The SmarK Retro Rant for Saturday Night’s Main Event #25 (Jan 23 / 90)
As a warning, I dragged this out of a file in my archives that I had totally forgotten about, and for good reason, as I originally posted this to what I can only assume would have been RSPW in December of 1998. As such, the writing style sucks and I apologize in advance for that, but for completeness sake I’ve left it unaltered aside from cleaning up spelling errors and formatting.
– Taped from the UTC arena in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
– Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Jesse Ventura.
– Opening match: “Macho King” Randy Savage v. Jim Duggan. This is the same match that I reviewed in one of my Coliseum rants a few weeks back, so I won’t bore you with the details here, but suffice it to say it’s the usual SNME opener, with lots of meaningless action and running around that doesn’t really lead anywhere. Savage takes a few nice bumps but the wrestling is nonexistent. Duggan gets some near falls but Sherri keeps interfering to prevent the win. Duggan goes for the kill with the CLOTHESLINES OF DEATH but Sherri runs in to prevent the pin again. Repeat a couple of more times. The canned heat is painfully obvious. The LOADED PURSE OF DOOM gives Savage a two count, then Duggan makes the super-idiot comeback. More CLOTHESLINES OF DEATH and Duggan goes for the THREE POINT STANCE OF ALL-ENCOMPASSING DOOM, but Savage gets knocked out of the ring and they do the “manager hooks the leg on the suplex attempt” cheap-o ending for the Savage pin. Bad match. 1/2*
– Curt Hennig & The Genius (The Ambiguously Gay Duo) have some poetry for Hulk and the Warrior.
– Flashback: The Orange Goblin and the Face-Painted Moron have an epic confrontation at the 1990 Royal Rumble. In all fairness, I was marking out so hard that my head nearly exploded when it originally happened, but it’s not so great to watch today.
– Goblin and Moron have some words for Hennig & Poffo. Warrior is his usual incoherent self, yelling something about chemical reactions at 150 words per minute. I guess the drugs were kicking in at that point.
– Curt Hennig & The Genius v. Hulk Hogan & The Ultimate Warrior. The Egomaniacs have separate entrances, of course. Hogan cleans house on both guys with a hiptoss (!) and some slams. Warrior manhandles them next. Watching this from a “smart” perspective, it is SO obvious that Hennig and Poffo are doing all the work and it increases my respect of them that much more. Hogan wallops on Perfect (with requisite overselling to the nth degree) until Hennig manages to nail Hogan with Poffo’s scroll to gain the advantage. Hogan won’t sell any kind of significant offense for Hennig, forcing him to rely on punching and kicking after bumping all over the ring for Hogan. Hennig gets the Perfectplex, but breaks it at two and allows Poffo the chance to pin Hogan. Poffo tries a MOONSAULT (!) but Hogan gets the knees up, and hot tags Warrior. Warrior with the press slam and Hogan tags himself in when Warrior comes off the ropes for the splash, and legdrops Poffo for the pin. Hennig and Poffo attack right after the win, and Hogan accidentally nails Warrior in the melee. Warrior and Hogan do the big staredown, which led to Wrestlemania VI. * for Perfect’s bumps.
– Flashback: Jake Roberts steals the Million dollar belt.
– Jake Roberts and Greg Valentine do generic hype interviews.
– Jake Roberts v. Greg Valentine. Punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, elbow, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, kneelift, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, short arm clothesline, but Roberts can’t hit the DDT. Valentine goes for the figure four (with Jimmy Hart conveniently standing on the apron) but Jake pushes Greg into Hart, and DDT’s him, and Dibiase runs in for the DQ. Nobody’s trying here, but it did set up the Dibiase v. Roberts match at WM6 nicely. 1/4*
– Ravishing Rick Rude v. Dusty Rhodes. AAAH, THE SPLOTCH! MY EYES! Punching and restholds until Heenan starts yelling at Sapphire, leading to everyone getting sent back to the dressing room. We come back from the commercial with Rude applying move #193 (ARM-bar) as Sapphire has snuck back to ringside by buying a ticket. Rude jaws with her as Rhodes makes the comeback, and they end up fighting down the aisle for the double-countout. Yay. DUD This was utterly pointless because neither guy was involved with anything at the time.
– Dino Bravo v. Ronnie Garvin. Earthquake is at ringside, so you can guess how this one ends. They exchange some rights and Garvin rolls out of the ring and gets beat up by Quake. Back in and Bravo with a side salto for a two count. Garvin makes the comeback with his useless offense but he makes the mistake of going after Jimmy Hart. This guy beat Ric Flair cleanly? Garvin begins the GARVIN STOMP OF DEATH! but Earthquake distracts him. Garvin to the top rope for a bodypress, but Bravo rolls through for the pin. Two minutes if that. * Earthquake does the big squasheroo to Garvin (YES!) with two Earthquake splashes, leading to a Garvin stretcher job.
– Randy Savage hypes the upcoming match against Hogan in prime time, which Mike Tyson was supposed to referee. But everyone’s plans got screwed up when Tyson lost to Buster Douglas, and he took over as the referee and did a horrible job.
– Hogan offers a rebuttal. I like his heel interviews better, sadly enough.
– Vince and Jesse wrap things up as we review the Hogan-Warrior confrontation from earlier in the night.
