WWF Prime Time Wrestling (6.19.1989) Review

-Note for anyone from WWE Network who might be lurking: since you redesigned everything, Prime Time is missing from your Roku channel. I mean, it’s there if I actually type in “Prime Time” and do a search, but the show itself isn’t on any menus on the Roku channel.

-Originally aired June 19, 1989.

-Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan. The good news at least is that the audio is in sync, which seemed to be a huge issue for a lot of people when the Network relaunched.

-Anyway, Gorilla seems surprised that Bobby is there since he walked off last week at the end of the show. Bobby’s back but he’s still mad that he’s left out of program planning meetings. Gorilla knows he’s unhappy, so just to soothe him, Gorilla made a Brooklyn Brawler match this week’s feature.

BLUE BLAZER vs. WARLORD (with Mr. Fuji)
-This is Owen’s last TV appearance of this run, and they’re feeding him to the slowly-rotting singles pushes of the Powers of Pain. Warlord very gradually hammers him down, but Blazer counters a corner charge with a boot. Missile dropkick right away by the Blazer gets two. Warlord clotheslines him down and rams him in the corner. Alfred Hayes glows with praise for the Warlord, calling him “competent.”

-Blazer comes back with more dropkicks, but he goes off the top rope and Warlord just catches him and powerslams him back to Canada for three. Pretty much an extended squash for Warlord.

-Gorilla suggests that Mr. Fuji should consider pairing up the Warlord and Zeus as a tag team, as part of a sinister plot to kill Dave Meltzer’s spirit.

UPDATE
-Gene Okerlund recaps the Ronnie Garvin saga. We get words from Garvin, who says he’s completely happy being a referee and that he hopes to officiate a Greg Valentine match in the near future.

BUSHWHACKERS vs. DUSTY WOLFE & JIM MERKEL
-The Bushwhackers have hats now! They make it a point to stop and model the hats for the camera as they walk to the ring and then do a bit where they’re confused by their inability to noogie each other while wearing the hats. So…so yeah, this match is designed to make us buy hats.

-We get words from the Brain Busters before the Bushwhackers hammer Dusty Wolfe so badly that Wolfe must have gotten in their face and said he won’t buy a hat. Butch gouges his eyes and the Whackers clothesline him down. Merkel tags in and they battering ram his hatless butt right down to the mat. Double gutbuster finishes. Hats.

EVENT CENTER
-A fantastic promo from Andre the Giant, who’s reading off a cue card and you can see Heenan mouthing the words with him. Jim Neidhart cuts a great promo, I’m pretty sure all by himself.

-Brooklyn Brawler touts a battle of Brooklyn vs. Harlem later tonight when he faces Bad News Brown.

“The Million Dollar Man” TED DIBIASE (with Virgil) vs. RED TYLER
-DiBiase applies a top wristlock and trips Tyler while holding onto it. Odd moment as we cut to a hard camera wide shot and stay on it for a long while for no reason. I’m guessing there was a Jake Roberts head-in-box promo that was removed because shit happens?

-DiBiase whips Tyler, who does a Flair flip out to the floor. Back in, the Million Dollar Dream ends it.

SPECIAL INTERVIEW
-Mean Gene welcomes King Duggan. Holy crap, they made a King Duggan t-shirt?! Duggan invites Haku to come down and come get some and I can’t concentrate, I want that King Duggan t-shirt.

-Tito Santana and his family are exiting the movie theater and they agree that they enjoyed No Holds Barred. Hold it, Tito has a wife and kids? Suddenly the “Girls in Cars” video seems problematic.

MR. PERFECT vs. J.T. THOMAS
-From Superstars. The jobber has a GREAT look, but from what I can find, he never went onto anything. Perfect knocks the jobber around while we get pre-taped words from Perfect, saying that he saw No Holds Barred and…yes, it was a good movie. But it wasn’t perfect.

-Thomas throws a dropkick and hammers on Perfect for a bit, but Perfect fights back with a hard forearm and finishes with the Perfect-plex.

EVENT CENTER
-We get comments from the Bushwhackers, but they aren’t wearing hats, so I’m not sure if it’s the same guys.

-Bobby is shocked that the Young Stallions are wrestling in the next match because “they hate each other!” Unexpected shoot comment.

YOUNG STALLIONS vs. BORIS ZHUKOV & BARRY HOROWITZ
-Stallions’ tights and jackets don’t match, so it looks like one or the other didn’t get the memo that they were teaming up again.

-Backdrop by Powers and Horowitz gets outta there. Roma shows some fire, flinging Zhukov around the ring until he escapes and Horowitz heads back in. Power heads back in and suplexes Horowitz, but Zhukov breaks the pin. Powers goes to a side headlock. Stallions start working the legs on Horowitz.

-Horowitz takes over as this is actually going to be a competitive match. Boris tags in, and full of energy after a nice long break on the apron, he applies a bearhug. Horowitz tags in and adds an abdominal stretch. Powers hiptosses out and makes the hot tag. Roma cleans house and Powers comes in and finishes with a powerslam. Really dull heat segment took me out of it.

RICK MARTEL (with Slick) vs. JERRY LYNN
-Another tour of job duty for the young up-and-comer. He attempts a monkey flip early on but Martel cartwheels around him. Martel hammers away in the corner and sends Lynn into the ropes for a dropkick. Gutwrench by Martel, and a kneedrop off the top…finishes? Huh. That didn’t last.

