Mike Reviews WWF at the LA Sports Arena – 13.08.1988

Happy Friday Everyone!

I spied this WWF show from LA in the cavernous F&C archive and thought it looked interesting, so I decided to give it a review (that is sometimes the length of thought I give into picking the shows I review). We’ve actually had this show reviewed on the Blog before by Brian Bayless so you can give that one a read as well if you’d like to see how we differ.

The big matches on this show in LA are Randy Savage putting the WWF Title on the line against Andre The Giant and Jake Roberts looking to avenge his wife against Rick Rude. We’ve also got Powers of Pain, Owen Hart, Curt Hennig, Hart Foundation, The Rougeaus and others on the undercard, so hopefully we’ll get some good wrestling. You can view the full card below;

WWF at the LA Sports Arena – 13th Aug 1988

This event is emanating from the LA Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California on the 13th of August 1988

Calling the action are Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura and Superstar Graham

Sam Houston Vs Black Jack

Houston was your standard plucky southern babyface whilst Jack was played by Jack Armstrong and seemed to be an enhancement guy who lost to the other enhancement guys, with losses against Iron Mike Sharpe and Lanny Poffo on his record. Black Jack is just a generic masked villain here, and he stalls a bit to start and even outright runs away from Houston at points, which succeeds in winding up the crowd at least. Once the actual wrestling starts; Houston controls most of it with headlocks and hip tosses like you’d normally see from a smiling babyface in a preliminary bout. It’s not an especially thrilling contest, but it does the job it needs to do of letting Houston showcase his offence against someone at the bottom on the totem pole. Black Jack gets a little bit of token offence of his own, enough to make this not a complete a squash, but the winner is never in doubt as Houston gets a bulldog for three after 6 Minutes.

WINNER: SAM HOUSTON
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: Houston was the “star” in this one and the action reflected that. Houston looked okay and Black Jack did his job (quite literally in fact) so it worked how it was supposed to, but it’s not a match I’ll ever see a need to return to

The Blue Angel Vs Barry Horowitz

Angel was played by Owen Hart whilst the WWF was workshopping ideas on the super hero styled masked character he’d eventually end up playing, settling on Blue Blazer in the end. Horowitz was the enhancement guy’s enhancement guy, and he even got a brief push in 1995 as an underdog babyface that was shockingly effective. Angel immediately gets over with the crowd by using the ropes to do a flip before delivering a hip toss. Owen did similar on a show in the UK earlier in the decade, where he did a back flip to land behind someone before delivering a German Suplex, and the crowd lost their mind because they weren’t used to seeing stuff like that. Angel’s slick high speed counter wrestling continues to impress the crowd, as it feels like the WWF already had something with Owen here as he was doing a lot of stuff that the regular WWF crew wasn’t doing.

Horowitz is of course excellent at being the punching bag for his much flashier opponent (there’s a reason he made an entire career out of it) and the opening shine for Angel is well-wrestled as consequence. Both wrestlers know how to play their respective role and they are also both solid in-ring performers who can do the basics well. Horowitz is a decent Heel, being loud mouthed, obnoxious and cowardly, which means his eventual heat segment is entertaining to watch when he manages to cut Angel off with a thrust kick. It helps that Angel bumps and sells well for it all, with him throwing some extra motion into his bumps and selling mannerisms in order to offset the fact that the mask means he can’t use his facial expressions as a way to emit sympathy from the audience.

The crowd sticks with Angel and they made great noise whenever it looks like Angel might fight back. It’s interesting to see Angel get so over with crowd just from his wrestling ability, as it’s not like his masked outfit is especially snazzy or he has much in the way of outlandish character. He’s just a really good wrestler wearing a generic outfit with a basic mask, but he’s already super over with this LA crowd just for heading out there and doing his thing. Angel ends up getting a Moonsault after 15 Minutes, which both nets him a three count and also sends the LA crowd into hysterics. This Pro Wrestling lark is pretty straightforward when you know what you’re doing huh?

WINNER: BLUE ANGEL
RATING: ***1/4

Thoughts: This was a good match between two pros who knew what they were doing. The crowd being so into Angel helped, as they were immediately impressed by his wrestling skills and that gave the bout a fun atmosphere. I think it would be very difficult for these two to wrestle one another and for it not to be at least decent, just because they’re both so proficient at the in-ring aspect of Pro Wrestling and they could both perform the basic Heel/Face characteristics so well. I’m glad Horowitz eventually got his brief run in 1995, as he was slick in the ring and was very selfless for years, so it was nice that he finally got a brief moment to shine

One of the commercials on this cut of the show is for Jaws The Revenge, which is a terrible movie but did at least allow Michael Caine to buy a very nice house, and ultimately that’s what matters most eh?

