WWF Summerslam 1991: A Match Made in Heaven, A Match Made in Hell (8.26.91) review 

 

August 26, 1991 

We’re in New York at Madison Square Garden. Hosts are Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan and Roddy Piper in an attempt to do the face/heel dynamic on colour. This is a famous show for several reasons. Firstly, the marriage of Liz and Savage, which headlined. The couple were already married in real life and ended up divorcing in 1992. Secondly, we have the “match made in hell”, which is famous for the Ultimate Warrior, the latest in a string of performers unhappy with payoffs, holding McMahon up for cash before agreeing to wrestle.  

 

Vince was so mad he left Warrior sitting at home until recalling him to run in at Wrestlemania VIII. Warrior, in July, had demanded $550,000 for his role in making Wrestlemania VII a success. McMahon acquiesced to protect Summerslam’s main event and then suspended him. It’s effectively the end of Warrior as a major entity. It’s mad to think that Warrior, plucked from obscurity by McMahon, would bite the hands that fed him. Even if he thought his pay off wasn’t what it should have been. The decision would essentially end his career as a top earner. Maybe he’d just had enough. I know I’d had enough of watching him wrestle. A couple of huge matches aside, Warrior’s career is a series of duds. 

 

WWF has put this on YouTube, so it’s dead easy to watch.  

 

“The Dragon”, British Bulldog & Texas Tornado vs. Warlord, Hercules Hernandez & Paul Roma 

All the babyfaces are super over, and they made for a good team on the Summerslam Spectacular show. However, Steamboat is being treated like shit here. He’s gimmicked up the wazoo and introduced as “The Dragon”. Not “Ricky the Dragon Steamboat”. Nope. “The Dragon”. Even Kerry gets his name after the WWF slave name. Steamboat figures he was being punished for stealing the show at Wrestlemania III.  

 

Steamboat takes heat and even makes Roma look credible. What a guy. One of the best workers of the era and arguably top 20 all time*. The selling he does here to protect Roma being a dipshit is unreal. Everyone who wants to be a good babyface should study him. Gorilla calls Power & Glory “Herc and Jerk” and Heenan says it’s not nice to call people names. He once dubbed Hercules “Jercules” but hey.  

 

*I put Steamboat at #14 on my unfinished Greatest Wrestler Ever project. Ricky taught a generation of wrestlers how to look good in the ring, and somehow Shawn Michaels gets all the credit because he copied him and Curt Hennig.  

 

The trouble with this match is the heels are boring and the match drags because of it. Compared to the Spectacular match, where they had the much better Orient Express. Kerry gets the hot tag but is almost immediately lost. All you have to do is punch three people, mate. Come on. Everyone else gets lost because of it, and Steamboat wins with a high cross. Considering they ran this exact same finish at Spectacular it’s amazing Kerry got lost BOTH TIMES. ** 

 

WWF Intercontinental Championship 

Mr Perfect (c) vs. Bret Hart 

As I mentioned in the Spectacular review, Perfect hasn’t wrestled for over a month due to his back injury. This is his farewell to pro-wrestling, and he wouldn’t come back until late 1992. It’s fair play to Perfect to show up this broken and not only do the job but put in a shift in the process. All to get Bret Hart over.  

Bret bumps Perfect for him, which means no spinny, flippity nonsense, just nice clean headlock takedowns. They work a whole segment over pulling hair. They do some parity stuff as Bret is shown to be on the same level as Hennig. The match does suffer due to Perfect’s injury. He’s not at the level he should be. He’s still surprisingly mobile considering how ruined his spine is. It does help his selling because he goes to the back all the time as his back legitimately hurts.  

 

Bret is 34 here. Which in modern wrestling is normal for a guy about to break into the top echelons of the business. At the time, he was almost late. He almost missed his window. They do a good job here of building. Using little bits and pieces to tell a bigger story. It’s interesting to see Bret employ more ‘heroic kickouts’ than he normally would. Turning himself from the technician into a star. This includes the Perfectplex. “Nobody has ever kicked out of the Perfectplex” yells Heenan. 

 

When you know you’re going to be on the shelf for a long time, maybe forever, it makes giving away that kind of power so much easier. It helps Bret immensely. I like how Perfect’s normally goofy spots, like the nuts into the ring post, feel perfectly organic here. The match is just well planned and assembled. They have a hot finish with lots of near falls. It’s the first time this sort of epic has been seen in the fed since Savage-Steamboat. They were that rare back in the day. 

