Original Airdate: Sunday, November 22nd, 1992
Prairie Capital Convention Center
Springfield, Illinois
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Razor Ramon and Ric Flair kick off the show in the studio with Razor being especially bouncy today. Ric is his normal lunatic self.
Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan are the announcer, which is the best news.
Repo Man vs. Tatanka
There's no better way to kick off a show than with Repo Man. Repo mocks Tatanka's war chant and it's pretty great. Tatanka hits some dropkicks and then Repo bails before he gets an elbow to the face. Rick Martel says that Tatanka will be having a feather-less Thanksgiving. They do a classic spot where Tatanka goes for the sunset flip and Repo attempts to counter by punching Tatanka, but he moves and Repo's fist hits the mat. This feels so much like a Coliseum Video exclusive match and that's a good thing. Repo works on his left arm, which seems like a poor strategy when wrestling someone who is right handed. Tatanka hits a chop off the top rope, even though Repo was trying to counter it. He gets a really close 3 count. It felt like both of those could have been mistakes. Repo retaliates for a minute, but Tatanka hits the Samoan drop out of nowhere and gets the victory. They just seemed to be slightly off and it probably should have been a couple of minutes shorter.
Match Rating: *3/4 (out of 5)
They show a recap of how Mr. Perfect became Savage's partner. Heenan's performance is absolutely stellar here.
Mean Gene is now here to interview Savage and Perfect. They tease their dynamic before the big show.
Brooklyn Brawler vs. Marty Jannetty
Marty's mullet is back, baby! Meanwhile, Doink is in the crowd. He sure did get quite the lengthy tease. Marty shows off his athleticism and looks good. I'm not quite sure why this match isn't quicker. I guess you have to protect Brawler. Seriously though, I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to be doing for Marty. If anything, it's doing more for Doink. Marty finally heads up top and hits the flying fist and gets the win. That was way, way too long.
Match Rating: 1/2*
Shawn Michaels joins Gorilla and Heenan. They are going to show the Saturday Night's Main Event match between Michaels and Bulldog with Michaels adding in additional comments. For those of you who didn't read my recent review of the show, I gave this one ***. Michaels is his usual cocky self.
Kamala vs. Red Tyler
What is with the extended squash matches here tonight. We're getting about 3 times the amount of belly smacks here tonight. We also get the extended version of the trying to pin the guy on his stomach. He finally figures it out the second time around and that's it.
Match Rating: 1/4*
We go back to the workshop of Undertaker where he's been working on Kamala's coffin for months.
IRS vs. Earthquake
I'm not sure why you would pick IRS over Dibiase here. They show a recap of the Nasty Boys/Money, Inc. story. Gorilla informs us that the ring for Survivor Series is being heavily reinforced, which I always loved when he would bring that up. These two are working the type of match you would expect here and then out comes Dibiase. After the commercial break, Typhoon is out to a bigger pop than you would think. Quake ducks a running IRS and he's out to the floor and he takes advantage. IRS goes up top, but Earthquake gets his leg up and it sends IRS to the outside yet again. I certainly did not expect this match to be this long. Earthquake goes for his finisher, but Dibiase trips him up and the ref calls for the bell. IRS attacks him, but Typhoon chases him out. After the match on the Brain Scan, Heenan calls out that Dibiase's face hit Earthquakes butt. This match was pretty much exactly what you would expect between these two.
Match Rating: *
We go to the back where Money, Inc. and the Beverly Brothers do a lot of laughing.
Big Boss Man vs. Barry Horowitz
We of course are treated to the saga of Nailz and Boss Man. I feel like this should be a 45 second squash, but instead we get goofy face Boss Man. He was super over during this time, so who am I to criticize. Horowitz gets his 20 seconds of offense in and then Boss Man hits the Boss Man Slam for the victory. Nothing to see here.
Match Rating: 1/4*
We now get a Nailz promo of him in an empty arena showing the pole that is holding the nightstick. Awful as always.
It's time for a Survivor Series Report with Sean Mooney. Mean Gene is with Razor and Flair. I feel like these two have cut more promos before this match than any other I can remember.
The Headshrinkers vs. Red Fox & Royce Royal
Doink is back out again, this time in the aisle. This is a much more intense squash here for the Headshrinkers than the one I covered on Superstars. Fatu hits the splash off the top rope and that's all. This is exactly what it should be.
Match Rating: 1/4*
Vince McMahon and Bret Hart are sitting outside in a park in some great outfits. Bret, who is wearing a Babe Ruth shirt, talks about his loss at SummerSlam against Bulldog. This is extremely awkward, which is exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to be. I say this as someone who is a huge fan of Bret's work and think he is underrated on the mic, but this is not well done. Bret tries to get over that he's not Hogan or Flair or Savage.
Gorilla and Heenan wrap things up and then send us for yet another promo from the Undertaker's workshop.
