Summerslam (1996 TV Special) User Reviews

Balanced Card But No Excitement

[zkonedog · 5/10 · 26 February 2019]

The best thing one can say about Summerslam 1996 is that the overall card is pretty balanced. No gaping holes or absolutely atrocious pairings. Unfortunately, none of those matchups really generate all that much excitement.

A few examples:

-Owen Hart vs. Savio Vega is a pretty good technical match, but really no heat behind either figure. -Sycho Sid vs. Bulldog suffers from the same malady, with both guys being on the way out rather than up. -Goldust losing his luster a bit against Marc Mero. How many times can the enigmatic figure be cast as the "weird fella" that the macho guys beat up on? -Lawler vs. Roberts is a little sad, with Jake clearly past his prime and Lawler's mic skills having to carry the whole encounter.

Mankind vs. Undertaker in the "boiler room brawl" is inventive, but I'll argue these two are much better when allowed to create havoc in the ring with their risk-taking ways. Confining them to an enclosed space didn't really seem to work out all that well.

The Michaels/Vader finale is probably a better match than it gets credit for, but Michaels is a better "challenger than champion", if you will, and really is only covering for Bret Hart's absence at this point. Vader is an odd duck who never got the push with WWE that he did with WCW. So no really excitement behind this pairing despite a match that is decently watchable.

Overall, then, the theme of SS '96 is decent pairings of talent with little reason or excitement behind them. This is a general improvement for the WWE compared to previous years, but doesn't make this specific card any more exciting, either.

Average SummerSlam In An Average Year

[morantjavonte · 5/10 · 14 June 2021]

SummerSlam 1996 was the 9th annual SummerSlam produced by the WWE. It took place on August 18, 1996 at the Gund Arena in Cleveland Ohio. The main event on the match card featured Shawn Michaels defending the WWE Championship against Vader, who made his debut in the beginning of the year and was one of the hottest free agents for the WWF. Unfortunately Vader's time in the main event wasn't a big help. With the Monday Night Wars happening this was just the beginning of the 83 weeks of WCW dominating. In fact an angle weeks ago for the rival also caused the decrease of buyrate for this PPV as more people were willing to spend the money on one interesting PPV for the month. It would go down as the lowest buyrate in SummerSlam history.

The Good - Shawn Michaels vs. Vader turned out to be an Awesome main event (although a botch caused Vader a waste of his career mostly due to the arrogant Shawn Michaels at the time). The crowd was very loud through the main event and it was clear HBK was the attraction of the show. I would also say Mankind vs. Undertaker was really good too. It was Mankind's fresh beginning and Undertaker put him over with a storyline headed in of Paul Bearer turning his back on Undertaker. Opening was good as well. I also found the promo between Jerry Lawler & Jake Roberts (despite being controversial) pretty hilarious. It was cold but still got a good laugh.

The Meh - Sycho Sid vs. British Bulldog turned out to be a decent match. Wouldn't expect anything spectacular from Sid though.

The Bad - Most of the card was pretty bland. Until Taker vs. Mankind and the WWE Championship match, the matches were pretty bad. Tag Team Championship match was a mess as this was still a bad time period for tag teams. Marc Mero vs. Goldust wasn't Memorable. By far the worst match would be Jerry Lawler vs. Jake Roberts. Roberts was pretty much out of his prime and the only Memorable thing about it was the segment before it begin.

Overall - Mediocre event honestly. Last 2 matches saved the show from being a total waste to watch. This also being the lowest SummerSlam PPV buyrate at the time was something you can easily understand why.

