to gather as much TV for as possible because I would like it to be my next long-form pro wrestling reviews thread. I’ve seen bits and bobs in the past, but I’d love to run through the whole promotion's television over a year or two of steady reviews.

It was the result of a match Cornette was in against Bullet Bob at Fire on the Mountain 1993, where the Bullet had said he'd refund everyone's money if he didn't send Cornette to the hospital. You can see how that went.

(SMW has a pretty rough first few months, but once you get to August 1992, it is a pretty smooth ride for a couple of years. It's well worth watching through at least once.)

zendragon · March 8

Re: Taker I've always heard he's a legit 6'10" and Kane is a legit 6'8" and would wear thick soled boots to get his height up to Takers.

Re: Dibase, some one on here once said Ted had no great WWF matches... and I'd be hard pressed to disagree. I can think of plenty of good ones. V Savage, HBK, and Beefcake but nothing really stands out as great.

Also Shyter comes from Shylock who was a Jewish merchant in Shakespeare Merchant of Venice who converts to Christianity at the end of the play to repent for his evil deeds. So you wouldn't be wrong for reading IRS as a possibly Jewish coded character.

zendragon · March 10

Quote

I think the other issue I have is that I’ve seen Luger have awesome matches with huge dudes, but they need to be huge, athletic dudes. Yoko is too large at this point to really retain his once awesome athleticism. I can see an alternate reality where Luger has a match approaching the quality of his Starrcade ’96 bout against the Giant (sidenote: This match absolutely fucking RULES and is worth watching if you’re looking for something from that period to revisit), but this match is sort of hamstrung by the fact that even this early in 1993, Yoko is a far cry from where he was when he came into the company at the end of 1992 from an athletic standpoint.

Let's do so

Could just say its a couple of hosses hossing around but its more than that, first of all I feel this match (or a match of this quality) could have only happened in 96 before Luger's athleticism deserted him in 98/99 and the Giant's weight started to balloon before he left in 99. Now for the match the early power spots are great where Luger seems surprised to find that some one has MORE power that him mixed with a young kipping up athletic Giant. Also Luger's selling seems particularly good. I've had issues with his selling in some matches like the Pillman match that's one The Loose Cannon DVD where his idea of selling is just shaking his head and yelling "NO!" I don't know if he got better at selling post WWF or he just had an easier time selling for a larger opponent either way it just works. Of Course Giant gets greed with his athletic ability missing a HUGE drop kick, that legit was as high as Lugar's head. Got to say Dusty, Tony and Bobby are doing a great job on commentary getting all this over. Good commentary can't fix a bad match but it sure as hell can add to a great one. Cool ref bump where The Giant bench pressed Lugar off him on to ref as he was making a three count. here come ~~Danny Mcbride~~ Nick Patrick and I'm like here comes the stupid WCW finish. He clips Luger's leg as he goes for the Rack (When did Lugar start using the Rack? before his WWF run cause he never used it there I don't believe) Now Syxx runs in, but we get sting strolling in from the crowd and that allows Luger hit the Giant multiple times with the bat for a three count. So WCW got the finish right on this one! I'm reminded of the awesome Luger v Nash match on RAW from 94 or 95, makes me think what could have happened if Luger had stayed heel in WWF and feuded with Undertaker? I'm thinking of a Summerslam card Yoko v Savage for the title (I like the idea of Savage wins the rumble beats Bret, drops to Yoko at KOTR, rematch at at Summerslam, keep the rest of the year the same so you can have Bret climb the mountain back to the title over the course of the year), Luger v Taker?

SirSmUgly · March 10

Luger having to survive for long enough that his cocky opponent gives him a momentum-changing opening is great, as is Luger finally managing to rack the big man before Syxx attacks him. I got emotionally invested in Luger's struggle in a way that surprised me even though I was already a fan of his babyface run. Plus the nutbar fan in the crowd screaming at Sting before the cops have to back his ass off is a great visual.

Edited March 10 by SirSmUgly

twiztor · March 10

On 3/8/2026 at 5:55 PM, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

(SMW has a pretty rough first few months, but once you get to August 1992, it is a pretty smooth ride for a couple of years. It's well worth watching through at least once.)

SMW has always been on my "someday i'd like to watch that" list, but i don't know if it will ever make it to the top of said list. I hope so.

SirSmUgly · March 10

As for when Luger started using the Torture Rack, that was back in the NWA days. I don't know why Vince didn't have him do his best move during his WWF run, especially with how visually impressive it is.

SirSmUgly · March 22

WWF Survivor Series 1993 (24 November 1993):

A show in which the Hart Family becomes estranged from one another (kayfabe, not shoot, though you’d be forgiven for wondering)

Let’s get to it!

Gab Gab Gab: I did not expect Lex Luger’s wife to look like that. I suppose I was expecting a tall blonde lady. That’s what I get for pre-judging, huh? Luger and his fam, including his baby daughter and camera-cheesing son, wish us all a happy Thanksgiving.

Gab Gab Gab: This dude at the top of the show is making bad choices in his intonation of our mediocre national anthem and he’s way worse at singing than Aaron “Don’t Call Me Adrian” Neville. Vince soon tells us that this year’s Survivor Series at the Garden sold out in less than an hour as he sits alongside Bobby Heenan (who can’t be much longer for these PPVs or this company in general). Gorilla Monsoon and Jim Ross are once again on Radio WWF. Monsoon makes to smack Heenan in the back of the head like a disappointed girlfriend as Heenan talks nonsense. Aww!

Match: Look at this utter hodgepodge of dudes on the heel side of the opening traditional eight-man elimination tag: Irwin R. Shyster, Diesel, Rick Martel, and Adam Bomb (w/Harvey Wippleman). IRS does some weak mic work before the match. Their opponents: The 1-2-3 Kid, Marty Jannetty, Razor Ramon, and Mr. Perfect, wait, hold on, who apparently was the final partner, but is now out of the match, and so now Razor went and got Macho Man Randy Savage as a replacement. Just a year earlier at SurSer ‘92, Savage got Perfect as a partner to replace the Ultimate Warrior against Razor, so we’ve come full circle. Or something like that, I dunno. Anyway, I suppose that this marks the point that Perfect has so obliterated the health of his back from taking wild bumps that he just sits around and collects on his Lloyd’s of London injury insurance policy until he heads off to WCW in 1997.

Vince fills us in on the heels not getting along – yeah, Nash definitely has a hard-on for stunting Wrath’s career momentum, so I can believe it – but I can’t imagine that’s going to stop Diesel from standing alone. Razor and Martel start out and have a nice little sequence in which they counter into and out of holds until the point at which Martel throws a back elbow to escape a hammerlock. He celebrates and turns right around into a disrespectful slap from Razor. These fellas are having a lovely opening run; they pick up the pace and run a bit. Martel tries a crossbody and gets countered into a fallaway slam for two, then tries a kick and eats an atomic drop, a punch from Savage on the apron, an inverted atomic drop, and a pair of nice Hall lariats.

I sort of wish we were just getting Razor/Martel for fifteen minutes after that, but alas, Martel tags out to Adam Bomb. I enjoy Bryan Clark well enough, but he doesn’t show signs of being a fun TV worker until the end of his WWF run, and right now, he’s having a protracted Greco-Roman knuckle lock spot with Razor, and man, what a bummer. Razor finally escapes, body drops Wrath to the mat, and moves out of the way when Martel makes the save on the cover with an elbow drop. Wrath and Martel go at it; Wippleman gets in the ring and Martel knocks him flat on his ass. Diesel, who as I feel it important to reiterate just hates this guy Clark, like why did Nash not only kayfabe but also shoot seem to hate this dude, hops in the ring and squares off with him. IRS finally calms everyone down.

Kid tags in and Bomb and Diesel toss him into the lights. It’s pretty cool! Diesel hits a gutwrench powerbomb that looks ten million times more devastating than a Jackknife. Kid bumping around like a nutbar is incredibly entertaining. Kid manages to hit a headscissors to escape a tilt-a-whirl attempt and tag Savage, who goes off when he gets in the ring and manages to whip Bomb into Diesel before going up and dropping a Savage Elbow that keeps Diesel down for three [Razor’s Lasers 4 – 3 IRS and the Auditors of Pain]. OK, I guess that collision leading to a Diesel loss is at least the kayfabe reason that Nash has it out for Clark for the rest of their careers.

The crowd is super-into this opener, by the way. They even enjoyed that knuckle lock spot. Savage continues to beat down IRS, then tags out to Razor. Razor doesn’t have many problems until he’s shot into the ropes and catches a knee from Martel as he hits the cables. Hold on, here’s some direct commentary that I have to relate to you. Heenan: “Have you ever cheated anybody?” McMahon: “Of course not!” AHAHAHAHAHA, hilarious punchline! Oh, wait, sorry, that wasn’t the punchline. I guess the punchline was supposed to be Heenan responding to his denial by tellig him to try it because it’s a ball. Wait, are we sure that last bit is supposed to be the punchline?

Anyway, Razor is in peril, and there are lots of headlocks and behind-the-back no-tag switches from IRS and Martel. Bleh. We get a false hot tag, but at least Razor manages to escape IRS’s clutches pretty quickly and tag Savage. Funnily enough, Jannetty hasn’t been tagged even once (which Heenan notices). Wait, hold on: Crush, the second half of the future KroniK to make an appearance in this match, wanders into the aisle. Crush beckons Savage just as Savage prepares to drop a Savage Elbow on Crush. This distracts Savage; his team members stop him from sprinting back up the aisle to fight Crush, but he’s still distracted when he gets back in the ring and is rolled up for three by IRS [Razor’s Lasers 3 – 3 IRS and the Auditors of Pain].

Now that the world champs both future and past are out of the way, who knows what the heck’ll happen in this match? Jannetty gets into the ring and locks the extremely sweaty Shyster in a side headlock, then wins a hip toss and a dropkick for two. The crowd has really calmed down at this point, and I’m gonna tell you, I just wanted to se Razor, Kid, and Savage kill these dudes off. Maybe have Nash and Bomb get counted out by brawling with one another to protect them. Instead, I’m watching Jannetty be trapped in the heel corner. Martel, not IRS, is the guy to do the leveraged abdominal stretch spot in this match, which really would have fucked up my prop bets on Draft Kings for this event if it had existed back then.

Jannetty escapes this, whips IRS into the corner twice, and then hits a chokeslam before signaling for and scoring a Razor’s Edge to knock Shyster out of the match [Razor’s Lasers 3 – 2 IRS and the Auditors of Pain]. Martel quickly jumps Razor and the match breaks down; the referee is so overloaded trying to get everyone out of the ring that he misses Shyster hopping back in the ring and hitting Razor in the gut with his Halliburton. Razor flops to the floor and is counted out when the official turns his attention back to the legal men in the match [Razor’s Lasers 2 – 2 IRS and the Auditors of Pain].

Ah, this match is ending up as a vehicle for the awesome but short-lived Kid and Jannetty duo to show promise as a tag team. Kid and Martel have a nice sequence in which Martel cartwheels away from one rope-running exchange and celebrates excessively before getting caught with an arm drag on the very next one. Bomb tags in, but Kid bamboozles him with a trip and a counter-dropkick before diving over the top rope and right into Bomb’s arms; Bomb slams him on the floor, deposits him in the ring, and re-enters with a slingshot suplex on Kid.

Kid survives, manages to sunset flip Bomb for two, and almost kicks his way out of danger before Bomb cuts off his hot tag attempt and drags him back to the heel corner. Martel tags in and goes at the Kid, but the Kid catches Martel on a double-axe attempt and tags in Jannetty. The relatively fresh Jannetty picks up the speed and overwhelms the fatigued Martel with energy, punches, and buckle bonks. Jannetty gets one two count, then tags the Kid in and teams with him on a double back elbow. Kid shoots Martel into the corner; Martel reverses, but Kid leaps over his charge and wins a sunset flip for three [Razor’s Lasers 2 – 1 IRS and the Auditors of Pain], then tags in Jannetty, who slingshots into the ring and sunset flips Bomb as Bomb rushes the babyface corner. That sunset flip also gets three [Razor’s Lasers 2 – 0 IRS and the Auditors of Pain], and the future tag team champs earn a huge win for their team in the opener. That was a mostly fun match (as almost any match involving Sean Waltman tends to be).

