Summerslam 1988: A Retrospective Look

[Dagger Dias]

This summer I'll be looking back on each of the previous Summerslam events, one by one. Every few days I will submit a new topic until we reach 2014's edition of the 2nd biggest brand in WWE.

This thread will be for discussing.... Summerslam 1988!

Summerslam 1988 took place on August 29, 1988. It was held at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York. Here are the results of the matches from this show:


1. The British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith and The Dynamite Kid) VS The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers (Jacques and Raymond) ended in a time limit draw in a tag team match (20:00)

2. Bad News Brown defeated Ken Patera in a singles match (06:33)

3. Rick Rude (with Bobby Heenan) defeated Junkyard Dog by disqualification in a singles match (06:18)

4. The Powers of Pain (The Barbarian and The Warlord) (with The Baron) defeated The Bolsheviks (Boris Zhukov and Nikolai Volkoff) (with Slick) in a tag team match (05:27)

5. The Ultimate Warrior defeated The Honky Tonk Man (c) (with Jimmy Hart) in a singles match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship (00:31)

6. Dino Bravo (with Frenchy Martin) defeated Don Muraco in a singles match (05:28)

7. Demolition (Ax and Smash) (c) (with Mr. Fuji and Jimmy Hart) defeated The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart) in a tag team match for the WWF Tag Team Championship (09:49)

8. The Big Boss Man (with Slick) defeated Koko B. Ware in a singles match (05:57)

9. Jake Roberts defeated Hercules in a singles match (10:06)

10. The Mega Powers (Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage) (with Miss Elizabeth) defeated The Mega Bucks (Ted DiBiase and André the Giant) (with Bobby Heenan and Virgil) in a tag team match with Jesse Ventura as the special guest referee (13:57)





Now, here are some discussion questions concerning the event:

What was your favorite match on this show, and why did you like it the most? What about the worst match of this show, why did you like it the least?

If you could change a few things about Summerslam 1988, what would it be and why?

You may only use wrestlers who were available at the roster at that time or make changes that could have realistically taken place in August 1988. Please keep in mind the situations going into the show such as who could actually have been pushed into a title match, or what songs existed back then if you wanted to change the show's theme music, and so forth.

You may only discuss Summerslam 1988 in this thread. The remaining Summerslam events will be getting their own retrospective threads, any posts regarding other events will be considered spam and you risk getting an infraction.

Discuss!

 

[Jonyboyuk2]

Mine was the Hart Foundation VS Demolition. Why?That was the match that made me become a fan of WWF/WWE. I was 7 and I saw this match and carried on to watch Macho Man and Hogan v The Mega Bucks; which had an epic finish with Miss Elizabeth involved (incidentally -if WWE was inclined to do so - it could create lady valets that aren't wrestlers who could be a valuable asset to enhancing storylines).

The HF V Demolition was as a result of the HF turning face and Jimmy Hart stole the win for demolition by outside interference. It was the wrong result for the Foundation but it set up their title win 2 years later and also made me a fan for life.

 

[semshady85]

not that great of an event but had some good moments such as Warrior going over The Honkey Tonk Man for the IC title in a 37 second squash.. The Bulldogs put on a good match too.. The big miss was Vince not being able to land Ric Flair.. Ric Flair vs Randy Savage(c) for the WWF title would have made this Summer Slam more memorable..
id have to say my fav match would have to be demolotion vs th hart foundation but like i said if Vince had gotten Flair to leave NWA and faced Savage for the strap that would have been a great Main event!!

 

[The Fabulous Rougeau's]

not that great of an event but had some good moments such as Warrior going over The Honkey Tonk Man for the IC title in a 37 second squash.. The Bulldogs put on a good match too.. The big miss was Vince not being able to land Ric Flair.. Ric Flair vs Randy Savage(c) for the WWF title would have made this Summer Slam more memorable..
id have to say my fav match would have to be demolotion vs th hart foundation but like i said if Vince had gotten Flair to leave NWA and faced Savage for the strap that would have been a great Main event!!

Just how close were they to landing Flair in 88? I had no idea that something was in the works.

 

[Planet_Velvet]

Best match was Rougeaus and The Bulldogs. Worst match was Boss Man and KoKo. I honestly would not have changed anything about it. It was the first SumerSlam. Everythig was not gonna be perfect the first time around. But it was a great PPV.

Follow me on twitter @TeamVelvet

 

[Pedigree1]

Good summerslam IMO not the best not bad either... Favorite match,was Demolition Vs Hart Foundation.. Good tag team match,really the two teams brought it that night.. Demolition that year was really on fire,and deserved the win at summerslam..