Score - 5 out of 10: Mediocre

0 = Terrible: 1 = Bad/Lackluster: 2 = Decent: 3 = Good: 4 = Awesome: 5 = One of the Best of all Time:

1. Savio Vega vs. Owen Hart - 3/5

2. The New Rockers vs. The Smokin Gunns vs. The Boddydonnas vs. The Goodwins: World Tag Team Championship - 1/5

3. Sycho Sid vs. British Bulldog - 2/5

4. Marc Mero vs. Goldust - 1.5/5

5. Jerry Lawler vs. Jake Roberts - 0/5

6. Undertaker vs. Mankind (Boiler Room Brawl) - 3.5/5

7. Shawn Michaels vs. Vader: WWE Championship - 4/5

Best Match - Shawn Michaels vs. Vader

Worst Match - Jerry Lawler vs. Jake Roberts

Most Memorable Moment - Overturned of the HBK/Vader Match

Top 5 Performers

1. Shawn Michaels - Good selling despite being a prick in mid match

2. Vader - Great Performance

3. Mankind - Good Performance

4. Undertaker - Good Performance

5. Owen Hart - Always having a good match (R. I. P)

Sometimes, It's hard being a Shawn Michaels fan

[callanvass · 5/10 · 12 May 2016]

(08.18.96)

Live from Cleveland, OH

Attendance: 17,000

Your hosts are Vince McMahon, Jim Ross & Mr. Perfect

Savio Vega Vs Owen Hart

Owen drills Vega with his cast, and locks Savio in the sharpshooter to win by submission. Bradshaw attacks Savio after the match in the aisle way. This is an above average opener that's hampered slightly by a slow start. Once it got going, it really took off and became exciting.

**3/4

Tag Team Championship (Fatal Four Way Elimination Match)

The Smoking Gunns (C) (W/Sunny) Vs The Bodydonnas Vs The New Rockers Vs The Godwinns (W/Hillbilly Jim)

Order of Elimination

The Bodydonnas by The Smoking Gunns

The New Rockers by The Godwinns

The Godwinns by The Smoking Gunns

Your winner: The Smoking Gunns

This match was lengthy and downright boring, if I'm being completely honest. It had little to no heat behind it either. The crowd barely reacted to anything in this match. They were deader than a doornail. Sunny's antics were fun but that's about it.

*1/2

The British Bulldog (W/Clarence Mason) Vs Psycho Sid

The Bulldog may have had the match won with the running powerslam. However, Jim Cornette comes out and argues with Clarence Mason. This allows Sid to deliver a powerbomb for the win. This was a pretty crappy match for the most part. As much as I love Sid, he's not exactly a technical genius in the ring. They just didn't mesh well.

*1/4

Marc Mero (W/Sable) Vs Goldust (W/Marlena)

Goldust wins with the Curtain Call. Goldust stalks Sable after the match until Mero comes to the rescue. After the decent opener, the matches have gone flat. This is an average match that didn't have much going for it. The only cool thing about it was Mero's shooting star press from the top.

**

Farooq comes out for an interview with Todd Pettengill. Farooq is offended over the announcement of The Intercontinental title being vacant. Farooq thinks he should have it because he put Ahmed Johnson on the shelf. Sunny says Farooq is the next Intercontinental Champion, because what Sunny wants, Sunny gets.

Jerry "The King" Lawler Vs Jake "The Snake" Roberts

Mark Henry comes out for commentary. Lawler wins after jamming a bottle of alcohol into Jake's throat. Lawler starts pouring alcohol down Jake's throat until Henry makes the save. This was very distasteful. It worked very well in making you feel uncomfortable, it's just that I'm highly against it. My dad is a recovering alcoholic. It's cheap heat.

*

Boiler Room Brawl

The Undertaker Vs Mankind

In order to win, you have to escape the boiler room, and retrieve the urn inside the ring. The Undertaker has it won but Paul Bearer won't give The Undertaker the urn. Mankind applies the mandible claw to The Undertaker, and all Paul Bearer does is laugh. Paul Bearer drills Undertaker with the urn and hands it to Mankind to give him the win. The druids come out and help take The Undertaker to the back. This was a nasty brawl with some impressive spots in the boiler room, especially by Foley. What occurred with Paul Bearer was utterly shocking. Nobody expected Paul to betray The Undertaker. Even I felt betrayed when it happened because the relationship between Taker and Paul Bearer was true and sacred. It's one of the most shocking heel turns off all time.

