The SmarK Retro Re-Rant for WWF Wrestlemania IX
- Figured we might as well go whole hog and redo this one, since the buildup on the RAWs I've been doing has been towards this show. Plus I wanted to work in all the Anthology versions of WM anyway. Can you believe it's been ten years since I last did this one?
- Live from Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas.
- Your hosts are Bobby Heenan, Randy Savage and introducing…JIM ROSS! In a toga.
Intercontinental title: Shawn Michaels v. Tatanka
Odd choice for an opener, actually, as the buildup for Tatanka would have led you to think he'd be higher up on the card. This is the short-lived debut of Luna Vachon as Shawn's manager in a move that was a head-scratcher even by the standards of the time. Tatanka counters with blessings from the cougar lodge -- Sherri Martell. Shawn goes for the takedown to start and Tatanka fights him off. Shawn goes with the top wristlock and Tatanka powers out of that, so he goes with the headlock and has better luck there. Tatanka tries to power out, so Shawn walks the ropes to hold the move, then tries it again and gets dropped with a suplex as a result. Tatanka hits him with a dropkick and chops him to the floor, but Sherri keeps Luna from interceding. Shawn fights Tatanka off and comes in via the top rope with a sunset flip for two. That went badly. Tatanka catches him with an inverted atomic drop and a DDT, then goes to work on the arm. Shawn keeps threatening to pull hair and the ref keeps catching him, so Tatanka is able to take him down again and goes back to the armbar. Shawn slugs out, but charges and runs himself into the post, allowing Tatanka to go back to the arm again. Shawn tries to alley-oop him in the corner, but Tatanka catches him with a shoulderbreaker and goes up with a flying chop on the shoulder. Another one, but Shawn catches him with a superkick on the way down to take over. Shawn tosses him and Sherri chases Luna off again, but Shawn hits him with a clothesline off the apron anyway. Back in, Shawn gets a neckbreaker for two. Standing dropkick gets two. Shawn hits the chinlock and then slugs away in the corner, then tries a victory roll and actually gets two. I don't know that Tatanka knew what was going on there. Shawn goes up and does it again, and this time Tatanka is hip to the room and drops him with an electric chair. That gets two. Tatanka misses an elbow and Shawn goes up with a double axehandle, but it's the PISSED OFF RACIAL STEREOTYPE, which actually gets a good reaction from the crowd. Tatanka blocks the superkick and chops him down, which Shawn sells like gunshots. Tatanka with a high cross for two. Catapult into a rollup gets two. Papoose to Go is reversed into a rollup for two by Shawn. Shawn goes up to capitalize, but Tatanka catches him with the powerslam for two. Shawn tosses him to catch a breather, but he does a dramatic dive from the apron and hits the stairs by mistake. He pulls out the ref in frustration, and back in, Tatanka with the Papoose to Go, but the ref calls for the DQ at 18:18. That is some weak sauce. People pull out the ref just to break up a two count these days! Much longer and better match than I remember, though. ***1/2 They really booked themselves into a corner here, as they didn't want to end the undefeated streak and they didn't want to change the title, so you get this finish.
The Headshrinkers v. The Steiner Brothers
A sign in the crowd notes that New York City loves the Steiners and the Undertaker. Really? Just those three? And is it fair for one sign to speak for the entire city? What if some guy in Manhattan loves Mr. Perfect more? Was this sign created from a scientific poll of the city? I WANT TO KNOW.
