WWE SummerSlam '94

WWE SummerSlam ‘94

August 29, 1994

United Center

Chicago, Illinois

After a very long time away from the blog, I am back. This time we look back at the summer night spectacular, SummerSlam 1994. Once again, I skipped over the 1994 King of the Ring because I cannot seem to find my copy of it at this time. Since WrestleMania, a lot happened. I mean a LOT, both inside the ring and outside. One thing that wasn’t a surprise was the ascension to the main event by Owen Hart. After beating big brother Bret clean in Madison Square Garden, it was clear that he would be on the rise, and would get his big main event title shot against Bret on this night. Two biggest changes outside of the ring happened that had an even greater impact on Vince McMahon’s pro wrestling empire. The first was the steroid trial had finally come to its conclusion and McMahon had been acquitted. There is no way to quantify how much of an impact that was, because we will never know what the world of wrestling would have been like with Vince in jail. The story goes that Jerry Jarrett would have been hired to run things from a creative standpoint. Who knows, we may be looking at Jeff Jarrett the same way we look at “Stone Cold” Steve Austin today. The other big happening was Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling, signed the mother of all free agents… Hulk Hogan. Trust me when I tell you, that WCW in 1994-1995 was absolutely hideous to watch, but Hogan did present a major threat to Vince, and had the backing of Ted Turner’s millions to compete. I also need to point out that this is Randy Savage’s final WWE PPV appearance. He comes out at the beginning of the show and basically introduces the show to the crowd. He also would join Hogan and show up on WCW TV in December of 1994.

Commentators: Vince McMahon and Jerry “The King” Lawler

Bam Bam Bigelow and IRS w/ “Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase vs. Headshrinkers (Fatu and Samu) w/ Afa and Lou Albano

Speaking of changes, a few of them should be pointed out in this match. When we last left off, the Quebecers were still the tag team champions. They would hot shot the tag titles to Men on a Mission on the annual European tour, but eventually lose the tag titles to the Headshrinkers, in May. The Headshrinkers had basically turned face and Lou Albano began to manage them playing off his time managing the Wild Samoans (Afa and Sika) back in the 1970s. So the Headshrinkers were the champions and all set to defend the titles in this match here… but then the clique happened. To this day I really do not understand what the point of this was, but right before this show, Shawn Michaels and Diesel defeated the Headshrinkers at a house show and became tag champs. This move pretty much stuck a nail in the already corpse-like tag division. The move proved to be nothing more than to give Shawn and Diesel more trophies to carry around, as they would never even lose the titles (shocker that Shawn didn’t job a title I know). So this match instantly becomes meaningless. Decent little match for what it was, but totally heatless without the tag title being on the line. It would have been a great way to give Bigelow and IRS a nice little rub and win the titles for the hot stable at the time, the Million $ Corporation. Wasted opportunity here. ** ¼

WWE Women’s Championship

Alundra Blayze (champion) vs. Bull Nakano (w/ Luna Vachon)

Here we go! This is one of the best women’s matches you’ll ever see as far as the WWE is concerned. Blayze was pretty much on a roll as champion, but Bull Nakano would prove to be a very talented and worthy adversary. These two had a really good match on RAW not long before this to set this match up. I thought Nakano was gonna go over here to keep the feud going, but her title win wouldn’t come until a couple months later in Japan. This marks the absolute only time I have ever been remotely interested in the women’s division as a fan watching these shows as they happened. I love Trish Stratus, and think she’s a great worker, but I just was not interested in the women’s division as a whole at that time. This match is fantastic though and doesn’t get enough love, probably because of what Blayze would do later on, but that is for another time. Blayze wins with her German suplex. *** ½

WWE IC Championship

Diesel (champion) w/ Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon (w/ Walter Payton)

