WWF No Holds Barried: The Match/The Movie, Nashville, TN
The Zeus deal dragged out for months past SummerSlam ’89, where these teams met in a main event that saw Randy Savage going brain-fried balls-out to carry the load(s), and three-and-a-half months later, they met again in Nashville at a Wrestling Challenge taping for this no holds barred cage match, which was meant to help boost at-home pay-per-view sales of Hogan and the WWF’s movie, No Holds Barred, which is one of history’s great enjoyably awful films.
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The match is available in a million places online now, I’m sure, but I’m watching from the Coliseum “Supertape.”
Nashville is wild for Hogan and Beefer, who would later headline the city against one another at Starrcade ’94, the year Hulk Hogan tried to help bury what little greatness was left in the “Starrcade” brand name.
Hogan and Beefer are in matching yellows, Hogan accented with red, of course, and Beefcake with black. Hogan rips Beefcakes shirt off, then his own. We get started with Queen Sherri slamming the door on Hogan as the Hulkster tries to enter the cage, then she closes the door, leaving Beefcake alone in the ring. Zeus handles Beefcake, and Savage chokes Hogan through the cage so that Sherri has time to lock the door, leaving Hogan incapable of entering the cage, surely, OTHER THAN HE CAN JUST CLIMB IT, which obviously his does within moments, as he fights Savage off.
Hogan nails Savage, hits Zeus with a clothesline, drops Savage again, slams Zeus’ head into the cage a couple times and Zeus is down quicker than ever before.
This is the WWF so it’s wimp ass escape rules and not in the cool Bruno way of old where he’d beat the shit out of someone and leave, disgusted that they made him do such violence in the first place. But it also means both team members have to escape, which in theory is kinda dumb, but then wrestling is pretty dumb.
Savage ping-pongs around but Zeus finally overpowers Hogan and Beefcake. It’s weird that the Barber’s best friend is a bald man.
Savage tries to escape, Beefcake won’t let him. Why not? Just let him leave and beat the shit out of Zeus! Sherri gets up on the cage to be double noggin-knocked with King Randy Macho, but the heels take over shortly after as Hogan is double-teamed first, then Beefcake, whom Sherri had gotten a couple shots on in the meantime.
Back-and-forth with the double-teaming. Savage and Zeus are a well-oiled machine. A few more months of training and witch cauldrons have Zeus more prepared this time around.
Zeus and Savage try to escape, they’re both cut off. Hogan back suplays Zeus and Savage takes an atomic drop, but then Savage and Beefcake ram each others heads into the cage. So everyone is down. Sherri shouting at Earl Hebner, or maybe it’s Dave, who cares. Hebner gets caught opening the door at her command, and she knocks him over and steals the cage chain, then goes to hand it off Savage.
Randy goes all the way up and jumps off for a double axhandle with the chain, but Beefcake catches him flying with a punch to the gut. So Beefcake and Savage are farting around while Zeus chokes Hogan. Beefer and Savage both trying to climb out as Hogan decides the time is right to Hulk Up. Zeus’ horrible Mongolian chops have no effect anymore. This is not Rip, it’s the real Hulk Hogan, and he is fighting the movie character Zeus.
This is all very confusing if you think about it too long.
Beefcake escapes, Hogan clotheslines Zeus. Savage gets out through the door. Randy’s also bladed a bit. So it comes down to Hogan and Zeus in the ring. Even when Beefcake tries to go back into the ring, which I guess is just fine, Hogan says, “No, brother, it’s between me and this actor who’s gone insane.” But Beefcake is in there like a weird cheerleader as Hogan drops three legs on Zeus and covers for a three count. Sure why not! No one has ever cared less about the rules of cage matches than Hulk Hogan.
There’s a certain energy to it, and listen, just like SummerSlam, Zeus did the best he can, Randy was flying around trying to keep it exciting, and I actually think Hogan and Beefcake put more into this one. They also kept it relatively short, under 10 minutes, not pressing things beyond what they needed to be. There are ways it’s better than the SummerSlam match, but then this one also just feels so much like everyone going, “OK, this shit’s finally over with,” and the whole thing just lacks any real personality. They go out, they do their cage fighting for nine minutes, and then they’re done.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 