It’s time for part two of Old Skool View presents….Summerslams of the 1990’s.
Summerslam 1990 was actually pretty good in my eyes, it had an excellent two out of three falls match for the WWE Tag Team titles as The Hart Foundation beat Demolition, and for once Hulk Hogan wasn’t in the closing match of the evening, this time out it was Ultimate Warrior, who defended the WWE Championship inside a steel cage against Rick Rude. The Intercontinental title was also defended where The Texas Tornado dethroned Mr Perfect to become the new champion.
Elsewhere on the card Power & Glory (Paul Roma & Hercules) beat The Rockers (HBK & Marty), Queen Sherri beat Sapphire via no show, The Warlord beat Tito Santana, Jake Roberts beat Bad News Brown via DQ, the random team of Nikolai Volkoff & Jim Duggan (That should be a quiz question) defeated The Orient Express (Sato & Tanaka), Randy Savage beat Dusty Rhodes and then Mr never layed down in the 80s/early 90s himself Hulk Hogan defeated Earthquake.
Summerslam 1991….the Summerslam where it was saved by one match and a wedding of all things. The wedding of course was between Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth, and in the words of Bobby Heenan, it left the “Humanoids in tears”. The match that saved this Summerslam was the sublime effort over the Intercontinental title where Bret Hart wrestled the title away from Mr Perfect. As a side note this is the Summerslam where Ultimate Warrior said he’d refuse to work the event unless he got paid $500000 from previous events….Hogan & Slaughter wanted to rough him up, but Vince paid Warrior then sacked him the day after Summerslam haha.
Anyway, the event went a little something like this….British Bulldog, Ricky Steamboat & Texas Tornado beat Power & Glory and The Warlord, The Natural Disasters (Earthquake & Typhoon) beat The Bushwhackers (Butch & Luke), Virgil beat Ted DiBiase for the Million $ Championship, Big Boss Man beat The Mountie in a loser spends a day in jail match (Who booked that? A common theme the further into the 90’s we go), LOD (Animal & Hawk) beat The Nasty Boys (Knobbs & Saggs) to become the new Tag Team Champions, IRS (Bo & Brays daddy) beat Greg Valentine and in the main event The Ultimate Maniacs (Hulk (Main event again?) & Warrior) beat Sgt Slaughter, Col Mustafa & General Adnan.
Summerslam 1992, yes British fans it’s been that long since Vince let us have a proper PPV event, is where it was Brother vs Brother in law in the Main Event for the Intercontinental title, where home favourite The British Bulldog beat Bret Hart to win the title. What some people forget is that this event also gave us Randy Savage vs Ultimate Warrior for the WWE Championship, where Savage lost the match but still retained the title. We also had a “Who booked that” match where HBK & Rick Martel had a “Don’t hit the face match” I mean really? What makes it worse is it ended in a double countout haha.
Elsewhere, LOD defeated Money Inc (Ted DiBiase & IRS), Nailz (Remember him?) squashed Virgil, The Natural Disasters retained the Tag Titles over The Beverley Sisters err Brothers (Beau & Blake), Crush beat Repo Man, Tatanka beat The Berzerker, and Taker beat Kamala.
Summerslam 1993 was shocking for me, what’s worse is the attempted build for Luger failed haha. Anyway the show went down a little something like….Razor Ramon beat Ted DiBiase, The Steiners (Rick & Scott) retained the Tag Titles over The Heavenly Bodies (Dr Tom Pritchard & Jimmy Del Ray), HBK retained the IC title against Mr Perfect, IRS beat 123 Kid, Bret beat Doink then lost to Lawler, Ludvig Borga beat Marty Jannetty, Taker beat Giant Gonzales in a borefest, Tatanka & The Smoking Gunns (Billy & Bart) beat Bam Bam Bigelow & The Headshrinkers (Fatu & Samu) and Lex Luger beat Yoko via countout, yawn.
