STW - SummerSlam 2005 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

SummerSlam 2005

The build for SummerSlam on Raw starts on the July 4th episode. John Cena and Chris Jericho brawl during a Highlight Reel to start the WWE Title Program and Shawn Michaels & Hulk Hogan team up to defeat Kurt Angle & Carlito but afterwards in the celebration Shawn Michaels superkicks Hogan to launch their program.

What was the work that went into putting together the HBK “heel” turn against Hogan and the program itself? Any hesitation from either side in this? Did these two trust each other at the beginning?

On WWE.com they announce negotiations with Brock Lesnar are back on. What did you know about these negotiations at the time and how close or far away were they?

On Raw on July 11th there are some notable moments from the show. Kurt Angle defeats Matt Striker in his 3-minute challenge but beforehand Striker is portrayed as Matt Martel and Angle cuts a promo on him stating he knows he’s Matt Striker because he’s been in the news about missing days as a school teacher to begin a wrestling career. How did you first hear about this and how in love with this idea was Vince of a guy using sick days to pursue his dream?

Also on that Raw Cena & Jericho are announced that they’ll be facing off at Summer Slam by Eric Bischoff for the WWE Title. 

In the Torch Wade Keller would report that that Jericho’s contract had expired and he had been working on a short-term extension through SummerSlam. What were the contract negotiations like with Jericho? He had been working really non-stop since his debut in 1999. After 6 years with the company did he need to step back and rest and get off TV? According to Jericho the original plans for him were to work Carlito but he made a pitch direct to Vince on his way out put Cena over in a big spot at one of the biggest pay per views of the year?

Roddy Piper hosts a Piper Pit with Shawn Michaels discussing the Michaels superkick on Hogan but it ends with Michaels hitting Piper with a superkick of his own. Was Roddy easy to put this promo together or were it two guys who knew what they were doing that didn’t have to be scripted?

Finally on that Raw Matt Hardy makes his first appearance on WWE TV since his release attacking Edge and calling him a “bastard’ while calling Lita a “whore” and said the WWE could kiss his ass. We’ve covered this in the past (all the way back in episode 13 on October 28, 2016…) but were you confident this would be a story that would engage all of the WWE universe at the time?

The next week it’s reported from WWE.com that Lesnar and WWE were unable to come to terms. Wade Keller would write:

Raw the next week from Philly has Hogan & Michaels making the Summer Slam match official. Was there ever any thought that this wouldn’t be the main event of the show?

Raw from Cleveland on July 25th features some notable things. CM Punk doing a dark match, The Miz teams with Matt Cappotelli in a dark match against the Highlanders, Rob Conway debuting a new theme which is well remembered by WWE fans at the time, Johnny Swinger debuting as Johnny Parisi on Heat and Eugene’s return after 6 months and he defeats Kurt Angle in the Kurt Angle Invitational to win Angle’s gold medals. 

Did you have any fear the Eugene character was dead and buried by this point? Was the point to all the Angle Invitationals to have Eugene go over at the end or was that a last minute decision?

Viscera teams with a “little person” named Cloacas to defeat The Heart Throbs and their “little person” named Pocket Rocket...who booked this shit?

Edge and Kane continue their feud with Edge beating Kane in a stretcher match but Kane drives Lita off in an ambulance match afterwards.

On the SmackDown side of things JBL defeats the Undertaker with the help of Randy Orton for the #1 Contendership to face off against Batista at Summer Slam. Also on that show Eddie Guerrero cuts a promo on Rey Mysterio and his son Dominic that he really was Dominic’s father because Rey & his wife couldn’t have children and Eddie was separated from his wife. Dominic runs off through the crowd and Rey follows. What in the fuck?

Wade Keller would write…

Once again covered in the archives but is this one of the “darkest” times in WWE creative...between Edge - Lita - Hardy love triangle and Eddie - Rey - Dominic angle...how dark was Vince in getting all this creative at once?

Did Shawn know Hogan was going on to talk about their program and did Shawn get hot about some of the things Hogan said in the media or was it all part of the work?

It’s reported in the Torch that James Gibson (Jamie Noble) would be re-signed by WWE. What did you think of this decision back then? Also around this time Spanky is resigned. Was there a push to bring back smaller better workers in 2005?

The July 25th Raw features a memorable spoof on Hogan being on Larry King Live with Shawn Michaels doing his own. From the Torch…

Tatanka also returns on this Raw to face off against Eugene. Why Tatanka?

