We’ve got to finish off August 1999 before we get into an interesting fall 1999 for “Into the Vault”. This time, we’re going into SummerSlam 1999 from Minneapolis, Minnesota! This show drew around 17,370 for a triple threat main event between WWE Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin, Mankind, and Triple H.
What I love about 90s wrestling pay-per-views were the taglines. Most PPVs had a poster and like movie posters, you need the tagline. The one for SummerSlam 1999 was “An Out of Body Experience”.
I don’t know if it was because Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura is the special guest referee here or what but WWE is promising an out of body experience, I guess. The last I had one of those was on the Gravitron at the Alabama State Fair in 1992, let’s see if they deliver.
The Best
The Tag Team Turmoil match really entertaining and a lot fun. This was basically a tag team gauntlet match which Edge & Christian ran for the most part. They wiped out rivals the Hardy Boyz first, followed that up by spanking Viscera & Mideon, then crushed Droz & Albert before running into the Acolytes.
Farooq & Bradshaw would put the Hollys away to claim the number one contenders spot for the Tag Team titles. I really enjoyed rewatching this purely because I was invested in Edge & Christian winning after the Hardy Boyz fell.
The Hardcore title match saw the Big Boss Man defend against Al Snow in a “Big 4 PPV Hardcore Match”. That wasn’t the name of the match but when it comes to hardcore matches on WWE pay-per-view, the ones at the big four PPVs tend to have a little something extra to them.
Sure enough, this one was wild and had a snappy pace. Boss Man and Snow made the most of the seven-minutes-and-change that they had to work with and I really enjoyed it. This was what WWE hardcore matches should be: fun to watch.
Interestingly, the street fight between Test and Shane McMahon has been called a Greenwich Street Fight and a Love Her or Leave Her Street Fight. I think Greenwich Street Fight would be more accurate even if SummerSlam 1999 isn’t in Greenwich, CT.
A Love Her or Leave Her Street Fight kind of points to the winner having to decide if they’re going leave their girl or keep her—which begs the question of why would they have to decide if they won a match?
The rules of the match are pretty much what you’d expect but the name for the match was just odd. Anyway, the match itself was very entertaining. I dig Test, Shane will take a risk, and both are fine in matches with lax rules.
This wasn’t a safe, guaranteed thumbs up match but I could see this working on paper. Sure, I re-watched the TV leading up to SummerSlam 1999 but I’d say I was leaning more towards “fun match” than “fail match” when the match was announced for the show.
The triple threat match for the World title worked for wild, big match brawling—you know, the OG WWE main event style—and a curiously hot crowd. Like, the fans were eating this match up and it helps that the main event was such that the Governor of Minnesota had to officiate it.
I actually liked that part of it. There aren’t too many matches where the governor of the state it takes place in has to be the special guest referee and oversee this thing. Another thing that made this match work was the unexpected.
No one really expected Mankind to pick up his third WWE Championship in this match and that really added to it along with the chaos of the bout.
The Rest
D’Lo Brown unsuccessfully defended the Eurocontinental—European and IC—title against Jeff Jarrett. This match was as you’d expect: less than 10 minutes given and these two still delivered a decent-at-best match.
Ivory defending her Women’s title against Tori suffered from the action lacking…umph. Impact. When the action doesn’t look good, the whole match suffers. This was given a little over four minutes, so it’s not like a noticeable chunk of the show was lost.
The first Lion’s Den Match was enjoyable and Owen worked well in it against Shamrock. Blackman is Shamrock’s opponent this time and the Lion’s Den has weapons now! It’s Lion Den Xtreme and while it was decent enough, it went longer than it should’ve.
Weapons probably shouldn’t have entered the Lion’s Den at this point but I can see how we reached the point where “add weapons to it” is the thought process. I don’t agree with it, I felt they could’ve had an above average showdown in just a regular-ass Lion’s Den cage.
So, Kane & X-Pac are defending the WWE Tag Team titles against the team of The Undertaker and Big Show—The Unholy Alliance. That name sounds like the most generic e-fed dark/goth heel faction ever but there it is. This would’ve been a good TV match but it’s merely a solid PPV match.
Obviously, X-Pac got ping-ponged around here but showed a ton of intestinal fortitude. Maybe this ran a little on the long side but I wouldn’t dare say this was a bad or awful match. It’s perfectly acceptable for PPV.
The “Kiss My Ass Match” between the Rock and Billy Gunn didn’t really deliver the goods action-wise. I mean, the action was adequate or nothing special but with a match where the loser has to kiss either the winner’s ass or the winner’s provided ass, I’m not expecting them to break out the dives or fancy submissions.
Hell, I don’t even expect the blood and bumps. This was a little pick-me-up win for The Rock as the other main eventers were all tied up in something else but were putting a button on it here at SummerSlam 1999.
It doesn’t help that Gunn ran into a match with main event, former WWE Champion The Rock not long after winning King of the Ring 1999. His push didn’t deserve this.
WWE SummerSlam 1999 Verdict: Silver Medal (6/10)
There were more decent and solid bouts on this show than there were good matches but the dismal matches were kept to a minimum. Only the Women’s title match shouldn’t have made it to PPV.
The two surprises on the show were how enjoyable the Hardcore title match was and Mankind winning the WWE Championship.
Now, the best of the show was honestly the main event as the stakes were bigger and the involvement of a special guest referee and three main event threats with a hot crowd demands it gets that honor.
The runner-up and the match that I got the most enjoyment out of was the Greenwich Street Fight between Test and Shane-o-Mac.
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