The Name on the Marquee: WWF Prime Time Wrestling (10.18.1988)

-Originally aired October 18, 1988.

-Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon & Bobby Heenan.

HILLBILLY JIM vs. KING HAKU
-From Boston. I’m curious to see which stereotype wins out if these two get into a battle of headbutts.

-They slug it out to start until Hillbilly takes firm control with a series of slams. Ringside mics pick up the two of them having a great argument over which one of them is stupider. Haku wants a test of strength, but Hillbilly rubs a hand on his armpit and sticks it in Haku’s face. They do the test of strength for real (well, for real in the context of a worked wrestling match) and Haku manages to overpower the Hillbilly. Hillbilly fights back by mashing his fingers on the mat, but Haku avoids a corner charge and begins unleashing some lethal martial arts in the form of kicks and chops, which I believe is called Generic Fu.

-Haku kicks the Hillbilly out to the floor, then comes back in and goes to town with more kicks. He charges at Hillbilly but gets caught in headscissors. Series of elbows by Hillbilly and a big boot, the main thing he learned from Hulk Hogan’s training, but an elbow misses and Haku splashes him to take the win. Both of these guys were motivated tonight and never let up.

-November is going to be a big month for pay-per-view subscribers and satellite dish owners, what with the Survivor Series and Sugar Ray Leonard’s big boxing match on November 7!

UPDATE
-The Hart Foundation is talking smack about the Fabulous Rougeaus in the new WWF Magazine. The Rougeaus offer a rebuttal. The Rougeaus call themselves “All-American Boys,” planting the seed for one of the all-time great entrance themes.

SCOTT CASEY vs. PETE DOHERTY
-Doherty is firmly unretired at this point after his brief and spectacular stint as a commentator. They have a really bad miscommunication, as Casey wants to clothesline him over the top and Doherty is aware that it’s the side with the commentary table and all the technical equipment, so he just kinda goes “Uh-uh” and deadweights the move, and they flop over on the mat together. Next up is one of Doherty’s favorite spots, as Casey applies a a full nelson, and Doherty breaks the hold by putting his feet all the way up on the top rope, so Casey lets go and lets Doherty crash.

-Doherty uses a handful of hair to get the advantage with an armbar. Casey fights out and biels Doherty across the ring. Doherty fights back but misses a top rope splash. Punches are exchanged and Doherty grounds Casey with a shot to the nuts that gets some appreciative applause from the Boston crowd. Casey just kind of shrugs it off and armdrags Doherty, and a flying lariat gets the three-count. Pretty abrupt finish, but there was really nothing wrong with the rest of the match.

EVENT CENTER
-Outlaw Ron Bass says Brutus Beefcake got his dander up for no reason and he has only himself to blame for the fact that Bass is coming for him. Hercules, meanwhile, is going to make sure that the Million Dollar Man pays a price!

B. BRIAN BLAIR vs. BARRY HOROWITZ
-From Fort Wayne, Indiana. Horowitz hiptosses Blair around and celebrates like he’s already won this one. Blair fights back with armdrags and drives some shoulders into Horowitz until he tumbles out to the floor. Back in, Blair works the arm until Horowitz goes to the eyes and follows with an inverted atomic drop. Abdominal stretch is applied by Horowitz and Sean Mooney & Lord Alfred Hayes both declare that it’s locked on perfectly. Meanwhile in the studio, Gorilla lights up a cigarette and mutters, “Pfft, what does the new guy know?”

-Back suplex by Horowitz gets two. He comes off the second rope with an axehandle and does a nice pinning combo similar to a Fuller leglock for two. Blair comes back with a shoulderblock and an airplane spin. Elbow gets three. Nothing WRONG with it, but just really lethargic.

-Gorilla mentions that Horowitz is, in fact, a graduate of Terry Garvin’s School of Self Defense. Bobby Heenan has hung up a poster on his side of the set to tout the upcoming Sugar Ray Leonard fight.

-Curt Hennig plays gold to show why they call him Mister Perfect, in addition to calling him Curt Hennig at the moment.

DEMOLITION (Tag Team Champions, with Mr. Fuji) vs. TOMMY ANGEL & D.J. PETERSON
-From Superstars of Wrestling. Little thing: One area where Vince McMahon can say he was superior to Jim Crockett’s commentators is that he makes a token effort to learn who the jobbers are. He actually knows the difference between Angel and Peterson. Watch the NWA TBS shows on the network. In a tag team match, the commentators RARELY identify the jobber in the ring at the moment.

