The Name on the Marquee: WWF Prime Time Wrestling (5.23.1988)

-Originally aired May 23, 1988.

-Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan, finally on their new set that would last until the format change in 1991. It’s weird how barren the set looks without all the merchandise they would start decorating it with.

GEORGE “The Animal” STEELE vs ONE MAN GANG (with Slick)
-From Boston. Steele unleashes a flurry of shots to the throat until Gang goes to the floor, then chases Slick all around the ring. Gang left his vest in the ring so Steele wrestles a match against the vest, stomping and dropping elbows on the vest, then putting it on and wearing Slick’s hat to complete the ensemble. Frenchy Martin joins us for guest commentary, which I don’t recall asking for.

-Slick takes his stuff back and Gang attacks. Slick takes a cheap shot with his cane and Steele goes out to confront him, but Gang follows him out and rams him into the barricade. Back in, Gang attempts a clothesline and Steele counters it by biting him on the arm when he makes contact. Slick takes more shots with the cane and Gang charges, with Steele ducking down and Gang falls out to the floor.

-Steele gets distracted by Slick one more time, and Gang gives him a knee from behind and pins him to end it. Short and not really terrible for what it was. Steele pilfers Slick’s cane and knocks Gang over the top with it, then gives Slick a surprisingly vicious ass-kicking in the aftermath.

RANDY “Macho Man” SAVAGE (WWF Champion, with Elizabeth) vs. VIRGIL (with Ted DiBiase)
-Crowd is just crazy about Savage. Savage goes after DiBiase first. DiBiase puts his dukes up and Savage goes after him. That allows Virgil to sneak up for a cheap shot, but Savage knocks him right out of the ring. DiBiase distracts Savage from there and Virgil attacks from behind and this time, he’s able to take control.

-Virgil whips Savage from corner to corner, then distracts the referee so DiBiase can take a few free punches. Virgil slams Savage and heads up top for a splash, but Savage moves and Virgil crashes. Savage gives him a knee to the back, then goes up top for a double axehandle. Savage slams him into position for the elbow, but DiBiase comes up to the apron and he now has Savage’s full attention.

-Savage goes to the floor and chases DiBiase. DiBiase grabs Elizabeth and uses her as a human shield until Virgil can sneak up and attack Savage again. Back in the ring, Virgil connects with an elbow off the ropes for two. Clothesline gets two. Virgil tosses Savage to the floor.

-Elsewhere on the floor, DiBiase waves a fistful of dollars at Elizabeth, but Savage sneaks up with the top rope axehandle and a clothesline. Savage is all kinds of fired up and brings Virgil back in the ring, finishing him off with the flying elbow. Post-match, Savage gets double-teamed and has a $100 bill crammed in his mouth. DiBiase tries to continue the attack from there, but accidentally clotheslines his own bodyguard. Things turn into a pull-apart brawl, and usually it’s the jobbers who do the pulling apart in this kind of angle, but these guys just hate each other so much that it’s the stars who have to bolt to the ring to end the onslaught.

-Bobby is frustrated because his side of the set was supposed to have a neon “HOST” sign.

SPECIAL REPORT
-Sean Mooney weirdly says that Bam-Bam Bigelow have a combined weight of “nearly seven hundred pounds,” which would make Bam-Bam about 250. Both of them are deceptively athletic for men their size and it led to an “explosive” match at Wrestlemania IV. Even a brief, squeaky fart is explosive if you light it well, though.

-Bobby Heenan learns for the first time that the new guy’s name is Mooney and wonders how he got this job after years of selling books at the airport.

SPECIAL INTERVIEW
-Craig DeGeorge welcomes Andre the Giant and Bobby Heenan. Duggan has a GIANT problem, lulz, because he took a cheap shot at a giant, so yeah, he looked good in that moment, but Duggan is a dead man now.

SAM HOUSTON vs IRON MIKE SHARPE
-Wait a second, they’ve shown this one. We’re in Boston. Sharpe shoves Houston down and is already declaring victory. Houston responds with dropkicks and a hiptoss, and Sharpe goes out for his usual retreat. And then for a long time nothing happens. Test of strength goes Sharpe’s way and he tries to finish Houston off with the forearm brace, but Houston ducks and surprises him with a bodypress, so Sharpe walks all the way to the locker room and walks back. Insight from Lord Alfred Hayes: an intentional count-out forfeits a wrestler’s payoff for that match. Now you know.

-Sharpe starts hammering down with forearm blows but Houston fires back. Sharpe dodges a corner charge and adjusts the brace, looking to finish him off. Forearm blow to the neck looks to finish, but Iron Mike forgets to pin his man and jumps straight to celebrating the victory, and Houston revives and rolls him up for two.

