The Name on the Marquee: WWF Prime Time Wrestling (11.19.1987)

-Originally aired November 19, 1987.

-Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan. Gorilla and Bobby discuss the point of the Survivor Series…basically, what’s your incentive to wrestle on a card that’s all elimination tag matches with no titles at stake and no contenders to be determined? Bobby excitedly deduces that if Hulk gets his ass kicked badly enough, Andre would probably get a title shot.

BORIS ZHUKOV vs SPECIAL DELIVERY JONES
-From Houston. SD armdrags Boris a few times. Boris chokes SD to take control. SD tries to get something going with a backdrop, but Boris elbows him down as the Duke of Dorchester calls him “poetry in motion.” Duke’s still doing that delivery where somebody has clearly told him to tone it down a bit, but what’s funny is that now his voice sounds like that sneaky guy who was always trying to sell Ernie letters from his trenchcoat on “Sesame Street.”

-SD gets fired up and rams Boris’ noggin into the turnbuckle. SD finally gets the backdrop he wanted. Boris fights back and goes to the chinlock. SD punches out and throws headbutts for a two-count. Corner charge by SD misses, and Boris knocks the wind out of him with a diving headbutt to the chest for three. Boris Zhukov wins a singles match. Make a note of this day. It actually wasn’t that bad.

YOUNG STALLIONS vs GINO CARABELLO & TOM BARNETT
-From Syracuse. Paul Roma trades arm wringers with Gino. Gino throws chops but Roma fires him into the ropes (and just sending him into the ropes gets a huge pop from the girls in the crowd) for a hiptoss. Jim Powers comes in and bodypresses Gino for two. Leg trip/elbow combo by the Stallions, and they start working the arm again. Powers monkeyflips Gino for two.

-Powers gets Gino in a hammerlock. Gino elbows free and finally tags his partner, and this is funny as Gino has been getting so thoroughly beaten that the crowd cheers him for making the tag. Barnett ends up taking control of the match, but this must be Barnett’s literal first match ever because he gets one offensive move and then Gino immediately tags back in to do all the actual work.

-Powers makes the hot tag and Roma dropkicks Gino. Powerslam by Powers finishes. NWA-style long squash match, but not boring.

UPDATE
-Craig DeGeorge reports on the surprising Tag Team Title win by Strike Force. Not only were people shocked that the Harts lost the belts, but the big surprise is that Rick Martel whipped out a Boston crab, a hold he’s never used in his life, to take the win. Strike Force cuts a gracious promo in the locker room, surrounded by all the other faces. JYD in a big cowboy hat is a weird visual.

-Craig is at the interview platform with Team Andre. Everyone beats up on the new Hulk Hogan stretch doll to show what will happen at the Survivor Series.

HACKSAW JIM DUGGAN vs COWBOY BOB ORTON
-From Toronto. Shoulderblocks go nowhere. Orton tries a waistlock but Duggan pries his hands apart and just marches out. Orton starts targeting the head with elbows and punches, but Duggan just shakes that off and reverses an Irish whip. Fist fight breaks out, but Duggan puts a stop to it with an atomic drop.

-Orton targets the head again and sends Duggan out to the floor in front of the commentary table. Orton clobbers him with a microphone. Hacksaw shakes it off and gets back into the ring for another slugfest. Orton blocks a corner charge with a boot to the face, then shoves the referee out of the way long enough for Duggan to grab his 2×4 and ram it into Orton’s gut, and Duggan cradles him to get the three-count and send Orton out of the WWF. Orton got treated like a jobber, which I get if he’s on his way out the door, but it made for an unremarkable match.

-Gene Okerlund talks to Team Hulk, and Hulk has entered is shredded doorag phase, so it looks like he’s cutting a promo with tampons dangling over his face. Hulk addresses the elephant in the room and explains that he wanted Orndorff on his team because he knows the Heenan Family better than anyone. Again, a thing that they could have done a whole angle for.

“STAND BACK”
-The dulcet tones of Vince McMahon provide the soundtrack to an Andre the Giant video montage, a colossal disappointment for anyone who was hoping Vince himself would do an honest to God music video. I’m thinking it could have been something like “Dancing in the Dark.”

“The Rock” DON MURACO vs SIKA
-Back to Houston. Question: Is the weapons check one of “those little things” that anyone else misses about old wrestling? Maybe not every match, but I feel like it would give added weight if they did it before bigger matches.

-Sika with punches and headbutts for a hot start. Muraco goes out to the floor to recover. Sika kicks him repeatedly to block re-entry, which Pete Doherty imaginatively calls “toe-main poisoning.” Back in the ring, Muraco hits a Thesz press…for three?…Uh, okay, sure. That was the entire match. Sika was actually fired after this match, only to get re-hired after the Survivor Series.

