Saturday Night’s Main Event (Jan. 4th 1986- all Dream Matches!)

Hogan (in blue!) versus the already-42 Terry Funk in the main event while some VERY 1980s people watch.

WWF SATURDAY NIGHT’S MAIN EVENT:
(Jan. 4th 1986)
* So I decided to take another look at SNME from the ’80s! There’s a handful of them on YouTube, but this appears to be particularly interesting because the main event is Hulk Hogan vs. TERRY FUNK, as Hogan moves through all the midcarders and upper-card guys in the company during his first year as WWF Champion. Macho Man Randy Savage vs. George “The Animal” Steele! Corporal Kirschner vs. Nikolai Volkoff in a “Peace Match”! Plus Hillbilly Jim, Cousin Luke & Uncle Elmer taking on “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, Bob Orton & Jesse “The Body” Ventura! OHH YESSSSSSSS!!! Hook it up to my VEIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNSSSSSS! Read on!

Hulk Hogan shows up before the intro to hype his Hulk Hogan “Protein Drink” to Mean Gene (looking classy in a t-shirt with a tuxedo design printed on it). Vince runs down the card, giving us an “and then from there” and “notwithstanding” mere seconds apart and then Ventura comes down to whine about his treatment at the hands of those hillbillies at the last SNME. Vince is at least thankful he won’t have to listen to Jesse’s “biased commentary”, but Jess promises him he won’t be able to just talk to himself, as BOBBY HEENAN is his replacement tonight. Oh man, Bobby Heenan commentating on the hillbillies match- tremendous.

“ROWDY” RODDY PIPER, JESSE “THE BODY” VENTURA & “ACE COWBOY” BOB ORTON vs. HILLBILLY JIM, UNCLE ELMER & COUSIN LUKE:
* OH MAN YES!! A heel asshole dream team up against the comedy babyface pin-eaters of the company. This stems from Uncle Elmer’s (apparently) legit wedding on Oct. 1985, with tons of mean-spirited commentary from Jesse (“it looks like two carp in the Mississippi River goin’ for the same piece of corn!”). I’ve seen only one Elmer match before, and Luke is someone I’m unfamiliar with. He was only there a few months, playing a silent hillbilly- an ankle break caused him to miss WrestleMania 2 and he was soon fired after hoping to be repackaged. He’s that kind of “Mo from Men on a Mission” fat, where he’s fat but not, like, enough to get a push out of it- just hard to move around. Elmer is that exact kind of fat, though, but is a 49-year old 430-lb. bald guy. Hillbilly’s the only one shirtless, owing to his Hogan-esque physique. Speaking of physiques, Jesse’s lost a bit of is, still packing muscle but being a lot softer, with his tie-dyed tights being woefully out of fashion here. Bleach-blond skullet, too. Roddy & Ace are in blue trunks.

Ventura starts off against Elmer, as this is the nastiest rivalry of the feud, and goes right to the eyes. But Elmer flailingly fights back and pops Jesse, who does some of the most dramatic cartoon bumping ever (he even throws in the “goes for the tag despite being dead-center in the ring, then spinning around and flat-backing in a daze”). Hillbilly comes in (Heenan rips on him for not holding the tag rope and calls out McMahon’s bias) but Jesse soon knees free and it’s Piper/Luke. Piper extends the Disingenuous Heel Handshake but Luke boots him in the gut, but soon Piper mauls him and Orton throws some great falling forearms. They give Luke a beatdown as he tries weirdly-timed comebacks that look pretty awkward- Orton adds a flying elbow but Luke pushes him to the other side, only for the ref to miss it thanks to Jesse’s distraction. They throw some more shots, but Luke just… casually reaches over and tags out anyways 10 seconds later. This is weird.

