The SmarK Rant for WWF in MSG – 01.15.90

The SmarK Rant for WWF in MSG – 01.15.90

Originally written 09.03.25

1990 week continues with the first MSG show of 1990!

Taped from Madison Square Garden

Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon & Hillbilly Jim

The Genius v. Jim Neidhart

Poffo prances and minces to annoy the Anvil and demonstrates some cartwheels, and then claims a hairpull off the lockup. Anvil shoves him down again so he retreats to the corner to do some MATH and ponder his next move. And Anvil immediately drops him on his face. So Genius bails to the floor and makes the mistake of pointing to his head to indicate intelligence, and I don’t have to tell YOU, reader, what a bad idea that is. And indeed he goes back in with another cartwheel, and Anvil hits him in the face with a forearm and sends him to the floor again. More stalling leads to a foot race, and Genius catches him with a dropkick on the way in to take over. We get lots of prancing and mincing to celebrate and he gets some shots and eyerakes on Neidhart. Anvil comes back with a crossbody for two and Genius beats him down again, but Neidhart hits him with an atomic drop, thus hampering his future promenade skills. Genius tries a moonsault and hits the knees, and Anvil gives him a hair slam and throws him around the ring, but he misses a blind charge and Genius retreats to the floor again. So Neidhart chases, but Mr. Perfect appears out of nowhere, nails Anvil on the way by, and rolls him back in for Genius to get the pin at 9:30. GENIUS WINS! He really is the smartest man alive! Also a very nice gesture from Mr. Perfect to help his manager win. Sadly the match was…not good. *

The Powers of Pain v. The Rockers

Nearing the end for the Powers as they were about to be split up and divided amongst new managers. Shawn gets bounced around by Barbarian to start, but Marty comes in with a flying bodypress for two and the Rockers go to work on his arm. Double clothesline puts Barbarian on the floor, so it’s over to the Warlord and they manage to double-team him as well, as Marty dropkicks him into a rana from Shawn. Marty tries his own rana, but Warlord powerbombs him and goes to work with the clubbing forearms. Backdrop gets two. And then Warlord tosses him into the air for a faceplant that also gets two. Barbarian with a KICK OF FEAR to put Marty on the floor for some punishment from Fuji, as he does the hilarious “hitting him in the ribs with his cane” rib. Classic! Back in, Barbarian with a clothesline and Marty does the 180 sell for two. Marty fights back with a fistdrop off the middle rope, but he can’t get to the corner so he tries it again and Barbarian catches him with a powerslam. So Barbarian goes up and misses the flying elbow and it’s hot tag Shawn. He runs wild and a sunset flip gets two. Bodypress gets two on Warlord and PANDEMONIUM IS RUNNING WILD, allowing Fuji to trip up Shawn and Barbarian drops an elbow for the pin at 10:00. Classic David v. Goliath match, except in Vince’s world Goliath goes over. Gotta keep Goliath strong, PAL. Still easily the best match that the Powers ever had, by far. ***3/4. This was the Marty Jannetty show.

Paul Roma v. Al Perez

Amazingly, Roma gets the entrance here and Perez is “in the ring to my left”. Roma probably needed a little extra time to finish injecting himself with roids, based on his look here. Perez at least looks like a normal person most of the time. They trade armdrags and Roma wins that battle, with Perez retreating to the floor. Back in, Roma goes back to the arm and Perez gets in his face, so Roma hangs him in the Tree of Woe and puts the boots to him. What, did he say “Jim Powers carried the Young Stallions” or something? Perez hits him with a cheapshot and drops a knee on him to take over, and that gets two. To the chinlock, but Roma cradles for two. Backslide gets two. Perez stops to chat with the ref and Roma has nothing, looking like he’s completely blown up and sucking wind in the corner. Blind charge misses as Roma kind of gets a boot up but he’s still needing an oxygen tank and even Gorilla and Hillbilly are noticing and kind of gently riffing on him. So Perez nicely goes to a neck vice to give him a chance to do something, but he makes the comeback and he’s still got nothing but punches. Roma goes up with a top rope elbow and suplex, and then he goes up again with a flying bodypress, which Perez rolls through for the pin at 11:22. As usual, Perez is a good worker who just had no personality in the ring. I don’t know what was up with Roma here, he looked like he was gonna die of exhaustion at one point. *1/2

