Bigpapa42

See, didn't really know that about the Harts and Rockers. Didn't realize the downside to the Legion of Doom coming in and feuding with Demolition. Love that I'm actually learning stuff from this thread. Hope to have SummerSlam 1991 sometime later tonight... Hope...

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The Brain

Here's part of the infamous match. The video starts approx. 18 minutes in. The ropes had already broken. Considering the circumstances, all four guys did a pretty good job.

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RaiZ-R

So the ropes broke between the first and second fall and then they fixed them and it was fine. Ignoring that change seems stupid to me. There's gotta be more to it.

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Bigpapa42

At the Friday ROH show on WM weekend, the top rope broke away during the opening six-man tag match. Which happened to feature two of the American luchadores, so it was one of the worse possible matches for it happen in besides the main events. They kept working through it, and though it turned into a bit of a comedy match - such as bouncing off a non-existant top rope and doing top rope moves from the second rope - the six workers made it work. What could have and possibly should have killed the match turned out to be something that just changed it up somewhat. Then Grizzly Redwood came out and got it fixed. What does that have to do with the WWE and that Hart Foundation-Rockers match? Not much... but again, its random...

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Bigpapa42

Bret Hart d. Curt Hennig - IC Match
The Legion of Doom d. The Nasty Boys - Tag Team Title Match
Hulk Hogan + Ultimate Warrior d. Sgt. Slaughter + Colonel Mustafa + General Mustafa

-Heenan! The commentators are Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan, and Roddy Piper. Awesome! Seriously, if they would've managed to work Jesse Ventura in there somehow, my head probably would've exploded. The only downside to having Bobby Heenan on commentary is that he can't be managing at ringside. The WWF should have made a serious attempt to clone The Brain at this point, because they needed all the Heenan they could get!

-the Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth "wedding" is a big part of this one. How... enticing...?

-the opening match is a six man tag that smacks of randomness. Is there a storyline reason for this? Perhaps but I'm clueless. Its Steamboat (in full cheesy Dragon regala) + von Erich + the Bulldog against Warlord + Roma + Hercules. I guess Roma and Hercules were a tag team at that point, and Slick also managed Warlord. Okay, so maybe the heels make sense at least. Steamboat's dragon outfit looks like his mom made it for him for Halloween. Thought of this in one of the earlier SS's that also featured the Warlord - everytime I see him, my first thought is that someone managed to inflate Stone Cold Steve Austin. Speaking of inflating, I get the feeling that none of these men except for Steamboat would have a chance in hell of passing a steroid piss test. Oh, as for the match, it seems to be about making Warlord look dangerous. Not bad. No worse than the tag match that opened the previous SummerSlam... which also featured Power & Glory...

-the next match is the IC match between Bret Hart and champion Curt Hennig. I smell match of the night. Hart gets a good pop from the crowd. The match itself is damned good, but the commentary from Heenan sure adds a bit on its own. This one makes the show watchable, even if everything else sucks balls.

-after a promo for a Hulk Hogan: A Real American Story ppv (wonder if its still available?), we see a promo for the Natural Disasters vs The Bushwackers, with Andre the Giant in the Bushwacker's corner. If memory serves, this was one of the last WWF appearances for Andre. Sad to see the big man in such bad physical shape. As for the match... well, it was good to see Andre. Seriously, not a bad match. The Bushwackers were always fun, and they match is short. Love the Legion of Doom coming out to "save" Andre.

-Heenan heads off to confront Hogan with a belt, which appears to be the Big Gold Belt. Shown pretty quickly, though. I know Flair moved from WCW around this point and took the belt with him, but not sure if that's the real one or not... I fully expect Jim to set the record straight on this.

-DiBiase against Virgin for the Million Dollar Belt... Virgil almost won with a sleeper - really - but Sherri interferes and tries to get DiBiase disqualified, but the ref decides to keep going with the match and banishes Sherri. The crowd seems pretty into the match, which I would probably attribute to how much DiBiase made the fans hate him with that gimmick. Big pop for Virgil's win.

