WWE SummerSlam 97'

WWE SummerSlam 97'

East Rutherford, New Jersey - August 1997

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: The Undertaker holds the WWE World Championship coming into the show, Owen Hart is the Intercontinental Champion, The British Bulldog is the reigning European Champion, and Dude Love and Steve Austin are the WWE Tag Team Championships. 

COMMENTATORS: Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, and Jerry "The King" Lawler



A cage match clash between Mankind and Hunter Hearst Helmsley opens up the show. What makes this match better than average are the little things - Mankind hurling himself into the cage with vigor, Helmsley's facial expressions, and, maybe the match's MVP, Chyna's persistent involvment outside of the cage. The crowd pops huge for the dramatic transitions and while there are moments that defy logic (Triple H attempting to climb out of the cage when going through the door should always be the heel's main avenue for escape), as a whole, it's a fun, violent finale for one of the WWE's better midcard feuds of the year. (3.5/5)

Todd Pettengill welcomes New Jersey Mayor Christie Todd Whitman (accompanied by the Headbangers and Gorilla Monsoon), who draws some audible boos from the crowd. Pettengill thanks her for lowering taxes in New Jersey, but the crowd is not nearly as enthused, jeering her as she holds up a World Championship belt.

Goldust makes his way down the aisle for his match with Brian Pillman, the stakes for this match being very high as Goldust has put his wife, Marlena, up for grabs while the Loose Cannon has promised that if he were to lose, he would wear a dress on RAW. At this point in his career, Pillman is noticeably less athletic than in his glory days and Goldust, while always fundamentally sound, wasn't in the best shape of his career here either. Minute-for-minute, it's a passable contest but not one that belongs on either man's DVD set. (2/5)

The Legion of Doom vs. The Godwinns was next. A better match than most would expect considering the Road Warriors' age and the one-dimensionality of Phineas and Henry Godwinn. It helps that Hawk and Animal were still over with the New Jersey crowd and that the match actually had a quality storyline behind it: Henry Godwinn had suffered a legitimate neck injury from a Doomsday Device months earlier and was seeking revenge. (2/5)

Next up - the Million Dollar Giveaway, an exhausting and nearly unwatchable segment where two in-person contestants and two more at home get the chance to win $1 million by picking a key that will unlock a casket full of cash. I desperately wanted to reward this a +1 for its WrestleCrap value, but its not even good bad, its just bad.

Speaking of quality storylines - The British Bulldog defended his European Championship against Ken Shamrock in a match based on the Bulldog attacking Shamrock and stuffing his face with dog food. Like the Pillman/Goldust match, the stakes are high - if Shamrock wins, he not only gets the European Title, but Davey Boy promised to eat a can of Alpo. Shamrock's bumping and selling is excellent and the busted lip he suffers adds to the drama, while Bulldog shows just how proficient he was as a heel when it comes to helping the face draw sympathy and using time and "rest holds" to get heat without boring the audience. The finish is a mixed bag - while the call is absurdly by-the-books and would never happen a year later, the post-match is, and I may be wrong here, the birth of Shamrock's "snapping," the best part of his gimmick. (2.5/5)

A four-on-four match between Los Boricaus, the Puerto Rican squadron led by Savio Vega, and The Disciples of Apocalypse, Crush's biker gang, follows. Skull and 8-Ball (aka the Grimm Twins, aka the Harris Twins, aka the Blu Brothers) have to be two of the worst workers in the history of American wrestling (and I would say that even if I didn't know about their affection for white supremacist tattoos). Ostensibly, Crush's team are the babyfaces, but the crowd, when not just sitting on their hands, seem to actually root for Vega's clique, maybe because they're actually trying to deliver something resembling a good match. I should also add that Brian "Chainz" Lee puts in some decent effort too - maybe thinking that he could somehow work his way out of this entire storyline if he tries hard enough. A predictable melee ending wraps it up once the Nation of Domination arrive, the camera lingering on Ahmed Johnson (the Nation's newest member) for most of the last third of the contest. One point for a lay-out that makes this match tolerable. (1/5)

The next bout is legendary for all the wrong reasons - Owen Hart defending his Intercontinental Championship against "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. A "must see" match for Austin fans due to the impact this one had on his career, but also for Owen Hart fans for the same reason. Their chemistry is absolutely off-the-charts and it is breathtaking to watch Austin, for the first time on pay-per-view, working as a clear-cut babyface against a guy that was willing to work as a typical, cowardly heel. Remember, prior to this, at least on pay-per-view, Austin had mostly fought "tweeners" (Taker, Michaels, or Bret Hart at WrestleMania 13), was involved in multi-mans in unique settings (January's Royal Rumble, February's Final Four main event, and the Canadian Stampede main event in front of a hostile Calgary crowd), or was taking on guys that were too big or too established to portray themselves as fearful of Austin (for example, the Survivor Series 96' and Revenge of the Taker matches against Bret Hart and the SummerSlam 96' Free-for-All opener against Yokozuna). In this match, though, Owen Hart does Owen Hart - crafty and cunning, but eager to cut corners or quit when the going gets rough. Unlike Bret, whose entire character was based on personal pride and winning "the right way," Owen doesn't care how he wins, making him a unique foil for Austin, an equally amoral performer. The minutiae of the match is as good as the overarching story, Owen doing a stupendous job of making small details (attacking Stone Cold's hand early and wrenching the middle finger he'd used to mock the Calgary crowd at Canadian Stampede, taunting Austin and the crowd throughout, peppering the match with well-performed acrobatics and technicality) matter. Austin, no slouch in the wrestling department either, executes a variety of moves that he, either due to injury or due to the "watering down" of the sport in the Attitude Era, wouldn't typically bust out once he became the focus of the company - a wristlock segment to start things off, a stun gun later on, a powerbomb to reverse a hurricanrana attempt. All the while, the crowd is red hot. Rematching the match for the first time in many years (maybe even since its first aired), I found myself wishing the finish never came - not because the 15 minutes of action they'd provided was so darn good (though, it was), but because of how tragic the last minute is. One accident, on a move that Owen had performed countless times before and that, if it had been performed correctly, would've been the absolute perfect transition to the finish (Owen had been working on Austin's neck via chinlocks and a German Suplex and Jim Ross was selling it strong via commentary), not only leads to a dreadful pinfall, but probably curtailed what could have been one of the best rivalries of either man's careers. Before the accident, you had all the ingredients for an all-time classic, a show-stealing contest that could've led to a myriad of rematches (and potentially even positioned Owen as a credible rival for Austin, at least on the house show circuit, post-WrestleMania 14), but the second Austin's head touches the mat, it becomes an incredibly uncomfortable scene to behold. Austin would never be the same again, but either would Owen. (3.5/5)

Main event time - Bret Hart challenging The Undertaker for the WWE World Championship with Shawn Michaels as guest referee. At nearly 30 minutes, this match was not crafted for modern audiences expecting a roll-out of "finisher spamming" or weapon-based carnage or even the crowd-brawling and comedic stooging that would become fixtures of Attitude Era main events. There's no blood and no one goes through a table. Instead, you get Bret Hart strategically attacking Taker's legs, Shawn Michaels inserting himself at every turn, and the Undertaker working a more "human" style of selling than any time I recall from before this. 20 years ago, Dave Meltzer awarded this match just 3-stars, but I'd be curious what he'd think of it now, when a match like this might actually be refreshing in its methodical pacing, at no point dipping into tedious rest holds, but also not rushing through a signal sequence. Unlike the recent Rollins/Reigns match from Money in the Bank 2016, where the selling led to noticeable lulls in the crowd's engagement (you could hear a pin drop between certain spots), the crowd is in the palm of the workers' hands throughout and the drama builds well. Unfortunately, things do get a bit repetitive at times, a sign that the Hitman and Taker may have just had a bit too long of a runtime to fill. The finish, however, might be the best screwy ending to a wrestling match ever conceived. If this was the work of Pat Patterson, he deserved to be paid triple his usual for it. The crowd fills the ring with trash in justified anger, one of the few times I recall this occurring on a WWE pay-per-view (it had become de rigeur for WCW main events), further highlighting just how special the final sequence is. While not an all-time classic and certainly not a match one would want to re-watch multiple times a year, if you haven't seen it in awhile, dig it up and enjoy the slow burn crafted by three of the very best performers in WWE history. (4/5)


SummerSlam 97' scores a not-so-great 2.64-out-of-5 on the Kwang-o-Meter, a score dangerously close to such duds as WCW's 1993 offerings Slamboree and Beach Blast. Fortunately, Austin/Owen, Mankind/HHH, and the main event are all strong and, compared to what WCW offered at their August PPV that year (Road Wild 97') downright near-masterpieces. In terms of historical importance, SummerSlam 97' offers an unparalleled snapshot into the summer that the WWE finally started fighting back against WCW, who had been crushing them in the ratings (and in show quality) for at least a year by this point. Ironically, Austin's injury would prevent the WWE from closing the gap sooner, but the three-way feud between the Hitman, the Deadman, and the Heartbreak Kid led to some of the best TV the WWE had ever produced (and, ultimately, one of the greatest cage matches in history, the first Hell in the Cell). On the flipside, the WWE's race war storyline was a low-point not only in terms of characters but in match quality as well, not a single one of the 12 men involved being especially strong in their role (aside from maybe Simmons, who'd lost so much credibility that he was a non-factor anyway). You could do far worse than re-watching this show, but I'd keep the remote handy.

FINAL RATING - Watch It...With Remote in Hand