This is clearly the point at which Vince McMahon remembered that he thinks tag wrestling is generally unimportant and starts giving up on Survivor Series as a cool themed event full of eight-man tags because I’m the one who had to name these teams. Four years prior, we would have gotten Vince screaming himself hoarse over a series of introductions for each team with his very own names for them. By 1993, it’s clear that Vince has checked out on all this tag wrestling nonsense as a frame for a full wrestling show.

Interview time [w/Todd Pettengill]: Shawn Michaels is back in the company after being briefly suspended for drug abuse or threatening to go to WCW or maybe the former led to the latter. I can’t remember and don’t care enough to look this up. Anyway, he cuts a promo about how he never lost the WWF Intercontinental Championship and in fact shows off that he's still got possession of an Intercontinental title belt. Razor Ramon, of course, has the other one, having beaten Rick Martel for it in HBK’s absence. It's almost needless to note that this is leading to WrestleMania X which somehow has two of the ten best WWF matches ever wrestled on it even though it’s smack in the middle of the WWF’s mid-‘90s doldrums period.

Michaels is stepping in for Jerry Lawler because Lawler (allegedly) raped an underage girl (as was so crudely screamed on Memphis television at one point in what I consider maybe the wildest thing I’ve ever heard someone say in an interview on a pro wrestling show) and the pretense here is that Michaels is still mad about having lost his WWF Championship match to the Hitman back at Survivor Series 1992, which is why he’s glad to step in here and lead Lawler’s Knights to victory. Also almost needless to note: Lawler’s name is never mentioned here. Anyway, that’s good kayfabe reasoning, especially considering the bow that is wrapped on this long-term Survivor Series-focused feud between Hart and Michaels at Survivor Series ’97.

Also, can you believe that Lawler was back on WWF television by WrestleMania X? I mean, I can because it was the ‘90s, but still. The evidence shows that Lawler at the very least had some sort of extremely inappropriate relationship with two (if I recall correctly) underage teen girls. Six years later, this dude would be screaming about boobs every other segment for money. Fucking wild! Then again *looks around, reads the newspaper* maybe not very wild at all, sadly.

In an Inception-y sort of deal, right in the middle of this interview, we cut to…

Interview time [w/Ray Combs]: Combs interviews the Them Hart Boys (obviously). Of the top six answers on the board, Owen’s the only one who can’t guess what one hundred people said is a fun place to vacation if you want to hit the beach, which seems ominous. No, sorry, I made that previous sentence up. What actually happens is a mundane interview segment except for Bret quoting the great country-western song “Heartache By the Numbers.” Sadly, Bret doesn’t say that Michaels is about to have troubles by the score. Owen talks, and also so does Keith and Bruce and Combs screams “SURVEY SAYS…this is a match you don’t wanna miss.” OK, I take it back: This segment wasn’t that mundane.

Interview time [w/Todd Pettengill]: Michaels is like lol Bret lol Owen sux and your other two brothers are a fireman and a substitute teacher lol and also your parents are OLD, like so OLD, and i wish they were dead lol. I think I nailed it on the substance if not the tone.

Match: Martha Hart’s in the crowd holding their oldest kid Oje, who’s still sucking on a pacifier, and she looks the opposite of thrilled to be here as Ray Combs introduces her as part of his ring announcement. I presume that’s because she had to lug her little guy down here and he’s probably been giving her some guff. Like right now, in fact, as he breaks into tears while she wearily stands up and waves at the crowd. There are a ton of other Hart Family members here, but they’re not holding crying kids and therefore look like they’re enjoying this a whole lot more.

They’re getting their money’s worth out of Combs, by the way, as he gamely monologues his way through an introduction of not only the Hart Family brood, but also shits on Shawn Michaels for the goofy Family Feud answers that he gave in a charity Family Feud episode involving WWF wrestlers which OF COURSE I looked up and stopped to review right here in the middle of this PPV:

Previously on…: …a random late 1992 syndicated episode of Family Feud, Michaels and the heels play a charity game against Randy Savage and the babyfaces. Michaels acquits himself nicely, immediately winning a Bullseye against Savage (remember that pot-building faceoff minigame specific to the mid-‘90s episodes and also the SNES version of the game that I played a TON of as a kid?). Michaels correctly answers that salt is the number one answer to “Name a thing you put a dash of into a dish” and even does a heelishly knowing chuckle before giving the answer, which I appreciate.

In other Bullseye matchups: Tatanka defeats then-heel Jimmy Hart, Kona Crush defeats IRS, Big Boss Man and Repo Man don’t know anything about Shakespeare, and Slick knocks off Papa Shango after Shango gives what was almost certainly the second-most given answer to their question.

Michaels and Savage are total pros, making little pro wrestling digs and talking shit while also giving answers. They are entertaining as hell. Crush even gets in a dig at Michaels which builds on one that Savage got in, and Crush is a complete slowpoke when it comes to snappy insults. Maybe it’s just the nature of this show that people elevate their games. Anyway, the heels steal the first round when everyone on their team excepting Charles Wright decides that you wouldn’t want to tell a friend that someone was messing around with their partner. Michaels is like, lol yep, been there, done that, totes slept with a friend's girl as he issues his team’s final answer. Again, that’s a reasonable approximation of his remarks.

In round two, Jimmy Hart and Tatanka are cold bastards who would have a guest at their party a) arrested or b) kicked off of their property if they got dangerously smashed, so there’s that much! Michaels harasses the lady judge for her thoughts on which answers count and which ones don’t (of course!). The babyfaces do a fine job of filling out the board and only leave one answer for the heels when they finally strike out; however, heels are way smarter than babyfaces (duh!) and manage to come up with the final answer on the board for another steal.

The heels control the third round, in which they give answers about the ways in which they and the surveyed responders would be benevolently sexist toward an older lady, which I read just the other day at the Conversation (no politics!) is a thing that quite broadly polls well with women regardless of their political affiliation or how old the lady in question receiving the benefit of said sexism is, and I found that extremely interesting. I also thought about the implications of these findings w/r/t pro wrestling because I am a fucking sicko. Some of the best parts of pro wrestling are the ones where the babyfaces are flying in and defending the honor of the ladies, but also some of the best parts of pro wrestling are when a lady beats the shit out of a dude a la Jacqueline or Chyna, which I really think proves the duality of not only wrestling, but humanity. Anyway, the heels win this round, too, and the game as well.

Shawn Michaels and IRS do the speed round in that order, and since they seem to be the two smartest guys on this stage, that seems about right. I think it’s them and Slick as the dudes who actually would be good teammates even on a regular non-specific episode of Family Feud. Michaels and Shyster boss the hell out of this round, by the way, getting over the two hundred point mark on IRS’s first answer. Watching this actually made me more impressed with Shawn Michaels somehow.

Match: So anyway, Combs makes up some dumb answers that Michaels did not give even though he swears Michaels gave them, all so that he can make a joke about Michaels giving the answer “Newbraska” when asked to name one of the “New” states in the U.S. That is so delightfully corny that I’ll give him a pass. What annoys me is Vince McMahon YUK YUK YUK-ing after the joke. Fuck off, it deserved a chuckle, McMahon. I understood that I was supposed to laugh. You didn’t need to YUK YUK YUK to signal that it was a joke and that I should be laughing right about now. Anyway, Combs really goes all out in this guest spot here and deserves the credit he gets for gamely playing along and treating this seriously and even somehow merging playing the dozens with declarations about what the survey said.

Finally, Shawn Michaels hits the ring followed by Jerry Lawler’s three Knights (Jeff Gaylord, Barry Horowitz, and Greg Valentine under hoods). ~~Vince~~ Shawn walks over to taunt the family, and I feel that Martha’s face reads something like, I just calmed this child down, please do not wake him up and get him going again. Yeah, I feel confident about that read. Luckily, Oje doesn’t get all riled up thanks to mom shutting out the noise by covering his ears as Michaels taunts the Hart family right in front of him.

Them Hart Boys (Bret, Owen, Bruce, and Keith) get individual entrances and are flanked by Stu wearing a Boston Bruins jacket, which I feel is the sort of fan pandering that no Calgary Flames fan should stand for, dammit! Anyway, the knights are in black, blue, and red, so I’ll just call them Black Knight, Blue Knight, and Red Knight even though just looking at them, it’s obvious who is whom under those masks. Michaels continues his great run in all the events covered within this review by basically holding things together as a lead taunting heel even though his inclusion in this match is barely supported by the months of TV that has come before it. He does comedy bumps after clashing into his own partners and throws huge tantrums and almost makes me forget that Jerry Lawler was supposed to be in this match because it’s meant to be a big marker on a huge feud that started back at KotR ’93.

I should mention that Ray Combs is now on color and is actually acquitting himself very nicely for a third color man who doesn’t really know much about wrestling. He’s able to successfully banter with Heenan, which more than makes up for his constant OHs when a big bump happens. The heels get their asses kicked, of course. They can’t get right whatsoever, which is why Owen’s going to be extra pissed that he actually got eliminated by one of these mooks.

Anyway, HBK finally sticks a knee in Bruce’s back on a rope run and manages to tag in and drop a few elbow. The heels are firmly in control; Keith almost gets two on a backslide to the Black Knight, but ends up stomped out of the ring by Michaels. Keith does, however, manage to completely lay out Michaels with a pretty sick jumping lariat, actually. He gets the hot tag to Bret, who opens up on the Black Knight and earns two-counts on a couple of flash pinfalls before landing a couple of his five moves of doom and managing two on a second-rope elbow. Bret tags in Owen, who lands a wheel kick for two; Michaels saves and the match breaks down only for the Harts to whip Michaels and the Knights into one another. The Black Knight eats a lariat from Keith and then a missile dropkick from the legal man in Owen that earns a three count [Them Hart Boys 4 – 3 The Knights (feat. Shawn Michaels)].

Owen keeps up the momentum by snapping the Red Knight’s legs. He tags in to Bret and wishbones the knight along with his brother; Bret and then Bruce continue the assault on the Red Knight’s leg. Actually, all the brothers get in there and do more than one wishbone until the Red Knight manages to escape, hit Keith with a headbutt, sell his leg, and then miss a kneedrop that uses that very leg. Keith locks on a Figure Four, but Michaels makes the save.

Keith is in peril, and Bruce is out here running all the way across the ring to get the referee to notice him so that he can get some more camera time as the ref shoos him away. This is a long FIP segment, and so I'll take some time to note that while Barry Horowitz shaved so that he’d be harder to recognize under the hood, Greg Valentine is so obviously himself that he might as well have walked out there unmasked and with a spotlight on his face. Anyway, matters progress, Bret gets a hot tag, and he submits the Red Knight with a Sharpshooter [Them Hart Boys 4 – 2 The Knights (feat. Shawn Michaels)].

The Blue Knight mows down Bret as Bret’s still got Red in the Sharpshooter, and now Bret’s in peril. Stu rubs some feeling back into Keith’s shoulder over in the corner after that harrowing FIP segment that Bruce survived. Finally, Shawn and Bret go at it for an extended period, but I wanted a bit more pace than I got. Bret’s too busy selling in long chinlock. Combs mutters out an “oh, you hear that?” upon experiencing the audial impressiveness of a Greg Valentine chop, which I appreciate because he genuinely seemed to be kind of awed at the sound.

