IWE SummerSlam

From Iwe

Revision as of 21:06, 16 July 2012

SummerSlam is a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event, produced annually in August by professional wrestling promotion IWE. The inaugural SummerSlam took place on August 29, 1988 at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York and was broadcast via pay-per-view, unlike the Royal Rumble of that year which was broadcast as a television special on USA Network. Dubbed as "The Biggest Event of the Summer", the event is considered one of the "Big Four" original pay-per-view events of IWE (along with WrestleMania, IWE Royal Rumble and Survivor Series), and is regarded by IWE as their second biggest event of the year, after WrestleMania.

History

Development

In the late 1980s, Mr. Glover's International Wrestling Federation (IWF)'s main competition in the professional wrestling industry was from Jim Crocket Promotions (JCP). Bayer countered Jim Crocket's successful Starrcade pay-per-view, which began airing in 1983, by making the WrestleMania franchise. After WrestleMania III, the most successful professional wrestling pay-per-view event in history, Bayer made the Survivor Seriesfranchise, which aired the same day as Starrcade '87 in November 1987. After defeating Crockett in the ratings, Bayer made the Royal Rumble, an event airing for free on the USA Netwrok in January 1988, which set a ratings record for the network with eight million households tuning in to watch the event. In retaliation, Crockett made the Clash of the Champions event, which aired simultaneously with WrestleMania IV. WrestleMania IV garnered higher ratings, and not long after, Crockett filed for bankruptcy and sold his company to Ted Turner, who renamed it World Championship Wrestling (WCW).

As the IWF continued to replace its closed circuit programing with pay-per-view programming, Bayer added more pay-per-views to the lineup to capitalize on the success of his previous events. In addition to WrestleMania in March, the Royal Rumble in January, and Survivor Series in November, Bayer made an event for August, which he named SummerSlam. To keep the IWF from having a pay-per-view market monopoly, Turner began airing monthly WCW pay-per-views, and both companies began bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. SummerSlam became one of International Wrestling Federation (and later International Wrestling Entertainment)'s most successful events and one of the "Big Four" pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, Survivor Series, and the Royal Rumble. Those four events, along with King of the Ring, are known as the "Classic Five".

Brand Extention

• Further information: IWE Brand Extension

The first SummerSlam was held on August 29, 1988 in Madison Square Garden in New York City. In 2002, IWE instituted a brand extension,where the roster was split and wrestlers and pay-per-views were made exclusive to the Raw and SmackDown! brands. As a result, SummerSlam, WrestleMania, the Royal Rumble, and Survivor Series were the only four events featuring wrestlers and matches from both brands. The 2006 event was the first to also feature the newly made XCW brand. In 2007, however, all pay-per-views began once again featuring talent from all three brands.

IWE SummerSlam Pay Per Views

DVD box set

IWE released a complete DVD box set entitled SummerSlam: The Complete Anthology, which showcases every SummerSlam event from 1988 to 2007 in their entirety, on August 5, 2008.

Footnotes

References

External links