Be prepared, I'm going to probably multi-quote for all of these reviews.
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| -Ventura's partner? Tony Schiavone. WTF? Did I know Schiavone worked for the WWE? Probably going to have to say no. Never a huge fan of the guy. Ventua being involved more than makes up for it, though. |
Tony was in the WWE for a brief time in 1989-1990. He'd be used as a B-Level face play-by-play announcer while Gorilla remained on for the bigger shows.
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-the 1989 SummerSlam starts with another solid tag team match - The Brainbusters versus The Hart Foundation. How can you not enjoy that one? Arn and Tully... so good together but man, I have just never liked that name. But how can you not like that they are managed by Bobby Heenan? The man is simply amazing. Just like watching a good tag match makes me miss a good tag division, watching Heenan do his thing makes me miss managers.
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The notable thing about this is that for the second year in a row, Bret managed to have the best match of the night. This would be the common trend up until he left the company. Even with Bret not appearing at a Summerslam for over 10 years, he's Mr. Summerslam in my eyes.
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-Dusty in polka dots... The match against Honky is decent, and Rhodes sells like no ones business.
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Once again, we get a random match instead of the real feud, in this case, Rhodes vs Boss Man.
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-a pretty good 3v3 tag match, with Martel and the Rougeau's beating Santanta and the Rockers.
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Another early SS trend was the 6 man tags.
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-the Ultimate Warrior beats Rick Rude to win the Intercontinental belt. Again, a reminder the Warrior was pretty limited in the ring. Rude was prety good, at least better than I remember.
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Easily one of Warrior's best matches. In yet another common trend, the IC title changes hands.
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-next up is Duggan + Demolition against Andre, Bossman, + Akeem. The faces win after Duggan tags Akeem with his 2x4. You know, I really didn't recall faces using nefarious means to win quite this often...
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Duggan wasn't completely facelike at times. Since he was pretty much a dumbass, he would cheat a lot and most of the time get caught.
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-the Greg Valentine vs Hercules match is simply to drive forward a feud between Valentine and Rugged Ronnie Garvin, apparently. I don't recall the feud. I don't even really recall Garvin being in the WWF.
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Garvin came into the company in early 1989. His only feud was against Greg Valentine. They would end up having a pretty good hard hitting match at Royal Rumble 1990. After that, he was squashed by Earthquake on SNME and only appeared now and then before drifting off once and for all. Garvin was up there in age when he came to the WWE, so a long career wasn't in the cards. Pretty forgettable though.
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-Zeus. Good lord, Zeus. I remember seeing No Holds Barred in theaters, and I remember watching his first appearances in the WWF. I guess he's not that terrible of a worker given his lack of being a wrestler and all, but his big move is the bear hug... Really, a bear hug? Still, a watchable main event. I do like that its the second SummerSlam in a row with no world title match - that's something the current WWE could do a bit more, I think. Also note-worth - the pop that Miss Elizabeth got before the match when she made an appearance was huge. Again, made me wish... yeah yeah, you get the point. Unfortunately, this one did not feature Miss Elizabeth's underwear in any notable manner. That, at least, was disappointing. And the match ended when Hogan used Sherri's "loaded purse" on Zeus... Second SummerSlam in a row where the faces had to essentially cheat to win. Hmmm...
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Just like at the previous SS, Hogan and company were able to work together to help a weaker talent get through the match. Unlike Zeus, Andre was a good worker, but his body was just giving out to him, but he still knew how to get a reaction. For Zeus, it was just the same old shit over and over. It's a true testament of how good Hogan was that he was able to make him look like he had a shred of talent. Thankfully, they let Savage do the brunt of the work. As for the cheating thing, keep in mind that the heels spent the entire time building up the match cheating. Savage won a lot of matches using Sherri's loaded purse. So it was like beating the heels with their own tricks.
I loved these early Summerslams though. To me, they were more of a stripped down simple PPV compared to the gimmick ones of Survivor Series and Royal Rumble or the celeb driven Wrestlemania. It was very little glitz and glamour, but more of just straight out action. I love how they had certain common trends of 6 man tags, new IC champions and a killer tag team match. Starting with the next one, you're going to see more common PPV matches. Feuds are going to be put into matches for PPV instead of just being house show draws. Sadly, the workrate of 1990 can't come close to compare to 1989. 1989 is easily my favorite wrestling year.