Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura are doing commentary and they are concluding the tapings in Huntsville, Alabama.
Surviving footage of this show misses the following three squash matches:
-The Rockers (1-0) defeated Mike Davis & Lee Peak when Shawn Michaels pinned Peak after a double flying fist drop at 3:28
-Tito Santana (0-1) pinned Mike Sharpe after a flying forearm at 2:22
-The Canadian Earthquake (w/Jimmy Hart) (1-0) pinned Mike Shelton with the Earthquake Splash at 1:45. After the match, Shelton did a stretcher job when Earthquake did another Earthquake Splash.
Hacksaw Jim Duggan (1-0) pinned Tony Burton with the three-point stance clothesline at 2:15:
Duggan does his usual routine of working the crowd with “Hooo” screams in between throwing fists and tossing Burton around. The squash allows McMahon and Ventura to hype Duggan’s match with the Big Bossman at The Royal Rumble.
Sean Mooney hypes tonight’s Boston Garden show. Demolition scream about wanting to get the tag team titles back from the Colossal Connection, while Randy Savage and Sensational Sherri run down Duggan’s intelligence as they use a silver spoon as a prop to also indict Duggan’s wealth.
The Ted DiBiase-Dale Wolfe match from Prime Time Wrestling is shown.
Brother Love interviews Intercontinental Champion the Ultimate Warrior. Warrior says that Bravo has thinner blood than his fans do and that he will take his strength when they collide. Love says that a lot of wrestlers await the Warrior in the Royal Rumble, bringing up how WWF Champion Hulk Hogan might stand in the Warrior’s way. The Warrior dismisses that, saying that all of those men are mortal while he is not.
Gene Okerlund provides The Royal Rumble Report. The Honky Tonk Man vows to play new tunes in the match, Dusty Rhodes promises to fight for the common man, Rick Rude says the Rumble suits him because “as the night gets longer, [he] gets stronger,” Roddy Piper recites The Little Engine That Could as he hypes his chances, Bret Hart has to calm Jim Neidhart down when the Hart Foundation speak about the match, Mr. Perfect claims to be the only true superstar in the WWF, Bad News Brown embraces his loner status, and WWF Champion Hulk Hogan reveals his strategy to win the match: use his double pythons to knock men out of the ring one-by-one.
Rick Martel beats Jerry Monti via submission to a Boston crab at 2:41:
A skilled amateur wrestler, Martel started his career in 1973 in Canada, working his way through Stampede Wrestling, NWA All Star Wrestling, and Pacific Northwest Wrestling before coming to the WWF in 1980 and winning the tag team championship twice with Tony Garea. Martel departed for the AWA, where he captured the AWA World Championship in 1984 from Jumbo Tsuruta. Shortly after dropping the belt to Stan Hansen Martel returned to the WWF and was slotted into a tag team with Tom Zenk. The duo, called the Can-Am Connection, appeared headed for a title run but Zenk quit the company and Martel was paired with Tito Santana. Their team, Strike Force, won the tag team titles in late 1987 from the Hart Foundation and lost them to Demolition at WrestleMania IV. Returning from injury, Martel turned against Santana at WrestleMania V and became a heel with he nickname “the Model.” Although several backstage agents thought Martel could not work as a heel, he got over with arrogant mannerisms and great matches throughout the country with Santana. The two feuded throughout 1989 and, as noted before, never had a proper pay-per-view blowoff. However, Martel came out on the better end of a lot of their matches and was a solid fixture in the midcard going into 1990. Monti had a career that went back to 1966, working as enhancement fodder under his name or as “the Crazy Arab” for the WWF, AWA, and various NWA affiliates until 1990. As Martel works Monti over, Brutus Beefcake cuts a promo wearing Martel’s trench coat that he cut up on last week’s show. Beefcake mocks Martel and asks him if he likes his new look. Martel uses a backbreaker to setup the Boston crab and wins his first match of 1990.
Mooney does more hype for the Boston Garden show. The Honky Tonk Man and Jimmy Hart promise that Snuka might go up, but he has to come down. Intercontinental Champion the Ultimate Warrior says he had to earn his title and he promises destruction to Dino Bravo and the Canadian Earthquake.
Tune in next week to see Jimmy Snuka, Rick Rude, Demolition, and Ted DiBiase in action! Also, WWF Champion Hulk Hogan will be a guest on the Brother Love Show!
The Last Word: Royal Rumble hype continued on this telecast and no new ground was paved except for Brutus Beefcake taking a few pot shots at Rick Martel. There is some foreshadowing with Brother Love bringing up the possibility of Hulk Hogan tangling with the Ultimate Warrior in the Royal Rumble and the Warrior handled that appearance well.
Up Next: Wrestling Challenge for January 14!