SummerSlam: Book Of Lists
J’D BE LYING if I said I came up with this idea all by myself. You see, way back in the summer of 1993, as I recovered from my first year of college and spent my weeknights in the misery of a part-time insurance telemarketing job, I took solace—where else?—in wrestling magazines. And I’ll never forget the October 1993 issue of Inside Wrestling, venerable sister mag to Pro Wrestling Illustrated, and its “SummerSlam Book Of Lists.” It provided a fascinating statistical look at what was then one of only five annual WWF pay-per-view spectaculars—and to think, there had only been five SummerSlams held at the time the issue came out!
It occurred to me that, with the 34th annual summer event looming, it might be a good idea to revisit this very cool concept. After all, there’s so much more ground to cover now. And, although there are now roughly four times as many annual spectaculars (including NXT), there’s still something special to me about SummerSlam. Maybe it goes back to the days when it marked the bittersweet end of summer vacation—BRS
The History Of SummerSlam
It all started back in 1988, when there had only been four WrestleManias. The first Survivor Series had just been presented the previous Thanksgiving, and the Royal Rumble had just begun as a special on the USA Network. In the days before monthly pay-per-views, if you wanted to see the major feuds and storylines pay off, you had to go to your local arena and see the action live.
That’s the way the business model was set up. The storylines coming out of WrestleMania, for example,, at which all those red-hot feuds could be settled on a larger stage. Things moved a lot slower back then—in more recent years, most post-WrestleMania angles are simply concluded the following month, such as this year at WrestleMania Backlash.
