Original Airdate: Saturday, April 28th, 1990
Frank Erwin Center
Austin, Texas
Follow me on Twitter: @WorkTheNetwork2
Off The Grid, Volume 45:
Ultimate Warrior says that Haku and Bobby Heenan won't prevent him from walking the outer limits. Heenan says Haku will become the WWF Champion. Mr. Perfect said that we all learned that Hulk Hogan wasn't perfect at WrestleMania VI, but he is. Which is ironic since he also lost. Hulk Hogan is going to do a lot of teaching, dude.
We see Vince and Jesse riding horses. Yes, really. They do their intro on horses in the aisle.
Mr. Perfect and Genius are with Sean Mooney. Perfect runs down all the sports he plays and calls Hogan a perfect loser.
Hulk Hogan is with Mean Gene and he calls Mr. Perfect and Genius perfect fools. If you took a shot every time the word "perfect" has been said during the first 7 minutes, you'd be dead.
Mr. Perfect vs. Hulk Hogan
Hogan tosses Perfect around the ring and Perfect rolls out to re-group. It works momentarily, but Perfect is able to move out of the way of a boot to the face. Hogan follows him outside and tosses him into the ring post. Hogan dominates some more until Genius distracts the referee and Perfect hits him with the scroll. Perfect tries to jump off the top rope, but the referee pulls him off and we go to commercial break. Perfect now gets his moment, but we all know how this is going to end. Perfect hits the Perfect Plex, but HOgan kicks out at 2. Hogan makes his comeback and that's all. That was quick. Hogan beats up Genius after the match and throws him to the floor. This was pretty vanilla Hogan.
Match Rating: *1/2
Rick Martel advertises Arrogance while sitting on a horse.
Jesse Ventura and Jimmy Hart are with Earthquake. Hart says Earthquake will make Hillbilly Jim squeal like a pig.
Hillbilly Jim is with Mean Gene. I honestly had no clue that Hillbilly was still working here in 1990.
Earthquake vs. Hillbilly Jim
Quake tries to attack him, but Hillbilly avoids it and takes it to the big man. I definitely prefer the custom gear Earthquake would later wear over the single color gear he is wearing here. Jimmy Hart goes after the lucky horseshoe and that distracts Jim. Quake then attacks him and hits the splash for the finish. He hits a second one for good measure. Earthquake then decides that the third time is a charm and hits another one. This was also what you would expect here.
Match Rating: 1/2*
Hillbilly Jim does a stretcher job.
We get more Rick Martel promoting Arrogance with two ladies in his locker room.
Jesse Ventura is with the Hart Foundation. Jesse is pretty cheesy here. He calls the Rockers "somersault sissies" and then Bret refers to them as teeny boppers.
The Rockers are with Mean Gene and they tell the Hart Foundation to be ready for a broken heart.
Hart Foundation vs. Rockers
We get a great opening sequence between Marty Jannetty and Bret Hart. The Rockers hit some double teaming, so Jim Neidhart comes in and hits a double clothesline on them. Shawn Michaels is able to hit a dropkick on Neidhart, but he gets caught after for a body slam. Bret then catches Shawn for an inverted atomic drop. Demolition make their way down the aisle to get a closer look. Bret has now turned his attention to them and this allows Michaels to dropkick him to the floor. Shawn is able to finally hit a hot tag to Marty and the crowd is loving it. Marty hits a superkick and gets a 2 count. Bret is able to hit a neckbreaker to slow down Marty's momentum and tags in Neidhart. He launches Neidhart in, but he misses. Shawn is tagged in, but he gets leveled by a shoulder tackle for a 2 count. Michaels comes back with a reverse elbow. Neidhart catches Michaels off the second rope, but Michaels is able to force him down for a 2 count. Neidhart throws him through the ropes and to the floor in front of Demolition. Demolition looks to be throwing him back in the ring to keep the match going, but Marty takes it as them attacking him. They start brawling and that turns into a 6 man brawl and a double disqualification. That's too bad because these two teams were just tearing it up. Non-stop action from bell to bell.
Match Rating: ****
We go immediately to Earthquake and Jimmy Hart. He talks about destroying Hulk Hogan.
Hulk is with Mean Gene and he says that he is like a Texas tornado and that he's a survivor. I still remain baffled as to how people loved Hogan as much as they did.
They show the post-match of the Ultimate Warrior/Hulk Hogan match at WrestleMania VI. They play the amazing WrestleMania music. Inject that into my veins. That leads us to Jesse Ventura who is with Bobby Heenan and Haku. Heenan rips on Texas and says that it will now be known as where Haku won the WWF Championship.
Mean Gene has the honor of being with Ultimate Warrior. He gives his usual insane promo.
WWF Championship Match
Haku vs. Ultimate Warrior
Did Haku ever win a singles match that wasn't against a jobber? Haku attacks Warrior as he gets in the ring and Warrior is able to hit a back body drop while wearing the WWF Championship. He hits a clothesline that is supposed to send him over, but they have a glitch. Warrior tosses the belt over the top and hits some chops on Haku. He works on the arm and spins him around by the arm. He then throws Haku over the top rope. Back in the ring, Warrior runs into a knee and then Haku hits a trio of clotheslines and a dropkick. Haku hits a backbreaker and gets a 2 count. Warrior make his comeback and we get more clotheslines. He hits a shoulder tackle and a splash for the finish. I don't think anyone thought for a second Haku was going to win, which is why it was buried on this card. However, they would have never done that with Hogan.
Match Rating: *
Rick Martel is now at the tennis court and says that Arrogance will make you the #1 seed.
They show highlights of Ted DiBiase attacking Big Boss Man before his WrestleMania match. It ended up not mattering for those who don't remember. We go to Akeem and Slick. I could listen to Slick all day. So good.
Big Boss Man is with Mean Gene and says that justice is blind. He says that everything is bigger in Texas, including the beating he's going to give Akeem.
Akeem vs. Big Boss Man
I'm not really sure that this rematch even makes sense since Boss Man was attacked prior to his match and still beat Akeem in a couple of minutes. They have a real quick match here with nothing really happening. Then out come Virgil and Ted DiBiase and attack Boss Man. It all leads to Boss Man chasing DiBiase away with his nightstick.
Match Rating: 1/4*
Rick Martel is getting into a convertible in front of the WWF production truck talking about Arrogance.
Bobby Heenan tells us that Rick Rude is going through the most extensive training ever to get ready to win the WWF Championship from Ultimate Warrior.
Ultimate Warrior tells Rick Rude that the power of the Warrior is completely out of control.
Jesse hypes up the fact that Rick Rude has beaten Warrior before and he will again. He then warns Hogan of a natural disaster. The ending of SNME's were always weak. 2 commercials in like 45 seconds. Vince and Jesse then ride off on their horses. We then get a wanted sign with their faces on it, which honestly isn't far from the truth.
The tag team match was fantastic stuff and the rest was decent enough to make this a good show. However, you can already feel the Warrior era becoming a failure. I didn't quite understand that as a kid because I got into wrestling at SummerSlam, but it's pretty obvious when looking back on it.
Overall Rating: 78%
No comments:
Post a Comment