Legacy Review
Summerslam '91
August 27, 1991 from Madison Square GardenCommentary: Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan and Roddy Piper
This show is booked around two features: the "Match Made in Heaven", the storyline wedding of Randy Savage, still in forced retirement from Wrestlemania 7, and Elizabeth (in real life already married since the mid-80s and just doing a vow renewal for TV), and the "Match Made in Hell" the absolute final honest to God blowoff of the long running Hogan/Slaughter feud that's lasted about three times as long as the Gulf War. In the intro package Vince transitions between the two with the it's so awful but so hilarious line "Nuptials turn to napalm!".
It's a molten hot crowd in MSG tonight. They're going nuts the entire ballyhoo intro from commentary.
"The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith, Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat & "The Texas Tornado" Kerry Von Erich def Power & Glory and The Warlord (w/Slick) in 10:43- The heels are teaming because they're all managed by Slick. Why the faces are teaming, you've got me. This is Steamboat's only PPV match during his brief 1991 return to WWF that wouldn't even last the full year. Going from resetting the bar for all time great matches with Ric Flair to curtain jerking in a random 6 man team might have had something to do with that. Steamboat and Roma start. Steramboat's in super selling mode already. He DEEP armdrags Roma off the 2nd rope. They start trading off. Tornado works Herc over for a bit, then Bulldog and Warlord renew acquaintances from Wrestlemania 7 with some shoulderblock no sells. Steamboat runs circles around Warlord before a blocked monkey flip puts him in face in peril status. It's a full on selling clinic from Steamboat as he works in some hope spots. Finally he catches Warlord coming off the second rope with a boot to the face counter and gets the hot tag to Tornado. Warlord does a sunset flip! Wow. That was like watching live action slow motion. The end sequence is a bit muddled. Warlord catches Bulldog on a cross body attempt. While still holding Bulldog, Tornado hits Warlord with the discus punch. Bulldog falls on top but only gets two. Then they go into semi-donnybrook with Tornado holding the Claw on Herc in the corner, which goes on so long during the rest of the finish they both visibly start wondering if they're supposed to be doing something else. Bulldog powerslams Roma, but then gets confused as to whether he's supposed to tag out or cover. He finally decides on cover, and Roma kicks out at 2. Then he tags Steamboat, who hits the crossbody off the top to end it, but fights to keep his balance before launching. Very un-Steamboat like. Despite the slightly confused finish, it's a perfectly acceptable opener. **1/2
WWF Intercontinental Championship: Bret "Hitman" Hart def Mr. Perfect (c) (w/The Coach) in 18:04- Bret Hart singles push, finally engaged. Perfect is working with a badly damaged back. It's amazing he can even get in the ring, much less still go at about 75% of his usual. Coach is John Tolos, a semi-famous wrestler from the '50s and '60s. He's one of the shortest lived, least relevant managers there's ever been. The only reason anyone would remember him at all is because he was managing Perfect for this match. Bret's parents Stu and Helen Hart are in the crowd. I don't think they're here to see him lose. Perfect goes for a classic Hennig sell early, doing a full spinaroonie on the mat and sliding out to the floor on a hiptoss. Bret locks in a series of headlocks that Perfect tries to pull hair to get out of. Bret answers by using Perfect's hair to pull him back in! Never afraid to do a little rule bending, Bret. He always had that edge. Perfect tries some rope break shenanigans, including a wicked stiff chop, but Bret sticks with the ground game. Perfect does a 360 degree sell just because. There's a small miscommunication hesitation on a clothesline over the top spot where Bret waits for Perfect to get in position. Perfect decides to take a walk, and you can see he's favoring his back. Bret grabs him by the singlet and rips it in half pulling him back into the ring. Ring Gearhead note: Perfect wrestles the rest of the match with a torn singlet. Monsoon: "Concerned look on the faces of Stu and Helen Hart." Heenan: "You know why? They snuck in