Previously on Jesus Christ, Superstars: The Model committed the heinous act of stealing ceremonial feathers and squirting Tatanka in the eyes with atomized body spray. Plus, HIGH ENERGY debuted, and the crowd literally went wild.
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Here’s what you missed 27 years ago on WWF Superstars for May 9, 1992.
Jobbers Of The Week
Taking an L to the Hitman this week is none other than 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.
Speaking of Crush, future ECW stars, and guys from the United States being packaged as evil foreigners because they’re vaguely ethnic, here’s Kato of the Orient Express. I wouldn’t normally consider Kato a straight-up “jobber,” but he loses to a spinebuster so gentle it wouldn’t have crushed an errant ladybug, so I’m lumping him in.
Kato — from Alabama, Japan — is, of course, Paul Diamond, probably best known as one half of the AWA tag team “Badd Company.” I just want to take a second to point out how funny it is that a tag team named Badd Company’s entrance theme was the song ‘Bad Company’ by the band Bad Company. He and Pat Tanaka were a successful tag team for years, but the World Wrestling Federation couldn’t accept that a white guy would be friends with an Asian guy, I guess, so they put Paul in a mask and named him after Bruce Lee’s character from The Green Hornet. Nobody tell them Pat Tanaka’s from Hawaii.
It’s Benecio Del Toro in the role of his career! Meet Sonny Blaze, here for the last match in a three-year enhancement talent run that the Internet Wrestling Database lists at a Goldbergian 0-33. Hey, he’s walkin’ here!
Blaze loses to another measured representation of a non-American, Kamala the Ugandan Giant, who stood even taller than human skyscraper Eddie Dennis at six-foot-seven. I don’t know much about what happens to Blaze after this, but I assume he became the Ghost Rider.
Fun Fact: “Sonny Blaze” is also the reason she keeps getting so many DWIs.
Losing to the rare decent person from a foreign land, El Matador Tito Santana (note: he’s from Texas), is Bob Bradley, Scout and Jem’s neighbor from To Kill a Mockingbird. The most interesting fact I could find about Bob is that he was the 1992 equivalent of Hunico, as he wrestled masked cat character BATTLE KAT in its (?) debut, then became Battle Kat when original catsman Brady Boone left the company. He wasn’t as good in the role, though, so they probably should’ve called him Cringer.
The funniest jobber of the week has got to be Kerry Davis, seen here looking like Gabe Sapolsky bought a mullet wig from Halloween Express. Holy shit, Kerry Davis. WWE Network lists him as “Terry Davis,” probably because Kerry e-mailed them and asked them to not let anyone know what he looked like in 1992. He returns later in the year, presumably after a hot summer of booking Ricky Morton matches in EVOLVE, to get manslaughtered by Nailz.
He teams with Mark Kay, who was named when Vince McMahon looked at him and went, “a mark? ‘Kay.” I couldn’t get a good screenshot of him, and I had to check like five times to make sure he wasn’t Shane Douglas. But yeah, they do so well against the Legion of Doom they didn’t even get their names on the screen.
Our main event teams up the Nasty Boys against John Travolta and John Travolta’s thumb, Brian Brieger and Bill Pierce. Pierce eventually becomes “Chris Michaels” (not Shawn Michaels, please don’t sue) alongside the very 1993-named “Johnny Hotbody” in the very 1993-named ECW tag team “The Suicide Blondes.” That faction would give us Chris Candido, at least, so I’m counting that as Pierce’s big contribution to pro wrestling history.
His partner, Bill Brieger, ends this set of tapings by getting set the fuck on fire by Papa Shango, which I can’t wait to GIF and write about in a couple of weeks. Also shout-out to Brieger for being the ugliest guy in a match that features both Nasty Boys.
Speaking Of Papa Shango Of The Week
This is the week when big bad voodoo daddy Papa Shango puts his curse on The Ultimate Warrior. Shango has to use destructive magic instead of healing on the Warrior, because healing doesn’t make the world work.
Here’s the complete incantation, in case you need to fill any of your enemies’ stomachs with piping hot dijon mustard. Just replace the Warrior’s name with a real person’s name, like, say, “Jim.”
“Curse the living!
Raise the dead!
The Warrior’s nightmare,
The Warrior’s dread!
Wuh ha ha ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha ha ha!
The living will fall!
The dead will rise!
Papa SHANGO will reign,
over the Warrior’s demise!
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Wuh ha ha ha ha!
Wuh ha ha ha ha!”
They’re Making This Too Easy For Me Of The Week
Served Lewk Of The Week
Rick Martel might as well be teaming with Matt Cross and Erick Stevens this week, because he’s got no remorse for what he did to Tatanka last week. He says he did Tatanka a favor, even, because attaching feathers to a teal beret with a roach clip is, “the hot new look in Paris.” The contrast between Serious Old Journalist Mean Gene Okerlund and a mahogany bag of Canadian muscles in a bowtie and cumberbund with no shirt and pink underpants is enough to sell the segment, but Mr. Perfect corpsing on commentary when Martel drops, “you …. stupids” is the best.
The guy who writes the pun intros for every episode gets in some good work here as well, as Martel ends the interview with:
“You know, they shouldn’t call him Tatanka, they should call him WHINING ARROW! Ha ha! And you know, if he wants to dance with THIS wolf, ha ha, the warpath he travels now with soon become a TRAIL OF TEARS!”
Legitimately surprised they didn’t have a promo where Von Krus talks about how he made a mistake against Bret Hart and it “holocaust him the match.”
Jingoistic Mauling Of The Week
Gene Okerlund and WWF Magazine present a look back at the latest episode the Wrestling Challenge, featuring the Repo Man trying to repossess the soul of the British Bulldog via hanging death. Repo, who still has no goddamn clue what a repossession agent does, carries a rope with a tow hook on the end of it, and, because he also doesn’t seem to know how hooks or heavy metal objects work, tries to kill Bulldog with the rope part. That would’ve really done permanent damage of Bulldog hadn’t replaced his neck with a third leg.
Holiday Of The Week
By the way, this Sunday morning family program featuring an attempted lynching, a voodoo curse, and a joke about the Trail of Tears is brought to you by Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day from your World Wrestling Federation favorites, like the disgraced prison guard, the living steroid that hates gay people, the meat snack salesman whose gimmick was that he beat his wife for like a decade, and the post-apocalyptic Chicago street punks!
Bobcat Goldthwait Reference Of The Week
I hope we get to see Crush vs. Doink soon, so we can see if he shakes the clown!
Benedict Arnold Gets What He Deserves Of The Week
Before we forget, happy Mother’s Day from the disgraced former drill instructor who turned his back on the United States during the Gulf War to side with Iraq and burned the American flag.
This week’s featured match — different from the “main event,” because it doesn’t go on last, but does feature two wrestlers you’ve actually heard of — is Ric Flair vs. Sgt. Slaughter. Someone booking a Midwestern territory in 1981 saw this listed in the Sports Almanac and lost their mind. It ends with the Starrcade ’98 finish, as evil Canadian non-mounted mounted policeman The Mountie catches Sarge dangling on the ropes and SHOCKSTICKS HIM INTO UNCONSCIOUSNESS.
They dub in “electricity” sounds to make sure you know Sarge isn’t flailing around like a grounded trout because he got poked in the gut with a regular stick. I also would’ve accepted Ginuwine’s, ‘Pony.’ Flair takes the victory in the only way he knows how: with clandestine help from foreign law enforcement.
Next Week Of The Week
Uh, one of them, probably! We don’t have a way to check!