***1/2

WWF Championship

Shawn Michaels (C) (W/Jose Lothario) Vs Vader (W/Jim Cornette)

Vader wins by countout but Cornette refuses to take the win and gets the match to restart. Vader wins by DQ after Shawn drills Vader with a tennis racket. Cornette gets the match to restart once more. Shawn FINALLY wins with a moonsault pinning combination. This is a really good main event that turned into an overbooked mess. I would have had Vader win here, leaving shawn to win a rematch to get his redemption then. Shawn looked like an unprofessional brat here. Shawn goes for an elbow drop at one point, but Vader isn't in the right position. Shawn legit kicks him in the head and calls him stupid for it. Vader did get to kick out of the superkick, but his career was never the same after this because Shawn was a jerk.

***1/2

5.5/10 overall.

Best event ever

[jimmycool20012000 · 19 September 2002]

I have been a keen WWF fan for a long time now and i have seen many paper views and i can not think of an event that was better than this one. I loved the Owen Hart cast gimic, he was so funny in this match. The tag team contest wasn't great, at the time I really waned to the smoking guns to loose their tag titles because I felt that other teams would of been better with the gold. The Mero and Goldust fued was great and the match was brilliant as well. Sid v Bulldog was nothing fancy but a solid match, I thought Sid was great at the start of the match when he was warming up the crowd.

The boiler room brawl was brilliant! I was really shocked when paul bearer turned on taker I usually see face turns happening a mile off, but this time I was stunned. The split up of taker and paul bearer streched the becoming tiresome feud between Mankind and The Undertaker and made wrestling much more fun to watch. I thought it was amazing when Foley flew onto the floor from the ring apron.

The title match was one of Shawn Michaels best matches. He hit his high flying moves perfectly and put down Vader with a different move which was refreshing to see. I thought Vader and Michaels both did a great job.

So any fan should go watch this paper view because its just great!

A bit of good, a bit of bad and a bit of Ugly

[bh_tafe3 · 6/10 · 5 July 2009]

Shawn Michaels and Vader gave us three decisions, Paul Bearer shockingly betrayed the Undertaker, Sycho Sid took on the British Bulldog and Marty Jannetty had his first PPV match in years in this rather mixed bag of a PPV.

Steve Austin was starting to take off and become more popular in mid 1996, so where did they put him on this PPV? Wrestling a pre-PPV match with Yokozuna. That would be one of the last time Steve Austin was left off the card of a major PPV.

The first match of the night saw Owen Hart, on song on this night, defeating Savio Vega in one of Sav's better matches. The action was good back and forth and the right guy won, so no complaints from me.

The next match saw Marty Jannetty make a return to PPV, teaming with Lief Cassidy (later known as Al Snow) in a four team elimination tag match. Unfortunately for the side calling themselves the New Rockers, they didn't fare too well. Though they at least lasted longer than the Godwinns, who went first. The match came down to the Smoking Gunns (Bart and Billy, accompanied by the smokin' Sunny) and the Body Donnas with the Gunns winning. Jannetty or no Jannetty, tag team wrestling remained in a rut in 1996.

Next match saw Sycho Sid defeat British Bulldog. Sid wasn't a great wrestler, but it was hard not to cheer for the big lug, especially here as he mowed through one of Cornette's enforcers. Not a terrible match.

Next match saw Goldust with Terri Runnels defeat Marc Mero with Sable. Not a great match, but sitting at home as a teenager, I was much more interested in Terri and Sable. Mero's partnership with Sable (coming about due to their real life marriage) would later lead to the only memorable feud of his career.

Jerry Lawler then defeated Jake Roberts in a disgusting match where, for one reason or another, the WWE thought it would be funny to parody Jake's alcoholism. Not hard to see why WWE was on the verge of going out of business at this stage.

This led us into the best match of the night, an innovative boiler room brawl won by Mankind over the Undertaker. The match featured crazy stunts, good story telling and most notably the betrayal of The Undertaker by long time manager Paul Bearer, who helped Mankind get the victory.