-Sharpe throws Houston out to the floor and rams him into the barricade. Back in, Houston comes back to life with a monkeyflip and a bulldog finishes the Iron man. I liked it but as always my personal markiness for Iron Mike might cloud my judgment. Lord Alfred declares the win an upset, revealing his own arduous battle with amnesia. Dangerous Danny Davis comes to the ring and assaults Houston after the bell and leaves him in a heap.

-Gorilla shows off all the stuff that comes with a WWF Fan Club membership, including a really snazzy poster.

TUG OF WAR: KEN PATERA vs. DINO BRAVO (with Frenchy Martin)
-Object is to yank your opponent from one side of the tape in the middle of the ring to the other. After the federally mandated amount of needless stalling, they begin tugging in war-like fashion. Patera wins, but since winning means pulling Dino close to him, Dino just launches himself at Patera and beats the hell out of him, then chokes him out with the rope.

GREG “The Hammer” VALENTINE (with Jimmy Hart) vs. LEAPING LANNY POFFO
-Another rerun! Lanny mocks Hammer’s recent haircut in his poem, and Valentine comes right out fighting, slamming him down and heading to the top. Lanny meets him on the way down with a shot to the gut and they trade forearms until Valentine gouges the eyes and tosses Poffo to the floor. Back in, Valentine chops. Poffo comes back with right hands, but Valentine stops the comeback with a stomachbreaker. Elbow off the top is the beginning of the end, and the figure four leglock gets the submission. Poffo was actually allowed to look like a competitor.

-Gorilla and Bobby mention the leg brace that Greg Valentine is wearing now, while acknowledging that he wasn’t wearing it in the previous match because that was before he began wearing the leg brace. WHY DID YOU SHOW US THAT MATCH?

UPDATE
-Hulk Hogan continues to be popular. We watch his match with Boris Zhukov from last week to illustrate that point.

SPECIAL INTERVIEW
-Craig DeGeorge welcomes Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake. He has words for the Honky Tonk Man, but gets interrupted by Jimmy Hart, taunting Beefcake with his megaphone, and you know EXACTLY what he has planned. Honky sneaks up from the other end of the interview platform and hits Brutus so hard that he falls down to the concrete floor. Honky says his guitar was out of tune and he just needed to tune it up. Barber has a huge cut across the middle of his back from the attack, which is an effective visual.

-Bobby Heenan has received the ultimate honor: He is now on a WWF Ice Cream Bar.

YOUNG STALLIONS vs. RICK GANTNER & TOM STONE
-Powers starts with Gantner. Shoulderblock leads Gantner right out of there. In comes Stone and he gets hiptossed. Gantner tries again and gets caught in an arm wringer. Powers drop toeholds him and Roma legdrops him. Atomic drop by Roma, and Powers connects with a flying bodypress.

-Stallions trade off working the arm while the Bolsheviks & Slick drop in and say that comparing the Stallions to the Bolsheviks is like comparing “horseback to Cadillac.”

-Gorilla accidentally calls Jim Powers “Rick Martel” while Powers suplexes Stone. Backdrop by Powers, and then he holds up Stone so Paul Roma can KO him with a missile dropkick, and that gets the win.

-Sam Houston encourages you to take a big Texas bite of a WWF Ice Cream Bar. You’d think a company with such a blatant nostalgia boner would want to bring these back.

HERCULES (with Bobby Heenan) vs. BILL BOWMAN
-Bodyslam and an elbow by Herc. He stops to do some celebratory posing before dropping some knees on Bowman. Jerk slam by Hercules. Backbreaker gets the submission.

BAD NEWS BROWN vs. CHRIS ZARNA
-Bad News pounds him down while Gorilla reminds the kids at home that this stuff is extremely dangerous and you shouldn’t try this at home. Bobby Heenan also warns the fans not to let their wives get involved if they decide to try this for a living.

-Bad News keeps pounding away for quite a while, with clotheslines and kicks. Ghetto blaster eventually finishes.

BAM-BAM BIGELOW (with Oliver Humperdink)vs. KING KONG BUNDY (with Bobby Heenan)
-From MSG. Bundy must have really frosted them on his way out the door for someone to say “Let’s have the feature be Bundy getting squashed in a seven-month-old match.” Avalanche misses and Bam-Bam drops a big elbow for two. Bundy drops an elbow of his own for two. Clothesline sends Bam-Bam over the top and he nearly kills a photographer. Back in, Bundy clotheslines Bam-Bam. Kneedrop misses and Bam-Bam capitalizes immediately with a splash for three. Nothing special.

5.0

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

The first half of the show is actually pretty great, with tons of angles and decent action, but then it's all downhill after the tug of war.