Kayfabe! – Supercard: Honky Tonk Man Re-Experiences SummerSlam ’88

Kayfabe! Supercard: Honky Tonk Man re-experiences SummerSlam ‘88

On paper, the sophomore edition of this series looks to be every bit as good as the first. HTM has always been a good interview anyway, and the concept of this series being more of a highlight reel than the Timeline series, means that they can get to the good stuff right away. Where else to start but at the beginning of HTM’s WWF run in October of 1986, he’d been basically doing the same gimmick working in Calgary, when he jumped to the WWF. Vince saw him as a huge babyface and a merchandise machine, with fans buying the his Elvis scarves. But, he made his WWF debut while they were on a tour of Canada, where the fans knew him and hated him already, the booing on TV carried over to when he was working in the states. Vince finally realized that he wasn’t getting over as a babyface, so they turned him heel, with Jesse Ventura telling him that the fans hated him, and HTM cutting a promo saying that he was done kissing babies and was going to start slapping babies. They talk about the decision to put Jimmy Hart with him, which was HTM’s idea, and they agree that nobody else (Fuji, Slick, Heenan, etc.) would have worked nearly as well.

They move on to his first big angle with Jake, and HTM gives his side of the story. Jake has allegedly been saying that HTM broke his neck with the guitar and caused his drug addiction (Note from Mike: I’ve never heard Jake put it that bluntly, but he’s certainly insinuated it). HTM calls bullshit on taking the blame for the addiction issues. He also states that the guitar was gimmicked. He and Jay Strongbow had carved up the back of it to give it more give, and then colored it with black marker to hide the scratches and scrapes. HTM addresses the urban legend that Butch Reed was supposed to win the title from Steamboat, and it’s true as far as he knows. Butch wasn’t at the arena in Buffalo, and when he was walking by Hogan and Vince, Hogan pointed to him and said “How about him?” Butch has always said it wasn’t true, and that he was part of the celebration, but, they shot that the next night in Syracuse.

Then, they address, what will probably be the “Main Event” of this show, HTM’s refusal to drop the title to Randy Savage. He goes over the full story, which I can’t even begin to try to recap, because it’s so in-depth. But, in short, he’d already made it clear to Savage that it wasn’t personal with him, and Savage understood his position (Note form Mike: That’s always one constant with these sorts of stories, there’s never heat between the boys, because they understand where the other guy is coming from). Vince pitched the scenario of how Savage would destroy him and celebrate with Liz, and Vince wouldn’t even acknowledge HTM, until finally he turned to him and told him he’d be repackaged, which HTM knew meant he was all but finished and could kiss the big money goodbye. Again, this part goes much more in-depth than the little bit I’ve mentioned here. They don’t cover the actual Macho Man feud all that much, except for how huge it was that he shoved down Liz on that SNME, and that he and Randy were selling out arenas.

They start wrapping things up, talking about the program with Beefcake at WrestleMania IV, and how he was never going to get the title from him. HTM knew he had a very limited window of time with the title, so he decided to make the most of it, although if Vince had fired him the day after the Main Event special he’d have been fine with it. Vince pitched moving the title to Warrior in early Summer, so it was always the plan. They basically gave him free reign on how things would go, so he came up with the open challenge and getting beaten in mere seconds, as well as laying out the match, including making sure he didn’t take the Gorilla press. HTM also gives his take on the rest of the card, and talks about how the undercard showed the changing of the guard, with longtime staples like Muraco, JYD, and Ken Patera all putting over fresher acts like Bravo, Rude, and Bad News. They gloss over the remainder of his run, and how he got shot down the card after getting rematches with Warrior, doing the Rhythm and Blues thing with Valentine, and then finally leaving.

9.0

The final score: review Amazing

The 411

An interesting concept combined with an always entertaining subject, makes this another winner from KC.