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The history of SummerSlam is a collection of immense moments.
Moments that can make you cry, like when Macho Man Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth reunited at WrestleMania VII, then got "married" at SummerSlam '91 (they were already married but, you know, wrestling...).
Moments that make you jump out of your seat and cheer - especially if you're British - when Davey Boy Smith defeated Bret Hart for the Intercontinental Championship in London at SummerSlam '92.
Moments that can even make you angry, like when Daniel Bryan's WWE Championship moment was stolen from him by Triple H and Randy Orton at SummerSlam 2013.
And then... there's these moments. The "Wait... what?" Moments where you're not entirely sure what you're seeing is actually happening. Sure, sometimes you were informed in advance that this was going to happen but then it actually happens and you still can't believe it.
SummerSlam has had a lot of those moments, too.
So, with the 'Biggest Party of the Summer' just around the corner, we decided to pick five of them and remind you that they happened. So be prepared to wrap your mind around some pretty fun nonsense.
#5 The Legion of Doom to the ring with a ventriloquist dummy - 1992
The Legion of Doom, aka The Road Warriors, had - and it goes without saying - an amazing career. They were quite possibly the most popular and most successful tag team of their era.
When they jumped ship from the NWA to WWF, the LOD made an immediate impact, first feuding with Demolition (a team clearly inspired by LOD's "face paint and spikes" motif) before eventually winning the WWF World Tag Team Championship.
However, the WWF wanted to find a way to make the team more appealing to kids (can you imagine any kid in the 1990s not loving the Legion of Doom?). So the obvious solution was... to pair them up with a sneering, leather jacket-wearing ventriloquist puppet named... no! Stop laughing! This actually happened!
The dummy's name was Rocco. And by 'dummy', we mean the puppet, not the dummy who thought pairing the two toughest men in the WWF's tag team division with a doll was a good idea.
Rocco had been paired with LOD a couple of weeks before SummerSlam, but chances are that the big event at Wembley Stadium was most fans' first chance to see the former Road Warriors with their new little puppet buddy. In fact, it was the first thing they saw when they watched the show.
Thankfully, the team was relieved of their puppet babysitting duties, but their career never really recovered from it.
The decision to include a puppet as a part of LOD's programming would be synonymous with what a brand like WCW would do. But the WWE were equally notorious back in the day as well.
#4 Shawn Michaels ridiculously oversells every move by Hulk Hogan - 2005
WWE Hall of Famers Shawn Michaels and Hulk Hogan are synonymous with a lot of things. Championship matches. Legendary WrestleMania moments. Being the leader of a rebellious and extremely popular heel group in the 1990s.
Oh, yeah, and backstage politics. Can't forget that.
The politics behind this particular situation aren't terribly important - it's been covered almost as ad nauseam as the Montreal Screwjob - but the gist of it is that there was one particular plan for the Hogan/Michaels storyline leading into SummerSlam '05. Hogan didn't like it all of a sudden, and Michaels got pretty mad.
It wasn't in his nature ("anymore," as CM Punk would say) to take liberties with Hogan in the ring (plus Hogan is, like, twice Michael's size), so he expressed his frustration in another way. A much more hilarious way.
Michaels oversold all of Hulkamania's offensive moves in the ring and it made for bad television viewing. As a fan, if you didn't know what was going on behind the scenes, watching Michaels sell each move like he got hit with a wrecking ball with a lit TNT strapped to it would certainly raise a bit of suspicion in your head.
Was the way Michaels handled the situation immature? Probably. Was it weird? For sure. And, was it hilarious? You better believe it.
#3 Hulk Hogan fights a character he fought in a movie he was in - 1989
Gather 'round, children. Let me tell you a story of a time, not too long ago. A time before Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, or Dave Bautista, or John Cena. A time when pro wrestlers weren't taken seriously as actors. It was a time known as.... 1989.
For that was the year that then-WWF Champion Hulk Hogan starred in No Holds Barred, an action movie about a Pro Wrestling Champion (I know, right?) who finds himself having to battle both a greedy and vicious television executive (played by veteran character actor Kurt Fuller) and a vicious underground cage fighter with the world's worst haircut (played by Tom "Tiny" Lister, who would go on to play Deebo in Friday and the President in The Fifth Element.)
Lister was a former basketball player and an actor (and a very nice man in real life). He wasn't a wrestler. He had no experience with professional wrestling prior to this movie. He didn't even actually play a professional wrestler in the movie.
