Mike Reviews WWF Superstars 06.13.92

Happy Friday You Superstars!

With no WWE Network to find stuff to watch on anymore I was struggling for something to review this week, when I saw that the WWE Vault had uploaded this episode of Superstars, so I decided to give it a goosey gander just because this era of WWE history can go from good wrestling to absolute insanity at the drop of a hat from segment to segment, so there should be enough interesting stuff to talk about here at least if nothing else

The YouTube description says;
“With summer beginning, the action in WWE is heating up! This week on Superstars, Shawn Michaels impresses in singles action. Plus, we hear from Ultimate Warrior following the curse placed on him by Papa Shango. Also, a one-on-one interview with “Macho Man” Randy Savage, action featuring The Natural Disasters, El Matador, The Mountie and the debuting Nailz!”

How can that not be an incessant 45 minute thrill ride eh?

Superstars is emanating from Lexington, Kentucky

Calling the action are Vince McMahon and Mr. Perfect

Tonight after Superstars, the WBF Championship will be on the line at a special WBF Event, and as the show is in Kentucky we have lots of horse racing puns. I fully support anyone who hates horse racing because they think it’s cruel by the way. I’ve always thought that if you wanted to make it safer then just add a rule that whenever you have to put a horse down due to race related injuries then you have to put the jockey down as well. That’d make it all a lot safer very quickly

Tatanka Vs Barry Horrowitz

Tatanka was feuding with Rick Martel at the time due to Martel nicking some ceremonial feathers from the Buffalo. Horrowitz was a highly regarded enhancement guy who was very good at putting people over, to the point that the WWF gave him a small push in 1995 by letting him get some wins over Chris Candido. Tatanka bumps Horrowitz around a bit at the start, with Horrowitz actually managing to get a little bit of offence of his own, whilst we get a cut-in promo from Martel mocking Tatanka over the feather theft. Tatanka gets an awful Military Press Slam on Horrowitz (no idea whose fault that one was) and then follows with the Samoan Drop for three.

WINNER: TATANKA
RATING: SQUASH

Thoughts: Botched slam aside, this was a totally fine squash match where the enhancement talent got a small smackerel of offence and then the star put them away. Standard Superstars fare

We get the WWF merchandise magazine update, with Mean Gene Okerlund. Papa Shango has made Ultimate Warrior puke (was he showing him some tapes of Dave Sullivan matches?) and also made black goo come out of Warrior and Gene in recent weeks. Mean Gene yelling “oh give me a break” when it happens to him undercuts the horror aspect of it somewhat. Ultimate Warrior has comments for Shango, and goes on about being an ultimate skeleton or something. Well, that was sure a promotional interview on this episode of Superstars!

Graig Brown Vs “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels w/ Sensational Sherri

Graig sounds like one parent wanted to call him Gary and the other wanted to call him Craig, so they decided to compromise and totally ruin their kids school-life. Sherri brings out a mirror for Shawn to pose in of course, in a wonderfully arrogant act on Shawn’s part that they’d recycle for Lex Luger in 1993. Shawn easily works Brown over whilst we get a cut-in promo from Shawn and Sherri, where Shawn talks about winning the Intercontinental Title in the future. But, how can we get a promo from Shawn whilst we’re also watching him wrestle? That’s the sort of thing that would have got you burnt as a witch in the Stuart Age. To be fair, poor Sherri would have probably been dunked straight in the river in the 1600’s. Anyway, Shawn gets angry, like Narcus Prince in Super Punch-Out, when he gets hit in the face and takes it out on Brown. Shawn hits the Sweet Chin Music, back when it was a transition move, and finishes with the Tear-Drop Suplex.

WINNER: SHAWN MICHAELS
RATING: SQUASH

Thoughts: Classic 1992 Shawn here, as he was still settling into what the HBK character was going to be but he was looking like a star in the making and tandem with Sherri was working well

We get the Event Centre with Sean Mooney, where Repo Man is feuding with British Bulldog apparently. It’s still amazing to me that this guy was also Demolition Smash, as he looks, moves and talks completely different. Meanwhile, Texas Tornado has got his life back on track and is going back up to the top. Oh dear, that was an unfortunate promo for him to cut in June of 1992

In a classic 1990’s Superstars vignette; Razor Ramon let’s us know that he has no education, but he doesn’t need it because he’s a success anyway, and he’s coming to the WWF to take the world and everything in it. I’m sure somewhere Alan Sugar was nodding in agreement seeing as he always brags about having no education and how you don’t need it to be successful. Decent promo from Razor there, as the character worked right away (granted they’d essentially nicked it from a popular movie, but it still needed to be performed credibly and Scott Hall was capable of doing that)

WWE Hall of Famers The Natural Disasters (Earthquake and Typhoon) Vs The Executioners

I have no idea who The Executioners are, but I’ll guess that it’s Duane Gill and Barry Hardy, just because it seems like a role they’d be asked to play on a Superstars taping. The Executioners try jumpstarting things, and that goes about as well for them as you’d expect, as TND destroys them with stereo backbreakers. Vince is referring to Earthquake as the “Quakester” here, which doesn’t really work as a nickname when you consider that it’s the same amount of syllables as Quake’s full name. Typhoon looks to be having fun out there, whilst Quake is more business minded, which we see when Quake slams an Executioner down and delivers the Aftershock, followed up by the Tsunami Splash by Typhoon to give TND the victory.

