WWF All American Wrestling – August 18th, 1991

To the nineties this week, just before Summerslam, and an episode I definitely would’ve watched at the time when I became a quick fan just after WrestleMania VII.

Hosted by Mean Gene and the Macho Man.

The final step into the dark side, as Jake Roberts completes his “training” of the Ultimate Warrior to overcome his fear of the Undertaker. Warrior has to go into a room full of snakes with a coffin in the middle and get something that will give him answers. They’re going for horror movie, but it’s more cheesy now and definitely controversial now as Warrior boots snakes across the room out of his way. Inside the coffin… a cobra, who “bites” Warrior and sends him into fits in some terrible editing. Warrior collapses through the door to the feet of the newly heel Jake and his new buddies Paul Bearer and the Undertaker. When I was nine, I was scared to death they were going to murder him or something, but now it’s a thing probably best forgotten given that Warrior was soon gone and Jake moved on to the feud of his career with Randy Savage.

Irwin R. Schyster vs. Sonny Blaze

Gorilla steps all over Irwin’s tax cheats spiel as he finishes off the story of Warrior getting rushed to the hospital so he can still make it to the main event. Irwin puts the boots to Blaze and gets a nice snap suplex. Far more energetic than normal, so of course he has to spoil it with a rope-assisted abdominal stretch. Write Off finishes Blaze off, as Irwin also has the presence to spin himself round into a pinning position facing the camera.

Special Report with Lord Alfred Hayes, covering the impending entrance of Ric Flair into the WWF, with Bobby Heenan previewing it by presenting the big gold belt at the end of Wrestling Challenge the week before. I didn’t really know much about WCW at the time and seen maybe three Flair matches of no consequence at this time, but even I knew it was big. Bobby walks into the studio to cut off Alfred and do the talking for himself.

Skinner vs. Mario Mancini

Debut for the alligator man, from Superstars. Mancini is dumped to the outside and follows out with a stomp. Steve Keirn did a pretty good shoot interview talking about why he didn’t get over here, down to stuff like struggling in the poacher outfit and boots and just generally getting too old to go, which is a rare bit of transparency from a wrestler. Back in, it’s the Christian neckbreaker over the knee before he finishes with the Gator Breaker (inverted DDT).

Back to the studio, a preview of the Summerslam Spectacular later in the evening.

The World Wrestling Federation is on tour, including Mr. Perfect, who didn’t make it, and the Ultimate Warrior getting one of his last victories over the Undertaker.

Natural Disasters vs. Hutch Thomas and Mike Russell

Scott has mentioned recently that Hutch Thomas is the former Drago Zhivago. Russell looks far more than this skinny guy with the ginger afro, but takes a bit to get in there. Earthquake hits him with the Earthquake and Typhoon gets the pin with the… Tidal Wave.

Event Center, with IRS getting the word ‘finagle’ into a promo against Greg Valentine and Big Boss Man continuing his very specific naming of his nemesis as the “Canadian Mountie” ahead of the awesome Jailhouse Match (more awesome for the vignettes after).

Colonel Mustafa vs. The British Bulldog

Feature match. Sean refers to the heel threesome of the Sarge, Mustafa and General Adnan as “Slaughter’s Marauders” to the probably pleasure of G.I. Joe fans. Davey Boy generally had awesome gear, but his cloak looks like a duvet here. Mustafa and Slaughter attack him to start, but Davey comes back with a slam and attacks in the corner, which Mustafa just stands there during with no selling before using the loaded boot to come back. Len Denton, who also used that gimmick, once shared a fan theory that the tapping was to bring mercury to the toe for more weight. Davey reverses a suplex to come back and sets up the powerslam. Slaughter grabs his foot from the outside to allow Mustafa to fall on top of him and holds the foot down for Mustafa’s rare victory. Davey clears them off by bringing a chair in. He was pretty protected at this point, so it’s surprising they didn’t have Sheiky baby go over Koko B Ware or Jimmy Snuka at this point. Match wasn’t much, but was at least quick.

On Tour, including at the poorly-named Beeghly Center. Gotta go for stuff like the Palace or Spectrum.

Summerslam Report, eight days away. Gene runs down the card, including promos from the Triangle of Terror and Hulk Hogan. The run was almost up, but Sgt. Slaughter was always pretty good as the ranting maniac. Hulk outdoes him by threatening to put hand grenades down the heels’ tights. Also quick words from Mr. Perfect, Bret Hart, Ted Dibiase and Virgil. I can’t recall what I had for dinner today, but I can still remember this card 32 years later with how well it was promoted.

Jimmy Snuka vs. The Brooklyn Brawler

I believe Superfly was newly clean shaven again at this point. Brawler attacks from behind and bites away, but Snuka leapfrogs over a charge and he goes out. Back in, Snuka hip tosses and slams him. Thumb to the throat and flying headbutt before a backbreaker and splash off the top for the win. Even though Snuka was thoroughly done by this point, always nice to see him coming in for a landing on that one.

Event Center, with promos from the Natural Disasters, with Jimmy Hart sans sunglasses in the background for a change, and the Legion of Doom, with Hawk referencing Sgt. Snorkel and Beetle Bailey as only he can.

Gene and Randy see us off with an advert for a Summerslam plastic beaker and straw, which everyone had a version of at the time.

The red, the white, and the blue: Hard one this week, as nothing was too noteworthy, so I’ll combine the initial Jake heel turn as both bad and bizarre, but it was swept under the rug quickly, and we’ll give IRS a pat on the back for not boring everyone completely with his squash match.