Background in
Chicago, Illinois.
SummerSlam is an annual
pay-per-view (PPV) produced every August by the
World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) since 1988. Dubbed "The Biggest Party of the Summer", it is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with
WrestleMania,
Royal Rumble, and
Survivor Series, and was considered one of the "Big Five" PPVs, along with
King of the Ring. It has since become considered WWF's second biggest event of the year behind WrestleMania. The 1994 event was the seventh event in the SummerSlam chronology and was held on Monday, August 29, 1994, at the
United Center in
Chicago, Illinois, which had opened eleven days earlier.
Storylines Kwang and
Adam Bomb were both
managed by
Harvey Wippleman. On May 28, 1994, a
King of the Ring qualifying match between Bomb and the
1–2–3 Kid was televised on
WWF Superstars. The angle saw The Kid win after Kwang attempted to interfere on Bomb's behalf. Kwang accidentally spat
green mist in Bomb's face, allowing the Kid to get the victory. Wippleman had Bomb and Kwang work as a
tag team, but problems continued between the two. The pair split after an argument cost them a match against the team of the 1–2–3 Kid and
"Sparky" Thurman Plugg.
Irwin R. Schyster, DiBiase's former partner in
Money Inc., also joined the stable. Bigelow and Schyster were paired together to challenge for the
WWF Tag Team Championship. The night before SummerSlam,
The Headshrinkers dropped the belts to
Diesel and
Shawn Michaels. The match took place as scheduled, but the title was not on the line. In early 1994, the WWF brought back the
WWF Women's Championship, which had been deactivated in 1990, and
pushed Alundra Blayze to win a championship tournament and defeat all challengers. Luna Vachon was brought in to challenge Blayze in a series of matches but was defeated each time.
Razor Ramon had been feuding with Shawn Michaels since being pushed to win the
WWF Intercontinental Championship in late 1993. After defeating Shawn Michaels at
WrestleMania X, Ramon dropped the belt to Diesel, Michaels' bodyguard. A rematch was scheduled for SummerSlam 1994. Ramon brought in
NFL Hall of Famer
Walter Payton to be his
cornerman and help prevent Michaels from interfering. On the July 11, 1994 edition of
Monday Night Raw, a major
worked storyline began when Ted DiBiase announced that he had convinced
Lex Luger to join the Million Dollar Corporation. Leading up to the pay-per-view,
Tatanka confronted Lex Luger on several occasions, criticizing him for "selling out" to DiBiase. This led to a
kayfabe admission from Luger that he had met with DiBiase, but Luger repeatedly denied having joined the corporation.
Jeff Jarrett and
Mabel had no real feud going into SummerSlam. Jarrett played the role of an aspiring country music singer, and Mabel portrayed a
rapper. As a result, the WWF promoted the match as part of a "rap versus country" rivalry. There was little buildup for the match until Mabel was booked to confront Jarrett on
Monday Night Raw the week before SummerSlam. He tried to provoke Jarrett into a fight, but Jarrett walked away through the crowd to avoid Mabel. was brought in to solve the mystery of
The Undertaker. The biggest storyline at SummerSlam began at the
1993 Survivor Series when
Owen Hart was eliminated from the “Hart Brothers vs. Shawn Michaels and His Knights”
elimination match due to miscommunication within the Hart team.
Bret Hart was walking along the
ring apron when Owen ran into him, causing Owen to lose his focus and be
pinned by Michaels. After the match, Owen interrupted his brothers’ victory celebration to verbally attack Bret. During the match, Bret
kayfabe injured his knee, Owen then
turned on Bret by kicking his injured leg and leaving him lying in the ring. Bret
jobbed to Owen in the opening match at
WrestleMania X but defeated
Yokozuna later in the pay-per-view to win the
WWF World Heavyweight Championship.
Jim Neidhart, Bret and Owen's real-life brother-in-law, became involved at
King of the Ring 1994 by aligning himself with Owen Hart. To settle the feud, Bret and Owen were
booked to face each other in a
Steel cage match at SummerSlam. After losing a
Casket match to Yokozuna at the
1994 Royal Rumble,
The Undertaker did not appear in the WWF for several months. In reality, he was given time off to allow a back injury to heal. The WWF foreshadowed his return by airing videos of people who claimed to have seen The Undertaker. Eventually, DiBiase, who introduced The Undertaker to the WWF in 1990, claimed to have brought The Undertaker back to the WWF. In the buildup to the match,
Leslie Nielsen performed short segments trying to solve the mystery of how two Undertakers could exist in a spinoff of his roles on
Police Squad! and
The Naked Gun films. ==Event==