Royal Rumble 1991
Date: January 19, 1991
Location: Miami Arena, Miami, Florida
Attendance: 16,000
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Roddy Piper

Well, there’s a few big things, but a lot is still the same. Warrior is champion here, defending against Sgt. Slaughter who is in the heel turn as the Iraqi sympathizer. Who cares if the war was already over? The other thing is that about two months ago, Undertaker debuted. This really is about the same as last year’s, but you can see a lot of the stuff that would shape the new era coming.

For one thing, Bret is featured at the opening of the Rumble, as his singles push was just around the corner. This show really is more designed to set up Mania, as the Rumble itself really didn’t know its purpose yet. The title shot at Mania wouldn’t become official until 1993. The card is considered underrated, so let’s see if it lives….up, I guess would be the right term.

We open with a shot of the American flag as it’s apparently one of those shows. It’s always cool to hear the Anthem though. The problem here though is simple: the war was less than a month from being over and that was fairly obvious. The angle should have ended here with Slaughter coming in as champion, maybe having won it at Summerslam or something like that. Three months later when Hogan beat him for it the war was already over.

That was just kind of pointless. Anyway, the regular intro is just that: regular. It’s the same old thing of the participants being listed, although this time it’s by Gene. I almost didn’t recognize his voice though. The first name: Hogan. The second: Bret. That’s saying a lot. Piper always ranted with the best of them.

Rockers vs. Orient Express

This apparently is an encounter, not a match. That’s the Fink for you. I’m still waiting on the explanation of how they’re tag team specialists, yet they had far more success as singles wrestlers. They start immediately when they hit the ring which says that this should be good. Oh and it’s Tanaka and Kato the masked man here as this is the NEW Orient Express despite them having been a team in the AWA and half of the NEW Orient Express being the same as the old Orient Express.

Marty is knocked out to the floor and therefore worthless about 4 seconds in. Well it’s good to know he’s improving. He redeems himself by throwing a superkick at Tanaka that misses by about 4 inches or so. Hey Marty’s ON tonight. The Rockers hit stereo suicide dives on the Express. That’s completely unheard of at this time as Gorilla doesn’t even have a name for it here, calling them cross bodies.

We get a HUGE USA chant as we’re finally in the corners for a regular tag match. To say the crowd is hot is like saying Norcal is a bit popular around here. They are moving ridiculously fast out there with some great chain wrestling. I feel sorry for Marty as he really was talented. His partner just happens to be one of the best of all time. Speaking of which, Shawn is in now and beating on Tanaka.

They’re never staying in one spot for long at all. The crowd is insane here too so that’s a major plus. This was around the time where you realized the Rockers really were good and not just two pretty boys. Their stuff was getting to a level that was just below the Harts and could even be compared to them. That’s appropriate too because the Harts would split after Mania of this year. Shawn uses a HHH leaping knee to the face. That’s gimmick infringement boy.

They use a decent amount of rest holds, but they’re moving out of them quickly which is all I ask for. To be fair they’re all over the place in this. A We Will Rock You sing a long starts up. That’s actually something I’ve never thought of.

A sleeper gets a pop. That’s just not something you see often at all. Piper goes into a weird discussion about what is a legal vs. illegal punch/strike. Good night this is fun. Shawn goes up for ten punches in the corner and comes off with a moonsault to take out Kato. Again, that doesn’t even have a name. We’re about ten minutes into this and they’re still all over the place.

Naturally the announcers say that it’s been fifteen or so but whatever. Shawn does a freaking 610! Ok so it was sloppy but it was the same move. They follow that up with stereo cross bodies from the top to the floor. This is AWESOME stuff. Double teaming and Fuji gets control for the Express. We get the inevitable “this is the first match!” line, which is wrestling speak for “we know the rest of this is going to suck and we’re sorry.”

The Express are using moves that were considered great when the World’s Greatest Tag Team was using them. On no. It’s a NERVE HOLD! This is the epitome of a weak rest hold as all you do is grab the other person’s neck. It allegedly cuts off the flow of blood or something and you lose feeling in your arm. Oh good it’s now a less bad chinlock. The crowd is still going nuts.

As per the Rockers’ formula, Shawn gets beaten up to set up the Jannetty tag. In a very cool and smart spot, the Express pull off their sash to use for a clothesline but Shawn avoids it. Instead he dives on it, pulling the Express together so they crash. That’s very smart. Marty comes in to get a paycheck so he can….uh…buy model trains. Yeah, that works.

He’s going to buy model trains with the money he makes tonight. Lots of them, in a dark alley. Yeah, that’s right. His dropkicks aren’t that good, mainly because at least one foot misses. He makes up for it with a jumping back elbow though so I’m fine. The Rockers “hit” a double superkick to put Kato down and go to the top.

They set for what I think was going to be a rocket launcher but it doesn’t get to launch thanks to Tanaka. The Express set for a move where Kato slingshots Marty into Tanaka for a chop. It works so naturally they do it again. This time though, Shawn hits Tanaka, allowing Marty to jump over him for a sunset flip to win it! That was SWEET looking.

Rating: A. This was greatness plain and simple. It was a bit sloppy, but this was one of the most fun matches I’ve ever seen. They were all over the place and doing stuff that wouldn’t become popular until WCW’s Cruiserweight days. The Rockers truly were greatness in tag wrestling. They would split in less than a year though, which might have been a shame. Excellent match here though and well worth going out of your way to see.

Randy Savage has a statement to make. He more or less declares himself the number one contender for the world title. He and Sean watch on the screen as Gene and Sherri come into the arena. She calls Warrior out, saying how honorable he is. More or less she tries to seduce him into giving Savage the next title shot. Naturally since he’s the Warrior and well past certifiable, he turns her down despite her being on her knees in front of him.

We do find out that Warrior’s eyes are hazel. This is just amusing to see as the acting is painfully bad. Warrior is the better of the two as the only thing he says is NO one time at the very end. To be fair though, I think this was meant to be awful. The pop for her getting down on her knees is WAY bigger than it should be.

Warrior looks odd in his gear, the belt and a leather jacket with a flag on the back. The belt is purple by the way. In the back, Savage is TICKED, destroying his locker room and sprinting off after Warrior.

Big Boss Man vs. Barbarian

This was during what was likely Boss Man’s biggest storyline as a face, as he was feuding with the Heenan Family one by one over comments that Rick Rude had made about Boss Man’s mother. It would culminate with Boss Man vs. Perfect at Mania, where for some reason that absolutely no one gets, Boss Man didn’t win the Intercontinental Title, which more or less ended him being an important character.

This is just another match so it’s likely going to be a glorified squash. Piper says Heenan is intelligent. I’m blown away. This is power vs. power obviously but they’re doing the right thing here and having them go back and forth with big shots. That’s the best way to do these if there is such a thing I guess. Bossman really was talented. Somehow this is probably the best Barbarian match ever.

Boss Man at least made you want to care about a match, which is a lot more than most characters from this time were able to do. After a decent display of back and forth stuff, we naturally hit the bearhug because it wouldn’t be a Barbarian match without one I guess. The crowd is staying in this one so I have to hand it to them. They do some more slow stuff but for some reason this is holding my interest very well.

Both hit their finishers but both opponents get the ropes. Or at least Barbarian was supposed to, but he never actually reached it. He goes for a piledriver and I think Boss Man slipped out of it or something but it looked pretty bad. Crowd is quiet now. Scratch that. I like Boss Man’s shirt coming open like it does. It gives him that working man look that I think was part of what they were going for with him. Little things like that can make a character so points for it.

In one of the weirdest endings I can ever remember, Barbarian goes up for a freaking cross body from the top but Boss Man rolls through it for the pin. Well that was odd. During the celebration they go slow motion on Boss Man on the ropes raising his arms which looks really cool.

Rating: B. This was a lot better than I expected. They took two guys of the same style and got a solid match out of them. That’s just flat out impressive. This could have been far worse but it really was entertaining. Boss Man had that it factor around this time that made you care about him and that’s exactly what happened here. For some reason all that got him was a Mania match with Perfect where he didn’t get the belt or a rematch but whatever. This was a lot better than I expected it to be.

Iron Sheik and Slaughter have a bit to say. Slaughter’s chin puts Jay Leno’s to shame. He’s just flat out creepy actually which is a good thing. He says that he’ll be the new leader and you haven’t even begun to see turmoil yet. So is he saying he’ll be an awful leader that causes turmoil? Apparently that’s an order.

Gene is with Warrior, who he calls orier. That just came out as odd. Speaking of odd, Gene tries his best to walk Warrior through a coherent promo but the guy whispers almost everything he says and it’s just hard to understand. He says he’ll win I think.

WWF Title: Sgt. Slaughter vs. Ultimate Warrior

Gorilla has to give a disclaimer about Slaughter’s views, saying they don’t reflect Arab Americans or the WWF. Piper goes nuts as a patriot, talking about how the troops are fighting for freedom. There’s a complete argument there that I’ll stay out of. Piper says we ain’t talking skim milk here. I love Piper’s complete insanity. How exactly does one go bananas? Warrior really was WAY over. How did he manage to screw this up?

Warrior beats up the likely senior citizen Sheik and rips up the Iraqi flag. You have to be interested in how war validates things that would otherwise never be allowed. Warrior hits a knee lift, which I’ve never seen him do otherwise. The commentators are so unbelievably biased here it’s unreal. Slaughter really was good as a bumper. For no apparent reason, here’s Sherri with her fine figure. That thing really is impressive.

Warrior’s isn’t bad either, but that could be because his tights are white which I have a bit of a thing for. She gets Warrior’s attention and he chases her back to the entrance where Savage is waiting on him. He beats Warrior up for a bit which of course the referee sees none of, despite Savage wearing BRIGHT PINK clothing against a black backdrop. Yeah that just blends in perfectly.

Ah but there’s the USA chants and the power of patriotism gets Warrior up again. Wisely, Slaughter keeps stopping the count. Roddy, being a decent analyst, points out that very thing. In a bit of forshaddowing, Slaughter does a version of the Hogan ear bit. It’s all Slaughter right now as he spits on Warrior. Yep that’s some great offense. He’s also rocking the curled up boots which are a fashion risk but I’d wear them.

A double clothesline takes both guys down. In a dumb looking spot, Slaughter follows Warrior around with his arms up for a double axe and then puts on a bear hug. You would have to see it to get why it was stupid. Ah, the powers of patriotism are rising up again! Apparently that only works for the yellow and red though as Warrior is still in trouble. Gorilla says Warrior is only half conscious right now.

Wow he’s in better shape than usual. Warrior gets out of the bear hug with a double axe that I don’t think actually hit. The comeback lasts just a bit though as Warrior obviously doesn’t love America enough. He must be a commie or something. Oh wait. He’s from Parts Unknown. Everything is explained now. The Cobra Clutch, which in this case means a camel clutch, is on put Warrior’s legs are hanging out. In a weird camera angle the referee is blocked by the guys so it looks like there’s no one there.

Why is the camel clutch used primarily by Arab themed wrestlers? Think about it: Sheik, Sultan, Muhammad Hassan, Slaughter in this gimmick. What’s the deal with that? Vince may not be racist but he tends to have a lot of racial stereotypes to his characters. Here comes Warrior’s Hulk impression as he can’t feel pain. Warrior hits a flying shoulder which Gorilla calls a heabutt. Well that wasn’t even close.

That’s by far the biggest mistake Gorilla has made that I can remember. Sherri is back again as you can see the screwjob coming. Being the genius that he is, Warrior does the same thing he did earlier which resulted in him getting beaten up. This time though he press slams Sherri as Savage runs out. Slaughter knees Warrior in the back to put him in position for a 619, but Savage blasts him with the scepter.

An elbow drop of all things gives Slaughter the title in a move that really should have come four months earlier to get maximum heat. Piper is FURIOUS. I love how the madder he got the higher pitched his voice got. Warrior runs to the back presumably to get Savage as Slaughter is awarded the title. Everyone is TICKED, with Piper being the most of them all. Slaughter the solider holding a purple belt is rather amusing looking.

Rating: D. This was all about the angle. As for the match: it was awful. Granted given the two guys out there, what were you really expecting? This was all about setting up Mania though, and it did a great job of that.

Still though, the timing of the war ending really hurt them, which is why having Hogan get it back here and then doing something else at Mania would have worked better. What that something else would have been is beyond me though. Maybe Hogan vs. Savage again or something like that, but as it turned out the moment was good, but not in the real world terms. As for this, the match was bad but the angle was good, simple as that.

Savage and Sherri are with Sean and say that this was because Warrior said no to Savage. Randy says that he’s the best ever as someone is trying to get in, presumably the Warrior.

Piper and Gorilla are mad. Monsoon is rocking some purple glasses.

Gene is with the new champion and Sheik. They cut him off as Slaughter says I told you so. That belt looks odd indeed.

Gorilla calls Slaughter the Ultimate Puke. WOW. Piper rips his own headset off so he can curse for a bit. That was one of the funniest bits I’ve ever seen and it was completely unintentional.

Mountie vs. Koko B. Ware

This is cut from the Coliseum Video version and incredibly rare, but I got lucky and found an original recording of the show. I’ll go with a very condensed version here though as it’s a ten minute squash. This is the debut of the Mountie character who was either a bad comedy bit or the results of a Vince coke binge. For those that have noticed I make a lot of cocaine references, think about it.

For one thing, it was the 80s when cocaine was running rampant. Second, there are a ton of stories of Vince being a coke head at times. Third, is there any way that he could come up with half of his ideas without drug use? I mean really, Repo Man? Anyway, let’s get to the Hall of Famer Koko’s latest masterpiece. WOW this is boring.

It’s a squash, but it’s the kind that’s supposed to let Mountie show off all of his stuff, but the problem is it’s just putting the people to sleep. I have a feeling I know how this is going to end, which makes it all the more stupid to have to go this long just to get to that one moment. Yep there it is: Mountie shocks him. That’s the whole point of this match: getting that into the Mountie’s system. Wow that was brutal.

Rating: D. This was pretty bad. It was a waste of 10 minutes in what should have been a 4-5 minute match. Why did we need to see all of Mountie’s stuff? Better yet, why did we need Koko’s? This was about the Mountie, but they gave Koko all of that offense. It makes him look like he has trouble beating a simple jobber which is the last thing you want to do with a heel character. I don’t get this.

Some people talk about their relatives in the war. Ok, we get it: the WWF supports the troops. Holy throat crammage Vince let it go. Note: saying guys and gals sounds freaking stupid. They’re girls or women, not gals. It’s not the freaking 50s anymore.

Children attempting to be sentimental should be dragged through the streets attached to a chariot and then set on fire as goats eat their flesh. Or even worse: be forced to listen to how annoying they sound. I don’t like kids on camera in case you couldn’t tell. Now regular kids I love spending time with as they’re cool, but not kids on a camera that are “so adorable.” No, they’re really not.

Apparently Hulk wanted to go to the Middle East and visit the troops but the Department of Defense stopped him so he’s going to bases in America. Not sure if that’s true, but if it is, that’s pretty cool even if it was the company’s idea and not Hulk’s.

Jake Roberts says he wants Martel.

Earthquake says a lot of people are going to come after him and he’s ready. He calls out some guys, including Hogan and Taker. Yeah that’s brilliant buddy.

Greg Valentine, sweating profusely for some reason, says bring them on.

Texas Tornado says he’ll win. I always liked him.

The LOD say that if life is a roller coaster you wouldn’t want to ride them. Um, ok?

Brother Love speaks for Taker, saying that he’ll bury 29 men. I love how so many people assume that there will be no eliminations by the time they get there.

Duggan says he’ll win. He punches his board for no reason.

Martel says he’ll look good while he wins. He’s ripped here.

Davey Boy Smith says he’s glad he’s a bulldog. Ok then.

Perfect and Heenan say that Perfect will be the last man standing.

Tugboat says he’ll jump right in the middle of things and if it comes down to him and Hulk, TOOT! That made less than zero sense.

Piper has been working with Virgil. Oh dear.

DiBiase says Virgil is more or less his slave. That looks like a face’s face to me on Virgil. Nah that could never happen though. Perish the thought!

Dustin/Dusty Rhodes vs. Ted DiBiase/Virgil

Dusty and Ted had been feuding since Summerslam and Dustin had been in the crowd at SNME watching his dad when Ted went after him. The rest is about what you would expect. Dusty was gone less than a month after this, heading back to WCW though so there we are. No polka dots either darn the luck. Apparently they’re Americana. Oh great. If nothing else here the two theme songs are so awesome words can’t describe it.

They’re really building up the Virgil face turn here as they have been lately. My goodness Dusty is fat. Dustin is a complete rookie here with very little experience. He was naturally talented though so he’s not bad. A big brawl starts us out here as it occurs to me how little experience Virgil has in the ring. Dustin is WAY taller than Virgil and it looks quite funny.

It’s also amusing that of these four, Dustin would have by far the most successful WWF career. The future gold enthusiast has to duck under Virgil’s leapfrog. It never really occurred to me how tall Dustin is. DiBiase says Virgil is embarrassing him and Virgil is frustrated. You can feel the turn coming and you know it’s going to be awesome. We’re about five minutes in and Dusty hasn’t been in yet.

