[1991-11-16-WWF-Superstars] Sgt. Slaughter vignette

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Please make this stop. It's too much. This time, Slaughter is in a classroom with kids and declares that "he got his country back". The children cheer and run to him for a hug. I didn't realize it was that simple. Ugh.

[Kevin Ridge]

Sarge taking time out from his tourism of historic sites to spend some time with school kids. He leads them in the Pledge of Allegiance. I’m missing those Skinner segments.

[PeteF3]

"The people must speak for themselves," says Slaughter SECONDS before calling the students to attention and they respond like Pavlovian automatons. That bit of hilarious irony does not come close to making up for these segments. The kids mob Slaughter and this is as sickeningly pandering as any wrestling segment I've ever seen. Like I've said, they could have pulled off a Slaughter babyface turn, but he had to show some genuine penance--take a fireball from Adnan, or sacrifice himself to take a chairshot meant for Jim Duggan, or something. Taking a month-long break to visit a bunch of monuments doesn't cut it.

[soup23]

Thankfully it seems like these are over as Slaughter has his country back which he decides to announce to a group of kids.

[garretta]

After thinking it over, I think I've come up with at least one reason why Vince chose to do Sarge's turn this way: Adnan and Sheik were both so physically limited that a Slaughter turn and feud simply wasn't going to work no matter what, and there was really no other way for Sarge to turn that didn't involve some sort of altercation with them.

 

I have a match on a Sarge set I picked up, a handicap match from December of '91 at MSG where Sarge squashes both of them in less than five minutes of disc time, which includes entrances from both sides. I think Adnan actually looked more capable than Sheik did, if my memory's right.

 

Faced with that as an alternative, Vince probably saw these vignettes as a safer way to go. That doesn't excuse how poorly they were written, nor does it excuse Sarge being every bit the obnoxious blowhard he was when he was supporting Iraq. But it provides at least some explanation of why Vince chose to go this route instead of the others Pete mentioned, both of which seemed like givens considering the people involved. Sure, there might have been a few house show matches like the one I just mentioned, but a long-term, or even short-term, angle where Sarge's opponents could neither work well nor cut promos- remember, Adnan had never spoken English in the WWF, and Mustafa would be exposed as Sheik the second he opened his mouth, which Vince wanted no part of- would have been just as big a disaster as these vignettes were.

[dawho5]

So these are over now? Good. Fuck Vince or whoever came up with it for thinking this would go over well.