WWF title: Hulk Hogan v. Mr. Perfect

As noted by the Genius here, any idiot can be a Hulkamaniac and it doesn’t require any brain power, whereas smart people pay tribute to Mr. Perfect. SCIENTIFIC PROOF. His name is literally the Genius so you have to believe him! If you cheer for Hogan, you’re a moron. Hulk tosses him into the corner and chases Perfect to the floor before beating up the Genius, because he’s obviously jealous of his intellect and mad about the countout thing. Meanwhile Perfect gets caught in the ropes and Hulk punches him in the head instead of trying to save him from choking to death. Perfect escapes and Hulk elbows him over the top and then goes out to beat up the Genius again, because he’s scared of hearing the truth about himself. Perfect bumps out of the corner and finally gets some offense with a clothesline before choking him out on the ropes. But then they head to the floor and Hulk sends him into the post, with no pushback from the referee at all because we know he’s in Hogan’s back pocket. So Perfect comes back with an eyepoke and goes to the sleeper. Hogan is going to sleep just like people do during his boring and repetitive matches, but Hulk fights up just like people get up and go to the bathroom during his matches. Perfect goes up and Hulk crotches him a few times, and again zero pushback from the paid off referee, and Hulk hits him with an atomic drop as Perfect flies all over the ring until Hulk misses an elbow. NOW YOU’RE GONNA SEE A PERFECTPLEX, but the ref deliberately counts slow to favor Hulk and it only gets two. This is disgusting. Hulk comes back and puts Perfect on the floor with the big boot and they brawl on the floor, where Hulk grabs a chair out of frustration and Perfect has no choice but to use a foreign object to counter Hulk’s cheating nonsense. And Hulk is knocked out cold on the floor but comes back in and steals Perfect’s brass knuckles. THOSE ARE HIS PERSONAL PROPERTY, YOU MONSTER! But then Hulk uses them and this idiot ref finally does his job and calls for the DQ at 14:22, awarding the match to Mr. Perfect as the rightful winner and uncrowned WWF champion. Anyway the match was pretty good. ***1/4

Meanwhile, Ted Dibiase has learned that Jake Roberts will now be getting a shot of the Million Dollar Belt tonight, which is some bullshit because it’s Dibiase’s property!

Meanwhile, we learn that Rhythm & Blues will be facing the interesting tag team of Jimmy Snuka and Rugged Ronnie Garvin.

Akeem v. Bret Hart

Someone at ringside actually gives Bret a bouquet of posies on the way by. I bet Julie got pretty mad at home when she heard. Akeem wins the lockup battle while Hillbilly goes into a whole wacky tangent about his granny, impressively staying in character while doing a rambling story. Akeem gets a bearhug and Bret bites him on the nose to break and sends him to the floor for a fight out there. Akeem accidentally punches the post and Bret goes work on the hand back in the ring, using some early examples of SMALL JOINT MANIPULATION back in 1990. Jim notes that really the only thing that needs to happen is Akeem falling on top of you to end it. Keep that in mind for later. Akeem pounds on him and chokes him out on the ropes, but he notably hasn’t been very funky here. Has Akeem gone woke now too? Akeem drops an elbow for two, moving at a pace charitably called “glacial”, and he uses the clubbing forearms in the corner. Bret makes the comeback and runs him into the turnbuckles to set up a clothesline for two. Bret trips him up with a schoolboy for two but the 102 year old ref can’t count in time. Sunset flip is countered with a butt splash, however, and that finishes at 8:32. Hillbilly Jim was right about the finish! *. Also, apparently Cowboy Bob Orton was supposed to return to the WWF and face Bret here, but he no-showed and Akeem took his place. I’d be interested to know what his role would have been in 1990.

