Wrestlemania 6
Date: April 1, 1990
Location: SkyDome, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Attendance: 67,678
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura
O Canada: Robert Goulet

If you remember what I said in the last review about WM 5 being the first standard WM, this one is the first standard blockbuster Wrestlemania. This Mania has the truly huge show atmosphere to it and there are two main reasons for it. Number one is the crowd is massive. At over 67,000 people, this would be the second biggest crowd for a Wrestlemania for the next 11 years.

Second, you had the second biggest Wrestlemania Main event of all time which was title for title. Absolutely no one knew who to pick in this match. That to me is what makes a match at least a notch higher up. Also the actual look of the show changed. If you watch 4 and 5, you see the older look to it.

I’m not sure how to put it into words but if you watch either of them and then 6 one after another you’ll see what I mean. 6 simply looks much newer. I know that it’s a year later, but the jump is a huge difference. The card is long and while there’s some filler, it’s good filler. I’m a sucker for this show but I’ll try to be objective.

To begin with, one of the most memorable things about this show is the opening. It shows the night sky and talks about the constellations in it. Eventually we get to constellations of Hogan and Warrior. Vince’s booming voice over this scene makes the show and the match just seem epic.

Koko B. Ware vs. Rick Martel

Ok so not every match can be great. The newest WWE HOF member still makes me shake my head. Martel is a better choice than he is but that’s a topic for another thread. This is the WM debut of Martel’s Model gimmick. For this show the ring carts from WM 3 are back. For those that haven’t seen them, they’re small motorized carts that the wrestlers ride to the ring in. Kind of a cool idea.

I assume they’re used to prevent people from having to make the very long walk to the ring. You can tell how great Koko is. Gorilla’s line talking about how good he is: “He’s proven he can take anybody to the limit.” Read as, he can’t beat anyone. Koko only stands 5’8. Never knew how short he was. Martel is only 6’0 but it looks pretty funny to see the tiny face like that.

They actually thought this was the best possible opening match for Wrestle-freaking-Mania? Really? Frankie was always kind of cool. Martel jumps him to start and Koko is in trouble early on. Koko had a decent dropkick and that’s about it. Yet he’s in the Hall of Fame and Randy Savage isn’t. Amazing.

Martel sends him to the floor and Koko is in trouble. Ha I said that just as Gorilla did. The crowd starts a small boring chant and I can’t say I blame them. Boston Crab is blocked early. In the clipped version the first Boston Crab attempt is shown going on as Martel turns him towards the ropes and he winds up in the middle of the ring with it. Odd indeed.

Koko hits a pair of flying headbutts that just look awful. On the third one in one of the dumbest spots I’ve ever seen, he fakes the headbutt and after a second, Martel falls anyway. I could get that he was bracing himself and fell or something, but Koko gets a long two out of it. WOW. Missed cross body leads to the Boston Crab for the submission.

Rating: D. This was a squash and a bad one. Koko truly is bad in the ring. He’s bland and for whatever reason was popular. Bad way to start a show. Koko was one of those guys in the 80s that wasn’t any good but was pushed on occasion as a midcard threat anyway and more or less was a jobber to the stars. Weak opening match.

Andre and Haku, the Colossal Connection, are called the Colostomy Connection by Gene. Heenan says if you want to talk about evacuation…Wow again. They say they’re going to eliminate Demolition. Gene, as they leave: “The Colossal Connection, they’re anything but regular guys.” My goodness.

Demolition wants to destroy and demolish the Connection and take the belts back.

Tag Titles: Demolition vs. The Colossal Connection

This is Demolition’s rematch from when the Connection beat them in I believe December. It was also their chance to become three time tag champions. The crowd chants Weasel at Heenan which sounds great in this huge arena. This match is absolutely nothing but power all around. In something that I never realized before and someone correct me if I’m wrong but this was Andre’s last televised WWF match.

Andre jumps them to start and the challengers are in trouble early. Apparently the Harts want a shot at the winners. Smash and Haku officially start us off. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing the Islander a lot. Those big screens in the back are rather cool.

Andre only pops in every once in awhile to throw punches and choke. The perk of him being so freaking huge is that a simple move like one of those is enough to take a guy down and have it look very realistic.

This whole thing is pretty much just ok at best. Haku vs. Demolition isn’t a match I particularly care to see but it’s all they could do. I would kind of question putting the titles on the Connection simply to give Andre a title run in his career but it’s better than ignoring him I suppose. Axe gets beaten down for the majority of the match.

Haku wrestles almost all of the match here as Andre was in bad shape at this point. Haku accidentally superkicks Andre into the ropes and Demolition lands their finisher to pick up the titles. Post match, Heenan goes nuts on Andre in the corner, at one point clearly saying he’s the boss. Then in something that boggles even my smark mind, Bobby slaps him. The look on Andre’s face is nothing short of great.

He grabs Bobby by the throat and slaps him a few times and punches him. He catches Haku’s thrust kick and beats the heck out of him too. Heenan and Haku get thrown off the cart as Andre leaves on his own to the crowd losing their minds. The sad part though is how hunched over Andre is. Truly a sad sight.

Rating: C-. This was a fun little match that wasn’t entirely predictable. The post match stuff is even better than the match. Ticked off giants are just plain fun. It’s more or less just a way to give the fans something to cheer for which works fine I guess. Nothing special at all but fun.

In the back we see Earthquake and Jimmy Hart who says that there’s going to be an earthquake and Earthquake says Hercules will crumble.

Hercules vs. Earthquake

Do I have to watch this? Seriously, what are you expecting here? Quake is undefeated here and is putting people in the hospital left and right. He tries to jump Hercules to start and Herc pounds away with punches.

We get a test of strength and being a heel, Earthquake cheats after getting in trouble. He pounds away with fat man moves before Herc gets a shot in. After a bunch of big power shots he can’t take Earthquake off his feet.

And then like an IDIOT, Hercules tries for the backbreaker (torture rack) and gets drilled. You freaking deserve that for being stupid. A few shots put him down and the Earthquake Splash ends it. He deserves pain like that too.

Rating: D-. I liked Hercules, but this was just bad. It wasn’t quite a squash but it might as well have been. He beats Hercules up more afterwards and he deserves it for being stupid enough to try the Rack like that. Earthquake would be top heel by August.

Some old lady named Rona Barrett talks to Liz who is going to be more active in wrestling.

Brutus Beefcake is going to end Mr. Perfect’s “perfect” record. He shows off how sharp his scissors are by snipping at the paper the record is on and the paper doesn’t cut. Amazing indeed.

Brutus Beefcake vs. Mr. Perfect.

Perfect beat the tar out of Beefcake at the Rumble so this is little more than a grudge match. Can’t beat that. That Brutus music is downright awesome. Gorilla STEALS Jesse’s line about Brutus looking like a hand grenade went off in his pocket. Wouldn’t that result in a bad leg injury?

They start off hard and fast again which is a tradition so far tonight. Brutus dominates to start, sending Perfect flying. He might still be undefeated here but I’m not sure. Things slow down a lot as we talk about conditioning.

Gorilla isn’t sure what the weak spot is on Hennig. I’d recommend hitting him in the face. Brutus goes for the sleeper as Mary Tyler Moore is here. This Mania is officially awesome. Genius slips the scroll to Perfect which gets two. I love that neck snap Perfect does. Beefcake makes his comeback and hits a slingshot into the post for the pin out of NOWHERE.

Rating: C. Compared to what’s come before it, this match is Steamboat and Savage. Brutus, for all his faults, wasn’t that bad in the ring. Having a guy with him like Hennig helped a lot, and this might be Brutus’ biggest win ever. The postmatch beatdown is very old school pink on pink action fun as well.

Post match the Genius gets a haircut for his troubles.

To say this match is interesting would be an understatement. We see a video recapping the buildup. This match came about because Piper eliminated Bad News from the Rumble and Bad News came back in and eliminated him. They fought to the back. For those that don’t know, Brown was legit. He is the only American heavyweight to win a medal in Olympic Judo, and also made Andre the Giant back down in a real fight in Japan after Andre made a racist joke. Anyway, 3 weeks after the Rumble, Bad News made a joke about Piper’s kilt which is just too far.

In a promo that would never be allowed to air today, Piper is in the back and says he’s the Hot Rod, but at other times he’s the Hot Scot. At that point, he turns around and you see that half of his body is painted back right down the middle. After a brief karaoke of Billy Jean, Piper insults Brown’s looks in a funny promo and says he’s going to shut Bad News’ big mouth, but Brown doesn’t know if it’ll be Hot Rod or Hot Scot that does it.

I’m still not sure what the point of the whole painting thing was.

Roddy Piper vs. Bad News Brown

I think this is no DQ but I’m not sure. This isn’t so much a match as it is a fight. Very few wrestling moves and mainly punches and kicks but it was designed to be that way. The fighting is fun because it’s what these two are best at. Surprisingly Piper is ripped here in by far the best shape he’s ever been in.

Allegedly that paint took weeks to get off due to a rib from Andre and someone else. Not sure how true that is. Yeah there’s no wrestling at all here. Sometimes that’s a great thing though and here that’s exactly what this should be like.

The way Brown beats up Roddy and then Roddy just casually pokes him in the eye is great. Brown gets sent into exposed steel and is down. Piper pulls out a white glove as we continue the Michael Jackson theme night which I suppose is what the black and white thing is about. Match ends in a double count out and it means nothing. They continue brawling all the way up the ramp and into the back.

Rating: A. This match was nonstop fighting and was insanely fun. There was next to no wrestling in it but that that’s what made it great. I loved this match the first time I saw it and it’s still great. And yes that’s highly biased.

Steve Allen, the former Tonight Show host, is in a bathroom with a piano with the Bolsheviks practicing the Russian National Anthem. He makes a few jokes but finally says he’ll do the real Russian Anthem. He opens his mouth and a toilet flushes. Steve runs to save his own life.

Hart Foundation vs. The Bolsheviks

The Harts want Demolition. This match literally lasts 19 seconds. Harts knock the Bolsheviks down during their singing, land the Hart Attack and it’s over.

Rating: N/A. What can I say about 19 seconds? Funny if nothing else. The pop for Hart is coming too. It’s not there yet but you can see the star in him. Granted that might be the Canada thing

Wrestlemania 7 is coming to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and there will be over 100,000 fans there!

Edit from the future: no there won’t be. Ticket sales bombed and they moved it to the Sports Arena in the same town which held about 16,000 people.

Barbarian vs. Tito Santana

Tito does a promo that I literally couldn’t pay attention to. This match screamed HOUSE SHOW to me. It’s two guys in a ring doing moves on each other. There’s little psychology and less meaning to most of it. It’s not bad wrestling, but there’s no spark to it at all. Santana is a great worker, but this match just did nothing for me.

Yeah this isn’t much at all. Santana does a bit, Barbarian hits the floor to hide a bit with Heenan, Jesse makes enchilada jokes, Barbarian comes back in, and we let the destruction begins. It’s not bad but at the same time this isn’t much at all. It’s not boring, but I wonder why this is on Wrestlemania. Barbarian wins with a clothesline off the top that was sweet looking.

Rating: D. Like I said, it’s not bad at all, but it just did nothing for me. I don’t get the need for this being on here though as Tito was destroyed both here and at Summerslam by the Powers of Pain. I guess I get the idea of having them get good matches (in theory) but really? This needed to be on Mania?

Next up is a recap of the upcoming mixed tag which I believe was a first at the time. Sapphire, as worthless of a person as there ever has been in wrestling, is shown beating up Sherri which just infuriates me, and Macho King feuding with the Common Man Dusty Rhodes. Fairly cool concept for a feud really, even though Dusty boarders on Communism in his promo. He also talks about having the Crown Jewel but no one knows what they mean.

Macho King and Queen Sherri vs. Dusty Rhodes and Sapphire

The King having people carry him to the ring on the throne was always just insanely cool to me for some reason. The fun part of this for some reason was figuring out the women’s weight based on the male’s weights. Sherri at about 130-140 and Sapphire at 180-190, which Jesse says is impossible and I think I agree with him. The more Dusty promos I hear the more I like him. His mic work is great.

Dusty says that they have something Macho doesn’t have, which is the Crown Jewel. The Crown Jewel is none other than Elizabeth. For the first time in way too long, Savage absolutely loses it. The crowd pops louder than they’ve done all night as she goes to Dusty and Sapphire’s corner.

Liz is definitely good looking in blue. The genders have to match up here so that’s good. Sapphire is just horrible. One of her attacks is a hip into the other chick’s hips. I can’t believe I’m going to say this but GET BACK TO DUSTY!

Dusty does what he can here and it’s just not working for the most part. A lot of this is the girls doing what they can which isn’t much for the most part as they’re just not very good. Well Sherri is but she can’t work miracles. Savage destroys Dusty until the required big comeback makes the save.

This match is all over the place the entire match and it’s incredibly fun. Rhodes is at his best when he can just go crazy in a match and that’s what this is. Dusty is in the ring the entire time almost which is the best thing possible. Dusty is just on fire the whole time and Savage is his usual great self. Sapphire finally gets in the ring and proves my theory: she is awful. Sadly enough, she pins Sherri in a dark day for wrestling. Liz actually dances with Dusty and Sapphire to Common Man after the match.

Rating: D-. Sapphire literally drops this about a full letter grade. She was flat out awful and there is no reason she should have pinned Sherri at all. Dusty and Savage carry this to a decent grade though. It’s a sad day that Dusty Rhodes is the workhorse of his team but that was the case here.

Hey, did you know WM 7 will be in Los Angeles? Don’t know if the promo that aired earlier would get the message across or not.

Heenan is upset. Okerlund is all over the place tonight as he says, “Bobby Heenan where do you have the ba…guts to insult Andre the Giant?” You can clearly see Bobby almost lose it after that. He declares war on Andre and says he’ll be getting a new Heenan Family together.

That old woman from earlier is with Gorilla and Jesse in the back and yet again, I couldn’t care less. Allegedly there’s a clip of Jesse in an adult movie out there somewhere. Never heard anything about that and I don’t think it’s true.

Macho Man cuts a promo that makes literally no sense. I think it’s about Dusty Rhodes.

Demolition is glad to have won the titles in the fifth promo in a row. They say the Harts can bring it on.

In promo #6, Hogan cuts one of his most famous promos ever, telling Warrior that the power lies in the palm of his hand. He also says that he can save all of the Little Warriors with the training, the prayers and the vitamins. Hogan goes on to say that his Hulkamaniacs want to help them. Rewatching this, it’s clear that Hogan would lose. He mentions that the winner or the loser doesn’t matter, but what kind of winner or loser you are.

At the end of the show, he hands the belt to Warrior and holds up his hand, being a “good loser.” Wow it’s fun to see these in a different light. Also starting to wonder if “take your vitamins” is a tongue in cheek reference to taking steroids, but that might be a stretch.

Guess what’s next? Go on, guess. If you said Promo #7, I’ll get you a ham sandwich. In an equally famous promo, Warrior says that Hogan’s life can be lived through the Warrior, but it will be in the darkness. Everything is about accepting challenges, but Hogan has never met a challenge like him. He’s going to bring the Warriors and the Hulkamaniacs together as one.

Rockers vs. Orient Express

See, this is what I loved about the 80s and early 90s: the tag division was AWESOME. There were at least 8 distinctly gimmicked teams fighting all over the place. There were jobber teams, midcard teams and main event tag teams. These teams almost always had great matches together. They had a great one at the 91 Rumble so hopefully this holds up.

