WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event #22 (7.29.89) review 

 

July 29, 1989 

 

We’re in Worcester, Massachusetts at the Centrum. Hosts are sex trafficker Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura. This venue wouldn’t see a PPV until WCW ran Slamboree here in 1998. It would also host Backlash 2003 but arguably the biggest wrestling claim to fame in this venue is Mick Foley won his first WWF title here in 1999. This show was taped back on July 18, but nobody cared because nothing of note happened*.  

 

*This is a lie 

 

Video Control starts us off with some promos. Randy Savage calls Brutus Beefcake the “world’s largest hot dog”, leading to Sherri calling him a “weeny”. The best part of the interivews is seeing the Brainbusters track jackets. They look sweet. I could use one of those. Hulk Hogan, who really does look like the “world’s largest hot dog”, glances off camea in mid-promo and I think he’s got his lines written down. The absolute best thing about SNME, and most WWF programming from this era, is the sick theme music.  

 

WWF Championship 

Hulk Hogan (c) vs. Honky Tonk Man 

I’ve enjoyed Honky during this flashback project. He’s been much better than I remember. His bumping and selling are fantastic and he’s great at winding the crowd up. This match shows where his stock is in the WWF though. Hogan just beats him up all match. It takes a Jimmy Hart guitar shot, from a sturdy guitar, to give HTM anything. Honky hits Shake, Rattle and Roll but takes forever to pin Hogan. I’m guessing he’s protecting his finisher as Hogan is kicking out of it anyway. Big boot, legdrop etc. This was fine. Honky was never winning and both he and Jimmy Hart bumped around nicely. Hogan did hit HTM with a guitar during his comeback, which should have been a DQ. Obnoxious behaviour from the champ.  

 

Video Control gives us some history on why “Rugged” Ronnie Garvin is now a referee. It’s because Greg Valentine retired him, by grabbing his tights. Jack Tunney gets a promo telling us he’ll suspend Garvin if he doesn’t start behaving himself.  

 

Greg Valentine vs. Jimmy Snuka 

Surely, you wouldn’t appoint a man to officiate a match involving someone who retired him under dubious circumstances? Naturally they get into it and Snuka wins with a crossbody. Tunney is going to suspend Garvin for this. Valentine and Snuka were basically finished and were only here for name value. 

 

Video Control shows us Savage and Sherri jumping Beefcake and cutting his hair. There’s an incredible fade from a still of Savage to his robe, which naturally has a picture of him on it. Savage is demanding to be named top contender and he’s going to take out his frustrations on Brutus, Hogan’s mate. Brother Brutus, brother, has shorter hair now. Beefcake claims he has the edge. Yanno, because scissors?  

 

Randy Savage vs. Brutus Beefcake 

Generally, Beefcake’s singles matches are horrible. I’ve seen him have good tag matches. Usually when paired with three good workers. He’s a big old goofball so it’s tough for him to perform in singles, with the weight of expectation on him. Here he benefits from working with both Savage and Sherri. Who take it in turns to get his attention. Savage struggles to dominate the match and you can see why. They need Beefcake to not look like a total chump going into Summerslam, where he’s Hogan’s partner. 

 

Sherri Martel has definitely found her calling as Savage’s manager. She would end up being a manager for the rest of her career. Beefcake will always be Beefcake but at least he doesn’t suck here. He moves out of the way and lets Savage and Sherri work the contest. I think Sherri takes more bumps than Brutus does.  

Savage gets fed up with this and gets Sherri to go and fetch Zeus.  

Which is a neat play on when Liz went and fetched Hogan when Savage was in trouble (at the start of the Megapowers). I don’t think he’s “in trouble” against Beefcake, he just wants to prove a point. Beefcake gets the sleeper, so Zeus jumps in and bore-hugs him. DQ. Hulk Hogan makes the save and this is YOUR Summerslam 1989 main event. Summerslam? More like Summerscam. Anyone with half a brain could see Lister couldn’t work a match.  

I will give Hogan credit for trying to get this over. He sells more, with his eyes, for Zeus than he has for anyone since Andre. The match was actually decent and probably Beefcake’s best singles match. Like **¾ territory at a push.  

 

We head backstage where Savage claims the future of Hulkamania is dead. The future of everything is death. That’s how the story ends, mate. Yours, mine, everyone. What’s brutally sad is everyone in that room is now dead. Savage, Sherri, Lister and even Okerlund*. 

 

*At closer inspection, that appears to be Jesse Ventura, who is alive and well at the time of writing. I apologise, but I’m not deleting an entire paragraph. Consider it a flow of consciousness.  

 

Two Out of Three Falls 

WWF Tag Team Championship 

Demolition (c) vs. Brainbusters 

These two clashed on the last SNME, which was ***¼ and probably the best Demos match, ever. It finished in a DQ though, so we’re going three falls to make sure we get a clean winner. This is extremely fast paced, making me think it was supposed to be longer and they already had the whole match planned, so they just did it all but quicker. Vince can’t believe the power of Smash. Hey, instant mashed potato will surprise you. Arn eats a Stun Gun on the ropes. 1-0 Demos. Very strange booking to put the heels down 1-0. It rarely ever happens.  

This has been at a belting pace, so the champs slow it down a bit by isolating Arn. The Busters switch it around and pick off Ax. This whole segment is much more sluggish than the entire first fall, which was manic. Smash hot tags though and poor Bobby Heenan gets beaten up in the midst of the chaos. Andre the Giant turns up as Demolition get disqualified for double teaming. I can’t say I agree with Joey Marella’s decision there. 1-1.  

There’s a lot of selling to start fall three, before it breaks down again. Tully whacks Smash with a chair and Arn gets the pin. 2-1 Busters, new champs! This was a good match. Call it ***¼ again. They got most of the work done in the opening fall.  

 

This whole picture makes me happy. What a nice bunch of lads, celebrating a big win. The Brainbusters were an outstanding tag team. Maybe the best of all time. It angers me that WCW never took Tully back and therefore ended the Busters run at like 2.5 years. Who cares if he failed a drugs test? It’s insane to me that he went from being one of the best wrestlers in the world from 1984-1989 to what? AWA for a bit and then retired, basically. Madness. 

 

The 411: 

Considering the main storyline in the company is complete and utter shit, this isn’t a bad show. Hogan-HTM is passable, Savage-Beefcake was great considering it had Beefcake in it and the main event was really good. The Zeus angle should have been setting off alarm bells with people, regarding the WWF’s creative juices drying up. The heydays of the promotion from 1984-88 were clearly behind them here. They’re getting increasingly desperate to cling on to that mainstream success.