Jesus Christ, Superstars: A Little Elbow Grease (June 6, 1992)

Previously on Jesus Christ, Superstars: Papa Shango set a jobber’s feet on fire, and Big Bossman got beaten within an inch of his life by an ex-convict with a voice changer who hasn’t changed clothes since getting out of prison, except to put lifts on his shoes.

If you’d like to watch this week’s episode, you can do that here, and you can support the column (so we’re allowed to keep writing it) by reading previous installments on our Jesus Christ, Superstars tag page. If you like these, and our break from the normal Best and Worst format, make sure to share it around so it gets read and drop us a comment below.

Here’s what you missed 27 years ago on WWF Superstars for June 6, 1992.

Jobbers Of The Week

“Baskin” the glory of Dan Robbins, who looks like Sting and Daniel Bryan got godlessly merged in one of those telepods from The Fly. I’m guessing he got his name because it looks like he just got back from “Robbin” a liquor store. It takes a special kind of dude to pair a surfer flat top and rat tail with a hobo beard.

Robbins gets literally and figuratively dragged in a main event against the Repo Man. Apparently, Repo’s actual finishing move was, “giving you rug burn.” They should put him in WWE 2K20 for absolutely no reason and give him this as an OMG Moment.

You’ve got to lose pre-Attitude Era WWE, where the biggest consequences of matches were whatever your opponent wanted to do with you once he’d knocked you out. It ranged from violent (Big Boss Man handcuffing you to a rope and attacking you with a nightstick) to cosmetically threatening (Brutus Beefcake cutting your hair) to profitable (Ted DiBiase putting money in your mouth) to the existentially absurd (Jake Roberts laying a snake on your unconscious body because you’re afraid of snakes, even though you’re, you know, unconscious and can’t be scared of it).

Human Mater “Eric Collins” is back this week, now correctly identified by his actual name, Mike. The last time he was here he teamed up with a guy named FREEDOM, and presumably Vince McMahon’s eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed and the notes got mixed up.

He loses to Texas Tornado Kerry Von Erich, who is still doing that weird thing where he intimately touches children on the way to the ring. He kisses some of them on the cheek, and, as seen here, gently caresses their chins to let them know the Nasty Boys aren’t gonna get them in their sleep and everything’s gonna be okay. If you combined how Mike Collins looks with how Texas Tornado acts, you’d have to have Chris Hansen as your referee.

The Beverly Brothers continue their war against sissies by defeating Mike Samples, who is important for his contribution to hip-hop, and his tag team partner Scott Bailey.

While this appears to be the only match Bailey ever wrestled, Mike Samples is a bit of a jobber legend. He managed to be notable everywhere he went, whether he was USWA’s all-time least believable Ric Flair clone, or in Japan being the other guy in that match where Shadow WX set himself on fire and accidentally almost killed the entire crowd. Here he is bringing out a man in a wolf costume inside a dog crate, aka a “wolverine,” to kill his opponent’s pet snake.

He might be the Forrest Gump of professional wrestling, and I could write about him for the rest of the column. Unfortunately I only have time for a sample.

The Nasty Boys also get a victory this week, defeating jobber journeyman Reno Riggins and his tag team partner, Major Yates.

Riggins has a vague “gambling” motif, making him the Great Value version of legendary WCW loser The Gambler, and Major Yates earns a major yikes for his gear, which looks like he bought it in the women’s fitness section at Target.

Not sure what happened to Yates, besides sticking around long enough to show up on Raw in ’95 and interact with Sunny, but as far as I know Reno Riggins is still active running a promotion in Tennessee, and clearly writing his own strangely indepth Wikipedia entry.

On October 8, 2011, Riggins defeated Kid Kash to win the SAW International Heavyweight Championship but was later stripped of the title when it was discovered he used an illegal substance thrown to him during the match by none other than Duck Dubin. Security video after the match revealed Dubin leaving the arena with longtime partner Stephen “Batman’ Moles—they were later seen watching NBA games at a local watering hole.

I’m not the only one who wants to see Reno Riggins involved in a PED scandal while watching basketball games with Batman and a duck, am I? Can he dress up someone in a wolfman costume and put them in a big-ass pet carrier?

Accurate Caricature Of The Week

I don’t know what’s the funniest part of this; the misspelling of “Knobbs,” the affectionately drawn cartoon pig, or the fact that the pig is wearing glasses for some reason. It’s adorable, but it needs more puff paint and Hulk Hogan ass-stink.

Phrasing Of The Week

The Nasties are feuding with High Energy, who are gonna use all the gas station boner pills they can find to tweak 24/7 and “blast off all over” the Nasty Boys.

I can’t believe a couple of living Who Framed Roger Rabbit taxi cabs in high-waisted genie pants with suspenders and a pet bird have me siding with the human version of Bebop and Rocksteady.

