wrestling / TV Reports
WWF Prime Time Wrestling (10.2.1989) Review
Loading...-I don’t know when you’re reading this, but as of Easter Sunday 2020, this is the last episode on the Network. I’ll revisit if they ever post more.
-Originally aired October 2, 1989.
-Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon & Bobby Heenan in Studio A, and Roddy Piper in Studio B. Heenan is annoyed because he’s co-hosting the show again but they haven’t bothered putting him back in the opening titles.
DEMOLITION vs. DUNCAN JONES & TODD BECKER
-Smash wastes no time punkin’ Duncan. He gets dumped on the floor before Demolition demands that he tags. Becker takes a beating and we get an unusual finish here, as Smash puts out Becker with a stungun and just pins him without bothering to do the Decapitator.
-Bobby Heenan shows off the really neat Million Dollar Man bank that’s on sale in the WWF Merchandise Catalog now. I seriously just went to Ebay looking for it.
HONKY TONK MAN (with Jimmy Hart) vs. RED TYLER
-Piper refers to Honky as “El Kabong” and now I want to go on a bingewatch of The Critic. We get words from the Red Rooster, who I assume is using this match as an opportunity to scout Honky’s strategy for wrestling guys named Red. Now this hardly seems fair, Dusty Wolfe had to change his name to Dale Wolfe, and yet, with Red Rooster walking around, nobody told Red Tyler that he had to change his name to…I dunno…Rip Taylor, I guess.
-Oh, wrestling match, right. Uh, shake rattle & roll finishes.
EVENT CENTER
-It’s another rerun, Akeem warns us that he’s not going anywhere.
-Okay, remember the last episode when I said they edited out an angle from Rick Rude’s match? Well, they’re showing it on this episode, because this Network is weird. Rude gives a woman the Rude Awakening and she doesn’t faint like usual. Rude does it again, and she just wipes her mouth and leaves unimpressed.
ROWDY RODDY PIPER vs. BARRY HOROWITZ
-Piper’s “official” return from retirement. He throws his kilt in Barry’s face and then just drives his head into the mat a million times before pinning him in less than a minute. But more importantly, Piper gets on the mic and asks for the “hot mama” from last week to come to the ring, and she’s just giggling and goo-goo eyed from looking at Piper. She says Rude had horrible breath, and Piper offers to give her a “Rod Awakening,” which should have been what Val Venis called his finisher. She faints dead away from Piper’s kiss.
-Back in Studio B, Piper is having a cigarette, and he needles Heenan by saying “She smoked a cigar.”
WIDOW MAKER vs. RENO RIGGINS
-Riggins gets some token offense, but he bounces off the ropes and Barry just CRACKS him with a right hand. We get pre-taped words from the Widow Maker calling out Hulk Hogan. This was an odd thing about Hogan’s second reign. He had defined feuds all through it, as opposed to the 1984-88 reign, where he mostly fought “heel of the month.” Why not a run of Hulk vs. Widow Maker matches for October?
-Superplex ends this one quickly.
-Heenan teases that he may have secretly made a deal with the Widow Maker, and Gorilla says that can’t be true because Widow Maker actually seemed happy during the last match.
-SURVIVOR SERIES!
HERCULES vs. MISTER PERFECT
-From Nassau Coliseum. Perfect slaps Herc across the face to a big “Ooooooooh!” from the crowd and he runs for his life when Herc reacts accordingly to it. Cute bit as Perfect tries to make Hercules chase him, but the referee is standing in the way, so Herc just grabs him. Perfect escapes and still manages to get away from Herc, and the crowd’s getting frustrated. And then suddenly Perfect heads back in and just blindsides Hercules with punch after punch until Herc sends him flying over the top with his own uppercut.
-So Perfect tries to stall, but Herc’s patience is used up and he slingshots Perfect back in and takes him on a tour of the turnbuckles. Side headlock by Hercules, and Perfect screams for his life in the hold and sounds like he might actually ends up submitting to a side headlock. Irish whip by Hercules and Perfect hits the corner full-force and splats on his face.