Anyway, Scott takes Fatu down with an armbar to start and hiptosses him out of the corner, and they slug it out until Fatu goes down. The Shrinkers double-team Scott in the corner and toss Rick, but the Steiners regroup and both come off the same turnbuckle with clotheslines. That's pretty awesome. Rick comes in against Samu, and Samu pounds him in the corner and follows with a clothesline. Rick hits him with his own and then sends him into the post in a crazy spot. Scott comes in with the butterfly bomb, but Samu drops him with a hotshot that turns into a crazy bump over the top when Fatu pulls the top rope down. Afa hits him with the big stick for good measure. Back in, the Headshrinkers take over and Fatu gets a backbreaker and a diving headbutt for two. Samu with a nice spinkick, but a blind charge hits boot. Fatu comes back in with a Randy Orton punt to put Scott on the floor, and Samu runs him into the post. Back in, Scott rams Fatu's head into the mat, and Fatu casually no-sells it and superkicks him down. I LOVE that spot. Haku used to do that one, too, and it's always great because the crowd pops for the initial move and then again for the heel comeback. Scott tries to fight out of the corner and they poke him in the eyes, allowing Fatu to get a backbreaker for two. They clothesline each other, but Fatu makes the tag first and Samu cuts the tag off. He goes up and misses the flying headbutt, however, and it's HOT tag Rick. Backdrop and slam sets up a series of Steinerlines, but ramming their heads together proves to be a mistake. Shrinkers hit the double Stroke to take over again and try a Doomsday Device, but incredibly Rick catches Samu in mid-air and powerslams him off Fatu's shoulders for two. Back to Scott, who suplexes Fatu, but runs into another superkick from Samu. Scott has had ENOUGH, however, and finishes with the Frankensteiner at 14:20. They were just beating the hell out of each other here, and again this was much better and longer than I remembered. ***1/4
Crush v. Doink the Clown
Crush attacks on the floor and sends the clown into the post, and they head in for some angry choking from Crush. Randy notes that "Crush is all over Doink like melting butter". Can we have a drug test for Savage, please? And also a drug test for whoever though that orange, yellow and purple tights would be a good idea for Crush? Crush pounds away and gets a standing neckbreaker, then snaps the neck on the top rope. Crush pounds away on the apron, but Doink retorts with his own necksnap and comes off the top with a series of forearms to put him down. Piledriver follows and Crush bails to escape, but Doink hauls him back in. He goes up and we get my least favorite spot, as Doink goes up and lands on Crush's foot, and Crush powerslams him to make the comeback. Clothesline puts Doink on the floor, and Doink tries to hide under the ring. Crush pulls him back into the ring for a press slam and tries to finish, but Doink nails the ref and goes under the ring again. Crush hauls him back in again and applies the head-vice, but GatorDoink hits him from behind with the fake arm and Doink gets the pin at 8:27. *1/2
Razor Ramon v. Bob Backlund
The crowd is clearly cheering for Razor, which I also noticed on the Poughkeepsie RAW as well, so the writing was on the wall there. Backlund evades him to start, but Ramon catches him and beats him down, then stomps away. Bob comes back with a hiptoss out of the corner, but misses a dropkick and comes back with a butterfly suplex instead. He follows with an atomic drop and then slingshots Ramon in from the apron, but Ramon cradles for the pin at 3:40. Big pop for that. *
WWF World tag team titles: Money Inc. v. Hulk Hogan & Brutus Beefcake
Hogan is of course sporting a black eye here, and we've covered that enough for one lifetime. Beefcake's ridiculous protective mask looks like a rejected Kyle Raynor Green Lantern design. Dibiase starts with Beefcake and elbows him down, but he comes off the top and hurts his hand when he hits Beefcake's mask. Dibiase rams Beefcake into the turnbuckle and that has no effect either, and the faces take over on Dibiase. Hogan slugs away in the corner and clotheslines him, and Beefcake comes in for a slam. The faces pinball Dibiase in the corner and Hulk clotheslines him out, and it's more of the same for IRS. The champs decide to take a walk, but they do the silly thing where the ref threatens to switch the titles if they walk out. So they head back in and Dibiase gets a cheapshot on Hulk and chokes away, then gets the Million Dollar Dream. Hulk basically sells it like a chinlock as Savage goes into his insane bit about how "they're hanging from the rafters…if there were rafters…but there's not, there's columns, and they're hanging from them." OK then. Beefcake breaks up the sleeper with one of his own, and that leaves both Dibiase and Hogan out for the double count. Hulk recovers first and it's hot tag Beefcake. High knee for IRS and Dibiase goes out via an atomic drop, but he hits Beefcake with the briefcase and IRS drops an elbow to take over again. Really? Wasn't 15 minutes long enough for this shitty match? Dibiase tries to get the mask off and succeeds, and they go to work on his face now. Now, they already said that Beefcake was at 100% and didn't sustain any damage from the previous attack, so I'm not sure where the suspense is supposed to be coming from. Beefer comes back and puts IRS in the sleeper, and the ref gets wiped out as a result. Now, the ref is unconscious, why would Hogan bother waiting for the tag? Hulk gets the tag, puts them down with the mask, and both faces make the cover, but the ref revives and calls for the DQ at 18:48, giving Money Inc. the win. Just an awful, awful finish to an incredibly boring match. Beefcake in particular looked out of sync and terrible. *1/4 And Hulk Hogan has been a wrestler for HOW long and still celebrates with the title belts when JIMMY HART makes the count? Are they supposed to be retarded? This one, at the time, was setting off huge alarm bells in my head because why would Hogan make his big comeback and then lose? Anyway, they do their posing (despite losing) and then Hogan breaks into Dibiase's personal property, the briefcase, and throws his money into the crowd. Years later, Linda would do the same thing to him. Probably not even metaphorically, she probably made him fill a briefcase full of money and then gave it away to a crowd of people while he watched.
