At WrestleMania 6 (my review here), Vince McMahon believed that he had struck gold once again, utilizing Hulk Hogan's starpower to crown The Ultimate Warrior as the new biggest name in the industry. Warrior was now the WWF champion, ready to claim the mantel of the "face of the company", but there was one problem: Hogan was going nowhere. Yes, your friendly neighborhood Hulkster may have taken some time off to sell an attack by burgeoning monster heel Earthquake, but Hogan was still clearly the focal point of WWF programming. Warrior just couldn't pick up the slack, and business began to decline as a result. Of course, we know that Hogan would reclaim his crown eventually, but 1990's SummerSlam gives us a rare glimpse of Warrior in the main event, with no Hogan in sight. The champ has renewed his feud with Rick Rude, as their trilogy of pay-per-view bouts concludes inside of a steel cage.
- SummerSlam 1990 comes to you from The Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the longtime home of the 76ers and Flyers. Vince McMahon and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper are on the call, not exactly the most distinguished duo of announcers in WWF history, but I thought what both men lack in experience calling moves, they more than made up for with pure energy. This show is filled with so much noise, both from the crowd and from the commentary team.
- Our opening contest is a tag team match, as the newly formed team of Power and Glory (Paul Roma and Hercules) take on Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty, The Rockers. This match has some unique booking, as Shawn had a legit knee injury and was desperately in need of going under the knife, so Hercules ambushes the young HBK, laying out Michaels with a few chain shots. The two heels completely isolate Marty, not allowing Shawn any chance back into the ring, cruising towards what appears to be a routine victory. Jannetty does put together a bit of a comeback, which the crowd erupts for, but eventually he falls to the tandem superplex/diving splash from Power and Glory that gets them the win. This was good reactionary booking from the WWF to get around Michaels' injury, presenting Marty as an excellent babyface fighting against the odds, and the new duo of heels as intelligent and brutal monsters.
- After losing his undefeated streak at WrestleMania 6, Mr. Perfect picked up the vacant Intercontinental title, scheduled for a rematch here at SummerSlam against the man who defeated him in Toronto, Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake. However, about a month prior, Beefcake was involved in a devastating parasailing accident that completely destroyed Brutus' face, leaving him unable to breathe on his own, and obviously, unable to compete. Beefcake's replacement is the recently debuted Texas Tornado, Kerry Von Erich, who defeats Perfect in just 5 minutes to claim the gold. The match itself was fun for what it was, as Kerry's explosive offense was sold wonderfully by Perfect, making the new champion look like a powerhouse. This victory was definitely the high point of Kerry's brief WWF tenure, and unfortunately, one of the last great memories the Von Erich family provided in wrestling for many decades.
- The feud between "Macho King" Randy Savage and his Queen, Sensational Sherri, was scheduled to encompass a rare women's division clash, as Sherri was booked to take on Dusty Rhodes' ally, "Sweet" Sapphire. However, Sapphire never makes it to the ring, and Sherri wins by forfeit, part of an ongoing storyline on this show that we can dig more into later.
- More injuries causing improvisation in matches to come, a real theme of this show, as the scheduled blow-off match to the Rick Martel and Tito Santana was forced to be changed after Martel suffered an injury. Taking the place of "The Model" is The Warlord, who gets to follow in the footsteps of former tag partner The Barbarian by getting a win over Tito. To his credit, Santana does everything to make this match interesting, but Warlord just can't be carried to anything decent. Warlord's strikes hit like feathers, and that's his entire offense in this match, aside from the mediocre running powerslam he delivers for the win. Vince was trying so hard to build the next Andre at this time, but even though Warlord's physique is impressive, he just doesn't have the presence to make this role work.
- WWF Tag Team Champions Demolition have now become a trio, adding Crush, which was reportedly to cover for Ax's recent heart problems as a result to a bad reaction to shellfish, so Crush is here to lighten the load. As a result of getting the man advantage, Demolition have turned heel, and now defend the tag straps against the Hart Foundation. Unlike Bret and Jim's match last year with the Brain Busters, this is more of a brawl than a technical showcase, and while that doesn't play to the challenger's strengths, they make the shift in styles work, producing what was definitely the best match of the night. This Philly crowd is just so into the Hart Foundation, and pop big for all of Bret's offense. Demolition take the first fall after a Demolition Decapitation, but Bret valiantly battles back to make the tag to "The Anvil", and Hart and Neidhart manage to land the Hart Attack. Crush interferes, resulting in a disqualification, but the champions take over with plenty of cheating. Ax switches with Smash, which makes the referee seem like a dolt as the two Demolition members look nothing alike, but whatever. Ax and Smash try to perform twin magic again after the damage has been done, but Hawk and Animal, now referred to as the Legion of Doom, make their debut to put a stop to Demolition's shenanigans. In the chaos that results, Bret and Jim pull off a slick double team move on Crush, with "The Anvil" hitting a springboard shoulder tackle, and "The Hitman" take Crush right to the mat with a leverage pin. That's enough to seal the victory, as the Hart Foundation are WWF tag champions for a second time, and a dream match between the Legion of Doom and Demolition appears to be on the horizon. Of course, that never came to fruition, but the showdown between these face painted behemoths was a worthy capper to another great tag title match at SummerSlam.