Piper & Elmer have a go with a bad slugfest on Elmer’s part, but he lands a bearhug and Piper has to go to the eyes- everyone hits the ring and the Hillbillies chase off the heels for the ad break. We’re back with the heels charging in and another wild brawl leads to Piper/Hillbilly, with Piper throwing headbutts and biting until Jim just stands upright and quits selling, slugging him and controlling a wristlock. Piper slaps him and that creates enough movement for him to tag out and soon Hillbilly takes a three-man ass-beating with constant tags… except Hillbilly just punches free and Luke comes in with axehandles for everybody, sending the heels bumping (Piper is especially drunk-looking), but Piper turns a bodyslam attempt into his Sleeperhold, sending everyone into the ring again. Elmer repeatedly crushes a screaming Ventura in the corner to get his revenge for all the shit-talking, but Orton’s able to slam his cast into Luke when he hits the ropes and Piper reapplies the sleeper to his unconscious body for the Three Hand-Drops at (7:28)- the heels win!

Okay match from the heels (though you can tell Ventura’s hurt because he’s barely in it at all, even during the quick-tag segments), but it was pretty bad for the most part- both Elmer & Luke seemed mistimed and were always stepping on the opponent’s stuff, and all the standard heel mannerisms seemed cut short because both heat segments ended with the babyface just throwing single punch and tagging out with no build. Like, that’s Wrestling 101 and the babyfaces just couldn’t hack it.

Rating: *3/4 (inoffensive but kind of a mess as far as tag formula goes)

Waterslide Contest: Jimmy Hart vs. The Junkyard Dog: This stems from the Nov. 1985 SNME, where JYD branded Jimmy Hart with the Funks’ own brand. So they settle matters with the universal sign of the blood feud: waterslide races! JYD gets a faster start as Jimmy’s hung up top because of his shoes or a gate issue. But his charge Terry Funk is there, trying to get a tan for his upcoming Sports Illustrated cover, which he’ll surely get once he’s World Champion. Meanwhile we see a Winter ’85 match where Hogan (in white!) has it won against Funk, but stupidly leaps off the pin to go grab Jimmy Hart, and ends up KO’d with the branding iron and branded while he’s out. I always love the heel tantrums when they find out this doesn’t give them the belt. Like they forgot the rules and thought hitting someone with a branding iron and not pinning them means they win the title.

WWF WORLD TITLE:
HULK HOGAN (w/ Junkyard Dog) vs. TERRY FUNK (w/ Jimmy Hart):
* So the feud culminates here with Hogan bringing out JYD for backup to prevent Jimmy from making Hulk do stupid things to cost himself the pin. Weirdness abounds here, as they do all sorts of stuff you’d never see later, like Hogan cutting an interview with Mean Gene on the podium and then walking to the ring to start the match (thus wrecking the “Hogan Pop” potential as his music just kinda starts and he shuffles to ringside while Terry’s already there)- no build, no pomp, no nothing. They’d NEVER do that post-1987. Weirder still, Hogan’s in BLUE! JYD establishes the point immediately by hauling Hart to his feet and tossing him into a chair.

Hogan wins a repeated-whip-reversal spot, clotheslining Funk and leaving him flopping like a fish to the floor. Jesse Ventura drops the “middle-aged and crazy!” line that they were apparently using all the way back in *1986*, but that’s nuts because he’s only 42! That would mean that I’M middle-ag… oh… oh GOD. Terry runs the ropes but hits them front-first and nearly goes over, then gets clotheslined out for another cartoon bump and Hogan poses and gloats. Terry comes back in but during a rope-run Hogan just STEPS on him repeatedly instead of the standard drop-down skip-over spot! Terry pulls the whole timekeeper’s table over while writhing around outside, and tosses in a big plastic chair, causing Hogan to just plop it down and sit on it to goad Terry further. Hogan mauls him and whips Terry into a Flair Flip, snapmaring him in for a backdrop suplex as this is ALL HOGAN, but Terry scores some headbutts and a good ol’ kick to the balls to come back. Vince actually passes this off as a mistake, but Hogan shakes the ropes when Terry goes up and now it’s TERRY’s balls taking a pounding, and Hogan scores an atomic drop, lariat and big elbowdrop before playing to the raucous crowd.

