Before I finish the countdown, here are some honorable mentions.

Bob Backlund vs. Shawn Michaels happened after Michaels initially went heel and before Backlund went all crazy. I was told that in IWA-Mid South, there was Austin Aries vs. Mr. Anderson in a match where CM Punk was on commentary ragging on how terrible Daredevil was. For comedy entries, there was the time Carl Winslow and Steve Urkel fought the Bushwackers as well as a masked Mr. Ernst vs. Captain Lou Albano on Hey Dude. Brock Lesnar and Ron Waterman vs. Rico and Randy Orton as a Raw dark match is an oddball encounter, but I thought Lesnar and Orton were better represented elsewhere on the list. Umaga vs. Kamala on Raw was a cool generational gimmick pairing in the same light as Hall vs. Carlito, but their encounters were set up strongly enough on TV that there’s not enough obscurity in there.

To refresh your memory, 60-41 is here and 40-21 is here.

Now let’s get to the good stuff.

20) ESSA RIOS vs. SAMOA JOE
WWF, 2001
YouTube
Suggested by Dr. Video Games 0055

This one’s a bit of shock to me, not for the appearance by Samoa Joe, but the knowledge that Essa Rios was around in 2001 WWF. I have no memory of that. For those who don’t recall, Rios was a highflyer with an amazing moonsault who’s biggest claim to fame is introducing Lita as his manager. Once Lita split, he faded into obscurity and unemployment. His match with the wonky-looking-compared-to-how-we-remember-him Samoa Joe was good for the in-ring stuff, but only if you watch it with the sound off. The commentary had Coach and Michael Hayes not only discussing the XFL for way too long, but discussing the storyline between Jesse Ventura and Coach Rusty Tillman. God, that was one of the saddest things. McMahon really wanted some kind of on-air rivalry, so he had Ventura try to overly criticize Tillman. Ventura got into it, but Tillman refused to care. He just wanted to coach football and leave this soap opera crap out of it. Yet you had this awesome match going on and the commentators were forced to talk about this made-up hatred. Even when they got to actual wrestling angles, their dialogue came off as extremely forced.

With the actual match, we got some really keen spots, including a Samoa Joe powerbomb reversed into a DDT. Essa Rios won, but Samoa Joe looked pretty good for a guy taking the nameless jobber role.

19) ABDULLAH THE BUTCHER vs. ZEUS
WWC, 1990
YouTube

Normally I wouldn’t have cared about this match if it wasn’t for how brief Tiny “Zeus” Lister’s wrestling career even was. The guy was an actor whose role in a bad movie spun off into a feud with Hulk Hogan that lasted about four months. So what the hell was he doing against Abdullah of all people? What made WWC think he was worth bringing in other than his status as having main-evented Summerslam?

Not only was it a bad match, but it was bad and way too long. Zeus was only able to do four things: flail his arms around like windmills as a way of punching, bearhugs, strangleholds and pounding his chest while looking intimidating. The last thing was the only one he could do believably. While Hogan and Beefcake were good enough performers (yes, I’m serious) to work around Zeus and make him seem almost acceptable, Abdullah had none of that magic. He just stood there for the 12 minutes and absorbed the punishment while looking bloody and dazed. When Abdullah got offense in, the only reason Zeus sold any of it was because he looked like he had tired himself out more than anything else. The match ended with the two brawling to the back and being counted out. Throughout the match, the Puerto Rican crowd rained garbage into the ring and I think at one point some of them left the building to gather more garbage from neighboring buildings so they could throw that too!

Front row kid in the pink shirt loved that shit, though.

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First off, I got to go to Survivor Series the other day. There I got to meet Zack Ryder’s buddy and supporting character on the Z True Long Island Story, the Big O.

Us internet sidekicks need to stick together, you see.

Well, this is long, long, LONG overdue, isn’t it? Again, I apologize. I simply timed everything wrong when trying for this Summerslam Countdown. I started watching too late and by the time I finished, I only had a day before the first update was due. These updates take a lot out of me, and doing them on a daily basis eats away at me. At a certain point, you just have to wave it away and decide, “You know what? I think I’d rather spend the next couple months writing about superheroes instead.”

Plus other things stepped into the forefront and put this on the backburner. Since it’s been a while, here’s our list so far.

23) Summerslam 1995 (Diesel vs. King Mabel)
22) Summerslam 1997 (Bret Hart vs. Undertaker)
21) Summerslam 1993 (Yokozuna vs. Lex Luger)
20) Summerslam 1999 (Austin vs. Triple H vs. Mankind)
19) Summerslam 1988 (Mega Powers vs. Mega Bucks)
18) Summerslam 1994 (Undertaker vs. Undertaker)
17) Summerslam 1996 (Vader vs. Michaels)
16) Summerslam 2007 (Cena vs. Orton)
15) Summerslam 1990 (Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude)
14) Summerslam 2010 (Team WWE vs. Nexus)
13) Summerslam 2000 (Rock vs. Angle vs. Triple H)
12) Summerslam 1992 (Bret Hart vs. British Bulldog)
11) Summerslam 2005 (Hogan vs. Michaels)
10) Summerslam 2009 (Jeff Hardy vs. CM Punk)
9) Summerslam 1991 (Match Made in Heaven/Match Made in Hell)
8) Summerslam 1989 (Hogan and Beefcake vs. Savage and Zeus)
7) Summerslam 2003 (Elimination Chamber)
6) Summerslam 2008 (Undertaker vs. Edge)
5) Summerslam 2006 (Edge vs. Cena)
4) Summerslam 2004 (Orton vs. Benoit)

Let’s finish it up with our top three.

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