WWF Saturday Night's Main Event XX (Version II)

Original Airdate: March 11, 1989

From Hershey, Pennsylvania; Your Hosts are Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura

Backstage, Rick Rude and Bobby Heenan battle it out to see whose outfit is contains the greater amount of sequins. Forget Savage/Hogan – THERE’S your WrestleMania main event! Meanwhile, Brutus Beefcake offers to trim Rude's body hair. He's not Hulk Hogan!

Rick Rude v Brutus Beefcake: Brutus wins a long initial lockup with some rights, and he drops Rude with a poorly executed backdrop. Looks like they mistimed that one, but it didn't come across badly in kayfabe. Beefcake with a ten-punch to setup the Sleeper, but Rude escapes, so Brutus ten-punches him again - Rick able to counter with an inverted atomic drop this time. That's enough to turn the tide, and Rude snap suplexes him for two, then grounds him with a chinlock. Andre the Giant joins us at ringside as Beefcake escapes the hold with a stunner, then delivers an inverted atomic of his own - complete with Rude's usual epic sell of it. Rick thinks fast and dumps Brutus to the outside for Andre to work over, but here comes Jake Roberts for the save - scaring the crap out of Andre with the snake. Rude saves before he can unleash it, and he and Andre double-up on Jake - the referee disqualifying Rude at 5:45. They keep choking Roberts down anyway, until Beefcake and Big John Studd make the save. Paint-by-numbers stuff until the angle started kicking in. ¾* (Original rating: ¼*)

Hulk Hogan wants to teach Bad News Brown his theories about time travel. Meanwhile, Bad News just wants to straight up kill him. Well, to each their own

Hulk Hogan v Bad News Brown: Hogan has Elizabeth in his corner for this, white knighting for her following some lewd comments made by Brown where he suggested Liz was doing sexual favors for Jack Tunney. Bad News attacks during the pre-match frisk, and he pounds the Hulkster down, but misses a pair of pointed elbowdrops. Hogan slugs back to knock Bad News out of the ring, and when Brown takes too long jawing with the fans, Hulk uses the top rope as a slingshot to bring him in hard way. Hogan with a running forearm smash to setup a pair of elbowdrops, and the big boot connects. Atomic drop sends Brown back out to the floor, and Hogan follows to drive him into the rail out there. Bad News rakes the eyes and whips Hulk into the post to stop the effort, but a punch misses - Brown smashing his hand into the steel! Sadly, he doesn't blade his hand like Barry Windham did at Chi-Town Rumble. Brown wants a weapon, but won't settle for a simple chair, and decides to walk back to the dressings rooms - returning with a giant steel shovel. Vince protests, but Ventura makes a good point about Beefcake bringing sharp garden sheers to the ring, so why not a shovel? Hogan blitzes him before he can use it, but runs into a clothesline on the way back in, and Brown goes back to work. Bodyslam sets up a legdrop for two, and they spill to the outside again, where Bad News makes the mistake of going after Liz again. Hulk saves, but takes a trip into the post for his efforts, and Brown executes a Russian legsweep on the way back in for two. Pointed elbowdrop hits, so Brown grabs the microphone to trash talk him - only to miss the Ghetto Blaster. Well, grabbing the microphone and outright telling him that's coming might have had something to do with it, I think. HULK UP!! High Knee! Legdrop! 9:44! Very energetic and entertaining. Hogan was never even close to being the best technical wrestler in the world, and he had his set formula, but you could never call him lazy - the Hulkster always delivering entertaining matches during this period. ** ¼ (Original rating: **)

Backstage, Randy Savage angrily paces outside of Elizabeth's dressing room

Also backstage, Ted DiBiase shows off his new Million Dollar Belt. It's not polite to boast, but if I had a solid gold belt studded in thousands and thousands of diamonds, I'd probably show off a little too. Meanwhile, the Blue Blazer doesn't sound anything like Bret Hart

Ted DiBiase v Blue Blazer: DiBiase levels him with a lariat in a sneak attack following Blazer's entrance (where he back flips into the ring), then blitzes him with a backelbow and a bodyslam to setup a series of fistdrops. Backdrop, but Blazer counters with an inside cradle for two, then hooks a backslide for two - before Ted cuts him off with a clothesline. 2^nd rope axehandle and a vertical suplex follow, but Blazer lands on his feet during another backdrop attempt, then dropkicks DiBiase out of the ring to setup a well executed tope! Atomic drop out there sends Ted into the post, and a flying bodypress on the way back in is worth two. Blazer shows him out to properly execute a backdrop, then adds a pair of dropkicks and a pair of European uppercuts for two. He tries a bodypress out of a criss cross, but DiBiase catches him in a powerslam for the pin at 3:57. Short, but extremely energetic. ** ¼ (Original rating: **)

