WWF SummerSlam, Philadelphia, PA
This is the opener for the 1990 edition of the SummerSlam and an AWNTHISDAE! for today. 31 years ago! Amazing. And I need to kill some time before Smackdown starts.
Power & Glory are in the ring already, Rockers get a full entrance and jog half-hearted down to the ring, where Hercules and Roma jump on them and Hercules whacks Michaels in the knee with his chain, which leaves Jannetty at a 2-on-1 disadvantage.
Marty shows some fire and tries to fight them off. This show unfortunately has the awful commentary team of Vince McMahon, whose goofy work I do like, but and Roddy Piper, who was a great promo in his prime years, which by 1990 are well behind him. Piper’s commentary was horrendous and he dragged everyone down with him, because they were constantly trying to work around him as he forced in a bunch of one-liners he thought up at times they didn’t fit, just screaming and screaming and screaming.
Slick distracts the referee while Power & Glory keep hammering on Marty, and then again when Marty makes a quick move and could have a pin on Roma. Vince wants a DQ, and Piper does not. “Let’s find out who is the Power and who is the Glory!” This makes no sense as a “let them keep going” statement. “The Rockers are like the new Mick Jagger and David Bowie of the WWF.” He does not explain this.
Michaels tries to get back into the ring, but Hercules comes over and kicks him in the knee again while he’s on the apron. Hercules makes a great move here to take the corner that is closest to where Michaels is down, meaning that to get on the apron for a tag, even if he can recover, Michaels has to go around half of the ring. And Roma takes the knee out again.
Vince notes that Shawn did have a reported knee injury coming in, and Power & Glory are mostly just making it even worse, which they continue to do. Marty continues taking a beating with only tiny bits of hope, though he’s showing tremendous guts in what has been a handicap match. But Slick continues to be a major factor, distracting the referee, and the 2-on-1 itself is really just too much.
Great little spot where Roma runs Marty into a Hercules clothesline from the apron, and they keep making quick enough tags. Michaels is writhing on the floor but he’s trying really hard to get where he needs to go. Hercules comes in and clobbers Jannetty with another clothesline. And that sets up the big Power & Glory finish, the combination Hercules superplex and Roma flying splash. It’s basically the one time this actually looked good, but it does look really good here. Roma knows it, too, he gets up off that splash and KNOWS they fuckin’ nailed it. GIFs of this have led to years of people believing Power & Glory were a really good team that just didn’t get a chance, but unfortunate reality is Hercules was pretty well shot to bits even working as the power half of a tag team, and it just didn’t go anywhere.
This is a very fun story match, Jannetty does a great job and Power & Glory are pretty fired up as this is their first big match, they’d just done some jobber domination on TV up until this point. And they get this win, with hopes they they’ll go to the top. They didn’t, but the spirit is there from Roma in particular. Shawn Michaels does literally nothing in the match so if you’re coming for a Rockers Classic you’re not getting that.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
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