That Was Then 7.20.07: True Feats Of Manliness – Curt Hennig Guts It Through Summerslam 91

The Background

After regaining the Intercontinental Title from Kerry Von Erich in late 1990, Curt Hennig again began defending the title against a wide array of challengers, including the Big Boss Man, Davey Boy Smith, and Shawn Michaels. However, sometime after Wrestlemania 7, he suffered (whatever the injury was) in his back. Normally, the answer would be to just have him drop the title as soon as possible and get him out of the ring. However, this case was a bit special because the end of his title reign had been planned out well in advance: he was to drop the IC Title to Bret Hart at Summerslam 91 in Madison Square Garden. The problem was that Bret, a longtime tag team wrestler, had only recently broken into singles action and, while he was to be groomed to eventually be a top guy, still needed time to be built up properly before getting the title, which was designed to be his first big singles win. For this reason, they didn’t want him to get the title from Hennig at a TV taping or house show, and having Hennig drop the title to someone else who would in turn lose to Bret was out of the question, they wanted Bret to get the rub from Hennig.

So with this in mind, it was decided that the injured Hennig would have to hold the Intercontinental Title for several more months before he would be allowed to disappear. To be fair, he worked a very limited schedule and was heavily protected in what he did do, but he had to still at least wrestle once in a while to make it appear that everything was okay. Fortunately, Hennig was talented enough that he could hide his condition while still put on good enough matches that nobody was the wiser. Bret Hart, in the meantime, had begun stringing together a series of singles wins over guys like the Barbarian, the Warlord, IRS and Col Mustafa to build credibility as a singles wrestler. After getting himself involved in an IC Title match between Hennig and Davey Boy Smith, Hart used the incident as a basis to throw out a challenge for the title, and the match was officially set for Summerslam.

Summerslam was set to be Hennig’s final match for quite some time, and he was really banged up going into the PPV. Nobody would have blamed Curt Hennig if he were to take it easy and treat the match as a formality on his way out, but that wasn’t Hennig’s way. Not only was he going to be professional, but he made it his personal mission to put Bret over as strongly as possible before heading into semi-retirement.

Summerslam

Hennig made a show of being very confident at Summerslam, stating in a prematch interview “The Intercontinental belt says ‘Wrestling Champion’ on it, and to be a champion, you have to be perfect. You are excellent, but you’re not perfect. There’s only one Mr Perfect, and you’re looking at him.” Indeed, as he came to the ring with a big smile on his face, it looked very much like this would just be another routine title defense against an overmatched, overconfident challenger who had gotten in way over his head. But Bret was sure of himself nonetheless, and had even flown in several family members, including his parents, from Calgary to see the match.

Bret took it right to Hennig, tossing him around with hiptosses including one that sent him groinfirst into the post. Hennig was getting slammed around and taking bumps that a man with a back injury like his shouldn’t have been doing. He took a clothesline bump over the top and, after collecting himself back to his feet, apparently decided that enough was enough, and that he would take a hike and keep his Intercontinental Title to fight another day. Hart went after him, tearing his singlet and tossing him back in the ring. Hennig backed off, but Bret continued the assault.

Finally, Hennig turned the tide and began going to work on Hart, moving around so well that you would have never known the kind of pain he was in. He pulled off several moves such as his rolling snapmare and standing dropkick that he shouldn’t have been able to do. At one point he and Bret wound up on the top rope going blow for blow, and after he knocked Bret to the mat, he tumbled down himself to make the cover. Even though his back must have been screaming in pain by this point, he somehow hit the Perfectplex…for two.

From there, Bret turned the tide back his way, hitting several moves such as the side backbreaker and Russian legsweep that work on the back. The end came when Hennig started dropping legs on Bret’s midsection, but Bret caught the leg and rolled him into the Sharpshooter. Perfect submitted instantly, but Bret held him in the move for several seconds at a really sick angle before letting go and being awarded the IC Title. As all eyes were on Bret, nobody even noticed the now former champion slinking to the back after putting on an incredibly gutsy performance.

The Aftermath

After being defeated by Bret Hart, Mr Perfect disappeared for several months before popping back up as Ric Flair’s Executive Consultant (fancy name for a manager). He also began doing broadcasting work on on WWF Superstars while he recovered. He was rushed back into the ring a little ahead of schedule when he took the Ultimate Warrior’s place at Survivor Series 1992, and he only wrestled sproadically until he was fully healed and was able to return to a full time schedule.

For the time being, anyway. His back problems continued to plague him throughout his career, and his comeback was cut short when he reinjured himself in late 1993 and disappeared again. He would tease comebacks again in 1994 and 1996, but he wouldn’t make a full time return to the ring until 1997 when he went to WCW and joined the NWO. He did reign for several months as the US Champion, but after losing the title he began wrestling more sproadically than ever, and was put in a position where he was doing quick jobs and working in tag teams to help protect his recurring back injuries.

Of course he died several years later, but by gutting out Summerslam 1991 the way he did, Bret Hart owes Curt Hennig a big debt of gratitude for putting him over in step one in the amazing career he went on to have.

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And with that, here ends the final edition of That Was Then. Yeah, I know I finished up doing the Sunday News a few weeks ago as well. Real life has a way of eating up all your free time, and the fact is that like with the Sunday News, I didn’t feel like I could keep pulling three columns and do a good job with the limited time I have nowadays. Like I said to Larry when I told him I was dropping both columns, I feel like the Kings Of Wrestling when they thought Claudio Castagnoli was going to WWE and they started dropping every tag title on the planet. Only difference is I didn’t, don’t, and never will have any plans to write for anyone other than 411. The main thing was that I really wasn’t happy with how the ROH 2006 in review feature came off at all, and since that’s my personal big annual feature, the fact that I didn’t have enough time to devote to doing a good job on it really said a lot to me. I think that I’d rather drop two columns and focus on doing a good job on one than hang on to three columns for the sake of having three columns and do a shitty job on them all. Now let’s just hope I don’t spend six months jobbing to the other columnists because 411 management didn’t have any plans for me. That Was Then will pop back up every now and then when I have a story to tell (such as my annual ROH feature), but for the time being it’s a thing of the past.

So anyway, thanks for reading That Was Then this last year and a half, I appreciate everyone who wrote in to tell me how much they enjoyed the memories I brought back for them, and even the people who wrote in to tell me my column sucked, pointed out all my mistakes, and said I’m gay provided a certain amount of entertainment value. Don’t forget to keep catching up with me for Friendly Competition and Roundtables and such. Thanks again for reading.