[1991-08-18-WWF-Primetime Wrestling] Hulk Hogan vs Sgt. Slaughter

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

"One thing you can trust in is Hulkamania. You always have been able to, and you always will be able to." -- Vince McMahon, in the context of a discussion about Jake's recent turn and whether or not Sid Justice can be trusted to call the Summerslam main event down the middle

 

Quick heated match on the Summerslam Spectacular. Adnan and Mustafa are at ringside for Slaughter and liberally interfere on Slaughter's behalf. It's so over the top that it's pretty fun. They are working over Hogan in a big way before Summerslam in a hot angle. Sid doesn't really make the save, but he does chastise the heels. A bloody Hogan is about to hit the heels with a chair and Sid takes it from him and admonishes him, I guess because being a special referee in one match entitles you to enforce rules anytime before the match too.

 

The Hogan/Slaughter feud is about to wrap up, but I've enjoy it, mainly because Slaughter has been allowed to get heat on Hogan at the right times.

[PeteF3]

Slaughter's bumping and selling are still good but this has some of the worst heel offense seen anywhere on this Yearbook, from Slaughter and especially from Mustafa and Adnan. Adnan cuts off the Hulk-Up with powder and a 3-on-1 results with no Warrior available--that's a nice touch. Sid Justice makes the save instead, but also keeps Hogan from using a chair. I've enjoyed Sarge's work, if not his material, since his return a year ago, but this heel run is just about played out entirely.

[Kevin Ridge]

Where is Warrior to help out Hogan? Sid trying to play it straight down the middle by breaking up Slaughter and company from further attacking Hogan. But he also takes the chair away from Hulk. They are just dragging this one out by this point. Lackluster Summerslam main event to me.

[soup23]

Good popcorn match setting up SummerSlam but it doesn't feel like a marquee match and you wish they could have put something else more interesting together. Hell, heel Jake vs. face Hogan would have been a lot of fun as a bridge feud and him using the wedding thing to get his heat back. These two guys have had fun matches throughout the year but this was the least of them and where the hell was the Warrior?

[Loss]

Selling the effects of the snakebite.

[thebrainfollower]

I saw this match live so I can answer Kevin's question about where Warrior was, he no showed this taping. He was booked to take on Mr. Perfect for the IC title, but given the state of Perfect's back I can't imagine the match being more than 3 clotheslines, Perfect bails, count out.

 

The announced main was Hogan-Taker, first singles match ever between them. Early on in the show (a marathon TV taping) the Fink announced that Warrior will not be there (huge boos) and Sgt. Slaughter has challenged Hulk Hogan tonight for the WWF title and Hogan has accepted (and that got even bigger boos which just shows either how sick fans were of the Slaughter feud or how over Taker was getting since we all assumed that match was off). Instead Fink announced Hogan would wrestle both men, Slaughter half way through and Taker at well past midnight at the end of the taping.

[garretta]

Since the Desert Storm match wasn't nationally televised, this was ostensibly the blowoff to the Hogan/Slaughter singles feud, and on that basis it was mediocre at best, and it only rates that highly because Hogan bladed. The worst part was the ending. Sarge had to figure that this was his last shot at the title, and yet he allowed Adnan and Sheik to interfere to the point of getting him disqualified? No three-on-two handicap match win was going to be bigger than winning the World title back, and yet Sarge showed no regard at all for trying to pin Hogan or make him submit. They probably should have put Sheik in there with Hogan if they were going to run a match like this; remember, even though he was a former World champion and everyone knew it, they didn't treat the Mustafa character as a former champion, so it would make sense that that character wouldn't care less about the belt as long as he got his licks in on Hogan.

 

They were still trying to sell Sid as a tweener here, and they actually did a better job here than at any other time, with Sid yelling at Sarge and crew for their tactics, but also stopping Hogan from using a chair against them. If Warrior wasn't leaving, I would have liked to have seen them continue using Sid this way, since he's too big and crazy to be an effective full babyface.

 

Heenan continues to impress me as an analyst. He was the only one to try to tie together the SummerSlam main event with the ongoing Jake/Warrior saga, thus forcing Vince to acknowledge that both stories do indeed involve the same man. He'd been trying to avoid this for weeks, mostly because he probably already knew that Warrior was gone once SummerSlam was out of the way.

 

The speculation about Warrior being further out of control than ever and not able to trust Hogan teased a heel turn, which might have been a way to freshen up the character if he'd decided to stay. Imagine a six-way war with Jake, Warrior, and Taker on one side and Hogan, Sid and Savage on the other, with Piper and Flair lurking just on the outside. The mind reels just thinking of all the possible main event bouts they could have had with a setup such as that, even though what we got in real life was excellent too. (Flair, Warrior, Taker, and Jake as a WWF version of the Horsemen? Take me back twenty-four years and sign me up!)

 

I noticed that no one gave an explanation for Warrior's absence. Couldn't Vince have at least said that he was under a doctor's care due to the snakebite?

 

If I'd been Vince, I would have put Hogan/Taker on TV and done some kind of finish that left an issue open between them for future use. Either that or run the MSG Desert Storm match, which they had to have a copy of somewhere. Then again, Sid wouldn't have been able to do his run-in, and the SummerSlam main event has always been as much about him as the wrestlers, so maybe Vince had the right idea after all.

[JKWebb]

Slaughter is one of my favorite Hogan opponents. They have such great chemistry, and I thought this was really great for what it was. Slaughter once again bumps for Hogan like a madman, and comes out of this with more heat. It accomplished exactly what it needed to, and I thought it was super entertaining. The Sid stuff was good, and Hogan didn't even stick around to pose. He left the ring shaking his fist in the air. This build some nice anticipation for the upcoming tag at the big show. Two thumbs up. Although, garretta does have a good point. With Slaughter likely knowing this is (probably) his last shot, why would he get DQ'd? I guess he cared more about beating up Hogan than the belt? It's a good question. I think it accomplished what they wanted to though by building heat for the PPV.

[dawho5]

They did vaguely mention Warrior "not being the same", but that's all we get. Can't fully equate the snake bite to Warrior not being there because, you know, not really in the same universe. I was surprised when Sid jumped up on the apron. Where was that kind of agility or effort in his actual matches?