Mr. Perfect v. Lex Luger
This should have been great and just wasn't. Although people often compare Perfect's style with Flair's and assume that he'd mesh well with Luger because of that, but heel Luger v. face Flair was never any good either. Perfect tries the headlock to start and they trade hammerlock attempts, but Luger makes the ropes. Perfect hits a kneelift and dropkick and Luger bails to think it over. Back in, Luger with a cheapshot to take over and he runs Perfect into the turnbuckle, but a big boot is blocked and Perfect goes to work on the leg. He chops away in the corner, but Luger whips him into the turnbuckles and Perfect bumps out of the ring. Luger works the back in the ring and gets a backbreaker, then drops an elbow for two. Pin in the corner gets two. Lex with the powerslam for two. Perfect sunset flip gets two and he comes back with a sleeper, but Luger runs him into the corner to break. Perfect slugs him down as this is going nowhere fast, and a small package gets two. Perfect catapults him into the corner and puts him down with the Ax forearm for two. Perfect with another forearm for two and a neckbreaker gets two. Ugly missile dropkick gets two, but Luger is in the ropes. He tries a backslide, but Lex hooks the ropes and reverses for the pin at 10:55, despite Perfect's legs being in the ropes. Just goes to show: Never depend on the ref seeing you in the ropes, always kick out. They were on two different planets here for whatever reason. *1/2 Perfect chases Luger to the back to exact his revenge, but Shawn Michaels jumps him to set up that feud. Now, since Perfect never got his revenge on Luger, can it be assumed that his turn on Luger at Wrestlemania X was a very long-simmering plot on his part?
Undertaker v. Giant Gonzalez
Gonzalez hammers on Taker to no effect and then chokes him into the corner, but Taker climbs the ropes and chokes right back. Giant goes low to break, but Taker goes old school and slugs away in the corner while Giant makes faces in his sad attempts to sell. Gonzalez with a clothesline and he pounds away and hiptosses Taker, then goes to a standing chinlock of some sort. And that just goes on forever, until he tosses Taker and sends him into the stairs. Back in, Giant headbutts him down, but Taker fights back and we get more of Gonzalez selling like a moron. The managers get involved and Gonzalez smothers Taker with a chloroform-soaked cloth for the DQ at 7:37. I can't even watch this without thinking of the Simpsons now and "You idiot, those are COLORFORMS!" These are some especially bad finishes tonight. And this was just as terrible as advertised, with Gonzalez unable to do the simplest moves properly or sell anything. -****
Meanwhile, Mean Gene interviews Hulk Hogan, who promises that regardless of whether it's Bret Hart or "the jap", he wants the first shot. ALARM BELLS, RINGING.
WWF World title: Bret Hart v. Yokozuna
Basically the buildup was that Bret Hart was having the worst week of his life and had no chance to beat the guy who outweighed him by 200 pounds. So you can see why this did the buyrate it did. Like, wouldn't you at least PRETEND that Bret has a shot to beat his challenger? They spend literally the whole PPV talking about how bookmakers have Yoko as the odds-on favorite. Bret dropkicks him into the corner to start and slugs away, but Yoko tackles him to the floor. Bret trips him up and slingshots himself back in, then drops the elbow off the middle rope. Yoko comes back with a clothesline and slam, and the Hulkbuster legdrop follows. He chokes Bret out on the ropes and goes to the nerve pinch. Yoko charges and misses, allowing Bret to get a sort-of bulldog for two. Yoko puts him down again with a superkick and goes back to the nerve hold. Another charge misses again and Bret gets another bulldog for two, then the middle rope elbow for two. Clothesline puts Yoko down and Bret slugs away in the corner, but Yoko puts him down with an atomic drop, as Bret yanks the turnbuckle pad off. Bret sends him into the steel and hooks the Sharpshooter, but Fuji tosses a big ol' handful of salt in his face, and Yoko gets the pin and the title at 8:49. Watchable, but Bret could only do so much here. *1/2 And before Yokozuna can even celebrate, Hulk Hogan comes out to protest, which results in Fuji challenging him to a title match RIGHT HERE.
WWF World title: Yokozuna v. Hulk Hogan
So Fuji throws more salt, hits Yoko by mistake, and the legdrop gives Hogan his fifth title at 0:25. And we all know how well THAT turned out.
The Pulse:
I would actually classify this as "mildly better than I remembered", with the first two matches being pretty darn good and the rest living down to its pedigree. I'd still call it far and away the worst Wrestlemania of all-time, though, as the atmosphere was ridiculously bad and it featured some of the worst finishes this side of Dusty Rhodes on an LSD trip.