Terry seems completely screwed, but of course Jimmy Hart grabs Hogan’s leg and the resulting pandemonium with JYD chasing after him lets Terry get out some tape and he starts to strangle the Hulkster, hauling him down. And by the time the ref comes over to see, Funk has his forearm in front of Hogan’s throat to sleight-of-hand the tape away (Ventura of course marks out for this elite form of cheating). Funk tosses the tape away before the ref can check and hits the Piledriver for two as Ventura goes nuts about the slow count, Hogan doing the weakest kickout ever. Terry grinds away at Hogan and throws boots, leading to the Hulk-Up (but the older one where he just sorta fights to his feet while staring daggers, not the full “no-sell and dramatically poses” kind), and Hogan brawls, back-elbows him, holds Terry up during his drunk-walk sell, then hits the big boot. Terry hits the apron and Jimmy nails Hogan with the branding iron when he tries to suplex Terry in, leading to a two-count with Hogan’s foot on the ropes saving him. Terry argues with the ref while JYD headbutts Jimmy Hart to the ground, and Terry turns around into a big clothesline for the three as Hogan wins at (8:31). Ventura, formerly cheering on Terry for “genius” cheating, now admonishes Hogan for the “cheap shot” when Terry wasn’t looking, and Terry drags the ref to the floor, having recovered pretty quickly. Funk dragging a dead Hart away by the foot is a great closing visual as Hogan & JYD celebrate in the ring.

One thing I admire about Jimmy Hart was his utter lack of dignity. Heenan, Fuji and others took spills, but NOBODY was as disgustingly pathetic as Jimmy.

Man, Hogan DEFINITELY didn’t have the formula set by this point, because this one was all Hogan scoring move after move and Terry doing cartoon bumps for him. Hogan came off like a monster, and a clever one, too- doing things like shaking the ropes to stop a flying move and just bowling Terry down with a lariat and immediately scoring an elbow. He didn’t even finish with the legdrop- just a surprise clothesline! What is this, the Survivor Series?! The match was nearly all Hogan save for Terry’s two runs aided by cheating, and they’re outta there in less than nine minutes. I’m also amused that Junkyard Dog was here to control Hart, who nonetheless managed to directly impact the match twice.

Rating: *** (a pretty great mauling by Hogan, fantastic cartoon bumping by Funk, and some good heelish cheating, but rather short and simple)

Savage/Animal is next, but we see clips of George Steele being worked on by a Freud-like “famed psychiatrist/gynecologist” while Savage teaches Miss Elizabeth how to swim… while she shivers and quakes with extreme over-acting in anticipation of her “lesson”, he simply throws her off the diving platform in front of Ventura.

“MACHO MAN” RANDY SAVAGE (w/ Miss Elizabeth) vs. GEORGE “THE ANIMAL” STEELE (w/ Captain Lou Albano):
* Steele hasn’t wrestled in ages, but he’s now set to go against Savage, whose WWF run had started the previous summer. And to set off their feud, Steele is entranced by Elizabeth when she holds the ropes open- Savage is busy jawing with fans in the crowd, so doesn’t see Steele petting Elizabeth’s evening gloves and rubbing his head against her like a lovesick puppy. Savage of course is ENRAGED when he hits the ring, wondering what his manager is up to because he’s a paranoid lunatic. Man that pairing was amazing- you can get so many angles outta that stuff.

Macho starts off, but is immediately chased off by the Animal’s weird ape-like swinging stances, then gets pushed to the ropes and bitten before getting pulled to the other side and launched to the floor in a big bump. Animal gives chase but is distracted by Elizabeth, literally stopping in his tracks and barely avoiding a sneak attack because of it. Savage manages to nail him in the ring, but George fights back and pushes him out of the ring again, but this time Savage pulls his great act of putting Elizabeth in the way and hiding behind her like a coward, causing Steele to completely stop. Macho tries to jump him in the ring again but gets slammed and George eats one of the turnbuckles (Vince describes it as a “fetish”) and STILL won’t even let Savage have a sneak attack, easily fending him off with the turnbuckle and sending him to the floor. But this time he gets distracted by Liz so bad Savage is able to nail his flying axehandle from coast to coast and pin him (3:16)- hahaha that was the ONLY MOVE HE’S DONE. Savage hauls Elizabeth up over his shoulder and carts her away while Steele looks confused, then acts like he’s won.