The Powers Of Pain (The Barbarian & The Warlord) Vs The Bolsheviks (Boris Zhukov & Nikolai Volkoff)

The Powers had left the NWA because they didn’t want to do scaffold matches with The Road Warriors, so they were brought into the WWF as rivals for Demolition, who were the Heel Tag Champs at the time. The Bolsheviks were generic evil Russians, even though Volkoff was actually from Lithuania (nope, Croatia) and Zhukov was from Roanoke, Virginia. The Powers immediately ingratiate themselves to the fans by sprinting down to ring and attacking the Ruskies whilst they try to sing the Soviet National Anthem, and it gets the expected pop. Hindsight has shown that switching the Powers’ Heel and the Demo’s Face was the right call, but The Powers weren’t exactly flopping as babyfaces based off of this, even though it didn’t seem like the most natural alignment for either of them. If this was a game of TEW then they’d probably have the “Better as a Heel” attribute, where they can work babyface but it just makes more sense to have them the other way.

Volkoff does his best to rile up the crowd in the early going by laughing in Barbarian’s face, only to then get easily knocked around, with it having the desired effect of getting the crowd to cheer for The Powers. The Bolsheviks seem totally down with making themselves look foolish in order to get the babyface tandem over, with them bumbling into one another and accidentally hitting each other more than once, with the crowd enjoying it every time. Either LA is a very easy audience to please or The Bolsheviks are good at their job. There’s not a tonne of thrilling wrestling going on, but it works well as showcase for The Powers’ offence and for The Bolsheviks’ character work. The only serious critique I could have is that the match goes on for a bit long at 11 Minutes, as you feel like they miss the peak a little bit and that a snappier contest might have done a more effective job at what they are going for.

We get to see the unusual sight of The Warlord playing babyface in peril during the heat segment, with his selling being just about passable. I can let him off for that a bit as I think he’d basically been a career Heel prior to this, and he still manages to fire up the crowd when he takes the Heels down with a double clothesline and tags in Barbarian. Barbarian’s hot tag could be a bit better, just because the bumping from Zhukov in particular isn’t that snappy. However, when Warlord slams Zhukov so that Barbarian can come off the top with a headbutt for the three count, the crowd loses their minds so it ends up being a successful outing in the end for both teams.

WINNERS: POWERS OF PAIN
RATING: **

Thoughts: The Bolsheviks had a reputation for being an awful team, and in-ring wise they hardly set the world afire here. However, they understood their roles as bumbling annoying Heels and they did a solid job of getting the crowd to cheer for the babyfaces here, so I can’t critique them too strenuously. It was especially impressive in the sense that you could tell from watching the match that neither of The Powers are a natural babyface, with both being more suited to the Heel role, so they needed the Heel team to really work hard to get the crowd to like them, and The Bolsheviks were totally unselfish in that regard. I’m not sure the match quite needed to go 11 Minutes, as they could have told the exact story just as well with 6-8 Minutes instead, but the contest didn’t offend me or anything like that and I actually kind of enjoyed it just because the crowd was having so much fun with it, and ultimately isn’t making the crowd enjoy themselves the whole point with this thing?

Curt Hennig Vs Special Delivery Jones

Hennig had been the World Champ in the AWA so the WWF had been quick to snap him up, with him soon to go on an impressive winning streak that led to the Mr. Perfect gimmick. Jones was an intrepid enhancement guy who would occasionally stumble into being part of a big angle, like when he was Andre The Giant’s partner when Andre had his head shaved. Jones was also part of the first WrestleMania, where sadly for him he got crushed by King Kong Bundy in mere seconds. Hennig is very generous to Jones in the early going here, bumping around and getting outwrestled by him, which makes for some entertaining grappling but it doesn’t really help with making Hennig look like a big star because Jones wasn’t really any kind of pushed commodity during this era and if you wanted Hennig to look like a big deal right from the off you’d have him make relatively short work of Special Delivery.