Onto 1994, where we had Bret vs Owen inside of a Steel Cage for the WWE Championship, a thoroughly enjoyable match too, we also had a “who booked that” moment with Undertaker vs Undertaker, yes it happened, where guess who won? Yes Undertaker did. This event also had the awesome Bull Nakano come up short against Alundra Blayze (The original Womens revolution right there)
Elsewhere, the team of IRS & Bam Bam Bigelow beat The Headshrinkers, Razor Ramon beat Diesel to retain the IC title, Tatanka beat Lex Luger, and Jeff Jarrett beat Mabel (Again who booked that?) 1994 was a decent effort though, even with the random bookings.
Summerslam 1995 had some firsts. Barry Horowitz actually won a match beating Skip, HBK beat Razor in a Ladder match for the IC Title, and Alundra Blayze actually lost a match against Bertha Faye for the Womens title. HHH also made his Summerslam debut in a victory over Spark Plugg err Bob Holly.
Elsewhere The Smoking Gunns beat The Blu Brothers (Eli & Jacob), Undertaker beat Kama in a casket match, Bret Hart beat Isaac Yankem DDS, and Diesel retained the WWE Championship beating King Mabel (Yes Mabel was KOTR once)
Summerslam 1996 had a couple of superb matches. Mankind beat Undertaker in a Boiler Room Brawl match, and HBK retained the WWE Championship over Vader. Goldust vs Mark Mero was also a decent match that is often underrated.
Elsewhere, Owen Hart beat Savio Vega, The Smoking Gunns retained the Tag Titles in a fatal four way over The Body Donnas (Skip & Zip), The New Rockers (Marty Jannetty & Leif Cassidy (Al Snow)) & The Godwins. Psycho Sid beat British Bulldog, and Jerry Lawler beat Jake Roberts.
Summerslam of 1997 is remembered for the botch that broke Steve Austins neck as he won the IC title from Owen Hart. It ended as a good night for the Hart family though as Bret Hart dethroned the Undertaker for his fifth and final WWE Championship reign, and the extended Hart family was also successful as British Bulldog defended his European Championship against Ken Shamrock.
Elsewhere, Mankind beat HHH inside of a steel cage, Goldust beat Brian Pillman meaning Pillman had to wear Marlena’s dresses until he won a match (Who booked that), Legion of Doom beat The Godwins, and Los Boricuas (Savio Vega, Miguel Perez Jr, Jose Estrada Jr & Jesus Castillo) beat D.O.A (Crush, Chainz, Skull & 8-Ball).
Summerslam 1998 was really the first Summerslam of the Attitude Era, where those lines were blurred and all sorts went down. Steve Austin retain the WWE Title against the Undertaker in the main event, whilst HHH beat The Rock in a ladder match for the IC title. The event also witnessed Ken Shamrock destroy Owen Hart in a Lions Den Match.
Elsewhere D-Lo Brown retained the European Championship against Val Venis, the weird and wonderful Oddities (Kurgan, Golga & Giant Silva) beat Kaientai (Taka, Funaki, Togo & Teioh), X-Pac beat Jeff Jarrett in a Hair vs Hair match (Who booked that), Edge & Sable beat Mark Mero & Jacqueline & the New Age Outlaws beat Mankind to win the Tag Titles in a Falls Count Anywhere match.
The final Summerslam of the 90’s had a couple more “Who booked that” matches as we had The Rock defeat Billy Gunn in a “Kiss My Ass” match, Test beat Shane O in a “Love her or leave her” match, plus we had another lions den match where Ken Shamrock went over Steve Blackman. The event also had Jesse Ventura as the referee in the main event as Mankind win the WWE Championship in a triple threat match with Steve Austin & HHH.
Elsewhere Jeff Jarrett beat D-Lo Brown to win both the European & IC titles, The Acolytes (Bradshaw & Farooq) became #1 contenders for the Tag Titles in a tag team turmoil match, Al Snow won the Hardcore title beating Big Bossman, Ivory retained the Womens title against Tori, and The Unholy Alliance (Big Show & Undertaker) took the tag titles off Kane & X-Pac.
So that rounds looking back at the Summerslams of the 1990’s. There’s plenty of “who booked that moments” and plenty of names that brought back a few smiles and a few memories. Next week i’ll be looking back at the Summerslams from 2000-2009 where many of the names we love and hate now make appearances.
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