Summerslam - Gund Arena, Cleveland Ohio, August 18th 1996

Ok this is by FAR my favourite Opening video so far. The music. The monster vs. slayer theme. Awesome stuff. Tonight’s two main events are the WWF Championship match and the Boiler Room Brawl - good for Mankind and Vader rocketing up the card so quickly! 

Commentary duties are being handled by Vince McMahon, Jim Ross and Mr. Perfect (because Lawler has a match later). I wasn’t able to find the Free for All in it’s entirety but I did manage to find the only match on that show; Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Yokozuna! It wasn’t a long match; Austin threw punches at the big man but wasn’t able to knock him off his feet and took a Samoan drop. Stone Cold did break out something that became one of his biggest trademarks sticking his middle fingers right in Yoko’s face. The big man hits a leg drop and sets up the Banzai Drop but, just like Wrestlemania X, the ropes gave way and he fell backwards into the ring which was enough to let Austin pin him for the victory. 

Also on the Free for All was the Bikini Beach Blast between Sunny, Sable and Marlena. I’ll go out on a limb and assume that if you’re interested in that my screenshots and description won’t do it for you so go and look for that yourself.

Owen Hart vs. Savio Vega

I’ve no idea where this match came from in the build but my working theory is that Owen was supposed to wrestle the Ultimate Warrior until his most recent falling out with Vince and departure from the company. I’m glad Owen still gets a big PPV singles match. JR says that these men are both masters of martial arts and underrated in the WWF. That’s probably fair but I think Owen is awesome.

Owen still has a cast on his arm for his long-healed-by-now broken wrist which he uses as a weapon but has no Jim Cornette to manage him; Jimmy is focused on Vader becoming WWF Champion later tonight.

Savio focuses on Owen’s “injured” arm for the first chunk of the match with Owen comically yelling “ouch my arm!” more than once. He misses a corner charge and drives his own shoulder into the ring post allowing Owen to turn the tables and work on Savio’s arm for a while. He even ties it up in the ropes so he’s free to hammer on it while the commentators discuss his brother Bret and whether the Hitman will return to the WWF any time soon. Mr. Perfect takes issue with the mention of Bret; he lost the IC title to him at Summerslam 1991 and definitely isn’t over it.

As Owen works over Vega’s arm Clarence Mason comes down the entrance aisle for a closer look at this match. He is affiliated with Camp Cornette but has only recently gotten his official manager’s license so that he can manage Crush. Clarence yells support to Owen Hart from a distance. 

The two trade near falls and roll ups back and forth while Vince speculates that Clarence Mason is “moving in on Cornette’s territory” and wants to manage more wrestlers. Owen gets a close near fall with a nice neck breaker and then a missile dropkick but Vega keeps kicking out. The fans got really into the string of near falls and Savio blocks Owen when he goes back to the top rope and brings him down with a back suplex. Jim Ross smartly points out that when they landed hard Savio appeared to land with the back of his head on Owen’s cast! Owen plays opossosum and with the referee distracted, slips his own cast off and hits Vega with it before sliding it back onto his arm and locking the Sharpshooter on an unconscious Savio to win the match via referee stoppage. Clarence Mason rushes to the ring and embraces the King of Harts who seems confused that Clarence is there, looking around for Cornette but hugging the lawyer turned manager all the same. This was a decent match helped by the fans getting quite into it.

Post-match, Justin Hawk Bradshaw comes out and, after ranting at the commentators that Savio “got beat like the dog he is” attacks him from behind with a clothesline. Bradshaw is bitter at losing a couple of matches to Savio recently.

In the boiler room, Todd Pettengill gives us a tour and explains the rules for tonight’s match; Undertaker and Mankind will fight in the boiler room of the arena while Paul Bearer waits in the ring with the urn. The first man to get down to the ring and claim possession of the urn will be declared the winner. Todd interviews Mankind who recites “there’s no place like home” and tells Undertaker not to come to his boiler room or he’ll face “a fate worse than death” Have a nice day!

Four Way Elimination match for the WWF Tag Team Championships

The Smoking Gunns © (Billy and Bart Gunn w/Sunny) vs. The Godwins (Henry I. and Phineas O. Godwin w/Hillbilly Jim) vs. The Bodydonnas (Skip and Zip) vs. The New Rockers (Marty Jannetty and Leif Cassidy)

Skip has a neckbrace when he makes his entrance which JR explains was due to an injury sustained on a house show. It sounds like the kind of injury that nowadays he’d be taken off TV because of but in 1996 he just worked through it. Crazy. All four of these teams have traded wins and, in the case of each team but the Rockers, the Tag Team titles themselves for months. Sunny leads the Smoking Gunns to the ring who have developed a new attitude but Billy seems to be the more heelish of the two. This is a WWF first and shows off how the tag team division has been rebuilt in 1996 with these four teams leading the charge. 

Anyone in this match can tag anyone else with only two men legal in the ring. Given the rules, the smart strategy is to stay out of the ring; it’s elimination rules and you can’t be eliminated if you’re not in the ring! Billy Gunn and Henry Godwin start the match which is due to losing a coin toss earlier today apparently. 

The four teams quickly tag in and out with no one getting an advantage and the first spot is Phineas and Zip tagging in Billy and Bart, meaning the champions now need to wrestle each other. That is a very dumb rule but the commentators explain that the two of them MUST make contact. There seems to be some miscommunication with Billy and Bart refusing so the referee just lets Bart tag out and Billy quickly pins Zip after he’s tripped by Marty Jannetty. The Bodydonnas are the first team eliminated, which is good given Skip’s neck injury. He didn’t even get involved in this match.

The New Rockers see their first action tagging in and isolating Henry Godwin, tagging in and out quickly and working him over in their corner. The heel teams work together on The Godwins but Henry overpowers Leif Cassidy and out of nowhere, hits the Slop Drop to eliminate The New Rockers and leave this as The Gunns vs. The Godwins for the gold. The Gunns maintain control, pouncing on Henry before he can tag out and Bart hammers on him with quick tags in and out; standard WWF Tag Team strategy. Billy Gunn shows a lot more personality as a heel, screaming abuse at Henry and Phineas and even the fans. Sunny claps and cheers on her team. Henry catches Billy in mid air off the middle rope and slams him so he can tag out to Phineas and it all breaks down from there. Phineas hits the Slop Drop on Billy and has the win but the referee is distracted by Sunny and so Bart has time to dive off the top rope, breaking up the pin and knocking out Phineas so that Billy can reverse the pin and get the victory, retaining the WWF Tag Team Championships in a match which was all action and not long enough to be bad. 

After the match, Sunny grabs the mic and talks about how great she is before revealing a huge banner of herself above the ring. She’s so conceited but the fans lover her. Because she’s hot. 

After a video doubling as a tourism advert for Cleveland Ohio, the Gund Arena and Clevland’s new metro train featuring the Godwins and Smoking Gunns, we head straight into the next match. Once again, no Jim Cornette. Will Clarence Mason make an appearance?

Dok Hendrix interviews Sid backstage and asks how he feels about the fans giving him this huge, overwhelming babyface reaction since his return. It does feel like it came out of nowhere but I love it because I love Sid. He says that The Man is back and The Man is here to stay! He says that tonight he will Rule and Master the Bulldog. Sid is crazy! 

The British Bulldog vs. Sycho Sid

The fans, once again, go nuts for the big man. He has this weird charisma that everyone really responds to. Sid talks to himself as he walks to the ring, casually fist bumping fans in the front row as he walks and explaining, calmly to the camera, that he is the Ruler and Master of the World. I loved this entrance! 

The two lock up and this is a slow big man vs. big man match with the very tall Sid vs. the stocky and powerful Bulldog. They go off the ropes and trade headlocks but Bulldog gets the first big move hitting a nice delayed vertical suplex just as, on cue, Clarence Mason makes his way down to the ring to cheer on Bulldog. I think he IS trying to muscle in on Cornette’s territory. He’s still sitting with Vader while he warms up but is at least watching the show on a TV monitor now.

Bulldog slowly works over Sid and, in a really nice spot, lifts him with another suplex but brings the big man down ribs-first across the top rope which got a big gasp from the crowd. That looked great with Sid bouncing back into the ring and really selling the impact. Cornette answers our questions about the management of this match running down to the ring to confront Mason! He is furious at his legal aid trying to steal his clients and their argument distracts Bulldog. He hits his powerslam but doesn’t cover and pays for it, giving Sid time to recover. He blocks a second powerslam attempt and, with the fans loudly behind him, spikes Bully with a one-armed chokeslam and then a gorgeous powerbomb to pick up the win! The debate between Camp Cornette’s management team has cost Bulldog this match.

Marc Mero (w/Sable) vs. Goldust (w/Marlena)

Wasting no time heading straight into the next match; we saw these two men earlier tonight during the Bikini Beach Blast. Apparently Goldust publicly stated his affections for Sable during it and instead of being jealous, Marlena said that she supports whatever makes Goldust happy. JR teases Vince about having a cigar to give him from Marlena and he chuckles about it; Vince McMahon famously does not smoke and in fact despises the act and anyone who does. 

Todd Pettengill interviews Marc Mero and Sable about Goldust and his affections but also shows us footage from WWF Superstars where Mankind came to ringside and started calling Sable his mommy, understandably freaking her out. The Wildman doesn’t say much and defaults to speaking entirely in catchphrases. He’s going to take Goldust to the wild side. Alrighty then.

Jim Ross says that Mero told him earlier today he’s planning on debuting a new move tonight called “The Wild Thing” which we will know when we see it. 

Mero starts fast bt Goldust side-steps a charge and sends him crashing out of the ring. Goldust capitalises throwing him into the ring steps and then slowly grinding him down in the ring with a long chin lock. Mankind comes down to ringside and stalks Sable again screaming that she’s his mommy while she overacts and looks terrified. Mankind does a lap of the ring with her and then leaves; is Mankind actually after Sable or is this related to his loose affiliation with Goldust in his feud with The Undertaker? Probably dangerous to try and figure out what Mankind is thinking and he quickly retreats back to the Boiler Room to prepare for The Undertaker.

Mero finally fights out of the headlock and hits a barrage of punches, followed by trying to hurricanrana Goldust out of the ring. It’s messy and they land awkwardly but it does allow the Wildman to hit his trademark big flip over the ropes to the outside followed by a slingshot leg drop up over the ropes back into the ring. He slams Goldust and heads to the top rope hitting a Shooting Star Press! The fans and commentators lose their minds for it; that’s obviously the move he calls The Wild Thing, but Marlena distracts the referee from counting the three and Goldust kicks out. That is a weird way to debut a new finishing move! 

Goldust reverses a whip to the corner and hits the Curtain Call to pick up the victory. That was an oddly clean finish for Goldust so they must have bigger plans for him than Mero. Sable consoles her man and her rough night continues being stalked by the creepy Goldust. She should probably just stop coming to ringside. Goldust is about to force a kiss on Sable but thankfully that inspires Mero to get back up and beat him up, crotching him on the top rope and sending him flying with a running dropkick. They continue to brawl up the entrance ramp as referees work to hold back the Wildman. 

There’s an odd edit on my copy of this show and we jump straight into Vince narrating a video about Ahmed Johnson’s injury and him having to vacate the Intercontinental Championship

Two other big bits of news out of this video; the vacant Intercontinental title will be on the line in a tournament and tomorrow night on Raw, the final four in the battle royal Ahmed won will have their own do-over to see who gets the WWF Championship match. From there, Sunny leads Faarooq Asad to the ring for an interview with Todd Pettengill. Faarooq’s theme song is a sort of 1970s movie era Gladiator music. I quite like it, but it’s not a good theme song. Faarooq is furious that he hasn’t simply been awarded the Intercontinental title after he injured Ahmed. I mentioned this before but Faarooq aka Ron Simmons is a former WCW Champion who had retired from wrestling and was working as a warehouse manager when Vince called him about a WWF debut. Faarooq and Sunny have fun mocking Ahmed and his injury and promise that Faarooq Asad will be the next Intercontinental Champion. “What Sunny wants, Sunny gets”

Before the next match Howard Finkle gives a big introduction to a young man who represented the US in the 1996 Olympics, The World’s Strongest Man Mark Henry. He’s joining commentary for the next match and has had multiple run-ins with Jerry Lawler in his limited appearances so far so I think we all see where this is going.

Jerry “The King” Lawler vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts

This match between two old-timers gets a video package. It touches on Jake’s alcoholism and Lawler’s relentless mocking of him for it. I’ve made the point before but it was tasteless at the time and, given that it would be another two decades before Jake conquered his demons for real, it has aged very poorly.

Jerry Lawler enters with a sack similar to the one Jake Roberts carries his snake in. He’s also wearing the rival sports team’s jersey. This segment is infamous as Makr Henry basically blew his big spot. He was there to be a babyface and cheer on Roberts while denigrating the heel Lawler but instead the 24 year old giggled at Jerry’s jokes and basically turned himself heel. Lawler reveals that his sack contains “Jake’s tag team partners” and brings out two bottles of booze. Mark Henry laughs hysterically but then adds “that’s actually not funny though”. Keep it together man. 

King turns his attention to the Olympian and asks where his medals are, saying he’s so stupid that if he won a gold medal he’d probably have it bronzed. 

Lawler runs through his stand up routine for a solid five minutes and when Jake finally enters he IMMEDIATELY asks for the microphone again. Jesus, get on with it.

Lawler reveals the final contents of his sack; a huge bottle of champagne so Jake grabs his snake and tortures Lawler with it. Mark somberly adds that he hates snakes. Did they do ANY prep with this guy before the show? 

