One MIND-BLOWING Secret For Every WWE SummerSlam

35. 1991 | The Wrestling War You Didn’t Know About

This one is hilarious. 

Herb Abrams is enshrined into pro wrestling legend as the ultimate chancer. An unhinged personality with an incredible ability to convince people of his self-professed brilliance, Abrams was known as a carny and a lunatic in 1990s wrestling circles. To stand out in that field is a major achievement. It is essentially the bluffer’s equivalent of Bruno Sammartino’s epic 2,803 day stint with the WWE title - and on the subject of Bruno, Abrams somehow convinced the man to do commentary for his legendarily awful Universal Wrestling Federation outfit. Abrams somehow landed decent cable TV deals for a brief time, despite promising to deliver a deceased Bruiser Brody as his top star and a jailed Blackjack Mulligan as his booker. Who was going to be the Special Guest referee in the main event, Frank Gotch?

Abrams died of a suspected drug overdose on July 23, 1996 in a wild and disturbing scene, leaving behind a legacy as pro wrestling’s most fascinating footnote. 

At one point, June 1991, Abrams claimed to be the victim of a promotional war with Vince McMahon. Vince, in effect, extorted the PPV industry when debuting Survivor Series in 1988, outright telling carriers to drop Jim Crockett pay-per-views if they wanted any chance of airing WrestleMania 4. Per Dave Meltzer, Abrams reckoned Vince did the same thing to throttle the availability of his June 9, 1991 Beach Brawl event. If they carried it, Vince would pull SummerSlam 1991. 

This was, at best, a clever lie. Vince had previous. However, it’s difficult to believe that the UWF was on Vince’s radar, considering that Beach Brawl drew just 550 fans to a 4,000-seater arena.