Enjoyed the rant. Looking forward to reading your new rants on those Wrestlemanias that you recently picked up, whenever you get to them.
Always felt you short-changed the Tatanka match. And I thought the Perfect-Luger match was **1/2 decent.
This wasn’t the greatest WM ever, but it was far FAR from the worst. And everyone who still whines about the way Hogan won the belt SIXTEEN YEARS LATER needs to get a life. Bret was wrestling to crickets as World Champion, and Vince needed a WRESTLEMANIA MOMENT. Had they set up Hogan it would have been too obvious, but this way would be a moment that people remembered and told their friends about.
The only thing that sucked was Gonzalez never said he was going to end THE STREAK at 2-0.
OK, so what’s the worst one then?
Probably 12, although 16 is right down there too.
You should add WM11 as well. I take WM9 over that any day.
I’ve always felt that WM11 was more blase as opposed to outright awful. I can remember WM 9 for being so terrible, but I can’t recall a single moment from WM 11.
WM15 has to rank right there as for suckitude goes, and actually looking at the match times right now with only TWO matches out of 10 going longer than 10 minutes, Big Bossman getting hung from the Cell, the demise of Bart Gunn’s career, and Shane-O-Mac retaining the European title, XV may be worse than IX. At least WM9 had two decent matches at the beginning. The only advantage that I see that 15 has is that the right man went over for the title (Austin) as opposed to someone who wasn’t even part of the match. Oh yeah, and no Giant Gonzalez.
12? I love 12, up and down. Top to bottom, everything is either a great match, a great moment, or in the case of the six-man, has a couple of my all time favorites in it.
I think we’ve gotten pretty far o/t here, but WM12 featured the 63-minute Restholdmania match, the HHH-Waryah, the Hollywood Backlot Brawl, Mystery Science Theater WWF, Godwinns-Bodydonnas, and more Restholdmania in Austin-Vega.
One reason why I prefer WMIX to many more recnt PPvs is that even if it was hardly top-notch, it still FELT like Wrestlemania. A mediocre Wrestlemania sure, but Wrestlemania. Many more recent shows may be better, but don’t have that “Wrestlemania feeling” about them. Maybe I’m just older and more cynical, but you get the idea that it’s “just another PPV”…
WrestleMania XV is the worst WrestleMania of all-time. It’s the only one I’ve watched once and never watched again, save for the Rocky/Austin main event that has been on a DVD or two.
WM 9 certainly felt like a WrestleMania and really, its just the Hogan thing casting a horrible shadow over the whole event. If Yoko just leaves with the belt, setting up Hogan/Yoko at King of the Ring….I think people wouldn’t hate it so much.
Going with the “watched once and never watched again” theory, the recent 24th anniversary of Mania is one of the worst. I’ve seen Taker-Shawn on Youtube again since then, but there’s nothing there I want to rewatch right now. Other than being in a stadium, I don’t see it as better or more important than other monthly ppvs.
The booking of Bret that Scott described seems how they’re booking Cena these days, especially when he fought Big Show at Judgment Day, saying there was NO WAY he could possibly win…..but the endings of the two situations were certainly different.
Hogan didn’t really say “the jap” in that interview, did he?
First it was calling Tony Atlas a “brown clown” Now it’s calling Yokozuna “the Jap”
Hulkamania = racism.
He really did! I’m surprised that nobody told him “hey Hulk, it’s 1993 and you can’t call him that”
Never mind that Yoko was Samoan. Hulk….
“Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.”
“Oriental is not the preferred nomenclature, Dude. Asian-american, please.”
“The booking of Bret that Scott described seems how they’re booking Cena these days, especially when he fought Big Show at Judgment Day, saying there was NO WAY he could possibly win…..but the endings of the two situations were certainly different.”
Well, it really depends on how the announcers are selling the drama, so to speak.
There is the aforementioned Cena example whereby the announcers repeatedly stressed the fact that Cena was the underdog. This happened so much that even the densest of marks would have to know that Cena would display a Herculean effort and win the match. “He who protesteth too much…” and all.
Compare with the Bret Hart match listed above. The announcers didn’t sell the audience on Bret being an underdog as much as they did Bret being a loser. The announcers cited his recent streak of incredibly bad luck (etc) and didn’t exactly paint Bret out to be a fighting warrior whom the fans should rally behind. This was likely done so as to not steal any thunder from Hogan’s title victory.
So, yes, two different matches with (nearly) the same booking in weakened babyface wrestlers facing monstrous heels.
