STW - SummerSlam 1990 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

SummerSlam 1990

SummerSlam 1990 took place on August 27th, from the Spectrum, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is the 3rd SummerSlam pay per view event. It drew 19,304, which actually was the lowest attendance of the first 7 SummerSlams. It got $338,452 from ticket revenue. The pay-per-view was 3.8, which was down from the previous year's 4.8 but higher than SummerSlam 91s 2.7 buyrate.

This was back in the days when we only had the big 4 pay per views each year, so technically we're coming off of WrestleMania 6, where we saw Ultimate Warrior win the World Title from Hulk Hogan. We did a full show on WrestleMania 6 probably around 3 years ago now.

We're also coming off of a Saturday Night's Main Event, which we did a show on a few weeks ago.

Speaking of Warrior, he'd be making his first high profile title defense as he'd be defending the title in a steel cage here at SummerSlam 1990 against a former rival of his; the man who beat him for the Intercontinental title at WrestleMania 5, Ravishing Rick Rude

Speaking of Hulk Hogan, he would be making his long awaited return to the ring after a storyline injury here at SummerSlam 1990, where he'd be taking on the man who put him out of action, Earthquake.

Let's get to some WWF news heading into SummerSlam

3 days before SummerSlam, on August 24th, you met with a WCW wrestler, known as Mean Mark. Talk about that meeting, and who Mean Mark would end up becoming.

Meltzer reported - In a surprise move, the WWF has hired Roddy Piper to take the spot vacated by Jesse Ventura as color commentator on its Superstars of Wrestling show. Piper may be starting at the television tapings this weekend, although I’ve also heard he may not start until the following SOW taping on 8/28 in Hershey, PA. Piper won’t be playing a heel role, but instead with play a babyface role and work with Vince McMahon.The split-up between McMahon and Ventura occurred because Ventura was offered a deal with a company called Dream Works that is producing a wrestling video game for Sega Genesis. Even though McMahon had claimed that this would be competition for a WWF licensed video game by Acclaim for Nintendo, someone familiar with the industry said that the two games are in no way competition for one another. In fact, McMahon’s Wrestlemania game is more than one year old and in that business, that means it has very little shelf life remaining. 

In addition, the amount of money that the game, even if new and if it was in competition with the Ventura game, was negligible in comparison to Ventura’s value to the company. In reality this split-up appears to be more stubbornness than

business, probably on the part of both. It’s simply McMahon told Jesse that he couldn’t do something and Ventura was in a position where he didn’t want to be told what he could and couldn’t do by McMahon. After putting his foot down, even though what Ventura was doing wasn’t competition, McMahon couldn’t appear to back down and instead this somewhat minor situation turned into a contract impasse, since Ventura wasn’t about to back down. 

In order to minimize the loss, McMahon hired Piper to fill the slot even though many in the organization don’t think Piper is the right person for the job. The thought was expressed to me that most announcers are there to get over the wrestling and the angles but Piper’s personality is such that he’ll overshadow what they are trying to sell and just get over Piper. That may be good for TV ratings but won’t help the houses.

In addition, relations between McMahon and Piper haven’t always been the best as well. Plus, Piper’s time, as Ventura’s would be, will be limited shortly when the “Tag Team” series begins filming, which will at times force them to rush and get tapes out on time. Piper’s contract with Disney for “Tag Team” prohibits him from doing any wrestling for the WWF because of the injury risk.

What's your memories of this?

Jesse was a heel commentator, but Roddy was a face. Was there consideration into replacing Jesse with another heel?

The ironic thing is, just 2 days before Jesse made his final appearance as a commentator for WWF, his show with Roddy on the ABC network called Tag Team was cancelled after 2 shows. What's your memories of that show and it being cancelled?

Meltzer reported - Both Bad News Brown and Haku have offers to leave and go to Japan. We’ve heard talk of Brown leaving from time-to-time but he always stays, however with Antonio Inoki back in power, the talk in Japan is that Brown will become Badnews Allen and work mainly in Japan starting as early as September. All Japan trying to get Haku back in December to become a new tag team partner for Jumbo Tsuruta (since Yatsu and Kabuki went to SWS) and eventually turn on Jumbo and feud the two of them next year.