You know what, I’m not even going to bother typing the joke here. You all know what’s coming. Dusty, I’m begging you, either put a shirt on, hit a gym, or invest in blow away. You need it. After Virgil and Dustin come in, Dustin hits his knee on the buckle and is down. Naturally (oh I kill myself sometimes) the heels work it over. Just like Jesse used to, Piper gets a bit annoyed with Gorilla’s babbling about what body part is hurt.

He says Dustin’s leg is hurt, end of discussion, and that’s why Piper is awesome. Virgil accidentally hits DiBiase and gets punched and chopped for his efforts. Dustin and Dusty are really just placeholders for DiBiase and Virgil here. As I type this Dusty goes from being dominant to getting rolled up and pinned. Well that was pretty weak. However, we have a post match angle here. Roddy says that the father and son can come back.

Granted they both did but a good many years later. Ted says that Virgil has his price and that he needs to put the belt around his waist. Oh and he insults Dusty and Dustin. The Virgil chant is massive here and the countdown is on. Virgil really is built. Piper is disgusted by Virgil giving in again and washes his hands of him. That lasts all of about 20 seconds though as Virgil throws the belt down. He eventually gets on his knees after DiBiase orders him around even more.

DiBiase turns around and Virgil blasts him in the face with the belt. The crowd E-FREAKING-RUPTS over this. For years and years DiBiase had ordered him around and made him look pathetic and finally Virgil had enough. The payoff was completely worth it here in a very cool moment that had me smiling.

Rating: B. I’m going B here because this wasn’t as much of a match rather than an angle. The angle after the match was just flat out awesome. That needed to happen and they built it up beautifully. They had a match at Mania which Virgil won by count out. The problem was simple though: what in the world do you do with Virgil now? He had no gimmick and he just kind of floundered after this, but dang it was a great moment.

Time for more Rumble promos.

Tugboat uses a bunch of boat analogies which make me think Shockmaster was the better of his gimmicks.

Smash reminds me of the Joker for some reason.

Dino Bravo says he’s not afraid of Earthquake.

Crush says no one will be safe, not even Smash.

Perfect says he’s the only perfect athlete and he’ll win.

Hogan of course gets his own special interview where he says exactly what you would expect him to say. He dedicates the match to the troops. Say it with me: Hulk will win. In between the promo, Gene gets a message saying that Slaughter has just defaced the American flag. Yeah that’s not foreshadowing Mania at all.

In one of the absolute funniest things I can ever remember, Hogan forgets the name of the Iraqi leader (Sadaam Hussein). That was PRICELESS. He dedicates the match to the troops and freaks out over the flag issue, but wait, who are they fighting again? That was great.

Royal Rumble

It never ceases to amaze me how great the pops are for the Rumble. Bret is number one. That’s saying a lot for what they knew he had. Two is Bravo as we go over the rules. His hair is dark blond here and it looks bad. Naturally Bret looks great out there. This right here is why you need to keep an eye on your midcard and tag guys (the few that are left): you never know what kind of greatness you’ll be seeing.

The tag line of OVW is Tomorrow’s Superstars Today. Considering at a WWE house show in 2002 I saw two guys named Prototype and Leviathan go at it, truer words have never been spoken. Those two would later be known as John Cena and Batista, so there you are. Bret almost immediately gets Bravo out but not quite. They discuss the Iron Man record which is a by comparison pathetic 44 minutes at the moment.

Three is Greg Valentine. He goes after Bravo despite his being a heel at the time. Hammer puts him out, and Piper starts writing stuff down just as he did at Survivor Series. It was funny then and it’s still kind of funny now. In at four is Paul Roma. For the life of me, this guy was a Horsemen? I will never understand that no matter how long I think about it. Maybe I shouldn’t try to. Maybe that’s the secret to it.

Bret is really being pushed as a big deal here which is certainly a good thing. In a smart move, Bret just sits back and lets Hammer and Roma fight. See, that’s something almost no one does but Bret is smart enough to do it. Kerry Von Erich is fifth, giving us two faces and two heels. Piper apparently has issues with calling so much action at once. There’s two fights. How is that hard? Martel is in next, which is pretty lackluster.

I guess we’re setting up the jobbers for the big name to come in and clean house. We get some heel on heel violence as this is just boring. Saba Simba comes in at seven to dead silence. Even Gorilla isn’t sure of his name. He’s cut up pretty well though. You guys know him better as Tony Atlas. In a dumb thing, all six guys are in one corner. That’s just not right. Tornado has the claw on Roma for no apparent reason.

In at 8 is Butch to up the level of talent out there. Simba and Model both go over but Martel saves himself so we’re still at 6. In case you’re wondering, it’s Hart, Valentine, Von Erich, Martel, Butch and Roma. Despite commentating on it a second ago, Gorilla has forgotten about Saba being tossed. These matches go a lot faster when I’m reviewing them.

Jake comes in at 9 and of course goes right for Martel who had tried to blind him recently. This led to the blindfold match at Mania which just gets dumber and dumber every time I see it.

In a funny spot, Martel tries to eliminate himself but isn’t allowed to. We hit double digits with Hercules. The ring is WAY too full right now as we need someone to come in and clear out some of these guys. This is a lot of punching and kicking and bad attempts to throw someone out. There are eight guys out there at the moment and there’s the clock.

The eleventh entrant is Tito Santana to even further overfill the ring. Roma goes out to get us back down to eight. After about a minute the clock is up again for number twelve, which is THANK GOODNESS the Undertaker. We needed a monster to clear out some of these guys, so let’s see what he’s got. He dumps Hart in about four seconds. Taker no sells the Tornado Punch as Von Erich is a pure jobber at this point despite being IC Champion very recently.

About a minute and a half after Taker gets in, Snuka comes in at 13. Ring is WAY too full. Butch is thrown out by Taker as well to get us to eight guys out there. To recap, it’s Taker, Valentine, Martel, Hercules, Von Erich, Snuka, Santana and Roberts. Valentine and Von Erich are trying to get rid of Taker. The huge amount of people in the ring is just killing this thing. Again with the shortchanging of the clock! It’s British Bulldog to get us to 9 people in the ring. That’s just absurd.

Snuka just doesn’t look right with an afro and long tights. That’s just odd. It’s the soon to be gone Smash in at 15. Well if nothing else the ending should be good. Jake goes out to get us back down to nine in there as that just sounds stupid. Martel has a freaking scary look on his face. Hawk is the first of the second half as this match is just bad. There are too many people and there’s been more or less no story at all.

All we have here is a bunch of people leaning on the ropes and punching each other. To make this even BETTER, Shane freaking Douglas is in at 17. Dang what were they thinking on this show? It’s awful. Yes he was in WWF for awhile. We finally get rid of a bit of the crap out there as Von Erich and Superfly both go out within about 5 seconds of each other. Note: I don’t think they’re bad wrestlers, but they’re just filler here and everyone knows it.

There’s no 18, and Gorilla speculates that someone was afraid to come in. It was supposed to be Savage but he was running from the Warrior so there’s your explanation that comes at the end of the match. Piper says that the 18th entrant has until the clock starts to still come in. Doesn’t the clock always run but we just don’t see it? Why am I trying to make sense of him? 19 is Animal so we have the LOD in there together.

Apparently 18 has forfeited his spot according to the great and mighty Gorilla. Hawk and Animal put out Taker and then Hercules and Martel put out Hawk just afterwards. At least the numbers are going down a bit. There’s only eight in there now with 11 more to come. Crush of Demolition cracks the twenties.

At the moment we have Crush, Smash, Martel, Valentine, Animal, Santana, Davey Boy, Shane and Hercules and all of them are joined by Duggan at 21. He throws the board down and I guess we’ll call it runs to the ring.

Twenty two is Earthquake. Please, I beg of you, get rid of some of these guys! He takes out Animal pretty quickly. About maybe 80 seconds after Quake comes out, the Perfect entrant is in at 23. Even Piper thinks something is wrong with the clock. Perfect is more or less crawling to the ring. It took about 30 seconds to get there. That’s saying a lot. He does take out Duggan so that’s better than nothing I guess.

Wow we’re running low on people left to come in. They’re talkinga bout how long some of the people have been in there and it really is impressive. The twenty fourth is HOGAN! Yep, he should get a few people out. He gets a massive pop, so naturally he gets beaten on by Smash and Perfect. Never mind as Smash is gone almost immediately. He’s on Earthquake now as I don’t remember seeing a crowd freak out that fast after being dead for so long before.

The twenty fifth is Haku as we’re really getting close here. Hogan puts out Valentine who was in there for forty four minutes, just shy of DiBiase’s record. Martel just looks dead out there. Neidhart comes in next to get us down to four to go. Tito punches the tar out of Earthquake and is then thrown over with ease. Oh look. It’s Luke in at 27. Bets on how bad this will go anyone? He steps in, Quake grabs him and takes him to the other side of the ring and he’s gone in four seconds.

Well then there you go. To his credit he never stopped marching. Quake actually uses a full nelson on Hogan. Wow that’s like, a real wrestling move. That’s surprising. Nasty Boy Knobbs is the first of the final three. Man was the Brawler busy or something tonight? The penultimate spot goes to Warlord as absolutely nothing of note is going on here. Hercules is dumped out. Hogan tosses Crush as I just want to get to the end of this now.

Martel has the Iron Man record. Hogan knocks out Warlord as we’re at the last countdown of the match, and number 30 is Tugboat, thereby confirming that Savage no showed. Ok, so remaining in the match we have Hogan, Earthquake, Tugboat, Martel, Perfect, Douglas, Knobbs, Bulldog, Haku and Neidhart. See what I mean when I say this isn’t much of a Rumble? They figure out that Warrior ran Savage off. Knobbs throws out Douglas.

Wow that kind of shows where his career was at. Tugboat picks up Hogan and dumps him to the apron, so Hogan throws him out. He would turn heel in a few months based mainly on this, becoming Typhoon and more or less saving his career, before a good bit of electrocution ended that. Bulldog hits an amazing dropkick on Perfect to put him out. Perfect was sitting on the top rope and Smith caught him with at least one foot square in the face. That was impressive.

Martel actually puts Neidhart out clean. That’s very surprising. Smith puts Haku out with a backdrop as we’re trying to get rid of the jobbers. Smith follows that up with a clothesline to put Martel out to a pop. That’s saying a lot that the fans noticed that. I’m proud of them for that one. That gets us to the final four of Smith, Hogan (there’s a pairing that could have been interesting to say the least), Earthquake and…..Brian Knobbs?

And people say Hogan didn’t do good stuff for his friends. The heels team up and knock out Smith to get us to three. Hmm, I never thought I’d see this: Hogan stuck against two heels. I mean, this could never happen! How could he possibly get out of this one??? To further secure the Hogan victory, Earthquake hits the Earthquake and of course pops up. Piper cheering Hogan is just flat out wrong on so many levels. A boot takes out Knobbs and it’s Hogan vs. Earthquake.

Surprisingly they go at it for awhile with Quake dominating. And of course Hogan winds up winning it. After another Hulk Up, Hogan knocks out Quake with a clothesline. A HUGE celebration ends with Hogan waving the flag to emphasize America is Great angle of the show.

Rating: D+. This was just bad. It was boring for the most part with Hogan’s winning being about as obvious as you could possibly imagine. Martel was the only running story and you knew he wouldn’t stand a chance at all. Seriously, Brian freaking Knobbs was in the final three. How does that make a good match? It felt like a bunch of jobbers just killing time for Hogan, which is exactly what it was. That doesn’t make a good Rumble at all.

Overall Rating: C-. We have a great opening match, a decent match, a bad squash, a very bad title match that was all about building up Mania, another bad match and a very lackluster Rumble. My goodness that Rockers/Express match carried a lot of this show, and that’s just not a good thing.

It’s just not that good overall and while it has some moments, it’s just not there. I think Vince started realizing that this formula wasn’t working and he needed to change a thing or two, and DANG did he ever for next year. This show isn’t worth seeing, but the Rockers vs. Express match is must see stuff.

 

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Summerslam 1992
Date: August 29, 1992 (aired on PPV August 31, 1992)
Location: Wembley Stadium, London, England
Attendance: 80,355
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan

We’re a year removed from the nearly complete and utter crap that was Summerslam 1991. After Warrior was fired, he was back a mere 6 months later to save Hogan from getting beaten up by Sid. After a feud with Papa Shango, he was given a world title match at Summerslam against Macho. However, Flair and Perfect were still mad that Flair had never gotten his title match, so they’ve injected themselves into this.

The story goes like this: Flair says that they’ll be in the corner of one guy, but they won’t say whom. Both Savage and Warrior think someone is going to turn and the fans bought into it completely. Even I thought someone was going to turn. That’s main event #1. #2, and the real main event, was Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith for the IC Belt. This had another great storyline attached to it as Smith’s wife was Bret’s sister.

The angel was that she couldn’t decide whom to cheer for, which makes sense as who are you supposed to side with in a match like that? There’s no right or wrong answer and she eventually went with she hoped no one got hurt. That match is considered by many to be the greatest match of all time.

Now I’m not sure if I’d go that far, but it’s way up there. However, that’s more or less the only match most people remember from the show. This was the first PPV in a country other than the US or Canada, so let’s see how the first truly international show is.

So yeah, screw this up and had written all the way up to the start of Warrior/Savage and the computer died, ending my file which is going to have to be redone. I’m a bit ticked off about that. Actually I’m a lot ticked off about that. Let’s get this freaking thing going…again.

We open the show outside for no apparent reason as we hear the opinions of the fans of whose corner Perfect would be in. Dang some of these people are hard to understand. Learn English people. One of the kids says Bulldog is going to win, whether he wants to or not. Uh, I’m not the smartest wrestling fan in the world, but wouldn’t you want to win every match you’re in?

We hear some horns playing and more random shots of London before going to the stadium. The only thing I can say: DANG! This place looks awesome as the whole place is full and it’s second only to WM 3 as far as I can remember. Heenan is wearing a crown of course. Vince says this is the Summerslam you thought you’d never see.

I know 91 sucked but were they not planning on having another one after it? Were there issues in the company that I just didn’t recall? That’s Vince for you though as he rarely made sense. I have three dark matches on my tape, so let’s get to them.

Jim Duggan/Bushwackers vs. Mountie/Nasty Boys

Matches like these, which are usually not shown on official releases, are always cool to see because they’re unique. Not to mention it’s bonus wrestling so how can it be a bad thing? Mountie’s music is just nothing short of great. He sings it on the way to the ring, adding in commentary to it as he goes. That’s either brilliant or stupid. Heenan makes a Michael Jackson reference.

This is being written for the second time on the 4th of July, ten days after his death, and it still is hard to comprehend that the King of Pop is dead. Heenan goes on to say that New Zealand is a suburb of London as Shadow is face palming. For some reason Duggan, one of the biggest patriots in wrestling history, is cheered. Only a British crowd would chant USA in London for a team mainly made of people from New Zealand.

Both teams try to get cheers from the crowd in a bit of a contest to start. After two of these we get going. I always loved the Bushwackers, mainly because one of them, I believe Luke, licked me at a house show when I was 3-4 years old. Bobby is on fire here with the jokes. This is following a very simple formula: little wrestling, little brawling, lather rinse and repeat. The heels take over or it wouldn’t be a traditional tag match.

As this happens, the fans chant Butch. There’s a bunch of jokes there but I’d get banned for them. The Wackers use their battering ram on a pile of the guys in the corner, bringing forth the really bad Earl of Sandwich jokes from Vince. The bias from Vince is just flat out sad as he cheers when faces cheat and claims it’s horrid when heels do it. I get that he’s a face commentator but this is boarder line Gorilla Monsoon territory.

In a bit of a weird spot, Knobbs and Mountie lock hands for a double clothesline but instead use a boot to the stomach. Just looked odd to me. The announcers argue over the rules again and Heenan asks what’s in Vince’s book? That’s a very interesting idea actually. Can you imagine what a real Vince McMahon autobiography, as in not a WWE-PG one would be like? Some of the stories in there would be insane.

Duggan comes in and amazingly enough we get a big brawl. I think they botch the spot at the end again here as Duggan is set for the three point clothesline but Mountie doesn’t get up. Duggan goes to pick him up but Mountie gets up on his own and Duggan gets back in position, so maybe he was just late. Sags misses a top rope elbow onto Mountie to end it as Duggan gets the pin.

Rating: B. This was perfect for an opening dark match. It wasn’t serious in the slightest and was there to do nothing but get the crowd into the show. That’s just fine and it worked perfectly. Nothing great, but to open the action for a major PPV, this was just fine.

Papa Shango vs. Tito Santana

Now with Shango you have someone that absolutely scared the living tar out of me. He was the voodoo guy and he actually beat up the Warrior. That’s saying a lot when you think about it. Their blowoff match was in Rupp Arena so I was likely there for it. Shango was coming off a huge program with Warrior and they weren’t sure what to do with him at the moment as is evidenced here with him in a dark match.

