Written by: Tom Hopkins
The episode starts with the special interview. This week Gene Okerlund has Razor Ramon at the podium. Ramon asks Savage where his gold is. Savage lost his, but Ramon still has his!
–Crush vs. Dwayne Gill–
Is there any irony that Gill would be the only one in the ring right now to hold a WWE title of any kind as a solo wrestler? Gill is sent to the corner and he flips over to the apron and celebrates. He turns around and is clotheslined off the apron. Crush sends a warm aloha in his pre-recorded promo as he connects with a leg-drop. Crush no-sells Gill’s rights and hammers Gill to the outside. Crush follows to the outside and gets a big boot and then press-slams Gill over the top rope back into the ring. Crush follows with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker before ending with the Kona Crush. This was a true squash – Crush just dominated with some impressive offense.
–Nailz vs. Gus Kantarakis–
I guess Gus is Greek? It’s a Nailz squash match and there’s lots of choking before Nailz finishes with a rear-choke at 2:04. The best part of this match was McMahon telling us we’d hear from Bob Backlund after the match.
Backlund shows up on WWE TV and there’s a clip of him winning the title on February 20th, 1978. WWE digging into their archive! There’s other archival pictures and video of Backlund’s great 6-year reign.
Two weeks ago Kamala beat up on a jobber (Tony DeVito of ECW fame) and then got scared out of his wits when he saw the casket that Paul Bearer was rolling out.
–Undertaker vs. Von Krus–
Undertaker’s record against evil foreigners is pretty good, I think. Of course he lost to Yokozuna in a Casket Match but other than that he’s not bad. The Tombstone ends this one quickly at 1:43.
Mooney is here for the first trip to the Event Center. We hear from Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Kamala, but not in that order. Duggan encourages us to vote while Kamala wants to harm the Undertaker.
–Repo Man vs. Laverne McGill–
I’ve never seen this McGill guy before. McGill breaks clean and turns his back which leads to poor results. He also misses a dropkick. Man, this McGill can’t catch a break. Repo Man grinds McGill’s face into the mat as I play Words With Friends. It’s bad when I tune out of a three-minute squash match. Repo Man ends this with a single leg crab at 3:44. This was way too long. Repo hangs up McGill after the match.
McMahon lets us know that next week will be the announcement of the Main Event of Survivor Series.
Mooney’s back after a 5-minute hiatus and he’s already abuzz with Survivor Series hype. We hear from Big Boss Man and Papa Shango but I can’t really be bothered to recap what they said.
Hey, let’s look at some action from last year’s Survivor Series! They focus on the Flair/Piper match where all hell breaks loose and Flair is awarded the win being as he was the only one not disqualified.
–Natural Disasters vs. Bob Bradley & Barry Horowitz–
So by my math we’ve had two enhancement talent workers eventually go on to win a WWE title (not THE title, just any of them) during their WWE tenure (Horowitz won tag gold with Jannetty). We hear from Money Inc who will be challenging the champions eventually. Horowitz charges Typhoon twice to disastrous effect. Horowitz gets caught in a backbreaker by Typhoon before being tossed into his corner so Bob can tag in. Bradley slugs at Typhoon in the corner and Typhoon just shrugs all of it off. He tags in Earthquake who demolishes Bradley. Bradley takes the Butt-Splash/Big Splash combo and he’s not getting up from the pinfall which occurs at 4:41. Why are the squash matches going so long? The last two were way longer than usual.
Mean Gene is backstage and he’s looking for Jimmy Hart. Jack Tunney ushers him in the right direction and Gene catches Jimmy coming out of the men’s room. Gene asks him who the #1 contender’s are – Money Inc or Nasty Boys? Oooh! Controversy!
–Rick Martel vs. Ross Greenburg–
Martel has his racquet with him and Perfect and McMahon make references to Agassi and Gabriella Sabatini. I haven’t heard her name in a while. Martel breaks clean to start. He gets out of a hammerlock and does some jumping jacks. We hear from Martel during the match. He doesn’t have much to say. He’s the Model and he’s always in vogue. Greenburg misses a dropkick which allows Martel to pick him up, get a backbreaker and end this with a Boston Crab at 3:13.
We take one last trip to the Event Center. We hear from Skinner (he’s still around) and Bret Hart (who doesn’t think he’s cursed – just wait, Bret). Next week on Superstars we’ll have Bret Hart, Razor Ramon, Kamala, Nailz (again?) as well as the Survivor Series Main Event Announcement.
–The Bottom Line–
I thought this would be a bad episode but it had a certain flow to it. The last three matches had some length to them and the last two weren’t even terrible. The mix of the interviews and matches was decent this week, too. Of course, with the lack of any big matches or big moments this hover just above an average Superstars match.