AH! Today Wrestler of the Day #1! All other Wrestler of the Day! Bah phooey! It’s Iron Sheik.

Sheik was born in Iran and was an Olympic wrestler as well as a guard for the Shah of Iran. He would head to America and become a professional wrestler under the tutelage of Verne Gagne. Sheik started as Great Hossein Arab and did some stuff for the WWF back in the 70s. Here he is challenging for a Japanese title in Madison Square Garden on December 17, 1979.

NWF Title: Antonio Inoki vs. Great Hossein

This is like the Japanese tag titles earlier with the NWF Title being the primary title for NJPW in the early days. Hossein is more commonly known as the Iron Sheik and I’ll be referring to him as such here out of instinct. Sheik does his anti-American thing which is more or less verbatim as to what he would use in his more famous character. Inoki is completely dominating here as Sheik can’t even land a punch or anything close to it.

Inoki throws on the weakest armbar I can remember in a long time and Sheik gets his first offense in with a slam that gets him absolutely nowhere. He throws on a leg lock but Vince says this isn’t s submission hold for no apparent reason. Holy crap the heel is taking over a bit, albeit with incredibly generic offense. The fans think Iran sucks.

Well that offense didn’t last long as here comes Inoki again. Sheik actually hits a dropkick and not a bad one at that. He goes for an abdominal stretch which looks like some screwed up way of trying to humble Inoki. I’ve always wondered about that and why he’s so obsessed with the idea of it. Vince says this has been even which is ridiculous but whatever. Inoki gets a nice sunset flip into a modified Sharpshooter in a nice combination.

Inoki tries to take the boot off of Sheik because it might be loaded up. I never got this part of Sheik but whatever. He gets it off and Sheik is in a boot and a sock. The boot is loaded with something apparently. Inoki is busted open from a shot with it. And then the enziguri ends it. Sheik hits him with the boot again afterwards.

Rating: C-. Not horrible I guess but at fifteen minutes this was WAY too long. It was just a step away from being a squash which in a long title match is never a good thing at all. It’s cool seeing guys this famous when they weren’t incredibly well known yet though but dang fifteen minutes of them is just too much.

Here’s another match from the same arena soon thereafter, on January 21, 1980.

The Great Hossein Arab vs. Larry Zbyszko

This is called the third bout and it’s right after the previous one on my list. Arab is much more famous as The Iron Sheik. Sheik tries to take it to the mat but Larry escapes to a stalemate. Larry speeds things up and sends Sheik to the floor where he gets very ticked off. Back in an elbow misses and Sheik is even madder. I sense a humbling. Larry hooks a headlock and pounds away with right hands. The fans are way into this.

Back to the headlock and things speed way up with a crisscross. Sheik hits a pair of leapfrogs but gets caught in the headlock again. Sheik has finally had enough and blasts Larry in the face, but a knee drop misses and it’s back to Zbyszko. There’s an abdominal stretch but Sheik reverses into one of his own but that gets reversed as well. Sheik sends him into the corner and backdrops him for two.

We finally get to the heel control portion of this but it ends just as quickly in a Zbyzsko sunset flip. They collide and both of them go down. Sheik gets up first with a suplex but he can’t cover immediately so it only gets two. Another suplex is countered into a small package which gets two for Larry, as does a slam. Sheik loads up one of the boots but Larry trips him down and goes after it. That somehow gets two but Sheik kicks him onto the ref. That’s not enough for him so he drops an elbow on the referee for the DQ.

Rating: C-. It’s amazing what charisma can do for you. This was only a little bit better of a match than the previous one, but the charisma the two guys have made me want to see them fight which is what made things work better here. Sheik getting more and more disgruntled until he snapped worked a lot better for a story than “I’ll hit you a lot.” Larry would turn heel on Sammartino the very next day.

Sheik would earn at shot at Bob Backlund’s WWF Title on the day after Christmas of 1984 in MSG.

The Iron Sheik is an Iranian wrestling champion who had a habit of swinging Persian clubs before his matches. He would often challenge his opponent to swing the clubs as well and Backlund was no exception. In doing so a few days before the match, Backlund had been jumped by the Sheik who injured Bob’s ribs and shoulder, putting him at a disadvantage coming into the match. Backlund is in a singlet here instead of his usual trunks. Sheik jumps the champion to start and chokes Backlund with the strap from Backlund’s singlet.

The challenger cranks on Backlund’s shoulder which apparently was hurt in the attack as well. Sheik is already dripping with sweat only a minute and a half into the match. Backlund sends him into the ropes but gets shouldered down for his efforts. Back to the armbar for a LONG time before it’s off to a bow and arrow to mix things up a bit. Backlund finally kicks him off and hits a headbutt to the ribs followed by a headknocker. A kind of swinging neckbreaker by Bob puts both guys down.

Sheik hooks an abdominal stretch on the mat which transitions into a surfboard hold. Backlund fights back with a right hand but the ribs are hurting him a lot. A kick to Sheik’s head staggers him a bit but Backlund can’t slam him. Sheik hooks the arms again and drives a knee into the champion’s back to keep Bob in trouble again. The hold stays on for a good while with all of Backlund’s attempts at countering falling short.

Sheik takes it to the mat to no avail but Backlund can’t hook a backslide. An elbow drop misses Backlund though but he can’t hook his rolling cradle. Sheik hooks his camel clutch out of nowhere and Backlund is in big trouble. After only a few seconds, Backlund’s manager Arnold Skaaland throws in the towel, which is the same as a submission and gives the Sheik the title.

Rating: D. This was a rather boring match with Backlund having almost no offense at all. This is just a step ahead of what is known in wrestling as a squash, with one guy getting in almost no offense whatsoever. Having the towel thrown in was a way to save Backlund’s status as a top man because he didn’t submit and the blame can be placed on Skaaland, who would be gone soon after this anyway.

Sheik shocked the world by winning the title. Here’s a rare title defense from January 21, 1984 in Philadelphia.

WWF World Title: Iron Sheik vs. Tito Santana

Santana is one of those guys that unfortunately I won’t get to talk about that much in here because he very rarely received title shots. One report I’ve seen said that this was one of only two world title shots he received in over ten years with the company and I can’t imagine it’s much higher than that. Given how talented he was in the ring (multiple time Intercontinental and Tag Team Champion as well as being in the WWE Hall of Fame), that’s rather surprising.

Tito jumps Sheik to start and clotheslines him with the Sheik’s own turban. Santana is a house of fire and knocks the Sheik to the floor with a clothesline. Back in and the champion is knocked straight to the floor by another atomic drop. The Sheik takes a walk for a bit before heading back inside for more punishment. Tito grabs a headlock to take the Sheik down to the mat where the champion is in trouble.

Sheik fights up but Tito easily switches over to a front facelock to keep control. Back to a headlock by Santana as Sheik is in big trouble. The Iron one fights up but gets taken down by a shoulder block. A hiptoss puts him down as well but Sheik goes to the eyes to take control for the first time. The champion pounds away at Santana’s head and neck but misses a running flip senton (basically a front flip attack) to give Santana a breather.

Tito grabs a suplex but dazes himself in the process. A splash hits the Sheik’s boots though and Tito is in trouble again. Sheik puts on an abdominal stretch but Tito quickly makes the rope. A clothesline puts Tito down for two but he comes back with a sunset flip for two of his own. Tito small packages him for two more before punching the champion in the face. A pair of dropkicks send Sheik to the floor so the champion picks up a chair. He slides it back inside but the referee stands on it so Sheik can’t use it. The champ shoves the referee down just as Tito hits his flying forearm finisher, earning a DQ in the process.

Rating: D+. This took time to get going but Santana was the right choice for a match like this. He knew how to time a comeback so that the crowd would respond best to it, making the chance at a title change seem like a real possibility. That’s where a guy like Tito was most valuable; he wasn’t likely to win the world title at any time in his career, but you could put him in a spot like this where you needed a challenger and get solid results out of him.

Then this happened two days later.

WWF World Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Iron Sheik

This is it. This is the match that changes EVERYTHING. Sheik beat Backlund only a month earlier and Backlund is too injured to get his rematch here, so Hulk gets the shot instead. The place goes NUTS for Hogan’s entrance for the first of many occasions. This is Hogan’s return to the Garden after about three years. After being bored all night, the place is going nuts just from hearing the beginning of Hogan’s entrance with “From Venice Beach, California.”

The bell rings and Hogan CHARGES at him in the corner before Sheik can even get his robe off. A clothesline with the robe takes down the champion and it’s all Hulk so far. Another big clothesline puts Sheik down before Hulk easily picks him up for a choke. Hulk, ever the hero, spits on Sheik to a huge ovation. Big boot gets two so Hulk hits a pair of elbows for two. Hulk FINALLY screws up by missing a running elbow in the corner and Sheik takes over.

The champion stomps away with those curled boots of his. I guess it’s a Middle East thing. A backbreaker puts Hogan down but he easily powers out at one. Off to a Boston Crab but Hulk powers out after about ten seconds. Sheik can’t get anything going here long term. A gutwrench suplex gets two for Sheik and puts on the camel clutch that won the title. Hulk casually wags his fingers no and he powers out of the hold in less than thirty seconds. Hogan picks Sheik up, rams him into the buckle, drops the big leg, and as Gorilla puts it, Hulkamania is here.

Rating: A+. This was exactly what it was supposed to be as Hogan squashed Sheik here, basically selling nothing and escaping Sheik’s best move before beating him in less than six minutes. Look at this card: even the opener was a minute longer than this match. Hogan DOMINATED the champion here and left no doubt about who was better. After this, everything became about flash than substance, and for people who complain about it, let it go already. The change is over and it’s never going back. Absolutely perfect here.

We’ll shift gears now and look at Sheik getting a rematch with Santana, this time for Tito’s Intercontinental Title. From February 18, 1984 in Philadelphia.

Intercontinental Title: Tito Santana vs. Iron Sheik

Tito is defending if that’s not clear. Sheik is immediately stalling on the floor before mixing it up by stalling in the ring. He easily takes Tito down a few times with some nice amateur moves before slamming the champion down on his back. Some hard shots to the back have Tito in trouble and Sheik yells a lot. Tito grabs a small package for two before kicking Sheik in the ribs a few times.

Sheik gets in a kick of his own and sticks his chest out to the crowd. Tito counters a suplex into one of his own but the champ can’t follow up. A camel clutch attempt is countered with right hands to the ribs but Sheik grabs a Boston crab. Tito powers out with a pushup and gets all fired up. The bald guy bows down in fear but Santana hammers away on him instead. A dropkick and airplane spin have the Sheik in trouble but they tumble out to the floor. They hammer away on each other until it’s a double countout.

Rating: C-. This was one of those matches that worked better for the live crowd than a TV one. Most of the match was spent with big gestures from the two of them and the people ate it up. Sheik was a great heel but without the camel clutch there was only so much that could be done here.

About a year later Sheik would hook up with Nikolai Volkoff in a tag team which should have been called the Iron Curtain. They fought the US Express at the first Wrestlemania for the Tag Team Titles.

Tag Titles: US Express vs. Nikolai Volkoff/Iron Sheik

The Express is Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo and they’re defending tonight. A little trivia for you: the song Real American was originally used for the two of them but Hogan wound up using it instead. The heels do their whole Russian national anthem and Iran/Russia #1 deal before the match. Rotundo and Sheik start things off with the Iranian hooking a headlock. A dropkick puts Sheik down and Mike grabs a headlock.

Off to Barry who avoids double teaming and causes the challengers to collide. Back to Rotundo to work over Nikolai with an elbow drop getting two. Windham comes in off the top with a shot to the arm and Rotundo does the same thing. Sheik suplexes Mike down for two as the foreigners take over. Nikolai drops him throat first across the throat and the USA chant starts up.

A sunset flip gets a quick two for Mike but it’s back to Sheik for an abdominal stretch. That doesn’t last long though as Mike hiptosses out of it and it’s off to Barry via the hot tag. The bulldog (Barry’s finisher at the time) takes Volkoff out as everything breaks down. In the melee, Sheik hits Windham in the back with the cane for the pin and the titles.

Rating: C. This was a better match than we’ve seen so far with the fans getting way into the whole USA vs. foreigners thing. The title change was there only so something historic could happen and the Express got the belts back about two and a half months later. They would split soon after that with both guys heading to the NWA.

Sheik would also be in the first match ever on Saturday Night’s Main Event in a six man tag.

Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff/George Steele vs. Mike Rotunda/Barry Windham/Ricky Steamboat

That’s quite the face tag team. This was on the SNME DVD (greatDVD that should certainly be picked up if you can find it. Awesome stuff on it) as an extra. Blassie is with the heels and Albano is with the faces. The two foreigners had taken the tag titles from the US Express at Wrestlemania for a token tag title change.

About a year prior to this, the US Express had been using Real American for their theme music. That went to Hogan of course and here they use Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen which works like a charm for them as it’s perfect. We start with Windham and Steele which is an odd matchup if there ever has been one.

Sheik was hitting the end of whatever usefulness that he had at this point. Rotundo would soon head to WCW and become a member of the Varsity Club, ending in an awesome moment with Rick Steiner taking the TV Title from him after months of being talked down to by him. Wow what a tangent that was.

Oh and he’s more commonly known as I.R.S. Oddly enough the faces dominate early on. We go to commercial with the faces dominating. We begin the awesome SNME tradition of not having action during commercials so we don’t have to be all confused about how we got to a point during a break.

Wow there are four hall of fame wrestlers in here and two on the floor. That’s rather impressive, especially considering that the two that aren’t in there are two of the three most talented. Steele comes in and his teammates abandon him, allowing Windham to get a quick rollup for the pin. Steele eats a turnbuckle and the tag champions beat him up. That doesn’t last long as Albano comes in to calm him down and Steele is a face.

Rating: C-. Eh this was fine. It wasn’t meant to be anything special other than a way to get Steele out of the dark side, but the heel offense consisted of about four Volkoff punches and other than that it was a complete squash. I don’t get why it was so one sided, but it did its job and wasn’t bad at all so for the first match in show history this was perfectly fine.

Another big deal in 1985 was the Wrestling Classic. Here’s Sheik’s first round match.

First Round: Junkyard Dog vs. Iron Sheik

I like JYD’s song. It’s just old school personified. Sheik jumps him as it’s still playing though, which in a bit of a comedic moment is how Sheik’s former partner lost earlier in the night. Sheik is freaking ripped. Somehow, Dog is more limited than Putski was earlier. He hits nothing but punches and headbutts. Eventually he goes down though and Sheik gets the clutch on him. Jesse says no one has ever gotten out of this. You know, other than Hogan in the match that changed wrestling forever but that didn’t mean as much as this did of course. It’s also the sloppiest camel clutch this side of Sid Vicious. Dang it’s bad.

Dog gets out of it kind of as Sheik argues with the referee. In an even dumber ending than before, a headbutt gets the pin. What? He used two of them before and didn’t even knock Sheik down but here that’s enough to get a clean pin? Come on now guys at least give us some consistency! Why couldn’t one of these two have gotten hurt early? I hate booking like this. It’s more or less saying the lazier you are, the stronger you’ll get pushed. That’s great business wouldn’t you say?

Rating: F-. Where do I begin? Let’s see: the moves were limited and sloppy, the thing lasted three whole minutes which I’ll never get back, and the ending made zero sense. What kind of a grade did you expect here? The crowd went nuts for the Dog though and that’s likely why he went on to win the tournament.

We’ll look at one more Iron Curtain match because that was a big time for Sheik. From Boston on August 9, 1986.

Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff vs. Hart Foundation

In Boston here and this would be heel vs. heel. The Harts are the faces by default and get cheered as a result. They also break up the Russian national anthem to really ensure their cheers. Even Gorilla acknowledges that no one cheers the Harts most of the time. The Harts clear the ring and eventually we start with Bret vs. Nikolai. Off to Sheik before anything happenes.

Bret sends him to the floor pretty easily as the Harts are in desperate need of a better team than this to face. Sheik gets him in the heel (I guess) corner but he misses a boot so Volkoff gets knocked down. Nikolai does get up to break up the middle rope elbow and Neidhart is shoved away. Sheik can take over now and brings in Nikolai who gets caught in a sunset flip which the referee misses.

The team that should have been called the Iron Curtain uses the classic basic heel moves to control as Sheik runs through his array of offense: abdominal stretch, gutwrench suplex and camel clutch, the final of which is broken up by Jim. Bret blocks some suplexes and it’s off to Neidhart. Jim cleans house with a bunch of dropkicks but Sheik breaks up a cover. Everything breaks down and Sheik pulls Neidhart’s leg to break up a slam and Volkoff falls on top for the pin.