Hennig eventually clocks Jones with a cheap shot punch and works Jones over, with Jones selling it well and Hennig looking good on offence. They’ve gone for the idea here that Jones getting the better of Hennig in the shine made Hennig mad and now Hennig is turning up the volume as a result, which isn’t the worst idea but it might have worked better if Hennig had done it with a more high ranking opponent, as the crowd is kind of treating this as a cool down match. Hennig continues to cheat in the heat, grabbing the ropes for leverage when he can and tugging on Jones’ trunks on occasion as well. The crowd eventually gets a bit restless and the match feels like it goes on for a bit too long, although the standard of the wrestling itself remains solid and well executed.

Jones eventually no sells getting rammed into the buckle and makes the comeback, as apparently Antiguans have the same hard heads that Samoans do in Pro Wrestling lore. Hennig continues to take some very impressive bumps for Jones, and it’s no surprise his back was thrashed by 1991 after getting thrown around these hard WWF rings like this. Jones looks like he gets a bit tired down the home stretch as his offence is lacking a touch of pizazz, although Hennig compensates for it somewhat by being the human bouncing ball. Jones actually gets a solid near fall from a Power Slam at one stage, at which point Hennig takes a page from his father’s book and takes Jones down with a big clothesline for three after 13 Minutes.

WINNER: CURT HENNIG
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: Hennig didn’t really get himself over here, which could possibly be because he gave Jones a bit too much offence and it made Hennig look like just another face in the crowd rather than the top tier star he would eventually end up becoming. It’s interesting that Owen Hart went out there in a generic masked gimmick and got the crowd going nuts, whilst Hennig went out there with a more fully formed character, and didn’t really get much out of the same crowd. It probably helped that Owen was a babyface doing hot moves, but Hennig didn’t really draw much heat even though he displayed good cockiness and busted out the usual Heel tactics. This is another match that could have benefited from going shorter. A 6 Minute dissection from Hennig following some token offence from Jones would have made Hennig look like a much bigger star and would have probably garnered more of a reaction from the crowd

WWF Title
Champion: Macho Man Randy Savage w/ The Lovely Miss Elizabeth Vs “The Eighth Wonder of the World” Andre The Giant w/ Bobby “The Brain” Heenan

Savage and Hulk Hogan were The Mega Powers at the time and were feuding with Andre and Ted DiBiase, The Megabucks. With Hogan off making movies; Savage was entrusted with being the top star in the promotion, and he did a solid job at it. The crowd utterly detests Andre here and loves Savage, so it feels like a big match between two top stars, which is what you want when the WWF Champion is competing. Heenan goes after Elizabeth to start, which leads to the referee sending Heenan to the back to a big pop from the crowd. Once the match starts; Andre controls most of it, with Savage not really having much of an answer for the big man.

This tended to happen a lot in Savage’s matches with Andre during this period, as he’d spend most of the match selling for the Giant without really getting anywhere. Savage is a good seller, so it’s not like it’s a disaster that he sells for most of this, but it does mean that the audience doesn’t get to see Savage at his high tempo exciting best. It also kind of makes Savage look a bit weak as well that he’s getting whomped so easily in a fair fight. Andre is at least nice enough to cheat a bit by choking Savage with his singlet at one stage, so Savage does at least have some excuse for why Andre is clobbering him with such ease here.

One bonus of doing a match where Savage sells for so much of it is that the crowd is ready and primed for whenever Savage fights back and cheer loudly, even if it’s just Savage getting his boot up when Andre charges at him in the corner. Making Savage climb the mountain against the big scary Giant isn’t the worst story in all honesty, it would just be nice if Savage had been allowed a bit of a shine first before they went straight to Savage getting clattered. Andre does his signature “getting tied up in the ropes” spot at one stage, and the crowd ERUPTS for it.

Getting tied up in the ropes just makes Andre mad and he starts using his main move from this period, blatantly choking his opponent, in order to regain control. Andre even removes the turnbuckle pad at one stage and starts throwing Savage into it. Thankfully the referee missed the pad getting removed, so you can excuse there being no DQ, because arguably the pad could have been dislodged accidentally. Andre ends up accidentally headbutting the unprotected buckle though, which allows Savage to knock Andre down and follow up with the Macho Elbow as the crowd loses its mind. However, Andre gets to kick out of the elbow and rolls out to the floor, where the two wrestlers fight for a double count out after 10 Minutes.