Bret gets a hot tag to Owen, who goes off on the Blue Knight and lands a sweet second-rope Savage Elbow. Michaels comes in to cut off a pinfall, and when he is whipped to the floor, takes a punch from Stu, spitting his gum out on contact for extra effect. Owen hits a slingshot splash on him, can’t get right and save his Blue Knight from an attack, and is unceremoniously dumped to the floor while Owen locks Blue in a Sharpshooter and manages a submission [Them Hart Boys 4 – 1 The Knights (feat. Shawn Michaels)].

HBK considers ducking out, but Bret meets him on the floor with a fist and tosses him in the ring for Owen. Owen tags out to Bruce, who loses control of the bout for a hot second after eating an elbow to the ear and then a choke and a Sweet Chin Music…which Bruce kicks out of at two. You know, Michaels is beating full-time guys with that kick at this point! Someone on Bruce's team should have made the save instead. Bruce gets a tag to Bret, who scores a slingshot and an elbow for a well-timed 2.9. A Bret side Russian only manages another 2.9; Shawn manages to rake Bret’s eyes, and Bret tags out to Owen, but his eyes are especially hurt by that nasty rake, so he wanders out to the apron on the wrong side of the ring and is still on the apron and wandering toward his corner when Shawn ducks under Owen on a rope run and Owen collides with Bret. Bret eats the guardrail, and a distracted Owen is quickly schoolboy’d by Shawn for an improbable elimination [Them Hart Boys 3 – 1 The Knights (feat. Shawn Michaels)].

Owen throws a tantrum, screaming WHAT ABOUT ME?! WHAT ABOUT RAVEN?! No, sorry, I typed that second line out of habit. He did scream that first line, however. Heenan tosses a bottle of water into the ring for the drained Michaels to drink and then does a hilarious Stu Hart impression. I feel that Heenan's inspired by having Combs at the booth since Combs will actually countenance his buffoonery. Anyway, the water doesn’t help that much. Michaels is completely outnumbered, and any time he counters out of a move, he’s just got a fresh Hart Boy to contend with. After wriggling away from a Bret Sharpshooter attempt, he just books it back to the locker room and takes the countout loss since, y’know, this wasn’t really his fight to begin with so who cares, man? He’s got bigger fish to fry in Razor Ramon anyway [Them Hart Boys 3 – 0 The Knights (feat. Shawn Michaels)]. Owen hustles back to the ring to shove Bret for the collision on the apron and get a well-deserved push because this company needs viable upper-midcard heels something FIERCE right now.

Heenan: “And could you imagine this, right in front of his mother and father? And the kids have to see something like this? Of course, I know that they’ve seen it before.” Extremely accurate read of this situation, Heenan! Anyway, this match had enough fun spots around the edges to be watchable, and besides being historically important as the start of Owen’s heel turn, Michaels busted his ass out here and performed more than capably in place of Lawler.

Interview time [w/Todd Pettengill]: Pettengill tries to interview Owen in the aisle, but don’t no one want to be talking to Todd Pettengill! Owen blows him off and stalks toward the locker room.

Gab Gab Gab: Jim Ross and Gorilla Monsoon are manning the WWF Radio desk right now, but they’re going to switch places with Vince McMahon and Bobby Heenan (and maybe Ray Combs?) for the next match. Monsoon and Heenan cross paths as they switch tables and Monsoon threatens to pop Heeanan right in the face. Heenan begs off, but of course cocks his fist as Monsoon turns away. Monsoon has to turn back and show him the side of his hand so that Heenan will slink away. These fellas and their somewhat-antiquated-by-’93 comedy act still kill me.

Hype package: WrestleMania X is in MSG! Frankly, modern WWE doing stadium shows in New Orleans and Philly or wherever instead of doing WM at MSG on every tenth WM (like they did with X and XX) is just more proof that the company as we knew it is completely dead.

Recap: Ludvig Borga ended Tatanka’s undefeated streak and Yokozuna kayfabe injured Tatanka with a Banzai Drop after the loss, so Lex Luger and the Steiners went out and got the Undertaker to replace him on their Survivor Series team (with a proper name – the All-Americans!). The Undertaker has a Betsy Ross flag design with the thirteen stars sewed into the inside of his jacket. At least it wasn’t a Gadsden flag, on the one hand. On the other, I presume this means that the Undertaker doesn’t recognize any amendments to the Constitution past the tenth. That seems like a safe bet! Luger knocked PCO out of Survivor Series with a metal elbow in return, so the freshly heel Crush is replacing PCO on the Foreign Fanatics’ side (another proper four-a-side Survivor Series name!).

Match: Ross forgets that he’s not working with Heenan and claims that James E. Cornette is Gorilla’s bud and not his. Gorilla reacts appropriately. Cornette is here to introduce his charges the Heavenly Bodies. Jimmy Del Ray is a disgusting individual. Kayfabe, shoot, whatever. Anyway, they’re wrestling in another tag title match on PPV in 1993, but this time, for the Smoky Mountain Tag Team Championships. In Boston. The Rock ‘n Roll Express are the current champions. This will be a good match, but having it on this show is quite the choice!

The Bodies once again jump the champs upon their entry, just as they did at SummerSlam, but Morton reverses a slingshot and flips the Bodies to the floor, then hits a suicide dive (!!!) to follow up. I understand now, as I watch the Bodies and Rock ‘n Rolls have a really good Southern tag match, why Vince booked it for WWF Radio. No one is listening to that, so he can just riff with Heenan and maybe Combs if Combs is still sticking around while letting Ross call this one on PPV. Ross seems pretty contented to be calling this, by the way.

There’s all sorts of pacey work and heels whiffing on moves and doubleteams while the babyfaces successfully land all of theirs to start, including a rowboat double wishbone from the Rock ‘n Rolls that is a FUN move, and pro wrestling being FUN is its number one purpose. There are many ways to get there, and a rowboat double wishbone applied by the babyfaces to the sleazy heels is certainly one of them. We do cut to the WWF Radio table, where McMahon is talking about over-the-top-rope disqualification rules, which I guess means that Smoky Mountain had them in effect, maybe? I’ve only seen bits of Smoky Mountain out of the context of full episodes, matches here and inflammatory New Jack promos there.

Del Ray and Prichard are an excellent tag team, man. I like Chris Candido, but Prichard and Del Ray are markedly better than Skip and Zip, and it strikes me that the concept of tag team specialization isn’t just a kayfabe one. Candido was just better as a singles, I guess. The babyfaces spend the first six or seven minutes of this match stuffing a whole buncha heel nonsense until Prichard finagles a sitout powerbomb on Morton and Morton plays FIP as is his way. The Bodies land double-team moves like a back suplex into a moonsault; Del Ray is one of those guys who is pretty good in the air and also hits a twisting springboard crossbody to Morton on the floor.

The Bodies have an energetic, enjoyable heel control segment. All the cheating and misdirection and taunting and cool double-teams just work, man. The Bodies are always moving, always scheming, and their matches tend to be packed with spots, but not just athletic high spots as you’d see today from the typical worker who packs their match with spots. Morton manages a flash two count on Del Ray with a counter rana (!!!!!) and then rolls up Prichard for two more, but just as I think he’s going to escape for a hot tag, Del Ray manages to hit an assisted moonsault for two when Gibson saves. It’s only the move after that, when both Bodies duck down after shooting Morton in, that Morton double DDTs his way out of trouble.

Gibson rolls the heels, but the match quickly breaks down. OK, so I see why they caught McMahon talking about over-the-top DQs; here’s a big spot in which Prichard tosses Morton over the top rope in full view of ref Joey Marella, and Gibson forgets that he’s not down in Smoky Mountain anymore. He lets up, thinking that his team has won by DQ, is informed that this is not the case, and gets waylaid by the heels. The babyfaces manage their patented double-dropkick finisher shortly after, but the ref’s count is delayed and Prichard kicks out at 2.8. Morton attacks Cornette, who is on the apron, and as the ref shoos him out of the ring, Cornette tosses his racket to Del Ray, who leaps from the top and drives it into the back of Gibson’s head as he again tries to cover Prichard. Prichard rolls on top of the KO’d Gibson and earns the three and the titles.

OK, as a match, this ruled and is a bolted-on hidden gem, but they had a Smoky Mountain Southern tag in front of a bunch of Bostonians who knew nothing about Smoky Mountain and then worked an over-the-top-rope DQ gimmick that would be entirely alien to most of the WWF’s fans watching in the arena or at home to set up for a rematch in Tennessee later on down the road that no one else would see. This match is the perfect example of a fantastic match performed for the absolute wrong crowd.

Recap: Doink the Clown and Bam Bam Bigelow are feuding; Matt Borne is still under the greasepaint, though not for much longer. Doink informed Bam Bam and Luna Vachon on a past Superstars that he’d be bringing a few other Doinks to wrestle Bam Bam’s team at Survivor Series. Bam Bam and Luna seemed annoyed at the prospect.

Interview time [w/Todd Pettengill]: Forget Bam Bam’s comments; the Headshrinkers and Bastion Booker gnaw apart a giant turkey during this whole segment. It’s sickening! And also mesmerizing! Did WWF inadvertantly create the first mukbang video?

Match: Bam Bam and Luna’s Athletic Fat Man Troupe (Bam Bam Bigelow, Bastion Booger, Samu, and Fatu, accompanied by Afa) wrestle Doink’s Clown Show (The Doinkwhackers and Doinks on a Mission all wearing the greasepaint along with Oscar). The fans in Boston love the hell out of Oscar’s act. Oscar requests that they scream and they’re like, AAAAAAAAAAAH this is so fun, let’s all wave our arms in the air, but not simultaneously because we just can’t manage to stay on beat, and ooh, WHOOMP, THERE IT IS, yeah, let’s chant that for a long time too. So is Matt Borne too fucked up to perform? I assumed he’d be in this match, but I don’t think he’s even out here with his partners. Did he get fired between that Superstars episode and now? The crowd insistently chants WE WANT DOINK, in fact.

Afa is really going in on that turkey! Anyway, this match is what it is. Luke and Butch do a bunch of Looney Tunes-esque comedy spots to Booger. Actually, my issue with this match is that the Headshrinkers should be better used. Then again, Samu is destroying the babyfaces’ balloons by biting them, which is amusing. He tries to bite a third, but there’s ice water in it, and it splashes him in the face, and then Butch rolls him up for three [Doink’s Clown Show 4 – 3 Bam Bam and Luna’s Athletic Fat Man Troupe]. No, I was right the first time. This is a waste of the Headshrinkers.

Fatu doesn’t have any time for Butch’s silliness, though, and the heels work him over, culminating in a Booger Trip to the Batcave. Strangely, even though he hits the move, he’s too fatigued to simply cover. He gets up, starts in on a banana, tries another Trip, misses when Mabel moves Butch out of the way, and is picked apart with a Battering Ram and a Mabel leg drop for another fall [Doink’s Clown Show 4 – 2 Bam Bam and Luna’s Athletic Fat Man Troupe]. It’s the ‘90s, so Heenan gets Mabel and Oprah Winfrey mixed up. You take the good, you take the bad, etc., etc.

At the point where Mo is riding a scooter around the ring, I’ve checked out. Let me just tell you the rest of the falls. Wait, no, hold on, Bam Bam dropkicks Mo off the scooter and then angrily smashes it at ringside. That ruled. Fatu follows up with a top-rope splash and pulls off the cover to get obsessed with the peel of Booger’s banana laying nearby. You can see where this is going, can’t you? *sigh*, so Butch gets a roll-up for a pinfall after Fatu both figuratively in pro wrestling parlance and also literally slips on a banana peel [Doink’s Clown Show 4 – 1 Bam Bam and Luna’s Athletic Fat Man Troupe].

