SNME times two!
More bite-sized recappery follows!
SNME #27 (7/90)
We've started getting into the heavily "themed" SNME episodes, which are hilarious for all the wrong reasons. I love how all of the promos through the night tie into the theme, which leads to some really awkward moments. This one is the "Wild Kingdom" episode, where Alfred Hayes and Gene Okerlund go on an "African Safari" and bump into various wrestlers being goofy. Gotta love the announcers randomly stumbling across the Bushwackers, for example, strutting down a set of train tracks as if it's the most natural place in the world for them to pop up. This is far funnier (mostly unintentionally) than it sounds, if you've never seen it.
-Warrior vs. Rude is the opening match. This feud goes to show how great Rude was, because this was a really enjoyable match, even though Warrior did next to nothing, except run around like a lunatic. There's a stretch! Heenan took more bumps than he did, actually. There was one truly bizarre bit that I don't recall ever seeing before in wrestling. Rude locked Warrior in a sleeper and instead of doing the usual triple arm drop thing to see if he was conscious, the ref checked his leg instead. Even Jesse Ventura on commentary was confused by that.
-They run a Hogan "tribute" video with an orchestral version of Real American that I have to track down online, if possible. This is his first appearance after Earthquake squashed him on the Brother Love show, so the video was really pushing a possible retirement. It ends with an absurdly melodramatic shot of an empty locker with all of Hogan's gear in it. Cheesy, but well produced.
-Demos versus Rockers was really good. Could have done without Crush stinking up my world, but he actually wasn't too bad here. Michaels, by this point, is really starting to break out. In hindsight, it's easy to see that being in a team was anchoring him down. I guess I'm guilty of a bit of hyperbole there. It's not like Janetty was some great albatross keeping him from the spotlight. Had they given him the hard HBK push here I don't know that it would have gone over, but you tell that he's almost at that spot.
-Hennig/Santana was awesome. Hennig's bumping in this match is ridiculous even for him. Santana would pretty much just look at him and he'd take his exaggerated backflip bump and land on his head. Tito is one of the lost great workers of the 80s for the WWF. People have really forgotten how good he was back in the day. He didn't get to show it much by this point, but he could definitely still go. This was given a bit more time than you'd usually get out of SNME matches, so both guys got to get in a good amount of offense. The ref is bumped and Tito gets two visual falls and a submission while he's down, so they really protected him here. Crowd went bonkers for it as well. When Perfect squeaked out with a quick (but clean) rollup win, the crowd lost it. Great bit of storytelling and a good example of what a hot crowd adds to the viewer at home.
-Final match is Kerry Von Erich's debut versus Buddy Rose. Rose was always fat, but he's just ridiculous looking here. Practically round. This is pre-Blow Away diet, since it's not mentioned at all. Tornado looked pretty good, but Rose bumped around like a freak for him so even if he was in zombie mode this would have been okay. I've been watching a bunch of post-accident KVE recently and I always find it amazing that, for the most part, it was impossible to tell that he was wrestling on a prosthetic foot. He's a bit ginger on it from time to time, but it's mostly unnoticeable 95% of the time.
Overall, this was one of the better SNME shows from top to bottom. Let's just say that when I got the full run, I discovered quickly that I remembered them far more fondly than I should have. There's usually at least one good match/angle per show, but there's a whole lot of filler as well. Nothing here made me want to shut off the DVD, which is several steps up from the last few episodes that I've watched.
SNME #28 (10/90)
This is the Oktoberfest episode. Oy. Someone was on some good drugs when they came up with the idea for these themed shows. I think this is the last of them, though. Basically, everyone who isn't involved in a match is dressed in their Bavarian finest and partying their hearts out. It's Genius, Akeem/Slick, Bushwackers, Hart Foundation, Orient Express/Fuji, Duggan, Okerlund and Al Hayes (who is hilarious here, as he misses all of his cues because he's getting "drunk" during the course of the show).
-Road Warriors & Warrior vs Demolition was a dream match to me when I was 13, but yeah...it didn't age well at all. They basically bury Demolition here. LOD weren't even involved all that much. They really FUBAR'ed that feud big time. I know you can't just abandon the Harts at this point, but having them in the mix totally blew what could and should have beenone of the bigger feuds of the early 90s. The prematch interview with Warrior/LOD is hall of fame worthy, though, as they try to work in all the lame Oktoberfest references. It ends with Warrior popping up out of nowhere and screaming BLITZKRIEG over and over. Ah...crazy people. Gotta love 'em.
