WWF Wrestling Challenge (August 16, 1987)

 

Original Airdate: August 16, 1987 (taped August 5)

From LaCrosse, Wisconsin; Your Hosts are Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan

Superstar Billy Graham v Barry Horowitz: The announcers debate why fans would want the earrings Graham throws out into the crowd. Graham’s gear here is, very obviously, the inspiration for Hulk Hogan’s babyface WWE run. It looks like Hulk literally stole them out of his bag. Meanwhile, Butch Reed split screens in here with mean words for Superstar, as Billy puts this away with a bearhug at 1:41. DUD

Craig DeGeorge is in the control center for Special Report, with an update on Bam Bam Bigelow. Apparently, Bam Bam can do cartwheels! No wonder every heel manager in the promotion was fighting over him. Freddie Blassie weighs in here, and he has no clue who Bam Bam is going to go with. Well, good thing we put him on TV to talk about it, then

One Man Gang v Billy Beauman: Beauman is simply ‘from Florida.’ It’s a pretty big state there, guys. Slick split screens in here, and he’s really excited about getting Bam Bam, since he’ll have the biggest tag team in history. Heenan immediately fantasy books them against Kamala and Sika, which, I’m pretty sure, would be the worst match in history, if it ever went down. It’s probably good that it didn’t, it might have opened up a literal black hole of suck. Gang with a gourdbuster at 2:50. DUD

Gene Okerlund catches up with Jake Roberts 

Koko B. Ware v Brian Costello: Gorilla notes that Koko ‘gets down’ on the new Piledriver album, and that it’s ‘heavy,’ making him sound like the ‘hello, fellow kids’ meme. Koko wih a missile dropkick and the brainbuster at 3:22. As usual, Koko’s signature stuff looked great, but the match dragged on for too long. DUD

Okerlund catches up with WWF Women’s Champion Sensational Sherri, who looks like she just stepped off the set of Golden Girls. Hard to believe she was in her twenties here

The Hart Foundation v The Young Stallions: From Superstars of Wrestling on August 8 (taped July 15) in Glens Falls New York. The WWF Tag Team title is not on the line here, and Mr. T is hanging around to counteract any shenanigans from Danny Davis. The Foundation attack before the bell, and dust settles on Bret Hart and Jim Powers. Hart with a backbreaker, and he passes to Jim Neidhart, who drops Powers across the top rope. Neidhart with a turnbuckle smash, and he passes to Bret for a combo (which ends up being Demolition’s finisher). Hart with a suplex to set up a pointed elbowdrop, and he passes back to Neidhart for a bodyslam. Neidhart grabs a sleeper, but tags to Bert before he can really work it. Bret tries a cross corner whip, but Powers reverses, and manages to hot tag Paul Roma - Roseanne Barr the door! Roma throws the Foundation into one another to get rid of Neidhart, but an attempt to monkeyflip Bret is countered into a leveraged pin at 2:59. This was solid and fast paced, with the Foundation making good use of quick tags. Afterwards, Mr. T alerts the referee to the leveraged pin, and the idiot reverses the decision on his word. *

DeGeorge brings Ted DiBiase and Virgil out for a podium interview, and Ted decides to pull a woman out of the crowd. He decides to humiliate her by making her get down on all fours and bark like a dog. For $300 cash. That’s $857 in 2025 dollars, in case you’re still wondering if you’d do it. But then, after she does it, Ted decides not to pay her after all. And that was the missing ingredient, as during the house show versions of this that they’ve been showing clips of in past weeks, he made people do not-that-embarrassing tasks for relatively massive amounts of money, which didn’t really come off as evil enough

Dave Wolff, manager of Cyndi Lauper, is also the executive producer of the Piledriver album, and he reminisces about the recording. This needs a Netflix documentary 

Rick Rude v Sonny Rogers: Johnny Valiant shows up to do commentary, in place of Heenan. Rude with a backbreaker rack at 0:53. DUD

Kamala and Sika v Lanny Poffo and Mark Richards: Mr. Fuji split screens in here, still talking about Bam Bam. They need to shit or get off the pot with this angle already. Meanwhile, Heenan wonders if Mel Phillips is related to Kamala. See, because they’re both black. Kamala puts this away at 1:47, and Richards does a stretcher job to sell it. DUD

Okerlund catches up with Killer Khan, who looks like he’s taken one too many shots to the head, this guy

BUExperience: I mean, the feature match was a replay from Superstars. Which is especially odd, as this was a fresh taping cycle.