Tanaka vs. Jannetty opens us up. Surprisingly enough this is pretty fast paced to start. Fuji interferes with the cane to set up Marty as the Ricky Morton for this match. And never mind as Shawn is already back in. Tanaka takes him down with a cross body for no cover.

The fans are into this which is always a good sign. It’s actually Shawn as the face in peril here which is the custom of the Rockers. It’s weird to see the Rockers getting outworked. Marty comes in to more or less no pop which is odd.

The double teaming by the good guys begins and Tanaka takes a big old flipping flip off a double back drop. Fuji trips Janetty and salt goes into his eyes as he falls into the crowd. Are we sure he’s not just drunk? He gets counted out to let evil win the day.

Rating: C. Semi-filler, but that doesn’t mean it has to be bad. This is definitely the weakest of their feud which is saying a lot as this was sitll fine. Not a bad match but not great really. The ending more or less sucked but that isn’t incredibly bad. It set up a future match I guess but I wasn’t big on it.

Steve Allen is with Rhythm and Blues. Allen says he hasn’t been so excited since he heard Pee Wee Herman was straight. Good grief this show was pushing things for 1990.

Jim Duggan vs. Dino Bravo

Duggan waves the American flag in Canada. Well no one ever said he was intelligent. Jesse is impressed by the crowd as he should be. It’s huge. This is your standard power brawl and with Duggan in there, it’s likely not going to be that great. Surprising no one, it’s pretty dull.

The crowd is into it though so that’s good. Here’s some punching. And some kicking. Plus some more punching. Ooo it’s a back breaker. Yeah it’s one of those matches. Never been a fan of these matches but they’re trying…..ok not really but it sounds good.

Earthquake and Hart interfere of course. We get an argument about manager’s licenses and all that jazz which goes nowhere. Eventually the referee yells at him leading to a 2×4 to Bravo’s back and a pin. Post match Quake beats the heck out of Duggan.

Rating: D+. It was bad but they kept it short which was very smart. These two were thrown out there on a ton of Superstars shows which went nowhere. This was too short and it never went anywhere at all which doesn’t surprise me at all. Weak match and filler. It’s just not a good sign when there’s nothing to bring the crowd down from. You can tell they’re here for one match only.

Video package showing Jake Roberts stealing DiBiase’s Million Dollar Belt which happened over the course of about a year for some reason. Jake is in the back and cuts what might be one of the best promos I’ve ever seen. He starts by saying this is the biggest match in DiBiase’s career. At that moment I thought this was going to suck because 2 years ago he was main eventing WM for the World Title.

But then Jake started talking about DiBiase’s values and his life, and something impressive happened: I believed him. That my friends, is why Jake Roberts is considered great. He was able to make you believe something that wasn’t true. That is what psychology in wrestling is. He did something that made you believe in what he was trying to sell to you. Greatness indeed.

Ted DiBiase vs. Jake Roberts

If there are two better 80s performers that never got a real chance in the main event, I’d like to see them. Jake dominates at first and goes to town on DiBiase’s arm but as DiBiase pretends to bail, Jake gets caught by him. I hope this is a Canadian tradition and not a sign of boredom but the Wave begins in the SkyDome which really is an impressive sight in a crowd that big. I kind of see it as disrespectful though.

A wide shot shows that the ring is on a pedestal/platform kind of thing which really is cool. Jake immediately goes for the DDT but can’t get anywhere with it. This is your standard match between these guys with a LONG chinlock. These two fought time and time again, usually for the Million Dollar Belt, and it never went anywhere.

Jake makes his usual comeback and then gets taken down again. And there’s the chinlock again. Was Ted afraid to do much other than something like that? Apparently it’s to get through the Wave. Well that makes sense. Jake makes his comeback and still I will say that no one bumps as well as DiBiase does for his size. They go outside and DiBiase locks in the Dream again but goes into the post.

Virgil him back in before the 10 though and DiBiase gets the win. Post match Jake comes back and beats both men up, sending money flying everywhere. Virgil gets away with the money but Jake gets a picture perfect DDT on DiBiase and the fans explode. You can see the head slam off the mat and it looks great. Jake then hands out the real $100 bills that DiBiase dropped, including one to Hollywood legend Mary Tyler Moore.

Rating: C. Well they tried but the whole Wave = chinlock thing messed up a lot of their stuff. They tried as hard as they could but the crowd was against them here. This was a huge feud and DIBiase gets the title back via countout but whatever. The number of matches is hurting the show again.

In the back, we hear Slick talk about why Bossman turned face, which was because he wouldn’t be paid off by DiBiase to do his bidding, saying that he was a fair law enforcer. That split up the team of Bossman and Akeem so we get this match. Bossman, which is really a great gimmick, another great feature of the 80s, says that he’s proud to be an American. Great way to be a face buddy.

Akeem vs. Big Boss Man

Bossman’s eyes are sweet looking on the way to the ring. Before the match, DiBiase, the guy that tried to buy off Bossman in the fall, comes from under the ring and beats up Bossman so Akeem dominates to begin with. Bossman lands a great boot to the face though to break the momentum.

He’s down and trying to get his breath but then just snaps up like absolutely nothing is wrong with him. It looked REALLY bad. He goes off on Akeem and a few seconds later an amazing Bossman Slam considering Akeem’s size gets the pin. Post match, Bossman punches Slick.

Rating:N/A. Just another quickie and it gets nowhere at all.

Sean Mooney is in the crowd and asks if people are looking forward the Rhythm And Blues singing. Mary Tyler Moore is apparently a wrestling fan and I now love her even more than I did before.

Now we get the famous scene from this show: the Pink Cadillac carrying Rhythm And Blues. The reason this is famous? The owner and driver of the car is none other than future two time, two time WCW World Heavyweight Champion, Diamond Dallas Page. He was just about to debut in WCW at the time. He actually might have already but if he had he had been there all of a month.

They perform their new song, Hunka Hunka Hunka Honkey Love (Word wants to murder me for that) and it’s bad. You can see Jimmy Hart is the only one that has a clue what he’s doing which makes sense.

For those of you that don’t know, Jimmy Hart was the main person responsible for all of the mind blowing songs used in the WWF in the 80s and early 90s. Back in the 60s he was lead singer for a band called the Gentrys that had a big hit called Keep On Dancing. They went on tour with the Beach Boys so apparently they had something going for them. Hart brought that legit talent to wrestling music and it worked really well.

For God knows what reason, the Bushwackers appear selling programs at ringside. Realizing that these are the worst disguises of all time, they pull them off and run off Rhythm and Blues before destroying their guitars. Kind of funny, more stupid though. The funniest part of this is Jesse referencing a CD and Gorilla doesn’t sound that sure as to what it is.

Yet again, WM 7 in Los Angeles. The sad thing is I remember the real commercials that had the ticket number in it that’s been edited out since. I could literally quote the ticket number in this if I wanted to. That’s kind of sad.

New SkyDome attendance record of 67,678 people. These announcements are always kind of cool to me. However, the fans seem completely uncaring about this.

Rick Rude vs. Jimmy Snuka

This match is pure filler before the main event. Steve Allen is on commentary here. Standard match here for these two. Back and forth which makes it a decent match. Snuka doing the hip swivel is funny if nothing else. Rude wins with a Rude Awakening. Steve Allen has some very funny lines in this and it boosted the match a lot. For those that may have forgotten, Allen was kind of like the Jay Leno of his time, just not quite as famous but very close to it.

Rating: C-. Funny and that’s it. No one cares as it’s time for Hogan vs. Warrior.

And now it’s time for the main event. First up of course is a recap though. It stated with the two of them saying nice things about each other in their promos and then they wound up being alone together in the Rumble. They do a nicely choreographed routine ending in a double clothesline, but DANG was it exciting to see it at the time. This would be like Hogan and Austin today.

A week later they were in a tag match with Mr. Perfect and his manager/partner the Genius. Hogan and Warrior win but afterwards the brawl continues. Hogan gets nailed by mistake with a Warrior clothesline. A month later Warrior is in trouble against Earthquake and Hogan makes the save after the match for Mania had been announced. Two weeks after that, same scenario, just switch Hogan and Warrior.

In other words, Earthquake was a very scary man. Hogan tries to get up and Warrior runs back and forth. Hogan has his back to him and Warrior raises his arm for a clothesline but stops dead. Then Hogan turns and puts his fists up. Warrior hits the ropes again, hops to the floor and runs away. Seriously, this guy was messed up at times.

Intercontinental Title/WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. The Ultimate Warrior

This was dubbed The Ultimate Challenge and both belts were on the line. Warrior’s music hits and I don’t ever recall a crowd going from dead to insane so quickly, at least not until Austin and the glass shattering began. Everything about this match is absolutely epic. Even the entrances just feel big if that makes sense. This is what Wrestlemania was supposed to end with and it works perfectly here.

Absolutely great job in building this up as face vs. face was very risky and still is hard to do today. Hogan’s ovation is clearly louder, but not by much. In one of the coolest scenes ever, Hogan’s music plays and as we pan from the crowd to the entry way, Warrior is seen standing on the middle rope doing his press slam motion. I marked out beyond belief just for the entrances.

It’s hard to do, but they awakened the inner young fan in me, the Hulkamaniac that lurks inside my soul. One thing I’ve always wondered: when Warrior comes to the ring, he clearly has his symbol painted on his chest, yet 5 minutes into the match it’s gone without a trace. That’s too fast to have been knocked off and wouldn’t there be traces if it was sweated off?

Crowd is white hot for this. Both guys shove each other away. And now for the iconic moment of the match: the test of strength. Warrior puts Hogan down but Hogan comes back and puts Warrior down. Hogan gets a slam and Warrior pops up. Warrior gets a slam and Hogan doesn’t pop up.

Hogan goes to the floor and holds his knee. This will NEVER be mentioned again after it gets better. The key thing here though: it lets Hogan be able to say that Warrior didn’t beat him at his best. The referee keeps trying to protect Hogan and Warrior is like screw you short man.

Naturally Hogan is fine now so the knee thing is completely forgotten, never to be mentioned again. Hogan gets the worst chinlock ever to take over for awhile. He puts Warrior down and waits awhile before covering after a clothesline. Ok then.

Back to the chinlock now as this is going more or less nowhere at all. A belly to back suplex fills in the wrestling quota for tonight. He gets his fourth chinlock to fill in time. Double clothesline and both go down after Hogan has taken next to no punishment this whole time.

Warrior does an Undertaker sit up before Taker was around. Warrior Warriors Up and the bald man is in trouble. Bear hug goes on Hogan. There are FAR more rest holds in this than I remember. This one goes on for like two and a half minutes.

And down goes the referee. Hogan gets what would be a three count. Warrior gets what would be a three count. Warrior hammers away and manages to get the press slam and the splash for two as the fans are in shock.

He Hulks Up as Warrior pounds away on him. Three punches and a big boot set up the leg drop. The leg drop amazingly misses and Warrior hits a big splash and wins the title in one of the biggest shockers of all time.

Rating: A+. This match lived up to the amazing hype that it got and showed that Hogan could work a long match that wasn’t in his normal formula. It also showed that Warrior did indeed have the capabilities to wrestle well if given the right opponent, which he had also done with Rude. While I think Hogan should have kept the title, that doesn’t mean that it was a bad match, because it was great.

The finish made sense and didn’t make Hogan look weak but made Warrior look strong. That’s hard to do. I don’t know what I can say about this match that hasn’t already been said. For both men, it’s likely the match of their lives. They have nearly 68,000 people in the palms of their hands for nearly 23 minutes and it never lets up once. Everything is a small war and the crowd knows it. Every little thing in this match is done well and that makes it a classic.

Both men do their signature no pain things, and you literally didn’t know who was going to win. When Hogan hulked up, I truly believed for a split second he was going to win. That’s great work. The finish to this epic struggle came when Hogan missed the leg drop and Warrior splashed him for the pin, and wrestling changed forever. Jesse’s shout of THE WARRIOR’S WON THE TITLE is absolutely perfect.

After Hogan hands him the belt and steals a bit of the spotlight, the arena goes a bit darker and pyro goes off all over the place. The big screens show Warrior shaking the ropes with the belt in hand and it’s just amazing to look at. A great ending to a great match and show.

Overall Rating: C+. This was a really hard decision for me because based on the main event, the Brown/Piper match and a few others, this show is really great to watch. However, there’s some flaws that keep it from being perfect. For one thing and I didn’t really touch on this, the time it took to get to the ring was just way too long. I know there’s not much they could do about that, but it really slowed things down at times.

Also, there were too many short matches. The card doesn’t need to have everyone on the card. Take the opener for example. That was a waste of nearly 10 minutes counting introductions. Finally, WAY too many backstage promos. We don’t need an interview before every match. It’s just overkill at that point. However, those are simply keeping a great show from being legendary.

This show had the real Wrestlemania feel to it and it shows. It was supposed to be an epic show and it lived up to it. The matches were for the most part good, stories were advanced, things were memorable, and it was fun. Definite recommendation here as so far, it’s the second best Mania and arguably the best along with 3. Los Angeles, here we come!

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Simple question here.I’d think yeah he should have.  Can you imagine Savage getting counted out or DQed and the heat for the rematches over the summer until Summerslam?  It could have been insane.

 

Thoughts?

Wrestlemania 5
Date: April 2, 1989
Location: Trump Plaza, Atlantic City, New Jersey
Attendance: 18,946
Announcers: Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura
America The Beautiful: Rockin Robin

This show is more or less the WWF waking up and realizing that not announcing your main event until 20 minutes before it happens isn’t really a good idea. The tagline for this show was very simple: The Mega Powers Explode! Simple concept that’s as old as wrestling itself: Hogan helps Savage become champion, Hogan gets the spotlight even without the belt, Savage’s jealousy gets the best of him and he snaps over a certain incident.

In this case, the incident was on my first birthday in a tag match with Akeem and Big Boss Man against the Mega Powers. Savage got tossed through the ropes and landed on Elizabeth. Hogan carried her back to get help and Savage was left all alone. They argue in the back with Savage cutting the best promo of his life as all of the anger he had stored up inside him erupts and he attacks Hogan to set up this showdown for the gold. Liz says she’s going to try to remain neutral in the main event.

The Women’s Champion sings America the Beautiful and does an ok job at it. Kind of a bland voice though.

Haku vs. Hercules

This match is part of a very unnoticed storyline where Hercules was part of the Heenan Family but was then “sold” to Ted DiBiase. This upset him and Hercules said he was a free man. He went on a small war with Heenan’s stable and I guess you’d call this the climax of that. The feud was nothing at all and it went nowhere as Hercules just wasn’t over at all. This is a power vs. power match that pleasantly surprised me as it has a fair amount of solid wrestling on it and not just all power.

The powder blue tights just don’t do it for a guy with the name of Hercules. Donald Trump is in the front row again which makes sense as he owns the place. Haku is really getting outworked here. Hercules’ offense is a lot more diverse as opposed to chops and bearhugs with a kick thrown in here and there. That’s kind of the storyline of this whole match too and you can see that in the ending.

Haku is the King of Wrestling here and for some reason that isn’t on the line in this match. It was an odd kind of semi-title where you would be proclaimed king and get to wear a crown and have a bunch of muscle jobbers bring you out on a throne but other than that it never really went anywhere. Savage got it and held it for like a year or so and it more or less died after that.

This is about as bland as you can get but it’s surprisingly decent. Hercules worked better as a face because here he has something to fight for in his own pride. Back when he was a heel he had nothing special about him and was just a generic henchman. He’s more interesting and well rounded here though which is what a turn is supposed to accomplish.