Chavo Guerrero is repackaged as Kerwin White. Why is this your favorite gimmick of all-time? In the gimmick change Chavo denounces his hispanic heritage and calls himself “America’s Great White Hope.” You couldn’t get away with this now but was this really thought of to be a good idea?

SmackDown on 8/4 has JBL and Batista announce their match at SummerSlam would be a No Holds Barred Match and Orton and Undertaker confirming their SummerSlam match. The episode also features Eddie serving Rey with custody papers for Dominic…

During the week Bret Hart would come to terms with the WWE and Vince McMahon about working with the company to do a DVD regarding his career. Were you involved in these negotiations and how tense were they?

It’s reported in the Torch…

Do you remember who put this deal together and how the meeting went?

Raw on August 8th features a main event of Matt Hardy in his first WWE match back defeating Gene Snitsky. Edge attacks him afterwards to keep their program building. It also features Chris Jericho defeating referee Chad Patton because Patton counted a pin on Carlito the week before in a match against John Cena. Angle attacks Eugene after a match to get his Gold Medals back and Eugene is saved by Angle to set up a match the next week between Hogan & Angle.

Why this match on free TV?

Over on Smackdown to continue the Randy Orton Legend Killer gimmick he faces off against Kamala. Kamala recently passed away...what are your memories & thoughts on James Harris?

On the go-home RAW Cena defeats Jericho & Carlito in a handicap match when Cena pins Carlito. Did these losses hurt Carlito at the time in your opinion?

Hulk Hogan defeats Angle by DQ when Shawn Michaels interferes. But the bigger story is reported in the Torch…

There’s a lot to unpack here. The Shawn Michaels promo in Montreal where they tease Bret Hart’s music is one of the great all-time Raw moments and the heel Shawn Michaels is always a good one. When did you start to hear of issues between the two? How accurate is the Keller story and do you think that Hogan was setting Michaels up all along to beat him once and than walk away? Hogan has said he took issue with the promos Michaels was cutting and Michaels has always said that he was getting the direction directly from the creative team and Stephanie as well. What say you?

As we run side by side in the lead up to SummerSlam...who do you think that had the better creative? Raw or SmackDown?

Here we are...SummerSlam from the MCI Center in Washington, DC in front a sell out crowd of 14,200. 

This 2005 edition of SummerSlam had 650,000 buys compared to the 2004 edition which had 415,000. That has to be completely contributed to Hogan vs. Michaels right? It is in fact the 2nd most purchased SummerSlam in the history of the pay-per-view only to the 1998 edition with Austin vs. Taker on top.

Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler & Coach did the Raw matches while Cole & Tazz were on commentary for SmackDown.

What did you think of this? 24 seconds for Chris Benoit...but probably just because it’s Orlando Jordan right?

It does seem odd that Hardy gets re-signed...is getting these big reactions...is the babyface...and goes down in under 5 minutes. Did Matt have any objections to this and was focused more on the bigger picture? Because in a follow-up from the match Wade Keller would report…

It does seem counter productive here. Is this a punishment by Vince after the re-sign for the way Hardy went public with everything?

This is a memorable match but also features one of the most memorable moments in WWE Pay-Per-View history when Vickie Guerrero misses her cue and Eddie throws a fit in the ring which is picked up on a microphone when he goes…”Where the fuck is Vickie?” for the finishing spot which has to be re-done. How was it missed and why was it your fault Bruce? Rey has said in past interviews this is his favorite WWE match. Tough to disagree.

This seems to be just a match to get Angle on the card but at the same time no Triple H. Do you think Angle’s top guy value is hurt by doing programs with these types of mid carders?

Vince for President in 2020?

When did the idea for using Bob come into play? How did Randy feel about working with his father? Was it something he pushed for? This is a big win for Randy Orton who just one year ago defeated Chris Benoit for the World Title. How did Taker feel about working with Orton?

Do you feel that Jericho carried this match? Was this John starting his real ascent forward as being the “guy” for the company with a big one-on-one victory over a long standing top guy in the company?

The next night on Raw Cena defeated Jericho and as a pre match stipulation Bischoff fired Jericho for not getting the job done.

Jericho would be gone for two years before returning. Was it important for Jericho to recharge and also for creative with him?