 

The finish sees Perfect work the groin, in an attempt to get disqualified. Hebner isn’t biting. Hennig drops a leg into the midsection, but Bret grabs it and turns Hennig over into the Sharpshooter. Given Perfect’s back injury and constant selling of it he gives it up immediately. ****¼ 

This is Bret’s coming out party as the top workrate guy in the promotion. From this point, until his switch to WCW in 1998, he’s a top ten guy in the world on every metric. You could argue against promos, but I believe that metric extends to in ring presence, which he finally had here. It’s interesting to note how much Perfect did for Bret here. Much like Piper will do for him early next year. The boys respected Bret Hart for his in ring abilities. There’s no doubt about it. This match would definitely be held in higher regard if a) Hennig was actually healthy and b) they hadn’t had a way better match in 1993 when Perfect was healthy.  

 

Anyway, phew, what a show guys….wait….there’s TWO HOURS LEFT? Fuck me.  

 

Bushwhackers vs. Natural Disasters 

This is what Andre is up to now. Managing the Bushwhackers. Credit to the Bushwhackers, they got away with doing very little and getting massively over for it. Dreadful workers though. Piper starts ranting about Americana. They’re from fucking NEW ZEALAND mate. This goes on for ages (6:27) and Quake eventually just sits on Butch for the win. Considering Andre would never appear in the WWF again, you would expect him to play into the finish, but instead LOD come out here to save him from a post-match beating. DUD 

 

If I don’t catch Andre in All Japan then this is it for his career. A sad end. Managing a comedy team while on crutches. Let’s not forget that Andre the Giant is one of the greatest wrestling stars of all time. RIP. 

 

We head backstage where Bobby Heenan shows up at Hogan’s dressing room with the WCW belt. Hogan slams the door in the his face. Gorilla and Piper laugh about it. This storyline is intriguing, despite the attempts to tank it by ‘LOL heels’ business.  

 

Million Dollar Championship 

Ted DiBiase (c) vs. Virgil 

Apparently, Ted defended this belt twice, ever, before this match. Against Jake Roberts. Both times. DiBiase is here to bump around like a freak and get the match over. Virgil’s attempts at doing anything beyond punches is embarrassingly shit. He does little Dusty Rhodes inspired juking here and it’s horrible. However, DiBiase drags the match into shape immediately afterwards. The one thing Virgil can do is tidy bumps, and Ted makes a point of clocking him nice and clean with clotheslines and stuff.  

 

If there’s ever a match to demonstrate what a fantastic worker Ted DiBiase is…this is it. Because Virgil looks good here and he’s not.  

Sherri whacks Virgil in the head with her purse and we finish on a DQ but wait…Earl Hebner kicks Sherri out from ringside and the match MUST CONTINUE. 

They work in a referee bump to turn Ted into a bigger son of a bitch. DiBiase exposes the buckle but gets run into it himself, and Virgil wins the match and the belt! Virgil did actually botch running Ted’s head into the buckle and had to re-do it.  

Imagine how much fuck money he could get if he sold that? I think Virgil is one of the worst wrestlers of this entire era, but this match is fantastically put together, and DiBiase might genuinely make my top ten wrestlers of 1991, just based on this. Best match of Virgil’s life. ***¼ 

 

Jailhouse Match 

Mountie vs. Big Bossman 

The gimmick here is that the loser spends a night in the slammer. Jacques Rougeau, whenever he put on that red Mountie gear, just completely forgot how to wrestle. The gimmick drained him of his skill. Bossman tries to work around him but it’s rough. The match has lots of long boring bits that don’t go anywhere. Including a piledriver where Bossman is lying around selling for ages because Jimmy Hart forgets he’s supposed to distract the referee. Bossman finishes with the Alabamaslam to a huge pop. Although right before it happens you can see people looking around the building. They’re so bored. ½* 

 

**INTERMISSION** 

 

Video Control gives us clips of the Mountie being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the big house. We now begin the count down to the prison rape gag. Oh, it’s coming.  

We get a bunch of interviews, but one includes Sid in his referee gear. Gene Okerlund is all “hey, we’ve got footage of you chatting to Sgt Slaughter earlier” and Sid is all “THOSE GUYS STOPPED ME IN THE HALL, BROTHER”.  