In the WWF magazine in February of 1990, there was an interesting ad in there - “Professional athlete-wrestler. Successful applicant to wrestle professionally at various arenas in the United States and abroad. Participate in professional competitive wrestling events to entertain audiences according to established rules. Applicants must be strong, agile and possess great athletic ability. Must have five years wrestling experience. Salary for 40+ hour week---$2,000 per week. Please send resume to Job Service Technical Unit, Connecticut Department of Labor, 200 Folly Brook Blvd., Wethersfield, CT 06109. Refer to job order #3062596.”

Would anyone that we know come from that ad?

How many people that never stepped foot in a ring before for even training responded to that ad?

On August 19th, the SummerSlam Fever special aired. It was taped on August 15th, in Utica, New York. It drew a sellout, of 5,000

Meltzer's report on it - 

The best actual match on the nine-match special was Mr. Perfect beating Ron Garvin in 5:57, and that would probably only be a *3/4 match, and that’s strictly for the performance by Perfect. Actually for Garvin to have an effective match, he needed time and this was a rush-them-in and rush-them-out type of show, with most of the matches lasting less than three minutes. 

Remainder of the wrestling matches saw Demolition Smash (Barry Darsow) pin Jim Neidhart in 6:10 when Neidhart tried a sunset flip but Smash held onto the ropes and sat on him for the pin * (match itself was 1/2* at best, but a good post-

match brawl in the aisle when all three Demolition ganged up on Neidhart and left him laying)

Kerry Von Erich (soon to be Kerry Von Erich no longer) pinned Black Bart with a Tornado punch in 2:41 DUD

Warlord pinned Pez Whatley with a powerslam in 2:53 ½

Nikolai Volkoff pinned Bore-us Zhukov with a clothesline behind the head in 2:37 -1/2* (at least the match was mercifully short but the timing and actual work between the two was terrible)

Power & Glory beat two jobbers in 2:35 when they did their finishing move of Hercules doing a superplex from one turnbuckle and Paul Roma jumping off the top rope onto the guy from another turnbuckle * (strictly a squash and Hercules is a total stiff but Roma looks great)

Jake Roberts pinned Mike Sharpe with the DDT in 2:39 (they piped in a lot of fake crowd noise during this match. Nothing wrong with it as a TV squash but nothing right with it either)

Orient Express beat Shane Douglas & Sonny Blaze in 2:08 when Akio Sato pinned Blaze with a power bomb (decent squash) 

Jim Duggan beat Earthquake via DQ in 6:20 when Dino Bravo interfered and Hulk Hogan ran in with the 2x4 to make the save, chased them both away and finished the show to his posing routine. Finish wasn’t crisp looking, but it was exactly as expected and probably created the desired effect. 

Lots of interviews with most of the top names on SS. Ultimate Warrior and Kerry Von Erich now look like the bobsy twins. It surprises me that Titan changed Warrior’s appearence, even to the changing of the hair color and hair style when

they were pushing another guy as a top babyface with the same exact look (and truthfully, the same unintelligible interviews as well).

For a promotion based upon unique characters, it’s No. 2 and No. 3 babyface (coming out of SS) will be too similar. Sherri Martel had make-up to make her look like a monkey. Brother Love did a segment with Hulk Hogan in the middle of the card and you could tell that is what drew the house because the place emptied out, even though the two main events were yet to occur. Actually the best part

of the show was the commentary.

Meltzer reported - Titan contacted Big Van Vader about coming in between Japan tours as he does now with the NWA. This is significant only because

Titan has never wanted to use anyone that wasn’t 100 percent theirs or share with another group which I guess shows how impressed some WWF people are with the gimmick and also its ability to draw with the NWA.

That takes us to SummerSlam

The first match was Power & Glory vs The Rockers

On the July 21st 1990, episode of Superstars. Roma was attacked after a match by Dino Bravo, when The Rockers came to the ring for the following match, Roma accused them of attacking him. The argument turned physical, and Roma was backed up by Hercules. One week later, Roma and Hercules appeared on the Brother Love show, and formed their team, Power & Glory.

