20 Years Ago - WON 11/07/88

[Loss]

WWF

-- The WWF is facing a lot of push back from other boxing promoters over the Sugar Ray Leonard fight. They are trying to price the show at $29.95, which is predicted would be a less than 2 percent buyrate, which would mean they would lose about $6.5 million on the show. Dave thinks a lot of it is other boxing promoters trying to undercut Vince, as they don't want him on their turf. Still, Dave thinks in the end, this will be a money loser.

 

-- The WWF is insisting the cable companies keep the buyrates for the boxing PPV and Survivor Series confidential. They like to exaggerate their numbers, which is the reason they are doing this. This has nothing to do with wrestling, though, but rather that since the mainstream media actually covers boxing, if Titan tries to exaggerate their numbers, they will be called on it. Bob Arum, a rival promoter, is actively looking for dirt on the WWF to dig up. Dave says unlike Jim Crockett, who was clueless at media, the WWF is now competing with people who know what they're doing.

 

-- Junkyard Dog and Don Muraco have either been fired (based on what wrestlers were told) or temporarily suspended (based on what the front office was told). Either way, pretty much the same thing, as most fired wrestlers are back in a few weeks anyway. Muraco is trying to get into Crockett and has started taking bookings in Northeast independents. JYD wants to work for Baba.

 

-- The British Bulldogs gave their notice and are preparing to leave the promotion. They have started talking with Baba, and because Dynamite Kid is so revered in Japan, Baba will probably take them back with open arms. Dave says this is not the same Bulldogs who last worked Japan, as Dynamite has back injuries that are pretty bad, but their return will be hyped heavily, and it may take people a while to notice how they've fallen since they were so over last time they were there.

 

-- Prime Time Wrestling remains the third highest rated show on cable, averaging a 3.1 in 1.4 million homes last quarter.

 

-- Because Halloween IV is still doing such big business at the box office, they decided to move They Live back yet another week. Horror movies typically do big business for two weeks, so they want as little competing against it as possible.

 

-- SNME aired over the weekend, taped 10/25 from Baltimore. Dave says it was slightly better than the last show due to Andre's acting ability, and the Andre/Jake angle came across really well because Andre's facial expressions are so good, which is a challenge considering the premise (he's scared of snakes) was kinda hokey. Dave says this in some ways ends Andre's run as a main event heel because the snake thing kills some of his aura. "Maybe Vince feels, since the last two Hogan-Andre matches didn't draw at all, that it's a dead issue, but I thought there was a major national run left and the two bad houses were because they held it in Atlanta and Greensboro, which WWF style wrestling has never gotten over in." No complaints about any of the matches, except Patera vs Bravo. "The WWF heat machine needs work because their synthetic 'boos' sound totally unrealistic." He also said it was too obvious the guys were doing promos off of cue cards. The rundown:

 

* Rick Rude vs Jake Roberts: Better than average brawling. Andre ran in to help Rude and Jake picked up the snake, which scared Andre to death. He had what looked like a heart attack, but was later explained as fainting. **1/2 for the wrestling and 1/2* for the angle makes a *** match.

 

* Demolition vs Hart Foundation: Short match, but thanks to Bret Hart, the action was very good. **3/4

 

* Hulk Hogan vs King Haku: The most significant development was Elizabeth managing Hogan and Jesse Ventura getting in the key line, "What does Savage think of all of this?" The whole match was set up as pretty much an excuse to do a Hogan/Liz post-match celebration. Hogan has stopped wearing the helmet, so they've dropped that idea. *1/2

 

* Dino Bravo vs Ken Patera: "There is no logical explanation for Bravo to be pushed. I'd say I have no idea why, but I do have an idea, though I wished I didn't." 1/2*

 

* Big Boss Man vs Jim Powers: This was mainly to get Boss Man on TV before the next house show run with Hogan.

