The Year in PPV- 1989

I'm sure I've said it before, but to recap, if we were judging the '80s PPVs on wrestling quality, they are unbearable to watch. If we are judging on the basis of memorable characters, then they are absolutely fantastic. I'm a fan who can appreciate the mixture of quality matches and memorable characters, especially if your year is historically significant to the sport of professional wrestling. We couldn't even get that really, as this year proves to be nothing but filler that tried repeating the same formula. This had ONE really good feud with the implosion of the Mega Powers, and was also building up ONE wrestler to be the next main event player in the Ultimate Warrior. Apart from these two things, the other wrestlers were kind of just floundering around directionless, so this is something I really wasn't looking forward to sitting through.

Let's get 1989 started by heading to one of the most pointless Royal Rumble matches ever...


1. Royal Rumble

The year isn't off to a great start, as this undercard is completely underwhelming. There's a throwaway Women's Championship match, a match between Haku and Harley Race to determine the "true" King of the WWF, and a two out of three falls 6-man tag. I know the undercard of the Rumble PPV isn't supposed to be more exciting than the Rumble match, but goodness gracious I would at least hope they could get me excited as the Rumble match drew nearer. This was awful. And you KNOW a show is in trouble when one of the more important spots on the show belongs to a posing contest between the Ultimate Warrior and Rick Rude. Nowadays, if the WWE tried to pull that garbage, you'd have fans crapping all over it in the crowd.

Then, as we get to the Rumble match, we have one of the biggest dropped opportunities in the history of the match. It was clear that things were not 100% peachy with the Mega Powers, so why wouldn't you have one of them win the Rumble match to add the fuel to the fire? While they did argue over an accidental elimination it happens WAY TOO EARLY. At least have one of them eliminated within the final four, let's say Savage, and Hogan is left with Big John Studd and Ted DiBiase. It at least makes your climax much more interesting than what we had. Once Savage and Hogan were gone from the match, was there any point to care who won? I don't think so.

Skip It


2. WrestleMania V

With 14 matches on the card, you would think they'd put effort in more than just 1 right? Don't get me wrong, there are a few midcard matches that try to put on a great match (Mr. Perfect vs. Blue Blazer, the Rockers vs. the Twin Towers, and the Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude for the Intercontinental Championship, just to name a few), there was also too much filler scattered between in order to create momentum for the show. There were two mildly entertaining celebrity moments in Run-DMC performing the WrestleMania Rap, as well as Piper's Pit with Brother Love and Morton Downey Jr., which was highlighted thanks to Roddy Piper and a fire extinguisher, but it still felt like this show was really missing something spectacular until we got to the main event.

The entire show was building up to the main event which saw the Mega Powers implode as Randy Savage defended his WWF Championship against Hulk Hogan. The rivalry between these two was amazing. It was a slow burn that started with Savage getting jealous over Hogan's friendship with Miss Elizabeth, and it kept boiling and boiling until he finally snapped. This match was very personal and was actually really well done. It was your typical Hogan match that was upped in quality thanks to Savage's attention to detail and desire to put on the greatest match possible. While the rest of the show felt unimportant in its execution, this really had a big fight feel attached to it and the payoff was very well done.

Mild Recommendation


3. SummerSlam

The biggest problems with the early years of SummerSlam is the same problem as the early years of WrestleMania: having little to no focus on the undercard while putting all their attention on building up one or two main events. In the favor of Mania, though, they at least are able to put on an over the top grand spectacle to cover it up. SummerSlam back in the day had so many thrown together tag matches and filler singles matches that it isn't even funny. The ONLY match on the undercard that really impressed me was the opening contest between the Hart Foundation and the Brain Busters, and I don't even think the WWF was intentionally trying to do that. I actually consider this a dream match in the context of '80s tag teams as you have one of the WWF's best teams going against one of the best teams from the NWA. I give these 2 teams credit for at least going on first and trying to set the tone for the evening. However everything else kind of lacked the spark needed to top the opening match.

On the main event side of things, Rick Rude defended his Intercontinental Championship against the Ultimate Warrior in a really solid match that I felt was better than their match at Mania. You could tell Warrior was at least trying to keep up with Rude in order to put on a good match, so give these two credit. When Warrior was in the Intercontinental Title scene, the matches were a very different style than the classics we were used to, but with Rude as his opponent, it brought back some of the technical savvy present in the earlier days of the title while also bringing a more aggressive and physical type of match thanks to Warrior. Good job guys. And then we got to the final match on the card, which capitalized on the fallout from WrestleMania between Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, while also promoting the film No Holds Barred. Hogan teamed with Brutus Beefcake to take on Savage and Zeus in a standard tag match. It's not that important in hindsight and in terms of SummerSlam main events, it is easily one of the most forgettable.

Skip It


4. Survivor Series

Call me a sucker for enjoying traditional Survivor Series elimination matches, but I was fairly entertained here. I'm actually not sure if there's a midcard here, as each match was captained by a big name player. The Big Boss Man captained the Enforcers (Boss Man, Rick Martel, the Honky Tonk Man, and Bad News Brown) against Dusty Rhodes and the Dream Team (Rhodes, Brutus Beefcake, Tito Santana, and the Red Rooster). Roddy Piper captained Roddy's Rowdies (Piper, Jimmy Snuka, and the Bushwhackers) against Rick Rude and the Rude Brood (Rude, Mr. Perfect, and the Fabulous Rougeaus). Both matches are solid and full of star power, which of course was the selling point of these types of matches in the golden days of the Survivor Series.

Interestingly enough, neither Hulk Hogan nor Randy Savage were part of the main event. Savage captained the King's Court (Savage, Dino Bravo, Greg Valentine, and Canadian Earthquake) as they took on the 4x4s (Jim Duggan, Bret Hart, Ronnie Garvin, and Hercules), and despite Savage's role as the company's main heel, he was in the second match on the card. Just as interesting, Hogan captained the Hulkamaniacs (Hogan, Jake Roberts, and Demolition) against the Million Dollar Team (Ted Dibiase, Zeus, and the Powers of Pain). Both these matches are fine, but on this night, the company went in a different direction for the main event. The Ultimate Warrior captained a team (lazily) named after himself (Warrior, Jim Neidhart, and the Rockers) to take on the Heenan Family (Bobby Heenan, Andre the Giant, Haku, and Arn Anderson). Clearly, there's a lot of talent here, but it was definitely a non-traditional main event which was a gamble in the right direction as fans looked on and approved the rub that was being given to the Warrior. And for me, it's always a plus if you can get Shawn Michaels in the main event, and I honestly believe in early matches like this, you could easily see him as the standout performer in the Rockers.

Mild Recommendation


Thoughts: Like I said, the only two things going for the company this year was the rising star power of the Ultimate Warrior and the feud between Hogan and Savage. If you love those 3 superstars, then you may get a kick out of watching this year in its entirety. My recommendation would be to watch their individual matches from '89 and proceed with caution when it comes to the rest of the PPVs. Actually, I take that back...when looking at the Warrior's matches, also be on the lookout for Ravishing Rick Rude. He is one of the most underrated talents from that era and really could've made it big had they given him the chance to be a main event heel. I'm absolutely certain of that. The man had it all and it's a shame we haven't immortalized him in the WWE Hall of Fame yet. Food for thought when it comes to next year's class...


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