Hercules lands a belly to back suplex into a bridge but shoots his shoulder up to avoid the double pin, which was exactly the same thing he lost to the year before. That’s a very subtle touch to his character that a lot of people don’t realize. It shows that he’s capable of learning something new and has adapted a new style over the last year.

Rating: C-. There’s a story here and there’s some decent action, but at the end of it all it’s just not that great. Good and not boring, but not great. This wasn’t much at all from a ring work standpoint but it was surprisingly good. I’m not sure why I like this match but I kind of always have and while it’s certainly an odd choice to open Wrestlemania with, it’s not bad.

In the back we see a team called the Rockers. This Marty Jannetty guy is a freaking STUD. I could see this guy winning something like the IC title, maybe some tag titles or something like that. His partner just does nothing for me though as he’s bland.

Twin Towers vs. The Rockers

Twin Towers are Big Bossman and Akeem, aka the One Man Gang in case you weren’t sure. Rockers had been around for a few months at this point but as they would wind up doing for their whole run they were still trying to find themselves as a team.

This is about as simple of a story as you can get: power vs. speed and it works fairly well here. Akeem seriously may be the greatest gimmick of all time. For those of you that don’t know, One Man Gang and his manager Slick found out that he was of African descent, despite being the palest Caucasian you’ll ever find.

He starts embracing his African roots and doing these weird dances and wearing weird outfits. To see him doing this is just hilarious and something that you should check out for a good laugh and I’d like to give whoever thought it up a ham sandwich.

Cool spot where Bossman has Jannetty up in a bear hug position and Akeem just slams into him. Simple yet effective. Jannetty gets his head handed to him the majority of the match. Slick screaming about how a black referee would count faster and wouldn’t cheat is just such a great touch when his wrestlers are whiter than snow.

Becca shouldn’t watch this match as Akeem just about kills Shawn with one of the best clotheslines I’ve ever seen. Bossman kills him even worse with a spinning powerbomb and then a splash by Akeem and Shawn is finally given a break as the pin goes down.

Rating: C. This was a solid performance by the Rockers but they really didn’t stand much of a chance. Some good spots make this quite passable though. What’s with the back to back generic matches to start off the biggest show of the year though? Is this really the best they could find?

Ted DiBiase is rich and likes to talk about it. He’s also got a new belt that he likes showing off.

Ted DiBiase vs. Brutus Beefcake

Hearing DiBiase having different homes for each season is just a perfect touch to the gimmick that makes him so much more fun to hate. Still say he’s the best heel of all time. Brutus finally has his awesome music here. Jesse describes Brutus’ pants perfectly: it looks like a grenade went off in his pockets. Ted talks to Trump before we start.

What exactly did Brutus expect to do with those huge hedge clippers? This is a balance of the sleepers. According to Gorilla this is one of the reasons the fans are here for. Something tells me that’s not the case. DiBiase cheats almost immediately as the heel he is. What a fall he’s taken in a year. From the main event to this. Wow.

We get a pretty nice back and forth sequence to start as both guys are moving pretty well out there. Jesse drops some names as they slug it out. It’s turned into a standard kick and punch match which isn’t interesting or anything but it fills in time pretty well I suppose.

DiBiase gets a nice shot off the middle rope but doesn’t cover or anything. Why do that anyway? No one gets pins off moves like those anyway. Brutus gets a small package for two. Double clothesline and Ted gets up first. There’s the Million Dollar Dream but Beefcake gets the rope. More kicking and punching sets up Beefcake’s sleeper. Virgil gets Beefcake on the floor and DiBiase follows, leading to a double countout. Gorilla kind of scoffs at the ending.

Rating: D+. They were just kind of there. Pretty boring too. Nothing interesting here at all. I’ve always loved the falling punch DiBiase used. Just something sweet about it. This is power versus technician but it just doesn’t come off that way. Beefcake was supposed to be a power guy I think but he wasn’t that good at it. It’s also not a power move to use a sleeper. Yeah this match was pretty weak.

There used to be a thing called the Bagels and Biceps Brunch. What the point of this was, I’m not sure but it apparently was a tradition. The Bushwackers, one of which licked my face at a house show, are about to face the Rougeaus.

Bushwackers vs. The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers

The Rougeau’s music of We’re All American Boys is nothing short of awesome. Just an awesome song and one of Jimmy Hart’s great touches. The Bushwackers are just out there even by today’s standards. How these guys lasted nearly 6 years in a completely different gimmick than they started with is beyond me.

The Battering Ram is one of the dumbest yet most awesome moves I’ve ever seen. Now this is a match that I remember only one thing about. During a scoop slam, Luke of the Bushwackers clearly rubs Ray Rougeau crotch. It’s not on accident either. He puts his hand there and rubs up and down. Just a disturbing sight.

Other than that this is nothing but a comedy match. The 80s were so awesome in the area of tag wrestling that they even managed to have jobber tag teams on a regular basis. There’s nothing going on here with the Bushwackers running around for a minute, the Rougeaus controlling for two minutes and the finish. To end this in a hurry, Bushwackers win with their rib breaker move.

Rating: D-. The crotch rub never fails to surprise me. Just not something I want to think about. The match completely sucked though and just never went anywhere at all. What is with all these fillers? DiBiase vs. Beefcake is by far the biggest matchup so far and even it is nothing special and could have been on any house show that year. Weak show so far and a weak match here.

Sean Mooney, one of my all time favorite broadcasters gets licked by a Bushwacker while talking to some fans in a pointless segment.

Mr. Perfect vs. The Blue Blazer

Yes that’s Owen Hart under the mask. This is another match that is more or less just there for the sake of being there but it should be pretty good. Perfect is still undefeated here. Jesse thinks this is going to be tremendous. Hennig gets a nice hiptoss to start.

He slaps the Blazer and doesn’t get drilled as a result for some reason. Ah there’s the slap and Owen speeds things up a bit. And then we slow them right back down. Baseball slide hits Perfect. Owen was WAY ahead of his time here as he could move like no one else could and was busting out Japanese and European stuff which was unheard of in America at this time.

Blazer is dominating here as Perfect has no idea what to do with him. BIG top rope splash eats knees though. That looked awesome as he got way up in the air and nailed the knees perfectly. Jesse has a surprise for Gorilla.

Powerslam by Blazer gets two and a belly to belly gets two as well. Jesse thinks Perfect has Mania jitters. Crucifix gets two for Blazer. And then a big shot gets Perfect the advantage. Perfectplex gets the easy pin.

Rating: B-. Pretty solid little match here with both guys moving very well. It was speed/flying vs. technical style out there and it worked very well. It helps having two guys that can work a variety of styles. Perfect hit two moves the whole match which hurts this though. Still solid stuff and Owen looked awesome in this.

Yet again, Jesse is introduced to the crowd as a “major Hollywood star” (he had done some supporting roles in some fairly big movies like Predator). There was apparently a 5K run with Mr. Fuji, in tuxedo and bowler hat, running in a decent time. He’s in the handicap tag title match later on if you’re wondering what the heck this is for. He finishes without even breathing hard and Lord Alfred Hayes suspects shenanigans.

Now for something just completely out of place, Run DMC performs the Wrestlemania Rap. This thing goes on and on and on.

Tag Titles: Mr. Fuji and Powers of Pain vs. Demolition

Storyline on this: Demolition was by far and away the most dominant tag team the late 80s had ever seen. They held the titles for about a year and a half which is still the longest amount of time ever. They were brought in as heels around Wrestlemania 3 and won the belts at Wrestlemania 4. Sometime between 3 and 4, they got Mr. Fuji as a manager.

Over the course of the summer, the fans realized how truly awesome Demolition was and they began to cheer them. Around the same time, the Powers of Pain, comprised of the Warlord and the Barbarian debuted as faces. The problem was more people liked Demolition than the PoP. So what was the solution you ask? The answer was the incredibly difficult and even rarer double turn.

At the 1988 Survivor Series, the teams had been feuding over the tag belts and were captains of their respective Survivor Series teams. Late in the match, Fuji pulled the top rope down and Smash fell over the ropes and landed on the floor. Ax got in Fuji’s face about it and Fuji answered with I’m The Boss! Demolition beat up Fuji and were counted out. The Powers of Pain helped him up and soon thereafter he was their manager.

So all of that leads us here to the showdown with Fuji and his team in a 3-2 match with Demolition for the tag titles. Fuji does what Heenan did last year with a shot here and a shot there, but at least with Fuji he had a very successful tagging career, including a reign that at the time was the longest in the history of the title. This match is what you would expect from it.

The formula is exactly what you would expect in a match like this. Demolition beats down the Powers, they beat them back, Fuji comes in and beats them up a bit, which is to say he kicks them twice, and then he runs away. This isn’t anything we haven’t seen a thousand times before and it’s not particularly entertaining. Naturally it gets about 9 minutes.

Demolition holds their own but eventually gets beaten up by all three, until Fuji makes a mistake. He misses an elbow from the top rope which is impressive in its own right, then eventually throws salt that was his trademark but misses. He’s then hit with the Demolition Decapitation, which might be the worst double team move of all time, and pinned.

Rating: C-. I liked this match but then again I like Demolition. Fuji actually knew how to wrestle and was only in his early 50s at the time so he still could go in the ring to an extent. Demolition is a simple team at heart: beat the tar out of their opponents. That’s hard to mess up and they did it as well as any team ever did. The lack of drama hurts it a good deal though and it shows.

Tony Schiavone tries to talk to Macho Man but gets thrown out.

Ronny Garvin vs. Dino Bravo

Umm, ok? What the point to this match is I have no idea, but after the introductions, Jimmy Snuka is introduced to the crowd for some reason. Literally, they announce Bravo and Garvin, and then the Fink says there is a special guest tonight. Snuka comes out in full apparel and to his music and gets in the ring and poses. He has absolutely nothing to do with this match and isn’t seen again all night.

Anyway onto the match. I have never liked Ronny Garvin. The man just absolutely bores me to tears in the ring. How he became the NWA Champion and even defended it at Starrcade 87 is beyond me. Bravo was ok in the ring but just never really did it for me either. As I say that, Garvin puts on a sleeper which is perfect because I’m falling asleep watching this.

In a strange ending (Thank God) Garvin is up in the corner punching Bravo but gets caught with an atomic drop and is side suplexed to pin him. Garvin gets up and hits Bravo and then uses what has to be the stupidest finisher of all time on Bravo’s manager, the Garvin Stomp. Randy Orton I believe has used this recently. He starts at the arm and goes around the body stomping the opponent. Just looks bad.

Rating: F. I was bored to tears and don’t like either one. This is a biased rating and I could care less. This is a Ronnie Garvin match and therefore it sucks.

Strike Force vs. The Brainbusters

Strike Force (a breath of fresh air after that awful match that just aired) is teaming together for the first time in a long time. Martel was injured by Demolition and was gone for almost a year. In the time off, Santana wrestled in singles matches. Upon Martel’s return, he asked Tito to reform Strike Force which he eventually did. This is their first match back against Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. After this match, the Busters would go on to feud with Demolition over the tag belts.

It sounds wrong to hear Gorilla talking about a Horsemen match and calling them a couple of really tough dudes. Jesse and Gorilla bickering is always funny. it says a lot when Martel is by far the worst technician in a match. Big brawl to start and surprisingly Strike Force wins it.

Martel gets a very nice counter from a body scissors into the Boston Crab. That was impressive. Everything breaks down and Strike Force gets a pair of Figure Fours which has to be at least a mini-rib on the Horsemen.

And now we get the meat of the match as Tito accidentally drills Martel with his flying forearm and down he goes onto the floor. After about a minute Martel gets back up but he’s all shaken up. The Busters work the referee and the tag rules like the masters that they are.

Santana keeps trying to come back and finally does by slamming Arn off the top. Yeah that has to be a rib. Tito finally gets away and goes for the tag but Martel won’t tag and then leaves, heading to the dressing room.

Arn yells at Santana WHERE’S YOUR PARTNER to just be a jerk. The ramp/aisle is really long here so it takes Martel like two minutes to get back. Tito fights back as well as he can but he’s outnumbered and after a few minutes the spike piledriver ends it.

Rating: B-. Half tag and half handicap so it’s unique if nothing else. I always liked both teams and I like what I see here. The post match promo is solid too so it gets a good grade. Very interesting here as this obviously causes the split between the two. They would feud on and off for nearly two years after this with neither one really winning the feud. What’s forgotten in this is the Brainbusters. They are their usually great selves and but on a solid match.

Martel blames Tito and says it was Tito’s idea to reform the team and all that jazz. This is his heel turn if you didn’t get that. He wouldn’t be a face again for like 8 years until he was in WCW.

Piper’s Pit

This gets one of the biggest pops of the nights. One of the funniest lines I’ve heard in a long time from the Fink: I am pleased to introduce to you a man who needs no introduction. We get a really long intro for Piper and out comes the man that creeped me out more than anyone else as a kid: Brother Love.

Seriously, the guy had a red face. That’s just incredibly scary looking to a two year old. Throw in his voice and it’s just scary. His character was based on high energy Christian televangelists such as Jimmy Swaggert. You all might know him better as Bruce Pritchard who was a creative team member until a few months ago.

Love then says his guest on the Brother Love show is Rodney Piper. He then imitates Piper in something that is either dead on or awful and I can’t tell which. He asks questions as Love and takes his glasses off and changes chairs to be Piper. Then out comes the guest, Morton Downey Jr.

This show aired nearly 20 years ago and until I looked him up just seconds ago, I had no freaking clue who this guy was and I’ve seen this PPV at least 30 times. Turns out he was a talk show host that was the inspiration for Springer, Maury etc. His show was viewed as amazingly Right Wing based and he would often berate anyone that disagreed with him. He was later replaced by Rush Limbaugh.

Anyway, Downey is smoking a cigarette which Gorilla refers to as weed. This made my jaw drop. Gorilla said he was puffing on weed. Gorilla Monsoon isn’t supposed to talk about weed blast it! Downey trash talks with Brother Love until they’re interrupted by the Fink who says Piper really is here. Out comes Piper for his first WWF appearance in 2 years.

Piper talks down to Love because of the kilt that Love is wearing. He asks him questions but keeps pulling the mic away saying he doesn’t want to know that badly. I’d forgotten how funny Piper was in his prime. He turns his attention to Downey who is still smoking and keeps blowing smoke into Piper’s face which Piper doesn’t approve of. Downey keeps using the standard insults.

My favorite line: Piper mentions that Downey used to have warts all over his face. Piper: What did you with the warts? Downey: I gave them to a homeless warthog. Piper: (without missing a beat) I didn’t know your girlfriend was homeless. Downey calls Piper is a transvestite before blowing more smoke in his face.

Piper asks for a cig for himself. Downey turns to light it and for no reason at all, Piper has a fire extinguisher under his chair. In probably his second most famous bit after the coconut, Piper sprays him down and leaves.

About as appropriately as possible, Downey would die of lung cancer in 2001.

BREAKING NEWS-Hulk Hogan is making a movie! It’s called No Holds Barred. That movie truly was nine kinds of awesome.

Sean Mooney is talking to Donald Trump. Apparently WM 4 and 5 have been successes.

Jesse is TICKED OFF. Hogan is invading his territory because after he loses to Macho he needs a job. Jesse says he can drive his limo and storms off. Gorilla plugs the movie again and recaps the show so far. We get a video recapping the Mega Powers rise to glory and their split.