 

-- 10/24 at MSG drew 12,500 fans headlined by Randy Savage vs Andre the Giant. They taped Superstars and SNME on 10/25 in Baltimore before a "heavily papered near-sellout" crowd. (My note: ?????) The main angle was a Brother Love segment with Bad News Brown and Jack Tunney. Brown demanded a title shot against Randy Savage. He accused Tunney of protecting Savage and asked if Elizabeth was "doing favors". Tunney got mad, and Brown attacked him, choked him and left him out while Brother Love screamed in his face and asked him if it was true. 10/28 in Greensboro drew 2,000 headlined by Hogan/Hercules vs DiBiase/Virgil. 10/29 in Las Vegas drew a heavily papered 3,000, with WWF people going through casinos and handing out free tickets to make the 16,000 seat Thomas & Mack Center look decent. They also did tons of radio giveaways. The show was headlined by Warrior vs Honky Tonk Man. 10/24 in Hershey, PA drew 2,100 headlined by Hogan vs Haku.

 

-- The Mr. Perfect gimmick is bombing at house shows, and he's getting no heat except at arenas where he was already over from his AWA days.

 

-- Haku is in legal trouble in Baltimore. He is being sued $1.1 million for apparently biting off a guy's nose during a fight. "Why would anyone mess with Haku in the first place?"

 

-- The WWF is seeing their biggest business low of the new era. Savage vs Bad News Brown is setting record low gates in most cities, and even Savage vs DiBiase in a cage recently set a low in Philly. Low attendance and dropping TV ratings mean they are losing a chunk of their audience.

 

NWA

-- "The deal is done. The ink has dried. The biggest soap opera of the year story in wrestling is over. And now the real soap opera story has just begun. The National Wrestling Alliance is now owned by Ted Turner, effective on the Tuesday before you read this. And we are starting a new era in the story of professional wrestling, post-1984.

 

"The future is completely uncertain right now. There are so many things that could happen over the next few months and so many variables that one can't even begin to guess how it will all play out. TBS is taking over the NWA at a low point. TV ratings are bad. House shows are not doing well. There is still a core audience and a few issues that fans care about. There is enough wrestling talent to be the core of a good promotion, although changes will certainly be made. There will be front office shake-ups, but nobody is completely sure how they'll shake-up."

 

-- Jack Petrik starts on 12/1. He is going to hire someone to run the wrestling side of the business, and Dave is told this is not someone who is a veteran of pro wrestling. "From that point on, it's a whole new ball game."

 

-- In the end, TBS purchased the company in spite of the debts. Bill Watts, the largest creditor, has not agreed to settle, and at least two lawsuits have been filed regarding those debts.

 

-- World Championship Wrestling fell to a 2.5 average rating in the last quarter, down from 2.7 in the previous quarter. At its peak in the early 80s, that timeslot was pulling a 6.6 rating. NWA Main Event is in 17th place with a 2.04 average in 1.093 million homes), pretty much identical to the second quarter. It's a surprise that the ratings have stayed strong, because they've switched to showing matches three or four months old and just dubbing new commentary over them. In some cases, the matches have even aired on the show before. Rebuilding TV ratings is the top priority for the new regime, and Dave says there's no reason the Saturday show shouldn't consistently be the highest rated show on cable. Because they use that show to start so many key angles, they can't rebuild business until more people are watching that show. Clash III was the fifth highest rated cable show of the quarter, coming in behind four NFL games that aired on ESPN.

 

-- Lyle Alzado was on syndicated TV and said every athlete either already is or should be using steroids because of the wonderful benefits and performance enhancement. He said he has used them for 10 years with no side effects. Dave admits steroids aren't going away anytime soon, and he also says people have the right to decide what they want to put in their bodies. Where his problem is, is that WWF has created an environment where physique is so important that wrestlers are pretty much forced to use them to stay employed, and fans have pretty much stopped responding to people without great physiques.

 

-- Jim Crockett is in charge the first month and is attempting to run as cost-efficient a month as possible in an effort to keep his job.

 

-- There were huge problems between Ric Flair, Jim Crockett and Dusty Rhodes over the past week, which resulted in Flair no-showing a few towns. While the issues haven't been resolved, tensions have at least cooled off. Flair said he was tired of the way he was being used and wanted real finishes and real opponents. He came back, and they changed Flair/Luger singles matches to Flair/Al Perez vs Luger/Nikita on top because Flair refused to keep doing the same finish with Luger he had been doing. By 10/29 in New Orleans, they were back to doing the same finish. Fans in all three cities where the main event was changed was furious because there was no advance notice about it. Flair also refused to work with Bam Bam Bigelow on top on house shows, so those matches had to be changed to Flair/Windham vs Dusty/Bigelow. Flair didn't want to work with Bigelow because he felt both he and the title would be damaged by working with a WWF midcarder on top who hadn't even earned a title shot in the booking. He also had concern about Bigelow leaving mid-program, and pointed out that he wasn't really over with the NWA audience at all.

