WWF Superstars (January 19, 1997)

 

Original Airdate: January 19, 1997

From San Antonio, Texas; Your Hosts are Todd Pettengill and Michael Hayes, live inside the Alamodome 

We open with clips of Hunter Hearst Helmsley facing Rocky Maivia on yesterday’s Shotgun Saturday Night

Shawn Michaels is backstage, trying on sunglasses. Indoors

Sycho Sid/Shawn Michaels feud review video

Backstage, Jim Ross catches up with Michaels, who vows to regain the WWF Title at the Royal Rumble, despite battling the flu

Clips of Terry Funk acting a fool on Shotgun

Goldust v Steve Austin: From Shotgun Saturday Night on January 18 in San Antonio. Steve pounds him down for a stomping, but Goldust fights him off, and nails him with a jumping clothesline. Steve fights that off with a mulekick, but Goldust counters a chinlock with a hammerlock, and he works that for a while. To a vertical base, Goldust wins a slugfest, and he’s working this match as full on Dustin Rhodes here. So Goldust runs wild, but Terry Funk runs in to attack Austin for the DQ at 5:06. Not much here. Afterwards, all the workers in the locker room run in to turn it into a big brawl to hype the Rumble. DUD

Todd finds superfans George and Adam sleeping up in the cheap seats

Backstage, Ross catches up with Bret Hart, who is starting to sound a little whiny in his continued complaints about not winning the title back at In Your House

Royal Rumble ad

The Starburst Fruit Twists Rewind is Shawn Michaels winning the Royal Rumble match in 1995

Ahmed Johnson/Faarooq feud review video

Ross catches up with Sid in the ring, and thankfully they’ve finally got some lighting up in the building so the place doesn’t look like a massive cave for the first time in the episode. Not much here, just a standard go-home promo, but I have to dig Sid’s continued dedication to trying to look like a monster while dressing like a frat boy at a country club

Steve Austin pops in, interrupting Todd and Dok’s hard sell, vowing to win the Rumble match tonight. I’m legitimately surprised that they didn’t end this with Bret coming out to attack him for a brawl, or something. That seemed to be their go to for these hard sells

BUExperience: I get that they were trying to hype the show and the big venue, but the place looked so gloomy without all the lighting set up, and it almost felt like negative promotion.