wrestling / Video Reviews
The Name on the Marquee: World Championship Wrestling (12.17.1988)
Image Credit: WWE
Loading...-Originally aired December 17, 1988.
-Your hosts are Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone.
-No cold open and no opening announcer banter. I guess there’s just too much action to cram into these two hours.
MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (with Jim Cornette) vs. MIKE SIMANI & BOB EMORY
-Bobby Eaton bulldogs Emory while Cornette rants about the match at Starrcade. Simani walks right into a stepover toehold. Stan Lane kicks him around, and Eaton takes him out to the concrete and high fives Cornette. Lane strangles Simani with a camera cable. Lane is hitting the gym hard lately and he’s suddenly a dead ringer for Lex Luger.
-Emory gets his neck snapped over the top rope and Stan applies a rear chinlock, but he demands a lamer jobber and Simani tags in. Veg-a-matic finishes after a lengthy discussion over who should get the pin.
RUSSIAN ASSASSINS (with Paul Jones) vs. TERRY JONES & ITALIAN STALLION
-Jones suddenly has a new look, just wearing a button down shirt and necktie with no jacket, so he looks more like the district regional manager in charge of shipping for the Russian Assassins. Stallion takes control as Paul Jones boasts that his plan is working to perfection because the Assassins got Nikita Koloff out of the NWA. Jones goes over to attack, uh, Jones on the floor, and back in, #2 applies an armbar on Jones, much to the approval of Jones.
-Kneedrop by #2 as the commentators discuss Jones’ new look, saying he looks like a businessman, specifically one in the business of hurting people. Assassins stay on the arm as this match hits the “too long” point. Russian missile (Irish whipping your partner into the opponent) and the loaded headbutt knocks Jones out cold for the three count. JR wonders if the loaded headbutt will even work on JYD. I love how, even with every other philosophical difference about how to present wrestlers and wrestling, the one thing that the major promotions could always somehow agree on is that black wrestlers have hard heads.
JUNKYARD DOG vs. TRENT KNIGHT
-Weird trivia: the last time JYD wrestled in the TBS studios, it was for the single month that the WWF did TV tapings in there.
-JYD hiptosses Knight down, but Knight avoids the rolling headbutts somehow. Russian legsweep is…a weird-looking struggle for both men. JYD goes to the chinlock, and the Thump finishes.
-Ivan Koloff is so grateful to JYD for his friendship that he offers to pull some strings to make JYD an honorary citizen of the Soviet Union, and JYD accepts after learning that Russia has its own version of the projects. I’m sorry, am I dreaming this segment?
ORIGINAL MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (with Paul E. Dangerously) vs. RICK PRICE & JERRY ALLEN
-Allen gets flung into the commentary podium and Paul E. gets angry about his promo being interrupted. Price takes a double underhook suplex and a kneedrop. The Original Midnight Express had to be the least wrestlery looking wrestlers of this era. If I didn’t know who these guys were and I was asked on the spot to guess the name of their tag team, I’d guess that they were called The Dads, and they cut a bunch of promos about the price of a good butane regulator and how you don’t buy beer, you rent it.
-Dennis Condrey rubs Allen’s face in the mat and gutwrenches him. Double goozle finishes.
BARRY WINDHAM (US Champion, with JJ Dillon) vs. RYAN WAGNER
-Wagner armdrags Windham and it doesn’t go well. Windham armdrags him back and Wagner seems to genuinely be trying to get away from him and Barry has a LOCK on him. Gary Hart drifts over to commentary table to tout the Mini-Stampedes at upcoming house shows. Basically, someone at the company noticed that they had a record number of managers on the payroll at one time, so the managers were booked to work against each other for a few weeks.
-Abdominal stretch by Barry, and the flying lariat wraps it up. The TBS studio continues their adamant refusal to boo the man.
-JJ and Barry promise that the World Title and the US Title are going to stay with “The Horsemen” for a long time. Let it go, Olaf.
TEXAS BRONCOS vs. CURTIS THOMPSON & RANDY MULKEY
-JR hastily points out that “Randy Mulkey musta got one heck of a tan” and that it’s actually Bill Holliday in this match. Kendall Windham works his arm over and elbows him down. Dustin Rhodes and his terrible haircut tag in while JR mentions that Dusty’s private plane is dealing with inclement weather and he may not be in the studio this week.