 

-- 10/27 in Jackson, MS, drew 1,200 fans headlined by Luger/Nikita vs Flair/Perez. 10/25 in Jackson, TN, drew 3,000 fans. 10/29 in New Orleans drew 3,700 fans headlined by Flair vs Luger and the Midnights/Road Warriors title change. The New Orleans crowd was hardly impressive, but it was the largest crowd in the city since Watts.

 

-- Sting and Luger, Dave thinks, did a bad job getting over the Road Warriors feud on TBS. Their promo was too much about them betraying fans and not them personally, and they needed to make the point that they were the one team who could beat the Warriors, which they didn't do.

 

WCCW

-- Jerry Jarrett and the Von Erichs were negotiating over ownership of World Class this past week. A deal was struck to give Jerry Jarrett majority interest, with Kevin and Kerry Von Erich remaining minority stockholders. WCCW is operating in deep debt, and all three of them had to put up money to keep it going, which they all agreed to do. There was a stumbling block with the Von Erichs wanting to change certain aspects of the deal at the last minute, specifically wanting majority interest back after (x) amount of time. Jarrett balked, because he thought it would create another Ken Mantell situation where he turned around the company then got forced out. If negotiations aren't finalized by this Friday, everyone has agreed to just take the deal completely off the table.

 

-- WCCW's key time slot on Ch. 11 in Dallas is also in jeopardy due to debt. This is their most valuable time slot. Ch. 11 is looking to move to the NWA, and has even started negotiating with them to make a switch in the near future. Dave says if that happens, it will be the final nail in World Class's coffin.

 

MEMPHIS

-- The Stud Stable broke up this week on TV. On 10/23, Cactus Jack & Gary Young won the Southern tag team titles and as part of the stipulations, they get a WCCW World tag title shot against the Samoan Swat Team. On TV on 10/29, Fuller and Golden asked Jack and Young to give them the title shot, and one thing led to another. Foley and Young got attacked, with Foley doing a major blade job. Fuller and Golden then stole the belts and later in the show, Cactus and Young came out for revenge all bandaged up, and the reaction was great. In the brawl, they got one of the two belts back.

 

-- Sid Vicious was back as himself full time this week since Lord Humongous lost some loser leaves town matches.

 

-- Dumbest line of the week was Kent Richie from Covington Pike Toyota, the guy who comes out and awards the wrestler of the week award. After the second brawl, he said, "People always want to know whether or not wrestling is fake and this proves it isn't fake."

 

-- They were very low key on TV about Lawler winning the World Class title. "It's hard to figure out why they would have such a 'heel' ending involving the area's top two babyfaces." (My note: Uhhh, Dave, you said last week you suggested the finish, not realizing they already thought of it themselves.) Lawler and Kerry wrestle again in Dallas on 11/4, and only for the WCCW title. "Do I dare make a prediction? Seriously, they spent all these months building up they were going to unify the titles and turn it into one universally respected legitimate champion, so why are there still two titles? And why would Lawler only defend the World Class belt and not the 'unified' belt. Well, you know the answer, so they can have the unification match in Chicago on the 12/13 PPV show. But by doing this, they will have killed the unification gimmick in Tennessee and Dallas/Fort Worth, which were the two key markets they were expecting to do some business in for the PPV show."

 

NEW JAPAN

-- 10/20 in Komagame drew 1,690 fans.

 

-- Biff Wellington is being compared to Dynamite Kid. He even started cutting his hair like him and wearing the same type of ring gear.

 

-- Scott Hall was on the cover of a popular Japanese comic.

 

-- Steve Williams has been wrestling with his new Varsity Club outfit -- a wrestling singlet that says Oklahoma on it -- during this tour.

 

-- No word on when Tatsumi Fujinami is returning.

 

-- Keichi Yamada is leaving for Europe to form a tag team with Masaharu Funaki.

 

ALL JAPAN

-- The teams have yet to be finalized for the upcoming tournament, but it is known Jimmy Snuka and Tiger Mask will team, and Tenryu & Hara will team.

