WWE Summerslam
August 28, 1989 The Brainbusters (c) w/ Bobby Hennan vs Hart Foundation - Non Titles Match
This match was signed before the Busters defeated Demolition for the tag titles. Since it was already signed, but Busters didn't need to defend the titles against the Harts. Tully and Bret starts it off with the Harts in control. Arn is tagged in and the Busters try a double team move on Bret, but he backflips out of it. Nice move. The Harts work over Tully for most of the match. Arn keeps trying to be tagged in, but ref Joey Marella keeps stopping it. Since when doesn't a tag count when you tag the foot? If a blind tag to the back counts, why not other parts? Jesse Ventura is infuriated by Marella's bias. Tully hits the ropes, but Bret gives a kick to him. Harts are in full heel mode for a change. Arn is finally tagged in. The Busters work over Anvil until Bret comes in and we get a 4 man brawl. Jim and Arn are on the outside while Bret and Tully are in the inside. Bret whips Tully to the opposite ropes and slingshots Anvil from the apron inside the ring to hit a shoulderblock on a returning Tully. Another nice move. Anvil gets Bret a reverse bodyslam onto Tully. The ref is distracted though and Arn hits a double ax handle to Bret. Arn rolls Tully out, covers his head and pins Bret in the middle of the ring. Outstanding match. I'm not quite sure why they didn't have the tag titles on the line, since Busters ended up winning anyways. I loved the heelish moves by the Harts. For over 6 months Busters were doing everything Harts were doing early on in the match, but getting away with it. Fantastic way to start off the event.
16 Minutes. 4 1/4 Stars. Dusty Rhodes vs Honky Tonk Man w/ Jimmy Hart
Dusty was in the middle of a feud with Boss Man that saw Dusty stealing Boss Man's hat and nightstick. Honky has done jack shit since losing the IC title at the previous Summerslam. Dusty shakes his ass and messes up HTM's hair. Sadly, that's the highlight of the match. Pure boredom follows. Late in the match, Dusty runs into the ref. HTM holds Dusty while Jimmy Hart tries to hit him with the guitar, Dusty ducks and HTM takes the shot. The ref comes back in the ring with Dusty covering HTM for the win. Way too long of a match. Extremely boring. It offered NOTHING for either wrestler. If you're going to put on a long boring match, have it at least be between two guys who are feuding. HTM was nothing more than a job guy for Dusty on his way to feuding more with Boss Man. On the plus side, it does help give reason as to why Honky was on the Boss Man's survivor series team.
10 Minutes. 1/2 Star. Mr Perfect vs The Red Rooster
The battle of the "Mr Perfects" which in itself is some big misunderstanding. There is an urban myth that Terry Taylor was the original choice for the Mr Perfect gimmick. That is totally false. Taylor cleared up all rumors in a shoot. The urban legend came as the result of a past shoot of his. He made reference that both he and Hennig came into the WWF at the same time. It's a case of "What could of been". Anyways, on to the match. The match starts off good, but it seems like Taylor injures his knee. He tries a bodyslam, but his knee gives out and Perfect lands on him. Jesse blames it on misguessing how heavy Perfect was. Taylor is thrown outside of the ring. When he gets back in, Perfect hits the Perfectplex to pick up the quick victory. The injury really stopped this match from being good. I doubt the match was going to be given much time, but it could of easily been a fun little match like Perfect vs Blazer.
3 Minutes. 1 Star. Tito Santana and The Rockers vs Rick Martel and Rougeaus and Rick Martel w/ The Slick and Jimmy Hart
Tito and Rick have been feuding since Wrestlemania. Rougeaus and Rockers have been wrestling for most of the Summer. Before I go on with the match, I want to talk about how weird it was that Slick was the manager for Martel. Slick was the manager for mainly big men (Akeem, Boss Man, Hercules, ect). On the other hand, there's Jimmy Hart. At this point, Hart had all Canadian wrestlers (Bravo, 'Quake, Jacques and Raymond). Being a Canadian, Martel was perfect to be with Hart. Anyways, on to the match. Before the bell, Jacques (Maybe it was Raymond), slaps Martel on the ass. The only problem is that he kept slapping him 4-5 times. Kinda creepy. Jacques and Santana starts off. The Rockers quickly comes in and does a double leapfrog over Jacques. All of the heels are thrown out of the ring. Back in, Martel only is tagged in when Santana is hurting. Janetty rolls up one of the "Ragu" brothers, but Martel closelines Marty from behind and steals the victory. Exciting match as to be expected. All three guys are fast paced and can pull out some new moves. The finish is kind of a disappointment since the tag match did something similar. But it's still a great match.
15 Minutes. 3 Stars. Rick Rude (c) w/ Bobby Heenan vs The Ultimate Warrior - IC Title Match
This feud has been going on since the beginning of the year. Just before this PPV, Piper returned to start a feud with Rude. Warrior controls the match early on just throwing Rude all around, inside and out of the ring. Heenan distracts Warrior and Rude takes over. The two collides together sending the ref down too. Rude tries to cover, but there's no ref. Warrior hits a piledriver on Rude, but Rude gets his foot on the rope before the 3. Rude takes over and hits an inverted Tombstone (regular piledriver, but falling on your knees), but that just gets a 2. Warrior goes for his big splash, but Rude gets his knees up blocking it. Rude looks to put Warrior away with the Rude Awakening, but Roddy Piper walks down to the ring. Rude does his hips taunt and Piper moons Rude. The distraction is enough for Warrior to hit the press slam and splash to regain his IC title. Rude worked his ass off in this match. Even though he lost, he had several moments that really made him look good. Warrior meanwhile, put on perhaps his best match up to this point. Both men really built up to an exciting finish of not knowing who would win. He may be the Ultimate Warrior, but he just put on another great match.