- Bad News Brown's time in the WWF comes to an end after this next match, a clash with Jake "The Snake" Roberts. To counteract Damien, Brown has brought in a cage supposedly containing 200 pounds of Harlem sewer rats, which is both gross and obviously BS, there's no way the WWF went out and collected that many filthy rodents. True to form, the contents of the cage are never displayed, so that was a pointless addition to this match. The actual wrestling is fine, but Brown's heart is obviously no longer in it by this point. Jake spends pretty much all of the 5 minutes of ring time trying to hit the DDT, before Brown gets disqualified by the Big Boss Man, who is the referee here for some reason, after Bad News whacks Roberts with a chair. I'm going to be honest, the whole "big man is terrified of snakes" concept was much better with Andre the previous year, as Andre was such an imposing figure that the sight of him running from Damien was a complete surprise. This remix of a story from the previous year just speaks to how lazy Vince's booking was starting to get by 1990.
- Time to move into the "politics" portion of the show, as first, we have a returning Sgt. Slaughter stopping by the Brother Love Show, where Slaughter derides America for being too soft, setting the stage for his Iraqi sympathizer gimmick. Following that, the two biggest patriots around, Jim Duggan and Nikolai Volkoff, take on another new team in the Orient Express (Akio Sato and Pat Tanaka). It's so strange seeing Volkoff defect from the Soviet Union, now walking around waving Old Glory and signing God Bless America. As you could probably expect given Duggan and Volkoff's limitations, the match is nothing special, just an opportunity for Sato and Tanaka to show off their above average selling and get their a**es kicked to pop the crowd. Duggan wins with a three point stance clothesline and standing splash.
- As mentioned earlier, Sapphire no-showed her match with Sensational Sherri, the beginning of a show-long angle that saw Dusty searching all over backstage looking for her. Rhodes, unsuccessful in locating Sapphire, then goes into a blow-off match with Randy Savage, who gets a grand entrance atop a carried throne. Before the action can begin, though, Ted DiBiase intervenes. It turns out that Sapphire, who has been receiving extravagant gifts for the previous few months, has been "purchased" by DiBiase, I guess just to prove that Ted could attain anyone's loyalties at any time. This moment was not just poorly explained, but the optics are just horrible. Dusty, distraught, then loses a quick match to Savage, who knocks Dusty's lights out with Sherri's loaded purse. This was a really strange way to start a feud between Rhodes and DiBiase, and is mostly just a waste of time for all parties involved.
- I don't have much to say about Hulk Hogan's clash with Earthquake, about as formulaic as you could expect a Hogan match to be. Again, it's clear that Vince is desperately searching for his next money making monster, and while John Tenta was a solid worker, the Earthquake character just wasn't ready for this spot. The crowd did eat all of this up, with Hogan surviving a Boston crab, a powerslam on the floor, and a couple big splashes to make his comeback to thunderous applause. Ultimately, Hulk takes the easy road and wins by countout, before Big Boss Man makes the save to send Earthquake packing, and Hogan hot dogs and grand stands for what felt like at least an hour. Next.
- Main event time, as Rick Rude challenges Ultimate Warrior for the WWF title inside of a steel cage. I liked some of the physicality in this one, with Rude getting busted open, some stiff . Unfortunately, they just abandon that more intense action to just work a normal match, and it turns into a lame duck by the finish. Warrior lays out Rude with a few running clotheslines and a press slam, before scaling the cage and taunting Rude with a hip swivel before dropping to the floor to retain. I thought that was a cowardly way for someone like Warrior to win, he should be out there destroying people, not trying to escape the fight. This was a significant distance behind the two previous matches they had, and indicative of how underwhelming Warrior's time as WWF Champion truly was.
5/10
It's obvious that by 1990, the WWF was in auto-pilot, unwilling to take chances or present anything genuinely fresh, which resulted in a very stale product here for SummerSlam. The two main events were dull, the Sapphire story didn't do much for anyone involved and felt distasteful, and the best performers in the company were stuck in the midcard. I will say that a lot of these "Golden Era" shows seem like they would be way more fun to attend, this Philly crowd clearly had a blast, but reliving them over 30 years later was nowhere near that same kind of experience.
Next time on Henry's Pay-Per-View Reviews: Survivor Series 1990, where The Undertaker makes his debut. See you soon.
- Henry
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