WWF: Hulkamania era (1984-`1992)

[BruiserBrody]

A recent episode of the Wrestling History Grenade pod:

Bossman cuts a promo for his first match with Hogan (before their angle even starts) and gives a promo more fit to face Dibiase: "Hogan, I know you eat at fancy restaurants and drive big cars, but I don't care about any of that..."

Hogan meanwhile is cutting promos across the country raging on Tunney and every contender until he gets "His" title back.

Macho Man *rubs chin*

 

[Valeyard]

Did Savage and Bossman ever have singles matches in the WWF? I feel like them at their peak would've been great stuff.

 

[alkeiper]

Did Savage and Bossman ever have singles matches in the WWF? I feel like them at their peak would've been great stuff.

They worked twice in Florida in December '88. One was at a SNME taping but I don't think it's seen the light of day.

 

[BruiserBrody]

Cyndi Lauper talked about Wendi Richter at her concert last night before singing "Goonies R Good Enuff"

 

[BruiserBrody]

Here's a fun twist to book in your mind - the early Survivor Series main events under War Games rules.
- The 2nd year really works well in my head as HB Jim and Koko can make fine cannon fodder so the Twin Towers and Dibiase can really be putting the hurt on Macho Man when Hogan comes in last.
- At 90 Demolition could bring back the mask gimmick and switch in and out of the early portion of the match to put a fresh guy in and let the 1st guy in rest while Demo 2 and 3 do the dirty work.
- 87 of course would build to Hogan and Andre finally squaring off. You can probably book some BS like SS Graham at cage side is attacked Hercules, Race and Heenan so Muraco surrenders the match to save his mentor by being allowed out of the cage.
- 91 could be great fun if the Piper/Flair match is considered the "main event" of the tag portion.

 

[snuffbox]

Would 89 put the Warrior-Heenan Family in War Games to save the Hogan/Zeus cage gimmick for the Movie/Match ppv the following month?

 

[alfdogg]

WWF @ Providence, RI – Civic Center – June 30, 1991
Shawn Michaels & Greg Valentine (sub. for Marty Jannetty) defeated Paul Roma & Dino Bravo (sub. for Hercules) when Michaels pinned Roma

Somewhere there's an alternate universe where the Hammer was the Tank Abbott to the Rockers' 3-Count

 

[BruiserBrody]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1865577039207764461

I guess I forgot Piper just quit in the middle of a match. I assumed once he started up with Flair and started working again on TV in Oct that he just gave up the gig.

 

[Valeyard]

So was Hennig able to work sooner than Survivor Series? Because man Piper/Hennig at Summerslam would've been wonderful.

 

[snuffbox]

That would've been a fun match. That, a good Flair match, and Bret/Bulldog and Savage/Warrior as they were would've made that Summerslam one of the best ppvs ever.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

The Algorithm™ has been pushing a lot of episodes of Prime Time from 1989 into my YouTube feed lately... It hasn't been terrible.

 

[Valeyard]

I think we have the same algorithm. Dude's posting In Your House shows too. It's made for people like me to watch for comfort in these coldest times of the year.

 

[strummer]

Yeah In Your House popped up for me as well along with the 88/89 eps of Prime Time

 

[Valeyard]

It's kinda interesting how different watching in 1989 and 1995 are when you have them right next to each other. Like forget about quality or star power or whatever, but visually it's kinda wild.

 

[BruiserBrody]

The Algorithm™ has been pushing a lot of episodes of Prime Time from 1989 into my YouTube feed lately... It hasn't been terrible.

I turned on the Prime Time from this week in 1989 and was blasted with Ron Garvin in a D-R-A-G-G-E-D out squash of a Conquistador, followed by Boris Zuhkov spending perhaps 5 mins trapping Paul Roma in a bear hug from a house show.
Rick Rude battled the Red Rooster in the only thing of note before I shut it off.

