The Name on the Marquee: Madison Square Garden Presents the WWF (6.25.1988)

-Your hosts are Rodger Kent (on his last night with the company…that was fast), Superstar Billy Graham (introduced as “The Living Legend” as a middle finger to Bruno) and Lord Alfred Hayes (nothing interesting to add about him).

BIG BOSS MAN vs. SCOTT CASEY
-Casey complains about Boss Man insisting on wearing his metal badge during the match and Boss Man reluctantly removes it. Casey starts with an arm wringer but Boss Man fights out and hits the bearhug right away. He puts the boots to Casey in the corner and catches him coming off the ropes with a backbreaker. Casey goes for a sleeper out of desperation, but Boss Man backs him into the corner to break it. Boss Man goes for an avalanche and ends up crotching himself on the top rope. Casey fires away with axehandles and connects with a bodypress, but Boss Man kicks out with authority, and the Boss Man slam finishes even though Casey forgot to jump for it. 0 for 1. Boss Man’s syndicated TV debut matches were more impressive, as he just whipped out his best stuff and looked like a force to be reckoned with. This match was more of a standard house show star vs. jobber match.

FABULOUS ROUGEAU BROTHERS vs. CONQUISTADORS
-Rare sight of the night: Rougeaus in long tights. The heel act is over enough that the Conquistadors actually get a bit of a face reaction on their way to the ring.

-Raymond chokes #1 and slams him down. Raymond works the leg and gives him a boot right to the balls. Jacques stays on the leg until #1 gives him a hard kick to send Jacques over the top and onto the floor. Conquistadors avenge the nut shot by distracting the referee and strangling Jacques in the corner to a pop from the crowd. So the dynamic here is real interesting, as Jacques is now HEEL in peril and the crowd is getting pissed off because the Conquistadors can’t put them away. The entire formula is flipped.

-Jacques throws a desperation dropkick and that sends one of the Conquistadors tumbling out to the floor, and they do a little spin on the floor to confuse everyone and the illegal Conquistador comes in. So more craziness with this match, as Jacques has put up such a valiant fight, and the Conquistadors have been so inept in putting him away, that the entire MSG crowd changes their mind and is cheering for the Rougeaus now. Hot tag to Raymond and Ray takes on both men by himself. Pier sixer breaks out and the Conquistadors get whipped into each other, and Le Bombe De Rougeau finishes. 1 for 2. What a fascinatingly odd match.

NO DISQUALIFICATION: GEORGE “The Animal” STEELE vs. GREG “The Hammer” VALENTINE
-Start of the match is delayed because Steele refuses to give up Mind. And since the match is no DQ, there’s really no reason he should. George shoves Mine in Valentine’s face and punches him in the throat repeatedly. Fight goes out to the floor and Valentine whacks him with a chair. Funny spot as George throws the bell into the ring and it bounces right off the mat, flies out of the ring, and nearly hits George. If he tried to do that on purpose, he’d never be able to.

-George tackles the leg and bites the straps on the shin guard to try to pull it off. Valentine is so mad, he kicks Mine, which sends George into a rage and he rams Valentine into the turnbuckle ten times before checking to make sure Mine is okay. George pulls the weapon out of the tights and he’s all over Valentine’s leg with it. Corner charge by George misses and he takes a FLYING bump from it, like something from the Heenan spot book. Valentine goes for the figure four but George gives him a thumb to the eye. Valentine grabs Mine and throws it to the floor, and George goes to the floor to check on it. Valentine goes out side and grabs Mine, suckering George into chasing him and flinging Mine into the ring. George goes back inside to get Mine…but Valentine stupidly forgets to actually go back in himself, and Steele wins by count-out. I completely loved this match. George had his working boots on tonight and they told a good story in there.

