Prime Time Wrestling (7.24.1989) Review

-This is the end of the road for Prime Time reviews for now until whenever more of them get uploaded.

-Originally aired July 24, 1989.

-Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon and Rowdy Roddy Piper. The opening has already been updated to include Piper, a nice (and probably unintentional) callback to three years ago when Bobby had to complain to get the opening updated after he had been there for over a month. Gorilla and Roddy share a good laugh about what a piece of crap The Bobby Heenan Show ended up being last week.

BIG BOSS MAN (with Slick) vs. JIM MACPHERSON
-From “Superstars,” where Jesse Ventura is insulted that Jack Tunney hasn’t asked him to be a referee for SummerSlam yet. MacPherson dodges and moves around to avoid the Boss Man, but he goes to the top rope and goes for a bodypress, and Boss Man just gets out of the way. Boss Man Slam finishes.

-So post-match, Boss Man gets ready to dish out some law and order, but Dusty Rhodes strolls to ringside (in tie-dye, not polka dots yet) and steals the nightstick. Slick tries to sneak up on him with a pair of handcuffs, but Dusty sees it coming, snatching the handcuffs away and whacking Boss Man with the nightstick. And then Dusty just produces a police cap from out of nowhere like he’s in a Bugs Bunny cartoon and dances around with the nightstick and the handcuffs while Boss Man tries shaking his fist, and then shaking his fist harder.

-Piper busts on Dusty Rhodes, saying he looks like a member of the Village People in his new gear. It doesn’t get much worse than tie-dye and a cap for Dusty, of course.

UPDATE
-Mean Gene is here to announce seven big matches for SummerSlam ’89! Example of the Mandela Effect for me: I always remembered SummerSlam being promoted as “SummerSlam ’89,” “SummerSlam ’90,” etc. and I look back now, and they only did that the first year. After that, they would tack the year onto the Coliseum Video release, but the show is always just advertised as “SummerSlam.”

-Anyway, your SummerSlam card:
Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake vs. Randy Savage and Zeus

Ravishing Rick Rude defends the Intercontinental Title against Ultimate Warrior!

King Duggan & Demolition vs. Andre the Giant and the Twin Towers! Fun fact: there’s actually a substitution in this match, but the WWF sent out their newspaper ads for SummerSlam months in advance and couldn’t change them, so the newspaper ads for the show advertised Big John Studd & Demolition.

Dusty Rhodes vs. Honky Tonk Man. Funny thing, the match graphics for each thing they’ve run down so far have had pictures of the wrestlers with a logo across the bottom. For this match, they have shirtless Dusty with the logo covering his chest, for decency’s sake, apparently.

Superfly Jimmy Snuka vs. the Million Dollar Man

Hart Foundation vs. the Brain Busters in a match that Bret ended up being really fucking miserable about in his book.

Red Rooster vs. Mr. Perfect

And more matches to be announced next week!

HART FOUNDATION vs. BARRY HOROWITZ & DAVE COLEMAN
-Bret Hart starts with the wrestler formerly known as Bret Hart, because wrestling is weird like that. Hit Man rolls up Horowitz as the Brain Busters and Bobby Heenan drop in to predict that the Busters will win the WWF Tag Team Title in their match with Demolition this weekend, and FYI, Harts, when that happens, they won’t be putting the belts on the line at SummerSlam, because that’s their call to make.

-Bret drops the elbow on Coleman, and the Hart Attack finishes.

RICK MARTEL (with Slick) vs. DON CHAMP
-Don Champ should have feuded with the jobber they used a few weeks ago named Ron Fails.

-Martel showboats for a bit, but misses an elbow. Champ goes for the arm but Martel fights him off and whips him. Bodyslam and the Boston crab. Champ submits, but Martel grabs Danny Davis’ arm and stops him from signaling for the bell, and Martel drops a knee from the top rope to finish for real.

-Randy Savage and Zeus are coming to SummerSlam, and Sherri will bring the Cauldron of the Madness, which sounds totally badass until we get to SummerSlam and it ends up being a literal cauldron in the dressing room.

-We go to Studio B, where Bobby Heenan gives the camneraman a handheld camera, to be used exclusively for close-ups of him.

THE GENIUS vs. JOSE LUIS RIVERA
-Joined in progress from Nassau Coliseum. Genius elbows Rivera Rivera fights back and kicks the Genius down. Genius stalls for time by complaining about a non-existent head wound, and he suckers Rivera into getting too close and sweeps him down to the mat. Honor roll finishes.

