SUMMERSLAM 1993
August 30, 1993, The Palace of Auburn Hills
Auburn Hills, Michigan
1993 was a transitional year for the WWF.
Hulk Hogan was no longer with the company after a less than graceful exit at the inaugural King of the Ring PPV. Instead of keeping faith in Bret Hart after his spectacular showing at SummerSlam 1992 and solid first run and WWF Champion, Vince hotshotted the title to Yokozuna and less than two minutes later onto Hulk Hogan. It was a financial disaster.
Instead of making amends after Hogan’s final showing, Vince decided to repackage Lex Luger into the new American Hero with the aim of him become WWF Champion at SummerSlam 1993. It was a financial disaster.
This years SummerSlam headlining match ended in a count out win for Lex Luger and signalled the end of any meaningful push at the top of the card for the rest of his WWF stay. Bret Hart, a credible champion and good draw, was left twiddling his thumbs in a feud with Jerry Lawler and Doink The Clown.
The Steiner Brothers, having come over from WCW had captured the WWF Tag Team Titles and faced Smokey Mountain Wrestling imports The Heavenly Bodies.
Perhaps most disappointing was the Intercontinental Championship match that was Shawn Michaels facing off against Mr. Perfect. In what was hyped as a match for the ages turned into nothing but an okay outing from two of the best workers of the last 30 years. However, this match was significant for one reason….Michaels become the first IC Champion to successfully defend the title at SummerSlam.
Here to provide their thoughts about the card are…
Greg De Marco: Greg plies his trade doing The Wrestling 5 & 1 every Sunday and can also be found has a regular contributor to But & Sell and he also has his very own podcast. Greg is a very busy cat.
Larry Csonka: 411 webmaster and editor of just about everything around these parts. Often hated and always over opinionated, Larry offers his old school, southern thoughts to proceedings.
Thomas Hall: Thomas currently has the unenviable task of recapping RAW and IMPACT every week. Madness will be his in no time at all.
Ted DiBiase vs. Razor Ramone Winner: Razor Ramon via pinfall Time: 7:32
Tag Team Championship – The Steiner Brothers vs. The Heavenly Bodies Winner: The Steiner Brothers via pinfall to retain. Time: 9:28
Intercontinental Championship – Shawn Michaels vs. Mr. Perfect Winner: Shawn Michaels via countout to retain. Time: 11:20
The 1-2-3 Kid vs. Irwin R. Schyster Winner: Irwin R. Schyster via pinfall. Time: 5:44
Doink The Clown vs. Bret Hart Winner: Bret Hart via DQ. Time: 9:05
Bret Hart vs. Jerry Lawler Winner: Jerry Lawler via DQ. Time: 6:32
Ludvig Borga vs. Marty Jannetty Winner: Ludvig Burgor via submission Time: 5:15
Rest In Peace Match (No Count Out/No DQ) – The Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez Winner: The Undertaker via pinfall. Time: 8:04
Six-Man Tag: Tatanka & the Smoking Gunns vs. Bam Bam Bigelow & the Headshrinkers Winner: Tatanka & the Smoking Gunns via pinfall Time: 11:15
WWF Heavyweight Championship: Yokozuna vs. Lex Luger Winner: Lex Luger via countout. Yokozuna retains. Time: 17:58
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Best Match: Steiner Brothers vs. Heavenly Bodies – It’s a shame they didn’t give this match more time, given what we saw out of some of the other matches. The Steiners were on the cusp of their decline as a team, and The Bodies never really got a shot outside of Smokey Mountain. They should have, as they could have had a great run. Worst Match: Shawn Michaels vs. Mr. Perfect – Okay, this wasn’t actually the worst match on the show, but c’mon! This had the makings of being the greatest Intercontinental Championship Match of all time! Both guys tried too hard, when they should have just let the match happen. And the finish was crap, with Michaels winning by countout after Diesel posts Perfect. Highlight: Ted Dibiase wrestles his retirement match here, in the opener against Razor Ramon. His name sits on the list of greats who never got to wear a major world championship. Hidden Highlight: Tatanka & The Smoking Gunns vs. The Headshrinkers & Bam Bam Bigelow – You could easily argue for this to be considered the best match of the show. Given that we had Perfect-Michaels booked, would you ever think that would happen? In what would traditionally be considered an opening match, this went on second to last, got a decent amount of time and delivered big time. MVP: Ted Dibiase – He was severely limited due to his injuries, and it showed. He still managed to go out there and gut out what became his retirement match. Overall Rating: 4 – Seriously, on paper, this should have been an easy 8. But when Lex Luger’s big win comes via count out, and the potential greatest Intercontinental title match ever ends in a premature countout, this show under delivered. Big time.
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Best Match: Bret Hart vs. Jerry Lawler which I give a B+. It was Bret beating up his enemy which is always fun to see. That’s just not something you can’t beat as Lawler is such a great cowardly heel that working with Bret was perfect. The post match thing made you believe Lawler’s career was over, but this feud would go on for two years, on and off. Worst Match: IRS vs. 1-2-3 Kid. Is a big stinking F. No one cared, it wasn’t interesting, and it sucked. What kind of grade did you expect here? Highlight: The Bret vs. Jerry stuff, which spanned two matches and was one of the hottest angles of the year coming into this. Bret and Jerry knew how to work a crowd like masters and this was probably the high point of the feud. Considering the talent involved there, I can’t say I’m surprised that it worked so well. Hidden Highlight: Ted DiBiase’s last PPV match. This is kind of sad actually as he would hurt his neck and never wrestle on PPV again after this. He was one of the best heels ever (still the best for my taste) and he never got to be world champion. Kind of sad to see him go. MVP: Lex Luger, for having to put up with the really stupid decision of having him win by countout instead of winning the title there. For the life of me I don’t get that booking in the slightest and the whole thing was just a big mess with Luger never getting the title despite a really stupid ending to the Rumble as well. Overall Rating: D+. This show just sucks. Nothing of note happens, the matches are just head scratchers, and the ending is AWFUL. The show just has nothing huge happening at all as Bret’s matches were a combination of solid but random and short but intense. Taker was a feud that I though ended half a year ago. Shawn’s match was good but forgettable, and I’ve ranted on the main event already. Just a bad show overall which is reflective of the company as a whole at this point. Avoid this.
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Best Match: Steiner Brothers vs. Heavenly Bodies (Tag Title Match) – What a fun tag match this was and it gave some great exposure to the Bodies and the SMW style in general in at the time. This was a lot of fun as the Steiners were still one of the best tandems in the world and the Bodies could bump all over the place for them to make this a great match. Worst Match: Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez – Anything involving Giant Gonzalez/El Gigante usually wins the award for worst match of the show unfortunately. The guy just didn’t understand how to wrestle. Highlight: The USA prevails over evil once again…kind of – The big selling point to this show was seeing the newly repackaged All American Lex Luger get his hands on the dastardly “Japanese” WWF champion Yokozuna, who had run everyone’s hero Hulk Hogan out of town. Luger’s bodyslam on Yokozuna on the USS Intrepid was an unforgettable moment, and although the match itself here wasn’t very good and Luger only won by count out, it was still built as this big feel good moment for the fans, and it worked to a small degree. I wouldn’t have minded seeing Luger take the belt here honestly, and I’m anything but a fan of his. Hidden Highlight: Tatanka/Smoking Gunns vs. Bam Bam Bigelow/Headshrinkers – What seems like on paper to just be another throwaway match is actually one of the funnest on the entire show, and well worth watching. The Headshrinkers were great around this time and Tatanka and Bam Bam for some reason or another had really good chemistry together (see: their shockingly good match at the ’94 Royal Rumble) so don’t skip this one if you’re watching this show because it’s actually a good match. MVP: Bret Hart – Hart gets the nod from me here simply because he wrestled twice and both matches were decent to good. First he defeated Doink in a decent little match, and then he lost to Jerry Lawler by DQ in an otherwise great little match directly afterwards. This is probably the best singles match Lawler and Bret ever had during this WWF feud, as it all seemed to go down hill after this. Overall Rating: 6.5 – This is a tough show to rate. There’s no big blow-away match like many Summerslam events that makes this show required viewing, but at the same time there are some really good to great matches on the undercard of the show. The main event was a nice moment too even if the match wasn’t all too great, so I’d still give this show a pass and a Thumbs Up, but it’s not going to go down as a classic or anything.
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Best Match: Tatanka & The Smoking Gunns vs. Bam Bam Bigelow & The Headshrinkers – Some of you that may have ever seen the show or are younger fans may look at this and think, “What the hell is Csonka on?” and normally you’d be right, but this was honestly the best match of the show, coming in at about ***¾. It is one of those things that you cannot explain. Tatanka, The Guns and The Headshrinkers never had great matches, but on this night with Bam Bam involved, they had a hell of a match. It was completely unexpected, and a pleasant surprise to be sure. Worst Match: Ludwig Borga vs. Marty Janetty – While The Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzales is a horrible match, and would usually get the award for this, Ludwig Borga vs. Marty Janetty was simply shit. Borga was a jacked up, piss poor movie villain in a way, and couldn’t wrestle his way out of a paper bag. He simply beat on Marty, didn’t give him anything, and this is better off forgotten. Highlight: The Steiner Bros. vs. The Heavenly Bodies – As you all know, I am a huge fan of tag team wrestling, and The Steiner Bros. vs. The Heavenly Bodies is just good tag team wrestling. The angle was set up in SMW, complete with Cornette selling an injury from there with a neckbrace. This was around 10-minutes of good old tag team wrestling, and if you are a fan of it like I am, it brings a smile to your face to watch it. The Heavenly Bodies are a criminally underrated tag team. Hidden Highlight: HBK and Mr. Perfect Disappoint – As surprising a sit is, Mr. Perfect and old HBK has a rather bland and disappointing match at this event. Mr,. Perfect was the shit, HBK was on fire during this time, and everyone figured they would rock the house. Instead, they go around 11 minutes, have a bland match, and do the countout finish. I would have never thought they would be this disappointing, given their standards, but they were. MVP: Bret Hart – Bret Hart continues his roll as Mr. Summerslam, not but putting on a great match, but with a great angle involving Jerry Lawler. They were feuding over who was the King of the WWF at the time, and Lawler faked an injury for this match, leading to Hart vs. Doink. They went 10-minutes of solid action, and Lawler caused the DQ, proving that he was faking. Then he is forced to wrestle hart, and they go for about 7 minutes of solid stuff and Bret wins with the sharpshooter. Until he will not let it go, and gets DQ’d. it takes Owen and Bruce to stop Bret from breaking Lawler in half, and Lawler gets carted off on a stretcher. To mock Hart one last time, he raises his hand in victory while being carted out. Hart and Lawler were great together, and while Bret “lost,” he looked completely great while doing so. Overall Rating: 6.9 – Compared to the previous years, Summerslam 1993 comes off as a bit of a disappointment. The main event was horribly booked and not a good match at all, but tag team wrestling and Bret Hart really saved the show from being a bad one, which in my opinion, has been a theme of the early Summerslam events. But this is a historical event, as this was the first major post Hogan era show, and the company was trying to rebuild.
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