Well, they tried to hype up Survivor Series, but it was nowhere near as effective as Saturday Night's Main Event. This was mostly a lifeless show and unfortunately the big interview with Bret Hart fell flat. The matches we got were nothing special and nothing really important happened, making this one not essential for you to view. However, I will also be covering the bonus matches here down below.
Overall Rating: 40%
***Bonus Matches***
Nailz vs. Big Boss Man
Boss Man runs right in and is immediately, you guessed it, choked by Nailz. These matches are all shown with no announcers and with the rough single camera. For as vicious as they have been building Nailz up to be, after he throws Boss Man into the steel steps, he goes back into the ring and waits. Boss Man hits some pretty phony looking punches before splashing him on the ropes. The ref gets in his way, allowing Nailz to hit him with the nightstick and get the cheap victory. This was Nailz's best match to date, which is not saying much. For some reason the ring announcer announces that he won the match two times. Nailz goes to attack Boss Man after the match, but Boss Man is able to knock the nightstick out of his hands and he retreats to the back.
Match Rating: 3/4*
Mean Gene Okerlund is here and introduces Jimmy Garvin. This was his quick cup of coffee here with WWF. Garvin is all over the place here. His schtick here is that he is predicting that all of the heels are going to win for cheap heat. He walks off and that was interesting to say the least. It's easy to see why he didn't get the job.
The Mountie vs. Bret Hart
I've said it before, but I love The Mountie. And pretty much by the time I finished typing that sentence, Bret grabs him and hits a German suplex with a bridge and gets the quick pinfall victory. This was obviously designed as a crowd pleaser and to help continuing getting Bret over. This was taped about two weeks after winning the championship.
Match Rating: 1/4*
Virgil vs. Bam Bam Bigelow
As the match is just getting started, someone walks through the crowd holding a giant "Bobby Heenan For President" banner. Bigelow surprisingly is letting Virgil get a lot of offense in to start out. He kicks Virgil out of the ring and the ref calls for the bell? Bigelow then keeps attacking Virgil and they announce that it's a DQ, which makes no sense. Did they really have to protect Virgil from Bigelow here? Just bad booking here.
Match Rating: 1/4*
Razor Ramon vs. Randy Savage
I could be wrong, but I don't think we ever got a televised match between these two during the WWF era and that's a shame. Looking back at 1992, I really think they had a lot more than what they got out of Razor as a heel. I'm sure had he stuck around a little longer that he would have gotten another heel run, but I'd say it worked out for him from a creative standpoint. Razor attacks Savage right away and immediately goes to work. It really is tremendous how good Savage was as both a heel and a babyface. He is one of the few that I can say that I can't really decide which he was better at. I still don't quite understand how Razor went from his big match at Survivor Series to a title match at Royal Rumble and then ended up in a meaningless match against Bob Backlund at WrestleMania. After having his leg worked on, Savage tries to make a one legged comeback, but Razor continues to work on the leg. When Savage finally makes his comeback, they head to the outside and for some reason the camera decides not to follow the action. Savage goes up top, but Razor retreats to the outside, so Savage leaps outside. About 5 seconds later, the camera decides to move to find both men on the ground. Razor rolls in before Savage can and he picks up the countout victory. After the match, Razor attacks Savage on the outside for some extra heat. The refs try to stop him, but he rolls Savage back in and keeps it going. This felt like the first half of a good match, but with no payoff. Perhaps they were testing the waters for a future pay-per-view match.
Match Rating: *
Papa Shango vs. Bret Hart
There seemed to be some confusion between these matches, as the bell rang three separate times. I'm also not really sure why you would have Bret Hart wrestle in two of the last three matches? For the record, this version of Bret's music was so much better than the modern version that they always play. It was recently uncovered that there were plans for Papa Shango to make a return in 1997 and even though the whole Godfather thing worked out for him a little bit later, I think all of us early 90s WWF people would have loved to have seen that. Bret does what he does, which is take a beating and execute perfectly timed comeback attempts. Unfortunately, Shango does what he does, which is elbow drops and body slams. Bret finally makes the big comeback and gets the victory via the Sharpshooter.
Match Rating: **
Nailz vs. Ultimate Warrior
Now it's the one we all have been waiting for. You would have thought this would have been Warrior and Shango, but the world needed two Nailz matches in one night. The crowd was probably worn out at this point, but Warrior's reaction is not nearly as big as you would expect it to be here. Nailz attacks him before the bell and then, you guessed it...chokes him. Warrior makes a quick comeback and hits the shoulder tackle and splash and gets the win? Seriously, the crowd was not digging this at all and a lot of them begin filing out as soon as it's done. This was not "worst match of all time" levels like I had hoped, but it was pretty bad and the end of an era here for sure.
Match Rating: 1/4*
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