 

-- Baba is debating whether or not to give up on Hiroshi Wajima as a failed experiment.

 

-- 10/20 in Suwa drew 1,650 fans. 10/19 in Figu drew 2,900 fans.

 

-- Baba is bringing back Doug Furnas & Dan Kroffat for the January series, and has plans on building them as a long-term team.

 

-- Pete Roberts is in talks with Baba about opening a promotion in England since the established promoters are on the verge of quitting.

 

JOSHI

-- Talk of how Chigusa Nagayo's US tour is being covered on television. She had a match against Martha Villalobos in Mexico City and Dave was told she did a dive and hit Villalobos when she was three quarters of the way across the ring. "I'm sure that was exaggerated but it probably was a hot move nonetheless. I don't think it is aerodynamically possible for a woman to fly that far, except for Jackie Joyner-Kersee but then we are dealing with a whole different subject."

 

UWF

-- 11/10 will have Maeda vs Takada. 12/22 in Osaka should easily sell out, since the main event is Nobuhiko Takada vs Bob Backlund. Their biggest test will be on 1/10, when they try to sellout the 16,500-seat Budokan Hall, which is almost impossible to sell out.

 

PUERTO RICO

-- Tony Atlas found a way to disappear again and will not be at the hearing on Monday for Jose Gonzales' trial.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

-- Shane Douglas has officially retired from pro wrestling and is working as a school teacher in central Pennsylvania.

 

-- Terry Gordy has moved from Texas to Alabama and will mainly work independents in the Southeast between Japanese tours. He is done with World Class.

 

-- This is Dave's response to a fan letter criticizing fans who cheer heels, boo babyfaces, shout out real names, etc:

 

