WWF Free For All (August 18, 1996)

 

Original Airdate: August 18, 1996

Your Host is Todd Pettengill from inside the Gund Arena in Cleveland Ohio, with Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, and Mr. Perfect doing commentary on matches

SummerSlam ‘Olympic’ ad

Shawn Michaels/Vader hype video

Todd opens up from a beach set, where the Bikini Beach Blast Off will be happening later. Various wrestlers are lounging around, and Sunny is worked up because Todd never mailed her back her bathing suit top. “You wouldn’t want it back.” They did a terrible job with this set, as they built a whole ‘beach,’ but then just stuck it in some corner of the backstage area, with poor lighting, and a giant black wall behind them. Would it have killed them to at least fake a blue sky, or something. It looks depressing

Yokozuna v Steve Austin: I always found it odd and offputting when Vince would refer to Steve as the ‘King of the Ring award winner,’ as if it was voted on by the academy, or something. How far poor Yokozuna had fallen… he main evented SummerSlam just three years prior, and here he is in the pre-show match, and looking horrible to boot. Austin kickstarts things, but Yokozuna fights him off, and hits a Samoan drop. Yokozuna with a legdrop, and he takes Steve into the corner for the banzai drop, only for the ropes to snap as he’s climbing them (worked), and Austin to cradle at 1:51. This was about the best you could get out of Yokozuna at this stage. At least it had a memorable finish. DUD (Original rating: DUD)

Get a free back-to-school gift bag if you order SummerSlam tonight, and mail in your cable bill. I’d kind of love to have that WWF/America Online t-shirt now

Back at the ‘beach,’ Todd hypes the show, as the miserable looking workers try to pretend they’re having anything resembling a good time. Except Sunny, who seems to be having a legitimately good time teasing Todd with her bikini 

Jim Ross brings Undertaker out for an in-ring interview, and his entrance takes up half of the airtime here. Not much of note, he just promises to bury Mankind, etc etc etc

Undertaker/Mankind hype video

Back at the beach, Jerry Lawler floats around in the pool, before realizing that the reason Jerry is alone in the water is that there’s a giant turd in the water. TL Hopper comes in to fix it up, but discovers that it’s a candy bar. One guess who came up with this one. Meanwhile, Sunny lounges in a thong, but a mysterious substance drips onto her, courtesy of the Bushwhackers. I hope she got herself checked out

Backstage, Dok Hendrix catches up with WWF Champion Shawn Michaels, whole gameplan will be trying to avoid the Vaderbomb tonight

Back at the beach, Goldust throws a football at Marc Mero, and they chase each other around the pool. Man, really pushing those last minute impulse buys

Todd comes into the arena for some last minute hard sell

Shawn/Vader hype video

Undertaker/Mankind hype video

BUExperience: All the hype around this show was the Bikini Beach Blast Off, which was something I was very excited about as an eleven year old. It ended up being a complete non-factor, and instead all we got was the very depressing ‘beach.’ For a promotion with such high level production values, this was especially bad. I didn’t get to see this back in 1996 because my family went on vacation that week, and though I was disappointed at the time, I clearly did not miss anything here.