However, as the marketing cliche goes, “it’s not what you say; it’s how you say it.”
Was the Money Inc feud always designed as a set-up for Hogan winning the title? If so, that would mean that Bret had to know since the new year that his title reign was ending, right (since the Money Inc storyline started in late Jan or Feb)?
Or was Hogan slated to be a tag champ and he pulled a power play?
My guess is the second one, though don’t know for sure. If WWF knew what they were gonna do at the New Year then Hulk would’ve won the Rumble and probably Yoko would’ve won the title from Bret before WM.
Even if Vince wanted Hulk as champion, I don’t think he was happy in the way Hulk won the title so he would’ve booked it differently had he known way back then.
I agree. They should have put the title on Yoko WAY before they did if they didn’t have faith in Bret. It helped no one to keep it on someone who was such a lame duck. Change it at the Rumble and then do Hogan v. Yoko at WM. Still would’ve sucked, but at least the booking would have made sense then.
I guess a lot of it depends on when exactly they knew Hulk was coming back. It was always up in the air as to whether he was “done” at WM VIII, right? I guess it’s possible that it was sometime in the later summer or fall when Hogan started negotiating a return, so they had to start thinking about how to bring him back in, and what he’d do.
Don’t know what this is worth, but I saw that Wrestlemania coffee table book that the WWE put out around 2000 or so, and that guy says that he’s pretty sure Bret was supposed to walk away with the strap, and it was Hogan’s idea for the angle that saw him walk away with the title.
In Bret’s book, the plan was always for Yoko to go over at WrestleMania IX and the Hogan thing came late. Bret said he felt bad for Yoko since he was the one really getting double-crossed.
Its also interesting that in his book, Bret said that Yoko went home early in their match at WrestleMania IX. I havent seen the match in ages…is it noticeably? I can’t imagine how long Bret wanted that match to go.
I did enjoy his story of trying to get the Sharpshooter on Yoko a couple weeks/months earlier…for some reason, the image of Yoko laying on his back in the locker room as Bret struggled trying to get the move on cracks me up.
Anyone wanna do a fantasy line-up for WM 9? It seemed like the easiest card to book with their current roster:
Bret v. Perfect
HBK v Tatanka
Luger v. Savage
Hulk v Yoko
Money Inc v Steiners
Bam Bam v. Crush
Doink v. Undertaker
Ramon v Backlund
I always thought Bret v. Perfect was going to be the Mania match going into the Rumble…. Yokozuna winning was not on my radar.
I didn’t think Yoko winning was even a possibility. I just thought he was like a mid-carder before the Rumble… not the next monster bad guy.
Lol. That’s what I thought too. Bret being given the main belt, even in my 13 year old mind, seemed to mark a significant change (as the guy with the coolest matches was in the main event). I figured that must be how they were dealing with life without Hogan, and it made the most sense to have a rematch from Summerslam ‘91 in the main event, this time for the biggest prize. Perfect’s revenge vs Bret’s heart. It would have been great.
I thought they should’ve done Bret/Savage as the main even since Savage still had a HUGE rub to give as the last Hulkamania main eventer (before Hogan returned) left on the roster.
Ultimately, they had the Yoko/Bret thing right…Yoko wins once, Bret has to earn everyone’s respect again and finally wins the title. it’s just how they got there, with failed Luger & Hogan experiments, that brought everything down.
Especially since I thought 1993 was a really good year for the WWF…except for the main events. Think about the roster in 1993…a whole lot of guys that could go and were in/near their prime: Bret, Perfect, HBK, Ramon, 123 Kid, Marty, Bam Bam, the Steiners, the Heavenly Bodies, Tatanka, Matt Bourne as Doink. Yet we got failed Luger, failed Hogan, Giant Gonzalez and some of the worst booking in history.
Looking back, I almost wish Vince would’ve found a way to do Bret/Hogan at WM IX as was supposedly an idea at the time. You build it Warrior/Hogan style, although making sure to point out Bret is the underdog. Hogan even makes it seem like he isn’t taking Bret seriously. Bret wins, Hogan teases heel, but then congratulates him. You then build Yoko as Bret’s next big threat for King of the Ring, where he ignores Hogan’s request for a rematch. Bret barely escapes the KOTR match with the belt, only to have Fuji demand Yoko get revenge for his first loss. Yoko banzais Bret like two or three times until Hogan saves him. Hogan looks like he’s going to help Bret back to his feet but then big boots and leg drops him to go full-on heel for a Summerslam rematch. At that point you can either give Hogan the belt at Summerslam if the heel turn is working and build to a Wrestlemania X rematch where the feud is tied at 1-1 for the rubber match, or let Bret go over Hogan a second time to finally kill Hulkamania dead in the WWF.