Santana was in his El Matador gimmick at the time which was the height of stupidity. These two might add up to being the dumbest collection of gimmicks in one place at one time until being eclipsed by the gimmick battle royal. Santana was a guy a lot like Finlay or Regal today in that he could have a very solid match with just about anyone. Since he can do that, why would you ever get rid of him?

That’s what Vince realized so even once Tito was no longer a major player, you could still put him into a program and get a solid performance that you could depend on out of him. That’s a great asset to have and will almost always guarantee you at least employment. Santana gets NO reaction at all. They go back and forth for a bit, but Shango more or less no sells the big forearm, meaning that the move that nearly knocked Savage out isn’t good enough to get a two on a guy like Shango.

The ideas around finishing moves apparently depend on your place on the card which has always seemed bogus to me. He’s rocking the pink boots here, offering further proof that only Bret Hart can pull that off.

Now he hits another forearm and it’s a move of death, so thanks for the continuity there guys. I watch this match and the idea of how absurd Shango’s character is begins to dawn on me. A voodoo medicine man is supposed to have tights, wrist tape, weigh in and have boots? Anyway, he hits what has to be the worst finishing move possible: the shoulder breaker, to pin Santana.

Rating: D+. Yeah this was bad. It just never felt like it got going at all. Shango just didn’t know how to make a match work and with the shoulder breaker, he looked absurd out there. A character like his could have worked very well, but he just didn’t get the way the thought process should have been going at all.

Tatanka vs. Berserker

If you recall what I said about two gimmicks never being more absurd, forget it. These two are miles beyond what the last match had to offer. Tatanka is the Native American and Berserker is a Viking that wants to stab people. I say this with all sincerity: I wonder how many people there had no clue what Tatanka was. Apparently quite a few as he gets a big pop.

I think this match was actually filmed after the show as it’s completely dark except for the lights now, as opposed to the previous matches where sunlight could have lit the arena. For no good reason at all, Tatanka beats him up for the opening of this match. In the only interesting thing you’ll hear from Vince all night, Tatanka means Raging Buffalo. The structure to the ring is kind of weird as there’s the aisle and then some steps to get to what we would call the outside.

I kind of like that, but it’s similar to the setup that caused the end of Rick Rude’s career. They fight on the floor and the racial stereotype takes Berserker down the mini stairs to slam him and then comes back up them. After that waste of time it’s more stereotyping as the Papoose To Go ends it. I wonder if I can get a Papoose for eating in?

Rating: C. It was better than the previous match but that’s really not saying a lot. There was just a weird flow to this match and while it wasn’t horrid, it certainly wasn’t something you wanted to see more of.

Now it’s time for the real show as we get a very standard yet good early 90s opening. In something I like we just go straight to the first match.

Money Inc. vs. LOD

This was in the middle of the interesting three way feud over the tag titles between these four and the champions, the Natural Disasters. Of course, that would all be thrown out the window so Hulk and Beefcake could fight the mega heels at Mania. Part of the reason that match wasn’t the LOD somehow was because of what you’re about to see here: Rocko the Dummy. Yes you read that right.

For some reason that only Vince would know, the LOD were given back their old manager Paul Ellering (which was fine, although it would have been nice for them to tell us who in the world he was as he was their manager in the NWA). The problem came with Ellering’s friend Rocko. Rocko was a ventriloquist dummy. There was nothing more to it than that. He was a wooden dummy that the manager would bring with him and he would talk in the promos.

At least with Head and Al Snow it was a joke. This was with a serious tag team. Hawk got sick of it and quit very soon, maybe even at this show but I’m not sure. Anyway, the intro for the LOD is sweet as all three come in on Harleys. That’s actually really awesome looking, aside from the dummy being on the fornt of the first bike.

As if that’s not enough, Paul carries the stupid thing around at the ring. No wonder Hawk quit over this nonsense. Vince says that the LOD are known for being strong and for their great psychology. Excuse me for one second.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

LOD having freaking PSYCHOLOGY??? WOW, and I thought the people that want Kane to remask were imbeciles. They hit people hard. That’s their psychology I supposed. Yeah, that’s just a freaking joke all around. After I laugh very hard at that, I come to a screeching halt as I see something that’s just an ungodly abomination upon mankind.

Ted DiBiase, the Million Dollar Man, to me the greatest heel of all time, is wearing WHITE TIGHTS!!! WHAT IN THE HECKIS THIS NONSENSE??? DIBIASE, A HEEL, DOES NOT WEAR WHITE!!! EVER SINCE HE DEBUTED IT’S BEEN BLACK WITH DOLLAR SIGNS, BUT NOW HE’S WEARING WHITE??? THAT JUST DOES NOT WORK!!! After about three minutes of frustration, I think I’m ok now.

After Hawk beats him up for a minute (absolutely right he should get beaten up) both tag, as Vince says Animal will now start the match for his team. Riiiiiight. The LOD get beaten up with sleepers and a slam on the floor by white tights Magee over there. Not only that but his kneepads are long so it looks like he’s wearing stripper boots. Hart is yelling at Paul about the puppet on the floor which shows that Hart is always thinking out there.

He’s a bit annoying but the guy has always been around and always works as hard as he could. The heels dominate much of this which makes perfect sense here as they’re the thinking wrestlers and all they had to do was wait for LOD to make a mistake. Wow both the heels are over 260? That’s a big surprising.

Eventually Animal gets tagged in and the LOD starts throwing Money Inc. all over the ring. The ending comes out of almost nowhere as they get DiBiase up but IRS dropkicks Animal so he drops him. DiBiase gets powerslammed and pinned to end it. Just a very abrupt ending.

Rating: C+. Certainly not a bad match, but it just didn’t have any flow and while it was a 12 minute match, it felt like about 5. DiBiase’s tights are something I just can’t let go as it’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a long time. This just felt really fast and the ending looked odd to me. Not bad, but just didn’t work that well in my eyes.

In the back, Flair, in his wrestling attire despite not wrestling that night, which is a thread in and amongst itself, is with Gene. I really like this promo by Flair as Gene is demanding to know where Mr. Perfect is. He asks if Perfect is with Savage. Flair opens his mouth and then chuckles. He asks if Perfect is with Warrior.

Flair opens his mouth and then chuckles. Gene demands to know the whereabouts of Mr. Perfect. Flair says “why, he’s in the dressing room of course!” Whose dressing room? “Why, the dressing room of the winner of course. WHOO!” This comes off really well as Flair is just epic on the stick here.

We go over to Sean Mooney and Virgil, who is fighting Nailz tonight. More on Nailz later. Virgil is REALLY bad at promos. He shouts on weird words, he moves around too much, and I think he had 5 catchphrases inside of a 40 second promo. I feel sorry for the heat he gets though. I’ve heard stories of him being at wrestling conventions and autograph shows where he’ll sit at his table for 5 hours and maybe get 4 people that talk to him.

No he wasn’t ever a big star but he’s bigger than that. He’s wrestled at Wrestlemania and Starrcade, so it’s not like he’s never done anything of note. I’d certainly talk to him for awhile. Apparently he’s trying to get revenge for his best friend (WTF??) the Big Boss Man.

Nailz vs. Virgil

Nailz is a character that it’s very possible a lot of you don’t remember and that’s very understandable as he was on the roster less than a year. He had a great bit of psychology to him because he was supposed to be a convict that Boss Man had beaten up in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit. Therefore, Nailz had no training and only used punches, chokes and kicks etc. That makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

After a match Boss Man had with a jobber, Nailz ran out and beat up Boss Man, putting him out for about 5 months. This match is for Virgil to try to get some revenge for his buddy, and you can guess how this is going to go. Before we get to this match though, let’s go over how Nailz left the company because it’s a story unlike any you’ve ever heard. Nailz tried to kill Vince McMahon. I mean that literally, as in he was choking Vince and Vince was turning blue.

Nailz wanted money but Vince wouldn’t give it to him. Obviously, he was fired immediately thereafter. Nailz was also a guy at the steroids trial that was one of the big witnesses, but his testimony was so far over the top that it actually helped Vince out. Nailz was scheduled for a big feud with Taker as they were on the cover of the WWF magazine, had a staredown on Superstars and had some house show matches.

It’s saying a lot that he was being given Taker to work with and then all that other stuff happened. He was in WCW for all of a week, jobbing to Sting before he was out of the mainstream. Kind of sad as I always liked him.

As for the match, what are you expecting here? It’s a guy that needs wins to prove himself against a glorified jobber. Nailz dominates early but Virgil takes over, leading to the chokeout win. I know that’s really short but that’s the commentary for the whole match. It’s like 3 minutes long and there’s just nothing at all of note in it. Afterwards Nailz beats up Virgil with the stick.

Rating: C. This was really hard to grade so we’ll call it average I guess. It was a squash and it got the point it was trying to make. Virgil fights but loses while Nailz looks dominant, leading up to the return of the Boss Man and their blowoff match at the Survivor Series.

Alfred Hayes can’t get into Savage’s dressing room.

Shawn Michaels vs. Rick Martel

There’s a very interesting pair of twists here. First of all, both guys are heels. Second, there’s an agreement not to hit each other in the face. That’s not something you hear very often. This is still the boy toy era for Shawn as he wasn’t a huge deal yet but was getting there. Sherri’s outfit has no back so she’s more or less in a thong which Vince notices IMMEDIATELY.

Martel cartwheels out of the way of a backdrop and does some jumping jacks. Shawn takes over for the most part early on and Martel is in trouble. And never mind as it’s more or less even. Shawn pulls back to throw a punch but stops. Martel is the de facto face here which is interesting as he was a pretty solid heel.

Shawn is down on the floor as Martel asks Sherri to come with him. They hug and Shawn doesn’t really see it. The cameraman keeps getting shots of Sherri’s back which isn’t that bad I guess. Both guys use the tights as it’s kind of interesting to see all of the heel vs. heel tactic. Also do you think that’s enough back shots in one match?

Sweet chin music hits the chest which makes sense here. Shawn hits a knee to the face and goes for the ropes with his feet but can’t reach them so the referee stops the count before he got there. In other words he’s not counting because they’re following the rules. Ok then. They start slapping each other and Sherri starts to freak.

They square off with fists up as Sherri “faints”. Dang she falls really well. Vince of course thinks she’s had a heart attack. Shawn DRILLS Martel when he tries to give her mouth to mouth. They slug it out in the aisle and it’s a double countout. Sherri gets up to see what’s going on and then pretends she’s out again.

Shawn comes back to carry her off as Vince and Heenan make jokes. Martel runs down and drills him, sending Sherri crashing to the floor. He picks her up and Shawn drills Martel, sending Sherri flying sprawling to the floor again. This is kind of funny as it’s coming off almost like a Weekend At Bernie’s thing which is meant as a good thing. Martel comes out and throws water on Sherri for no apparent reason.

Rating: B. I really liked this actually. It’s definitely a different kind of idea and it worked very well I thought. It’s not often you get a good heel vs. heel match but you certainly did here. This worked very well and the post match stuff was funny yet good at the same time. I liked this far more than I expected to and it worked well.

The Nasties say they’ll get their tag title shot, but for no reason at all they talk about the world title match. You see the beginnings of Jimmy’s jumping to Money Inc and the to his face turn.

Tag Titles: Beverly Brothers vs. Natural Disasters

I’m sure most of you know who the Natural Disasters are, but how many of you know who the Beverly Brothers are? I’m guessing not many of you, because I can fairly safely say that this is the highlight of the WWF run. I think their gimmick was being spoiled rich kids but that was never really explained. They were really just tag team jobbers and little more.

They were a huge deal in the AWA where they were the only tag team to win rookies of the year. They were gone in less than two years and no one noticed they were gone. Anyway, this is a standard tag with the Naturals dominating early but then the heels taking over as Heenan makes fat jokes. BREAKING NEWS: SHAWN MICHAELS HAS LEFT WEMBLEY! Since Typhoon sucks more than Quake, he’s the face in peril.

A shot to the back with the metal scroll of the Genius has no effect which makes me wonder what the point of that was. Quake beats up the Beverly Brother so Typhoon is on his own and can make the tag. Naturally, the talented Disaster known as Earthquake kicks some Beverly faces in. A brief double team leads to the Earthquake to end this.

Rating: D+. The low rating is for one reason: there is a total and complete lack of drama in this. No one believed the Beverlys had a chance and they didn’t at all. It was a title match for a title match’s sake, which never turns out to be anything good. This was a waste of time, but I guess the match itself was fine.

Gene interviews the Bushwackers who want to talk about Perfect being in someone’s corner. Gene makes some dumb British jokes which aren’t funny.

Alfred Hayes can’t get in Warrior’s dressing room either.

Repo Man vs. Crush

Crush is once again a guy that could have been a big star but he never got a push that he needed. It’s a Demolition reunion here as Smash meets Crush. This is pure filler and nothing but a way to kill some time before the world title match. Repo’s offense is about 9 punches, a thumb to the eye, and a belly to back suplex. That’s it. Other than that, we get Crush using the head vice and dominating the whole thing. Boring and quick match which was just a filler, so how much can I complain?

Rating: C+. This was pure filler so what do you really expect from it? Crush looked dominant so he’ll be getting a bit better push. Oh wait he’s about to start feuding with Doink. Nevermind.

We hit the recap button on Warrior and Savage’s feud which is WAY too long. There’s two holes I see in this storyline. For one, Perfect tells both guys he’ll be in their corner. Ok, that’s fine, but couldn’t either guy put two and two together and get they’re being played? I guess that one’s forgivable though as either guy could have planned to lie to the other one.

However, the one thing I can’t get: if Perfect’s such a great manager, WHY IS THE GUY HE’S MANAGING NOT CHAMPION ALREADY? Since when did Perfect become this hot commodity all of a sudden? Savage’s line of “I’m the WWF Champion and you’re not!” is just great stuff.

WWF Title: Randy Savage vs. Ultimate Warrior

Oh apparently it’s the Ullllllllllllllllllltimate Warrior according to Vince. Of course Perfect doesn’t come out with either guy at first to build even more suspense which is actually a good move. It’s twilight in London so the scene of the whole stadium is really cool looking. Huge staredown to start which shows off the point that Warrior is now wearing a flesh colored singlet. This was huge for the theory that Warrior was on steroids which he pretty much was a guaranteed user of.

The start of this is a style that I like as nearly the first ten minutes is almost completely back and forth work. Neither guy can get anything substantial going and they just hammer away on the other one, looking for an advantage. Savage is getting booed here so I guess he’s supposed to be the heel? Anyway, eventually he takes a slight advantage as he knocks Warrior to the floor.

They come back in and I guess Warrior botches a spot as Savage is trying to pull him into the turnbuckle but Warrior falls short. You can tell it was a botch as they do the exact same thing about two seconds later. In a weird spot that I kind of like, Savage hits the double axe but Warrior does his hulk up thing. The second takes him down, but he catches the third in a powerslam. Just kind of a weird looking sequence.

Anyway, Warrior takes control as we get a nice little story going of neither guy being able to get a definitive advantage going for them. Warrior hurts Savage’s back and Savage hurts Warrior’s neck. They slow it down now with Warrior having a slight advantage. This is a slower paced match which is fine, as it’s going longer so the slow page helps it a lot I think. After a minute or two of this, Perfect and Flair come down.

This is where I really wish they hadn’t been involved, as Warrior and Savage were putting on a great match so far that had me very interested in it. Warrior does something weird (stunning right?) as he slams Savage, goes to the apron, and turns right back around and comes into the ring. What the heck? He misses a splash which he sells like he got shot in the ribs. Vince freaks because Perfect hasn’t gone to either corner.

Since when are there designated corners for a singles match? Perfect pulls the leg of Savage as Warrior is instantly the heel. I know my jokes have been lacking here, but this has been a great match and it’s hard to make fun of something that you really like. I think Warrior has set a record for most body slams in one match. After another one he goes to the top which I guess was the spot he wanted to do earlier. Maybe he stopped because Perfect and Flair were coming.

That would make sense I guess. Oh the ref is down too. He gets up and Warrior argues with him, leading to a much bigger ref bump. Piledriver from Savage which looks awesome. This time Perfect holds Warrior as Flair hits him with, well I guess since we’re in England it’s a natural born object. Savage however doesn’t see it. After slam #38 the elbow hits but due to no referee, we get a two despite Savage pulling the tights which is acknowledged.

Hulk up by Warrior as he starts the sequence that ended Mania 7’s match. Perfect tries to grab his foot during the set up for the splash but Flair gets him with a chair to the back on the other side as everyone is sure Savage is the guy that bought Perfect’s services. Apparently the crack of a chair, Flair moving away suddenly, and the Warrior suddenly falling down on his face aren’t enough proof that he did anything for the referee.

There’s another very nice little touch to this as Savage hasn’t seen anything that Flair or Perfect have done. Earlier the piledriver could have put Warrior down for as long as Savage was helping the referee, but this time he knows he didn’t touch Warrior, so someone else must have. That’s a nice little touch to add to it. Savage is ticked off that someone is helping him, so no one knows what’s going on.

