WWF SummerSlam 1991

Date: August 26, 1991

Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York

Announcers: Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan, and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper  

The Setup

The WWF built SummerSlam 1991 around two primary focal storylines: “A Match Made in Heaven,” featuring the televised wedding ceremony of Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth, and “A Match Made in Hell.” The latter was a handicap match with the company’s top two babyfaces, Hulk Hogan & Ultimate Warrior, battling Sgt: slaughter, a way-past-his-prime Col. Mustafa (Iron Sheik), and their manager, Gen. Adnan. Sid Vicious was named the special referee for storyline reasons that made zero sense, but whether or not he would turn was the biggest focus of the match’s build.

The Business

The attendance was a sellout at MSG, listed as 20,000 people, and prowrestlinghistory lists a gate of $404,150, Summerslam’s largest to date. WrestleTalk lists 405,000 PPV buys for the event, which was slightly up from that year’s Mania with Hogan vs. Slaughter on top. Since the additions of Col. Mustafa and Gen. Adnan likely didn’t make that match more intriguing, the added business should be attributed to the show-closing wedding and the storyline teases of Sid Vicious possibly turning.

The Results

Six-Man Tag Team Match: The Dragon, The British Bulldog, and The Texas Tornado def. The Warlord and Power and Glory in 10:43 ***

WWF Intercontinental Championship Match: Bret Hart def. Mr. Perfect (C) in 18:03 ****1/4

Tag Team Match: The Natural Disasters def. The Bushwhackers in 6:27 *

Million Dollar Championship Match: Virgil def. Ted DiBiase (C) in 13:11 ***

Jailhouse Match: Big Boss Man def. The Mountie in 9:38 ***1/4

WWF Tag Team Championship Street Fight: The Legion of Doom def. The Nasty Boys (C) in 7:45 **3/4

Singles Match: Irwin R. Schyster def. Greg Valentine in 7:07 *1/4

Handicap Match: Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior def. The Triangle of Terror in 12:40 *1/2

Notable Happenings

The Savage-Liz nuptials were very drama-free, dare I say boring. But they shot an angle afterward that aired on the weekend shows with Jake Roberts gifting the happy couple a cobra in a box at the reception, leading to Jake and Undertaker showing up. Sid Justice helped put an end to everything, positioning him for matches with Taker and Roberts until Savage returned to the ring from retirement.

Speaking of Sid, there were spots in the match where he accidentally ran into both Hogan and Warrior to continue the tease of a possible turn, but nothing happened, and Sid counted the pinfall victory for Hogan. Poor judgment prevailed, and Sid also posed with Hogan after the match. Ge looked like quite the geek already.

Bret Hart won his first singles title in the company, beating Mr. Perfect in the best match in Summerslam history up until this point. 

Virgil completed the abused-servant angle with DiBiase by winning the million-dollar title in the best PPV match of his career.  

The Legion of Doom defeated The Nasty Boys to capture the WWF Tag Team Championship, making them the first and only team to hold the WWF, NWA, and AWA World Tag Team Championships. 

Based on the match stips, they showed the Mountie spending the night in an NYC jail, including flipping the bird for the first time on WWF TV while he was being fingerprinted. Overall, the skits were very fun and possibly the best character work of Jacques Rougeau’s career.

The Best, The Worst, and The Underrated

The Best: Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect was phenomenal, as previously stated. 

The Worst: The Iron Sheik and General Adnan wrestling in a PPV main event was a horrible idea on paper and in execution. 

The Underrated: You probably don’t think of Bossman-Mountie as a good in-ring feud, but I loved their match here. Bossman’s hard Alabama slam as a finish looked awesome. 

Backstage Notes

Ultimate Warrior was fired during the show when he chased Mustafa and Adnan to the back with a chair during the main event. He had just demanded a new contract from Vince, who only obliged to get his PPV main event in the ring, then fired Warrior before the match was over.

Perfect’s back was fucked so bad, he wouldn’t work again for fifteen months and had to get drunk off his ass to have the torch-passing match with Bret. It took a lot of guts for sure.

Rating: 8.0/10

This show was a lot of fun. It probably had the best wrestling top-to-bottom of all the Sunnerslam events, and there were big payoffs with three babyfaces winning championships. This show was a lot of fun overall.

The Video