WWF Superstars (February 17, 1996)

 

Original Airdate: February 17, 1996 (taped January 23)

From San Jose, California; Your Hosts are Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, and Mr. Perfect

Handicap Match: Yokozuna v Billy Mack and Jay S Storm: Yokozuna has broken away from Camp Cornette at this point, and is a babyface. That was a hard sell for me. And I think probably for a lot of people. And speaking of Cornette, Jim split screens in to threaten Yoko with Davey Boy Smith at In Your House. Yokozuna with a double Banzai drop at 1:37. DUD

Dok Hendrix is in the studio for the In Your House Slam Jam. His selling point is that you ‘can’t even take three people to a movie’ for the cost of the show. Kind of crazy that people thought $20 was a lot for three people to go to the movies. It’s, like, a single ticket now

In Your House ad

Hunter Hearst Helmsley v Barry Horowitz: Poor Barry has fallen into full jobber territory again. HHH with a Pedigree at 2:39. Horowitz as a warm up for Duke Droese, really giving Hunter the mega push at this point. DUD

The WWF recently toured India. That was the tour that Bret Hart talked about in his book, where Yokozuna got the runs and was shitting in the ring, right? Glad we highlighted that

The Godwinns v Brooklyn Brawler and Joe Gomez: Hillbilly Jim split screens in to talk about heaven knows what. Henry Godwinn with the inverted DDT at 1:50. DUD

Vince brings WWF Champion Bret Hart out to do the hard sell for In Your House. Not much here, Hart is not really setting the world on fire in this reign. And I say that as the biggest Bret Hart fan in the world. They were right to try Shawn, and if they didn’t neuter the character so badly, it might have gone better

Justin Hawk Bradshaw v Tim Patterson: I’m honestly surprised it took them nearly a decade to get behind Bradshaw as a top guy. Not that he’s such a great worker, but he’s big, has got a good look, and was enthusiastic. Bradshaw with a lariat at 3:00. DUD

Mankind vignette 

Dok is back with another Slam Jam. Fuck him

1-2-3 Kid v Ahmed Johnson: Johnson chucks Kid over the top out of the initial lockup, as Kid goes out of his way to do a huge bump to make Ahmed look great. Inside, Kid goes to a hammerlock, but Johnson fights him off in the corner, and biels him. Kid tries a series of kicks and chops in the corner, but Ahmed no sells, and delivers a rotating spinebuster. That draws Jeff Jarrett out, but Ahmed blocks a guitar shot. The distraction allows Kid to dump Johnson to the outside, but here’s Razor Ramon to chase Jeff off. Kid hits him with a guitar, however, and that’s a DQ at 4:55. I was surprised to see Jeff here, I thought he was off TV by this point. The match had potential, but it never really got out of first gear, and the finish was stupid. The guy in the match hits a guy interfering and gets disqualified? No buys. ½*

In Your House ad

BUExperience: A pretty throwaway episode, especially for the go home show for In Your House. And especially especially since there was no episode of RAW earlier in the week, so this was the only go home.