DOUBLE COUNT OUT
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: Bit of a lame finish, but you could at least run the match again after it. As a match it was mostly Andre slowly beating up Savage, which wasn’t terrible because Savage sold well, and it led to the crowd going guano crazy whenever it looked like Savage might start fighting back, so it had that benefit at least. I think Savage probably got beaten up a tad too much here considering he was the WWF Champion at the time. Hogan got wellied by Andre at Mania 3 as well, but he did at least fail with a Body Slam first and the idea was that Hogan tried a big move too soon and it led to him being on the backfoot for the rest of the bout. Here Andre just casually started battering Savage and Savage just didn’t really have an answer for it, which is making your Champ look a bit weak in my opinion, but your own view on that might vary

Gorilla Monsoon is interviewing Bobby Heenan and Rick Rude in the locker room. They have stern words about Jake Roberts and his wife whilst Monsoon tries to wind them up in a funny bit. I like how Gorilla being a former wrestler meant he could stand up to the Heels and they had to tolerate it

Gorilla then interviews Raymond and Jacques Rougeau, and the Rougeau’s are very funny playing insincere Heels who are pretending that they like the USA. This was a lot of fun, and I’m surprised it took them so long to turn these two Heel as they’re both very entertaining buffoons

The Hart Foundation (Bret “The Hitman” Hart & Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart) Vs Les Fabuleux Frères Rougeau (Jacques Rougeau et Raymond Rougeau)

The Harts had gone Face and started feuding with former manager Jimmy Hart, which led to Hart joining up with the Rougeau’s. The Rougeau’s gimmick is that they are French Canadian and secretly look down on the USA but they are pretending that they actually like it there, which just winds the crowd up even further. The Rougeau’s being so smug and pleased with themselves whenever they pull off a hold, move or counter is really funny stuff, as they were a great mid-card Heel team around this period who could do good character work and could usually be assured of giving you a decent bout if they were in there with a good team like The Harts, Bulldogs or Rockers. Anvil pops the crowd big early on by flattening Raymond with a dropkick, with Raymond doing an excellent shocked out of breath sell job for it on the outside.

They milk a decent amount of entertainment by having Jacques stall by trying to shake Bret’s hand so he can unleash a cheap shot, which Bret is of course ready for because he has no time for these shenanigans, with the crowd cheering whenever The Harts put The Rougeau’s in their place, leading to The Rougeau’s dramatically tending to one another for maximum crowd annoyance. Eventually The Rougeau’s cheat to cut off Bret, with Raymond tripping Bret from outside of the ring whilst Jacques takes the ref. Bret sells the heat well whilst The Rougeau’s do a good job at being nefarious Heels who are riling up the crowd. Bret does manage to tag Anvil at one stage, but the referee misses it and that allows the heat segment to continue. Jacques applies an Abdominal Stretch at one stage, and Gorilla of course thinks that it isn’t applied correctly and grumbles about it.

The crowd sticks with Bret whilst he’s getting worked over, even though the heat segment goes on for quite a while. Eventually Bret manages to catch Raymond with an Inverted Atomic Drop and its hot tag Anvil, who runs wild on The Rougeaus as the crowd goes wild. Anvil does kind of chase the Heels around a bit, rather than letting them come to him, so it’s a bit disjointed but the fans still enjoy it. Things break down following that, with Bret getting tagged back in and giving Jacques a Piledriver. However, the referee is distracted by getting Anvil out of the ring and that allows Raymond to cheap shot Bret with an Axe Handle and steal the pin for the three count after 18 Minutes.

WINNERS: ROUGEAUS
RATING: ***

Thoughts: Good match there. There could have possibly been a higher gear for them to kick into, but the cheap finish leaves the door open for rematches and they could have always reached that level in one of those bouts. The Rougeaus Heeled it up really well and The Harts were good babyfaces, so this was solid tag team action and enjoyable stuff for the most part

Randy Savage joins us in the ring and grabs a mic. Savage says that Elizbeth is both scared and hurt following the match earlier due to Andre grabbing her leg during the kerfuffle at the end. Savage is of course very unhappy about this and promises to kick Andre’s butt the next time they go at it. He actually used the word “Ass” in the promo, which you didn’t hear a lot in 1980’s WWF because it was generally a more family friendly product. This was Randy Savage being very intense and angry because someone hurt his woman, and he was unsurprisingly very good at that.

“The Outlaw” Ron Bass Vs Dave Peterson

Bass is an angry Texan with a bullwhip who busted open Brutus Beefcake during the summer of 1988 to start a feud between the two men. Peterson worked for the AWA, NWA and New Japan, but he was seemingly just an enhancement guy when working for the WWF after initially winning a few of his matches. I guess they cooled on him quickly. Bass tries to start a fight with Gorilla Monsoon prior to the bout, leading to Gorilla punching Bass’ hat in response. I’m not sure if that was leading to anything or it was just a quick angle to pop the fans in attendance.

