WWF Summerslam 1990 Review

One year after a very bad show, SummerSlam 1990 was for the most part very good. You had great matches, good story set-up, but the last three matches just didn’t click for me when I watched it. But that shouldn’t distract from what was a very good undercard.

Power & Glory Vs. The Rockers

Before the match started, Hercules and Roma attacked Michales and his already banged up knee. This made the match a 2 on 1 handicap match escentially. The match helped make Janetty look like that underdog babyface he portrayed after he and Michales split. I think that Power & Glory were a very underrated team and had a ton of potential. They even had a fantastic finisher where Hercules hit a superplex and Roma followed with a splash. It also set up for the future of the Janetty and Michales feud.

Mr Perfect (C) Vs. The Texas Tornado (WWF Intercontinental Championship)

Talk about what could’ve been a fantastic match, but was just to short. I still think it was a very good match. Von Erich and Perfect just get wrestling. While the Texas Tornado gimmick was pretty dumb, Von Erich was always a great wrestler, but I think he never reached his full potential in the WWE. He won the Intercontinental here, but there wasn’t really much of a match to talk about here.

Queen Sherri Vs. Sapphire

This match ended in a forfeit due to something that would be revealed a little later in the night.

The Warlord Vs. Tito Santana

Warlord isn’t known for having fantastic matches. But his matches with Santana were all pretty decent. This may have been the best match I have seen Warlord have. It was a fairly short match that saw Warlord win. It still surprises me that Warlord wasn’t pushed as hard as he was when he was in WWE. We all know what Vince’s type is and Warlord fits that description easily.

Demolition (C) Vs. The Hart Foundation (2 Out Of 3 Falls; WWF Tag Team Championships)

This was a tag team clinic. You had two teams that just knew how to do tag team wrestling. Demolition got the first fall, and the baby faces had to come from behind. They got one fall after one of the members of Demolition hit the referee to stop a pinfall, and here is where things got interesting. At this point, Demolition consisted of Ax, Smash and Crush. Only two were allowed to be in the ringside area at a time. The third member came out when the referee’s back was turned and hid under the ring. Periodically the members would swap out. This made the Legion of Doom upset, and they came out to get Demolition caught. This distraction lead to a Hart Attack and became the next tag team champions. It was an excellent match and highly recommended.

Jake Roberts Vs. Bad News Brown (Special Guest Referee: Big Boss Man)

This match was rather short and was more of a set up for Big Boss Man vs Bad News Brown it seemed. You had a whole thing between Roberts snake, Damian, and Brown’s Harlem Sewer Rats. The match ended in DQ after Brown hit Roberts with a steel chair. I did get a laugh after the match when Roberts used Damian as a weapon to get Brown off of Boss Man.

Jim Duggan & Nikola Volkoff Vs. The Oriental Express

This was a match where Volkoff and Duggan beat up some jobbers. It is a shame to me that Duggan was so poorly used in his WWE run as he was a very solid wrestler. The faces continued to reign supreme on this show.

Randy Savage Vs. Dusty Rhodes

This was the start of the bad matches in the end of the show. Before the match it was revealed that Ted DiBiase ‘bought’ the services of Sapphire, Dusty Rhodes manager. While it sounds like this would be a very disturbing, it turns out that DiBiase litterally bought the managerial services of Sapphire, and several other nice things for her. This lead to Rhodes being distracted, and Savage took advantage. Rhodes started to get some offense in, but then Sensational Sherri got involved and gave Savage her loaded purse which knocked Rhodes down long enough to win. It was such a short match and I feel like it really should have been a lot longer. These are two were very good in the ring, but they can’t do anything super impressive in just two minutes.

Hulk Hogan Vs. Earthquake

This match was really before we knew who Earthquake was going to become. He is maybe one of the better big men in wrestling history, but everyone starts somewhere. Earthquake had Jimmy Hart and Dino Bravo in his corner while Hogan had Big Boss Man. At one point, Boss Man got in the ring and was hitting double team moves with Hogan in plain sight of the referee! Yet the match continued for whatever reason. At least when Bravo and Hart were trying to help and helping Earthquake it was behind the referees back. I think that Hogan should’ve been disqualified, but this is the WWE during Hulkamania so he wasn’t. The match ended with Hogan winning via countout after he slammed Earthquake on to a table. Not through a table, on to it. Hogan celebrated the win like he won the championship, when he won a standard singles match by countout. It just makes no sense.

The Ultimate Warrior (C) Vs. Rick Rude (Steel Cage; WWF Championship)

This had the potential to be a great match, but something didn’t click in this match between these two. Was it Warrior having a very limited moveset? Was it Rude getting busted open early in the match? It’s not really clear what the issue was. Warrior was able to win the match after hitting a Gorilla Press Slam and going over the top of the cage. It was an okay match, but nothing special or memorable.

Overall Thoughts: Aside from the last three matches, this was a pretty decent show. Fantastic tag team wrestling really carried it, and it set up stories for the future like Bad News Brown vs Big Boss Man, Ted DiBiase vs Dusty Rhodes and Demolition vs Legion of Doom. But the last three matches really hurt the show as a whole.

RATING: 6/10