-Big Boss Man vs The Mountie in a "Jailhouse Match" where the loser spends a full day in a New York City jail. Now this is how you do a stipulation gimmick match! TNA should take note. If TNA did this one, they would probably make a "Jail Cell on a pole" match. Poor Jacques Rougeau... Bossman is slightly less forgettable in the ring than I remember...

-interview with Jimmy Hart and the Nasty Boys... Interesting simply for the fact that the trio were at the Booker T fan fest before the ROH show on Wrestle Mania weekend. All three look a touch older now, surprisingly... Saw Christie Hemme at the same fan fest - attractive in-person but not really oh-my-god gorgeous. I also got an autoraph and pic with Samoa Joe - the only one I bothered with the whole weekend. I think I'm bigger than Joe - chest and shoulders and (sadly) belly. Not that this has much of anything to do with SummerSlam 1991, but hey, its random...

-tag team title match between the Nasty Boys and the Road Warriors. Street fight. The most interesting thing about the match is that the use of weapons and such would basically become common place by about a decade later, to the point where a lot of the stuff they did in the no-DQ match wouldn't get you DQ'd in a regular match.

-Greg Valentine against Irwin R. Schyster... has a tax man gimmick ever worked better than IRS? Has a tax man gimmick ever worked other than IRS? Hammer's always been a favorite - I still have the 10-inch rubber action figure of him that the WWE sold in the mid 80s... Anyway, love that IRS cheats throughout and wins with a small package. Hey, a heel acting like a heel, how novel.

-wow... there was a Sid Justice promo awhile ago, and now there's a Warrior-Hogan promo. If Warrior and Sid did a promo together, my head might explode. So much inttense nonsense. Sid doesn't seem have that "what the fuck are you talking about edge" that I remember from his WCW stuff in the late 1990s. More fun when Warrior and Hogan finish off their promo by embracing in an awkward manner which genuinely makes me fear they may kiss.


-the main event match is Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior against Sgt Slaughter, General Andan, and Colonel Mustafa. The drama in the lead up and the match is whether referee Sid Justice will dispense justice - how... dramatic? Hogan wins by throwing white powder (cocaine?) in Slaughter's face. The faces cheating to win again... After the match, Hogan and Justice pose for the fans.



-so the Savage and Elizabeth wedding takes place after the main event. Does that make it the main event? Its like watching TLC... except for Savage's awesome outfit and the fact that he sounds like he just had his head bashed in. Weird. The few words that Elizabeth's speaks during the ceremony might be the most I've heard her say ever. I'm not actually admitting to anything, but there is a chance that I may have fast forwarded through some parts of this... Just saying...

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RaiZ-R

I'm so watching this over the weekend.
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As far as I know the "Big Gold Belt" as you say, is the real deal, but Jim will certainly know better than me.

From reading that, and remembering the PPV (possibly through rose tinted glasses) I can't think of a single un-entertaining match on it.

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horrorfan_1986

There was a thin story line. During Bulldog's entire second run with the WWE (Late 1990 to late 1992) his only real feud was with the Warlord. They wrestled at Wrestlemania 7, Summerslam, Survivor Series (On opposite teams) and Tuesday in Texas all in 1991. As for the other four, they were just drifting around doing nothing. I totally forgot about the Nasty Boys when discussing why the Power and Glory team failed to win the belts as expected. For whatever reason, Vince dug the Nasty Boys and pushed them hard. Nevermind the fact that they wrestled the same match night in and night out when they won. Seriously, I dare anyone to find me a WWE match of theirs when they win (Not just a squash though) that didn't end with a distraction of the referee and Jimmy Hart throwing the megaphone to a Nasty Boy to use on the face team. So Roma and Herc was just treading water until being broken up. Although he had just returned in the early part of the year, Steamboat was desperate to leave. Meanwhile, Von Erich had been a screw up and he wasn't going to get any more push. For the amount of talent in this match (Well one side of the ring at least), the match was pretty terrible. I can remember one spot near the end of the match that Bulldog and Herc (I think it was those two) that just froze up in the corner with neither one knowing what to do.

