Jeff Hardy attempting and missing a Senton Bomb from the top of the cage = ouch

Finally, they've begun adding episodes of Superstars. They've only got 1992 stuff so far; hopefully they continue to fill backwards.

That's awesome, I've been itching to watch weeklies from the early 90s for a while. Btw the on demand library really is GOAT level, it's amazing how much stuff is on there now.

Let me know when theyve added Ludvig Borga ending Tatanka's streak

Right after Borga died, they asked Jim Ross for a comment and the comment was basically, "Oh, him? Not to speak ill of the dead, but **** that guy."

Oh dude, he was crazier than a ****house rat. Go look up the stuff about him as a politican in Finland. And then he eneded up killing himself. Probably about a 90-95% chance he was suffering from CTE.

Him pinning Tatanka with one finger is still a hallmark of my early viewership days though.

I wanna see Jake the Snake vs Pete Sanchez from Superstars

Not sure why that match stands out to me

I remember being affected by Yokozuna dropping 3 or so Banzai Drops on Hacksaw and him bleeding from the mouth/getting stretchered out

This was around the same time right? Heading into Survivor Series 93?

Think that would have been late '92 or early '93. IIRC Hacksaw took on the challenge of being the first to knock Yoko off his feet, after several running clotheslines he succeeded, then Yoko destroyed him. Yoko won RR '93 from his back, so he had fallen down, though it wasn't exactly Savage knocking him down (think he just lost his balance after ramming into the turnbuckle). Not sure if the Duggan thing happened before or after.

Ah right. Im thinking of the same Borga match where after the match Yoko banzaied Tatanka repeatedly and he was eventually removed from the match.

Well that was fast. It’s gone now.

Still showing up for me.

Is it under Vault?

Yup.

http://network.wwe.com/shows/vault/superstars

Second chronological episode of the currently uploaded batch of Superstars delivers:

It showed up on the main page for me using Apple TV.

I'm firing up the June papa shango episode cause of the Post Wrestling podcast mention.

Speaking of Tatanka, a couple of memories about him along the way:

He got a long series of hype vignettes, longer than most who get these vignettes IIRC. Then he debuted in a jobber squash on Superstars and gave up too much offense, and I quickly lost interest. I remember McMahon apologizing it away on commentary as a result of it just being his first match, which does make kayfabe sense but absolutely didn't work for me. A friend who I watched it with tried to parrot Vince's defense of him, but I wasn't buying. I was immediately less interested in him.

Then, in 1993, he was in the midst of his undefeated streak and he took on Giant Gonzalez in a KOTR qualifier. Gonzalez was dominant and only ended up losing by DQ after he pushed the ref down while he had Tatanka in a choke. I thought at the time, and still think, "WTF, why put him in that match where you have this weird transparent goal of protecting Tatanka's undefeated streak AND protecting his opponent from looking weak enough to struggle against the undefeated dude?"



I never lacked the context of wrestling being a work. That much was spoiled for me on one of my very first viewings. I was still affected by a wrestler being booked in a weak enough fashion that I couldn't understand why I should care about them. In related news, hi Dolph Ziggler.

On a similar note, when Bret Hart won the WWF Title the first time, they ran with the "fightingest champion in WWF history" thing and had him taking on all covers. I graciously forgive them for attempting to coin "fightingest," but what I cannot forgive is the fact that they took this as far as him having a TV title defense against Virgil where he gave up significant offense. Bret vs. Virgil should have had all the imbalance of a garden-variety squash match, but instead they kept teasing it as if Virgil had a legit chance to beat the ****ing world champion. How about no, WWF? That's a rotten way to book your first significant post-Hogan babyface champion.

When High Energy first debuted as a team on Superstars, they came out to Koko B. Ware's music rather than the "High Energy" music that became Owen's primary theme.

On another note, while I don't mind the fact that they changed Owen's theme when he made a face turn after many years as a heel, they really didn't give him a good one.

Seeing Repo Man show up on multiple jobber squashes so far in these Superstars eps reminds me...on TLF, they referenced Barry Darsow talking about how the long-term plan was to turn Repo Man babyface. The TLF guys expressed incredulity that Repo Man could be a babyface character. I'm surprised they think that's such a stretch. Wasn't Robin Hood the original babyface Repo Man?

Remove the mask and start repossessing heel character possessions

Easy game

I cannot say I remember these vignettes they did for Crush before he re-debuted as the babyface strong Hawaiian dude.

In related news, these are some of the dumbest vignettes they ever did to hype a new character.

Also, Repo Man is on every damn episode. They were really trying to make Fetch happen.

Headbanger Thrasher circa 1992. It always tickles me to see these guys as jobbers before they made it as non-jobbers.

Hoooooooooly