Today In Wrestling History 8/15: The Undertaker & Daniel Bryan Make Returns, SummerSlam Fever, More

* 25 years ago in 1990, the WWF held a rare (for the pre-Raw era, obviously) cable-only taping in front of a sold-out at the Memorial Auditorium in Utica, New York. The main attraction was the taping of the SummerSlam Fever special (each quarterly hype pay-per-view event had a Sunday night hype special pn USA Network a week earlier, which usually replaced Prime Time Wrestling the next night as well.

Except for Nikolai Volkoff quickly defeating Boris Zhukov to kind of blow off their feud, Smash vs. Jim Neidhart in a match specifically designed to hype Harr Foundation vs. Demolition at the PPV, and Hulk Hogan running in to save Jim Duggan from Earthquake and Dino Bravo after the Duggan-Earthquake main event, it wasn't much more eventful than the average Prime Time show.

It's interesting to look at the contrast between the matches on the special and the matches shot specifically for later episodes of Prime Time. On SummerSlam Fever, Shane Douglas was Sonny Blaze's partner in a squash loss to the Orient Express (Sato and Tanka version), while on the regular Prime Time shows he was good enough to hold Haku to a 15 minute time limit draw. Conversely, while Ron Garvin was in a featured match against Mr. Perfect on SummerSlam Fever, on a Prime Time that aired in September, he teamed with Jose Luis Rivera and Jim McPherson in a squash loss to all three members of Demolition.

* 21 years ago in 1994, the WWF held a Raw taping at the Lowell Auditorium in Lowell, Massachusetts. It was something of an unusual taping in terms of how far in advance some f the shows were taped.

The highlight of the live show was the main event opener, where The 1-2-3 Kid defeated Owen Hart when Jim Neidhart interfered. Being that their tournament match at King of the Ring went over huge but only went a few minutes, a longer rematch was welcomed with open arms. While not cutting the crazy pace they did two months earlier for obvious reasons, it's still a really good match worth checking out if you're a fan of either guy. It's too bad they never got to have a big feud with each other.

So this is when it gets weird. The following week's show (Sunday Night Slam special with a replay the next night instead of Raw) had already been shot at the August 1st taping that was covered here two weeks ago. After that, Raw was off due to U.S. Open tennis coverage until September 12th, which meant the fans in Lowell got a big SummerSlam spoiler: Paul Bearer had been trying to convince fans that Ted DiBiase's Undertaker (Brian Lee) was a fake, and theoretically they'd meet at SummerSlam. While fans at the taping got the impression that the Fake Undertaker was sticking around, they knew for sure that the real one was back, as he debuted his purple-accented outfit and defeated Kwang. The fans went nuts when they realized it was the "real" Undertaker.

Though it didn't air until the last show f the taping (airing all the way out on September 19th), they shot a big angle with Bob Backlund. Vince McMahon interviewed him in the ring, going into extensive detail about his history in the WWF and how he never gave up when he lost the WWF Championship. When that was over with, Backlund wanted to demonstrate the Crossface Chickenwing, and asked WWF Magazine writer Lou Gianfriddo to agree to be put in the hold. Bad idea. Backlund wouldn't let go until Randy Savage made the save. This segment was supposed to replace the botched interview from the August 1st show, even though it didn't air until seven weeks later.

* 5 years ago in 2010, WWE held SummerSlam at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. The show was all about the main event, where John Cena's team (Cena, R-Truth, Bret Hart, Chris Jericho, Edge, John Morrison, and one spot TBD) were set to take on The Nexus (Wade Barrett, Darren Young, Michael Tarver, David Otunga, Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel, and Skip "Ryback" Sheffield).

The storyline going into the match was that The Miz had been offered the empty spot on Cna's team, but was wavering and wouldn't decide until the night of SummerSlam. So WWE had a secret plan for who Cena would choose as a replacement when they realized he shouldn't be on the team: Disgraced Nexus member Daniel Bryan, who was rehired by WWE right before the show. He even had a couple months' worth of indie bookings to fulfill afterwards. Bryan got a huge push in the match itself, lasting longer than anyone on the babyface team other than Cena. Hart, due to his neurological and insurance concerns, was eliminated by disqualification when he used a chair.

The way the finish was laid out was controversial. Barrett DDTed Cena on the exposed concrete floor, quickly rolled him back into the ring, tagged in Gabriel so he could could hit the 450 splash...and Cena moved. He pinned Gabriel, rolled over "exhausted," and when Barrett ran in the ring, he quickly tripped him into the STF for the win. WWE had not much in the way of "exposed concrete: spots in a while (or since, for that matter), and it was shocking to see that they didn't really protect it. The show was running long, so it's possible that they were supposed to drag out everything before the comeback longer than they did, but this match went a long way in fueling the "SuperCena" criticisms some fans have.