Randy Savage continues to pace outside of Elizabeth's dressing room. Take the hint, Randy

And speaking of Elizabeth, Gene Okerlund brings her back out (in a different outfit from earlier on... hmm, I wonder where she changed if she wasn't in her dressing room?) for a podium interview to discuss whose corner she's going to be in for WrestleMania V. It doesn't take long for Randy Savage to show up, of course, and he doesn't bother asking her questions - he outright TELLS her that she'll be in his corner. She tells him it's not going to happen, so he threatens to slug her (fans literally trying to jump the rail to help her), but luckily Hulk Hogan is here! The final decision: she'll be in a neutral corner. Yeah, so she can leave with the winner, like Bobby Heenan did at the Royal Rumble. Smart girl

Backstage the Brain Busters are wearing jackets. Meanwhile, the Rockers are not wearing jackets. But, they are wearing shirts. Is this wrestling or a fashion show?!?

The Brain Busters v The Rockers: The Busters attack right away, Arn Anderson knocking Shawn Michaels to the floor for a beating as Tully Blanchard blitzes Marty Jannetty in the ring. Tully tries for the Slingshot Suplex right away, but Marty blocks, so Tully rolls him up - Shawn coming in with a flying bodypress to save! The Rockers clean house, and the dust settles on Anderson and Michaels. Shawn slams him off the top rope to setup a Boston crab, so Tully tries a flying axehandle to break it up, but Shawn gut-punches him out of the air. That leads to stereo superkicks from the Rockers to clean house again, and Shawn vertical suplexes Blanchard back into the ring. The pace here is incredible thus far! Michaels with a hiptoss and a headscissors, so Tully tags out. Criss cross ends in Shawn hooking a drop-toehold, but Anderson quickly escapes a headlock, and drives Michaels into the wrong corner - Bobby Heenan pulling down the top rope to send Shawn crashing to the floor! That gets Heenan ejected, and Marty is able to tag in during that confusion. He nails Tully with an atomic drop, but misses a blind tag, and gets clobbered with a lariat from Arn. The Busters go to work cutting the ring in half - the Rockers doing an excellent job of JUST missing tags. Anderson plants Jannetty with a spinebuster to finish, but Michaels saves. Anderson responds by bodyslamming Marty to setup a 2^nd rope pump-splash, but Jannetty lifts his knees to block. Tag to Michaels, and he's a crack house of fire! Everyone starts throwing stuff like crazy as a brawl breaks out, and the action quickly spills to the outside - both teams counted out at 9:10. After months of working together on the house show circuit, they were given the ball to run with on TV here, and MAN did they bring their A-game! Another five minutes at this pace, and we'd have had an all time classic **** (Original rating: ****)

We take a look back at the Red Rooster/Bobby Heenan split on the last Saturday Night's Main event, with Heenan then debuting Brooklyn Brawler to attack Rooster on Prime Time Wrestling the following week. I didn't start watching regularly until 1994, by which time the Brawler was a confirmed jobber, so it always confused me to no end when I'd rent WrestleMania V and see him out there on pay per view like a big star and everything

Red Rooster v Brooklyn Brawler: You know, I think if they didn't insist on him wearing the weird red mohawk, Terry Taylor MIGHT have been able to get this shitty gimmick over. I mean, it's a stretch, but at least then he'd have had a fighting chance. Brawler attacks him right away, and claws at the eyes of the Rooster. Cross corner whip gets reversed, however, and Rooster dropkicks him down. Hiptoss and an inside cradle finish at 1:05. Okay, so maybe 'big star' is overstating it a bit. DUD (Original rating: DUD)

Backstage, Randy Savage is so irate over Elizabeth that he literally hiptosses a trash can. That was a pretty funny botch that had the potential to make Savage look like a complete nerd if not for his quick thinking

BUExperience: Talk about energetic! Clearly the big boost in the post-Mega Powers breakup business had everyone motivated as hell, because this was easily one of the most high octane episodes, and features the series’ best match yet! Not only were they leaps and bounds ahead of the NWA in terms of production value and overall presentation, but the sheer ENERGY of the WWF was so much easier to get into than the slow twenty minute undercard matches the NWA was doing on every show.

Great episode!