-Savage vs Dusty was just there to further the angle with DiBiase and Rhodes. Dustin is involved here, as DiBiase buys out the entire front row during the match, but Dustin won't sell out! The drama! This ends with Dustin taking one hell of an ass kicking by 1990 WWF standards, including doing a really rare blade job after DiBiase whacks him with a wooden chair. Dusty is great in these angles, of course, as he lays across Dustin to shield him and is just screaming "No!" over and over again as Dustin is laying there unconscious.
-Hogan/Tugboat vs Rhythm & Blues was pretty much what you'd expect. Hot crowd helped cover some atrocious wrestling. 'Quake and Bravo eventually get involved. Tugboat goes down after one weak guitar shot. It then takes five guys to subdue Hogan. Heh. 'Quake is about to hit his finisher, but Tugger makes the save.
-Slaughter squashes Koko. Not good at all. This angle was truly tasteless, which isn't something that I find myself saying about wrestling all that often. I'm not one of those thin skinned people who take offense to everything out there, but this was pretty low. I remember the Iraq stuff being much more tame than it actually started out as. Postmatch, they hype the upcoming Slaughter/Volkoff feud. Joy.
-Tornado versus Haku would have been a fun match, had it gone over three minutes. Even ignoring all of the stories you hear about Haku that show how much of a total badass he is, it's pretty easy to tell just by watching him work. The guy was a beast when they let him. I'm surprised that he was never a bigger star in the WWF during this time period.
-I failed to mention the skits throughout the show. We get the Bushwackers at a cheese factory, just so they can do 25 bad "cut the cheese" puns in two minutes. There was also a sausage stuffing contest (at which point Genius was referred to as the "Master sausage stuffer." I'm surprised they didn't work in a Pat Patterson joke in there somewhere!), which I'm sure Bret fondly remembers as one of his finest wrestling moments. This eventually leads to a food fight with everyone, of course. If nothing else, it looks like everyone was having a blast, even doing retarded shit like this.
Overall, this was several steps down from the prior episode. The angle with Dustin was cool, but everything else is skippable, unless you're specifically looking for the inspired random goofiness that 1990 WWF serves up in spades...
SNME #27 (7/90)
We've started getting into the heavily "themed" SNME episodes, which are hilarious for all the wrong reasons. I love how all of the promos through the night tie into the theme, which leads to some really awkward moments. This one is the "Wild Kingdom" episode, where Alfred Hayes and Gene Okerlund go on an "African Safari" and bump into various wrestlers being goofy. Gotta love the announcers randomly stumbling across the Bushwackers, for example, strutting down a set of train tracks as if it's the most natural place in the world for them to pop up. This is far funnier (mostly unintentionally) than it sounds, if you've never seen it.
-Warrior vs. Rude is the opening match. This feud goes to show how great Rude was, because this was a really enjoyable match, even though Warrior did next to nothing, except run around like a lunatic. There's a stretch! Heenan took more bumps than he did, actually. There was one truly bizarre bit that I don't recall ever seeing before in wrestling. Rude locked Warrior in a sleeper and instead of doing the usual triple arm drop thing to see if he was conscious, the ref checked his leg instead. Even Jesse Ventura on commentary was confused by that.
-They run a Hogan "tribute" video with an orchestral version of Real American that I have to track down online, if possible. This is his first appearance after Earthquake squashed him on the Brother Love show, so the video was really pushing a possible retirement. It ends with an absurdly melodramatic shot of an empty locker with all of Hogan's gear in it. Cheesy, but well produced.
-Demos versus Rockers was really good. Could have done without Crush stinking up my world, but he actually wasn't too bad here. Michaels, by this point, is really starting to break out. In hindsight, it's easy to see that being in a team was anchoring him down. I guess I'm guilty of a bit of hyperbole there. It's not like Janetty was some great albatross keeping him from the spotlight. Had they given him the hard HBK push here I don't know that it would have gone over, but you tell that he's almost at that spot.
-Hennig/Santana was awesome. Hennig's bumping in this match is ridiculous even for him. Santana would pretty much just look at him and he'd take his exaggerated backflip bump and land on his head. Tito is one of the lost great workers of the 80s for the WWF. People have really forgotten how good he was back in the day. He didn't get to show it much by this point, but he could definitely still go. This was given a bit more time than you'd usually get out of SNME matches, so both guys got to get in a good amount of offense. The ref is bumped and Tito gets two visual falls and a submission while he's down, so they really protected him here. Crowd went bonkers for it as well. When Perfect squeaked out with a quick (but clean) rollup win, the crowd lost it. Great bit of storytelling and a good example of what a hot crowd adds to the viewer at home.