"There are a lot of points I've got to address here, but the main one is crowd behavior. I don't think anyone has a right to tell fans how to behave and how not to behave at the matches provided they don't do anything in worse taste than the wrestlers are doing in the ring; don't try to physically abuse the wrestlers and don't behave in a manner which is offensive to the rest of the fans trying to have a good time. I used to get mad at fans who yelled out real names and yelled smart phrases at wrestlers because I thought it was obnoxious, but then I realized that the fans who yell these things are sitting generally in the first few rows, which means they paid the top dollar to attend and bought their tickets first. They are the most loyal fans wrestling has. When the casual fans stop coming to the matches, they will still be there to support the business. They also usually make posters and wear T-shirts of the wrestlers. I have sat in the first row in wrestling arenas throughout this country this year and seen fans in different cities. One thing I learned is that you can't yell smartass phrases during a good match. First, the heat is so loud they can't hear you. Second, if the match is good you concentrate on the match and you won't have time to tell smartass phrases. I sat with the same group of people in Las Vegas in the front row of two cards, one of which was very bad card and the other of which was very good. There were no smartass phrases in the latter, yet nothing but smartass phrases yelled from the crowd in the former. To be honest, if it wasn't for the fans in the first two rows at the Vegas AWA taping, I would have had a hard time being entertained because the matches were so bad. I think you should cheer the heels, cheer the faces, keep quiet or do whatever you want so long as you don't interfere with others' enjoyment of the actual show. Yelling smart phrases does not 'smarten up marks' as people say. If people are so-called wrestling 'marks' (and I hate that term because some people use it for everyone that doesn't agree with them and others use it, both in and out of the business to show some kind of a superiority to those who also support the business), it is not because they don't know the business is worked, it is because they choose to be marks. In this day and age of Vince McMahon, the idea the business is worked, that characters aren't real and winners and losers are pre-determined is something that deep down, almost everyone knows and those that don't, deep in their hearts also know but like to pretend differently because psychologically they are incapable of enjoying wrestling any other way. As I've said before, whenever a fight breaks out in the crowd, what happens? The fans all watch the fight and the wrestlers, no matter how 'heated' their brawling in the ring is, lose the attention of the fans. That's because when confronted with what they know is reality, people would rather watch real fights than fake fights. Vince McMahon has already 'smartened' up the public to a degree, and the little intricacies between being 100 percent smart (which nobody is, not even Vince McMahon, because if anyone was 100 percent smart to this business, they would never make mistakes), or whatever percentage you are comes from how closely you study things and how much you pick up and how much experience you have within the business, and sometimes that even works against you because when you get set in your ways, the business will pass you by. I love listening to talks about ring psychology because it is a fascinating subject, and no two wrestlers think alike about, nor do any two promoters, which is why every promotion has its own distinct style of wrestling. There is no right or wrong or smart or dumb. Getting reaction is part of it, but not everything. Anyone can beg an audience to cheer for him and get reaction, and that has nothing to do with a match. How much reaction one gets in general, is determined primarily by how much TV exposure the person has and how well the promotion gets his personality and his issue over. A distant second is by how well the person actually works a crowd, although the difference between first and second depends upon the city. I've seen wrestlers do identical matches on successive nights in different towns. In one city the match gets a great reaction and in the second it gets no reaction and the crowd behaves differently. Does that mean the wrestlers suddenly weren't 'smart' the second night or didn't know any psychology. No, it is simply the way the crowd reacted to the television personalities these actors portrayed. I saw Honky Tonk Man work with Randy Savage here before he shoved Elizabeth and Honky got great heat until the bell sounded, then pretty much zippo the whole match and they got a nice pop for post-match antics, but the match got no heat. I saw them two months later do the exact same match after Honky shoved Liz, and they got good heat the whole way. Did Honky and Randy suddenly learn ring psychology in those two months? No, they did an angle which got the audience incensed enough that they overlooked that very little was happening in the match. I saw Honky and Jim Duggan out here work as hard as they could to get no reaction at a card in Oakland simply because even though both were over, nobody cared about them wrestling each other and the match wasn't good enough to get them to care. If Duggan had been in with Andre and Honky with Savage, with the same sequence of moves, both matches would have had heat because of the issue involved with the two. It has nothing to do with the ring psychology of any of the four involved. The great ring psychologists are the guys who have no issue, and maybe not even a clearly-defined character or lots of TV time, that can still get themselves over in a match. That's exceedingly difficult today. They are not guys who cup their ears and get a Pavlov's dog reaction from the audience, and yes, they aren't guys who do 1,000 moves in a row that mean nothing if they don't build into a match. Every reader of the Observer and every wrestling fan has different degrees of wrestling intelligence, just as every wrestler and promoter has differing styles and degrees of wrestling intelligence. But nobody is 100 percent smart, and those that think they are, are the dumbest of them all. And I've never spoken to any two wrestlers who had the exact identical ideas of how to work a match or a crowd. One last thing about Owen Hart. No one has ever said Owen Hart had the best ring psychology around. It's been written here before that once he gets his ring psychology down he'll be unequivocably No. 1, because he can do so much more than anyone else and has the willingness to vary his routine every night. This won't happen with Titan because they can't allow a wrestler in prelims to overshadow the main eventers, even though because of the hype and issues given on TV to those main eventers, that task is very difficult. But to be a success in any entertainment field, you have to break the mold. At 5-foot-9 and with two years experience, Hart has accomplished an incredible amount in this business. With only a moderate push he is the second most popular foreign wrestler in Japan. He is with Titan and has a decent shot at getting a good break depends upon what the Gods decide, despite the fact his strong point is athletics, not personality. If he were to wrestle like you suggested, without doing flashy moves, and learned nothing but psychology, at his size he would be exactly where Gary Royal is in the NWA. A great ring psychologist. And at 5-foot-9, that means nothing. One last word on fans. I am a lot more offended and embarrassed at wrestling when I bring friends at the antics of fans who do nothing but cuss and flip the bird than I am at people who are having a good time and good-naturedly enjoying the show, whether they cheer faces or heels."

[Bix]

In this day and age of Vince McMahon, the idea the business is worked, that characters aren't real and winners and losers are pre-determined is something that deep down, almost everyone knows and those that don't, deep in their hearts also know but like to pretend differently because psychologically they are incapable of enjoying wrestling any other way. As I've said before, whenever a fight breaks out in the crowd, what happens? The fans all watch the fight and the wrestlers, no matter how 'heated' their brawling in the ring is, lose the attention of the fans. That's because when confronted with what they know is reality, people would rather watch real fights than fake fights.

The more things change...

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

-- Lyle Alzado was on syndicated TV and said every athlete either already is or should be using steroids because of the wonderful benefits and performance enhancement. He said he has used them for 10 years with no side effects.

Oh man

[Log]

-- Lyle Alzado was on syndicated TV and said every athlete either already is or should be using steroids because of the wonderful benefits and performance enhancement. He said he has used them for 10 years with no side effects.

