SummerSlam 1988: The Show Is Ordinary; the Moments Are Not

The first match in SummerSlam history is also one of the night's few bouts that would remain worth watching without any historical footnote attached. The Bulldogs bring physical urgency, the Rougeaus bring quick tags and increasingly smug control, and the twenty-minute structure lets both teams run through a classic face-in-peril formula. Davey Boy Smith gets isolated, Dynamite Kid later absorbs the extended heel work, and the crowd comes alive whenever the Bulldogs threaten the decisive hot tag. The Rougeaus are especially effective because their offense is less about domination than irritation: cutoffs, double teams, referee distractions and just enough athleticism to make the cheating feel strategic. The problem is the finish. The time-limit draw protects everyone but arrives without the broadcast spending enough time making the clock a visible threat. A strong match ends as if somebody in production suddenly remembered the next segment.

Bad News Brown versus Ken Patera is six minutes of evidence that not every roster transition requires documentation this thorough. Brown is the wrestler WWF is moving forward, Patera is nearing the end of his useful national run, and the match exists to make that direction official. The action is slow, basic and occasionally awkward, with Patera's offense lacking the explosiveness his power-wrestling identity needs. Brown is better when he can project menace in short bursts than when asked to carry a conventional match from lockup to finish. The Ghetto Blaster ends things cleanly enough and gives the correct wrestler the victory, but the route never becomes interesting. TJR called it a dud, Cook rated it half a star, and Keith went into negative-star territory. WrestleFile is not required to manufacture a contrarian defense where the tape and the consensus agree.

Rick Rude and Junkyard Dog are technically the advertised wrestlers, but Jake Roberts is the reason the segment exists. Rude controls most of a slow match, Dog gets the expected headbutt-based comebacks, and Bobby Heenan supplies the usual distraction machinery. Then Rude reveals the tights featuring Cheryl Roberts, Jake charges the ring, and the disqualification converts six minutes of modest wrestling into the next chapter of a much better feud. That angle is historically useful because the Rude-Roberts rivalry becomes one of WWF's more personal programs of the period. The match preceding it is not useful enough to defend. Junkyard Dog is past his athletic peak, Rude is deliberately working toward the reveal rather than a competitive finish, and the audience is ultimately rewarded for caring about somebody who was not booked in the match.

The Powers of Pain are being introduced as a major physical force, so the basic assignment is reasonable: let Warlord and Barbarian throw the Bolsheviks around until the audience accepts the size difference as the story. The problem is that the match spends too much time pretending the Bolsheviks can sustain control through choking, chinlocks and distraction spots. That slows the one thing the Powers are best positioned to provide. When Barbarian finally gets the hot tag and the team starts using power offense, the crowd responds, and the flying headbutt finish gives the babyfaces the expected victory. It is functional roster-building without much craft around it. The strange presence of Baron Von Raschke as their short-lived manager adds historical trivia but not quality. On a ten-match card, this is exactly the kind of material that makes the event feel longer than its important stories require.

This is not an A-grade wrestling match. It is an A-grade wrestling moment, and pretending those are always the same thing would blur the difference between a great match and a great moment. Honky Tonk Man has spent 454 days as Intercontinental Champion, surviving through every possible escape route and making the audience increasingly desperate to see somebody finally catch him. Brutus Beefcake is removed from the scheduled title match. Honky refuses to hear the identity of the replacement and demands anybody. Ultimate Warrior answers, sprints to the ring, overwhelms Honky before the champion can remove his entrance gear, hits the splash and wins in roughly thirty-one seconds. The Garden explodes. The squash works because a long match would only create opportunities for Honky to repeat the old formula. WWF instead makes helplessness the payoff. Warrior enters the next level of the company instantly.

Dino Bravo and Don Muraco revisit a pairing from WrestleMania IV and fail to uncover the missing classic. Muraco still looks like a major wrestling star and gets enough early offense to remind viewers why his earlier WWF run mattered, but the match never develops a compelling conflict beyond two strong men trading control. Frenchy Martin's distraction creates the opening, Bravo lands the side suplex, and the match ends before anything has escalated. The result fits WWF's roster direction because Bravo remains an active heel project while Muraco is approaching the end of his run. That makes the booking defensible and the viewing optional. Multiple retrospectives identify this as one of the weak areas of the show, and the five-minute runtime is probably its greatest virtue. SummerSlam does not become more historically complete because these two had a rematch.

Demolition and the Hart Foundation produce the night's best conventional championship wrestling because the match has both a clear physical story and a crowd that wants the challengers to succeed. Bret Hart absorbs the extended punishment, including concentrated work on the arm, while Jim Neidhart repeatedly threatens to change the match with one hot tag. When that tag finally arrives, the pace jumps immediately. Neidhart throws bodies around, the Harts create believable near falls, and the Garden starts reacting as though the title change is possible. Then the managers become decisive. Mr. Fuji draws attention, Jimmy Hart returns with the megaphone, Ax uses it on Bret, and Smash gets the pin. The cheating preserves Demolition's championship run while protecting the newly babyface Hart Foundation. It is not clean, but unlike several undercard shortcuts, the finish completes a well-structured match rather than substituting for one.

Big Boss Man is still early in his WWF ascent, and Koko B. Ware has the familiar assignment of making a newer heel look important without becoming completely irrelevant himself. Boss Man controls through size, Koko creates short bursts of speed, and the match gives the future main-event-level heel more resistance than a pure squash would. That is both the strength and the problem. At nearly six minutes, the match spends more time establishing uncertainty than Boss Man's push really needs. Koko's missile dropkick comeback creates a respectable near fall before Boss Man shuts the door with the slam and then adds the nightstick attack afterward. The booking points correctly toward Boss Man's rise and eventual larger programs. The match is acceptable television-quality development placed on a pay-per-view that already has plenty of acceptable development.

Jake Roberts versus Hercules is a ten-minute match whose best argument is that Jake Roberts can make almost any slow structure feel as though one sudden DDT might justify the wait. Hercules controls with power and repeated holds, Roberts sells, teases the DDT, gets cut off and eventually finds the opening. There is nothing especially wrong with the construction. There is also very little reason the match needs ten minutes on a card where more important stories are waiting. Roberts' charisma keeps the audience attached, and the finish is crisp: Hercules escapes one DDT attempt, grows confident, and Roberts eventually counters into the move for the pin. Damien's post-match appearance supplies the expected character punctuation. The bout is far more watchable than the card's weakest singles matches, but it still feels like a solid house-show match receiving premium real estate.

The main event succeeds because it understands exactly how much wrestling Andre the Giant needs to provide and exactly how much personality everybody else can supply. Ted DiBiase does most of the movement for the heel team, bumping for Hogan and Savage and controlling the middle stretches when the match needs conventional structure. Andre enters as the wall: short bursts, choking, headbutts and physical disruption. Savage supplies pace, Hogan supplies the giant crowd responses, and Jesse Ventura supplies distrust every time he counts. The finish is pure sports entertainment. Elizabeth distracts the heels and Ventura, the Mega Powers recover, Savage hits the elbow, Hogan follows with the leg drop, and Savage physically helps Ventura's hand reach the mat for three. As technical wrestling, good. As the closing image of the first SummerSlam, excellent. The alliance looks invincible, which makes its eventual collapse more valuable.