WWE Summerslam 1999 Review

WWE Summerslam 1999
August 22, 1999
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Jesse Ventura serves as the special guest referee as Stone Cold Steve Austin must defend his WWE Championship against both Triple H and Mankind. Also, The Rock takes on Billy Gunn in a Kiss My Ass Match.

Match 1: WWE European Championship & WWE Intercontinental Championship - D'Lo Brown (c) vs. Jeff Jarrett
How many men can say they have held both the European Championship and Intercontinental Championship at the same time? Before the match, Jeff Jarrett kicks Debra from ringside before D'Lo Brown then allows her to accompany him to the ring for the match. Pretty decent match here, people seem to forget that D'Lo was actually pretty damn good in the ring. Debra distracts the referee as she argues with Jarrett which then allows Mark Henry to interfere... and BOOM. Swerve. Henry nails Brown with the guitar and the referee apparently doesn't hear any of this and doesn't see all the guitar particles laying around the ring. Jarrett wins and celebrates with both Henry and Debra afterwards as they all played Brown. Decent opening match with a nice swerve at the end.
Winner: Jeff Jarrett
Rating: **1/4

Match 2: Tag Team Turmoil Match - Edge & Christian vs. The Hardy Boyz vs. Mideon & Viscera vs. Droz & Prince Albert vs. The Acolytes vs. The Holly Cousins
Interesting to see Michael Cole interviewing both Edge & Christian before the match and thinking how relevant the two still are in 2020. Also pretty funny to hear Jim Ross on commentary describe all the competitors as "young and hungry." Also interesting to see The Hardy Boyz work with Gangrel as heels. Times were different in 1999. Action was pretty decent from all teams and slowed down the most once Edge & Christian got eliminated from the match. This led to The Acolytes scoring the win over The Holly Cousins to earn a Tag Team Championship bout... the next night on Raw. Wonderful.
Winners: The Acolytes
Rating: **1/4

Match 3: WWE Hardcore Championship - Big Boss Man (c) vs. Al Snow
Nothing screams Attitude Era more than a Hardcore Championship match and I'm here for all of it. Road Dogg follows the match and does some commentary of his own with a microphone in hand throughout the match. Gee, wonder if he's going to interfere or not. Anyway, Al Snow attacks Big Boss Man on the stage before the fight spills backstage and eventually into the streets of Minneapolis. Fun match here that obviously doesn't take itself too seriously with the fight going from the streets into a little bar where they beat the living daylights out of each other inside. However, Road Dogg attacks Boss Man from behind that leads to Snow covering him for the win. I wonder how many fishy finishes we are going to get for the night.
Winner: Al Snow
Rating: **

Match 4: WWE Women's Championship - Ivory (c) vs. Tori
Holy crap, I totally forgot how ripped Ivory was back in the day because damn! Some of these Attitude Era matches with the women can be brutally bad... and this match was point and case. Pretty sloppy action here with a botched finish that looked like it was supposed to be a sunset flip of sorts. Wow, how far we have come with the women's division. You can skip this. That's pretty much all there is to say about this one.
Winner: Ivory
Rating: 1/2*

Match 5: Lion's Den Match - Steve Blackman vs. Ken Shamrock
Interesting match to have here, Ken Shamrock was very much over at this time and Steve Blackman was such a beast. You can make the argument that both guys were pretty much ahead of their time. Rules for this match are pretty unclear, I guess you have to exit the cage to win the match but the finish saw Shamrock knock out Blackman with a kendo stick to win the match without seeing him exit the cage at all. The match itself was pretty enjoyable for the most part with the two tossing each other into the cage and beating with other up with foreign objects. Just a little too short to really give a better score and when taking into account how the instructions were so unclear, this is the best score I could come up with. Would have loved to see more of this during this time if they just... ya know... figured out the rules for it.
Winner: Ken Shamrock
Rating: **

