WWF 305 Live: Akeem vs. Hogan!

Akeem vs. Hulk Hogan WWF SNME 1/7/89 - GREAT

ER: This is a real important show in my personal pro wrestling history, as it was the first episode of Saturday Night's Main Event that I saw. It reminds me of that great feeling when you're a kid and you discover that a thing like Pro Wrestling exists, and you learn about new wrestlers every week, and you piece together information about all of them and mentally fill in their histories. At this point I had discovered WWF weekend AM TV shows Superstars and Wrestling Challenge, but I didn't realize SNME was a regularly scheduled special event. This was the first one my dad taped for me, meaning this was a show I watched a ton. I didn't know who half the people were on this show, but I came to be very familiar with all of them (and this was probably my only tape, for a long time, that had a Ron Bass match on it). I had no idea who Akeem was before this show, but I remember that Akeem dancing his way through selling for Hogan strikes was a huge hit with me. 

Akeem looks massive here, vibing his way to the ring with a never bigger Boss Man, then dance selling his way through the match. He did terrible moonwalks on offense, hit Hogan with clubbing arms, and did variations on the electric slide while taking many Hogan right hands. Akeem is great at waddling around a ring and making faces like a mammoth Dom Deluise, then takes some big flat bumps off Hogan axe bombers. Boss Man and Slick were working overtime too, with both taking big bumps off the apron. Giving Hogan several targets that all fall in spectacular ways is a smart way to organize a Hogan match, keep him busy and constantly battling enemies, crowd stays hot, etc. Boss Man seriously takes three different big falls off the apron, with the best being Hogan running Akeem into Boss Man. Boss Man gets hit and holds the top rope while doing a huge power squat, butt hanging way over the edge of the apron, before hitting the floor with a big splat. 

This whole match was so dominantly Hogan, that when we hit our mid-match twist the crowd gets furious at how much the Twin Towers are running the board. Akeem pulls Hebner into the way of another axe bomber, Boss Man nails Hogan with the night stick, and then we get a couple glorious minutes of the Twin Towers falling repeatedly onto Hogan like he was an NYC firefighter reliving the worst day of his life. Akeem doesn't so much do "standing splashes" as he gets a couple inches off the ground before horizontally flattening Hogan. Over and over, two fat monsters just splashing Hogan, as garbage starts to rain into the ring. Now of course we get a Hulk Up and Akeem runs into the big boot in an amusing way, but Boss Man draws the DQ which saves Akeem from a legdrop. I need to find any of the Hogan/Gang singles matches from 87/88 to see how they hold up to our only existing Hogan/Akeem match. Those likely won't have any dance selling so they are probably worse.  

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE