PDRwrestling Review: Saturday Night’s Main Event #9 (January 1987)

WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event #9
January 3, 1987
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford Civic Center
(Taped on 12/14/1986)

The current WWF Champs were as follows:
World Champion: Hulk Hogan (1/23/1984)
Intercontinental Champion: Randy Savage (2/8/1986)
World Tag Team Champions: The British Bulldogs (4/7/1986)
Women’s Champion: The Fabulous Moolah (7/9/1986)

Orndorff declares that Hulkamania will DIE TONIGHT, but Hulk disagrees! Adrian Adonis wants to dish out some payback on the Hot Rod if you know what I mean! George “The Animal” Steele has a surprise for the Macho Man! Harley Race wants a crazy black man to get down and drink his piss! It’s Saturday Night’s Main Event, BROTHER!

Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Jesse Ventura!

WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff (w/Bobby Heenan) – Cage Match

Due to this match being so anticipated, this show drew a HUGE rating that WWE could only dream of here in 2006. Vince says this is the first cage match ever on broadcast television. To make things even more interesting, we’ve got “Dangerously Crooked Referee” Danny Davis watching on one side of the cage, and the late-great Joey Marella watching the other side of the cage. Going into this match, Hulk is billed as undefeated in cage matches. By the way, both men use “Real American” for their theme music. Onto the match, Orndorff whips Hulk with his own title belt and then throws it aside like it doesn’t even matter. Between moments where he’s stomping the champ, Orndorff makes several attempts to escape out the door. Every time he tries, Hulk is there to pull him back in by his ankles. Now Orndorff tries to climb out, but Hulk pulls him back in by his hair! He rams Orndorff’s head into the cage a whole bunch as well! Hulk takes his headband and chokes on Orndorff with it. Not that it matters since it’s in a cage and its no-DQ. Hulk attempts his first try at escape by climbing out, but Orndorff pulls him down. He punishes Hulk some more, but then he misses a pair of elbows and Hulk is STANDING! He destroys Orndorff and tries to go out the door, but evil ref Danny Davis had the door locked. He won’t unlock it either, so the other ref Joey Marella comes over to help, but it’s too late because Orndorff is there to keep Hogan in the ring. Both men slam each other’s face into the cage to put them on their butts. Now they both try to escape on opposite sides of the cage and they reach the floor at the same time. Davis says Orndorff won, but Marella says Hogan won. Hulk comes over to nail Danny Davis, but Orndorff makes the save and knees Hogan in the back. Howard Finkel calls the match a tie, so the match continues. Orndorff drives Hulk’s head into the steel a few times before re-entering the cage so they can finish the match. Orndorff keeps up his usual offense of elbow drops and knee drops before Hogan HULKS UP! He tosses Orndorff into the cage a couple times and hits the LEGDROP, but Heenan comes in the cage to stop Hogan from climbing out. Hulk kicks him away and stops Orndorff from climbing out and gives him an atomic drop. He throws Heenan into the cage and then climbs out to retain his title. (Total Time= 13:03) Afterwards, Hogan goes back in the cage and beats Heenan out of the ring so he can pose! Like some people, I’m not a big fan of this match. *½

WWF Intercontinental Champion Randy Savage (w/Elizabeth) vs. George “The Animal” Steele

This feud between Savage and Steele has been off and on for an ENTIRE year now. Steele brings his own action figure with him out to the ring and gives it to Elizabeth. Ventura ~ “THAT’S the big surprise?!” Steele chases Savage away and gives it to Elizabeth. Savage takes it away from her and throws it out of the ring. That causes Steele to give chase and choke-lift Savage into the air! He follows up with a pair of slams and motions for his big surprise. Savage attacks from behind and slams Steele to the mat to set up for the MACHO ELBOW DROP, but wait a minute! Is that the Alan Parsons Project I hear? Yes it is! That could only mean one thing! Here comes Ricky Steamboat! Savage is FREAKING OUT, man! Steele slams Savage off the top and throws him out to the floor and onto the steps. Ouch! Steele goes out and picks up Elizabeth to take her to the back. Steele should definitely be counted out by now. He was gone for two minutes while Steamboat tried to get in the ring and rip Savage apart! Steele slams Savage’s head into the buckle and then eats the turnbuckle pad! He rakes Savage’s face with the stuffing and then does it again after he eats another turnbuckle. Steele grabs a headlock, but then Savage shoves him off into the ringpost. Ventura is still perplexed as to why Steele carried Elizabeth to the back. They go back and forth for a bit. Steele sneaks in a foreign object and jabs Savage in the throat with it. The ref tries to get it away from him, and he gets shoved out. That allows Savage to grab the ring bell and nail Steele from behind. That’ll do it. (8:03) Savage wants to attack after the bell, but Steamboat won’t let that happen and runs down for the save. The match was terrible, but it really wasn’t about the match anyways. CRAP