I personally would have made some changes to the card.. Jake Roberts would have gone against Rick Rude, i didn't like the way the match ended at WM a draw? You kidding me? I would have liked a definite winner and if that match happened Rick Rude would have gone over IMO.. IF Flair was indeed close to signing,a match between him and Savage would have been great... Hell their match 4 years later was awesome could you imagine 4 years earlier..

That would have left Hogan vs MDM one on one.. Hogan was the reason why the MDM,lost the wm match against Savage.. I cant believe they didn't really address that issue.. OF course Hogan goes over in that match..

The IC title match completely disgusted me as a fan.. Honky while not the best champion ever,no one deserves to lose their title like that after such a long reign.. I would have booked Honky vs Warrior,but Honky goes over to continue his long reign.. Warrior was still new that year,and not ready for that belt IMO..

 

[Hard Hit Prince]

There is two things I really liked in this event - Ultimate Warrior winning the Intercontinental Championship and the build for Jesse Ventura to be the Special Guest Referee of the main event match. I thought Ventura created a lot of buzz as in "Will he screw The Mega Powers?" and it was fantastic every time they talked about it, because Ventura never really gave an "honest" answer, in fact, he could create even more doubt.

This also has some really important booking decisions, of course Warrior being one of them and also Demolition going over The Hart Foundation. The little things that created the Hogan v. Savage rivalry were also laid out here, just a showing of how the booking has changed from the Golden Era to this one. All in all I would have changed one thing in this show - I would've given a winner in the first match, it deserved one at a big stage.

The undercard, it could have been better but as usual for this era, they weren't the "selling point" and they didn't need to have more than what they had. Not the worst event for sure, actually pretty entertaining, if anything for the classic feel it has. The Ultimate Warrior was the MVP of the show, in fact he was Mr. SummerSlam for the fist editions for me.

 

[sdelfin]

I watched this event some months back and it was a lot of fun.

I'd say the worst stuff would be Bad News/Patera and Bravo/Muraco. Patera and Muraco were on their way out as I recall and didn't have great runs as faces either.

It was also somewhat disappointing that they used the event to further the Roberts/Rude feud rather than having them in a match, but they clearly wanted to keep them mainly for house shows. It was shortly after this, I believe, when they aired the tights angle on TV shifting the feud into high gear.

Warrior destroying Honky was a great moment.

I thought Roberts/Hercules was pretty good.

Bulldogs/Rougeaus was an excellent match.

Demolition/Hart Foundation was very good.

Mega Powers/Mega Bucks was excellent as well. Everyone involved did good work in that one. The in-ring work was great. The crowd was hot for it as well, which helped tremendously.

 

[semshady85]

The Fabulous Rougeau'sTo answer your question this is from wikipedia

The original plan for SummerSlam was to bring Ric Flair over from the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) to the WWF. Vince McMahon, the owner of the WWF, wanted Flair to challenge Savage in the main event for the WWF Championship. Flair, however, felt obligated to the NWA and did not leave the promotion for the WWF.Therefore, Hogan and Savage were paired together to end their feuds with their respective on-screen rivals.

 

[oneofakind318]

Favorite Match: Bulldogs vs. Rougeaus - I don't know if their backstage feud was going on at this point. If so, I'm even more impressed there were able to put together a very good 20-minute match.

Just below that I'd put Harts/Demolition and Warrior/Honky Tonk Man (historical purposes/fun moment). I also felt like the Powers of Pain looked like a million bucks on this show. Great energy and the crowd was very much behind them even though they'd only been around a few weeks. As over as Demolition would become as faces, I think the POP/Demolition feud lost its luster when they swapped sides.

Least Favorite Match: Bad News Brown vs. Ken Patera - Very slow and clunky but served its purpose.

Changes: They didn't have someone (anyone) other than Billy Graham to do commentary? I would have taken Lord Alfred Hayes or a revolving door with Bobby Heenan and whoever over him. Otherwise I'm fine with how it played out. It was basically a changing of the guard show with fresh faces getting pushed and veterans doing favors on the way out.

 

[The Brain]

I love the early SummerSlam shows. Of course I loved all the pay per views back then but there was something different about SummerSlam. I'm not saying it was better than WrestleMania but there was a different feeling leading up to SummerSlam. I think I remember the early ones so fondly because the build toward SummerSlam took place during the summer (how's that for the most obvious statement ever typed on these forums?) What I mean by that is every kid associates summer with fun. No school, nice weather, fun activities, and starting in 1988 an exciting wrestling show to look forward to all summer long. Plus for me personally SummerSlam was always around my birthday with the event taking place on my birthday a few times over the years. SummerSlam was always the final big party before having to return to school. I still love SummerSlam but since graduating high school and joining the work world many years ago and the addition of more pay per views during the summer it hasn't been as exciting as those first ten years or so. Now that I got that out of the way it's time to focus on the topic at hand. SummerSlam 88.

