Wrestling Observer Flashback–02.15.88

HOW MUCH FOR THE PLASTIC SURGERY, BROTHER? Well, let’s find out as we go back to the Main Event in February 1988.

Yeah, it’s a repost, live with it.

– Dave hopes that whoever came up with the finish got a nice bonus in their pay. The wacky twin referee finish served not only the purpose of keeping Andre strong and setting up Wrestlemania, but being such an over-the-top circus that fans were distracted enough not to riot when Hogan lost.

– The WWF actually didn’t make any big secret of the fact that Hogan was losing, sending out cable previews of WM4 with the slogan “Hulk Hogan tries to regain the WWF title”. As some guy once said years later, controversy creates cash, so really exposing the business in exchange for a ratings boost was a good gamble to take.

– Dave thought the Savage-Honky match was “bad, but watchable” even though Honky was his usual DUD self. Savage worked hard to carry the match and won by countout, so Dave gives it ** for everything, including the “bunch of symbolic BS” with Liz getting lifted above Savage’s head afterwards.

– Dave absolutely trashes the Hogan-Andre match, which was admittedly terrible, and notes that Andre was in no condition to be out there and appeared ready to keel over from a heart attack at a couple of points. Dave goes over the whole twin referee / plastic surgery finish and notes that announcers on the syndicated shows were “banned” from talking about it (since those shows were taped before this one). And then after all, he’s like “Don’t get me wrong, it all worked so well that WM4 will probably gross $25 million.” Not quite, Dave.

– Dave goes over the various scenarios for WM, with the most likely being a held-up title leading to a Hogan-Andre cage match where Hulk walks out the door to regain the belt. But they need a main event for that show and then something for the mystery PPV show in August, so it’ll have to be creative.

– Moving on, Geoff “Garfield” Portz (aka Scotty McGhee) suffered a stroke and he’s in bad shape. He’s moving around again but no word on if it’ll affect his future wrestling career. Spoiler: There was no more wrestling career for him. He’s been working as a nurse instead, according to Wikipedia.

– Verne Gagne scheduled his final show for the Minneapolis Auditorium, called “Nostalgia Night”, but the show bombed due to…wait for it…wait for it…Vince McMahon scheduling his OWN “Nostalgia Night” show for the next week in the Twin Cities. Dave goes over the card, notes that “all the matches were varying degrees of terrible”, and the show finished with a Greg Gagne v. Curt Hennig cage match that was never announced as a title match or non-title match one way or another. Gagne won thanks to 60 year old ref Leo Nomellini screwing Hennig over, and then Stanley Blackburn went on TV and announced that “a cage match can’t be for the title” so Curt Hennig is still the champion.

– Not much in the territories of note.

– Over to the NWA, as Crockett is working with Ted Turner to improve their PPV market. Crockett has announced four PPV shows for the year, including the Crockett Cup, Bunkhouse finals, Great American Bash and Starrcade. Dave thinks the future of the business is PPV, not house shows. Due to Survivor Series 88 being announced, Starrcade 88 on PPV has already been canned because of the 60 day exclusivity clause from the WWF. This actually led to Starrcade getting moved to December, where it stayed until WCW died. Dave notes that at least Vince learns from his mistakes. Ouch.

– Dave thinks that this Sting kid might actually be surpassing Lex Luger and Barry Windham as top babyface. In fact, Dave notes that Luger is fading fast and is just “one of the boys” in the midcard, a nothing nobody like Nikita Koloff.

– Buddy Landel called for a job and Dusty told him to fuck off, thanks to yet another series of no-shows when WCW was in Japan for a tour.

– The Rock N Roll Express is claiming that they start with the WWF in June.

– Dave thinks the bench press angle with the Road Warriors could do business.

– Eddie Gilbert was offered a spot in the Varsity Club but refused.

– The UWF is now persona non grata on TV, with all plans of unifying the titles dropped and no more mention of the promotion.

– The Learning the Ropes TV show actually ended up cursing most of the guys involved, as Steve Williams blew out his knee doing a fake (faker?) match with Ric Flair as Alzado, and then Arn Anderson also injured himself while playing Alzado’s character.

– Back to the WWF, as Owen Hart outshined everyone in the promotion last time he was there working as “Owen James” in a dark match, which probably explains why he won’t be brought back.

– Roddy Piper is such a hit with Hollywood phonies that he reportedly will never have to wrestle again…unless he wants to.

– Greg Valentine vs. Brutus Beefcake is ETCHED IN STONE for Wrestlemania in a hair v. hair match. ETCHED. IN. STONE.

– The Main Event did 16.1 million viewers for NBC, which was the highest rated wrestling show in history but only an average show for NBC in primetime. If a show did 16 million viewers today for NBC they would be dancing in the aisles and offering Vince a three hour live show.

– WWF won’t be offering WM to satellite dish owners because apparently some bars have been showing the PPV offerings and CHARGING people for it. FUCKERS.

– And that’s all!

– Oh wait, at the end of the newsletter by the address label, in handwriting, Dave scrawls “FLASH: WWF TITLE VACATED, TOURNAMENT AT WRESTLEMANIA, ANDRE VS HOGAN FIRST ROUND, MORE NEXT WEEK”.

ADIOS!