-Off to the gas station, where Dusty Rhodes pumps some gas and does an oil check for a customer. Dusty’s “uniform” here is amazing, as he’s wearing an undershirt with “GAS” written on it in magic marker. “Hey…aren’t you…”

TONY SCHIAVONE’S COLISEUM CORNER – INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE: ULTIMATE WARRIOR (Champion) vs. GREG “The Hammer” VALENTINE (with Jimmy Hart)
-An unaired match from “The Main Event.” I love the way that they lit the crowd for that one show.

-Warrior stupidly starts by chasing Jimmy Hart, and of course Valentine attacks from behind. Warrior no-sells it and Jimmy distracts the referee long enough for Valentine to attack Warrior from behind with the Heartbreaker, his loaded shin guard. Warrior kicks out with authority anyway and Valentine clubs and pounds away at the Warrior.

-Valentine comes off the top rope with another forearm, but Warrior fights back with a faceplant and a series of punches. Shoulderblock by Warrior and Jimmy Hart heads into the ring and tries another shin guard attack, but gets press slammed onto Valentine and Warrior uses the shin guard himself to KO Valentine, getting the pin and retaining the gold. Warrior absolutely would not let Valentine get any extended heat and you could sense the crowd becoming bored with it as it went along.

-Bad News Brown says that every time some idiot from Brooklyn sets foot in Harlem, they have to kick him right back, and Harlem’s been doing this since the 1930s.

FABULOUS ROUGEAU BROTHERS (with Jimmy Hart) vs. TIM HORNER & CHRIS ZARNA
-Rougeaus offer a friendly handshake. Jobbers are too smart for that, but the Rougeaus just ambush them like they were going to do anyway. That gets Tim Horner good and mad, and he singlehandedly clears the ring with dropkicks.

-Mind-blowing pre-taped promo from the Rougeaus, where they warn the Rockers and the Rougeau package will explode in their face. Zarna tags in and Raymond applies a Boston crab, and while keeping it locked on, Jacques comes off the top with a knee to the back of the head to knock him out for a three-count.

BROTHER LOVE
-Brother Love’s mullet is out of control at this point. That was a little thing that bothers me about the character looking back. Bruce Prichard got the hair all wrong. How many televangelists had mullets or pony tails?

-Brother Love welcomes Superfly Jimmy Snuka and scolds him for not showing looooooove to the Honky Tonk Man, instead jumping like a monkey onto Honky when all he wanted to do was sing. Jimmy Hart shows up to taunt Snuka and you can see this coming down the interstate, and yep, there’s the Honky Tonk Man breaking a guitar over Snuka’s back and leaving him for dead. Brother Love sticks around after the assault to taunt Snuka, but Snuka makes it back to his feet and destroys Brother Love’s lectern. Okay, even if you saw the sneak attack coming, that was a good segment. Brother Love was a total dick, and Honky just destroyed the guitar piece-by-piece with repeated shots.

HILLBILLY JIM vs. FULLER STEVENS
-Hillbilly continues his emergency super-push. Stevens tries to slam him but can’t get his feet off the ground. Hillbilly just stomps on his foot and smacks his ear like a riled-up hillbilly would. Big boot to the face finishes immediately.

EVENT CENTER
-Bobby Heenan rattles off a list of ex-Intercontinental Champions, including Jake “The Snake” Roberts…ahem…but Rick Rude is a better champ than all of them.

-For no particular reason, Gene Okerlund steps in and replaces Bobby Heenan for the rest of the show. Gene Okerlund was on the set for the filming of No Holds Barred and he blames Zeus for causing all the animosity. He’s pissed because he had to lose at the end of the movie? Come on, do your job.

BAD NEWS BROWN vs. BROOKLYN BRAWLER
-Brawler surprises everyone with a page from Bad News’ playbook, attacking him during the introduction. Bad News fights right back and sends Brawler out to the floor, ramming him into the timekeeper’s table. He misses a clothesline and hits the post, and Brawler sees an opportunity, whipping him into the post again to stay on the arm.

-Back in the ring, Brawler bites Bad News and rakes his face over the top rope. Brawler fights back with punches and forearms as these two are just having a straight-up FIGHT and the crowd is actually digging it.

-Brawler raises the knees to block a splash and stomps away at Bad News. Brawler throws punches until Joey Marella forces him to stop, and Bad News capitalizes with a ghetto blaster for three. That was…unexpectedly pretty fun. And that’s the end of Steve Lombardi’s brush with pushdom and right back to jobberville he goes. And that’s weird to me because even as low man on that totem pole, there would be a spot for him. “Hey Warrior, want a piece of Rick Rude? You have to go through Brooklyn Brawler first.” “Hey Hillbilly Jim, you want Andre the Giant? You have to go through Brooklyn Brawler first.” Just make him Heenan’s jobber. Why not?

-In the studio, Gorilla and Mean Gene point out that Bobby Heenan wasn’t even at ringside for the match. Gorilla deduces that Bobby Heenan probably just figured out that he didn’t have as much use for Brawler as he thought and cut him loose.

5.0

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

Squashtastic, but that feature match was a surprising treat.