Randy Savage vs Doink (WWF, 8-2-1993)

WWF Monday Night Raw, Alexandria Bay, NY

A request! A week prior on Raw, Doink challenged commentator Macho Man to a match, and there were TWO OTHER DOINKS on site! Three Doinks! Now we’re at the Bonnie Castle Recreation Center in Alexandria Bay, this is big time wrestling. (It’s actually a cool little venue that doesn’t look like every goddamn arena does now.)

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event (1-4-1986)

From the USF Sun Dome in Tampa, Florida, it’s SATURDAY NIGHT’S MAIN EVENT!

I don’t usually do entire show reviews, of course, but I don’t NOT do them, and this is a request! There will be a couple more, too. Plus SNME runs about 60 minutes and had a breeziness, so I’m looking forward to it.

Just a reminder that if you DO want to request a full show — which is welcome! — it, like, costs more than the normal $3. Because it is long and takes up a lot of my time. And what a great treat you get in the end! Me saying shit about wrestling to read while you take a crap or dump.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

One Match From Each of the First 10 WrestleManias

Today is WrestleMania. Well, tonight is the first part of the 40th WrestleMania, which now comes in two parts, because there is no greater master than money, and they can sell out two nights in a stadium with ease, or come so close that it doesn’t matter they didn’t; the point is these things make a lot of money for a company that could, just once, sacrifice bonus money for something special, but obviously they will not.

I don’t watch wrestling much anymore. This will change sometime, in one way or another; I have increasing doubts I will ever follow current wrestling the way I have in the past, though I did watch ACTION’s DEAN~!!! show on Thursday and the Ring of Honor show on Friday, and enjoyed both other than simply not having the desire to spend four hours watching wrestling shows anymore. It’s actually not that I have a lot else to be doing, but I do have other things I could do.

Randy Savage vs Repo Man (WWF, 1-25-1993)

WWF Monday Night Raw, New York, NY

A request! This match stems from the prior week’s Raw, where at the top of the show, Repo Man blindsided Randy Savage, a commentator for the show, and stole his toy cowboy hat. This put Savage into a pit of psychic chaos, as he was forced to sit ringside and call the show with that ridiculous hat head he’d get when he took that stupid thing off in this period.

Honestly, Savage had a worse reaction to that than Undertaker ever did to losing the mystical urn.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Royal Rumble Match (WWF, 1-15-1989)

WWF Royal Rumble, Houston, TX

A request! The first Royal Rumble match to air on PPV, as it became the last of the WWF’s original Big Four PPV shows following the debuts of WrestleMania (1985), Survivor Series (1987), and SummerSlam (1988). The first Rumble does pre-date the first SummerSlam, but aired on USA Network to take a further shit on Crockett’s Bunkhouse Stampede PPV.

It’s also the first 30-man Rumble, as the inaugural ’88 edition featured 20 men, and was won by Hacksaw Jim Duggan, featuring entirely midcard (however popular or whatever) wrestlers.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Randy Savage vs Ric Flair (WWF, 9-14-1992)

WWF Prime Time Wrestling, Hershey, PA

A request! The match was taped on Sept. 1, aired on Prime Time 13 days later, right toward the end of the show’s run before it became Monday Night Raw in January ’93, which is also when Flair would leave the company.

This is a title rematch from WrestleMania VIII, with Savage defending against Flair. It’s a match with a pretty good Cagematch rating, but one Flair did not remember fondly at all and has a bad general reputation.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Ric Flair vs Randy Savage (WWF, 4-5-1992)

WWF WrestleMania VIII, Indianapolis, IN

A request! Ah, WrestleMania in Indianapolis, where it will never be again, even if Pat McAfee begs, because Indianapolis is … Indianapolis. You ever been there? I have.

This is kind of an odd duck WrestleMania to me looking back, because it did 62,000 in claimed attendance at the old Hoosier Dome, a year after they had to fake Sgt. Slaughter security threats because they couldn’t sell the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in a cooling period coming out of the white hot 1987-90 “Hulkamania” run, but they did a big crowd here because Indianapolis was, for the time, kind of the perfect spot.

It’s also a good show, I think. Obviously not a star ratings bonanza but you had a billed double main event with this title match and Hogan vs Sid Justice up top, kinda half-billed as Hulk potentially retiring, you know, for his hugely promising film career, and you had a great, somewhat thrown-together undercard program with Piper and Bret for the IC title that only had about two months to really build.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Randy Savage vs Hulk Hogan (WWF, 4-2-1989)

WWF WrestleMania V, Atlantic City, NJ

A request! The two had become friends. They had become the “Mega Powers.” But they were doomed from the start. The paranoia of Randy Savage is usually blamed, but was his paranoia misplaced? Hulk Hogan probably was trying to bone his woman! Hulk Hogan probably was jealous that Randy was the champ! Hulk Hogan is a dickhead!

So at WrestleMania V, a year after Savage won the belt in the WrestleMania IV tournament with Hogan by his side, the Mega Powers Explode!

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Randy Savage vs Berzerker (WWF, 2-18-1992)

WWF, West Palm Beach, FL

This was a Prime Time taping headlined by Hulk Hogan & Roddy Piper vs Ric Flair & Sid Justice, with Sid subbing for Undertaker in that match. Sid had been advertised as the referee for this match, which was also supposed to be Savage vs Jake Roberts.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Hulk Hogan & Brutus Beefcake vs Randy Savage & Zeus (WWF, 12-12-1989)

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.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)