King Harley Race (w/Bobby Heenan) vs. Junkyard Dog

In the summer of 1986, Race won the KotR tournament back when it meant absolutely nothing and pronounced himself as the “king of wrestling”. I’m going to be honest; he’s not as majestic as King Booker because he’s the actual “king of the world”. Onto JYD, who says he doesn’t get down on his knees for NO man! By the way, Danny Davis is the referee. Race knocks JYD down with a left jab and drops an elbow for 1, 2, NO! Race get in his high knee and a knee drop for 1, 2, NO! JYD fights back and tosses Race shoulder-first into the ringpost. JYD connects with a headbutt, but then Davis gets in his face and allows Race to come back and deliver the BELLY-TO-BELLY SUPLEX. That’s not enough though as Race lands his falling headbutt, but JYD is BLACK so he no-sells! JYD comes back with headbutts and tosses Race out to the floor. JYD puts on the crown and robe and prances around in the ring. Heenan gets PISSED OFF and runs in the ring and nails JYD from behind. No-sell and Heenan gets nailed. Wow! Heenan did a back flip sell! That allows Race to come off the top and level JYD with an elbow to the shoulder. Race and Heenan begin to double-team to cause a DQ win for JYD. (3:53) They continue the beatdown way after the bell. Just as JYD tries to lunge at Race, Danny Davis pulls him back. JYD pulls him off of him and headbutts Davis to the mat. To show he’s a great babyface, he even picks Davis up and sets him up in the corner. ½*

In the back, Heenan convinces Orndorff that he is the World Heavyweight Champion.

Adrian Adonis (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Roddy Piper

After weeks of being humiliated by Adonis, Piper felt the need to whack him in the arm with a crutch and put him out of action for three months. This is the return match. Piper throws his kilt in Adonis’ face and takes over from there. He works the recently-injured arm, but then Piper starts to talk too much and Adonis pops him in the face. His offense ends early as Piper blocks a punch and puts Adonis down. However, Adonis is able to reverse a whip to hook on GOOD NIGHT IRENE, but Piper escapes by falling out to the floor. They brawl out on the floor until Piper gets sprayed in the eyes by Adonis’ spray can of perfume! He crawls back in the ring while Piper is staggering around blinded out on the floor to cause him to get counted out. (3:48) This would set up Piper’s “retirement” match for Wrestlemania 3 so that he could go to Hollywood and make great films like Immortal Combat! ½*

Mean Gene is standing by with the Hulkster! He says he’s not worried about the footage, because he won NO MATTER WHAT!

Jimmy Jack Funk vs. Blackjack Mulligan

I bet Mulligan is glad to out of that Machine mask! This would be his last big run in the WWF. As for Jimmy Jack Funk, you may know him better as Jesse Barr who was a super-heel and then a mega-face in Florida! Quick time-killer squash match as Mulligan puts Funk away with a JUMPING BACK ELBOW for the win. (2:30) After the match, Mulligan tries to hang Funk with his bullrope! Hey, it’s 1am in the morning. No one is watching anyway, so why not try to hang a guy. CRAP

And Vince & Jesse wrap up the show!

The 411: Well as you can plainly see, there is nothing wrestling-wise that is worth your time. But if you like Wrestlemania 3 and alot of people do including myself, then you might enjoy watching some of the upper mid-card/mid-card feuds begin to take form on this show. Other than that, I'm going with thumbs down for SNME #9.
Final Score:  5.0   [ Not So Good ]