The SmarK Rant for WWF Superstars – 03.26.94
Taped from Bethlehem, PA on 02.22.94, so don’t expect much in the way of new developments after Wrestlemania on this show. In fact they don’t tape again until March 28, and even then that taping doesn’t start airing episodes until two weeks into April.
However, we finally have a NEW OPENING! With GUITARS! And LEX LUGER! And STROBE LIGHTS!
Your hosts are Vince McMahon & JERRY LAWLER! I love Polo as a commentator but he wasn’t right for this show and needed someone other than Vince to play off.
Lex Luger v. Duane Gill
Vince immediately bitches that Mr. Perfect screwed over Lex, and Lex is wrestling like he’s in a bad mood, hitting Gill with a forearm and then a press slam before finishing him with the torture rack at 0:55. Interestingly, Lex has new music now, dropping the American anthem for a generic synth tune. Also this was the taping where Luger was carrying the WWF title around to screw with the dirt sheets, so he got a better than average reaction. 0 for 1.
Meanwhile, at Wrestlemania, Luger chokes again. In other news, the sun rises.
Meanwhile, Tatanka and KWANG do their warmups in the back. Tatanka looks like he’s practicing his sexy face for a porn video. Really, who knows exactly what he was doing between his departure and return a decade later? Man’s gotta put money in his pocket somehow. Maybe that’s what Jack Tunney won the golden videocassette award for.
Diesel v. John Chrystal
Diesel quickly drops Chrystal with Snake Eyes and gives him the world’s laziest chokeslam while the crowd dozes, then chokes him out in the corner with the Nash choke and hits the big boot and powerbomb to finish at 2:20. He was barely able to get him up on that one and nearly dropped him right on his neck. This was a terrible squash. 0 for 2.
Meanwhile, IRS calls people tax cheats in various ways and threatens to garnish your kids’ allowance. Joke’s on him, I barely pay my kid an allowance as it is. Kids have too much stuff these days anyway.
Kwang v. Tatanka
Kwang quickly gets his martial arts kick and shoots green mist to celebrate, but Tatanka chops him down while Kwang waves his arms to indicate his mastery of the martial arts. Tatanka slams him and goes up with the flying chop for two as Wahoo McDaniel is namedropped on WWF Superstars, for those who had that one on your bingo card for 1994. Tatanka works the arm and rolls Kwang up for two, but Kwang uses his dreaded leg lariat to take Tatanka to the floor as Vince declares he’s never seen anything like that in his life. Except when Owen Hart does leg lariats in every match. We take a break from all this action and return with Kwang massaging Tatanka’s shoulders, and then he chops Tatanka down and waves his arms again. So on the racial stereotype scale, do Asian martial artists or Native Americans have deadlier chops? Or is it like a Samoan v. Black Guy situation with headbutts where we’ll never find out the real answer? Gotta love wrestling. Anyway, Kwang continues squeezing the shoulder muscles and then IRS comes out to mess with the sacred headdress , prompting Tatanka to chase him around for the double countout at 9:10. An absolutely atrocious match with a stupid finish to set up a feud that pretty much led to nothing besides a bunch of DQ finishes at house shows. By summer they were teaming up as a part of Dibiase’s stable! 0 for 3.
The Smoking Gunns v. Rich Myers & Jason Headings
Billy and Myers do some fancy criss-crossing before Billy takes him down with a headlock and then faceplants him while Vince puts over Burt Reynolds and what a huge star that he is and apparently a nice guy to boot. HA. Oh wait I think he was being serious. Bart and Headings do more criss-crossing that leads to nothing and Bart gets a suplex after all that. The Gunns with a double legsweep for two and the Gunns hit a standing Rockerplex before finishing with a prototype of the Sidewinder at 3:30. And then Vince buries the jobbers, noting that they lost because Rich Myers walked out on his tag team partner. That was weird. The Gunns looked clumsy and hesitant as ever here. It took them FOREVER to actually gel into a good team. 0 for 4.
WRESTLEMANIA UPDATE! WITH TODD PETTENGILL!
As usual, they have to put over the celebrities first and foremost and then talk about what actually happened on the show. And then we get Jim Cornette doing a bitter promo against Bret Hart to set up the rematches. Also Roddy Piper says that Hogan’s bald because he drove him to pull out all his hair. And also Bret Hart has the belt again, and he admits that Owen beat him fair and square. Owen also does his promo and challenges Bret to a title match, since he won and all.
Meanwhile, apparently the President is watching RAW on Air Force One.
Owen Hart v. PJ Walker
Owen finds a particularly dumb-looking kid in the front row and tears up the glasses in front of him. Serves that kid right, he looks like he eats paste. Fun fact: He grew up to be Gordon Solie. Owen hits PJ with a clothesline and mocks Bret’s poses, then chokes him out and hits a leg lariat, which previously in the show Vince had never seen before. Sharpshooter finishes at 2:48. 0 for 5.
Meanwhile, at Fan Fest, Stan Lane reports that a good time was had by all. That’s a scorching hot take.
Meanwhile, at the White House, a really bad Clinton impersonator is upset that they can’t get RAW in Washington, so he calls “George Bush”. Yeah.
And then Johnny Polo randomly joins Vince to run down the show for next week, since it’s an actual arena shoot done at the time, so that Jeff Jarrett can interrupt and do a promo on Sparky Plugg. That was a complete WCW move as they had to awkwardly shoehorn Polo in here by pretending that Jerry Lawler “left”, after replacing Polo with Lawler on overdubbed commentary. So awkward and completely unnecessary. Like really, Jeff Jarrett v. Race Car Guy needs a live arena promo and they couldn’t just do a new pretape for the 20 seconds Jarrett needed to talk?
I really wish they’d add more Wrestling Challenge so I can have an easy 45 minute show to review without having to depend on this dumpster fire any longer, because they’re barely even trying at this point. This was a dull post-WM show with a dead crowd and a bunch of people sleepwalking through squashes while they put over the celebrities as the real stars. I feel like once we get to the Bob Backlund thing, that’ll be my exit point and I’ll stop it for good.