Ranking every WWE SummerSlam PPV in history

25. WWE SummerSlam 1988

• The British Bulldogs and The Fabulous Rougeaus battled to a time-limit draw
• Bad News Brown def. Ken Patera
• Rick Rude def. Junkyard Dog by DQ
• The Powers of Pain def. The Bolsheviks
• The Ultimate Warrior def. The Honky Tonk Man to win the WWE Intercontinental Championship
• Dino Bravo def. Don Muraco
• Demolition def. The Hart Foundation to retain the WWE Tag Team Championship
• Big Boss Man def. Koko B. Ware
• Jake Roberts def. Hercules
• The Mega Powers def. The Mega Bucks

The inaugural edition of SummerSlam just cracks the top 25, mainly due to the huge main event. The rest of the card seemed more like one of the bigger house shows that WWE would put on at Madison Square Garden every year, which just happened to be the venue for this event.

Here’s a little bit of trivia: Did you know that the first-ever match at SummerSlam ended in a time-limit draw? That’s right, The British Bulldogs and The Fabulous Rougeaus wrestled for 20 minutes in a solid match with no winner. The next three matches were just terrible, but that led up to the end of The Honky Tonk Man’s historic Intercontinental Championship reign.

He had held the title for 454 days and was supposed to defend against Brutus Beefcake at SummerSlam. However, Beefcake had been attacked by “Outlaw” Ron Bass, who actually used a spur on The Barber’s head and cut him open, which forced Brutus out of the match and which left us with a mystery opponent. That turned out to be The Ultimate Warrior, who hit the ring and beat Honky in 31 seconds. I was never much of a Warrior guy, but it was a cool moment in WWE history.

Outside of another solid outing from The Hart Foundation and Demolition, the rest of the card leading to the main event was merely average at best but the final match of the evening was so much fun and a really big deal back then. WWE Champion Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan teamed for the first time as The Mega-Powers and they took on Ted DiBiase and Andre the Giant, who were billed The Mega-Bucks, and Jesse “The Body” Venture served as the special guest referee.

Andre couldn’t do much in the ring at this point so it was left to DiBiase to do most of the work for his team and I think people forget how good he could be in the ring with the right opponents. Seeing Hogan and Savage team together was just the coolest thing in the world back then and they picked up the victory after Miss Elizabeth ripped off her skirt to distract the heels, which must have pumped up The Mega-Powers.

They did the amazing Mega-Handshake on the floor and climbed back into the ring to finish things up. Savage hit the elbow on DiBiase, Hogan followed with the Leg Drop and Savage forced Ventura to count the 1-2-3. Amazing. Another note of historical significance here was that this was the first time that Savage began to look at Hogan differently after The Hulkster was hugging Liz a little too tightly during the celebration. This, of course, was all part of what I still believe is the greatest storyline in WWE history.