“The Rock” DON MURACO vs. DANGEROUS DANNY DAVIS
-Davis tries to attack from behind while Muraco is saying hi to Superstar, and Davis gets his ass handed to him for it. Davis tries a top wristlock, but Muraco just drops him on his ass. Davis stalls for a while, and Muraco just shoves him around, treating Davis like nothing. He applies a side headlock and just drags Davis around the ring with it until Davis goes to the floor for a break. Back in, Davis goes to the eyes to turn it around and throws a series of uppercuts. Muraco comes back to life and Davis goes to the floor and stalls again. Another thumb to the eye by Davis, but he gets caught in mid-air and Muraco sets up for the tombstone. Valentine attacks from behind though, to protect Davis, I guess, and to attack his nemesis Muraco. 2 for 4. Not a good one. Valentine goes after Graham at the commentary table and shocks the crowd by taking his leg out with a kick (“Son of a bitch!” yells Graham) and Muraco chases him off.

HACKSAW JIM DUGGAN vs. ONE MAN GANG
-Cute comedy spot to get us started, as Gang is afraid of the 2×4 and tries to hide his massive body behind the referee for protection. Hard rights and an Irish whip, and the impact of Gang’s body in the corner makes the damndest sound and you’d swear the ring is about to fall apart. They collide on a shoulderblock and nobody budges. Rapid fire punches by Duggan send the Gang crashing down and Duggan chokes him out. Gang tries to hide in the corner, but Duggan London bridges him to everyone’s shock. Gang finally comes to life and starts working the arm. Duggan fights back with right hands to the “tempular mandibular junction” and I’m guessing Gorilla was watching on the monitor and screamed “Idiot, that was clearly a punch to the external occipital ligament of the lower trachus!” and that’s why Kent didn’t last.

-Gang stays on the arm while Duggan fires punches to the back. Duggan starts hulking up so Gang tries to finish him off right away with an avalanche, but he crashes and Duggan wipes him out with the three-point stance to get the pin. I am completely amazed that ended in a clean pin. 2 for 5. Duggan was game but Gang was phoning it in big time, just wringing the arm and wringing it and wringing it endlessly.

-Lord Alfred Hayes talks to Bobby Heenan, who promises that Andre the Giant is going to put out Bam-Bam’s fire and Ultimate Warrior is going to regret demanding that weasel suit match.

-This must be intermission because then we hear from Don Muraco and the Fabulous Rougeaus. Ultimare Warrior wraps it up by saying he would never hurt a furry little creature, but fortunately, Bobby Heenan isn’t a real weasel. Thanks, Warrior.

BAM-BAM BIGELOW vs. ANDRE THE GIANT (with Bobby Heenan)
-And a year after the battle for Bam-Bam began, we’ve reached Bam-Bam’s last night of this run in the company. Bam-Bam seemed to be a “dog that caught the car” issue, as you had this big monster with abnormal agility that the fans instantly bought into as a badass, and once he got over, it was like, “Okay…now what do we do with him?” And they never really figured that out.

-Andre chokes Bigelow out, and of course we’re at that stage of Andre’s career where that’s pretty much all there is to type about this match. Headbutts by Andre, and props to Bigelow for going out like a professional, as he’s bumping all over the ring and selling his ass off for Andre. Bam-Bam ducks a big bot and clotheslines Andre for the token “tangled in the ropes” spot. Andre frees himself and applies a bearhug. Bam-Bam hangs on and Andre puts the boots to him. Bam-Bam gets one last burst of energy and charges at Andre, but Andre connects with the big boot and drops the elbow to pin Bam-Bam clean as a sheet. He strangles Bam-Bam until Jim Duggan and the 2×4 come to the rescue. 3 for 6. This is worth a point just because of Bam-Bam showing you how to take it like a man. Bam-Bam came out there fired up, no job face, and then went out there and took the best ass-kicking he could to make Andre look like a threat and make Duggan look like a bigger star for rescuing him. Good on him, seriously.

-Hacksaw Jim grabs the mic and DEMANDS a match with Andre at the next MSG show.

LOSER WEARS A WEASEL SUIT: ULTIMATE WARRIOR vs. BOBBY “The Brain” HEENAN
-Heenan tries to make Warrior chase him to tire Warrior out but Warrior finally outsmarts him, letting Heenan lap him, which means Heenan ends up running right into the Warrior for a chokehold. Heenan stops Warrior in his tracks with a shot to the throat, and we get a master course on how to hide a foreign object. Warrior gets it away from him and whips him around the ring for some glorious corner bumping, and the sleeper finishes. Obviously, this isn’t a five-star match, but obviously, it wasn’t supposed to be. This was just a great ending to a months-long story about Heenan getting extremely lucky twice, falling for his own line of bullshit, and then paying for it dearly by facing an opponent that never occurred to him. 4 for 7. Heenan has a great reaction to the suit when he wakes up, chasing his own tail and stumbling all over the ring, trying to take it off.

