WWF Superstars 2/15/1992

Written by: Tom Hopkins

I don’t know why but I figured I’d start with Superstars this month instead of WCW Saturday Night. We’re in Amarillo, TX, home of Terry Funk. McMahon starts right away with comments about Sid’s actions at Saturday Night’s Main Event.

We’re joined in progress with Hogan trying to make the hot tag to Sid, but Sid refused to tag in! He’s immediately booed by the fans. Of course, Hogan still makes a big comeback against Ric Flair and the Undertaker because he’s Hulk Hogan for crying out loud. This full match is on the Saturday Night’s DVD and I gave it *1/2, probably due to Flair more than anything else. Beefcake runs and begs Sid to tag in but Sid just walks out. Luckily Gene spoke to Hogan and Beefcake after the match and Hogan calls Sid a liar who knows nothing about friendship. He mentions Sid’s “stone cold” eyes, proving how even then Hogan knew who the second savior of the WWE would be. The Barber said he was there for Hogan because Hogan was there for them during his para-sailing accident. Hogan even dedicates his WWE title match at Wrestlemania to The Barber.

McMahon and Perfect reflect on Hogan’s comments before bringing us clips from the Wrestling Challenge with Sid being the Barber Shop. The Barber calls Sid scared of Hogan because he eliminated him at the Royal Rumble which is ridiculous because he was just playing by the rules of the match. That doesn’t make him a coward; it makes him a better competitor and someone who wants to win. Sid calls Hogan a fat pig and says he will rearrange the Barber’s face. He picks up a chair and smashes the Barber Shop window (not as cool as when it was Jannetty’s face doing it) and then destroys the set as Barber runs off. And he was calling Sid a coward? Sid ends up busting a can of shaving cream into his face and he ends up looking ridiculous. It looks like he just took a damned money shot.

Vince tells us that President Tunney had to take matters into his own hand and we head to the Event Center where Gene reads a letter from Tunney. It seems that Tunney has changed Wrestlemania to a double Main Event. The first is Ric Flair defending his title against Macho Man Randy Savage and Hogan will be wrestling Sid Justice.

-The British Bulldog vs. Omar Atlas-
Omar Atlas is a cool name. I predict the first resthold will be a chinlock and will come by the 90-second mark. Bulldog gets caught in a front chancery but he simply tosses off Atlas. The running powerslam ends this at 1:37.

There’s an ad for Wrestlemania at the Hoosier Dome. My cousins lived in Indiana at the time and were actually at that event. They bought us commemorative cups, too. I actually drank out of a cup that had the Macho Man, Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan and Sid Justice on it.

-The Nasty Boys vs. Kris Germany & Larry Williams-
We’ve got quite the international flavour on tonight’s show. Atlas, British and now Germany. I’ve never heard of this jobber but I’d imagine the gimmicks would write themselves. A white supremacist named Kris Germany? I think that’d work. One of the jobbers takes a pit stop which must’ve been the highlight of his career. So what was the biggest match you’ve wrestled? Well, I was shoved in Knobbs armpit on an episode of Superstars! The powerslam (two for two tonight!) and top rope elbow drop combination finish this at 2:34. Did they have a name for that?

Sean Mooney is here to bring us some promo’s. First up is El Matador! He calls out the likes of Ted DiBiase and IRS. He doesn’t like that Teddy is making fun of Mexicans. Tito Santana holds the distinction of wrestling the first 9 Wrestlemania’s. Has anyone ever wrestled more than 9 in a row? We also hear from the Undertaker.

-Rowdy Roddy Piper vs. Todd Overbow-
The international flavor continues with everyone’s favorite fiery (Canadian) Scot! We hear from Bret (he wants his belt back!) and this one is over quickly with a sleeper hold at 1:27.

Mooney’s back and we hear from The Natural Disasters (they will be the next tag team champs and I think they actually were). They will be taking the belts from the LOD, apparently. Big Boss Man is here and it seems that IRS is in for some Hard Times. He’s still got an issue with IRS. Shit, sign it up for Wrestlemania!

What? Suburban Commando on VHS?

-Shawn Michaels (w/Sensational Sherri) vs. Rudy Gonzales-
Shawn comes out to OVERDUBBED music! They took out the Sherri sung version and replaced it with the version Shawn recorded after Sherri left. I actually like the Sherri version and thought it added a lot to the gimmick during Shawn’s early HBK years. Was this Shawn’s first match as a solo wrestler (post-Rockers of course)? Sherri is wearing a very revealing outfit (especially for 1992 WWE). It’s almost like a White Queen type bustier and Shawn actually puts his earring on the strings. Rudy is from San Antonio, as is Shawn. Shawn whips out a nice flying clothesline off the apron which looked pretty cool. I don’t remember him doing that move all that often. We cut to a very smug Shawn interview as Shawn lays out Rudy with a superkick. Of course newer fans would know Shawn for tuning up the band and making a big production of the move, but it didn’t become his finisher until a few years later. No, his finisher was a “teardrop suplex,” a glorified belly to back suplex that almost looked like an Angle Slam. The Teardrop Suplex finishes things at 1:40 for those keeping track.

::Cue the Wrestlemania Music::

Gene is here in full hype mode!!! We hear from the real world’s champion Ric Flair and his manager, Mr. Perfect. Flair teases Savage about knowing something that Savage himself doesn’t know. We hear from the Macho Man and he just wants Flair to be direct. That was the first part of the main event. The second part of the main event is the real main event of the show: Sid vs. Hogan. Sid says that this whole thing started at Summerslam when he saw Hogan’s jealousy of him. People crap on Sid a lot, but he gave a pretty good promo. We hear from the Hulkster last (of course) and he was pissed at first that he won’t be competing for the WWE title but then he thought about it as Tunney testing Hogan and his destiny.

-Rick Martel vs. Jobber Daniels-
I didn’t catch the jobber’s first name. He does a decent arm-drag but a hiptoss is blocked by the Model. The backbreaker sets up the Boston Crab and this one is over at 2:08. I always liked the way Martel did the Boston Crab. He actually sat back and made the move look like it hurt.

We head towards the finish with Mooney bringing us promos from the Berzerker (who knows what either of them are saying) and the tag team duo of Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Sgt. Slaughter. Whose bright idea was it to have The Berzerker precede Hacksaw? What a shitty way to end the show. Next week! Tatanka! Bret Hart! DiBiase & IRS! Savage vs. Snake from SNME with Exclusive Footage! Well, at least we’ll have one decent match to look forward to.

-The Bottom Line-
I thought the first 15-minutes of the show FLEW thanks to the recapping of SNME. It made for a very entertaining show. I love recap shows like this that really build towards the pig PPV’s of the time. I think it’s time for the WWE to put the genie back in the bottle and scale back on PPV’s. You could actually build to an event a few months in advance and save those big matches so people will pay for them. You could put midcard stars on Raw in big matches to keep people entertained. We got LESS than that on Superstars (just jobber matches) but it was at times more entertaining than the current Raw just because of the format and the hype for those big matches. This was a really fun show that flew by and I don’t know if I can say that about many of the current Raw’s on the air. Recommended show, if only to show how things unfolded to set up Wrestlemania VIII.