Later in the episode, High Energy get a tag team win over the team of Kato and Kevin Kruger, whose team name is … uh … [checks notes]

Positive Self-Talk Of The Week

Say what you want about how The Mountie is a Canadian police officer who became a constantly shouting professional wrestler and uses a 1950s musician guy to help him abuse his power via shocking former Marine sergeants to death with an 8,000 volt shock stick, but he’s a positive example of good mental health. The next time you wake up thinking your life sucks and all your friends secretly hate you, or you’re lying around on the couch unable to move because the apathy of rotting from the inside out just feels easier than the nightmarish effort of socializing and putting on a happy face for the world around you, say to yourself, “I’m the Mountie, I’m handsome, I’m brave, I’m strong.” Because you are.

If you have someone around to say “bam bam bam bam bam bam bam” while you do it, even better.

Prison Nickname Of The Week

Mean Gene Okerlund recaps last week’s heinous assault on an abusive prison guard from Georgia and reveals two important facts:

• The Big Boss Man’s career is OVER, which is true, unless WWF Magazine and ICOPRO, the integrated conditioning program scientifically designed to give you the advantage in building your body, would sponsor an inaccurate update
• the prison moniker of the Boss Man’s attacker is Nailz, bestowed upon him by his fellow inmates. “Nails” because he’s always getting hammered into the wall, and a “Z” because he’s into extreme sports, I guess?

If you think Gene should take a more reserved tone when talking about a violent attack that ended a man’s career, don’t worry, he gets his later.

Virgil Promo Of The Week

The Ballad Of Robert And Lucretia, Part One

Dearest Lucretia,

Alone here in the front row at WWF Superstars, I think of you and your enormous Aqua Net hair puff as you’re up purchasing chilled, hardened pretzels — harder even than the thought of being without you for even these crystalline moments — and Aquafina someone will have to open and pour into a plastic cup because our fellow Kentuckians can’t stop relieving themselves into the shapely prison of the water, re-affixing the cap, and hurling it, ever bound for Heaven itself, at the Beverly Brothers.

Right now you’re missing Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart vs. Tom Stone, who appears to me as though he might be a high school social studies teacher. Good God! what horror and destruction. Its impossible for me to describe or you to form any idea of it. It seemed as if a total dissolution of nature was taking place. The roaring of the inverted atomic drop, fiery elbow drops from the second rope flying about it in the air, the prodigious glare of almost perpetual back breakings, the crash of the Russian legsweep, and the ear-piercing shrieks of the distressed in the Sharpshooter, were sufficient to strike astonishment into Angels.

I am booing and giving the double thumbs down, so that Stone, his eyes glazed over and yet locked onto me like an Argonaut transformed by Medusa into his very namesake, knows I don’t like him. I hope you’ll return soon with a stack of fool’s-quality napkins with yellow mustard squirted on top for the pretzel, because the concession stand wouldn’t give you a tray or a little plate, as my heart is only covered by this airbrushed t-shirt we paid too much for at Myrtle Beach to announce our endless love.

Crush is up next, brought here by steroids and serendipity, as the avatar of how my heart will break should you not return. Until I see my precious, irreplaceable Standard Poodle of a woman again, I remain forever, impossibly yours.

Your dearest,
Robert

Accurate Fan Criticism Of The Week

This is the worst thing a woman had done to Brian Adams until Taylor Swift covered ‘Summer of ’69’ on the Reputation Tour.

Note: This barely tops this shot of the crowd, which is an illustration of the life span of a wrestling fan. It starts on a kid with sticky hands eating an ice cream bar and giving the double thumbs down, then pans over to an irate, overweight, disheveled businessman screaming curse words.

La Sirène Gene Of The Week

If you’ve been following along with the column, you know that Voodoo Chile Papa Shango has been actively cursing the Ultimate Warrior. So far he’s made him vomit up a bunch of piping hot dijon mustard and leak motor oil from the head, and serious journalist Gene Okerlund wants answers.

Unsurprisingly, Papa Shango’s explanation leaves a lot to be desired.

“ULTIMATE WARRIOR, HOW DOES IT FEEL … NOT TO BE IN CONTROL? ULTIMATE WARRIOR, HOW DOES IT FEEL? ENNNNGHHHH. YOU! HAVE ENTERED! THE DARK! WORLD! OF PAPA SHANGO! YOU! HAVE STEPPED! INTO MY! BLACK CIRCLE! AND THAT CIRCLE … IS CLOSING! ON YOU!”

Gene’s had enough of Papa’s skullduggery and is thankful the interview is over, but doesn’t realize he’s also about to experience the curse of Papa Shango . Papa “closes his black circle” on Gene, causing him to leak the same “evil goo” that came from the Ultimate Warrior’s forehead, but from his … armpit? From his elbow? I’m not totally sure.

“You’ve certainly got to give a hand to Papa Shango, who continues to close in on the competition here in the World Wrestling Federation.” — passive-aggressive Sean Mooney, I’m assuming, I didn’t check.

Next Week Of The Week

Nailz makes his (official) in-ring debut, a definitely not Latino-looking Scarface character appears in his first vignette — he’s probably not important, don’t worry about it — and we get a “special interview” with the Macho Man Randy Savage. But honestly, isn’t every interview with the Macho Man a “special interview?”