Well, that worked out pretty well for him in the end.

 

[Death From Above]

-- Shane Douglas has officially retired from pro wrestling and is working as a school teacher in central Pennsylvania.

I laughed. I didn't know the Dean Douglas gimmick was the real thing.

[Johnny Sorrow]

In this day and age of Vince McMahon, the idea the business is worked, that characters aren't real and winners and losers are pre-determined is something that deep down, almost everyone knows and those that don't, deep in their hearts also know but like to pretend differently because psychologically they are incapable of enjoying wrestling any other way. As I've said before, whenever a fight breaks out in the crowd, what happens? The fans all watch the fight and the wrestlers, no matter how 'heated' their brawling in the ring is, lose the attention of the fans. That's because when confronted with what they know is reality, people would rather watch real fights than fake fights.

The more things change...

 

Drunk assholes do wrestling better than wrestling!

[Strummer]

man late 1988 saw a shitload of wrestlesr leave the company

 

Muraco, JYD, Bulldogs, Patera, George Steele,etc

 

after four years of the expansion they were finally getting rid of some of the minor pieces of the era

 

 

and there's that cryptic note abou Dino Bravo that I assume is about the Montreal mafia and not the casting couch

[Guest Andrews]

-- Lyle Alzado was on syndicated TV and said every athlete either already is or should be using steroids because of the wonderful benefits and performance enhancement. He said he has used them for 10 years with no side effects.

Well, that worked out pretty well for him in the end.

 

 

Ouch.

[RCS1988]

Anyone know the full results of the 10/25/88 Superstars taping?

[sek69]

http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/88.htm

[RCS1988]

_{I seen the results listed on the historyofwwe.com website, but I'm sure other matches happened besides what's listed like Nikolai Volkoff, B. Brian Blair, Jim Brunzell, Sam Houston, Danny Davis, Ron Bass, & Bad News Brown wrestling in matches. For example in bold. What I listed in bold, I don't even know if it happaned, but I'm sure those 7 actually wrestled that night.}

 