I think I’ve read that Savage HATED working with Steele (Steele openly boasts about openly crumpling up Savage’s “match scripts” and Savage going ballistic), and I can sorta see why- Savage is in his athletic prime and could be having some of the best matches in the world, but he’s spending three minutes being stymied by a fat old veteran in a cartoon gimmick before hitting a single move for the pin. And I think this went on for EONS- Steele is integral to the finish at WrestleMania III and we’re not even at the second one yet!

Rating: 1/4* (barely even a match- just Steele stymying all of Randy’s stuff and then losing the second he takes a big move)

Mean Gene & Hogan introduce a “Best of 1985” montage, mostly consisting of Hogan beating on dudes. Some clips of WrestleMania, the Piper/Orndorff blow-up, a Male Gaze shot of Miss Elizabeth in the “Jane” Halloween costume shot from below, and way too much of the Hillbillies (oh yeah, Vince got to pick the clips, alright).

Sgt. Slaughter quit or was fired from the WWF in 1984, right around when he became the face of the G.I. Joe toyline (Sarge says it was because Vince wouldn’t let him do it, so he quit). As he was hitting huge as a patriotic mega-babyface, Vince simply did what every wrestling promoter does: tries to find the closest “Clone” he can find and act like he’s just as good. Which… never works.

PEACE MATCH (no “Combat Techniques” allowed):
CORPORAL KIRSCHNER vs. NIKOLAI VOLKOFF (w/ Classy Freddy Blassie & The Iron Sheik):
* Volkoff declares this is to end American militarism through superior Russian wrestling, and his partner the Iron Sheik comes out for “moral support”, as said by Blassie. Meanwhile, back at the Florida waterpark, Kirschner cuts the most unconvincing promo about what the “United States military” (ie. his mechanic and bouncer job) has taught him, while we get clips of him skydiving. Well they’re making the best of not having Sgt. Slaughter around. Ventura is offended at how rude it is for Kirschner’s music to start before Volkoff is finished singing the Soviet national anthem (the “asks that you all PLEASE RISE…” bit is one of the GOAT wrestling gimmicks). Kirschner’s in full fatigue pants and an olive drab muscleshirt while Volkoff’s in the usual red.

They start off doing clean breaks to establish the parameters, then Kirschner controls with an armbar and headlock into a dramatic test of strength as both Vince & Jesse marvel at how Kirschner is holding his own with the much larger & stronger Volkoff. They actually do an ungainly version of the “kick them off your ankle and they do a cartwheel by you” bit, with VOLKOFF of all people doing the cartwheel, then Nikolai shoulderblocks him but ends up wrung to the ground with a hammerlock- even Ventura is complimenting Kirschner’s technique. When Nikolai fights up, Kirschner small-packages him for two, and Volkoff knees him in the gut on the break, breaking the rules at last- he drops Kirschner neck-first on the top rope and hits a kneedrop FOR THE PIN at (4:22). Hahahaha a KNEE DROP? Some push for the Corporal! He comes up hot, buggy-eyed and overacting with “seething rage”, but actually manages to beat up both Volkoff and the Sheik, slamming the latter and knocking their heads together to send them scurrying.

Not much to this one- just an adequately-wrestled first four minutes of a long “okay” match but instead it just ends with a basic move in four minutes. I know this was a time of lame-o finishes but a KNEE DROP? Volkoff was a bit more spry here than he’d be even 3-4 years later, and could believably amateur-wrestle at least, doing things like a bridge-out from a waistlock to try and pin Kirschner.