Short powerful matches were what was needed for Batista at this point wouldn’t you agree? How good did JBL make Batista look?

Was the original plan as rumored before Muhammad Hassan was taken off TV for him to defeat Batista?

First off...the match...Shawn Michaels bumps all over the place looking like a pinball. Did he get any heat for what he did in the match? Do you know if Hogan and Michaels talked afterward and either’s reaction? Was Michaels promo to build to another match on Raw or was it his way of putting an end to the program and also made it look like he laid down for Hogan and it wasn’t a real win negating much of the program?

Michaels’ addressed this during a Q&A in Manchester, England back in 2014: “We were going to do a best of three and in the last minute, [Hogan] backed out. So that day, and I will admit this- I poked the bear all day. I already knew what I was gonna do — I was gonna go out there and do business, but I was gonna make him earn it, just to be a pain in the butt all day. And that was something I did just for my own enjoyment.”

Shawn later made clear, “It wasn’t right; it wasn’t professional.”

In 2015 Hulk Hogan had this to say regarding the match:

“If you really go behind the scenes on the Shawn Michaels thing, I just sat back. I mean, this is Vince’s show, Vince’s thing.

“When we went to the dressing room, Vince came in and said, ‘Okay, I want Hogan to go over.’ No big deal. And those were Vince’s wishes. If he had told me to take the superkick and do the one, two, three, even though everybody says I’ve never done a job.

“If you go back and look at my career, I’ve pretty much lost more matches [in the last 15 years of my career] than I’ve won, trying to get guys over from Triple H to The Undertaker to The Rock, you name it. And I don’t win too many matches, but it’s business. I’m trying to help these guys.

“So you know, when Vince wanted Shawn to do the job, we went out and had the match, and everybody said, ‘Oh Shawn oversold, and he was making fun of ya!’ If Shawn was really doing that, you’d have to ask him because I’ve seen him go to take the turnbuckle, he jumps on the bottom rope and does the triple flip which is, you know, okay… whatever. You know, and he’s done it several times, not just with me.”

“But what really [happened]… The reason it didn’t go any longer was because I shut it down. Because the next day, I was expecting to, you know, return the favor and then, ‘Okay, now you beat me and I beat you, let’s build to the third [match] and then go to the cage and keep it going.’

“Because he was such a great worker, I thought we were gonna have a great run, but it could be my fault, or maybe I had my feelings too much involved, but I thought the interview was going to be [acting out a Shawn Michaels promo]: ‘You know what, I gotta give it to Hogan, he was better than me on that one night, but it’ll never happen again.

“You know what, I’m quicker and faster than him, he just had that moment, he had the crowd with him, he had the momentum, but it’ll never happen again. I’m asking you Hulk Hogan [for another match].’”

Hogan continued. “I thought this was going to be the business interview, but when he came out, [Shawn said sarcastically], ‘Oooooh, he was too fast, he was too young.’ I went, ‘I’m out.’

“You know, I just told Vince, ‘Your boy… You know- It’s not business.’ So I pulled the plug on that deal. That’s where it ended up, and it wasn’t a creative control thing, I said, ‘I just don’t want to if it’s going to be a clown show now from this point on. I thought this guy really wanted to dig and draw some money.”

On the HBK DVD Michaels had this to say: ““In my mind, I presented it to him as just good guy versus good guy and the thing where HBK was just like ‘Man, I gotta know, I gotta know if I can beat the immortal Hulk Hogan.’

And then the next week, I was told that Terry [Hulk] would prefer classic heel versus babyface.

‘Like you’re in ’98.’

I was like, ‘You gotta be kidding me… I’d tear him up, I’d go out there on that mic, and I would tear him to shreds!’

‘Give us that then, that’s what we want.’

I was just like, ‘You gotta be kidding me… Are you sure he’s gonna be okay with it?’

‘Terry’s business.’ [Vince said]

I asked them beforehand and after, ‘Are you sure he’s okay with it?’

‘Terry’s business.’

I saw [Hogan] the next week and asked him, ‘Are you okay with all this?’ And it was the, ‘No problem, brother.’ And I got news for you, if he denies it, I’ll tell it to his face, ‘I asked you before, I asked you after, every time, you know, work with me, brother!’

I’m like, ‘Wow, some of the most successful people in this business are the most insecure.’”

Who’s telling the truth here? Hogan? Michaels? What say you?