Summerslam 1988

Date: August 29, 1988

Location: MSG in New York City, New York

Announcers: Gorilla Monsoon and “Superstar” Billy Graham

The Setup

Hogan was coming back from filming No Holds Barred, and you had Savage feuding with DiBiase, and Andre’s last match with Hogan ended in a double DQ. Inexplicably, WWF President Jack Tunney also assigned noted heel announcer Jesse Ventura as the special referee. This was also after he was bribed on live television and didn’t refuse it. How stupid this was isn’t hammered home enough in retrospect. 

The Business

WrestleTalk has the show doing 400,000 PPV buys, but the Observer had 400,000-500,000. That’s an outstanding number, but it would also be dwarfed by ZEUS next year. 

The show was sold out. 

The Results

The British Bulldogs vs. The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers fought to a time-limit draw in 14:14. Dynamite and Jacques hate each other at this point, and I couldn’t help but notice that it took a while for them to share a ring in this match. Bulldog got a great hot tag going, including press slamming Jacques’ nuts first on the top rope. The Bulldogs did their finish where Davey press slammed Dynamite onto their opponent, and Dynamite dropped the headbutt. Just as they did, the bell rang out of nowhere, after no announced time limit, ending the match. The finish hurt the otherwise very good match. ***1/4

Bad News Brown def. Ken Patera in 6:33. What a horrible match. How do you fuck up an Irish whip? Bad News was getting ready for Hogan and Savage, so he won clean with an enzoguri. 3/4*

Rick Rude def. Junkyard Dog via DQ in 6:18. This was a little worse than the last match because the finish was worse. JYD could hardly move at this point, and Rude wasn’t the kind of worker in 1988 who would work around his limitations. The finish came when Rude dropped his trunks on the top rope, revealing tights underneath with Cheryl Roberts’ face on them. Jake came in and attacked Rude for the DQ. 

The Powers of Pain def. The Bolsheviks in 5:27. The Bolsheviks did their best to bump around for the Powers, but it’s also Nikolai and Boris. The Warlord sold during the heat for reasons unknown, but it also led to a fun Barbarian hot tag. The Powers won with the combo Warrior powerslam/Barbarian headbutt off the top. 

Intercontinental Championship: Ultimate Warrior def. Honky Tonk Man (C) in 0:31. We all know the story here – Warrior runs in as a surprise opponent and quickly destroys the Honky Tonk Man. It’s one of the most memorable moments of the decade, and absolutely made Warrior. I can’t rate this as a match, but the actions and response were awesome. 

Dino Bravo def. Don Muraco in 5:28. Of all matches to be the only one we get twice on WWF PPVs in 1988, it’s this. Both of these guys were past their primes and much larger and slower than they used to be. Bravo won a bad match clean with a sideslam, which looked like they almost botched. 3/4* 

WWF Tag Team Championship: Demolition (C) def. The Hart Foundation in 9:49. Let the record show these two teams and the best match at Summerslam two of fhe first three years. The thing that made Demolition work when they were getting heat was that they would constantly maul you. The crowd went wild for Neidhart getting the hot tag; he hit some nice power moves. Bret gave Anvil a slingshot to the floor on top of Smash in a great spot. Jesus. They also got a great buy-in from the crowd on a Neidhart powerslam, as they believed it was a finish. Jimmy Hart came to ringside and gave Ax the megaphone, who hit Bret for the win. This was a very good match, and the best on the show. ***1/2 

Big Boss Man def. Koko B. Ware in 5:57. This was mostly a big man-little man match where Bossman took a vast majority to get ready for Hoggan. Bossman won with a Bossman slam. **

Jake Roberts def. Hercules in 10:06. I normally like heel Hercules, but there just wasn’t much going on here, eventually ending with Jake DDTing Herc. * 

The Mega Powers def. The Mega Bucks in 13:57. They worked around Andre by having DiBiase do the heavy lifting, but Andre was there when necessary with his ass-based offense. They did double heat, which also meant both men getting a hot tag and some visual dominance. This was the match where Liz took her skirt off and revealed some granny panties to distract the heels, eventually allowing Savage to hit the elbow on DiBiase and Hogan to follow with the leg drop. Savage made Jesse count to three when he hesitated (which also could have been a DQ if Jesse was thinking properly). The non-bikini was a letdown from something that was advertised, but it’s a good match otherwise. **3/4

The Recommendation

Thumbs very slightly up. There were three good tag matches here – including the main event (bless Ted DiBiase) – and Warrior winning the IC title was not only historic, but brought the roof off the Garden. The bad stuff here was mainly short and a reason to trot out the stars on a big show. Brother Love and Jim Duggan waxing poetic wasn’t remotely entertaining, but this certainly wasn’t a bad show by any stretch.