Lawler scampers out of the ring and grabs the microphone AGAIN and even the commentators can’t believe he’s still talking. Jake thankfully attacks him and bounces him around ringside to get this match started properly.

Lawler uses a fan’s soda as a weapon and as the referee is distracted, Lawler hits him in the throat with one of the bottles he revealed at the start of the match to win a short and rubbish match. It was more of a storyline than a match. Lawler grabs the microphone AGAIN and says that Jake has a dry throat and needs a drink, pouring it into his mouth like he did to Aldo Montoya on Raw last week. This is disgusting. Lawler gets the microphone for the 5th time in this seven minute segment to talk some more trash and its finally too much for Mark Henry who goes to put a stop to this, intimidating Lawler into leaving Jake alone at long last. 

I hated all of this, but at least Mark totally breaking character and ruining the angle by laughing at the heel’s jokes is accidentally funny.

Boiler Room Brawl

The Undertaker (w/Paul Bearer) vs. Mankind

This show is heavy on the video packages and there’s another for this match. Rightfully so; this is by far the best story and feud the WWF had at the time. 

Paul Bearer makes his entrance in the arena complete with ring introduction and stands in the ring with the urn. The only rule is that the first man to reach him and get the urn wins. There’s big TV screens set up around the ring so that the fans can watch this match properly. Some behind the scenes secrets thanks to Mick Foley’s autobiography; this was actually filmed at the arena the night before Summerslam and underwent significant editing to make it as good as possible. In an interesting choice, one the fighting starts the commentators stay mostly quiet just watching the fight in awe and letting the violence speak for itself. I think it’s cool. It’s certainly different and makes this feel more cinematic. It could have used some dramatic music! Undertaker slowly creeps around the boiler room in the darkness looking for Mankind who we know has been in there waiting all day. 

Finally with Undertaker looking into the distance Mankind is able to attack him from behind with a weapon, bending some thin metal across his back and attacking like a wild animal. He kicks a wooden pallet apart and uses the slats as weapons too. I’m not going to describe this blow-for-blow because honestly if you’ve never seen it you should go and find it. It’s great and given that it happened 30 years ago, is on WWE’s YouTube channel in full!

The two trade weapon shots and over the noise of the machines you can hear the crowd in the arena pick up when Undertaker teases a tombstone on the concrete. Mankind fights free and, while squealing like an animal, continues his assault. 

The brawl continues and they hit each other with pipes and trash cans. The crowd make noise whenever The Undertaker fights back and pop huge when Mankind hits him in the crotch with a thick plastic pipe. There’s more noise when a stack of metal beams falls onto them and Mankind drives him into the metal shutter door. The fans became more vocal as the match continued. It’s a level of violence the WWF fans weren’t used to in 1996 and even in 2026, the presentation of this “match” is totally unique. Mankind basically dominates The Undertaker and the fans start to clap, cheer and rally. I assume Paul Bearer was out in the arena trying to get them all to cheer for his Undertaker. Mankind looks super strong in this match and with Undertaker down, climbs some pipes on the wall so that he’s able to drop an elbow from a height down onto the Deadman. Awesome. 

There’s technical difficulties during the match more than once which I assume was to hide edits in the match but also to hammer home to the fans that this is chaotic and the company is struggling to keep up with the violence. In between the static we see Mankind bodyslam Undertaker on the concrete and then set up a huge wooden ladder against the wall, wanting to drop another elbow from even higher! Undertaker tips the ladder over with Mankind at the top and he falls gracelessly into a pile of rubbish on the floor. Undertaker throws Mankind into more rubbish and breaks some glass and is finally down long enough for The Undertaker to try for the exit. At this point the commentators became a little more vocal and by the time both men had crawled out of the door of the boiler room Vince and JR were back to calling the action like normal.

Mankind barricades the door with as much trash and bric-a-brac as he can find and, with the other heels cheering him on, he makes his way to the ring with The Undertaker in hot pursuit. 

At ringside Undertaker breaks a 2x4 over Mankind’s back but, down at ringside, Mankind exposes the bare concrete beneat the mats and piledrivers Undertaker on it! He gets into the ring as Paul Bearer nervously paces not wanting to be face to face with Mankind. Undertaker continues to fight and he knocks Mankind off the apron sending him splatting back first onto the concrete which looks like it hurt like hell! Undertaker has this match won and gets into the ring to reclaim his urn, dropping to one knee to be presented with it by his long time manager but…Bearer turns his back and refuses. Mankind attacks from behind and locks in the Mandible Claw now being cheered on by Paul Bearer who has dramatically turned on The Underaker, six years into their relationship. Mankind holds The Undertaker so that Bearer can slap and kick at his now former charge and in the final insult, hits Undertaker in the head with the urn and then hands the urn to Mankind granting him the official victory in the first ever Boiler Room Brawl. 