 

WWF Tag Team Championship 

Nasty Boys (c) vs. Road Warriors 

This should be a wild brawl with no rules. It’s under “street fight” stips, so the referee should just let it all go. He doesn’t. It really should be tornado rules, as it’s already “no DQ”. The lack of understanding of the rules, from the referee, ruins the concept. It also ruins the match, and no one gives a shit about it. Forcing them to adhere to rules they don’t need to adhere to also undermines the strengths of both teams. The referee gets distracted…for some reason. They fuck about. The crowd is still dead. Doomsday Device picks off Sags for the big LOD win. This match fucking sucked. Just awful. DUD 

 

IRS vs. Greg Valentine 

Hammer is still getting those ‘I was there at the peak of the 80s heyday’ pay days. Vince obviously had a soft spot for him when Greg busted his ass in the midcard back in ‘84. There can be no other explanation for his continued presence on major cards. He’s about to turn 40 and it shows. This being Rotunda in the IRS gimmick, it’s really boring. Hammer, dumbass that he is, tries to get the crowd fired up, and IRS rolls him up for the win. A real yawner. ½* 

 

Video Control shills “Hulk Hogan: Real American Story”, which was a PPV event in October. I’ve never seen it. I did a quick google search and apparently it did air on Sky in the UK, so someone must have a copy of it.  

 

 

Triangle of Terror (Sgt Slaughter, Colonel Mustafa & General Adnan) vs. Hulk Hogan & Ultimate Warrior 

The referee for this is Sid Justice. His intentions are unknown. Probably even to himself. The Hogan-Slaughter feud has been going on for most of the year now. While Sarge has tried very hard in his role, surely you would have moved on by now? This is Warrior’s last match until April, thanks to his demands in the weeks leading up to the show. A halfway fit Sarge has to take the bulk of the match because the other two guys are washed.  

 

I’m assuming Sarge is hurt here because he’s so sluggish and he took a few months off afterwards. Eventually returning as a babyface to feud with his former middle eastern colleagues. His descent down the card after this is rapid. No wonder he hung on for this pay day.  

Piper references Colonel Mustafa’s past. Quite why they didn’t just call him the Iron Sheik is anyone’s guess. Presumably Vince thought people would associate Sheik with ‘old timey’ WWF. Vince’s mentality would quickly become old = bad, once Hogan and Savage jumped to WCW.  

 

The match is by the numbers Hulkamania. Warrior barely playing any kind of useful part. Hogan legdrops Sarge and Sid counts him down to end the Iraqi sympathiser angle. This was pretty dull, unfortunately, but not as bad as some of the absolute drek on this show. * 

It’s strange that they had Sid as the referee here, and he didn’t really do anything. It’s almost like they signed him and had no idea where to put him. Anyway, Hogan calls him back out for some posing. The idea is that Hogan and Sid would become buddies so Sid could throw Hulk out of the Rumble and face off at Wrestlemania. Leaving the money match; Hogan vs Flair unrealised. Well, they ran it on house shows. WCW would eventually pull that particular trigger in 1994, and, you’ll be shocked, it was really good. 

 

Match Made in Heaven 

The actual marriage is surprisingly dull. They did a better job on the proposal where Liz does the “OHHH YEEAAAAHH” response to the offer of matromony. This version doesn’t include the party afterwards where they open a present and it’s a snake.  

 

The 411: 

Summerslam ‘91 is a show of great contrasts. Wonderful heighs and horrific lows. The good is really good but the bad is really bad. It is worth watching because you’ve got Bret’s ascent to the IC throne, Ted DiBiase performing actual miracles with Virgil and…uhh…yeah, that’s about it. No one at the top end has their work boots on at all. Not the LOD, not Bossman, not IRS, not Hogan, nor any of his dance partners.  

 

This is sat on a 5.8 on Cagematch. Which puts it behind Wrestlemania on the year (Savage-Warrior is better than Bret-Perfect). Also, it trails Wrestlewar, which is my North American show of the year to this point. WCW putting on a consistently good card, culminating in one of the best War Games matches ever done. Come the year end awards, the only time this show will get mentioned is when I say Bret vs Perfect was the second best WWF match of 1991.