-Back from commercial, Hercules tries a bearhug and Perfect looks like the air’s been completely taken out of him and he goes limp instantly. Referee raises the arm three times, but the third time, Perfect just rakes the eyes and Herc releases the hold. That’s actually a brilliant heel tactic for getting the bearhug released immediately. Perfect was only in the hold for a few seconds.
-Perfect drops an elbow but Herc kicks out “with authority” Vince would say. Perfect drives a knee into the back of the head and Herc is seeing stars from that. Herc tries to wear him out with a chinlock and unfortunately the director picks the absolute wrong camera angle, as Perfect’s elbow is a solid foot away from Herc’s neck and they appear to be having a very pleasant conversation during the hold.
-Perfect knocks Herc out to the floor, but back in Herc gets his second wind and punches Perfect all over. Herc signals for the torture rack, and surprise surprise, the bell sounds for a time limit draw. But getting there sure ended up being fun. GREAT match with a story all the way through.
BROTHER LOVE
-Ted DiBiase is here. There WAS a time when he respected Jake Roberts for being devious and cunning, but now he’s lost respect for Jake because he’s totally lost his mind for daring to issue a challenge after laying in traction and wondering if his arm numbness would ever go away. Great follow-up to Jake’s promo.
HILLBILLY JIM vs. RAY OAKLEY
-We get words from Akeem, who says he can dance circles around Hillbilly Jim. Okay.
-Hillbilly claps his hands, which dazes Oakley, and a big boot finishes quickly.
THE CORONATION OF RANDY SAVAGE & SENSATIONAL SHERRI
-All of the heels in the WWF are gathered in the ring. Savage and Sherri come to the ring already wearing crowns, which seems to undermine the point of a coronation. Especially because Savage’s custom MACHO crown would have been an awesome reveal. The Genius reads a magnificent poem, and I’m about 99% sure that this was the only time that the Poffo brothers were ever in a WWF ring.
GREG “The Hammer” VALENTINE (with Jimmy Hart) vs. JIM MACPHERSON
-Um…this match was on last week’s episode. Did lots of cards and letters come in from Greg Valentine fans demanding to see the two-minute squash again?
-Piper is threatening to commit an unnatural act with the bananaphone if Heenan keeps mouthing off and Gorilla has to settle them down.
EVENT CENTER
-Big Boss Man is distractingly wet as he has words for Dusty Rhodes. Ronnie Garvin threatens Greg Valentine by warning him that his house has a gym in it.
TAG TEAM TITLE: BRAIN BUSTERS (Champions, with Bobby Heenan) vs. BUSHWHACKERS
-Hey, a title match! That’s rare for this show. Challengers clear the ring instantly and stomp on Heenan’s hands for good measure. Bushwhackers celebrate prematurely and Arn Anderson capitalizes with a sneak attack. All four men end up in the ring and Tully Blanchard takes a wild bump off an Irish whip and lands on the floor.
-Busters resort to double-teaming Luke in the corner. Arn works the arm, but Luke puts a stop to it by biting legs. Tully Blanchard cuts off the attempted tag and tries to whip Luke into Arn’s raised knee. Luke reverses and Tully takes a knee from his own partner. Arn quickly tags in and again cuts off the tag. Showing he’s learned something, Arn works the arm again but changes up his stance so he can’t get his leg bitten.
-Luke tries headbutts instead and finally makes the hot tag to Butch. All four men are in the ring and the brawl spills to the floor, but the Bushwhackers beat the count to take the win, but not the titles. Bit of a style clash, but it was all action from bell to bell.
-In the studio, Bobby complains about how hard it is to plan strategy for a match against the Bushwhackers, and Roddy sounding intrigued by that, says he’d love to have the Bushwhackers be his tag team partners for a match. That’s something they kind of missed the mark on with Survivor Series over the years. The teams usually just HAPPENED. Now obviously, it’s an annual event so you can’t really have every team come together organically, but you never saw angles where guys scouted and recruited each other to build teams, so hearing Piper thinking ahead to Survivor Series without the card announced yet is kind of neat.