He sets for the elbow but can’t take the win that way, instead jumping at Flair, WHO HAS A CHAIR! The obvious happens and Savage jumps into the chair, knocking himself nearly out as I can barely believe how stupid that was. This leads to the fastest count out of all time in an ending that I’m really not wild about at all. Apparently the chair hit Savage in the knee as Flair and Perfect destroy Savage soon thereafter but Warrior makes the save.

This would lead to the injured knee of Savage that would eventually cost Savage the title to Flair on a match that is very hard to find. The announcers conclude that no one sold out, which is about as obvious as the statement that Vince is an imbecile at times. He goes on to say that both men are champions. Not really Vince, not really. Savage would lose the belt two days later, before one Hitman would win it about a month and a half afterwards.

Warrior hands him the belt and helps him to the back with the music playing as we go to Perfect and Flair in the back. Since this is integral to the match, I’ll lump them together. They say that the deal was made, but it was between Perfect and Flair. They mention Plan B but won’t say what it is. Spoiler: it’s getting the title back to Flair. Gene thinks this is earth shattering news when it’s really not.

Rating: A. The only thing keeping it from being an A+ is the lack of a definitive ending, which I guess was required to have Savage drop the belt two days later. Anyway, this was an excellent match as both guys beat the tar out of each other and neither really gave an inch.

It may not have been as epic as their Mania match, but it’s good on its own. Perfect and Flair added something to it and I’m very glad neither guy turned as it would have hurt the match in my mind. Great match, but somehow this isn’t the best match on the card.

Official Attendance: less than Mania 3 so who cares?

Undertaker vs. Kamala

Harvey Whippleman does Kamala’s intro, saying he’s from the dark continent of Africa. I was under the impression that there’s lots of sunlight in Africa, so is that a very sly racial joke? I was under the impression that Africans’ skin darkened as a natural defense to the amount of sunlight on that continent. Racial stereotypes rule I guess?

Anyway, this is really just a mini-feud for Taker before the Giant Gonzalez shows up, much like, oh I don’t know: THE SAME FREAKING THING THEY DID WITH DAIVARI, MARK HENRY, MUHAMMAD HASSAN AND KHALI??? Could that be it? Could it be that they just took the EXACT same stupid story and redid it, hoping that no one was watching 13 years ago? Yep, that’s exactly what they did.

I swear these jokes write themselves when you’re making fun of WWE’s writing. Kamala used to scare the HECK out of me when I was like 2 years old. The dude was just freaking creepy. He wants to cook Taker apparently. Taker comes to the ring in the back of a hearse that I think has a sunroof. Oh never mind he’s standing on the bumper. There’s a coffin in the hearse, which is foreshadowing the coffin match at Survivor Series in a month or two.

This is a very quick match and is only to fill in time between the two main events and let the crowd catch its breath for a bit. Taker absolutely destroys him and as he’s going for the tombstone, Kim Chee runs in and hits Taker with his helmet for the DQ. Kamala hits three splashes, including one from the top rope and Taker just sits up. Kamala runs, and we set up for the main event.

Rating: C. I think I’m going to start giving C’s to matches that are too short to grade. The problem is there’s just not enough time in a 3 minute match to tell whether its good or not. It did its job I guess which is to set up the big match next PPV and fill in time here, so I can’t complain I guess.

Mooney is with Davey Boy Smith, talking about the family pressures which was a nice touch that I think the match needed. He says that once they get into the ring, Bret isn’t his brother, but a stranger. Mooney says what will the pressure of wrestling in front of 80,000 people be like. “That’s not pressure. That’s a dream.” That line is either epic or clichéd. Not sure but I’m leaning towards the former.

Bret says that Smith wouldn’t be anything without Bret as Bret introduced Davey to his wife and got him started in the WWF. He says Smith is ungrateful and I am completely hyped for this match.

Some bagpipe players play Roddy Piper’s theme music, which is ALWAYS cool. Oh they’re the Balboa Highlanders. Piper is with them, and the marking out continues as he gets a huge pop. This is actually really cool looking as Piper gets a solo and isn’t half bad. Granted I know nothing about the bagpipes. They play Scotland the Brave, which is an awesome song so this is sweet.

Mooney is with Diana Smith, who says nothing that you wouldn’t expect her to say. Mooney rudely cuts her off and asks who she thinks will win. He cuts her off AGAIN as you can tell she really doesn’t want to do this, or she’s a great actress. Could be a combination of both as this actually isn’t that bad of an interview. She sounds really upset about this, which she should be. Mooney cuts her off a THIRD TIME to send us to ringside. Dang, Mooney was a jerk in this.

Intercontinental Title: Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith

Smith comes out first to the hero’s pop. Lennox Lewis carries the flag for him as a relative unknown at the time which is always cool. The pop for Smith is huge, while Bret gets the textbook definition of a mixed reaction. He’s not exactly a heel, but he’s certainly not the guy the crowd wants to win. As for the match, I’ll be brief about it. I’m sure you’ve all seen it, but if you haven’t, WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

This is an absolute classic and is in the running for greatest match of all time. While it seems that there’s no doubt who would win looking back, at the time, this was a huge upset. Smith had never really done anything of note but was getting the singles push for over a year leading up to this night. Everyone knew Hart was a god in the ring and this was the blowoff match to launch him into the main event scene where he would be for the rest of his career in the WWF.

I’m going to skip the play by play here as I can’t do it justice and go straight to the end of the match. It runs over twenty five minutes as opposed to the already forgotten near 30 minute masterpiece we saw earlier for the world title. Both guys are absolutely spent as this has been back and forth the whole time with Smith wrestling a different style than he usually did and throwing off Bret.

Bret is his traditional perfectly timed self with a balanced assault all around, mainly working on the back though to set up for the Sharpshooter. The crowd is hot the whole match as they pop over every single move. This is a match where it’s two guys doing any move they can think of instead of using the same standard stuff that they always use. Clothesline puts both guys down and Bret tries to do the same thing he did last year to Perfect to get the title in the first place.

Smith does something that’s allegedly never been done and gets to the ropes. Someone else might have done it before but I’m not sure. The announcers royally screw this up by making it sound like Bret had him in a headlock. Hart hits the ropes and goes for a sunset flip and Smith goes for the famous counter of dropping to his knees to get the pin and the title as the place erupts.

The music not playing lets things sink in a bit better as Bret can’t believe it. They announce Smith as the new champion to another epic pop. Bret gets up and eventually holds up Smith’s hand as Diana comes in and they all pose to end the show.

Rating: A+. This is one of the greatest matches of all time and is required viewing for anyone that calls themselves a wrestling fan. That’s all that needs to be said.

Hart would go on to win the WWF Title in October in a complete shock in Canada while Smith would really be a transitional champion, losing to Shawn in about two months to launch Shawn’s singles career. This match and title change was really just for the English fans, but dang, what a treat for them and the moment is certainly worth it.

Overall Rating: A+. This is a fantastic show and unless there’s something I’m completely missing, the best Summerslam ever. The only one that pops into my mind to even approach it would be 2002, but that’s way too far in the future to worry about. There’s two absolute classics along with some other very good stuff.

The fans went home happy, there was a huge crowd, and not really a single bad match as everything is at least watchable. The worst match is by far the tag title match, but even it’s not that bad. Excellent show and it gets my highest recommendation.

Summerslam 1991
Date: August 26, 1991
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 20,000
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Gorilla Monsoon, Roddy Piper

Obviously it’s a year later and there’s few differences. The main one is that Hogan is once again the world champion (stunning isn’t it?) and the Deadman has arrived. Other than that, there are very few differences. Hart is a singles wrestler now, so that’s the last major difference that I was forgetting. This card is really forgotten over time if you look at it from an historical standpoint.

The main event is Hogan and Warrior against Slaughter and his two cronies in a handicap match, meaning that Sheik Adnan al-Kaissie and the Iron Sheik are supposed to be equal to Hogan or Warrior? Remember Adnan? Neither do I. He was a manager in the AWA and that’s about it. The other big deal is tonight is the marriage of Savage and Elizabeth, because marriage, the most holy of unions, has to be on PPV right???

Other than that, this card is really forgettable. The main interesting point in this is what the Warrior did. He allegedly threatened to no show the PPV unless Vince paid him some obscene amount. He pulled this a few days before the PPV, and Vince really had no choice but to do what Warrior said.

This is where the “I couldn’t wait to fire him” line came from. Warrior got to the back after the match and was fired immediately. Other than that, there’s next to nothing of interest here, but I’ve seen worse cards be watchable, so maybe this one will be as well. Let’s find out.

Very standard opening with the song playing and the announcers talking about the big stuff that evening. Standard, but fine I guess.

Ricky Steamboat/Texas Tornado/British Bulldog vs. Warlord/Power and Glory

Steamboat is just called the Dragon here, and this is the famous scene where he’s dressed as a human lizard that breathes fire into the air. That’s a shame that he’s fallen this far this fast. He’d be back in WCW in just a few months where he was at least given some decent feuds and no stupid costume. Commentators completely ignore the match to talk about the matches later on in the show. Wait, they mentioned the six man.

You know I think these six…no it was just a quick thing about it. I feel like I’m watching a Nitro taping. Tornado comes in and all of a sudden they can’t stop talking about the match. I think that’s a bit of a shot at Steamboat by Vince. Literally, he was in there two and a half minutes and got one line about him. He leaves and the commentary is all about the match. We’re about 5 minutes into this and I’m still looking for a point to it.

I think it’s supposed to be Warlord vs. Bulldog, but I’m not sure really. It’s just a random group of faces vs. three heels with the same manager. I’m so utterly bored by this match that I can’t actually think of the words to explain it. It is just so standard and basic that I could see it at an FCW show. The wrestling is fine, but there’s no thought here at all. Faces win.

Rating: D. This was just so boring. Like I said, the wrestling was fine, but dang it was just there. There’s no thought, no story, no reason for this to take place. It’s an ok opener, but I would have wanted to see anything else.

Hey kids! Call this number if you want to hear a prerecorded comment from Savage or Liz about their fake wedding! Your parents won’t mind!

Mr. Perfect says he’s a great champion.

IC Title: Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect

Dang this was on second? This is by far and away the best match on the card and a lot of people, including Norcal, says that it’s one of the best matches ever. These two had such a magnificent chemistry together and it’s hardly ever been topped. I defy you to find a better pair of guys to have such consistent matches with. Stu and Helen are there…again. Has there ever been a match with Bret that they haven’t been at?

You don’t see them at Owen’s matches. No wonder Owen was the bitter one. Coach is there with Perfect, and sadly enough his death got NO coverage due to Misawa dying a day later. They start with a great set of back and forth stuff with no one being able to get an advantage. It’s one of those types of openings where you have a guy in control but he’s not dominating at all. Hart does that here by just having on a basic headlock.

Heenan continues to show why he’s as important as anyone on the roster as his lines about Bret’s parents make you want to cheer for Bret more than anyone else could. Perfect gets his singlet literally ripped apart by Hart which makes him look almost crazed about the match. He looks like he’s in a war despite this having been going about 7 minutes at this point. This is a great dynamic for a match as you have the young lion Bret facing the established veteran in Perfect, who has the exact same style.

Crowd is way into this one too, which is making it better. Perfect’s hair looks like he got a bad shock as his perm has practically exploded. He takes over though as Heenan is singing his praises. We get a hair toss, which isn’t something that you see that often in a men’s match. That would hurt like heck too. Imagine being tossed by your hair. If that’s going to happen to me I better be getting paid for it. There’s a good story playing out here as Perfect counters everything that Hart has.

Hart kicks out of the Perfect Plex as the fans and Heenan lose their minds. Heenan says that no one has ever done that, which is ridiculous as Warrior did it in 1990. Hart brings up the original 5 moves of doom to put Perfect in “a whole heap of trouble.” Coach breaks this up though so Perfect has control again. He drops a let between Bret’s legs and backflips out of it which is cool looking.

He does it again, and in one of the SWEETEST counters I’ve ever seen, Bret grabs his leg, puts the Sharpshooter on him on the mat from his back, spins him over and then pulls back on it for the tap out. That was freaking sweet. Bret runs over to his family to celebrate. We get to hear Stu’s voice, which I never recall hearing other than this.

Rating: A+. These guys were spot on the whole time. It was a nearly 20 minute match and I didn’t see a single botch or anything resembling a botch at all. That counter at the end was absolute perfection and it played so well into the rest of the match. These two had so much chemistry they might as well be a magnet high school. Great match all around.

Hulk Hogan has a special PPV coming up, which is nothing but his “biggest” matches. Forerunner to 24/7 I guess.

We cut to the back to see the Bushwackers and Andre the Giant, which has to the weirdest pairing of all time. Andre was completely gone at this point with big crutches holding him up. This is explained by Earthquake being the guy that injured him. This was his last major WWF appearance save for popping up at a battle royal in London a few months later, which wasn’t televised until on 24/7 and some special releases.

Bushwackers vs. Natural Disasters

It’s so sad to see the Bushwackers have to walk so slow to let Andre keep up with them. He just didn’t need to be out there at this point but you can see it in his eyes that he’s having a ball out there. His love for the business was so obvious and it’s a shame he wasn’t around for the big boom in the 90s, at least to see it if nothing else. Now in case you’re an idiot and can’t figure it out, this is a comedy match.

GREAT line by Piper. Heenan says if he were the manager of the Bushwackers he’s kill himself. Piper says go apply for the job. Piper was a freaking riot when he didn’t like someone. To further make this stupid, the Bushwackers beat them up to start. Can someone explain to me why this makes sense? Piper says that two guys from New Zealand are Americana personified. He can be a riot but he can also be a moron.

Heenan with a Larry, Darryl and Darryl joke to take the lead in the best commentator of the night race. Andre continues to point and grunt about various things. Heenan leaves to interview Hogan as the ND finally take control and the match gets boring in a hurry. Did the Wackers EVER do anything of note? I can’t remember anything.

Anyway, as expected, this ends with a Bushwacker, the one that licked me at a house show, getting pinned. Afterwards the Disasters go after Andre but the LOD run out for the save and the showdown that I’m not sure ever occurred.

Rating: C-. It was a comedy match. What do you really expect here? It was however, pretty short so it could have been far, far worse.

Heenan goes to Hogan’s dressing room with the NWA title to continue what should have been the biggest showdown of all time, but they somehow screwed it up. Heenan’s unveiling of the NWA Big Gold Belt in 91 still ranks in my top five most awesome moments in wrestling history. Hogan (never seen or heard) slams the door in his face.

More Savage/Liz phone line ads. Macho is shown on the phone line. This is just stupid.

DiBiase and Mooney recap the Virgil/DiBiase history. As bad as Virgil was, this match was actually kind of epic as the pop for Virgil finally turning was pretty big. This is the rematch from Mania 7 where Virgil won by countout.

Million Dollar Title: Ted DiBiase vs. Virgil

The wrestling here isn’t the appeal. Virgil has had very few matches at this point while DiBiase is one of the best in ring workers of all time. Surprisingly enough, DiBiase dominates early on. It’s pretty basic with punches and kicks with a roll-up here or there. There’s just not a lot to say about the first half of this match. Both guys are going pretty light out there which is fine I think, as it’s really more about the storyline than the match itself.

Piper was Virgil’s mentor so he’s cheering wildly for him. Heenan gets in a great line about Virgil being so dumb he’ll try to bronze the gold belt. After about 5 minutes of Virgil getting beaten up, he catches DiBiase in a Million Dollar Dream until Sherri runs in to cause the DQ as Piper absolutely snaps.

HOWEVER!

The referee decides that’s not fair and sends Sherri to the back while ordering the match to continue. Now we get a better match as they’re going a bit harder but Virgil is hurt after being hit by the loaded purse. DiBiase proceeds to kick his body guarding self from one side of the ring to the other, but the ref was bumped so we have no one to count the pin.

A piledriver (which is what love feels just like sometimes) puts him nearly out as DiBiase takes off the turnbuckle. Virgil counters and rams him in twice. I don’t like the ending though as it takes Virgil about 20 seconds to get the cover and the win. Piper goes insane over this.

Rating: B. As I said, this was all storyline and it was a very fun one. Virgil rising up to face DiBiase and say that he’d had enough, leading to the big blowoff of him winning the title that literally was DiBiase’s was just perfect. The wrestling was pretty bad, but the emotion makes up for it.

The Mountie says he’ll win tonight.

Big Bossman says he’ll win tonight.

Jailhouse Match: Big Bossman vs. Mountie

The loser spends a night in a New York jail, which is kind of an interesting idea. This was around the time that Mountie was using this stupid shock stick to attack people. Monsoon says this will be a classic. That’s just comical. Piper would finally beat Mountie as he had a vest or something that absorbed the electricity, which is actually brilliant. There’s all kinds of bad prison jokes by Heenan here as this is supposed to be a huge match.

