My First Ever Summerslam

Summerslam is less than a week away and the second biggest WWE event of the year is shaping up to be an enjoyable show. I thought that I would take a slightly different route about it and write about the first Summerslam that I ever saw.

The first Summerslam that I ever watched was in 1992, which was extra special for me because it took place at Wembley Stadium, London. Due to the fact that I didn’t see the event live, I had to wait almost 4 months to watch it on VHS. The way the video releases work in the UK is that we have to wait 3/4 months after the event before it’s released on DVD. The commentators were Vince McMahon and Bobby Heenan, who was pretending to be the King of England, and they were good, I just missed the excellent chemistry that Heenan had with Gorilla Monsoon.

Even though I have not seen the show for over 15 years, I still remember so much about it. The Legion of Doom going down the aisle to face Money Inc. in motorcycles and wearing white shoulder pads; the Natural Disasters defending their tag titles against the Beverley Brothers; Shawn Michaels and Rick Martel fighting over who should take a fainted Sensational Sherri back up the aisle; and the WWF Championship between Randy Savage and the Ultimate Warrior with Ric Flair and Mr Perfect teasing them over which corner they were going to be in.

The most abiding memory is the main event with the British Bulldog challenging Bret Hart for the Intercontinental Championship. I still think it is one of the best matches that I ever seen and it was a pure technical masterclass in wrestling, which is something that you don’t really see anymore. You had Diane Hart, Bret’s sister and Bulldog’s wife, watching the match and the cameras constantly cutting to her to see her reaction to certain buts of the match. The ending was amazing with Bulldog reversing an attempt at a sunset flip by Bret Hart to get the win.

From what I remember, it was a really good Summerslam. After that, it was 7 years until I saw my next Summerslam and another 11 until I first saw a Summerslam live on TV. While everyone looks forward to Wrestlemania, I look forward to Summerslam with the same amount of enthusiasm. I thought that this year’s Wrestlemania was slightly disappointing, and I hope that Summerslam 2011 will be an awesome show.