4-0.

This was indeed the last PPV from Andre, although he would appear at a few more shows. I really wish Andre would of been in better condition so we could of got the Andre vs Earthquake feud the WWE had been so into giving us.

That was indeed the real belt. The WWE would get away using it for a couple months before they were legally unable to. After that, Flair just carried around a tag belt and the WWE blacked it out. However, you could still spot the fact that it was a tag belt at certain angles. Survivor Series 1991 has a few IIRC.

Poor match, but it was the post-match events that saved this feud. The Mountie was fantastic on his way to the jail. I own an old WWF comic book that spotlights this feud with The Mountie harassing a bunch of kids who loves the Boss Man. In the end, the Boss Man saves the day.
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To this day I don't really understand why the Mountie lost this feud. He had been pushed pretty hard since coming into the gimmick at Royal Rumble 1991. Right after this, he'd being an IC title feud. Go figure.

I love Valentine, but it was such a mistake turning him face.

Another case of cheating making sense. After winning the World Title at Wrestlemania 7, Hulk Hogan was attacked by Sgt Slaughter and company in the locker room. During the attack, Slaughter threw the white powder in Hogan's eyes. Hmm or maybe I'm thinking of Sherri to Hogan and Brutus and Slaughter threw a fireball in Hogan's face. Anyways, when you have heels cheating any chance they get, you might as well fight fire with fire. Or in this case, fire ball (HA~!) Surprisingly good match. For all of his limitations and critics, Hogan really knew how to make a tag match exciting. Fast tags and keeping everything fresh can really do wonders for a match.

Come on, it was a great ceremony. What's the deal with leaving the best part out? Roberts and Taker crashing the reception, the snake in the present and Sid Justice saving the day was all great. It would set up a Survivor Series match with Robert's team (Natural Disasters and IRS) vs Sid Justice's team (Road Warriors and The Big Boss Man). Of course things would change a couple times, but that's besides the point. Anyways, seeing how Savage vs Roberts is probably my favorite feud ever, this segment is pretty historic.
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Overall, it's a decent Summerslam, easily better than 1990. However, my biggest problem with it was how they left off some of the top stars. We got to see Greg Valentine (Love the guy, but he was a lowcarder) while Jake Roberts, The Undertaker and The Rockers were all matchless? Lame.

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Bigpapa42

I forgot to mention the "going to jail" segments from the Mountie! Those were funny.

Having the faces cheat to win can be an effective tactic sometimes, if you can build up the heel to the point where the fans just want to see them get it. Its great to see them get a taste of their own medicine. Its just weird to see it used year after year in the main event of SS, without knowing the build up that justified it. I don't recall the approach being used so often in either WM or the Royal Rumble through this era, so it seems like something they used repeatedly in SS.

I'm going to have to rewatch the end of the PPV, but I don't think the DVD I watched had anything after the wedding ceremony. Pretty sure it ended on the roar of the crowd after the wedding, when they started showing the credits. I did fast forward but just a little. I couldn't skip Savage saying his vows and sounding so very messed up.

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horrorfan_1986

I suppose it could be repetitive when they're shown in a box set. However, it didn't happen a lot at the time. So it's like an old school ref bump. Seeing it now may be eye rolling inducing, but it wasn't like that back then. When a ref took a bump, it was a rare and special event.

It has to be on the DVD. It was honestly, the best part of the show outside of Perfect vs Hart. If they took it out, that would be a major negative point about buying the set.

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Bigpapa42

I'll check the DVD in a bit. My guess is that its there and I somehow missed it. Might have accidentally hit chapter skip or something...?

One of the things I most enjoy about watching these old DVDs is seeing stuff that's common place now when it was still a big deal. Like the ref bumps and some of the finishers. It really does remind me of why I came to love wrestling so much. Going back to old school stuff like this is something I highly recommend to any long time fan once in awhile. Brings you back to why you started in on it in the first place. I might be having fun by making fun of much of it, but I really am enjoying it.

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