JIM “The Anvil” NEIDHART vs. BAD NEWS BROWN
-Bad News enters first and cuts a long promo running down the Hart Foundation until Neidhart gets tired of waiting for his intro and just charges to the ring and attacks. Neidhart chokes out Brown and chokes him in a different part of the ring and chokes him over the top rope and chokes him with his knee and chokes him against the ropes and ultimately just chokes all the crowd’s interest completely out of this match. Shoulderblock gets two, and Anvil applies a chinlock to give us a break from the devastating pace of the action so far. Bad News takes over and throws Anvil out to the floor, then connects with a chair, leading Alfred to surmise that the referee is being “extremely tolerant of these two.” I have a feeling “Extremely tolerant of this match” will be the highest praise I’ll be able to give it.

-Legdrop by Bad News gets two. Headbutts by Bad News, and he applies a chinlock. Corner charge misses, and Anvil clamps on a bearhug. Bad News fights free but misses a fistdrop. Anvil tackles him out to the floor. Fight goes to the floor, and Bad News connects with a ghetto blaster and heads back in to take the win by count out. Holy shit, that took 16 minutes. 4 for 8.

-Lord Alfred Hayes talks to Bobby Heenan, who is completely irritated about losing to a chokehold.

-Rodger Kent and Superstar Billy Graham discuss the upcoming cage match. Kent says out of nowhere that the cage is being constructed by members of IATSE. Wait, really?

STEEL CAGE, UNDISPUTED TITLE: RANDY “Macho Man” SAVAGE (Champion, with Elizabeth) vs. “The Million Dollar Man” TED DIBIASE (with Virgil)
-Both guys are fired up and go to work early, with DiBiase being the first guy to get a clear advantage. He misses a kneedrop, but manages to make his first move to exit the cage anyway. Savage stops him and rams him into the turnbuckle for ten shots. DiBiase tries to make another exit, but Savage gets handfuls of hair and tights, because it’s a cage match and he can, dammit.

-Savage gets rammed into the cage and DiBiase tries to leave again, but Savage stops him with another handful of tights. DiBiase gets his feet tangled in the ropes and Savage bolts up straight up the wall, but Virgil meets him up there and knocks him back into the ring. DiBiase connects with a “cork re-arranger” (copyright Roger Kent) but now it’s Savage’s turn to ram DiBiase into the cage. He attempts another escape and Virgil stops him again.

-DiBiase goes for the door and Savage hangs onto the million-dollar foot like his life depends on it. They collide on a double clothesline; Savage revives first and goes for the door, but Savage stops him. It’s amazing the fire this feud lit in MSG; the crowd has been completely losing their shit from bell to bell in both of the MSG bouts so far.

-Another double-clothesline, and they go to opposite corners and begin their ascent. Virgil knocks Savage off and DiBiase inexplicably stops his climb and just goes to town on Savage instead. That’s a mistake; Savage reverses a suplex and heads for the door, and now Virgil slams the door on DiBiase’s head, exactly hard enough to knock him out but not enough to make him bleed.

-DiBiase dives for the himself and has his fingers clawing into the bottom stair, which damn near causes a riot in the first few rows. Savage manages to bring him back in and rams DiBiase into the cage. He begins the climb and Virgil climbs to the top to stop him again, and this time the crowd has fucking had enough and some kid jumps the rail, heads up to the top of the cage, and throws punches at Virgil! They decide to go home immediately after that, with Savage noggin-knocking DiBiase and Virgil and heading straight to the floor to call it a night. 5 for 9. Another good match in a can’t-miss feud. They inexplicably show an instant replay of the fan’s interference.

6.6

The final score: review Average

The 411

It looks like an average show, but I have to give it a thumbs-up because the good stuff is SO good. Steele/Valentine and Warrior/Heenan are just fun matches, and the main event is an obvious keeper. Check this one out.