Quite a few cage matches take place during the month. Hogan and Savage meet with a boxing champ as the referee.
WWF World Championship Scene: (currently held by: Hulk Hogan)
On the house show market, Hogan continued to do battle with Mr. Perfect. They would have several steel cage matches with Hogan prevailing over Perfect. At the February 19th MSG house show Hogan teamed with Brutus Beefcake to get a tag team victory over Mr. Perfect and The Genius.
Hogan also had to deal with the Ultimate Wariror and Dino Bravo. At the February 14th taping of WWF Superstars, Hogan competed in a match with Bravo, which he won, but was attacked afterward by Earthquake until his opponent at WrestleMania VI, the Ultimate Warrior came out for the save.
The rather productive month came to an end with Hogan squaring off against former friend and current rival, Randy Savage. They had a match on February 23rd for the Main Event III special on NBC. The special referee for the match was Buster Douglas. The referee was originally going to be Mike Tyson, but Tyson lost a fight to Douglas, thus a change was made. Hogan was able to pin Savage after a leg drop to retain the championship. Later on in the show, Hogan saved Warrior from a post-match beat down by Bravo and Earthquake.
WWF Intercontinental Championship Scene: (currently held by: Ultimate Warrior)
Warrior primarily competed in matches against Dino Bravo in a few steel cage matches or traditional singles matches. Warrior also teamed with Jake Roberts to compete against Ted DiBiase and Akeem in tag team main events on the house show market.
WWF World Tag Team Championship Scene: (currently held by: Andre the Giant & Haku)
Just like last month, the tag team champions continued to compete against Demolition on the house show market and were successful in retaining the tag team championships. There weren’t any new developments in the feud between both teams.
Other Happenings:
- Jake Roberts and Ted DiBiase continued their series of matches on the house show market with the Big Bossman serving as the special referee for the match. Roberts didn’t have any problem walking out victorious as Bossman would sometimes get involved in helping Roberts win the match.
- The Orient Express made their debut during the February 13th taping of WWF Superstars.
- Earthquake showed his dominance as he beat up jobbers to the point that they would need to be stretchered out of the arena. He also destroyed Ron Garvin at the February 19th MSG house show causing him to be stretchered out.
- Randy Savage and Dusty Rhodes would have several matches on the house show market with Rhodes winning them all by count-out or disqualification.
- For most of the month, Rick Rude was losing steel cage matches to Roddy Piper as they finished up their feud that had been taking place for the last several months.
Ratings:
The Main Event III: 12.8
Bob's Opinion:
For the most part, the month was just continuing feuds on the undercard. The rather interesting and exciting feud between Rick Rude and Roddy Piper came to an end while Ted DiBiase and Jake Roberts continued to produce quality house show matches. Bossman's babyface turn had really rallied the fans behind him, which would be the case until early '93.
Earthquake's rise of the card was also refreshing. I was always able to buy into Quake due to his size. Come the summer time he'll be involved in his biggest angle of his career.
Hogan's month of action was action packed and featured a match with old rival Macho Man. Sure, Savage was down on the card, but those two were always seemingly able to put on an entertaining match. It was also good to see Mr. Perfect work the main event scene for a brief period of time.
What are you memories of the WWF during this time? Share them below!
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Donnie B. may be the worst play-by-play guy of all time. There's no such thing as a dropkick. It's a "dropkick-type maneuver" to him. That turn of phrase would continue to spiral out of control until it was something like "a face-front figure-four flying flop-type maneuver."
ReplyDeleteCornio and Donnie B were the absolute pits. I shudder thinking about that duo.
ReplyDeleteI've asked this question before, but here it goes:
ReplyDeleteEven when Tyson drops the belt
he's still Mike Tyson and has the same notoriety and name
value as before the loss. So why not bring him in anyway? Unless Vince signed some bizarre
contract stating that the "World boxing champion" would appear without
specifying a name (which would be a typical Don King move)? Besides, the fact that he was no longer champion and didn't have those contractual obligations might have made it easier to talk his handlers into a Wrestlemania match.
Yeesh Brian, just skip ahead a bit and start reviewing their GOOD shows. Don't torture yourself just for our amusement.
ReplyDeletewanna say it was a DVD of ROH's first show, and damned if I can remember what match, but Corino, after a rapid extreme, just shrieks "HOLY CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON!!!!", to the point where it was so grating, I had to turn it off. Moderation's a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how old u were at the time but Tyson was seen as such a loser after he lost in japan to douglas--he wasn't the monster.. It was actually a huge coupe for Vince to get buster Douglas as he was seen as THE megastar on the rise. Looking back doesn't help lol.
ReplyDeleteAny Hogan vs Savage match was always great. The crowds were always hot, during any time period. Check out their 1985 feud it's better then their 89-90 feud, match-wise, in my opinion. Either way, they always delivered.
ReplyDeleteI think it was advertised as "the world heavyweight boxing champion" without actually saying it was tyson. That way if buster won they could just throw some cash at him to come in and be the ref.
ReplyDeleteI dont remember them specifically advertising a mike tyson apperance. I could be wrong tho.....
Really? I was 8 at the time and thought it was viewed as such a fluke win. I was under the impression the loss didn't really kill Tysons rep
ReplyDelete