Image by WWE via WrestlingForum.com
Hello hello! That’s for checking this out. As I said when I came back, I want to do something different with this blog. I want to encompass many different things from the 90s, and professional wrestling is one of them. I love pro wrestling, I have since the 90s, and it’s my blog. I want to write about it because I love it and want to share that love. So let’s get into it!
In early 1990, if you were a kid, you had to pick between the two biggest names in the WWF. Were you a Hulkamaniac and support Hulk Hogan? Or were you a Little Warrior and get behind The Ultimate Warrior? Even if you didn’t watch wrestling, you had to choose. I was a Hulkamaniac, myself. I remember I had some trading cards from this era, with Hogan, Warrior, Andre the Giant, Macho Man, Miss Elizabeth, Big Boss Man, and some others. So I knew who these guys were before I actually started watching, years later.
There was a WCW at the time, but out in California… no one knew about or cared about WCW in 1990. Jim Crockett? The NWA? What’s that? Some of that southern’ rasslin’ they show on TBS. So for us, kids in the Bay Area in California in 1990… it was all about Hogan and the Warrior.
Hogan was on top of the world in 1990. We were all saying our prayers and eating our vitamins and believing in ourselves.
Image via Flickr
Before we get started, just for continuity sake, here are the various World Wrestling Federation champions going into January 1990:
WWF Champion: Hulk Hogan
WWF Intercontinental Champion: The Ultimate Warrior
WWF Tag Team Champions: The Colossal Connection (Andre the Giant and Haku)
WWF Woman’s Champion: Rockin’ Robin
Million Dollar Champion: Ted DiBiase
And here’s a short glossary of wrestling promotions mentioned, but not abbreviated.
WWF - World Wrestling Federation
WWE - World Wrestling Entertainment
WCW - World Championship Wrestling
NWA - National Wrestling Alliance
Click here for a glossary of wrestling terms, incase I said something that doesn’t make sense to you.
Like I said previously, when doing these wrestling things, I’m pretty much just going to be using the WWE Network because I don’t have the time or feel like looking for every show that was aired on YouTube or Dailymotion. Some shows won’t be there anyway, so screw it. I got some of my info for this post from listening to episodes of two podcasts: Bruce Prichard’s Something to Wrestle and Tony Schiavone’s What Happened When.
There are only two WWF events from January on the WWE Network. Both shows were significant and important in the build towards Wrestlemania VI in April. We had The Royal Rumble pay-per-view and Saturday Night’s Main Event XXV. So let’s just get into them!
Royal Rumble
January 20, 1990
Orlando Arena in Orlando Florida
Live on Pay-Per-View
Commentators: Tony Schiavone and Jesse Ventura
Segment: Opening
Tons of opening promos, all quick and designed to get themselves over for the Royal Rumble match. An entertaining opening, I enjoyed seeing it, and a good way to get pumped for the show. We see our commentators, Schiavone and Ventura. Ventura looks ridiculous, wearing Mickey Mouse ears and a Disney sweater. Schiavone relates in his podcast that he got the chance to call this event at the last minute, due to Vince McMahon not feeling up to it.
The Bushwhackers (Butch & Luke) vs. The Fabulous Rougeaus (Jacques Rougeau & Raymond Rougeau) (with Jimmy Hart)
This was a fun little opener to the show, but not a great match. The Bushwhackers were never known for their technical prowess. Jimmy Hart tries to interfere, in full sight of the referee and gets pulled into the ring by Luke for his troubles. Why no DQ? Maybe because half of the undercard had crap finishes. Also at over 13 minutes, this match went on way, way, way too long. I would have ranked it lower, but the crowd was super into the match, which helped my enjoyment of it a lot. I’ve never liked the Bushwhackers. Back in the day, they were known as the Sheepherders and were known as a violent tag team, who would blade and bleed all over the ring. Also, side note, this was Raymond Rougeau’s last match, he retired after this. Side note: Jacques Rougeau was recently featured on VICE’s Dark Side of the Ring episode on Dino Bravo. Who will be on this card a little later…
Winners: The Bushwhackers
Finish: Butch pins Jacques
Length: 13:35
January 20, 1990
Orlando Arena in Orlando Florida
Live on Pay-Per-View
Commentators: Tony Schiavone and Jesse Ventura
Segment: Opening
Tons of opening promos, all quick and designed to get themselves over for the Royal Rumble match. An entertaining opening, I enjoyed seeing it, and a good way to get pumped for the show. We see our commentators, Schiavone and Ventura. Ventura looks ridiculous, wearing Mickey Mouse ears and a Disney sweater. Schiavone relates in his podcast that he got the chance to call this event at the last minute, due to Vince McMahon not feeling up to it.