This match went from mildly amusing to kinda bad, but at least it’s short! Also, Bam Bam and Mabel squaring off is actually pretty awesome. Then Mabel pummels Bammer with a lariat, and it in fact is totally awesome. Mabel is not exactly what you’d call a good worker, but I find him entirely compelling when he’s in there with the right guy, and he and Bam Bam do have multiple fun sequences together as I recall. Bammer moves out of the way of a Mabel corner charge, then hits a huge shoulderblock to bump Mabel before landing a floatover powerslam on Luke. Bammer covers, but he’s distracted when, on the floor, Butch tosses a bunch of detritus onto Luna. Bam Bam makes his way to the corner to protest and is crushed by a Mo corner charge, then eats a Mabel splash and a dogpile pin for three and a clean sweep [Doink’s Clown Show 4 – 0 Bam Bam and Luna’s Athletic Fat Man Troupe].

Look, there was just enough cool stuff in this shitty match that I’m not putting it on my list of Total Misfires, but if you looked askance at me for not adding it to that list, I wouldn’t blame you. Bammer and Luna leave the ring and are taunted by Doink on the video board as they make their way back up the aisle. Doink implies that Luna is a dog and that kissing her would be unpleasant. I mean, have you seen yourself in the mirror, Doink? You’re, as the kids would say, a total looksmatch.

Interview time [w/Todd Pettengill]: Pettengill yaps out a stupid question and gets eviscerated by Jim Cornette, whose mouth motors as he identifies the heart of the opposing babyface team as the Steiner Brothers, the mind of that team as the Undertaker, and the soul of that team as Lex Luger. I guess, but the Undertaker is actually a living specter. I think. Maybe? Whatever. The point is that Cornette basically says his guys are going to pick apart their opponents piece by everlovin' piece.

Match: Here is our main event: The Foreign Fanatics (Ludvig Borga, Jacques Rougeau, Crush, and Yokozuna with James Cornette, Johnny Polo, and Mr. Fuji at ringside to support their charges) face off against the All-Americans (Scott Steiner, Rick Steiner, the Undertaker, and Lex Luger with Paul Bearer). Vince mentions that Yokozuna was on Late Night with Conan O’Brien to hype this show. You know I got y’all, right? It’s time for another sidebar!

Previously on… An episode of Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and you know what, Conan looks so young here, man. How did we all get so old so quickly? And why is Fuji out here to speak for Yoko and not Cornette? This is bullshit. Conan plays along with all the kayfabe nonsense related to this sort of thing. But actually, Fuji’s laugh when Conan asks him if he benefits financially from this arrangement or if he and Yoko are just friends is great, as is his response: “This is business and pleasure. Mostly business.” OK, I have changed my opinion. Fuji being out here is fine. Fuji also shitting on Hulk Hogan after Conan helpfully asks who Yokozuna beat to win the title is great. Yokozuna just sits there stone-faced. I’m really hoping that Conan and Andy Richter start trying to crack him, and YEAH, after Conan asks if Yoko speaks, he does start trying to do break the guy and get him to talk or smirk or do something.

Fuji saying that actually, he likes Americans because they buy lots of Japanese electronics also got me to laugh. Fuji’s xenophobia-bating is pretty solid tonight. They try to crack Yoko by having Dizz spin in circles in front of him while screaming GO DIZZ GO. It doesn’t work. Yoko gets up and drags the disoriented Dizz backstage, then calmly sits down and takes his world title back from Fuji’s grasp. Amazing. Conan and Fuji have a strange sort of chemistry, probably because Conan can figure out how to match the wavelength of pretty much anyone he’s sitting across from. Conan says that he’s heard these fellas are actually from New Jersey and not Japan. Well, you’re half right, buddy. Fuji manages to set up for the upcoming Yokozuna/Undertaker feud, and when he attempts to explain the Undertaker and Paul Bearer to Conan, it completely confuses Conan. As it should! That is something only someone in the wrestling bubble should even begin to understand! They try to break Yoko one more time by having a planted questioner ask him dramatically and elaborately how heels manage to live with themselves. That doesn’t work either, but it’s a fine end to this batshit 1993 Conan segment that was the sort of thing that amused pre-teen Smugly immensely.

Match: OK, back to this match. It should be decent. Hey, is Scott Steiner allowed to do rude gestures by slapping his forearm? I guess he is since he did it. As Jacques asks for handshakes and recoils at rude gestures and scurries away from the Steiners, I think that he would have been a better fit for the clown match than Mabel or Mo. Maybe take Mo out and leave Mabel in because that match actually made me want to see six minutes of Mabel and Bam Bam hitting impactful fat dude offense on one another until someone takes the pinfall off a legdrop or a headbutt.

Ricky Steiner hits a series of shoulderblocks to knock Yoko to the floor, but he is soon trapped in the corner by the heels. Borga dismissively tosses Ricky to the floor, but Rick scrambles up to the top rope and lands a diving shoulderblock. Then, in an ugly fucking spot, Borga and Rick completely fuck up a dive in which Borga is supposed to catch a Rick crossbody and turn it into a floatover powerslam for three. Borga does not catch the slam. Rick lands right on top of him, but Borga just rolls over and covers [All-Americans 3 – 4 Foreign Fanatics]. Yuck, Tony Halme sucked at pro wrestling. And life. He sucked at life too.

At least Crush does a neat spot where he catches Jacques and calmly puts him on the mat after Scotty launches him. Scott lands a double-underhook suplex as Vince breathlessly mentions that they’ve just gotten word that Randy Savage has returned to the Boston Garden. Not forty-five seconds later, Savage is spotted in the aisle trying to bust through a phalanx of officials and wrestlers who didn’t make this card. Crush casually presses Scott to the floor and watches the disruption, but he’s not dumb enough to rush down the aisle and get counted out or to turn his back on the legal man in the ring. Mostly because the legal man is currently outside of the ring, but still!

Savage gets dragged back to the locker room, but after another minute or two of Crush dominance, he struggles back out here…and this time, Crush takes his eyes off Scott, who dropkicks him to the floor. Crush proves me wrong: He is dumb enough to rush down the aisle and attack Savage, getting counted out in the melee (and beaten up besides before everyone finally drags Savage off for good) [All-Americans 3 – 3 Foreign Fanatics].

I was wrong. This match isn’t really any good, and unlike the previous match, it’s twenty-plus minutes. At least Jacques sticks Scotty with a piledriver. That’s cool. His follow-up cover only gets about 2.8. Scott turns things around and even lands a press slam before hitting a hot tag to Luger, who slams Jacques and drops a second-rope metal elbow that puts Jacques down for three [All-Americans 3 – 2 Foreign Fanatics].

It’s crazy that Vince gave up on Luger literally five weeks or so after he turned him babyface, isn’t it? He immediately shifted Luger toward Borga and then positioned the Undertaker to be the lead babyface against Yokozuna. What did Luger do to piss him off so badly? Add that to Luger showing up on Nitro as a surprise (even though Vince is the idiot who took his eye off the ball when it came to Luger’s contract renewal), and you can see why Vince had to be gone from the company before they’d bring Luger in for the HoF. Anyway, some shenanigans happen that lead to Yokozuna eliminating Scott Steiner on a pinfall after a legdrop [All-Americans 2 – 2 Foreign Fanatics].

Luger and Yoko face off – again, note that ‘Taker and Yoko are the two being kept away from one another for maximum reaction once they finally face off. Yoko tries a ground-based frog splash on Luger, but Luger rolls out of the way and lands a few punches and forearms before running right into a meaty Yoko clothesline. Borga tags in and Vince calls him “The Hellraiser from Helsinki.” Yoko tags back in and Vince calls him a “BOhemoth.” The captioner gets it right, though. I need to make a PBP Vince McMahon bingo card for these shows. Yoko tries a corner charge, but Luger again moves and manages to get a hot tag to the completely fresh Undertaker. That gets a nice pop, and ‘Taker’s DDT of Yoko on a duck down and zombie sit-up completely pops the crowd. Vince is probably certain that he’s making the right choice with ‘Taker and Luger, and honestly, he’s right at this point because he cut Luger off at the knees.

Borga manages to distract ‘Taker enough for Yoko to hit a belly-to-belly, but ‘Taker sitting up on Yoko’s offense has him rattled. Yoko tries a Banzai Drop to keep ‘Taker down and hits it, but he tries a second…and the Undertaker sits up. I remember being SUPER into this section of the match when I saw it on VHS a couple of months after its original airing, by the way, and what happens next, which is a shitty double-countout after their fight spills to the floor, infuriated me [All-Americans 1 – 1 Foreign Fanatics]. Does it make sense because you don’t want to give away the ghost and have one pin the other before their big Royal Rumble title match or have to have the one who gets the pinfall get eliminated by the remaining guy? Sure. That’s logical. But the emotional side of me wanted a finish or at least some more action between these two, dammit!

So now I’ve got to suffer a Lex Luger/Ludvig Borga match, huh? Borga casually hits offense, but he doesn’t try hard enough to put Luger away. Luger and Borga double-clohesline one another, but there are just too many dudes at ringside. Cornette and Polo distract the ref; Fuji passes the salt bucket to Borga, who bonks Luger on the head with it. Luger manages to kick out of Borga’s cover and fire back on what is essentially a Hulk Up spot. Luger pulls a DDT out of his arsenal as part of an unbroken onslaught of offense and close two counts. Borga manages to stick a fist into Luger’s gut to get some space, but he shoots Luger in, gets leapfrogged, and eats a metal elbow off the rebound that knocks him out and ends his night [All-Americans 1 – 0 Foreign Fanatics]. Hey, Luger gets a big win on PPV! Just ignore that it’s two months too late.

Santa Claus comes to the ring as fake snow falls from the rafters and celebrates with Luger. Luger had to share his big win with Santa? Dammit, Vince!

This show was very long, but generally watchable all the way through. It’s hard to have a bad show when you can hide your dogshit workers – your Borgas, for example – in the mix with guy who have successfully honed their craft in the particular arts of pro wrestling. Also, this roster is pretty talented if you just look at who they booked on this show! 3 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

Edited March 24 by SirSmUgly

tbarrie · March 24

On 3/22/2026 at 4:44 PM, SirSmUgly said:

Finally, Shawn Michaels hits the ring followed by Jerry Lawler’s three Knights (Jeff Gaylord, Barry Horowitz, and Greg Valentine under hoods). Vince walks over to taunt the family, and I feel that Martha’s face reads something like, I just calmed this child down, please do not wake him up and get him going again. Yeah, I feel confident about that read. Luckily, Oje doesn’t get all riled up thanks to mom shutting out the noise by covering his ears as Michaels taunts the Hart family right in front of him.

Wait, Vince walked over to taunt the Hart family? Thinko on Smugly's part, or early hint at the "Mr. Mchmahon" character that was coming four years later?

SirSmUgly · March 24

3 hours ago, tbarrie said:

Wait, Vince walked over to taunt the Hart family? Thinko on Smugly's part, or early hint at the "Mr. Mchmahon" character that was coming four years later?

Aw, FUUUUUUUUUUC...

...well, I read it twice and don't catch it, and then someone does it for me. Usually, that someone is twiztor, so thanks for stepping in for him, tbarrie!

Edited March 24 by SirSmUgly

SirSmUgly · April 3

ECW Hostile City Showdown ’94 (24 June 1994):

A show in which we leave behind the vestiges of ‘80s culture and place ourselves firmly within the emergent culture of the ‘90s.

I’m not a huge ECW guy. I live in a part of the country that didn’t get ECW television with regularity until 1996, which consensus says was the point at which we were on the downside of the company’s creative run, and though I’ve seen quite a bit of ECW television going back to 1992 (including some of it that friends taped after trips to visit family in New York and Atlanta!), I find a surprising amount of it without the level of charm that its reputation suggests, and now that I’m viewing it well into the new millennium and without the glow of having loved it on original run back in the ‘90s, nostalgia does not act as a critical safety net in my case.

This isn’t to say that I don’t like ECW. I certainly am a bit picky about what I like (mainly Raven, the Funker, Scorp, Sabu, Tajiri, the luchadores, etc.) and leave the rest to the side. I am not sure that I’ve seen this show (have I seen any of the Hostile City Showdowns, actually? Surely I have), or I haven’t seen it in a long time, so we’ll see what I make of it. I am hopeful to come away from it feeling that I underestimated its potential goodness.