And here we are with the ego-trip of the Clique. After WrestleMania Diesel defeated Razor for the IC title on Superstars. At King of the Ring, Diesel had a great match with Bret Hart and ended up getting even more over despite not winning the WWE title. The clique at this point is Diesel, Shawn, Razor, and the 123 Kid. They basically got together in the locker room and got in the ear of Vince and booked themselves in a position of strength. Triple H would later join when he came to the company in 1995. Now to their credit, they are all very talented, and I personally find all of their characters great, but it seemed to come at the expense of the rest of the card because the only ones they seemed to be interested in putting over was themselves. This was exactly the case here. I didn’t like this match on initial viewing, but I’ve softened my view, and this is a really good match. Payton is obviously an NFL legend, but he doesn’t even come into play here. Best part of the match is Shawn antagonizing Razor on the outside. That is one thing about Shawn Michaels. Whatever role he is in, he is brilliant. Whether it’s as a manager here, or a referee as he would show in the future, or obviously as a worker himself, he is a great talent. He is carrying this match from the outside for god sakes. That isn’t to take away from Diesel and Razor. They hit all of their big spots and have the Chicago crowd with them the entire way. Diesel plays the great powerhouse heel and Razor would make the baby face comebacks only to be cut off either due to outside interference from HBK or by Diesels sheer power. The ending comes when Shawn gets into a tug of war battle with the belt with Payton and distracts the ref. The ref goes to talk to Payton, and Shawn goes for sweet chin music on Razor. Razor ducks and Diesel gets nailed. Razor makes the cover and we have a new champion. This would sew the seeds of the eventual Shawn-Diesel break up and subsequent Main Event at WrestleMania XI. *** ¼

Tatanka vs. Lex Luger

My how the mighty have fallen. Lex Luger goes from co-main eventing WrestleMania X to a midcard feud with Tatanka. Tatanka goes from being undefeated midcarder on the rise one year before this to basically being JTTS. The story here is that after King of the Ring, Ted Dibiase made an offer to Luger to join his corporation. Tatanka started accusing Lex of “selling out” to the point where he even had the fans believing Luger had sold out. It was actually a nice, albeit heatless, story. The inevitable pay off was that Tatanka in fact sold out and turned heel here. It was definitely needed for Tatanka because like I said, he was becoming a JTTS. This at least kept him relevant for the next several months, and a good heel mouthpiece in Dibiase. The match itself is pretty good, the crowd is pretty much dead. The ending is Dibiase distracting Luger and Tatanka getting the cheap roll up on Luger. Tatanka then attacks Luger from behind and does the heel beat down complete with stuffing money down Luger’s throat in classic Dibiase style. Again, I liked the story because it kept two prominent workers relevant. **

Jeff Jarrett vs. Mabel

This match was billed as country music vs. rap. WWE clearly wanted to do something with Jarrett, but some other stories had to play out first, so he meandered around the mid-card for most of 1994 and had matches like this one. Mabel was just a big, fun, rapping baby-face at this point and also directionless. This match had one purpose which was to get double j over as another heel on a very thin roster. Match isn’t very good and is pretty much heatless like the last match. Highlight is Abe “Knuckleball” Schwartz in the crowd with a sign that says “I’m on Strike” playing off the baseball strike that year. WWE was running ads at the time saying “our season never ends.” Ending comes when Mabel misses a big fat butt splash and Jarrett rolls him up for a pin. ¾*

