A Hot Summer Night

A Hot Summer Night: The '85 World Invitational Wrestling Spectacular[6] (also known as Polynesian Hot Summer Night[2]) was a professional wrestling supercard produced by NWA Polynesian Pro Wrestling (NWA-PPW), which took place on August 3, 1985, at the Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii.[2] An interpromotional show, it featured wrestlers from the American Wrestling Association, Jim Crockett Promotions and New Japan Pro-Wrestling.[3][4][5][7]

Sixteen professional wrestling matches were set on the event's supercard. The main attraction on the event card was Ric Flair defending the NWA World Heavyweight Championship against Siva Afi, which ended in a double disqualification.[8][9] In the other main event, Antonio Inoki wrestled Bruiser Brody in a standard wrestling match. The undercard included Lars Anderson winning the NWA Polynesian Pacific Heavyweight Championship from Bad News Allen,[10] defending NWA Polynesian Pacific Tag Team Champions The Soul Patrol (Rocky Johnson and Ricky Johnson) beating The Dirty White Boys (Len Denton and Tony Anthony),[11] and The Family (André the Giant, Angelo Mosca and Steve Collins) defeating Sullivan's Army (King Kong Bundy, Mark Lewin and Kevin Sullivan) in a six-man tag team match.[1][2][4][5] According to a pre-match stipulation, anyone who managed to bodyslam Bundy would win $20,000.[6]

The event had an attendance of between 12,553[1][2] and 19,955[3][4][5] people. While working for Jim Crockett Promotions, Jim Cornette was told that the show drew 15,000.[12] It was the first show in Hawaii to gross over $100,000[13] and remained the state's highest-attended pro wrestling event during the 1980s wrestling boom. The record lasted for over 5 years until the WWF held a live event at the same venue in 1991.[14] A second installment, A Hot Summers Night II, was held the following year but had a much smaller turnout due to a severe rainstorm.[15] The failure of this second supercard, and a disastrous 1987 tour of California, is blamed for the promotion's close only three years later.[4][5]

Several matches from A Hot Summer Night were broadcast on the promotion's syndicated television program Polynesian Pacific Pro Wrestling[16] and on TV Asahi for NJPW's World Pro Wrestling[17] later that month. A number of these episodes were released on VHS and DVD in the early-2000s, however, the full show is not commercially available. In May 2022, the event was depicted on the "Backyard Brawl-B-Q" episode of Young Rock.[18]