[1991-07-27-WWF-Superstars] Summerslam Report

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I say it every year, but I love this Summerslam theme. FROM NUPTIALS TO NAPALM. We hear from Hogan and Warrior, which is about as annoying as it gets. In the Bret/Perfect announcement, Gene talks about Bret as "qualified" and as a guy known as a mechanic in the WWF, which is interesting. We also hear from DiBiase and Virgil, and we get some fan comments about the Savage/Liz wedding. In retrospect, this card was really well put together.

[PeteF3]

This is a localized NYC-centric report, complete with Don Imus namedropping. Hogan refers to Jack Tunney as "senile" for putting this match together. What a hero. Warrior sings along with Hogan's catchphrase which I guess is the final mound of dirt on top of Warrior's career as #1 babyface. I always thought this card was underwhelming, but it's a decided improvement on the bloated 1990 show.

[Kevin Ridge]

Summerslam on a monday night. I feel like that is the worst night for a PPV but then again they do have live Raw each week now. Hogan and Warrior are pleased with Sid as they special guest referee. They aren’t two worried about the three and two odds. Gene runs down rest of the card. Don Imus called Gene to let him know he is happy that the rules are being thrown out in LOD/Nasty Boys match. The whole card is set four weeks before show.

[flyonthewall2983]

Oddly enough I liked that it was on Monday nights then. Why they didn't do it in June or July bugs me, putting it at the end of August (when kids were getting back in school) has never made much sense to me.

[soup23]

Tickets are still on sale a month out. Gene saying from nuptials to napalm without skipping a beat is amazing journalistic work. We get some more analogies about Hogan relating everything to war while Warrior does some mannerisms I don' even know how to describe. They are putting Hart over as a viable challenger and Gene calls him a mechanic which I dont know what that means but I guess its a testament on his technical ability. Dibiase and Virgil each give good but generic promos. Overall the card is shaping well besides the match made in hell for me.

[garretta]

Hogan and Warrior are back to Mania VI levels of blathering, which is a shame. This feud should have been over with the Desert Storm match, as I've said before.

 

I don't think either Virgil or Teddy mentioned SummerSlam; these promos could have been for any house show match. Sherri throws in a cute line about her filling Virgil's position. I'd have loved to see her massage Teddy's toes or kiss his feet just once to drive the point home.

 

Gene was in his glory here, with stuff like "from nuptials to napalm", and, for the Valentine/Rotundo match, "W-4 meets figure four". He's the only one who could get away with saying stuff like that without it sounding forced. That's why he was one of the best in the business, though some of the announcing snobs around the IWC think otherwise because he didn't carry himself like Solie.

 

I liked the name drops and other NYC-area touches. You don't get that anymore, as Vince seems to determined to make his product as market-neutral as possible.

 

The fans talking about Randy/Liz sounded like they were reading from cue cards, which they probably were. I liked the kiss between the couple at the end, though.

 

No mention of Tolos in Curt's corner or the Slickster in the heel corner for the six-man, which I find odd. Usually, the managers are as prominently featured as the wrestlers, even at this late date.

 

"Mechanic"? Talk about damning Bret with faint praise. You wonder if Vince would have even put the IC belt on Bret if Curt hadn't been on the brink of retirement.

[dawho5]

That 6 man tag seemed completely random to me.