The Name on the Marquee: WWF Prime Time Wrestling (7.25.1988)

-Originally aired July 25, 1988.

-Your hosts are Gorilla and the Brain.

SAM HOUSTON vs. DINO BRAVO
-From Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The Sean Mooney/Lord Alfred combo makes its debut on commentary.

Arm wringer and a chop by Dino. Hiptoss and a bodypress by Houston get two. Dino counters an attempted monkeyflip with an inverted atomic drop. Dino with a chinlock, followed by a chinlock. So, it’s that kind of squash. Houston dropkicks Dino out to the floor, but Dino comes right back with the side suplex to finish. This was just there.

-Bobby puts over Sam Houston for putting up a heck of a fight. The running gag in the studio this week is that Heenan is playing babyface for some reason and Gorilla is confused by it.

RAVISHING RICK RUDE (with Bobby Heenan) vs. JOE MILANO
-From Superstars of Wrestling. Rude hammers Milano down and clotheslines him. He slams Milano as we’ve put the cart before the horse with this week’s episode and Vince & Jesse are discussing Jesse being a referee at Summerslam, something which we haven’t been told yet. Jesse says he doesn’t have a price because he just got his first residual check from Predator. Rude Awakening finishes. WWE Network’s inexplicable dubbing of Rude’s theme music makes the post-match antics unbearable, as Rude and Heenan cut a promo on the house mic and you can barely hear it.

SPECIAL INTERVIEW
-Special interview. Andre the Giant, “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase, Virgil, and Bobby Heenan are here to address Randy Savage’s challenge to a tag team match against a partner to be named. Bobby Heenan has had meetings with Jack Tunney, however, and he has already notified Tunney that he won’t accept the challenge unless they get a REAL referee, not a wimp like Hebner or an idiot like Marella. But pending that, Heenan accepts. Craig DeGeorge reveals that, yes indeed, a referee has been assigned to that match. Gasp. I can’t wait to see where this is leading. The suspense is killing me. SHOCKINGLY, Craiggers reveals it’s going to be Jesse Ventura, and DiBiase pulls out a stack of money and laughs with delight at the announcement.

-Bobby is in such a good mood this week that he insists we can skip The Brother Love Show. Gorilla is extra-suspicious now, so he asks director Kerwin Silfies to run the tape ahead of time and see who the guest is. It’s Jake “The Snake” Roberts and Cheryl, so Gorilla overrules the Brain and says that The Brother Love Show WILL air this week.

HART FOUNDATION vs. CONQUISTADORS
-From Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Conquistadors attack from behind and pay for it. Harts just completely beat down the Conquistadors, with Anvil using chokes and a succession of holds to wear them down. Small chant for Bret goes up, so Anvil obliges and makes the tag. Bret dropkicks the Conquistadors into each other, but he gets tripped from the floor in retaliation. Conquistadors gang up on him in the corner. Attempted double-team backfires and Anvil tags back in to clean house. Hart Attack ends this one. This was okay, although the Harts didn’t let the Conquistadors look like too much of a threat.

KEN PATERA vs. GREG “The Hammer” VALENTINE (with Jimmy Hart)
-Still in Cedar Rapids. Valentine sorta pisses around for a few minutes to try to drag this one out until he can get warmed up. He throws forearms and drags Patera out to the floor and beats on him. Back in, Patera comes to life with elbows and applies a chinlock. Valentine goes into the turnbuckles ten times and Patera rolls him up for two. Valentine boots him down to counter a backdrop. Valentine stomps a mudhole. Patera comes back, but misses a corner charge, and get used to that as Patera begins to run out the clock because that seemed to be the only spot Patera could think of for setting up his own jobs. Valentine goes for the figure four, but Muraco, still suspicious of the leg brace, runs in and attacks, getting Patera DQed. Patera looked a little sluggish, but it was fine.

-Bobby Heenan announces that The Brother Love Show this week will be a rerun of Ted DiBiase’s appearance, so stand by.

EVENT CENTER
-Bad News Brown is ready to fight anybody, even three-legged dogs or fat grandmothers! We hear from the Rockers for the first time. They got a long way to go until they face Demolition, but they’re gonna get there. Shawn Michaels says that brains have never been his strong point.

