Dark Pegasus Video Review: PrimeTime Wrestling (08.03.87)

PrimeTime Wrestling (08.03.87) by J.D. Dunn August 3, 1987 Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan (whose sequined jacket is way too distracting for TV). Ravishing Rick Rude vs. Jerry Allen. This is from MSG. Rude still has a noticeable Minnesota accent at this point. He was already a member of the Heenan Family, but Brain isn’t here tonight. Rude misses a wild swing and goes over the top rope. Allen does well until he goes for a crossbody and gets caught with a rib breaker. We take a break and come back to Rude posing. He busts out the top-rope fistdrop but doesn’t take the pin. Instead, he locks in a nerve pinch. Should have quit while he was ahead. He hits a few snap suplexes, but Allen reverses a third one. Allen stops short on a dropkick attempt and hiptosses Rude out of the corner. Allen hits a monkeyflip, but Rude counters another one to an atomic drop and finishes with a Canadian Backbreaker at 7:59. Rude didn’t really have enough of a grasp on pacing to keep it interesting at that point. A ton of matches with Jake Roberts would solve that problem, though. *1/4 Update with Craig DeGeorge. The late Sherri Martel captures the WWF Women’s Title from the late Fabulous Moolah. The Million Dollar Man bribes a hotel clerk to kick a couple out of the honeymoon suite so he and Virgil can have it. Ron Bass talks about his intimate relationship with “Miss Betsy” (his whip). Outback Jack vs. Johnny K-9. From Toronto. Canine. How appropriate because this match is a total dog. Ha! Jack does a lot of clubberin’ until he misses an elbowdrop. Then, Johnny does a lot of clubberin’ until *he* misses an elbowdrop. Oooh. Symmetry. Outback Jack finishes with a Boomerang at 3:10. 1/4* Heenan swears up and down that he’s already signed Bam Bam Bigelow. The Snake Pit Jake’s guest is Macho Man Randy Savage. Much like Dennis Miller’s old HBO show, the monologue is vastly superior to the interview segment. Jake tries to stir things up between Savage and Honky Tonk Man. See, Honky smashed Jake over the head with his guitar and injured his vertebrae, so it’s kind of cool to see Jake trying to sick other guys on Honky. Of course, four years later, these two would try to kill each other. Brutus Beefcake vs. Johnny V. From Boston. Johnny used to manage Beefcake as part of the Dream Team before they kicked him out and replaced him with Dino Bravo. Beefcake got some revenge, clipping Johnny’s hair. Johnny attacks from behind and chokes Beefcake down. Beefcake fights back and slams Johnny’s face into the mat. Beefer starts dropping fists and elbows and puts Johnny out with the sleeper at 3:26. This time, Beefcake spraypaints Johnny orange. * Dino Bravo (w/Johnny V) vs. Brady Boone. From MSG. Boone, who trained under Verne Gagne, would go on to be known as Battle Kat. He’s a spiffy high-flyer and well ahead of his time. He does a back handspring and hits Bravo with a dropkick to clear him out of the ring. He ducks a Bravo swing and atomic drops Bravo into the corner. Unfortunately, he climbs up to do the enemy pummel and gets atomic dropped. Bravo kills time with a bearhug as we go to break. Boone fights out of it but misses a flying crossbody. Bravo tosses him to the floor where Johnny V slams him on the concrete. This goes on for a while. Boone avoids a charge and hits a spin kick. The monkeyflip misses, and Bravo finishes with the side suplex at 11:33. This wasn’t the kind of extended squash that was extended because Boone got in a lot of offense. It was the kind that was extended because Bravo and Johnny V stalled a lot. Boone would go on to play Battle Kat, as I said, but that didn’t work out, so he went to WCW where he became – Fire Cat. Last I saw of him in the ring he was a referee (and not a very good one) in WCW. Sadly, he died in an auto accident in 1998. ** The Hart Foundation take credit for the popularity of hot pink – and the letter “H.” Clips of Brain trying to convince everyone that his neck was injured. Gorilla presents him with a Gold Brick. Get it?!? Nikolai Volkoff vs. Tito Santana. JIP from MSG. Santana tries to wrestle. Silly wabbit. Nikolai goes to his throat and chokelifts him. Tito falls to the floor. Back in, Volkoff grinds him down with a bearhug. He hits Tito with a clothesline, but Tito is in the ropes. Tito suddenly hits the flying forearm out of nowhere and gets the win at 7:07. Tito got one move in, which means the match sucked something fierce. * WWF Tag Team Titles: The Hart Foundation (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Junkyard Dog & Rick Martel. I believe Tom Zenk just walked out on the Fed, so JYD is most likely an emergency replacement. Martel clears the ring early to a big pop. He blocks a sunset flip by the Hitman and gets two. Bret bails and gets some advice from Jimmy Hart while JYD and Anvil hop in. JYD rolls Anvil up for two, so Anvil TAKES DOWN THE STRAPS! The Harts finally start cheating to take over. JYD plays face-in-peril until Anvil misses a charge and goes chest-first into the buckle. Martel gets the hot tag, but Bret cuts off his offensive flurry. Now, Martel plays face-in-peril. The Harts work in their Decapitation move. Bret tricks JYD into chasing him, and that allows Neidhart to drop Martel’s throat on the railing. Martel fights out of a chinlock, but Bret sneaks in a knee to the back to make sure he can’t tag out. Martel powers Bret to the corner, but the ref is distracted by Neidhart and doesn’t see the tag. It doesn’t matter much as Neidhart misses a dropkick and nails Bret. HOT TAG TO JYD! The faces whip Bret into Anvil. The ref tries to put Martel out, allowing the Harts to hit the Flying Clothesline. The ref sees them doubleteaming, though, and disqualifies the Harts at 12:24. Good match, irritating result. Martel would replace JYD with Tito Santana and cash in on the rematch, capturing the tag titles from the Harts. ***

The 411: The Harts match was good, as per usual, and it's fun seeing Brady Boone back in the day. The rest was purely fast-forward material, though.
Final Score:  4.5   [ Poor ]