Previously on Jesus Christ, Superstars: We went home to SummerSlam in the United Kingdom, where we’ll finally find out whose corner Ric Flair’s manager will be in — guess! — and what will happen to the Hart family once they’ve been torn asunder by a friendly wrestling match.
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Here’s what you missed 27 years ago on WWF Superstars for September 5, 1992.
Pay-Per-View Recap Of The Week
Before we begin, here’s everything you need to know about SummerSlam 1992: The SummerSlam You Thought You’d Never See®, the first pay-per-view to be aired from outside of the United States, and the last time anybody gave a shit about the Intercontinental Championship.
Road Warrior Hawk Is Done With This Puppet Bullshit
If you’ve been reading the weekly column you’ll recognize “Rocco,” the World Wrestling Federation’s killer idea to make the toughest and most legendary tag team of the previous decade wrestle squash matches while Paul Ellering stands outside the ring doing improvised Vaudeville routines to children via greaser puppet. Both members of the Legion of Doom hated the gimmick, and Road Warrior Hawk hated it so much he quit the company after SummerSlam. His final WWF match for five years is the pre-taped jobber squash you’ll read about in a minute, with a 1950s ventriloquist dummy talking over it.
Seriously though, imagine being the Road Warriors and being told this is the next step in your evolution from spiked-shoulderpad-wearing post-apocalyptic street thugs. Imagine if WWE signed Minoru Suzuki and was like, “here’s your new character, you’re obsessed with this Betsy Wetsy doll, trust us, you’ll get over, nobody wants to hear about or see 30 years of you kicking people’s asses.”
Nailz Gets Tacked Off
Continuing the “whoops, nothing went right” portion of the show, Nailz defeats Virgil (because of course he does) and goes home from London unhappy about his payout. This leads to him confronting Vince McMahon after Survivor Series, attacking him for real, getting fired, and then testifying against the World Wrestling Federation in the early ’90s steroids trials with helpful statements like, “I hate Vince McMahon’s guts.”
Yeah, man, you definitely deserved a Hulk Hogan payout for that 3:55 you spent lifelessly choking out Virgil.
Mystery Perfect
Vince McMahon is vocally unhappy about Mr. Perfect’s shit-stirring has caused there to be “no scientific match” for the WWF Championship. I’m with you, man. I tuned into Macho Man Randy Savage in a Lisa Frank cowboy outfit and The Ultimate Warrior dressed like the naked musculature of the dude from Winger expecting a lot of wristlock counters and catch-as-catch-can action.
Anyway, the story building up to the match is that Mr. Perfect claimed he would be in one of the men’s corners, but didn’t say whose. Macho Man thought this meant he’d be in Ultimate Warrior’s corner. Ultimate Warrior thought he’d be in Macho Man’s corner. Everyone else on the goddamn planet knew he’d be in the corner of the actual person he manages, Ric Flair, who was upset about not getting into the match in the first place. They attack Savage, Savage gets counted out, and then Warrior helps Savage fight them off. Because friendship.
The original plan here was apparently that Warrior was supposed to turn heel, but he outright refused, so they had to scrap the plans and none of the build-up made sense. That set up Warrior and Savage as a tag team against Flair and Perfect at Survivor Series, but WHOOPS, Ultimate Warrior is a nefarious dirtbag and ends up quitting the company four days before the show. Perfect ends up taking Warrior’s spot, leading to him turning face, and also whoops, leading to a Flair vs. Perfect feud that ends with Flair leaving the company as well. Everything is going great at SummerSlam!
The Match Of Davey Boy Smith’s Life
But for Bret Hart, it was … Tuesday.
The other major story heading into SummerSlam was that Bret Hart was going to defend the Intercontinental Championship against his brother-in-law, Davey Boy Smith, the British Bulldog. Despite the fact that neither man got really upset or intense about it, the family was IN TURMOIL, with Bret’s mom losing her mind, Bret’s dad staring off into the distance (because he’d already lost his mind, presumably), and Bret’s sister — and Davey’s wife, gasp — going full Meryl Streep in Sofie’s Choice about how two people she loves who work together at the wrestling promotion would have to wrestle.
