SummerSlam (1989)

World Wrestling Federation pay per view event

The 1989 SummerSlam was the second annual SummerSlam professional wrestling pay per view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It took place on August 28, 1989, in the Meadowlands Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Ten matches were contested at the event, including one dark match held before the live broadcast. The main event was a tag team match between the team of WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan and Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake (who would later be known as The Mega Maniacs in the 1990s) and the team of "Macho Man" Randy Savage and Zeus. The main matches on the undercard were "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase versus Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, The Ultimate Warrior versus Ravishing Rick Rude for the WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship, and Jim Duggan and Demolition (Ax and Smash) versus André the Giant and The Twin Towers (Akeem and Big Boss Man).

Following the success of SummerSlam 1988, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) scheduled a second SummerSlam to be held on August 28, 1989, in the Meadowlands Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Dubbed "The Biggest Party of the Summer", it was one of the WWF's original four pay per views, along with WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, and Survivor Series, which were dubbed the "Big Four". It has since become considered WWF's second biggest event of the year behind WrestleMania. This 1989 event established SummerSlam as the promotion's annual August pay per view (PPV).

The main feud heading into SummerSlam pitted WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan and Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake against "Macho Man" Randy Savage and Zeus. At WrestleMania V in April 1989, Hogan defeated Savage to win his second WWF World Heavyweight Championship. WWF financed a professional wrestling movie "No Holds Barred". Hogan starred as the hero Rip, a popular professional wrestler, while Tom Lister played the villain Zeus. In the movie, Hogan defeated Zeus. The rivalry spanned in WWF, because Zeus wanted to take revenge from Hogan in real life due to Hogan breaking Zeus's nose on set. In the WWF, he was also billed as Zeus. He made his first appearance on WWF television on the May 27, 1989, edition of Saturday Night's Main Event XXI before Hogan's WWF World Heavyweight title defense against Big Boss Man in a steel cage match. He was introduced by Boss Man's manager Slick. During Hogan's entrance, Zeus brutally attacked him. On the July 29 edition of Saturday Night's Main Event XXII, Zeus attacked Brutus Beefcake during Beefcake's match with Hogan's rival Randy Savage. Zeus did this because Beefcake was on the cusp of defeating Randy Savage. Hogan came to the rescue but was unable to drop Zeus because Savage gave him two chair shots in the back. This led to the Hogan & Beefcake vs. Savage & Zeus encounter at SummerSlam. The main singles match on the card was between Ravishing Rick Rude versus The Ultimate Warrior for the WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship. They had a "Super Posedown" at the Royal Rumble in January 1989 which was won by Warrior, prompting Rude to angrily attack him with a steel workout bar. This led to their title match at WrestleMania V, where Warrior lost the Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship to Rude. They were signed to a rematch for the title at SummerSlam, with Rude defending the title against Warrior.