_{WWF @ Baltimore, MD - Arena - October 25, 1988}

_{WWF Superstars taping:}

_{Sam Houston defeated Barry Horowitz}

_{Paul Roma defeated Nikolai Volkoff}

_{Ron Bass, Danny Davis, & Bad News Brown defeated B. Brian Blair, Jim Brunzell, & Sam Houston
Prime Time Wrestling - 11/1/88: The Blue Blazer pinned Boris Zhukov (w/ Nikolai Volkoff) at 7:43 with a crossbody off the top
Prime Time Wrestling - 11/1/88: Greg Valentine (w/ Jimmy Hart) defeated Tommy Angel via submission with the shinguard assisted figure-4 at 4:23
WWF World Champion Randy Savage defeated Andre the Giant (w/ Bobby Heenan) via disqualification when Heenan interfered
Saturday Night's Main Event #17 - 10/29/88 on NBC (8.7) - featured opening comments from Jake & Cheryl Roberts, Rick Rude & Bobby Heenan, Slick & the Big Bossman, Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart, WWF Tag Team Champions Demolition, Jimmy Hart & Mr. Fuji, and Hulk Hogan, with Miss Elizabeth, regarding their upcoming matches; included Vince McMahon & Jesse Ventura on commentary; featured a video package recapping the Roberts / Rude feud; included Gene Okerlund conducting a backstage interview with Rude & Heenan regarding Rude's upcoming match with Roberts and his wearing tights with Cheryl's face on them; featured Okerlund conducting a backstage interview with Jake & Cheryl Roberts regarding Jake's upcoming match with Rude:
Jake Roberts (w/ Cheryl Roberts) defeated Rick Rude (w/ Bobby Heenan) via disqualification at 7:22 when Heenan climbed in the ring and kicked Roberts as Roberts began ripping off Rude's tights, which featured Cheryl's face, after hitting the DDT; after the bout, Andre the Giant came to the ring and threw Roberts to the floor before going over to check on Rude with Heenan; moments later, Roberts took Damien out of his snake bag and scared Andre with it before throwing it on Andre, with Andre then falling down and clutching his chest; after Andre passed out, Jake held Damien in the air as he stood over Andre's body (Best of the WWF Vol. 18)
WWF Tag Team Champions Demolition (w/ Mr. Fuji & Jimmy Hart) defeated Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart at 5:58 when Smash pinned Neidhart by hitting him with Jimmy Hart's megaphone when Neidhart grabbed for Raymond Rougeau on the ring apron moments after Jacques & Raymond Rougeau came ringside
Hulk Hogan (w/ Miss Elizabeth) pinned King Haku (w/ Bobby Heenan) at 6:16 with the legdrop; Heenan was helped backstage during the bout after Hogan had pulled him in front of him when Haku was jumping from the apron (Hulk Hogan - Real American)
Dino Bravo (w/ Frenchy Martin) pinned Ken Patera at 3:03 with the side suplex
The Big Bossman pinned Jim Powers with the sidewalk slam at 2:34 (More Saturday Night's Main Event)
11/12/88 - included Jake Roberts, Jim Duggan, Tito Santana, Ken Patera, & B. Brian Blair as guests of the Brother Love Show:
Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty fought Jacques & Raymond Rougeau (w/ Jimmy Hart) to a double disqualification at 3:03 when the Hart Foundation, who were watching the match from ringside, interfered as Raymond was about to use Jimmy Hart's megaphone
Koko B. Ware pinned Mike Williams at 1:52 with the Ghostbuster
Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard (w/ Bobby Heenan) defeated Al Kinsey & Mario Mancini at 2:02 when Tully pinned Mancini with the slingshot suplex
Hercules defeated Al Navarro via submission at 1:41 with the backbreaker
Akeem (w/ Slick) pinned Tommy Causey at 1:55 with a splash
Jim Duggan pinned Bob Blackburn at 2:20 with the running clothesline
11/19/88 - included WWF World Champion Randy Savage & Miss Elizabeth as guests of the Brother Love Show in which Hulk Hogan appeared and helped in chasing Love off the set:
Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty defeated Gene Ligon & George South at 2:34 when Jannetty pinned Ligon with a bridge, following a superkick from Michaels
Ted Dibiase (w/ Virgil) defeated Scott Hudson via submission with the Million $ Dream at 2:11
Tito Santana pinned Steve Lombardi at 2:06 with the flying forearm
The Red Rooster (w/ Bobby Heenan) defeated Rusty Riddle via submission with the Scorpion Death Lock at 1:33
Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart defeated Larry Stevens & Johnny Zeigler at 2:46 when Bret pinned Zeigler following the Hart Attack
Brutus Beefcake defeated the Honkytonk Man (w/ Jimmy Hart) via disqualification at 1:58 when Ron Bass interfered as Beefcake had the sleeper applied on his opponent; eventually, a brawl ensued between the Ultimate Warrior, Beefcake, the Blue Blazer, Jim Brunzell, and Sam Houston against Honky, Bass, Danny Davis, Greg Valentine, and Bad News Brown - with Warrior clearning the ring of the opposition
11/26/88 - included Jack Tunney as a guest of the Brother Love Show, which was interrupted by Bad News Brown, who asked Tunney why he was receiving no title shots, and then accused Tunney of accepting ‘favors’ from Miss Elizabeth; Tunney then shoved Brown and asked how dare he make those accusations with Brown then grabbing Tunney by his shirt, and forcing Tunney to his knees, while threatening him:
Jake Roberts pinned John Latu at 3:00 with the DDT
Mr. Perfect pinned David Stoudimiere with the Perfect Plex at 2:30
WWF IC Champion the Ultimate Warrior pinned Barry Horowitz at 2:15 with the gorilla press slam and splash
Rick Rude (w/ Bobby Heenan) pinned Billy Woods at 1:45 with the Rude Awakening
King Haku (w/ Bobby Heenan, Ted Dibiase, & Virgil) defeated Hercules via disqualification at 2:32 when Hercules hit Haku with his steel chain; after the match, Hercules chased Heenan, Dibiase, and Virgil backstage with the chain
Paul Roma & Jim Powers defeated Bubba Kirk & Max McGiver at 1:10 when Roma pinned Kirk following a missile dropkick as Powers held Kirk in the air
The Big Bossman (w/ Slick) pinned David Isley at 2:56 with the sidewalk slam; after the match, Isley was handcuffed to the top rope and beaten with Bossman's nightstick}