here, they're scared the usher will find them!" Perfect gets a cheap shot in over the ref during a contested rope break. Bret goes outside. Perfect casually leaps over the top rope to the floor, gives Bret another stiff chop, then casually uses Bret's lower back as a step back into the ring. As Bret tries to get in Perfect uses the ropes to fling him off the apron and Bret does that apron to guardrail dive he loved doing so much. A photographer gets squashed between him and the rail. Bret tries to come back, getting a roll up, but Perfect gives him a punch in the throat. Bret's hitting the turnbuckles at 100 MPH as usual. After going outside again they both start climbing the ropes from opposite ends on the outside. Perfect pushes Bret off into the ring, then falls on top of him for a 2 count. He starts jawing with the ref. Heenan: "Leave the ref alone Perfect, don't get disqualified!" Monsoon: "If he gets disqualified he keeps the title." Heenan: "All right, then nail him!" Perfect flips Bret out of the corner across the ring by his hair. Bret fights out of a sleeper and locks in a crucifix, but Perfect drops on top of him. More stiff chops from Perfect. Was he watching a lot of Flair matches before this? There's a tease for later. Bret bump! Man, it looked like he really went face first into the top turnbuckle there. Perfect hooks in the Perfectplex! But for only two! Commentary says no one's ever kicked out of the Perfectplex, which is almost right. No one but Hulking Up Hulk Hogan. The crowd is going crazy. Bret returns the favor from earlier and flips Perfect across the ring by the hair. Perfect slides all the way into the ring post. Five Moves of Doom! Bret starts arguing balls and strikes with the ref and Perfect gets a roll up. Bret's kick out pushes Perfect all the way outside. Perfect gets posted. You can see Perfect's back is really starting to go now, he's barely hanging on, gutting it out to the end. Bret goes for the Sharpshooter but Coach jumps up on the apron. Bret gives him a punch, which Coach gives a fantastic slo-mo rolling off the apron sell for. While Bret's in the ropes Perfect kicks the second rope right into Bret's crotch. Perfect hits a ledgrop between Hart's legs to his midsection. He goes for a second one, but Bret blocks it, grabs Perfect's leg, ties him up in Sharpshooter position, and rolls him over to lock it in! Perfect submits almost instantly. What a finish. What a match. As Perfect leaves Bret strips the shreds of his singlet off of him. On one shoulder Bret has the IC title belt, on the other the torn remains of Perfect's ring gear. I think this Bret Hart guy is going to turn out just fine. Perfect would take a year off from wrestling to heal his back up and would transition into being the proxy Heenan manager for Ric Flair, being the one at ringside while Heenan worked in the background. And you think this match was great, wait until you see the rematch at King of the Ring '93 when Bret had more singles experience and Perfect was closer to fully healthy again. ****3/4
Commercial for HOT TICKET, a short lived WWF PPV experiment that featured documentaries and archival footage. The first one was on, who else, Hulk Hogan.
The Natural Disasters (w/Jimmy Hart) def The Bushwackers (w/Andre the Giant) in 6:27- This is the closest to the Quake/Andre feud I'm sure Vince wanted he could get because Andre was far too far gone physically to wrestle anymore. A couple of months before this Jimmy Hart announced he had signed Andre to be Quake's tag team partner. Andre took umbrage, but while he was arguing with Hart, Quake took his knee out with Hart's megaphone. A couple of weeks later during a six man match between Quake and the Nasty Boys vs Tugboat and the Bushwackers, Tugboat turned on his partners and joined the dark side, revealing a secret deal he had made with Hart. He was soon rebranded as Typhoon, joining Quake as the Natural Disasters. Poor Andre gets saddled with the worst possible vehicles for his revenge. The Bushwackers give the Disasters a double eye poke before the bell, but then do nothing to follow up on it. Interesting strategery. No one ever accused the Bushwackers of having higher brain functions. Monsoon asks Heenan what his strategy would be if he managed the Bushwackers against the Disasters. Heenan: "If I managed the Bushwackers I'd commit suicide." Luke bites Typhoon's