[1990-08-27-WWF-Summerslam] Rick Rude, Dusty Rhodes, Hulk Hogan, Earthquake & Ultimate Warrior interviews

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Rude and Heenan's final hard sell is really good, but we've talked about the problems with this program.

 

Dusty's promo is AWESOME. He pulls out the Bob Dylan line again. He offered his innocence to Sapphire, and she repaid him in scorn.

 

Lord Alfred updates us that the cage weighs 3000 lbs!

 

Hogan and Earthquake talk about their match, with Quake showing off a pretty nasty cut on his back from Boss Man's chairshots. I'm guessing he bladed for effect, but maybe not.

 

Warrior actually tells a ... joke before the match starts. He was almost human. The metamorphosis into his new look appears to be complete.

[PeteF3]

Intermission time as we set up the cage.

 

Rude compares himself to Rocky Balboa and the Warrior to Apollo Creed. They've been stressing that Warrior has no cage experience and Rude does. The problem is Rude beating Warrior once and having been in cage matches are nice little tidbits used to enhance a feud, but here they're expected to carry the feud entirely. "Ain't gonna be no rematch!" was a really fun closing statement from Rude.

 

Dusty is still wearing the polka dots, but here now at long last is--more or less--the classic Crockett Dusty. He'd even drop the polka dots after this. Dusty seems to be semi-acknowledging all that with his lines about fans asking him, "When you gonna get NASTY, Big Dust?? When you gonna get EVEN, Big Dust??!"

 

Lord Alfred Hayes updates us on the cage-building process and the crew. This is actually very cool.

 

Hogan essentially tells us that he and Earthquake are going to go around the horn at house shows. New buildings are going up all over the world, and they're EARTHQUAKE-PROOF, DUDE. May have just been off-the-cuff comments or may not have been, but there is subtle teasing of Hogan vs. Warrior II. Earthquake rebuts.

 

Ultimate Warrior cuts a super-patriotic promo in opposition of his foreign menace opponent...wait, what?

[soup23]

I will gladly take this inter-cuts and instant reaction from the competitors any day over a diva match and their skits that they fill their PPV's with now.

[Kevin Ridge]

Dusty offered up his innocence to Sapphire. Rhodes is getting bad now and is coming for DiBiase.

 

They are setting up the cage so Hogan gets to do another interview. He is going to beat Earthquake all over the country. Hogan has his eyes on the number one contendership.

 

Earthquake will get his revenge.

 

Great filler before the main event.

[garretta]

Okay, one at a time.

 

Rude: Nice comparison of his quest to that of Rocky against Apollo Creed. That's a lot more relevant than Warrior's ramblings about the Founding Fathers. Heenan brings up the sequels to Rocky, and both he and Rude say that there will be no rematches, as indeed there weren't. I'm not sure why they made Warrior's inexperience in cages a selling point of the match; I'm sure he's been in cage matches a few times before this. No mention of Rude's training regimen; they seem to have abandoned that aspect of the angle entirely.

 

Warrior: The joke he told wasn't too bad, but his delivery absolutely kills the humor. Why they insisted on trying to humanize this guy I have no clue, as he stinks at normal. The patriotic references fit someone like Hogan, but isn't he from Parts Unknown? Why would he give a crap about our Founding Fathers in that case? Okay, so I'm nitpicking, but Warrior doesn't need to defend the country against the evil foreign menace that is Ravishing Rick Rude. Someone else brought this up in another thread, but it's almost like they're setting up his feud with Sarge already (in addition to the usual shoehorn job they do with historical references in whatever town they visit).

 

Nice facts and figures surrounding the building of the cage. I love how Rod tried to analyze the aftermath of Hogan/Quake as fairly as he could, acknowledging that Hogan had scored a huge victory but also giving Quake tolerance for his ability to withstand pain and punishment. This is the Piper that was so good with Gordon Solie on WTBS back in his Georgia days.

 

Dusty: This is a classic Crockett promo if ever there was one. It's a shame he's waited this long to turn loose, until his final WWF feud which he would lose in such convincing fashion, as was brought up in an earlier thread. Still, better late than never. Amazingly enough, this is his final run as an active wrestler coming up, as he'd mostly be behind the scenes and in the booth when he returned to Atlanta. Enjoy the Dream while you can!

 

Quake: Nothing much, except that he's targeting Bossman as well as Hogan. It's amazing that Dino Bravo, an active wrestler who's a terrible heel promo, did a better interview than Jimmy Hart, who at one time was one of the best mic men in the sport. Unfortunately, that run in Memphis ended five years before, and as I've said, I'm attributing more and more of that run to Lawler acting as Jimmy's straight man and foil the more I see of him on the stick everywhere else. In other words, anyone can look good threatening the King. One more thing, Quake: We know you're an honest-to-God, no-fooling earthquake come to life, so you don't have to keep proving it by bouncing up and down in your interviews anymore.

 

Hogan: I liked the preview of coming attractions, complete with the promise of "earthquake-proof" buildings. We also have the unveiling of Hulkamania's fourth "demandment". Let's see, God has ten commandments, Hogan needs only four. I guess we know who the real higher power is in the universe, don't we, Vince? On the other hand, he doesn't yet list "Believe in Hulk Hogan" as one of the "demandments", so I guess you can train, say your prayers, take your vitamins, believe in yourself, and still think that Hulk Hogan stinks. If you say so, Hulkster.

 

What's of more interest to me is that they've still got tentative plans for Hogan/Warrior II, as Hogan states that he's looking to once again be the number one contender for the World title. So you had an almost-guaranteed six-figure crowd at the LA Memorial Coliseum and you gave it up for Hogan/Slaughter, which didn't even fill the LA Sports Arena? That's got to be the most idiotic line of thinking in WWF history. No wonder the business started sliding downhill. (By the way, the second most idiotic line of thinking was skipping Hogan/Flair at Mania VIII. The hell with Sid and the ship he rode in on; let him walk if he doesn't like being pushed aside in favor of the one dream match everyone wanted to see. I don't know what finish you would use, but get the match signed and figure it out from there. More to come on this subject when I get to '92.)

[drew wardlaw]

Great promo by Dusty. Is this his most serious promo in WWF? All the dancing and jiving is gone and he's feeling it. The other promos are pretty standard, Warrior still looks strange to me. Earthquake has a gnarly welt or cut or something on his back, you could see it at the end of the Hogan match but it looks really gruesome here. I really like that they had these segments before the main event, it give it a bit of a big time feel and kind of sets it apart from the rest of the card.