10 Fascinating WWE SummerSlam 1988 Facts
6. It Marked The Last Hurrahs For Some Of The Old Guard
It was around this time in the late-eighties that WWE began to experience a major roster turnover. Wrestlers that had been stars in the early to mid-eighties had seen their wattage dim, and were shuffled into the midcard. As fresher faces like The Ultimate Warrior, Mr. Perfect, The Big Boss Man, The Rockers, and the incoming Brain Busters fortified high-profile roster spots, the Rock 'n Wrestling-era relics began falling off.
SummerSlam 1988 marked the final WWE pay-per-view matches for The Junkyard Dog and Don Muraco, losing to Ravishing Rick Rude and Dino Bravo, respectively. Aging Ken Patera barely lingered until Survivor Series, and was all but squashed by Bad News Brown on this show. All of them were considered valuable commodities in 1984, and clearly, a lot changed in just a few years.
Notably, it also marked the only SummerSlam appearance for a declining Dynamite Kid, who would leave the company three months later. But that's a story for another pay-per-view anthology.