ass, then the Bushwackers get the Disasters to run into each other a couple of times. When you're getting outsmarted by the Bushwackers, your best course of action is to get back in bed and hope tomorrow it gets better. Quake says enough of this crap and ambushes Luke from behind, and Luke is your face in peril. Heenan says he got a note from one of his flunkies saying that Hulk Hogan has just arrived in his dressing room, he's going to go confront him, and leaves commentary. Now what's this all about? Luke dodges a double team shot and gets the hot tag to Butch. The Bushwackers get battering rams on both Disasters but can't/won't follow up. Quake takes Luke outside and destroys him, then the Disasters squash Butch in the ring to end it. The Disasters go for Andre, but the Legion of Doom come out to make the save. They haven't even won the tag titles yet and already their next feud is set up. Considering who was in there this was actually better than you'd think it would be. Still doesn't say much. This was Andre's final major appearance on WWF TV. *1/2
We go backstage to Bobby Heenan, who's walking up to Hogan's dressing room door. Wait, what's that he's carrying. That's.....that's THE BIG GOLD BELT. Heenan's got the Big Gold Belt! What is going on here? Heenan knocks, the door opens a crack, we don't see who's on the other side. Heenan: "On behalf of the REAL WORLD'S CHAMPION RIC FLAIR (OH MY GOD), I'd like to challenge you, Hogan..." *door slam* Heenan flips out. I absolutely, 100% guarantee that if there was a publicly available internet anywhere near like the modern internet, the wrestling internet would have imploded, exploded and melted down at this moment. Think AJ Styles' surprise WWE debut at the 2016 Royal Rumble, but double. This was the wrestling equivalent of a nuclear bomb smuggled into the middle of Summerslam. Of course Monsoon and Piper only laugh off Heenan being humiliated and don't address the larger issues. That would come later. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
The Million Dollar Belt On The Line: Virgil def "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase (w/Sensational Sherri) in 13:11- Virgil jumps DiBiase from behind before the bell while he's posing. Who's the heel here? DiBiase gets clotheslined over the top, and after a spell Virgil follows, giving him a shot on the steps. DiBiase goes over the top and out again off an atomic drop. Virgil goes for a plancha but DiBiase dodges and Virgil splats on the floor. Wow, that was a straight fall and bump. Impressive. Sadly commentary doesn't even notice because they're too busy making fun of Heenan for getting a door slammed in his face. Now DiBiase repays Virgil for the stair shots with some of his own. DiBiase asserts control, giving a textbook performance on how to mix and pace hitting moves versus playing to the crowd. Virgil ducks a clothesline and hooks in his own Million Dollar Dream. Two Buck Dream? Olive Garden Dream! Got it. Sherri comes in and whacks Virgil with the Purse of Extreme Solidity +1 right in front of the ref. The ref calls for the bell and confers with Fink. Fink announces that the ref could DQ DiBiase, but instead he's sending Sherri to the back and restarting the match. He threatens Sherri with "permanent suspension". So, firing? As the match restarts Virgil takes control. DiBiase reverses a whip into a ref bump. DiBiase works Virgil over with some suplexes and a piledriver, and covers for what would be three but there's no ref. The heel gets screwed on the ref bump? What a twist. DiBiase finally takes advantage of the ref being down to do something illegal, taking the top turnbuckle pad off. But he ends up taking the shot as Virgil recovers and reverses. Both guys are down. Virgil slooooooooooooooowly crawls over and drapes an arm over DiBiase, and Hebner gives us the patented match end slow count to finish it. Virgil wins the Million Dollar Belt. Heenan: "He'll probably have it bronzed." Solid stuff. ***
Mean Gene is with the Mountie, some NYPD officers, and a paddy wagon. Mountie tells the "local hick cops" exactly how he wants "Mountie justice" to be enforced after he beats Boss Man, going over all the ways he wants them to mistreat Boss Man. Fortunately Internal Affairs doesn't have a representative present. I predict there's exactly a 2.2164% chance this all blows up in the Mountie's face.
