One MIND-BLOWING Secret For Every WWE SummerSlam

36. 1990 | The WILD Justification For False Advertising

You’ll know about the payoff controversy that led to the Ultimate Warrior’s departure from the WWF in 1991. The basic gist is that Warrior threatened to no-show SummerSlam until he was paid the half a million dollars he believed to have rightly earned from WrestleMania 7. Vince paid Warrior, in order to get him in the ring, but promptly fired him afterwards. You might not know that something similar forced Rick Rude out of the door a year prior - or at least, you might not know the bizarre additional details. 

Rude headlined SummerSlam ‘90 with Warrior. It was a damn good match by the standards of the time, but while Rude was built as the man who had handed Warrior his only notable televised loss, the fans saw it as a retread of an Intercontinental title programme. SummerSlam wasn’t a major hit, but Rude felt he had headlined the second biggest show promoted by the biggest company, and deserved more money. Rude was unhappy with his payoff, promptly quit, and never wrestled on pay-per-view for Vince McMahon again.  

Vince knew that Rude had quit and was injured - i.e., there were two very good reasons why he wouldn't appear in house show matches against the Warrior - yet continued to advertise these matches regardless. This further incensed Rude, who believed the WWF was earning money using his name. 

Dave Meltzer reached out to front office executive J.J. Dillon about this, and the response was basically “Rude might change his mind, you never know, so it’s not technically false advertising”.