 

[strummer]

Unpopular opinion? Piper was very annoying during his brief stint as Prime Time co host. I can remember being glad he left after the Christmas show

 

[snuffbox]

I don't think too many would disagree. He should've wrestled more in 89-91.

 

[Brocklock]

Piper was great as a heel color commentator from what I've heard from his Mid-Atlantic work, but I can't stand early 90's babyface announcer Piper. Only seemed concerned with getting himself over, and he really distracted me from the matches. For example, him constantly bringing up Mr. Perfect's weight in the Bret match at Summerslam made it hard to focus on anything else. Be glad, he wasn't around when Yokozuna debuted. He would've ruined the gimmick by calling him Sally Struthers or Roseanne constantly.

Also, Piper had a match with Hennig I believe on the December 1990 MSG show and it was great.

 

[Valeyard]

Less was so much more. I think he had good moments at the Rumble and Summerslam but he was just was a bad fit. He's why they rarely run the original audio of Taker's debut.

 

[BruiserBrody]

Monsoon on Prime Time after a Terry Taylor squash (pre-Rooster) "Taylor didn't impress me there"

Monsoon also knew Liz' EXACT weight after her underwear bit at Summerslam "107 pound beauty!"

 

[BruiserBrody]

It's interesting that Piper didn't get Chavo a gig in 84-85. Chavo came into the WWF almost right after Piper left but was quickly quit/fired over drugs IIRC.

Chavo and Hector work as both heels and faces in my head. Lots of good matches with the Rougeaus, Bees, Bulldogs, possible.

I can see Piper doing the racist bit with Chavo and getting a little run with them as some B-show co-main events. Heels can win clean, whatever.
Adonis gets some tag feud work in by stealing their Sombreros and adding ribbons and flowers to them.
And Tito has some natural allies to get some six man work in.
Terry Funk also had a history with Chavo, so he and Dory would likely be willing to do a program.

As they work their way into the midcard, you have the potential for silliness as George Steele, JYD, Hillbilly Jim, etc are made honorary Mexicans and are given Sombreros to wear in promos.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Plus, I can imagine a feud with the Conquistadors doing numbers in the border towns.

 

[Valeyard]

Makes me wonder why he didn't push harder for Hector when he was under contract

 

[BruiserBrody]

With the anniversary of No Hold Barred: The Match, The Movie passing recently I was (OVER) thinking of other options for the match.
1> It didn't matter either way as the star vs star matches were still rare enough that trying to squeeze more juice out of the Mega Powers exploding and Hogan vs Zeus made for a fine complimentary gimmick match.

2> It felt slapped together as Macho was on to Duggan and soon to be Dusty (And yet we still got Macho vs Hogan in February on national TV with Mike Tyson as a hook). Zeus had moved on to being a Dibiase stooge, so it was a little silly to have Savage/Zeus run a quickie angle at SSeries to try and get more juice out of Zeus after the SSeries cop out elimination. Plus Hogan had already moved on to Perfect and Beefer was messing with the Model. BUT Beefer was going to team with Hogan on house shows vs Genius/Perfect so bringing back the team makes sense in that way.

- So we COULD have gone with Hogan/Hacksaw vs Savage/Zeus... Maybe you have Zeus come out at SSeries and attack Duggan to help set this up. Not much better than the SSeries hokey angle, but it at least was a more current storyline.

- We can try to have the worst match ever by putting Hogan and Warrior as a first time team as a dream match to face Zeus and Warrior's nemesis Andre the Giant. I want to see this train wreck. Of course Andre was already moved on to the Haku tag team and Warrior was chasing Bravo/Quake.

- Keep the flow of the angles from SSeries going and have Zeus team with Dibiase vs Barber/Hogan instead with the idea being Zeus can't be DQ'd in the cage like he was at SSeries. Jake the Snake can be given a slot cage side to keep Virgil at by and play into the MDM angle.

 

[snuffbox]

DiBiase/Zeus vs Hogan/Beefcake can finally blowoff the WM5 match where Trump and Virgil made friends.