WWF SummerSlam 1989

August 28, 1989

Meadowlands Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey

Announcers: Tony Schiavone and Jesse Ventura

The Setup

This is the show where we got ZEUS, aka DEEBO, in a pro wrestling main event, playing off his role in No Holds Barred. Honestly, when you consider how much of their own television time they used to promote the movie, they had no choice but to do this, and it went as spectacularly successful as one could hope for. The Savage-Hogan feud had cooled off by this time, but Savage played the role of Ted DiBiase in the main event of ‘88, as the working heel of a tag team with someone they wanted to hide.

The Business

The show did 625,000 PPV buys, an incredible number that wouldn’t be topped until 1998 with Austin vs. Undertaker, but the PPV universe was also much bigger in the Attitude era. Say what you want about an untrained wrestler being in this main event, but Zeus drew money, and the success of No Hold Barred has to be judged in part by this event because it drew big fucking money that was fueled by the movie. The event sold out the Meadowlands, drawing about 20,000 fans and generating a $300k gate, both obviously very strong numbers.

The Results

Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard beat The Hart Foundation (16:23) when Blanchard pinned Hart. ***3/4

Dusty Rhodes pinned Honkytonk Man (9:36). *1/2

Mr. Perfect pinned Red Rooster (3:21). *1/4

Rick Martel, Jacques & Raymond Rougeau beat The Rockers & Tito Santana (14:58) when Martel pinned Jannetty. ***1/2

Ultimate Warrior pinned Rick Rude (16:02) to win the WWF I-C Title. ***3/4

Demolition Ax & Smash & Jim Duggan beat Andre the Giant, Akeem, & Big Boss Man (7:23) when Smash pinned Akeem. **1/2

Hercules beat Greg Valentine (3:08) via DQ. 3/4*

Ted DiBiase beat Jimmy Snuka (6:27) via countout. *1/4

Hulk Hogan & Brutus Beefcake beat Randy Savage & Zeus (15:04) when Hogan pinned Zeus. **

Notable Happenings

Hogan pinned Zeus in the main event. I’m not sure why they did that so soon, considering he still had two PPV matches on the books. Maybe it was to protect Hogan-Savage house shows.

Beefcake cut Sherri’s (fake) ponytail after the main event.

Roddy Piper came to the ring and mooned Rick Rude, thus distracting him and helping Warrior regain the IC title. This set up Rude vs. Piper around the loop. Rude also almost murdered Warrior with the first-ever (accidental) ganso bomb.

The Brainbusters-Harts opener was non-title, despite the champs winning anyway. Why?

The Best, The Worst, and The Underrated

Best: Warrior vs. Rude. This was the best of their three WWF PPV and one SNME matches. In fact, this was at the upper echelon of Warrior matches overall.

Worst: Babyface Hercules is always in contention on any show he’s on, and he wins it this time.

Underrated: The six-man monster match. I know how that match looked on paper with some of the individual talent, but it was fun overall. They kept a fairly brisk pace, made constant tags, and just mauled each other the way you want big men to do to each other. Sometimes we overthink things, but this was simply a fun match.

Backstage Notes

Rooster and Hennig arrived at about the same time in the WWF in 1988, and after he feuded with Bobby Heenan and the Brooklyn Brawler, Taylor was reduced to a three-minute job against Mr. Perfect on a PPV. Even their match on the second-ever Raw in 1993 was tons better than this match.

The Rating: 7.0/10

Like the prior year’s show, they gave the good matches time and kept the rest short. Savage couldn’t carry three other guys, but what the main event lacked in match quality, it made up for in spectacle in spades. This was a very well put-together show with some other strong wrestling underneath the mighty ZEUS!

The Video