So, of course, Vince McMahon got the crazy idea to bring Lister in as a wrestler and as the same character, he played in the movie and Hogan in the real WWF.Challenge
Wait... what?
Putting aside that Hogan didn't play himself in No Holds Barred - he played a character named Rip that, well, was pretty much Hogan outside of the name - while Lister wasn't actually Zeus in real life. I think we might have established that last part.
SummerSlam 1989 saw Hulk Hogan and Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake take on 'Macho King' Randy Savage and Zeus in the main event. The story, such as it was, claimed that Zeus became furious of Hogan while on the set on No Hold Barred - apparently Hogan had broken his nose or something - and wanted to fight him for real. Well, not 'real' real. Wrestling real. Hogan and Beefcake went on to win.the match
The two teams would later go on to have a rematch in a steel cage during that year's Survivor Series, and that would be the last we would see of Zeus in the WWF. He would, however, reappear later in WCW (this time as "Z-Gangsta"), but the less said about that, the better.
The late 80's was a time when anything Hogan touched turned to gold and the WWE was keen to capture the aura of his popularity. The programming was hence planned around him and the WWE tried and sold what they could.
#2 Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio have a match over the custody of a child - 2005 (again)
In the real world, when the parentage of a child is contested, the issue is usually taken to court, where the representation of each party presents the evidence to the judge, who makes a decision of who should have custody of the said child. This decision is based on official statutes and legal precedent.
Just kidding. It's settled in a fight between two guys to see who can be the first to climb up a ladder. Everybody knows this.
By 2005, Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero had already been involved in numerous programs together, both as a team and in feuds - and in two different companies, for that matter. They were set to feud again that year, but they needed something to make this one special.
It was special, all right.
During the feud, Guerrero revealed that he was actually the father of Mysterio's son, Dominick.
To settle the matter, the two would slug it out in a ladder match, where the winner would gain custody of the boy. Both Guerrero and Mysterio's actual family were involved in the feud, which I'm sure had to not be uncomfortable for any of them at all.
The match itself was actually pretty good, as matches between the two usually were. While you're watching the match, however, just stop to think - really think - about the premise of the story behind the match - and just how weird it is.
It's just too bad Harvard-educated lawyer David Otunga wasn't there to provide commentary.
Mysterio went on to win the bout to establish his rightful paternity claim over Dominik and the latter is now a professional wrestler currently signed to the WWE.
#1 The Undertaker vs The Undertaker - 1994
First of all, I don't care what anybody says. This whole story - and the eventual match - was awesome. My opinion on the matter may have something to do with the fact that I was at this particular event, six rows from ringside and right by the entrance ramp, I suppose. It was still awesome.
So, a bit of a quick backstory. At the Royal Rumble event, held in January of that year, Undertaker took on Yokozuna in a casket match. For some reason, nearly every heel in the company - like Bam Bam Bigelow and Crush - came to the ring to help the then-WWF Champion get the Deadman into the casket, saving Yokozuna's Championship.
What I do remember is the Undertaker's casket exploding, and the ghostly visage of the Phenom rising up over the Titantron like... well, a ghost, I guess. Sorry, I left my thesaurus at home.
Months later, after 'Taker' had been out of action, the WWF started to run these person-on-the-street segments of people claiming to have seen the former WWF Champion in various locations.
Eventually, Undertaker did return. Except, this time he was being managed by 'The Million Dollar Man' Ted DiBiase, instead of Paul Bearer. He was also slightly shorter, for some reason. Meanwhile, Bearer had insisted that this Undertaker was a fake, and he would bring the real Undertaker to SummerSlam that year. The match was set.
The WWF, however, still wanted to get to the bottom of the matter, so they hired a legendary detective to investigate - Leslie Nielsen, the guy from the Naked Gun films.
Finally, the time had come, and the two Undertakers finally met face to face in the ring.
The false Undertaker - dubbed "Underfaker" by fans - was portrayed by "Prime Time" Brian Lee, who previously worked in Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling and would go on to be Chainz in the biker faction Disciples of Apocalypse in WWE around the mid-90s.
WWE never really followed up on this story - probably because it was the definition of "not well received" - so we never found out where DiBiase got his "Underfaker" or any other explanation for the stories' many mysteries.
Whether you liked it or hated it, one thing is certain - this is the weirdest match in SummerSlam (and possibly all of) history.