16 Minutes. 3 3/4 Stars. Demolition and King Duggan vs Andre the Giant and Twin Towers w/ Bobby Heenan and The Slick
Demolition and Twin Towers had been feuding over the tag titles for the entire summer. Duggan had feuded with Haku over being the King of the WWF. I can only assume that he and Andre went at it as result. Andre was also responsible for Demolition losing their tag titles to Brainbusters. Duggan is wearing a Demolition mask and unveils himself to be wearing a US flag face paint. This is one big brawl with everyone just wanting to punch each other. Andre tends not to be too involved due to his declining health. Akeem hits a middle rope splash on a Demolition member, but with the ref distracted by Andre, Duggan hits Akeem with the 2x4 which allows his team to pick up the win. Wow, what's with the faces being all heely tonight? This may not be fun for a lot of people, but with 6 brawlers, this was actually a fun match. I guess that just goes to show you that a lot of tags can help a match out a lot.
8 Minutes. 1 3/4 Stars. Greg Valentine w/ Jimmy Hart vs Hercules
Ronnie Garvin is your guest ring announcer. Garvin had come into the WWF as a wrestler, but was forced to retire after losing to Valentine. After that he became a ref, but was fired for being bias for the faces. Garvin takes a couple minutes to introduce Valentine by insults. Valentine spends all of the match trying to get his hands on Garvin, but Hercules keeps stopping him. Valentine finally pins Hercules with his feet on the ropes. Garvin announces Hercules as the winner. WTF? Ref Tim White tells him that he's wrong. So he tells the fans that he was mistake. "And your winner by DQ, Hercules". Oh god.
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 20 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Valentine gets in a slugging fight with Hercules and Garvin. This was just an excuse to build up the Valentine/Garvin feud. Garvin would be re-instated as a wrestler and Garvin would finish off his wrestling career in 1990. Too short and too unfocused to mean anything. Valentine still wins though. >_>
3 Minutes. 3/4 Star. Jimmy Snuka vs Ted Dibiase w/ Virgil
The most interesting thing about this match is that Snuka is wearing black/white tights instead of his normal orange/black tights. Snuka nearly breaks Dibiase's neck when he botches his backwards leapfrog and falls on top of Dibiase's head. Snuka tries the Superfly, but Virgil interferes. Virgil and Snuka goes at it outside of the ring where Dibiase jumps Snuka. Dibiase gets back in the ring and gets a count-out win. Lame finish, lame match, lame way to use Dibiase, and yet badass tights for Snuka.
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 20 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. This was just a way to show Dibiase at one of the biggest PPV's of the year.
6 Minutes. 1 1/2 Stars. Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake w/ Miss Elizabeth vs Randy Savage and Zeus w/ Sherri
This all came out of the No Holds Barred movie bomb. Zeus is seen as an unstoppable monster who can't feel pain. To help combat Sherri, Hogan brings in Miss Elizabeth. Sherri, Savage and Zeus are all wearing black and silver. Hmm, it's almost as if the WWF had their own 1989 version of the 1999 black and silver nWo with those three and Snuka. Hogan and Zeus starts it off, but Zeus no sells everything, except for eye rakes. Zeus does a lot of bearhugs, but tags in Savage a lot to do the wrestling. Beefcake eye rakes Zeus and puts him in a sleeper. Savage breaks it up with Sherri's loaded purse. Savage and Hogan goes at it until Zeus destroys Hogan. Savage hits his top rope elbow, only to have Hogan NO SELL IT~! It's great to have Hogan no sell moves to get the fans excited, but don't have him no sell a finisher. That's the ONE thing Hogan or ANYONE should never do. Sherri gets on the ropes, but Elizabeth pulls her feet out to make her fall in the ring. Savage leaves the ring and we get Zeus vs Hogan one last time tonight. Hogan hits a closeline that sends Zeus to one knee. The fans erupt. Zeus is beatable~! Hogan bodyslams him and hits a legdrop to pick up the win. After the match, Hogan gives Sherri an atomic drop. Brutus and Elizabeth then cuts off some of Sherri's hair to end the show. That hair was an obvious wig, but it's still fun. THIS is how you book a guy with such limited ability as Zeus. You let him do some of his moves, but then have him tag out before the match gets boring. As bad as Zeus was, when he was booked like this, he actually looked like a good wrestler. For as limited as most of the guys in this match was, this was one hell of a match. The fans were going crazy during the entire thing and I found it to be very exciting. Major kudos to Savage for getting such a good match out of Brutus and Zeus. Storytelling at it's best. It's not about how many moves you do, but how you tell the story of the match.
15 Minutes. 3 Stars. Overall
The great is great and the bad is terrible. You get 4 very entertaining matches, a couple of decent matches and then some pure crap. But considering all of the best matches were the biggest ones, this is a very successful PPV. Had Vince just realized that PPVs were meant to showcase major feuds, instead of just building by booking other wrestlers, this could of been better. Dusty and Boss Man should of faced each other. The 6 man could of easily became Demolition/Duggan vs Akeem, Andre and Haku. But hey, I can't complain too much. Most of the matches looked like it would suck, but some of them blew my expectations out of the water.
Best Match: The Hart Foundation vs The Brainbusters
Worst Match: Dusty Rhodes vs Honky Tonk Man
Overall Grade: A-
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