UWF Fury Hour - Episode 3 Review - 10/15/90

CJ Scholes June 26, 2024
UWF Fury Hour - Episode 3 Review - 10/15/90


Aired October 15, 1990
Reseda Country Club, Reseda, California

UWF Fury Hour Episode 3 was the final show recorded at the initial Universal Wrestling Federation TV tapings on September 24, 1990. 

Airing a few weeks later on SportsChannel America, the show would feature much of the same thing we'd already seen for the past two weeks:

Squash matches, wrestlers putting over how great the company was, and B. Brian Blair selling UWF merch like he had a family of 10 to feed.

Time for UWF Fury Hour! 

After the usual intro, episode 3 of UWF Fury Hour began with Herb Abrams thanking us for a ‘stupendous’ reaction to last week’s show before promising us a match that was ‘unheard of’ in professional wrestling.

That match? Tonight’s featured contest between Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff and Dr. Death Steve Williams.

UWF Fury Hour - Episode 3 Review - Herb Abrams & Bruno Sammartino

Abrams then passed it to his broadcast colleague, the ever-monotonous Bruno Sammartino.

Speaking with all the enthusiasm of someone who just found out their cat died, Sammartino promised us a night of unforgettable matches.

At this point, I’m starting to wonder if the former world heavyweight champion really was that bad at commentary or if he simply realized how bad this show sucked and couldn’t bring himself to get excited about it.

Either way, it was soon down to our opening contest.

Dangerous Dan Spivey vs. Mike Allen

Dressed like a cross between Brutus Beefcake and Ricky Steamboat, Dangerous Dan Spivey destroyed perennial enhancement talent Mike Allen in rapid fashion, spending most of the match merely toying with his smaller opponent and throwing him around the ring with a series of suplexes and power moves.

However,  before the big man could claim a victory, his arch nemesis, B. Brian Blair ran down with a steel chair and bashed him over the head with it.
Your Winner Via Disqualification: Dan Spivey

Seeking revenge for Spivey getting involved in his match the previous week, Blair continued his assault, delivering more chair shots to his rival’s back and stomach until Spivey was able to roll out of the ring and high-tail it.

OK, so this wasn’t exactly a feud for the ages, and it wasn’t exactly clear why these two hated each other, but at least it was something vaguely more interesting than Fury Hour’s usual succession of meaningless squash matches.

Chief Jay Strongbow vs. Houdini 

Houdini got in a fair amount of offense in the early going, but obviously, he was never going to get one over on the debuting Chief Jay Strongbow.

Indeed, after absorbing some punishment, Strongbow took the fight to the outside, bodyslammed his adversary to the mat and beat him up.

Back in the ring, the Chief continued his attack before locking in a sleeper hold from which Houdini couldn’t escape.
Your Winner: Chief Jay Strongbow

Yes, I know I made that same lame joke last week, but if they're going to keep having Houdini lose from a hold (sleeper this week, figure four last week), what do you expect me to do?

David Sammartino  vs.Col. Debeers

I may only be on the third episode of this show, but David Sammartino is turning out to be one of my favorites.

UWF Fury Hour - Episode 3 Review - Col. Debeers

Although he’d never break out from under his dad’s shadow, Sammartino Jr. had proven himself to be a decent wrestler and his matches had been among the highlights of two otherwise lacklustre shows.

Here, he took on the evil Col. Debeers in a losing effort.

Once again, the official assigned to this match happened to Larry Sampson, a black man with whom Debeers (whose gimmick was that of a South African racist asshole) had a problem.

For the second week in a row, Debeers took to the microphone and insisted that he didn’t want a black man refereeing his match, calling on the other official, white man Jesse Hernandez to do the job.

This time, Hernandez was nowhere to be seen. Debeers began yelling at Larry, only to be caught off guard by a couple of roll-up attempts, complete with a fast count by the official.

Proving what I said earlier, this turned out to be one of the better matches we’d see from the Universal Wrestling Federation.

Yes, I know the bar was set really, really low, but it was fun watching young David constantly out-wrestle his opponent.

At least it was until the finish.

Sammartino picked up Debeers for a bodyslam, but poor old Larry got in the way and got bumped to the mat.

Seconds later, The Colonel tossed Sammartino out of the ring, stomped on Larry’s head a few times and ran off to the back, losing the match via DQ or countout or who the f*k knows what.
Your Winner: David Sammartino probably, who knows?

The official result was never announced and the show went to the first of what was sure to be many UWF merchandise commercials featuring Hat Salesman of the Year, B. Brian Blair.


Captain Lou then promoted his own segment, Captain Lou’s promo, before we got another look at Dr. Death’s promo against rival Paul Orndorf that we’d seen last week.

The Black Knight vs. Davey Meltzer 

Up next, it was the battle of the jobbers as Billy ‘The Black Knight’ Anderson (who was frequently featured as WWF enhancement talent at this time) went up against one of the worst in-jokes in professional wrestling, Davey Meltzer.

To his credit, The Black Knight had moments here where he looked genuinely impressive, hurtling Meltzer around the ring with a few sweet-looking suplexes:

Then, for the first time in the UWF’s brief history, Meltzer actually got in a lick of offence,  hitting Knighy with rights and lefts and whipping him from pillar to post before falling back in line and getting whooped by Knight.

A few moments later, The Black Knighy threw Meltzer off the top rope, blasted him with a side slam and got the three count.
Your Winner: The Black Knight 

After the commercial break, Chief Jay Strongbow put himself over in a brief promo in which he promised that ‘War Dance Fever’ was taking over the UWF.

B. Brian Blair vs. Ricky Ataki 

This match continued tonight’s theme of the enhancement talent looking competitive against their superstar opponents as Ricky Ataki held his own against B. Brian Blair in a decent squash match.

Of course, with Blair inexplicably positioned as a main eventer, he was always going to go over and did so courtesy of his finishing move, the Scorpion Death Lock.
Your Winner: B. Brian Blair

Up next, we went to Captain Lou Albano for a ‘Captain Lou’s Corner’ segment with UWF newcomer, Bob Orton.

UWF Fury Hour - Episode 3 Review - Captain Lou Albano

Orton was here to talk about how he was going to take on tough professional wrestlers like Paul Orndorff and Nikita Koloff, the latter of whom hadn’t yet been seen on UWF TV.

However, Albano constantly interrupted his guest at every opportunity, making for a frustrating watch.

This was followed by our second B. Brian Blair merchandise commercial and a Dan Spivey promo in which he claimed to be the number one contender for UWF’s world title (which didn’t exist yet) and told us to watch him on the SportsChannel, which is exactly what we were doing to begin with.

I Still Love Ya, Little Kid

Next, we went to a new promo from Billy Jack Haynes in which he bragged about the tough battles he’d been in all over the world and promised to “kick some butt” all over the Universal Wrestling Federation.

UWF Fury Hour - Episode 3 Review - Billy Jack Haynes

As in his last promo, Hayes randomly blurted out “I still love ya, little kid,” without giving the line any context or revealing who this little kid was.

Trust me, I Googled it and found nothing, though I did fall down a rabbit hole reading about how Haynes apparently witnessed a famous murder.

(UPDATE: I originally wrote this review last year, way before Haynes himself was charged with murdering his wife). 

This was followed by, I kid you not, our third repeat of the same UWF merchandise commercial in almost as many minutes.

Billy Jack Haynes vs. Larry Ludden

There isn’t much to say about this match.

Haynes took out Larry Ludden in about a minute.
Your Winner: Billy Jack Haynes

Post-match, Haynes proved what a stand-up guy he was by shaking Ludden’s hand.

Finally, it was time for our show’s featured contest.

Dr. Death Steve Williams vs. Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff 

As Dr. Death made his way to the ring, Abrams promised us some new arrivals on next week’s show.

Ivan and Nikita Koloff would be appearing, alongside strong man Ken Patera.

Before all that, we had this, a decent main event between two rivals who hated each other for reasons that had never been explained.

It wasn’t bad, but, for the third week in a row, our main event ended with a double countout.

Seriously, could Herbie not think of a single other finish?
Double Countout

As the show went off the air, Abrams promised us that next week’s featured contest would see Orndorff take on his former WWF running buddy Cowboy Bob Orton.

I bet you $50 that ends in BS shenanigans too.

Buy The Complete History of Wrestlemania on Amazon

To give UWF credit, the in-ring action was a lot better this week, but there were still issues. I get that it was important for a brand new company to gradually introduce their cast of characters, but at some point, those characters have to do something other than win squash matches and cut promos about how good the company is. 
Come on Herb, give me some feuds. Give me a main event finish that doesn't end in a double countout. Give me less Davey Meltzer and more David Sammartino. Give me something, anything other than this. 

CJ Scholes

Posted by CJ Scholes

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