This felt like a huge show with an awesome main event in Madison Square Garden. I have a hard time picking a favorite match. It's either the IC title match, the tag title match, or the main event. While the IC match was only thirty seconds it was an amazing moment. The Ultimate Warrior went from cool but overlooked mid card wrestler to one of the most popular guys on the roster in a matter of thirty seconds. His career was made that night and the reaction from the crowd was awesome. Give Honky Tonk Man some credit too. If he hadn't been so despised and been champion for so long Warrior's win wouldn't have been as special. The tag title match was great too. I loved tag team wrestling from that era and Demolition and The Hart Foundation were two of the best. I think my favorite match was the main event. It had a great build and just felt like a huge match. It delivered in the ring too and was the perfect match to main event a new ppv.

I hate picking a least favorite match in some of these events. Some matches are meant to be big and some matches are meant to be filler. All the matches served their purpose and none of them were bad. I guess if I were to rank the matches one would have to be at the bottom so I will pick one to stick to the point of the thread. Don Muraco vs. Dino Bravo. I'll explain a little further when discussing my changes but this match didn't interest me much. We saw it at WrestleMania IV and there were better options for both guys.

Even though I enjoyed the show very much I think it could have been much better by shifting some guys around. First of all I wanted to see Jake Roberts vs. Rick Rude. This was one of the hottest feuds in 1988 and seems like an obvious match for SummerSlam. I said I enjoyed the tag title match but I think The Hart Foundation should have wrestled The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers. That was the feud at the time with Jimmy Hart giving a percentage of the Harts contract to his new heel team. The British Bulldogs could have easily been inserted into the title match against Demolition. Both matches still would have been as good as the actual matches were. I mentioned there were better options for both Muraco and Bravo. Muraco should have wrestled Greg Valentine. Earlier in the summer Valentine attacked Muraco and trapped Superstar Billy Graham in the figure four further aggravating the legend's already injured hip. It seemed like a pretty big deal but Valentine was nowhere to be seen at SummerSlam. Bravo could have wrestled Hacksaw Jim Duggan. They had just begun a feud and there was no reason for Duggan to be on the Brother Love Show. I didn't mind Brother Love being on SummerSlam as kind of an intermission (even though there was an actual intermission) as he was actually a pretty big part of the show in 1988 but it wasn't needed. It was built up as a mystery guest which always leads to wild speculation (Ric Flair) so having Duggan was kind of a disappointment since he could have been a guest on any ordinary Superstars show.

Here's my final card

Mega Powers vs. Mega Bucks
Honky Tonk Man vs. Ultimate Warrior
Demolition vs. British Bulldogs
Jake Roberts vs. Rick Rude
Hart Foundation vs. The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers
Don Muraco vs. Greg Valentine
Jim Duggan vs. Dino Bravo
Ken Patera vs. Bad News Brown
Powers of Pain vs. Bolsheviks
Koko B. Ware vs. Big Boss Man
Tito Santana vs. Hercules

I know things were different in 1988. The WWF still counted on house shows to drive big business so maybe they didn't want to put some house show attractions on ppv because they felt the main event was going to sell this show. This is a realistic card for the time though and would have made an already good show even better.

 

[Judah's Lion]

Even though I enjoyed the show very much I think it could have been much better by shifting some guys around. First of all I wanted to see Jake Roberts vs. Rick Rude. This was one of the hottest feuds in 1988 and seems like an obvious match for SummerSlam. I said I enjoyed the tag title match but I think The Hart Foundation should have wrestled The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers. That was the feud at the time with Jimmy Hart giving a percentage of the Harts contract to his new heel team. The British Bulldogs could have easily been inserted into the title match against Demolition. Both matches still would have been as good as the actual matches were. I mentioned there were better options for both Muraco and Bravo. Muraco should have wrestled Greg Valentine. Earlier in the summer Valentine attacked Muraco and trapped Superstar Billy Graham in the figure four further aggravating the legend's already injured hip. It seemed like a pretty big deal but Valentine was nowhere to be seen at SummerSlam. Bravo could have wrestled Hacksaw Jim Duggan. They had just begun a feud and there was no reason for Duggan to be on the Brother Love Show. I didn't mind Brother Love being on SummerSlam as kind of an intermission (even though there was an actual intermission) as he was actually a pretty big part of the show in 1988 but it wasn't needed. It was built up as a mystery guest which always leads to wild speculation (Ric Flair) so having Duggan was kind of a disappointment since he could have been a guest on any ordinary Superstars show.

