Jesus Christ, Superstars: No Reservations (June 27, 1992)

Previously on Jesus Christ, Superstars: Papa Shango set a man’s hand on fire. Other things happened, too, but nobody seems alarmed enough that a man’s performing actual dark magic in the middle of a sports arena. Are we not regulating anything?

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

Jobbers Of The Week

Semistar Billy Graham seen here prepping to lose to the British Bulldog is none other than Nick Danger. He’s the LAST NAME IN DANGER!

In case you were wondering, Nick Danger is a true renaissance man. According to his official website which looks like it was created in 1996 and never updated, and I quote, “Nick on his Harley Davidson have been in many movies, commercials and on TV.” He’s played a tattoo artist on an episode of Married … With Children, stays busy doing stunt work on direct-to-DVD horror films, and maintains the delightful baby boomer homophobia you’d expect from a elderly former wrestler with tattoos on his head.

Teaming up to take on the Nasty Boys this week are two guys who have clearly never met before right now, Rick Johnson and Chico Martinez. Somebody in the back was like, “what if Sting tagged with Baba Booey,” and the team was born.

Incredibly, Chico is the more accomplished wrestler, popping up every now and then to enhance Shawn Michaels or whomever, despite Johnson being six-foot-thirteen and looking like he sprang fully formed from Jim Herd’s brain. This Rick Johnson should not be confused with “Richard Johnson,” who was a Tennessee-area dick wrestler, or 2010s PG-13 comedy option Big Dick Johnson.

Waving politely from the confines of those leggings that look like the box a blank VHS tape comes in is Bruce Mitchell, a jobber named after one of PW Torch’s senior writers so Vince McMahon can make fun of him and feel better about himself, I guess? Herb Abrams had pioneered the idea of naming losers after writers you hate so you can have them get beaten up and make fun of their concave chests or whatever, so … good job, I guess?

Mitchell falls victim to The Berserker’s finishing hold, the Billy Zabka memorial Pussy Toss For Distance, and I spend the entire time weirdly, retroactively jealous that a “Randy Stroud” has never jobbed out to Titus O’Neil on Main Event. Ah well, Raw’s bringing back jobbers all of a sudden, so I’ve still got time.

This blind woman’s approximation of a young John Favreau is John Blade, not to be confused with the 10,000 other “Johnny Blades” in wrestling. Every independent wrestling promotion that runs out of your local church has a “Johnny Blade” in it, and if you tried to backyard wrestle as a kid, “Johnny Blade” was every third name you came up with. He tries to get one over on Kamala by showing up to the match dressed as a banana, but it doesn’t help.

Finally there’s J.A. Gooden, who takes a break from suggesting ways to find out whether or not you’re a redneck to lose Nailz. In Rastafarian English, “JA Gooden” means, “God is great.” Not sure what the “J.A.” stands for, but I’ll ask him next time I’m home, because I’m pretty sure he’s my dad.

Jobber Murder Of The Week

Papa Shango gets the week off as Virgil takes over the weekly enhancement talent murder spot, dropping poor Glen Ruth on the top of his head. Here’s what I’m calling the Virgil Driver ’92 in motion. The longer you watch it, the less sure you are if it’s a dangerously sloppy suplex from Virgil or a great bump from Ruth.

Spoiler alert: It’s both.

Relationship Philosophy Of The Week

What’s your favorite Tommy Davidson movie?

The highlight of this week’s episode is the debut of the best of the Razor Ramon vignettes, in which he’s interrupted mid-thought by a scorned woman and off-screens her with his prehensile machismo. Scott Hall’s making the Razor voice as hilariously offensive as it’s ever going to be again, dropping gems like, “Mang, the chicas, they fo fun, I prob’ly scar, her heart, for life … THAS TOO BAD!”

“I call you, you never call me back, I thought we had something going!”
“No, chica, you don’t understand. You have something … you have a good time. I through with you now. Get outta here. I through witchoo. Adios.”