I loved this match and this post-match angle. The absolute shock of Paul Bearer turning on The Undertaker after six years as his manager sold it, and its another huge victory for Mankind over The Undertaker. Mankind leaves with Bearer to make their new partnership official. With them gone, Undertaker’s music tries to play but fails and instead the arena lights go out. Chanting fills the arena and six druids in all black slowly walk to the ring and carry The Undertaker out of the arena, no doubt to rise again and take his revenge. 

WWF Championship

Shawn Michaels © (w/Jose Lothario) vs. Vader (w/Jim Cornette)

Before the main event, Jim Cornette cuts his final promo about Vader and tonight’s main event. He proved he can pin Michaels last month in the six man tag and this past week on Raw he proved he can beat up Michaels so tonight he is guaranteeing that Vader will be the next WWF Champion. HBK is a huge underdog in this match and Vader is pumped up, doing laps of the ring and lifting and slamming the ring steps before running back and forth across the ropes. He’s a monster.

As Shawn Michaels makes his entrance a young fan jumps the security wall to get some hugs and kisses from the WWF Champion. Security didn’t swarm her so I assume it was a planned spot to show how much his Kliq loves him. 

Vader bullies Michaels in the early going, clubbing him around the ring but HBK uses a leg sweep to get him on the mat and keeps him there with a dropkick and a string of punches. Keeping Vader off his feet is his best strategy and he keeps the challenger off balance and to the outside of the ring, followed by an awesome running dive up and over the ropes onto the number one contender. HBK keeps moving fast and takes Vader out of the ring with a hurricanrana but when he jumps back onto his shoulders to try it again he pays for it with a powerbomb on the floor outside the ring. Michaels is in trouble and from there, Vader hammers on his head, shoulders and midsection with forearms and clubbing punches. 

Vader works him over and every time HBK tries to fight back or avoids a charge, Vader immediately shakes it off and puts down the champion with a stiff clothesline. 

Michaels finally gets back in the match by lifting his knee as Vader goes to sit on him, suffering a low blow. HBK goes to the top rope and takes aim with a big elbow drop but lands on his feet and, while screaming in Vader’s face, stomps on his head. That was a botch and while Vader was clearly supposed to move, Michaels acted very unprofessionally and called him out for it on a live PPV. They tumble to the outside and Michaels shoves a camera man away in anger too. Vader slams Shawn Michaels onto the security wall and gets back in the ring, winning the match via count out. It’s a very flat finish and no one is happy. Jim Cornette grabs the mic and says that they came here to win the title and he wants the match restarted so they can have a real finish! The WWF Champion is all beat up but, with more guts than brains, falls for Cornette’s goading and gibes and heads back to the ring wanting the match to continue. 

Michaels can barely stand and back at ringside with the referee arguing with Jose Lothario, Jim Cornette blasts Vader with his tennis racket. The match restarts in the ring with Vader firmly in control but Michaels kicks out of the big belly to belly suplex. The champion fights back and with a flying forearm and kip up he drops the big elbow off the top. He tunes up the band for Sweet Chin Music but Cornette grabs his ankle. Michaels fights him off and retrieves the tennis racket, hammering on Vader and Cornette right in front of the referee. Shawn Michaels loses again but this time by disqualification. Two wins for Vader, but no Championships. 

Cornette AGAIN refuses to let it lie and wants the match restarted one more time, calling HBK a gutless coward for getting disqualified on purpose. Michaels is happy to take him up on it and with the say-so of WWF President Gorilla Monsoon the third WWF title match of the night begins. Michaels wastes no time and with a string of running forearms, a top rope elbow and Sweet Chin Music he has the win. Or does he? The referee stops the count saying Vader kicked out but he very much did not. Another botch. There’s some confusion and the referee is knocked down. Vader spikes Michaels with a powerbomb and has the visual three count but by the time a second referee runs down, Michaels is recovered enough to kick out. 

Vader sets up the Vader Bomb in the corner but Cornette wants him to go all the way up for the moonsault instead. Michaels rolls out of the way and then hits one of his own to a standing Vader, folding him up into a roll up to pick up the win and officially retain the WWF Championship. This was a good match but I think the messy overbooked finish hurt it, as well as Vader’s two big botches and Michaels handling them both so poorly and unprofessionally. Maybe you wouldn’t notice those if you weren’t aware of them.

The PPV ends with a ring full of referees and officials trying to control an angry Cornette and Vader while Shawn Michaels struggles to show off his WWF title belt.