Two hours with Joey Styles in the booth isn’t going to help this show’s case, though.

Match: The opener pits Tommy Dreamer vs. Hack Meyers and this company is still called Eastern Championship Wrestling, so that’s the vibe that has been set for this show. Dreamer comes out to Evenflow, which as we all know is a crude knockoff of the great Jimmy Hart/Howard Helm composition that helped Chris Jericho reach new heights as a character in 1998 WCW. Pearl Jam really should have found a way to travel forward in time and give Hart and Helm credit for their work, huh? Clean-cut Tommy Dreamer desperately begs for the Philly crowd’s love by stomping on a New York Rangers jersey. It kinda works, I suppose? I mean, he’s still just a doofus in dumb suspenders at this point, so this particular act of supplication only carries him so far with the audience.

What we get is a perfectly cromulent competitive squash. The crowd boos Dreamer as he whips Meyers into a side headlock; a couple guys in the front row start a LET’S GO HACK chant, but no one gives a shit about Hack Meyers, so it dies out. The DREAMER SUCKS chant they follow up with sustains for a bit longer, mostly because the crowd has actual passion for vocally shitting on Dreamer. Styles desperately tries to talk Dreamer up on PBP and also color, I suppose, if you think about the enormity of the task that Styles has taken upon himself tonight.

Anyway, Hack locks on a trapezius pinch and you know what, this is probably less “perfectly cromulent” and more “barely cromulent.” Dreamer fires off a DDT to kill Meyers’s onslaught dead, then soon recovers from a missed elbowdrop and scores a top-rope splash for three. The crowd is unmoved by Dreamer’s triumph. Styles yells YOU’RE A WINNER, TOMMY as the crowd boos. On the other hand, I yell NICE SUSPENDERS, YA PRICK.

Match: Chad Austin! Yeah, that’s the pre-’95 ECW that I’ve come to moderately enjoy and expect. In fact, he’s wrestling Don E. Allen, but oops, no he’s not, because 911 walks to the ring and hands out chokeslams like Costco employees hand out cheese samples. 911 is mostly actually here to revenge himself upon the ref, who did the unthinkable and levied a disqualification against him in an ECW Arena show in previous weeks. Disqualifications? What is this, WCW?! 911 gives the ref a second chokeslam, and when Tod Gordon gets handsy with 911’s handler Paul E. in an attempt to stop the rampage, Gordon also eats a chokeslam while Styles shrilly babbles about this heinous attack on ECW’s owner. Paul asks for another Gordon chokeslam from 911 and gets one. The fans think this is all pretty rad. They’re not wrong!

Hold on, here’s that chump Tommy Dreamer to check on his boss like some kind of wage slave BITCH who loves his boss more than he loves HIMSELF, and 911 chokeslams Dreamer for being a good little worker drone happy in his serfdom. The Philly crowd is rapturous. 911 came out here, did like six or seven chokeslams, and leapt over the top rope all the way to the floor as he left. Ah, it must be nice to do so little and be so over.

Match: The Pitbull (w/Jason), later known as Pitbull #1, faces off with the Tazmaniac, later Taz, and even later than that Tazz. This is a Dog Collar Match, and yes, I have certainly seen this show before because the 911 attack seemed familiar, but this match is certainly one that I've seen [Editor's note: I've absolutely seen this show, but it's been decades]. Styles claims that he’s not shilling how hardcore ECW like some kind of cornball WWF commentator is while shilling how hardcore ECW is like some kind of cornball WWF commentator. Shortly after that paean to hardcore wrestling, Pitbull clobbers Taz with...a posterboard sign that praises him. Seriously, though, this is a wandering brawl that incorporates typical dog chain spots (chokes, viciously yanking dudes around, hangings) with typical mid-‘90s trash brawling. The front row chants SHITBULL at Pitbull. This match is fine, but what I like most about it is that it evokes a specific zeitgeist: 1994, when mainstream U.S. culture in the ‘90s began to teeter upon the precipice of completely abandoning the thin veneer of bare minimum semi-tasteful behavior that permeated the mainstream culture of the milquetoast-ass Reagan ‘80s. That’s honestly what I like the most about ECW overall, even as problematic as it often got.

Anyway, they do the old spot where the heel tries to touch all corners, but the babyface is right behind him touching corners as well. They switch it up by having Taz Tazplex Pitbull #1 into the lights before Pitbull can touch the fourth corner; Taz covers for three. Pitbull #2 makes his debut and helps Pitbull #1 execute a brutal attack on Taz after the match, hanging him over the top rope with the chain and bashing him with a chair while he's being choked out. It’s a pretty nasty attack!

Match: Did I just die? Am I in hell? Is this the goddam Bruise Brothers against Shane Douglas and Mr. Hughes?! FUCK. Question: As the Harrises lost their hair, did they get worse, or does their WWF run as the Blu Brothers indicate that they sucked no matter how much hair they had? This match doesn’t suck, though, which is a huge deal considering the participants. One of the Harris Boys blows a leapfrog, but I appreciate the effort. This match is at its best when it breaks down and all four men are brawling or Shane is hitting Harris Boys with body slams in the aisle.

I’m not a Shane Douglas fan at all and found him generally bland even before all the injuries sapped his athleticism, but I think Styles does a disservice to him on commentary by calling him “the wrestler of the ‘90s” and “the leader of the New Generation” because I think as much as one might critique Shawn Michaels for, Michaels is way the fuck better than Douglas. The comparison does not flatter the guy who is supposed to be ECW’s ace.

Douglas drops a Bruise Brother/Blu Brother/Harris Boy with a belly-to-belly, but he tags in Hughes rather than go for a cover, and the match breaks down once more. Hughes hits a Bruise Brother with something he yanks out of his shirt pocket, and I think that’s probably the finish, but it’s not. This match probably should have ended by now. Douglas gets shot over the top rope; Styles takes the time to shit on WCW’s over-the-top-rope DQ rule. OK, I’ll allow it. I can’t believe that rule lasted into 1999!

I suspect that all the tornado action and crowd brawling was novel enough in 1994 that the wrestlers involved seemed better at the time than they actually were. Hughes lands a Boss Man Slam, but the ref is occupied with Douglas and a Bruise Boy (Don, Styles identifies) outside the ring. Don slides back into the ring, boots Hughes in the head, and pulls Ron on top of Hughes. The ref makes it back to the ring to count the three. It was watchable. That’s good enough. After the bout, Hughes screams into a house mic about wanting a rematch because the referee was an incompetent boob (in so many words). Look, this match was as good as this matchup probably will ever get, Hughes. Let’s not run it back.

Match: Tommy Cairo (w/Peaches) meets the Sandman (w/Woman) in a Singapore Cane on a Pole Match. Michael Fay getting his ass tattooed by the Singaporean authorities for tagging their stuff while visiting their country provided us with two key things in the ‘90s: Weird Al Yankovic’s excellent song “Headline News” and the Singapore Cane being given a name much more evocative than “kendo stick” in that the former name implies that use of said cane will bring order to disorder real quick, or at least as soon as someone can get it down from that pole it’s hanging from.

As a man who eats lots of fruits and proteins and who limits processed sugars and who works out every day, I would like you to forgive me and my still-healthy T-levels as I make this observation: Woman must have the most raw sex appeal of any valet ever. Recalling what I felt about her in the middle of the ‘90s, when I was a pre-teen racing headlong into puberty, and considering her in this moment as well, I think that her ability to project a sense of carnality that was at the same time playful and dangerous is unmatched in pro wrestling. Look, we can critique ECW’s portrayal of women all day, and we probably will as I watch more ECW in this thread! But I must say that what set ECW apart from the big two was how actually sexy its women were. Physical attractiveness is one thing, sure, but I think ECW illustrates how raw sex appeal is even more attractive than actual physical attractiveness. This whole side paragraph derived from Woman pulling a lighter out of her low-cut top, lighting Sandman’s cigarette with it, and then coyly half-smiling as she put the lighter back where it came from for safe keeping. I mean, wow. Just…wow. The narrative here is that Sandman’s a dick, but I confess that I understand why in storyline, he’s made the decision to ditch Peaches for Woman. I’m not condoning his behavior! I’m just saying that I understand.

This match starts with Sandman making a break for the cane and being caught while climbing; Cairo drops him on his head with a high-angled German suplex. Forty-five seconds in, Cairo is dropping an elbow onto concrete. Cairo goes for the cover, but the ref doesn’t count, so this seems like a match that ends when someone whacks someone else with that cane. I think the ring announcer might have said this, but if you'll forgive me, I was distracted by Woman's arrival.

Cairo tosses Sandman onto a table and then drops a leg off the apron and onto the whole mess. I feel that this match should be short and nasty based on Cairo’s bomb-throwing because how much more are you going to escalate this match, but then I reconsider that there’s a ton of drama in Sandman being a complete lunatic asshole to his poor wife Peaches and how that’ll play out with who gets the cane and how.

Sandman drops Cairo with ball shots and hits elbows and stomps before trying to get the cane, which will end the match and allow the one who gets it to cane the other, and of course it falls down as they struggle on the pole. Welp, I guess to make up for that little oopsie, someone is going to have to beat the shit out of someone else with that cane. Cairo keeps hitting high end offense; he finally goes after the cane, but Woman grabs it before he can get there and slides it to Sandman, who beats the shit out of Cairo with the cane while the timekeeper declares the bout a No Contest on account of the cane fell down. OK, but then why not declare it a No Contest as soon as the cane fell? Just let that devious Woman be responsible for getting the cane to Sandman and declare him the winner, especially since the post-match angle in which Peaches tries to stop Sandman from caning Cairo seems to indicate that Sandman would have won…though then again, Woman tosses in a second cane, so maybe Cairo would have won, but Woman would have introduced the second cane to even things up.

Anyway, this all ends with woman caning Peaches right in the back of the head. Never let it be said that Lori Fullington didn’t go all out! Sandman screaming at Cairo to pay his bill did get a bark of laughter out of me (as did the sign held by the ECW Sign Guy: CAIRO, PAY YOUR BILL, YOU FREELOADER). Cairo took an absolute ass whooping, by the way. This could have been a pretty good match if the cane hadn’t fallen, but the angle surrounding it salvaged the seemingly abrupt finish.

Recap: In a match between Sabu and Terry Funk back in April of 1994, Paul E. brought in his former Dangerous Alliance charge Bobby Eaton to attack Funk and help Sabu to victory. Arn Anderson rushed out to attack Paul E. and even the odds. I presume Arn was in exile from WCW because of the scissor attack incident with Sid over in England. I didn’t remember him being gone from WCW that long, though, so maybe he was back in Atlanta and doing this shot in ECW for the same reason that Cactus and Eaton are? IIRC, Arn didn't get fired, but got sidelinedfor a while. One of you reading this will know for sure.

Next, we see a spot in which Paul E. does a reasonably funny Terry Funk impression and insults the looks of the Funker’s daughters. That was uncalled for, and Funk walks up and slaps Paul E. in the face for overstepping his bounds. Paul E. backs down in the moment, but he rushes off to tattle on Funk to The Public Enemy, the latter of whom we then observe attacking the Funker at When Worlds Collide.

Match: All this leads to Terry Funk looking homeward to find a partner whom he can trust: Terry and his big bro Dory Funk Jr. are the challengers to The Public Enemy’s ECW Tag Team Championships. Dory landing a tight forearm to Rocco Rock’s jaw is extremely aesthetically pleasing. Man, I should watch more Dory in ‘70s AJPW soon. I could watch Dory grapple for days. Also, ’94 Dory’s half-balding mullet is a brave choice, and I respect it.

