Here are the matches . . .
Rockers v Power and Glory: This turned into a handicap match as repackaged jobbers to the stars Hercules and Paul Roma hit Shawn Michaels in his already injured leg on ambush with the chain. Marty Jannetty makes a valiant effort before succumbing to the innovative Power Plex and pin. Michaels leaves the arena on a stretcher, selling his leg injury like a wild man. 4/10
Texas Tornado v Mr Perfect for the Intercontinental title: Mr Perfect takes a few bumps before losing to the claw and Tornado Punch for an upset pin-fall. It was a nice WWF moment but it's sad to see Perfect lose without putting in the work-rate for a man of his potential. 5/10
Sapphire v 'Sensational' Sherri: Sapphire loses the match by forfeit because she doesn't make it to the ring. The WWF do a reasonable job at making it look legitimate. 0/10
Tito Santana v Warlord: Tito jobbed to one Powers of Pain at Wrestlemania, he may as well job to the other at Summerslam and he doesn't do a bad job of it. Tito tries for a monkey-flip but Warlord holds on to turnbuckles finishing Tito off with the power-slam and pin. 4/10
Hart Foundation v Demolition for the tag team titles in a 2-3 falls match: Demolition incorporated a new member called Crush to share the work load because Ax wasn't well and started a confusion angle (the only people confused where the officials as far as I was concerned) where Harts didn't know which two of the three they were getting. Interesting that Crush refer to Legion of Doom as 'second rate impostors' as Legion of Doom were the inspiration behind Demoliton. Crush and Smash start the match and get the first pin on Bret making it 1-0 to Demolition. The Foundation would soon come back after a terrible decision by Crush to take out the ref rather than Bret Hart who was pinning Smash - deliberate or rookie mistake? Shortly after the disqualification decision on Demolition (making it 1-1), Ax comes to the ring and hides under the apron and from there Smash switches sides so a fresh Ax comes into play. Legion of Doom come to the ring shortly after to serve justice to Demolition. Crush gets schoolboy pinned after taking a ringside slingshot from Niedhart making it 2-1 to The Hart Foundation to become new tag team champions. What I once considered a classic isn't as amazing in retrospect because The Foundation weren't fighting the original members. 7/10
Jake 'The Snake' Roberts v Bad News Brown - Bigbossman as special referee: Absolutely horrendous match as Bad News Brown gets disqualified for hitting Jake a second time in the stomach with a chair. This effort would be Bad News Brown's last match on PPV. 2/10
'Hacksaw' Jim Duggan and Nikolai Volkoff v Orient Express: It is very weird to see Nikolai Volkoff as a face but even more weird seeing him sing 'America the Beautiful' badly with Duggan before the match. The Orient Express get murdered by Duggan and Volkoff which ends in Duggan's 3 point stance clothesline and rare clean pin.3/10
Dusty Rhodes v 'Machoking' Randy Savage: The only point to the match was to show where Sapphire ended up - bought out by Ted Dibiase. The empty smile on Sapphire's face seemed very effective. This got poor Dusty distracted, ambushed and pinned after use of Sherri's loaded purse within a very short space of time. Dusty screaming for Sapphire after the match as she went off in Ted's limousine was quite an image. If Dusty had his way, Sapphire would have been a prostitute but WWF thought it unsuitable. If the WWF did go with Dusty's idea it would have made this plot angle so much more darker. 2/10
Hulk Hogan v Earthquake: I know there was build-up to this match but it certainly didn't deserve main event status. Were the WWF that worried if Hogan didn't main event their PPVs he would be forgotten about or was it Hogan's ego taking control at this point? The Hulkamania thing became stale from here as we enter another 'clash of the titans' type match featuring the typical Hogan can't slam big guy the first time but does the second time type thing. The difference between this match and other Hogan matches is that Earthquake loses by count-out after getting slammed on a table which is an awful booking decision. Like Hogan did with Randy Savage, he kept Warrior close so he would be guaranteed another title shot. 4/10
Ultimate Warrior v 'Ravashing' Rick Rude for the World title in a steel cage: You can tell Rude was on the way out here because he referred to the crowd as 'Pennsylvanian Pissants' which caused a genuine stir. This match had shades of their previous encounter at the last Summerslam and was quite brutal as both were throwing each other into the cage from the start. I wasn't convinced that Rude would win the match after he went to the top of the cage following the 'Rude Awakening' neck breaker. He didn't look like he wanted to win, even missing an opportunity of going through the door while Warrior was tangling with Heenan. This would be Rude's last PPV match with the WWF. 6/10
Overall, I think the most disheartening realisation of Summerslam 1990 was that a lot of wrestlers at this point were on the way down, way out or underutilised and we would see the slow WWF career deaths of Dusty Rhodes and Demolition from this point on. Also I didn't realise how awful Roddy Piper was on commentary. I believe he was a 'Jesse Ventura replacement experiment' but it ended with bad results.