Here's my final card

Mega Powers vs. Mega Bucks
Honky Tonk Man vs. Ultimate Warrior
Demolition vs. British Bulldogs
Jake Roberts vs. Rick Rude
Hart Foundation vs. The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers
Don Muraco vs. Greg Valentine
Jim Duggan vs. Dino Bravo
Ken Patera vs. Bad News Brown
Powers of Pain vs. Bolsheviks
Koko B. Ware vs. Big Boss Man
Tito Santana vs. Hercules

I know things were different in 1988. The WWF still counted on house shows to drive big business so maybe they didn't want to put some house show attractions on ppv because they felt the main event was going to sell this show. This is a realistic card for the time though and would have made an already good show even better.

like the Mania Retrospective Looks, i'm really looking forward to these SummerSlam Retro Looks. in fact, i'm maybe looking forward to the SummerSlam rewinds more than i did the Mania ones. there are some amazing moments that happened at this show and, like the Brain, i typically looked forward to SummerSlam more than i did Mania growing up as a kid. i think part of it is that SummerSlam seemed to be more of a wrestling event whereas Mania was (and admittedly might have needed to be) promoted as a pop-culture event.

anyone that read my Mania re-writes knows that i like to switch things up a lot. and it's not because i disliked the show we got, as a rule, so much as because i feel some minor tweaks would make "an already good show even better"...

in a perfect world, there would be no such thing as filler matches at the big 4 ppv events. that's probably a point where Brain and i disagree. however, i understand that sometimes there needs to be such a match, if only to allow the audience to catch their breath between major matches and moments.

the first 6 matches Brain suggested are exactly the same i'd wanna see at this event. i wanted to see them at the time and i wanna see them now in hindsight. Mega Powers vs. Mega Bucks was perfect. Honkey Tonk Man vs. Warrior was amazing in catapulting the Ultimate One's Career. Hart Foundation vs. Rougeau Brothers would have made more sense for the Tag Team Titles and then allowing the Bulldogs to go against Demolition in a time-limit draw or with a decisive winner would have been enjoyable. Jake the Snake vs. Rick Rude was a no-brainer. how this didn't happen is beyond me. Don Muraco vs. Greg Valentine is another obvious choice.

so after that, in my perfect world, the remaining matches would all be amazing and full of backstory and purpose, etc. but i've got no other changes i'd make to this card.

one thing i'd like to point out about this first SummerSlam event: does anybody notice how many tag teams there were available? matching outfits, managers, tag team maneuvers, coming out to the same music, probable champions and challengers... i miss these days of Tag Team Wrestling!

 

[roipdh123]

Well this was a decent Summer Slam.The best match of the night was without a question the 1st match in SS history with The British Bulldogs fighting The Fabulous Rougeaus to a twenty minute time limit draw - which is in my opinion should be in the top 20-25 matches in Summer Slam history,
As far a the worst match of the night I can't really decide but I would probably go with Bad News Brown vs Dan Patera.

One thing that always made me angry is a Big 4 PPV that there was no World Title match in it. So I decided I will book this show as follows:
1.The British Bulldogs and The Fabulous Rougeaus fought to a time limit draw.
2.Powers Of Pain defeated The Brain Busters.
3.The Ultimate Warrior defeated The Honky Tonk Man {C} to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship.
4.The Rockers defeated The Bolsheviks
5.Dino Bravo defeated Don Muraco.
6.Bad News Brown defeated Dan Patera.
7.Demolition {C} defeated The Hart Foundation to retain the WWF Tag Team Championship.
8.Hercules defeated The Junkyard Dog,
9.Rick Rude defeated Jake Roberts.
10.Ted Dibiase defeated Hulk Hogan via a Count Out.
11.Randy Savage {C} defeated Andre The Giant with Jesse Ventura as the special guest referee to retain the WWF Championship.

The reason for the main event is that I didn't want Hogan and Andre to have another match between each other which would have stole the focus from the world title.What I did instead is that first Andre will distract Hogan by catching Miss Elizabeth allowing Dibiase to defeat him via a count out. Then have both Andre and Dibiase take down Hogan with Savage coming up to even the odds and start the main event. Then near the end of the match - Dibiase will try give a chair to Andre only to have Hogan come back to the ring and attack Dibiase allowing Savage to hit Andre with the top rope elbow drop to retain the championship and send the crowd home happy with the Mega Powers standing tall.

That way you kill 2 birds in once:
1.You have your WWF Champion defend his title at the Inagural Summer Slam show.
2.You continue the feud between The Mega Powers and The Mega Bucks - and the tag match between the two teams could have been delayed as a part of a traditional survivor series tag match or even to the Royal Rumble PPV.