The Name on the Marquee: WWF Prime Time Wrestling (5.9.1988)

-Originally aired May 9, 1988.

-Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon & Bobby Heenan. Gorilla is irritated because after last week’s show, Bobby went to admire the new set as it was being pulled off the truck and accidentally broke a piece of it, so we have to wait an extra week for the new set.

HACKSAW JIM DUGGAN vs. HERCULES (with Bobby Heenan & Andre the Giant)
-From Saturday Night’s Main Event. Sloppy post-production weirdness has Howard Finkel introducing Duggan while we see Finkel taking his seat at ringside without a microphone anywhere near him. Jesse promises that we won’t be seeing a classic match between these two.

-Hercules tries to ram Duggan into the turnbuckle. Block and reverse by Duggan. He follows with a clothesline and Hercules goes to the corner for advice from his crew. It doesn’t work; Duggan atomic drops him and follows with an elbow. Hercules tries to take a breather, but Duggan slingshots him back in. Backdrop by Duggan. He goes for a kneedrop and Hercules gets out of the way.

-Hercules targets the leg while the “Weasel” chant erupts. Hercules goes to Duggan’s eyes. Duggan gets some false hope by reversing an Irish whip, but he misses the corner charge. Hercules punches and chokes away at Duggan. Duggan throws a few weak forearms but doesn’t do much to daze Hercules. Hercules tosses him to the floor and Heenan & The Giant politely mind their business and just leave Hacksaw writhing.

-…Oh, until Heenan gets cocky and takes a cheap shot. Hacksaw immediately grabs his 2×4 and chases everybody out of the ring, and nobody will go back in until the 2×4 is taken away from him. We’ll see if they can get it away from him when we return!

-Back from commercial, it’s a fistfight and it’s pretty even until Hercules goes to the eyes again. Bearhug is clamped on, but Duggan doesn’t stay in it very long at all, boxing Hercules’ ears until he releases. Hercules knocks him back down and chokes Duggan with his boot. He goes for a backdrop and Duggan boots him away.

-And it’s a full-blown comeback by Duggan, with turnbuckle shots and punching. Hiptoss by Duggan and he connects with the three-point stance, but Heenan won’t let Duggan get the pinfall. He runs in and stomps Duggan to break the pin and get Hercules DQed. Jesse Ventura: Prophet. It’s a 3-on-1 assault until Ultimate Warrior arrives, grabs the 2×4, and clears the ring.

BRADY BOONE vs. STEVE LOMBARDI
-Gorilla & Alfred get into an interesting dissertation about Boone’s style & his spot on the card, noting that he often loses matches because he hurts himself on high risk moves, but the problem is wrestling is evolving to the point that everybody HAS to have some high risk moves in their arsenal, so he’s kinda stuck. They have an equally interesting discussion about Lombardi; Gorilla notes that he’s a graduate with honors from the Terry Garvin School of Self-Defense and that Pat Patterson has spent a number of hours training him. Alfred concurs, saying you can see that in the way that Lombardi tends to prefer getting behind his opponents for takedowns.

-Boone backs Lombardi into the ropes. Lombardi backs Boone into the ropes and rams shoulders into his gut. Boone reverses an Irish whip and hiptosses Lombardi. Backdrop by Boone and Lombardi heads to the floor for a rest. Lombardi charges back into the ring and runs right into a drop toehold. Boone wrings the arm. Lombardi gets free and slams him, but Boone armdrags him and goes right back to work on the arm. Crucifix by Boone gets two. Boone goes back to work on the arm and sticks with it. MSG is starting to get restless, but have decided to hold back on the chant for the moment.

-Boone keeps working the arm, and keeps working it, and keeps working it. Lombardi fires him into the ropes and press slams him facefirst. Gorilla compares it to Ultimate Warrior’s offense, and it’s actually an apt comparison. Hard clothesline by Lombardi sends Boone out to the floor. He won’t let Boone back inside for a time, but eventually launches him back in with a slingshot. Lombardi chokes Boone and gives him an uppercut. Backbreaker gets two. Small package gets two. Headlock is clamped on, and Lombardi just hangs on and hangs onto it.

-Boone gets free and goes for a splash, but Lombardi raises the boots and chokes away at Boone. Lombardi rams Boone into the turnbuckles, but Boone grabs his legs on the mat and rolls him up for two. Fistfight gets going and Lombardi wins it, then dodges a corner charge from Boone. He tosses Boone to the floor while Gorilla argues that the WWF should consider making that a DQ.