Apparently the loser also gets arrested and will have a criminal record. Dude, seriously, this is absurd. I still can’t get over the fact that Mountie beat Bret Hart and Hogan. You’d think he was Edge or something. This is a pretty boring match as once again it’s all about storyline as the match really just doesn’t live up to the hype.

Gorilla says that Hart is the best advertisement for birth control he’s ever seen. It just kind of happens slowly and no one cares about this match. Bossman wins and they take Mountie to jail, in one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen.

Rating: D. I can’t believe I liked this as a kid. The styles just didn’t mesh. Mountie was better when he wrestled as a light weight, not this. Boss Man was outliving his usefulness at this point, but that can be attributed to them never really giving him a serious push. This whole gimmick as just dumb and the match was even worse.

DiBiase is mad that he lost the title, which was stolen from him.

Hart is happy about winning the title.

Jimmy Hart is with the Natural Disasters and is FREAKING OUT over Mountie. This is a pretty funny bit from him. The Disasters want the LOD. That’s not a good idea.

Boss Man makes fun of the Mounite as we must be on an intermission.

Gene is talking to Savage who is nervous, so let’s plug his phone call thing.

Holy

Freaking

Goodness

They actually put the intermission clock on the screen! It’s 5 minutes of dead silence, with the Savage phone number on the screen. You can hear the crowd cheering something. Boy it would be fun to actually SEE what they’re cheering for wouldn’t it? This is freaking stupid. I’m sitting here for 5 minutes waiting on a clock to count down. Why in the world was this left on the home video? I don’t want to look at a countdown.

Right now I’d rather read a book or something like that. We would have had to pay for this back in the day. After turning off my Best of Starrcade DVD which is more interesting to look at the box of than this countdown, we come back…to the Summerslam logo! My goodness people wonder why no one bought wrestling PPVs back in the day. At least give us some promos or something. Is it really that hard to do?

We go straight to the jail, where Mountie is arriving. My goodness, WHY WASN’T THIS USED DURING THE BREAK? If you want to have a live intermission that’s cool but don’t waste the money of the people paying by making them watch a freaking clock. That’s just stupid. Yeah this isn’t funny.

The Nasty Boys are in the back and Jimmy is still losing it. This is going to be a street fight for the belts against the LOD. The champions leave but first, we go back the jail where Mountie is panicking over everything, this time being photographed which is apparently like taking his soul.

Gene is with the LOD who say this is right up their alley. This promo is more about the Natural Disasters than the title match they have next. But before that silly thing like a tag title match, we go back for more “comedy” as Mountie is offended by getting his fingerprints taken.

MORE promos as I’m just sick of these now. Slaughter and company say they’ll win. This is just freaking ridiculous as we’ve gone 20 minutes since the end of the last match.

Screw it I give up. Sid has to do a promo now since he’s the referee for the main event. Did we really need the 5 minute clock with all these promos? Was this intermission half an hour? We see a video of Sid being offered a spot with Slaughter’s team.

Tag Titles: Nasty Boys vs. Legion of Doom

What the heck, you mean you don’t want to interview the caterers? Like I said this is a street fight for the belts. It’s kind of funny hearing Gorilla have to play babysitter between the two commentators. LOD is WAY over. Piper says that stands for look out dummy. Actually I believe it stands for Legion of Doom there Roddy. Big brawl of course to start us off.

We talk about Sid a lot as the referee tries to get people to tag in and out. I will never get the point of that in a street fight. And after the first few minutes it becomes a regular tag match. Well sure why not. Hawk plays Ricky Morton in a weird casting decision. Sags hits a top rope elbow on Hawk for two as Animal saves.

Animal comes in off the fairly hot tag and yeah this is going to be dominance. The Nasties get in a helmet (Jimmy’s trademark with them for some reason) shot to Hawk which does nothing for the most part. Hawk hits both guys with it and the Device on Sags gives them their first WWF Tag Titles.

Rating: D. This was pretty weak for the most part. It started and ended fairly hot but the middle is just dull. It’s a tag team match for about 5 minutes and the rest is nothing at all. There’s nothing here worth anything other than the LOD getting their first tag titles which took them forever to get. Pretty weak here but it was quick. One thing though: did ANYONE not see the title change coming? Anyone? Nah I didn’t think so.

Uh oh. I think that crazy Mountie might be up to more hijinks. Let’s see what kind of shenanigans he’s gotten himself into this time, that little rascal. Oh look at this! That hilarious Mountie got put inside a cell! What kind of improbably circumstances could he find himself in there? Wait and see!

Survivor Series promo.

I.R.S. vs. Greg Valentine

Yep, it’s a filler on a show with a 5 minute intermission. I wonder if this qualifies for the worst booked show of all time. Valentine was completely done at this point and this was to do nothing but put over Irwin. Both guys here are great workers though so if you can ignore the stupidity of putting this on next to last after the ridiculous amount of filler we’ve already had, this could be a good match.

Apparently Roberts and Taker are in Madison Square Garden which is a huge deal. Yeah it’s not like those two could be on the card or something like that. Oh hey, did you hear that Mountie is in jail? Not sure if I made that clear, but Mountie is in jail for the night. About five minutes into this match, we address it. Remember what I said about this might be ok? I was wrong, this match sucks.

Valentine puts the figure four on him but he gets to the ropes without really selling it at all. He goes for it again and gets rolled up with a shoulder up and kicking out before the three, but I guess the referee says end this suckage now and I’ll buy you an Air Supply album. That’ll keep Valentine distracted for hours.

Rating: D+. I feel so bad for guys like this when the commentators aren’t the least bit interested in the match. At least give them something to work on. No one wanted to see this and it would have been better being much earlier in the show. It was pretty bad, but if the announcers had actually tried, it would have been at least watchable.

Hogan says to buy his PPV in the fall.

Hogan and Warrior are feeling patriotic apparently. The big problem with the whole Iraq storyline was this: the war had ended 6 months ago. There’s a running story/joke that Vince was hoping the war went until May so the main event of Mania would have made sense. Of course, since the writers were lazy even back then, which I believe the writers consisted of Vince back then, let’s just keep it going for another 6 months instead of having a real main event at Summerslam.

Slaughter/Mustafa/Adnan vs. Hogan/Warrior

Let me make this clear: no one cares. Sid is the referee instead of having him face Warrior in what could have been a big match, or a Warrior/Hogan vs. Slaughter rematch which also would have been an interesting match. Ok no it wouldn’t have been but it would have been a real main event. The world champion is in a freaking handicap match at Summerslam. This is so stupid. Let’s get this nonsense over with please.

In case you can’t tell, I freaking hate this show. The faces dominate early as the fans cheer and no one is surprised. The only interesting thing here is to watch Warrior as he knows it’s his last match. Nothing special from him as Hogan gets beaten down and has to get beaten up by a couple of 50 year olds. He even takes the camel clutch from the man he beat for the world title 7 and a half years ago. That’s just weird to think about.

Hulkamania was born less than 8 years before this. They actually acknowledge that he’s the Sheik which I didn’t remember them doing. Hogan makes his comeback and tags Warrior, who beats up the heels but then gets beaten down himself. My goodness where do they come up with this brilliant storytelling? I’ve never seen anything like it (tonight at least)!

Warrior with his comeback and then it’s a brawl, no one is interested, Warrior grabs a chair and chases the two near senior citizens to the back because he can’t beat them on his own where he’s promptly fired. Hogan uses some powder and pins Slaughter with Sid doing absolutely nothing of note the entire match. Posing ensues as Sid joins him. This was a BIG waste of time.

Rating: D. There is absolutely no thought in this match at all. It’s two faces against three heels. I don’t think there was any buildup, and if there was it’s not mentioned here. Hogan was about to drop the title to Taker in two months, and Taker isn’t even on the card.

There was a home video released where this same match happened, but Taker was in it instead of the old guy not named Iron Sheik. Now wouldn’t that have been better here? This was called the Match Made In Hell. That’s a perfect title, because it would be perfect in the 8th circle of eternal torment. Horrible match and I’m glad it’s over.

And one more time, we see the Mountie in jail, this time being hit on by a fat biker. See, it’s funny because the biker wants to screw Mountie. See why that’s funny? I want to make sure it’s known that this is designed to be a joke, because I don’t think they made it clear enough. That’s a bit risqué for 1991.

We get the whole promo of Savage proposing to Liz, as this is the match made in heaven. See what they did? Match made in heaven and its opposite? See how intelligent Vince was to imply one was good and one was bad? Oh yeah that’s awesome indeed. In case that’s not enough emotion for you, we get a 4 minute music video, highlighting their entire history. The thing at Mania was amazing stuff and for the simple reason of it was spontaneous. This is just overkill.

The wedding is of course in the middle of the ring, which is of course set up to look like a chapel. Savage comes out first, in his hat, which has a, I’m not making this up, two foot high feather on it. We even have stupid flower girls and ring bearers. Could this get any sappier? Liz comes out looking stunning of course as the only thing that’s appealing about the whole thing. They say I do and the show ends.

Now for the actual good part: the reception. This was a bonus on some versions of the tape that has some of the best comedy I’ve ever seen. We get the standard stuff: toast, first dance, cake, etc. One thing that’s funny here is Gene says Mr. and Mrs. Macho. Shouldn’t it be Mr. and Mrs. Savage? Now we get to the really good part, as they open their wedding gifts.

Savage opens one and finds a blender. “WE GOT A BLENDER!!!” For some reason this is just freaking hysterical to me. He sounds like he won the WWF Title or something. Anyway, they get some candlesticks to which Savage shouts that next time they should send money. Liz looks at him, wondering what’s this about next time. Savage turns back and yells KIDDING! Then it kicks off as Liz opens a box to find a King Cobra.

Taker appears out of nowhere and blasts Savage in the head with the urn. Did no one see the SEVEN FOOT TALL GUY IN ALL BLACK AND A COWBOY HAT??? Jake comes in with a snake handler’s glove and another snake, yet no one stopped him either. Sid comes in with a wooden chair to run them off as we end with me laughing my head off at it.

Overall Rating: D. This show sucked. It has ONE good match. The rest is bad comedy and a horrible main event. I literally couldn’t remember what the main event was at this show when I was trying to think of it the other day. That should happen at Judgment Day or something, not freaking SUMMERSLAM.

Half the show was dedicated to an unfunny angle that was a waste of time. There is one match that’s bringing this up to a D from an F-. Watch that, and that’s it. This might be the worst of the big four that I’ve ever seen, including WM 11.

Summerslam 1990
Date: August 27, 1990
Location: Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 19,304
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Roddy Piper

This is the first PPV that I ever had bought for me and we literally went through three copies of it as the tape itself was literally falling apart. As far as updates go, a few things have happened since we were last around for Summerslam. Ventura is gone which kind of sucks. For once, and this was very rare back then, Vince is handling commentary tonight.

Warrior won the title at Mania, having dropped the IC belt down to no one but Perfect won it in a tournament, becoming one of the best IC Champions of all time. Hogan has been out of action all summer after Earthquake beat him up, and tonight is his triumphant return to face the big man. Warrior is having a token title defense against Rude in a cage, in what would be Rude’s last match with the company before taking a year off before debuting as the Halloween Phantom in WCW a year later.

Finally, and this is actually the most important thing you’ll see, a mysterious person has been sending Sapphire very expensive gifts. It would turn out to be DiBiase, who would begin to feud with Rhodes, leading to November’s Survivor Series. At that show, DiBiase would bring in a mystery partner, who was from Death Valley. It blows my mind to think that matches this old were two months before his debut. He might have even been on some house shows at this point.

Anyway, this show is going to have a lot of high grades for pure nostalgia for me, so expect a high overall rating as I know about half the commentary for the show despite having watched it once in about 15 years.

Before the show starts, the version I have comes with a bonus promo from Warrior, standing behind a cage wall. There’s no ring or other three walls. It’s just a single wall of a cage that the belt is handing from. Well of course he’s got a piece of a steel cage!

Don’t you have one sitting in your living room? Standard Warrior insanity here as the big deal was supposed to be that Rude has been in cage matches before but Warrior never has. Does anyone remember Rude in a cage match that meant anything?

In something completely random that’s an exclusive, we get Brother Love’s Summerslam picks. This is very weird as Gene says you can make your picks now, for the MONDAY night showing of Summerslam. Yes, back then, PPVs weren’t always on Mondays. On my tape (homemade), this is AFTER the IC Title match, which is weird because he makes a pick for that match. I put this here because it makes more sense here, but I don’t remember this at all.

It’s billed as a double main event, but it’s Hogan as the centerpiece as usual. Roddy on commentary is just weird but kind of cool at the same time, aside from his anti-Iraq line in the first 15 seconds. This is getting annoying as I’m quoting everything both guys are saying.

Rockers vs. Power and Glory

Shawn is legit hurt coming into this as you can see him limping to the ring. They play on that by having Hercules (Power) hit him in the knee with the chain, making this a handicap match. We start with Paul Roma (Glory, and somehow a future Horseman) against Jannetty. It’s a handicap match which is all it can be. They touch on Shawn’s knee injury as they knew about it coming in so they pretty much had to keep this short.

Almost a third of the match is the brawl where Shawn’s knee is hurt and then the rest is Jannetty fighting for all he’s worth, even hitting the top rope punch at one point. However, he of course falls to the suplex/splash combination and gets pinned rather easily. Shawn gets in after the match is over and they beat on him even more. He of course acts like he’s been shot and caught in a bear trap as he’s put on a stretcher and is carted out.

Rating: B-. Absolutely perfect for an opener. This was all over the place and you had to pay attention to keep up with it. It was fast, in your face, and not bad at all. While for a regular match it would have been horrible, the crowd was hot as always being a Philly crowd, and this got them very awake.

Now the IC Title match is up next and it was supposed to be Beefcake winning the belt from Perfect, but he had the famous parasailing accident that pretty much ended his career. That wasn’t mentioned but it was the case. Anyway, this rookie named The Texas Tornado, Kerry Von Erich took Beefcake’s place and he’s getting the match on about a week’s notice.

Intercontinental Title: Mr. Perfect vs. Texas Tornado

Before the match we get promos from both, with Perfect saying he’s perfect. Now we move on to Tornado’s promo, and for some reason I have always loved this one. There’s not much to it, but it just is great to me for some reason. He talks about how he’s going to touch down in the ring and destroy everything in his path, then take the IC title back into the clouds. Something about this is just sweet to me.

Maybe it’s that Von Erich was an amazing talent that sadly would be dead in three years. There’s a somewhat infamous glitch here as Hennig is wearing yellow and Von Erich is wearing yellow in his promo. However, when he comes to the ring he’s wearing white, so I guess they had him change in between. His music is completely awesome too. Yes, I think I’m a Von Erich mark. He’s even rocking the old school sequin robes.

You can tell they made a quick switch as he still had the yellow knee pads on. The crowd here is so ridiculously hot it’s hard to believe. The match itself is actually pretty short and very standard stuff. The crowd being as into it as they are and Hennig’s mind blowingly good selling makes it work though.

He gets Kerry in the corner and slaps him a bunch of times before Von Erich goes off on him, landing a slingshot into the corner which busts his head on the post. Claw hold and Tornado Punch follow for a title change! Afterwards, Hennig falls out of the ring (likely legitimately drunk) and Tornado celebrates as Piper makes fun of him.

Rating: B. This was just pure fun. Perfect was so hated it was unbelievable and Tornado had the skills already that he could make it look good too. That’s the beauty of bringing in a guy from a glorified indy fed: there’s no learning curve. He didn’t have to spend time working with no name guys and you could throw him into the fire, knowing you’d get something good. Great way to put him over here, and it worked like a charm.

Gene is supposed to talk to Sapphire but she’s nowhere in sign. I smell a show wide angle! Heenan runs in to whine about the Tornado breaking rules. Perfect and Hennan’s freaking out is absolutely great. He really did go insane as well as anyone ever did.

Sensational Sherri vs. Sapphire

Oh lord this isn’t going to be good. Sherri is at least good in the ring, but Sapphire? DANG, I saw one of her matches and it made Jackie vs. Trish from Raw in 03 look good (Yes I know it was a tag match so save your corrections). Sherri is in a mask and paint. I guess there’s a point to that. Sapphire doesn’t come out. The music starts again and a third time and no big fat blue rock. Sherri wins by count out. This was purely a way to play to the major angle later on.

Dusty is in the back with Gene saying that something strange is going on. When I was a kid this always gave me chills. In a completely random cameo that becomes unintentional comedy, Dusty calls over Hacksaw Jim Duggan and asks if they’ve seen her. He says no but they’re still looking. Duggan leaves.

He’s on screen all of 6 seconds but it’s just so random that it made me laugh. Dusty talks about the gifts she’s been getting, which are ridiculously expensive. Somehow no one picked up on the fact that DiBiase hadn’t been seen in awhile and only he could afford this. Dusty really is great on the mic. There’s something about his delivery that just flows perfectly.

Tito Santana vs. Warlord

If there has ever been a guy that had all kinds of opportunities thrown to him but just never could pull it off, it’s Warlord. He had an awesome build, a great look, a cool name and he got multiple mini pushes. I think the problem might have been he was too different looking. Maybe it’s that he wasn’t great in the ring. For some reason though, nothing ever worked for him. He wasn’t lazy or annoying or anything like that.

