The SmarK Rant for WWF Superstars – 02.05.94

The SmarK Rant for WWF Superstars – 02.05.94

Well back to my favorite punching bag again.

Taped from Fayetteville, NC

Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Stan Lane.

Oddly, despite SNME being long dead at that point, we get SNME-esque promos from the Breakker Brothers and Quebecers to open the show, complete with the SNME promo bassline.

BREAKING NEWS: Lex Luger has finally succeeded in not choking at something, in this case winning the coin toss on RAW, and he’ll get the first shot at Yokozuna at Wrestlemania X.

Shawn Michaels v. Gary Sabaugh

Well it wouldn’t be North Carolina without the Italian Stallion doing a TV job. The various geeks on the show this month are probably his students, too. Shawn grabs a headlock, but the Stallion takes him down with armdrags and Vince is already predicting an upset. Stan, meanwhile, has no knowledge of this jobber and his backstory despite being in hundreds of matches against him. Vince is also sure that “Italy” on the back of Sabaugh’s tights refer to the country of manufacture. Checks out. Shawn whips him into the corner and hits him with a flying forearm, but Sabaugh makes a brief comeback before missing a blind charge. Superkick finishes at 2:15, with the bell ringing early for some reason. And then we FLY to Face to Face immediately after the finish for some reason. 0 for 1.

FACE TO FACE! WITH JIM ROSS!

Jim Cornette talks about Yokozuna’s schedule ahead of Wrestlemania, and mocks the idea of Jim Ross writing a book. And then Cornette calls JR “jowl-face” and they do a weird audio overdub of JR telling him to get back on topic while Cornette continues ranting.

Meanwhile, Earthquake is returning.

Marty Jannetty & 1-2-3 Kid v. Fidel Sierra & Barry Horowitz

More weirdness as the entrance of Kid and Jannetty is edited out. OK, conspiracy theory time. Did Kid & Marty maybe have the belts at this point because they were planned to keep them until Wrestlemania, and so they edited them out to cover up the unplanned title change? This would also explain the Quebecers in a non-title match with Steiners and why they stressed in the pre-match promo that the belts would remain in the dressing room. Sierra wants the Kid in the ring to start and ends up getting dominated and double-teamed by the former champs. I still find it weird that Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty both ended up tag team champions in 1994, but with other partners. Marty finishes Sierra with a superkick at 3:25 and we immediately cut away again. 0 for 2. So yeah, a quick check reveals that Kid & Jannetty were actually the tag team champions at the point when this show was taped, and in fact by the time this show aired, Jannetty had been fired. So they likely had the belts at the taping, which is again odd because normally if they taped matches where someone had the titles, then the intention was for that person to be champion when the show aired.

WRESTLEMANIA REPORT! WITH TODD PETTENGILL! BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE HISTORY OF WRESTLEMANIA ON COLISEUM VIDEO!

EXCLUSIVELY on WWF Superstars! What, as opposed to ESPN doing their own Wrestlemania Report? Anyway, in a first that is unprecedented, we will see two WWF World titles matches on the same show! For the sake of continuity, we will pretend that Wrestlemania 9, the year before, didn’t happen, I guess. Anyway, we now have the two matches set: Lex Luger faces Yokozuna and Bret Hart faces Owen Hart, with Bret facing the winner of the title match. We get comments from Bret Hart, and much like Fredo, Owen has broken Bret’s heart. Also, Randy Savage meets Crush.

KWANG v. John Paul

Again, no entrances for this one. Kwang hits Paul with a spinkick and blows green mist for dramatic effect. We get some choking and Kwang hits the corner leg lariat, and that gets two. Paul makes a comeback but walks into a superkick and gets pinned at 1:48. Who the fuck is agenting these matches and decided three superkick finishes in a row would be a good idea? Generic Ninja managed by Dr. Harvey Wippleman = ALL OF THE MONEY. Like they’re not even trying anymore. Might as well be NXT 2.0. 0 for 3.

Meanwhile, Paul Bearer is hanging out in a graveyard and he’s still pretty sure Undertaker is alive despite all evidence to the contrary.

The Quebecers v. The Steiner Brothers

So this is a non-title match with a 10 minute time limit, where Bron Sr. and Uncle Scott get a title shot next week if they win. Scott tries a suplex on Pierre, but Pierre grabs the ropes to escape. So Scott hits him with a butterfly bomb for two instead, with Jacques quickly making the save. I kind of liked the touch from Pierre where he was desperately flapping his arms trying to fight the move instead of cooperating. The Quebecers stop for some planning and Scott chases them back in and brings in Rick. But Pierre goes up with a missile dropkick to take over. But then he tries it again and Rick catches him with a slam for two. Jacques saves again, which actually should be a DQ under the Secret One Save Rule, but I’m not sure if that was in effect in 1994. Over to Jacques, who beats on Rick, but he walks into a press slam in a move you don’t see from Rick every day. That gets two. Scott comes in and works the arm and the Steiners could not look any more bored and checked out here if they tried. Scott gets a rollup on Jacques, but Pierre clotheslines them over and the Quebecers get the heat on Scott. They drop him on the top rope and Jacques slams Pierre onto Scott for two. Pierre with a senton for two and Rick makes the half-hearted save. Double team STO gets two. This feels like a dark match that they stuck onto the TV show, with everyone just kind of going through the motions. Jacques cuts off a tag and hits the piledriver, before baiting Rick into the ring. The assisted senton misses, however, and it’s hot tag Rick. Rick with backdrops and the Steiners clean house as the announcers point out that they’re not doing anything to win the match. Scott hits the Frankensteiner on Pierre, but Johnny Polo rings the bell, so Scott stops the cover and THE MATCH MUST CONTINUE. So Rick goes up with the flying bulldog and then stops to beat on Johnny Polo, as they hit the elevated bulldog on him, but the time has long expired by that point and it’s a 10:00 draw. The whole stipulation of the match with the title shot on the line was staple-gunned in post-production so the match didn’t feel like it had any stakes and the Steiners didn’t particularly seem like they gave a shit about failing to beat the Quebecers. Also the finish sucked. 0 for 4. And, by the way, this is the last we ever saw of the Steiners on WWF Superstars, as they did one more squash on RAW in April and then never appeared on WWF TV again. Good riddance at this point, clearly they didn’t want to be there and Vince never knew what to do with them.

Meanwhile, Owen Hart points out to Bret that he’s going to beat him 1-2-3 (while unable to clap his hands at the proper cadence, but I guess that’s part of his goofy charm).

Doink the Clown v. George South

South goes after Dink and Doink puts him down with an elbow as a result and finishes with a german suplex at 0:34 after an obvious edit where they cut to Dink outside and then skip past a bunch of stuff. 0 for 5.

FACE TO FACE! WITH JIM ROSS!

And the bizarre editing continues as we don’t even get Jim Ross’s intro, cutting right to Crush in mid-rant against Randy Savage. We get words from Savage in response, as he’s got a date with Crush and it’s not a date where you take out the chick and drive her around, it’s a DATE WITH DESTINY, YEAH.

Next week: Crush! Bushwhackers! Ludvig Borga! Rick Martel v. Macho Man! These shows were taped a few days before that MSG show where Borga was retired, so this would be his swan song.

This show was a complete mess of bad editing and Vince literally changing his mind in mid-push on multiple storylines. Thankfully they’d get their shit together by Wrestlemania but these episodes are harder to watch than Steven Seagal movies post 1995.