Sage Cortez
June and beyond in the WWF looked like it was going to be really fun. New guys were coming in. A lot of them in fact, and it’s about damn time. It’s arguable which one had the most impact, but I’ll be talking about all of them throughout the article. I also find that the roster was extremely stale. The additions would help matters, but part of the reason this happened was because the WWF destroyed the territory system and didn’t have anywhere to farm talent from. The funniest bit of news was that Hulk Hogan. That’s exactly what we needed in the world. More Hulk Hogan movies! It also turned out that Warrior against Rude was drawing in some places even though they had done that feud only a year before.
– Taped to air in June 1990
ARROGANCE VIGNETTES
Most, if not all of these aired on SNME #26. I decided to post them here. I really liked all of these, nice to see a guy get a push when his abilities merited that push completely. These were all well shot and made Martel look like a big star. The promotional machine can work that way.
– Taped to air June 2nd, 1990, on Superstars, from LaCrosse Center in LaCrosse, Wisconsin
The Brother Love Show with Rick Rude
I didn’t watch the match at the start. On this edition of the Brother Love Show, I was very surprised to see Rick Rude sporting a new hair style! A main event hair style! Heenan said that there would no longer be any Rude Awakenings, until Rick Rude won the WWF Championship. That sucks. Not such a big announcement, but they furthered the program. He did get hurt a while after this, and people didn’t know if he was going to be out for a while, but it turned out that he was just fine.
– Taped to air June 23rd, 1990, on Superstars, from Broome County Arena in Binghamton, New York
CRUSH DEBUT
The obvious thing to wonder is why they’d debut Crush at all. It turned out that Ax had a heart issue and they had to bring somebody in. He couldn’t work much, if at all once finding that out. It’s not entirely surprising, the guy looked very old and worn out. It’s for the worst because Crush wasn’t a particularly good worker. Also, the problem also turned Demolition heels as they now had a three person advantage when Ax would interfere. In the first place they may not have been turned at all. Crush did look like a great fit, though. He was huge, and with the face paint on he looked the part.
– July 4th, 1990
Seems like I’m just reporting injuries in this edition of my article. This one was Brutus Beefcake’s. As we know, he got in a parasailing accident where someone flew into his face. His face got all sorts of screwed up and he had to have plates put in his head. It was a bit strange that the WWF mentioned his injury on television, but they did. He was supposed to face Mr. Perfect in Intercontinental Championship matches, including one at SummerSlam. Based on the booking at SummerSlam, he may have won that title. Instead, Kerry Von Erich was brought in to take his spot. Nobody knew if Beefcake would ever come back. They didn’t know if Kerry would come in. They needed him too.
– Taped to air July 14th, 1990, on Superstars, from Hara Arena in Dayton, Ohio
The Brother Love Show with the Hart Foundation
Great to see some lessers in this segment, and a tag team at that. Especially one as good as these guys. They said they’d take Demolition’s belts, and Demolition were obviously heels based on what Brother Love were saying. Right way to present them. Jim Neidhart said he’d tell Demolition what he thought if they came out there, so they did. All three of them. Bret Hart said they needed to settle their issue right now. They walked to the ring, and Demolition attacked them in the aisle. Heel status cemented. The Hart Foundation fought back, too. As best they could, anyway. Love that they programmed these guys together.
– Taped to air July 15th, 1990, on Wrestling Challenge, from the Civic Center in Huntington, West Virginia
Legion of Doom debuts!
LOD had strange music that I’ve never heard before. They got a BIG pop from the crowd, who definitely knew who Hawk and Animal were. Of course, this was a total squash. Bobby Heenan couldn’t even say anything bad about that.
– Taped to air July 21st, 1990, on Superstars, from Hara Arena in Dayton, Ohio
Dino Bravo (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Paul Roma
Why, you may ask. Watch the video. You’d expect Roma to get squashed here. Of course, Bravo does exactly that, although Roma showed some nice spots. Bravo attacked him with the megaphone, that’s not exactly what I think should have been done here. It was then time for a commercial, then the Rockers had a match. Paul Roma had not left yet, and didn’t like guys running into the ring while he was down and out. The Rockers tried to help him up, but Roma wound up pushing them. Hercules runs down to the ring too, and it looks like he has a problem with the Rockers too. TIME FOR SOME POWER AND GLORY, BROTHER. They made a man out of a jobber. Things then turned into a brawl where the Rockers cleared them out of the ring. In the case of Hercules, it was very rare for a guy to be in the WWF long enough to turn babyface and go back heel again. To this point, Demolition did, and Randy Savage did. Then you have Hercules. Once of those guys does not fit.