Jailhouse Match: The Big Boss Man def The Mountie (w/Jimmy Hart) in 9:38- The loser of the match has to spend the night in a New York City jail. That's actually a great stipulation that to my mind has only ever been done this one time, at least for major companies. As soon as the Mountie debuted you knew this feud was coming. Even 12 year old me just getting started with wrestling knew this was coming. Mountie does some jawjacking, so Boss Man jacks his jaw with a straight right that decks him. It's a punchfest to start. Boss Man hits a big splash for 2. Boss Man counters a counter on a rope splash attempt and slides outside to scare off Hart. When he gets back in Mountie gives him the ol' eye poke. That's number 47 on the list of Mountie crowd pacification techniques. Not that they ever need them in Canada. Best to be prepared, though. There might be a hockey fight. Boss Man catches Mountie off the second rope and plants him with a spinebuster. Hart distracts again and Boss Man chases after him, allowing Mountie to shove him from behind into the steps. Mountie takes over with his usual slow, boring offense. Whatever happened to the Jacuqes Rougeau from the Rougeau Brothers? That guy could move. Mountie hits a piledriver but doesn't cover, instead he signals Hart to distract the ref while he gets the cattle prod. Boss Man dodges the prod and uppercuts it right out of Mountie's hand. Boss Man hits the Boss Man Slam (Rock Bottom), but Mountie kicks out at 2! Mountie goes for another piledriver, but Boss Man counters it into an Alabama Slam, and gets the 3! Boss Man signals the NYPD to come out and cuff the Mountie up. This was in Boss Man's peak period as a worker, but it was too much of a Mountie match to be anything other than OK. **1/4
The cameras follow as Boss Man and the cops drag the Mountie to the back and all the way into the paddy wagon. You can see Mountie fighting like a little kid that was told no McDonald's all the way out. Well, in my day it was no McDonald's. Now I guess, no phone?
Intermission time in the arena means promo time on TV. DiBiase is pissed. Bret's happy. Hart wants his lawyer. Okerlund goes to talk to Savage while giving his most subtle shill for a 900 number you'll ever see. Savage doesn't want to talk, so Okerlund decides to go see Elizabeth. Savage cuts that off right quick. Elsewhere, the Mountie arrives at the jail. He's in full shackles now. The cops drag him around while Mountie whines that they can't do this to him and they're hurting his arms. He refuses to show his face for his booking picture, but the photographer gets his attention by saying "So the Boss Man kicked your butt, huh?" Then, when they try to fingerprint him he refuses to cooperate. The cop demands Mountie to give him his finger, so Mountie goes "You want a finger? Here's the finger!" and full on with no blurring, pixelating or cutting away flips the bird on WWF TV in 1991. Sorry, Austin wasn't the first. The cop in proper professional fashion takes the finger offered and proceeds with the fingerprinting. During the Nasty Boys' promo Sags says that LOD and Jack Tunney "coagulated" to make the stips. They......became congealed blood?
Lastly, we get some footage from earlier in the night adding to the intrigue of Sid Justice reffing the main event- hidden camera footage (sadly not GTV) of Slaughter and his gang cornering Justice in the hallway and Slaughter offering Justice a spot in the "corps" if Justice played ball tonight. Slaughter had to have had a better offer than First Lieutenant.
No Countout/No DQ Match for the WWF Tag Team Championship: The Legion of Doom def The Nasty Boys (c) (w/Jimmy Hart) in 7:45- Look up "foregone conclusion" in the wrestling dictionary and you'll see a picture of this match. LOD came in to WWF so over that all the WWF fans that never saw a second of them in other companies were instantly cheering for them. Not to mention their next feud was already fully set up earlier in the show. LOD Suzuki-Guns the Nastys while they still have their spikes on. They break off into pairs outside. Animal power bombs Knobs but Sags makes the save. Sags sprays Hawk in the eyes and Hawk falls outside blinded. Sags hits him in the back with a loaded drinks tray. Hawk goes full FIP. They choke Hawk with the tag rope. Sags hits an elbow off the top but only gets 2. Hawk catches Knobbs on a dive off the 2nd rope and gets the hot tag to Animal. DONNYBROOK! There's a nice spot where the Knobbs holds Animal down so Sags can hit him with Hart's motorcycle helmet. Animal dodges, but Sags, having presumably seen a wresting match before, anticipates the dodge and stops, then whacks Animal in the back. That still only gets 2. Hawk takes Hart out, plucks the helmet out of midair where Hart threw it, and nails both Nastys with it. Doomsday Device and good night. LOD becomes the first and only team to hold the tag titles in all three of the largest companies of the 1980s- the AWA, NWA and WWF. The match didn't play into the stips nearly as well as it could have. It was just the wrong time. A few years before this, presuming the Nastys being in the NWA with LOD/Road Warriors, it would have been a bloodbath. A few years later that this, and it would have been an all arena brawl with crazy hardcore high spots like the Nastys did with Mick Foley in WCW. **
Back to the jail. The cops are escorting Mountie to the drunk tank. Mountie claims that he's calmed down and will walk, then immediately tries to run.
