The SmarK 24/7 Rant for Tuesday Night Titans – The Final Episode (September 24 1986)
– Just for fun, as TNT comes to a close on WWE 24/7 and gets replaced with Mid-Atlantic, let’s hit the last episode ever and say goodbye to it.
– Hosted by Mean Gene and Lord Alfred.
– First guest: Jake Roberts. He and Gene are immediately trading dick jokes (“You wanna see the REAL snake? No scales, I promise.”) and we go to a match from MSG between Jake and Ricky Steamboat. Now, I’m not the kind of guy to insinuate that a good, clean-living family man like Steamboat would take illegal performance-enhancing substances, but let’s just say that he looks like he’s been in the gym for two weeks straight. Jake continues his filthy, filthy interview (“Sometimes people just have to swallow it, and if they don’t like the taste that’s their problem!”) and Gene’s playing along and trading perverted barbs right back. You’ve gotta look this up on YouTube, it’s something else for 1986. Apparently sometimes snakes will grow when you hold them. What the FUCK were these guys taking before the show?
– We take a break and return with audience questions for Jake. A guy wants to know when Jake’s gonna put Ricky Steamboat out of his misery, and he draws a FACE POP for it! Jake notes that he’ll smack Ricky around like a woman who’s outlived her usefulness. Jake is just so laid-back and funny here, he’s gotta be REALLY high. Crowd loves him and it’s no wonder they turned him shortly after.
– Let us take you back to George Steele’s electroshock therapy back in the day. Still a funny bit, with Steele turning intelligent long enough to say “How now brown cow?” before falling back into idiocy again. So this brings out Steele for more interesting conversation with Gene (“Have you seen Jake’s snake, George?” “Captain eat.”) and he fondles a WWF magazine with Elizabeth on the cover.
– Back from the break and Gene notes that George is in the men’s room after seeing the magazine. Oh, going out with a filthy whimper, I see. Next guest: Freddie Blassie and SLICK~! Blassie introduces him as the half-owner of Sheik & Volkoff’s contracts, and Gene asks if he’s ever managed wrestlers before. Slick says yes. Gene asks if he’s managed women before. Oh, TAG. This show is tremendous. So we get a clip of Hercules v. Tony Atlas and I didn’t even know Atlas was still around at that point. I certainly don’t remember him being on TV when I was watching the shows back in the day. Atlas suplexes Hercules into the ring, but Slick whacks him on the knee with the cane and Herc gets the pin. Blassie explains that he and Slick had a “go-between/come-between” and the place goes crazy. Were they all smoking the really good shit before the show or something?
– And now to really ramp up the insanity, we add Sheik & Volkoff to the show. Sheik notes that everyone in wrestling, from Hollywood to Rikidozan (!?) knows that he’s the best. This show is a wonderful, wonderful trainwreck. We get Sheik & Volkoff v. Killer Bees from a house show, and this is so worth it if only for the announce table in the background, featuring monitors that appear to be 20″ RCA cabinet TVs from 1971. That is GHETTO. Back to the interview, as Slick’s banter isn’t quite to the level of pimpdom it would achieve in later months, as he’s just kind of talking like a normal person. Gene asks Sheik if Volkoff’s ugly suit bothers him, and Sheik’s like “Well, I’m sick and bothered by it myself, but it’s the custom for the country.” Everyone’s having a rough time not cracking up completely here.
– Last break and now Nikolai brings out his pet — a black bear cub. 300 million points to the WWF production crew, who put a graphic saying “Bear” on the screen, in case it wasn’t clear. That confirms it, everyone was doing mushrooms, they had to be. Slick notes that the bear at least had the sense to be born black, which gets a big laugh. Gene and Blassie just unload on each other with zingers as everyone tries not to lose it. And of course Sheik gives us the poses one last time, and that’s Tuesday Night Titans.
Well, they certainly let it all hang out for the last episode, I’ll give them that. Look up the Jake portion on YouTube because it’s hilariously filthy.
