WWF SummerSlam 1994
August 29, 1994
United Center — Chicago, Illinois
Announcers: Vince McMahon & Jerry “The King” Lawler
The Setup
After writing Undertaker off TV for the real-life birth of a child in January, we had his first match back on TV as the SummerSlam main event, facing Ted DiBiase’s fake Undertaker (Brian Lee). Also, Bret defended the WWF title against his brother Owen in a cage after Owen defeated him at WrestleMania.
The Business
Wrestlenomics says the show did 300,000 PPV buys, the highest since the 1991 SummerSlam headlined by Savage and Liz getting married. That means doing better than Savage vs. Warrior in 1992 and the Lex Express’s culmination in 1993. They had a promotion tied in with Dominos, and the Undertaker’s face was all over promotional material heading into the event.
Prowrestlinghistory has the show doing 23,000 people with a $386,000 gate in Chicago, so a very strong show at the ticket window as well.
The Results
Bam Bam Bigelow & Irwin R. Schyster def. The Headshrinkers (Fatu & Samu) via DQ in 7:20 **1/2
WWF Women’s Championship: Alundra Blayze (C) def. Bull Nakano in 8:10 ***1/2 WWF Intercontinental Championship: Razor Ramon def. Diesel (C) in 15:03 ***1/4
Tatanka def. Lex Luger in 6:02 *1/2
Jeff Jarrett def. Mabel in 5:45 **1/4
WWF World Heavyweight Championship / Steel Cage Match: Bret Hart (C) def. Owen Hart in 32:22 ***
The Undertaker (w/ Paul Bearer) def. “The Undertaker” (w/ Ted DiBiase) in 8:57 *
Notable Happenings
The real Taker pinned Brian Lee in a bad match, then stuck him in a coffin, ending this stupid feud. Ted DiBiase physically ran away after the match. Leslie Nielsen and George Kennedy – who played buddy cops in the Naked Gun series – officially closed the case of the “missing” real Taker, and that was it. The match was a huge letdown, not helped by Bret and Owen going way over the time they were allotted, but it was DOA as a match anyway, in part because it’s Brian Fucking Lee.
As mentioned, Bret completely disregarded his allotted time with Owen (ironically just like Shawn did at that year’s Mania X), and went thirty minutes with Owen. I’ve seen this match praised, including by Meltzer, but three stars was as high as I could go. I thought the match was too long, and while the live crowd did buy into a lot of the near-escapes because they were well-exectures, it cut back on the mat wrestling the two were capable of and wasn’t nearly as violent as a cage match should be. Instead, it was a race to leave the cage and lost some edge.
Owen and Neidhart attacked Bret after the match, but Bulldog, Bruce, and other Hart family members made the save, extending the family program in one way or another. That was somewhat an odd choice since Owen vs. Bret was already so disappointing at house shows in terms of business. They did start doing Bret vs. Anvil matches around that time. Oof.
Shawn accidentally cost Diesel the IC title with an errant superkick in a match where Walter Payton was in Razor’s corner. Shawn and Diesel won the tag titles from the Headshrinkers the night before at a house show, so they were dragging that turn out. The match was good, and Payton was awesome because he seemed to be having a lot of fun.
Tatanka turned heel on Luger and joined Ted DiBiase. The match wasn’t good, and they had been teasing whether or not Lex was going to turn, but pulled the swerve and turned Tatanka instead. Tatanka stuffed money down Lex’s throat after the match and beat him down afterward. It didn’t get a lot of heat on this night, and the feud never clicked. DiBiase got way too much focus as a manager, even though he wasn’t particularly good at it.
Alundra Blayze and Bull had a very good match that got over with the crowd; I wish it had more time.
Jarrett worked hard with Mabel to make that match decent, and the opening tag was good, minus the horrible fucking DQ finish with Afa and Capt. Lou involved.
The Rating: 6.0/10.0
The time spent setting up and tearing down the cage for the last two matches slowed the event to a crawl, but it was still a good show overall. Ironically, Taker was most responsible for the strong business here, but the live fans were least into his match (for good reason); mostly, everything else came through. Even Jeff Jarrett looked possessed not to let a Mabel match suck.
The Video