Hogan says he can’t believe how this all came about in just a year. He goes into another of his insane promos about everyone being swallowed up by the Earth when the Trump Towers fall apart. Makes little if any sense. Then he talks about winning the title.

Andre the Giant vs. Jake Roberts

Big John Studd is the referee here for no apparent reason. He comes out to what would become Jim Duggan’s music oddly enough. No real reason is given as to why he’s the referee here. Andre is back with Heenan. The point of this match is Andre is terrified of snakes.

This resulted in a scene on television where Andre had a “heart attack” when Jake put the snake on him, yet he’s wrestling again just a few months later. Remarkable. Around this time, Jake was insanely popular, arguably the third biggest face in the company after only Hogan and Warrior.

Somehow before the match starts one of the turnbuckle pads is off and Roberts gets slammed into it. Gorilla says that Jake is like David against Goliath and Jesse says David had to use a foreign object to beat him which makes me want to write the Bible from a wrestling perspective one day. In a funny bit Andre chokes Jake in the corner and Studd goes to count Andre and you literally can’t see Jake other than his feet. Jake stood 6’5.

It’s your standard Andree match from this era. He just could not move to save his life at this point and was a complete shell of his former self. They do the tied up in the ropes spot and Andre is reeling. More pain and punishment goes in until Heenan gets the arm loose and here comes your unfriendly and not likely from your neighborhood Giant.

Something happens in this match that I’ve never been sure of. Andre is throwing shoulders to Jake’s ribs in the corner and falls backwards and down to one knee. He doesn’t hit his head on anything that I can see. Always thought that was just odd. Andre and Studd finally fight while DiBiase of all people runs out and steals the bag with the snake in it. Roberts catches him and throws the snake in the ring to get rid of Andre. Jake wins via DQ.

Rating: D. This is just a strange combination. Andre just didn’t mesh well with most because he was too freaking big. Roberts tried his best but it didn’t go that well. Studd served no real purpose here at all either. They tried but it didn’t work that well.

Sherri will get the title back apparently and doesn’t like Liz at all.

Rhythm and Blues vs. The Hart Foundation

The newly face Harts face off with their old manager’s new team of Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine. To me this was just before Bret’s prime. He’s so smooth in the ring that I’m gaining a new respect for him. The announcers refer to Pat Patterson as a relic. That’s just amusing.

This is the most basic of basic tag matches I can remember in a long time. I mean NOTHING happens here. The faces start in control, the heels take over and dominate for a bit, then we get a hot tag and the finish begins.

Honky hits the Shake Rattle and Roll on Bret but he tags in Hammer for the figure four which clearly is a mistake. Back and forth and Jimmy tosses in the Megaphone which is intercepted. After a solid shot to Honky’s shoulder Neidhart pins him.

Rating: D+. Bret makes this one pretty good for a glorified squash. This went nowhere at all and it’s MORE FILLER. We’ve had ONE match break ten minutes tonight: the Beefcake match got up to 10:01. That’s saying a lot. Just another match that went absolutely nowhere at all.

We get a recap of the Warrior/Rude feud. It involves a posedown and a lot of talking.

Intercontinental Title: Rick Rude vs. Ultimate Warrior

The idea of this is the two competed for who had the best body. They had a pose off at the Royal Rumble and Rude attacked the Warrior with a steel exercise bar. Not much of a story but this was the second biggest match on the card.

For some reason that God alone knows, these two had freaks chemistry together. It’s rare to ever see a bad match between them. I have no idea why this is the case but that’s how it always was with them. To have one of the worst workers ever and another who’s character was great but in the ring wasn’t great but wasn’t bad either be able to put on such solid matches really is a strange thing.

Warrior beats the heck out of Rude early on. This is a good beating and Rude sells it like there’s no tomorrow. Warrior works the back with some very powerful whip ins and a BIG bearhug. It looks like it’s going to be a quick little match but a piledriver slows Warrior down and it’s Rude in control.

Rude’s back is injured but he stays in the game as long as he can. Rude beats on him for nearly four or five minutes as he becomes one of the only people to actually beat down the Warrior and have success at it.

And so much for that as Warrior makes his comeback but as he’s trying to suplex Rude back in Heenan hooks his leg and holds it for the pin and the huge upset. Heenan gets beaten up by Warrior afterwards and because Warrior was so bad in the ring he legitimately hurt Bobby in this.

Rating: B. While not the best workers and a weak story, they again manage to put on a good match. I didn’t give it the description it deserves but that’s really all there was to it. Very well done though. The freaky chemistry these two had continue and I have never gotten it at all.

Jim Duggan vs. Bad News Brown

This is the epitome of a filler. Nothing of note happens here at all as it’s a brawl that the announcers don’t care about at all. It’s about 3 minutes long and ends in a chair vs. 2×4 duel that Duggan wins.

Rating: F. No one cared and they knew it.

Red Rooster vs. Bobby Heenan

Backstory: Rooster, who has what to me is the worst gimmick of all time, (he literally acted like a rooster, complete with going cock-a-doodle-doo and strutting like one. He passed up the Mr. Perfect gimmick and got this instead) used to work for Heenan but Heenan said he wasn’t that good. This is the Rooster trying to get revenge.

Heenan comes out with the Brooklyn Brawler. This match literally doesn’t last a minute. Heenan jumps the Rooster and whips him into the corner. Rooster gets out of the way and Heenan hits the post and is covered for the pin. Brawler comes in and beats up Rooster who fights back and wins. Wow.

Rating: N/A. This was a total waste of time. But hey, the Brooklyn Brawler got PPV time!

We recap the WWF Title match. Hogan helped Savage win it a year ago and then more or less stole the spotlight for the next year. Liz got involved and Savage thought she was sleeping with Hogan. He went off on him on February 3 (I was turning 1) and turned heel, setting this up.

Hogan says Savage went crazy. That’s just amusing. This is the promo where Hogan absolutely loses his mind and goes on a rant about the building being swallowed up by the Earth or something and Donald Trump being worried about falling into the ocean.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage

They were trying to make this the second coming of Hogan/Andre but there was far less mystery of who was going to win. Liz is at ringside as an independent observer and she actually does just that: nothing. This match has the big match feel to it but looking back it was obvious which way it was going. Savage comes out first if that tells you anything.

Liz gets her own entrance and Jesse says she’ll leave with whoever wins. Gorilla says that sounds smart to him. To say this match is huge is a dramatic understatement. Jesse: this is what the term main event is used for. This is the main event. He’s absolutely right too as this drew INSANE money as they had built up the mega match between these two forever.

Hogan shoves Savage with ease and there he goes. The announcers argue about managers which is kind of funny. Savage keeps running in fear from Hogan and it’s basic stuff so far. He throws Liz in front of a Hogan punch but Hulk stops in time.

There’s Hogan’s wrestling quota for the year as he uses a four move combination to break down Savage and get a front facelock. Savage overpowers him in a surprise by backdropping him. Savage takes over a bit by getting a top rope double axe in. The champion works the arm for some reason. LONG sequence with the arm and then a headlock as we fill in time.

Hogan gets an atomic drop to counter but misses an elbow drop. Hogan’s eye was cut earlier on and it gets rammed into the buckle to open it up even worse. Savage slaps him and here comes Hulk. He slams Savage to the floor and Liz helps him up. They fight on the floor and Hogan gets rammed into the post.

Now Liz helps Hogan up. I guess she wants a double team later on. Hebner, the cock blocker that he is, throws Liz out. Savage hits the double axe off the top to send Hogan’s throat into the railing. Steamboat was out for three months because of that. It doesn’t even get two on Hogan. Savage slams him and there’s the big elbow. Hogan shoves him off, three punches, big boot, big leg, you know the drill I think. Lots of posing ends the show.

Rating: C+. Well it’s not bad, but the problem here is that it is completely underwhelming. This was supposed to be the biggest match ever and it’s just pretty standard fort he most part. Hogan wins the title again and shrugs off Savage’s best move. Not a fan of that at all but it’s the 80s so what are you going to do?

Overall Rating: D+. This is the first of the second era of Wrestlemanias that follows the now traditional Wrestlemania formula. There’s some ok stuff on here and it probably has the oddestok card yet. Pretty much every big star is here, the titles have good matches, the midcard matches are bad, and you have the WM main event.

This show also has the first instance of setting the stage for the future. 1989 was the first year of the big four PPVs so there were other feuds that would be needing to be closed at big shows. Feuds like Hogan and Perfect which sparked Hogan and Warrior, Roberts against DiBiase, and the continuation of Warrior and Rude which led to Warrior against the Heenan Family all spawned from this.

You could arguably call this the first standard Wrestlemania, and I would just barely give it that name over WM 3. Overall this is pretty weak show and the problem with it is mainly the match lengths. TWO matches broke ten minutes and one went past 10:01. I used to really like this one but it doesn’t hold up at all. Pretty bad show but it’s watchable I suppose. That’s about it.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Superstars of Wrestling
Date: January 23, 1988
Location: Von Braun Civic Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura, Bruno Sammartino

Smackdown is still loading and probably will be for awhile so let’s take a look at the show the day before the inaugural Royal Rumble. I’d be shocked if that show is actually discussed though, as this show was likely taped weeks in advance. Also we’re getting closer and closer to the Hogan title loss which should be interesting. Let’s get to it.

Usual intro.

Randy Savage vs. Barry Horowitz

Vince goes into his usual I LOVE LIZ stuff. Given his well known female exploits, thank goodness this is when Vince was just a commentator. Savage hits the ax from the top both inside the ring and out to the floor. Peggy Sue (Sherri as Honky’s girl) says stay away from her man. Knee drop gets two. The big elbow ends this.

Update on Matilda who is back. The Islanders are reinstated but everyone hates them now. We get some clips of the announcement that Matilda is back. The Islanders and Heenan aren’t worried about Matilda’s condition. The Bulldogs say Matilda is in bad shape and won’t eat, meaning she’s lost a lot of weight.

Ricky Hunter/W.D. Wellington vs. Butch Reed/One Man Gang

Vince talks about an address that you can send get well cards to Matilda at. Vince: “I’m sure the British Bulldogs read the cards to Matilda.” Jesse: “I’d bet she has to read them to the Bulldogs.” Muraco wants the Gang and Reed. Reed runs over Hunter to start and it’s off to Gang for some pounding. An elbow nearly kills Hunter so it’s off to Wellington. Back to Reed who uses Nikolai’s gorilla press into a backbreaker. Gang hits a gordbuster for the pin. Total domination.

We talk about a New Haven show with a cage match. It’ll be a six man tag in there. We hear about the rest of the card and Jimmy Hart comes in to talk about the six man tag (Savage/Strike Force vs. Honky/Harts).

Joe Mirto/Iron Mike Sharpe vs. Ken Patrea/Billy Jack Haynes

Haynes and Sharpe start us off and Sharpe gets in some offense. Off to Patera vs. Mirto and we hear from Demolition, who is having a small feud with Haynes and Patera. Jesse talks about Hogan vs. Andre II on February 5. Kind of strange that we hear about that but not the Rumble. A quick full nelson to Mirto gets the submission for Haynes.

More house show stuff, this time with Bravo and Frenchy Martin saying they’re ready for Hillbilly Jim. Rude comes in and says he’s beat Koko B. Ware.

Hart Foundation/Danny Davis vs. Rex King/Van Van Horne/Sam Houston

Houston and Davis start us off and Davis is in trouble early. Off to Horne and then King, who is taken down by Davis. What does it mean when Danny Davis is beating you up? Anvil comes in and the power moves begin. Bret does a few things and it’s back to Davis. Houston makes a small comeback but Bret trips him up. The Hart Attack kills Houston and Davis gets the easy pin. This was nothing, although Jesse called referee Joey Marella she for some reason.

We get a clip of Greg Valentine attacking Koko after beating him until Beefcake made the save. Jimmy got a haircut with the big hedge clippers.

Andre and DiBiase are in the arena to talk about February 5. DiBiase says he warned everyone that he would find a way to buy the world title and Andre is that way. Andre says he’ll break Hogan apart and choke him down. DiBiase says the fans won’t mean anything to Hulk then. Maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh.

Jim Duggan vs. Steve Lombardi

Duggan pounds on him and Lombardi’s shots to the head do nothing. Duggan has a hard head and is stupid you see. A kneedrop and slam set up the three point clothesline for the pin.

Bad News Brown says he’s the only news.

Harley Race/Hercules/Rick Rude vs. Jerry Allen/Lanny Poffo/Scott Casey

Poffo does a quick poem about the Slammys. Casey and Herc start but it’s quickly off to Rude. Ok make that Race. Everyone on the jobber team gets beaten up by all of the Heenan team. Hercules racks Allen for the tap out. Total squash.

Savage and Strike Force say they’re ready for the cage match.

Vince previews next week’s show to end this.

Overall Rating: D+. Pretty boring show this week but again they’re like 40 minutes long so they’re easy to do. We’re on the verge of hitting it huge with these angles too so it’s worth sitting through this part to get to the big stuff. Ton of squashes here as you would expect, but the talk of Hogan vs. Andre makes me drool.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

As you know, Wrestlemania 4 had a tournament format. If you didn’t know that, go read about it below. Anyway short question today: how would you have booked it? The only rules: you have to keep the same people in the tournament and Hogan vs. Savage is the main event of Wrestlemania 5 no matter what.  I’m not much of a booker, but here’s what I would have done:I like the original plan which had DiBiase beating an exhausted Hogan in the finals, likely through cheating.    Have Andre knocks Hogan out, Savage runs out for the save but Hogan is out cold in the Million Dollar Dream, and DiBiase stands tall to end the show.  I know it’s a big stretch for the 80s, but how hot would the house shows have been for Hogan vs. DiBiase?  The idea here is that it gives DiBiase the summer to chase Hogan, you have Savage win the title at the first Summerslam and then the Mega Powers Explode as was carved into stone for Mania 5.

Wrestlemania 3
Date: March 29, 1987
Location: Pontiac Silverdome, Pontiac (Detroit), Michigan
Attendance: 93,173
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura
America The Beautiful: Aretha Franklin

Now we hit the big time. This is the first time when Wrestlemania was built up as the mega event and also it’s the first time we get a few Mania traditions. For one thing, it’s the first time we get the huge main event. While the tag match and Hogan/Bundy were big matches, to say they were nothing compared to Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant is the understatement of the century.

It was also the first time we had a Mania that featured a really big midcard match in the form of what might be the greatest wrestling match of all time. There was far more backstory to these matches this time which is always a good thing as it causes far less filler. It can easily be argued that this right here is the true birth of Wrestlemania as we know it.

Can-Am Connection vs. Bob Orton/Don Muraco

That being said, let’s get to the first contest! Shockingly enough, it’s kind of a filler, but at the same time it really doesn’t feel like one. We have the short lived tag team known as the Can-Am Connection (Tom “Z-Man” Zenk and Rick Martel) against Bob Orton and Don Muraco, managed by Mr. Fuji. Now the CAC was an interesting team. They were kind of the Rockers before the Rockers.

Both were young, in shape, handsome, and fast paced workers. They were in line to be the face challengers to the Hart Foundation but Zenk left after a strange argument that we’re still unclear on and Martel was paired up with Tito Santana to form one of my all time favorite tag teams in Strike Force, who went on to beat the Harts for the belts.

But anyway onto the match. Yet again, about as basic a tag match as you can get with speed against power and that’s a combination that rarely fails. This is tag team wrestling 101 and it’s done about as well as you could ask for in a situation like this.

