10 Worst WWE SummerSlams Ever - According To Dave Meltzer
3. SummerSlam 1989 (1.87)
Limping along as a longform broadcast in part due to constraints of the era (more on that later), SummerSlam '89 has peaks and valleys but never quite lives up to qualitative potential outside of a staggering midcard effort from Ravishing Rick Rude and The Ultimate Warrior.
Their absorbing Intercontintenal Title encounter was for a period the Warrior's best match by a mile, and still gets overlooked now when compiling the relatively short list of his best bits.
Beyond that, the Hulk Hogan/Brutus Beefcake/Randy Savage/Zeus foursome drew monster numbers for the show itself, but the Hollywood redux repeatedly failed to inspire in the way that replicated the insanity of their silver screen showdown. Zeus was beyond useless in the match, and only Hogan and Savage's typically brilliant chemistry dragged the main event along to something bordering on respectable.
Quickie jobs were par for the course in early WWE pay-per-views, but the harsh reality was that so few of them were particularly entertaining.
The Red Rooster took a knock in his match against Mr Perfect to hijack what could have been the best singles match on the undercard, and multi-man matches only scratch the surface of what the collected talents were capable of.
A brightly-coloured festival of late-80s pomp it may be, but a stellar advert for action, it ain't.