-Gorilla has a present for Bobby, but Bobby refuses to open it because he doesn’t trust Gorilla.

-Craig is on the interview platform with all the heel tag teams. Bobby takes the initiative about cutting the promo on behalf of the entire group, then admits that he can’t remember the names of all the teams involved.

LADIES’ TITLE: SENSATIONAL SHERRI (Champion) vs DEBBIE COMBS
-Joined in progress from Toronto. Arm wringer is reversed by Sherri and she takes Combs to the mat with a handful of hair, keeping the armbar locked on and choking Combs with her boots. Referee forces her to break the hold. Combs applies a hammerlock and Sherri faceplants herself while trying to escape from the hold. Combs hangs onto the hold and Sherri snapmares her into a chinlock.

-Combs fights back with a slam. Sherri tries a corner charge but crashes and gets hung up. Combs tries to capitalize with her own corner charge, but Sherri ducks and Combs launches herself over the top and onto the floor. Back in, Sherri connects with a dropkick and applies a front facelock. She does a great job hiding her hair-pulling from the referee.

-Debbie monkeyflips Sherri a few times as Gorilla tactfully says that he’s surprised the match is still going after this long. Sherri cuts off the comeback and whips Combs into the corner. Combs responds with forearms for two. Sherri reverses a suplex for two. They both hit the ropes and collide, but it looks so bad that the crowd laughs and both women take the hint and get right back up. Airplane spin by Combs, but when she slams Sherri, Sherri hangs onto her arms and jerks her down for a roll-up to get three and retain. I didn’t hate this as much as everyone in Toronto seemed to.

-Gene Okerlund meets with the Honky Tonk Man, Jimmy Hart, Ron Bass, and Danny Davis. Co-captain Danny has promised the Honky Tonk Man that once the other members have eliminated Randy Savage’s four teammates, they’ll agree to tag out so Honky can have the honor of pinning Savage himself.

SUPERSTAR BILLY GRAHAM vs “The Natural” BUTCH REED (with Slick)
-From Superstars. Reed attacks Graham as he climbs into the ring and chokes him out with his own t-shirt. Reed targets the hip, which Ventura says is completely fair because Graham made a whole big show out of his major injury and surgery. Slick distracts the referee while Reed goes to work on the hip with a folding chair. We get comments from One Man Gang, saying everyone needs to lay off Slick because he’s a great manager.

-Reed goes to the top and tries to finish it, but Graham meets him with a shot to the gut and clotheslines him out to the floor. Slick wins up in the ring and Graham threatens to kick his ass. One Man Gang finally eventually gets to the ring and attacks Graham. Reed and Slick hold Graham in place while Gang directly targets the bad hip with a series of splashes, until Don Muraco finally makes it to the ring and cleans house. Slick’s men get out of town, but Billy Graham is injured. And has to be taken out of the building on a stretcher.

-Gorilla addresses the possibility that Graham will have to retire. Bobby Heenan is delighted that Hogan has someone to share a hospital room with after next week.

BRITISH BULLDOGS vs HART FOUNDATION (with Jimmy Hart)
-From Houston, with Bobby Heenan replacing Pete Doherty on commentary for this one.

-Dynamite mows Bret down with a shoulderblock and applies a side headlock. Davey Boy tags in and flips and tumbles around to reverses a wristlock. Crucifix by Davey Boy gets two, and Bret’s getting pretty frustrated about his shit luck so far in this match and tags out. Anvil tries a shoulderblock and Davey Boy laughs in his face. Anvil tries it again and Davey Boy suckers him into a drop toehold.

-Dynamite and Bret wind up back in there and Bret takes his usual hard Irish whip bump for two. Bret finally gets fired up and connects with a series of punches. Anvil does likewise, as the Harts decide they can’t win by wrestling, so they’ll just try a severe beating, and that seems to work for them.

-Bret throws Anvil out to the concrete, then collapses to the mat in pain to trick the referee into reprimanding Davey Boy for nothing while Anvil attacks Dynamite on the floor. Back in the ring, Harts gang up on Dynamite in the corner. Dynamite just throws one giant clothesline with his last ounce of strength and makes the hot tag. Davey Boy cleans house and applies a sleeper on Anvil. Bret sneaks in and tries to break the hold, which draws Dynamite back into the ring. Referee chases Dynamite out of the ring while Bret sneaks up the turnbuckles and connects with an axehandle on Davey Boy, with Anvil getting the winning pin. I never got this kind of finish in a tag match. It’s supposed to look like the dirty rotten Foundation was cheating, but you have a count of five and guys do stuff like this in full view of the referee all the time. To my eyes, the Harts won this match clean as a sheet. Good match, just a silly finish.

-The gift box has a frozen turkey in it. Hi-larious.

5.0

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

Notable for a big angle and a good feature match, the rest is quite a grab bag.