SummerSlam (1994)

World Wrestling Federation pay per view event

The 1994 SummerSlam was the seventh annual SummerSlam professional wrestling pay per view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It took place on August 29, 1994, at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, which had opened eleven days earlier. Eight matches were contested at the event, including one dark match held before the live broadcast. The pay per view had two main events. The first pitted Owen Hart against his brother Bret Hart in a steel cage match. Bret won the match, but the storyline feud escalated after Owen and his brother in law Jim Neidhart attacked Bret after the match. The other main event saw The Undertaker defeat an impostor Undertaker (portrayed by Brian Lee). The undercard included a match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship between Diesel and Razor Ramon, which Ramon won to regain the title. The other major angle going into SummerSlam was a feud in which Tatanka accused Lex Luger of joining the Million Dollar Corporation, a stable of heel wrestlers. This storyline turned out to be a swerve, as Tatanka was revealed to have secretly joined the corporation.

SummerSlam is an annual pay per view (PPV) produced every August by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) since 1988. Dubbed "The Biggest Party of the Summer", it is one of the promotion's original four pay per views, along with WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, and Survivor Series, and was considered one of the "Big Five" PPVs, along with King of the Ring. It has since become considered WWF's second biggest event of the year behind WrestleMania. The 1994 event was the seventh event in the SummerSlam chronology and was held on Monday, August 29, 1994, at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, which had opened eleven days earlier.

Kwang and Adam Bomb were both managed by Harvey Wippleman. On May 28, 1994, a King of the Ring qualifying match between Bomb and the 1–2–3 Kid was televised on WWF Superstars. The angle saw The Kid win after Kwang attempted to interfere on Bomb's behalf. Kwang accidentally spat green mist in Bomb's face, allowing the Kid to get the victory. Wippleman had Bomb and Kwang work as a tag team, but problems continued to develop between the two. The pair split after an argument cost them the match when they faced the team of the 1–2–3 Kid and "Sparky" Thurman Plugg. Irwin R. Schyster, DiBiase's former partner in Money Inc., also joined the stable. Bigelow and Schyster were paired together to challenge for the WWF Tag Team Championship. The night before SummerSlam, The Headshrinkers dropped the belts to Diesel and Shawn Michaels. The match took place as scheduled, but the title was not on the line. In early 1994, the WWF brought back the WWF Women's Championship, which had been deactivated in 1990, and pushed Alundra Blayze to win a championship tournament and defeat all challengers. Luna Vachon was brought in to challenge Blayze in a series of matches but was defeated each time. Razor Ramon had been feuding with Shawn Michaels since being pushed to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship in late 1993. After defeating Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania X, Ramon dropped the belt to Diesel, Michaels' bodyguard. A rematch was scheduled for SummerSlam 1994. Ramon brought in NFL Hall of Famer Walter Payton to be his cornerman and help prevent Michaels from interfering. On the July 11, 1994 edition of Monday Night Raw, a major worked storyline began when Ted DiBiase announced that he had convinced Lex Luger to join the Million Dollar Corporation. Leading up to the pay per view, Tatanka confronted Lex Luger on several occasions, criticizing him for "selling out" to DiBiase. This led to a kayfabe admission from Luger that he had met with DiBiase, but Luger repeatedly denied having joined the corporation. Jeff Jarrett and Mabel had no real feud going into SummerSlam. Jarrett played the role of an aspiring country music singer, and Mabel portrayed a rapper. As a result, the WWF promoted the match as part of a "rap versus country" rivalry. There was little buildup for the match until Mabel was booked to confront Jarrett on Monday Night Raw the week before SummerSlam. He tried to provoke Jarrett into a fight, but Jarrett walked away through the crowd to avoid Mabel. The biggest storyline at SummerSlam began at the 1993 Survivor Series when Owen Hart was eliminated from the “Hart Brothers vs. Shawn Michaels and His Knights” elimination match due to miscommunication within the Hart team. Bret Hart was walking along the ring apron when Owen ran into him, causing Owen to lose his focus and be pinned by Michaels. After the match, Owen interrupted his brothers’ victory celebration to verbally attack Bret. During the match, Bret kayfabe injured his knee, Owen then turned on Bret by kicking his injured leg and leaving him lying in the ring. Bret jobbed to Owen in the opening match at WrestleMania X but defeated Yokozuna later in the pay per view to win the WWF World Heavyweight Championship. Jim Neidhart, Bret and Owen's real life brother in law, became involved at King of the Ring 1994 by aligning himself with Owen Hart. To settle the feud, Bret and Owen were booked to face each other in a Steel cage match at SummerSlam. After losing a Casket match to Yokozuna at the 1994 Royal Rumble, The Undertaker did not appear in the WWF for several months. In reality, he was given time off to allow a back injury to heal. The WWF foreshadowed his return by airing videos of people who claimed to have seen The Undertaker. Eventually, DiBiase, who introduced The Undertaker to the WWF in 1990, claimed to have brought The Undertaker back to the WWF. In the buildup to the match, Leslie Nielsen performed short segments trying to solve the mystery of how two Undertakers could exist in a spinoff of his roles on Police Squad! and The Naked Gun films. As the broadcast opened, the commentators, Vince McMahon (fresh off his federal trial acquittal, one month earlier) and Jerry Lawler, announced that The Headshrinkers had dropped the tag team title to Diesel and Shawn Michaels, and that the belts would not be on the line at SummerSlam. Ramon pinned Diesel to win the match and regain the Intercontinental Championship. Bret gained the advantage by performing a DDT. Owen kicked Bret in the head and tried to escape from the cage. Bret climbed over the top of the cage and dropped to the floor to win the match and retain the title. After the match, Jim Neidhart attacked Davey Boy Smith, another brother in law of the Hart brothers. Neidhart padlocked the cage, and he and Owen attacked Bret until the other Harts could intervene. The second main event match had Bearer's Undertaker fighting DiBiase's Undertaker. After DiBiase's Undertaker walked to the ring, Bearer appeared by himself while pushing a casket to the ring. He reached inside the casket and pulled out an urn, which had a light inside it when Bearer removed its lid. Bigelow was later "fired" from the stable, leading to a feud with DiBiase's wrestlers. Nakano was booked to win the Women's Championship on November 27, 1994. After Blayze won it back the following spring, Nakano disappeared from the WWF without mention and joined World Championship Wrestling. After Backlund was awarded the belt, Owen celebrated his success in costing Bret the title. At Survivor Series 1994, the storyline with Michaels and Diesel saw Michaels accidentally superkick Diesel once again. As a result, Diesel turned on Michaels, becoming a face and vacating the Tag Team Championship. Diesel feuded with Michaels and defended the belt against him at WrestleMania XI. DiBiase's Undertaker was not seen again, but the wrestler portraying him, Brian Lee, returned to the WWF in 1997 as Chainz. This was the last SummerSlam to take place on a Monday.