Simply put, he just never caught on. He was a generic big man with muscles, and I’ve never really understood why he didn’t get at least a bit of a reaction. At the time, Tito was a complete and total jobber to the stars. He was in the middle of nothing at the time and was just out there to make people like Warlord look good. Santana would become El Matador soon and it would kind of revitalize his career but not that much.

He was always good for a solid performance though, so it was clear why he stayed around as long as he did. I think I’m starting to get why Warlord never did anything: he’s the most generic guy I’ve ever seen in my entire life as a fan. There is nothing about anything he does that stands out. There’s nothing of note here really, as Santana tries as hard as he can but Warlord hits the powerslam to win the match in the end.

Rating: C+. This is quite acceptable on all levels. It was meant to make Warlord look good and that’s what Santana did. That’s why people like Finlay and Regal have jobs: they can make young guns look good and be realistic threats at the same time. Talents like them are hard to come by which is why they rarely get let go.

Demolition is in the back, and Mooney is confused about why Crush is there. The idea is that the Harts don’t know which two members of Demolition they’re facing. Apparently it’s Smash and Crush tonight. At the time, Demolition is considered untouchable and while the Harts were known to be great, they were thought to be past their primes at this point and only together in name.

You know, they’re actually quite funny on the mics. They tease the showdown with the Legion of Doom, and my god, the collective orgasms that 80s wrestling fans would have had for that match at Mania for the belts would have flooded a small country.

Tag Titles: Demolition vs. Hart Foundation

Norcal and I have called this the greatest tag team match of all time, and I’m still waiting on another to top it. It’s certainly the best gimmick tag match of all time, at least in my mind. Before the match, the Harts say they don’t care which members of Demolition they face. Anvil says he’s not paid to think. He’s paid to be tough like an anvil. That’s a great line.

As they give the promo about giving Demolition massive heart attacks, I’m watching CNN’s coverage of Michael Jackson’s heart attack, which kind of kills the mood. Good night the Harts were over. I’m getting chills watching this. We go about 4 seconds of Smash and Bret before we get a brawl. Anvil comes in and just levels them both, leading to Roddy asking Vince how he would like it if a guy like Anvil came up to him and asked for a date with his daughter.

That’s quite funny considering who Vince’s daughter would become to us. Imagine Neidhart getting the HHH hate. That would be freaking hilarious. I swear his beard has magical powers. Roddy is OUT THERE on commentary. Crush hits a big move and looks at the crowd. Roddy: “We ain’t looking for dairy products here, we’re fighting!” What in the heck does that mean? Am I missing a joke here or something?

This match has one of the best flows to it that I’ve ever seen. For the most part, it’s back and forth the whole way with neither team ever truly dominating the other. That’s a very difficult thing to do but when it’s done right, you have a great match. Hart is still the best guy out there, but it’s not like he’s blowing them all away. Demolition were a great team even with the change of Crush, and Neidhart it the absolute perfect complement to Bret.

It’s power and speed vs. a lot pf power, which is a great combination as always. Eventually of course we get a brawl, leading to Jim being knocked to the floor and Bret taking Demolition’s finisher for the first fall. This is what I don’t like about 2/3 falls matches. Demolition just pinned the Harts clean, in a standard tag match, yet the Harts get two more chances at it? I get the stipulation changed the way the match works, but that’s always made me scratch my head.

We begin the second fall with Crush and Hart again, just like the end of the last one, as Hart sells like the master that he is. Piper says that Hart needs to get his body under his feet. Wouldn’t that mean having your feet in the air and sitting down?

The style of this fall is completely different as it’s Hart getting beaten down instead of a back and forth match, which works very well for psychology, as we get a great flow to the match, using Demolition’s finisher as the turning point of the match. Anvil finally gets a tag and just kills Demolition. Easily the best I’ve ever seen him look as at that moment, he looked like he could have beaten just about anyone.

Bret gets back into it and the Hart Attack connects, but Crush, after missing his cue and having the referee save him, dives onto the referee, before picking him up and carrying him around the ring, which causes a DQ. Dang, after that kind of a save and he jumps the referee? Someone get that man a hot pretzel and a ham sandwich. He’s earned them. Crush should get a sandwich as well.

He was just giving the nice little man a hug for saving him on the blown spot. Shame the referee won’t open up his heart and let a little love in. The best part of this is Crush shaking his head, as if to say what did I do? It’s either bad acting or unintentional comedy, but either way it’s funny.

In between falls, Bret gets knocked to the floor. As Jim is looking at him, Ax comes down and hides under the ring. Now we get to the fun parts of this match, which is saying something as this has been great stuff so far.

So here we are now, one fall to a finish for the tag titles. We get down to a good old fashioned 80s style tag match and there’s absolutely nothing sweeter than this. It’s the Harts in control early with their powerslam/splash move, which despite having been used many times is still surprising to Vince. Geez how bad is this guy’s memory? He can’t remember how bad a lot of the stuff he puts on now is and he couldn’t remember stuff 19 years ago?

Anyway, Ax comes out from under the ring for the illegal switch and the Harts are in trouble all over again. Wow, who saw that coming? Did anyone ever have an issue telling Demolition apart? I certainly didn’t. Anvil keeps making save after save as Bret is looking like a human punching bag. As all this is happening, the fans are getting loud for some reason, and as we cut to the entry way, we see why: the most awesome team of all time, the LOD are here!

They pull Smash out from underneath the ring and break up another Demolisher (I know that’s not the name but screw it that’s what it should be called), leading to a slingshot shoulder block into a rollup to give the Harts the titles as the fans go nuts! The best part here is the Harts’ music not playing.

It makes you feel like it was a great shock and that the sound guy wasn’t sitting there waiting to press a button. I’ve always liked how Bret would kiss whatever belt he had at the time. It’s recaps a go-go as the music plays and the fans are going off.

Rating: A+. The fans wanted the Harts to win, they wanted Demolition to lose, and they got it in a SWEET style. This was a great tag match with all 5 guys in perfect flow the whole time. The Harts were the underdogs that we all wanted to cheer for and we got to do it. That’s exactly what the fans wanted and it made the fans happy. Couple that with GREAT wrestling and drama and you get a classic match. Norcal and I are right: this is the best tag team match ever, just for how much fun it is.

Promo for WM 7. My lord they messed this up. There were supposed to be 100,000 people. Naturally, this didn’t happen, so there was a bogus excuse to move the show to a smaller place. I love the promo though and could recite the phone number to you by heart.

The LOD are in the back, saying they still want a piece of Demolition, saying they’re the real big men. The Harts show up saying they’ll fight anyone. The emotion in their voices and the looks on their faces are absolutely perfect.

We go to Sean Mooney who is outside Demolition’s locker room, and he says all heck is breaking loose. I certainly don’t remember this much cursing on a 1990 PPV. I’m quite surprised at this. Apparently they’re mad at the LOD.

Gene is with Sherri, who is so proud of winning, and says she’s been hearing rumors about Sapphire.

Sean Mooney (what are these backstage interviewers getting paid tonight?) is with Volkoff and Duggan, who are a tag team for no good reason. They’re going to win tonight apparently. We get a really bad pun about if their opponents are the Orient Express, this is the American Express, and don’t leave home without them. Dear lord just take me now.

Earthquake and Bravo are with the other interviewer along with Jimmy Hart. It’s a recap of the feud with Hogan and Quake.

Jake Roberts vs. Bad News Brown

Brown allegedly has over 200lbs of sewer rats but we never see them which is a good thing probably. Yep Jake appears to be drunk. Oh and Big Boss Man is the special referee. No reason at all for it but who cares about logic? Brown jumps him as the referee is on his way to the ring. Brown takes over and goes for a cover with his foot on the chest.

Both guys go for their finishers which of course don’t connect this early on. Brown grabs a chair and drills Jake in the stomach with it in front of Boss Man which is all cool apparently. Jake gets sent into the corner and flashes a screw you sign as he goes down. Classy dude there. Brown goes for a middle rope punch but Jake gets out of the way.

Brown’s offense is different but cool. Piper says something about oily heads and Arabs which Vince naturally ignores. Brown pops him with the chair again and that’s the DQ. That was rather anti-climactic but whatever. He tries to drop a leg on Damien afterwards but Boss Man makes the save. Roddy: you don’t want to hiss off any snakes. Brown jumps him and Jake gets the snake out to run him off.

Rating: C-. This was fine and the fans popped for the DDT as always. For the life of me though, I don’t get why there needed to be a guest referee. He was going to be in the real main event later on, so what’s the point of having him here?

Gene is with Demolition, who says the Harts cheated. For the love of god, how did we never get Demolition vs. LOD? Seriously, this had to be the easiest lay up of a feud of all time, and we never got it.

Brother Love Show time. There’s little point here. Love gets a medal from Sgt. Slaughter as we officially kick off he’s the next top heel in the Iraqi sympathizer angle that few cared about but some will say gave you one of the best Mania main events ever. He runs down Volkoff, which would lead to a match…in February I believe. This was just an odd angle that didn’t work for me due to the timing of it, as the war was over when this really got going.

Sean is with the Orient Express and Fuji who say Japan will win. This team was pretty much nothing until the masked one showed up and they started going to war with the Rockers. Those matches were freaking awesome to say the least.

Gene finds Sapphire but she goes into a locker room. She won’t talk to anyone.

Orient Express vs. Duggan/Voljoff

Pure filler here as there’s no point to this other than to further the US vs. Iraq storyline. The faces sing God Bless America as my ears bleed a bit. Duggan proves to be a patriot as this was what he’d always hit Nikolai for when it was the Soviet anthem. Now for your pop of the night (so far) Duggan says bless the troops in the Middle East. This is a very, and I do mean very, basic tag match as Volkoff gets beaten up and Duggan makes the big save after the tag and gets the pin off the three point clothesline.

Rating: D+. It was just so bland that it wasn’t any good. It was pure filler and nothing of note happens here. It wasn’t bad, just completely unnecessary.

Dusty is pounding on the door Sapphire went through but she won’t come out. He has to go to his match but he’s going to get to the bottom of this tonight.

Dusty Rhodes vs. Randy Savage

Savage is the king at this point so he’s feuding with the Common Man, Dusty Rhodes. That’s a perfect feud for both so for once they got something very right. Rhodes’ music is just awesome. He power walks to the ring for a not great visual. Mooney is in the back standing on a ladder to talk to Savage who is on the throne. He also talks about the rumors that are going around which he still won’t reveal.

He does say that Sapphire is smart for not wanting to spend her life with a common man. Were Sapphire and Dusty supposed to be a couple? I never quite got that. Savage comes out on the throne. Dang I’ve always loved that entrance. How cool does it look? Savage fit this persona so well because he could back it up in the ring which isn’t something most kings could do. Savage was just so great back then.

Pomp and Circumstance fits the king gimmick so well too. Perfect match all around for him. Right as Savage gets in, you hear the best laugh of all time as DiBiase is on the stage, saying he’s going to prove everyone has a price.

Of course he’s the guy that’s been buying Sapphire everything and he puts it perfectly: “Who but the Million Dollar Man could afford to do it?” At the same time, everyone says a collective DUH! This is pure evil here and it supports my claim that he’s the greatest heel of all time. Sapphire comes out and takes a bag of money. Rhodes chases them but Savage stops him.

The match itself is about 2 minutes long and there’s nothing worth talking about. Savage starts in control, Rhodes fights back but doesn’t have the fire to do anything. However, Piper does mention that Sapphire didn’t want to be married to a common man all her life, so at least that’s some clarification. Sherri interferes and Rhodes takes a loaded purse to the head to end it.

Rating: N/A. This wasn’t about the match and at two minutes it’s not fair to give it a grade. For the angle, easy A though as this was just basic heel vs. face stuff, but given the performers, it was great.

Sean is in the garage as I wonder what kind of running shoes he has because he could be the fastest man on the planet given the exercise he’s had tonight. Virgil, DiBiase and Sapphire get into the limousine and leave as Rhodes chases them. Ok more like wobbles after them, but he goes down the driveway after them. However, he can’t catch them and I always got very sad about this. It was depressing to see him lose everything he had. In retrospect, this was a great angle.

Hulk Hogan vs. Earthquake

Quake comes to the ring with no real build. That’s rare to see anymore and I really like the way they’re doing it this way. After the heels are in the ring, Hogan and Boss Man are with Okerlund. Hogan says this is for Tugboat, who was the reason Hogan got the support that he did. Boss Man says the heels have the right to be served justice by Judge Hogan. Hogan compares himself to Washington and the Boss Man is Jefferson and it’s time to go!

Boss Man comes out first and the pop is so loud you can barely hear his music. For the love of goodness how loud is Hogan’s going to be? Yep, I’m deaf now. The roof gets blown off and you literally can’t understand what Fink says after Hogan comes through the curtain. All the standard Hogan stuff before we get going and the fans are so hot it’s insane. The wide shot here is awesome as it’s that little yellow thing that is causing the explosion.

Hogan should change his theme to Pac Man’s song. It’s the same idea: a yellow thing that is all over the place and at certain points is completely invincible. Sounds like it to me. Anyway, we get the bell and we’re up and running. They trade power displays and despite Hogan being announced at 302lbs, Vince thinks he’s at about 287, even though he looks exactly the same as he always has, if not a bit fat.

Very soon the two outside guys get involved and both should causes disqualifications but the referee lets it go for no apparent reason. Hogan, like an idiot, goes for a slam. Now he knows better than that. He’s WAY too healthy to do something like that. Why would he think he can do something that doesn’t go against any human sense? Come on Hulk you’re smarter than that. Wow I just said Hogan was smart. I’m working too hard I think.

Quake does a weird sequence where he goes to the top and then puts on a Boston Crab. More interference follows of course, leading to a Hogan comeback. Once again he goes for a slam and it doesn’t work, leading to the true signature Hogan match move: the sleepy hug! It must be sleepy since it needs so much rest. For some reason Hogan tries to grab at the referee and he rips his shirt. I don’t want to see Earl Hebner’s stomach, I truly don’t.

Hogan goes for a freaking cross body. Think about that for a second. That’s just weird to type let alone actually watch. Of course Hogan takes two Earthquakes before the power kickout. I love the way Earthquake hits the ropes. He just leans into them and it’s either great or lazy and I’m not sure which. Do I even need to explain what happens here?

Bravo gets the referee to prevent the pin after the leg drop though, allowing the true star of the match, the man that’s involved with Wrestleicious (ooo Wrestleicious baby!) to interfere before getting beaten up as well. At this point, it occurs to me that he and Hogan are the only two wrestlers involved in this match that are still alive. That’s a very sad thing to think of. Earthquake gets Hart thrown at him, which knocks him down.

So wait, Hogan jumping at him is an easy catch, but Hart knocks him down? Piper’s cheering for Hogan cracks me up as only in pro wrestling could you go from the feud they had to this kind of cheering in just a few years. On the floor, Hogan, in Phila-freaking-delphia of all places, slams Earthquake onto a table. This was over three years before Heyman even got to that city. I’m not even sure if Eastern Championship Wrestling was around yet.

The table doesn’t break and just falls over, but I wonder if this is what inspired ECW. There must be something in the water in that city. Seriously, what’s with the tables thing there? Anyway, Hogan wins by count out before jumping in the air like the end of a bad 80s movie. Come on now; give me some bad pop song as the shot freezes with him in the air pumping his fist. If that happened, I might have died of pure laughter. Post match…come on.

What do you think happens after the match? Actually, it’s not the most obvious answer. Quake completely no sells everything that’s just been done to him as he hits Hogan a few times and chokes him with Hogan lifted off the mat. Boss Man grabs a…I guess that’s supposed to be a chair but it looks more like a small ladder and blasts Quake a few times with it to no result.

The spinning of the nightstick of DOOM gets rid of the heels though so we can have our traditional music and posing. What made this posing thing so cool? It’s just him standing there showing off his muscles, which was odd because there were guys with bigger muscles in the company. I guess it’s just that Hogan is who he is and gets cheers for whatever he does. He could even put on a tutu and dance and it would get high ratings.

Scratch that as Mr. Nanny bombed. Hogan dances around the ring like a chicken which is something that’s going to haunt my dreams for a long, long time. As he poses Boss Man, who also was Hogan’s mortal enemy about a year ago, kind of strolls around the ring doing nothing. Piper reaffirms my faith in him as he says it was a hollow victory and that Boss Man deserves a lot of the credit.

Now I feel better as that’s the Piper I know and love. He’s right too. What did Hogan really prove? That along with another guy he can win with a count out and not get a pin like he normally would? Yeah that’s certainly a great victory.

Rating: B+. This was exactly what it was supposed to be: a chance for the fans to lose their minds over Hogan. It left the door open for the rematch later with Hogan having no rust so he can beat Quake on an even playing field, but that never came at least not on PPV. This definitely should have gone on last though as there’s no doubt that this is the real main event. I remember when I was a kid I hardly ever watched the cage match after this as it just didn’t mean anything to me.