CAC plays the role of the young kids that aren’t that experienced against two veterans getting their first shot on the big stage to perfection. Orton gets his arm worked on and completely no sells it less than a minute later which just made me shake my head. This match boarders on a squash as the CAC are really never in trouble at all and win with a cross body on Muraco.

Rating: B-. The lack of selling by Orton and the absolute dominance by the CAC keep this from being a great match but for a warm up match for Wrestlemania that was designed to get the crowd into the show, this was done perfectly. I think I voted for this as best Mania opener ever, which I still think isn’t a stretch.

Hercules vs. Billy Jack Haynes

Next up we have Hercules against Billy Jack Haynes in a battle of the full nelsons. Simple story here: two powerhouses that both use the full nelson. A few weeks prior to this, Haynes had offered to let Hercules put the hold on him to see if he could break it. Hercules, a heel, attacked him and knocked him out with the hold, leading to this match at Mania.

The match starts off pretty fast with some hard hitting shots. Hercules takes over and all this seems to be about is getting the full nelson on the other. It’s really just a brawl which is fine as they keep it relatively short here. It’s always fun to see two big strong guys hammering on each other. Hercules has the pin and pulls him up which leads to the comeback.

Hercules gets the hold on first but it’s not on full which lets Haynes get up. Haynes eventually gets his nelson on but Hercules launches both of them to the floor where Haynes gets the hold again but we get a double count out. Haynes chases Heenan and Hercules blasts Haynes with the chain and Haynes is busted open really deep sending blood everywhere.

Rating: C-. Decent match between two brawlers that was given the right amount of time. It wasn’t supposed to be a classic and it wasn’t. This match was all about a single hold and that’s what ended the match. Went as well as it could have so it gets a decent grade.

King Kong Bundy/Lord Littlebrook/Little Tokyo vs. Hillbilly Jim/Little Beaver/Haiti Kid

There’s little story to this if any and why midget wrestlers are involved is beyond me. Bob Uecker is on commentary which is good as he’s fairly funny for someone that has no wrestling experience. The rules are simple here: big vs. big and small vs. small.

This match if nothing else proves that Bundy against Hogan was thrown together because there was nothing left. He goes from main eventing Wrestlemania to this? WOW. This is pretty short with the midgets doing most of the work. I get the idea here is that they’re supposed to be professionals and interesting but how can you argue that they’re anything but a novelty?

They go back and forth with Uecker giving some funny commentary. I’m not a fan of these kind of matches at all. They fill time here which isn’t saying much until Bundy is tagged in. Hillbilly gets beaten down by him and then Bundy slams and elbows one of the midgets causing a DQ. Hillbilly carries him to the back in what is a far cry from Superman carrying Supergirl but I’ll take what I can get I guess.

Rating: F. Seriously, what were they thinking here? This match managed to get a few minutes on the biggest show of all time. I guess you could call this the final remnant of the old days when midget matches were popular, but I’m still not getting the point of this. Nothing match and a total filler if there ever was one. And again, how did Bundy fall so far in a year?

Elizabeth Promo. This doesn’t happen as Macho comes in and says he’ll answer any questions the interviewer has. The interview never happens as Macho sends Liz away.

Junkyard Dog vs. Harley Race

Limited story here. Race was the King of the WWF at the time and on a SNME he had faced the JYD. JYD had said he wouldn’t bow to anyone and after Race had knocked him down he tried to force JYD’s head down to bow. The loser here has to bow to the winner. Race stalls like the true old school master that he is. Heenan gets involved and there goes Dog after him.

Naturally this fails him completely but since Dog has a very hard head most of Race’s shots have little to no effect. Race goes for a headbutt on the floor and Dog moves so Race rams his face into the floor. That can’t be nice at all. Gorilla and Jesse argue about managers which is always entertaining. You could tell there was a lot of respect between them.

Abdominal stretch goes on and Gorilla of course complains about it. Did he ever not complain about that hold? Race goes for a headbutt and nearly knocks himself unconscious in the process. Nice job there champ. On all fours now, which Gorilla says is Dog’s favorite position. Heenan gets up on the apron and allows Race to recover and catch a belly to belly to win it.

Rating: D+. Nothing special at all here as it was another four minute match. The right guy won though as Race was far better as far as wrestling talent went but it was surprising to see a guy like Dog, who was very popular, losing like this mostly clean. This was fine I guess.

Post match Dog bows but then pops Race with the chair and steals the crown and robe like a true jerk.

We hear from Hulk Hogan in one of the best cocaine induced promos ever. Seriously, if anyone believes that these Hogan promos aren’t drug induced then they’re far beyond what I can help. Hulk apparently thinks today is a big deal.

Rougeau Brothers vs. The Dream Team

Before we get a really weird promo from Johnny V and Dino Bravo on the Rougeaus. Johnny V is nuts but I like him. On with the match. The Dream Team is Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake if you were wondering. The key to this match is the Dream Team arguing for the entire match for no good reason.

Brutus tried to break up a sleeper but hit Valentine by mistake. Rougeaus hit their finisher but Bravo comes in, hits one of them and puts Valentine on Rougeau. The other three then leave Brutus in the ring, signaling the start of his face turn that lasted until 1994.

Rating: D+. Didn’t do much as it was more for the angle than the match obviously. Not a bad match at all, but nothing mind blowing. This was another way too quick match that I couldn’t get into due to simply being too short. Also the Dream Team is worthy of a major blowoff like this? Really? Pretty weak little match but technically pretty ok.

Adrian Adonis vs. Roddy Piper

Now we get to another of the famous matches here in Roddy Piper’s retirement match which has become a running joke in wrestling. The idea is that Piper went down with an injury and when he came back, Adonis had taken over Piper’s Pit and turned it into the Flower Shop.

They beat on each other for awhile until Piper thought he was an actor because of They Live so he decided to retire. Since then he’s wrestled on and off for over 20 years. A key to this match is both men use the sleeper hold as their finisher. The loser is going to get a haircut apparently.

Adrian is in his most famous gimmick here so Piper, being the MAN’S MAN that he is, hated him. There was a lot more homophobia in wrestling back then, at least in kayfabe. Well not really as any character like that is treated oddly. Those ring carts are still sweet stuff. Adonis says he’ll win. Piper busts out a belt and wipes out Adrian with it before taking a few shots of his own.

Hart gets involved a few times as this is little more than a comedy match for the most part. He finally gets something right though as he pulls Piper’s leg to give Adonis the advantage. Piper gets sent into the table and it’s all Adonis here. Back in the ring now with Piper saying bring it on.

Jimmy sprays perfume in Piper’s eyes and Adrian gets Good Night Irene, his sleeper finisher, and Piper goes down fast. He drops twice but Adrian lets go before the third drop, thinking he’s won. Brutus Beefcake runs down to wake Piper up (Adrian had accidentally cut Beefcake’s hair recently so it makes sense) and Piper gets his own sleeper to end this.

Rating: C+. It’s a standard Piper match which is always fun. This was just a comedy match but at the end of the day piper’s career was never about what he did in the ring so how can I really complain here? This was no classic or anything but it was fine and the fans cheered a lot because of it. PIper didn’t wrestle again for over two years so Piper lived up to his word for a good while at least.

Post match Beefcake cuts Adonis’ hair. A fan runs in as he leaves.

Hart Foundation/Danny Davis vs. Tito Santana/British Bulldogs

This match is pretty much all backstory. Danny Davis used to be a referee but he would cheat for the heels. He cheated Tito out of the IC Title and gave it to Macho Man and cheated the Bulldogs out of the tag titles and handed them to the Harts. He was banned “for life plus ten years”, which lasted about a year or so and he was back again as a referee. The idea here is that he’s completely inept at wrestling and all of his opponents want to kill him and Jimmy Hart, including the Bulldogs’ bulldog Matilda.

Davis will run in and kick someone maybe twice and then bail, more or less making this a 3 on 2 handicap. Hearing the commentators sing Bret’s praises is nothing but amazing as his singles push wasn’t coming for at least another year and a half and his real singles push was almost 3 years away. The kid really had talent and you can see it here.

Before the match Jesse went down to ringside to be introduced to the crowd so we have Gorilla, Bob Uecker and the host of Entertainment Tonight so the commentary is just bad right now. Uecker has some good one liners but the woman is just mindblowingly annoying. Davis misses a splash letting Tito get tagged in and he nearly kills Davis. The faces alternate with just beating the living tar out of him including a tombstone from Davey which was just odd to see for some reason.

The ending of the match was just awful though. Davis gets the sense beaten out of him taking all three of the faces’ finishers with the last being the powerslam. Bret breaks up the pin, and less than 10 seconds after getting powerslammed, Davis gets the megaphone tossed to him and drills Davey with it for the pin.

Rating: C-. The ending was just horrible to me as Davis, a referee, no sells a tombstone, the forearm and the powerslam? With guys like the Bulldogs, Santana and Hart in there, this should have been great. At best it was ok and the ending lost that for them.

Heenan and Andre do a promo here with Andre looking absolutely creepy by not moving an inch. Weirdest part of this interview: Heenan is at least 4 inches taller than Okerlund.

Butch Reed vs. Koko B. Ware

Remember how I said there was less filler on this show? This is some of that filler. There’s no reason at all here for this match other than to let Reed get a squash here and then the post match attack. The best part of the pre match stuff is a shot of Jesse and Gorilla in the broadcast booth which is at least a few hundred feet away from the ring with Jesse showing off his Wrestlemania 3 t-shirt.

As he shows it off he starts showing off his bicep and the way he talks about it is just funny. Anyway, on with this waste of time. If there has ever been a match of a weird combination this is it. Koko is the epitome of a jobber. What did he ever win in his whole career? Reed on the other hand is a great example of someone that had it all but never could put it together. He was even lined up to be a member of the Horsemen.

He had the look, the name, the power, everything you could want but he never could put it all together and I’ve never been sure why. Anyway, this is a pretty bland match as Reed reverses a bad cross body and uses the tights to win. After the match Slick beats up Koko with the cane until Tito runs out and beats up Slick for some reason and rips up his suit.

Rating: N/A. This match was a bad squash. It had no point and the match was just boring. Easily the worst match on the show.

Savage rants about how he’s going to end this tonight.

Steamboat says the Dragon is going to scorch Savage’s back.

Intercontinental Title: Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat

I think I now know why the previous match was in the place it was. There’s nothing I can really say about this match that hasn’t already been said. In case you don’t know the backstory, here it is. About 3 months before Savage had been defending the title against Steamboat and during the match had put Steamboat’s throat over the guard rail, went up top and landed a double axe handle, driving him throat first into the rail.

Steamboat had a crushed larynx and allegedly his career was over. Savage had a match on Superstars and Steamboat’s music hit and the crowd went insane. Epic staredown ensues and the match was made for Mania. Between then and Mania, George Steele kidnaps Liz to continue their year long feud so Steele was in Steamboat’s corner.

Savage can’t keep up with him to start and Steamboat dominates with armdrags and then a big old choke. Steamboat works the arm and Savage is in trouble early. Savage throws him to the floor though and now it’s Ricky in trouble. Very nice back and forth stuff to start. Savage goes for the throat which is the part of Steamboat that he hurt earlier so there’s your reasoning.

They keep going back and forth with Steamboat hammering away to get Savage caught in the ropes. They’re moving rather fast out there and Dragon keeps throwing out that armdrag. Ton of near falls in a row for both guys. Dragon Skins the Cat but gets knocked back to the floor. Savage hits a knee to the back of Steamboat to send him over the table and into the crowd.

Jesse yells at Gorilla for saying Steele helping Steamboat back in is cheating and calls Gorilla out of being hypocritical when another heel manager helped his guy back in early. Double axe to the back of the head of Steamboat on the floor and the count is on. Gorilla wants Savage disqualified for some weird clothesline thing. That was odd.

Savage gets a gutwrench suplex for two. Here comes Steamboat again though and he sends Savage over the top with a beautiful bump to the floor. He jumps OVER the referee to hit a big chop on Savage for two. They crank it up again for more near falls all over the place. Savage eats post on a slingshot and that only gets two. He manages to grab Steamboat and send him into the post shoulder first.

And there goes the referee. Savage gets the elbow but there’s no referee for the count. Randy goes out to get his trust bell but Steele shoves him off the top and his head cracks into the bell. Both guys are down though. Savage picks him up and in the famous ending, Steamboat rolls through into a small package for the pin and the title to blow the roof off the place.

Rating: A+. As I said before, likely the greatest match of all time. Nothing but an A+ the whole way with these two beating each other up and never slowing down a bit. Apparently all of these spots were planned out months in advance in Savage’s house in Florida which worked very well as there are zero bad spots here that I can think of. Excellent match and something everyone should see at least once if not more than once.

Jake Roberts vs. The Honky Tonk Man

This all started on Jake’s interview segment the Snake Pit where Honky hit him with a real guitar. See today, the guitars Jeff Jarrett uses are fake. They’re made to explode the way they do. The one Honky used was a real one and didn’t break.

Some of the material legitimately got stuck in Jake’s neck and allegedly that’s what got him addicted to alcohol and drugs to alleviate the pain. Believe that if you want to. Anyway, that more or less started Jake’s face turn and for God knows what reason, rocker Alice Cooper is in Jake’s corner. Also factor in that Jimmy Hart is deathly afraid of snakes.

There’s really not much here. It’s about 7 minutes long so it gets some time but Honky really hadn’t established the character that made him legendary yet, so this isn’t what you’d expect. It’s a very slow paced match that was I think designed to give the people a breather after the IC Title match. They go back and forth for awhile but Jake goes for the DDT and Jimmy grabs his foot. Honky rolls him up and grabs the rope for the pin. After the match, Jake and Alice torment Jimmy with the snake to end things.

Rating: C. It’s nothing special and is little more than a breather for the fans between the two mega matches. This was allegedly a double turn according to some people but that is just stupid as both guys already were in their more famous roles. This was a pretty ok match but dude, they’re following Savage vs. Steamboat. Like anyone cares about what happened here.

We get Gene Okerlund to announce the world attendance record of 93,173. No matter what you think of the show, that’s freaking amazing. This also gets you the beginning of the long running joke with Jesse and Gorilla of Jesse wondering whether or not he and Gorilla are counted in that.

Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff vs. Killer Bees

More or less the same review of the previous match but in tag team version. This is another filler to bridge the gap between the two big matches. As Volkoff is singing, Jim Duggan runs out with the 2×4 and stops the song. This is a really dull match with the Bees using fast moves against both big guys but eventually getting caught.

Duggan is on the floor playing cheerleader throughout the whole thing. Duggan starts chasing Volkoff for some reason while Sheik has one of the Bees in the camel clutch. They go into the ring and Duggan looks at Sheik and for no reason at all, blasts him over the back with the board. Even the commentators are at a loss for why he hit him. It just made absolutely no sense at all.

Rating: D. This match was boring and the ending made less sense than an Iron Sheik promo. Again this was just filler and a way to get the crowd all fired up for that whole biggest match of all time thing coming after it. There was very little thought in this one as the buildup was weak on Superstars. All that being said though as I said in the previous rating, dude they’re right before Hogan vs. Andre.

WWF World Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant

This match has been called the biggest match in the history of professional wrestling and that very well may be true. It was the first true super main event in Wrestlemania history. Here’s the story: Hogan and Andre used to be friends and even tag partners. They celebrated together when Hogan won the belt over 3 years ago. Hogan ran in to save Andre a few times from being beaten up by Bundy and Studd.