-Final match is Kerry Von Erich's debut versus Buddy Rose. Rose was always fat, but he's just ridiculous looking here. Practically round. This is pre-Blow Away diet, since it's not mentioned at all. Tornado looked pretty good, but Rose bumped around like a freak for him so even if he was in zombie mode this would have been okay. I've been watching a bunch of post-accident KVE recently and I always find it amazing that, for the most part, it was impossible to tell that he was wrestling on a prosthetic foot. He's a bit ginger on it from time to time, but it's mostly unnoticeable 95% of the time.
Overall, this was one of the better SNME shows from top to bottom. Let's just say that when I got the full run, I discovered quickly that I remembered them far more fondly than I should have. There's usually at least one good match/angle per show, but there's a whole lot of filler as well. Nothing here made me want to shut off the DVD, which is several steps up from the last few episodes that I've watched.
SNME #28 (10/90)
This is the Oktoberfest episode. Oy. Someone was on some good drugs when they came up with the idea for these themed shows. I think this is the last of them, though. Basically, everyone who isn't involved in a match is dressed in their Bavarian finest and partying their hearts out. It's Genius, Akeem/Slick, Bushwackers, Hart Foundation, Orient Express/Fuji, Duggan, Okerlund and Al Hayes (who is hilarious here, as he misses all of his cues because he's getting "drunk" during the course of the show).
-Road Warriors & Warrior vs Demolition was a dream match to me when I was 13, but yeah...it didn't age well at all. They basically bury Demolition here. LOD weren't even involved all that much. They really FUBAR'ed that feud big time. I know you can't just abandon the Harts at this point, but having them in the mix totally blew what could and should have beenone of the bigger feuds of the early 90s. The prematch interview with Warrior/LOD is hall of fame worthy, though, as they try to work in all the lame Oktoberfest references. It ends with Warrior popping up out of nowhere and screaming BLITZKRIEG over and over. Ah...crazy people. Gotta love 'em.
-Savage vs Dusty was just there to further the angle with DiBiase and Rhodes. Dustin is involved here, as DiBiase buys out the entire front row during the match, but Dustin won't sell out! The drama! This ends with Dustin taking one hell of an ass kicking by 1990 WWF standards, including doing a really rare blade job after DiBiase whacks him with a wooden chair. Dusty is great in these angles, of course, as he lays across Dustin to shield him and is just screaming "No!" over and over again as Dustin is laying there unconscious.
-Hogan/Tugboat vs Rhythm & Blues was pretty much what you'd expect. Hot crowd helped cover some atrocious wrestling. 'Quake and Bravo eventually get involved. Tugboat goes down after one weak guitar shot. It then takes five guys to subdue Hogan. Heh. 'Quake is about to hit his finisher, but Tugger makes the save.
-Slaughter squashes Koko. Not good at all. This angle was truly tasteless, which isn't something that I find myself saying about wrestling all that often. I'm not one of those thin skinned people who take offense to everything out there, but this was pretty low. I remember the Iraq stuff being much more tame than it actually started out as. Postmatch, they hype the upcoming Slaughter/Volkoff feud. Joy.
-Tornado versus Haku would have been a fun match, had it gone over three minutes. Even ignoring all of the stories you hear about Haku that show how much of a total badass he is, it's pretty easy to tell just by watching him work. The guy was a beast when they let him. I'm surprised that he was never a bigger star in the WWF during this time period.
-I failed to mention the skits throughout the show. We get the Bushwackers at a cheese factory, just so they can do 25 bad "cut the cheese" puns in two minutes. There was also a sausage stuffing contest (at which point Genius was referred to as the "Master sausage stuffer." I'm surprised they didn't work in a Pat Patterson joke in there somewhere!), which I'm sure Bret fondly remembers as one of his finest wrestling moments. This eventually leads to a food fight with everyone, of course. If nothing else, it looks like everyone was having a blast, even doing retarded shit like this.
Overall, this was several steps down from the prior episode. The angle with Dustin was cool, but everything else is skippable, unless you're specifically looking for the inspired random goofiness that 1990 WWF serves up in spades...
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