Irwin R. Schyster def Greg "The Hammer" Valentine in 7:07- Mike Rotunda returned to the WWF soon after Wrestlemania 7 and debuted the IRS gimmick, another for the list showing Vince's mastery of subtlety. Valentine was in the twilight of his career and had settled into JTTS mode. Heenan quips that this match is "the figure four vs the W4". Nice. Some very basic sequences to start, with Valentine getting the upper hand in all of them. IRS takes a couple of powders. Valentine follows on the second one and IRS catches him with a boot as he gets back in. Rotunda locks in his famous abdominal stretch. Famous in the same way Orton is famous for the chinlock. Valentine hiplocks out. IRS goes to the top, but gets jawing with the crowd, allowing Valentine to give him the Flair throw. IRS misses a kneelift and knees the top buckle, opening up for the figure four. Valentine works the knee and locks it in, but IRS gets to the ropes. Valentine goes for it again, but IRS pulls him by the hair into a Mr. Small Package for the 3. Way too 50/50 to get IRS over, Valentine couldn't do much at this point, and while Rotunda was always a gifted technical wrestler he never mastered the art of making any of it interesting or enjoyable to watch. *
Main Event Feud recap- On the surface this looks like simply Hogan vs Slaughter continued, but there's actually many different stories intersecting here, some of which are very interesting, mainly on the Warrior side. And I'm not even talking about the backstage stuff, I'll get to that later. So, in a Coliseum Video exclusive from backstage at Wrestlemania 7, Slaughter threw a "fireball" (flash paper) into Hogan's face as he left the arena, signaling the feud must continue. Soon after Wrestlemania The Iron Sheik returned to WWF and was added to Slaughter's brigade as Col. Mustafa, making it a full blown stable known as the Triangle of Terror (too bad they didn't come up with Axis of Evil a decade early). Now, to Warrior's side. After retiring Savage at WM 7 Warrior started a new feud with the Undertaker, Taker's first high profile feud and also one of the last true house show feuds done by WWF. A house show feud being a feud set up on TV but designed solely for the house show loop, then still WWF's #1 income source, with no TV blowoff. (In fact, the first show I ever went to in El Paso in the summer of '91 was main evented by an Undertaker/Warrior Body Bag Match) As part of the TV build for the feud, Warrior recruited Jake "The Snake" Roberts to help him "understand the dark side". Over a few weeks of TV Roberts put Warrior through trials, culminating in him telling Warrior to open a box that contained the secrets he sought. But inside the box was a cobra that bit Warrior in the face. Taker and Paul Bearer walk in, revealing that Roberts had been working with them all along, kicking off Roberts' wonderful '91-'92 heel run. In the immortal words of Roberts, "Never trust a snake". Jamie Noble would have told you. So while Warrior was in this match because it was Summerslam tradition to have the top guys in a tag match in the main event, his program with Roberts was still waiting to start fully and Taker was still lurking too. Prematch promos and commentary both reference Warrior "surviving" the cobra bite. And layered on top of all this is WWF newcomer Sid Justice (AKA Sid Vicious, AKA Psycho Sid, AKA Sid, AKA that guy that broke his leg during a PPV, AKA I have half the brains that you do). Justice was assigned as the special guest ref for this match. As seen earlier, there was much intrigue as to where Sid's loyalty lied.