-Thompson tags in and it’s sad how he looks like a bigger star (literally and figuratively) than either of the guys he’s jobbing to. Kendall works the arm. Thompson manages to back Rhodes into the corner and Holliday gets a few shots at him, but Dustin fights back with elbows. Kendall tries a double hammerlock and Holliday makes it to the ropes. Back to the arm as the commentators have a conversation about how much Kendall has grown in the past six months. Can’t wait for the post-match interview where they ask Kendall how school is going and Kendall just says “Fine.” Elbow by Dustin finishes this.
-CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE! SUPERSTATION TBS!
-Lex Luger draws a lot of lines with his fingers and calls out Ric Flair for getting himself DQed intentionally for months.
EDDIE GILBERT vs. MIKE JACKSON
-They shake hands to kick off this scientific match. Gilbert takes Jackson down and applies headscissors as Barry Windham emerges to scout Eddie for their feature match next week. They stay on the mat with a series of holds and they tell a little story as it gets more and more heated until Jackson finally loses his temper and gets in Gilbert’s face. Gilbert responses with a shoulderblock, and it turns into a fistfight. Gilbert wins that handily and backdrops Jackson. Big dropkick by Gilbert. Jackson comes fighting back with a kneedrop and a dropkick. Jackson is apparently still the Alabama Jr. Heavyweight Champion, but there’s no way he’s defended it in the past 30 days. Jackson charges at Gilbert, but Gilbert catches him and hot shots him for the three-count. Old-school to be sure, but a decent match.
THE COMMANDOS vs. EDDIE SWEAT & RANDY MULKEY
-This time it really is Randy Mulkey. Boone throws Mulkey on the floor and there’s a great spot as he slides Mulkey back into the ring, and Mulkey manages to slide all the way through to another side of the ring and falls back out. Mulkey gets hung upside down in the corner and rammed by Ray. Double splash finishes the torture.
-A Starrcade 88 commercial, with clips of Nikita Koloff and the Sheepherders. Sad trombone.
-Sir Oliver Humperdink could use $10,000, so he’ll come out of retirement for the Mini-Stampedes.
-Rick Steiner walks in with Alex (dressed up for Christmas) AND OH MY GOD A SIX-MONTH-OLD PITBULL LOOK AT HIM LOOK AT HIM AWWWWWWW. Steiner just dumps the pitbull in JR’s arms and heads over to the ring for his match.
RICK STEINER (Florida Champion) vs. GEORGE SOUTH
-Chyron says he still has the title, but he’s not wearing the belt, and it’s a moot point in nine days. Steiner wrestles with a Santa hat on, whipping and backdropping South, then making him where the hat while taking punches to the face. South pulls the hat off, so Steiner puts it on Teddy Long and it damn near covers his entire head. JR tries to hand off the dog to a stagehand and Steiner angrily goes to the floor and snatches the dog away because, dammit, he wants JR to take care of the dog.
-George South is out cold and Steiner pulls a fan into the ring and lets him kick South, and a belly-to-belly finishes.
VARSITY CLUB (with Kevin Sullivan) vs. GARY ROYAL & RANDY HOGAN
-Hogan gets double-teamed while Sullivan rants about how ridiculous it is to watch a guy talk to his hand, carry a dog around, and wear a hat. I like how “wear a hat” makes the list of offenses committed in that last segment. A hat? Such tomfoolery.
-Gary Royal gets dumped onto the concrete. Back in, Williams suplexes him as JR recaps his amateur career and says he had a hard time stopping at the whistle, “if you know what I mean.” That’s actually pretty literal. Rotunda finishes off Hogan with a double underhook.
-Ric Flair declares that “STARRCADE IS TED TURNER!” Put that on a t-shirt.
STING vs. KEITH STEINBORN
-Sting faceplants Steinborn and rams him upside-down into the corner. Bodypress off the top, and the scorpion deathlock finishes.
-Sting asks for everyone to be vewy vewy quiet. He’s hunting Woad Wawwiows.
ROAD WARRIORS (World Tag Team Champions, with Paul Ellering) vs. MAX MILES & J.C. WILDE
-They storm the ring and attack, and the crowd is cheering in subdued fashion as opposed to booing. Animal clotheslines Miles damn near through the mat to finish.
-The Road Warriors care about Hawk, Animal, and Precious Paul, and they don’t need or want anyone else.
