WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event #25 (1.27.90) review 

 

January 27, 1990 (Taped: January 3, 1990) 

 

We’re in Chattanooga, Tennessee at the UTC Arena. It’s currently known as McKenzie Arena or more affectionately as “The Roundhouse”. It hosted Clash of the Champions IV and will also be the venue for WCW Halloween Havoc 1991 and IYH: Final Four in 1997. Hosts are the sex trafficker Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura, who may, or may not, have been paid for this show. $800,000 says “maybe”.  

 

The big deal with this show is Hogan and Warrior tagging “for the first time, ever”. Gee, I wonder if a misunderstanding will lead to them colliding in some fashion? Babyfaces generally didn’t but we’re trying to sell some Wrestlemania VI tickets here, brrrrrother. Ventura, sporting zero headgear, stops off to make fun of the “Volunteer State”. It’s called that because “everyone volunteers to get out of here” [fake laugh]. Has Jesse just stopped giving a shit at this point? He’s got four major shows left before leaving the company in mid-1990. I’ll certainly miss him.  

 

Jim Duggan vs. Randy Savage 

These two had a run of house shows in late 1989 where Duggan put his work boots back on.  

A moment, if I may, to praise Sensational Sherri Martel. She’s been outstanding in her role here, as Savage’s manager/valet/evil outsider on the floor. She does it all and her hard bumping approach takes the strain off Randy. Vince, for no reason, tells us Savage is “standing erect”. What a freak. What a fucking weirdo.  

 

Duggan, once again, fires himself up and moves a lot quicker than usual for Savage. He still can’t take a bump but if you’re in with Savage you’ve got to step it up or you’ll look stupid. Unless you’re Dusty Rhodes.  

Savage feels Duggan’s hard work and starts throwing in the hits, feeling Jim can cope. In terms of the speed and accuracy of the spots, it’s one of Duggan’s best performances. Certainly in the WWF, where his matches were routinely awful. That, along with Sherri’s antics, makes the match feel important. Sherri worked harder than any other manager. Even the likes of Cornette and Heenan. Constantly working.  

 

They do a great job of hiding and using the loaded purse on Duggan. The finish is also an elite display of cheating as Duggan tries to suplex Savage into the ring. Sherri trips him, holding on the leg, while Savage blocks the ref’s view by hooking the other leg and putting both his feet on the ropes to boot. Just sensational work all round here. Duggan worked his little socks off, Savage was Savage and Sherri interjected as often as possible without distracting from the match. The Savage and Sherri pairing was really good and never gets its dues. This is an early contender for WWF MOTY. ***¼.  

 

Hulk Hogan & Ultimate Warrior vs. Mr Perfect & Genius 

This is during Hogan’s run on the house shows with Perfect. I’m sad they didn’t do a blow off for that. Perfect was certainly good for it. Hogan had issues with Warrior and Perfect at the Rumble and lost to Genius on SNME in late 1989.  

Hogan decides to mock Warrior’s promo by laughing loudly over the top of it. Warrior’s promo is about chemistry and is the kind of nonsense you can’t believe is coming out of this tosspots gob. WWF was using Hogan and Warrior to headline two different tours, so they don’t normally collide, which is a shame because Hogan is the guy to teach Warrior to be a star. He just is. Hogan is all about getting a lot from not very much.  

 

Warrior’s timing here is rotten. Perfect has to throw himself into spots to cover for it. Warrior is the first guy the WWF pushed who was exposing the business with his work. Perfect’s bumping is something that divides people. At what point is it too comically over the top and looks cartoonish? This match! Some of his bumps look like total shit here. Then he takes a big boot over the top rope and that’s genius.  

 

Mr Perfect has Hogan beaten in this one with the Perfectplex but decides Genius should get the pin instead, because it would be funnier. Huh. That’s…a choice. Hogan does the glory blind tag and leg drops Genius from the wrong angle, which looks so weird*. Warrior doesn’t seem bothered by Hogan stealing the spotlight, which is also weird. Post match Warrior accidentally clotheslines Hogan, and the crowd goes deathly silent.  