Rhythm & Blues v. Superfly Snuka & Rugged Ronnie Garvin

This is your standard merger of two midcard feuds but MAN that babyface team is kind of wild. I feel like we as a society gave up too early on that one. Honky gets some shots on Snuka to start, but Jimmy hits him with the chops and atomic drop. I know there’s the whole meme of Rick Rude selling atomic drops, but I feel like Honky deserves more love for how he did it as well. That was a man where you knew his tailbone was in distress. Snuka misses a blind charge and Honky goes to work on him with a knee RIGHT TO THE BREAD BASKET. Hammer comes in, loaded for bear with the Hartbreaker guard, so Ronnie comes in and beats on him with chops. Valentine wants to do a Flair Flop, so Ronnie holds him up and headbutts him before letting him drop. That gets two. Garvin with the sleeper, but he lets it go and gives us a Garvin Stomp to set up the leglock. But Valentine escapes that attempt and it’s back to Honky for some double-team elbows that get two. Snuka comes back in and works the arm while Gorilla notes that there are some words that are not in the vocabulary of Superfly and he just doesn’t understand them Yeah, like “Please don’t murder me, I’m your girlfriend!” Garvin with a jackknife cradle on Honky for two, but Hammer comes in and chops Garvin down before loading up the Hartbreaker and getting the figure-four. But Garvin has the HAMMER JAMMER to counter-act it, so he no-sells it and makes faces at Greg in a funny spot, and then cradles for two. Back to Snuka, who chops Valentine down, but the heels work him over and Snuka misses a bodypress out of the corner and lands on his face. Honky puts him on the floor for a slam and they work him over as this match is hitting the wall rapidly. Thankfully Garvin gets a hot tag and everyone brawls as Garvin backslides Valentine for two. But then the babyfaces work Valentine over in the corner and Garvin gets a sunset flip for two. Oh my god are we doing a 20:00 draw? So the heels trap Garvin in the corner and steal the Hammer Jammer, which allows Valentine the chance to drop elbows on him and sets up the figure-four with no protection this time! Superfly breaks that up, but Valentine tries again, and Garvin cradles for two. Valentine goes to the top for no adequately explored reason and Garvin slams him off and then wisely pulls off Greg’s shinguard and applies the leglock, at which point the bell rings for the draw at 19:30. Why would you book these four to do a DRAW? This was fine but just kept dragging on way too long and never got to the point. **

NEXT MONTH: Tito Santana! Rick Martel v. The Red Rooster! Rugged Ron Garvin v. Earthquake! Bad News Brown v. Superfly Snuka! Akeem v. Dusty Rhodes! The Powers of Pain & Mr. Fuji v. The Rockers & Hackaw Jim Duggan! Hulk Hogan v. Mr. Perfect & The Genius in a match where the WWF title is on the line! Holy shit that show sounds atrocious, although I guess the Dusty v. Akeem match is pretty famous as a meme. Also I know that the main event was changed to a straight tag team match before the show, too.

Million Dollar title: Ted Dibiase v. Jake Roberts

Jake works a headlock to start while Hillbilly thinks that Virgil might lose his job if Dibiase loses the belt. He could be back working at Burger King! And then he further notes that KFC wouldn’t hire him “because he’d eat up all the profits”. WHOA THERE, Hillbilly. Dibiase escapes the headlock and Jake puts him down with a clothesline for two and goes back to the headlock again. Jake sets up for the DDT, but Dibiase drops him on his neck and goes to work on it. Like, I’ve SEEN these two guys have great matches in Mid-South, I just don’t get why pairing them up in the WWF resulted in negative chemistry like this. I have literally never seen them have a good match together in this endless feud. Dibiase puts the boots to him in the corner and drops knees. Piledriver as Hillbilly notes “He’s bought most everything he’s ever had in his life.” Yes? And? Dibiase gets two and goes to work on the neck again with a rear chinlock. He switches to a facelock and Jake powers out of that and tries another DDT, but Dibiase grabs the top rope and blocks it as Jake collapses in pain again. Dibiase with a neckbreaker for two. Powerslam gets two. This sets up the Million Dollar Dream, but Jake quickly gets to the ropes to break it and they fight to the floor. Back in, Dibiase misses the middle rope elbow and Jake FINALLY makes a damn comeback at 18:00 into the match, with a backdrop out of the corner. Dibiase tries to run away and Jake catches him with the short clothesline for two as Dibiase tries to run away again. Back in, Jake works the back with a backbreaker and Dibiase runs away for a fourth time, but Jake sends him into the ring again, and this time Virgil attacks and takes a beating for his boss until Jake gets counted out at 20:30. Jake doesn’t realize the situation and comes in with the DDT, but then the ref calls for the bell late and they make the announcement while Jake’s music is playing. Twenty minutes for THAT finish? *1/2

The Rockers managed to do a miracle carry job on the Powers of Pain here, but there’s nothing else really worth your time. Especially take a pass on the main event.