It’s fantasy booking, yes, but I think it would have done wonders for Bret’s credibility. Hogan might have even recaptured a bit of what made him special originally if he channeled Thunderlips. And if Hogan did get the belt, I would’ve loved to have seen the Survivor Series match that resulted. You know Beefcake would’ve turned heel, and maybe the Nastys might’ve stayed a bit longer. Or go completely sacrilegious and have a Hogan/Dibiase partnership. That would’ve been amazing to see Hulk finally sell-out to the Million Dollar Man.
Nasty Boys vs Head Shrinkers
Tito Santana vs Papa Shango
Bob Backlund vs Rick Martel
Big Boss Man vs Bam Bam Bigelow
Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs Yokozuna
Crush vs Razor Ramon
Undertaker vs Giant Gonzales
Mr. Perfect vs Lex Luger
Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair
WWF World Tag Team Champions Money Inc. vs Rick & Scott Steiner
WWF Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels vs Tatanka
WWF World Champion Bret Hart vs Randy Savage
You know, I’d like if someone can help verify this for me as I was kinda young around the build-up for this Mania. I seem to recall a segment where Bret confronted Yoko at the “contract signing” during Superstars and Yoko laid him out with a Banzai Drop. However, Bret struggled to his feet after a minute or so while the announcers screamed about his resiliency/toughness, which was huge as considering that at that time, Yoko had been destroying everyone.
I dont know why but man, that segment was crazy awesome for that time period as Bret didn’t jump up like Hogan as he sold Yoko’s finisher like a champ while staring Yoko down as they went to break.
Goosebumps!
This did happen on Wrestling Challenge. I know because they actually played this episode along with WM IX during WM month on WWE 24/7 not too long ago.
It happened and it’s on youtube.
I’m going to assume Scott meant “Dusty Rhodes on an LSD trip” not “LCD trip”. Although the thought of the American Dream falling over a large flat screen television is oddly amusing.
This begs the question…
If they’d done Hogan/Hart at Summer Slam 1993 (not sure if there is much truth to that as the plan, but let’s go with it) would Hogan/Hart have been a good match?
Bret could probably have carried him to a decent match, but I doubt it would have been anything like Hogan/Warrior. Hulk was never very good at selling injuries to his limbs, and I think he would have needed to work more of a finesse style match to be believable I think, due to his …ahem… mildly smaller physique at this point. I kinda think their styles would have clashed too much.
I think when Hogan wants to have a good match, he can have a good match.
And I believe in Bret’s book there’s a picture of Bret & Hogan playing tug-o-war with the belt, a picture done to promote the Hart-Hogan Summerslam match.
I think it would have been a pretty great match myself. Certainly better than Yokozuna/Luger, but probably not better than Hart’s match with Lawler on that same show.
Two things:
1. I always liked Kyle’s “crab mask.”
2. I never quite understood how the Headshrinkers could absorb all that head-related punishment, then get pinned off a Frankensteiner. Is there a kayfabe reason that move has more impact? Maybe the momentum adds to it?
It’s snapping the neck, not the head. Different type of punishment.
Ah, okay. I always saw it as more of flipping the guy over and driving the top of their head into the mat, like a piledriver.
Probably a dumb question, but –
Couldn’t Vince have Let Yoko keep the strap until Summerslam or King of the Ring? Presumably, nobody knew Hulk would be leaving so soon, so they could have booked a feud between those two in the subsequent months.
If they were worried about a heel walking out as champion they could have put the tag match on last and actually given the titles to Hogan and Beefcake to send the fans home happy. Then Yoko could have interfered in a tag title match on Raw, or at King of the Ring, costing Hulk and Beefcake the titles and instantly setting up a feud between the two. I dont’ know…just seems like anything is better than hotshotting the title around like that.
Or had Hogan come out and tell the ref to restart the match. Bret wins after the Dusty finish. Yoko wins the title a few weeks later in the re-match then Yoko feuds with Hogan. Hogan’s mad Yoko “screwed” Bret and Yoko’s mad Hogan cost him the title in the first place.
Just a thought, but could Vince’s irrational unwillingness to push someone who made a name in another promotion stem for Lugar’s disastrous run as the top guy?
I mean they were willing to run with Hogan, Piper, Savage, Hennig, Dibiase, Flair and then Lugar (if not to the title than at least to the top face/heel challenger for an extended time)… but after that, the WWF seemed hesitant to trust anyone who was not mostly homegrown.
