Today In Wrestling History 7/29: Kevin Nash Uses Rey Mysterio As A Dart, Jake Roberts Turns, More
* 24 years ago in 1991, the WWF ran the monthly marathon Superstars taping at the Centrum in Worcester, Massachusetts. A lot of noteworthy things came out of this taping, both at the arena itself and in pre-taped segments that were inserted into the shows taped that night.
On the dark match front, Virgil defeated Ted DiBiase to win the Million Dollar Championship, only for the result to be overturned at the end of the taping. This was done because there were post-SummerSlam shows on this taping and they wanted Virgil to walk out with the belt. It was far from the only time the WWF done this, as it was a common occurrence when they had to tape post-PPV shows in advance.
In another dark segment, Downtown Bruno Lauer made his debut, but as Harvey Herman instead of Harvey Whippleman. Gene Okerlund interviewed him, encouraged the crowd to chant "PEE WEE!" at him, and so on, so Bruno/Harvey slapped him. When Okerlund tried to defend himsefl, Big Bully Busick ran out to intimidate him. According to Bruno Lauer's book, the slap was improvised, and Vince McMahon's reaction was along the lines of "I didn't like the slap. You should have hit him harder!"
The Ultimate Warrior no-showed this taping, which is interesting because Vince McMahon had already (temporarily) caved into his demands for the same pay/treatment as Hulk Hogan more than two weeks earlier on July 13th. In a July 10th letter, Warrior had written that "Whatever your decision I can and will live with it. 'Till then, I remain home with one who cares." He had never left the road during the period between the letter and McMahon's reply.
The first week of Superstars taped, airing the weekend of 8/17/91, featured one of the most memorable angles of the year. The Ultimate Warrior had been feuding with The Undertaker and it got especially heated after Undertaker and Paul Bearer locked Warrior in an air-tight casket on the set of Bearer's Funeral Parlor segment. To combat them, Warrior consulted Jake Roberts to teach him about "the dark side."
After a series of trials. Jake locked him in a room full of snakes, he got bitten by a cobra in a casket, and when he broke down the door to where Jake was...only to find The Undertaker staring down at him. As weird, fantastical, genre-bending WWF/E angles that don't fit into a traditional pro wrestling narrative go, it's probably th best. Yes, it has wacky camera angles, a point of view shot of Warrior passing out, all sorts of background music, bad effects, and so on, but it still works as a heel turn for Jake and it stands among The Undertaker's scariest moments.
Also on that episode, Mr. Perfect won a squash via count out. With his back in terrible shape, he only wrestled a couple matches at this set of tapings and they were about as low impact as they could possibly be, with no Perfectplex in a match at the Challenge tapings, either (he won with a roll-up). He was managed by John Tolos as Coach, who had been a around for a couple months with him and the Beverly Brothers, only to leave after this taping. As great a promo as Tolos was in his prime (and honestly he was still pretty good in Herb Abrams' UWF right before) and as much as he looked like an angry gym teacher, the Coach character didn't suit him at all and flopped.
* 19 years ago in 1996, WCW shot what was quite possibly the best and most memorable angle ever to air on Monday Nitro during a live show from Orlando, Florida. With Turner Broadcasting's mobile production units being rented out to other broadcasters for the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, all of WCW's tapings were moved to Disney/MGM Studios until the games were over.
It got rolling with the second match on the show. Sting, Randy Savage, and Lex Luger were facing Ric Flair, Chris Benoit, and Steve McMichael of the Four Horsemen. What's been forgotten over the years is that they were having an excellent match, the best of McMichael's career. After about 13 minutes, Jimmy Hart (who was technically a rival of both teams, as the Horsemen were feuding with the Dungeon of Doom) ran out screaming to the ringside camera operator and then the wrestlers about how Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were in the back.
A cameraman got there in time to see them, aluminum baseball bats in hand, standing over a badly injured Arn Anderson and Marcus Bagwell. Scotty Riggs ran out of one of the trailers to tend tend to Bagwell, saw The Outsiders out of the corner of his eye, ran at them, and got nailed with some kind f metal cannister. Rey Misterio Jr. came out of the trailer next and dove off a railing onto Nash, but he got caught and thrown into the trailer "like a lawn dart" in the most famous individual spot in the history of Nitro. There was no TV lighting for any of this, so it all looked spontaneous and not "staged."
Hall and Nash headed to their limousine, but Randy Savage, the first wrestler to arrive on the scene, jumped on the vehicle and they drove away as he was trying to get in through the sunroof. The other five wrestlers in the match, plus Eddie Guerrero, various athletic trainers, and Horsemen valets Woman, Miss Elizabeth, and Debra McMichael, showed up next. It was chaos with everyone screaming but only McMichael and Woman intelligible because they were the loudest. Two Ambulances showed up and the show screeched to a halt. The fans at the show had no idea what was going on and got restless, chanting "boring" when there was nothing in the ring for close to half an hour, and the announcers acknowledged it, which added to the idea that "this wasn't supposed to happen." The matches having to be rearranged did the same thing.
Woman and Benoit were openly crying over Anderson. Misterio told Guerrero that there were four guys (presumably Hall, Nash, an unseen Hulk Hogan, and a mystery new NWO member) attacking Bagwell and Anderson in the dark. Bobby Heenan, citing what just happened, Nash attacking Bischoff a few weeks earlier, and his own history of neck problems, walked off the show since WCW couldn't guarantee his safety. Finally, with Misterio already taken out in the first ambulance, Bagwell and Anderson had to be transported together, so the closing shot of the angle was Sting and Flair, united, joining their friends in the ambulance as it drove away to the hospital.