Jesus Christ, Superstars: Cop And A Half (July 18, 1992)

Previously on Jesus Christ, Superstars: The Legion of Doom introduced us to “Rocco,” a Lovecraftian nightmare God unearthed from the uninhabitable rubble of Chicago. Also, Razor Ramon refused to tip the waitstaff at a restaurant because he’s famous.

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Here’s what you missed 27 years ago on WWF Superstars for July 18, 1992.

Jobbers Of The Week

Don’t be shy, Fred Starr, this is your big break! Your mama didn’t name you Fred Average!

Fred Starr, not to be confused with Russian super hero Red Star, gets his career and dignity repossessed during a short match with The Repo Man. The only place a Google search of “Fred Starr WWF wrestler” takes you is to recaps of this episode and this one match, and in the 1992 match listings sections of any Barry Darsow retrospectives. My theory is that he’s a Milford man, and believes that wrestling matches should be neither seen nor heard.

Virgil and his candy cane tights step into the ring against Dave Millson, who looks like Glenn Jacobs on a high school wrestling team. Amazingly, Millson looks light years better in 1992 than he did when Supestars came to his area a year earlier, when he showed up wrestle the Berserker looking like he should be playing drums for Danger Danger. He also lost the second “i” in his last name, because honestly, the World Wrestling Federation can’t be expected to remember these names or double check their spellings.

Last time we saw Virgil, he was executing Backdrop Dangeroussss on Glen Ruth. This week he continues his path of rage by dropping poor Dave Millson on the top of his head. He’d definitely be dead if he hadn’t carefully created his hairstyle out of sponge.

Can somebody go back in time to 1992 and book Virgil vs. Mitsuharu Misawa in a head-dropping battle?

From the May 9 edition of Jesus Christ, Supestars:

Von Krus, an evil foreigner from the kingdom of Brooklyn Germany with a name like a ‘Super Punch-Out’ character. His Christian name is “Skull Von Krush,” but that’s a little too hardcore for Sunday mornings, and the World Wrestling Federation already has a friendly idiot with a smooshing gimmick.

If you recognize Von Krus, it’s probably because a few years later he’d regenerate into ECW’s Vito ‘The Skull’ LoGrasso, enforcer of Da Baldies, and eventually become a 2-time WCW Tag team and 2-time WCW Hardcore Champion. Like a lot of former WCW stars, WWE would approach the character with respect and repackage him as a guy who wrestles in a dress. Because in the WWE Universe, “a MAN’s not supposed to wear a DRESS” was still a funny joke worth dedicating hours of prime-time television to in 2005.

“Vito LoGrasso playing Skull Von Krush” got shortened to “Von Krus” and now “Vito Krus.” It eventually becomes just “Vito” and then “BIG Vito,” and then presumably Big Vito ‘Skull Von Krush’ LoGrosso Esquire. Or they just started calling him “BIG,” because WWE’s naming process might as well be informed and organized by toddler waving their arms and trying to describe the person they want to go to.

SummerSlam Announcement Of The Week

Remember the past several weeks of The Ultimate Warrior feuding with Papa Shango over psychological vomit attacks and black magic? Remember that whole thing with Ric Flair and Macho Man Randy Savage at WrestleMania, and the weeks of promos explaining why Savage would cheat to win supplemented by Flair continuing to needle him over Elizabeth? That all comes to a head at SummerSlam ’92, where the main event will be … Macho Man Randy Savage vs. The Ultimate Warrior, for some reason!

Based on what I can piece together from everyone’s stories about what was supposed to happen, the idea was that Warrior was going to turn heel on Savage. Whether it was because he was possessed by voodoo magic or what is unclear. Flair is mad about being left out of the match, so he and Perfect hatch this plan where Perfect starts saying he’ll be in one of the wrestlers’ corners for the match, but won’t say which one, so the faces get paranoid about it. This sets up a title change between Flair and Savage just after the event, with Flair and Razor Ramon vs. Macho Man and Warrior being the proposed Survivor Series main. Warrior refused to turn heel at any point during this story, because wrestling is real and the Warrior is a deeply consistent and realistic character, and he quits four days before Survivor Series.

All you really need to know in terms of WWF Superstars episodes is that for the next month, television segments brought to you by a magazine and brown-ass Gene Okerlund is gonna be very excited to tell you about all the details. Flair takes out his aggression on poor Glen Ruth on this episode, because if a guy almost gets a broken neck wrestling Virgil, he’s gonna get a broken everything wrestling Ric Flair.

Yo Mama Joke Of The Week

“Yo mama’s so fat, she jumped in the air and got stuck!”

In case you’re wondering, the Natural Disasters are up against Brooklyn Brawler and Duane Gill here, which is like the Batman and Superman of the jobber world teaming up. In this example, Iron Mike Sharpe is Cyborg and Barry Horowitz is Green Lantern.

Cobb County Confidential Of The Week

This week we were promised a special interview with the Big Boss Man, who was recently beaten into near-retirement by ex-convict Nailz. As a quick recap, it’s 1992 in America, so you can do a story where a prison guard is a hero for beating the shit out of inmates, and an inmate serving his full time and then getting out to seek sanctioned revenge at the guard’s secondary job as a professional fighter makes him some kind of monster.

Bossman’s story is that he didn’t know what he was supposed to do, but he was hugged by a six-year old boy and that told him “everything he needed to know.” He’s back in the World Wrestling Federation to kick a convict’s ass FOR THE CHILDREN OF AMERICA WHO STAND BEHIND HIM. Hooray for the prison system!

The reason Boss Man thinks he’ll be fine? Because Nailz tried to break him, but couldn’t, because you “can’t break the law.” So if you “can’t break the law,” why did Nailz go to prison in the first place? I’m staring to think the Big Boss Man knows as much about law enforcement as the Repo Man does about why he should or shouldn’t steal other people’s shit.

Helpful Identification Of The Week

Hi, I’m Crush, the guy who likes to crush. I’m the one wearing a vinyl tanktop that says “crush,” standing in front of a big sign that says “crush.”

Star War Of The Week

In a last ditch effort to save the World Bodybuilding Federation’s Saturday morning programming — what kid wouldn’t want to turn off Saturday morning cartoons to watch a bunch of monsters scream at each other about atomic-level physical fitness for sport — the World Wrestling Federation has planned a crossover event. A bunch of WBF stars are going to compete in a tug of war against a bunch of WWF stars! It’ll be fun to see who’s stronger, the pro wrestlers or the guys with testicle muscle bodies who look like they’d have complete heart failure if they bent at the waist.

Captaining the WWF team will be Mr. Perfect. Who’s captaining the WBF team, you might ask? Why, none other than the man with one of the most impressive and muscular physiques in professional wrestling history, Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

Here’s the 2-out-of-3 falls showdown between the two teams. Come for the muscle beach drama (and IRS screaming at a bunch of body builders for being tax cheats), stay for Vince McMahon narrating while wearing an enormous pink Flashdance fleece.

Next Week Of The Week

Warrior and Macho Man come face-to-face like a couple of silver spoons. Plus, Shawn Michaels and Phil Apollo have a world class match, green screen Mean Gene gives us all the SummerSlam ’92 updates, and a future ECW/WCW star unexpectedly shows up.