Fast forward a year and Hogan is being given a trophy for being World Champion for three years. Andre is given a slightly smaller trophy for not losing a match in 15 years. He looks at the trophies and just walks away. A few weeks later, they have a face to face interview on Piper’s Pit. Andre tilts Hogan’s head up at him and says “Look at me when I’m talking to you. I’m here for one reason: to challenge you for a world championship match at Wrestlemania.”

Hogan is stunned and says he can’t do it. Andre grabs Hogan’s shirt and the cross he wears and rips them off, stunning Hogan. Piper asks him if he’ll fight him and Hogan screams YES!!! You really have to understand how big this was at the time. Andre was like Taker as far as mystique goes, but 10x moreso. This would be like Hulk Hogan coming back today and challenging John Cena to a match.

Hogan cuts one of the most famous promos of his career before the match, saying that the world is going to fall at his feet after the match. Hogan always had that little hint at implying he was God in his promos but never flat out said it.

Andre comes out and the booing is mindblowing. In something that I find funny, he waves to the fans on the way down to ringside. Jesse gives the tale of the tape, which is all of Andre and Hogan’s measurements, showing that as big as Hogan is, Andre is so much bigger. Bob Uecker is the guest announcer and after introducing Andre, says three simple words: and, his opponent. After that, the fans just lose it. Hogan’s music hits and nothing else matters at all.

Gorilla puts it best by saying “The roof of the Silverdome is about to explode here!” In a great camera shot, you get a wide angle shot of the arena with the spotlight on Hogan which really shows how this whole show has been building to this one moment. Hogan gets in the ring and it’s on. I won’t go into detail here either as I’m sure you’ve all seen this at one time or another. Every word of commentary is famous here as I can almost quote the whole match to you.

Within 15 seconds, Hogan goes for a slam and we nearly get a pin. That is a point that is used for over a year as Hogan might not have gotten his shoulder up in time. The way the camera is set up you really can’t tell if he did or not. That would be a point of contention from Heenan for nearly a year, leading up to their rematch in February of 1988.

The in ring work here is really pretty bad, but no one cared. This match was all about the meaning of what was going on and the truly epic nature of the match. No one really knew who was going to win here and it was a legitimate possibility that Hogan would lose. Andre more or less beats the living crap out of Hogan the whole match until the very end. Hogan gets some shots in here and there that do some damage and Andre is clearly worn out at the end of it.

The crowd is almost stunned that Hogan is being dominated. They brawl on the floor for a bit and then head back into the ring. Andre misses a boot and Hogan clotheslines him, knocking him down. The fans go insane at the sight of this. Hulk Hulks Up and he has the crowd in the palm of his hand at this point. In what might be the most most scene in the history of wrestling, Hogan slams Andre to enter immortality.

Even the commentators are in awe at this point as Hogan drops the leg and wins the match. Andre was so big at the time that Hogan ripped his ab muscles to pieces slamming him and was out for a few months. The music plays and Heenan and Andre get into the cart that takes them to the back as Heenan has his head in his hands, wondering what just happened. Hogan poses as we close the show with the fans absolutely going nuts.

Rating: A. The match itself is pretty bad but the historical significance is second to absolutely nothing. Now I’ve seen a lot of people (including his majesty Mr. Meltzer) say this was a horrible match and all that jazz. In short: SCREW YOU ALL. Get the sticks out of yourselves and have some fun for once. If you don’t get chills watching the staredown and the slam, then go watch something else.

You have Hogan and Andre who can barely move at all. What are they supposed to do out there? The entire idea here was to have a major showdown and that’s exactly what they did. THis match was epic, still is epic and will always be epic. Anyone that says this wasn’t a great match that did exactly what it was supposed to do is a fool, and i don’t care who I have to argue this with.

Overall Rating: B+. I went back and forth between B+ and A- here. This is the first truly historic Wrestlemania and the first to truly be the spectacle that is has become today. Easily the two biggest matches are the singles title matches that are still incredibly famous today. There’s far less filler than before and the matches have much more solid stories to them.

This show is more famous for its historical aspect than the in ring stuff and that’s just fine. It’s not the best Mania of all time, but it’s up there. Definite recommendation to see this if you never have, or if you just haven’t watched it in awhile, if nothing else just for the history lesson

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Wrestlemania 2
Date: April 7, 1986
Location: Nassau Coliseum-New York, Rosemont Horizon-Chicago, Illinois, Sports Arena-Los Angeles, California
Attendance: 40,085 combined for all three venues
Commentators: New York – Vince McMahon, Susan St. James. Chicago – Gorilla Monsoon, Gene Okerlund, Cathy Lee Crosby, Ernie Ladd. Los Angeles – Jesse Ventura, Alfred Hayes, Elvira
America The Beautiful: Ray Charles

This show is the classic what the heck were thinking moment from the WWF. They had made Wrestlemania the year before and they hit it so far out of the park that by the time it was Wrestlemania 2 the ball hadn’t come down yet. This was a problem though. Since the inaugural show had been such a success, Vince felt they had to do something to top it. This was his idea: what if we did Wrestlemania from 3 different places??? Think about that for a minute. How weird would that be?

Not to mention, Vince had another idea: let’s put it on a Monday! Again, just awkward sounding. The format used was three locations, each with an undercard and then a featured match, which were a boxing match, a battle royal, and the true main event, Hulk Hogan against King Kong Bundy in a steel cage.

The idea was odd on paper and worse in reality as it felt like watching three shows instead of one. There’s no rhythm and because it was in three locations, announcers were a rare commodity. Due to this, Vince’s last idea was to put a real commentator together with celebrities to do the commentary. What followed might be the biggest mess in company history.

Paul Orndorff vs. Don Muraco

We begin the show in New York City with Paul Orndorff against Don Muraco. Why are they fighting? I don’t have a freaking clue but they are so here we go. As they begin we hear comments from both and neither have anything to say of meaning.

Orndorff is easily the face here so if he never accomplished anything else in his career, the face turn between Manias one and two was effective. As was predicted, the celebrity commentator is atrocious, with such gems like “I think he’s winning!” Orndorff controls the early part of the match but Muraco breaks it up with some power. They roll outside and we get a double count out as the crowd clearly can be heard chanting bull.

Rating: D+. Fine for what it was, but the fans got it right with their chants. This is the opening match to Wrestlemania? Seriously? That’s the best they could come up with? This feud more or less never went anywhere at all as Orndorff was about to get the biggest push of his career by far, resulting in him making about $20,000 a week for awhile. This was just an odd choice for an opening match but then again this was an odd choice for a show so I guess it fits.

Intercontinental Title: George Steele vs. Randy Savage

Next up the intercontinental title is on the line as Randy Savage defends against George Steele. This is a match that I can’t find a standalone version of so I can’t put this one in here. However, this was another chapter in the over year long feud between these two. Savage had been allegedly mistreating Liz and Steele had developed a crush on her. That led to, what else, Savage being jealous and a 15 month feud began.

Mega stall from Savage to start as he seems afraid of Steele. Savage runs again and finally on the third time Steele goes after him. They finally lock up and Steele beats Savage up for a while with power moves and biting but Steele keeps going to talk to Liz. This was a weird period for Savage as they knew they had a gem with him but they didn’t know what to do with him. Yeah he was the IC champion, but where did they go with him from there?

This was all they had until the next year when he and Steamboat stole the show and Savage was launched into the main event. For some reason Savage has a bouquet of flowers that he and Steele try to beat each other up with. After ripping apart a turnbuckle and eating the stuffing (not making that up) Steele gets slammed and elbowed, but he kicks out?

Yes, George Steele is the first man to kick out of the elbow, and he pops up, beats on Savage some more and then gets rolled up and Savage uses the ropes to pin him. Steele eats more stuffing.

Rating: C-. This was a comedy match I think with wrestling mixed in. Savage is the highlight here as he sells like crazy for Steele and it helps a lot. These two had this freaky chemistry that no one has ever been able to really figure out. They would feud on and off for the next year before FINALLY ending it with the return of Ricky Steamboat for that whole greatest match of all time thing he and Savage would have next year.

Jake Roberts vs. George Wells

We follow up that strange match with another somewhat strange match as Jake Roberts, still a rookie here, takes on some guy named George Wells. This match is little more than a glorified squash. Wells dominates early but doesn’t go for a pin when he has the chance. Jake recovers and DDTs him to win the match. Afterwards he unleashes Damien who causes Wells to look like he’s foaming at the mouth.

Rating: D+. Talk about a weird choice to have on Wrestlemania. Jake was brand new at this point so they needed someone to make him look good and they pick….George Wells? There was a squash on Mania for the first two years and both times they were the least interesting match on the card. I don’t get the selection here for the most part and it’s pretty bad all things considered.

Boxing Match: Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper

We now move onto the main event of the New York portion of the show: a boxing match with Roddy Piper and Mr. T. This was built up on SNME about 2 months before hand with Mr. T. beating Piper’s friend Bob Orton in a boxing match before being beaten down by both of them. That came on from what started over a year ago in the main event of the first Wrestlemania, so this truly was a showdown that had been built up for ages.

Factor in that T had been the World Boxing Champion in Rocky 3 just a few years ago and was on a top rated TV show where he was a tough guy. Both men have famous trainers in their corners to make it look more legit. For no apparent reason Joan Rivers does the ring announcing. This is ten three minute rounds. She introduces Orton as the Ace Comedy Bob Orvin. Nice job of handling the reading thing honey.

They actually got Smoking Joe Frazier to be in T’s corner. One of the biggest stars in Hollywood has in his corner a former world heavyweight champion who had three of the best boxing matches in history with Muhammad Ali. He also has a midget. Well of course he does. They treat this like a real boxing match. Oh dear.

T goes for the ribs which doesn’t work all that well for him. Piper hits him on the break which is illegal of course. There has been no mention of judges or anything like that so I guess this is destined to not go the distance. The referee has broken them up about four times now. I think these are three minute rounds. For the most part these punches aren’t landing at all but they sell them anyway of course.

It’s not so much boxing but rather glorified grappling with the occasional punch thrown. The fans are more or less dead if you didn’t guess that. After the first round nothing has really happened. Piper has a bunch of grease on his face for the second round which is keeping the punches from T from being effective.

This is painfully boring if I didn’t make that clear so far. Piper knocks the heck out of T with some big roundhouses and finally drops him to huge cheers because something HAPPENED for a change. The knockdown gets a count of 8. Piper keeps pounding on him as round two ends. They brawl a bit during the break and Orton throws water at T.

Piper does the Ali Shuffle to start the third round. T gets him into the corner and pounds away with more or less open hand shots to the head and Piper is in trouble. That gets a count of 7. T gets a huge punch that I think hit so of course Piper is knocked to the floor. He gets up at 9 and then holds onto T for the last 25 seconds of the fight.

They just trade big bombs to start the fourth round. And then he punches the referee and slams T for the DQ about a minute into the fourth round. It’s a bit brawl and T of course gets the win. Was there a reason for both that ending and also having Piper dominate a round like that? This was awful.

Rating: F. On WRESTLEmania they had a long boxing match. This was just boring beyond belief and the boxing looked awful. They tried to make this seem legit and it failed on more than all levels. T was never seen again and Piper turned face relatively soon after taking time off for knee surgery. Boring match and awful beyond belief.

Chicago

Women’s Title: Fabulous Moolah vs. Velvet McIntyre

We start with the Women’s Title on the line as Moolah defends against Velvet McIntyre. This match is just weird. Moolah dominates, Velvet comes back and then misses a splash allowing Moolah to pin her. It screams botched finish to me as even the announcers seem surprised.

Rating: N/A. Just was nothing at all and might have gone a minute. Little to rate here so I won’t even try to.

Nikolai Volkoff vs. Corporal Kirschner

Now we have a flag match with Nikolai Volkoff against the forgotten Corporal Kirschner. Yeah I don’t remember him either. The winner gets to have their flag waved. Other than that it’s a standard one on one match. As usual, Nikolai sings the Russian National Anthem before the match starts. Nikolai dominates early on, ramming Kirschner into the post twice and busting him open. I kid you not, Kirschner lands 7 right hands, catches Freddy Blassie’s cane and hits Nikolai with it to win the match.

Rating: D-. This was supposed to be a brawl but it was a bad match. 7 punches and a cane shot? Give me a break. Kirschner is apparently one of the most legit tough guys in the history of the business and got thrown out of most major companies for being too rough. Based on this and his match at the Wrestling Classic I’d assume it’s due to a high level of suck but that’s just me. This was just barely long enough to warrant a rating and it wasn’t any good at all.

Battle Royal

Now we get the most famous match from this show: a 20 man battle royal with ten pro football players and 10 wrestlers. This is going to go GREAT. Since most of you won’t know half the people in this I’m not going to list them all until the end. The big names are a still rookie Bret Hart, Andre the Giant, Big John Studd and Bruno Sammartino. For the most part this is a run of the mill battle royal.

It’s little more than a bunch of punching and kicking against the ropes as we get down to the big names. Oddly enough the celebrity commentator is the only one that gets anything right. Gorilla says stuff like Studd has this guy in the corner when they’re almost in the middle of the ring, or Ernie Ladd who was a wrestler saying no one wants Andre when he’s beating someone up. Amazing.

The only really famous thing in this match is a football player named William the Refrigerator Perry getting eliminated by Studd but then offering a handshake and eliminating him. The Iron Sheik eliminates Hillbilly Jim just as he would in the gimmick battle royal 15 years later at WM 17. The final four are the Hart Foundation, a football player and Andre. Do I need to really give the details on this? Andre beats up the Harts to win the match after launching Bret out in a press slam.

Rating: B. It’s a bunch of football players and 80s wrestlers with a few great workers. Nothing special, but considering what they had to work with this is just fine. The football stuff didn’t lead anywhere which is kind of surprising as they set up a Fridge vs. Studd thing that never happened at all that I know of. This was just ok and at least the right guy won it. Andre would of course be in the biggest match of all time the next year.

Tag Titles: British Bulldogs vs. The Dream Team

Now we have what is likely the best match of the whole show. It’s a classic 80s tag match with the British Bulldogs, and Ozzy Osbourne in their corner for God alone knows why to face the tag team champions of the Dream Team Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine. You can tell they’re serious here as this has a sixty minute time limit.

The ring looks small here for some reason. Gorilla asks why Ozzy is there too which means he’s confused like I am. There are two referees here which I doubt will mean anything for the most part. Smith vs. Valentine to get up. The ring is all loud here still.

The Bulldogs were so fast with those tags and this is no exception at all. Valentine won’t tag out for no apparent reason. He counters a backdrop though and here’s Beefcake. Small package by Dynamite get two. Fisherman’s suplex by Davey gets two. I guess he’s not perfect. After Davey gets beaten on for a bit Dynamite comes in and slugs it out with Valentine.

The champions cheat a bit and they still can’t take over. I never got the appeal of the Dream Team but to be fair it might be that Brutus was just awful at this point. Valentine gets a Piledriver on Dynamite but falls forward so it kind of looks like a tombstone but with Dynamite’s stomach facing out. That was kind of cool looking.

Bulldogs clear the ring as things speed up a bit. Davey gets the powerslam for two as it wasn’t a finisher but just a signature move at the time. The champions work over Davey as momentum changes hands a lot here tonight. They work over the arm, including with a shoulderbreaker from Valentine.

However he shows his idiocy by pulling Davey up at two. Nice job you lunkhead. And there’s the idiocy coming through as for no apparent reason Dynamite gets on the middle rope and Davey rams Valentine’s head into Kid’s for the knockout shot and falls on Valentine for the pin and the titles. That ending came from NOWHERE and Dynamite is out cold from the shot which is kind of amusing for some reason. That’s Albano’s 16^th title win as a manager. Hokey smoke.

