@ShawnPuffy
It’s Friday and you know what that means… Time to hop in the Way Back Machine for another episode of Flashback Friday!! This week we’re traveling to Worcester, Massachusetts on July 29th, 1989 for a special edition of Saturday Night’s Main Event. I absolutely loved the old school SNME. It was great to relive that intro with all the competitors for the night doing a quick promo.
Wait… did Sherri just call Beefcake a “little weenie”?? …
Jesse Ventura and Vince McMahon are sitting in the commentators’ position. I probably snuck to stay up late to watch this. This was in Worcester, MA too!! My backyard… kind of. … if I had a 100-mile-wide backyard. Shut up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkhXn32eOwQ
WWF Heavyweight Championship: Honky Tonk Man v Hulk Hogan (c) – For some reason, we’re starting out with this for the World Championship. Imagine a World title change to start the show? Not gonna happen. I never noticed this before, but Hulk Hogan may have been on coke. So, this match starts with both men outside of the ring fighting. Honky tries to hit Hogan with the guitar and misses. Ventura points out that the Hulkster hasn’t even taken his shirt off yet. And there it goes. Huh? The ref was looking at Honky Tonk and Jimmy Hart nailed Hogan with the guitar? Hogan was holding Honky against the ring post. That makes no sense. I guess we had to create an opportunity for Hogan to Hulk up and you couldn’t do that otherwise.
How is Honky Tonk number one contender anyway? Honky Tonk hit the Shake, Rattle & Roll, and then paraded around the room. GENIUS!! That’s how you don’t make your finisher look like garbage. Are these young guys paying attention? The Hulkster Hulks up hits the boot and leg drop and gets the win. I’m beginning to see that Hulk’s matches weren’t really wrestling. Just an observation. – 2.5/5
After a commercial break, Hulk is still in the ring because… HOGAN MUST POSE!!! It’s pretty obvious something is about to happen. Ronnie Garvin comes to the ring to be the official for the next match. And then we go to Ronnie Garvin losing a career v career match versus Greg Valentine. Garvin became a referee instead. Yeah. I’m not bullshitting you. He became a ref. Now Garvin has been pretty handsy in his matches so Jack Tunney has announced that Garvin would be suspended if he laid his hands on anyone else. So basically, something is going down tonight since he’s refing the Hammer’s match. And apparently, I was wrong about something happening to Hogan. I guess he just didn’t pose before the match so Hogan needed to pose MORE after the match. Seems legit.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7cbsrw
Jimmy Snuka v Greg Valentine – Snuka comes out to take on the Hammer. Through most of this match, Garvin played no factor. Snuka ended up outside of the ring and Valentine wouldn’t let him get back in the ring. After three times, Garvin shoved Valentine. They got into each other’s face and Garvin punched him right in the face!! Snuka hit a press from the top rope and Garvin counted to three. I don’t know if I can complain about a fuck finish because Ronnie Garvin was the ref. But he “lost his career” so he was officially a ref, right?
So, it wasn’t a special referee match. But how come he only refed this match tonight? This sort of seems like a setup to me by Jack Tunney. I don’t even know what’s going on. This whole thing is so convoluted it makes no sense. Whatever. – 1/5
Brutus Beefcake v Randy Savage – Next, we get a look at the build between Savage and Beefcake. Savage gave Beefcake a haircut on The Brother Love Show for Sensational Sherri according to Macho Man. People can hate, but Sherri was pretty sexy. What in the blue hell is Brutus Beefcake talking about? Can you hear his hair? Is Beefcake on drugs? That was the most confusing promo I’ve heard since I went on YouTube and looked up Ultimate Warrior promos.
Savage and Beefcake had a pretty good match until Sherri went to the back to get Zeus. Beefcake locked in a sleeper hold and Zeus broke it up costing Savage the match. He threw Beefcake in a bearhug and Hogan came out to make the save. Hulk hit him with a chair and it didn’t seem to faze this monster. Savage finally talks Zeus out of the ring as Hogan and Beefcake stand with chairs waiting to attack and they walk to the back. This is the fuck finish WWF I’m used to. – 3/5
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7dkjqq
WWF World Tag Team Championship – Best 2 out of 3 Falls: Demolition (c) v The Brain Busters – This is the match I’ve been waiting for. Demolition defending the WWF Tag Team Championships against the Brain Busters in a two-out-of-three fall match. This thing started out as a brawl and quickly ended up outside of the ring. Demolition controlled the early going with a clear power advantage. Demolition won the first fall and it wasn’t even close. Holy shit. That was basically a squash.
Demolition controlled most of the second fall too. This is a good match but not much of a showing from the Brain Busters so far. The ref kind of lost control of this one and Andre came down to the ring. Demolition hit their finisher but the ref called for the bell. I guess he finally disqualified them for not getting out of the ring ever. I think? I don’t really know. It doesn’t really make much sense. Something happened and the Brain Busters get the win. I don’t know.
Time for the final fall and Andre is sitting next to the Fink. The Brain Busters put up a fight and this was probably the wildest fall. Heenan got the refs attention as Smash went for a pinfall on Arn and Andre slid a chair into the ring. Tully walloped Smash with the chair and the Brain Busters picked up the win and stole the tag team titles. Fuck finish? Sure, but at least it was the heels pulling something off and we got a title change, so it’s not that bad. – 3/5
Oh boy! A bonus interview with Hogan and Beefcake. Ummm… Did Beefcake just suggest that he’ll commit mass homicide in order to keep Zeus and Savage away from Elizabeth? He’ll bring the whole building down? How does that seem like a plausible solution to anyone?? This is literally the most irrational and irresponsible answer that anyone could have possibly given and Hogan and Mean Gene seem to just be fine with it. Promos weren’t really Brutus’ thing huh? I can’t imagine there were many times anyone suggested that someone go get promo tips from Beefcake. Just sayin.
Overall, this show wasn’t the drizzling shits but it wasn’t the best either. Some good wrestling mixed in with some senseless story writing. About par for the WWF course. For some reason, I remembered this main event to be better than it actually was. There wasn’t anything that really stood out on this show and I’m actually wondering why I would be so excited to try to stay up to watch this.
Then again, I probably marked out over the Zeus spot and Hogan coming down for the save. Stupid kid. I’m not going to tell you to go out and watch this show or any match on this card, to be honest, but it was fun and it was entertaining and there was some good wrestling in there too. – 2.5/5
-Shawn Puff