Power & Glory (Hercules & Paul Roma) defeated The Rockers in 6:01. It was obvious that Shawn Michaels was hurting just walking fast down the aisle (Rockers usually run) and wasn’t ready to work because of his bad knee. So the only option, rather than subbing for him with Shane Douglas as they’ve done as the house shows, was to do an immediate angle where Hercules jumped him

before the bell and nailed his knee with a chain. Because of that, Janetty worked the entire match. Interesting that Vince McMahon acknowledged Michaels was-coming into the match with a knee injury.

The guys did about as good as they could considering they were limited in time. Fast action with Roma and Janetty and lots of double-teaming as well. Hercules still stinks but with a hot partner, they’ll make one of the better tag teams in the federation. Roddy Piper kept saying the Rockers were like “Mick Jagger and David Bowie,” showing he’s kept himself only 15 years behind the times on hot rock artists (I know, Jagger is still hot but these were guys that were on top when Piper himself was still a kid). 

Janetty had Roma pinned and Hercules clotheslined him just before the finish of Hercules doing the superplex and Roma splashing him off the top rope. Janetty was probably the best worker on the card. The heels left both guys laying after the match, Michaels did a stretcher job and the way the commentary went, I’ve got the impression Michaels will be out of action for a while. ***

Texas Tornado won the IC title pinning Mr. Perfect in 5:13. Tornado catapulted Perfect into the ring post and then used the claw (which got a big reaction so an awful lot of the fans must be familiar with watching wrestling from other promotions) and pinned him with the tornado punch. Pretty bad match *

This match was originally supposed to be Brutus Beefcake challenging Mr. Perfect for the IC title. Beefcake gave Perfect his first pinfall loss a few months earlier at WrestleMania 6. However, Brutus was involved in a life threatening parasailing accident on July 4th. Kerry Von Erich who just came to the WWF about a month earlier was put into the match

Had Brutus been in this match, was he going to win the title, or was Perfect going to get his win back from WrestleMania 6?

It's been rumored that both The British Bulldog & Bam Bam Bigelow were in consideration for this spot, before it ultimately went to Kerry. Is that true?

The next match was supposed to be Queen Sherri vs Sapphire

At the 1990 Royal Rumble, Sherri appeared on the Brother Love show. Brother Love discussed the definition of a "lady", using Sherri as an example. He then discussed "peasants", bringing out Sapphire as an example. Sherri and Sapphire fought, which led to Savage and Rhodes fighting. 

Rhodes and Sapphire faced Savage and Sherri at WrestleMania 6. Rhodes and Sapphire won the match with assistance from Elizabeth. Leading up to SummerSlam, Sapphire had been receiving gifts from an anonymous benefactor 

Sherri beat Sapphire via forfeit when Sapphire never came to ringside. In that way, this match was tons better than it figured to be going in. After the match they did an interview with Dusty Rhodes trying to find out what happened (the story line for the night) to Sapphire and Jim Duggan came in and did a line and showed that he has no future in acting. Then again, if you watched Duggan wrestle, you’d think he’d have no future there either.

The Warlord pinned Tito Santana in 5:28 with a powerslam. Tito worked really hard to carry this to a worthless match. Warlord is a monster, but completely useless. DUD

It's been rumored that this was originally supposed to be Tito Santana vs Rick Martel, but Martel was pulled a few weeks before the show due to injury. The storyline reason was that he had a modeling obligation in France. Is that true?

The next match was a 2 out of 3 falls match for the World Tag Team titles; Demolition defending against The Hart Foundation. This was actually a rematch from the 1st SummerSlam in 1988, where Demolition defeated The Hart Foundation

On the March 31st Superstars, The Hart Foundation challenged the WWF Tag Team Champions (whomever they would be) after the WrestleMania. The Hart Foundation faced The Rockers on the April 28th Saturday Night's Main Event 26, Demolition interfered, causing a double DQ

On the July 14th Superstars, Demolition and The Hart Foundation fought after The Hart Foundation claimed that Demolition having three members was evidence of cowardice. The following week, a match between the teams was scheduled for SummerSlam. The stipulations stated that it would be a 2 out of 3 falls match, and that only two members of Demolition would be allowed at ringside. 