Obviously, TPE is not able to outwrestle the Funk Brothers in the early going. TPE regroups on the floor, yap at a bunch of fans that are chanting YOU SUCK right back at them, and reset. Johnny Grunge manages to get a few forearms in, but Dory turns it around and hits a couple of sweet lifting forearms. Dory tags in Terry, and after a double forearm that drops Grunge, Funk scores a powerbomb and covers Grunge for two. Since that didn’t work, Terry takes it to the floor and initiates a ringside brawl with Grunge. Grunge is in his element out here, but his strikes don’t do much to Terry, who Funks Up (heh) and tosses both TPE members into the crowd. Dory walks over and holds Rocco for a successful Terry chair shot.

That chair shot woke everybody up as now chairs are everywhere and being swung around by everyone. Rocco takes out Terry with three shots to the dome while on the other side of the ring, Dory clobbers Grunge to the mat. Rocco and Dory swing at one another, but clash their chairs, and then Dory tosses his chair into Rocco and dodges a desperate Rocco shoulderblock.

I really like this match. Dory not wanting to take a million chair shots means that he’s functioning within a clever ace sort of role where he’s too smart for these chair-swinging idiots in TPE, but Terry, as the one more susceptible to rage and more interested in hardcore wrestling, can be baited into fighting TPE on their level. Grunge finally catches Dory with a chair to the back and spills him to the floor alongside Rocco; Grunge then goes to work on Funk and tosses him out the other side, where Rocco catches him with a couple of fists. Dory pairs off with Rocco again while Grunge drops Terry with another chair shot.

Rocco finally jabs a chair into Dory’s shoulder and takes control; they brawl against the guardrail. Meanwhile, Terry and Grunge battle deep into the stands. Grunge wins that battle and comes back to the ring to try and pin Dory after a simple body slam. Dory kicks out, so Grunge tries a schoolboy with a yank of the tights, but that also only gets two. The crowd tries to will TERRY, TERRY back into the match as Dory plays FIP against an overwhelming TPE assault. Dory almost manages to score a quick three on Rocco with a schoolboy of his own, then dodges a cannonball attempt on the floor. Rocco crashes into Grunge, and Dory pulls Rocco back into the ring and throws punches at him.

Terry, meanwhile, gets back across the guardrail, but he’s met by Grunge, who beats him down. Dory tries his signature spinning toehold to finish off Rocco, but Grunge makes the save. TPE get a couple more close two counts on Dory while a busted-wide-open Terry tries to get back across the railing. Unfortunately for him, he’s continually met by Grunge, who keeps him at bay.

Paul E. trundles out here alongside 911; 911 complaints to the ref about his count and then chokeslams him after Paul E. demands it. TPE pile onto Dory and Paul E. counts a quick three before he rushes off ahead of Terry’s attack. Terry knocks Grunge out and counts a quick three of his own as Dory covers Grunge. Grunge tries to choke out Dory with tape while Terry and Rocco brawl in and around the crowd. This was a wet fart of a finish because unless the Funk Bros. were winning, both teams needed some measure of protection, but even considering that, this bout was enjoyable, mostly because watching Dory effectively work TPE in ECW was a strange, neat instance of talents who I'd think would never fit together managing to work a strong match.

To end the segment, Funk hangs Grunge by his feet and shoves him over the balcony in the sort of dumb stunt that OF COURSE the WWF took too far and killed someone with. I mean, my money would have been on ECW or XPW killing a wrestler on a major show, but I should have guessed that cheap bastard Vince McMahon would have also been a reasonable candidate for doing something like that. Anyway, this match is making my Hidden Midcard Gems list.

Match: Our next title match brings out The Rockin’ Rebel (w/Jason) as the challenger to Mikey Whipwreck’s ECW Television Championship. We get to hear Salt ‘n Pepa’s “Whatta Man” and Beck’s “Loser” in the walkouts, and now I’m an old man crabbing about how much better music was in my day, etc., etc. Poor Mikey gets his ass beat while the crowd gets behind him. As I watch Whipwreck effectively arch his back in pain after taking a suplex, I again recall that in 1999, WCW had Mikey Whipwreck, (an incorrectly de-pushed) Raven, and Hardcore Hak/Sandman on their roster and still built their shitty hardcore division around Brian fucking Knob(b)s. What the shit? Even the ever-more-immobile Bam Bam Bigelow deserved much better from WCW's booking of him in that division. Like, if you’re going to copy the WWF as they copy ECW, the least you could do is try.

Mikey does manage to leapfrog Rebel and clothesline Jason off the apron (Styles: WE HAVE JUST SEEN MIKEY WHIPWRECK’S FIRST OFFENSIVE MOVE EVER). Mikey then gets lucky enough to duck Jason’s chair shot attempt. Jason accidentally clobbers Rebel, and then Mikey manages to beat up Jason. Good for him! Rebel hits him in the back with a chair, though. By the way, this is another DQ/no contest – the fourth of the night on an ECW show, no less – and I should be more annoyed. ECW gets away with a ton because they make the post-match shenanigans so fun and satisfying most of the time that I forgive them. In this case, the Tazmaniac rushes the ring to attack Jason for the earlier Pitbulls attack; the Pitbulls soon follow, but Taz fights them off for quite a bit of time before falling to the numbers game and being utterly dissected by Jason's charges.

Match: Our main event is up next! Sabu (w/911 and Paul E.) wrestles Cactus Jack in a match which is almost sure to involve a series of stupid-ass bumps that I will paradoxically both enjoy and also consider entirely over-the-top and excessive. This crowd clearly expects some serious violence as Sabu lands a series of kicks before hooking a front facelock and transitioning into punches and stomps.

Still in control, Sabu hits a back suplex and a spinning back kick, the latter of which sends Cactus to the floor. Sabu takes off and hits the cables for a suicide dive; Cactus moves out of the way, but too early. Sabu stops himself and then grabs a chair and tees off on Cactus, remaining dominant enough to finally hit a suicide dive (with a little help from Paul E., who holds Cactus in place this time around).

The most enduring thing about Sabu (I think as he hits a chair-launched back kick in the corner, but tries again and eats a counter-forearm to the jaw) is that he really does feel totally out of control. I like Lance Storm an awful lot, but the story Storm told about how Sabu wanted to fuck up a spot on purpose and Storm’s inability to understand why Sabu wanted to do such a thing because they could just keep hitting moves cleanly instead (and Storm's point of view ultimately winning out) explains why wrestling became more sanitized feeling and soullessly clinical as we moved into the aughts. Sabu fucking up a spot, whether planned or not, feels dangerous and out of control. It gives me a dopamine-fueled thrill, and what are we watching pro wrestling for if not for those moments?

Cactus lands a Cactus Clothesline, tumbling out to the floor alongside Sabu, before attacking him with chairs and a frying pan. Hell, Cactus attacks himself with that frying pan because he’s a deranged lunatic. Jack rolls Sabu into the ring and drops a running elbow for two; he follows up by going up top and whiffing on a senton splash when Sabu moves. Sabu quickly capitalizes and hits a slingshot legdrop, but Sabu’s cover only gets 2.5.

Sabu lands punches and a legdrop, but Cactus is playing possum and catches Sabu going up for a moonsault. Cactus tries a super belly-to-back, but Sabu shifts and lands on top of Cactus, then beats Jack to his feet and scores a front dropkick. Sabu shoots Cactus in; Cactus stops short and hooks Sabu. They switch and switch again before tumbling through the middle ropes and to the floor in a mass of humanity.

Cactus splatters himself while trying to charge Sabu; Sabu backdrops him to the floor and then sets up a table, which he uses as a bed upon which to lay Cactus before landing a springboard legdrop that drives them both through said table. This match is mostly two dudes doing crazy shit to one another, and I think it’s fine for what it is. It’s a bit long, I feel, but mostly because I’ve become a firm believer that even two insanely tough nutbars who like violence shouldn’t be able to last longer than about ten or twelve minutes doing wild spots to one another. Leave the twelve-minute-and-over matches for the technicians.

Both men end up outside the ring and cracking each other into the guardrail before 911 walks over and helps Sabu put Cactus on a table. This table, by the way, sits past the guardrail and then (me, shocked by this spot: GODDAM, what an IDIOT) Sabu springboard moonsaults over the guardrail and onto Jack laying on the table, but his face catches the guardrail, and I’m not entirely sure he blocked it with his hands. Fuuuuck. Jack takes control on account of Sabu’s face catching the guardrail; he puts Sabu in the ring and covers for only 2.8, then is caught by a Paul E. cellphone shot on a corner charge attempt. Sabu covers and gets three, but that finish is kind of a letdown, and I think the crowd feels the same way.

After the match, Paul E. and 911 attack Cactus, who dodges a Paul E. charge and then fights off 911 before dropkicking Sabu to the floor. Jack grabs a chair and absolutely lights up 911 with a seat shot to the back of his head. It sounded insanely violent. Mr. Hughes runs out to help 911 out of his predicament, but Shane Douglas hustles up and backs Hughes off. The Bruise Brothers now jog up and re-engage with Hughes and Douglas; Sabu does a chair-assisted springboard dive onto all of them because he gives zero fucks about anything but doing wild dives and brawling with Cactus some more. Cactus piledrives Sabu in the middle of the crowd, but they brawl back to the ring, where Sabu breaks a beer bottle over Cactus’s noggin. This is pretty much senseless violence to try and cover for another shitty finish, but I feel it less effective than all of the other post-match scrums.

There’s more senseless violence; the actual match only went about fifteen, but this brawl will not end. Finally, though, it ends. Cool.

Gab Gab Gab: Cactus Jack gets in trouble with WCW’s front office when he cuts an infamous and also sweet promo in which he talks about how much the WCW World Tag Team Championship that he’s currently holding is meaningful to him, but *spits on the faceplate* it’s not as meaningful as the three titles that he just lost to Sabu (for the record, those three titles are 1) Most Suicidal Wrestler, 2) Ugliest Wrestler, and 3) Jack Kevorkian’s Favorite Wrestler). He wants a rematch against Sabu to get those titles back via pinfall or maybe knockout. It’s a great promo in which he puts Sabu way over and hypes me for a rematch that I was not particularly interested in after seeing this first match between them.

Gab Gab Gab: Paul E. cuts a somewhat less, but still effective, promo in which he puts Cactus over for being incredibly resilient. Maybe I’m just sick of Heyman’s bombastic speaking style in his promos. I bet this promo was better if you watched it in ’94. I do get a kick out of how both Cactus and Paul E. took delight in shitting on WCW in their promos, though.

This show was perfectly acceptable stuff, but I think I was wrong about having no nostalgia for ECW or rather, I was only somewhat clear with myself about what I had nostalgia for. I’m not the biggest ECW fan in the world, but these shows with their unlicensed uses of contemporary music and as a clear transitional marker from the staid ‘80s into the trashy ‘90s really does bring me back to that time period as if I traveled there in an improbably invented machine. I’m looking forward to watching more ECW in this thread for that reason alone. 3.5 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

zendragon · April 3

so according to The Gospel according To Paul E.... ECW used the When World's Collide moniker for one of their shows first and when Paul sued WCW over it the settlement got him dates with Arn, Eaton and Cactus all of whom where still under WCW contract at the time.

SirSmUgly · April 4

I believe it because everyone admits that Paul E. threatened to sue (or did sue) WCW/Turner like a million times in about five years.

SirSmUgly · April 5

UWF Beach Brawl (9 June 1991):

A show in which good talent can’t be kept down by inadequate planning or production

I thought very briefly about writing a dedicated thread about Herb Abrams’s UWF, but I decided to can that thought for now and just focus on writing about UWF’s super shows, starting with their first and only PPV show (Beach Brawl) and continuing to their first and only TV special at some point (Blackjack Brawl) before ending on that show that I think was supposed to be a TV special but apparently never aired (Rampage), if I have my stories about Abrams’s UWF all in order.