EVENT CENTER
-Ravishing Rick Rude must surrender the Intercontinental Championship because he cannot handle the magnetism that surrounds it, and he will be lifted by his head to speak to the gods. Just guess who’s cutting the promo. And the Honky Tonk Man promises that he can sing better than Dusty Rhodes.

-SummerSlam! Live on pay-per-view, giant color closed-circuit, dish and descrambler!

BUSHWHACKERS vs. THE GLADIATOR & SANDY BEACH
-Butch clotheslines Beach while Luke marches up and down the apron modeling the Bushwhackers cap. Meanwhile, here’s Mr. Fuji, warning the Bushwhackers that the Powers of Pain will make them suffer. A classic WWF “We’re feuding because neither of us has anything else going on” battle.

-Battering ram and the double stomachbreaker finish easily.

BROTHER LOVE
-And now, straight from attacking the Big Boss Man and stealing his junk, here’s Dusty Rhodes to assure us that he don’t care about Hard Times, just Good Times. Dusty with Willona in his corner instead of Sapphire would have made for some good promos. Dusty gripes about the organ music during his promo and demands it shut off, because he wants to hear the Common Man Boogie! And so Dusty gets down, gets funky, and gets us familiar with the sound of his entrance theme to wrap things up.

RED ROOSTER vs. JIM CHAPEL
-Red Rooster says his Aunt Atilla the Hen has instructed him to inflict some wounds on Mr. Perfect that will be untweetable. This is why I don’t buy into the attempt to blame Terry Taylor for “not trying hard enough” to get the character over. He went all-in with the concept of being a man-chicken. Chicken wing finishes Chapel.

RAVISHING RICK RUDE (with Bobby Heenan and Andre the Giant) vs. TONY DURANTE
-Rude has Andre escorting him to the ring now, presumably because of the attack by Warrior during his last squash.

-Rude overpowers Durante while Bobby Heenan drops in to tell us that he’s going to be the biggest star in the history of television. Rude finishes quickly with the Rude Awakening. Insert some kind of Pitbulls joke here, I guess.

-Hulk and Brutus assure us that they haven’t fallen into a trap set by Randy Savage. NOXIOUS FUMES ARE SPREADING! Hulk promises to replenish himself by drinking his own bodily fluids as he trains for the match. How the HELL did he stay over for so many more years?

KOKO B. WARE vs. BAD NEWS BROWN
-This is from way back in January, when Koko was experimenting with conked hair and it wasn’t going well. Bad News clotheslines him and chokes him out. Koko comes back with a slam, but it’s a short comeback because he immediately misses an elbow. Bad News slingshots him into the ropes, neck-first. Splash is countered by raised knees and Koko makes his komeback. But Bad News dodges a charge and finishes with the ghetto blaster. Koko kind of got obliterated here, more so than his usual losses.

-And now the reson I came here…

THE BOBBY HEENAN SHOW
-Bobby mentions that the unemployed loser from last week, “Jeremy,” really needs a job, and Bobby decided to do something nice for him, so Bobby’s hired him to be a sidekick. “Jeremy” walks onstage as Bobby suddenly remembers that his name is Jamison.

-Back from commercial, Jamison has already fallen asleep on the couch as Lord Alfred introduces the first guest, an 84-year-old stripper named Leona. She’s dressed like Miss Kitty from “Bonanza” and Bobby is on fire (“84? You don’t look a day over 82!”).

-She begins stripping and they’ve dubbed over the original music from the segment (Rick Rude’s theme) with new music (the fake Rick Rude theme they use for everything on the Network. And sadly, with it, they’ve totally muted the audio, so we can’t hear Bobby’s reaction to the act. Eventually, she just stops because she says she wasn’t sure how much she could legally take off in Connecticut, and Bobby invites her to come back on another show.

-Next, we meet Jim Grosso, who whistles through his nose. Bobby asks for “something by the Stones” and Jim whistles “Battle Hymn of the Republic.’ Bobby asks if he does anything through any of his other body cavities, and Jamison is disgusted by the phrasing of the question.

-They play the Stripper music again, and Jim Grasso sings “Battle Hymn of the Republic” without opening his mouth. All of the Oinkettes hit the stage and dance with Jamison and the stripper, so it’s like a Fellini-esque version of one of Stewie’s sexy parties to close the show.

7.0

The final score: review Good

The 411

I hate to say it, but the music dubbing really hurt Heenan's half hour this week. The build to SummerSlam was a lot of fun to watch, though.