WWF Superstars (January 6, 1996)

 

Original Airdate: January 6, 1996 (taped December 19, 1995)

From Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Your Hosts are Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, and Mr. Perfect

Ahmed Johnson v Royal Spider: This is supposed to be Ahmed against Jerry Lawler, but the King comes out on crutches, and sends in his ‘royal’ Spider. Johnson takes his frustrations out on the jobber, but Jeff Jarrett shows up at ringside, and Ahmed stops to chase him off. Not that Spider can capitalize on it much, and Johnson puts him away with a sitout tiger bomb at 2:17. DUD

Dok Hendrix is in the studio for the Royal Rumble Slam Jam. The big news this week is that Jake Roberts will be returning for the Rumble match

Isaac Yankem v Brian Walsh: Perfect doing the Jerry Lawler style dad jokes doesn’t work. Ross puts over all the ‘impressive talent’ in this year's Rumble, and then talks about Fatu and Doug Gilbert. Buyrate! But, in a pretty big name, they note that Vader will be joining the fray. Okay, that’s ‘impressive talent.’ Yankem with a DDT at 2:45. Yankem was ice cold by this point. DUD

Perfect brings WWF Intercontinental Champion Razor Ramon out, and Perfect thinks Goldust has gotten in his head. In Perfect’s opinion, Goldust isn’t really ‘that way,’ but is messing with Ramon’s head. Razor brushes it off, and tries to walk out, but Perfect doesn’t want him to go without the present Goldust asked Perfect to deliver: a Goldust teddy bear. Razor does not like. This angle isn’t poor, but Ramon is clearly not into it, and it’s making it come off poorly

Ted DiBiase calls Brother Love to confirm his appearance on Love’s show for this Monday on RAW, where Ted will unveil his new Million Dollar champion

Skip v Rad Radford: I dig Vince’s description of Radford as the ‘chubby grunger.’ Rad charges in and blitzes Skip, and a clothesline sends the Bodydonna over the top. He hides behind Sunny, but Radford moves her, allowing Skip to attack from behind. Inside, Skip with a snapmare and a legdrop for one, and he goes to a chinlock from there. Rad escapes, and hooks a schoolboy for two, followed by a suplex. Elbowdrop, but Skip dodges, and delivers a 2nd rope fistdrop for two. Skip unloads in the corner, but a trip to the top ends badly when Radford overhead superplexes him. A hell of a superplex, too. Rad goes on the comeback trail, and a bridging German suplex gets him two. Skip sweeps the legs into a leveraged cradle, but the referee busts him at two. Skip takes Radford up for a rana off the top, but Rad blocks, and delivers a rotating spinebuster. Radford with a bridging northern lights suplex, but Zip (unnamed) comes out to break it up, while Sunny distracts the referee. That allows Skip to get on top for the pin at 6:46. * ¼ 

Vader vignette

Mankind teaser

Casket Match: Undertaker v Mabel: From In Your House in Hershey Pennsylvania on December 17. Hog Pen match, Casket match - forcing people into containers against their will was all the rage in 1995, apparently. Mabel brings his spray painted casket down for this, which actually has 'BSK' tagged on the side. A distraction from Mo allows Mabel to attack, but Undertaker quickly fights him off, and chokes away in the corner. At least the referee knows his role and stays on the outside for this one. Mabel reverses a cross corner whip and hits a scrapbuster, but Undertaker sits up, so Mabel clotheslines him. Another sit up, so Mabel bodyslams him to set up a 2nd rope flying splash, but gets a sit up instead! Undertaker throws a series of clotheslines, so Mo trips him up from the floor, allowing Mabel to hit a belly-to-belly suplex. Legdrop follows, and now Undertaker is having trouble sitting up. Mabel adds a splash to be sure, and they dump 'Taker in the casket, but Mabel waits too long to close the lid, and Undertaker escapes. That was lame. Undertaker makes his comeback, hitting the jumping clothesline and the chokeslam, before dumping Mabel (and Mo, for good measure) into the casket for the win at 6:11. Crap, but at least it provided a satisfying end to their feud. ¼*

Dok is back with another Royal Rumble Slam Jam

Hunter Hearst Helmsley vignette

Billionaire Ted’s Wrasslin’ War Room. This is still some of the early ones that poked fun at the age of the WCW main eventers, instead of whatever those later ones were supposed to be. They don’t even encourage us to write to the FTC or anything!

BUExperience: Solid enough, though definitely not essential.