Rating: D. Bad match and it’s not the right pairing for the Harts at all. They’re much better against the speed teams and since there was at least one for them to fight in the Killer Bees, I’m assuming there’s something up here. Not much of a match and pretty short, but the Harts did what they could. It just didn’t work all that well.

Sheik would stick around for another few years without accomplishing anything of note. After jumping around the AWA, WWC and NWA without doing anything interesting (save for getting squashed by Sting on PPV), it was back to the WWF to capitalize on the Gulf War. This is from Wrestling Challenge on June 30, 1991 with Sheik portraying Colonel Mustafa.

Colonel Mustafa vs. Jerry Stevens

The first part of the match is spent on an inset interview with Mustafa and his superior General Adnan. Stevens gets suplexed down as the announcers plug a trivia game on Hulk Hogan’s 900 number. A belly to back suplex sets up the camel clutch to give Mustafa the win.

The evil trio (Adnan, Mustafa and the now evil Sgt. Slaughter) would have their biggest match in the main event of Summerslam 1991: a handicap match against Hulk Hogan/Ultimate Warrior.

Ultimate Warrior/Hulk Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter/Colonel Mustafa/General Adnan

Sid Justice is guest referee and Hogan is WWF Champion. Hogan and Slaughter get things going but the Sarge wants to stall. Slaughter pounds on him in the corner but gets caught between the right hands of both superheroes. Off to Warrior for a clothesline followed by a double big boot to put Slaughter down again. A clothesline gets two for Hogan and it’s back to Warrior. This is completely one sided so far. Hogan comes back in with a middle rope ax handle for two.

Sid breaks up some choking in the corner and the distraction lets Slaughter get in some shots on Hogan. Adnan, an old manager, comes in to rake Hogan’s back and slowly pound away in the corner. Off to Mustafa (Iron Sheik) for the gutwrench suplex and the camel clutch but Warrior makes the save. Slaughter comes back in to choke away in the corner and send Hogan into Sid for a staredown. Sarge jumps the distracted Hogan and stomps away on the back.

Warrior breaks up a top rope something by Slaughter, allowing for the hot tag to the painted one. Warrior cleans house on Slaughter but runs into Sid for another staredown. Back to Mustafa who gets caught in a suplex but Slaughter blocks a tag. Slaughter puts Warrior in a chinlock, only to have the Ultimate One fight up and clothesline Sarge down. There’s the hot tag to Hogan as Hogan chases the lackeys to the back with a chair. More on that later as Hogan throws powder in Slaughter’s face and drops the leg to win.

Rating: D+. I’m not a fan of this one as the match was never in doubt at all, but above that the Iraq War had been over for six months so the interest in the feud was done long ago. Nothing to see here but the fans reacted pretty well to it. This would have been better as a house show main event instead of the main event of Summerslam. If nothing else there was a match around this time on a Coliseum Video with Slaughter/Mustafa/Undertaker against the superheroes. Wouldn’t that make a much better main event here?

Slaughter would turn face soon after this, setting up a feud with Mustafa. They would captain teams at the 1991 Survivor Series.

Team Mustafa vs. Team Slaughter

Colonel Mustafa, Berzerker, Skinner, Hercules

Sgt. Slaughter, Tito Santana, Jim Duggan, Texas Tornado

A lot of these guys are on their way out. Hercules would be in WCW by May, Tornado would job to the stars until leaving in July as would Mustafa (Iron Sheik), and the rest of the guys would do nothing of note for the rest of their time in the company. Kerry (Tornado) looks high as a kite and almost falls off the apron getting into the ring. This is pretty recently after Slaughter’s face turn as he was a heel at Summerslam. This isn’t exactly the most talent laden match ever and the only feud is Slaughter vs. Mustafa.

Tito and Skinner start with Santana taking over with a headlock. There’s the flying forearm out of nowhere and Skinner hits the floor without a cover. Off to Berzerker vs. Tornado which would work a lot better down in Dallas. Berzerker (a crazy viking who tried to stab Undertaker with a sword) misses a dropkick and it’s off to Mustafa. After some very brief offense, Kerry tumbles to his corner and brings in Duggan to face Hercules, which was in the first ever match at Survivor Series.

Duggan gets taken down by double and triple teaming and it’s off to Mustafa. He loads up his curled boots (it’s a Sheik thing) and does nothing with them. Thanks for wasting our time with that. Duggan pounds away and backdrops Mustafa down before the hot tag to Slaughter. The big showdown is an atomic drop and a clothesline to Mustafa for the elimination.

Berzerker comes in with some clotheslines and a kick to the fat gut of Slaughter. A boot to Slaughter’s face puts him down and it’s off to Hercules for some two counts. Back to the viking who gets crotched on the top rope and kicked in the legs. Off to Duggan who clotheslines Berzerker to the floor and backdrops him back there a few seconds later. Tornado comes in and pounds away on him before it’s off to Hercules again. Tito gets a blind tag and hits a forearm to the back of the head (El Paso Del Muerte) for the pin and the elimination.

Skinner, the guy that owned now former developmental program FCW, comes in as it’s 4-2. When you have Skinner and Berzerker as your only guys left, the team is in big trouble. A blind tag brings in Slaughter who rolls up Skinner for the elimination. Slaughter whips Berzerker into Duggan’s clothesline for the elimination and the win.

Rating: F. The match sucked, it was never in doubt, and the biggest deal on the heel team was Skinner, who would get an IC Title shot soon after this. What a horrible match and one of the most worthless ones in the history of the show so far, which is covering quite a bit of ground. Nothing to see here at all.

We’ll wrap it up with a handicap match in MSG on December 29, 1991.

General Adnan/Colonel Mustafa vs. Sgt. Slaughter

The winner gets to raise their own country’s flag. Mustafa (Iron Sheik) sings the Iraqi national anthem. No tagging required here I don’t think. Nope none at all. They jump Slaughter to start and use his bullet belt to work Slaughter over. Adnan goes outside which apparently he doesn’t have to do but does anyway. Most odd indeed.

Sheik gets a shot to Slaughter’s throat with something but the referee is distracted. Slaughter gets a clothesline to take over to almost no reaction. Adnan comes in as this needs to end soon due to the high level of suck in the evil foreigners. Slaughter rams them into each other and clotheslines Adnan for the pin to end it even though he wasn’t legal I don’t think.

Rating: D. Quick but barely long enough to call it a full match. It’s pretty bad and thankfully this angle/feud ended soon after this as the time for this thing went on way too long. Nothing special at all here and it was boring and bad on top of all that. Sarge was back though, even though he would be gone relatively soon.

Iron Sheik started out as an awesome wrestler with a great look and gimmick but time caught up with him in the late 80s. After that it was just living off of his past glory for a few years before he basically went nuts and wanted to, ahem, humble various wrestlers. Look up what that means for yourself. Anyway, Sheik is a very underrated talent that you should look into more if you only remember him for getting beaten up by Hulk Hogan.

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Wrestlemania VII
Date: March 24, 1991
Location: Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, Los Angeles, California
Attendance: 16,158
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Gorilla Monsoon

Oh boy has a lot of stuff changed here. First of all, Jesse is gone from the company and is being replaced by a revolving door of replacements. Other than that we’ve got Sgt. Slaughter as an anti-American world champion who needs a REAL AMERICAN to save the title for the country. There’s also a retirement match here between Randy Savage and Ultimate Warrior, which might actually be better than Warrior’s title win last year. Oh and there’s this big guy in black that is making his Wrestlemania debut tonight. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Hogan saving AMERICA, which is what the entire show is about. I believe the subtitle of this show is Stars and Stripes Forever, so if you can’t figure out what the ending is going to be, I can’t help you. Keep in mind that this was inspired by the Gulf War….which was already over but who cares about technicalities like that?

Willie Nelson sings America the Beautiful.

Hacksaw Jim Duggan is dressed like a drunk Uncle Sam and comes out for commentary for the opening match since Heenan is managing. He gives his thoughts on the main matches too.

The Rockers say they’ll beat the Heenan Family.

Haku/Barbarian vs. Rockers

Shawn and Haku get us going with Michaels trying to speed things up, only to be slammed into the corner. The second attempt at flying around works a bit better as a dropkick puts Haku down. The Rockers do some of their double teaming stuff but Barbie takes them down with a big double clothesline. Shawn and Marty double superkick him down though and the Heenan Family has to regroup a bit.

We get down to Marty vs. Barbarian again and speed takes over one more time. A sunset flip doesn’t work for Jannetty but Barbarian punches the mat. A rana takes Barbarian down and Marty pounds away for two. Off to Haku and a double headbutt puts Marty down again. Jannetty loads up another rana but the foreigners hit a double hot shot onto the top rope to really take over this time.

A gorilla press plants Jannetty and it’s time for more heel double teaming. Marty comes back with something like a cross body for two but the speed continues to get beaten down. By speed I mean the drug of the day for Jannetty of course. Back to Barbarian for a bearhug followed by a powerslam so wicked that the fans pop for it. The falling headbutt misses though and it’s hot tag time to Shawn. Things really do speed up now but Shawn gets kicked in the face to slow him down. That goes nowhere for the villains though and it’s a Michaels cross body off the top for the pin on Haku.

Rating: B. Just a fast paced tag team match here with power vs. speed. This is one of those formulas that works no matter how many times you do it as long as you have talented guys in there. The future Faces of Fear were fine as monsters for the Rockers to conquer and it set a good pace for the show here. Solid opening match.

Gene is with Marla Maples (not really famous), Alex Trebek and Regis Philbin, our celebrities for tonight. Regis is scared of Earthquake, Trebek tries to make Jeopardy jokes, and Marla is still not famous. Apparently she was married to Donald Trump. Ok then.

Dino Bravo vs. Texas Tornado

Von Erich popped into the company around Summerslam, won the IC Title from Perfect, lost it and was immediately a jobber to the stars until he went back to Texas. It’s a fast brawl to start but Bravo avoids the claw. Heenan is on commentary now. Von Erich runs into a boot in the corner and Dino takes over for a bit. The side suplex puts Tornado down for two and that’s about it for Bravo. A few seconds later it’s Claw and Tornado Punch for the pin on Bravo.

Rating: D. Nothing at all to see here and it’s a match that easily could have been cut. This was Bravo’s last televised match before he left the company for good a year or so later. Afterwords he would soon be murdered in an illegal cigarette smuggling operation in Canada. Now there’s a story that you can’t make up.

Warlord and Slick are ready for Davey Boy.

Bulldog talks to Winston (his new dog) and says there’s no bull in this bulldog.

Davey Boy Smith vs. Warlord

This is about whether or not Davey can break the full nelson. We start with our standard power stuff as they ram into each other a few times, only to have Bulldog knock Warlord out to the floor. A crucifix doesn’t work for Bulldog so Warlord drops some elbows for no cover. We hit the bearhug but Bulldog punches out, only to get caught in a hot shot to keep him on the mat.

A BIG belly to belly (kind of) puts Bulldog down but again Warlord won’t cover. We hit the chinlock until Bulldog fights up and hits a dropkick to send Warlord into the corner. Punches in said corner can’t drop Warlord but a cross body is finally enough to get him off his feet. Warlord counters a piledriver but Bulldog counters the counter into a sunset flip for two. Bulldog misses a charge into the corner and Warlord hooks the full nelson. It looks like all hope is lost but the fingers aren’t locked. Bulldog finally flips out of it and hooks the powerslam out of nowhere for the win.

Rating: C+. This would be filed under the category of “shocking the world” as it was actually a pretty solid match. Bulldog would get a lot better all of a sudden while Warlord would fall further down the card than he already was. This was way better than I was expecting and it turned into a pretty decent power match.

Jimmy Hart and hits Nasty Boys are ready to take the tag titles from the Harts.

The Harts say good luck cracking the Foundation.

Tag Titles: Hart Foundation vs. Nasty Boys

The Nastys got got hot in WCW in 1990, weren’t signed to contracts, and debuted in the WWF in late 1990/early 1991. They won a tag team battle royal for this shot they’re getting here. Jerry and Bret start things off and it’s a quick Thesz Press to take Sags down. Brian gets knocked off the apron by the Hitman and Sags gets tripped down to the mat. No Sharpshooter yet though as Bret stomps the midsection instead.

Off to Anvil who starts powering Knobs around and pounds away in the corner. After being knocked to the floor, Brian comes right back in and is immediately caught in an armbar. The Nastys double team Neidhart in their corner to FINALLY take over, but a mat slam is enough to let Neidhart tag Bret back in. Hart tries to fight off both of the Boys, only to get decked from behind by Knobs.

Bret is sent out to the floor where he may have hurt his knee. Back inside Jerry whips him into the corner as we hit the heat section of the match. Sags hooks a reverse chinlock before Knobs comes in to do exactly the same. Back to Jerry for a neckbreaker for two and Brian breaks up a hot tag attempt. Hart breaks up a reverse chinlock by Knobs and now it’s Jerry to break up another hot tag.

Brian misses a splash in the corner and Bret makes the tag but, say it with me, the referee doesn’t see it. We get heel miscommunication and NOW we get a tag to Anvil. Jim cleans house and hits a quick powerslam for two on Knobs as everything breaks down. Jimmy Hart gets decked by Bret and there’s a Hart Attack for Knobs. The referee tries to get Bret out and Sags decks Bret with Jimmy’s helmet, giving the Nastys the titles.

Rating: B-. Another solid tag match here as the division was getting very hot all of a sudden. The Harts would quietly split up after this with Bret moving into the IC Title picture soon thereafter. The Nastys would hold the titles over the summer before dropping them to the monsters known as the LOD at Summerslam.

Jimmy Hart’s near panic attack over winning the belts is hilarious stuff.

We recap Jake Roberts vs. Rick Martel. Back in October, Roberts and Martel were on the Brother Love Show where Martel tried to spray his cologne on Damien’s bag, only to hit Jake’s eyes by mistake. Jake was basically blind for a few months, leading to the following blindfold match. These have never been good in the history of wrestling and I don’t expect it to be here.

Jake says snakes always do it better in the dark.

Jake Roberts vs. Rick Martel

In short, they’re both in hoods and neither guy can see. So the match starts and both guys point across the ring while trying to find where the other is. Martel gets down on the mat and crawls around, only to give us some stupid comedy spots with both guys tripping over the other. Rick tries a backdrop but Jake runs off to the side, showing that he can clearly see if you’re thinking about this.

They miss each other in the corner a few times until Martel finally grabs him for a slam, only to miss an elbow drop. Martel gets the referee in the corner, only to realize he’s grabbing a shirt. Jake uses the crowd for help by pointing and listening to the crowd cheer as he points at Martel. This continues on for awhile until Martel nearly grabs the snake bag.

The announcers continue a running joke where they can’t hear each other which isn’t funny. Jake gets knocked to the floor so Martel follows. He grabs a chair and pokes around with it but only hits the post. Back in and Martel takes Jake down and hooks the Boston Crab, only to have it broken quickly. Roberts grabs the DDT a second later for the pin.

Rating: F. This wasn’t wrestling. It was a stupid idea with both guys wandering around and making no contact for about seven and a half minutes before both guys hit their finishers. Thankfully this feud was done after this as I don’t think the fans could stand any more of it. Oh and on top of that, Martel didn’t cheat once by looking under the mask. Nice heel work there.

The Nasty Boys celebrate in the back and disgust Marla Maples.

Jimmy Snuka vs. The Undertaker

For those of you reading this now, we’re currently at 20-0 and it all begins here. Taker slugs him around and rams Snuka head first into the corner a few times. The big jumping clothesline takes Snuka down and there’s a quick smother by Taker. Jimmy charges into a knee in the corner and gets slammed down, only for an elbow drop to miss. Snuka chops away but misses a dive and falls to the floor. The Tombstone ends this a few seconds later.

Rating: D+. The match is just a squash but it’s far more historic than anything else. Undertaker would go on to become the true Mr. Wrestlemania, never losing a single match in the entirety of his career there up to the point this is being written (2013). Snuka would fade from view soon after this.

We recap Savage vs. Warrior. Savage attacked then WWF Champion Ultimate Warrior on Saturday Night’s Main Event because he wanted a title match. Queen Sherri then got on her knees in front of Warrior at the Rumble, only to be turned down again. Savage cost Warrior the title later in the night, setting up a career ending match here tonight.

Ultimate Warrior vs. Randy Savage

Before the match, Heenan spots Miss Elizabeth sitting in the crowd. Warrior only walks to the ring with a coat on instead of his usual sprint to the ring. His trunks have the WWF Title belt on the back with the words “Means much more than this”. The fans HATE Savage here while Warrior gets some great pops. They lock up to start with Warrior easily shoving Randy down a few times. A shoulder does nothing for Savage so he heads to the outside.

Back in and a clothesline puts Savage down and there’s an overhand choke. An atomic drop has Savage in trouble again and there’s a big atomic drop for good measure. Sherri tries to interfere and is immediately knocked to the outside again. Savage gets tied up in the ropes and Warrior pounds away as this is completely one sided so far. Savage finally comes back with a clothesline but he dives off the top into a slam position, but Warrior puts him down on his feet with no slam. Now THAT is a mind game.

Macho King goes to the floor and grabs a chair which is nothing more than a distraction so that he can jump Warrior. That goes as well as anything else has for him so far with Warrior pounding away at Savage’s head. Warrior stomps away in the corner as Heenan says you couldn’t sneak a midget into the building. Savage falls out of the corner to avoid a charge, sending Warrior out to the floor. Sherri adds a slap to the face and there’s the top rope ax handle.

Warrior gets posted and Sherri gets in a few more shots for good measure. We’re told that this is the largest PPV audience in the history of pay per view. Since there’s no way to know that for months, I don’t think this is the case. Warrior absorbs some slams and pops up to stare Savage down. A Sherri distraction doesn’t work at all and Warrior runs the ropes, only to be slammed face first down into the mat for two.

We hit the chinlock/sleeper for a bit before a double clothesline puts both guys down. Sherri tries to interfere again but the referee is taken down in the process. AGAIN the Queen interferes but accidentally takes Savage out by mistake. Warrior goes after her but gets caught in a rollup for two. Heenan is panicking over this stuff. Savage clotheslines him down and hits the flying elbow, followed by a flying elbow, followed by a flying elbow, followed by a flying elbow, followed by a flying elbow, which gets a two count in total. To say Savage is in shock is the understatement of the year.

Warrior starts shaking the ropes and hits the war path around the ring before clotheslining Savage half to death. The gorilla press and splash only get two and Warrior talks to his hands, asking if it’s time for him to step aside. With Warrior on the apron, Savage decks him down to the floor as the crowd continues to be on the edges of their seats.

Savage loads up the ax handle to the barricade but Warrior hits him coming down, sending Randy crashing into the barricade. Back in and Savage can barely stand so Warrior hits two tackles to send Savage out to the floor both times. A third hits and Savage is DONE. Warrior puts his foot on the chest to end Savage’s career.

Rating: A. After watching both this and Wrestlemania 6 in about three days, there is zero question as to which is the better match. This was a pair of titans colliding and one man clearly was better. That’s one of the formulas that never fails if worked even mostly right and they NAILED IT here. This is by far and away Warrior’s best match ever, but the best part is yet to come.

Post match Sherri gets in the ring and beats the tar out of Savage who is defenseless and can’t see who it is. Elizabeth shocks everyone by jumping the guardrail and throwing Sherri to the floor in the only time I can ever remember her getting physical. Savage gets up and is SHOCKED to see Liz, who hadn’t been seen in about a year. Liz says it was Sherri attacking Savage who has no idea what to do.

Liz holds out her arms and after a few moments, Savage hugs her to one of the biggest ovations you will ever hear. Savage puts Liz on his shoulder before the go to leave. As is their custom, Liz holds the ropes for him but Savage says not this time, and holds the ropes open for her. Savage gets to take a bow in the middle of the ring and the fans are thrilled. This is the only, repeat ONLY, moment in wrestling that legitimately brings a tear to my eye every time I watch it. I think that’s the case for a lot of fans.

Regis Philbin is measured for a coffin by Undertaker. Regis: “We’re dying out here.”

Demolition is with Alex Trebek who annoys them with stupid Jeopardy talk. It’s Smash and Crush at this point, managed by Mr. Fuji again.

Regis talks to Tenryu and Kitao who are here for one night only. They don’t speak English so we get some racially insensitive attempts at communication.

Jake Roberts and Damien torment Trebek a bit. This is why intermission getting cut out was a good idea.

Demolition vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Koji Kitao

Now this is one of those out of nowhere matches. Demolition is on their very last toes of their very last legs here as they’ve even got Mr. Fuji again. Tenryu is a Japanese legend and Kitao is a big time sumo guy who became a pro and didn’t do much. Kitao and Crush start things off but everything breaks down quickly. Fuji whacks Kitao in the back and Demolition takes over again. Gorilla asks what it takes to become a grand champion of sumo. Brain: “Being able to eat 1100 bowls of rice in an hour with a single chopstick.”

Crush slams Kitao down and it’s off to Smash. Kitao finally comes out of the corner with a clothesline and it’s off to Tenryu. He speeds things up in a hurry but misses a top rope back elbow. Crush hits a backbreaker to put Tenryu down but Kitao breaks up the Decapitator. He breaks it up again and Tenryu hits a fast enziguri and powerbomb for the pin on Smash.

Rating: D+. Nothing to see here and I have no idea what the point of this match was. It’s the final match for Demolition and on top of that, THIS is how you use Tenryu, a legitimate Japanese legend? The match was less than five minutes long and this is the only time I know of that Tenryu appeared for the company in a regular match for nearly two years. My guess would be this is part of the working agreement with Tenryu’s SWS.

Boss Man says Heenan and his Family has nowhere else to hide tonight.

Mr. Perfect and Heenan say about what you would expect them to say about Big Boss Man.

Intercontinental Title: Big Boss Man vs. Mr. Perfect

Perfect is defending. This is an interesting yet simple idea for a story: Heenan had insulted Boss Man’s mama so Boss Man swore revenge. He went after the Heenan Family and beat every single one of them until there was only Perfect left. Tonight is the final showdown. They spit at each other to start and Perfect slaps Boss Man like a schmuck. Boss Man hits him once to knock Perfect out to the floor and there’s a spin around BY THE HAIR. FREAKING OW MAN!

Boss Man speeds around the corner and hits a big clothesline to take Hennig down. Perfect gets tossed out to the floor and Boss Man is standing tall. Back in and Boss Man hits the running crotch attack to Perfect’s back and whips him with a belt for good measure. Perfect finally avoids a shot and takes Boss Man down with some kicks to the ribs. Off to a chinlock with a knee in the back followed by an abdominal stretch. There’s the Hennig neck snap for two and Mr. goes up, only to jump into a boot.

Perfect gets to do his reverse crotching into the post but as they go to the floor, Boss Man is whipped into the steps to take him down again. Since it was a Heenan distraction that caused the whip into the steps, here’s Andre the Giant to counter the weasel. Andre picks up the belt and takes way too long to get to his position, from which he whacks Perfect in the head to knock him out cold. Boss Man covers but Haku and Barbarian run in for the DQ.

Rating: C. This wasn’t great and I have no idea why they didn’t change the title. The story set it up to be a title change, but I guess they were hoping for something else besides this. What that was I have no idea as Boss Man would never come close to the title again. The match was decent enough all things considered though.

Boss Man and Andre clean house post match.

Donald Trump, Chuck Norris, Lou Ferrigno and Henry Winkler are here. Yep, the Fonz showed up at Wrestlemania.

Earthquake vs. Greg Valentine

Valentine turned face a few months ago and this is his big match for the forces of good. We’re 20 seconds in and Valentine is getting powerslammed down for two. A splash misses in the corner and Valentine gets him down to one knee. Quake breaks the Figure Four twice, hits a big elbow and drops the Earthquake for the pin.

Rating: F+. Earthquake was pretty much done as a singles guy at this point but I’m assuming he got some shots at Hogan on house shows over the summer. Other than that though this was a filler match that didn’t need to be on the card at all. Nothing to see here but at least Quake looked dominant.

The LOD says Power and Glory will be sour and gory after the match.

Power and Glory vs. Legion of Doom

Hercules is sent to the floor and it’s a Doomsday Device to end Roma in less than a minute. They were clearly coming for the belts very soon.

We recap Virgil vs. Ted DiBiase. Basically Virgil spent years serving DiBiase and FINALLY snapped on him at the Royal Rumble, setting up this match tonight. Roddy Piper is Virgil’s mentor here too.

Virgil vs. Ted DiBiase

Virgil gets one of the three big pops of his entire career here, with the first being when he finally hit DiBiase with the belt. The other will be in less than ten minutes. Virgil pounds away to start and sends Ted out to the floor. Back in and Ted hits a clothesline but an elbow misses a second later. DiBiase, the wrestler, easily takes Virgil down and hits a suplex for two. Things are REALLY slow now compared to just a few moments before. We head to the floor for a bit with DiBiase shoving down Piper, who was on crutches at this point. DiBiase talks some trash so Piper pulls the top rope down but the distraction is enough for a countout.

Rating: D. This was all story but it really should have been Virgil pinning DiBiase, even on a rollup. These two would continue to feud with Virgil actually taking the Million Dollar Title at Summerslam 1991. The problem with Virgil was that after the DiBiase feud, there was nothing for him to do at all. The match was really dull and didn’t have the payoff it needed at the end.

DiBiase puts Virgil in the Million Dollar Dream post match but Piper hits him with the crutch to break it up. Queen Sherri comes out to help with a beatdown of Piper, as she is now managing DiBiase. Referees come out to break it up until Virgil makes the save. Virgil tells Piper to get up, as Piper had told him over the last few months.

We get a clip of Slaughter and General Adnan burning a Hogan t-shirt.

Slaughter threatens to get himself disqualified to keep the title. We get a clip of Slaughter beating up Hogan and Duggan as Slaughter laughs evily.

The Mountie vs. Tito Santana

Tito chases him around to start and beats him up a bit, only to get caught in the ribs with Mountie’s shock stick, ending this in less than 90 seconds.

Hogan gives his prematch interview, talking about how much he loves AMERICA and how he’s got new weapons. We get a clip of Slaughter and Adnan beating Hogan down but he promises to do it for his country.

Here are the celebrities: Regis is on commentary, Marla Maples is the timekeeper and Alex Trebek is ring announcer.

WWF World Title: Sgt. Slaughter vs. Hulk Hogan

Hogan immediately chases Slaughter around the ring until Adnan is put on the floor. Feeling out process to start with both guys going into the corner. Hulk hooks a headlock to no avail but sends Slaughter backwards with a shoulder block. The champ hits one of the weakest chair shots you’ll ever see to Hogan’s back and pokes Hulk in the eye to finally take over. Hogan comes back with a clothesline and decks Adnan for fun too. A backdrop puts Slaughter down and Hulk sends him into the post.

Hogan hits a jumping knee to the back to send Slaughter into the corner and a slingshot sends Slaughter into the buckle again. Hogan gets in his ten punches in the corner for two but goes to the middle rope of all places, but Adnan breaks it up. Slaughter gets slammed down and Hulk drops a bunch of elbows. Now Hogan goes up top (!) but gets slammed to the mat and clotheslined to the floor. A better but still lame chair shot puts Hogan down again and it’s time to work on the back.

A backbreaker gets two for the champion and he stomps away on Hulk’s back. There’s a Boston Crab but Hulk is right next to the rope, making this pretty worthless. Another backbreaker gets two and it’s a third chair shot, this time to the head, gets two more. Hulk is cut over the eye. There’s Slaughter’s Camel Clutch but Hulk fights up, only to be rammed into the corner to send him right back down. Slaughter puts an Iraqi flag on Hogan and you know what’s coming now. A Hulk Up, big boot and leg drop later and AMERICA REIGNS AGAIN!

Rating: C. At the end of the day, if you didn’t know what was going to happen here then you’re either very young or have no idea how wrestling works. On top of the story, it’s Hogan in a match against a big man. What else could you possibly expect? Hogan winning is the 100% right decision and the match certainly isn’t bad. Slaughter was clearly a short term champion and there’s nothing wrong with that either. Decent stuff here and a feel good moment to end the show.

Overall Rating: B-. Oddly enough, this wasn’t too bad. There’s some lame stuff but for the most part it’s very short with only Jake vs. Martel being both bad and longer than five minutes. Other than that you get a very fun opener, a masterpiece in the retirement match, a feel good main event and some other solid stuff. If you shave off about half an hour of this, which could easily be done by dropping about three matches, this show goes WAY up in value. Still though, it’s worth checking out if you haven’t seen it in a long time.

Ratings Comparison

Rockers vs. Haku/Barbarian

Original: B

Redo: B

Texas Tornado vs. Dino Bravo

Original: F

Redo: D

British Bulldog vs. Warlord

Original: B-

Redo: C+

Nasty Boys vs. Hart Foundation

Original: C-

Redo: B-

Jake Roberts vs. Rick Martel

Original: F

Redo: F

Undertaker vs. Jimmy Snuka

Original: D+

Redo: D+

Ultimate Warrior vs. Randy Savage

Original: A+

Redo: A

Genichiro Tenryu/Koji Kitao vs. Demolition

Original: W (For What were they thinking)

Redo: D+

Big Boss Man vs. Mr. Perfect

Original: C-

Redo: C

Earthquake vs. Greg Valentine

Original: N/A

Redo: F+

Legion of Doom vs. Power and Glory

Original: N/A

Redo: N/A

Virgil vs. Ted DiBiase

Original: C-

Redo: D

The Mountie vs. Tito Santana

Original: N/A

Redo: N/A

Hulk Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter

Original: C+

Redo: C

Overall Rating

Original: C

Redo: B-

These things need to be different already.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/03/14/history-of-wrestlemania-with-kb-wrestlemania-7-wrestlemania-goes-patriotic/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

Next up we have Pat Patterson, who has a nice variety of stuff.

I was hoping to talk about his match from Rio to win the Intercontinental Title but my copy of the tape doesn’t work. Instead here’s a match from Australia in 1968 against Antonio Pugliesi, who was often billed as Bruno Sammartino’s cousin.

Antonio Pugliesi vs. Pat Patterson

It’s a crisscross to start until Patterson is armdragged down a few times. Pat is the heel here I believe and stalls on the floor to prove me right. Back in and Patterson grabs a headlock but is shoved to the apron for more stalling. Patterson heads back inside and immediately runs from a charging Pugliese. They slug it out in the ring with Antonio slamming Patterson down and putting on a chinlock. Back up and Antonio hooks something that might be a relative of a hurricanrana and since this is 1968 in Australia, the fans are in awe.

We go back to normal for this era with an armbar on Patterson who pulls at the hair in a failed escaped attempt. The hold lasts nearly two minutes before Patterson fights up, only to be armdragged back into the armbar. Back up again and they trade dropkicks, only to have Patterson get caught in armbar #3. Pat fights to his feet and sends Antonio into the ropes they ram heads to put both guys down. Patterson misses a splash but avoids an elbow drop to keep both guys down again.

Antonio is sent to the floor and punches in the head a few times before dragging him back in for some ramming into the buckle. They slug it out from their knees until Antonio slugs Patterson out to the floor. He kicks Pat in the head and Patterson uses the breather to pull out a foreign object. A shot to the head has Antonio in trouble but the time runs out before we get a pin.

Rating: C-. The match wasn’t bad but the armbars make it clear that they were killing time until we got to the draw. Patterson was such a natural heel that he could have the fans ready to kill him like it was nothing. This match would be filed under “it was a very different era”, even though the stuff was similar to what you would see today.

It was off to the WWF for Patterson where he would get a world title shot on September 24, 1979 in a cage against Bob Backlund.

WWFTitle: BobBacklundvs. PatPatterson

This is from September of 79 apparently. Patterson is the IC Champion here and is a cage match expert but Backlund has never been in one. Patterson was more or less the top heel in the company by default here. They start off fast as Backlund is all fired up here. Patterson tries to get out early and that goes nowhere.

Both guys get incredibly close but can’t get all the way out. Patterson almost gets out with Backlund literally dragging him back over the top by a single leg. They keep fighting to try to get out as this is definitely more about winning than violence which is fine. We clip the match to them being on the mat and Patterson hammers away on a cut on Backlund’s head. From what I can find only about three minutes out of 16 total were clipped so we get the vast majority here.

Patterson is busted too. Vince calls the WWF Champion a gallant lad. That’s sweet. Patterson goes into the cage and Backlund goes for the kill. He winds up going into the cage though so forget about that I guess. Backlund gets the atomic drop which was one of his signature moves at the time. I guess Lombardi will have to be gentle tonight.

Patterson finds some brass knuckles and they go up. Pat can’t get a shot with them and both guys go down. And then Backlund kicks Patterson in the head and the force of the kick launches Backlund backwards through the cage door and out to the floor. Patterson FREAKS in the ring after that even though he did nothing but lose cleanly. I guess that’s why he’s a heel.

Rating: B. Very solid match here with both guys beating the tar out of each other. Backlund was at this best at the end of a feud where he had to go off to beat someone and that’s what he did here. This was either their fourth or fifth match against each other and Patterson had beaten him before. This was fun stuff though and it worked very well.

Patterson is of course most famous for being the first Intercontinental Champion so here’s a title defense from January 21, 1980.

Intercontinental Title: Pat Patterson vs. Lou Albano

Patterson goes right after him to start and Lou bails. He stays gone far longer than a ten count but is allowed back in anyway. Albano kicks Patterson in the knees and tries a foreign object which is taken away. Patterson scoops the leg and starts choking away. He chokes with some tape and Albano hits the floor. Back in Lou gets in a shot with the object but Patterson pounds him down again. Albano walks out and takes the countout.

Rating: D. This was just for fun as Patterson was still very popular and Albano was only an occasional wrestler. There wasn’t much to it and that’s just fine as it got the fans fired up despite there being like 15 minutes left in the show counting another break. Patterson is a guy who isn’t remembered as well as he should be.

This brings us to Patterson’s most famous match in the WWF: the Alley Fight against Sgt. Slaughter on May 4, 1981 in Madison Square Garden. These two had feuded for months and months and it’s time to blow it off in Meltzer’s match of the year for 1981.

Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter

Patterson is in street clothes and the brawl is on as soon as Slaughter gets inside. A series of kicks puts Sarge down and Patterson chokes him in the corner. Slaughter misses a big right hand and hits the post, sending him to the apron. Back in and it’s time for a whipping from Patterson with Slaughter selling it like he’s been shot. Slaughter finally sends him through the ropes and onto the apron to get a breather but Pat is right back with belt shots to the back.

Sarge finally gets in a blow to the ribs and takes the belt before sending Patterson throat first into the top rope. He wraps the belt across Pat’s mouth and rips Patterson’s shirt off for good measure. More choking ensues but Pat charges at the ropes to send Slaughter out to the floor. Slaughter tries to come back in off the top but only hits the mat to put both guys down.

Patterson slams him down and drops a middle rope knee before hitting the same sequence again. He bites Slaughter’s forehead but Sarge kicks him in the gut and drops a few knees of his own to take over again. A kick to the head with the combat boot puts Patterson down again and Slaughter launches him to the floor. Back in and Pat punches at the ribs before catapulting Slaughter into the post, causing his forehead to burst open. It looks like he was stabbed to draw that much blood.

Pat goes after the cut but a low blow puts him back down. Slaughter pulls out brass knuckles but can’t see Pat after knocking him out. His face looks like Ultimate Warrior’s paint job. Patterson is back up and wins a slugout before hitting him in the head with a cowboy boot. Slaughter still has the knuckles on his hand. Another boot shot has Slaughter reeling and a third puts him down. Sarge is knocked into the post and onto the floor where he takes out a cameraman. The crowd is LOVING this. Pat just unloads with the boot until the Grand Wizard (Slaughter’s manager) throws in a towel to stop it. Sarge wanted to keep fighting.

Rating: A. Great great fight here with Slaughter’s blade job being one for the books. This was as brutal as you’re going to get for this era and the fans ate it up. One of the key things here is that Slaughter got to save face at the end with the Wizard throwing in the towel to stop it. Patterson rose up to fight the evil guy, which is what a hero is supposed to do. Great stuff here.

After that war, we’re going to do some goofy stuff for the rest of the day. First up is from the May 10, 1999 episode of Monday Night Raw when Patterson teamed up with Gerald Brisco to face the Mean Street Posse in a loser leaves the WWF match. This is old school vs. new school and respect vs. young punks and couldn’t be more fun.

The Stooges vs. Mean Street Posse

It’s Rodney and Pete Gas here. The Stooges come out to Real American and rip off their black shirts to reveal a Brisco Brothers Body Shop shirt and an IC Champ in Rio de Janeiro shirt. Both guys are in riot gear helmets as the fans aren’t sure what to make of this. Patterson is taken down on the floor but Brisco comes back with amateur stuff on the punks.

Lawler and Ross keep saying BROTHER to keep up the joke. A double clothesline puts Brisco down but Patterson saves him from a belt whipping. Brisco comes back with a suplex on Pete as Patterson crotches Rodney. Gerald hooks a Figure Four and Patterson puts on a Boston crab to wake the crowd up for the double submission to get rid of the Posse.

Rating: A+. Seriously, this is just fun.

Pat takes off his shirt to do the Hogan poses. JR gets the infamous line of “AND HE’S SINGLE FELLAS!”

We’ll close it out with a very disturbing match: Pat Patterson defending his Hardcore Title against Gerald Brisco in an evening gown match. Just go with it.

Hardcore Title: Pat Patterson vs. Gerald Brisco

This is the result of a weeks long story of Brisco pinning a sleeping Crash Holly for the title, only to have Patterson pour champagne in his eyes and blast him in the head with a bottle to steal the title. Pat wanted to keep the title so he dressed in drag to hide in the women’s locker room. Brisco found out and did the same to chase Patterson because…..well because he’s a Stooge.

Brisco comes out with a 2×4 while Patterson has a stuffed dress, a big blonde wig and a shopping cart full of pillows and teddy bears. Pat grabs the mic and says they’re friends and should Gerald should just take the title to save their friendship. Gerald goes for it but gets hit low and spanked, revealing pantyhose. Patterson shoves a banana in his face and stomps the wig off Gerald’s head.

A Stinkface is blocked with a low blow as the fans are booing this out of the building. Brisco sends him into the corner for a bronco buster and chokes him with a blonde wig. We see bras from both guys until Crash comes in and beats up both guys, including a trashcan shot to Patterson for the pin and the title. This was named worst match of the year and I can’t say I disagree. They fight up the aisle and indeed, Brisco is wearing a thong.

Rating: Y. As in yeah…..moving on.

Pat Patterson is a guy who didn’t have the best skill set but he knew how to work a crowd like few others. That’s in the same vein as Jerry Lawler and you can see how long of a career those two have had. A lot of Patterson’s best work was in the territories so unfortunately we can’t see most of it. What we got though was good and it’s clear that he had a lot of talent. Check out some of his stuff online if you can as he’s worth a look for an education in making the most of what you have.

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Royal Rumble 1991
Date: January 19, 1991
Location: Miami Arena, Miami, Florida
Attendance: 16,000
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Roddy Piper

So it’s 1991 now and the US is at war (kind of). Therefore, the main event here, other than the Rumble of course, is Warrior defending the world title against Slaughter. This is a major changeover from the old Rumble formula which was a bunch of nothing matches followed by the big battle royal to close the show. Well at least on PPV that is. This would become the norm after this (other than in 1992) so let’s get to it.

We open with the national anthem to really hammer home the AMERICA ROCKS theme.

We get the usual list of a bunch of people in the Rumble.

Piper goes on one his big America rants about how much he loves the troops.

Rockers vs. Orient Express

The Express are Kato and Tanaka. Kato is a white guy named Paul Diamond in a mask pretending to be a Japanese guy. Shawn gets jumped to start and hit with a big double backdrop. Marty dropkicks Kato to the floor and superkicks Tanaka down as the Rockers take over. The Rockers hit stereo suicide dives to take the Express (popular names for tag teams no?) down on the floor.

The crowd is LOVING the Rockers here because they’re AMERICAN! Jannetty and Kato start things off with Kato getting caught in a headlock. Things speed up already and Marty controls with a headscissors on the mat. That gets turned into a backslide for two for Jannetty and we have a standoff. Marty makes the Express collide with each other before working on Tanaka’s arm.

Shawn comes in off the top with another shot to the arm but Tanaka comes back with a kick to the face and a chinlock. We get an overly complicated running the ropes spot which results in the Express having their heads rammed together. It’s still Tanaka vs. Shawn here and we go from a chinlock to a sleeper by Shawn. Marty tries to come in for no apparent reason, allowing Kato to blast Michaels in the back to give the Express control for the first time.

Everything breaks down and we get multiple do-see-do sequences, finally resulting in the Express being rammed into each other and being sent to the floor. Shawn busts out a kind of prototype 619 before the Rockers dive on both members of the Express in a cool spot. Back to Kato vs. Marty and we hit another chinlock. Shawn comes back in for a vertical suplex but Tanaka breaks up a monkey flip by guillotining Shawn from the apron.

Tanaka comes in and we get the World’s Greatest Tag Team spot of Tanaka jumping over Kato’s back to land on Shawn’s back as Shawn is draped over the ropes. A shot to Shawn’s throat keeps him down and it’s off to the nerve hold. Things slow down a lot as Kato comes in to chop away. A superkick puts Shawn down again (how appropriate) but he comes back by slamming Tanaka’s face down into the mat.

The place is really getting into the Rockers here as Kato takes his belt off. The Express tries to clothesline him with it but Shawn dives onto the belt to ran both Express members into each other. Hot tag brings in Marty to clean house and a powerslam gets two on Kato. Tanaka breaks up a backslide attempt so Shawn trips up Kato to retaliate. Everything breaks down again and Tanaka breaks up the Rocket Launcher. Kato slingshots Marty into a Tanaka chop and Jannetty is in trouble. They load it up again, but Shawn blasts Tanaka, allowing Marty to counter the slingshot into a sunset flip on Tanaka for the pin out of nowhere.

Rating: B+. This would have been a masterpiece if they had cut out a minute or two of the chinlocks. Still though, this follows the Nitro formula to the letter: take four small guys, give them a long time, get an exciting match. That’s the perfect choice for an opener and it worked well here. The Rockers would continue to be awesome for the rest of the year until splitting in December in the famous Barber Shop incident.

Macho Man wants a shot at the winner of the title match. Slaughter has agreed to this idea for some reason, and Sherri is on her way to the arena to get Warrior to agree to the same.

Here’s Sherri on the platform (yeah back then they had an interview platform along with the one in the back) to call out Warrior. Savage is watching in the back and Sherri takes forever to get Warrior to come out. She begs the patriotic Warrior and tries to seduce him (oh dear that’s a terrifying thought) and gets on her knees, only to have Warrior shout NO. Savage LOSES IT in the back over this. Somehow these segments took like seven minutes.

Big Bossman vs. Barbarian

This is part of a storyline that worked quite well until the ending. Rick Rude had insulted Boss Man’s mother, but Boss Man was told he had to beat every member of the Heenan Family before he got a match with Rude. Unfortunately Rude left the company before Boss Man got to him so Boss Man got Mr. Perfect at Mania….but he didn’t win Perfect’s IC title and that basically ended the storyline. Still though, the build was good and it gave Boss Man something to do for months. The eventual payoff was him literally dropping a big metal ball on Heenan’s ribs.

Anyway Barbarian pounds away to start but gets kicked in the head and elbowed down. They head to the floor for Boss Man to send Barbarian into the post before heading back inside. Barbarian goes up but jumps into a punch, sending him right back to the floor. Barbie suplexes him down and punches Boss Man in the face, knocking him into the ropes where his feet get tied up.

Barbarian pounds away a bit before ramming Boss Man back first into the post. Off to a bearhug by Barbarian followed by an elbow for two. Back to the bearhug for a little bit longer until Boss Man headbutts (bad stereotypes!) his way out. A splash in the corner misses and Barbarian gets two off a rollup, only to have Boss Man get the same off a clothesline. They hit head to head and both guys go down.

Barbarian is on his feet first and goes up and hits his top rope clothesline for two. There’s the Boss Man Slam but Boss Man walks around before covering, allowing Barbie to grab a rope. An awkward looking piledriver puts Boss Man down for no cover again. Barbarian goes up for a cross body of all things but Boss Man rolls through it for the pin.

Rating: C. This was a fine match but the ending is kind of weird. I have no idea why they didn’t have the Slam end the match here but for some reason it kept going for another minute or two afterwards. Still though, decent enough match and Boss Man was just CRAZY over at this point. The hot crowd helped a lot here.

Slaughter and General Adnan rant for a bit and say Slaughter is winning the title tonight. For some reason while Slaughter is talking they shift to another camera so he has to turn ninety degrees.

The Warrior isn’t worried about Slaughter and says he’ll give the orders tonight.

Quick recap on the world title match: Slaughter is a former American patriot and is now changing over to Iraq because he’s that kind of a villain. Warrior is defending and that’s about all there is to it.

WWF World Title: Sgt. Slaughter vs. Ultimate Warrior

Gorilla gives a disclaimer, saying that Slaughter and Adnan’s views don’t represent those of the WWF or most of America. If that was anyone other than Gorilla Monsoon, I’d say he wasn’t allowed to speak for America, but Gorilla Monsoon speaks for me. There’s a t-shirt idea in there somewhere. The belt is purple tonight in case you’re wondering. Yeah Warrior went a bit nuts (shocking I know) with having multiple belt colors for some reason. The heels try to attack him with the Iraqi Flag but Warrior will have nothing of it and clotheslines them both down.

Slaughter gets the flag shoved into his mouth and Warrior pounds away. He chokes Slaughter with said flag and chops away in the corner as Slaughter is in trouble. Warrior sends Slaughter into the corner for his over the buckle bump to the floor. Here’s Sherri to trip up Warrior and draw him back up towards the entrance. Savage is waiting on Warrior and beats the tar out of the champion with light fixtures as Slaughter gets a breather.

The Sarge wisely stops the count a few times, allowing Warrior to get back in. Slaughter pounds away in the corner as he starts softening up the back for the Camel Clutch. Apparently the middle eastern moveset comes with becoming an Iraqi sympathizer. The crowd absolutely HATES Slaughter here and boos anything he does. Warrior gets sent into the buckle but they clothesline each other down. Naturally a single clothesline is enough to counteract that long run of offense by Slaughter and get us back to even.

Slaughter gets up first and puts on a bearhug for a LONG time. Warrior breaks it up but walks right into a backbreaker for two. There’s the Camel Clutch but Warrior’s legs are under the ropes. Warrior Warriors Up and beats Slaughter down but here’s Sherri again to frenzy up the crowd. Warrior loads her up in the gorilla press and throws her onto a charging Savage in the aisle. Savage pops up again and blasts Warrior in the face with his scepter, allowing Slaughter to drop an elbow for the pin and the title, STUNNING the crowd.

Rating: D+. The match was dull for the most part but the heat was insane. The crowd audibly calls this BS and you can’t really argue that point. Aside from that, this sets up Wrestlemania really well, as we need a REAL AMERICAN to take the title back. Pay no attention to the fact that the war had already been over by Wrestlemania.

Gorilla LOSES IS when the title change is announced.

Koko B. Ware vs. The Mountie

The crowd is still in shock at this point so here’s a match to pass some time. Mountie has Jimmy Hart with him here and is doing the shock stick gimmick still. A lot of stalling to start things off here until Koko hits that dropkick of his. Ware cranks on the arm after Mountie hides on the floor for a bit. Mountie backdrops him to the floor in a big bump and takes over. Hart gets in a shouting match with Frankie the parrot as this match drags on and on. Koko gets a quick two on a sunset flip as Jimmy argues with Frankie some more.

A piledriver is broken up by Ware but Mountie pounds away even more to stop the comeback. Koko grabs a neckbreaker and hits a few headbutts to put Mountie down. The missile dropkick (Koko hits the kick and lands on his feet. That’s AWESOME) drops Mountie again and a cross body gets two. Koko hits the ropes a few times but charges into a…..into a……I think it was a choke takedown or something like that. Whatever it was it gets the pin for Mountie.

Rating: D. This match sucked but it was the only thing they could have done here. They had to do something to give the fans a chance to breathe after that previous title match and while it didn’t really work, they made the right move here. Mountie would be IC Champion the next year while Koko would be in a tag team I believe.

Savage says he’s the next WWF Champion and runs away with Sherri as he can hear Warrior pounding on the door.

Gorilla and Piper lament Warrior’s loss.

Slaughter says he told us all he’d win.

Gorilla and Piper rants some more.

Some fans get to send messages to some American troops in the middle east.

We hear about Hogan going to various American armed forces bases because he’s not allowed to go to Saudi Arabia at the moment. Thankfully Piper mentions that he and Hogan don’t agree on everything.

We hear from some Rumble participants: Roberts, Earthquake, Valentine, Tornado, the LOD, Undertaker (still with Brother Love), Duggan, Martel, British Bulldog, Perfect (IC Champion here) and Tugboat.

Piper talks about having lunch with Virgil today. Remember that.

DiBiase and Virgil are ready to face Dustin and Dusty. Ted talks about having bought and paid for Virgil, who glares as DiBiase talks.

Ted Dibiase/Virgil vs. Dustin Rhodes/Dusty Rhodes

Dustin is BRAND new here as this is his first WWF match. It’s also Dusty’s last in the WWF/E for over fifteen years. This is the blowoff to DiBiase vs. Dusty which started at Summerslam with Ted buying Sapphire and taking her from Dusty. Sapphire left soon afterwards because she didn’t want to be away from Dusty. Anyway the Rhodes Family takes over to start with elbows a go-go, sending the heels to a huddle on the floor.

Dustin, only 21 here, starts with Virgil who barely ever wrestled at this point. I mean it was like once every year or two. Dustin hits a clothesline and a dropkick to send Virgil (the real name of Dusty for you trivia geeks) to the floor as DiBiase is getting frustrated. Another clothesline puts Virgil on the floor again and Ted yells a lot. Off to DiBiase to backdrop the young gun but a second attempt results in a face jam.

The Rhodes dudes hammer DiBiase back and forth with elbows to send him to the floor as well. Here’s Big Dust who puts on a sleeper but Virgil breaks it up. Back to Dustin for a dropkick for two, but a charging knee at Virgil misses to put Dustin down. Virgil stays on the knee and wraps it around the post, as does his boss. The heels try some double teaming, but Virgil accidentally clotheslines DiBiase. Ted beats the tar out of him, allowing Dustin to tag his dad. Said dad is rolled up for the pin almost immediately by DiBiase.

Rating: D+. Another dull match here but it was almost all for the ending and post match stuff. Like I said, the Rhodes guys were on their way out so they didn’t have a chance at all in this one. Dusty stopped meaning anything months before this and it was the right move to go back to WCW for him where he could do what he wanted and book as well.

Post match we get the important part of the match. DiBiase yells at Virgil and says he’s tired of having to save his worker. He tells Virgil to get the belt and wrap it around his boss’ waist, but Virgil is mad. DiBiase keeps running his mouth, talking about how Virgil needs this job. DiBiase turns his back on Virgil and turns into a belt shot to the head, drawing one of the handful of pops in Virgil’s entire career.

Hogan is ready for the Rumble and wants the title from the un-American too. Gene tells Hogan that Slaughter might have just defaced the American Flag. Oh you know it’s on now. Hulk goes into such a rant that he forgets the name of the guy America is at war with (Sadaam Hussein) in a semi-famous bit.

Royal Rumble

Bret gets #1 for the second time in four years. He and Neidhart are tag champions here and he gets to face Dino Bravo at #2. Feeling out process to start until Bret clotheslines Bravo to the apron. Bravo comes back but misses an elbow. We go to an annoying wide shot as Greg Valentine is #3. I think he’s a face here but it was such an unmemorable turn that I can’t remember if it had happened yet or not. Well he’s fighting Bravo so I’d assume so. Actually he does a bit better than that by eliminating Bravo quickly.

Bret atomic drops Greg down and adds a clothesline for good measure but he can’t get the elimination. Here’s Paul Roma of Power and Glory at #4. Actually the team might have broken up by this point. Again they weren’t that memorable, just like most of this time period aside from the top stars. Bret rams their heads together, causing Roma and Valentine to fight for a bit.

Here’s Kerry Von Erich to give us I think three faces and one heel, or at least two faces a heel and a tweener. Bret misses an elbow drop off the middle rope and everyone pounds away on various people until Rick Martel is #6. Bret almost puts Martel out but Roma makes a save. Well no one ever accused him of being all that bright. Saba Simba (Tony Atlas as a tribal guy. It didn’t last long) is #7 as things continue to go slowly. Von Erich puts the Claw on Martel and that’s about the extent of the highlights.

To really liven things up, Butch is #8. That’s actually not sarcastic as the fans do the Bushwhacker arm swing. Martel puts Simba out to keep us at an equal number of average guys and Bret. Don’t get me wrong: these guys are talented, but other than Bret, most of them never got above the midcard. Jake Roberts is #9 to go immediately after Martel and give us an actual feud (Martel blinded him, leading to an AWFUL blowoff match at Mania).

Martel bails under the bottom rope and Jake goes right after him through the ropes. Martel gets put on the apron and punched in the face as everyone else just punches people. Hercules is #10 to give us Power and Glory in the ring. Why would I have thought they were broken up? They had a match at Mania. Bret gets double teamed in the corner but nothing comes of it.

There are too many people in the ring at the moment at I think eight. Tito Santana is #11 as Roma misses a cross body to eliminate himself. FINALLY we get someone to clear some of these guys out with Undertaker coming in at #12. He’s still this unknown monster at this point and would be that for years. Taker puts out Bret as soon as he gets there and beats up Von Erich for fun. That could have been a solid house show feud.

Jimmy Snuka is #13 as Taker throws out Butch. There are still way too many people in the ring, as we currently have Valentine, Tornado, Martel, Roberts, Hercules, Santana, Snuka and Undertaker. Taker chokes on Von Erich a bit in the corner before shifting over to Valentine. The freshly returned British Bulldog is #14 and guess what happens. The correct answer would be nothing, so here’s Smash at #15. No one cares as Demolition would be done at Wrestlemania, so he’s another nobody for all intents and purposes.

Good grief there are ten people in there now. Martel gets knocked to the apron and FINALLY puts Jake out to get us down a little bit. Superfly headbutts Martel and Hercules for a reaction from the crowd and Hawk is #16. STILL nothing of note happens and it’s Shane freaking Douglas at #17. Taker FINALLY puts out Tornado and Hawk puts out Snuka to get the numbers down a bit.

No one is #18, which would later be revealed as Randy Savage, who isn’t in the match because he’s running from Warrior. This is called continuity, which you don’t get enough of in wrestling today. Animal is #19, allowing the LOD to double clothesline Taker out. Martel uses the distraction to knock Hawk out and we’ve got eight in there again: Santana, Martel, Smith, Smash, Animal, Hercules, Valentine and Douglas.

The ninth person in the ring and #20 overall is Crush, Ax’s replacement in Demolition. Jim Duggan is #21. I’m not saying much between the entrances because there’s nothing to talk about. Literally it’s people pushing others on the ropes and a lot of punching. WAY too many people in the ring again and the match is really dull so far. Martel gets caught by Animal but gets out via a thumb to the eye. That’s an exciting moment at this point.

Earthquake is #22, giving us an insane eleven people in the match at once. Animal staggers Quake with some clotheslines but a third misses, resulting in Animal getting dumped. Perfect is #23 to get us back to eleven in the ring at once. The first person he sells like a crazy man for: Duggan, but Jim gets eliminated by Perfect pretty quickly. I’m not going to bother listing everyone in there for awhile due to it being nearly impossible to tell. Seriously, that’s how full the ring is.

FINALLY Hogan comes in at #24 and you know some people are going out now. It’s Smash thrown out first and Hogan goes straight for Earthquake, who he was technically still feuding with at this point. Bulldog and Perfect have a very energetic slugout as Haku is #25. Hogan dumps Valentine after a near record breaking 44 minutes. Hogan finally gets his own shirt off as Martel and Haku fight.

Jim Neidhart is #26 as Earthquake dumps an exhausted Santana after thirty minutes. A bunch of heels work over Hogan in the corner but Shane Douglas breaks it up. In a semi-famous moment, Luke is in at #27 and is immediately dumped out by Quake after about four seconds. He immediately marches back to the locker room. Brian Knobs of the freshly debuted Nasty Boys is #28 and after doing nothing for awhile, he dumps Hercules.

Warlord is #29 and he goes straight for Davey Boy. Crush goes up on the corner to punch Hogan and deserves the elimination he gets for trying. Hogan clotheslines Warlord out as the ring is FINALLY emptying out a bit. Tugboat is #30, giving us a final group of Perfect, Tugboat, Knobs, Douglas, Neidhart, Martel, Smith, Haku, Earthquake and Hogan. Quake and Tugboat go at it as Knobs dumps Douglas. Brian Knobs gets to eliminate two people? Really?

Tugboat goes after Hogan but only gets him to the apron. Hogan gets back in and clotheslines him out to get us to eight. Bulldog dropkicks Hennig off the ropes to the floor and Martel, who has been in there over 50 minutes, shattering the record, puts Neidhart out. Bulldog dumps Haku and we’re down to five. Martel goes up top but gets crotched and clotheslined out by Smith. That puts us at a final four but Smith is put out before I can type out said four. We’ve got Knobs, Earthquake and Hogan. That’s a step below Rude, Hennig and Hogan last year I’d think.

The heels double team Hogan of course and Quake splashes him down. The Earthquake hits Hogan but it’s no sold as you would expect. Big boot puts Knobs out but Hogan can’t slam the fat man. Quake hits an elbow drop and a second one as Hogan goes into his spasms. There’s the powerslam, there’s the Hulk Up, there’s the big boot, there’s the slam, there’s the winning clothesline for Hogan.

Rating: D. This is one, if not the worst Rumble I’ve ever seen. It’s just boring all around and there’s no other word to describe it. There were at least three moments where there were TEN people in the ring at once. The prime option for the Rumble is about six to seven at most at a time, not freaking TEN. There was never a moment where this got exciting and it was really boring at times too. Not good at all here.

Hogan poses a lot and waves an American flag to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. The opener is really good but the rest of the show is mostly boring stuff. 1991 was a really boring time for the company and things wouldn’t pick up until the end of the year when Flair and Undertaker gave some jolts of life into things. This didn’t work for the most part though and it was a chore to sit through. Nothing to see here other than a really awesome tag match to open the show.

Ratings Comparison

The Rockers vs. The Orient Express

Original: A

Redo: B+

Big Boss Man vs. Barbarian

Original: B

Redo: C

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Ultimate Warrior

Original: D

Redo: D+

The Mountie vs. Koko B. Ware

Original: D

Redo: D

Ted DiBiase/Virgil vs. Dustin Rhodes/Dusty Rhodes

Original: B

Redo: D+

Royal Rumble

Original: D+

Redo: D

Overall Rating

Original: C-

Redo: D+

What was I thinking on that DiBiase match? I must have REALLY liked the angle, but it happened after the match.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/10/royal-rumble-count-up-1991/

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WWF House Show
Date: December 29, 1991
Location: Madison Square Garden
Attendance: 11,000
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan

Just a random house show that I found so I figured I’d throw it on here. This is from 24/7 so it might be cut. An hour and 48 minutes for a house show seems rather short. This is from the same night as Starrcade 91 and appropriately enough the main event has Ric Flair in it. There is no world champion at this point due to some shenanigans but the Rumble would fix that. This wasn’t the best era for the company but the card looks watchable so let’s get to it.

Hercules vs. Greg Valentine

Yep it’s clipped as two matches are cut off here. Actually based on what I’ve seen later that’s not the case as everything is here but the show is edited from an order perspective. This was originally the third match on the card. Heenan says this is going to be a heck of a match. Hercules is on the very brink of leaving and Valentine is a face for no apparent reason. He had a face push around this time and it BOMBED to the shock of no one.

And now let’s talk about the Rumble because that’s about as interesting as it’s going to get as far as this match goes. With Hammer taking over, we hear something I have never heard before: Hogan and Taker get to draw from #21-#30 in the Rumble. What the heck? I know they had the title before but how have I never heard of that before? This match is really rather boring indeed.

Hercules has a little gut there and gets a low blow to take over. What does he think this is, the late 90s? We talk about the Rumble more which has Gorilla predicting Santana or Bulldog. Smith I could understand, but dude, TITO SANTANA? I love the guy but come on now. We argue Hogan vs. Flair a bit as Hercules is dominating.

We hit the floor for a bit with Hammer’s back being rammed into the apron. Hercules is a very ugly man indeed. This is when he has the long hair going for him which isn’t a good look on him. We hit the bearhug to continue this boring mess. Hammer fights back and it turns into a comedy of errors as neither guy can hit a move for like 30 seconds which is funnier than it sounds.

It’s the dreaded double clothesline as both guys are down and in trouble. The fans are in trouble too as this match is in desperate need of ending. And there’s the ending as we go old school with Valentine getting a belly to back suplex and bridging but Herc gets his shoulder up. Does this guy know ANY other finish to a match?

Rating: D. Boring match for the most part that didn’t get the crowd going in the slightest. I’ve seen worse, but this was a rather dull and uninteresting match for the most part. Both guys meant nothing by this point and everyone knew it. I really don’t get why this opened things up and I don’t think anyone else did either.

Here are Mustafa and Adnan to complain about things, namely America. The war has been over for nearly a year at this point so this makes even less sense. They call out Slaughter and of all people Gorilla grabs their mic and throws them out.

Virgil vs. Repo Man

Riveting. There’s actually a point to this though as Virgil had won the Million Dollar Title and DiBiase hired Repo Man to repossess it which makes a lot of sense. Repo goes for a rollup immediately which gets him nowhere. Virgil tries a Million Dollar Dream so Repo hits the floor. DiBiase vs. Hart later which should be pretty awesome. Repo can’t get anything going until Virgil misses a dive and hits the floor in a nice bump.

We run through Heenan’s injury history which is always a bit funny. Repo works on Virgil as this is again going nowhere at all. Seriously, this is something else that you have to wonder who thought it would be a good idea. The crowd is getting bored with this chinlock and even Gorilla acknowledges it. You can tell they’re in trouble here.

Repo is rather funny as he hits a knee lift but then stops to make sure that he’s still stealthy. His character is an acquired taste to put it mildly. We hit the floor again which gets up nowhere at all. Rollup gets two for Virgil and a small package gets the same. Virgil’s offense is so painfully limited.

The bald guy slaps the mat a lot which gets him nothing but a sore hand for the most part. He makes his comeback with some jobber level stuff including a Russian Leg Sweep for two which the referee botches badly. Think Jackson James at Turning Point 2010. And then Repo Man grabs his rope and hook to choke out Virgil for the DQ. And they couldn’t just do the pin? Really?

Rating: D. Boring again but a slight step ahead of the last one I guess. Virgil was completely worthless after he stopped working with DiBiase and I think they were finally getting that fact. Repo was just an odd character to put it mildly and I don’t think anyone ever really got him if that makes sense. Not completely horrible but still pretty bad.

Skinner vs. Jim Powers

Wow are they even trying here? Skinner is an alligator hunter that now owns FCW, as in the WWE developmental company. Gorilla says it would be a shame to have Skinner, a degenerate, be WWF Champion. Yeah no degenerate could ever hold the world title. To the shock of no one, Powers controls to start and then messes up as the more established star takes over.

Heenan offers managing tips to Skinner as we’re in a long chinlock again. You can tell it’s a house show and no one really wants to be here at this time of year. I think this aired on New Year’s Eve so it’s not like anyone was watching it. Skinner jumps into the boot in the stupid looking spot so Powers can take over for a little while.

We get the required jobber offense that gets us nowhere at all. Some of the gems here include a knee lift, ten corner punches and a clothesline. A dropkick gets two as we’re just waiting on Skinner to end this. And there it is as it’s a reverse DDT which I think was his finisher. He spits on Powers afterwards as was his custom.

Rating: D. Can we PLEASE get a decent match? This was an extended squash. I never got the appeal of Skinner at all, especially considering he was a very talented wrestler that managed to get stuck in a match like this which gets no one anywhere. This went nowhere at all and I don’t think anyone expected it to.

Nasty Boys vs. Bushwackers

Gorilla: “Where’s that little crossdresser, Jimmy Hart?” DID I MISS SOMETHING? Gorilla Monsoon just asked if Jimmy Hart was a crossdresser. What the heck? Picture Gorilla asking that and thing about how odd it sounds. The Marching Morons are still great. We get a pose off to start and guess who gets cheered louder. Heenan talks about Flair the whole time and I can’t say I blame him.

The Nasties stall a lot. That sounds like the name of a villain in a really bad cartoon. They charge the Bushwackers and we’re off after a blindside. Evil is defeated though as the Wackers fight them off with wacking and punching. You have to give them credit for going from being some of the most violent and hated men in wrestling to being totally fan friendly and popular, even getting on Family Matters. That was awesome.

We finally get down to a regular match with Sags vs. Luke to start. It’s a brawl already again and Battering Rams take out both of the Nasties. Luke vs. Sags again but Knobbs distracts him to allow the evildoers to take over. Gorilla goes back to the crossdressing and Heenan doesn’t seem to mind.

Luke gets a sunset flip but the referee isn’t paying attention at all. BIG Irish Whip takes down the New Zealander. We hit the chinlock as this is more or less going nowhere. Butch comes in which leads to double teaming which leads to the Nasties messing up which leads to the hot tag sans heat to Butch. Everything breaks down again and Knobbs pins Butch with a clothesline? Well ok then.

Rating: D+. Somehow this is the best match of the night so far. This was nothing special at all but I don’t think the ending was ever really in doubt. The Bushwackers were past their expiration date here but they were still getting decent pops at house shows so I guess it was ok. Nothing of any real importance here though.

Heel beatdown follows but Sgt. Slaughter makes the save for no adequately explained reason.

Intercontinental Title: Bret Hart vs. Ted DiBiase

Ok this has to be good. Crowd pops big for the title mention which hopefully is for Bret. Nice pop for Bret when he comes out. Apparently the leather jacket is a new thing here. That’s odd to hear indeed. Gorilla thinks Sherri likes Bret. That’s a scary combination: Sherri and Bret with Gorilla watching.

Long feeling out process to start with DiBiase stalling to try to tick Bret off. Bret, the hothead that he is, falls for it to an extent. DiBiase gets a shot to the ribs but runs when Bret comes after him. We hit the floor and it’s on. It’s weird seeing a big Marlboro ad behind the ring. I love watching DiBiase flip forward. It’s perfect every time.

Bret rams DiBiase and “the witch’s” heads together to drive Heenan crazy. We hit the headlock on the mat with Bret in control. DiBiase keeps rolling him to the side as this is a chess match so far. It’s time to talk about the Rumble some more as Bret hits a dropkick for two and now right back to the headlock.

DiBiase fights to his feet and manages to get a hot shot out of nowhere to turn the tide all over again. As good as Bret was on offense he’s somehow even better on defense which is odd indeed. Nice spinning neckbreaker for two. DiBiase hits the chinlock as Sherri keeps distracting the referee so Ted can get some choking in. Bret fights up and gets some punches him but is sent into the corner and smacks his chest against the buckle in one of his signature spots.

Million Dollar Dream goes on and Bret is in big trouble. Sherri grabs the wrench that they use to ring the bell and rings it for the referee as DiBiase grabs both belts and celebrates. Fink calls shenanigans and Hebner throws Sherri out. Bret gets a Russian Leg Sweep out of nowhere to get us back to even. Heenan wants to take the belt to make it a watch.

Bret plays possum (I’m stunned too) and takes over. Nice suplex gets two. Small package gets the same. Middle rope elbow has Ted reeling. We see the Million Dollar trunks pulled down as a gutwrench suplex gets two. DiBiase is knocked to the floor and almost lands on Sherri. Bret hits a perfect pescado and Ted is reeling. And there’s the time limit which thankfully they didn’t announce at all. That helps a bit actually.

Rating: B. Good stuff here but the chinlocks kind of hurt it a bit. One of the major things here is that Bret gets to show he can hang with a known master like DiBiase, but I really don’t see why they couldn’t let Bret get a pin. It’s not like DiBiase was doing anything in storylines so it’s not like his credibility would really be hurt or something. Odd ending to a rather good match.

Interviews a go-go, mainly focusing on Hogan and Slaughter.

General Adnan/Colonel Mustafa vs. Sgt. Slaughter

The winner gets to raise their own country’s flag. Mustafa (Iron Sheik) sings the Iraqi national anthem. No tagging required here I don’t think. Nope none at all. They jump Slaughter to start and use his bullet belt to work Slaughter over. Adnan goes outside which apparently he doesn’t have to do but does anyway. Most odd indeed.

Sheik gets a shot to Slaughter’s throat with something but the referee is distracted. Slaughter gets a clothesline to take over to almost no reaction. Adnan comes in as this needs to end soon due to the high level of suck in the evil foreigners. Slaughter rams them into each other and clotheslines Adnan for the pin to end it even though he wasn’t legal I don’t think.

Rating: D. Quick but barely long enough to call it a full match. It’s pretty bad and thankfully this angle/feud ended soon after this as the time for this thing went on way too long. Nothing special at all here and it was boring and bad on top of all that. Sarge was back though, even though he would be gone relatively soon.

Sarge does the Pledge of Allegiance post match.

Berzerker vs. British Bulldog

This should be short and relatively bitter. Bulldog’s music is rather hard to hear here. Crisscross to start and Berzerker kicks him in the head. Bulldog is a favorite in the Rumble because he won some other battle royal in England. Gorilla said the cup he won was ugly. What a great ambassador Gorilla is.

You can tell the fans aren’t exactly caring here, even though if the chart I saw is correct, this was the opener. No Fuji with Berzerker here for some reason. Camel clutch by Berzerker has Bulldog in something resembling trouble. Gorilla and Heenan talk about people in the Rumble as they don’t care at all here. It’s a shame that they have something to talk about here as Gorilla and Jesse could be hilarious when they got bored. Powerslam is blocked and Berzerker falls on him for the pin.

Rating: N. As in nah that didn’t really happen. I’m just so bored here that I wanted to do something to break up the monotony. Bulldog gets the worst rollup ever about a second later for the real pin.

Rating: D-. Boring match with these two managing to botch a rollup of all things. That’s HARD to do. This went nowhere at all and nothing at all came of it. I get that Bulldog is supposed to be getting a push, but wouldn’t the powerslam be a better way to do that? We really needed to protect John Nord?

Chris Walker vs. Brooklyn Brawler

Walker is some muscle head that I’m sure Vince masterbated to a few times in order to get a job. He’s awful as Brawler carries him to a bad match. I shudder to think what it would have been like without him. Walker looks a bit like Kerry Von Erich if he was more muscular. The guy can jump though. This is his debut apparently.

Brawler takes over for a bit and gets in his jobber offense. Gorilla wants Hulk to win the Rumble. Well of course he does. Did Gorilla EVER cheer against Hogan? Even against other faces? Walker looks good and that’s all he has going for him it seems. Small package gets two. Top rope cross body ends this.

Rating: N/A. Just a squash and nothing too impressive. Walker was about as uninteresting as you could imagine. He’s not horrible that is, but he’s a body and a decent jumping ability and that’s about it. Nothing special here at all.

Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair

Think this might be the main event? I love that black robe that Flair has. It’s by far his best one. The censor messes up (it’s the REAL World Title thing) so there’s just a blue dot above Flair’s head while you can see the tag title belt. Perfect and Flair jump Hogan as he comes in which of course gets them nowhere.

Hogan beats on Flair for a bit as I think we all know what’s coming. Flair Flop as the future champion is in trouble. Heenan is losing it as he says OH COME ON as Hogan beats on him even more. We hit the floor once and then do it again with Hogan destroying him. Belly to back suplex on the floor takes Flair down even harder.

ALL Hogan as he pounds away on Ric on the floor. Gorilla calls it a war but I’d hardly say that as in a war don’t both sides need to fight back? Perfect distracts Hogan and Flair gets in a shot to the knee and the regular stuff is on. Perfect tries to get the turnbuckle off but the referee manages to stop it. Hogan slams him off the top and no Figure Four yet which is kind of surprising.

Hogan works on the knee of Flair in a nice little twist. In a nice spot Hogan gets Flair in the figure four and Perfect comes in. Hogan trips Perfect and gets a small package on him but there was powder thrown in the referee’s eyes. I’ve seen someone do that before but I can’t remember who. Flair gets a shot with a foreign object to Hogan’s noggin for two but naturally that doesn’t work. Hulk Up but Flair is intelligent and RUNS but can’t get back in time for the count out. Lots of posing closes us out.

Rating: C+. Pretty weak and generic match but it wasn’t bad and Hogan going after Flair’s knee was a nice touch. These two never got the proper showdown in the WWF that they should have which is a shame. At the end of the day though it’s Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan in the main event in Madison Square Garden. That’s hard to beat.

Overall Rating: D+. This was a pretty weak show overall. The main event is good and the IC Title match is rather good but aside from that: there isn’t much going on here. It’s more or less a big ad for the Rumble but there isn’t much about the Rumble if that makes sense. The matches meant nothing at all and not many people seemed to be into this tonight. Bret was but that’s typical for him. Everything but those two matches are total meh moments though. Weak show but not unwatchable.

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Championship Wrestling
Date: September 29, 1984
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bruno Sammartino

This is one of those shows where it’s a mix of matches from various arenas, hence the lack of a location or attendance. This is right before the wrestling world exploded with Hulkamania but the first steps have already been taken. The main event for tonight’s show is Piper vs. Snuka from MSG which was probably the top feud in the company at the time. Let’s get to it.

Carl Fury vs. Sgt. Slaughter

Slaughter is over like free beer in a frat house and takes forever high fiving fans before getting in the ring. Feeling out process to start with Slaughter slamming Fury down. A big middle rope clothesline sets up the Cobra Clutch for the easy submission.

UPDATE! Featuring tag champions Dick Murdoch and Adrian Adonis, known as the North/South Connection. We see them wrestling cattle down on Murdoch’s ranch in Texas. I’d love to see little bits like this come back in today’s WWE. They take like 30 seconds but add some character to the guys.

Buy the WWF Magazine!

Jose Luis Rivera vs. Kamala

Kamala chops him into the corner and throws him down but here’s Andre the Giant to stare down the Ugandan. After a longer squash than I was expecting, Kamala kills Rivera dead with a headbutt and the splash. This was a backdrop for the Andre stuff.

Aldo Marino vs. Bret HartT

Bret is just a guy in trunks here but he’s the featured guy, complete with a second T. An armbar takes Aldo down as we hear house show announcements from the Fink. More armbars abound before a hard elbow puts Marino down. A legdrop and clothesline sets up a piledriver to give Bret the pin. Total squash.

We go to break to the Ghostbusters theme.

House show ads.

Sgt. Slaughter wants your money to refurbish the Statue of Liberty.

Steve Lombardi vs. Dynamite Kid

Lombardi would be better known as the Brooklyn Brawler. Bulldog pounds away and gets two off a gutwrench suplex. A backbreaker gets two for Dynamite as Vince calls Lombardi a wet dishrag. There’s a missile dropkick and a nipup from the Brit as the crowd is getting into him here. A Swan Dive completes the squash.

We go to Piper’s Pit with guests Lou Albano and Ken Patera. Piper goes on a rant about how the fans’ heroes are afraid of Patera. Ken talks about coming back after three years because he loves this place. He tells a story about 4-5 people jumping him in an arena and locking him in a closet before slamming the door over and over on his arm. He’s going to find out who did it and take care of them. I don’t recall this ever going anywhere.

Joe Mirto/Joe Mascara vs. Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff

Joe Mascara? Who thought that was a good wrestling name? Was James Nail Polish taken? Volkoff does the Russian national anthem bit to rile up the crowd. Sheik sends Mascara into the ropes, meaning that indeed, the Mascara is running. Volkoff gets in a few shots before it’s off to Mirto vs. Sheik. The fans want Slaughter who has been feuding with the evil foreigners. Volkoff hits his gorilla press backbreaker, which I believe is used on the Coliseum Video opening sequence, for the pin.

Jimmy Snuka vs. Roddy Piper

This is joined in progress from MSG and the full version can be found on the Best of the WWF Volume 1. Snuka is down from a poke to the eye but comes back with chops to send Roddy to the floor. Back in and Jimmy hooks a sleeper but Roddy drags both of them out to the floor, finally breaking the hold.

Not that it matters as Jimmy posts him before taking Roddy back inside for a whooping. Roddy is busted open. There’s a headbutt and one of the most awkward looking high cross bodies ever, with the move connecting followed by Roddy staggering back into the ropes and Jimmy landing on the ropes before falling onto the floor for a fast countout.

Rating: C. The crowd was white hot to see Piper take a beating but with only three minutes and fifteen seconds shown, it’s hard to get into this. To be fair though, it’s also the most we’ve seen from a single match on this show so it’s hard to complain much. Roddy vs. Snuka was the hottest feud in a long time so this was a real treat for the fans watching this week.

Piper destroys Jimmy with a chair post match, sending him out on a stretcher.

We get a preview for next week’s show, including a Fabulous Freebirds match. I’m pretty sure that’s their only match ever in the WWF.

Overall Rating: C+. These shows are hard to grade as most of the matches can’t go anywhere due to the time restraints. We did however get to see (part of) a big feature match and both parties in the other top feud of Slaughter vs. Sheik/Volkoff. The interesting thing here was the total lack of Hogan. He was only mentioned in the WWF Magazine ad and never again. More proof though: there is wrestling other than Hulk Hogan.

 

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WWF House Show
Date: October 22, 1984
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 20,000
Commentators: Gene Okerlund, Gorilla Monsoon

This is a sequel to the previous month’s house show, as we have Hogan vs. Studd again, though this time if Hogan loses by countout he loses the title. Also after last month’s six man tag, we have the Samoans vs. Dick Murdoch and Adrian Adonis in singles matches. We’re still a few months away from the real kickoff of the Golden Era but things are rapidly picking up around here. Let’s get to it.

David Schultz vs. Salvatore Bellomo

Bellomo cranks on the arm to start but Schultz keeps going to the ropes for a break. David takes it to the mat but gets caught in a headscissors as the crowd doesn’t seem all that interested. Back up and Schultz takes over with a knee to the ribs as the slow pace continues. A hard clothesline puts Sal down, giving us this line from Gene: “That’ll jar your mother’s preserves.” Schultz hits a modified hot shot and a middle rope elbow for two. David goes off on Sal before finishing him with a suplex, complete with the slowest three count this side of a screwjob.

Rating: D-. Who thought this dull match was a good choice for an opener? I mean, a four minute match that ends with a suplex? Neither of these guys ever did anything, though Schultz had some potential until he screwed up on a news show by beating up the host when asked if wrestling was fake. Nothing match.

Afa vs. Dick Murdoch

Murdoch is one half of the tag team champions. Afa backs him into the corner so Dick begs for mercy. Murdoch is already on the floor for a breather as I sense a lot of stalling coming. Back in and Afa backs him into the corner again so Murdoch begs for more mercy. Oh yeah this is going to be a long one. Back in again and Afa grabs a headlock. Boy is he WILD! Murdoch misses an elbow in the corner and we get the same begging for mercy deal again. Back to the headlock as Gene and Gorilla try to understand the Samoan language.

Murdoch gets in a knee to the ribs but hurts his elbow when he hits Afa in the head. They lock up again and Murdoch blocks a headbutt with his forearms, only to injure his arms in the process. We’re five minutes into this match and I haven’t left out a thing. Right hands to Afa’s head hurt Dick’s hands and Afa no sells rams into the buckle. Now it’s Dick being sent into the buckle and out to the floor as this just keeps going.

Back in again and Afa cranks on the arm, which is to say he holds Murdoch’s wrist and stands there. Murdoch tries another headbutt and knocks himself down, because the joke wasn’t hammered in hard enough yet. ANOTHER headbutt from Murdoch hurts himself more than Afa, this time sending Dick rolling around the ring. An Afa headbutt gets two but Murdoch finally sends him to the floor to get something going. Hillbilly Jim is in the front row.

Afa is choked by a camera cable and Murdoch stomps away from the apron. Now Murdoch chokes with the tag rope. We’re ten minutes into this now and I don’t think there’s been anything of note at all. Murdoch pounds on the face and head with no effect and Afa takes over with a hard chop. An atomic drop has Dick in pain and another one is good for two. Some hard headbutts have Murdoch in trouble and another one sends him to the floor. Dick finds a bottle of some kind and a shot to the head has Afa in trouble.

Murdoch snap mares him down and drops an elbow for two. The kickout sends Murdoch into the ropes to a lot of frustration. Dick fires off right hands and hits the ropes, only to ram heads with Afa which has an effect on Afa now for no explained reason. Yet another headbutt puts Murdoch down and Afa rams Dick’s head into the mat for two as the time limit expires.

Rating: F. Read through the match again and you’ll get the idea behind this. The match ran about twenty minutes and had MAYBE seven minutes of “action.” In case you didn’t get the idea that was pounded into your skull, Afa had a hard head. When that’s the only thing you can throw out there for twenty minutes, your match sucked.

Murdoch wants five more minutes but gets headbutted down and bails.

Mad Dog Vachon, a spry newcomer at the age of 55, says he’s already a legend and now he’s going to take over the WWF.

Mad Dog Vachon vs. Rick McGraw

Vachon takes over with an armdrag into an armbar to start as Gene talks about his dog dying. Off to a headlock and then a top wristlock with McGraw fighting to his feet. Rick hooks a quickly broken headlock and they chop each other a bit. This is even more dull stuff which is the last thing this show needed. McGraw chops away in the corner and snap mares Vachon down for two. Mad Dog chokes a lot but gets caught by a dropkick. Vachon misses a charge into the post and a slam gets two for Rick. McGraw gets choked on the ropes for a bit and a piledriver gets the win for Vachon.

Rating: D. Another lame match here which somehow went nearly eight minutes. That’s the problem with the three matches tonight: there’s too much wasting time with almost no effort being put in by the guys. I know it’s a very different era, but at least make it look like you’re trying.

David Sammartino is proud to start tonight.

David Sammartino vs. Moondog Spot

Of course we start with stalling until Spot shoves him up against the ropes. Sammartino takes him down with a drop toehold and they look at each other some more. The small Sammartino shows off some VERY impressive power with a delayed gorilla press slam on the 300lb Spot. Well that makes up for the stalling at least. Off to an armbar by Sammartino and let’s look at Hillbilly Jim again.

Still in the armbar now as the crowd slips further and further into the coma. Gorilla keeps us entertained with stories of facing Bruno Sammartino in an HOUR AND FORTY TWO MINUTE draw where Gorilla lost 26lbs during the match. I can’t find any evidence that the match takes place, but the first rule of 1980s wrestling: if Monsoon says it, it’s the truth. The hold is finally broken and Sammartino punches him down into the corner. Back up and Spot takes him down with a kick to the chest. Chuck Wepner, the man who inspired the Rocky movies, is in the audience.

Sammartino avoids a shot to the back and takes Spot down, only to be caught by a knee lift. A middle rope fist to the back doesn’t have too much effect on David so we hit the chinlock instead. Back up and Sammartino runs over Spot but misses an elbow drop to put him back down. Two feet to Spot’s chest out of the corner put him down and David pounds away. An uppercut drops Spot and a knee drop gets two. They trade some lame near falls before Sammartino counters a powerslam into a small package for the pin.

Rating: D. Egads this was another dull match. As mentioned, this was mainly armbars which doesn’t make for an interesting match. At the end of the day, David just wasn’t very good, but having his last name didn’t make things any easier. There was no way he was going to come close to his dad’s success and he never got going as a result. Again, the lack of skill didn’t help either.

Tito Santana wants the title back but he wants revenge on Greg Valentine even more.

Intercontinental Title: Greg Valentine vs. Tito Santana

This should be good. Since when did Valentine have Lou Albano with him? Valentine took the title from Santana and injured Tito’s knee, putting him out of action, making tonight about revenge. Santana goes right after Valentine from the opening bell and knocks the belt out of Greg’s hands. Valentine goes face first into the mat as it’s all Tito so far. The fans are finally awake for this

Greg comes back with right hands but Tito wins the slugout and sends the champion to the floor. Tito is fine with beating up Valentine on the floor and brings him back inside to ram the champ’s head into the mat. Valentine finally gets a breather after raking the eyes and a knee sends Tito to the floor. Albano gets in a cheap shot of his own but Tito pulls Valentine to the floor to keep up the brawl. Valentine grabs a chair and THROWS IT at Tito but only hits the apron. They head back inside with the chair and Tito cracks Valentine in the head, busting him open. Somehow that isn’t a DQ but Tito throws the referee down for the bell.

Rating: C+. This was short but VERY intense throughout. Tito knew how to work a crowd into a frenzy and the New York crowds ate him up with a spoon. This was one of those feuds that was going to work no matter what they did and this was no exception. Also it woke the crowd up which was what this show needed more than anything.

Ken Patera vs. Rocky Johnson

Rocky is more famous as the father of the Rock. Patera, a strongman, hides in the ropes to start. Shots to Johnson’s head have no effect so it’s time for more hiding in the ropes. A headlock takes Ken down to the mat as we make sure to keep this slow in case the fans start being entertained. Back up and they collide with neither guy going anywhere at all. Johnson takes him down with a headscissors, which like most other holds tonight, stays on for a LONG time.

Patera escapes and throws him down near the ropes to pound away. We hit the chinlock as the crowd is still silent. Johnson bridges out of the hold but Patera pulls him right back down by the hair so we can stay in the hold for over two minutes. Johnson finally gets up and pounds away to fire up the fans a bit so Patera elbows him down to stop that cold. Patera avoids a dropkick but misses an elbow drop to put both guys down. Back up and Rocky tries an O’Connor Roll, only to have Patera roll through and grab the trunks for the pin.

Rating: D+. Somehow this is one of the better matches of the night due to it not sucking so badly. Johnson had a ton of charisma and was a much bigger deal earlier in the 80s but he was over enough here to get the audience to care. Just nothing of note to see here again though as the match had no energy to it until the end.

Sika vs. Adrian Adonis

Adonis is the other half of the tag champions along with Murdoch. Sika takes him down by the arm to start and kicks at the shoulder before sending Adonis to the floor. Back in for more arm cranking by the Samoan which of course goes on forever. Adonis finally kicks away but gets slammed down and put right back in the armbar. The hold is finally broken again and a clothesline puts Sika down. Adrian gets crotched on the top but pulls out a loaded glove, only to hit the referee for the DQ.

Rating: D-. To give you an idea of how nothing this match was, it ran nearly ten minutes. On average, each paragraph covers about four minutes of action. This match was covered entirely in less than half that space. After all the nonsense I’ve had to sit through for this show, they put this on as a follow up? How did this company explode in just a few months anyway?

Luscious Johnny V says he’s been around the world but now he’s back with a new client: Brutus Beefcake. Johnny even explains the name: he’s a brute, he eats beef and his opponents are a piece of cake. We’re likely in an intermission here to give the fans a break from the “action”.

Sgt. Slaughter talks about wrestling a lot of big matches over his career but tonight he has to prove he’s better than a Russian. It’s SO strange hearing Slaughter being all calm and reserved compared to how he usually sounds. Slaughter promises to win for AMERICA.

Ken Patera says he attracts controversy because he’s awesome. He has a hole in his arm and blames a black man for it. No one in particular, just a black man.

Nikolai Volkoff vs. Sgt. Slaughter

Sarge is WAY over. They shove each other around to start with Hillbilly Jim approving of Slaughter’s actions. Nikolai’s headlock doesn’t get him anywhere but he keeps it on for over a minute to get everything out of it that he can. Slaughter shoves him off and hits a hard clothesline to stagger Volkoff. The camera keeps going to a wide shot and it’s getting annoying. Nikolai gets in a shot to the throat to take over.

Slaughter gets pounded in the back and we hit a bearhug. Volkoff mixes things up a bit though by bending Slaughter forward and down over the Russian’s knees to crank on the back even more. Sarge fights out of the hold but more shots to the back put him down. Slaughter can’t slam Nikolai and gets rammed face first into an exposed buckle. A middle rope kick to the back of Slaughter’s head keeps him down and the American is bleeding a bit.

We hit the nerve hold for a good ninety seconds before Slaughter is sent into the corner for two. A knee drop gets two more for Nikolai but a middle rope version only hits mat. Slaughter fires off a slingshot and Nikolai is in trouble. The fans are getting into the match so Volkoff sends him into the corner and out to the floor to quiet them down again.

Nikolai breaks the count to stomp on the Sarge a bit more and ram him back first into the post. A backbreaker puts Sarge down again but Slaughter makes it back to the apron. Nikolai swings at him but gets caught in the Cobra Clutch from the apron, only to have Slaughter get counted out with the Russian in the hold.

Rating: C-. Dull match for the most part but the fans were so into Slaughter that it makes up for a lot of the boring parts. The ending was smart as well with Volkoff winning but getting beaten down at the same time. Given the drek I’ve had to sit through for over two hours now, this felt like Flair vs. Steamboat.

Brutus Beefcake vs. Tony Garea

Brutus struts to start before shoving Tony into the corner. Tony comes back with some right hands and a headlock to slow things down one more time. Back up and a cross body gets two for Garea and it’s back to the stupid headlock. Beefcake counters into a headscissors to really crank things up before choking away. Brutus pounds away but misses a charge into the corner, allowing Tony to get in some right hands of his own. Back up again and Garea gets two off an O’Connor Roll, only to get caught by a knee to the head for the pin.

Rating: D+. Garea is a good guy but Brutus wasn’t worth much at this point in his career. The match was kept short to prevent Brutus from looking weak which was a good idea, but it didn’t make it an easy sit. If it sounds like I’m rambling to fill in space here, it’s because this show has dulled my brain very badly.

The 11pm curfew is waived, meaning there’s basically no time limit to the title match.

Fink runs down the card for the November show. The card sounds even less interesting than tonight’s show. The only match of note is Salvatore Bellomo vs. Bobby Heenan, which Bobby would actually win clean. Oh and a No DQ match between Santana and Valentine. The crowd doesn’t seem to care other than the Santana match, so Fink mentions that Bruno Sammartino will be in his son’s corner to finally get the fans to care.

WWF World Title: Big John Studd vs. Hulk Hogan

If Hogan gets counted out, he loses the title. The place goes NUTS for Hogan and Eye of the Tiger. Studd jumps him during the entrance but Hogan no sells everything and punches Studd to the floor. Back in and Hogan easily pounds Studd down again but Hogan follows him to the floor this time. John gets in some cheap shots and sends Hogan into the post but Hulk makes it back in at nine.

Back in and we hit the chinlock before a middle rope forearm to the back puts Hogan down again. After another look at Hillbilly, Hogan powers out but gets kneed in the back to keep John in control. An elbow drop puts Hogan on the floor and Studd slams him down on the concrete. Heenan says to get Hogan back inside, which is anti-Brain thinking. Hulk makes it back in at nine and a shoulder block gets a slow two. It’s Hulk Up time and the champion blocks a slam. A forearm to the head and an elbow drop get two for Hogan (when do you remember Hogan only getting two? That NEVER happened) but a clothesline retains the title.

Rating: D+. It’s Hogan against a monster in the mid-80s. As a childhood Hulkamaniac, I can’t dislike this formula no matter what the match looks like. The fans went nuts for Hogan which was the obvious outcome, but let’s take a quick look at why. All night long, other than Tito and Slaughter, everyone has been reserved and conservative, but those three with Hogan in particular are INSANE out there, playing to the crowd and running around like a maniac. The fans respond to the different style and it makes the matches much easier to get through. Simple formula but it works every time.

Post match Hogan offers to put up the title against Studd’s $15,000 body slam challenge but John bails to end the show.

Overall Rating: D. As boring as this show was, it really isn’t terrible. It goes by pretty quickly, but it’s much more dull than bad. The Hogan/Slaughter/Tito stuff is good but the rest of the guys here were incredibly boring. It would take all the new names coming in soon to really boost things up. This was a transitional time for the company as you can see a lot of the old guard still getting a reaction but having bad matches, making it a dull show but profitable on name value alone.

 

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Summerslam 1991
Date: August 26, 1991
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 20,000
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Roddy Piper, Gorilla Monsoon

This is a show that almost no one remembers other than one match. The main event is Hogan/Warrior vs. Slaughter/Adnan/Mustafa, which would have been a much better match a few months ago when Slaughter was still a threat. Other than that we have the wedding of Savage and Miss Elizabeth who reunited at Wrestlemania VII in one of the best moments in company history. Let’s get to it.

We open with Savage in the back getting ready while Alfred Hayes asks him questions. Savage says that he’s ready and in the danger zone, but HAYES’ TIE IS CROOKED. “NOW YOU’RE OK AND IT’S TIME TO GO CHECK MY BABY BLUE EYES!”

We get the regular intro with the theme of a match made in Heaven and a match made in Hell.

Ricky Steamboat/British Bulldog/Texas Tornado vs. Warlord/Power and Glory

Steamboat is just The Dragon here, complete with what looks like a lizard man costume and breathing fire. The heels get the jobber entrance and have Slick with them. Steamboat and Roma get things going as Gorilla is listing off the rest of the card. Roma slams him down and mostly misses a dropkick before posing. Paul goes to the middle rope but dives into the armdrag and Steamboat cranks on the arm even more. Ricky hits a much better dropkick to put Roma in the corner for a tag to Hercules who gets caught in some armdrags of his own.

Off to Tornado and the fans go nuts as he rams Herc’s head into the buckle. Ten right hands to the head in the corner have Hercules in even more trouble but it’s off to Warlord vs. Bulldog which was a decent power feud. Bulldog hits the suplex for two and it’s off to Steamboat for a top rope chop to the head. Warlord blocks a monkey flip though and it’s back to Roma with a suplex of his own for two. Three straight backbreakers have Steamboat in even more trouble before it’s back to Hercules for a gorilla press.

Steamboat starts fighting back but gets caught in a big hotshot to put him down. Here’s Warlord again but he dives into two feet from Steamboat, allowing for the tag off to Tornado. The Texan cleans house but makes a blind tag to Bulldog who hits a cross body. That plus the Tornado Punch to Warlord is good for two as everything breaks down. Bulldog powerslams Roma down and Ssteamboat adds the high cross body for the pin.

Rating: C+. Nothing wrong with this as it was a basic six man tag to fire up the crowd. Everyone looked fine and the crowd was WAY into the smark god known as Ricky Steamboat. The heels were all about to be gone from the company with only Warlord making it to 1992.

Sean Mooney says to call some hotline to hear prerecorded comments from Liz and Savage!

Mr. Perfect says he’s an awesome champion.

Intercontinental Title: Mr. Perfect vs. Bret Hart

Perfect has been champion since last November so he’s a pretty big deal. He also has his Coach (former wrestler John Tolos) with him. Stu and Helen Hart are in the audience to watch their son. Feeling out process to start with Bret scoring first by hip tossing Perfect to the floor. Back in and Bret grabs a headlock followed by a crucifix for two. Bret puts the headlock on again as Heenan and Piper are going to war on commentary. Gorilla: “WILL YOU STOP???”

Perfect grabs at the hair to escape and chops Bret’s chest off. A slam puts Bret down but he kicks Perfect away and slams him down, only to have Perfect kick him right back. Bret is all like screw this wrestling stuff and clotheslines Perfect to the floor. The champ tries to run but Bret throws him back in and the dude in pink is mad. Perfect gets in a HARD kick to the ribs and Bret is sent to the floor where Coach whistles at him.

Bret tries to get up but is knocked off the apron and right on top of a production guy who has a very confused look on his face. Back in and Bret jumps over Perfect in the corner and gets two off a rollup. The fans are WAY into this so far. Perfect sends Bret chest first into the buckle to take over again as Heenan is starting to lose his marbles. Another hard whip into the buckle gets two for the champion followed by the Hennig neck snap for two more.

Hart is sent to the floor for a bit and they both come back in on the top. It’s Bret crashing down to the mat to give Perfect two as Heenan is thinking Perfect should get himself disqualified. The champ hooks a sleeper but Bret fights up into a crucifix, only to be dropped down into a Samoan drop for two. The PerfectPlex looks to finish Bret but it only gets two, sending MSG into delirium.

Back up and Bret fights back, sending Perfect across the ring and crotch first into the post. A suplex and small package get two each for Bret and it’s Five Moves of Doom time. Bret yells at the referee and gets rolled up for two before Bret starts going after the knee. He loads up the Sharpshooter but he has to knock Coach to the floor. The distraction lets Perfect get in a shot to take over. Perfect drops a leg between Bret’s legs but as he tries it again, Bret grabs the leg and puts the Sharpshooter on from his back. He turns the hold over and Perfect submits really fast but it’s good for Bret’s first singles title.

Rating: A. Oh come on it’s Bret vs. Perfect from Summerslam 91. Do I really need to explain this one? It’s one of the best matches of all time and holds up over twenty years later. The counter by Bret is a great way to show how solid of a mat wrestler he was. Kicking out of the PerfectPlex was the perfect idea as Bret took the champ’s best shots and still won. It’s still excellent and required viewing for wrestling fans.

Bret celebrates with his parents.

The Bushwhackers are ready for the Natural Disasters and Andre is ready for Earthquake, the man who broke his leg a few weeks back.

Natural Disasters vs. Bushwhackers

Andre looks terrible here and would be dead in less than 18 months. The Whackers sneak up on the big men on the floor and poke them in the eyes. We finally start with Butch vs. Typhoon and the big man being bitten on the trunks. Earthquake tries to come in but splashes his own partner by mistake. A double clothesline puts Quake down and the Bushwhackers are in full control.

Earthquake finally realizes he weighs more than both Bushwhackers put together and pounds Butch down with a few shots to the back. Heenan makes an obscure Newhart reference as Quake slams Butch into the corner but misses an elbow drop to the back. The second attempt connects though and it’s off to Typhoon for more fat man offense.

Off to an over the shoulder backbreaker on Butch which transitions into a bearhug by Earthquake. Heenan leaves to go find Hogan and embarrass him which we’ll get to later. Quake finally hits Typhoon with a clothesline by mistake as everything breaks down. The Bushwhackers hit Battering Rams on both Disasters but it’s finally the big men crushing Luke and the Earthquake for the pin.

Rating: D-. This was a waste of time and everyone knew it was going to be from the moment the bell rang. The Bushwhackers were the epitome of comedy bumpkins and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not sure why they picked them of all teams for Andre to back and the match was horrible.

Post match the Disasters go after Andre but the LOD comes out for the save. This was Andre’s last appearance for the company.

Heenan goes to Hogan’s dressing room with the NWA World Title to issue a challenge. “Hogan” (you never see him) opens the door and slams it in Heenan’s face. For the life of me I can’t get over seeing that belt in the WWF.

Virgil recaps his feud with DiBiase. You’re probably familiar with this one: Virgil was his bodyguard for years but at the Rumble, DiBiase pushed him just once too often and Virgil snapped. DiBiase lost to Virgil via countout at Wrestlemania and tonight it’s a rematch with the Million Dollar Title on the line.

Million Dollar Title: Ted DiBiase vs. Virgil

This is one of the very rare defenses of this title. DiBiase has Sensational Sherri with him. Piper is Virgil’s mentor so the commentary is going to be rather slanted. Virgil starts fast and hits three straight clotheslines to send DiBiase out to the floor. Heenan is back on commentary but doesn’t want to talk about Hogan. Virgil misses a dive to the floor and DiBiase sends him into the steps to keep him down. Back inside and Ted is in full control but he brags too much and gets caught in the Million Dollar Dream. The fans go nuts but Sherri comes in and blasts Virgil with her loaded purse for the DQ.

Rating: D. Actually hang on a minute.

The referee says the match MUST continue, sending Sherri to the back and Roddy into delirium. Virgil pounds on DiBiase in the corner but since he doesn’t have much experience he can’t do anything. He tries to whip DiBiase across the ring but gets countered into a ref bump to put both guys down. Ted yells at Piper like the true heel that he is before suplexing Virgil down. A piledriver lays Virgil out but sicne there’s no referee, DiBiase rips the turnbuckle off instead. Ted yells at Piper once too often though, allowing Virgil to ram him into the buckle twice for the pin and the title. Piper goes NUTS.

Rating: D+. This is a good example of a match where the crowd and announcing make it much better than it would have been otherwise. Virgil just wasn’t that good and this was his one and only storyline with the company due to there being nothing else to his character. How the guy kept a job for so many years with both WWF and WCW is beyond me.

The Mountie is ready for his Jailhouse Match with Boss Man. We get a clip of him shocking a handcuffed Boss Man from a few weeks ago. Moutnie insults the New York cops who take the loser to jail later tonight.

Boss Man says Mountie is going to jail tonight.

Mountie vs. Big Boss Man

Mountie talks trash to start so Boss Man punches him in the mouth to take over. They slug it out with Boss Man hitting a back elbow and a splash for two. Boss Man hits his running crotch attack to the back of Mountie’s neck followed by the sliding uppercut. Mountie dives into a good looking spinebuster for two but Boss Man chases Jimmy Hart instead of following up, earning him a trip into the steps.

Back in and Boss Man misses a splash in the corner as Heenan says it’s not Mayberry for the Boss Man tonight. Mountie gets two each off some elbows and a dropkick but the kickout sends him to the floor. He pulls Boss Man to the floor as Gorilla calls Jimmy a walking advertisement for birth control. Back in and they slug it out with Mountie hitting a piledriver for no cover. Instead Mountie gets his shock stick but only hits the mat. A hard uppercut sets up the Boss Man Slam for two (I don’t remember anyone not named Hogan kicking out of that) before another piledriver attempt is countered into an Alabama Slam to end Mountie.

Rating: D+. I’ve seen far worse and Boss Man’s high impact offense is always worth a look. This is the perfect blowoff to the feud which is something you rarely see anymore. Today feuds just keep going with some random gimmick match which may or may not fit the feud. This was the logical ending to it and it was tailor made for the blowoff. Why thy don’t do this anymore is beyond me.

Mountie is dragged away by cops.

DiBiase goes on a huge rant about the title, saying that Virgil stole it and he’ll get it back.

Bret says this is the best day of his career and he waited a long time to prove how great he is. I’m pretty sure we’re in intermission.

The Natural Disasters are going to eat the Legion of Doom for dinner.

Boss Man asks Sean Mooney what kind of bird can’t fly. A jailbird of course. He brags about winning a bit more.

Savage is nervous for the wedding.

Speaking of the wedding, here’s the phone number again, complete with a countdown clock for a five minute intermission. Seriously they just count down five minutes of dead air time. AND THIS WAS ON THE HOME VIDEO.

Mountie arrives at the jail and shouts that the cops can’t do this to him because HE’S THE MOUNTIE! He tries to read the cops their rights and gets thrown in a cell.

Jimmy Hart is panicking while his Nasty Boys are read for the LOD. It’s a street fight later tonight.

Mountie is tricked into having his picture taken.

The Legion of Doom wants the tag titles. Hawk says once they win the belts they’re going to chew up the Natural Disasters and spit them out “like the tartar that sticks to your teeth.”

Mountie yells about having being fingerprinted. These bits are so overblown that they’re hilarious.

Sgt. Slaughter and his cronies are excited about having a 3-2 advantage. Slaughter says he might have a surprise for later.

Sid Justice, the referee for the main event tonight, says that he’ll call it down the middle. Gene shows us a video of Slaughter and company offering Sid a spot on the team but Sid says they stopped him but he turned them down.

Tag Titles: Nasty Boys vs. Legion of Doom

The Nasties are defending and this is No Countout/No DQ, making it a street fight in modern terms. The champions are sent to the floor and the fight is on early. Back in the ring Animal hits a quick powerbomb on Knobbs for two followed by Hawk enziguring Sags down. We get down to the stupid tagging part of the street fight with Sags sending Hawk to the floor and hitting him with a bucket of water.

Back in and Knobbs works over Hawk in the corner before Sags sends him into the steps. A back elbow gets two for Knobbs and a top rope version gets the same for Sags. Brian goes up top again but jumps into Hawk’s boot, finally allowing for the hot tag off to Animal. Everything breaks down and Sags hits Animal in the back with Jimmy’s helmet for two. Hawk steals the helmet and lays out both Nasties, setting up the Doomsday Device on Sags for the pin and the titles.

Rating: D. This SUCKED as the street fight rule was barely used at all. It was little more than a few shots with the helmet when the referee wasn’t looking anyway. Hawk and Animal barely broke a sweat out there as they were already talking about the Natural Disasters earlier tonight instead of worrying about winning the belts. This win was a long time coming though.

The Mountie is put in a cell by some VERY sweaty policemen.

I.R.S. vs. Greg Valentine

Uh…..sure. Feeling out process to start so Gorilla recaps the show so far. Valentine takes over with a quick shoulder block and a clothesline. Somehow we’re nearly two minutes into the match with this much action. IRS rolls to the floor as Gorilla says Undertaker and Jake Roberts might be here. Back in and Valentine slams him down, sending IRS right back to the floor.

The tax guy heads in again and puts on an abdominal stretch followed by a jumping clothesline for no cover. Off to a chinlock before IRS misses a knee into the corner, giving Greg the opening on the leg. The Figure Four is quickly broken by a grab of the ropes and a second attempt at the hold is countered into a small package for the pin by IRS.

Rating: D. The match wasn’t even that bad but it had no business being on a pay per view. This would be the equivalent of the Divas match on a modern show to give the fans a breather between the big matches. Valentine was long past his point of being a star but he could still put people over like he did here.

Buy Hulk Hogan’s PPV, which is a Best of Hogan show. I’ve heard of worse ideas.

Hogan and Warrior talk about their victims in the main event.

Ultimate Warrior/Hulk Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter/Colonel Mustafa/General Adnan

Sid Justice is guest referee and Hogan is WWF Champion. Hogan and Slaughter get things going but the Sarge wants to stall. Slaughter pounds on him in the corner but gets caught between the right hands of both superheroes. Off to Warrior for a clothesline followed by a double big boot to put Slaughter down again. A clothesline gets two for Hogan and it’s back to Warrior. This is completely one sided so far. Hogan comes back in with a middle rope ax handle for two.

Sid breaks up some choking in the corner and the distraction lets Slaughter get in some shots on Hogan. Adnan, an old manager, comes in to rake Hogan’s back and slowly pound away in the corner. Off to Mustafa (Iron Sheik) for the gutwrench suplex and the camel clutch but Warrior makes the save. Slaughter comes back in to choke away in the corner and send Hogan into Sid for a staredown. Sarge jumps the distracted Hogan and stomps away on the back.

Warrior breaks up a top rope something by Slaughter, allowing for the hot tag to the painted one. Warrior cleans house on Slaughter but runs into Sid for another staredown. Back to Mustafa who gets caught in a suplex but Slaughter blocks a tag. Slaughter puts Warrior in a chinlock, only to have the Ultimate One fight up and clothesline Sarge down. There’s the hot tag to Hogan as Hogan chases the lackeys to the back with a chair. More on that later as Hogan throws powder in Slaughter’s face and drops the leg to win.

Rating: D+. I’m not a fan of this one as the match was never in doubt at all, but above that the Iraq War had been over for six months so the interest in the feud was done long ago. Nothing to see here but the fans reacted pretty well to it. This would have been better as a house show main event instead of the main event of Summerslam. If nothing else there was a match around this time on a Coliseum Video with Slaughter/Mustafa/Undertaker against the superheroes. Wouldn’t that make a much better main event here?

Hogan and Sid pose for a long time post match.

Mountie is in jail and a fat biker hits on him.

Hogan and Sid are STILL posing.

We get the video of Savage proposing to Liz and her responding with an OH YEAH. We also get a four minute music video highlighting their entire history together to a sappy love song.

The ring is set up like a chapel for the wedding. Savage comes out in a shiny tux with a big feather on his hat. Heenan: “Why is the second most important guy called the best man?” From what I’ve read this is a legit renewal of vows as the two were already married in real life. There isn’t much to say here other than it’s a wedding and no one interrupts it. This takes like ten minutes.

With the show in the arena done we go to the reception with Savage telling Heenan to beat it. Gene Okerlund does the ceremonial toast. They have the first dance and everything seems to be fine. Now we eat cake before heading over to the gift table where things get interesting.

First off, “WE GOT A BLENDER!!!” Savage freaks out as only he can as you would think he just got the WWF Title instead of a blender. Liz goes to open a present…..and there’s a cobra inside. She freaks out and Savage tries to pull her back, but Undertaker comes in and bashes him in the head with the urn. Jake Roberts comes in and holds the cobra in front of Liz’s face until Sid makes the save with a chair to end the show. This would set up Roberts vs. Savage in the feud of the year which resulted in Undertaker’s face turn.

Overall Rating: C-. This is an interesting show in that the first half is a much higher quality than the second half. The second half has all predictable matches where the winners were never in doubt, but that doesn’t exactly make it terrible. The show is definitely entertaining and set up a lot of stuff down the road while launching Bret Hart up to the next level. It’s worth a watch if you can find it in full but I wouldn’t expect to be blown away.

Ratings Comparison

British Bulldog/Ricky Steamboat/Texas Tornado vs. Warlord/Power and Glory

Original: D

Redo: C+

Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect

Original: A+

Redo: A

Natural Disasters vs. Bushwhackers

Original: C-

Redo: D-

Virgil vs. Ted DiBiase

Original: B

Redo: D+

Big Bossman vs. The Mountie

Original: D

Redo: D+

Legion of Doom vs. Nasty Boys

Original: D

Redo: D

Irwin R. Schyster vs. Greg Valentine

Original: D+

Redo: D

Hulk Hogan/Ultimate Warrior vs. Sgt. Slaughter/Colonel Mustafa/General Adnan

Original: D

Redo: D+

Overall Rating

Original: D

Redo: C-

Dang this show ticked me off the first time.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/07/25/history-of-summerslam-count-up-1991-a-wedding-that-goes-badly-what-a-new-concept/

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WWF Championship Wrestling
Date: September 24, 1983
Location: Agricultural Hall, Allentown, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Pat Patterson

Another random show for me to do while I wait on a Raw to download. This is from before Hogan debuted again but he was coming quickly. Other than that there isn’t much to say here. My best guess would be a lot of squashes with maybe a slightly more competitive feature match. Let’s get to it.

I’m finding two dates on this. The video I have is labeled August 27, 1983 but every other date I can find says September 24, 1983. We’ll go with the second.

We open with a list of everyone on the athletic commission for tonight’s show.

Butcher Vachon vs. Jimmy Snuka

Butcher is a big name but he’s well past his prime at this point. Snuka slams him down and the Splash ends this in about 45 seconds.

Tito Santana vs. John Callahan

Santana dominates to start as Vince says there’s no challenge here. He takes John to the mat with a long headlock but Callahan rams him into the buckle a few times. Middle rope forearm ends this. I wouldn’t expect a lot of ratings on this show.

Tiger Chung Lee/Mr. Fuji vs. Tony Garea/Bob Clement

Garea and Lee start things off as Garea controls with a dropkick and armdrag. Sunset flip gets one. Fuji gets in a shot to the back of Garea so the evil foreigners can take over on the nicer foreigners. Back to Lee to face the tagged in Clement. Both are tall and in white so this isn’t easy to differentiate. Fuji and his red come in to chop Clement down and it’s back to Lee. Lee hits an enziguri for the pin. Basically a squash.

Rating: D+. Not much to see here as most of the match was spent talking about how the Japanese team would be trouble for the Wild Samoans, the reigning tag champions. I don’t know if they ever had a long feud or anything but the Soul Patrol (Atlas and Johnson) would win the titles in November.

Sgt. Slaughter says he’s ready for Mil Mascaras in Los Angeles. Mascaras tries to put his head in the jar to eat pickles and wears a mask because he stabs himself in the head when trying to use a fork.

Tito says he’s ready for Muraco, who attacked him when he was a guest referee. He says a lot in Spanish and I think he says he’s ready for him and he’ll win in Los Angeles.

Mike Sharpe says that Tony Atlas is skinny.

Muraco, the IC Champion (and about a month from having Snuka dive off a cage onto him) talks about how Tito wanted to become a Mexican hero right when Muraco had Snuka where he wanted him.

Masked Superstar vs. Eddie Gilbert

Masked Superstar is a new top heel and is Ax under a mask. Eddie gets in some offense to start but walks into a HHH knee to the face to take him down. Gilbert is a very small guy but he hammers away, only to walk into the kind of clothesline that Bret would use in the Hart Attack. A swinging neckbreaker puts Gilbert down and a second one gets the pin quick.

Post match he takes Gilbert to the floor and gives him another neckbreaker on the concrete. Dr. George Zahorian (now look HIM up if you want to see a name erased from WWF history) comes out to check on him.

Time for Buddy Rogers’ Corner, which is an interview segment. The guest is Sgt. Slaughter who isn’t worried about Eddie Gilbert at all. He’d love to see Bob Backlund in the same position.

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Dick Tessier

Gilbert is still being attended to. Cobra Clutch and we’re done in about a minute.

Post match Slaughter looks at Gilbert as he’s being taken away. Apparently Gilbert credits Backlund with his comeback. Backlund is out here too. He’s taken out on a stretcher into an ambulance. This takes about ten minutes to get through. The fans boo because this takes so long.

Don Kernodle/Bob Bradley vs. Tony Atlas/Rocky Johnson

Apparently the Soul Patrol is a new team here. Johnson starts with Bradley and throws him around with ease. A sunset flip ends this quickly again.

Overall Rating: C-. The injury angle was at least big and it furthered Slaughter vs. Backlund but it took a lot of the steam out of the show. The matches were all squashes and that’s ok, but it does kind of slow things right to a halt. They had one match during the time when Gilbert was carried out, so why not have more? Eh it’s 1983 so TV wasn’t exactly down to a science yet. Not terrible but fairly dull.

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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.