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FEEL THE HEAT: It's the 2022 SummerSlam Rewatch thread

King Kamala

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Why does everyone keep saying 2003 is the cutoff? That show stinks! It's 2002 if anything! I could also buy an argument for 2004 though if you're still able to enjoy Benoit matches.
 

BruiserBrody

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[quote author=BRODY link=topic=7317.msg606823#msg6
Summerslam is fast approaching, I better finish Herb's notes!

1998 Summer Tidbits:
Raw review:
Rocky Maivia faced Hunter Hearst Helmsley in a non-title match that
went to a no contest. Jim Ross really pushed this as two young top
wrestlers delivering a great match. Well, they are pretty young, I
guess. In reality, it was a throwaway match from two decidedly
mediocre wrestlers, who have to be pushed to the top of their
promotion because there's nobody else around.
^Nailed it!
Oh wait...Big Dave Meltz is on this too:
It was funny when Maivia vs. HHH were having a * * 1/4 match at best
how Ross was going crazy about them being two of the best young
wrestlers in the game and of course, they're in the WWF. And he
should, since the WWF has managed to create the market perception that
they've got all the good young talent and these are two that fall into
that category. But it was funny because seeing Raw after Nitro, and
seeing Kidman and Juvi, who are both like eight years younger than HHH
have four times as good a match with five times as much heat, but
since WCW doesn't focus on its young guys who can work, WWF is still
seen by people and able to promote itself as the one having the best
young wrestlers when clearly the opposite is the case.
Blackpool Fight Club vs Black Power:
In this match, the
Nation of Domination ran in and Severn got stomped. This will set up a
threesome of Ken Shamrock, Steve Blackman, and Dan Severn, who will
feud with the NOD.
Meltz is not a fan of the idea:
Last we heard was they were
thinking of putting Severn in a babyface group with Shamrock &
Blackman as The Shooters. They might as well just tie an anvil to
Shamrock's bad leg and throw him in the Hudson River and see how long
he can tread water because the end result will be about the same.
From the IYH review.... A comparison you never think you are ever going to read:
Kane beat Vader:
To make a long story short, Vader played Dean Malenko here and Michael Cole played Gene Okerlund.
Herb thinks Austin vs McMahon is already overexposed and he mocks the booking and acting. He also shits on the NWO/DDP recruitment stuff and is sick of guys switching sides. But Herb still loves JAPAN and Beniot.
- Val Venis is getting a lot of derogatory chants about homosexuals called his way due to his pelvic posturing.
- A quick WCW blurb that made me go WHAT!?
Plans are to lump together Chris Benoit, Steve McMichael, Fit
Finley, and Dean Malenko as the new Four Horsemen. The problem, of
course, is that the group needs to be put over by the main eventers in
order to have any real status; otherwise, they'll just be another
Flock. Malenko is apparently complaining about the idea.
The WWF top guys are all dinged up:
WWF held the King of the Ring this past Sunday, 98/06/28. Going
into the show, Undertaker had a broken ankle and Steve Austin had a
staphylococcus infection in his elbow that had left him dehydrated and
hospitalized the preceding week. Worse yet, King of the Ring
tournament favourite Ken Shamrock was just returning from his ankle
surgery, and Rocky Maivia was just returning from knee surgery.
Is Herb coming around on The Rock yet?:
Ken Shamrock beat Rocky Maivia to become the King of the Ring
1998: No matter how much Jim
Ross and even Jerry Lawler tell me that these guys are magnificent
or that I should take my hat off to them, I still see through it
to Maivia's unimproved mediocrity and Shamrock's general goodness,
with awesome charisma but loads of inexperience. The Maivia vs.
Helmsley matches have been good indicators of Maivia's lack of
growth in-ring. Just like the DX crew, Maivia delivers an
interview well (however scripted) and has developed some
personality with the arched eyebrow shtick. Unfortunately, part of
his job is to wrestle.
- I have to say that Herb is basically only doing RAW and Nitro reviews now, so this is really missing the fun of his wild PPV previews that were way off and his hot news on new gimmicks and guys coming in.
- From the July PPV review...another chance to see the great one:
Rocky Maivia drew Hunter Hearst Helmsley in a 2-out-of-3 falls
match to retain the IC Title: I guess
the idea was to have them go long and build a memorable, great
match, so that the finish wouldn't hurt it. But this wasn't Tiger
Mask vs. Dynamite Kid from 04/23/83. The wrestling was pedestrian
at best, with no story being told through the actual wrestling;
all of the story was created through the actions of others outside
the ring. That sort of booking is used when the guys in the ring
can't carry things on their own.
- Herb also just says "Sable beat Jackie in a bikini contest". In the Evening Gown review from a few months earlier, Herb went on a big rant about how the local strip joint has some gals with big fake tits who wait until their 3rd song to unveil the silicone.
- "I choppy your pee pee" and Dr. Death losing to Bart Gunn happened on the same RAW. How did the universe not collapse?
- LOL Nitro took 30 mins to put on a match and then sent Scott Norton vs Jim Neidhart out there! Apparently the mat classic went 10 seconds.
- Sunny was fired for substance abuse heading into Summerslam.
Big Dave tries to give out 5 stars to people not named Kenny Omega: (I broke it up a little bit to avoid Big Dave's epic paragraph of words:)
More from the Observer. Editor Dave Meltzer was asked what he would
consider the top five PPV matches from WCW and the WWF. The writer
listed Michaels vs. Ramon from WM X, Undertaker vs. Mankind Hell in
the Cell, and Hart vs. Austin from WM XIII as his top three WWF bouts.
In recent years, the WWF's advantage in having the greatest match
you've ever seen is that it has used far better wrestlers in its main
events. From a technically awesome wrestling standpoint, Misterio Jr.
vs. Guerrero has guys who are more versatile but they were in a prelim
match and limited to 13:00 so I couldn't rate that as highly as say
Austin vs. Bret Hart at Wrestlemania which was for all real purposes
the main attraction on the biggest WWF show of the year and went more
than 20:00 with far more hype going in. Realistically from a pure
wrestling standpoint, the Malenko vs. Dragon matches are almost
impossible to beat, except they don't have the hype going in or even
during so others are going to be more memorable. In addition, some
styles are better kept shorter. My opinion is Misterio Jr. and Ultimno
Dragon's best work is about 17:00, and Benoit is also in that figure.
Hart's best work would be about 25:00 and surprisingly so is Cactus
Jack's and Michaels would probably be around that time as well. At
their working peak, Misawa and Kobashi's ultimate match would be 40:00
and Kawada and Kobashi in Osaka put on the best 60:00 match I've ever
seen.

I think at his peak Flair's ultimate match would be 35-40
minutes with a guy like Steamboat. I'd agree the single greatest WWF
match I've ever seen was the Ramon-Michnels ladder match from
Wrestlemania X, and I'd also put Austin vs. Hart second. The one match
I wouldn't have on the list is Undertaker vs. Mankind as it wasn't a
match, just two insane bumps and thumb tacks that detracted from the
match, and great matches stand the test of time and now only a few
weeks after that match, while it may end up being as memorable as any
of the others, my opinion on it is that it isn't holding up as a great
match although it was an awsome spectacle, once you think about the
reality of what the match really was. Misterio Jr. vs. Guerrero was
awesome, probably the best mid-card major promotion match of the past
ten years (although Misterio Jr. vs. Juventuid Guerrera had a mid-card
match on an ECW show in Philadelphia that was even better) and the
first PPV Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis match was very close to that
level, but I'd rate it below, and maybe this is memory because when
you watch 1980s matches now you have to judge them against the
standard of their time, but I'd rate at least four Flair-Steamboat
matches from 1989 ahead of it, with the best probably being New
Orleans followed by a non-TV match at the Capital Center and then
Nashville and Chicago, and the Funk-Flair I Quit match from that same
year along with a few of the War Games seem to stand out.

What would
also be interesting is to try and have people pick the greatest match
ever from All Japan (and so many come to mind here), New Japan, All
Japan Women, Rings, AAA, ECW (it's interesting because realistically
the two best matches ever in ECW were Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis and
Misterio Jr. vs. Guerrera 2/3 fall matches from Philadelphia), Mid
South, etc. Even though it wasn't a WCW match, the Love Machine &
Guerrero vs. Santo & Octagon match had to be one of the five best
matches ever on a PPV show produced by WCW and I'd pick it as the
single best match ever produced on a WCW show that Flair wasn't a
participant in. My feeling is judged against the standards of its
time, that the Jaguar Yokota vs. Lioness Asuka match from around 1985
was the most ahead of its time match and the Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo
Yamada hair vs. hair match was probably the best live match I've ever
seen.
Speaking of 5 star matches... WCW put Jay Leno on PPV vs Hogan and ATM Eric, but had Brian Adams vs Mongo on the same card in what I can only assume was done to make sure Hogan didn't have the worst match. Public Enemy faced Disco Inferno and Alex Wright in another classic. Stevie Ray vs Chavo. Ugh. Same PPV stuck World champ Goldberg in a battle royal. WCW Everybody.
- I laughed at this bit about the Drunk Hawk storyline:
In the earlier BrawlforAll match, Darren Drozdov beat Savio Vega.
Drozdov was put back in because he broke Hawk's nose. Maybe the story
line will be that with his nose broken, Hawk couldn't continue his
mild cocaine habit and had to move on to an injectible, harder drug,
leading to these new problems.
- Sandman is the hottest Free agent in Wrestling:
Speaking of Sandman, he was apparently involved in a contract
renegotiation with ECW. Sanjay Mohanta had the nerve to suggest that
Sandman was being talked to by both WCW and the WWF, in the former
case to be the fourth horseman and in the latter case to be the newest
DX member. I think Sandman had a better chance of being the newest
Spice Girl.
- WWF bought Debbie Reynolds Casino in one of those business ideas that Vince didn't quite go all the way with. Supposedly the WWF paid 9 million.
- Steve Regal debuted on RAW a few weeks ago, and is already hurt. Once his knee is better he'll get another shot. Like a real man.
- WCW actually won a week against the WWF, so the WWF put Mankind vs Kane in the Hell in the Cell on RAW. Foley fell off again and into the Spanish table. Truly the forgotten Hell in the Cell.
- Guh?:
After SummerSlam, Afa Anoia will return to the WWF with another
Samoan tag team.
- Oh how I wish!:
John Bobbitt supposedly offered to re-marry his ex-wife Lorena on a
WWF PPV.
Will Rocky and HHH having their star establishing ladder match at Summerslam finally bring Herb around on them?:
Hunter Hearst Helmsley beat Rocky Maivia to win the IC Title in a
ladder match: This was the show maker or breaker. To this point,
we'd had a surprising opener that ended in a mess, a horrible
embarrassment, two routinely unspecial matches, a cool cage match,
and a farcical two-on-one drubbing. I'm not a big fan of Hunter
Hearst Helmsley, who hasn't shown any sign of improvement since
his early WCW days. I'm also not a big fan of Maivia's ring skill,
as he's developed solid character attributes but nothing much in
the ring. My expectations were low. The ladder gimmick would
surely lead to a few wild bumps and spots, but those don't make a
match ...they might make a memorable spectacle (see Undertaker vs.
Mankind, Hell in the Cell). HHH took almost all of the ladder
punishment until in the first 20 minutes of match time. Generally,
that's not a good thing, but HHH has been suffering from
reasonably serious knee trouble, so when Rock started working on
his knee, something miraculous happened: HHH sold his knee
incredibly well throughout the match. I've never seen such a
strong performance from HHH when it comes to selling. Rock, on the
other hand, is, for whatever reason, generally viewed as the
better wrestler of this pairing; yet, his performance was
decidedly pedestrian. He did the horribly slow climbs of the
ladder while HHH was laid out; Rock would get to the second-last
rung he needed to be at way too early and then swat at the belt
five times before laboriously lifting his leg and e...v...e...r
s...o s...l...o...w...l...y taking half a rung. It was pretty
painful to watch at times, stretching believability to
paper-thinness. I'm amazed that HHH was the glue that held things
together. Anyhow, Rock bled at about the 20-minute mark. Mark
Henry kept trying to involve himself, finally powdering HHH. Rock
climbed the ladder in what seemed like the final hour of the match
and Chyna low-blowed him. HHH made it up and grabbed the title. It
was an uncharacteristically strong performance, mostly by HHH, but
it was marred by the interference finish.
In summary:

Steve Austin beat Undertaker to retain the WWF Title: Somebody held up a "Herb's TidBits suck" sign.
 

Valeyard

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2003 is awful but it was the realization. For me it was how stupid the Shane/Bischoff/Coach shit was, but everyone else points to HHH. Brock/Angle is entertaining as hell but I don't feel like it holds up as well as I'd like. It was a total mess.

2002 is just a great show in a line of fun ones. When I get to 2001 I'll decide which one I like best, though, because 2001 is awesome as well.
 

King Kamala

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'09 is a pretty damn great show. It's lost in the shadow of WrestleMania XXX but I remember really really liking 2014 ATT. Maybe I'll give that a rewatch.

It was a hard to imagine a major show with a more disappointing final result than 2010 but then 2011 happened. I still am flummoxed at to thought process there. Kevin Nash? Really? And this is from a Nash defender!
 

Valeyard

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I liked Punk/Hardy. Wonder if it holds up.
 

King Kamala

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After how horribly disgusting Ric Flair’s last match, I am going to refuse to listen to AFS content, especially the episodes that are just stitched together reruns...



...for four days!
 

alfdogg

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On sheer name recognition 2003 should have been one of the biggest shows of all time. Undertaker was in the 2nd match on the card!
 

Valeyard

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Smart though.

Did it become part of storyline canon that this was Hogan's lustful idea or is that me just adding things up?
 

BruiserBrody

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[quote author=BRODY link=topic=7317.msg606823#msg6
I know he's being funny but Andre was the only one who mostly didn't act like he'd never seen a woman before. He yells at Jesse to deal w/ Liz and is the first to realize the Mega Powers are charging back in the ring.

---
RE: Hogan lust - I believe they hinted at it in promos about Liz's secret weapon and/or "Kiss of Death". Post split Hogan is even more obvious with the lust as he cuts promos mentioning Liz's tits guiding him as they ride his motorcycle.
 

King Kamala

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Something to send a shiver down your spine. According to Meltzer, at ‘94, the Bret Vs Owen cage match ran long and cut time off of Undertaker Vs Undertaker. IMAGINE A LONGER VERSION OF UNDERTAKER/UNDERFAKER!
 

Gert

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Summerslam 1990 was the first "live" PPV that happened in my wrestling fandom. Needless to say I was pretty disappointed that my favorite tag team got squashed AND Shawn Michaels didn't wrestle when I finally got a hold of the VHS in December of 1990.
 

King Kamala

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Firing up SummerSlam '95 on my day off.

Say what you want about the New Gen era but it had the highest number of shows featuring nerdy fans wearing matching shirts int he front row.

Kevin Dunn: It'll show the fans how much people love our product! Everyone is wearing the t-shirt for the PPV!
WWF fans: Wow. WWF gave that entire front row free t-shirts.

I forgot this show opened with a Dean Douglas promo. You think there'd be a more exciting way to open the 2nd most important PPV of the year than a drab mid card heel promo.
 

King Kamala

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tbf, he was probably up for the part. Maybe he really wanted to act with Chris Lemmon.

(Looked up what Chris Lemmon has been up to lately and his last two films were the right wing Roe V Wade biopic and Blonde. What a career!)
 
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