MSG Classics – September 21, 1990

By Chris Marullo

                WWF Heavyweight Champion The Ultimate Warrior and The Legion of Doom taking on the 3-man version of Demolition: Ax, Smash and Crush headline this version of MSG Classics. The card drew 11,000 which was up from the previous month’s card which was headlined by Hulk Hogan versus Earthquake and the next month’s card with Dusty Rhodes and Ted DiBiase on top. Each of those cards drew about 9,000. Our announcers are Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan.

                Sgt. Slaughter and Nikolai Volkoff start things off. Slaughter had just returned to the WWF after a 6 year absence. He came back with the infamous anti-American gimmick to capitalize off of the emerging US-Iraq conflict. Volkoff had just turned babyface in conjunction with the end of the Cold War.

                Bobby Heenan gets in the great line of, “How do you say ‘maggot’ in Russian?” to start things off. Volkoff is at the end of the line here and Slaughter is not very far behind. Nikolai is grossly overweight and out of shape and performs like it. Judging from the crowd’s reaction, or lack thereof, to Slaughter, either they just don’t remember Slaughter (unlikely since he was a top draw at MSG in the early 80s) or this is a kid-packed crowd that didn’t watch during his era. Either way, his ant-American gimmick is not over. The bad match isn’t helping things.

                Gorilla Monsoon tries to make a clever reference to the anatomy of the mandible and its articulation with the temporal bone. His information is incorrect. Slaughter wins the Camel Clutch.

                Lord Alfred Hayes joins the broadcast team so that Heenan can be in the Barbarian’s corner for his match against Tito Santana. The Barbarian dresses like he robbed a taxidermist. He and Heenan consult on the outside and we see that they’re about the same height. Oops.

                Tito was a great worker and he’s very underrated. Had he spent the bulk of his career in promotions with workers that fit his size and style better he would be much more appreciated. What do you think Vince would give for Latin guys with his look, charisma and skills right now?

                The Barbarian wins when he rolls through the momentum of a crossbody in 7:21. And he grabbed the tights. Bastard.

                Next we have Jim Duggan taking on Rick Rude. Rude is fresh of his program with The Ultimate Warrior that didn’t draw very well, probably because they spent 8 months feuding the previous year. Rude would leave the WWF shortly after this.

                The match starts, or fails to start, with lots of teasing, taunting and stalling. As a kid, I remember being really frustrated with this at the WWF house shows I attended. While it’s still no joy to watch, I realize the schedule that these guys were on made this necessary.

                Hacksaw wins via DQ when Rude shoves the ref. Cheap finish. One would suspect that this was to be the beginning of a program between Rude and Duggan had Rude not left.

                The main event is The Ultimate Warrior with Animal and Hawk of the Road Warriors/Legion of Doom against Ax (Bill Eddie), Smash (Barry Darsow) and Crush (Gina Carano-no Brian Adams) of Demolition. In the late 80s, Demolition were tagged as Road Warrior rip-offs. Fans had wanted to see a match between the two teams for a while and one of my first issues of Pro Wrestling Illustrated had a story on a “dream match” between them. By the time the Road Warriors made it to the WWF, however, Bill Eddie’s back was giving him too much trouble. While he and Barry Darsow held the WWF Tag Team Titles, they brought in a third member, Adams, to do the old 3 man tag team champions gimmick where and 2 of the 3 could defend the titles. Demolition dropped the titles to the Hart Foundation about a month before this show at SummerSlam, freeing them up for a program with the newcomers.

                The “Road Warrior” name was not used in their first WWF run. Instead they used the “Legion of Doom” name after a stable Hawk and Animal were in led by Paul Ellering in Georgia Championship Wrestling. The stable also featured Jake Roberts, The Iron Sheik and King Kong Bundy. The LOD were thrown right into the main events once they arrived in the WWF, teaming with Warrior all over the country. This meant Warrior could be featured without having to wrestle much, which is always a good thing.

                Fans were genuinely excited to see these 6 men together as they were all over, with the exception of Crush who wasn’t booked like a new addition to bad ass heel faction should have been. But, given the nature of each of their personas, no one in the match was used to selling a whole lot. Animal wound up taking the heat on this night and I can assure you Warrior was never given this task. The match is OK given the standards of the time and everyone’s limitations. Also Warrior was kept out of the ring as much as possible. Warrior pins Smash with a big splash of all things.

The rest of the card:

Dustin Rhodes pinned Paul Diamond
Paul Roma pinned Marty Jannetty
Ron Garvin pinned Bob Bradley

Chris Marullo

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Attendance figures, match times and undercard results courtesy of www.thehistoryofthewwe.com