 

*Warrior slammed him wrong. He even turned around in mid-move to get it wrong, having set it up correctly to begin with.  

 

The crowd was hot throughout this and the tease of the two babyfaces fighting gets interesting reactions. It certainly went better at the Rumble. Interesting they positioned Hogan as the ‘heel’ during this. He’s the one who reacts, he’s the one who steals the pin, he’s the one who eliminated Warrior in the Rumble. Jockass. 

 

Jake Roberts vs. Greg Valentine 

Jake has stolen the Million Dollar belt and has it in with Damian in his snake bag. Roberts has DiBiase at Mania. Hammer, having blown off his feud with Ron Garvin, isn’t even on the Mania card and they have 14 matches. Given Greg’s limited use to McMahon now, he doesn’t try very hard here.  

Jimmy Hart jumps up on the apron to take the bump instead and Hammer gets drilled with the DDT. DiBiase and Virgil jump in there, but Virgil is too scared to go in the snake bag for the belt.  

 

Rick Rude vs. Dusty Rhodes 

Rude cuts a promo, pre-match, saying he might consider fucking Sapphire. Meanwhile, Gene Okerlund suggests to Dusty that this might be “the decade of the common man”. Dusty basically retired inside a year. Don’t ask Mean Gene for the lottery numbers. Rude’s bumping and selling is a great contrast to Perfect from earlier. Dusty does the cartoonish overblown stuff and Rude just cleanly bumps it. I’m not slagging Hennig off here, just suggesting he didn’t always make the right creative choices. 

Bob Heenan comes over to chastise Sapphire, Dusty is dumb enough to fall for it and gets blindsided by Rude. Heenan gets thrown out and he yells “for what?” I agree. He didn’t do anything! Sapphire is also ejected, which McMahon thinks is “unfair”. How did Sherri not get kicked out earlier??? No internal logic here.  

 

Sapphire returns in the front row with a ticket. SHE JUST BOUGHT A TICKET? FRONT ROW? It is astonishing that the WWF would out themselves for garbage ticket sales like this. Dusty is in terrible shape, so the match crawls from one rest hold to the next. Rude goes after Sapphire and they brawl to a DCO. They play Dusty’s music anyway and Sapphire dances.  

 

Ronnie Garvin vs. Dino Bravo 

This is this month’s “no one is watching anymore” “main event”. Garvin isn’t introduced, at all, and is completely finished. He’d spend the rest of his WWF career on house shows and C tier TV shows. Bravo rolls through a high crossbody for the win and that’ll be it for Ron Garvin. His last job, on the way out, is to get squashed by Earthquake. When you’re doing jobs for Dino Bravo in 1990, you know you’re done. Garvin didn’t even go back to WCW and the next time he’ll pop up is in Smoky Mountain Wrestling. I often forget Garvin’s background and when he landed in the NWA, in 1984, he’d been wrestling for 22 years!  

 

On the way out they shill Mike Tyson appearing as the referee for a Hogan vs. Savage match at the forthcoming Main Event III. However, that did not happen. Instead, Tyson was knocked out by Buster Douglas and the WWF offered Douglas the gig! Poor Iron Mike. First he loses his belt, then he loses his referee spot in the WWF. He’d feature eventually, at Wrestlemania 14, but that must have stung.  

 

The Main Event III main event between Hogan and Savage would be Savage’s last shot at knocking Hogan off. By the time he got another title shot, the champion would have changed.  

 

The 411: 

The show starts out hot with Savage-Duggan and the Warrior/Hogan pairing. It’s a thrilling opening half an hour. The second half is mostly dead matches building to PPV matches that no one really cares about. The show is starting to lack the consistency it had in the early days. Not a single title match here, although you could argue the reasons for that. Pairing Hogan and Warrior prevents either major singles belt being on the line and Andre is one half of the tag champs and they’re trying to keep him out of sight. That all said, the opening two matches make this a more enjoyable show than the Royal Rumble, which just happened, so we’ll call it a win.