Granted I wasn’t ever much of a Warrior guy after he stole my hero’s title back in April. Anyway, this was a very fun match but from a technical standpoint, kind of sloppy, which given who’s in this, what were you expecting? Fine all around though, so this was a very solid match.

We cut to the back and see Rude with Heenan and Mooney. Rude cuts a very good promo talking about how Rocky Balboa and life imitating art. This is either off a script or great. Heenan is clearly ad-libbing, but Rude I’m not sure on.

Rhodes is here now, talking about chasing down Sapphire but not being able to catch up to her. This is a great promo, talking about how he’s been crushed and he’s only got the fans left to shelter him. This is 80s style at its best. The more promos I hear from Dusty, the more impressed I am by him.

We cut again down to Lord Alfred Hayes, who is in front of the cage that is being built and talking about how the crew is trying to break their record for building a cage, which is kind of interesting but the only thing I can think of is who cares about the cage being built? It’s kind of different and therefore kind of cool I guess. They talk about the way the cage is put together and the weight and dimensions. That’s actually quite cool.

We go BACK to Gene, who is talking with Hulk. I miss the interview centers at PPVs. Hogan is so juiced here it’s amazing. This is a promo that makes so little sense I don’t know where to start. Hogan beat Earthquake. Ok, that’s fine. However, he says he want to be #1 contender to the WWF Title. Again, nothing weird so far. He then says that if he’s not the #1 contender yet, he’ll beat Earthquake as many times as it takes until he’s the #1 contender.

What kind of sense does that make? If that’s the case, why not get Brooklyn Brawler and beat him 1000x until you’re named #1 contender? Hogan’s promos sometimes made less sense than Warrior’s. Also, he debuts the 4th demandment: Believe in yourself. He’s getting a new surfboard too. Hogan surfing is just funny.

Roddy and Vince kill more time, talking about the cage match as Roddy actually picks Rude to win it.

We cut to the back with Earthquake, Bravo and Hart screaming at Hogan and Bossman, saying that it’s not over. Actually it pretty much was. They hooked up at Survivor Series and a very, and I do mean very, brief encounter at the end of the 1991 Royal Rumble.

For the final (and it dang well better be) interview of the night, we go to the Warrior, who has a joke. What do Heenan/Rude have in common with the Liberty Bell? One is cracked and the other is a ding dong. While it’s not funny, it’s just out there to hear from Warrior. He’s literally snarling the whole time Gene is talking.

This is not at all surprising. He says he has an inalienable right to the WWF Champion, which is a line that I really like. He’s going through the Preamble to the Constitution, which is actually really good, and comes dangerously close to making sense.

WWF Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude

In a cage remember. This would be Rude’s last major and perhaps last period match in the WWF as he bailed for WCW, but didn’t show up for a year. I guess he was doing indy shows or something. This was odd as he had been insulting Boss Man’s mom, paving the way for a feud between the two of them. Crowd is trying to care but they’re just so worn out from the Hogan match that I guess the break due to building the cage was a great thing for them.

Rude won’t let Warrior into the cage which is kind of stupid. You can’t win until he’s inside, so let him in. They fight on the edge, with Warrior outside and Rude inside. This is a pretty slow paced cage match where the cage is just kind of an accessory. I’m pretty impartial to matches like these, as they can be good or pretty bad, but occasionally you get a great one like at Summerslam 94. This is a far cry from that, mainly because it’s only about 11 minutes long.

That’s a bit of time, but still far from enough to really be effective and show off what the cage can be like. Maybe they’re trying to protect Warrior as they know he’s not the best in matches like this, but maybe they were just low on time. Rude gets the neckbreaker blocked for about the 112th time by Warrior which is still something the announcers have never seen before. Does Vince ever watch a match?

Rude more or less dominates here and screws up huge as he goes to the very top of the cage while Warrior is down and just sits there. He hits a big punch and knocks Warrior silly, but dang man he could have built a new freaking cage in the time he had up there. It made no sense and Piper is losing his mind over how stupid it was on Rude’s part. When Piper says you’re stupid, you’re stupid. What could possibly be stupider than that? HE DOES IT AGAIN!

Good grief no wonder he never won the world title. He was too stupid to do it I guess. Anyway, Rude gets knocked down and here comes the comeback that you all knew was coming. Rude stops it though which surprises me. They go back and forth until Heenan gets in somehow and gets beaten up. NOW we get the real comeback and you know the drill here.

Piper makes an interesting question: when Warrior does the pumping press slam motion, WHAT THE HECK DOES THAT MEAN??? Warrior gets the slam and the splash and climbs out, swiveling his hips as he leaves to keep the belt. He poses with the blue/purple belt by swinging it over his head. We plug Survivor Series one more time as we go off the air.

Rating: C-. Crowd just didn’t care after the Hogan match and the 10 minute wait to put up the cage. It was an ok match but absolutely nothing of note happened here. It was exactly what you would expect and no one thought Rude had a freaking prayer. This was ok, but that’s all.

Overall Rating: A-. It’s personal bias, but I freaking love this show. You get a pure classic in the tag title match, some GREAT promos all night, although too many promos in general, a show long story, a white hot crowd, and some nice chances to catch your breath with some filler and how do you not have an awesome show? That’s the thing about filler: it can be a great tool to have, but it’s so easy to go overboard with it and if that happens, you’re in real trouble because the fans are bored.

Feuds were begun and ended, stories were advanced, and the crowd went home happy. How does that not sound awesome? Definite recommendation as they nailed the formula here: have a big card without being as serious as Mania but treat it like Mania, if that makes sense.

Wrestlemania 6
Date: April 1, 1990
Location: SkyDome, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Attendance: 67,678
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura
O Canada: Robert Goulet

If you remember what I said in the last review about WM 5 being the first standard WM, this one is the first standard blockbuster Wrestlemania. This Mania has the truly huge show atmosphere to it and there are two main reasons for it. Number one is the crowd is massive. At over 67,000 people, this would be the second biggest crowd for a Wrestlemania for the next 11 years.

Second, you had the second biggest Wrestlemania Main event of all time which was title for title. Absolutely no one knew who to pick in this match. That to me is what makes a match at least a notch higher up. Also the actual look of the show changed. If you watch 4 and 5, you see the older look to it.

I’m not sure how to put it into words but if you watch either of them and then 6 one after another you’ll see what I mean. 6 simply looks much newer. I know that it’s a year later, but the jump is a huge difference. The card is long and while there’s some filler, it’s good filler. I’m a sucker for this show but I’ll try to be objective.

To begin with, one of the most memorable things about this show is the opening. It shows the night sky and talks about the constellations in it. Eventually we get to constellations of Hogan and Warrior. Vince’s booming voice over this scene makes the show and the match just seem epic.

Koko B. Ware vs. Rick Martel

Ok so not every match can be great. The newest WWE HOF member still makes me shake my head. Martel is a better choice than he is but that’s a topic for another thread. This is the WM debut of Martel’s Model gimmick. For this show the ring carts from WM 3 are back. For those that haven’t seen them, they’re small motorized carts that the wrestlers ride to the ring in. Kind of a cool idea.

I assume they’re used to prevent people from having to make the very long walk to the ring. You can tell how great Koko is. Gorilla’s line talking about how good he is: “He’s proven he can take anybody to the limit.” Read as, he can’t beat anyone. Koko only stands 5’8. Never knew how short he was. Martel is only 6’0 but it looks pretty funny to see the tiny face like that.

They actually thought this was the best possible opening match for Wrestle-freaking-Mania? Really? Frankie was always kind of cool. Martel jumps him to start and Koko is in trouble early on. Koko had a decent dropkick and that’s about it. Yet he’s in the Hall of Fame and Randy Savage isn’t. Amazing.

Martel sends him to the floor and Koko is in trouble. Ha I said that just as Gorilla did. The crowd starts a small boring chant and I can’t say I blame them. Boston Crab is blocked early. In the clipped version the first Boston Crab attempt is shown going on as Martel turns him towards the ropes and he winds up in the middle of the ring with it. Odd indeed.

Koko hits a pair of flying headbutts that just look awful. On the third one in one of the dumbest spots I’ve ever seen, he fakes the headbutt and after a second, Martel falls anyway. I could get that he was bracing himself and fell or something, but Koko gets a long two out of it. WOW. Missed cross body leads to the Boston Crab for the submission.

Rating: D. This was a squash and a bad one. Koko truly is bad in the ring. He’s bland and for whatever reason was popular. Bad way to start a show. Koko was one of those guys in the 80s that wasn’t any good but was pushed on occasion as a midcard threat anyway and more or less was a jobber to the stars. Weak opening match.

Andre and Haku, the Colossal Connection, are called the Colostomy Connection by Gene. Heenan says if you want to talk about evacuation…Wow again. They say they’re going to eliminate Demolition. Gene, as they leave: “The Colossal Connection, they’re anything but regular guys.” My goodness.

Demolition wants to destroy and demolish the Connection and take the belts back.

Tag Titles: Demolition vs. The Colossal Connection

This is Demolition’s rematch from when the Connection beat them in I believe December. It was also their chance to become three time tag champions. The crowd chants Weasel at Heenan which sounds great in this huge arena. This match is absolutely nothing but power all around. In something that I never realized before and someone correct me if I’m wrong but this was Andre’s last televised WWF match.

Andre jumps them to start and the challengers are in trouble early. Apparently the Harts want a shot at the winners. Smash and Haku officially start us off. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing the Islander a lot. Those big screens in the back are rather cool.

Andre only pops in every once in awhile to throw punches and choke. The perk of him being so freaking huge is that a simple move like one of those is enough to take a guy down and have it look very realistic.

This whole thing is pretty much just ok at best. Haku vs. Demolition isn’t a match I particularly care to see but it’s all they could do. I would kind of question putting the titles on the Connection simply to give Andre a title run in his career but it’s better than ignoring him I suppose. Axe gets beaten down for the majority of the match.

Haku wrestles almost all of the match here as Andre was in bad shape at this point. Haku accidentally superkicks Andre into the ropes and Demolition lands their finisher to pick up the titles. Post match, Heenan goes nuts on Andre in the corner, at one point clearly saying he’s the freaking boss. Then in something that boggles even my smark mind, Bobby slaps him. The look on Andre’s face is nothing short of great.

He grabs Bobby by the throat and slaps him a few times and punches him. He catches Haku’s thrust kick and beats the tar out of him too. Heenan and Haku get thrown off the cart as Andre leaves on his own to the crowd losing their minds. The sad part though is how hunched over Andre is. Truly a sad sight.

Rating: C-. This was a fun little match that wasn’t entirely predictable. The post match stuff is even better than the match. Ticked off giants are just plain fun. It’s more or less just a way to give the fans something to cheer for which works fine I guess. Nothing special at all but fun.

In the back we see Earthquake and Jimmy Hart who says that there’s going to be an earthquake and Earthquake says Hercules will crumble.

Hercules vs. Earthquake

Do I have to watch this? Seriously, what are you expecting here? Quake is undefeated here and is putting people in the hospital left and right. He tries to jump Hercules to start and Herc pounds away with punches.

We get a test of strength and being a heel, Earthquake cheats after getting in trouble. He pounds away with fat man moves before Herc gets a shot in. After a bunch of big power shots he can’t take Earthquake off his feet.

And then like an IDIOT, Hercules tries for the backbreaker (torture rack) and gets drilled. You freaking deserve that for being stupid. A few shots put him down and the Earthquake Splash ends it. He deserves pain like that too.

Rating: D-. I liked Hercules, but this was just bad. It wasn’t quite a squash but it might as well have been. He beats Hercules up more afterwards and he deserves it for being stupid enough to try the Rack like that. Earthquake would be top heel by August.

Some old lady named Rona Barrett talks to Liz who is going to be more active in wrestling.

Brutus Beefcake is going to end Mr. Perfect’s “perfect” record. He shows off how sharp his scissors are by snipping at the paper the record is on and the paper doesn’t cut. Amazing indeed.

Brutus Beefcake vs. Mr. Perfect.

Perfect beat the tar out of Beefcake at the Rumble so this is little more than a grudge match. Can’t beat that. That Brutus music is downright awesome. Gorilla STEALS Jesse’s line about Brutus looking like a hand grenade went off in his pocket. Wouldn’t that result in a bad leg injury?

They start off hard and fast again which is a tradition so far tonight. Brutus dominates to start, sending Perfect flying. He might still be undefeated here but I’m not sure. Things slow down a lot as we talk about conditioning.

Gorilla isn’t sure what the weak spot is on Hennig. I’d recommend hitting him in the face. Brutus goes for the sleeper as Mary Tyler Moore is here. This Mania is officially awesome. Genius slips the scroll to Perfect which gets two. I love that neck snap Perfect does. Beefcake makes his comeback and hits a slingshot into the post for the pin out of NOWHERE.

Rating: C. Compared to what’s come before it, this match is Steamboat and Savage. Brutus, for all his faults, wasn’t that bad in the ring. Having a guy with him like Hennig helped a lot, and this might be Brutus’ biggest win ever. The postmatch beatdown is very old school pink on pink action fun as well.

Post match the Genius gets a haircut for his troubles.

To say this match is interesting would be an understatement. We see a video recapping the buildup. This match came about because Piper eliminated Bad News from the Rumble and Bad News came back in and eliminated him. They fought to the back. For those that don’t know, Brown was legit. He is the only American heavyweight to win a medal in Olympic Judo, and also made Andre the Giant back down in a real fight in Japan after Andre made a racist joke. Anyway, 3 weeks after the Rumble, Bad News made a joke about Piper’s kilt which is just too far.

In a promo that would never be allowed to air today, Piper is in the back and says he’s the Hot Rod, but at other times he’s the Hot Scot. At that point, he turns around and you see that half of his body is painted back right down the middle. After a brief karaoke of Billy Jean, Piper insults Brown’s looks in a funny promo and says he’s going to shut Bad News’ big mouth, but Brown doesn’t know if it’ll be Hot Rod or Hot Scot that does it.

I’m still not sure what the point of the whole painting thing was.

Roddy Piper vs. Bad News Brown

I think this is no DQ but I’m not sure. This isn’t so much a match as it is a fight. Very few wrestling moves and mainly punches and kicks but it was designed to be that way. The fighting is fun because it’s what these two are best at. Surprisingly Piper is ripped here in by far the best shape he’s ever been in.

Allegedly that paint took weeks to get off due to a rib from Andre and someone else. Not sure how true that is. Yeah there’s no wrestling at all here. Sometimes that’s a great thing though and here that’s exactly what this should be like.

The way Brown beats up Roddy and then Roddy just casually pokes him in the eye is great. Brown gets sent into exposed steel and is down. Piper pulls out a white glove as we continue the Michael Jackson theme night which I suppose is what the black and white thing is about. Match ends in a double count out and it means nothing. They continue brawling all the way up the ramp and into the back.

Rating: A. This match was nonstop fighting and was insanely fun. There was next to no wrestling in it but that that’s what made it great. I loved this match the first time I saw it and it’s still great. And yes that’s highly biased.

Steve Allen, the former Tonight Show host, is in a bathroom with a piano with the Bolsheviks practicing the Russian National Anthem. He makes a few jokes but finally says he’ll do the real Russian Anthem. He opens his mouth and a toilet flushes. Steve runs to save his own life.

Hart Foundation vs. The Bolsheviks

The Harts want Demolition. This match literally lasts 19 seconds. Harts knock the Bolsheviks down during their singing, land the Hart Attack and it’s over.

Rating: N/A. What can I say about 19 seconds? Funny if nothing else. The pop for Hart is coming too. It’s not there yet but you can see the star in him. Granted that might be the Canada thing

Wrestlemania 7 is coming to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and there will be over 100,000 fans there!

Edit from the future: no there won’t be. Ticket sales bombed and they moved it to the Sports Arena in the same town which held about 16,000 people.

Barbarian vs. Tito Santana

Tito does a promo that I literally couldn’t pay attention to. This match screamed HOUSE SHOW to me. It’s two guys in a ring doing moves on each other. There’s little psychology and less meaning to most of it. It’s not bad wrestling, but there’s no spark to it at all. Santana is a great worker, but this match just did nothing for me.

Yeah this isn’t much at all. Santana does a bit, Barbarian hits the floor to hide a bit with Heenan, Jesse makes enchilada jokes, Barbarian comes back in, and we let the destruction begins. It’s not bad but at the same time this isn’t much at all.  It’s not boring, but I wonder why this is on Wrestlemania.  Barbarian wins with a clothesline off the top that was sweet looking.

Rating: D. Like I said, it’s not bad at all, but it just did nothing for me. I don’t get the need for this being on here though as Tito was destroyed both here and at Summerslam by the Powers of Pain. I guess I get the idea of having them get good matches (in theory) but really? This needed to be on Mania?

