Written by: Tom Hopkins
It’s odd that there’s only one episode of Superstars on the service this month. I wonder if there’s a reason for that. We’re just in time for National Poison Prevention Week at the Sun Dome in Tampa Bay, Florida and speaking of poison, Perfect and Flair are poisoning the minds of WWE fans with their photos of Liz and Flair. In fact, Flair has even more photos to reveal today.
-Bret Hart vs. Jimmy James-
Hart is preparing for his match against Roddy Piper at Wrestlemania. In fact, we hear from Piper who says he doesn’t pull punches, he doesn’t dive and he’s too legit to quit. I think that was a dated reference even in 1992. Anyway, the Sharpshooter ends this at 1:22.
We’re going to Update Center with Gene Okerlund and this is brought to us by Super Nintendo’s Super Wrestlemania. I actually owned that game way back when. Speaking of Wrestlemania we have our big Double Main Event of Flair vs. Savage and Hogan vs. Sid. All four were on hand at the Wrestlemania press conference. Hogan arrived via big bus while Flair came in a limousine.
Vince sits down with Flair and speaks to him at some sort of fancy club and Vince is pissed at Flair’s tactics to try and break up Savage and Liz’ marriage. I always liked this angle, that Liz wasn’t the “celibate” kind before she met Savage. In fact, there’s a picture of Flair and Liz watching TNT!
-Papa Shango vs. Lee Thomas-
Jimmy James and Lee Thomas, could we get any more generic in terms of jobber names? There’s footage of Shango at some sort of altar and all he really says is, “It is I, Papa Shango!”Then he laughs a lot. The shoulderbreaker ends this one at 1:23.
Gene is at Macho Man’s house and he is talking to Savage about Flair’s allegations. Liz has decided to stay off camera for this one. Macho Man calls all of these allegations untrue as Okerlund just bates him. Savage yells UNTRUE a bunch, making it the most understandable interview he’s ever given.
Sean is at the Event Center and it’s all Wrestlemania, baby! The Natural Disasters, now faces, call out their opponents – the current tag team champions Money Inc. Tito, who has been in every Wrestlemania so far, relishes the opportunity to take out Shawn Michaels, OLE!
-Tito Santana vs. Jobber-
Perfect makes mention of having pictures of McMahon and his wife which I find interesting because of all the times Linda actually appeared on WWE television. El Matador beats this fat jobber who kind of looks like Sandman with the Paso de Morte at 1:04.
Gene, doing a lot of work tonight, interviews Jake Roberts, who is going to battle the Undertaker at Wrestlemania. They show two weeks ago and Jake hammering Undertaker with the chair after locking his hand in the casket. Jake likens it to foreplay and hanging meat in front of an animal. Jake tasted it, but he will wait for the full meal at Wrestlemania.
We have the first ever vignette for Nailz! It’s just a voice calling out the Boss Man as we see footage of a prison. Nailz wasn’t actually mentioned here, either.
-Natural Disasters vs. Jim Cooper and Paul Simpson-
The Disasters get a bit of a pop here thanks to breaking ties with Hart. We hear from Money Inc (and Jimmy Hart) as the Disasters squash the jobbers. The butt-splash/big splash end this at 1:56.
Sean Mooney is back at the Event Center and he reminds us that there’s some event called Wrestlemania VIII coming up. He talks about the shocking photos of Liz and Flair and the mentions another match on the card: British Bulldog vs. Berzerker. We hear from both of them and the Bulldog does all his usual hand motions that are pretty annoying. Rick Martel will be taking on Tatanka and we hear from Tatanka. He’s happy he’s the first Native American in Wrestlemania.
Now to really amp up the Wrestlemania madness, here’s Mean Gene at the Wrestlemania Report desk. It’s only three weeks away! He runs down the card and tells us that tickets are going fast and there’s an expected crowd of 72,500. We hear from Sid Justice (with Harvey Whippleman), Hulk Hogan (who does a decent Cowardly Lion impression) and Undertaker (w/Paul Bearer).
-Sid Justice (w/Harvey Whippleman) vs. Dale Wolfe-
Perfect mentions that McMahon is the co-host of a new show called Body Stars, a bodybuilding show. I don’t think Wolfe stands much of a chance here. Wolfe is dumped outside and Sid nails him with a chair, which surprisingly doesn’t draw the DQ. Sid yells out Powerbomb and he indeed delivers, ending this at 1:44. Wolfe does the stretcher job after Harvey pronounces him dead. Sid then puts a sign over Wolfe saying Call 911 and follows that up with a clothesline. Virgil and a jobber run out to help Wolfe and Virgil is bothered by Harvey. So Sid attacks Virgil from behind and tosses him in the ring. Virgil tries fighting back only to get chokeslammed. Harvey takes off the top turnbuckle pad and slams Virgil into it. Who will stop this man?
The grand wrap-up starts with a final visit to the Event Center. We get a few more promo’s, this time from Roddy Piper (I think it’s the same one from last week), and Bret Hart. McMahon gives us a preview of next week: we hear from Hogan and we get action featuring the Undertaker, a 6-Man match (Mountie & Nasty Boys) and even more photos from Ric Flair.
-The Bottom Line-
This is what I liked about Superstars as opposed to WCW Saturday Night. SN features more and longer matches but they’re just longer squash matches that rarely add anything of substance. Superstars, while I wish had a main event at least, keeps the matches short and sweet so we can see the star perform and get the easy win and send the fans home happy. Superstars easily has SN beat in terms of recapping things. I love how Superstars is used as a vehicle to promote the upcoming events and with that narrow focus it helps me enjoy the show. I think SN isn’t as good in recapping the big events of what happened on Nitro or leading to the PPV’s and at almost double the time, it can get a bit boring if it is just 5-minute squash matches. This wasn’t a thrilling episode but it continued the build to Wrestlemania and I can appreciate it for that.