I love that he’s sitting out in public at presumably a restaurant wearing nothing but a vest and gold chains, and somehow this chica shows up in a body suit with jorts over it to top him. I also love that he’s not only chewing on a toothpick but has a second, backup toothpick behind his ear. You’re never too safe when it comes to picking shit out of your teeth. I hope the next promo is him growling “RAZOR RAMON IS A VAGINA-FREE ZONE, MENG” while pouring an entire box of toothpicks on his head.

Ooh, Who Is This Kid, What’s He Gon’ Do Of The Week

This week’s episode comes to us from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and since the writing team didn’t have time to scour the Tim Berners-Lee Virtual Library for facts about the area, Mr. Perfect’s opening pun deluge is about how everyone named “Hamilton” is from Hamilton. George Hamilton is from there (he’s not), ice skater Dorothy Hamilton is from there (not her name), and of course creole bastard Alexander Hamilton is from there.

Yes, this makes me want to re-write the entire musical like it’s being performed by Sean Mooney.

[looks up at camera] “One Superstar who’ll get a scholarship to King’s College is none other than Alexander Hamilton. The ‘Little Lion’ probably shouldn’t brag, but dag, he amazes, and astonishes. The problem is that he’s got a lot of brains but no polish, and has to holler just to be heard if he hopes to reach the top here in the World Wrestling Federation. Let’s hear what the Diamond in the Rough has to say, as with every word, he drops knowledge.” [stares]

Anthony Michael Hall Of The Week

Superstars tapings can be a real Dead Zone, am I right?

Bushwhackers Aerobics Video I’m Definitely Buying Of The Week

There’s a lot of great pro wrestling on the World Wrestling Federation Coliseum Home Video collection, but nothing quite compares to the idea of two incestuous sheep-fucking cousins showing up to an aerobics class with a TV camera and kicking everybody. The entire thing gives me deep anxiety, and is an illustration of what my brain does when it’s having a panic attack.

Getting Back To Your Roots Of The Week

ICOPRO Integrated Conditioning Program presents Native American Sensation™ Tatanka’s trip to visit his brethren at the Akwesasne Indian Reservation, where he wrote his full wrestling gear to tell stories in his underpants and scream at a lake. Mean Gene notes that he used the time to communicate the “Native American message of family, community, peace, and pride,” which seems like the kind of thing you’d want to communicate while wearing pants.

Jokes aside it’s actually nice, but I kept hoping an incognito Rick Martel had snuck into the reservation dressed as a child and was going to start spraying everyone in the eyes with atomized cologne.

Also returning to their roots this week are the Legion of Doom, who visit a dilapidated house in Chicago at the request of Paul Ellering and discover an old, completely undamaged ventriloquist dummy Hawk and Animal identify as the “wrestling buddy” they used to wrestle with as kids. Ellering believes that since the doll “taught them to be a team” they should fix it up and carry it with them wherever they go, and oh boy, if you though the Beverly Brothers made cogent points calling them the “legion of sissies,” wait until they’re literally carrying around an emotional support doll.

If this is your first time hearing about the Legion of Doom having a Jeff Dunham character managing them, meet Rocco. He gets fixed up as a 1950s greaser, as the World Wrestling Federation writers were like, “you know how everyone loves the Road Warriors as buys them as bad-asses? What if we made that way harder for everyone?”

The dummy’s original name was supposedly “Freckles,” if you’d like it to seem even weirder and creepier, and the name was changed after the first attempt at a segment bombed so badly it never made TV. The team ends up breaking up for real because this was so bad, the doll goes missing after its one pay-per-view appearance, and Hawk doesn’t return to WWF programming until the late ’90s, when they’ve written the much more flattering gimmick of suicidal alcoholic.

Don’t worry, Hawk, in terms of 1992 WWF gimmicks, “greaser wrestling doll” isn’t the worst thing you could end up with. Your gimmick could’ve been, “makes out with children on the way to the ring” like some other wrestling legends.

Next Week Of The Week

• a “special interview” with the Repo Man, which I bet is about how much he likes to steal things
• an update on disgraced prison guard The Big Boss Man, who we’re upset got beaten half to death by one of his former prisoners
• the Superstars debut of the SEXIEST MAN ON EARTH
• Razor Ramon invents Carlito

All this and more as the World Wrestling Federation celebrates Independence Day in the beautiful American city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada!