WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event #21 (5.27.89) 

 

May 27, 1989 

 

This was taped a month beforehand on April 25. SNME was, by and large, a taped show. Which makes no sense if you’re a modern fan because they did surprise turns and stuff on them and there’s no way, in the internet age, that wouldn’t immediately come out nowadays. 1989 though, the internet didn’t exist. The World Wide Web, the basis for internet web pages, was invented in 1989. Fuck, and I thought the Red Bull reference in the last review showed how goddamn old I am. People didn’t really start getting the internet in their homes until the mid 90s. So, it’s still fairly spoiler free. Dave Meltzer’s newsletter was literally that. Typed up and mailed to people’s houses.  

Hosts are sex trafficker Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura. We open with the standard promos to hard cam business. Hogan is COVERED in oil here. We’re in Des Moines, Iowa. Ventura tells us he thinks Hogan is thinking too much about his movie and isn’t taking Boss Man seriously. They have a title match tonight inside the Blue Bar Cage.  

 

WWF Intercontinental Championship 

Rick Rude (c) vs. Jim Duggan 

Duggan is rocking the “King Duggan” gimmick, which he achieved by beating King Haku. Thus treating the ‘King’ title as an actual, yanno, title. He’d eventually lose the ‘title’ to Randy Savage, the Macho King, and they eventually got around to the tournament. Before 1993’s PPV the whole ‘king’ gimmick was hard to keep track of.  

Duggan’s pre-match promo reminds me of Will Ferrell’s “For the Troops” thumbs up thing from The Campaign (2012). He lacks the nobility to be a royal. He couldn’t pass for any royal bar King Ralph. You didn’t see Gustavus Adolphus running around shouting “hoooo” in the fifteenth century did you? I don’t see Hacksaw Jim Duggan effectively banishing the Russians from the Baltic Sea region. Pfft. 

Rude spends most of the match pinballing around, taking bumps while the crowd pop loudly. Duggan always struck me as being so clumsy in the ring that he had to be miopic. The match is obviously not very good, but it is, at least, over and Rude continues his 1989 run of trying to make people look better than they are. The era is swiftly approaching where guys like Rude would get the belt, not just make the hand-picked idiots look good. He loses on count out here. Couldn’t they have put him over Duggan? Or would that have made him King Rude?  

 

Jim Neidhart vs. Randy Savage 

Why is the Anvil in this match? I assume it’s because they already did Savage-Bret. Savage has just gained Sensational Sherri as a manager, further proof the Fed have given up on their women’s division.  

Sherri is far more involved than Miss Elizabeth was and is immediately a big win for Savage. She’s not afraid to get physically involved in matches. Savage is so over than Anvil just has to hit basic power stuff, and the crowd go nuts. He’s out here hitting shoulderblocks and the crowd are popping like the Chiefs* won the Superbowl. Savage doesn’t exactly bust a gut here. The latter career ‘Savage formula’ is for him to get beaten up all match and then just hit the Big Elbow. That’s this match.  

 

*I think this is the closest NFL team to Des Moines. Please correct me if it isn’t and I will amend it accordingly. I’m aware KC is like 175 miles away so I may be off base.  

 

Cage Match 

WWF Championship 

Hulk Hogan (c) vs. Big Boss Man 

Pre-match Slick introduces a surprise; Zeus.  

You had to be there to appreciate the majesty of Zeus. Actor Tiny Lister played Zeus in the No Holds Barred movie, opposite Hulk Hogan but because these bunch are just fucking carnies, they can’t understand ‘acting’ and had Lister reprise his Zeus role in actual wrestling. They would rather have an actor play a part than try and explain how movies work to their fanbase.  

Lister would go on to fame as “Deebo” in Friday, the Ice Cube movie. He also played the Galactic President in the Fifth Element. In order to make Zeus look like something, they have him lay out Hogan with two strikes here. Despite being an actor, Lister was one of the most protected guys in wrestling. At least until everyone had paid to see No Holds Barred. Speaking of which, the movie was a wake-up call to Vince McMahon. He figured Hulkamania would easily translate to big box office. Despite being a cheap movie, it made only $16M at cinemas. I imagine Vince made a couple of bucks on it, but it wasn’t the huge success he was hoping for. 

 

The WWF wouldn’t attempt anything like it again until Steve Austin feature The Condemned in 2002. They do a good job of teasing Boss Man taking the title here, which seemed very unlikely, even if you rate Ray highly. The highlight is Boss Man escaping and being suplexed back into the ring. In most eras, this match would be a blood bath. They do chain shots, and guys getting rammed into the blue bar cage. Even in TV friendly 1989 Boss Man ends up bloodied.  

 

The match is jolly good fun, but Hogan does cheat quite a lot. Including handcuffing Boss Man to the ropes so he can run away and escape to win. An act of pure cowardice. It’s hard to nail down exactly where I started to despise Hogan, but I would say this is passed that point. **½ 

 

WWF Tag Team Championship 

Demolition (c) vs. Brainbusters  

Arn & Tully, at his point, had been the best tag team in the world for a couple of years. So, this should be good but paradoxically I have never liked Demolition. Entrance music aside. The Busters do an incredible job of bumping around for the Demos. Much like Rude in the opener for Duggan. Elite tier bumping. The Demos get to look fantastic, just hitting power moves and no selling. It’s a cracking little match. Probably the best Demolition match I’ve ever seen. 

 

Tully is sensational here. The bumping alone is brilliant but his taunting and movement around the ring are top tier. If you want to see what a good tag team is; watch the Brainbusters. The bumping, the selling, the cutting the ring off, making formula fun, bringing personality and constantly ‘on’. They may be the GOATs of tag teaming. This breaks down and the Demos get intentionally disqualified. This feud must continue! Great tag match though. ***¼ 

 

Backstage: Jess Ventura gets a word with Randy Savage, who claims he’s the #1 contender. If he’d lost to Anvil would Neidhart be the #1 contender? What a bizarre qualifier for Macho to claim that. Surely, he’s due a re-match anyway as former champion? 

 

Jimmy Snuka vs. Boris Zhukov 

Snuka re-joined the Fed recently. He was introduced at WrestleMania V, and this is his televised return. They smartly keep it very short with a few moves and the Superfly Splash finishing around a minute in. The Splash looked incredible.  

 

Backstage: Hogan addresses Zeus, claiming he had issues with him during the filming of No Holds Barred. Wrestling is the worst man. It’s just so bad. If you had an issue with Tiny Lister, then why is he still being presented as Zeus? Has Lister become so traumatised at being involved in the wrestling process that he now thinks he’s a wrestler? Or is he simply balls deep into the method? Marlon Brando would approve.  

 

The 411: 

SNME 20 was a fairly hot show but that led into WrestleMania V, so you expect that. This was in the middle of SNME’s in my opinion. There is that cracking little Busters-Demos tag and the Hogan-Boss Man cage match is solid, but you can see where Hogan is going and knowing that takes the edge off it a bit.