As it turns out, the match was great, and again, neither man got dirty about it. I think it still stands up as easily the best British Bulldog match ever in a walk, and that it probably ranks right behind Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage at WrestleMania 3 and maybe just ahead of Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon at WrestleMania X on the list of best WWE Intercontinental Championship matches of all time. Thankfully, Diana Hart-Smith’s heart (smith) survived the Friendly.
Barely.
Jobbers Of The Week
“If YOUUUU show up to wrestle The Mountie looking like Jeff Foxworthy, P.I. …. you might be a redneck jobber.”
Meet … Not the Miz’s Dad, Ken Wayne, about to be roughed up by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His green tights and white boots make me 100% certain they pulled him out of a Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts lookalike contest and were like, “we’ll give you $50 if you let this Quebecer punch you.”
Ken actually began his career with the NWA way back in 1976. You may not be surprised to learn that he ended it in 2014, when he was sentenced to 15 years in prison on child pornography charges.
Getting Nailz duty this week is Tommy Stevenson, who I’m guessing owns at least four Chicago Bears satin jackets. His gear for the match is what would happen if a zebra moved into a trailer park.
You know how every Nailz match goes, so I’ll take a moment to point out that Tommy Stevenson’s WWF legacy is that he was one of the opponents for the (very) short-lived tag team THE TOXIC TURTLES, aka Duane Gill and Barry Hardy in homemade Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costumes. Yes, the strange epidemic of Ninja Turtle wrestlers made it all the way to the top.
I would give literally anything for the Toxic Turtles to show up again on Raw, if only for Sheamus and John Cena to team up to try to destroy them.
As mentioned earlier, the Legion of Doom are unhappy about having to go all the way to England to put over a ventriloquist dummy and take out their rage on a pair of jobbers who don’t even get a vanity shot. The guy seen being dick-lifted by Hawk here is Gary Jackson, a veteran enhancement talent journeyman who is still wrestling today at the age of 58. You can tell when he started in the business because his alter egos include “Jojo Jackson,” and my personal favorite, “NIGHT TRAIN Jackson.” So many overweight southern dudes between 1975 and 1985 looked at black guys they had no idea what to do with and thought, NIGHT TRAIN.
His tag team partner, seen here posting for the VHS cover of every bawdy sex comedy of the 1980s, is Jerry Stevens.
You may recognize Jerry as “Jerry Seavey” from a few weeks ago, confirming that they definitely ribbed him by making his last name rhyme with Tim McNeavey’s.
Finally we have the Phenomenal Bert Stiles and his tag team partner, good brother Warren Quinn. They’re in the weekly “get rekt by Money Inc.” spot that happened way too frequently against jobbers this bad looking to not be an intentional statement on what capitalism does to the lower middle class.
Bert would go on to have a fine career getting literally murdered by Big Van Vader. Quinn would follow him over to also get literally murdered, but by Sid Vicious. WWF jobbers had much safer jobs than their NWA/WCW counterparts. On Superstars, you’re gonna get lightly ridge-handed in the hair by Tatanka. Step onto the Saturday Night set and there’s the Midnight Express to throw you at the cement until you’re paralyzed.
Glass Joe Vs. Von Kaiser Of The Week
Virgil rebounds from his loss to Nailz with a hard fart victory over Barry Horowitz. If you’re looking for the solid line between “WWF Superstar” and jobber, it’s somewhere between Virgil and Barry Horowitz.
Sudden Hawaiian Of The Week
Realizing that “he liked to smush things as a child” wasn’t an actual gimmick, the World Wrestling Federation has decided to claim Crush’s birthplace of Hawaii and give him a “Hawaiian accent.” You’d think a guy who is actually from Hawaii could fake a Hawaiian accent, but it sounds like me trying to be a Jamaican. Maybe I don’t know what Hawaiians are supposed to sound like. He ends his picture-in-picture promo with some hang loose hands and his new catchphrase, “shaka, brah. Aloha!”
Crush ends up defeating Kato with the same old head smush, which they really should’ve renamed the Convergent Plate Boundary.
Next Week Of The Week
A child eating a foam tombstone wants you to know that next week’s Superstars features appearances from Razor Ramon, Ric Flair, and, most importantly, Doug Sommers, the jobber who writes his name on his back in sparkles. See you then!