I always thought that was a fallacy. They pushed Benoit & Jericho straight to the main event (if not giving them the title) within 6 months. Scott Steiner was shot right to the main event. Goldberg’s first match was against the Rock. The nWo basically headlined a WrestleMania (the wrestlers were WWF creations, the faction certainly wasn’t). Booker T main evented SummerSlam three months after debuting.
Goldberg got a pretty monster push in 2003 as well. The Dudleyz won the tag titles many times and they even tried to get Bubbah over as a main event star right after the brand split. Ric Flair was treated as a hero despite spending very little previous time in the WWE. Then there’s the whole Wrestlemania XX ending…
I think the attitude stems more from Vince’s apparent detest of cruiserweights. A lot of those guys were held down, and a lot did come from WCW, but their roots seem more like a coincidence than the reason.
The InVasion angle also likely contributed to this. Nobody liked that the main event very quickly became nothing but WWF guys. But, really, what choice did Vince have? Buff Bagwell and Scott Steiner proved they weren’t as good as the WWF guys. Nobody wanted Hall or Nash in the main event picture. Jeff Jarrett? Please. DDP got a major storyline and Booker T eventually main evented – although we can debate if those two guys were held down. But the point still holds, for the most part WCW sucked. So, what I’m trying to say is that often Vince is blamed for holding guys down that were developed elsewhere but that doesn’t seem to be the motivation. The “look”, political affiliations and to a lesser extent the legacy of a wrestler seem to be much more important than where he came from.
I always thought they missed the boat with DDP.
I worked in bars throughout most of the Attitude Era. We’d show Raw every week and PPVs were huge events needing extra staff and sometimes even hitting capacity and turning people away.
That had started to significantly fade by the time WCW folded. I remember the place I worked in at the time would still show Raw but no one really paid a lot of attention to it and we weren’t even showing PPVs anymore.
The day DDP walked out on Raw was an event. I heard someone yell to his buddy “get over here, it’s DDP!” and a crowd formed and was interested in wrestling for the first time in quite a while. People were even calling their friends to tell them to turn the channel.
Because of his age I doubt he would have amounted to much in the long run and certainly one anecdote like this isn’t much proof but I always thought they blew a real can’t miss with DDP by having Undertaker completely dominate their feud.
OK-
Jericho came in with the biggest build and the hottest introduction in the history of the sport. Did a one off with the Rock and then spent the next 2 years in the mid card.
Benoit was a week removed from being WCW champion (a title he never lost), was squashed by HHH on Smackdown and then worked up and down the card for 2-3 years (although he did co headline the July PPV that year with the Rock.
I will give you Goldberg, but Steiner was during a real “throw shit at the walls and see what sticks” period in the booking. Considering how badly he was booked and how quickly he was turfed it is hard to say he was pushed… but I agree, they did take a shot with him.
Vader and RVD are two examples of guys who were super over and yet the WWF seemed unwilling to get behind them. I am sure there are a variety of factors, but I would say on balance Vince is less likely to push a guy who is not homegrown until they have reestablished in the E.
Scott, you’re full of it when you say “alarms bells were going off” when Hogan lost his tag match or even when he gave an interview prior to the main event. Even the smarkiest mark of them all would have NEVER guessed he was going to get a title match with Yoko right there and then and win the title.
I can’t speak for Scott but I think it was becoming way too apparent that Hogan was going to get involved in the Main Event…as a Bret Hart fan, my worst fear was Yoko squashing Bret and then Yoko & Hogan doing a big square-off. Which is sort of what happened….but I can’t imagine Scott thinking of Hogan winning the belt because a)it was a shocker and b)it was the stupidest thing the WWF has ever done.
I remember the first time I watched it as a 10 year old mark and you could definitely see SOMETHING coming.
I was like 8 and I thought “Hogan’s in the tag title match? There’s some monkey business going on here.”
“Now, since Perfect never got his revenge on Luger, can it be assumed that his turn on Luger at Wrestlemania X was a very long-simmering plot on his part?”
I *ALWAYS* thought that was a year long slow burn “fuck you” to Luger from Perfect when I was a kid, never knew I wasn’t the only one.
This is in no way, shape, or form the worst Mania, it has atmosphere galore and there’s a few cool matches and angles. XI and XV are absolutely brutally unwatchable and have no atmosphere at all. The ending of the show is a screwjob but not any more so than 25 or yes, X-7.
Or WM 2000, boy that ending with Triple H and the McMahons celebrating in the center of the ring sure went over like a fart in church, huh? I had friends who flew from Michigan to California to see that show, to say they were pissed was an understatement.