The idea of spending a summer shooting through this UWF television is not entirely unpleasant, though. I’ve seen a bit of it, but I’m not sure I’ve seen any since it originally aired on ESPN or ESPN 2 back in the mid-‘90s. I was still only starting to experience the internet in 1994 or whenever that was, and only at school on Netscape Navigator for about thirty minutes a weekday, so suffice it to say that most of my wrestling news came from Cody Whatshisname on that one phone hotline basically summarizing the Observer and PWTorch and therefore, I had but a vague understanding of this weird little upstart promotion run by a raging cokehead that I was glad to watch in between watching either WCW or the weird large established promotion run by a raging cokehead.

(Alternate universe thought experiment: What does pro wrestling look like in 2025 if you flip the positions of fellow raging cokeheads Herb Abrams and Vince McMahon? We need a fresh EWR-style game with specific scenarios like this to play through, kind of like the Madden games of the past that had the alternate scenarios for real-life big games that it was the player’s job to accomplish.)

Hype package: According to the opening footage and narration on this package, the UWF is built on tradition: Men in black tights doing graps in black-and-white on the DuMont Network and all that. Now comes Herb Abrams to bring that tradition back, but with more color and more Oklahoma Stampedes. We are promised on tonight's show an appearance from the Black Hearts and Luna Vachon; a Terry Gordy/Don Muraco match; the Power Twins versus Jumpin’ Jim Brunzell and B. Brian Blair in a Killer Bees reunion that cannot legally be called by that name since the WWF owns it, so they’re going by the name Mask (not “Masked”) Confusion instead; Ivan Koloff (w/Mr. Red) versus Bob Backlund (erroneously spelled "Bob Backland" on screen) in a special matchup of legendary former WWF World Champions; Colonel DeBeers (w/Mr. Black, and you can make your own jokes about that one) against Paul Orndorff, Cowboy Bob Orton and Cactus Jack tagging up against Wet N’ Wild (Sunny Beach and Steve Ray), and Bam Bam Bigelow versus Dr. Death for the UWF Television Championship.

Hold on, here’s the voiceover on that one: “And, to one of THEEEEEESE titans will go the UWF SportsChannel CHAMPIONship BELT!” That earned a 6.5/10 on the Vince McMahon Announces Survivor Series Teams in the ‘80s Scale.

While I’d rather have Gordy wrestle Orndorff instead and have Muraco/DeBeers go five minutes and get out of the way, this card looks okay. It doesn’t have the sort of star power to get someone to purchase it, which explains the 0.1 buyrate (a buyrate so bad, even WCW officials were disgusted with it).

Interview time [w/Brian Riggo]: Riggo is our host for the evening, which means that he’s on interviews. He welcomes us to the UWF’s first foray into pay-per-view television before interviewing Herb Abrams about this UWF SportsChannel Television Championship Match that is our headliner for the night; Abrams confidently predicts Dr. Death to come away from that bout as the champion.

Riggo also reveals more segments for this show, including a Candi Divine/Rockin’ Robin UWF Women’s World Championship Match and some Gab Gab Gab: time with Captain Lou Albano, who in light of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie which came out this week, I would like to again note is the only person I recognize as Mario in all non-video game media that includes the character.

Shill Shill Shill: Riggo also tries to sell a 1-900 phone line to listen over the phone to this event as it happens. This costs a buck-twenty-five for the first minute and ninety-five cents for each additional minute. First, I’m already watching the PPV, so why would I pay for this? Second, the cost of simply buying the PPV was thirty bucks. This show is two hours long, so a hundred and twenty minutes. That’s $1.25 USD for minute one and $.95 USD for each of the additional one hundred and nineteen minutes, which works out to $114.30 USD to listen to this show. If we’re okay with still trusting the CPI Inflation Calculator, $29.95 in 1991 (the cost of purchasing the PPV) is $74.30 in 2026. $114.30 in 1991 (the cost of listening to a show you’ve likely already purchased if you’re seeing this segment) is $274.64 in 2026. In other words, who in the heck is this 1-900 number for?!

There’s also a separate 1-900 number to call in and chat with Albano and Mr. Red for two bucks a minute, and by “chat,” I assume they mean “listen to pre-recorded comments.” This one actually makes sense even if it is two bucks a minute. YOWCH.

Riggo kicks it to Craig DeGeorge on PBP and Bruno Sammartino on color. I don’t know about this pairing, and that includes Bruno on color. At least Bruno's inoffensive on ‘80s WWF color.

Interview time [w/Frank East]: Let’s talk to Bam Bam Bigelow! Bammer’s put himself through the paces and has prepared well for Dr. Death. Bammer says that he’s got a lot of “MObility, JObility, and HObility.” He also says this: “Along with the championship, you get the money, and when you get MO’ MONEY, you get happy.” Bammer’s dressed in a clean white button-up and based on his comments and his relaxed dress, I think he could be kayfabe and/or shoot high, maybe? Either high or getting paid well while not feeling the pressure that one might feel if main eventing in a bigger company. I like this chiller version of Bam Bam Bigelow, frankly. I would have liked to see more of this Bammer in interviews. Bam Bam dedicates his upcoming win to his birthday boy at home. Awww, that’s nice.

Interview time [w/Frank East]: Dr. Death snarls out a few basic threats at Bam Bam Bigelow, but I do appreciate him saying NOW DADDY, YOU HAVE TO DEAL WITH [ME]. Williams is wound real tight as he yells out moves that he plans to do: AN ARM DRAG, FIREMAN’S CARRY, PUT YA IN THE GUILLOTINE. Those were, as East noted, “strong words from a strong man.”

Hey, can we get some wrestling soon, maybe? Maybe, but first…

Shill Shill Shill: Pre-order the video of this event! Buy a copy of the program!

Match: Finally. The Black Hearts (w/Luna Vachon) are Gangrel and some dude named Tom Nash, but of course Gangrel is not yet Gangrel. He’s, um, either Apocalypse or Destruction. One of those, considering that those are the names of the Black Hearts. I’m immediately distracted by the dumb fire paper trick they do in the middle of the ring. Anyway, their opponents are Fire Cat and Jim Cooper. The ref is, um, Scott Dickinson? As in the same Scott Dickinson who plied his trade in WCW during the Nitro Era? Indeed it is!

Craig DeGeorge immediately irritates me by calling a flipping double clothesline executed by the Black Hearts a “hip toss” and then I don’t even know what he’s calling Jim Cooper’s reverse neckbreaker, but he is WRONG and even Bruno cannot take this anymore and has to cut in to stop the torrent of WRONGNESS. Bruno is actually going to save the commentary team tonight. Sorry I doubted you, legend. DeGeorge does get “flying clothesline” and “back body drop” correct, though. Every elbow is an “elbowdrop” to him, and you know what, I’m going to let it go, but this is like Heroes of Wrestling and other shows where they get some dude on PBP who knows like three wrestling moves and calls every move he sees some variation on those three moves.

I’m a bit distracted by the terrible PBP right now, but the babyface shine actually rules. Cooper and Cat hit an array of nice, impactful moves including a Cat Frankensteiner (!!!) before Apocalypse and/or Destruction gets a bit of purchase in the match. Aa/oD misses a second rope elbow, though, and Cooper tags Fire Cat in; Fire Cat AKA Battle Kat AKA Brady Boone is one of those dudes who flashed a ton of interesting offense that was well before its time in the U.S., but he never got the look-in from promoters that he should have. This probably isn’t the most accurate comp, but he’s a bit like 2 Cold Scorpio in that there was way more that some major company could have done with him at this time just based off his work and the fact that he looks like a sure-shot upper midcard babyface.

Cat hits what DeGeorge calls both a “leg takedown” and a “single dropkick,” but which is actually a fucking superkick, and that sends Aa/oD to the floor, where he regroups along with his hooded partner and soon takes over with a wheel kick when he gets back in the ring. I am genuinely surprised at how fun an opener this is. It’s pacey with lots of fun offense. Now, Cat has managed a desperation crucifix rollup for two before Aa/oD kicks out and goes back to work. The heels keep Firecat in FIP jail with a double shoulderblock; Do/aA scores a sweet bridging Northern Lights for two and then a nice-looking back elbow. I think that’s Gangrel, and DeGeorge says that he’s Destruction, but what the hell does DeGeorge even know? We'll go with Gangrel as Destruction going forward.

Cat manages to hit Apocalypse with a desperation DDT after Apocalypse ducks down; he makes a hot tag to Cooper, but Apocalypse goes low to regain control, then tags in Destruction and lands a double hot shot on Cooper. The Black Hearts rid the ring of a charging Cat and then team up on a Demolition Decapitation to Cooper that replaces the elbowdrop with a second-rope legdrop. That earns three for the Hearts; Luna attacks Cat with a chain after the match. Huh. This was somehow a Hidden Undercard Gem. My only complaint is that it could have stood to be a couple minutes longer, but it was genuinely fun and energetic.

Interview time [w/Brian Riggo]: Luna freaks out on Riggo and snarls about Cat and Cooper being “scrubs” while one of the Black Hearts caws in the background while flapping his arms, just like renowned Philadelphia indy trios tag team the Birds of War (CAW CAW CAW).

Match: Johnny Ace (w/Matoko Baba’s enduring love) jogs to the ring to wrestle Terry Gordy in what is a No Disqualification bout (and Ace promises a clear upgrade from Muraco, so that's a nice bonus). This bout has promise, too. Ace kills a backdrop counter with a nice headlock takeover and they grapple for position on the mat before getting to their feet. Ace wins a shoulderblock and goes back to the headlock takeover. They make their way to their feet and do some really pacey work that terminates in an Ace second-rope crossbody for two. Gordy kicks out and immediately gets to his feet, then hammers Ace with a forearm and soon after drills Ace with a nasty lariat.

Gordy takes over for a bit, and I dig that these dudes are just swinging for the fences in there. Gordy stops some Ace fightback by hitting a nice high-angled back suplex for two. He then sets Ace up for a powerbomb, and though Ace fights it, Gordy eventually powers him over and scores another two-count off the move. Now, I can’t be complaining about DeGeorge all the damn time, but he a) has the temerity to correct Bruno’s guess that Gordy is going for a piledriver by suggesting that Gordy is actually going for a powerbomb, and then b) after Gordy hits it, says that Gordy didn’t do the powerbomb and just “dropped [Ace] onto his back,” which as well we all know is how you DO A FUCKING POWERBOMB, so DeGeorge thought that a piledriver was a powerbomb and a powerbomb was a “drop him on his back” move. Fuuuuuu you know what, I’m not the best at calling moves. I make mistakes with some of the more elaborate shit. I don’t expect perfection from myself or others. At the same time, I would take ten trillion Vince McMahon-style WHAT A MANEUVERs over DeGeorge incorrectly calling moves by name even once.

Gordy gets 2.85 on another hard corner lariat, but when he tries a third, he eats a couple of boots right to the mush and a running lariat from Ace. Ace makes his comeback and dropkicks Gordy to the floor before coming up short on a slingshot crossbody and crashing to the floor right in front of Gordy as Gordy tries to catch him. Gordy quickly checks on Ace before salvaging things by dragging Ace down the aisle and into the stands for a brawl. This is supposed to be a no-DQ match, but no one ever said no countouts! They get counted out, which of course stinks as a finish, but these two are punching the shit out of each other well after the bell, so who am I to complain? That was another genuinely fun match; maybe I’m feeling a bit liberal in my praise-giving today, but I’d almost place it on the Hidden Undercard Gem list. I enjoyed this match as a sustained burst of unforgiving violence, but I think the dog doo finish unfortunately keeps it from making that list.

Match: The Power Twins (w/John Tolos) face Mask Confusion. I'm guessing it’s not spelled “Masked Confusion” because it’s supposed to sound like “Mass Confusion” when spoken, which is kind of clever, maybe? The Power Twins are Larry Power and David Power, hailing from Power City, New York. That’s some delightfully goofy pro wrestling naming. Blair and Brunzell have the twins all cattywampus to start; Bliar eventually slingshots one Power Twin into the other, knocking them both to the floor. Blair and Brunzell work over whichever Power Twin this is during the babyface shine segment with a special focus on attacking the twin’s leg.

