WWF St. Louis
Date: January 1, 1984
Location: The Chase, St. Louis, Missouri
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Gene Okerlund

Now as some of you may know, WWF would have a lot more house shows back in the day. What they would do is film these shows in their major cities and have commentary for them, then air them on local television. They did this in New York and MSG for years. They would also split these up and air them on syndicated shows. This is one from St. Louis. This is about three weeks before Hogan won the world title so it’s an era we don’t really see. Let’s get to it.

The Chase is a legendary wrestling venue in St. Louis but is actually a hotel. The NWA ran shows there for years and WWF came in at the very end to do a few months worth of shows.

Vince and Gene run down the card.

Dennis Stamp/Jerry Valiant vs. Rocky Johnson/Tony Atlas

Johnson/Atlas are tag champions but this is non-title. Stamp vs. Rocky starts us off. Rocky is called The Rock and it’s off to Atlas. Atlas hits some bad dropkicks and we’re in squash city here. Off to Valiant who is more of a brawler. Not that it does him any good as he gets knocked backwards quickly by right hands. A flying headscissors by Johnson takes Valiant down and it’s back to Tony.

Off to a test of strength because Valiant is stupid enough to try that with him. Now Atlas uses a headscissors. Symmetry people! Valiant takes him down into a chinlock as this match is getting more time than I expected it to. Back to Johnson who gets double teamed in the corner as well. And never mind as Atlas comes in, gorilla presses Stamp and splashes him for the pin.

Rating: C-. Just a long squash here but that’s what a lot of TV back then was supposed to be. Johnson and Atlas are a team that the more I see of them the more I like of them. Atlas especially as he’d be a great guy to have around today with his look and power. Decent match here and a good way to showcase the champs.

Ken Jugan vs. David Schultz

Schultz is most famous for attacking a journalist who asked if wrestling was fake. He’s known as Dr. D. Schultz grabs a headlock to begin and rides him on the mat. Jugan hasn’t gotten in a single shot yet. Schultz pulls him up after an elbow drop and keeps beating on him. Out to the floor as the beating continues. A backbreaker gets two. This is getting boring now as it’s been going on way too long. Back to the floor again as there’s nothing to talk about in this. Schultz hits various offense and Jugan gets nothing in at all. Jugan gets in some very weak punches and then gets tombstoned (called a southern piledriver) for the pin.

Rating: D-. Like I said, there’s only so much you can get out of a guy getting destroyed for this long. One thing that’s kind of different: the announcer reads the time and even says what the finishing move was. Ok he didn’t here but he did in the first place. This ran over seven minutes so you can see how it gets a bit uninteresting.

Bill Dixon vs. Hulk Hogan

Oh my goodness! Now THIS is an historic moment. This right here is Hulk Hogan’s first match back in the WWF after being gone for about four years and becoming a superstar in Rocky III. He comes out to Eye of the Tiger and is way over. Hulk would jump into the world title scene in about two weeks, winning the title in about three weeks and holding if for four years.

Actually, this is being reviewed on the anniversary of his title win so that’s appropriate. Hogan takes him to the mat with a Fujiwara Armbar ala Del Rio. Dixon hammers away but Hulk comes back with a big boot, slam and the big leg (I’m assuming making its WWF debut) ends this. Total squash but the crowd reaction tells you everything you need to know here. This is history people.

The local network president welcomes WWF to St. Louis. It lasted about two months.

Hulk says he loves St. Louis and that he’s focused on an upcoming battle royal. He wants a world title shot. Bear in mind he’s 1-0 (by his own admission) and he’s just declared himself #1 contender.

Murdoch and Adonis say they want the tag titles. They would get them in about 4 months.

Johnson and Atlas come in and say St. Louis is their home away from home.

Big John Studd says he’s awesome. He has a new manager named Magaw Maginaw. No idea who that is but he looks like Luscious Johnny V.

Jimmy Jackson vs. Big John Studd

In the words of Rocky III, “my prediction? PAIN.” Jackson tries to slam him and that goes nowhere. Studd offers him a top wristlock which goes just as well. Over the shoulder backbreaker ends this quick. Another squash.

Bill Berger vs. Ivan Putski

Putski is a Polish dude that is short but incredibly muscular. See, he’s really strong. That’s about it. And he’s Polish. This is just Putski using his strength to break almost everything and throw Berger around. Eventually the Polish Hammer (double axe to the chest) ends this.

Rating: D-. No idea what there is to say here. Putski is a pretty boring guy and this was no exception. His shoulders are huge but he has little chicken legs. Nothing really to see here and these squashes are certainly a generational thing. You couldn’t get away with this if your life depended on it.

Terry Daniels/Kevin Collins vs. Adrian Adonis/Dick Murdoch

This is probably the main event. Adonis vs. Daniels gets us going. Really I don’t know what to say here. After like 6 squashes there’s only so much you can say. Daniels is sent to the floor and thoroughly pummeled. Back in and he gets beaten up even more. Collins comes in and gets beaten up as this is really boring. Adonis puts Collins to sleep to end this.

Rating: D. See any other match already tonight to get the idea here.

Overall Rating: D+. This is a hard one to grade. There were certainly a lot of big names on here and for a TV show that aired locally, there isn’t really a lot to complain about. For the masses, this wouldn’t have been much. Most of 1984 was pretty generic stuff, but once 85 got here things took off like a rocket. Not much here, but you have to keep some specifics in mind.

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Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

For those of you that haven’t heard the history, here was the new plan that for some reason that I’m not sure God himself understands. Nick Patrick, the referee, had been very biased towards the NWO in the recent months. He was supposed to make a fast count, leading to Bret Hart running down and saying he wouldn’t let this become Montreal all over again (not in those words but that was the idea). Two things caused this cluster of a plan to fall apart: Patrick counts a relatively normal count, and Hart is there before the bell rings. With Patrick counting normal speed, it looks like Sting just got pinned in a normal match.

Another problem with the whole fast count thing: Sting stayed down. You can see him getting up about 20 seconds later when Bret is arguing with Patrick. If this was supposed to be a fast count then Sting should have popped up a split second after the three correct? Instead he popped up almost half a minute later and looked like he could barely get up if his life depended on it. If this was supposed to be a fast count, why did no one tell Sting that was the finish? Could it be that he knew it would bomb?

The announcers don’t bring up Patrick’s heel tactics, and they touch on it being a fast count. They don’t have time because instead of Hart running down to the ring like he was supposed to, he was already there, so he stops the bell from ringing about two seconds after the pin. He says it won’t happen again, which makes no sense to non-WWF fans, or to wrestling fans in general. Since he was a referee earlier in the night, he is apparently has refereeing powers all night, so he jumps in as referee. Sting hits the splash, the scorpion, and he gets the title to end the show. Two weeks later, the title is held up vacant, and Sting FINALLY pins Hogan mostly clean in LATE FEBRUARY (this was three days after Christmas) at Superbrawl.

The whole thing just made no sense and everyone saw that it was nothing but a way to get the buyrate for Superbrawl up. Hogan and the NWO should have died then and there. Hogan should have disappeared until about June before coming back in the red and yellow, begging for the fans’ forgiveness while Sting slowly accepts the fans again and becomes the surfer or at least a normal looking wrestler. Instead, it’s the same things over and over again. All the fans, myself included, had their intelligence insulted. I and many other fans I knew at the time started watching Raw and loved what we were seeing, because it wasn’t WCW. I never left.

Sting would wind up holding the title for about two months until Savage beat him for it at Spring Stampede, only to lose it back to Hogan the next night. Goldberg beat him for it three months later. To say the fans didn’t react well is an understatement. The next night on Nitro the ratings were GREAT. The lead for Nitro stayed intact until the fans started getting what was going on.

Once the fans were told the title would be held up, they started to watch Raw more often. You couple this with the introduction of Mike Tyson and Steve Austin getting the world title and the lead was gone. About a week after Mania, Raw won for the first time in nearly two years. While the content on Raw was a major factor in this, there was no reason for WCW fans to watch Raw until they got screwed over here.

Sting had been this hero for WCW and would end the NWO once and for all. That was supposed to happen, much like Austin winning the title at Mania. Sting was supposed to destroy Hogan but that just didn’t happen for some reason. That reason would be Hogan didn’t want to lose clean like that and when he got the title back just a few months later, everything fell apart. WCW proved they had learned nothing a little over a year later in the Fingerpoke of Doom. The fans wanted something new and WCW decided that wasn’t going to happen. The rest is history.

In case you didn’t get it, this is another suspect.

In reverse chronological order:

1. David Arquette Wins World Title – May 7, 2000
2. The Radicalz Jump Ship – January 17, 2000
3. Vince Russo Hired – October 5, 1999
4. Formation of NWO Wolfpac – May 4, 1998
5. Starrcade 1997 – December 28, 1997

Now with that one, we can jump back a good distance in time, because from about the time that Hall jumped the guardrail until Starrcade 1997, they pretty much could do no wrong. They made a fortune, they dominated the ratings and they were the dominant company in the wrestling world. Even before then, you could probably argue that they didn’t have any glaring errors until you get back to June 1994 and the signing of Hulk Hogan.

The first reaction a lot of people are going to have is “but KB, that got then to their success later.” Well yes that’s true. However, let’s take a look at what they’re giving up. First and foremost: money. Hogan was going to have a heavy pricetag and I’ve heard (and no I have no hard proof of this so if someone says I’m wrong and has proof I’ll certainly say I’m wrong) that it was in the neighborhood of seven hundred grand per PPV appearance. Then again, this is Ted Turner’s company, so money doesn’t mean much.

However, there’s one major thing that Hogan seemed (emphasis on that word) to change: the youth movement. Let’s take a look at some of the WCW roster that was gone soon after Hogan took over and some of the people that were brought up to the top.

Steve Austin: went from being US Champion, TV Champion and tag champion to losing to Jim Duggan in about 30 seconds. Now the interesting thing: Austin had been developing this character that was anti-authority and anti-old school, wore black trunks and had started swearing a lot. He got hurt and then was released for not being marketable. Austin had allegedly been in line for a world title feud for Starrcade with Flair but then Hogan got there, “retired” Flair and held the title for a year and a half, defending the world title against Brutus Beefcake at Starrcade. So Austin was replaced (allegedly) by Duggan and Beefcake and left WCW at age 29.

Mick Foley: he was probably the best promo man in the world for about a year, then had a huge feud with Vader where he got to incorporate more of his hardcore stuff. Foley and Kevin Sullivan won the tag titles in early 1994 and lost them to Paul Orndorff and Paul Roma before leaving in September, because there was no place for someone like Mick Foley there right? He was 29 when he left.

HHH: yep he was there too. He played a Connecticut blueblood who thought he was better than everyone else. They wanted to put him in a tag team, he wanted to be a singles guy. WCW released him and he was in WWF about 4 months later. He left at age 25. And no, you can’t really blame that on Hogan.

I’m probably forgetting others. The thing is though, instead of pushing these guys, you saw guys like Orndorff and Roma and Duggan with titles and guys like John Tenta and Kamala and Beefcake and the Nasty Boys and One Man Gang being on TV and getting pushes and you have to wonder why these guys were in the spots they were in. Now again, you can’t prove that these guys got depushed/pushed due to Hogan, but doesn’t it seem a little strange that these changes all happened right around the time when Hogan arrived? I’m going to add this to the list of suspects, but again there isn’t much hard evidence for it.

In reverse chronological order:

1. David Arquette Wins World Title – May 7, 2000
2. The Radicalz Jump Ship – January 17, 2000
3. Vince Russo Hired – October 5, 1999
4. Formation of NWO Wolfpac – May 4, 1998
5. Starrcade 1997 – December 28, 1997
6. Hulk Hogan Hired – June 11, 1994

You know, I think that’s about it. There are some major problems and blunders that WCW had before then, but I don’t think there’s anything that you can really point at which couldn’t be recovered from. There is however one major thing that I think we need to talk about and that would be the idiocy of what they did with Ric Flair in 1991.

Now as we’ve gone over, Ted Turner bought Jim Crockett Promotions in the late 80s. However, he was a tycoon and didn’t exactly have time to run a wrestling company. So Turner brought in a bunch of people that had no freaking clue how to run a wrestling company, with the main one being Jim Herd who arrived around 1991. Herd looked at Flair and thought that he was washed up and past his prime.

This was totally wrong as well since Flair was not only world champion but the top draw still. Herd thought the Nature Boy gimmick was stupid and wanted to change Flair into, and I’m not making this up, a bald gladiator. Yes, he wanted to drop one of the most famous gimmicks in history to make him a stupid character.

As Kevin Sullivan put it, “after we change Flair’s gimmick, let’s go change Babe Ruth’s number.” Flair, having a brain, told Herd that this wasn’t going to work. Herd, being the idiot that he was, decided he knew more wrestling than Flair and told him that Flair would do it or be fired.

Now this is where Flair had him. Since, like everyone that knew what they were talking about, Flair knew that he could walk straight into the WWF and be launched right to the top of the show, he didn’t back down. Herd fired him and Vince got a nice big present called Ric Flair just handed to him. Now let’s get to the interesting part. When he was fired, Flair was still WCW and NWA champion.

Yes, Herd was dumb enough to fire him BEFORE changing the title. See what kind of idiot he was? He was stripped of the WCW Title which was then put in a match between Luger and Barry Windham, which was booed out of the building with chants of WE WANT FLAIR! The winner didn’t matter, because no one was going to take them seriously as champion (noticing a recurring theme in this?), and why should they have? They never beat Flair for the title so they were in essence fighting for the number one contender spot.

No one bought it and the title was hurt badly for the next year and a half since instead of watching fake champions, they turned the channel to USA to see how the real WCW champion did in the WWF. Now the REAL interesting part lies in the NWA title. Like I said, Flair held both titles which were represented by the same belt.

The NWA had a policy for its world champions: you win the title, you pay 25,000 dollars as a deposit on it. The deal was done to prevent people from showing up in other companies with the title. In other words, you rented it. Once you lost the belt you got the money back with interest on it.

Now that’s fine and good. Flair paid the deposit and all was well and good. However, once he was fired from WCW he was stripped of the belt and was told to return it to the NWA. Flair said he’d be glad to do it as soon as he was given his money back. Problem: the NWA didn’t have it. Flair says well then you don’t have a belt either. He took it to Vince and used it in a gimmick, calling himself the REAL world’s champion.

The NWA panicked since there was no way they could let this happen. They took Flair to court over it and were laughed out of the room since they had absolutely no case. They made a deal with Flair and weren’t living up to their end of it. Therefore, there was nothing they could do to keep Flair from using the title on WWF TV. It was his property so he could do whatever he wanted with it. Eventually Flair went back to WCW and let them use the belt after they paid him what he was owed. The big gold belt became the WCW Title and the rest is history. Again though, I don’t think you can really call that a candidate in this because they managed to recover and got out of the NWA before they could do much additional damage.

With that, we have our six final suspects as to who/what killed WCW. We’ll now go through and look at which of these really was the worst. Now remember, what we’re looking for here is the moment where once it had occurred, WCW was simply not going to be able to recover.

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Survivor Series 1989
Date: November 23, 1989
Location: Rosemont Horizon, Rosemont, Illinois
Attendance: 15,294
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura

Well, a year has passed and you all know how Wrestlemania 5 went. Hogan is champion again and Savage is a heel now, but Ultimate Warrior is on the rise and it’s very fast. Not a lot other than that has really changed. The first four shows can really be grouped together as it’s not until 1991 and the fifth show where we have anything other than a Survivor Series match at one of these shows.

Until then all we’ve had is matches that further the main feuds along. The other things that have changed as far as the style of the show is that the tag match idea has been dropped which is great to me. It makes room for a fifth match which means there’s no match on the card that cracks 28 minutes, meaning that the pointless filler goes WAY down. The matches are now 4 on 4 and they have team names sot this is far closer to the traditional style that we’re accustomed to.

The style works better as it allows for more matches which means less stupid ones. This was a huge step in the evolution of the show which therefore makes it much better in my mind. All that being said, let’s do it.

We get a two minute and twenty second video of clips of the city, the fans, the production truck, and the arena. The souvenirs are oddly called novelties here. It just looks odd. There’s no commentary for this, but only a late 80s WWF theme song playing in the background. Back in the day, all of the shows had their own themes that you would hear once a year. It was kind of a nice touch I always thought. We go to a montage of wrestlers saying what they’re thankful for.

Hogan: health, family, Hulkamania. He speaks for the other members of his cult as well. Somehow this takes a minute for him to say.

DiBiase: he’s rich and you’re not.

Jake Roberts: Damien and the DDT.

Demolition: that they don’t have to fight each other.

Savage: that he’s worthy of being king. And that he’s not in Memphis where an army of Lawlers would miss punches thrown at him.

Duggan: that he lives in America.

Bravo: that Earthquake is on his side.

Dusty Rhodes: his polka dots. And for not having to pretend to have talent against Flair anymore.

Boss Man: for justice. And for the League. And for America. Yeah that was terrible.

Beefcake: his cutting and strutting. And that Hogan lets him keep a job.

Martel: his good looks.

Rude: having a great body.

Piper: that he’s not Rick Rude. Ooo burn.

Genius: for being smart.

Perfect: for being perfect, duh.

Bushwackers: for having stuffing. They practically kiss after saying this. There’s something a bit odd about these two.

Heenan: spending Thanksgiving with the Heenan Family.

Warrior: for war? I have no idea what he said.

Vince runs down the card, which looks ok. I’ll save this for later. This is a montage of pics, introducing every member of each team and every team’s name. It sounds long and boring but this is quick and solid. I like this actually.

Gorilla is the only person that can rock a red sports coat.

The captains will be listed first.

Note: the heir to the throne, Shane McMahon, at the ripe old age of 19 here, is the outside referee all night long.

Enforcers vs. Dream Team

Enforcers: Big Boss Man, Bad News Brown, Rick Martel, Honky Tonk Man
Dream Team: Dusty Rhodes, Tito Santana, Brutus Beefcake, Red Rooster.

First things first: Dusty and Beefcake’s music was AWEOME. No Sapphire at this point so my world is still awesome. Ah yes the feuds for this. Dusty and Boss Man are feuding, mainly due to Dusty stealing his hat and both guys needing a feud. Santana and Martel are STILL feuding years later over a team that was together less than a year. Beefcake and Rooster are just there, as are Honky and Brown.

To be fair though, Brown is a substitute for an injured Akeem, who was Bossman’s tag partner at the time, so it’s not like he’s even supposed to be there. Yes, despite what happened last year, Honky and Brown are fine again. We’re starting with Tito vs. SWT (Santino With Talent), the Honky Tonk Man. See, you need talent to play a character like they do. Honky has it which is why he’s memorable. He’s a wrestling Elvis impersonator. That’s saying something.

Jesse says that this is a main event anywhere in the country. Maybe at a bad indy show but that’s it Jess. Strike Force is going at it AGAIN, which even I’m sick of. Jesse says they’re now defunct. I won’t make fun of that as they’ve only been broken up for about 7 months at this point which isn’t that long ago right now. They’ve also not had the big televised match so that’s fine. I think they finally met on SNME but never on PPV, at least not one on one.

Dusty and Bossman go at it now, renewing a rivalry from WAY back in the NWA days. In one of the coolest moments I’ve ever seen in wrestling, Dusty shattered a wooden chair over Bubba (Bossman). What did the big man do? He straightened his tie. Dusty, the massive face at the time, had no clue what to do and ran. Ok so he kind of stepped with a bit more speed but you get the idea.

Brutus comes in, which is odd as it’s his first time not being the first face in the match, but he’s still in the opener. That’s either really good or really bad and I’m not sure which. You can really see the old 80s look here but the 90s are wanting to break through and start up. How in the world has Terry Taylor kept a job this long? Was Little Beaver, which has to be the best name ever for a wrestler, not available? Gorilla says he can dance like Honky. That’s an image I might want. Not sure though.

Jesse’s pro-cheating stuff is just greatness. They’re mentioning the lone wolf aspect of Bad News already so I think we know how he’s going to be eliminated. The fans are popping for Santana against Martel. Why we never got the big Mania match with these two is beyond me. We did however get the epic Martel vs. Koko squash to open Mania 6 though, so that’s nice. Santana jobbed to Barbarian in that match. Why they didn’t just wrestle each other is beyond me.

I think it was planned for them at Summerslam 90, NEARLY A YEAR AFTER THIS, but it didn’t happen as Martel was injured. Martel pins Santana using the tights to finally get rid of someone after 9 minutes. This was far better though as it at least makes things go faster. We have 7 people left instead of 9 so we’re far closer to being done as opposed to the past two years. They keep referring to Bossman vs. Rooster as a mismatch and that’s true.

It’s talent vs. no talent which is a mismatch if I’ve ever heard of one. Bad News doesn’t want to get in the ring as the foreshadowing is absurd at this point. And there it is. In the EXACT SAME SPOT as last year, Bad News gets hit by his partner. Yep after an argument Brown is leaving. See, Dusty’s team is smart here as they don’t do anything to Brown or the other team. If they’re going to go after each other why not just let them? It’s what I’d do.

It never ceases to amaze me how much bigger of a star a wrestler can become by just simply hanging out with Hulk Hogan. What is so great about Beefcake? He has some kick great theme music, but other than that what has he ever done on his own? He’s a barber for crying out loud, yet he’s a major star simply because of Hogan’s association with him. That’s how you know you’re a big star: when by simply being around someone else you make them a major star. That’s saying a lot.

You could say the same thing about Hillbilly Jim too. He got big because of Hogan but he then carried it himself. Anyway, Beefcake takes out Honky with a high knee, doing something that no midcard guy could do for over a year: pin him. That’s actually quite impressive when you think about it. Honky went a LONG time without losing to someone on his level. We’re at 3-2 with the Dream Team in the lead now. Brutus takes care of Martel after being beaten on for awhile.

It made sense though as it was on a sunset flip, which at least makes it look like it’s a surprise. Rooster lasts about 20 seconds against Bossman so thank goodness he’s gone after a Bossman slam. Brutus hits a very odd looking spot as he comes is whipped in and comes back and just kind of raises his knee into Bossman’s chest. He doesn’t jump or anything so it’s not technically a high knee, but instead he just knees him in the chest. It just looked odd, but effective.

Dusty jumps at him and the bell rings twice to end this. Post match Dusty gets beaten half to death by the nightstick. The epic fatness saves him though. Dusty’s overselling here is great. Brutus helps Rhodes out as his music plays and an ugly woman cheers him on. This woman would soon be known as Sapphire.

Rating: B-. See, this is similar to last year’s, but it’s 8 minutes shorter. That makes this miles better. We don’t have 8 minutes of chinlocks or armbars, but rather much faster stuff and less time between eliminations. There were periods of almost 20 minutes with 2 eliminations last year. That’s just dull. This was MUCH better organized as far as time goes and it made for a much more interesting and much better match. It’s still not great, but it’s far better than last year.

Boss Man says Dusty got what he deserved.

The King’s Court all say they’re going to win and that they’re liking this team. The old interview area was always awesome.

King’s Court vs. 4x4s

King’s Court: Randy Savage, Earthquake, Dino Bravo, Greg Valentine
4x4s: Jim Duggan, Ronnie Garvin, Bret Hart, Hercules

Two things: Either Earthquake or Bravo is replacing Widowmaker, who is more commonly known as Barry Windham. I’ve heard either answer so it could very well be either one. Earthquake was a rookie at this point so my guess would be him as Bravo had been around for at least 3 years at this point. Second, Bret and Neidhart are being tested here to see how they do in singles stuff, and Neidhart is actually in the main event. Third and most importantly: Ronnie Garvin still sucks.

Oddly enough the captain leads his heels down the aisle. I like that as it looks like he’s leading them into battle. There’s actually a point to this feud as Hacksaw lost the crown to Savage and he wants it back, leading to this feud. Other than that there’s no real point to these matchups. Based on the commentary, Earthquake is the replacement as it sounds like Jimmy Hart was bought off for this. All of the faces have 2x4s.

That’s either really smart or really stupid and I’m not sure which. In spite of what Gorilla would tell you, the people are not literally hanging from the rafters. Hercules is showing off all kinds of power out there which is actually pretty impressive. Dang Bret is getting a reaction. For a career tag team guy, that’s impressive. Oh yeah Garvin and Valentine are feuding here so it’s only four pointless guys out there. Somehow, Garvin is a former world heavyweight champion.

I think Earthquake and Hercules had a match at Mania and Bret and Bravo had some house show matches if I remember right, so there’s at least some minor stuff from all of these guys. Earthquake sits on Hercules’ chest in about 4 minutes to end him. How awesome of a finisher is that? He just sits on you to get rid of you. I love that.

Yeah Bravo went after Hart so I’d assume they were having a small feud at this point. Ah nice it’s beat on Garvin time! I officially love the King’s Court. It’s weird hearing Jimmy Hart cheering on Savage. Jimmy really is a great manager when you think about it. You can see he’s having a blast out there every time he’s in the arena and that’s all you can ask for out of a performer. Dang it doesn’t last long as he slips a blind tag to Hacksaw who hits the three point clothesline to beat Valentine and even us up.

Earthquake and Hacksaw do some stupid looking brawling for awhile until both tag out so we get more Garvin. Oh yay. He jumps in the air and slams his head into Bravo’s. Yeah that was stupid. Why was the Garvin Stomp supposed to mean something? It’s the same thing that Orton does now where he goes around in a circle with kicks, but Garvin does it somehow more slowly than Orton does. Let that sink in for a bit.

It also looks even stupider than when Orton does it. He’s just kicking the guy. Why is that supposed to be some awesome move? Holy crap it’s Savage vs. Hart. In a GREAT looking scene, Savage runs at Garvin with reckless abandon but as soon as Hart is tagged in Savage stops dead and backs away. The pop is there and Hart all of a sudden looks like a god. Right there, that is how you build somebody.

You take a veteran and an a-list guy like Savage and you have him make Hart look like they’re even. That was perfect. The announcers are helping too by implying Bret can match Savage move for move, which he could, but how many people noticed it for the first time because of what Gorilla said? Of course, they screw it up by having the camera on Sherri for about 10 seconds so we miss the initial contact. Thank you horny Vince.

The crowd is going freaking off for Bret so at least they know what they’re talking about. Savage of course bails in about 40 seconds to bring in Dino Bravo. What was the appeal of this guy anyway? Did he ever actually do anything? Not that I can remember. Correction: he just eliminated Garvin so he is now on my all time top 5.

It’s time for more brawling with Duggan and Quake. Seriously, why is this the thing we keep going back to? It didn’t work the first time so why are we seeing it again? Why not more Bret and Savage, since they’re the most talented people in this match? Of course that’s what I get when I say it. Now for the main thing: Bret wins here. He doesn’t eliminate Savage, but he certainly out fights him here. What more can you ask Savage to do for Bret here?

It kind of worked too as after another run with Neidhart, Bret would begin his singles career. WOW. They fought for about 2 minutes and I don’t think Savage had any offense. He was only able to tag because he got out of the way of an elbow from the middle rope. That’s probably the best job of putting someone over I’ve ever seen. That was absolutely perfect. You have to remember that just 7 months prior to this, Savage was on the end of a yearlong world title reign.

It’s not like he was just a guy that was hot at the time. This would be like Miz or Swagger beating on Cena for a few minutes and Cena not getting in a single blow for the whole times. The announcers argue about Duggan with Gorilla saying he doesn’t know the meaning of the word quit. Jesse responds in perfect timing with the gem of so what? There’s lots of words he doesn’t know the meaning of.

I’ve always wondered why wrestlers didn’t watch the tapes and kill Jesse for what he said about them. Same goes for today. Announcers insult people all the time, so why don’t the wrestlers go after them? I certainly would. Ok so I’d get fired and arrested for it but I’d still do it. Geez, Bret takes a beating for about 5 minutes from Bravo but Savage comes in and Bret makes his comeback. I hope Bret bought Savage dinner after this. He owes him either that at least.

Now you’re going to see the brilliance that is Jim Duggan and his great leadership. Bret is out of it after that huge beating but he FINALLY gets the tag so that Duggan is in. Duggan is in for FIFTEEN SECONDS before tagging Bret back in. At this point, Duggan deserves to lose. That’s just freaking stupid.

Now we get something you might never see again. Bret hits the post with his shoulder, and Bravo ACTUALLY FOLLOWS UP ON IT! He hits a shoulderbreaker, which is actually making sense. My goodness people, the WWE guys today need to watch Dino Bravo matches as that was the best psychology I’ve ever seen from him. He had something handed to him and he followed up on it. He then tags to Macho who gets the elbow for the pin.

Jesse swears no one can kick out of that, obviously forgetting Hogan doing just that earlier in the year. It’s Duggan against three guys now. Jesse says Duggan wants the capacity house to get behind him. That’s some weird wording. They really make Duggan look good here as the heels don’t tag for a bit and he holds them all off. Macho is really putting people over tonight, which makes sense as he certainly was the most accomplished person in this match and it wasn’t even close.

Other than Savage only Valentine and Hart had won titles, with Hart’s tag title reigns and Valentine being a completely different character at this point. His IC title reigns are completely forgotten. This is basically just Duggan trying to survive…which I guess is the point of the whole show so maybe Duggan is smarter than all of us.

He gets knocked to the floor and due to the managers and Earthquake he doesn’t get back in time. That’s saying a lot. They didn’t have him get pinned. He clears the ring with the board. Now, is that his board, or did he steal it from someone else from earlier? What a great American role model.

Rating: B+. I really liked the psychology here. Duggan not getting pinned, Bret being made to look AWESOME, Hercules not lasting long at all and Garvin getting killed means this was fun. The heels more or less dominating was fine here and this was exactly what it should have been. Savage was 10x anything on the other team and there was no reason his team should have lost. The best way to describe this match was that it made sense, which means a lot in my mind.

DiBiase is with his team and says that his team is awesome and that Hogan will lose. Now that would be possible if he wasn’t going up against perhaps the greatest Survivor Series team ever assembled. More on that later.

Over to Gene who has a report on Dusty’s condition. He says it’s bad but that Dusty will be back.

The Genius has a poem. It’s catchy I guess.

Million Dollar Team vs. Hulkamaniacs

Million Dollar Team: Ted DiBiase, Powers of Pain (Warlord/Barbarian), Zeus
Hulkamaniacs: Hulk Hogan, Jake Roberts, Demolition (Axe/Smash)

See what I meant by greatest team ever? Seriously, show me a better four man team EVER. This was the second Demolition reign as they had just gotten the belts back from the Brainbusters. Hogan is the world champion, and Roberts didn’t need a title to be a huge name. I defy you to find me a more balanced team. Also, for ONCE, this is perfectly done.

Hogan and Zeus are feuding, and there was actually a glimmer, and I do mean a glimmer, of a chance that those two would have headlined Wrestlemania 6. To fans like we are in that era, this scared the heck out of us. Everyone that knew anything knew that Zeus was bad, but the Hollywood aspect of this was actually getting Vince believing that it would work in front of 65,000 people. That speaks volumes about how big this feud was.

For every fan out there, you should be thanking whoever booked tonight’s show, because this was Warrior’s main event audition. If this failed, it would have been Zeus vs. Hogan at Wrestlemania. Demolition and the Powers of Pain were feuding earlier in the year so this was either the very end of it or it was already over and we were waiting on their transition to facing the Heenan Family of Haku and Andre. Finally, DiBiase and Roberts are going at it.

Amazingly, no entrance for the heels as they’re in the ring at the end of the poem. I knew Genius couldn’t get that kind of heat on his own. Anyway, all of the faces here have awesome music here. The pops for all four faces are huge, as I really don’t get why this is in the middle of the show. Chicago is notorious for hot crowds and this is no exception.

Good grief the people loved Hogan. The heels won’t let the faces get in. You know what the solution is. BIG FREAKING SNAKE! I am in full mark out mode here as this is just awesome. Hogan’s music is playing the whole time just to make it even cooler. The bell ringing kind of brings me back to reality.

Gorilla’s commentary about Zeus is cracking me up. “Is that big Z on the side of his head in case he gets lost or something?” Gorilla and Jesse are perhaps the best duo of all time. They just are perfect together to say the least. Hogan and Zeus start us off, giving us that epic wrestling encounter we all know they have inside of them. Zeus is actually the same height as Hogan. That surprises me a bit.

I would have thought Hogan was taller. Gorilla will not let up on Zeus as he’s now talking about his belt. Zeus completely no sells everything. Even a jumping knee to the chest does nothing as apparently Hogan is now an MMA guy. He goes to the eyes and slams Zeus who pops back up. This stuns Hogan. Why? It’s a freaking bodyslam, not a Jackknife. Barbarian interferes and Hogan has his head and neck twisted.

That move by Giant in 1995 would put Hogan on the shelf for 3 months, yet here he keeps fighting. What that tells me is that Giant (Big Show for all you newcomers out there) is WAY stronger than Hogan. Zeus chokes away but throws the referee across the ring for the DQ. Everyone runs in and it takes DiBiase promising money to get Zeus off of Hogan. Now some of you might not get why this was the right thing to do. I’ll explain it to you. Zeus makes Khali look like Lou Thesz.

Now, I’ve explained the whole issue with Zeus in far greater detail in my Summerslam review, but in short, Zeus was an actor from the movie Hulk made called No Holds Barred. He wasn’t a wrestler and therefore couldn’t do much in the ring. This would be like having Shaq be in the main event of a PPV. Now, having him do one or two matches would be fine as he could get a crash course in wrestling and his natural athleticism could carry the rest of it.

However, imagine Shaq vs. Cena for the world title at Mania. It’s crazy to even think of. Thankfully, Hogan and Zeus had their feud blown off on a special PPV which was the movie No Holds Barred followed by Hogan and Beefcake against Savage and Zeus in a cage. Hogan hit three legdrops and pinned him to end it and save for a short promo, Zeus wasn’t seen in a ring again for over 6 years.

DiBiase comes in and beats the tar out of Hogan, which shows why this wasn’t the smartest booking in the world. Instead of Zeus going out first, you should have the other guys eliminate each other and put Hogan’s team at a disadvantage so that Hogan can make more of a superman comeback. Jake gets in and he half kills DiBiase. I’ve always loved Demolition’s style: hit people a lot. There’s no thought to it and it’s just mindless violence. What more can you ask for?

They beat down Andre the Giant, so I’ll take them over anyone else as far as brawling goes. Now here we have the stupidity of the way this match was booked: Hogan is already fine about 2 minutes after that horrible beating. I get that they were trying to hold out for Hogan vs. Zeus, but give me a break here. Now the ending is completely obvious as Hogan of course is going to survive, so why should I watch the next 20 minutes of this match?

Now I already know how the rest of it goes, but even if I hadn’t I could call this a mile away. Hogan’s team will get eliminated and he’ll beat DiBiase one on one for the “huge comeback” win. This is what I hate about late 80s booking. The ending works fine most of the time, but getting there makes NO SENSE. However, we do get a fun spot where Hogan and Demolition beat down DiBiase. Why did Hogan and DiBiase never have that big match?

If there has even been one major match that was built up for years and never had the trigger pulled on it, that was it. They just never got to it and that’s not good. They had a match on SNME, but never that big blowoff match on a major show. I would have made that the main event of Mania 6, with DiBiase saying he had enough of paying people to get the job done and he was going to do it himself.

Now for the key: I would have had DiBiase win it. Hogan loses at Mania anyway, so why not to DiBiase? Then have Warrior take it at Summerslam or whatever to lead up to Mania 7 like always. See it’s not that hard. My booking train of thought is completely derailed here by a Monsoon line. “I don’t care if you have a Big Z on the side of your head, that’s not legal.” The greatness of this line cannot even be put into words.

That line is so corny, so horrible, and so freaking stupid that is completely AWESOME. Jesse has NO CLUE what to say to that, so Gorilla keeps complaining about Zeus. Does Tom Lister owe him money or something? Now we move on to the completely stupid elimination of Axe. Fuji trips him, Warlord drops a standard elbow on him, and he’s out. He was relatively fresh so it’s not like he was worn out or something.

If he was worn out completely then that ending makes sense, but why was that all it took? It was a simple elbow drop. That’s the issue I have with the People’s Elbow. It’s an elbow drop. It takes 20 seconds to set up and the effects of the Rock Bottom are wearing off, so it’s a basic elbow. Why should that be able to win matches? That was just freaking stupid.

Yep, Hogan is still fine and this match still sucks. I think that was the issue with this team: they were too good. There’s no way that the heels were going to be able to win here, so therefore, the faces should have lost. That choke thing should have gotten rid of Hogan and the faces should have gone down. How big of a shock would that have been? It sets up Hogan to beat Zeus at the special PPV and DiBiase at Mania, like I SAID WOULD WORK.

Why did I have to be not even two back then? Despite not doing anything for most of the time, we get a rest hold. Good night this is just boring. DiBiase does a weird looking falling elbow from the middle rope which misses. Barbarian clotheslines the heck out of Smash to pin him. It’s Jake and Hogan against the Powers of Pain and DiBiase. I’ve always loved Jake’s blind punches. If he ever hit one of those he would probably half kill someone. That’s better than killing someone I guess.

Roberts, being the better at selling, gets his snake loving head nded to him. Barbarian misses the diving headbutt as Hogan looks like his doggy has been run over as he always does. Hogan fights off both of them as I’m about to snap if I hear Gorilla call Hogan the champ one more time. The referee disqualifies both Powers of Pain for double teaming to make this 2-1 as this is just freaking stupid at this point. Jesse is ticked off and I can’t blame him.

Gorilla is just blatantly being biased at this point and even I’m ticked off too. Why does Hogan have to be pushed THIS strong? He’s the freaking world champion and a single loss in a team match isn’t going to hurt him one freaking bit. Immediately after this, Hogan survives a LONG Million Dollar Dream as even I’m sick of this stupidity at this point. Jake comes in and beats the tar out of DiBiase. I love Ted’s flips. Watch him get knocked around sometime and you’ll see what I mean.

They’re perfectly fluid and they look excellent. Virgil interferes and takes a SWEET DDT to knock him out, but DiBiase drops the falling punch and uses the ropes to pin Jake. At least with the ropes it makes a bit more sense, but Jake not even moving until the three is on the way down was just stupid looking. Did he wake up all of a sudden?

So it’s one on one and Hogan is spent. Gee, I wonder what this is going to be like. Could it be, oh I don’t know, THE SAME FREAKING  THING I SAID IT WOULD BE??? Gorilla once again calls Hogan the champ as I feel like I’m watching a Flintstones cartoon. It was always the champ that they wanted to watch on TV. The booking here is just awful as we have our comeback but the double clothesline kills that off.

Yep the legdrop ends this THANK GOODNESS. Hogan poses for TWO AND A HALF MINUTES while holding the belt in DiBiase’s face. See, wouldn’t that be a great buildup for WRESTLEMANIA in 4 months? Heck no let’s just have Hogan reign supreme AGAIN when he didn’t need to.

Rating: D-. Now I’m a Hulkamaniac and I always will be despite what he did in WCW and all the politics he played etc. He’s the greatest and biggest wrestler of all time and he always will be, but this was AWFUL. The booking was just completely stupid here and it backed them into a corner so that the main event had to be Hogan against either Zeus or Warrior. As Gilbertti said, if someone is pinned clean, why should we want to see that match again? I certainly wouldn’t.

DiBiase and Hogan was the money match that had been teased since at least Mania 4, so why did we never get it? Instead we got Hogan and Warrior, which was fine, but they completely blew this one. Why does Hogan, the world champion, have to win here? If Zeus is supposed to be this unstoppable monster, why should Hogan pop up and be fine two minutes later? This just could have been done so much better than they did it, and I don’t get and, nor do I like anything about it.

Savage and Zeus are in the back now as they’re back to being BFFs and they plug the special PPV.

Hogan and Beefcake do the same, but the heels run in and beat them up.

We run down the rest of the card as we have to be at an intermission at this point.

Jesse runs down Hogan and talks about how stupid that was, as well as talking about how the Heenan Family is arguing.

Sean is with Rude’s team and they all say they’ll win. This takes a long time and The Rougeaus are funny.

Roddy leads his team down the hall as all three of them try to smuggle turkey to the ring and leads them in a song/chant. This is bizarre but actually funny.

Rude Brood vs. Roddy’s Rowdies

Rude Brood: Rick Rude, Mr. Perfect, Rougeau Brothers
Roddy’s Rowdies: Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka, Bushwackers

So let’s take a look at these teams. First of all they mostly match up with Snuka and Perfect not feuding but they at least are on about the same level. However, let’s break this down. Rude’s team. Here we have Perfect and Rude, both IC and US champions and two of the best to never win one of the two big world titles. They’re teaming with the Rougeaus who are some of the most athletic and crisp guys you’ll ever see.

On the other team we have four guys that have a combined two titles in WWE. Piper has both of them, with the IC title in 1992 and the tag titles with Flair in the 2000s. Yep, if there’s ever been a perfect distribution of talent, this is it. Seriously, even on paper this match looks like a joke. Perfect is with the Genius here. He and Hogan would have a small feud, but no one bought it. Now if that happened a few years later, we’d certainly be on to something. The Rougeau music is AWESOME.

They’re All American Boys! This is one of my all time favorite wrestling songs and is just pure awesome. Rude comes out sans Bobby. This went nowhere really as Heenan stayed with him until he left the company in about a year. He did pick up Henning in a bit though. Snuka has done nothing ever in WWE. Name one match that he won that wasn’t a squash.

He had the cage dive that apparently influenced about half of the wrestlers active today though. Bushwackers, called the marching morons by Jesse, never won anything either. Piper, who won all of two matches that meant anything in WWF, is by far and away the most accomplished member of his team. His pop is great. The bagpipes are completely awesome as always.

We start off with Perfect and Luke. Rude’s tights put RVD’s to shame on all levels. They’re completely awesome. Everyone bites Perfect. I wonder if he needs salt. Jacques does the Jeff Hardy head over heels rope flip which always looks awesome. He then lays down and does a kip up. Yeah these guys were awesome as far as athleticism. They came in during the apex of tag wrestling though and it was hard for them to really break though.

Take my word for it though: they were sweet. Superfly really isn’t all that impressive to me. He had some flashy moves but there’s not a ton of substance here for me. He does have a sweet big splash though and that ends Jacques as Jesse can’t say the name of the face team. They beat up on Perfect for awhile as this is remaining ok I guess. Now no one believes that the Bushwackers are going to beat Perfect, but it’s at least not a bad waste of time.

He finally gets out and it’s Raymond against Piper now. Well this should be….different. Piper eliminates him in about a minute after Ray beats on him for awhile to make it 4-2 and now even I can see how this is going to end. We know it’ll get down to 2-2 and it’ll be the big stars left. Yeah, it’s not hard to figure out at this point. I love how the Bushwackers are completely insane yet they’re trained wrestlers. That’s always been amusing to me. What was training them like?

In case you can’t tell, I’m quite bored at this point as we’re just filling in time before we get down to the big names. Piper and Perfect is a pretty interesting matchup actually. It’s a complete clash of styles and it works very well. What more can you ask for out of this match? I know that we’ve got a gimmick show here but there’s a lot of singles matches that I think would have been better here. Granted they weren’t feuding here but still that’s a feud I’d like to see.

Rude is flat out ROCKING that mustache. Butch bites Perfect’s trunks. Seriously dude, that’s just getting stupid. Perfect takes him out with a rollup. I wonder if Bobby ever motivated him like that. Bite him on the trunks and he’ll start fighting better. Luke bites Rude on the face and it leads to the Rude Awakening to get it down to the predictable ending.

The heels beat on Snuka for awhile here as it’s quite boring at this point. Piper yelling come on Jimmy makes me think of the movie The Wizard and Video Armageddon. I hate this match. It’s so bad. I better get some Lee rep for that one. Anyway, Snuka powers out of a cover and Perfect lands on the referee with the back of the referee’s head in Perfect’s crotch. When is tea time anyway? Jesse keeps saying Snooka and it’s getting annoying.

Rude rakes the back and Jesse calls it a Piper move. That’s a Hogan move actually Body. The future governor says that this is a standard tag team match now. That’s not true either as it’s elimination, not standard. Why does Jimmy wrestle barefoot? That has to be annoying at times. What if he stubs it or something? Yoda Monsoon says “head to head they hit.” I guess the hand next to the head when Roddy punches is a boxing thing. That’s all I can think of.

So we have our two captains and it lasts a minute and a half as they go to the floor for the double count out to make it one on one. Yeah I’ll spoil it for you: Perfect is going to win. They tried so hard to build him up as credible but he just failed in house shows against Hogan as no one thought he was a legit challenger which is why Perfect never was a real option for a PPV opponent, despite the AWESOME set of promos about how Perfect he really was.

Yeah Perfect is dominating and it’s looking like a squash. Short comeback should happen in about a minute or so. Yep I was right. I officially hate this match. I’ve called half the sequences in it and this is just boring me to death at this point. We get a decently fast paced sequence, but naturally the savage falls victim to the Perfectplex. Why would you ever put your head down in front of a guy that uses a suplex as his finisher? Even Snuka is smarter than that isn’t he? Snuka beats up the Genius afterwards.

Rating: D. I HATED this match. It was just flat out awful and the lineup gave away the ending the whole way. You knew the tag teams would cancel each other out and it would get down to the main guys. At that point, there was no way that we were going to have a face team win. Snuka was a jobber to the stars as you remember him being the first victim of the Streak. This was no exception and it was a lot of filler as well, so I’m certainly not impressed.

The Rude Brood celebrates but Rude won’t talk about Heenan.

The Ultimate Warriors, a pretty bad team, says they hope they spoil Thanksgiving for the Heenan Family.

Heenan Family vs. Ultimate Warriors

Heenan Family: Andre the Giant, Bobby Heenan, Arn Anderson, Haku
Ultimate Warriors: Duh, Rockers, Jim Neidhart

This was the epitome of a last second switch. The Brainbusters, Anderson and Blanchard, were being thrown out as they were just too good and Vince knew it. However, Tully failed a drug test earlier in the day and that was all the reason needed to fire him. Bobby was put into this match as a result. He’s dressed like Andre which amuses me. Even the announcers sound generally surprised about Bobby being out there, so maybe there was something to the idea of this being a legit surprise.

I can’t believe this. I like the Rockers’ music. Yeah Shawn Michaels is in the main event of the Survivor Series. What’s with the high knees in this show? Andre jumps the faces and beats the tar out of them until Warrior comes out and saves them, clotheslining Andre three times to knock him out cold on the floor. That’s how banged up he was. That was as long as he could last at the moment.

Yes, that man would be a champion before the year was over though, giving Andre a completely token title reign to end his career. That would actually be the main event of a LOT of house shows around this time: Warrior beats Andre in less than a minute. So let me get this straight.

We have a young tag team and a powerhouse teaming with an unstoppable force in the Warrior in his main event tryout against a good wrestler in Anderson, a strong guy but more or less a career jobber to the stars in Haku, and a manager. Yeah, this is a FINE way to end the show. What is so special about Jim Neidhart? You hear no real complaints about him, but what did he ever do? He and Bret were a great team, but Bret is obviously the more talented guy.

Neidhart was a jobber for awhile as I don’t remember him winning any singles matches, yet he’s remembered FAR more fondly than his counterpart, Marty Jannetty. However, Jannetty has a pretty decent resume of his own: IC and tag champion. That’s not a bad little career. Now of course it’s nothing great, but that’s not bad either. How many wrestlers don’t have that kind of record? Andre looks downright depressing.

He can’t stand up straight, he’s hobbling around and he’s just shouting unintelligibly. Why was he allowed near a ring at this point? A simple two and a half years before this and he looked fine at Mania 3. This is just sad to see though. Jesse talking about how great and tough Heenan is has me cracking up. Haku hits a kick to the back of Anvil’s head to even us up at three.

Shawn is in there now, and it’s just amazing to think that he’s by far the biggest star left in this match. Who in their right mind would have guessed that? Now we get to some solid stuff as it’s Rockers vs. real wrestlers. I’d LOVE to see this be against the Brainbusters instead of Arn and Haku which is as odd of a pairing as you could ever imagine. Other than a short Warrior thing which was also ok as I like power vs. power at times, this is the best part of the whole show.

The Rockers are really underrated as a team in my eyes. They can bring it with the best of them. Also, they hit a double superkick. Shouldn’t Arn be out cold at this point? That’s a move that I could actually give a break to for Shawn about how it knocks people out now but not then. You could argue that he started practicing it more and got the mechanics of it down better and worked his leg harder to get it stronger, so I can live with that actually.

Heenan comes in, hits a knee, gets punched in the ribs and is out. If Santino did that every week, I’d almost like him. Ok that’s a lie but it would amuse me. Haku and Anderson KILL Marty so that Brain can come in and hit a few stomps and a knee to win it. We have an answer as to why Neidhart is remembered more fondly. He lost to Haku, who got a few world title shots in the next year. Jannetty lost to a guy that tripped over the tail of his weasel suit.

What is this book they keep talking about? I’d love a copy of that book. Warrior comes in and within 12 seconds it’s rest hold time! We get another one a few seconds later. Both are bearhugs by the way. You really can see that Shawn is the star in the making. He has that look in his eyes that people talk about. Actually that might be cocaine, not sure.

The faces use the Midnight Express’ Rocket Launcher which has to make Arn laugh, as he and Tully dropped the titles to them so they could leave the NWA. Shawn with a GORGEOUS high cross body takes out Haku. We now have Bobby Heenan against Shawn Michaels. That is just hilarious. Heenan goes UP TOP! Make that the middle rope. Ok it’s the apron. Yeah he’s not doing anything.

This is the epitome of the coward and it’s working perfectly. OH NOW I GET IT! He’s using his brain! So he’s using himself? Is he his own pimp? Is Godfather needed? Ok I’m done. Shawn and Arn are going at it now as that’s a fine match. Arn with the Anderson Drop, takes out Shawn. Wait the what? When in the world did the spinebuster have a name??? I love that. That’s what it should be called. It’s an awesome name.

More or less it’s Arn by himself against Warrior which leads to at least one funny moment: he goes for a tag and Heenan says no way. Arn is TICKED. For his troubles he gets gorilla pressed and splashed for the pin, and guess who’s the last heel standing. The look on his face is priceless. Warrior goes commando and sneaks up on Heenan which is funny as well. Sadly this is a borderline comedy match.

Heenan’s face is killing me as that could be an avatar with ease. I could be convinced to give up Link for a shot of that. Heenan is running as much as he can but it’s not working. He almost gets up the aisle but it doesn’t work. You know the ending already. Warrior, the jerk he is, chases him up the aisle and clotheslines him in the back of the head which I don’t think Heenan knew was coming, which is not only unprofessional but very dangerous. Yeah Warrior was kind of horrible.

Rating: C+. The comedy here is just ok and again, WE KNEW WHO WAS GOING TO WIN! Andre simply had no business being out there and it’s just plain sad. Now this would have been miles better had Tully been in it, but on mere hours’ notice, what can you ask from Vince? It’s ok and the fans went home happy, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt here. Also, the Rockers/Heenan Family stuff was pretty sweet.

Overall Rating: D+. And that’s being VERY generous. The first two matches are pretty good, but the last three have some of the worst major show booking that I’ve ever seen in my life. It made little sense, it accomplished nothing at all, and it was as predictable as possible. This was just awful at the end. Unless you’re a hardcore 80s WWF fan, stay away from this. However, next year we get a few twists and a HUGE debut.

WAIT!

Just so I can say I reviewed it, you’re getting a bonus match. No Holds Barred was later shown on a special PPV called The Movie and the Match. All it consisted of was the movie and then a special cage match between Hogan and Beefcake vs. Savage and Zeus. That’s all it was: a movie and a match, but it was the closest thing to a definitive blow off between Hogan and Zeus that we ever got so let’s give it a shot.

Hulk Hogan/Brutus Beefcake vs. Randy Savage/Zeus

We start with Sean giving a very brief introduction, saying that this is a real challenge to Hulkamania etc. This was in Nashville at a Wrestling Challenge taping in December of 1989 with the PPV on December 27. The heels are already in the ring when we start this up, which can’t be a good sign. Hogan is world champion here. Your commentators are Vince and Jesse. Hogan brings his own chain to lock the cage. That’s just odd.

Beefcake gets in first but as Hogan is getting in, Sherri slams the door on him so it’s 2-1. Savage grabs Hogan to hold him on the ground. The referee runs over to help him, despite having no actual authority here. As he’s doing this, Sherri locks the door so Beefcake is stuck. However it’s the late 80s so we have to make this completely pointless to close out the decade, so Hogan gets loose and climbs in about a minute later.

Beefcake is down now though, so I guess there was at least a thought there. The cage is moving a lot, which is a flaw of the old school kind. The faces are all of a sudden dominating. Dang Hogan liked raking men’s skin. He did that a lot. However, Zeus rams both guys’ heads into the cage to turn it around for the second time in less than four minutes. The rules here are both guys have to get out to win. There’s no pins or submissions.

Savage nearly gets out but Beefcake makes the save. Here’s Sherri though showing off that tremendous figure of hers. I really think Brutus was underrated as a worker. He suffered from having his career turned upside down by the face injury and some of the absolute dumbest gimmicks of all time. Savage and Zeus are completely dominating here. They both try to go up though and the faces make the saves and here’s your comeback.

All four are down after a quadruple cage shot. For no apparent reason, the referee opens the cage, and Sherri slams the door on his head in one of the SICKEST sounding things I’ve ever heard. I mean there was a thud when that door hit him. Despite it being no holds barred, we need to keep the official out of the way. Sherri slips Savage the chain. In a laugh out loud moment, Jesse says Vince has no authority here. I love lines like that.

Savage jumps off the top of the cage with the chain around his hand but misses Beefcake and here come your faces again. A chain shot takes Savage down but of course doesn’t knock him out. You’d be amazed how immune to pain cocaine can make you. Zeus pounds on Hulk. I’ll give you two guesses as to how that goes for him. Beefcake gets up the cage after knocking Savage off and does this big celebration before leaving. Thanks for leaving your partner you freaking traitor.

He pulls Savage out. So let me get this straight: Beefcake leaves Hogan and then tries to help the other team win. What kind of a freaking excuse for a friend is he? What’s next: joining the heel stable as a completely over the top character that can only say two words and apparently losing his calling as a barber? Good grief I love wrestling. Only in wrestling could that even resemble making sense. Four cage shots leads to three leg drops. WOW he must have hated Zeus.

Three Hogan leg drops is equal to the combined power of the militaries of Bolivia and the Death Star. Wait, Hogan gets the pin? There were no pins mentioned before. At least the 80s are going out in style: a short cage match with over the top characters and rules that are changed on the fly. Jesse’s line of “I don’t believe it he did it again” cracks me up.

Rating: B-. This was literally just a match at a TV taping that was thrown on at the end, so what do you expect from it? It’s about ten minutes long and exactly what you would expect it to be. It’s nothing great but it sent the fans home happy and ended Hogan vs. Zeus so there we go. It did what it was supposed to do also: gave the people a reason to buy the movie. This was eventually put out on a home video compilation tape called Supertape, so it’s whatever. This was perfectly fine.

 

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Summerslam 1989
Date: August 28, 1989
Location: Meadowlands Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey
Attendance: 20,000
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Jesse Ventura

So we’re a year removed from the first Summerslam and quite a bit has changed in the WWF. Savage is now a full heel and no longer the champion, having dropped the title to Hogan at Mania 5. Their feud continues though as Hogan is now teaming with Beefcake to face Savage and Zeus in the main event. Now the Zeus storyline was, ahem, interesting I guess you would say.

Here’s the idea: Hogan made a movie called No Holds Barred. To wrestling fans, this was and still is proof that there’s a god and that he has a sense of humor, as this may indeed be the worst movie ever filmed. It’s corny, it’s stupid, and it’s nothing but a way to push Hogan down our throats. Seriously, this makes Cena look like Clark Gable.

Anyway, Zeus the character, real life name Tom Lister, wanted revenge on Hogan the wrestler, not Hogan’s character Rip from the film. If that made no sense, it would be like villain from 12 Rounds, whoever that was, coming to Raw to try to kill John Cena. See why this feud was bad from the beginning? Wouldn’t Zeus be angry at the screenwriters and not Hogan? Shouldn’t he be heading for a board room or something like that?

Dang this guy needs a new agent. Anyway, there’s one major flaw with this storyline: Lister wasn’t a wrestler, but an actor. This leads to one big issue: he doesn’t know how to do anything in the ring other than choke Hogan. This proves to be a storyline that’s looked back on fondly as it was something I grew up watching, but in modern times this is pretty stupid.

Anyway, this is a big tag match, even though there’s another one in a cage a few months later that’s the real blow off to this, and likely a better match. Your other big match, which oddly enough was the first time those words could be used to describe this series, is Rick Rude vs. Ultimate Warrior for the IC Title in a rematch from Mania 5 where Rude stole the belt in a stunning upset.

Other than that, it’s mainly filler matches that no one really wanted to watch. It looks like a far better card on paper than last year’s show, which isn’t saying much to be fair, but let’s see how it is.

First thing we see: big freaking sign saying that the show is tonight at 745. Well thanks for letting me know that since I’M WATCHING THE SHOW. How stupid were the 1980s? That music is sick though and I love it. Pure retro WWF music is something that will never be topped. Why in the world did I not have a Hulk Rules shirt? Oh and we have a tag line: Feel The Heat.

Well ok then I’ll make sure to do that. Tony and Jesse do your run of the mill intro talking about the two big matches until Tony says away we go. Apparently we’re going away to another intro. This one is of wrestlers squashing jobbers with cuts of non wrestling people doing various summer things: softball, ice cream, swimming, etc.

This is like a weird intro to Wrestling Challenge or something like that. It ends with Hogan hitting Zeus with a chair and Zeus slowly turning to face him before we hear some familiar music.

Hart Foundation vs. Brain Busters

Busters just recently won the tag belts from Demolition, ending their epic reign that will simply never be topped. However, this is non title because the Busters won the titles after this match was signed, which I guess is trying to protect the belts while keeping the Harts strong, but it still doesn’t make it sound all that great. The champions still have no music for no apparent reason while the Harts music sends the crowds into the official land of the insane.

This was around the time that everyone knew the Harts were the best tag team in a LONG time and perhaps the best team ever, and that the belts were rightfully theirs. I’ve always like the jog that the Busters did on the way to the ring for some reason. Makes them seem more serious or something I suppose. I also like the no music. It makes them seem like two guys that do nothing but just go out there and wrestle. That’s a gimmick in and amongst itself.

Lance Storm made it work very well, as did Arn Anderson. According to Jesse, if the Harts lose they might not get a title shot again for another year. In this era, there’s an excellent chance that he’s correct. That’s how competitive the tag division was at the time. In two months you’d see a tag team survivor series match with some TEN TAG TEAMS. I don’t mean two random guys put together and called a team.

TEN sets of guys that were legitimate teams. To say that the Harts dominate the first half of this match is an understatement. I don’t think the champions have control in that time frame at all, but they somehow never look like they’re completely out of it either. That’s a nice touch and something that’s rather difficult to do if you think about it. But wait, what’s this? The champions….are starting to win? What a concept!

The champions are winning a match in the style they’re champions of! That’s a great idea indeed and makes the match better as it extends it, making it back and forth. Arn hits the ropes and Bret uses a knee to his back to break his momentum. That’s a pure heel move but it gets a massive face pop here. I love how in wrestling the fans are so preconditioned to cheer and boo for certain people. That’s something you only get here.

We get a brawl once Hart gets the tag and eventually it’s Blanchard and both Harts in the ring. He gets the slingshot shoulder block which I’ve always marked out like crazy for, followed by the powerslam/splash move where Jim picks up Bret and reverse powerslams him onto Tully for the cover. Arn with a double axe handle, which normally is just a basic move, apparently knocks Bret out here for the pin.

Rating: B+. This was some classic 80s tag team wrestling which is what the 80s were best at. All kinds of double team work and back and forth style which is just a treat to watch all over the place. Harts dominate but the champs come back in the end to steal the pin, which is a very nice touch as both teams look strong. Very good match and the perfect opener.

Dusty Rhodes, wearing Big Boss Man’s hat and holding his nightstick, is going to face Honky Tonk Man, which was a weird feud to say the least. He’s not worried and it takes him about a minute and a half to say that which includes 28 complimentary lisps.

Dusty Rhodes vs. Honky Tonk Man

Yep, it’s a comedy match. This was just an odd feud to say the least and I’m not quite sure who thought this would work well on camera. Neither guy could carry a match so I guess it falls on Dusty here. Dusty has a reputation for being one of the most lazy as well as one of the most inept guys in the ring and this is no exception. We’re 2 minutes into it and what do we get from Dusty? A rest hold of course!

And not just any rest hold mind you, but the lethal slight ankle twist…….OF DOOM. Hart on the megaphone is always great stuff as you could tell he loved every second of being out there. This cameraman has way too much of a tendency to focus the camera on Dusty or Honky’s pants. That’s not something I want to see a lot of. Dusty of course no sells the offense which makes Honky look even more ridiculous as we get even more rest holds since neither really has a big offensive range to speak of.

Think about it: what do you remember Honky doing other than a swinging neckbreaker? What stands out for you from Dusty other than a bunch of elbows? Dusty fights back, leading to a Honky rest hold. Literally, we’ve probably had 40-50% rest holds so far. What the heck are they resting from? Oh here’s Dusty’s next comeback and it’s the more interesting variety of elbows and punches rather than punches and elbows this time.

Ref goes down and Jimmy accidentally hits Honky with the guitar, leading to a BIG elbow drop from Dusty for the pin. Sean Mooney picks 18 seconds after Honky gets hit by a real, not the Jeff Jarrett breakaway kind, of guitar to interview him. Honky thinks he’s Elvis, that Jimmy is Priscilla and that he needs to kiss Lisa Marie before he gets on stage tonight. That’s an image that I don’t want coupled with one I do want actually.

Rating: F. This was atrocious. Both men had issues wrestling anything close to a passable match and were asked to put on a good match out there. That’s a bad combination and Dusty apparently was sleepy as he was in about 18 rest holds in a 10 minute match. That was the biggest issue of the whole thing for the most part. Honky was a great comedy heel, but even he couldn’t escape from the gravitational force of the suckage that comes from Dusty’s stomach.

Duggan, in Demolition mask, along with his partners for later tonight Demolition, talk…about something. I think it’s about training for their match later.

Mr. Perfect vs. Red Rooster

Perfect is a guy that can do anything and everything perfectly. Rooster is a man that walks around making chicken noises. My goodness what a gimmick can do for someone. There’s a bit of a joke here as Rooster was offered the Perfect gimmick buy turned it down and was given this I believe as a punishment. Hennig took it just so he could have a job in the WWF.

I think we know who made the right choice. It might be this gimmick but I’ve never been able to stand anything about Terry Taylor. He’s the most worthless wrestler I have ever seen. Dude, did Taylor botch a slam? Hennig is what, 250? How do you botch a move like that? Tony says that a dropkick was totally awesome! DANG that didn’t sound right coming from him.

They fight on the floor for a bit as I think Rooster is injured. He’s limping around a lot and I don’t remember Hennig doing anything to his leg. I think so even more as they go back in and NOW, you’re going to see a Perfect Plex! I mean they’re inside and within a second he’s got the headlock on him. That has to be a fast ending. Taylor can’t even sell the Plex right, as he sells it like he’s out cold. It’s a suplex with a bridge, not a power bomb. You don’t sell it like you’re dead.

Rating: C+. This was WAY too short to really be anything as it was less than 3 and a half minutes I’d say. However, if Taylor actually was hurt that’s not their fault at all. For the time they were out there it was good though. I think it was the slam where he got hurt though. He was on a big offensive run at the time and a quick slam would have fit in there perfectly. After that it fell apart which I think was due to the injury. I’ll go with the decent ranking when both were healthy instead though.

BLAST IT! At least that’s the clean version of what Gene Okerlund has to say when the Summerslam logo falls behind him as he’s trying to interview Rude. The funny part is it falls, he hears it, he looks down at it, and THEN he says the word. They cut away immediately and Tony tries to imply nothing happen as Jesse is completely losing it on commentary. This was hilarious.

Tito Santana/Rockers vs. Rougeaus/Martel

Random six man tag. This should be good I suppose given the guys out there. Oh and Jannetty will be ok too. It’s a classic tag feud mixed with singles feud so…ROUGEAU MUSIC!!! Holy goodness I love this song as it just awesome all around. As I check, yes indeed Jimmy Hart wrote it. With lyrics like “we don’t like heavy metal and we don’t like rock and roll. All we listen to is Barry Manilow.”, seriously, how can you go wrong?

Eighties wrestling music was so mind blowingly great it’s hard to stop. Slick managed Martel? I don’t remember that. As expected given the names in this match, everything goes insane in just a few seconds. The Rockers are in and it’s dropkicks a go-go all over the place, followed by the tag team throwing Santana into Martel. As they would today, the heels take over when we’re back in the ring. After that, it’s standard material that works pretty well I’d say.

Everyone in there is at least a decent if not good worker. After about 5 minutes of heel dominance, we get to the inevitable brawl with the faces taking over. Hart gets on the apron but is cut off by Jannetty, who is rolled up but reverses the rollup into one of his own. Martel runs in and lands a devastating…punch, which knocks him out for the pin. Tony screams that neither was the legal man, but who cares about that?

Rating: B+. This can be summed up in one word: fun match. You had six….that was two words wasn’t it? Oh screw it. I’m a political science major because there’s no math so who in the world cares? Anyway, these guys just went out there and had fun. They had almost 15 minutes and made the most of it. Great little match that was fast paced for about 90% of it which helps it a lot. Makes the heels look strong while holding off on the Martel vs. Santana match, which is a plus.

Recap of Warrior vs. Rude, which was actually an epic rivalry. These were two guys that for no reason at all had amazing chemistry together. I don’t ever remember them having an actual bad match, which is odd for Warrior. It started at the Rumble where they had a pose down and Warrior had the IC belt.

At the end, Rude hit Warrior with a steel exercise bar and choked him out with it. Warrior chased him down and didn’t catch him until Mania, where Rude had Bobby Heenan hold Warrior’s foot to steal the title. Since then, they’ve been randomly feuding on and off as Warrior fights the whole Heenan family and a week before Andre beat him up. This is your rematch.

Wait, we need more rambling. Warrior talks about…Andre of course. Oh he throws in Rude too.

Intercontinental Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude

Rude does his standard intro that seems fresh despite being used about a million times. As he says hit the music, my tape jumps and I get a split second of the Gobbledygooker egg at Survivor Series 1991 which I’ll be getting to later on. That was really quite odd. Warrior is of course completely insane as he comes to the ring as Jesse wonders what asylum he was let out of.

In this series, Warrior would almost always dominate early on and this is no exception. I like that, as it fits Warrior’s character very well. Also, as they did at Mania, Rude’s back is hurt. Rude’s selling of the atomic drops are nothing short of classic, rivaled only by that of the Genius. Warrior goes to the top twice, which is just odd to see. However only one works as the Ultimate balls are crotched on the top rope.

He also throws on one of the best reverse chinlocks I’ve seen in a long time. It’s closer to a camel clutch but who cares? Rude goes for the Rude Awakening and just has it ripped off. As this is going on, images of Warrior in full character start coming to me. This is absolutely classic stuff as him freaking out on his trainers is nothing but funny stuff. They go back and forth as the ref gets bumped.

Powerslam by Warrior but a slow count allows Rude to get his foot on the bottom rope. This match has some drama to it. Rude hits kind of a weird jumping punch off the top rope which isn’t something you see every day. Rude gets a piledriver as Roddy comes out, whom Rude had been feuding with lately. As he’s there, Rude gyrates at him for no apparent reason, resulting in Roddy mooning him. This gives Warrior the time to heal, leading to the slam and the splash and the IC belt.

Rating: A-. This was a very fun match. Like I said, these two just have freaky chemistry together for no reason at all and every time they’re in the ring it works well. Warrior is slowed down in these matches and it works quite well for him. Rude was a completely opposite style than his but for some reason they just meshed so well. Great match that made sense and furthered Piper vs. Rude like it was supposed to do. Warrior would hold the title until he vacated it after winning at Mania.

Sean Mooney is in the audience and says it’s awesome in a completely pointless scene.

In the back Gene is with Mr. Perfect, who says that Rooster was just a stepping stone, while using for what may be the first time, his signature line: Nobody beats Mr. Perfect, NOBODY. That’s actually a very good line.

Without cutting at all, Roddy shows up to be interviewed by Gene, who makes jokes about showing his back to Rude. Piper is either so coked up he can’t see straight, or he’s the best promo man that’s ever existed.

Again, with no change in the camera shot at all, Ronnie Garvin is here as my level of appreciation for this show falls. In case I haven’t made it clear, I hate this guy. He says he has a special assignment but Heenan runs in to complain and absolutely lose his mind over what Piper just did. This is great as Heenan is completely insane at this point. We have to be on an intermission here as this is the 4th interview in a row. Rude comes in and freaks out with less comedy.

Jesse agrees with Bobby.

Following that 5 minute barrage of interviews, we get a recap of the main event feud. Apparently Hogan and Zeus were feuding on the set of the movie, and Z appeared on SNME. Macho and Zeus hooked up in July to continue Savage’s feud with Hogan. Yeah this recap is really boring. We get the famous scene of Zeus attacking Beefcake and Hogan smashing him with a chair and Zeus just turning around.

This was SO much better when Dusty and Boss Man did it in the NWA. That’s the really famous one where Rhodes took the wooden chair and smashed it over Boss Man’s (then called Big Bubba) head, shattering it into a bunch of pieces. Bubba no sold it and just adjusted his tie. That’s awesome stuff right there. This goes on for five minutes and it’s just not needing that much time.

Big Boss Man/Akeem/Andre the Giant vs. Jim Duggan/Demolition

This is just a straight old grudge match which should be fun. We get Jive Soul Bro so everything is right in my world. Andre just looks bad here. The heel team is 1,300 pounds. That’s freaking scary. When the 400lb+ Boss Man is the smallest guy on the team, that’s saying a lot. Duggan is in the Demolition mask here and Jesse makes a Jason Vorhees joke for no apparent reason.

He’s also King at this point which didn’t last that long. Ah ok the mask does look like a black Jason mask so that works fine. He has an American Flag painted on his face so Jesse has to go on a big rant. The 2×4 has a crown on it which is kind of cute. Duggan and Akeem start us off and Duggan defies the laws of PG with some harsh language.

The faces work over the African Dream a bit here which is smart as he’s definitely the easiest target of the three. And so much for that as Boss Man is in now. Now they work over him too as I’m noticing a theme of some sort. Some double team shenanigans allow Andre to come in and Axe is in trouble. Andre sits on him and it’s amazing that he’s still alive.

For once the USA chant makes sense as Andre is a Frenchman. Akeem, the wrestling master that he is, allows Axe to get the tag and bring in Smash. He gets a slam on both guys to put the heels in trouble. And then Andre smacks him in the head to take care of that. Akeem gets a second rope splash on Smash but Duggan pops him with the board to take care of that and get the pin. Big pop for that also which is kind of surprising.
Rating: C+. This was just a good old fashioned fight and there’s nothing wrong with that. Given the 6 guys in there, what were you expecting out of this match? These guys were just beating on each other for the sake of beating on each other and it was fun. Fun little match that worked quite well for what it was.

Survivor Series ad.

DiBiase says he’s going to beat Snuka.

Hercules vs. Greg Valentine

Ronnie Garvin is the surprise ring announcer. What did the fans do, burn something huge? How in the world he got a pop and earlier in his career actually BEAT RIC FLAIR FOR THE NWA WORLD TITLE is beyond me. He’s fighting with Valentine over something and he insults Valentine and Hart in his introduction. These are the worst insults of all time.

He says Valentine claims to weigh 249 but looks to be overweight by 30 pounds. Is that actually an insult? He’s saying Valentine weighs less than he looks? “When he goes to his manager for advice, Little Jimmy can’t give him any.” What kind of a mean thing to say is that? Dear god this guy is awful. He says Valentine has two left feet. Garvin is insulting his ability to dance now??? In case you can’t tell, I really hate Garvin.

This match goes on for about 3 minutes and I think Hercules uses 18 punches and a suplex. Valentine uses his feet on the ropes and gets a pin. Garvin, the guy this match is focused on is, says that he feels Hercules is the winner. Based on this, the referee disqualifies Valentine. Herc and Garvin beat up Valentine.

Rating: F-. I hate Ronnie Garvin. He’s involved in this match, so it sucks.

We then get what has to be the weirdest promo of all time. Gene is with Sherri, Macho and Zeus, around a freaking cauldron of all things. They say….something about bad things coming to the faces tonight but I really was too confounded to listen. This was far stranger than it sounds.

Ted DiBiase vs. Jimmy Snuka

DiBiase, still with no music, mentions he ended Jake Roberts. Snuka comes out to NO reaction at all, but Tony tries to tell us otherwise. Jimmy is rocking the zebra tights instead of the tiger ones he usually has. They’re really not working for him. Standard stuff here that’s really not interesting to say the least.

Punches, kicks, occasional suplex, DiBiase misses a big move, Superfly goes for the splash but Virgil makes the save, Thanks to Virgil we get a count out. Post match he beats up Virgil and splashes him which gets a ton of flashbulbs.

Rating: D. This was boring beyond belief and really didn’t need to happen. It is the definition of filler which this show was full of. They seriously need to get to the end of the show NOW.

Mooney is in the audience…..again.

Beefcake and Hogan say they’ll win. Apparently they drove their Harleys across the river. Hogan uses some very un-Hulk like language, even saying sexy, to describe Liz and her “headlights.” Kind of makes me wonder what he was riding.

Hulk Hogan/Brutus Beefcake vs. Zeus/Randy Savage

Genius has a poem about Liz and Hogan which was a way to start paving the way for Hogan vs. Perfect very soon. As annoying as Beefcake was, he had a SWEET theme song. How in the world did I never get one of those Hulk Hogan teddy bears? What kind of a gimmick is a barber? That’s the best they could come up with for him? Hogan’s music hits and the fans go crazy. That’s saying a lot.

Hogan was so loved that the people would sit through three and a half hours of crap save for one or two matches for Hogan and Hogan alone. As Ventura puts it: THIS IS MASS HYSTERIA! No Jesse, THIS IS HULKAMANIA!!! My goodness that looks sweet in all caps. Screw all the people that say Hogan sucks and plays politics. He is the greatest thing in the history of professional wrestling. Hogan tells Fink he has something to say. The pop for this is absurd.

She gets a pop on the level of the Warrior from earlier on. Macho is going nuts over this, as was expected. Macho is in gray/white tights, which just don’t work for him. My tape has a glitch in it as one minute Savage has Hogan in an Orton special, and the next Zeus is beating on Hogan. It’s a standard main event tag like last year but with more time given to it and it’s likely a better match because of it, but we’ve seen the formula before.

Face gets beaten down, mini brawl, other face takes over, gets beaten down, and then it’s hot tag to Hogan. Oh before I forget, Zeus is invincible unless you poke him in the eye first, and THEN punches hurt him. Why do I feel like I’m watching a mix of Zelda, the Three Stooges and Summerslam?

Sherri’s purse is loaded, which was later revealed to have a brick in it I believe, but THAT doesn’t drop Zeus. However, the slam and the leg drop do for the pin. Liz takes out Sherri and they cut her hair. Posing and recaps follow.

Rating: B-. This was fine for what it was, but it wasn’t anything we haven’t seen before, namely LAST FREAKING YEAR. It’s an ok tag match that no one would remember after the cage rematch 3 months later so this wasn’t anything too bad. Hogan of course looks dominant and another of his buddies gets a rub.

This would continue with Zeus for a few more months until the cage rematch where Hogan pins him with three leg drops as he apparently wanted to crush his immortal soul. Three leg drops are the equivalent of a nuclear explosion, so it’s no wonder Zeus didn’t wrestle for 7 years.

Overall Rating: B-. What an upgrade from last year! This was a million times better but that’s not really saying a lot. There were two featured matches this year so therefore the show looks a lot bigger. However, MY GOD THERE’S A LOT OF FILLER. This show never seems like it’s going to end as there’s probably 2-3 matches that could be completely cut. DiBiase’s could have been accomplished in a promo to say the least.

Hercules/Valentine could have been a short promo with Garvin running down Valentine (or being trampled under the hooves of stampeding camels), and the 6 man was just to get Andre and Demolition on the show. It’s light years ahead of 88, but next year the show really starts to get it right. Watch it if you’re a fan of 80s stuff and are quite bored.

Wrestlemania 9
Date: April 4, 1993
Location: Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada
Attendance: 16,891
Commentators: Jim Ross, Bobby Heenan, Randy Savage

This is considered to be one of the weakest Wrestlemanias in history and I think that’s an accurate statement. Looking at the announced card, which was only eight matches long, I only see 2-3 that I would put on a Wrestlemania. Your main event for this evening is Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna, which is ok, but just doesn’t scream WM main event to me.

What amazes me the most about it though was this show was so packed they had to cancel one of the matches: Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Kamala. The theme of the show is the world’s largest toga (toga, toga, toga) party. Why does this scream BAD IDEA to me? Seriously, what’s the point behind this? It made the show seem stupid overall, but that’s just me. Anyway, let’s get started.

Our show opens with no National Anthem or America the Beautiful. What a crock already. After that, we see Gorilla Monsoon in a toga. God help me. He is our host for the evening, whatever that means. He welcomes us to the show, and throws it over to….Jim Ross? This was Ross’ debut and I vividly remember being stunned to see him in the WWF as he had been the commentator for WCW my entire life.

Ross runs down the double main event of Hogan and Beefcake vs. Money Inc. for the tag belts and the already mentioned WWF Title match. He throws it to Finkus Maximus, which is something even I couldn’t make up, who introduces Caesar and Cleopatra on an elephant, which Ross gives us a history lesson on. Macho Man is then introduced riding a sedan which is like a couch that’s carried as beautiful women feed him grapes.

Then in one of the funniest scenes in WWF history, Bobby Heenan comes in on a camel, but for some reason he’s riding it backwards. He gets to the broadcast position and is a mess, which is kind of funny. Finally, after almost 10 minutes of intros, it’s time for a match.

Intercontinental Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Tatanka

Michaels had dumped Sherri since last year but now is accompanied by Luna Vachon, who is proof that not all divas are hot. Tatanka is out next and he has never lost a one on one match. Sherri follows Tatanka out, yet it’s made clear she’s not with him. So they have stalkers now. Hey they match! Tatanka had pinned Shawn twice leading up to this match, once in a singles match and once in a 6 man.

Some of Savage’s comments to Heenan, such as shut up camel breath are just funny to me. There’s the first bell, eleven minutes into the show. The outside look is really cool here. They feel each other out at a rather fast pace to start. Top wristlock goes to Shawn and he follows it up with a headlock. Down to the mat with Shawn totally in control.

Tatanka gets a belly to back to escape and a SWEET counter of a top rope clothesline with an arm drag. Shawn to the floor and the girls have a staredown of awkward proportions. Back in and the stereotype works over Shawn’s arm which is apparently hurt coming into this one. Shawn hits a clothesline but it hurts him even further so it wasn’t worth it at all. Anytime Shawn gets something going he hurts his arm again, this time ramming it into the post.

Bobby: She (Luna) is something. Ross: Yeah what is she? Tatanka gets a shoulder breaker out of nowhere but drops an elbow instead of covering. Top rope chop but still no cover. He goes up again and jumps down into what we would call Sweet Chin Music. Today that would kill a guy and be on a highlight reel for years but here it’s just a momentum changer. Luna and Sherri do nothing of note again during a staredown.

Clothesline from the apron to the floor takes down Tatanka. Shawn yells at Sherri and gets a chinlock for awhile. Modified victory roll gets two as this is getting a lot of time. Another victory roll is countered into an electric chair drop to put both guys down again. Double axe by Shawn gets nothing as Tatanka stereotypes up.

Superkick is blocked and Tatanka gets a top rope cross body for a long two. Slingshot puts Shawn into the post and gets a very close two. Powerslam gets an even closer two. This is getting really good now and Tatanka is sent to the floor. Shawn shoves the referee and Tatanka gets the Papoose to Go for the CHEAP DQ! Dang it that was good stuff and got nearly 20 minutes.

Rating: B+. Very solid match that got the time it needed. If it had a real ending, this would be an automatic A. Tatanka was something interesting. He didn’t lose for his first two years which is an amazing streak, longer than even Goldberg’s. Shawn wasn’t quite up to the level of awesome he would reach but it was coming soon. He benefited a lot from the advent of Raw as it gave him a bigger way to get noticed and to put it mildly, it worked. Well that and Razor Ramon plus a ladder.

Luna beats up Sherri post match.

The Steiners say they’re going to beat the Headshrinkers.

Headshrinkers vs. Steiners

Pretty random tag match here but it works ok I guess. It’s your standard face team vs. heel team so that’s fine. We get the first use of JR’s code saying it’s going to be a slobberknocker, meaning it’s going to be awful from a wrestling standpoint. I was always a Headshrinkers mark for some reason, just always liked them.

Scott and Fatu start us off. Steiners control early on which is expected. Oh I forgot to mention: Fatu of the Headshrinkers is more commonly known as Rikishi. In a NICE looking move, Scott and Rick both go up the same corner and hits stereo clotheslines on the Headshrinkers. Nice one indeed. We get breaking news that Luna attacked Sherri again, and somehow, I’m more interested in the match at hand. What a stunner.

Afa rams his guys’ heads together to wake them up a bit. The referee is Bill Alfonso, who you might know as Fonzie from ECW. He was RVD’s overly hyper manager. Samu gets a splash in the corner and Rick just drills him with a clothesline. Afa blasts Scott with what would become known as a kendo stick. Savage gets upset, Heenan doesn’t see the Headshrinkers cheating which is one of his trademarks.

Heenan says he can’t see right with sunglasses on and JR says he saw it too. Heenan says JR is wrong because he’s from Oklahoma. JR’s reaction is priceless. Out to the floor for more pounding on White Thunder. Scott slams one of their heads into the mat and gets kicked in the jaw with a sweet kick for it.

Heenan says his head is like Prudential. Savage: I don’t know what that means. Bobby: It means the rock is hard. Savage: I didn’t ask you Heenan. The commentary for this match is light years ahead of the match itself. Samu gets a dropkick to show off a bit. Off to the nerve hold now, a Samoan trademark. Heenan says Oklahoma is a suburb of Kentucky, which offends JR for some reason.

Samu goes up but misses the big headbutt and there’s the tag to Rick and an eruption. He rams their heads together which is of course, STUPID. Dude learn your stereotypes. Headshrinkers hit a double team version of the move we call the Stroke, leading to one Headshrinker putting Rick on their shoulders for what we would call a Doomsday Device. In a freaking SWEET counter, Rick catches Fatu in the air from on top of Samu’s shoulders in a belly to belly suplex. Looked just absolutely sick.

Back to Scott who nearly kills Fatu with a belly to belly overhead. Scott suddenly remembers he’s better than Rikishi and hits a Frankensteiner, which might be the most impressive move that anyone has ever regularly done, to get the pin. It’s a standing hurricanrana by a guy of Scott Steiner’s size. Think about that.

Rating: B+. I liked this match a lot. Both teams are very solid and some of the stuff they did in this match was simply great. Top level stuff here which surprises me greatly. The Steiners are just scary good when they’re on their game and this is no exception. That powerslam/suplex spot by Rick is absolutely amazing.

Doink the Clown is a screwed up individual. He dresses up a Caesar statue in clown makeup and we get a recap of Doink vs. Crush. Doink also says Crush will be seeing double vision.

Crush vs. Doink the Clown

Crush had one of the best looks of anyone I’d seen from this era. He seriously could have been something special if he’d cared even a little bit at all. He was a decent wrestler with good size and power. I’ve never gotten why he didn’t pan out. Definitely a solid face challenger if nothing else. At about 6’6 and over 300lbs, he was quick and very strong. What’s not to like here?

Doink runs around the ring to start but gets caught by the big Hawaiian that I think Savage wants to make sweet love to down by the pond. Crush beats the holy goodness out of Doink for the majority of the match with basic power stuff. His finishing move was a head crushing move which was always kind of odd but it worked I guess.

The clown gets a guillotine clothesline and starts a comeback here, but it doesn’t mean much. In case I wasn’t clear here, Crush is the face in this match. A pretty weak looking Piledriver keeps Crush down for a bit and then he’s sent into the post. Doink jumps into a boot though and here comes the big man.

Doink tries to hide under the ring but gets caught. Back in the ring, Crush uses his head vice finisher on Doink but the ref got bumped. Another Doink comes out and hits Crush in the back with a cast then in the head. This leads to a pin for the real Doink. They check under the ring, where the other Doink came from and went to. They check and no Doink.

Rating: D. A Squash leading to a bad ending means not a good match. This feud went nowhere for the most part and I think it went on until at least the King of the Ring. Crush would soon start a big push which stalled like no other for some reason. Still though, this was really bad.

Todd Pettingil talks to some Japanese fans and after the WWF makes bad racial jokes, Razor Ramon is headed to the ring.

Razor Ramon vs. Bob Backlund

It’s total filler with no backstory but it’s Backlund in his first Mania match which is impressive since he’s in his early to mid 40s. Razor is the heel here but to put it mildly, he’s very popular. And yet Backlund would be the next guy to win the world title.

Backlund offers a handshake to start but Razor throws a toothpick instead. This is before he had gone insane if you didn’t get that. BIG Razor chant starts up and of course isn’t acknowledged. Backlund keeps tripping him up and does his stupid little dance. I never got the point of that at all but he always did it.

Razor stomps away after a slam. Bret Hart was knocked out cold by Luger at the Mania brunch today. This wasn’t ever addressed after this for some reason. Backlund gets a butterfly suplex which was kind of impressive. Atomic drop, his former finisher, gets no cover. In a great ending, Razor gets a small package out of nowhere to end it. Heenan gets in a great line: he beat the wrestler with a wrestling move.

Rating: C-. Not great but not awful, the ending gives this a decent grade. It’s not terrible and the ending surprised me. Razor had debuted just after Mania 8 and was pushed to the moon. He even got a title shot at the Rumble this year in a forgotten match. The breaking news during this match of Bret being knocked out earlier in the day leads to nothing. The last line of he beat the wrestler with wrestling was great.

In the back we see Gene with Money Inc. The feud they’re involved in at the moment began on a Monday Night Raw (The first Mania that can be said at as the show debuted about 3 months prior to this) when DiBiase tried to hit Beefcake with a briefcase.

Beefcake had been legitimately huge in a parasailing accident over a year ago and his face was badly injured. This led to a great Heenan line of, “It serves him right. His face has hurt me for years.” This attack led to Beefcake getting his friend Hulk Hogan to return to help him.

Also Jimmy Hart jumped from Money Inc to Hogan and Beefcake. Lastly, the night before the show, Hogan was injured, resulting in huge bruises around his eye. Now what really happened to him?

According to the storyline, DiBiase hired a bunch of people to attack him. The WWF said he was hurt in a jetski accident. The common theory in wrestling circles though is Savage thought Hogan and Liz (his real wife) were having an affair and beat the tar out of Hogan. Believe what you will.

Tag Titles: Money Inc. vs. Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake

We get red smoke and Heenan says that can only mean one person. Then Jimmy Hart walks out. Just made me chuckle a bit. This is Hogan’s first match in a year and the pop kind of sucks. It’s big, but not mind blowing. The heels jump the heroes before the bell but Hogan and Beefcake fight them off with the music playing which always makes me mark out like crazy. There’s just something sweet about that.

We get to the real match which is actually quite good. I think just about everyone expected Hogan and Beefcake to somehow take the belts here. Money Inc. had absolutely dominated the tag division for over a year at this point so they were seen as very legit. The champions stall forever to get us started. That’s about what you would expect no?

Hogan’s eye looks terrible. IRS vs. Beefcake start us off. The champions beat him down and tag in and out but for some reason they don’t go after the face that much at all. IRS tries to hit him in the face like a very stupid man indeed. Beefcake takes over and off to Hogan who gets ten punches in the corner on the Million Dollar Man. It’s about five years too late but I guess it’s better than nothing.

More fast tagging by the challengers and Hogan gets a double axe off the middle rope to DiBiase who is getting destroyed here. They clear the ring again as this is one sided after a few minutes of the champions winning early on. The champions try to leave and we get the ten count thing like we did last year I think. Scratch that as it was at Summerslam.

Hogan vs. DiBiase again. Good old fashioned cheating has Money Inc right back in control though. Hogan does what he does best: gets his ass kicked. LONG Million Dollar Dream puts him down but he shakes his finger to get back up. He must be in that thing for two minutes or so. Beefcake comes in to put a sleeper on DiBiase to drive Heenan crazy.

Why does everything seem to go into slow motion during a Hogan match? It takes like a minute and a half to get the hot tag to Beefcake. IRS comes in as well and a cheap shot gives the champions the advantage again. Beefcake’s protective mask gets ripped off and his face gets beaten into oblivion which is always a good thing. Love him or hate him, the guy bumps like a master.

Beefcake finally gets a sleeper on IRS but DiBiase breaks it up causing the ref to go down. Hogan comes in and cleans house leading to a double cover. Jimmy Hart turns his jacket inside out, which just happens to be black and white striped in the biggest coincidence of ALL time (you have to say ALL time at any WM. It’s the law) and apparently they think that’s good enough to make him a referee.

Some pest of a referee comes out and ruins our celebration saying that there’s a DQ as Hogan used Beefcake’s metal mask to knock out Money Inc. Jimmy Hart beats up the other referee and we get Hogan’s music. Post match, Hogan poses and they steal IRS’ briefcase, which contains a brick and money.

Supposedly the brick caused it to hurt a lot worse, because of course hitting someone WITH A SOLID METAL BRIEFCASE didn’t hurt enough. There’s also money in it which Hogan gives to the fans. This literally goes on well over 5 minutes.

Rating: C+. This is a good tag match which is absolutely stunning in its own right. Hogan put on a great performance here as did Brutus. Money Inc was as great as ever and it boils down to a solid match. The main thing killing it was the ending. I mean REALLY?

Hogan hits has Jimmy get the pin and he celebrates? Dude, come the heck on now.It was really the best option, but I still hate it. This match works for one simple reason: it’s nearly 20 minutes long. Both faces get beaten down and we get a double comeback. There’s very little missing from it actually.

Mr. Perfect says he’ll break Luger’s winning streak.

Mr. Perfect vs. Lex Luger

The main perk here is Luger’s entrance with four chicks holding mirrors in gold thongs. Not bad at all. This sounds awesome on paper if nothing else. Luger has knocked out everyone he’s faced so far with the metal plate in his forearm. They fight over a wristlock to start and it’s a standoff. Big shot by Perfect and a knee lift sets up a dropkick and Luger hits the floor.

We talk about baseball as Heenan tries to explain the whole knockout thing and he says Savage knows a thing or two about baseball. That’s very true as he played in some minor leagues for White Sox, Reds and Cardinals organizations. Quite an athlete indeed. Perfect works on the knee which is smart as he can’t get knocked out from there.

LOUD chop by Perfect as he has controlled for the vast majority so far. As is my custom he gets reversed on a hard whip into the corner to give Luger the control. He gets a shot with the loaded arm into the back of Perfect to really take over. Backbreaker puts Perfect down even longer.

Perfect can’t keep anything going and Luger gets a cover with his feet on the ropes for two which Heenan blasts to no end. Powerslam gets two. Sunset flip gets two for Perfect and then hooks a sleeper for all of 2 seconds. Perfect keeps getting pin attempts but can’t get more than two on them. A slingshot puts luger into the buckle for two.

Missile dropkick gets a long two as Luger gets his foot on the rope. No heat at all on that either. They fight over a backslide and Luger leans forward enough to put Perfect’s feet in the ropes so that he can’t kick out for the pin. Post match Luger knocks him out with the forearm.

Rating: C-. Long and at least passable, but I couldn’t stand Luger’s gimmick at the time. The forearm was just a dumb way to end every single match and this is no exception. This was ok but it was really spotty at times and it never got into a flow at all. I’ve seen worse though.

Perfect goes looking for Luger. And for once he finds him and the fight is on again. Shawn jumps Perfect, starting their summer long feud.

Gorilla pops up for no reason at all other than to tell us what two matches are left.

We recap Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzales. Undertaker feuded with Kamala in the fall and beat him. Harvey Whippleman, Kamala’s manager said he would get revenge, so at the Royal Rumble he brought out Gonzalez, who boardered on 7’8. He beat the tar out of Taker and eliminated him, leading to this match.

The feud doesn’t end here as it would finally be settled at the Survivor Series in a Rest in Peace match, which meant No DQ. In case you’re wondering where you’ve heard this story before, it’s THE EXACT same thing that happened with Muhammad Hassan, which led to Mark Henry who combined to play the role of Kamala and then the Great Khali as Gonzalez.

They had a manager that wanted revenge on Taker, then Taker got beaten up by them, then won a no rules match. That’s why old fans didn’t like the Taker/Khali feud: we knew exactly what was coming and we were exactly right.

Giant Gonzalez vs. Undertaker

This is the first Wrestlemania entrance for Undertaker where he’s brought out in a chariot with a vulture on his shoulder which was REALLY cool for its time and is still awesome today. This should sum up how big Gonzalez was: Taker is a big old dude and he comes up to Gonzalez’s chest. Clubbing blows get him nowhere and here comes Taker.

Gonzalez chokes Taker who gets on the second rope to choke back but gets a low blow for his trouble down in his little demons. A low blow is no sold and we go to School (In 1993 the School wasn’t old yet). This was in that really weird period that stretched to about 1996 when Foley got there where they had no idea what to do with Undertaker so they just had him fight giants.

Giant chokes Taker down until the Urn goes up into the air. Taker goes into the steps on the floor as it’s ALL Gonzalez. Heenan proclaims him dead and almost has a heart attack when Taker is like boy I’m the Undertaker and just stands up and keeps beating on Gonzalez. Taker beats him down before Harvey throws in a cloth covered in chloroform which puts Taker down but it’s a DQ anyway. Yep this is bad.

Rating: F+. The match itself was just bad as there was one simple flaw: Gonzalez was just terrible. He was too big to be able to properly do anything in the ring and it showed badly here. It’s the only thing close to a blemish on Taker’s Mania record and that’s a shame. The idea that the commentators could smell a small rag in an open area like that is ludicrous to say the least, especially after all of 5 seconds of it being out.

Taker stays down for a long time with Gonzalez standing over him in triumph. They stretcher him out which isn’t something you see every day. The fans chant for Hogan for a bit, but then a gong rings. Today that would blow the roof off the place (despite there being no roof here) but here it only gets a solid pop. He staggers out and beats the fur off of Gonzalez which makes me wonder: WHY IN THE WORLD DID THEY DO THE DQ ENDING???

Gene recaps the feud with Hart and Yoko, and then Hulk Hogan makes sure he has the spotlight at the end of the show as he has to talk about how he’s in Bret’s corner. Oh and he calls Yokozuna a Jap.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna

Yoko wins this shot based on winning the Rumble. When you look back, there was absolutely no doubt who was going to win here. The idea is that Bret has no chance and they’ve spent the entire show telling us that Bret has no chance. Guess what happens in the match.

The problem with this match is very simple: Yoko is too fat for Bret to do much with. Bret’s offense is completely unbelievable here and that’s not a knock on him as no one for the most part could do much against Yoko. That’s also not a knock on Yoko as he was a decent big man (bring it on Irish).

Bret is sent to the floor after a nice attack to start but it’s clear he’s going to be in trouble. He ties Yoko’s legs in the ropes and gets him down so he can hammer away. Savage wants him to cover but is corrected by Heenan in a bizarre moment. Clothesline takes Bret down almost as soon as Yoko gets to his feet. Leg drop half kills Bret for no cover. The fans chant USA for their Canadian champion.

Bret gets a boot up for a BIG pop and a bulldog/jump on his back gets two. Side kick puts Bret right back down as this is bordering on a squash so far. Off to the nerve hold now which is basically a way to waste some time, which in a 9 minute match is rather stupid. Oh and all of Bret’s fans are Hulkamaniacs. Heenan points out the stupidity of the USA chants and is ignored. Bret gets in all the offense he can which is more or less getting him nowhere.

FINALLY he gets something as the buckle is exposed and Yoko’s head goes into it, sending him down to his stomach. Bret puts on a shockingly passable sharpshooter and the crowd is shocked. Mr. Fuji then throws salt into Bret’s eyes allowing Yoko to pin him for the title. Now let’s break down why this ending is so bad. Bret gets the sharpshooter on after Yoko shows no sign of his knees being hurt by Bret’s offense on them. I’ll let that go though as it’s a solid move that would hurt enough for a quick submission.

Fuji has done almost nothing all match. Bret sees him right in front of him as he takes FOREVER to get the salt out and throw it. Are you telling me Bret couldn’t have, I don’t know, CLOSED HIS EYES??? The referee sees Bret holding his eyes, sees the cloud from the thrown salt and sees Fuji holding a package of salt and thinks nothing of this, and to top it off, salt in the eyes is enough to knock Bret out for a pin? Come on now.

Rating: D+. The size difference here was too much, the time was bad, and the finish was insulting to my intelligence. The wrestling is ok, but just barely. Bret fights valiantly for the full nine minutes of this match and yes you read that right. That’s the biggest issue most people have with this match and this Wrestlemania. The biggest match was less than 10 minutes long.

BUT WAIT!!!

Hulk Hogan comes out because he can’t handle a *gasp* young and talented guy taking the spotlight or something evil like that, so he explains to Fumbles McWhoops our referee what happened and apparently Fuji has match making abilities now as tells Hogan that Yoko will put the belt on the line right now. Bret points to the ring which apparently means go for it.

Hulk slides in and we’re off to the races one more time. The fans are happy, but looking back this is beyond stupid. WHY would Fuji put the newly won title on the line against the greatest giant killer of all time after Yoko has had no rest while Hogan has rested for about half at least? And people wonder why the business was in so much of a hole as it was around this time.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Yokozuna

Yoko attacks Hogan as he slides in then holds him for more salt. Hogan ducks, nails Fuji, clotheslines Yoko, drops the leg and wins his fifth title. No rating of course.

Hogan poses with the title as we go off the air.

Overall Rating: F+. This show is truly bad and the main reason behind that is the ending. Hulk Hogan had absolutely no need to come in and steal the spotlight all over again. I don’t care how big of a Hulkamaniac you are, and I’m a huge one, but there is no justification for that whatsoever.

Let Yoko leave with the belt and do this on Raw the next night. Aside from that, the rest of the matches are ok at best. There’s a few watchable matches here and there but there’s no reasoning to sit through the rest of the show for them. Wrestlemania isn’t supposed to be something you need to fast forward through to get to the decent stuff. BIG recommendation to avoid here as this might be the worst WM of all time.

Wrestlemania 7
Date: March 24, 1991
Location: Los Angeles Sports Arena, Los Angeles, California
Attendance: 16,158
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan
America The Beautiful: Willie Nelson

Now this was a most interesting show and one that I’ve always liked for some reason. The theme for this show was Stars and Stripes in light of the Gulf War. At the Royal Rumble, Sergeant Slaughter had won the WWF Title with the help of the Macho Man by beating the Ultimate Warrior.

Slaughter was an Iraqi sympathizer and therefore, the epitome of evil at the time. It was clear that a Real American would have to rise up to confront him and take the title back. Fortunately, the WWF had the realest of all Real Americans in Mr. Hulk Hogan.

Your other big match was the previously mentioned Ultimate Warrior vs. Randy Savage. These two would meet on this show in a career ending match. There’s also Mr. Perfect vs. Big Bossman for the IC belt and the Nasty Boys vs. The Harts for the tag belts.

We see the Rockers talking about how the Rockers are going to beat their opponents which is about the same interview that they did for their entire time in the WWF. This is close to the end of the Rockers’ run which mainly is because you can really see the star in Shawn begging to be let out.

The Rockers vs. Haku/Barbarian

Due to Heenan managing the heels, we get Hacksaw Jim Duggan on commentary. Duggan is dressed like Uncle Sam which works fine for him. After running down the two main matches for a bit it’s time to set started.  Shawn vs. Haku opens us up here.  It’s your basic power vs. speed match to start which means it’s solid all things considered.

Everyone is in maybe 90 seconds in though and we get to an interesting part: the Rockers hit a double superkick to both guys, and the heels are up in maybe 4 seconds.  In other words, Sweet Chin Music did nothing at all.  Was it a technique thing that made them better later on?  I’ve never gotten that.  Off to Barbarian vs. Marty now which sounds painfully bad.

Sunset flip doesn’t work for Marty but Barbarian punches mat instead.  The Rockers were rather awesome at this point which is always cool to see.  Now we get to the majority of the match as Marty plays….well Marty, taking a BIG beating from the monsters.  It amazes me how these guys could have the same formula so often and make it work so many times (and yes I know the Expresses did it first).

We get the bearhug as Marty is reeling.  Granted it might be that he’s stoned or drunk but we have no evidence thereof.  Granted it’s Marty so him being sober would be most odd indeed.  Did Barbarian ever not have steady work?  Marty manages to get free but misses a second rope cross body and is caught in a SLICK powerslam to crush him for no cover.

Barbarian misses a top rope headbutt though and amazingly his Samoan head is actually hurt.  It does the needed job though as here comes Shawn off the hot tag.  Shawn manages to fight off both guys for far longer than you would expect him to.  A thumb in the eye doesn’t get Haku anywhere as Shawn gets a sunset flip for two.

Everyone comes in again and the Rockers wake up with double teams all around.  They unleash the high stuff (remember it’s Marty out there) and a cross body from Shawn gets the win.  Very fun match here and it worked rather well.  Duggan leaves since Heenan is going to take over on commentary now.

Rating: B. This was the perfect opener. There’s not much of importance here and that works well. You don’t want your fans to get emotionally invested in the first match and get them worn out in the early going. This match was fun, fast paced, and not too serious. Perfect choice for the opener. On a side note, this makes Shawn 1-2 at WM.

We see Alex Trebek, Regis Philbin and some ugly woman who are the celebrities for WM 7. Seriously, Alex Trebek? Regis I can understand, but this is the best you can do, in Los Angeles? That can’t be a good thing. They really have nothing to say of note.

Texas Tornado vs. Dino Bravo

This should be interesting. Power vs. power here so it’s likely not going to be that good. Bravo uses the absolute worst atomic drop I’ve ever seen. He just drops Tornado and it’s very sad indeed. Bravo hits his finisher and no one really is surprised when Tornado kicks out.

This is one of those matches that is on there for the purposes of filling in the card and everyone knows it.  Bravo is LONG past his point of usefulness and Von Erich just never clicked in this company past a hot debut period.  This is nothing at all and it knows it’s nothing at all.

Tornado locks in his Claw Hold and after about ten seconds the announcers acknowledge it. He then hits the spinning punch of death to pin Bravo as there’s literally no commentary for about 10 more seconds. They really didn’t care and neither do I.

Rating: F. When Gorilla Monsoon, the man that likely cared as much about the WWF than anyone else has nothing to say, you know it sucks.

Slick and Warlord babble about beating up the British Bulldog

British Bulldog and his dog Winston say they can beat the Warlord. You know, if Davey hadn’t had that stupid mascot, he could have been legendary. Everything about him just screams GIVE ME THE TITLE! At least in this interview it does.

Warlord vs. British Bulldog

Warlord has that sweet half mask at this point. The Bulldog hails from Leeds. Just thought I’d throw that out there. Power vs. Power again here, but I’m not as worried as I was about the last one. Considering this is Stars and Stripes Wrestlemania, the Bulldog’s pops are insane. Heck those would be great pops anywhere.

He had the look, the talent, the moves, the fan support, everything he needed to be a mega star. What that never happened is beyond me, but I think it wore yellow and red.  I’m really not wild on having back to back power vs. power matches but this is definitely an upgrade.  Davey runs through Warlord to start us off here and sends him to the floor with some shoulder blocks.

Crucifix doesn’t work as Warlord counters into a Samoan Drop for no cover.  Gorilla and Heenan are stealing the show.  Heenan: “I was knighted by Queen Elizabeth you know.”  Gorilla: “You keep this up I’ll have you crowned as well.”  We get the loudest pop for a bearhug that I’ve EVER heard as this crowd is really quite hot.  Total slugout here for the most part but it’s working.

Warlord gets a belly to belly out of nowhere to take Bulldog down and the crowd will not stop cheering.  This is rather impressive.  Warlord wastes time like the idiot that he is but for once it doesn’t cost him.  On to the weakest chinlock I can remember in a very long time to waste some more time.  Smith fights up and hits a VERY good dropkick to take over.

It amazes me how versatile he was at this time and wouldn’t get his big push for over a year and a half.  Granted some of that was due to Flair showing up and changing the whole thing which can’t be blamed on Vince.  Piledriver attempt by Davey is blocked into a backdrop into a sunset flip for two.

There’s the full nelson from Warlord out of nowhere and Davey is in trouble.  He can’t lock in the fingers though so there’s a chance for escape for our hero.  The fingers aren’t locked and Davey is able to bust out of it in a surprise which hadn’t been done before I don’t think.  A second later, Davey picks Warlord up and walks around with him for a bit and DRILLS him with the powerslam to end it.  This was a miracle.

Rating: B-. I liked it. Bulldog is completely carrying this match though and it’s clear who the top talent here is.  By far and away Warlord’s best match ever and something that I probably have overrated.  It’s awesome for some reason though and I think a lot of it is due to the crowd being WAY into this.  Very fun match indeed.

Jimmy Hart and the most overrated tag team I’ve ever seen, the Nasty Boys, are going to take the tag titles by cracking the foundation. The Harts disagree. Neidhart is pretty good on the mic, but Hitman is clearly the star here. This was at the very end of their run as a tag team and Bret is like Shawn at this point: ready and just waiting to be told to go for it.

Tag Titles: Nasty Boys vs. Hart Foundation

For God knows why, Jimmy Hart is wearing a motorcycle helmet.  Bret and Sags start us off here.  Bret manages to beat up both guys on his own as you can see the singles push dripping and ready to come out.  Anvil vs. Knobbs now.  Who named these two guys?  The Nasty Boys I mean.  Anvil hammers away and Brian is in big trouble early on.

Both Harts have managed to clear the ring on their own which is always a cool thing to see.  Back off to Bret again as it’s ALL Harts for about the first five minutes or so.  Bret takes a clothesline though to send him to the floor.  Anvil chases Jimmy and let’s talk about Hogan.  To the shock of absolutely no one, Bret gets beaten on for the vast majority of the time he’s in, as is his custom.

Heenan tries to imitate Gorilla’s commentary when he gets all technical about body parts in a funny but too short bit.  Sags gets a chinlock on Bret and cranks on it which gets him nowhere again.  Knobbs plays Monkey See Monkey Do as he locks in the same move which gets him nowhere either.

Neckbreaker gets two for Sags as it’s so cute to see him try to wrestle out there.  He REALLY likes that chinlock as we see it again.  Now Knobbs try it again.  They’ve probably spent 3-4 minutes on that freaking chinlock over and over again.  We get the oldest and one of the best tag moves in the books as Anvil gets the tag but it isn’t seen.

Heel miscommunication sets up the REAL hot tag and Neidhart cleans house.  The Harts were awesome as a team and it’s a shame they’re not credited more than they are.  I know they’re considered great but you don’t hear them talked about much anymore, or at least not enough for my liking.

Everything breaks down one more time and it’s a Hart Attack for Knobbs.  And there comes the infamous Megaphone as Anvil is getting rid of Sags.  Knobbs gets the pin on Bret to steal the titles.  Jimmy’s near orgasm where he rolls all over the ground and kicks his feet and kisses the title is pretty hilarious stuff.

Rating: C-. They were trying, but you can’t sell the Nastys going over the Harts to me no matter what. I think this was their last time teaming together as well as Bret went for singles competition after this.  The Nastys held the titles over the Summer before losing them at Summerslam to the LOD in their first title reign.  Not terrible but the Nastys have never done it for me at all.

We recap Roberts vs. Martel.  Now this match is 90% backstory. Jake Roberts was on the Brother Love Show and for some reason that was never explained, Rick Martel came out and sprayed Jake’s bag with Arrogance, his cologne that he carried everywhere with him and when Jake went to stop him, Jake got hit in the eye with it, allegedly blinding him.

I’ve always assumed Jake had an injury or something because he was out nearly 8 months over this. He finally came back to feud with Martel, and this was the match in which he would get his revenge. To play up on the blindness, both men’s heads have hoods over them from which they allegedly couldn’t see.  This was voted worst match of the year I believe and I think I know why.

Jake Roberts vs. Rick Martel

Remember, neither guy can allegedly see here.  Jake looks somewhat drunk here.  Let the stupidity begin as the crowd has to tell them where the other guy is.  No contact a minute in.  Their feet touch a bit and Martel falls over Jake as we’re in a glorified comedy match.  We get proof they can see as Martel sets for a backdrop and Jake runs around him.  In a kayfabe sense, why would ANYONE do that?

They back into each other and then charge and miss each other.  This is so painfully stupid I can’t imagine what the person that came up with it was on.  Must have been a bondage enthusiast.  Martel gets a slam as the biggest move of the first three and a half minutes then misses an elbow.  Heenan starts repeating Monsoon in a funny bit.

Martel finds the referee twice in a row which gets him nowhere of course.  Jake does a thing where he runs his finger around the ring and the crowd cheers when he points at Martel.  Now he’s clapping.  How are we five minutes into this already?  Heenan: why doesn’t Martel peak?  Gorilla: that’s cheating!  Heenan: so what???  That’s an excellent point actually.

Apparently the snake now weighs 500lbs according to Heenan.  The fans chant DDT.  I think they want the pesticide to kill themselves.  It must be a better treatment than having to watch this.  Martel runs into the bag in the corner and we STILL have had a total of maybe 20 seconds of contact in over six minutes of the match.  I can’t refer to it as wrestling or action as it has been neither.

Jake gets a headlock and is sent to the floor off a counter.  Heenan: HEY MARTEL!  HE’S ON THE FLOOR!  Martel, like an idiot, goes to the floor and grabs a chair which he pokes around with.  He swings the chair at a post and hurts his hand.  They finally find each other, I think out of boredom.  Boston Crab goes on and Jake is in trouble.  Never mind as he kicks him off and gets the DDT to finally end this mess.

Rating: F. What they were thinking here I don’t have a clue, but this was just a terrible match. The fans were into it for some reason but for almost 10 minutes they do nothing but hunt for each other or land a punch or two here and there. Just a complete waste of time.

That woman from earlier is in the locker room as the Nastys celebrate. What is the point of this again?

Undertaker vs. Jimmy Snuka

And so it began. You know where this goes.  No promos or anything as Taker was just squashing people at this point.  We start with a LONG staredown and again no contact.  Bearer is as freaky looking as ever.  Taker drills Snuka and we’re finally getting going here.  The jumping clothesline takes Snuka down and it’s one sided already.

Heenan tries to figure out the Urn which hasn’t been done in nearly 20 years so far but whatever.  Gorilla says people with white coats and a net are coming after Bearer.  That would be after his son actually but who’s counting?  Snuka comes back with pure jobber offense that gets him a grand total of nowhere.  He hotshots himself to the floor though and that should just about do it.  Taker catches a springboard cross body and the Tombstone kills Jimmy with ease.

Rating: D+. This is mostly for historical significance as the match itself is nothing. It’s a squash and a fairly bad one at that. However, no one at the time knew what would come from this. Truly a piece of wrestling history and you have to wonder if anyone could have dreamed that this would be the first in a streak that got Taker what, three or four world titles at Mania?  Remarkable.

We see a video package highlighting the events leading up to the Career Ending Match between Macho Man and Ultimate Warrior. Back when Warrior was champion, Macho Man wanted a title shot and he attacked Warrior to get one. Sherri, in one of the most sexually dripping promos of all time, literally gets on her knees and begs Warrior for a title shot. He says no.

At the 91 Rumble, Warrior defended against Sgt. Slaughter. Sherri came out and got Warrior to chase her, allowing Savage to beat him up. Warrior winds up coming back and almost winning, but here comes Sherri again. He reaches to grab her and Savage pops up and blasts him in the head with his scepter, allowing Slaughter to drop an elbow and pin him for the title. That brings us here.

Ultimate Warrior vs. Randy Savage

If WM 6 was Warrior’s greatest match, this is his second greatest. Before the match though, Bobby Heenan sees none other than Miss Elizabeth sitting in the front row. She hadn’t been seen in the WWF in nearly a year at this point so this was very surprising. Amazingly enough, Heenan can spot her from at least 50 yards away, when the camera can barely recognize her 10 feet away. You have to love kayfabe.

Warrior walks to the ring which freaks everyone out.  I’ve seen this match a few dozen times and it still works every single time.  This feels totally epic which is exactly the idea.  Warrior has the belt on the back of his tights which he never would win again.  Feeling out process to start as of course Warrior has the power advantage.

Warrior overpowers him to start and controls early on, much like Hogan did to Savage two years ago.  In case I forgot this is a career ending match.  How in the world did I forget to say that?  Sherri comes in so Warrior throws Savage at her to send her back to the floor.  We hit the floor where Savage tries to play mind games by throwing in a chair.  That gets him nowhere.

All Warrior so far but it’s incredibly early so it means nothing at all.  Savage finally gets Warrior to make a mistake and Warrior is sent to the floor.  Sherri keeps interfering but thankfully they don’t throw the match out because of it.  This is the largest PPV audience ever which is laughable to think they could know that halfway through the show but whatever.

Warrior cranks it up again and then does something very odd (I’m shocked too).  With Savage down on one knee and with his head down, Warrior goes for a flying tackle which more or less looks like a flying headbutt because Savage is still down.  It was just weird looking and I have no idea what he was thinking at all.  Anyway it lets Savage take over.

Double clothesline puts both guys down though.  And now we pause to look at Sherri’s rather nice figure.  In a nice nod to Mania 3, Savage gets rolled up off a slam but there’s no referee due to Sherri.  There goes said referee so it’s a free for all now.  Sherri takes off the shoe and goes up but it hits Savage in the head by mistake.

Savage gets a rollup for two as Heenan says he can’t even talk anymore which Gorilla doesn’t even reply to.  You can tell he’s into this.  We now hit one of the more famous parts of the match as Savage goes up and hits FIVE elbow drops from the top when I think only Hogan and George Steele (yes that George Steele) had ever kicked out of one.

The reaction from Heenan to the kick out is absolutely excellent.  Savage is SHOCKED.  Warrior Hulks Up and hits four or five clotheslines to take Savage down.  Gorilla Press and splash only get two though and now Warrior is SHOCKED.  Warrior looks up into the sky to ask “his gods” about whether it’s his time to leave and he walks out.

Savage jumps him instead and brings him back and we go on.  Warrior is draped across the barricade but Savage misses and is more or less dead on his feet.  Warrior throws his body back in and hits a bunch of BIG shoulder blocks with Savage selling like no one else could, making himself look like a rag doll.  He hits the floor three times and is just dead.  Warrior puts his foot on the chest and is triumphant.  That’s the basis for KB vs. Sabre for you OCW fans.

Rating: A+. Combining the post match stuff with the match, this is easily the best segment to date in Wrestlemania history and is easily one of the best of all time. It’s a shame it’s almost forgotten today due to Vince’s vendettas against both guys.  This is an absolute classic and DEFINITELY the best Mania match in a very long time.  I’d put it maybe in the top five Mania matches in the WWF Era and easily top ten ever at this show.  Great match and absolutely worth seeing.

The real memory of this match comes afterwards though in what is likely considered the most emotional moment in WWF history. Savage is still out cold in the ring and Sherri comes in and freaks out on him, saying that he ended her career too. Both commentators are saying to give him a break and that no one else, not even Hogan could have taken this kind of a beating and survived.

Sherri starts to kick him with her high heels when Savage couldn’t hold off a toddler at this point. With her beating Savage up, Miss Elizabeth jumps the guard rail and for the first time ever, attacks someone by throwing Sherri out of the ring as the crowd is stunned to see her. Savage tries to get up but doesn’t know who was beating on him. He turns to see Liz and almost falls to the ground again in shock.

The referee tells him it was Sherri kicking him and he’s even more confused. Liz opens her arms and after a few moments Savage hugs her as the crowd absolutely loses it. Savage puts her on his shoulders and there is nothing but cheering and crying from the crowd. Heenan is beside himself at “this sickening display.”

Finally they’re ready to leave and in the ultimate display of his love, Savage refuses to let Liz hold the ropes open for him as she did for years and instead holds them open for her, truly showing he’s a changed man.  This is probably the best emotional moment ever at this point and still holds up to this day.  Incredible stuff and again, definitely something worth seeing.

We go from one of the most emotional moments in wrestling history to… a debate on instant replay. Yes you read that right. Vince McMahon acts on moderator (C.M. > Vince) between Paul McGuire and George Steinbrenner of all people as they argue over instant replay.

During the debate, McGuire calls Steinbrenner a butt head, leading to Vince to call on his instant replay “officials” to review it. As this continues to spiral into udder stupidity, the Bushwackers are the officials. They say that there’s inconclusive evidence, therefore the insult stands. Finally this ends and we go back to the arena. This was somehow stupider than it sounds.

Trebek talks to Demolition who scares him off.

Regis talks to…….GENICHIRO TENRYU?????  He’s here with Kitao who isn’t anyone special but I’ve heard of him.  They can’t understand Regis.

Trebek is scared of Jake.
Demolition vs. Tenryu/Kitao

I know who the two Japanese wrestlers are, but why in the heck are they on Wrestlemania? Demolition was little more than jobbers at this point. After they lost the titles to the Harts at Summerslam 90 Ax had left so this is Smash and Crush. They had also gotten Mr. Fuji back at this point.

Crush and Kitao start us off here.  Kitao is a big old boy too.  Fuji gets a cane shot in almost immediately as it looks like dominance from Demolition to start.  Heenan makes Japanese jokes as this is mostly dominance.  Somehow Kitao is named Fred.  Tenryu comes in and avoids the Decapitator and hits a big powerbomb on Crush to…get the pin?  WOW.  This was Demolition’s last match too.  Odd indeed.

Rating: W. As in what were they thinking here? I know that Tenryu is a Japanese legend, but no one knew who he was at Wrestlemania. The crowd is silent when Demolition lost. This wasn’t even a loss but rather a squash. This whole match made absolutely zero sense.

Big Bossman says he’s coming for Heenan after he gets the IC Title.

Heenan says he’s not afraid of Bossman.

Intercontinental Title: Big Bossman vs. Mr. Perfect

Bossman is insanely over at this point having been running around with Hogan all through the second half of the year. Heenan had been talking trash about Bossman’s mama, and you don’t talk bad about a Southern boy’s mother. Bossman went to war with the Heenan Family and the only person left was their top wrestler, Mr. Perfect.

Considering Bossman weighs more than Kane, the stuff he can do in the ring is mind blowing. He moves like someone Chavo’s size.  All signs point to this being the changing of the title.  Perfect throws the towel at Boss Man so Boss Man spits at Perfect.  Perfect’s selling goes insane of course and it works great.  Boss Man throws some GREAT punches.

I feel like I’m watching a match on fast forward.  A charge misses though and we slow things WAY down all of a sudden.  Boss Man pulls his belt out which is allegedly a foreign object but I’m not sure how.  It would seem perfectly legal to me as he brought it in with him didn’t he?  There’s the abdominal stretch as the belt didn’t get Boss Man very far at all.

There’s that neck snap from Perfect which is always fun to see.  Perfectplex is blocked though but Boss Man can’t get anything going at all.  Perfect gets a reverse neck snap which we would more or less call a Blockbuster today.  He goes up but does the jump into the boot spot to set up Boss Man’s comeback.

Perfect gets the tar punched out of him which doesn’t take much as I don’t think there’s much tar in him for the most part.  Boss Man rams into the steps though and Heenan gets some shots in.  The crowd pops like a cherry though as here comes Andre.  Heenan LOSES IT and Andre grabs the belt just because he wants to.  He DRILLS Perfect with it but the Heenan Family runs in for the save before Boss Man can get the title.  The overly large faces clear the ring.  Odd finish.
Rating: C-. This again is historic as it’s Andre’s last WM appearance. It really is sad to see him in such physically bad shape. He would be dead in less than two years, just after the debut of Monday Night Raw, I believe the day of the third show.  For the life of me I do not get why Boss Man didn’t get the title here as every single sign on the planet would have pointed to it.  No clue what the reasoning was here though.

We see Bossman and Andre saying that the war with Heenan isn’t over. Actually it was.

The following people are here and talked to by Gene:

Lou Ferrigno (the Incredible Hulk)

Donald Trump

Chuck Norris

Henry Winkler (FONZIE!!!!!)

What an odd grouping indeed.
Earthquake vs. Greg Valentine

This is about as close to nothing as you can get. Hammer gets in a few elbows and then goes down with ease to the Earthquake splash.  It was a squash that somehow went three minutes but you get the idea.  There was a powerslam thrown in there somewhere.  Hammer did manage to get Quake down and go for the Figure Four but it went nowhere.  Why in the world is Valentine a face anyway?

Rating: N/A. Very little here and to have someone as good as Valentine reach this point in his career is kind of sad.  Total squash despite the fact that Earthquake was about to become a tag team guy with Tugboat.

The LOD want the belts from the Nastys and they’re going to make Power and Glory sour and gory.

Legion of Doom vs. Power and Glory

This match lasts less than a minute as LOD destroy Hercules and Paul “I was a Horsemen blast it” Roma.  Back to back squashes though?  Really?  Match ran 59 seconds somehow and the Doomsday Device ended it.

Rating: N/A. The only thing keeping this above failing is the LOD’s music. They were so over it’s not even funny.

We recap the events leading up to DiBiase and Virgil. Over the years, Virgil did every disgusting thing that DiBiase told him to do and finally he snapped. Roddy Piper began encouraging him and we get to this match. At the Rumble Virgil and DiBiase had been a team and Virgil got pinned. DiBiase blamed him and told him to wrap the belt around his waist, but Virgil hit him with it instead.

Virgil vs. Ted DiBiase

DiBiase rarely ever lost at this point so this was viewed as a squash. Virgil actually goes on for ten minutes. Roddy Piper is in his corner on crutches as he had recently been in a motorcycle wreck.  Virgil tags DiBiase with punches to start which are about all he’s got.  DiBiase hits the floor as he’s all frustrated now.

Back in the ring and DiBiase takes down Virgil with a clothesline to get control for a bit.  The common idea here was that Virgil couldn’t wrestle but he had been trained and was a regular wrestler in the indies before he came to WWF and had at least two matches before this one in a WWF ring.  DiBiase gets a Piledriver as Virgil is in trouble.

Beautiful gutwrench suplex gets two.  DiBiase sends him to the floor and then yells at Piper.  He kicks out the crutch from under his leg to send him down because he’s a bad man.  Piper hooks the top rope and Piper hits the floor.  More yelling and shoving of men on crutches ends this though as we have a countout with Virgil winning in a shock.

Rating: C-. This feud was years in the making and the emotion was there, but it was on way too late in the card and the people wanted to see Hogan. Having Virgil get the win was huge though.

Slaughter and General Adnan, a.k.a. the Iron Sheik, say that there’s a new set of rules, and there’s a chance he might accidentally get counted out or DQed tonight.

The Mountie vs. Tito Santana

No point at all to this one but we’ll throw it in here to fill in some time.  Tito runs Mountie around for a few seconds, Mountie can barely do anything, Jimmy slis him the shock stick and Mountie uses it on Santana and pins him. Absolutely no one cares and neither do I. Only significance is Santana continues to have been at every Wrestlemania thus far which I think only Hogan is the other person to do so.

Rating: N/A. Nothing special here as it was a pure filler.

We finally get to the recap for Hogan and Slaughter. The main idea is that Slaughter is threatening to lose on purpose so Hogan doesn’t win the title.  Slaughter is an Iraqi sympathizer so the feud was based off Operation Desert Storm, or as it’s more commonly known, the Gulf War.  Pay no attention to the fact that the war was already over by this point.

WWF World Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter

Hmm.  I think I may have to bet on this Slaughter guy.  It seems likely that he’s going to win it as I think this Hogan chap is overmatched.  Is there any reason as to why Alex Trebek is the guest announcer here?  I mean dude, IT’S ALEX TREBEK!  Anyway, Hogan of course is absolutely insanely over but that pop would start to die off rather soon.

Regis is on commentary for this which is even weirder.  Long feeling out process as they feel out each other’s power.  Hogan sends him to the floor which gets him a few good shots in.  Slaughter begs off back in the ring but gets an eye rake like the evil….American that he is.  Yeah this was kind of a weird setup.  Heenan keeps talking about some party he’s having on Prime Time Wrestling.

Slaughter in control now as Regis shows that he has zero business being a commentator on the main event of Mania, as he has nothing to say.  That’s not his fault of course, but he is just kind of there.  No one wants to come to Bobby’s party.  That’s rather amusing indeed.  Hogan takes over again and does more or less nothing special at all.

A knee to the back sends Slaughter into the buckle.  A slingshot makes him completely miss the post but we’ll say it hit anyway.  After a good long beating, Hogan shows how stupid he can be and goes up to the middle rope which doesn’t work.  He more or less no sells the shot Slaughter gets on him and goes to the top?  What the heck???  Adnan interferes and Hogan pulls a Flair in a funny spot.

Slaughter Cannon sends Hogan to the floor.  He beats the tar out of Hogan with a chair on the floor which gets him somewhere for a change.  The referee won’t count him out or DQ him though.  Well that’s certainly nice of him isn’t it?  Back in the ring now with Slaughter hooking a Boston Crab after pounding away for awhile on the back.

You know this hold would look a bit more realistic and painful if Hogan wasn’t just barely beneath the rope and that by moving maybe 8 inches up the hold would be broken.  Granted that might just be me overthinking this.  Slaughter works on the back forever and gets a chair shot to the head to bust open Hulk.  Can we please just get to him breaking the camel clutch and getting the title back?

THANK YOU!  Slaughter gets his UNBREAKABLE, yes UNBREAKABLE I SAY, hold on Hogan who of course, just like he did to the Sheik, breaks it.  Slaughter gets him down again (to humble him perhaps?) and drapes the Iraqi flag over him because he is a very stupid man.  Hogan kicks out and you can fill in the blanks yourself.

Rating: C+. Easily more about symbolism, but there was one major flaw: the war was already over when this match took place. It was like TNA in levels of being behind the times.  This was a fairly decent match though and I thought it worked well enough for what it was supposed to do.  The Hogan pop was starting to die off though and it would become much clearer in the future.

Overall Rating: C. This really isn’t one of the great Manias but it has one of the best moments of all time. The problem in this Mania is the mid card is just awful. The big midcard match ended in a DQ and was a way to get Andre on the show. There’s just nothing here and with Savage stealing the show from Hogan again, it hurts the show a bit.

The complete lack of drama in the main event doesn’t help things either as Slaughter spent all night talking about losing on purpose and you never once see that in the main event. It’s not a bad show, but it’s far from great. Watch it for the Savage and Hogan matches and if you just need to kill some time, the opener.

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 very 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 amazing. 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 awesmoe 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 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 tar out of Rude early on. This is a solid 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.

Wrestlemania 1
Date: March 31, 1985
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 19,121
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura
National Anthem: Gene Okerlund

And so it begins. Wrestlemania is here. In what was perhaps the greatest cross promotional strategy of all time, the WWF teamed up with MTV to promote the biggest wrestling show of all time in what was called the Rock N Wrestling Connection. This idea was nothing short of genius and it truly got the war going with the NWA. Spearheaded by the feud between Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper, this show was all about fanfare. While little happened as far as historical significance, this show goes down in history as being great simply because of what it meant in history. Never before had mainstream celebrities been mixed with wrestling on such a vast scale. Obviously the results were great and Wrestlemania was born.

Tito Santana vs. The Executioner

Anyway, let’s get going with the show. To begin with, in the first match in the history of Wrestlemania, we see Tito Santana vs. The Executioner, portrayed by Buddy “Blow Away” Rose. Before the match we get a pre-recorded interview (which I believe all of them are tonight) from the Executioner saying that he’s going after Santana’s leg which was already injured. The match is pretty much what you would expect for an 80s WWF match. Very standard stuff that’s by no means bad, but not really great either. Tito is at his best here against a random heel, and he wins in standard fashion with a forearm and the figure four.

Rating: C. Considering it’s the first ever match at the biggest show that would ever exist, I didn’t know what to expect. It’s certainly not bad, but doesn’t really set a good first foot forward for Wrestlemania if that makes sense. This is more famous for simply being the first match in the history of the biggest wrestling series ever, but it wasn’t anything special at all.

King Kong Bundy vs. Special Delivery Jones

The next match is I believe still the shortest in Wrestlemania history as King Kong Bundy faces Special Delivery Jones. More prerecorded comments with Bundy saying he’s mad about something or other. In less than 25 seconds, Bundy hits a pair of splashes to pin Jones. This match was the epitome of a squash match. No rating of course.

“Maniac” Matt Borne says this is his chance to beat one of the best wrestlers in the world. Steamboat is too nice of a guy which will be his downfall.

Steamboat says this is a big test for him. Wow he must have a bad memory if this is his biggest challenge.

Matt Borne vs. Ricky Steamboat

Now we get onto a solid match with the always dependable Ricky Steamboat vs. Matt Borne, who is far more famous as heel Doink. Jesse is ROCKING that pink tuxedo. Not a lot of people can get away with that big Jesse is making it work for me. What was up with the five bells after everyone’s name? Steamboat is in the basic white tights which is odd to see indeed.

Feeling out process to start. Why can’t it ever be a feeling up process? Steamboat chops away and we get a chinlock seconds in. That’s not something you see everyday. I miss hearing Jesse call Gorilla Gino. A long atomic drop has Borne in trouble but he gets one of his own to avoid us hitting squash territory.

Ok perhaps you should forget the lack of a squash here as it’s almost all Steamboat here. At least the right guy is doing the squashing. Borne gets a suplex for two as even Gorilla says this isn’t going to work. He throws left handed punches and Gorilla concludes that he is in fact left handed.

We’re getting a lot of suplexes in this. Swinging neckbreaker by the Dragon gets no cover. A knee drop gets two. Steamboat speeds things up all of a sudden and there’s the flying cross body and I think you know what that means as this is 1985. Yep it’s over.

Rating: C-. Glorified squash match here with nothing special happening at all for the most part. Steamboat is always fun to see and this was no exception here. He would get a bit higher on the card in coming years before getting his lone world title in 1989. Borne would bounce around various companies before dancing with bear cubs in WCW and becoming a clown in WWF. Nice way to see different career paths.

David Sammartino vs. Brutus Beefcake

Now we go on to what was little more than a reason to have the managers brawl at ringside, we have David Sammartino against Brutus Beefcake. Davide is accompanied by his father and Johnny Valiant for Beefcake. Big stall to start which is filled in by Gorilla talking about how great the crowd is, and for the time it really was. Finally we get going and Jesse cracks me up by saying that a loss for either man here could set their careers back 2 years.

That’s nothing but priceless. Anyway, we have a nice little wrestling sequence to start with Beefcake stalling again after sliding to the floor. We’re almost 5 minutes in and nothing at all of interest has happened yet. They’re trying to do a technical match and it’s just failure. I’m quite bored as I watch this match and it’s not getting any better.

I feel like I’m watching a house show match, but not the good kind. I feel like I’m watching a house show match that makes jobbers look good. Even the commentators sound bored here, yet for some reason the crowd is into this. FINALLY we get the managers involved and it’s a huge brawl for the double DQ.

Rating: D-. I was so bored I almost fell asleep. Absolutely nothing at all of note and it was just done to get Bruno on the show. David had a lot to live up to and for the most part he never came close which is the case for the vast majority of the kids of major stars. If nothing else look at David Flair. This was a very bad match though as Beefcake was the top guy in the ring which sums up things rather well.

JYD says he’ll win.

Valentine says he’ll win.

IC Title: Junkyard Dog vs. Greg Valentine

No intro for Valentine as he’s just in the ring. That was far more common back then. It’s hard to imagine that the title is less than six years old at this point. Another One Bites The Dust by Queen brings Dog to the ring. I prefer Grab Them Cakes but that’s just me.

Valentine was awesome at this point and Gorilla says he might be the best IC Champion of all time at this point and I can’t really put up that much of an argument against that. He would lose the title to Santana soon after this who would lose it to Savage before Mania II. Dog is more or less the challenger of the month at this point and was very popular as well. Why he was popular is beyond me as he tends to be annoying but what do I know?

Naturally the Dog dominates to start with punches and headbutts. Valentine misses a punch and Dog gets on all fours with the heabutts. That’s about the biggest offensive move he’s going to have so I wouldn’t expect much more than that from him. We hear about Jimmy Hart’s stable which has Jim Neidhart but no Bret. It’s so weird to hear about Neidhart being a singles guy.

Valentine goes for the leg. He used the Figure Four as his finisher at this point which apparently he has patented. Did he file for the paperwork for it? Does he get royalties whenever Flair uses it? Dang no wonder he’s broke. Jesse says Valentine has no bones about this. I love bad puns.

Figure Four is kicked off which is the traditional counter of course. They slug it out and surprisingly enough Dog loses. Ok never mind he doesn’t but he was for a few seconds there. Jesse says a Dog headbutt would drop an oak tree. No see you make the tree watch one of his matches and it’ll fall asleep. That is how you drop an oak tree if JYD has to be involved.

Dog goes after Jimmy but Valentine accidentally pops his own manager. Here comes the Dog with his variety pack of punches and headbutts. Valentine cheats to get the pin with his feet on the ropes and apparently gets away with it. Tito runs out to tell the referee what happened so the match is restarted. Why can’t more people do that if they can get away with it? Valentine takes a walk anyway just because he can I guess. No title change thank goodness.

Rating: D+. Pretty boring match here with Valentine dominating for the most part. It went by rather fast though which helped a good bit. I can’t stand the Dog but Valentine is pretty good. This of course set up more of Valentine vs. Santana which helps a lot as at least we got a good feud and eventual title change out of it in a solid cage match between them.

On a side note, the old IC Title looks far better than the one they would replace it with. It’s kind of like the NWA US Title which I’ve always been a fan of. Decent match but really just a placeholder for the most part. Granted though they had no idea what they were doing here so it’s ok I guess.

Next up we have a match that I’ve always kind of liked. For the WWF Tag Team Titles, Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik against the US Express of Mika Rotunda and Barry Windham, who at the show came out to a song called Real American. Upon further review, this match is still pretty good and likely the best match of the night so far.

There’s not much to it but there doesn’t need to be. It’s America vs. foreigners, which is a formula that absolutely never fails. Rotunda plays a great face in peril here as he tries to out wrestle the monsters on the other team. There’s not a lot to this match but what they have is just fine. Big hot tag to Windham who cleans house, which leads to a big brawl. Blassie hands Sheik his cane which is smashed over Windham for a pinfall and a title change.

Rating: B-. Not much here, but what they had was at least passable. It was the standard U.S. versus the evil heels which is a formula that’s hard to mess up if anyone in the match knows what they’re doing, and these people knew. The titles would change back just a few weeks later so this was to do nothing more than get a title change on the card to make it seem historic. Keep in mind that this was still in the era when title reigns were usually longer so this meant a lot more.

Body Slam Match: Andre the Giant vs. Big John Studd

It is now time for the first of two famous matches from this card as Andre the Giant faces off with Big John Studd in a $15,000 vs. retirement match. Studd had put out a challenge saying that no one could body slam him, and no one could. Then a man named Andre took him up on the challenge, and this right here is the result of that challenge. Andre controls early on but eventually Studd evens things out.

The crowd is off the hook for this match behind Andre to say the least. This is really just a lot of bearhugs and big punches/forearms for about ten minutes but the crowd eats it up. Andre just goes off on the knee and then slams Studd like it’s nothing at all. He gets the money and throws the money to the crowd, prompting Heenan to steal it and run off.

Rating: D+. The wrestling was awful, but the crowd was going crazy the whole time. Classic example of a match where the crowd played a key factor. Andre was getting to the point here where he couldn’t do much. These giant vs. giant matchups were rarely good but this worked as the whole idea was to just have Andre FINALLY end the “you can’t slam me” angle which he had done about a dozen times on house shows but this was the official one.

Women’s Title: Wendi Richter vs. Lelani Kai

In the penultimate match of the night, we get the first of the Rock N Wrestling matches with the Women’s Title on the line with Wendi Richter against Lelani Kai for the Women’s Title. At the time, Richter was the second biggest face in the company, often main eventing house shows when Hogan was elsewhere. Cyndi Lauper being in her corner didn’t hurt her at all as Lauper got into this.

In a scene that for some reason is now famous, Lauper and Richter run down the aisle in the back of the arena as the crowd is going crazy over this. For one of the only times ever in wrestling, the celebrity manager clearly wants to be doing this. This match is standard back and forth stuff with the young Richter clearly being the one that’s going to win or MSG might have been burned down. Finally Richter reverses a cross body to get the pin and the title as the fans are going insane.

Rating: B. This match was billed as half of the double main event. Think about that for just a bit. The Women’s Title match, main eventing Wrestlemania. If that doesn’t tell you how big Lauper and Richter were, nothing will. I never really got the appeal of Richter but at this time she was main eventing the B-level house shows over the IC Title or Tag Titles. Imagine going to a show today where the main event had Michelle McCool in it.

Hulk Hogan and Mr. T. vs. Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff

And now for the main event, we have Mr. T and Hulk Hogan against Piper and Orndorff with Muhammad Ali himself as the guest referee. Why this wasn’t Hogan against Piper one on one is beyond me. As usual, Piper has a live bagpipes band which is always cool. The fans aren’t really booing much because they know what’s coming. Real American was already taken so instead we hear Eye of the Tiger, or at least I think we do.

The eruption is so loud I’m not sure what I’m hearing. Your other referee is Pat Patterson. If you’ve seen one Hogan match you’ve seen them all for the most part and this is no exception. Hogan embarrasses his opponents to start and then gets beaten down with some cheating. Double teams throughout the match on both Hogan and T until finally we get the brawl we’ve all waited for. Bob Orton and Jimmy Snuka are the seconds here and they both get involved.

Finally Orton comes off with the cast to his Hogan but catches Orndorff instead as Hogan pins him. This prompts Piper to leave him in the ring, which led to Orndorff’s face turn. Hogan and T pose as we go off the air.

Rating: B. Basic tag match, but why was this a tag? It just made little sense and there was no drama to it at all. Hogan didn’t even win with the legdrop. Fun little match, but not for the main event of Mania. For the life of me I will never get why this wasn’t Hogan vs. Piper for the title, perhaps with Piper even defending and dropping it to Hogan. Very odd choice indeed but it worked very well for what it was supposed to be.

Overall rating: C-. This show clearly isn’t famous for the wrestling as there’s only 2-3 good matches on the card. What this show is famous for is the idea of a supercard in the biggest arena there was in the biggest city there was with celebrities, national coverage, and a huge main event. The idea was amazing but no one knew what they had here and it shows. For its time this was mind blowing. Now it’s just average at best. Watch it for the last three matches and skip the others.

So what do you think? Am I right or am I crazier than George Steele? Let me know and let’s hear your take.