The Hart Foundation captured the WWF tag team titles from Demolition in a two of three fall match. The Harts have new gay-looking ring outfits that look to be designed by Michael Jackson. This was the best match of the show, both for the plot of the match itself and mainly for the ring work of Bret Hart (certainly not for anyone else’s work in the ring). 

First fall saw Crush pin Bret after the backbreaker elbow drop finisher in 6:18. Second fall saw the Hart Foundation do the Hart attack on Smash but Crush jumped on the ref for the DQ in 3:28. Third fall saw Axe (who was banned from ringside) run and hide under the ring. 

Then Axe and Smash switched places (this was the weak part of the match because to accept the premise of this match, one had to be able to believe that neither the Hart Foundation nor the ref could tell Axe or Smash apart because they look alike which is a hard premise to accept) and they did a few more switches. Hey, these guys aren’t exactly the Twin Devils. Anyway, the Legion of Doom came to ringside and pulled the guy hiding under the ring out and a melee ensued ending with Bret pinning Crush with a schoolboy in 4:03. ***1/2

The next match was Bad News Brown vs Jake Roberts

The feud began when Roberts sent Brown a birthday present on the April 22nd Wrestling Challenge. Upon opening the package, Brown found a rubber snake, to which he reacted with horror. On the May 5th Superstars, they agreed to a match;Brown later stated that his fear of snakes was cured but was quickly proven wrong. On the July 28th Superstars, a match between Brown and Roberts was scheduled for SummerSlam with the Big Boss Man as the ref. Brown said that he would bring 200 pounds of Harlem sewer rats to counteract Damien

Jake Roberts beat Bad News Brown via DO in 4:43. Funny that Bad News did two legdrops during the match. It’s supposed to be a no-no to use somebody else’s finisher. Bad News hit Jake in the ribs with a chair for the DQ. Bad News went to legdrop Damien but Baseman made the save. News attacked Bossman but Jake pulled out Damien and chased News away. The 200 pounds of ghetto rats

which the only build-up was based upon never came into play. -*

Bad News would leave the WWF soon after SummerSlam. What led to his departure?

He has said that Vince had told him that he was going to become the first black WWF World Champion. Was that talked about?

After Bad News left, Akeem was put in his place in house show matches against Jake. Interestingly enough, those matches were still billed as Harlem Street Fights

Next came Brother Love with Sgt. Slaughter. This was reminiscent of the classic Brother Love with Morton Downey and Roddy Piper from a Wrestlemania in the way it dragged and how bad it was. Slaughter said things that should have gotten heat, but didn’t. They are going to have a harder time with this guy than I thought, at least from the reaction here. Segment was a bomb.

The next match was Nikolai Volkoff & Jim Duggan vs The Orient Express

Nikolai Volkoff began the year partnered with Boris Zuhkov known as The Bolshevicks. After Lithuania, Volkoff's homeland, declared its independence from the Soviet Union on March 11, 1990, The Bolsheviks split up. Volkoff became pro-America, and was presented with an American flag by Jim Duggan and they formed a team 

Jim Duggan & Nikolai Volkoff beat The Orient Express in 3:05 when Duggan pinned Pat Tanaka after a clothesline that missed. -*

(Match was worth negative one star, Duggan & Volkoff singing was worth negative another star but I added a star for Tanaka’s great bump from a move that completely missed at the finish). If they keep Duggan & Volkoff together, they’ll have the worst tag team in the business.

The next match was Dusty Rhodes vs Randy Savage. We touched on the background of their feud earlier, before the Sherri & Sapphire match

Randy Savage pinned Dusty Rhodes in 2:15. The whole King gimmick for Savage seems to be done away with. As the match started, Ted DiBiase and Virgil came to the interview area and announced that Sapphire was with DiBiase. Rhodes went up to the podium and Savage jumped him from behind in the aisle. Anyway, Sherri gave Savage the purse and Savage hit Rhodes with it for the pin. The angle may have been better if they had done the match with Sapphire in the corner and she double-crossed Dusty herself, causing him to lose and then they did the interview and left with Dusty chasing them. Another bad match. -*

The next match was Hulk Hogan vs Earthquake

As Hulk Hogan was being interviewed on The Brother Love Show during the May 26th Superstars, he was attacked by Earthquake. Earthquake hit Hogan with a chair and hit him with an Earthquake splash. Hogan was taken from the stage on a stretcher.