IRON SHEIK (with Slick) vs. JOHN YATES
-From LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Sheik attacks from behind, rips Yates’ shirt off and chokes him out. Lord Alfred mentions that Yates comes from a wrestling family but never follows up on that thought. Googling around suggests John is probably a relative of AWA ’70s prelim guy Ken Yates.

-Sheik connects with some controversial boot shots, and the camel clutch ends it. And that’s the last of Sheik’s 1988 WWF run, off to greener pastures of wrestling some of the worst matches in NWA history and being hilariously overpaid for it after they forget to cancel his contract.

THE BROTHER LOVE SHOW
-So as Gorilla promises, we’re watching Brother Love’s interview with Jake & Cheryl Roberts. It’s the first time that Brother Love has interviewed a babyface, and the gag here is that he’s completely uninterested in this segment and spends the whole interview making faces at the camera. Brother Love refers to Cheryl as “Jezebel” and almost earns himself an ass-kicking from Jake for it, and Brother Love looks worried for his life as we conclude the segment.

TITO SANTANA vs. THE HEADBANGER (with Frenchy Martin)
-And now, for the second and last time, here’s Jos LeDuc in the WWF. And to show how well his run is going, the coming-up graphic calls him “Butcher LeDuc” and Gorilla introduces him as Headbutter.

-Headbanger throws forearms at Tito as Sean Mooney is using the “Butcher” name. Elbow by LeDuc misses and Tito slams him down, which brings the crowd to life. Tito applies an armbar and keeps it locked on until LeDuc takes him down and applies a chinlock. Regardless of the man’s name, we’re seeing a suspicious lack of head-banging or butchering manuevers from him. Three days later, Tito elbows out, but LeDuc shoulderblocks him down and goes back to the chinlock. Tito elbows out again and comes at LeDuc with a dropkick and a backdrop, and the flying forearm finishes, just that easily. Holy crap that was just shockingly dull. Ten minutes, and about 7 was resting.

EVENT CENTER
-Slick says he’s dealt with injustices in the WWF for a long time now, so the Big Boss Man is here to enforce punishment on anyone who tries to get away with injustice.

UPDATE
-The Powers of Pain and the Bolsheviks are both gunning for a title match against Demolition, so they’ll probably have a match in the near future to determine the #1 contenders.

-In the studio, Gorilla says it’s weird that Slick is trying to get a title shot for the Bolsheviks when he’d probably have a more formidable team if he paired up Boss Man and One Man Gang.

BAM-BAM BIGELOW vs. ANDRE THE GIANT (with Bobby Heenan)
-And a year after the battle for Bam-Bam began, we’ve reached Bam-Bam’s last night of this run in the company. Bam-Bam seemed to be a “dog that caught the car” issue, as you had this big monster with abnormal agility that the fans instantly bought into as a badass, and once he got over, it was like, “Okay…now what do we do with him?” And they never really figured that out.

-Andre chokes Bigelow out, and of course we’re at that stage of Andre’s career where that’s pretty much all there is to type about this match. Headbutts by Andre, and props to Bigelow for going out like a professional, as he’s bumping all over the ring and selling his ass off for Andre. Bam-Bam ducks a big bot and clotheslines Andre for the token “tangled in the ropes” spot. Andre frees himself and applies a bearhug. Bam-Bam hangs on and Andre puts the boots to him. Bam-Bam gets one last burst of energy and charges at Andre, but Andre connects with the big boot and drops the elbow to pin Bam-Bam clean as a sheet. He strangles Bam-Bam until Jim Duggan and the 2×4 come to the rescue. 3 for 6. This is worth a point just because of Bam-Bam showing you how to take it like a man. Bam-Bam came out there fired up, no job face, and then went out there and took the best ass-kicking he could to make Andre look like a threat and make Duggan look like a bigger star for rescuing him. Good on him, seriously.

5.5

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

A weirdly sloppy episode of the show, with Jesse's referee gig being spoiled and nobody knowing what the hell to call Jos LeDuc, and nothing particularly special among the matches.