-Back in the ring, Lombardi gets a two-count while Alfred suggests that Terry & Pat should teach him to use his head more. Boone gets a fluke suplex and follows with a shoulderblock and a kneelift. High elbow off the ropes and Lombardi backs into the corner. Boone follows him in and pounds away, ramming him into the turnbuckles. Snap suplex by Boone and he starts to head to the top rope for something, but Lombardi gets to his feet and brings him off with a back suplex.

-Irish whip by Lombardi. He charges and runs right into a boot. Boone goes to the top and goes for a moonsault; Lombardi dodges, Boone thinks quickly and lands on his feet. Lombardi charges at him and Boone ducks. Lombardi crashes into the corner and rolls him up for three. Jaw hanging at the thought that it was Lombardi who carried the match. During the replay, a group of fans who just HAVE to be the Rosotti sisters sing “Heeeyyyyy Lombardi, You Lost Agaaaaaaaain!”

-Bobby Heenan says Terry Garvin is wasting his time trying to train Steve Lombardi.

SPECIAL INTERVIEW
-Craig DeGeorge welcomes Jake “The Snake” Roberts to the interview platform. Jake tries to say what he wants to do to Rick Rude, but Craig hastily stops him from saying the word “ass.” Jake says that Rude isn’t enough man for him OR Cheryl.

UPDATE
-Bret Hart and Bad News Brown are still pissed off at each other about Wrestlemania IV (available on home video this Wednesday!) Highlight of the segment is Alfred’s halted pronunciation of “ghetto blaster.”

BRUTUS “The Barber” BEEFCAKE vs. DANGEROUS DANNY DAVIS (with Jimmy Hart)
-From Saturday Night’s Main Event. Jesse astutely observes that the similar tights make it look like two candy canes are wrestling. This was advertised in the local promotion for the show as an Intercontinental Title match, and a few weeks earlier, Coliseum Video abruptly switched out their announced Best of the Honky Tonk Man tape for a Best of Brutus Beefcake tape, so everything leading up to this show was screaming “title change” and then they suddenly pulled Honky for the show and threw Danny Davis in here.

-Davis takes a cheap shot, and then tries to hide in the corner. Beefcake won’t let him; he rams Danny into the turnbuckle and hiptosses him. Davis throws more punches and Beefcake goes down. He chokes Beefcake and Jimmy Hart charges at Beefcake with his clippers. Beefcake backs off and Davis tries for an attack, but Davis lifts the knee. Slam by Beefcake, and Davis goes to the floor to recover.

-Beefcake brings him up to the apron and snapmares him back inside. He locks on the sleeper and Jimmy tries to distract the referee like he did at Wrestlemania IV, but the referee won’t fall for it; he stays with Beefcake & Davis until Davis passes out to give Brutus the win. Total squash. Beefcake cuts Danny’s hair, and then covers him with spraypaint. Then he wakes up Danny and just kicks his ass a little bit MORE. To say the least, this was the end of Danny Davis being treated as a credible threat to anybody.

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-Mean Gene Okerlund walks into the studio to get a look at the new set and is dismayed to learn that Bobby screwed up and damaged the set.

JAKE “The Snake” ROBERTS vs. GREG “The Hammer” VALENTINE
-From Toronto. Jake is filling in for the departing Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat tonight, which is a relief for Valentine because most of his in-ring strategy for reptilian opponents still applies to his new opponent.

-Valentine applies a side headlock and keeps it on, so I guess he’s going to need that 20 minutes to warm up tonight. Jake punches out and Greg stalls after all that, so I guess they’re going to be out there for a while. Jake spots Bobby Heenan at the commentary table and Heenan hastily takes off, giving Valentine a little more time to piss around while the fans look at Bobby.

-Valentine heads back in and Jake connects with a kneelift. He goes for the DDT right away but Valentine goes out and walks around for a while. Back in, Valentine wins a test of strength and we stick with that hold for a while. Gorilla’s facade is starting to break down and you can tell his interest is waning. Jake makes it back to his feet and tries to turn the test of strength into a DDT, so Valentine goes out for another break.

-Back in the studio, Bobby Heenan has disappeared, and Gorilla is concerned because it coincides with his being notified that the new set has been repaired.

-Back to the match. Valentine attacks Jake on the apron. Valentine starts working the legs and gives the signal for the figure four, but Jake turns it into a cradle for two. Valentine recovers quickly and begins targeting the lateral collateral ligaments. “A hush has come over this crowd,” which is Gorillese for “This fucking sucks,” and Greg finally gets the figure four locked on, but Jake makes the ropes quickly. Greg tries going to the floor and working the leg on the apron, but Jake kicks him into the barricade.

-Jake fires off punches and gives the signal for the DDT, at which point Gorilla suddenly notices that the signals for the figure four and the DDT are nearly identical, which is the one interesting thing about this match. Greg blocks it again and drops an elbow for two. A forearm for two. Jake suddenly hits the DDT out of nowhere and pins Greg clean as a sheet. Yay clean win. Boo this snoozefest.

-Bobby’s back with a bandage on his thumb for some reason. He refuses to tell Gorilla why, and Gorilla suddenly wants to run outside and look at the new set.

SPECIAL REPORT
-Dino Bravo still claims that he’s the strongest man in the world. Ken Patera disagrees. Arena managers the world over salivate and make plans to buy yachts because of this issue. Ken Patera shows off his collection of medals from the Pan-American Games.

SPECIAL INTERVIEW
-From Superstars of Wrestling. This is pretty funny to start, as Ted DiBiase has just finished wrestling a squash match and hasn’t left the ring yet. Craig DeGeorge’s guest ends up being the new WWF Champion, Randy “Macho Man” Savage, who just totally gloats like an asshole and rubs DiBiase’s face in it.

WOMEN’S TITLE: SENSATIONAL SHERRI (Champion) vs. DESIREE PETERSON
-Weird prematch hijinks see Sherri having a wardrobe malfunction and holding up the show while the referee ties a knot in the back of her tights to keep everything together. Can’t tell if that’s legit or if it’s just for heat.

-Sherri backs Desiree into the ropes and breaks cleanly. She offers a handshake, but Desiree’s ready for the cheap shot and throws punches of her own. Bodypress by Desiree gets two. Desiree keeps going with the theme of tonight’s show by working the arm until Sherri can escape and get to the ropes for a breather. Desiree plays to the crowd and Sherri sneaks up to attack. Desiree’s ready for her again and backdrops Sherri, then slams her for two.

-Desiree goes back to work on the arm, then switches to a front facelock. She rolls over to make it a pinning combination for two. Back to the arm. Sherri fights out with chops and punches, then faceplants Desiree. Desiree sweeps the legs and rolls her up for another two. Sherri tries to go to the ropes and Desiree yanks her by the hair to keep her in the middle of the ring. Dropkick gets two. Side headlock by Desiree, but Sherri sends her into the ropes and kicks her. Shoulderblock by Sherri, but she gets caught with a monkeyflip. Desiree slams her and gets two.

-Sherri comes back again with a shoulderblock and a turnbuckle shot. Another turnbuckle shot and a little choking by Sherri for good measure. She punts Desiree, then tosses her to the floor. Back in the ring, a double clothesline takes both women down, but they get right back up. Desiree faceplants Sherri and Irish whips her. Desiree charges, then sends Sherri into the ropes. Sherri counters by coming off the ropes with another faceplant, and that gets three to retain the gold. Still just a potato.

-Gorilla excitedly promises we’ll be seeing the new set at the end of the show, and Bobby starts freaking out.

INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE: HONKY TONK MAN (Champion, with Jimmy Hart) vs. BAM-BAM BIGELOW
-From New Haven, CT. Honky Zbyszko stalls for a few minutes to aggravate the big man. He suckers Bam-Bam into chasing him, but Bam-Bam anticipates what he’s planning and attacks Honky as he climbs back into the ring. Bam-Bam catches Honky in a chinlock, switching to an armbar, and using rapid headbutts to work the shoulder.

-In the studio, Bobby turns around and suddenly realizes Gorilla is gone. This concerns him.

-Back to the match, Bam-Bam is still working the arm. He goes for the diving headbutt, but Honky gets out of the way and drops a million forearms on Bam-Bam to keep him from getting back up. He goes for Shake Rattle & Roll, but Bam-Bam backdrops out and headbutts Honky to the floor. Bam-Bam goes out there and assaults him, flinging him back into the ring and going for the slingshot splash, but beating up Honky took too much time and Bam-Bam manages to get himself counted out. This was okay, although Bam-Bam Fever was cooling off at this point and it was palpable here.

-In the studio, Gorilla asks the crew to bring in the one part of the new set that Bobby didn’t damage so we can at least see that, and Gorilla is so agitated by Bobby’s fuckery that he quits the show right there and walks off the set. Bobby, after making two years of noise about how he’s the true host of the show, finally gets his wish and gets the show all to himself, at which point he instantly panics and walks off the set, leaving the show with no host.

-Mean Gene Okerlund is still in the building, so he hastily comes on the set to sign off and says he’ll show up next week, just in case Gorilla and Bobby don’t.

5.5

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

Wrestling is nothing special, although it's another keeper week for the Gorilla & Brain devotees.