It’s a long shine segment as Mask Confusion continue to bamboozle these dopey twins with quick tags and double-team moves until, finally, the twin eating damage kicks Blair away; Blair’s momentum takes him right into a clothesline from the other twin standing on the apron that thumps him in the back of the head. Blair is now in FIP jail, and this is all fine! It’s perfectly decent tag team wrestling!

The twins double up incessantly on Blair and cut off his close tags. Since this show is being held in Florida, I think Blair has a lot of the crowd behind him in particular. The heels eventually fuck up and toss Blair to the floor, where he and Brunzell mask up. Brunzell is the guy to get in the ring, and how is it legal to mask up during the match? This is nonsense! Brunzell makes the comeback, tries a sunset flip, and gets help from Blair when the twin grabs the top rope to block it. Blair knocks the twin’s hands away and Brunzell completes the sunset flip for three. This was a textbook tag match. It wouldn’t blow anyone away, but it was exactly the type of match you could show to someone who had never watched a tag match in their lives, and they’d immediately understand the basic underpinnings of U.S. and Canadian tag matches.

Match: The first title match of the show pits Candi Divine against Rockin’ Robin (the latter of whom enters to the Jackson 5 version of the song) for the UWF Women’s World Championship. I will say that these matches tonight have been quite pacey, and this match is no different. Robin scores a forearm off a leapfrog early before slowing things down with a front facelock. Bruno points out that Robin’s feet are under the apron and therefore the ref should have broken the hold. That’s why we need to get rules baron Scott Dickinson back out here to officiate, dammit! Divine fights her way up to a base anyway and backs Robin into he corner, but after being backed off, Robin scores a second-rope diving sunset flip for two.

Divine immediately jumps on her, hits a snapmare, and slingshots Robin into the mat before turning Robin over in a Boston Crab. She doesn’t really sit down on it, though, which is a shame since Robin is pretty bendy. Robin leverages her leg strength to flip Divine forward into a pinning position; that gets two, but Divine reverses for two of her own, then is up first again. She clubs Robin down before picking her up, shooting her in, and scoring a low dropkick to the midsection for two more.

A buckle bonk attempt on Divine’s part is blocked by Robin, who reverses the move, lands a chop, and hits a clothesline for two. Robin shoots Divine in and whiffs on a front dropkick when Divine barely stops short. Divine shoots Robin in again, but Robin ducks her swing and clips her knee or maybe botches, who knows, and the point is that they do that spot again except with Robin landing a counter clothesline. This match is okay, though. It’s not going to stop time and make you see wrestling in some new light, but it’s watchable. Robin avoids a Divine corner charge and quickly rolls up her opponent for the three and the gold. That’s a nice title belt (and though everyone on commentary has called it the Ladies’ Championship all night, the belt explicitly names the title as the Women’s Championship).

Recap: After Bruno ignores DeGeorge’s dumbass questions about whether or not Bruno’s ever been in a strap match, we cut to patched-together footage that shows the evolution of a tasteless angle in which ardent apartheid-loving Boer Colonel DeBeers protests his match against Billy Jack Haynes being reffed by a black person by loudly complaining before the match and then kicking the ref during the match and attacking him after the ref DQs him for the kick. This begins a chain of events that we don’t see, but that somehow leads to a) DeBeers whipping Soul Train Phillips with a referee’s belt and, in the most improbable consequence of all this, Paul “I hate black people and will let everyone who attends the WCW Power Plant know it” Orndorff apparently taking umbrage and fighting DeBeers to (as is implied by this package, at least) defend the honor of the black people that DeBeers has so far brutalized.

Match: Paul Orndorff makes his way to the ring to the strains of MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This,” which is ABSURD. I just watched an ECW show in which contemporary music was effectively used. This was an example of the exact opposite. Anyway, this Strap Match against Colonel DeBeers is not a typical match where both men are strapped together by the wrists. The ref just throws a belt up like it’s a jump ball and both guys go after it. I do like a spot where Orndorff deliberately lands on the strap to hide it while taking a slam. DeBeers is confused when looking for it and eventually chooses to go up top, where he jumps right into Orndorff wielding the strap. Orndorff wins the match in about three minutes with a piledriver in the center. This was too short to suck. That recap didn’t give context to a single thing about what I just watched. After the match, DeBeers attacks Orndorff with a stun gun as Orndorff celebrates by waving the American flag. I…what?!

Interview time [w/Captain Lou Albano]: Albano introduces that “demented half-wit…that moron” Luna Vachon and her team the Black Hearts. Geez, lay off, Cap. Seriously, I could just watch Lou and Luna screech at each other for awhile, but Lou goes off about how evil this trio is until Luna knocks the mic out of his hands. Albano leaves the ring. The segment ends. What the hell?

Match: So, uh, Ivan Koloff (w/Mr. Red) wrestles Bob Backlund, whose last name is still spelled wrong on the chyron. Backlund comes to the ring to “Stars and Stripes Forever,” which gives me hives because I just recently watched Lex Luger’s big WWF push get tanked over the course of three months in this thread and that music introducing Luger before his many failures of booking is etched into my brain. You know what? I really enjoyed the Allied Powers theme mashing up Luger’s theme after “Stars and Stripes Forever” with “Rule Brittania,” as lazily as it was done. Anyway, these two fellas can mat wrestle and proceed to do so even though they’re both older gents. It’s nice mat exchange stuff! Backlund does his “deadlift out of a short-arm scissors” spot, which is a cool and fun spot, and then beats Koloff with a rollup into a bridge after…three minutes?! After the last two matches and intervening interview segment, I’m thinking that whoever put this show together wasn’t all that good with timing things out.

Here comes Lou Albano again after the match to beat up Mr. Red because I guess they had beef at some point. Albano hitches up his pants and then strips Red down to his tighty-whities. Well, this show suddenly spun off the rails. It was a decent little show, but after that women’s title match, it descended into (unmask[ed]) confusion.

Recap: Here’s footage of a match between Bob Orton and Cactus/Wet ‘n Wild. Of course, Cactus bleeds. There’s footage of another match between the two. The point of this is that neither of these matches settled anything between the teams, so here’s another one coming up!

Match: Cowboy Bob Orton and Cactus Jack (w/John Tolos) enter to the strains of the Gunsmoke theme, which actually is cool except that they’re heels, so it doesn’t work as well for them. Of course, Wet ‘n Wild enter tot he strains of "Surfin' U.S.A." alongside two ladies who used enough hair spray to rip a hole in the Earth’s ozone all on their own. There’s also a cage here just big enough to fit Tolos so that he can’t interfere. Beach and Ray take it upon themselves to toss Tolos into the cage after turning back and attack from their opponents.

The match begins, and Jack quickly tosses Beach to the floor so that he can brawl outside the ring – on concrete – on this rinky-dink show. This lunatic immediately lands a second-rope elbow on concrete as part of this lightly-attended show which earned a 0.1 on PPV, and that is FUCKING INSANE. I love Cactus, but I wish he’d taken it a bit easier on some of these shows, y’know? He didn’t have to go all out like that. Then again, that’s what makes Mick Mick. He probably wouldn’t feel right if he wasn’t doing nutbar shit on every show he possibly could.

The heels get Beach back in the ring, where they beat him up until Beach fucking deadlift fallaway slams a charging Cactus. Holy shit. I think Beach was just going to slam him, didn’t really have the balance for it, and instead hoisted him backwards as he toppled. This match didn’t have to go quite this hard. The ref quickly gets bumped and the match breaks down; Tolos tosses brass knucks to Orton, but Orton hits Jack when Ray moves and Ray pins Jack in…four minutes? I feel genuinely ripped off by this because the first three minutes were quite promising. Jack fucking gigged himself for this! He dropped a second-rope elbow on concrete and then gigged off the knucks shot for this failure of a show! I love this man. Please protect him. He’s a national treasure. Orton and Cactus brawl over the mistake after the match; Bruno is disbelieving that Orton is doing anything but apologizing to Jack over missing the knucks shot. Agreed, but you can’t trust anyone in the Orton family, Bruno.

Recap: Bam Bam Bigelow and Dr. Death Steve Williams survived a competitive tournament to get to the finals of this UWF SportsChannel Television Championship tournament.

Match: One thing about UWF bringing in all this North America-based All Japan talent for its shows is that All Japan in the early ‘90s was quite good based on what I’ve seen of it, or at least the matches are generally to my liking, and so this show always had a fairly high baseline of quality based on the fact that it’s relying on a lot of that talent. It also doesn’t hurt to have access to a guy like Cactus. Abrams fucked up by not crowning Mick, actually. 1991 Cactus is the type of guy you can build a small company like this around as a monster heel. Abrams comes down to show off the belt, but Bam Bam Bigelow attacks Dr. Death at the bell. Dr Death is bleeding from a cut underneath his eye. Both dudes hit each other hard; Bigelow does a nice flip bump off a running lariat from Williams.

I suspect that Bigelow presents much better as a big fish in a small pond. The two times that I feel he’s come off as a legitimate megastar are in Abrams’s UWF and in ECW. Alas, this is another match that’s too short. Don’t get me wrong; I could have gone for a nine-ish minute match where everyone throws bombs until someone gets put down, but this match probably needed a couple more massive spots to really drill home that these guys were killing each other (though yeah, they absolutely were hitting hard). I also think that with how short the last few matches were, this one needed to go longer. I mean, Bigelow is bleeding from a cut over his eye and landing slingshot splashes and DDTs, so he’s doing his level best out here. This match isn’t bad at all; it’s just not developed enough to near its potential.

Bammer lands a huge top-rope splash for only two; Dr. Death makes a comeback with a massive belly-to-belly for two, then scores a clothesline and a couple of charging shoulderblocks. Williams shoots Bammer in and hits a nice floatover powerslam for two more. Bammer tries to fight out of the corner, but Dr. Death tries another powerslam; Bammer blocks that attempt by hooking the top rope, but not the next one, and this one keeps Bigelow down for three. Again, that was fun for what it was and had some genuine potential to be great! It simply didn’t get enough time.

Interview time [w/Herb Abrams]: The owner gets some in-ring PPV time with the new UWF SportsChannel TV Champion *whew* after the match; Dr. Death says that he's feeling like Tony the Tiger, which is to say GRRRRRRRRRREAT. Who does Doc think he is, Lee Marshall?

Interview time [w/Brian Riggo]: Dr. Death cuts a good promo in the back in which he puts over Bigelow as tough, puts himself over as just that much tougher, and calls out anyone who dares challenge him for his newly-won gold.

Shill Shill Shill: BUY A PROGRAM! (Suggestion: Read that line in Kevin Nash’s nWo t-shirt shilling voice.) The PPV then ends on a recap of the show's results.

I know that UWF is a big joke and all, but this roster is pretty good and they worked their asses off for Abrams that night. I haven’t seen Fury Hour in over thirty years and maybe it sucked more often than not, but this show was alright even considering how the back half of it was clearly crunched for time. Even with that issue, it still was a perfectly enjoyable way to spend two hours. I’m not arguing for some grand reassessment of this company’s output, but I’ve always had a sense that it wasn’t as shitty as people seem to say, and this show reinforced that feeling within me. 2.75 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

Edited April 13 by SirSmUgly

zendragon · April 5

That actually sounds... decent? There's some Herb Abram's UWF footage up on Tubi and if I recall exactly all of the matches end in some sort of DQ or CO.

SirSmUgly · April 5

19 minutes ago, zendragon said:

That actually sounds... decent? There's some Herb Abram's UWF footage up on Tubi and if I recall exactly all of the matches end in some sort of DQ or CO.

There's a good bit of Fury Hour on the Archive along with the major shows. DM me if you are interested in a link.

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Smugly watches random major WWF and WCW (and maybe other American promotions) shows/collections from before 2001 (when he feels like it)

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