The main event match left me with mixed feelings. While it was true that WWE CHampion Shawn Michaels and Vader had done some nice stuff and the ending, while bending logic, told a nice story, it could easily have been better. Vader actually won the match twice, the first time after a count out, and the second after Michaels had hit Vader with Cornette's tennis racket and been disqualified. But both times Cornette, Vader's manager, insisted that the match restarted. Michaels eventually won with a moonsault, which is fine, except for the fact that Michaels had already kicked out of a moonsault from the 400+ pound Vader. I guess it's not the size that counts, but what you do with it? All in all there was some god stuff at this PPV, but the Roberts/ Lawler match really should be avoided, just offensive nonsense.

Decent Wrestling Card

[Big Movie Fan · 11 January 2003]

SummerSlam '96 was a decent wrestling card with pretty good matches throughout-not the greatest SummerSlam event or WWF PPV ever but watchable enough.

During 1996, the WWF were losing against WCW when it came to PPV buy rates and TV ratings. However, the WWF still put on some good events even though WCW events were better.

There aren't any bad matches on this event really with the exception of the four corners tag team match. This PPV is memorable in some ways-for starters Jake "The Snake" Roberts makes his first SummerSlam appearance since SummerSlam '91 (where he disrupted the wedding of the Macho Man and Elizabeth). Jake was a Christian in 1996 and whilst he didn't have the killer instinct he had had from 1986-1992, he was still a decent performance.

There are four matches that really stand out for me. The late Owen Hart faces Savio Vega in a strong opening match. Sycho Sid faced the late British Bulldog in a powerful battle between two powermen. However, it's the last two matches that were fantastic.

The Undertaker faced tough rival Mankind in a Boiler Room Brawl-it was a heated match which ended in a shocker when the Undertaker's manager Paul Bearer (who had been with the 'Taker for nearly six years)turned on him and joined Mankind.

The main event stole the show. Talented WWF champion Shawn Michaels faced monster heel Vader (a wrestler who the WWF never capitalised on) in a strong match far superior to the outings they had had on the road leading up to SummerSlam.

All in all, a strong SummerSlam event.

One weak PPV with great Main event

[amanwhorocks · 3 January 2014]

1. Savio Vega Vs. Owen Hart - When heel was cheered. 6/10

2. WWF Tag Team Championship: The New Rockers Vs. The Body Donnas Vs. The Godwinns Vs. Champs-The Smoking Gunns - This never-ending feud between Gunns and Godwinns bored me heavily. That bout wasn't different 5/10

3. Psycho Sid Vs. The British Bulldog - Ordinary "no need-to watch" match. 5/10

4. Goldust Vs. Marc Mero - Nice Shooting Star Press from Mero, the only thing that does worth for it. 6/10

5. Jerry Lawler Vs. Jake Roberts - 1996's Jake Roberts doesn't work for me, nor this "match" 5/10

6. Boiler Room Brawl: The Undertaker Vs. Mankind - Heh Taker's ate lost in solid hardcore brawl. 7/10

7. WWF World Heavyweight Championship: Vader Vs. Champ-Shawn Michaels - Yeah, Main Event was best (that happens rarely) but it would be more interesting if the winner was Vader. 8/10

Recap

[Spawn Devil · 1 July 2002]

WWE Champion Shawn Michaels defended against the 400-pound Vader in the main event of SummerSlam 1996, billed as "Opposites Attack!" Michaels pinned the mastodon following a moonsault to retain his championship. The successful title defense came in the midst of an eight-month championship reign for the Heartbreak Kid -- the longest WWE Championship reign in almost a decade

Owen Hart pinned Savio Vega Tag Team Champions the Smoking Gunns defeated the Body Donnas, the New Rockers and the Godwinns in a Fatal Fourway Match Sycho Sid pinned the British Bulldog Goldust pinned Marc Mero Jerry Lawler pinned Jake "The Snake" Roberts Mankind defeated Undertaker in a Boiler Room Brawl WWE Champion Shawn Michaels pinned Vader

Overall Mark: B