Rating: B-. Fun stuff but the ending was just so freaking random. I don’t get the ending as it was like they looked at the clock and realized they had no time left and were like oh crap we need to finish this. The Bulldogs were a good team and were a huge step up from the Dream Team. They would lose them to the Harts in about 8-9 months so the tag division was starting to roll at this point.

Los Angeles

Ricky Steamboat vs. Hercules Hernandez

We move to the final and by far the worst of the three locations as we’re now in LA, beginning with Ricky Steamboat against Hercules Hernandez. This was supposed to be Bret vs. Ricky in the big showdown match for Mania. I’m not sure what the showdown would be for since for all intents and purposes they had no feud that I know of but a little face on face action never hurt anyone, even though Bret wasn’t a face at the time so scratch that line.

They start off kind of fast but not fast enough for anything to mean much. This was a different era so matches like these were really commonplace. There’s no feud or anything here and Hercules is just a big power guy that had been given a fairly decent push so he’s getting to fight one of the best guys in the company at one of the biggest shows of the year.

There is almost nothing to say here though as I’ve been watching for a few minutes and nothing has happened at all. Well at least nothing worth talking about that is. Hercules goes for the backbreaker as this is before the Full Nelson made him the original Chris Masters. Relatively standard Steamboat match which means it’s at least passable. Herc is the big powerhouse that beats the tar  out of Ricky, makes one mistake and the Dragon makes his comeback. The flying body press ends things as always.

Rating: C-. And that’s almost all for Steamboat. I liked Hercules for some reason but for the life of me I don’t get the point in having him be considered a better prospect than Bret was. This was the epitome of a throwaway match with nothing special at all going on in it and nothing of note to talk about really. I sat there for minutes at a time with nothing of note so I apologize for the most history based match here.

Adrian Adonis vs. Uncle Elmer

Now for the odd match of the night, we have Adrian Adonis, playing a controversial gay gimmick at the time, against Uncle Elmer, a fat hillbilly character. The crowd chants a certain homosexual slur at Adonis to start the match which he prances around the ring to.

This match is slow and mostly painful as the smaller man in the match weighs about 350lbs. When he’s your agile guy, you know this isn’t going anywhere. Elmer punches him and literally falls off his feet from it. Quite sad actually. Adonis has his dress, yes dress ripped off and it’s just hideous. Elmer beats on him some more but misses a leg drop. Adonis hits a top rope headbutt and gets the pin.

Rating: N/A. I never got the appeal of either of these characters and thankfully Elmer wasn’t around much longer. Naturally he got a tape mainly about him and his family because that’s the way the 80s went.

Junkyard Dog/Tito Santana vs. The Funks

In the next to last match of the night, we have the Funks against JYD and Tito Santana. This is another filler match that had no point at all other than two faces against a heel team. This is a much slower paced match as they do more old school stuff in there. Terry vs. Tito starts us off so we’re certainly getting things started off on the right foot here.

You have three guys that belong in the Hall of Fame and JYD who is in there because he was popular in the 80s making him a LEGEND. I still don’t like him but he’s more bearable than some people I can’t stand. This is definitely a different style than most are used to. I’d like a bit more explanation as to why they’re fighting but I think It’s 1986 is about as close as we’re going to get. Tito dominates for the most part here, hammering away on both Funks. He was completely awesome at this point if you didn’t get that.

Off to the Dog now and we get some boxing. A Texas man lost a fight to a dog. Don’t bother going back to Amarillo I guess Terry. Someone please explain the appeal to me of the Dog as I just don’t get it at all and never have. Dory plays Ricky Morton which just sounds wrong and gets beaten on in the corner for a bit. The forearm gets two as I guess Tito didn’t have it perfected yet.

Control shifts over to the crazy men and they beat down Tito for awhile as he’s really playing Ricky Morton. That still sounds wrong. After a few minutes of basic offense from the Funks JYD comes back in and everything goes nuts. Terry is thrown to the floor where there are no mats. He might have legitimately hurt his knee or ankle there and I’m not surprised at all. With the referee not looking, Terry clocks the Dog with the Megaphone (Jimmy was managing them which I forgot to mention) and the heels steal one.

Rating: B-. Pretty fun match here with the Funks being all evil and the thrown together face team doing whatever they could to get the win. Granted that didn’t happen but at least they tried. This was a better match than I remember it being and while it’s still mainly formula stuff it worked rather well. I liked it and granted three of the guys being all time greats helps a bit.

WWF World Title: Hulk Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy

This is a cage match and the only one in Mania history if you don’t count the Cell match at Mania 15 which most people don’t. The story behind this is Bundy jumped Hogan at a SNME and hurt his ribs, which hadn’t healed yet. Hogan wrestled against doctor’s orders with tape all over his ribs. Simple but effective but kind of too simple as this was more or less thrown together about a month ago.

This is a very not surprising match with Bundy going for the ribs and Hogan having to fight through the pain. It’s solid because it’s Hogan doing what he does best but the total and complete lack of drama or anyone really caring for the most part is hurting it. Also having Jesse as lead announcer is a very odd choice.

Bundy rips the tape off of Hogan’s ribs like a good heel and Hogan messes up as always by trying to pick Bundy up and of course he can’t do it. There’s nothing special going on here at all but it’s working for the most part. Ah there’s the Hulk Up. Very surprisingly we get a power slam here and not the traditional slam. Maybe his ribs really were hurt. He ties up Bundy and goes over the top to retain and end the show.

Rating: B-. It’s Hogan against a monster heel not named Andre. What are you expecting here? This was his bread and butter and the fans popped for the end (only) so I guess you can call this a success. I’m a sucker for Hogan matches in the 80s so I’d say there’s probably some bias in the rating but who cares? Fairly solid match but nothing unique about it at all other than the cage aspect.

Overall rating: D+. While certainly better in the ring than the first Mania and including some storylines this time, the three venues thing is just a mess. There’s really only two or three very good matches here and I’d call maybe the tag title match Mania worthy. Other than that there’s a lot of filler and it’s more or less 1-2 big matches per location with the rest being all filler.

This show suffers from trying to do something that had never been done before, and while they did indeed do that the overlooked one major point: the new thing they did wasn’t a good idea. It’s really not that good of a show overall. Watch the highlights if you want to, but don’t waste three hours watching it from start to end.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

The main event was Hulk Hogan/Mr. T. vs. Roddy Piper/Paul Orndorff. Was that the right main event?In short, no it wasn’t.  The main event should have been Hogan vs. Piper for the title, preferably with Piper defending the belt that he won at War to Settle the Score  after Piper cheated like there was no tomorrow and stealing the title while Hogan threw a total fit afterwards, demanding a rematch here.  Hogan winning the title back here would have been great and they could have found a way to get T. in there somewhere else.

 

Thoughts on this?

Clash of the Champions 35
Date: August 21, 1997
Location: Nashville Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Dusty Rhodes

Clash of the Champions more or less was WCW’s Saturday Night’s Main Event. They started it up to go head to head with Wrestlemania 4 and actually put a solid dent in it. The show went on for 9 years but by the end no one cared at all. The show was just worthless as there was already two hours of television a week so in essence we were just getting an extra Nitro two weeks a year, which is why this is the final one.

As for current storylines, this is at the height of the NWO’s power but Sting is looming. I think you know the story there. The main event is Luger and DDP vs. Savage and Hall. See what I mean about how this just isn’t that interesting of a show? Let’s get to it.

The opening video just runs down the card. Other than the stupid tag team main event this sounds pretty decent.

We get a clip of Dillon saying that Sting has until Thursday to make his demands as Sting had ripped up two contracts with match offers in them. Sting came through the crowd and got in the ring and the fans chanted Hogan. Sting pointed to the fans who were chanting it. This angle was freaking sweet. And then Hogan and his ego just had to kill it dead.

US Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Steve McMichael

Jarrett used to be a Horsemen and stole McMichael’s wife Debra so Mongo wants to get the title to get some revenge or something. This was the epitome of a feud that no one wanted to see but would never die. Mongo is a Horsemen here meaning we get to hear the sweetest theme music of all time. Jarrett was neither interesting nor good at this time whereas Mongo never was either of those things so we’ll give it to…dang who do we give this one to?

Actually let’s just hope this ends fast. We take a break and come back with Jarrett throwing Mongo into the steps (His name was Steve Mongo McMichael in case you were wondering). Debra chokes him and I still couldn’t care less. The WCW midcard just completely sucked and while we were having Owen vs. Austin followed by Rock vs. Austin in WWF at this point for the IC belt, this just doesn’t hold up. Jarrett puts on a sleeper as a great visual representation for this match.

Mongo gets his own and Debra gets up on the apron. For no apparent reason Eddie Guerrero runs out with a belt and goes up top but hits Jarrett by mistake. Mongo covers for the title with ease. Debra tries to get him back and fails at it.

Rating: D+. At least it was short. These two feuded forever and no one cared ever. It just wasn’t interesting at all but they thought they could just slap the Horsemen name on it and get a good reaction from it through the south. There wasn’t much here though so the time was good if nothing else. Mongo held it for less than a month before Hennig turned heel and took it.

Alex Wright comes out and speaks in English and Gene warns him to speak in English which was stupid. It’s as simple of a promo as you could ask for. He has Ultimo Dragon tonight.

Gene is with the guys from a show called Dinner and a Movie. In essence they showed a movie and made food with a play on words of the movie title. It was an ok idea but why are these guys on a wrestling show? There’s your problem with WCW right there: too much corporate interference.

Stevie Richards vs. Raven

Raven “didn’t have a contract” at this point and insisted on wrestling only in No DQ matches. This is a grudge match or something as Richards was tired of Raven pushing him around. Richards had allegedly had a career ending neck injury but miraculously healed and showed up in WCW a few weeks later. They point out Raven’s ankle issue as he has a thing on his shoe to balance out the fact that his right leg is shorter than his left.

The Raven drop toehold hits to the chair as this is just a squash match so far. He throws in a bulldog onto the chair for good measure. Richards comes back with some decent stuff but at the end of the day he remembers he’s Steven Richards and the other guy is Raven and the best DDT other than Jake Roberts (who trained Raven) ends it.

Rating: C+. It was a squash and a quick one at that so we’ll just call it a bit above average for the DDT, which is the coolest move in history. Richards would be gone in like two weeks or so.

We get a cool video about Ultimo Dragon, explaining a bit of his history and his name. WCW hit the ball so far out of the park with this division that it’s insane. The name was called Ultimate Dragon but that was incorrect, as it was supposed to be Ultimo Dragon: Final Dragon, as in the final student of Bruce Lee, who he emulated in the ring. That’s the kind of thing that you just never get in WWE and it’s why the cruiserweights worked so well.

That and they never took them seriously. The shot of the J-Crown (8 titles from around the world which were defended on WCW television and included a WWF light heavyweight title that was active for 20 years but only in Japan, meaning that a WWF Title was defended on WCW television multiple times in 1996 and 1997) titles being piled up is just awesome.

TV Title: Ultimo Dragon vs. Alex Wright

When Dragon won the title a few weeks prior, it was the match where no one talked about the match whatsoever other than the final three count as the whole match was nothing but talking about the NWO. At the end they more or less said hey we have a new champion! Now back to what we were talking about. It was just ridiculous how that was all they talked about.

Wright was a guy that they tried so hard to push but it just never played out like they wanted it to. He was this young hotshot that was somewhat over as a face so of course they turned him heel and no one cared after that. Dragon really was underrated in the ring. In WWE they just threw him into the cruiserweight division and let him die off because that division sucked so hard it was pathetic. These two feuded for the better part of a year and I don’t think anyone ever cared.

There was no focus at all on the title or anything as it was always about the NWO. Dragon gets the Asai moonsault that he invented and does better than anyone else. The commentary is all about them as well which is NICE. We hit a very nice ending sequence as they fight over pins but Wright hits a SWEET German suplex for the pin and the title.

Rating: B-. This was a good match but just boring. The problem was that while these two had good matches, it’s Ultimo Dragon vs. Alex Wright. There’s just no heat at all and it’s not a great matchup while being a good match if that makes sense.

Cruiserweight Title: Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Jericho

Eddie is challenging here and is freshly full heel. Eddie’s cowardly heel stuff of running on his knees always made me chuckle. How much commentary do you really need on a Guerrero vs. Jericho cruiserweight match? The Canadian goes for that running springboard dropkick to the guy on the apron that he uses a lot but slips and botches it badly.

I guess once a year is understandable. In a quick ending, they hit another fast series of pinfalls but Jericho actually keeps Eddie down and gets the pin. Eddie jumps him after the match.

Rating: C-. WAY too short here but we just had to have Mongo and Jarrett earlier instead of on Nitro right? The ending sequence was fun as always and these two just flowed together pretty well. They needed more time though and that’s why the grade is low.

Silver King/Villano 4/Villano 5/Psicosis vs. Super Calo/Juventud Guerrera/Hector Garza/Lismark Jr.

More or less the idea here is go out there and do a bunch of flips like you do every night without ever getting pushed more than a tiny bit against each other. This is Lucha rules, meaning if someone goes to the floor then they don’t have to make a tag for someone else to come in. I used to hate Mike Tenay but he’s worth his weight in gold here.

There’s no real point to saying who is in as they move in and out so fast that it’s hard to keep up with them. We hit the big pile on with everyone hitting their big over the top rope until Psicosis hits the guillotine legdrop off the top onto Super Calo for the pin.

Rating: B-. It was just over the top and ridiculous which is what these guys did best. This was very fun and it worked well as it always did. These guys were well paid to go out there and just get the crowd going and that’s what they always did.

The cooking guys join the NWO. Tonight is their one year anniversary but Hogan isn’t here tonight because he’s in Canada doing a Hollywood movie. That’s WCW for you. We go to a commercial and come back to DDP Diamond Cutting one of the movie guys.

Konnan/Syxx vs. Ric Flair/Curt Hennig

Hennig was kind of an associate Horseman at the time but soon he would join the NWO and injure Flair. If there was ever a guy tailor made to be in the Horsemen, it’s Hennig. Syxx (X-Pac) more or less beats up Flair but we’ll ignore the pop he’s getting for doing it. That doesn’t exist. Flair gets his knee knocked out as Hennig hits the Fisherman’s Suplex on Konnan to get the win. This was a five minute train wreck.

Rating: C-. This was just insane and it felt like it was about two minutes long instead of the five that it actually was. Hennig denies being a Horsemen but also denies not being a Horsemen while only saying one thing. He actually does this which is impressive.

He would go heel soon enough in another dumb move because he was perfect for the Horsemen. He had the look, he could talk, he was over, he had the attitude and he was great in the ring. Naturally he was thrown into the NWO and forgotten about.

WCW Tag Titles: Lex Luger/DDP vs. Randy Savage/Scott Hall

About ten guys come out for the NWO and they have their party for it being their birthday. Apparently Nash is letting Savage defend his half of the tag titles for no apparent reason. Yeah of course we just throw two guys together that have never teamed together before (according to the ring announcer) and give them a tag title shot.

In WWF they would have won the titles. People keep popping the balloons that the NWO dropped so it sounds like people keep shooting guns or something and it’s really annoying. And for no apparent reason everyone other than Nash leaves. It’s exactly what you would expect from a match where the titles simply weren’t going to change hands.

The faces dominate early on but then the heels take over to set up the hot tag. Luger gets Hall in the rack but takes an accidental Diamond Cutter and gets pinned. What else is there to say here?