Next up is a recap of the upcoming mixed tag which I believe was a first at the time. Sapphire, as worthless of a person as there ever has been in wrestling, is shown beating up Sherri which just infuriates me, and Macho King feuding with the Common Man Dusty Rhodes. Fairly cool concept for a feud really, even though Dusty boarders on Communism in his promo. He also talks about having the Crown Jewel but no one knows what they mean.

Macho King and Queen Sherri vs. Dusty Rhodes and Sapphire

The King having people carry him to the ring on the throne was always just insanely cool to me for some reason. The fun part of this for some reason was figuring out the women’s weight based on the male’s weights. Sherri at about 130-140 and Sapphire at 180-190, which Jesse says is impossible and I think I agree with him. The more Dusty promos I hear the more I like him. His mic work is great.

Dusty says that they have something Macho doesn’t have, which is the Crown Jewel. The Crown Jewel is none other than Elizabeth. For the first time in way too long, Savage absolutely loses it. The crowd pops louder than they’ve done all night as she goes to Dusty and Sapphire’s corner.

Liz is definitely good looking in blue. The genders have to match up here so that’s good. Sapphire is just horrible. One of her attacks is a hip into the other chick’s hips. I can’t believe I’m going to say this but GET BACK TO DUSTY!

Dusty does what he can here and it’s just not working for the most part. A lot of this is the girls doing what they can which isn’t much for the most part as they’re just not very good. Well Sherri is but she can’t work miracles. Savage destroys Dusty until the required big comeback makes the save.

This match is all over the place the entire match and it’s incredibly fun. Rhodes is at his best when he can just go crazy in a match and that’s what this is. Dusty is in the ring the entire time almost which is the best thing possible. Dusty is just on fire the whole time and Savage is his usual great self. Sapphire finally gets in the ring and proves my theory: she is awful. Sadly enough, she pins Sherri in a dark day for wrestling. Liz actually dances with Dusty and Sapphire to Common Man after the match.

Rating: D-. Sapphire literally drops this about a full letter grade. She was flat out awful and there is no reason she should have pinned Sherri at all. Dusty and Savage carry this to a decent grade though. It’s a sad day that Dusty Rhodes is the workhorse of his team but that was the case here.

Hey, did you know WM 7 will be in Los Angeles? Don’t know if the promo that aired earlier would get the message across or not.

Heenan is upset. Okerlund is all over the place tonight as he says, “Bobby Heenan where do you have the ba…guts to insult Andre the Giant?” You can clearly see Bobby almost lose it after that. He declares war on Andre and says he’ll be getting a new Heenan Family together.

That old woman from earlier is with Gorilla and Jesse in the back and yet again, I couldn’t care less. Allegedly there’s a clip of Jesse in an adult movie out there somewhere. Never heard anything about that and I don’t think it’s true.

Macho Man cuts a promo that makes literally no sense. I think it’s about Dusty Rhodes.

Demolition is glad to have won the titles in the fifth promo in a row. They say the Harts can bring it on.

In promo #6, Hogan cuts one of his most famous promos ever, telling Warrior that the power lies in the palm of his hand. He also says that he can save all of the Little Warriors with the training, the prayers and the vitamins. Hogan goes on to say that his Hulkamaniacs want to help them. Rewatching this, it’s clear that Hogan would lose. He mentions that the winner or the loser doesn’t matter, but what kind of winner or loser you are.

At the end of the show, he hands the belt to Warrior and holds up his hand, being a “good loser.” Wow it’s fun to see these in a different light. Also starting to wonder if “take your vitamins” is a tongue in cheek reference to taking steroids, but that might be a stretch.

Guess what’s next? Go on, guess. If you said Promo #7, I’ll get you a ham sandwich. In an equally famous promo, Warrior says that Hogan’s life can be lived through the Warrior, but it will be in the darkness. Everything is about accepting challenges, but Hogan has never met a challenge like him. He’s going to bring the Warriors and the Hulkamaniacs together as one.

Rockers vs. Orient Express

See, this is what I loved about the 80s and early 90s: the tag division was AWESOME. There were at least 8 distinctly gimmicked teams fighting all over the place. There were jobber teams, midcard teams and main event tag teams. These teams almost always had great matches together. They had a great one at the 91 Rumble so hopefully this holds up.

Tanaka vs. Jannetty opens us up. Surprisingly enough this is pretty fast paced to start. Fuji interferes with the cane to set up Marty as the Ricky Morton for this match. And never mind as Shawn is already back in. Tanaka takes him down with a cross body for no cover.

The fans are into this which is always a good sign. It’s actually Shawn as the face in peril here which is the custom of the Rockers. It’s weird to see the Rockers getting outworked. Marty comes in to more or less no pop which is odd.

The double teaming by the good guys begins and Tanaka takes a big old flipping flip off a double back drop. Fuji trips Janetty and salt goes into his eyes as he falls into the crowd. Are we sure he’s not just drunk? He gets counted out to let evil win the day.

Rating: C. Semi-filler, but that doesn’t mean it has to be bad. This is definitely the weakest of their feud which is saying a lot as this was sitll fine. Not a bad match but not great really. The ending more or less sucked but that isn’t incredibly bad. It set up a future match I guess but I wasn’t big on it.

Steve Allen is with Rhythm and Blues. Allen says he hasn’t been so excited since he heard Pee Wee Herman was straight. Good grief this show was pushing things for 1990.

Jim Duggan vs. Dino Bravo

Duggan waves the American flag in Canada. Well no one ever said he was intelligent. Jesse is impressed by the crowd as he should be. It’s huge. This is your standard power brawl and with Duggan in there, it’s likely not going to be that great. Surprising no one, it’s pretty dull.

The crowd is into it though so that’s good. Here’s some punching. And some kicking. Plus some more punching. Ooo it’s a back breaker. Yeah it’s one of those matches. Never been a fan of these matches but they’re trying…..ok not really but it sounds good.

Earthquake and Hart interfere of course. We get an argument about manager’s licenses and all that jazz which goes nowhere. Eventually the referee yells at him leading to a 2×4 to Bravo’s back and a pin. Post match Quake beats the heck out of Duggan.

Rating: D+. It was bad but they kept it short which was very smart. These two were thrown out there on a ton of Superstars shows which went nowhere. This was too short and it never went anywhere at all which doesn’t surprise me at all. Weak match and filler. It’s just not a good sign when there’s nothing to bring the crowd down from. You can tell they’re here for one match only.

Video package showing Jake Roberts stealing DiBiase’s Million Dollar Belt which happened over the course of about a year for some reason. Jake is in the back and cuts what might be one of the best promos I’ve ever seen. He starts by saying this is the biggest match in DiBiase’s career. At that moment I thought this was going to suck because 2 years ago he was main eventing WM for the World Title.

But then Jake started talking about DiBiase’s values and his life, and something impressive happened: I believed him. That my friends, is why Jake Roberts is considered great. He was able to make you believe something that wasn’t true. That is what psychology in wrestling is. He did something that made you believe in what he was trying to sell to you. Greatness indeed.

Ted DiBiase vs. Jake Roberts

If there are two better 80s performers that never got a real chance in the main event, I’d like to see them. Jake dominates at first and goes to town on DiBiase’s arm but as DiBiase pretends to bail, Jake gets caught by him. I hope this is a Canadian tradition and not a sign of boredom but the Wave begins in the SkyDome which really is an impressive sight in a crowd that big. I kind of see it as disrespectful though.

A wide shot shows that the ring is on a pedestal/platform kind of thing which really is cool. Jake immediately goes for the DDT but can’t get anywhere with it. This is your standard match between these guys with a LONG chinlock. These two fought time and time again, usually for the Million Dollar Belt, and it never went anywhere.

Jake makes his usual comeback and then gets taken down again. And there’s the chinlock again. Was Ted afraid to do much other than something like that? Apparently it’s to get through the Wave. Well that makes sense. Jake makes his comeback and still I will say that no one bumps as well as DiBiase does for his size. They go outside and DiBiase locks in the Dream again but goes into the post.

Virgil him back in before the 10 though and DiBiase gets the win. Post match Jake comes back and beats both men up, sending money flying everywhere. Virgil gets away with the money but Jake gets a picture perfect DDT on DiBiase and the fans explode. You can see the head slam off the mat and it looks great. Jake then hands out the real $100 bills that DiBiase dropped, including one to Hollywood legend Mary Tyler Moore.

Rating: C. Well they tried but the whole Wave = chinlock thing messed up a lot of their stuff. They tried as hard as they could but the crowd was against them here. This was a huge feud and DIBiase gets the title back via countout but whatever. The number of matches is hurting the show again.

In the back, we hear Slick talk about why Bossman turned face, which was because he wouldn’t be paid off by DiBiase to do his bidding, saying that he was a fair law enforcer. That split up the team of Bossman and Akeem so we get this match. Bossman, which is really a great gimmick, another great feature of the 80s, says that he’s proud to be an American. Great way to be a face buddy.

Akeem vs. Big Boss Man

Bossman’s eyes are sweet looking on the way to the ring. Before the match, DiBiase, the guy that tried to buy off Bossman in the fall, comes from under the ring and beats up Bossman so Akeem dominates to begin with. Bossman lands a great boot to the face though to break the momentum.

He’s down and trying to get his breath but then just snaps up like absolutely nothing is wrong with him. It looked REALLY bad. He goes off on Akeem and a few seconds later an amazing Bossman Slam considering Akeem’s size gets the pin. Post match, Bossman punches Slick.

Rating:N/A. Just another quickie and it gets nowhere at all.

Sean Mooney is in the crowd and asks if people are looking forward the Rhythm And Blues singing. Mary Tyler Moore is apparently a wrestling fan and I now love her even more than I did before.

Now we get the famous scene from this show: the Pink Cadillac carrying Rhythm And Blues. The reason this is famous? The owner and driver of the car is none other than future two time, two time WCW World Heavyweight Champion, Diamond Dallas Page. He was just about to debut in WCW at the time. He actually might have already but if he had he had been there all of a month.

They perform their new song, Hunka Hunka Hunka Honkey Love (Word wants to murder me for that) and it’s bad. You can see Jimmy Hart is the only one that has a clue what he’s doing which makes sense.

For those of you that don’t know, Jimmy Hart was the main person responsible for all of the mind blowing songs used in the WWF in the 80s and early 90s. Back in the 60s he was lead singer for a band called the Gentrys that had a big hit called Keep On Dancing. They went on tour with the Beach Boys so apparently they had something going for them. Hart brought that legit talent to wrestling music and it worked really well.

For God knows what reason, the Bushwackers appear selling programs at ringside. Realizing that these are the worst disguises of all time, they pull them off and run off Rhythm and Blues before destroying their guitars. Kind of funny, more stupid though. The funniest part of this is Jesse referencing a CD and Gorilla doesn’t sound that sure as to what it is.

Yet again, WM 7 in Los Angeles. The sad thing is I remember the real commercials that had the ticket number in it that’s been edited out since. I could literally quote the ticket number in this if I wanted to. That’s kind of sad.

New SkyDome attendance record of 67,678 people. These announcements are always kind of cool to me. However, the fans seem completely uncaring about this.

Rick Rude vs. Jimmy Snuka

This match is pure filler before the main event. Steve Allen is on commentary here. Standard match here for these two. Back and forth which makes it a decent match. Snuka doing the hip swivel is funny if nothing else. Rude wins with a Rude Awakening. Steve Allen has some very funny lines in this and it boosted the match a lot. For those that may have forgotten, Allen was kind of like the Jay Leno of his time, just not quite as famous but very close to it.

Rating: C-. Funny and that’s it. No one cares as it’s time for Hogan vs. Warrior.

And now it’s time for the main event. First up of course is a recap though. It stated with the two of them saying nice things about each other in their promos and then they wound up being alone together in the Rumble. They do a nicely choreographed routine ending in a double clothesline, but DANG was it exciting to see it at the time. This would be like Hogan and Austin today.

A week later they were in a tag match with Mr. Perfect and his manager/partner the Genius. Hogan and Warrior win but afterwards the brawl continues. Hogan gets nailed by mistake with a Warrior clothesline. A month later Warrior is in trouble against Earthquake and Hogan makes the save after the match for Mania had been announced. Two weeks after that, same scenario, just switch Hogan and Warrior.

In other words, Earthquake was a very scary man. Hogan tries to get up and Warrior runs back and forth. Hogan has his back to him and Warrior raises his arm for a clothesline but stops dead. Then Hogan turns and puts his fists up. Warrior hits the ropes again, hops to the floor and runs away. Seriously, this guy was messed up at times.

Intercontinental Title/WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. The Ultimate Warrior

This was dubbed The Ultimate Challenge and both belts were on the line. Warrior’s music hits and I don’t ever recall a crowd going from dead to insane so quickly, at least not until Austin and the glass shattering began. Everything about this match is absolutely epic. Even the entrances just feel big if that makes sense. This is what Wrestlemania was supposed to end with and it works perfectly here.

Absolutely great job in building this up as face vs. face was very risky and still is hard to do today. Hogan’s ovation is clearly louder, but not by much. In one of the coolest scenes ever, Hogan’s music plays and as we pan from the crowd to the entry way, Warrior is seen standing on the middle rope doing his press slam motion. I marked out beyond belief just for the entrances.

It’s hard to do, but they awakened the inner young fan in me, the Hulkamaniac that lurks inside my soul. One thing I’ve always wondered: when Warrior comes to the ring, he clearly has his symbol painted on his chest, yet 5 minutes into the match it’s gone without a trace. That’s too fast to have been knocked off and wouldn’t there be traces if it was sweated off?

Crowd is white hot for this. Both guys shove each other away. And now for the iconic moment of the match: the test of strength. Warrior puts Hogan down but Hogan comes back and puts Warrior down. Hogan gets a slam and Warrior pops up. Warrior gets a slam and Hogan doesn’t pop up.

Hogan goes to the floor and holds his knee. This will NEVER be mentioned again after it gets better. The key thing here though: it lets Hogan be able to say that Warrior didn’t beat him at his best. The referee keeps trying to protect Hogan and Warrior is like screw you short man.

Naturally Hogan is fine now so the knee thing is completely forgotten, never to be mentioned again. Hogan gets the worst chinlock ever to take over for awhile. He puts Warrior down and waits awhile before covering after a clothesline. Ok then.

Back to the chinlock now as this is going more or less nowhere at all. A belly to back suplex fills in the wrestling quota for tonight. He gets his fourth chinlock to fill in time. Double clothesline and both go down after Hogan has taken next to no punishment this whole time.

Warrior does an Undertaker sit up before Taker was around. Warrior Warriors Up and the bald man is in trouble. Bear hug goes on Hogan. There are FAR more rest holds in this than I remember. This one goes on for like two and a half minutes.

And down goes the referee. Hogan gets what would be a three count. Warrior gets what would be a three count. Warrior hammers away and manages to get the press slam and the splash for two as the fans are in shock.

He Hulks Up as Warrior pounds away on him. Three punches and a big boot set up the leg drop. The leg drop amazingly misses and Warrior hits a big splash and wins the title in one of the biggest shockers of all time.

Rating: A+. This match lived up to the amazing hype that it got and showed that Hogan could work a long match that wasn’t in his normal formula. It also showed that Warrior did indeed have the capabilities to wrestle well if given the right opponent, which he had also done with Rude. While I think Hogan should have kept the title, that doesn’t mean that it was a bad match, because it was great.

The finish made sense and didn’t make Hogan look weak but made Warrior look strong. That’s hard to do. I don’t know what I can say about this match that hasn’t already been said. For both men, it’s likely the match of their lives. They have nearly 68,000 people in the palms of their hands for nearly 23 minutes and it never lets up once. Everything is a small war and the crowd knows it. Every little thing in this match is done well and that makes it a classic.

Both men do their signature no pain things, and you literally didn’t know who was going to win. When Hogan hulked up, I truly believed for a split second he was going to win. That’s great work. The finish to this epic struggle came when Hogan missed the leg drop and Warrior splashed him for the pin, and wrestling changed forever. Jesse’s shout of THE WARRIOR’S WON THE TITLE is absolutely perfect.

After Hogan hands him the belt and steals a bit of the spotlight, the arena goes a bit darker and pyro goes off all over the place. The big screens show Warrior shaking the ropes with the belt in hand and it’s just amazing to look at. A great ending to a great match and show.

Overall Rating: C+. This was a really hard decision for me because based on the main event, the Brown/Piper match and a few others, this show is really great to watch. However, there’s some flaws that keep it from being perfect. For one thing and I didn’t really touch on this, the time it took to get to the ring was just way too long. I know there’s not much they could do about that, but it really slowed things down at times.

Also, there were too many short matches. The card doesn’t need to have everyone on the card. Take the opener for example. That was a waste of nearly 10 minutes counting introductions. Finally, WAY too many backstage promos. We don’t need an interview before every match. It’s just overkill at that point. However, those are simply keeping a great show from being legendary.

This show had the real Wrestlemania feel to it and it shows. It was supposed to be an epic show and it lived up to it. The matches were for the most part good, stories were advanced, things were memorable, and it was fun. Definite recommendation here as so far, it’s the second best Mania and arguably the best along with 3. Los Angeles, here we come!