The Wrestling Summit 1990: A Forbidden Door Opened
When Vince McMahon purchased the World Wide Wrestling Federation from his father and rebranded it to the World Wrestling Federation in the early ‘80s, the first thing he did after his father’s passing was to go against his wishes and he began putting together what would become a global juggernaut that the WWE is today. Effectively ending the territory days by cherry-picking the best talent from different territories and in many instances, purchasing the syndication time from television networks, it was clear McMahon had much loftier aspirations than any of his competitors. In the late 80s, a group of surviving promoters, in this case, Fritz Von Erich of World Class Championship Wrestling, Jerry Jarrett & Jerry Lawler of the Memphis and surrounding territory, and Verne Gagne of the American Wrestling Association attempted to join forces for a PPV supercard. Openly seen as a giant failure due to the egos of all the promoters involved, no one remembers anything now from SuperClash III except for the main event Title Unification match between AWA Champion Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler and WCCW Champion Kerry Von Erich, which has gone down in history for numerous reasons.
If you have ever watched the WWE-produced documentaries on the AWA or WCCW (both great watches, especially the latter) Vince McMahon himself comments on how it would never have worked and it didn’t worry him at all. I present this information as an introduction to the 1990’s Wrestling Summit, a Japanese supercard presented by the World Wrestling Federation, All Japan Pro Wrestling, and New Japan Pro Wrestling. While certainly not as disastrous as the aforementioned Super Clash III, there was certainly some controversy from the oft-forgotten event.
Taking place on April 13, 1990, at the legendary Tokyo Dome, the event featured matches between WWF superstars against one another, as well as against different Japanese talent. Including dark matches, the card consisted of 12 matches. Sadly, likely for licensing reasons with the Japanese talent and companies involved, the Wrestling Summit is not available for streaming on the WWE Network. Several of the matches would be made available over the years in different formats, most notably the match between Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart and Tiger Mask II as part of the Hitman’s Dungeon Collection DVD (which also due to rights issues is no longer available on the Network as of this writing.)
Arguably the biggest story from the show itself was the several changes made to the main event, involving Hulk Hogan’s opponent. According to the rumors, Hogan’s original opponent was set to be Genichiro Tenryu in what could have been a great match to actually allow Hogan to show he can work given the proper circumstances. For whatever reason, this was changed as apparently, Vince McMahon wanted the main event to feature two American performers, likely for American distribution reasons. At this point Terry ‘Bam Bam’ Gordy was slotted into the main event, another match that could have allowed Hogan to do something different while remaining highly marketable for the Japanese fans due to Gordy’s legendary Gaijin status. Given that Hogan would be winning the match clean and had recently dropped the WWF Championship to the Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania 6, Gordy was afraid a clean loss against someone who was not a Champion would negatively affect his status in Japan and bowed out of the match. At this point, Stan ‘The Lariat’ Hansen was put into the main event, agreeing to take the clean loss against Hogan as he was quite confident in his own Gaijin status in the Land of the Rising Sun.
There are rumors of other problems that plagued the show, ranging from issues with television clearances and the combination of having both All Japan and New Japan talent, but outside of these issues, the show itself would seemingly go smoothly. Unfortunately, due to the rarity of the full show, doing a full review is seemingly impossible (as much as I’d love to watch the full show.)
One of the few matches actually available in full worth watching is the match between Genichiro Tenryu facing off against the Macho King Randy Savage, accompanied by Sensational Sherri. While Savage had fallen from the heights of his legendary WWF Championship run between WrestleManias 4 and 5, he was still one of the biggest draws on the WWF roster. The match is a hard-hitting affair that includes obligatory interference from Sherri. Despite the interference and the odds stacked against him, Tenryu is able to come out on top with a powerbomb for the pinfall victory.
While not a great match, an interesting combination for wrestling historians is the match between the WWF Tag Team Champions, Demolition, facing off against a duo of absolute legends in Andre The Giant and Giant Baba. While Demolition were babyfaces at the time, they would be the de facto heels against Baba and Andre. Unfortunately this was the tail end of Andre’s in-ring career and he would be very limited, though it was clear he put a little more into this match then he did at WrestleMania VI weeks earlier. Giant Baba was also in his 50’s at this point, so much of the match is Demolition working over their opponents in a way that didn’t require much from the big legends before their inevitable victory.
Speaking of legends, another match would see an absolute God in Japan, Kenta Kobashi team with Masanobu Fuchi (complete with Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” as their entrance music!) face off against the duo of Tito Santana & ‘Superfly’ Jimmy Snuka. Given that Snuka was well past his prime at this point it is no surprise that Santana works most of the match, though Snuka does hit the big splash for the pinfall. Sadly, much like many of the matches on the card with a few exceptions, this is another disjointed house-show style outing.
Arguably the most famous match from the show was the time-limit draw between Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart and Tiger Mask (this would actually be the second Tiger Mask, Mitsuhara Misawa.) This would be right at the beginning of Bret’s run as a singles wrestler, before his iconic matches with Curt Hennig would cement him. But as one of the arguable few WWF talents that could actually present a time-limit draw compellingly at the time, Bret did the best he could with the booking.
As previously mentioned, the main event between Hulk Hogan and Stan Hansen is the only match on the WWE Network to have highlights and it is certainly an interesting one to behold. I’ve long made no secret of my distaste of Hogan as a person or performer, but for some reason when he would be in Japan, or against a legitimate badass performer like Hansen, Hogan would decide to throw on his best working boots and actually wasn’t afraid to get down and dirty. To say that Hogan is one of the top 3 WWF performers on a show along with Randy Savage and Bret Hart should in and of itself speak volumes.
Whether it was more a sign of the struggling business in 1990 or the intrigue of the three companies coming together for a supershow, the 1990 Wrestling Summit was voted as the ‘Best Major Wrestling Show’ by Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Sadly, the NJPW/AJPW/WWF Summit and relationship would not extend past this show, most likely due to all of the intercompany relations and surely some ego as well. It’s well known that Vince McMahon must always have a certain level of control and surely having three different companies just did not gel well together.
In the aftermath of the show, Genchiro Tenryu would create his own Japanese promotion to rival AJPW and NJPW, the Super World of Sports, or SWS for short. WWF and SWS would come to a partnership over the course of SWS’s lifespan which lasted until the company folded in 1992. This partnership would most famously bring Tenryu to the US for a WrestleMania and Royal Rumble appearance.
Given the number of headlines that the “Forbidden Door” of AEW is generating with partnerships between them and IMPACT Wrestling, as well as AAA and now seemingly New Japan Pro Wrestling, it’s very easy to get excited and wonder if promoters like Tony Khan, Scott D’Amore and Don Callis can learn from the mistakes of the past and make it work in 2021. So far things seem to be moving swimmingly between many of the companies, with only brief reports indicating any issues between the companies. What do you as a wrestling fan think in 2021, can inter-company promotions work or are they all doomed to fail in one way or another due to the egos and loyalties to one’s own brand? Join us on The Signature Spot Facebook page for discussion related to the topic.