– Taped to air August 18th, 1990, on Superstars, from the Civic Auditorium in Omaha, Nebraska
As some of the stuff above was going on, they were airing Hulk Hogan vignettes, which have all been scourged from YouTube so far as I could tell. Hogan received letters from fans, and Tugboat was his new best buddy. He was done shooting his movie, so it was a matter of time before he came back. And he was obviously the biggest draw they had. On the July 14th episode of Superstars, Hogan cut a promo in which he said that he’d return at SummerSlam to face Earthquake, and that he would NOT BE RETIRING. It’s arguably his best promo of all of them, but I don’t even see it posted on the internet because it wasn’t crazy. One of the most realistic promos ever. He also announced that Tugboat would be in his corner for that match. Now, that leads to this.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x80u3m_tugboat-is-attacked-by-dino-bravo-e_news
Tugboat was in the middle of a squash match, until Dino Bravo attacked him from behind. He was supposed to be in Earthquake’s corner, by the way. Tugboat wound up giving Bravo a clothesline, and put him in a bear hug until EARTHQUAKE ran down and hit him from behind. I don’t think Hogan was at this show, so it made sense for him to not help Tugboat as Earthquake gave him BUTT SPLASHES to put him on the shelf and knock him out of SummerSlam. The Big Boss Man ran out for the save, and that’s a hell of a lot better fit than Tugboat for SummerSlam. In the WON, it said that Tugboat’s head swelled up, so they wanted to put a stop to that. Makes sense.
Jesse Ventura left not too long after this. He took a Sega deal, the WWF worked with Nintendo, and it wasn’t possible for them to work together. To replace him they brought back RODDY PIPER! All in all, not a great switch, but seeing Piper around was always good.
– Taped to air August 19th, 1990, on SUMMERSLAM FEVER, from Memorial Auditorium in Utica, New York
Smash (WWF Tag Team Champion) vs. Jim Neidhart
Pre-Match Thoughts: Originally, it was scheduled to be Bret Hart against Smash. That was changed for some reason and presented as shenanigans. This is interesting in that Neidhart never got chances to work in singles matches. Neither did Smash for that matter. This was the SummerSlam sell show, of course.
Match Review: These guys lock up, and it appears this is quite the small building. They do a shoulderblock spot where nobody goes down, then Neidhart fires off some kicks. He knocks Smash down with a shoulderblock, but Smash grabs onto his neck. Neidhart comes back with punches, a turnbuckle shot, and blocks Smash’s charge to the corner. Neidhart clotheslines Smash for 2, then puts an armbar on him. Smash comes back with a bodyslam, then heads up to the second rope only to be caught on the way down and given an inverted atomic drop. Smash then uses momentum to cause Neidhart to run into the turnbuckle, and rakes away at the face. He clotheslines Neidhart, and goes for a backdrop only for Neidhart to ram his face into the mat. Smash misses an elbow drop too, then gets backdropped by the Anvil. Neidhart follows with a dropkick that gets 2, then gives Smash a Russian leg sweep for 2. I have never seen Neidhart use that move. He runs Smash over with a shoulderblock, and follows him to the outside in order to post him. Smash gets thrown back in, and the Anvil tries a sunset flip only for Smash to grab the ropes and cover him for 3 at 6:08.
Smash taunts Neidhart, but Neidhart grabs the title belt and clocks Smash with it. Neidhart hoists the title in the air, and decides to walk to the back with it. As he walks back there, he turns his back to the entrance way, and Ax attacks him with a clothesline. Crush follows, and it’s a TRIPLE TEAM on the Anvil. And Bret Hart wasn’t there to help.
My Thoughts: This was an interesting match, in large part because it was so rare to see these guys work in a singles setting. They did, and it wasn’t that good. They tried hard at least. *, and the attack after the match was pretty good for building towards SummerSlam.