The Bushwhackers (Butch & Luke) vs. The Fabulous Rougeaus (Jacques Rougeau & Raymond Rougeau) (with Jimmy Hart)
This was a fun little opener to the show, but not a great match. The Bushwhackers were never known for their technical prowess. Jimmy Hart tries to interfere, in full sight of the referee and gets pulled into the ring by Luke for his troubles. Why no DQ? Maybe because half of the undercard had crap finishes. Also at over 13 minutes, this match went on way, way, way too long. I would have ranked it lower, but the crowd was super into the match, which helped my enjoyment of it a lot. I’ve never liked the Bushwhackers. Back in the day, they were known as the Sheepherders and were known as a violent tag team, who would blade and bleed all over the ring. Also, side note, this was Raymond Rougeau’s last match, he retired after this. Side note: Jacques Rougeau was recently featured on VICE’s Dark Side of the Ring episode on Dino Bravo. Who will be on this card a little later…
Winners: The Bushwhackers
Finish: Butch pins Jacques
Length: 13:35
Brutus Beefcake vs. The Genius
The Genius opens up this one reciting one of his poems, insulting the crowd and Beefcake in the process. Fantastic promo, he gets so much heat from the crowd from this. Brother Brutus comes out to a huge ovation. The Genius prances around like he’s gay, which enrages this early 90s Southern crowd. The match is alright, Genius is pretty good, but Beefcake is just kinda there. The referee gets knocked out, Beefcake covers Genius and should have won, but there’s no referee. So he starts to do the only logical thing he can do and starts to cut The Genius’ hair. Suddenly, Mr. Perfect comes out from the back and attacks Beefcake. The referee gets up and sees those two fighting, so he disqualifies everyone. Um, what? Shouldn’t he just be disqualifying The Genius? Shouldn’t Beefcake pick up the win, since the referee saw Beefcake getting attacked? Nope. Wonky Booking existed in the WWF even 30 years ago.
Winner: N/A
Finish: Double disqualification
Length: 11:07
Greg Valentine (with Jimmy Hart) vs. Ronnie Garvin
Submission Match
Oh man, I wanted to love this match, I really mean it, I did. Out of all the undercard matches on this show, this is the one with the guys with the most experience. Greg Valentine is a hard-hitting, sonofabitch veteran. Ronnie Garvin is likewise a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion. They both have their submission holds, so seeing them go at it in a match like this should have been golden. So why only three out of five stars? Well. It’s a submission match. So why do both men keep going for pinfalls? Throughout the match, both competitors go for pin attempt after pin attempt after pin attempt. I didn’t keep a tally, but it was upwards of 4 or 5 times each. If you do it 2-3 times, total, that’s fine. But you mean to tell me, that the two biggest professionals kept forgetting what kind of match they were having? It took me out and made me mad. Which is a shame, because it was a good, stiff, hard-hitting match, and I liked all the rest of it. Lame that the pinfall attempts pulled me out.
Winner: Ronnie Garvin
Finish: Submission
Length: 16:55
Ronnie Garvin showing how I felt during the WWF was treating me in last three matches.
Image by WWE via RichOnWrestling
Segment: The Brother Love Show
Guests: Queen Sherri, Sapphire, Dusty Rhodes, Randy Savage
Brother Love berates the crowd and brings out the manager of Randy Savage, Queen Sherri, to berate them with him. Brother Love calls Sherri “royalty” and they call the crowd “peasants.” Speaking of peasants! They call out Sapphire, the manager of Dusty Rhodes, so Brother Love and Sherri can berate her live and in person. They insult her and Dusty until she can’t stand it anymore and attacks Sherri. Dusty comes out to the aid of Sapphire which causes Randy Savage to hit the ring. The segment ends with Brother Love taking a nice little bump to the outside, courtesy of Dusty. A fun little bit! Four of the most charismatic individuals in the WWF at the time and Sapphire, who might not be the most graceful, but seemed like a genuinely nice person. So she’s captivating in her kind of way. I enjoyed this.
The Big Boss Man (with Slick) vs. Jim Duggan
Jim Duggan is backstage before the match, cutting a promo where he yells and screams “HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!” a lot. Boss Man has the confederate flag on his police uniform. He’s a police officer from Cobb County, Georgia, so of course he does. But it’s hilariously distracting. It was a different time in 1990. And what’s up with all these wonky finishes? This one ends with Boss Man getting DQ’d when he smacks Duggan with his nightstick. I wanted to like this match. It was a good, solid, hard-hitting contest. Boss Man moves around gracefully for a big man and takes some nice bumps. I’ve never been a Jim Duggan fan, never will, but he was pretty good in this one. But this is the second DQ finish out of four matches. At least the referee disqualified the right person instead of throwing up his arms and going “I dunno! LOL!”
