The SmarK Rant for WWF Superstars – 08.28.93
Thank god, one last week of the Lex Express and then we won’t have to hear about his quest for the WWF title for a LONG time.
Taped from Utica, NY
Your hosts are Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler & Randy Savage
1-2-3 Kid v. The Brooklyn Brawler
Vince announces that they’re accepting applications for Jerry Lawler’s broadcast position after he gets destroyed by Bret at Summerslam. Or I guess if something else happens to him that removes him from TV. Brawler gets some offense on the Kid and drops him on the top rope, then pulls off his shirt and throws him across the ring with it. Neckbreaker and the Brawler goes AIRBORNE, but Kid slams him off the top and hits the Lightning Legdrop from the top for the pin at 1:58. Yup, fighting from underneath against Steve Lombardi, they’re really getting behind him now!
FACE TO FACE! WITH SCHEME GENE!
Make the call right now for Summerslam because you don’t want to get caught up in all the busy lines from the cable companies! Also we still don’t know what a Rest in Peace match is, but we’ve got a face to face interview between Ted Dibiase and Razor Ramon to hype the PPV. Dibiase didn’t get rich by being a fool or making poor judgement calls! Well there’s some charity groups that are currently disputing that.
YOKOZUNA: He’s out of control! So order Summerslam and maybe stop him? I dunno.
The Heavenly Bodies v. Tony Roy & Jason Headings
So this whole Bodies title shot has been bugging me, so I went back and checked the Observers from the time again and indeed, it was actually supposed to be the Headshrinkers getting the title shot, which would make more sense, but Fatu was injured and so they switched to the Bodies instead. Although then the Headshrinkers ended up making it for the six-man so whatever, I got nothing. Dr. Tom gets a powerbomb on Roy and tosses him for some abuse from Del Rey, and it’s over to Headings as Tom gets an enzuigiri on him. Double flapjack and Jimmy goes up with the moonsault press for the pin at 2:01. This was a bit more of a squashy squash than their debut, which I appreciated. I don’t think anyone was buying them as a serious threat, though.
SUMMERSLAM REPORT! WITH SCHEME GENE! BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE SUMMERSLAM PROGRAM!
My god, why are you waiting to call your local cable company? DO IT NOW! Aaron Neville is going to be singing the national anthem and everything! So that’ll give you an extra half-hour to order at the last minute while he holds the notes. Also Bret Hart is now threatening to decapitate Jerry Lawler, so you should probably order if you want to see that.
Meanwhile, Lex Luger would like to be our hero. In musical form. WELL MAYBE HE SHOULD FUCKING DO SOMETHING THEN. So of course they juxtapose images of Washington and Lincoln with Luger’s bodyslam of Yokozuna, because TOTALLY THE SAME THING. At one point they even have footage of Luger smiling and interacting with fans, which they probably had to dig deep into the vault to find, somewhere next to the Tom Magee match and the Last Battle of Atlanta. Also, in the name of full disclosure on their part, they probably should have overdubbed this song with the original lyrics, “I’ll Be Your Hero (Until My Contractually Obligated Downside Guaranteed Dates Expire)”, but hindsight is 20/20 is all.
Ludvig Borga v. Virgil
So this is a dark match from White Plains NY, which I’m assuming is the next set of tapings coming up? RAW was on hiatus for a month so it wasn’t from there. Vince does commentary solo, and of course Virgil is wearing the red white and blue wristbands to show his support for Lex Luger. I somehow doubt Luger even knows who he is. Borga slugs him down and beats on him with knees in the corner, but he charges and hits Virgil’s boot and that allows Virgil to make a comeback. Of sorts. Borga doesn’t sell any of it, and then catches a bodypress attempt and slams Virgil like an Olive Garden waiter disgustedly slamming your breadsticks on the table after you’ve ordered a fourth helping because you just can’t quite decide between the lasagna and Taste of Italy platter yet. Anyway, Borga pins him at 2:46 and then stuffs the America-themed wristbands into his mouth. I’m thinking Borga dislikes America.
Meanwhile, Undertaker lets us know that he’s going to bury Giant Gonzalez at Summerslam, and he shovels dirt on the poor cameraman who is filming from the bottom of a grave! I hope he at least dug the guy out afterwards. Or at least the camera, those things are expensive.
Mr. Perfect v. Duane Gill
Debuting this week, it’s the WWF Live radio show, which Vince announces is only available in the US. That’s because radio wasn’t invented in Canada until 1995. It takes a LONG time for the CRTC to clear stuff. Perfect quickly finishes with the Perfectplex at 1:15. There really wasn’t much to the Perfect-Shawn buildup on these shows.
FACE TO FACE! WITH SCHEME GENE!
Fans, call the Summerslam Hotline this Monday to hear from people on the show!
The Smoking Gunns v. Barry Hardy & Reno Riggins
Gunns double-team Hardy to start and Billy gets a flying clothesline and goes “Bam bam!”, although I think he was going for “Bang bang” and didn’t actually know what a gun sounded like despite supposedly being a cowboy. This leads to one of my favorite Die Hard stories among many, as Alan Rickman had never done movies before his role as Hans Gruber, and also had no experience with firearms in real life and was terrified of them. So every time they had a scene where he had to fire a gun, he would visibility flinch in terror, which would undercut his image as cold hearted villain, and thus they had to edit around it for every scene where he did so, except for one instance where they couldn’t quite cut away fast enough to miss the expression on his face. Over to Reno and Billy drops a leg on him, and they finish with their awful backdrop piledriver combo at 2:20.
Yokozuna joins Mean Gene for a special interview so that Jim Cornette can do the hard sell and lay out a list of all the guys that Yoko laid out with the butt splash, complete with clips intercut. But this enrages Randy Savage so much that he goes out to the ring and cuts a promo, which brings out all the babyfaces in the building to also support Lex Luger! But you know who DOESN’T come out to support Lex Luger? Lex Luger. And that’s yet another reason why it was all such a spectacular failure. They couldn’t even put him on TV on the GO HOME SHOW!
Farewell to the Lex Express! May I never have to hear about it again. Except for all the emails I’ll get about it forever.