The SmarK Rant for WWF Superstars – 11.06.93
LAST WEEK: Native Americans all over the world mourn for the loss of Tatanka’s undefeated streak to Ludvig Borga, kicking off the great Finnish-Native American war that rages to this day!
Taped from Burlington, VT
Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Jerry Lawler
BREAKING NEWS: Tatanka is out of the Survivor Series thanks to the injuries sustained last week. Next week, we will discover who gets picked to replace him.
Jacques The Quebecer v. Rick Steiner
Jacques slaps him and runs away to start, but stupidly runs right into Rick, who hits him with a press slam in the ring. Rick with an atomic drop and overhead suplex while Jacques does some cartoon selling like he’s the Mountie again, but the theme music was pretty clear that he’s NOT the Mountie! Rick powerslams him and drops an elbow for two, but of course Pierre joins us at ringside and Jacques puts Rick on the floor with a high knee, allowing Johnny Polo to get a cheapshot. So then Scott Steiner chases them off as we take a break. Back with Jacques holding an abdominal stretch, but Rick escapes and the tag team partners congregate on the floor again. Jacques goes to a chinlock while Vince spreads baseless speculation that they might choose Randy Savage as their replacement partner. Does he have a source on that one? Jacques tries a piledriver, but Rick sort of backdrops out of it and knocks himself silly somehow. That was weird. So they do a collision spot and both guys are down, but Jacques recovers first and goes up, allowing Rick to bring him down and make the comeback. BAAAAAACK BODY DROP, OH MY! Rick with some clotheslines and he goes up with the top rope bulldog to finish at 8:18. This was a decently worked, second match on a mid-level Saturday Night’s Main Event match that existed and was fine. 1 for 1. I think it shows how fascinating the fluid dynamics of wrestling can be, though, when a year before Jacques Rougeau was a semi-pushed character with a real gimmick and singles run, and here he’s just half of a tag team while playing basically the same character under a different name, thus rendering his chances at winning the match close to zero.
FACE TO FACE! WITH JOE FOWLER!
Can we retroactively go back in time and fire this guy in a cost-cutting measure? Actually given what was about to go down, that’s probably exactly what happened to him. Anyway, there’s mystery teams all over the place, as the main event has a spot open now, plus we don’t know who Jerry Lawler’s team is, and we don’t know what “Four Doinks” is supposed to mean. Anyway, the showdown is between Razor Ramon and IRS this week, as Razor explains that surviving is what he does best. I love shoot comments that aren’t supposed to be shoot comments.
The WWF: It’s Unbelievable!
Adam Bomb v. Rich Myers
So we have now transitioned to Dr. Harvey Wippleman as the manager, which pretty much spelled the end for him as a threat to anyone above the midcard. Powerbomb finishes at 1:13. 1 for 2.
Meanwhile, Men on a Mission are playing Royal Rumble on Genesis and very excited to be playing as Hulk Hogan, dog! How little they knew at the time.
Marty Jannetty comes out for his squash match, but Adam Bomb is standing in the aisle, perhaps in a drug deal gone bad, and they get into a slapfight before officials break it up. SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!
SURVIVOR SERIES! WITH…TODD PETTINGILL!
Yes, a new era has dawned with Todd and hopefully that means no more Joe Fowler. Man, after months of Mean Gene phoning it in and then Joe Fowler yelling into the phone, who would ever think I would be happy to see TODD PETTINGILL making his debut, but here we are. The Foreign Fanatics are all salty about Jacques losing tonight, so Ludvig Borga is going to exact revenge this Monday on RAW by facing Scott Steiner. And you know what they say, revenge, like delicious kainuun-ronttonen pie, is a dish best served cold. So I should point out that one of the major problems with the product of this time is that they were advertising a match featuring FOUR DOINKS, and in fact delivered zero Doinks in the match. And in general the whole card was so uninspired.
Crush v. Tony Webb
Yes, it’s the debut of EVIL CRUSH here, as his tights are now purple and silver so you know you need to boo him. Crush throws Webb around, but the jobber tries a sleeper and Crush rams him into the corner to break. Crush uses EVIL MARTIAL ARTS as he reverts back to American Ninja Brian Adams and he’s got zero chill anymore, brah. They head to the floor and Crush superkicks him and then presses him onto the top turnbuckle to finish at 2:31. Kind of weird that he just completely changed his entire moveset and style when he turned heel. Like really, Crush squashing dudes’ skulls as a heel would probably have been more effective than his white guy kung fu. 1 for 3. I mean, the heel turn was fine and he was fine as a heel, but if he’s suddenly a totally different person then you lose all the impact of the guy you like suddenly turning bad, ya know?
NEXT WEEK: Razor Ramon v. Rick Martel part 2!
The 1-2-3 Kid v. Tony DeVito
DeVito pounds away in the corner and then dodges a charging Kid, who goes ass over teakettle in the corner. DeVito SWEEPS THE LEG and does a Mortal Kombat pose to celebrate, but Kid fires back with the legdrops for two. Kid hits him with a leg lariat in the corner and goes up with the moonsault press for the pin at 1:52. Fun squash! 2 for 4
Meanwhile, Geoff Jared rages against Billy Ray Cyrus and his total lack of talent. He’s a flash in the pan! Well that didn’t age well. Anyway, he wants to conquer Nashville and become a big musical star, and maybe slap around Razor Ramon if he has time after the Grammys.
The Headshrinkers v. Hatfield & Trujillo (?)
We don’t even get the first names because Doink interrupts on the video wall to build up that thrilling tag team match, so I’m depending on Vince McMahon to give me an accurate listing of the jobbers’ names. Flying splash finishes at 1:00. And then Headshrinkers are all upset by the magic TV wall because they’re primitive savages or whatever. Come on, those probably just used composite videos, even Neanderthals understand red, yellow and white cables. Now if it was component video, I could understand. 2 for 5.
FACE TO FACE! WITH JOE FOWLER!
Jim Cornette rants about Indians for a bit.
Adam Bomb v. Marty Jannetty
Your contest of the week is that someone apparently gets to win a trip to a Wrestling Challenge taping and be a guest on the King’s Court. Well that’s a thing. So this is an impromptu main event set up by the earlier aisle confrontation, as apparently Marty still hasn’t paid his bill to Adam Bomb yet. I wonder if Clark’s pitch was “This shit is so good it’ll make your eyes glow yellow!” and Marty bought into it. Marty valiantly slugs away as they exchange fisticuffs, and Marty gets an atomic drop for two. Hey, now there was a finisher that Adam Bomb could have used! Marty puts his head down and Bomb pounds away on him with the clubbing forearms and puts him down with a clothesline, and then Harvey puts the boots to Marty on the floor. 1-2-3 Kid tries to save but Bomb beats on him as well and that’s a DQ at 2:45. And then Kid and Jannetty, future TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD and the guys who would actually dethrone the Quebecers mind you, double-team Adam Bomb and they’re supposed to be the heroes for some reason. And then everyone in the match runs down to brawl, except of course for Mr. Perfect because he had already quit and we’re all just supposed to not notice now I guess. Man, and you thought the Money in the Bank setup matches were lame these days. 2 for 6.
This show kind of sucked after a few decent ones. And with legal troubles about to start hitting, well, a lot of people, it’s probably not getting better any time soon.