WWF Superstars (January 29, 1994)

Original Airdate: January 29, 1994 (taped January 12)

From Fayetteville, North Carolina; Your Hosts are Vince McMahon and Stan Lane

President Jack Tunney opens the show with an announcement regarding the Royal Rumble co-winners controversy. After much deliberation, he’s decided that both men will get an opportunity to wrestle for the WWF Title at WrestleMania X. There will be a coin toss this Monday night on RAW, and the winner will challenge first, while the loser will get a title shot later in the night, while facing ‘suitable competition’ earlier on to make things fair. I know people generally hate the co-winner deal, but I thought this was a masterful bit of booking, giving us the Yokozuna/Lex Luger showdown that they’ve been building for nearly a year, plus Bret Hart/Owen Hart, while still getting the title back on Bret. Just a brilliant way to pivot to who they wanted on top, without ruining the long term storytelling. It’s kind of a blessing that they hadn’t discovered triple threat matches yet at this point, because it’s much more interesting and satisfying this way

Men on a Mission v Terry Austin and Joey Stallings: The fact that Vince puts things over by noting how impressive Mabel is, but then immediately noting that Yokozuna is ‘even bigger’ should tell you everything you need to know about his booking style. Big = impressive, don’t forget it. And speaking of ‘weird things Vince says,’ he claims that the arena will be coming unglued ‘in celebration of the spirit of the Undertaker.’ So, like, a funeral rave? MOM with a splash combo at 2:57. DUD

Backstage at the Royal Rumble, WWF Champion Yokozuna prepared for a night of celebrating after defeating Undertaker

Thurman Plugg v Brooklyn Brawler: This is Plugg's TV debut. Feeling out process to start, as Plugg smiles broadly through it all. Kind of weird thinking of Bob Holly as a happy, smiley guy. He was a solid babyface in general, though. Brawler manages to take control with some right hands, but Plugg wins a criss cross with a hiptoss, and a bodyslam follows. Dropkick sends Brawler to the outside, so he goes to the eyes on the way back in, but telegraphs a backdrop, and gets clobbered. Plugg with a clothesline, and a snap suplex sets up a flying splash at 2:27. Not a lot to it, but it was a competitive squash. ¾*

WWF Women’s Champion Alundra Blayze vignette. A really terrible one, too. The idea is ‘power and grace,’ which means we get to see that she lifts weights and pets dogs

Jim Ross is in the studio for Face to Face with guest Owen Hart, who doesn’t care what happened to Bret. Considering Bret just co-won the Royal Rumble, I’d say he’s doing just fine overall. Meanwhile, guest Bret is pretty broken up by Owen’s betrayal, and Bret does a phenomenal job of coming off like a real human being with real emotions, and not just a shouty babyface wrestler

Diesel v Tommy Angel: We get the fan guest ring announcer here, who Vince thinks might be LaToya Jackson, likely just because she’s black. Diesel shows some real fire here, you can see why they wanted to push him. Snake eyes finishes for him at 1:30. ¼*

WrestleMania X ad. I really like the logo they came up with for that one, one of their best

Vince gets WWF Tag Team Champions The Quebecers and Johnny Polo on screen for a video interview, and apparently they’ll face the Steiner Brothers in a non-title match next week, with a ten minute time limit. I guess they were still building to a WrestleMania blowoff before changing course when Vince lost patience with the Brothers

Tatanka v Austin Steele: Steele looks like a Buddy Landel clone. Meanwhile, Vince tries explaining US government/indigenous peoples relations, and sounds suitably awkward doing so. Tatanka with a Samoan drop at 2:30. You know, Tatanka’s hulk up seems to be triggered by turnbuckle smashes literally every time. You’d think people would stop trying to do that to him. It’s not even like it’s such an important move that you can’t win a match without trying it. DUD

Todd Pettengill is in the studio for the WrestleMania X Report. Not much this week, just rehashing the coin toss stuff

Earthquake vignette

Jeff Jarrett v Tyrone Knox: They show off Jeff’s cover of Country Beat Magazine, which is apparently a real magazine, but there’s no way Jarrett actually got a cover. Meanwhile, Stan sounds like he’s trying to get fired on commentary. Jarrett with a leveraged pin at 2:12. DUD

Paul Bearer wheels out Undertaker’s casket for the funeral rave we were promised, which in actuality ends up just being a replay of Undertaker’s monologue at Royal Rumble. I remember watching the pay per view on scramblevision at the time (the first PPV I’d ever ‘watched’), and being completely confused by what I was ‘seeing,’  just assuming it was the bad reception

The Headshrinkers v Sid Garrison and Larry McGill: The Headshrinkers impending babyface turn is one of the weirder ones, if you actually stop to think about it. Like, they’re cannibal savages who tried murdering Undertaker, but suddenly that’s something we like. And I know turns are always something you just have to kind of accept in the world of pro-wrestling, but ‘cannibal savages’ feels like a hard pill to swallow. Fatu with the flying splash at 2:19. DUD

Ross is back with Face to Face, and he does his usual push for Radio WWF. 9-11pm on Saturday nights? For a product focused on kids who would be asleep when it airs? No wonder it flopped. Anyway, guest Irwin R Schyster makes a new years resolution to win the WWF Intercontinental title. Yeah, pretty sure he’s a little late on that one. Meanwhile, actual champion Razor Ramon has already moved on

The Steiner Brothers are sick of the Quebecers’ non-stop bullshit stipulations, but they’re going to deal with it, because it’s the road that leads back to the gold

BUExperience: Nothing going on in the ring this week, but the post-Rumble stuff as we shift into WrestleMania season was solid.