WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event #18
November 26, 1988
Sacramento, CA
ARCO Arena

The current WWF Champs were as follows:
World Champion: Randy Savage (3/27/1988)
Intercontinental Champion: Ultimate Warrior (8/29/1988)
World Tag Team Champions: Demolition (3/27/1988)
Women’s Champion: Rockin’ Robin (10/7/1988)

Tonight, Ultimate Warrior plans to ruin Super Ninja’s Thanksgiving two days after Thanksgiving! Andre still thinks he’s the champ and Bobby Heenan makes a dope rhyme! Macho Man tells us a bible story! DiBiase and Virgil become bill collectors! The Hulkster attempts to make Brother Love explode! Wow, all of that wacky riff raff must mean it’s time for Saturday Night’s Main Event!

Your hosts are Vince Whatshisname & Jesse “The Body” Ventura.

• WWF Intercontinental Champion Ultimate Warrior vs. Super Ninja (w/Mr. Fuji)
  

Yes, this is Warrior’s SNME debut. Super Ninja is Rip Oliver, who is most famous for his work over in Don Owen’s territory. He looks like a cross between Rey Mysterio and Great Sasuke here: black, red and white attire, but with a WWE-style Rey Mysterio mask. Only Rip Oliver is a doughy white ’80s wrestler while Great Sasuke and Rey Mysterio are neither. Don’t worry too much about him though. Ninja was a one-time only thing. Warrior squashes Ninja with clotheslines, the Gorilla Press Slam and the WARRIOR SPLASH. (2:09) Super Ninja turned out to be a super dud. Sounds like a Vince joke, doesn’t it? CRAP

Flashback! We catch a clip of Heenan selling Hercules’ contract to DiBiase a month earlier. DiBiase calls Herc his own personal slave, which doesn’t bode well with him. When Hercules grabs Heenan by the throat, DiBiase WHACKS him in the back of the head with a briefcase filled with cash!

In the back, Jesse Ventura is standing by with Ted DiBiase and Virgil. All this slave talk would never work in ’07.

• Virgil (w/Ted DiBiase) vs. Hercules
  

If Hercules wins, he’s a free man. Double-team effort from DiBiase and Virgil fails to start. Herc delivers clotheslines galore and finishes Virgil off with a running powerslam. (3:22) I’m with Jesse here. DiBiase probably should have considered getting a new body guard after watching Virgil get manhandled like that. Felt like I just watched the same match twice. The crowd was really digging Herc though. CRAP

Mean Gene interviews Andre and Bobby. Turns out Andre’s afraid of snakes AND finding out that he’s really not the WWF champion.

• WWF World Champion Randy Savage (w/Elizabeth) vs. Andre the Giant (w/Bobby Heenan)
  

Savage uses the stick-and-run strategy with right hands and double-ax handles. When Andre gets a hold of him, he chokes him down using his shoulder strap. Jake Roberts and Damien come down about half way into the match, but ref Earl Hebner sends Jake to the back. Notice how I didn’t say Damien! Jake’s stuck him under the ring somewhere and now Andre can’t concentrate on the match because he’s so worried about that darn python. Heenan goes snake hunting to get it away from ringside. When he finally has Damien by the sack, Jake returns to the ring and chases Heenan into the ring for the double-DQ. (8:40) Andre gets tied up in the ropes, but escapes just in time before Damien gets too close. I’ve heard this match get dissed before saying that it made Savage look weak, but what was he going to do with Andre? Slam him? Give him a running hotshot? Yeah, that’s realistic. *½

• Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Boris Zhukov – Flag Match
  

Duggan controls to start, so we see tons of exciting clotheslines! He ducks low off a whip and gets kicked in the teeth. Duggan telegraphs another backdrop, but moves out of the way of the kick. He tries an elbow drop and misses, so Jesse calls him an idiot. Zhukov bites away, but then gets nailed with a clothesline. A slam sets up the THREE-POINT STANCE for the 1-2-3. (2:26) America wins again! Yay! Hooray! Yippee! CRAP

It’s time for the “Brother Love” show with special guest Hulk Hogan. We take a quick look back at the last time Hulk was on the Brother Love show and how he got beat down mercilessly by the Big Bossman. Slick comes out first to assist Brother Love in teaching Hogan a lesson in self-control. Funny thing is, Slick went on to become an actual minister after his WWF stint. Love and Slick’s main objective here is to patronize the Hulkster until he snaps with tactics such as pulling the mic away from his mouth when its his turn to talk and then talk as much crap about him as possible to his face. Finally Hulk rips the mic out of his hand and treats them both the same way he was treated. Love finally has enough of that and takes the mic back from Hulk. He threatens Hulk with a call to the Bossman, so Hulk dumps Slick and slams poor Brother Love. Bring it on, Bossman!

• The Young Stallions vs. The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers (w/Jimmy Hart)
  

The Rougeaus have moved to Memphis, by golly! They’re so totally Americans now! Powers and Jacques kick things off. Jacques flips out of a backdrop and connects with a nice dropkick. Powers reverses a cross-corner whip and goes for the ten-count corner punch, but Jimmy Hart stops that by nailing Powers in the knee with the megaphone. The Rougeaus work over the back of Powers for a bit. Jumping back elbow from Jacques gets two. He tries a crossbody out of the corner, but Powers moves out of the way and makes the hot tag to Roma. Running powerslam on Jacques and a missile dropkick on Raymond gets 1-2-NO! Powers comes in and ruins everything, as Raymond goes to the eyes to set up LE BOMBE DE ROUGEAUS on Roma! That’ll do it. (3:05) Match of the night, but nothing too special. **

Before we go, Andre informs Jake that he put his nose in none of his business! Yes he actually said that. Also, Jake Roberts says he wants to consume the Giant with his python. Sounds kinky! Oh yeah, and Hulkster asks the Bossman what he’s going to do when Judge Hogan presides on him.

Final Thoughts: The crowd noise was turned up to eleven on this one, but the matches were lame. Give me the Brainbusters! Give me the Rockers! Give me the Hart Foundation! Yeah, not a good SNME. Thumbs down for SNME #18.