WWE Championship – Steel Cage Match

Bret Hart (champion) vs. Owen Hart

Yes please! The match we waited 5 months to see. Owen beat Bret clean at WrestleMania then sort of hung around until King of the Ring. Then Owen goes on and wins the King of the Ring tournament just like Bret did in 1993. The story goes that Bret was defending the WWE title against Diesel. He said that he would have a surprise family member to be in his corner to offset Shawn being in Diesel’s corner. That guy would be none other than the returning Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart. At the end of the match Neidhart attacked Diesel to get Bret disqualified and keeps his belt. Later in the evening, Owen Hart was facing Razor Ramon in the finals of the tournament. Neidhart came out and attacked Razor while he was on the floor, and Owen was able to pin Ramon and win the King of the Ring Tournament. During the coronation, Owen brilliantly proclaimed himself the “King of Harts”. He had instant credibility as a heel and got his big title shot against Bret. I loved that story that Neidhart was in Bret’s corner to make sure Bret kept the belt so Owen could beat him for it. This is easily the best steel cage match as far as the classic “Blue Bar” cages go, one of the best cage matches of all time, and one of the best matches of all time. If anyone called it the best match ever, they wouldn’t get an argument from me. I’m not even sure that anyone thought that having this good of a match inside the blue bar cage was even possible. All of the previous blue bar cage matches were ok, but these guys used the cage to their advantage on a psychology front. Early in the match you saw them exchanging opportunities to dive through the door. Previously, the door was only there to give the impression that fat asses like Yokozuna or King Kong Bundy could use to win, or a way for a heel manager to slam the door in the baby faces face. The cage is easy to climb, so they used it to their advantage to jump on it and do things while on it that no one ever did before. They use every inch of the cage to tell the story. Its 30 + minutes of action. Oh by the way, they did it all without blood, so for those thinking that the only reason the product today sucks because the show is “PG” , take a look at this match. They managed to have a great match, gave a great impression that it was very violent, and did it without shedding any blood. The commentary is also good here as Lawler is playing the heel cheering Owen all the way (where is that in today’s product?) and Vince McMahon adding insight like pointing out that because of Owen’s great athleticism, that this match might be better suited for him instead of Bret. Nowadays Michael Cole will talk about Charlie Sheen trending on Twitter. Again, if anyone thinks that Michael Cole is like Vince McMahon, they don’t know what they’re talking about at all. Vince might want Cole to be like him, but the two don’t deserve to be talked about in the same breath. I can’t remember if it’s on Bret Harts DVD or if it was on one of his shoot interviews, but he talks so passionately about this match. He talks about how there is a spot towards the end where he goes to superplex Owen from the top of the cage, and how he was so meticulous about guarding Owen’s head to protect him on the way down. This was after Owen’s untimely and tragic death in 1999 so he thinks about that and how he wishes he could have protected him in the same way in Kansas City when Owen fell to his death.  The end comes when both guys are on the outside of the cage, and Bret slams Owens head into the cage and his leg gets caught and Bret jumps down to win. Jim Neidhart then clotheslines the returning Davey Boy Smith who was at ringside sending him and Diana over the guard rail, and Neidhart and Owen throw Bret back into the cage, and give him a good heel beat down until the rest of the family is able to come in and make the save. An incredible match; required viewing for everyone! *****

Main Event

Undertaker w/ Paul Bearer vs. Undertaker w/ Ted Dibiase

When we last saw the Undertaker he was fighting off couple 13-14 men at the Royal Rumble in the epic casket match vs. then WWE Champion Yokozuna. The real story is Vince gave Undertaker some time off so they had to find a way to write him out of storylines. So the summer rolls around and Ted Dibiase says he’s found the Undertaker. He brings in his version of the Undertaker (played by Brian Lee). Then Paul Bearer called bullshit on that and set up this match. Yes it’s the Undertaker vs. the Undertaker. It sounds as awful as it would be. Now one thing you cannot take away, is how insanely over Undertaker is. Taker is very over and the Chicago crowd is definitely pumped up for this. The match is terrible, and even as someone who has come to appreciate the Undertaker, I cannot give this anything other than what it deserves. DUD

Taker ends the show and the crowd is going crazy with the new light show and theatrics.

Bottom Line: They sent the fans home happy, so I can’t complain about the last match that much. It was what it was. The Bret-Owen match can be found on many compilations, so unless you’re a completest like me, I wouldn’t lose any sleep if you can’t see this show. It’s a good SummerSlam, but there are much better and much more historical shows. This would be the last show for a long time where Bret Hart goes out on top because the Clique will pretty much own the company by the end of 1994.