Winner: Jim Duggan
Finish: Disqualification
Length: 6:13
Segment: Rapid Fire Promos
Before the Rumble match, they show a collection of backstage promos delivered in rapid-fire succession by most of the participants. I didn’t dislike any of them, though most of them were just big bulky men, screaming and yelling about how they were going to win. The best ones were from the usual suspects: Dusty Rhodes, The Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage, Jake Roberts, Hulk Hogan. A group of guys known for their charisma. I was a bit underwhelmed by some others, specifically Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart, who cut their promos alongside their tag team partners Marty Janetty and Jim Niedhart, respectively. But what can I say? These two wouldn’t come into their own for another couple of years. They showed up, did their job, and that’s it. I only felt underwhelmed because, watching this in 2020, and knowing what they would quickly become, it was a bit of a letdown. That’s something difficult I have watching this really old wrestling. Seeing guys acting like average chumps, in their early days, but I’m so used to seeing them as household names. But there was a great bit overall and served to get me hyped for the Rumble match.
The Royal Rumble
Participants (in order of entrance)
Ted DiBiase, Koko B. Ware, Marty Jannetty, Jake Roberts, Randy Savage, Roddy Piper, The Warlord, Bret Hart, Bad News Brown, Dusty Rhodes, Andre the Giant, The Red Rooster, Ax, Haku, Smash, Akeem, Jimmy Snuka, Dino Bravo, The Canadian Earthquake, Jim Neidhart, The Ultimate Warrior, Rick Martel, Tito Santana, The Honky Tonk Man, Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels, The Barbarian, Rick Rude, Hercules, Mr. Perfect
A lot to talk about in this match. This was the third ever Royal Rumble and the first one that was won by a big name, Jim Duggan and Big John Studd winning the first two. Ted DiBiase was the first one out, and lasted quite a while, spending almost 45 minutes in the match. He was the 18th eliminated. The shortest was, unfortunately, Shawn Michaels. Michaels was not a star yet, so he got destroyed by the Ultimate Warrior and eliminated in 0:12 seconds. See, Triple H was not the only member of D/X to get buried by the Warrior. Hulk Hogan and the Warrior each had six eliminations, tied for the most in this match. And that’s the big story here, those two. There is a point in the match where Hogan and the Warrior are in the ring alone together, and the crowd is losing their collective minds. The two biggest stars in the company, face to face for the first time. They go at it, no-selling each other’s moves, smacking each other around like only two big, beefy men can do. They criss-cross the ring and double clothesline each other! Who is the strongest? We don’t know! Eventually, other wrestlers come out. Soon, Warrior ends up being eliminated, but it takes Hogan, along with The Barbarian and Rick Rude, to do so. In the end, Hogan wins the Rumble by throwing Mr. Perfect over the top rope. It’s a great, fun match, as Rumbles usually are. And as much as I’m not a huge fan of Hogan or the Warrior today, feeling that energy from the crowd, even 30 years later, goes a long way to making the match and the moment with the two of them feel special.
Winner: Hulk Hogan
Finish: Hogan eliminates Mr. Perfect
Length: 58:46
Not a bad start to the decade for a man, who, just the previous year, literally murdered rival wrestler Zeus in the movie No Holds Barred.
Image by WWE via Sportsakeeda
Overall
I had average feelings coming out of this Rumble. I liked all the backstage bits, I liked the Brother Love Show Segment, and I enjoyed the Rumble match itself. The Royal Rumble is my favorite event of the year, and I love the match itself. And it was SO WEIRD (in a good way) to hear Toni Schivonne call a WWF Royal Rumble. He was an NWA/WCW guy from the early 80s up through the end of WCW in 2001, except for the one year between 1989-90 that he was in the WWF. But I liked it, it’s not only different, but I like him on commentary. It’s just a shame that the undercard was so underwhelming. Four matches, two ending in disqualification, one with tons of bullcrap pinfalls, and one that was way too long and featured the Bushwhackers. Overall, an average show, with some highlights. The big takeaway of the show was the Ultimate Showdown between Hogan and the Warrior in the Rumble. Who is stronger? Who is more powerful? All the kids across the country didn’t know! And, damn it, we needed to know! And we would find out, as this was all the beginning of the build for Wrestlemania VI, which is coming in just a few months, and features The Ultimate Challenge!