-Peterson gets caught in the corner and axed and smashed. He tags in Angel, who throws forearms as we get random words from the British Bulldogs who warn Demolition that they’re watching closely for mistakes. Davey Boy Smith, who made a variety of interesting hair-related decisions during his career, is sporting unquestionably his worst haircut ever here.

-Back to the ring, the decapitator finishes off Tommy Angel for the easy win. Demolition keeps up the assault on Angel after the match until the British Bulldogs storm the ring and clean house. Okay, I’m completely confused here. The Bulldogs have been trending downward all year, losing to the Islanders at Wrestlemania, whiffing on a title shot on SNME, losing to the Bolsheviks at house shows, going to a draw with the Rougeaus at Summerslam, while Demolition is building up to a feud with the Powers of Pain. This angle is just out of nowhere, and while this isn’t really the booking team’s fault, assorted shit happened in the locker room and no payoff would ever come.

-Gorilla has decorated his side of the set with a Hacksaw Jim Duggan poster to taunt Bobby.

SPECIAL INTERVIEW
-Mean Gene Okerlund welcomes Jake “The Snake” Roberts. Gene Okerlund says he doesn’t like what he’s been seeing between Roberts and Rick Rude, so apparently Gene has also been watching their house show matches. Jake brings out Cheryl and promises she’ll be at ringside every time Jake and the Ravishing One do battle from now on.

BLUE BLAZER vs. JOSE ESTRADA
-From Fort Wayne. Blazer dropkicks Estrada out to the floor. Back in, they trade arm stuff and Blazer dropkicks him out to the floor. Blazer meets him out there with a tope. Back in, Estrada targets the stomach to take control. Axehandle off the top gets two. Chinlock by Estrada, and he sends Blazer out to the floor. Blazer springs up to the top rope and heads back in with almost-a-moonsault for two. Full-blown moonsault gets the three-count. This was a’ight.

EVENT CENTER
-Honky Tonk Man and Jimmy Hart accuse the WWF of orchestrating a conspiracy. Did you know that President Jack Tunney wasn’t even AT Summerslam? Koko B. Ware tells us that dynamite comes in a small package, and it can surprise you. I think Jacques Rougeau could tell us a story about that.

-Back in the studio, Bobby Heenan wonders when Sugar Ray Leonard got a bird.

THE BROTHER LOVE SHOW
-Brother Love welcomes Hacksaw Jim Doogan. They rehash their argument from Summerslam about Dino Bravo being a better example of patriotism, and Dino Bravo comes strolling out with Frenchy Martin. Dino brings it, saying that he feels that America and Duggan both stink.

JUNKYARD DOG vs. RAVISHING RICK RUDE (with Bobby “The Brain” Heenan)
-From Summerslam ’88. JYD is sneak-attacked by Rude, but JYD backdrops Rude straight on his ass and headbutts him out of the ring. Back in the ring, Dog hammers Rude but misses another headbutt and Rude capitalizes with a clothesline and a double axehandle off the top rope. Elbows by Rude as the crowd erupts which a “JYD” chant. The crowd still loves JYD, but the WWF was obviously done with him at this point and moving on to other stars.

-Snap mare into a headlock by Rude. Heenan distracts the referee long enough for Rude to turn the headlock into a choke. JYD fights out with elbows and whips Rude into a corner, but Rude meets him with a boot. Pin only gets two, though, and Rude goes back to the headlock. He moves on to a wristlock, but Rude accidentally low-blows himself with JYD’s arm in a spot that’s really hard to describe—so I won’t—and JYD headbutts him.

-Heenan distracts JYD to help Rude recapture the advantage with a Russian legsweep. Rude goes up top and yanks down his tights as he does a fistdrop, revealing the Cheryl Roberts tights underneath, and Jake runs in for the attack, drawing a DQ, and if they did this today, that would lead to a JYD heel turn (which would have revived the hell out of him, and by the way, how awesome would a heel JYD and Slick be on promos together?), but in 1988 he calmly accepts it and moves on. This is starting to feel like Wrestlemania I; again, they’re using the pay-per-view to build up house show feuds. Someone asked Bruce Prichard about this on his podcast a while back and he basically said they still weren’t sure if they wanted to put all their eggs in the PPV basket at this point, so they were still kind of protecting house show draws.

5.8

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

It had moments, but it was pretty skippable all things considered.