Match 6: Greenwich Street Fight - Test vs. Shane McMahon
Shane McMahon isn't a fan of Test dating his sister so he's out to make sure to put an end to that here. Pretty funny to see The Mean Street Posse come out to sit ringside for the match on a couch with some champagne. They're definitely not going to interfere, right? The two brawl in and out of the ring with The Posse eventually helping Shane before Test is able to take them out briefly. However, the numbers game would catch up to Test and Shane would get the upper hand and even went as far as hitting an elbow from the top through onto Test through an announcers table. Good stuff. Shane had things in control until Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco came out to eliminate The Posse from the equation and leave an opening for Test to score the win with a diving elbow of his own from the top rope. Afterwards, Stephanie McMahon comes out to celebrate as she stares down an unconscious Shane. Attitude Era stuff was just so wild.
Winner: Test
Rating: ***

Match 7: WWE World Tag Team Championship - Kane & X-Pac (c) vs. The Big Show & The Undertaker
Always enjoyed watching The Big Show and The Undertaker team up or go against each other for that matter. Crazy to think how long the careers of them and Kane were in the WWE as they feuded with and against each other for so many years to come after this. Kane has the unenviable task of carrying himself and X-Pac to a victory against two behemoths. I liked how they built the story around Kane & X-Pac being underdogs and implementing that into the match really worked with Kane seemingly having to fight against both Show and Undertaker extra hard to rebound for X-Pac in a lot of situations. X-Pac was able to hit use a couple low blows (RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE REFEREE) at times to evade but eventually, Big Show and Undertaker would catch up. Big Show hit a Chokeslam on X-Pac but after only stepping on him for the pin, X-Pac was able to kick out. This allowed Undertaker to enter the match himself and hit a Tombstone to get the win for his team as both Undertaker and Big Show argue after the match about the pin. Not bad but wasn't like I was expecting greatness out of this. It was what it needed to be and just how you would expect a match from these guys to go.
Winners: The Big Show & The Undertaker
Rating: **1/2

Match 8: Kiss My Ass Match - Billy Gunn vs. The Rock
Prior to the match starting, Billy Gunn brings out a rather large woman and declares that this is the butt The Rock will be having to kiss. Hilarious to note how Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler were ripping her throughout the match, absolutely no chance the WWE would get away with some of this stuff in 2020. They would be cancelled so fast. Decent match here with some nice back and forth action before Gunn decides to finally bring in the large woman in the ring for Rocky to kiss. Instead, Rock is able to shove Gunn's face into the lady and hit him with a Rock Bottom along with a People's Elbow to score the win. Match was fairly short and good for what it was. Pretty funny to watch Billy Gunn get his head shoved into that woman's behind but nothing too exciting.
Winner: The Rock
Rating: **3/4

Match 9: WWE Championship - Stone Cold Steve Austin (c) vs. Mankind vs. Triple H
Love having Jesse Ventura serve as the special guest referee for this one, his presence always adds to whatever is going on in or out of the ring. He's serving as the referee to prevent any shenanigans going on... I'm sure we know how that one's gonna turn out. Ventura eventually had to throw Chyna out of the match and also had his back turned when Triple H was using a steel chair against Stone Cold Steve Austin. Oh, there was also a random Shane McMahon interference after Ventura refused to do a pin count for Triple H. So much shenanigans but I did like watching Ventura toss Shane out of the ring. The crowd was extremely hot for Austin but much of the match felt like he was just a third wheel, even as the defending champion. Definitely a cluster of a main event here and just never felt like it got out of first gear. The Attitude Era was great in having matches like this one but for whatever reason, this one was so forgettable and didn't feel like a big Summerslam main event. Mankind took some hard bumps throughout the match but nothing like some of the crazier things we've seen him done before. Mankind got a pretty surprising win here after hitting Austin with a DDT. The crowd popped but you could almost hear the disappointment as their hero in Stone Cold lost the match. Weird match that is easily forgettable and just didn't live up to its expectations. 
Winner: Mankind
Rating: ***1/4

Overall Show Thoughts and Rating:
Am I being too hard on the show? Maybe, but you could also make the argument that I'm being too kind on this show. There is absolutely no way the WWE could get away with churning out a show like this in 2020. Let alone it being Summerslam, this was just not a good show. Aside from maybe the main event, this just lacked good in-ring action and didn't have anything that was memorable or worth going back to watch. Sorry, Attitude Era marks, this one just ain't it.
Rating: 3.5/10