Summerslam 1996 is brought to you by Stridex, which I bought just because it sponsored this. I had the cleanest face ever/driest skin ever. It wasn’t worth a fuck. Still isn’t.

This show ended up being an improvement over the previous few years, by a sliver. It had lots of ignorance, though…

If you’re sick of seeing Savio Vega over the last few shows in the opening match, there is good news. Savio Vega will open the show, against Owen Hart. Owen is doing the Bob Orton gimmick with a cast on his arm. An Owen chant actually breaks out. We get a solid match. Owen hits him with the cast and the ref somehow blatantly doesn’t see it. He wins with a Sharpshooter, the move he taught Bret. Clarence Mason, doing a poor Johnny Cochran, celebrates with him. Bradshaw hits Savio because he’s Conservative and they do not like Spanish speakers.

Todd is in the Boiler Room, where the Undertaker and Mankind taped their fight the day before. Mankind licks a pipe.

A four team contest for the tag titles. Billy Gunn is really loud and aggressive. Zip is eliminated before Skip can get into the ring. Convenient, since he broke his neck and was wearing a brace. The Rockers are eliminated by a Slop Drop. I would guess that’ll mean they lose, since they were given a win to appear strong. I was right. The Gunns win. Hillbilly Jim fucks up trying to slop Sunny. Dude you throw that gross shit on me and I’m going to take your old tall ass down instantly. Remember – Gunns don’t kill people. They just beat people up. Sunny shows everyone a giant picture of herself. If you want to see Sunny in 2015, you can buy a private Skype session that she will finger her busted clit on. It looks like a monkey’s mouth.

We see some flashback of weekend Summerslam events with all the Superstars in Cleveland. King is at an Indians game, seated in bad seats that McMahon gave him.

Sycho Sid faces British Bulldog next. Sid is really over. Vince says he is one of the nicest people you could meet outside of the ring and that is true. He’s amazing. Bulldog powerslams Sid but Cornette comes out, arguing with Clarence Mason, and it distracts Davey Boy. Sid wins off of the distraction with a powerbomb.

Up next, Goldust vs Wildman Marc Mero. Goldust has a crush on Sable, as began last month at International Incident. Mero uses the first shooting star press I remember seeing on WWF TV. Goldust still wins. Mero was on a real losing streak by now.

We see some stuff about Ahmed getting injured by a ruptured kidney. Farooq comes out in a gladiator outfit, with Sunny. He asks why “Gorilla Soon” isn’t out here.

Oh yes. It’s time for Jerry “The King” Lawler against Jake “The Snake” Roberts. Introduced first, tho, is Mark Henry! Fresh out of the Olympics. He gets fireworks and everything. King comes out and says if he had won a gold medal, he would just have gotten it bronzed. Mark says “Oh my god” about 99 times. King hits Jake in the throat with a bottle and pins him!! Then King pours alcohol all over Jake. Henry saves him. Fans get a lot of whiskey on them.

Bob Backlund is campaigning for President.

Boiler Room Brawl is next. This match, even though I seem to recall it being taped the day before, is brutal. You can see where each guy gets hurt several times, especially Foley. He takes probably two or three bumps that make me cringe. We see ancient televisions that weighed more than cars. After a really vicious back and forth, Undertaker gets to Paul Bearer and reaches out for The Urn from his longtime protege. Bearer turns around, though. Then he slowly begins to laugh. He almost gradually does the unthinkable: he becomes a heel. He turns on Undertaker. Mankind wins. “I’m Paul Bearer, and you’re not.” The rotund Bearer shouts into the camera at the end.

Time for Dickhead Shawn Michaels! Story goes that Vader was originally scheduled to WIN the WWF championship. Jim Cornette said that Michaels was a pussy, “0-Life on real fights” and that he killed Vader’s title win plans here. Really sad, too, because there are a lot of Vader Time signs in the crowd. I wonder how many girls under 18 he fucked during this time? Some ugly chick runs up and hugs him and Vince says “Where is some security? He’s gonna need it!” Shawn does a strip tease that is among his best. There are LOADS of young girls screaming “Shawn.”

The match begins with Shawn getting in all, literally, of the offense. We see his best suicide-dive ever over the top rope. Some fans begin to boo. Michaels. After a frankensteiner – Vince himself calls it that – and even MORE offense, Vader catches HBK and powerbombs him on the outside. First. Move.

Vader begins his chain of offense and it is very slow. Too slow for my liking. We see the first noticeable HBK-yelling-event, when he goes over the top, catches himself to come back in and Vader seemingly forgets his role in the spot. He lifts Shawn out of the rebound into the ring, smells his ass, and throws him. Also – we see our first pin of the match. It isn’t long after this that we see perhaps my least favorite on-camera HBK moment (until Bret got screwed…).

Shawn signals for the elbow. As I’ve explained, Vader seems to be off his game in this match. Maybe he didn’t get to rehearse with HBK beforehand but just as an observer, this is HIS miss. Shawn comes off the top rope and Vader doesn’t move. He just lands on his feet. Shawn stomps him pretty stiffly in the face and screams “Move! Move! Stupid.” He should have just hit the elbow. That being said, the botch was Vader’s fault. Again.

Shawn and Vader go out, but Vader gets in before the count out is done. He wins by count out. Cornette goads Michaels into returning to the ring. Shawn grabs Jose and says “Tell him to fucking bla bla bla.” and he turns around. The message was being sent to Vader to attack HBK in the aisle. Had Vader just missed a third spot? Shawn does his kip up routine and Cornette interferes again. Shawn grabs the tennis racquet and gets DQed. Vader wins.

Michaels just jumps the gun seemingly and starts attacking Vader again. He hits Sweet Chin Music but Vader kicks out! Vader powerbombs Shawn and Shawn tells Vader to pin him. Again, seems like Vader forgot his shit. Vader goes for and misses a moonsault but Shawn hits his and pins Vader. The match was pretty good, despite some mistakes that look to me like Vader’s fault.

As for this Summerslam, it ended up being a decent show, but far from spectacular. A step up from the previous three years, for sure. 6/10.