Boris Zhukov vs. Nikolai Volkoff
Pre-Match Thoughts: Oh man, this feud is the absolute best. Let’s recap it. The Bolsheviks got tired of losing all the time. So, they had an argument which turned into a fight, and broke up. Nikolai then decided that he really loved America. Now that he does, he sings the Pledge of Allegiance or the national anthem and cries while doing it. Feud recapped. THIS WAS A MEGA MATCH, CAN’T BELIEVE THEY GAVE THIS AWAY ON FREE TV. Main event anywhere in the country. Zhukov sang the Soviet anthem, and Volkoff entered to some all-American music. What a guy. He carried our flag with him too!
Match Review: Zhukov attacks, and the match finally starts. He misses a charge to the corner, and Volkoff throws him into it, knocking him out of the ring. He rams Zhukov into the apron, then slams him on the floor. They get in the ring and Zhukov pokes Volkoff in the eye, then Volkoff comes back by ramming Zhukov’s face into the mat. He backdrops Zhukov, and catches a big boot attempt so that he can give Zhukov an atomic drop. Volkoff clotheslines Zhukov, covers, and it gets the victory at 2:37.
My Thoughts: I’ll never understand Vince McMahon putting stuff like this on TV. Obviously he’s a proud American or something like that. This was awful though, contradictory to what wrestling actually is. It looked comical. DUD is probably generous, but that’s what I’ll give. In no way was this acceptable and they didn’t look like they belonged in a wrestling ring in the 1990’s.
Earthquake (w/Jimmy Hart and Dino Bravo) vs. Jim Duggan
Pre-Match Thoughts: This is a nice main event for a show like this. I mean, it’s not good, but the star power was there. The crowd will probably be very heated up too. The time of this video is pretty long, I hope the match isn’t as long as that would indicate. Earthquake still had a generic wrestling outfit, and he’d been there for the better part of a year. Doesn’t make any sense. I really don’t understand wrestling sometimes, if you want a guy to look like a star, you have to make him look like one. Before the match starts, Bravo gets kicked out from ringside. So much for that.
Match Review: McMahon was saying stuff about Hacksaw being in Hogan’s corner if he won this match. Okay. Earthquake shoves Hacksaw back into the corner a few times, and makes fun of Hogan with some posing. That was funny even though Heenan’s laughter was awful. Quake drills Hacksaw with some forearms, and Hacksaw runs out of the corner with a clothesline. He punches Earthquake in the corner for a bit, and gets thrown out of the ring not long after. Quake follows and winds up sending Hacksaw into the post, then mocking him. He sends Hacksaw back into the ring, and drives him into the corner for some squashes with his behind. Eventually Hacksaw dodges one, goes for a slam, and Quake clubs him down to size. Quake puts a bear hug on Hacksaw, which Hacksaw eventually bites his way out of. He dodges a charge to the corner as well, and hits Quake with a big shoulderblock. He hits Quake with another, and a third. A fourth drives Quake back into the ropes, and Dino Bravo runs back out there to attack Duggan from behind for a DQ at 6:20.
Bravo and Quake quickly double up on Duggan, and give him a double slam. Quake signals for the BUTT SPLASH, but there’s HULK HOGAN! He grabs Hacksaw’s 2×4, and beats Quake and Bravo with it until they leave the ring. Gigantic pop for Hogan’s involvement there. Gene Okerlund was with Quake and Bravo in the back, and they had a whole lot to say. We shall see what happens at the PPV.
My Thoughts: Hogan showing up there was perfect. The match wasn’t very good, and Quake never left his feet, which was kind of a problem. I did think it was the best of the three matches I watched, but can’t give it very much credit. They built towards SummerSlam very well, no wonder it was so highly anticipated and pulled in a great gate. *1/4.
Sadly, that’s it. Match wise, there wasn’t much for an assortment of reasons. They didn’t tape very many Coliseum Video matches, and what they did tape wasn’t even slightly interesting. On top of that, MSG was shut down for renovations. So there was nothing from there to check out either. Hence, I never got to see any match between Big Boss Man and Ted DiBiase. Never got to see any of the house show matches they had Kerry Von Erich do, and I didn’t get to see guys like the Rockers or Dustin Rhodes at all. That sucks, but MSG came back as a touring spot not long after SummerSlam. The WWF also brought in Sgt. Slaughter, who did better stuff at SummerSlam and in September, so I’ll check that out. Next up is SNME #27!
Best: New guys coming in. If a company ever needed it…
Worst: Injuries. There were a hell of a lot of them.