Handicap Tag Team Match: WWF Champion Hulk Hogan & The Ultimate Warrior def Sgt. Slaughter, Col. Mustafa and Gen. Adnan in 12:40- Sheik is extremely committed to his silly walk march. Lots of stalling at the start. Justice calls for the bell even though it's already rung. We're live, pal. Justice takes a strap away from Slaughter. Finally we have contact, I don't know how long in. Hogan takes over and Slaughter does his jumping over the buckle Bret bump. Hogan and Warrior work quick tags on Slaughter. Justice breaks up Hogan choking Slaughter, allowing Slaughter to get a cheap shot in and put Hogan face in peril. Oh hell, Adnan's in. He punches and does back rakes. Lots and lots of back rakes. Hogan and Sheiky Baby renew acquaintances, in the same building that Hogan defeated him for the WWF title to birth Hulkamania. Camel clutch to break his back and make him humble! Warrior breaks it up. Slaughter comes in and works on offense about 300 times faster than usual. Slaughter reverses a whip so Hogan crashes into Justice. Both no sell. You can sense the crowd getting nervous about this. Slaughter goes up top but Warrior pushes him off, allowing Hogan to get the hot tag. Now Warrior and Justice collide with more no sells. Slaughter takes advantage and Warrior goes FIP. Warrior hits a flying clothesline and gets hot tag two to Hogan. The punches and big boot follow. Warrior grabs a chair and chases Adnan and Sheik all the way to the back, disappearing from WWF TV until Wrestlemania 8. Hogan throws a handful of powder in Slaughter's face behind Justice's back (what a cheat!), hits the legdrop and we're done. Afterward Hogan invites Justice, not Warrior, to the post match pose down. 'S all right. The whole Justice angle managed to add to the match rather than take away from it. Slaughter would take some time off then come back later in the year as full American patriot Slaughter again. **1/2
So, Warrior backstage stuff. About a month before Summerslam Warrior demanded Vince pay him money he thought he was still due from WM 7 and various other things including merch sales. He threatened to no show the PPV unless he was paid. Supposedly when they got wind both Hogan and Slaughter offered to take care of the situation "physically" but Vince stood them down. Vince paid Warrior what he asked for to ensure he made the show as advertised, then, and this is where reports conflict, either fired Warrior as soon as he returned to the back after the match (something Vince was champing at the bit to do according to this side of the story), or suspended Warrior and Warrior quit out of principle. Either way, Warrior vanished from WWF until his surprise return at WM 8, and his planned feud with Roberts had to be scuttled.
We visit the Mountie one last time. He has to deal with a drunk guy, and drunk guy's buddy, a biker looking guy who asks the infamous question "Don't you love the way leather feels against your body?". Mountie wants out before exits become entrances and things get really ugly.
The Match Made in Heaven- Full wedding hooplah. Savage is in full gold. Elizabeth looks lovely. But just as the ceremony starts, Hulk Hogan comes back out! Hogan wants to know why he's not the best man? The Mega Powers made up, what's going on here? Savage grabs the mic and says "Why? You ask why, Hogan? I'll tell you why. THOSE EYES RIGHT THERE STILL LUST ELIZABETH!" Elizabeth looks shocked, Hogan and Savage look like they're about to fight. But before anything else can happen, they're both jumped from behind! It's the Undertaker and Jake Roberts! They lay out Hogan and Savage, and Taker grabs Elizabeth! He's kidnapping the bride! No wait.......it's Fake Undertaker! Fake Undertaker is kidnapping Elizabeth! While Roberts covers Fake Taker scrambles out and dumps Elizabeth in the back of a waiting limo. We see the inside, as the front screen goes down, and it's the real Undertaker! "WHERE TO, ELIZABETH? HAHAHAHAHAHA!" and he drives off. Roberts grabs the mic, says "Haven't you learned? Never trust a snake!" and runs off while Hogan and Savage recover.......
Nah, just kidding. None of that happened. Savage and Elizabeth have the only normal TV wedding in the history of professional wrestling. At least while TV is still on the air. But later on in another Coliseum Video exclusive we see highlights of the reception. It's all going normal until the couple start opening gifts, and out of a box pops Roberts' pet cobra! Taker and Roberts storm the reception. Taker knocks out Savage and Roberts threatens Elizabeth with the cobra (while Elizabeth visibly corpses). Yes, that bit did happen. That was the set up for the Roberts/Savage feud that would replace Roberts/Warrior and would see Savage reinstated as a wrestler. It would also, indirectly, lead to Undertaker's face turn.
OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- Like other shows from the early WWF PPV era, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. While there's no blowaway star ratings outside Hart/Perfect, the whole show is entertaining, and a crowd pleaser as the faces go over in all the matches that matter. It's also filled to the brim with historic moments- Bret's first singles title win, LOD completing the company triple crown, Heenan flashing Big Gold and namedropping Ric Flair on WWF TV for the first time, the Mountie jail bits which are both funny and surprisingly edgy for the time, Warrior's temporary disappearance, and the wedding. Sadly, Piper doesn't contribute much to commentary other than to occasionally disrupt the perfect Monsoon/Heenan double act.
OVERALL SHOW GRADE: B+