The match itself actually is decent, with Peterson running wild with dropkicks and axe handles to start, with the fans enjoying it. I thought the match wouldn’t have been able to live up to all the pre-match hoo-hah, but it actually made the crowd dislike Bass even more so they can enjoy seeing Peterson beat him up in Gorilla’s stead. Peterson works over the leg of Bass for a bit after that as well, with Bass spending the vast majority of the early stages of the bout getting walloped in some form or another.

Peterson even busts out the 10 punch in the corner at one stage, as this one has been full of crowd pleasing spots and they’ve bitten on all of them. Sadly for Peterson he misses a charge in the corner and that leads to Bass getting a modified version of the Pedigree and that’s enough for the three count after 12 Minutes. That was an interesting move as he basically did the Pedigree without hooking the arms first. It was kind of a Pedigree meets a Piledriver and I don’t think anyone does it anymore.

WINNER: RON BASS
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: I don’t think I’d ever really seen Bass work prior to this, but I thought was quite entertaining as a loud mouth Heel who was too focused on yelling at people and being disagreeable, leading to him spending large swathes of the match on the defensive as a result. Peterson looked solid on offence and the match was a decent outing as a result

The WWF is back at the LA Sports Arena on 17th September 1988. The card will feature the following;
Bad News Brown Vs Junkyard Dog
Hercules Vs Tito Santana
Demolition Vs The British Bulldogs
Honky Tonk Man Vs Ultimate Warrior
Andre The Giant Vs Randy Savage
A pretty stacked card there actually, with all three Champions in action

Grudge Match
“Ravishing” Rick Rude Vs Jake “The Snake” Roberts w/ Damien

Rude had made inappropriate comments to Roberts’ wife, starting off a heated feud between the two. In a funny moment, whilst they scan the crowd looking for attractive women swooning over Rude they find someone sitting there doing knitting, and clearly finding that more interesting than the wrestling going on. There’s also a kid on the hardcam side posing whilst Rude does in another funny moment. The crowd is INTO this one, with them going nuts right from the off when Jake promises to kick Rude’s backside before charging right at him. It’s nice to see some urgency in a Jake match actually, as sometimes he could be a bit lethargic but he’s all business here, with Rude bumping and stooging around well like the good Heel he is.

Jake keeps going for the DDT, with Rude fleeing every time that Jake tries it, which really gets across how dangerous the move is and how desperate Rude is to avoid it. Jake starts limping at one stage, seemingly from hurting his back, and I’m not sure if that’s selling on Jake’s part of if he actually pulled something, which is a testament to how good a seller Jake was I suppose. Things do eventually slow down a bit, with Jake working over Rude’s arm for a bit, with Rude selling that well and desperately trying to find a way to save himself from getting destroyed by a very angry and vengeful Jake The Snake.

Rude eventually manages to cut Rude off with a clothesline and works some heat, although in a nice touch he leaves the arm that Jake has been working over by his side when he does his signature hip swivel in order to show that the arm isn’t just magically better all of a sudden. In another nice touch, Rude tries a few Camel Cutches but his arm means he can’t fully grip it how he’d like, so Jake is able to break out each time and keeps going for the DDT, with Rude desperately fighting it off each time. Rude tries winning by count out following that, knocking Jake off the apron to the floor, but Jake won’t stay down and keeps climbing back in. Rude tries slamming Jake back into the ring, but Jake hangs onto the top rope and lands on top for the three count after 13 Minutes.

WINNER: JAKE ROBERTS
RATING: **3/4

Thoughts: This was a bit slow in the middle for me, but I liked the finish. It gave us a pin-fall, whilst still leaving the door open for further bouts, as Jake only just got the win and was heavily on the defensive when he got it. Notably as well, Jake never managed to deliver the DDT to Rude, so that would be a selling point you could use for the purposes of building a rematch, with Jake saying he might have got the three count but he didn’t feel like he got his true revenge

In Conclusion

This was a decent show overall. Nothing ground breaking, but I’d seek out the Blue Angel Vs Horowitz match if you can find it because it was a lot of fun. The crowd in LA were good for pretty much the entire show and that really elevated things

Brian seemed to REALLY hate the commentary in his review, but I kind of didn’t pay a lot of attention to it so it didn’t ruin things for me especially, but your own tolerance may vary