Who's the toughest of the two? We have no idea yet!
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Can the 24-inch pythons and the rocketship co-exist?
Saturday Night’s Main Event XXV
January 27, 1990
UTC Arena in Chattanooga, Tennessee
Pre-taped on NBC [originally taped January 3]
Commentators: Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura
The show starts with McMahon and Ventura standing in front of a green screen showing the crowd in the arena. Ventura is wearing a Florida Gators shirt, cuz ya know, they’re in Tennessee and the University of Florida and the University of Tennessee are rivals. Ventura also warns McMahon “Be careful, or I might start talking like Guns and Roses.”
Jim Duggan vs. Randy Savage (with Queen Sherri)
Duggan starts off cutting one of his “HOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” promos before the match, telling backstage interviewer Mean Gene Okerlund that he can’t wait for this decade. I hope he likes having a janitor gimmick in 1999. Savage also cuts a promo with Sherri, with lots of insults to the “peasants.” Some local wrestlers carry Savage out to the ring on a throne. I should point out that Savage’s current gimmick is “The Macho King” which makes his royalty stuff make more sense. As far as the match itself goes, as I said in the Rumble, Hacksaw is not the best. But he’s good enough, especially working with someone like Savage. I wouldn’t say this match is a forgotten classic or a hidden gem, but I enjoyed it. Sherri holds Duggan’s legs down so he can be pinned.
Winner: Randy Savage
Finish: Pinfall
Length: 9:14
Hulk Hogan & The Ultimate Warrior vs. Mr. Perfect & The Genius
Another set of great promos kick off the match. The Genius has another poem he recites, about how lame Hogan is. Jesse Ventura is interviewing them, and sows the seeds of descent between Hogan and Warrior, stating that they will want to beat each other up. Hogan and Warrior cut a promo with Mean Gene, yelling and screaming about how powerful they both are. So here’s my thing. Why the hell is this match the second on the card? Why isn’t this the main event? Regardless. They go back and forth for a big. Then Mr. Perfect and The Genius isolate Hogan and keep beating him down. Perfect hits his finisher, The PerfectPlex on Hogan, but stops the count on his own to dish out more damage. See? That’s how you protect a finisher. Hogan makes the Hot Tag and Warrior comes in to clean house! Gorilla Press Slam to The Genius! Hogan blind tags Warrior back in. Leg Drop! Pinfall. Great finish to the match. The right guy got pinned, Mr. Perfect being undefeated at this point still.
Winners: Hulk Hogan & The Ultimate Warrior
Finish: Hogan pins The Genius
Length: 8:02
After the match, the bad guys come in and attack Hogan and Warrior. Hogan gets knocked out of the ring, so Warrior takes care of business and takes down The Genius and Mr. Perfect. Hogan gets back in, taps Warrior on the soldier, and gets a clothesline of his own! Oh no! Warrior has attacked Hogan by accident! Warrior goes to check on Hogan, most weirdly. He kind of lightly smacks Hogan on the forehead and rubbing him on the head, while also taking a couple of breaks to flex real quick. Hogan gets to his feet and shoves the Warrior away. The two get in each other's faces and yell and growl at each other. Spicy!
Greg Valentine (with Jimmy Hart) vs. Jake Roberts
Cool little promos from Roberts and Hart before this match. The storyline for this includes Roberts having stolen Ted DiBiase’s Million Dollar Championship. He has the belt, along with his snake, Damien, in a bag at ringside. This is a pretty good match, Roberts and Valentine can go. The match comes to an end when DiBiase and his slave, Virgil, attack Roberts, resulting in Valentine getting disqualified.
Winner: Jake Roberts
Finish: Disqualification
Length: 5:16
Dusty Rhodes (with Sapphire) vs. Rick Rude (with Bobby Heenan)
Pre-match promo: Rude: “Sapphire will be mine” Ventura: “I wouldn’t put my hands on that woman on a bet!” Rude: “Who said anything about my hands?” I think he means his penis. Anyway. Kinda funny for toilet humor. This was a good match. Dusty was over with the southern crowd. Good back and forth action. The referees end up tossing both managers out after a few minutes. But Sapphire ends up buying a ticket and coming out to ringside to sit with the crowd at ringside. Must have been a slow night if you could still get a ringside ticket from the box office after the show starts. I gotta say, I liked this match. Rude is a great charismatic heel and Dusty is just a ball of energy and excitement. They both know how to work a crowd. Unfortunately, the ending was garbage. Rude ends up confronting Sapphire at ringside, getting Dusty’s attention. They fight up the walkway and the referee counts them both out. Ugh. Afterward, Dusty celebrates in the ring like he won the damn match, and Sapphire comes in and joins him.