Rating: *1/2 (inoffensive and fine for four minutes, but then it just ends with one bit of fighting dirty)

RICKY “THE DRAGON” STEAMBOAT & JUNKYARD DOG vs. THE MAGNIFICENT MURACO & MR. FUJI:
* This stems from a 1985 beating of Steamboat at the hands of the heels, who hanged him over the ropes using a belt. In the pre-match promo, Fuji (semi-recently a Tag Champion, though he’s now mostly a manager) boasts regarding JYD that in his country they “fry dogs, cook dogs, roast dogs…” in some decidedly un-PC commentary (though according to some it’s legit in Fuji’s case!). Muraco is bloated and big-bellied (most WWF roid guys by this point were more toned) in blue trunks, and Fuji has a terrible physique and black shorts. Steamboat sounds like a 17-year old boy in his promo. Ricky has weird red tights with black trunks over them, and JYD’s in white. There’s not much time left in the show here.

The heels jump the faces before the bell and we’re off with Ricky already hanging off the edge of the apron and getting slammed on the concrete floor. lol why is he eating this from FUJI? Muraco beats up JYD in the ring but takes a back body drop, only to dodge a falling headbutt and now Fuji’s going to work with “karate”. He cuts off a comeback but Muraco gets armdragged anyways- a slam gets two and Ricky adds a right hand. Great “Hey OWWWWW…” sell by Muraco, who stumbles around and takes shots from JYD, but Fuji does better, knocking him down and now Muraco drops an elbow. JYD backdrops out of a piledriver but Fuji headbutts him in the balls, but Muraco ends up going into the post to set up the hot tag- Steamboat gears up for his own “karate”, throwing a lot of light, loose chops that send the heels bouncing around- Muraco falls all over the ring and Fuji comes in and gets Muraco slingshotted into him- Flying Bodypress gets two but Fuji breaks up the pin. Fuji gets the tag but so does Junkyard Dog, who just grabs Fuji and headbutts him… for the pin at (5:16). Okay I was not expecting a clean finish on this one!

A pretty weak match, as Junkyard Dog was in it most of the time and his “selling” consists of just lying on his face and kind of slowly trying to get up. Steamboat was in there for all of a minute. Muraco was good to bump (oddly HE was the heel eating all the offense while Fuji mostly got to control and cut off comebacks), but then the vulnerable Mr. Fuji comes in and just eats a random move for the pin.

Rating: ** (acceptable filler TV match, though a lame ending)

Man this show was SO weird given how much I’m used to post-1987 WWF. You’ve essentially got a dark, poorly-lit, poorly-audio’d arena, making this feel more like an NWA but with bulkier, clunkier guys having **-ish matches at best and only one bout with any effort put in, and odd stage directions like cutting a promo with Mean Gene (like you get on the Saturday morning shows) but leading to the wrestlers immediately walking to ringside with their music barely playing over the crowd. They’d get a lot smarter with this later on, having guys cut pre-taped interviews in a glitzy “backstage” setting and then getting BIG entrances with proper crowd pops. And man, the FINISHES here! Every match but the first seems to end with this unexpected transition move outta nowhere- Hogan hits a random lariat to an unsuspecting Terry Funk, Macho hits a flying axehandle to a distracted Animal, Volkoff finishes with a KNEE DROP of all things, and Junkyard Dog hits a basic headbutt (something he’d already done earlier in the match) and just pins a fairly fresh Mr. Fuji. I have a feeling that Savage’s flying elbow and other moves really raised the game, because you wouldn’t see “name” guys jobbing to random unnamed stuff much after a point- it’d always be to big-time finishes used to crush jobbers.

So this ends up being an interesting relic of a prior era- odd directing, odd finishes and more- the hillbillies kept relatively strong (and even Animal controlled 100% of the match until Savage caught him being a dope), Kirschner trying to get his heat back after looking like a wimp, and the manager eating the pin in the final tag. Hardly a great show, though, despite the Hogan/Funk match being good.