Hogan did not appear on WWF programming for almost two months, as the company teased his possible retirement. On the July 14th Superstars, Hogan revealed that he would return to the ring against Earthquake at SummerSlam. Tugboat was supposed to be in his corner during the match, but he was attacked by Earthquake and Dino Bravo on the August 18th Superstars, and received two Earthquake splashes before being saved by the Big Bossman. Tugboat was carried offstage on a stretcher; his (kayfabe) injuries prevented him from appearing at SummerSlam. Big Bossman replaced Tugboat in that role 

Meltzer wrote about that - Here is the story on Tugboat as best as I can figure it. The TV injury angle that aired this weekend tied up all the loose ends and is the

explanation. However, all inside the company publicity not for public knowledge still had Tugboat at Summer Slam and at all these shows so even though it is technically just an angle, it was not an angle planned out far in advance. 

Word is that Tugboat’s quick rise to stardom swelled his head and Vince was giving him an attitude adjustment, and at the same time building a grudge for Tugboat vs. Earthquake matches in the fall. Tugboat is still with the company but not making any dates nor will he be at Summer Slam. In addition, Bossman has been pulled as special ref in the Roberts-Brown match which again shows that all this is late improvising and not part of the original master plan.

Hulk Hogan beat Earthquake via count out in 13:09. Hogan appeared to be around 270 pounds and at that weight looked small next to Earthquake (who is also deceptively tall at 6-6h compared to Hogan’s 6-5). Given the two guys in the ring, the match was booked and worked smart. Not a good match, but not a bad one either and actually very predictable all the way through.

Quake did Earthquakes but Hogan kicked out and did the superman comeback, foot to face, bodyslam (failed to slam him twice earlier) and legdrop. Jimmy Hart interfered and they both wound up outside the ring. Hogan ducked so Hart hit Earthquake with the megaphone and slammed him on the table and jumped in to beat the count. After the bout Earthquake was choking Hogan and Big Bossman (who Piper called “Big Bosomed Man” throughout the show) hit Quake hard three times in the back with a chair before Quake would sell the chair moves and Quake’s back was pretty cut up from the chair. 

Good spot there. After the match Hogan did an interview which basically guaranteed he would wrestle (and more likely than not beat) Warrior at Wrestlemania. **1/4

The next match was a steel cage match for the World Title; Ultimate Warrior defending against Rick Rude.

We mentioned earlier how Rick beat Warrior at WrestleMania 5 for the IC title. A few months later at SummerSlam 89', Warrior won the title back from Rick, so this is technically the rubber match, 1 year later at SummerSlam 90'

Leading up to this match, Rick cut his hair and we saw several training vignettes with Rick and his manager, Bobby Heenan.

This is Rick Rude’s final WWF PPV match. His final record was 6-4-1. He was 0-2 at the Royal Rumble, 2-0-1 at WrestleMania, 1-2 at SummerSlam and 3-0 at Survivor Series. He would return to the WWF in 1997 after a successful run in WCW and briefly in ECW.

Ultimate Warrior kept the WWF title beating Rick Rude in a cage match in 10:01. Warrior had the complete face paint back on and different hairstyle once again to make him look nothing like Kerry Von Erich. No matter what anyone says, the company is obviously unhappy with how he’s getting over when they make these weekly changes in his look and character. They both juiced within three minutes to get the cage gimmick over. But the match was really slow paced until the end as they had to pace themselves for the “long” match. 

Rude came off the top of the cage once but didn’t try to escape as Bobby Heenan went berserk (could be the seeds of a turn later this year). Rude came off near the top of the cage a second time but Warrior punched him. When Warrior tried to escape at seven minutes, Heenan hit him with the cage door. Finish saw Warrior do the superman comeback, three clotheslines, and go over the top for the win. **1/2

It's been rumored that Rick was very angry about his SummerSlam payoff and that might've had something to do with him leaving the WWF not long after SummerSlam. Is there any truth to that?

On a scale of 1-10; 10 being the best, what would you give SummerSlam 1990?