Rating: C+. It’s ok and that’s about it. What more do you want here? They had an ok match that no one cared about on a show that not a lot of people actually watched. Are you looking for something huge here?

We come back and Bischoff talks forever and then the lights begin to flicker. They go off and we see Sting in the rafters with a vulture. The famous speech in a child’s voice follows and the lights go out again and the bird is on the top rope. The NWO is terrified and Nash pulls the belt back to swing it at him as we go off the air. Think about how stupid this was for the live audience for a minute.

Overall Rating: C-. You could see that this was about the name of the show and nothing more. Yeah there were four title matches but that happened at almost every Nitro. Yes two titles changed hands but who cares? It’s just not an interesting show as Nitro was lighting the world on fire on Mondays on a weekly basis. Ten years earlier this was an awesome idea but here it just didn’t hold up at all. Not bad, but only watch if you like this time in WCW. Otherwise it’s nothing of note at all.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Clash of the Champions 33
Date: August 15, 1996
Location: Denver Coliseum, Denver, Colorado
Attendance: 8,304
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

We’re at one of the final editions of this show and it’s probably a good thing. This is right after Hogan won the world title as a member of the NWO and tonight it’s his first defense which is against Flair. This isn’t a terrible looking card on paper and I vaguely remember watching it when it aired. I’m on a WCW 96 kick for some reason so this isn’t completely off from what I just got done with. Let’s get to it.

We get a series of clips of Hogan destroying various people as head of the NWO, saying if he’d do things to Savage like he did then what would he do to Flair who he can’t stand? Good question.

Tony and Bobby talk for a bit and we get a video from Nitro with the Outsiders vs. Sting/Luger. The Horsemen came out for a save when Luger was down. This was around the time when Nick Patrick was about to join the NWO but he hadn’t quite done it yet. This was part of attempt #1 to get WCW united out of about 8375, none of which worked.

Crusierweight Title: Dean Malenko vs. Rey Mysterio

Mysterio had won the title on Nitro the night after Hogan turned and this is a rematch. Tenay shows up for this one. Rey is AWESOME at this point given that his knees are still in their original form here and he’s about 40 pounds lighter before steroids happened. Yeah young fans, the Rey you see today is a giant compared to what he debuted as.

Dean jumps him before the bell and the beating is on. He’s relatively heel here but only as heel as he could get. Rey speeds things up, flying all over the place for a bit to tick Dean off. He speeds up again and takes over with ease. The move that would become known as the 619 is still a taunt here and Rey tries to get at Dean’s mind with it.

Dean slows things down and hits a slick move by setting for a powerbomb and dropping back into a hot shot. JUMPING brainbuster should kill Rey but it only gets two. Cool move by Rey as he gets a running start, grabs Dean and rolls backwards into a Fisherman’s suplex for two. Chinlock goes on by Dean to slow things down. We take a break and Tony says if anything happens we’ll show you. No replay is shown so did they just stand there? Was it a game of freeze tag?

Rey gets a running start and gets LAUNCHED into the air but lands on the middle rope. After catching his balance for a second he backflips off, starting an insane pinfall reversal sequence. That’s reminiscent of one of my all time favorite spots. Shortly after Rey debuted in WWE he was facing Noble on Smackdown.

Jamie threw him over his head (more or less throwing Rey into a leap frog) and Rey landed on the middle rope, didn’t stop for a second and bounced backwards, catching Noble in a rana into a pin. Noble totally telegraphed it but who cared man. That was insane and my jaw hit the floor when I saw that, which does not happen with me. We start talking about Nick Patrick and how he’s apparently become white. And black. That joke didn’t work as well as I wanted it to.

Dean with a leg lock that gets him nowhere. Oddly enough Dean is winning with power here. Rey sends him to the floor and gets a HUGE tope con hilo into a senton. He more or less botches the heck out of a Lionsault off the guardrail but to be fair the big spot just before that makes up for it. Springboard version of the West Coast Pop (doesn’t have that name here) gets two. Now we’re talking about the tag titles for no apparent reason at all.

One of Dean’s signature moves is a gutbuster out of a fireman’s carry off the middle rope. The problem here is that Rey weighs 130lbs soaking wet with a brick in his pocket, so when Dean elevates him for it he loses his grip on Mysterio so there is NOTHING to protect Rey as his ribs hit Dean’s knee. That looked incredible. He covers Rey who gets his foot on the rope. The referee counts three anyway but then waves it off. Rey uses the distraction to get the pin on a victory roll.

Rating: B+. This was AWESOME. You had Dean LAUNCHING Rey all over the place, making it look like Rey was flying. The big dives from Rey were top notch and that gutbuster looked incredible. Dean’s timing on that was great too as he had to move his knee into position to have Rey land on it. Great match here and very fun. Unfortunately we have to watch the other 78 minutes of this show.

Glacier is still coming. Holy sweet merciful crap that was one of the biggest bombs of all time. His entrance alone cost over half a million dollars and we had to deal with six months, yes I said MONTHS of vignettes hyping him up.

V.K. Wallstreet vs. Jim Duggan

Get it? VKM, obsessed with money, wears a suit a lot? Yeah it was crap. It’s Mike Rotunda, aka IRS. What does the R stand for anyway? There are fans with an NWO banner and Heenan isn’t sure what to think of that. These two are feuding apparently. Duggan gets a wristlock but Wallstreet gets the ropes. He looks at the camera and says he’s too smart for Duggan who is right behind him. Nice one dude.

Naturally we’re talking about Hogan vs. Flair almost nonstop here. After some basic back and forth stuff we hit the chinlock. Jawbreaker gets Duggan out of trouble. This is incredibly dull. Duggan gets a slam and tries to tape up his fist which was a thing he was doing at the time so the referee tries to stop him. In the ensuing chaos Wallstreet rolls him up for the pin. What the heck ever man.

Rating: F+. Just boring beyond belief here with nothing special going on whatsoever. This was one of those feuds that happened and I don’t think anyone actually remembers it. GrantedI don’t think anyone remembered it as it was happening either. Either way, this was dull and a waste of 5 minutes counting introductions.

The Nasty Boys say they’re going to fight. They’ve been having issues with the NWO who they would soon try to join or maybe they already did. Knobbs says they want the gold. Oh and they should be in the triangle match for the titles.

After a break we’re with Gene again who says that earlier he and Tenay were interrupted by the Outsiders and wound up interviewing them. Want to know what was said? CALL THE HOTLINE!!! Oh dear.

Ultimo Dragon vs. Konnan

Naturally they call him Ultimate here because they’re stupid. Thankfully Tony and Mike say the right name but his graphic says Ultimate. Konnan is in regular trunks here which is weird to see. Nick Patrick is the referee here so I’d bet on a lot of the focus being on him because a referee is more important than the wrestlers.

Konnan dominates to start, taking Dragon to the mat and getting an insane looking deathlock/Cloverleaf on him. Dragon’s arms were between his legs and it looked painful. He hits the floor and we hear about how Konnan is all bitter over losing his US Title, which would lead to his heel turn. HEY! That’s a great way to start talking about Hogan!

Dragon sends him to the floor and Sonny lays in some decent kicks of his own. Somehow the referee has no issue with this at all either. Dragon takes over and gets a moonsault and a majistrol cradle for two. Konnan rolls through a German Suplex and uses the tights to get the very fast win. Under three minutes so no rating but this wasn’t anything special at all.

There’s a really old school internet chat going on and Ice Train is there. It’s on Compuserve of all things. Scott Norton, his old partner, jumps him there.

Meng vs. Randy Savage

This should be dull. Savage is badly injured here. Actually scratch the here part as there’s no Savage. That rock version of Pomp and Circumstance is pretty awesome to listen to though. Not so good to put on toast. Savage is too injured to wrestle so it’s a forfeit. Fans are not happy to say the least.

The Dungeon of Doom comes out to talk. Sullivan talks about how he’s never been a fan of Hogan and never praised him. He’s always told it how it is about Hogan and wants an explanation from Gene about him supporting the entire time. Jimmy cuts him off to say how great the Dungeon is…and a Leprechaun is here. No one talks about him but the camera shows him running all over the place. Apparently that’s Dwayne Bruce, the guy that ran the Power Plant and trained Goldberg. Yeah that’s it.

Bull Nakano vs. Madusa

These two had some great matches in Japan so this should be good. Madusa starts off very fast but can’t get much going. Nakano grabs her by the hair and spins her around the ring by it. That has to freaking hurt so she does it again! Nakano hits her with knunchuks twice and the referee is all cool with it apparently. Madusa totally botches a cross body, hitting Nakano in the feet. Top rope double axe handle to the floor kills Sonny (manager) who then kicks Nakano by mistake for the pin. This was very short but sloppy beyond belief. Terrible match indeed.

Flair and the girls say tonight it’s Flair vs. Hogan with Flair talking about how this is about being the best. He has zero chance to win the title but at least he’s acting intense. Flair says he has the Horsemen backing him up. Liz is so much hotter in the leather jacket and regular shirt than the dresses it’s unreal.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eddie Guerrero

This is for the Battlebowl Ring which is apparently a defendable title. Page is on the brink of the push of a lifetime as he would become the first guy to turn down the NWO and become the hottest face in the company for about a year. He has the look down here too. Eddie starts off fast of course but Page takes him down early. Guerrero’s shoulder hits the post so Page stomps on his ribs. He was still learning here.

Page gets a nice spinout gutbuster for two. Heenan still complains about the lack of arm work. DDP has an earring in his ear and Heenan suggests that Eddie rips it out. Brain could be a bit evil at times. They slug it out and Eddie pounds away, winning that aspect of the match. Batista Bomb gets two for Page. Page sets him for a top rope suplex but Eddie knocks him off and gets the Frog Splash for the win and the ring. Diamond Cutter post match and Page keeps the ring. More Diamond Cutters hit and Chavo tries to save which fails as well.

Rating: C-. Not much of a match here but it wasn’t bad. These two feuded forever with the idea being to get Page much better as a result. It kind of worked but the people were tired of the feud once it was over. Anyway, they would meet again for the US Title at Starrcade and then Page would turn and everything would get awesome.

Hogan pops up to yell at Gene. He talks about how there can only be one great one and starting tonight…nothing apparently. This is rather pointless indeed.

Glacier is STILL coming. Exact same ad from earlier.

Chris Benoit vs. The Giant

Ok this has to be good right? It’s Benoit. Woman is helping Benoit out of his vest so Giant DROPKICKS him in the corner. Keep in mind that the Giant is more commonly known as Big Show. He’s still lean here and one of the most amazing athletes you’ll ever seen. This is the Giant that could have destroyed Andre, not the big oaf you see today. Giant immediately grabs him and gets the BIGGEST CHOKESLAM EVER, with every bit of Benoit above the post for the easy pin in 30 seconds if you stretch it out. Ok then.

Tag Titles: Sting/Lex Luger vs. Steiner Brothers vs. Harlem Heat

Heat are the champions here. This is a triangle match which has some different rules depending on what year it is. This time it’s one fall to a finish and you have to tag in and out. Sometimes it would be elimination, some times it would be three guys in the ring at once, sometimes it would be like this. You never could tell for sure. Ok, please give us something watchable here. I beg of you.

Scotty and Booker start us off. Luger drills Booker with a clothesline to take him to the floor and he’s shaken up. Scott, like an idiot, tags in Luger. If his team isn’t in the match, they can’t win the titles. Well he does have to dumb himself down so maybe that has something to do with it. Stevie in now and they take turns slugging each other down in the corner.

Rick tags himself in and kills Stevie with a Steiner Line. Top rope bulldog gets two as Luger breaks it up. We take a break and are back with Booker and Rick but Sting tags himself in to beat on Booker. There’s an interesting matchup. They alter the top rope rule again so Sting isn’t disqualified. Off to Luger now as the superstars are in control. We get into the psychology part here as everyone keeps breaking things up.

Scott REACHES to get a tag to bring himself in to beat on Sting. Sting has on purple and yellow. Must be an alliance with Cena. Back to Luger as this is getting more like a brawl by the second. Rick gets a nice reverse German suplex as we hear about how the air this high off the ground could be a factor. That’s rather true actually. Luger gets a fireman’s carry which is called the Rack for no apparent reason.

Everything breaks down and it’s Booker vs. Scott in the ring still. Everyone else is fighting in the aisle and here come the Outsiders! They beat the heck out of everyone else but the key thing here is that Nick Patrick does not see it. Scott gets the Frankensteiner but Patrick sees the Outsiders leaving and call that a DQ to throw the match out. Scott is right: that’s nonsense.

Rating: C. The match was starting to get good by the end but of course the referee is more of a focus than the match so we’ll go with that instead. This isn’t much to talk about as far as the ending goes, but the rest of it was pretty good. It’s nothing I’ll remember in half an hour but it was ok while it lasted.

Gene talks to Patrick who says that it was a DQ. Gene says that it shouldn’t have been because it wasn’t in the ring. So freaking what? So if Nexus comes down and beats the tar out of Cena but doesn’t get in the ring it’s legal? Yeah this is rather stupid and Patrick is right here.

WCW World Title: Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan

Oh look it’s this match again. They talk about the 4th member of the NWO being around but no one knows who he is. It would be DiBiase which would actually save WWF in the long run as it freed up Austin. Fifth would be Giant. Both try to get in each other’s heads which only kind of works. Flair grabs a headlock as Tony tries to convince us that Flair is nervous. That’s very funny.

Hogan struts a bit as this is Larry Z levels of stalling. I love hearing Bobby go off about how he told us all so about Hogan for years. The match is two minutes old and we’ve had maybe 30 seconds of contact. Flair gets in chops and punches to take Hogan down to the floor and he’s very frustrated.

Out to the floor now with Hogan in control. They’re trying to make this out to be a huge match but it’s the same thing we’ve seen so many times before. That was an issue I always had with the NWO. Both guys had been in WCW maybe five years earlier and probably a lot less than that. Also it’s not like they were brand new as everyone knew who they were, but all of a sudden we’re supposed to be terrified of them?

Hogan works over Flair on the floor and mainly his back, but Flair gets him back into the ring and lands a suplex. Hogan, for perhaps the only time ever that I can remember as a true heel, Hulks Up complete with the basic offense. I’d love to have him do that more often I think. He was almost unbeatable with that so why not keep doing the same thing he’s done for years?

Legdrop misses and Flair goes for the leg. SHOCK AND AWE SHOCK AND AWE SHOCK AND AWE: HE GOT IT ON THE PROPER LEG!!! I have never seen him do that in his entire career! Flair gets the hold on the leg that Hogan just hurt and the champ is in trouble! After an attempt at a reversal, Hogan shoves the referee and cue NWO for the big beatdown. The Horsemen, Sting and Luger hit the ring for the save.

Rating: C-. This was your traditional Hogan match from this era: punch, punch, punch, scratch, punch, punch, leg drop. The Hulking Up thing was a nice add-on here though and while it’s not their worst match ever, these two never had that big epic awesome match that they were supposed to have. The matches tended to go downhill after a decent first WCW meeting.

Tony and Bobby wrap things up.

Overall Rating: D-. The lack of failure is only for the great opening match. Aside from that this is one of the weakest shows I can remember in a long time. They did nothing for the most part as everything ended in a DQ or was like three minutes long. Yes they had 9 matches, but when only one is good and two are ok and the other six are bad, what’s the benefit there? WCW was running on pure drama and hype at this point and it’s very clear here. Terrible show but at least it was relatively short.

 

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall