wrestling / Video Reviews
The Name on the Marquee: WWF Prime Time Wrestling (7.13.1987)
-Originally aired July 13, 1987.
-Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan. Heenan shows the new WWF Magazine with Ken Patera on the cover, and he draws a row of numbers underneath the photo so it looks right.
INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE: HONKY TONK MAN (with Jimmy Hart) vs. GEORGE “The Animal” STEELE
-From a Wrestling Challenge taping. First televised title defense for Honky. Probably not the first good one, though.
-So as you can probably guess, this is a veritable stalling clinic, with Honky running out of the ring and complaining about Steele being crazy and the potential for having his hair messed up in this bout. Honky suckers Steele into chasing him and then clotheslines him so hard that Steele gets his feet tangled in the ropes. Honky just slaps the shit out of George until George frees himself and gives Honky a Dutch rub, messing up his hair as feared. George chases Jimmy Hart back to the locker room, though, getting himself counted out.
-And now, another in the legendary series of Million Dollar Man vignettes. This week, Ted goes to a public pool on a hot day and pays the manager to kick all the kids out so he can have it all to himself. Virgil hands the guy $400 and the manager agrees that there’s too much chlorine in the pool and it’s not safe for the kids…but it’s safe enough for Ted DiBiase. I like the one really indignant kid who mutters, “I came here to swim, not to be shouted at.”
OUTBACK JACK vs JOSE ESTRADA
-From MSG. Estrada refuses a handshake and then cheap shots Outback. Outback gets fired up and throws punches. Big backdrop follows. Slug fest erupts, and Jack is actually throwing pretty good worked punches. He pokes Jose in the eye like he’s Outback Moe. Outback lifts Estrada off the mat by his ears, which is the most badass-looking thing Outback has ever done.
-Shot to the stomach by Estrada, which the commentators say is a trick up Estrada’s sleeve because he’s a seasoned veteran. Jack fights back with a backdrop and a slam, and the boomerang finishes. Outback’s aggression kind of surprised me and it makes me think that maybe there was something they could have done with the guy if they hadn’t insisted on him being a happy smiley bloke.
-Gene Okerlund talks to the Can-Am Connection. Rick Martel is weirdly out of breath and struggling to put together a sentence.
-Back to the studio, even Bobby is busting on Martel for blowing himself up by talking.
BILLY JACK HAYNES vs “Mister Wonderful” PAUL ORNDORFF
-From the Spectrum.
-Lock-up and they go to the ropes. Referee breaks them up as Gorilla throws a tantrum about the referee getting physically between them because that’s not his job. Gorilla’s bitching about officiating comes off hollow after watching the Coliseum Videos on the Network and seeing a match where Gorilla is guest referee and he carries Billy Graham on his shoulders down the aisle to keep him from getting intentionally counted out.
-Side headlock by Billy Jack. Orndorff sends him into the ropes but gets met with a shoulderblock, so he goes out to the floor to recover. For approximately 27 minutes. Back in, Orndorff starts attacking the ribs with a series of knees. Billy Jack rams Orndorff into the turnbuckle, and Orndorff goes out to the floor again.
-Back in, Orndorff gets slammed and demands a time-out. They hit the ropes and Orndorff dodges a bodypress, leaving Haynes to crash. Orndorff follows with a clothesline. Fistdrops by Orndorff. We return from commercial with Orndorff still in control. Chinlock is clamped on. Dick Graham gives it a glowing review, noting that this has been a long match.
– Haynes flips Orndorff over his head to break the hold. Orndorff stops the comeback with a dropkick. He tries to finish with a piledriver, but Haynes backdrops out. Haynes just pounds away on Orndorff and gets a million two-counts in a row, but Orndorff keeps kicking out. Haynes finally locks on the full nelson, and the bell sounds immediately for the draw. Hot few minutes at the end, but getting there was 1/10 the fun.
HILLBILLY JIM (with Little Beaver) vs IRON MIKE SHARPE
-Hillbilly and Beaver were paired up for MONTHS after Wrestlemania III and it just went nowhere. The initial slam and elbow by Bundy were such a big moment that there was no following it.
-Iron Mike applies a side headlock, and Beaver just gets in the ring and complains about it, even though nothing untoward is happening. Hillbilly plants Mike on the top rope to break the hold. He clotheslines Mike and Litrle Beaver runs into the ring, does a dance on Iron Mike’s chest, then runs out of the ring and jumps into the lap of Mel Phillips, who looks horrified. SOMEBODY PLEASE MAKE A GIF OF THIS.
-We return from commercial with Beaver still sitting in Mel Phillips’ lap. Hillbilly applies a full nelson and Little Beaver slaps Iron Mike with his moccasin. Heenan is so horrified that he formally declares Sharpe the winner on principle. Hillbilly has Iron Mike on the mat again, and Beaver just runs in and kicks him in the head repeatedly. Hillbilly tries to end things while we get this amazingly dirty joke on commentary.
GORILLA: Iron Mike comes out the backdoor!
BOBBY: That’s Beaver’s favorite way.
-Hillbilly whacks Iron Mike in the face and just finishes him right there.
-Back in the studio, a crew member loses it when Heenan describes Little Beaver riding Jim’s dog.
-Mean Gene talks to the New Dream Team. Greg Valentine says he feels disgusted whenever he sees Johnny V, which makes two of us…turns out he means the embarrassing haircut that Beefcake gave him.
ISLANDERS (with Bobby Heenan) vs JIM POWERS & SCOTT CASEY
-And so, in the middle of trying to push Roma and Powers as a team, they just randomly stick Powers in there with another jobber to get fed to the heels.
-Powers dropkicks Haku down, then tags Casey in. Getting Haku mad and then tagging out is about the only correct strategy I can imagine with Haku. Tama tags in and gets armdragged around by Casey. Haku attacks the throat to take Casey down, and the Islanders both go to work with chops from every angle.
-Casey dodges a dropkick and tags in Powers. Powers cleans house, but the Islanders catch him in a double-team maneuver. Weird finish, as the Islanders go for a pin after double hadbutts and Casey very clearly, obviously, makes the save and breaks the pin, but after about ten seconds of everyone wondering “Uh, what do we do now?” they just ring the bell and declare the Islanders the winner.
-Gorilla Monsoon announces that Slick has signed Bam-Bam Bigelow to a contract, which surprises Bobby because he’s already signed Bigelow to a contract. We need to get to the bottom of this, preferably over several weeks.
HART FOUNDATION (Tag Team Champions) vs ROUGEAU BROTHERS
-Non-title action. Bret and Raymond start and they do a nice little sequence ending with Raymond dropkicking Bret over the top and onto the floor. Back in, Jacques armdrags him around. Raymond gets caught in the wrong part of town and double-teamed as Gorilla pontificates about the possible need for two referees in these kinds of matches.
-Bret clamps on a standing front facelock, which is like announcing to the entire world that we’re going to do the false hot tag spot, and indeed that’s exactly what it leads to. Harts switch without tagging, with Bret walking nearly all the way back to the locker room just to show off how much they got away with that.
-Corner charge misses and the hot tag is finally made to Jacques. All four men wind up in the ring, and Anvil blindsides Jacques with a clothesline and Bret pins him right away. Unsurprisingly good (but kinda short) match.