WINNER: THE NATURAL DISASTERS
RATING: SQUASH (Literally)

Thoughts: This was good fun, as I liked the jolly fat men version of TND, but then again I’m British and we made a guy with that character the biggest star in the country, so I’m probably genetically predisposed to like these two big lugs

Back in the Event Centre; Sean Mooney sends us to comments from Skinner, who is feuding with Virgil and Crush (or “Crunch” in his words) at the moment. Either of those matches would make a fine Collision Main Event. Meanwhile, Undertaker seems to be feuding with The Berzerker. I don’t know Taker, that guy’s a character. All he wants to do is be making f— because his love for you is like a truck, you should probably just leave him alone…

The Mountie w/ Jimmy “Mouth of the South” Hart Vs Bill Koby

Mountie of course sings his own music, which seemed to be a trend with people Jimmy Hart managed when you think about it (although he did technically manage Mountie in two different guises). Mountie is supposedly feuding with SGT. Slaughter, as we get a cut-in promo from The Sarge whilst Mountie wins with a dropkick.

WINNER: THE MOUNTIE
RATING: SQUASH

Thoughts: Mountie sung his song and got to be a smug jerk, so the match was already an automatic win

Mountie bullies the enhancement talent following the match and makes him run away from the ring

The WBF show is tonight. Lot’s of chicken getting eaten on that show by the looks of things

Mean Gene Okerlund is interviewing WWF Champion Randy Savage in an empty arena. Or a WCW show from around this time frame, it really could be either. Gene notes that Mr. Perfect and Ric Flair have accused Savage of bending the rules when fighting them, which Savage notes he has to do when wrestling Flair, because Flair would do the same. That’s a totally logical thing for a babyface to say, especially an unhinged one like Randy Savage. This was a good promo from Savage, as he was pretty calm by his usual standards.

“The Ugandan Giant” Kamala w/ Kim Chee and Harvey Wippleman Vs Dale Wolfe

They try and do the whole “big scary monster” thing with Kamala by showing scared looking kids in the crowd like he’s Vader or Yokozuna, but Kamala was a bit too goofy for that I feel and it might have been better to go with the “unhinged maniac” approach with him instead. Case in point; Kamala destroys Wolfe and can’t work out how to pin him, which is basically a comedy spot and you wouldn’t see someone like Yoko doing that.

WINNER: KAMALA
RATING: SQUASH

Thoughts: Kamala was going to be feuding with Undertaker, in what was basically the beginning of the stretch of Taker’s career where he wrestled big lads who couldn’t take his moves properly. It’s probably why Taker worked so many Superstars squash matches in this era, because it was the only way you’d ever get to see him do his actual moves, as the enhancement guys were actually small enough to be Choke Slammed and Tombstoned

El Matador Vs Mike Samples

Every time I see Tito Santana work this House Show opening match gimmick it makes me lean more to the side that Tito was never really in contention to dethrone Ric Flair in late 1992, even though he was supposedly amongst the candidates. I mean, Bret Hart had been getting a serious push with a serious character for a quite a while, whilst Tito was a matador. Even in 1992 the WWF wasn’t making a freaking MATADOR the WWF Champion. Anyway, Samples gets a small sample (pun intended) of offence in on Matador but soon gets summarily defeated.

WINNER: TITO SANTANA
RATING: SQUASH

Thoughts: The majority of this match was a cut-in promo with Matador hyping up the WBF. Don’t get me wrong, Tito was in good shape here, but wouldn’t you want one of the more muscular dudes like Warrior or Davey Boy being the one to hype up the WBF during their squash match? Or maybe that would raise too many questions about the level of chicken consumption going on over at the WBF and thus they wanted a guy who looked a little less…fowl (hopefully this covers me legally)

Mr. Perfect calls The Big Boss Man on the phone and goads Boss Man about the injuries Bossy suffered at the hands of Nailz. Boss Man says that he’ll be back for revenge

Nailz Vs Ron Cumberledge

This was one of those storylines that Vince Russo and his shades of grey tendencies would have loved, as Boss Man supposedly roughed Nailz up in jail, which is technically a Heel move, but Nailz is clearly a dangerous violent man, so maybe he deserved it? I do like that the WWF hired Nailz in kayfabe even though he cut promos from prison talking about how he was going to violently assault a member of their roster, and then he went and did it! Surely that would put them in an actionable position of some kind? Anyway, Nailz chokes poor Ron out to quickly end the contest.

WINNER: NAILZ
RATING: SQUASH

Thoughts: There are bad wrestlers who can get by with a good gimmick, but Nailz was so awful that he couldn’t even do that, so when he got fired in 1992 for roughing up Vince McMahon it was a small mercy

Nailz beats Cumberledge up some more following the match, as I again ponder the kayfabe explanation for why they’d let this man work there. But then again, they also had a zombie, a scary voodoo man and a literal thief on the roster at the time, so I guess drawing the line at a convict would be somewhat unfair

We get more Event Centre, as Papa Shango makes threats about turning Ultimate Warrior into a troll. I think Warrior did that himself with his speeches on college campus’ to be honest Charles. Meanwhile, The Road Warriors and Paul Ellering have threats for the other tag teams and managers respectively

In Conclusion

Royal Rumble, WrestleMania VIII and SummerSlam are all shows from 1992 that I enjoy, but the weekly shows had some real junk on them, as this episode of Superstars highlighted. That being said, there was plenty to be amused by even if some of the characters were really dumb and none of the wrestling was really any good, so I got 45 minutes of entertainment from it at least. You’re not watching these old Superstars episodes for wrestling quality at the end of the day

Scott, Logan and Brian have also reviewed this episode of Superstars if you’d like some other takes on it

Scott
https://www.blogofdoom.com/rant/the-smark-rant-for-wwf-superstars-06-13-92/

Logan
https://www.blogofdoom.com/2023/09/29/what-the-world-was-watching-wwf-superstars-june-13-1992/

Brian
https://www.blogofdoom.com/2018/10/16/wwf-superstars-june-13th-1992/