Well they did have Rock give Stephanie a People’s Elbow in an attempt to send the fans home happy but it was still pretty lame. I mean at that point, Rock had already lost the big one, Mick Foley got pinned for the 3rd straight ppv and the match kinda sucked so who cares if Stephanie “got hers” in the end?
Oh yeah, that was such a boner. I still remember that night and the feeling in my gut after watching that show. Such a pity, but they were on a massive hot streak at the time and recovered fairly quickly.
On the plus side, if Wrestlemania stinks then you can usually count on WWE making up for it at the following Backlash. 1999 was a good PPV and of course Backlash in 2000 was one of the best PPVs ever. This year’s event was also what Wrestlemania should have been. At least WWE delivers eventually.
Backlash 2009 + Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker = Top Tier Mania
2009, 2008, 2007, 2002, 2000, and 1999 all featured Backlashes that were at least as strong as or stronger than Wrestlemania. 2004 was damn close.
Yes that’s true. And that was the negative side of years like 1993. If you have only 4-5 PPVs a year, then every PPV has to be at least great. Because if not, then you are in trouble, because you can’t correct it. In 1999, if there were only the big 4 events, that year would be horrible. But, PPVs like Backlash or Unforgiven or No Mercy saved the day. Same goes for 2000 where only the Rumble was very good, while WM, KOTR, Slam and the Series were not the best PPVs of that year. And that goes to all, who are missing the days of less PPVs.
In 1999/2000 the focus really seemed to be more on the weekly TV than the PPVs, the matches and angles were about the same length on both. They made the PPVs something you could miss and still understand the stories on Raw if you did because they didn’t want you to get confused and tune out.
I always thought the Perfect/Luger thing was a slow burn too.
I swear I remember Hennig saying as much in a promo after the fact but it’s possible I’m imagining things.
Perfect referenced it in an interview on Superstars or Challenge after WM 10. Of course, that program got abandoned pretty quickly, so it was “blink and you’ll miss it” moment.
Glad to hear I’m not the only one remembering that.
Superstars was my primary exposure in those days so that’s where I would have seen it.
Yeah, WrestleMania IX seems pretty BLAH, but not outright awful. WrestleMania XII was pretty watchable live on PPV, but I have had a hard time sitting through it since then.
WrestleMania 13 and 15 are my least favorites though. 13 has of course the one excellent match, but the rest of the show is awful from top to bottom and has a very “we just got a .78 buyrate for this show” feel to it. It just seems very cheap and shoddy for a WrestleMania.
I remember way back when everyone hated WrestleMania 7 — I think that was the first WrestleMania to be charged with the “but it doesn’t feel like WrestleMania” accusation. It’s one of my most favorites though, along with WrestleMania 8, so go figure.
Gotta vote 2 as my least fav-o (with my respects to my fav wrestling writer, of course). My friends and I actually refer to any horribly delayed bump as “a Kirshiner” due to the post he takes outside the ring. You can literally see his head sitting on the post in one camera, then it switches camera angles, and his head is still there. Then, out of nowhere, it bounces off the post and Kirshiner grabs his head. This all takes about 2 seconds, but the first time we noticed it, friends and I rewound and reviewed it about 10 times. Hysterical.
WM 7 was crappy because it had a foregone conclusion of a main event (did anyone thingk there was even a remote chance that Slaughter would leave as champ?) that wasn’t even a particularly hot program (unlike Savage v. Hogan of two years before) in a building that didn’t give any special visual aura to the show itself (like WM 3 or 6).
WM 3 set the template (huge main event in a huge building) that WM’s should aspire to.
According to Matt Borne, the original finish for the Doink-Crush match was Doink’s hair was supposed to explode!
Either right there at ‘Mania or shortly after, Perfect brought up the Luger issue from the year before, in the context of defending his neutral and objective refereeing; “Even though you cheated me at WrestleMania last year, I called it right down the middle” or some such.
I always thought Wrestlemania 2000 or WM16 should be in the running for worst WM. No straight one on one matches, Triple H walking out with the belt, and that horrendous match with T&A vs. Head Cheese. The only good parts were the TLC match and Angle/Jericho/Benoit.
I give WM 2000 a pass for worst wrestlemania ever just because I thought the TLC match was *****. Ditto for WrestleMania 25. It can’t be the worst ever if there’s a match that good on the card. I would agree that WM 2000, and 25, are definitely at the bottom of the list.
I see your point but on the flip side, WM2000 has one of the worst, if not the worst, non-women’s WM match of all-time and a pretty terrible women’s match to boot. However, I can see why the TLC match would be good enough to boost it from “worst ever” to just “bad” in some people’s eyes. It’s a very valid point.