Winner: N/A
Finish: Double Countout
Length: 9:04
Dino Bravo (with Jimmy Hart and Earthquake) vs. Ronnie Garvin
Off. This one takes on a different dimension after watching the recent Dark Side of the Ring episode on Dino Bravo. I honestly didn’t know much about him before that and, seeing it, I can’t see Dino the same way as before. I don’t mean that just in a bad way, because of the nature of his death, but I also didn’t know how big of a star he was in Quebec before coming to the WWF. Before, I saw him as just another old school wrestler holding on to his career and out of his element. Now, I see a star. Also, Earthquake looks like he’s in his 40s, but he’s 27-years-old. Geeze. This match was short and sweet, but a lot of fun. It had two professionals who know what they’re doing. The crowd is into the match. There’s a great bit where Bravo keeps trying to drop an elbow on Garvin, but Ronnie keeps rolling out of the way. Jimmy Hart gets on the ring apron, Garvin grabs him and throws him out, but he’s okay because Earthquake catches him. Quake then starts shaking his finger and yelling at Garvin, but he has his hand on the ring apron, so Garvin stomps it. Hilarious. But oh no! Garvin has his back turned, Bravo throws him outside and starts celebrating. Garvin climbs to the top turnbuckle, flying cross body on Bravo, but Bravo rolls it up and pins Garvin. Holy crap. A clean finish!
After the match, Bravo and Earthquake destroy Garvin, leading him to be let out on a stretcher.
Winner: Dino Bravo
Finish:
Length: 3:19
After the last match, they start hyping the next big show, February 23, The Main Event. It’ll be a rematch from Wrestlemania V, Hulk Hogan defending the WWF Championship against Randy Savage! But that’s not all… the special guest referee will be… Iron Mike Tyson! The World Boxing Champion! And in my mind, watching this, I was shocked. “Wait a minute,” I said to myself. “Tyson was in the WWF for Wrestlemania XIV in 1998. He was there before, in 1990? Why have I never heard about it?” Well, there’s is a reason for that, which we’ll talk about next time when we talk about February 1990 for the WWF. Near the end of the show, Ventura says about Tyson “There are some people in this world who can take you.” Ahh, timing…
Overall
I wanted to like this show more than I did. Bravo and Garvin was a great little match, if over way too soon. Surprisingly, I was jazzed for Hogan and the Warrior's tag team match and the confrontation at the end. The crowd was electric for everything they did, which made it engaging to watch. But what I want to know is, why was the Hogan & Warrior vs. Mr. Perfect & The Genius not the main event? At first, I thought "Well, ya know, they ARE in Tennessee. Maybe they had Dusty Rhodes and Ronnie Garvin go on after them because this is the south. The crowd would be more familiar with Rhodes and Garvin, being that this was NWA territory, and they were big stars in the NWA." But then when I found out that this show was pretaped, not live, and when they taped it... Hogan and Warrior WAS the main event! So I don't know! This confounds me. Also, another negative is, again, I hate DQ and double count-out finishes. They dragged the show for me down into "average" territory.
Somewhere, deep down inside of my nostalga, still beats the heart of a little Hulkamaniac
Image by WWE via WWE Network News
This was certainly a fun little romp, especially watching in April and May of 2020, as I’m writing this. Outside in the Real World, with the COVID-19 pandemic, there is still wrestling going on with the WWE, but they are performing in empty arenas and it isn’t the same. While the matches today might be technically better, these older matches are more fun to watch because there’s a crowd. You don’t know how important that live audience is until it’s taken away from you. Which is probably why I’m more jazzed for some of this stuff than I would have been a year ago. Hulk Hogan vs The Ultimate Warrior? I’m excited about that? What’s happened to me?
You can watch both of the shows I reviewed here on the WWE Network. Have you seen them? Let me know what you thought in the comments.
Next time, since there is no WCW content from January 1990 on the Network, we’re just going to go right into February for the WWF and talk about The Main Event and Hulk Hogan vs Randy Savage. And the special referee being the World Heavyweight Boxing Champion…
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Misc Wrestling Stuff - January 1990
Other Events:
January 7 - FMW Battle Resistance – 1st Open Tournament
Births:
January 14 - Kacy Catanzaro, gymnast and future NXT wrestler
Deaths:
January 7 - Bronko Nagurski, former World Wrestling Champion (original version) and NFL Hall of Famer
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