An inside story.
The 31st anniversary of WWE's SummerSlam PPV took place on August 19th. In honor of that PPV, current Lucha Underground referee Marty Elias who worked for WWE in the early 2000's wrote a column for 'The Sports Daily'. Marty Elias wrote about the first-ever SummerSlam PPV that he worked as a WWE official and the match that he was assigned was the bout between Randy Orton and Hulk Hogan in 2006.
Marty Elias recalled being told by then-agent and WWE Hall Of Famer Sgt. Slaughter that he was going to be the referee for the bout.
"Sarge laughed, and said, “don’t start crying on me!” Sarge then told me “‘kid’, go make the best of this match and enjoy it. Stuff like this doesn’t happen to everyone!” I asked him, ‘what do you mean?’ He said, “you have the Hulk Hogan vs Randy Orton match tonight!”
My heart sank, and I asked him to repeat what he said. He said, “you have the Hogan match, have fun!” Right there and then, I had flashbacks to when I would take my younger brothers to the LA Sports Arena to see Hulk Hogan in the late 80s early 90s. I surely thought Sarge was ribbing me! But this was no rib!"
A few paragraphs in and Marty Elias began diving into into how the finish of the match was put together and who was going to emerge victorious. He wrote that there was some back and forth between those who were in Hulk Hogan's locker room for the discussion but Vince McMahon eventually came into the room and let everyone know that Hulk was "up".
"As we entered the dressing room, there sat Hulk Hogan, Jimmy “Mouth Of The South” Hart, and Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake. As we discussed the match, the issue of who was “going over” came up and it went back and forth for a bit. Vince McMahon finally came into the dressing room to chat with Hulk and the issue of who was “over” was settled right there.
Vince told everyone that Hulk was “up” and we would discuss things further later. As the match was put together, there was a spot Hulk wanted to “get the crowd” and it involved me! If you go back and look at the “spot”, it was when I counted “3” without realizing Hulk’s foot was on the bottom rope."
Hogan ultimately defeated Randy Orton in ten minutes at that 2006 SummerSlam PPV. On a related note, "The Hulkster" recently announced that he was bringing the band back together in the form of the n.W.o. with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash for a "2 Sweet Tour".
