WWF Saturday Night's Main Event XXV (January 1990)

Original Airdate: January 27, 1990 – airing a week after the Royal Rumble, though taped around New Years.

From Chattanooga, Tennessee; Your Hosts are Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura.


Opening Match: Randy Savage v Jim Duggan: This is the first SNME appearance (and one of the first in general, if not ever) of Savage's more familiar long tights - which he takes his time showing off to Duggan, and gets jumped. Backdrop fails, but Duggan rallies and catches him with a clothesline. Atomic drop, but Macho manager Sherri gets involved, allowing Savage a flying axehandle for two. Necksnap gets two, but a blind charge misses, and Duggan backdrops him over-the-top - in a nice bump. Duggan follows out with a clothesline, and inside hits a kneedrop, but Sherri distracts the referee. He keeps wailing on Savage, but another pinfall attempt sees Sherri placing Macho's foot on the ropes. Frustrated, but undeterred, Duggan keeps firing off clotheslines, but runs into Sherri again, allowing Savage to jump him with a high knee, and another flying axehandle. He's still selling the beating, though, so Sherri passes him her purse (loaded with a brick), for a cheap shot - but that only gets two. Savage flips out on him, but Duggan is ‘TARDING UP!! Atomic drop! Clothesline! 3-Point Stance! Suplex! - but Sherri hooks his legs on the way, and Savage topples him for the pin at 9:14. Despite the horrible booking that surrounded him for the majority of 1989 and 1990, Savage was always reliable when it came to hard work in the ring. Solid back-and-forth match (despite Duggan’s very limited offense), made more fun with Sherri's involvement. *

Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior v Mr. Perfect and The Genius: Hogan and Perfect start, with Hogan easily overpowering off of a couple of lockups. Genius runs in to help, but Hogan slams both he and Perfect around, cleaning house. He tags to Warrior to have a turn, and he clotheslines everything in sight before switching back to Hogan. Hulk continues decimating Perfect - with Hennig brilliantly selling overselling at every turn (it's like Hogan/Michaels from SummerSlam out there), and a big boot puts Perfect on the floor. Hogan chases, but Genius passes Perfect his metal scroll, and he wallops the Hulkster with it. Perfect-plex, but Hogan counters with a small package. Perfect keeps unloading, and hits the Hennig-necksnap before tagging out. The heels cut the ring in half, and another Perfect-plex looks to finish, but he lets off at two to give Genius a chance to finish with a flying moonsault - but it hits the knees. Both logical and illogical booking there, as at that point no one kicked out of the Perfect-plex, so it makes sense that they protect his finisher, but also doesn't fit Perfect's character, who would never have let off at two against the reigning WWF Champion. That allows Hogan to get the tag to Warrior, and he's a house of arson. Press slam and a Hogan Legdrop finish Genius at 8:02. Afterwards, the heels jump them, and in the chaos Warrior accidentally clotheslines Hogan, building their budding WrestleMania main event feud. Also, they almost kiss during their staredown, which is, you know, pretty gay. Match was fun, with the heels pinballing around to make Hogan and Warrior look like superheroes – particularly Mr. Perfect, who looked like a SuperBall out there. ¾*

Jake Roberts v Greg Valentine: Jake goes right for him at the bell, but gets armdragged, and hooked into an armbar. Jake counter with a Greco-Roman fist to the face, so Valentine bails to the floor to regroup with manager Jimmy Hart. He comes back in unloading chops, and an elbowsmash gets two. Yes! Greg Valentine v Dusty Rhodes - Battle of the Elbowsmashes from Dude Dressed like Bees! Book it now! Unfortunately, Dusty Valentine (his porn name) walks into a clothesline, and the DDT finishes for Jake - but Ted DiBiase and Virgil (who had been feuding with Roberts, as Jake had stolen DiBiase's Million Dollar Belt) run in, causing a disqualification at 5:16. More a setup for Roberts/DiBiase than a competitive match. ¼*

Dusty Rhodes v Rick Rude: Well, there he is! We could have seen our dream match on this show! Suck my dick, 1990 WWF! Rude jumps Rhodes while he's busy kissing Sapphire, but the power of his erection allows him to reverse a whip to the buckle. Dusty hammers the back, including letting Rude try to slam him - which really fucks his back up. Elbowdrop misses however, and Rude grabs a chinlock. To the outside, Dusty gets distracted when Rude manager Bobby Heenan harasses Sapphire ('would you consider fucking Haku? Come on! Someone has to! No, no - Andre's retiring'), allowing Rude to jump him while the referee sends both managers back to the dressing rooms. Rude works the arm, as Sapphire appears in a front row seat (ticket in hand!) to cheer Rhodes on. Wow, lucky for her they were still selling those front row seats half way into the show. She manages to distract Rude, and Rhodes makes the come back. Figure four, but Rude rakes the eyes - so Dusty goes back to the old standby: elbowsmashes. They spill outside - with Rude trying to manhandle Sapphire - leading to a brawl up the aisle, and a double countout at 9:04. Dull match. ¼*

Ron Garvin v Dino Bravo: Slugfest to start - going Garvin's way - so Dino dumps him into the waiting arms of Earthquake (still billed as 'Canadian Earthquake at this point). He abuses the back before sending Garvin back in for a Bravo gutwrench suplex. Series of elbowdrops miss, however, and Garvin unloads the fists of fury. Backdrop, and the Garvin Stomp (basically a series of stomps, all over the body) look to finish, but Earthquake gets involved again. Garvin fights him off, and tries a flying bodypress, but Garvin rolls through for the pin at 3:19. Afterwards, Earthquake buttsplashes the shit (he had Indian) out of Garvin, and he does a stretcherjob. This was more about Earthquake than either guy. ¼*

Everyone offers some closing thoughts with Mean Gene Okerlund. They discuss Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Albert Jones, and, you know, other shit.

BUExperience: It started off well enough, but got real dull, real fast – as they turned to pushing a bunch of angles I never cared for (Roberts/DiBiase, Sapphire, anything involving Dino Bravo) in bad matches – though this program was certainly the place to develop angles, so it wasn’t bad booking, per se – just not enticing.