WWE's Golden Age - Part 3 (1987-1990)

[Music] [Music] the success of WrestleMania 3 understandably caught the eye of the other Survivor promoters truthfully it wasn't so clear in 1987 if pay-per-view was the true wave of the future or simply a fad a bubble bound to burst on some distant day but in a fight for survival with Vince McMahon's domineering WWF the consumer living room box office was a revenue stream that needed to be seized and mcm's nearest rival sought to stake his claim to some of those pay-per-view dollars [Music] sensing that more than one wrestling Enterprise could thrive on pay-per-view Jim Crockett Jr decided to bring the fifth annual star arcade to the medium to air on Thanksgiving night 1987 the key story of jcp's first ever pay-per-view was Ric Flair attempting to regain the NWA World title from the man who' rested it from his hands that September Ron Garin the entry onto pay-per-view came at a critical time for Jim Crockett promotions as JCP was starting to reach Beyond its fiscal grasp guaranteed contracts and other venues of overspending would mount a toll on the old Mid-Atlantic territory then there was the other problem the WWF announced that they would be running a pay-per-view the very same night as starcade born from a desire to put up a roadblock in front of Crockett was the Survivor Series a show consisting entirely of Tandem elimination matches at a time when seeing all the top stars on One show was rare outside of WrestleMania and Marathon TV tapings the Survivor Series held a lure especially with a postsurgery Andre coming back to Captain a fiveman team against a squadron led by Hogan a Hulk Andre rematch of sorts on turkey day was all but inevitable and a hot ticket in its own right Crockett's reaction to the move was to reschedule starcade pushing it up several hours to the late afternoon this would allow starcade and Survivor Series to run as a Monumental double header but that was not not satisfactory for McMahon and the WWF they issued an ultimatum to the pay-per-view providers if you carry starcade you won't get to carry WrestleMania 4 and seeing as WrestleMania 3 made a mint on pay-per-view this was a serious threat what resulted was a blood bath only four individual providers carried starcade three from Crockett's Carolina base and one in San Jose the show managed 20,000 buys dwarfed mightily by the 325,000 pulled in by the inaugural Survivor series and what a show Survivor series was attracting over 21,000 fans to the Richfield Coliseum 20 mes south of Cleveland though 80s WWF is often dismissed for its slower more lumbering action the Survivor Series matches came equipped with a springy sense of urgency the opener pitted A Honky Tonk Man LED quintet against Macho and four other baby faces that coveted the IC title and the end came after honky turned tail when faced with having to beat Savage Steamboat and Jake Roberts three onone women's and tag matches followed each featuring scenes of brilliant wrestling that rated above the company standard of the time the jumping bomb Angels finished off both Glamour Girls to win the ladies bout while midcard Duos the Killer Bees and young stallions survived a 37-minute Showcase of some of the greatest tag teams in the business the latter bout really hammered home the fact that it's not always the top stars that survive as evidenced by the hearts bulldogs and Strike Force all enduring pinfall eliminations in the evening's finale the Hogan and Andre armies met and anticipation was at a fever pitch for the inevitable showdown between David and Goliath until then the likes of Paul lorf Rick Roode bamb bam Bigalow and the oneman Gang carried out a pretty brisk and exciting Main Event All Things Considered eventually Hogan and Andre did get their mits on one another though the confrontation was brief Hogan ended up getting dragged to the floor by gang and King Kong Bundy and due to a sustained ringside brawl Hulk was unable to re-enter the ring in time taking the count out loss young Bigalow valiantly managed to eliminate Bundy and gang but was no match for Andre nor his new finish and all awward looking underhook suplex that sadly demonstrated how much the once magnificent giant had deteriorated nonetheless Andre stood tall at the end of a critically acclaimed Survivor Series until Hogan bitterly back jumped him anyway the win gave Andre a form of bragging rights over Hulk making a rematch for the championship likely indeed Hulk versus Andre 2 was going to happen and on the road to that Landmark battle Vince decided to to mess with Crockett one more time on January 24th 1988 Crockett gave pay-per-view a second try with bunk house Stampede emanating from Nassau Coliseum on Long Island where there isn't a legitimate bunk house within a 300M radius the main event was an eight-man steel cage Battle Royal won by Dusty rhods the dean of bunk brawls this time however the WWF didn't play defense with a pay-per-view no they did it with a cable TV special up in Hamilton Ontario the WWF staged the first televised Royal Rumble on the USA Network before 18,000 fans at cops Coliseum compared to the 6,000 that attended the Stampede in mcmah territory we say first televised Royal Rumble because the WWF had had actually attempted a rumble before and it did not go well the rumble was the brainchild of top agent Pat Patterson a veteran star of Roy shire's San Francisco territory an annual battle royal at San Fran Cow Palace played host to a number of territorial icons and proved to be a major attraction throughout the 70s Patterson thought he could bring something similar to the WWF and thus devised the rumble a test run of the rumble concept was done at a House show in St Louis on October 4th 1987 and by all accounts it was a disaster less than 2,000 fans watched as the one-man gang won a 12-man version of the match many in attendance were annoyed at the result not so much because a heel won but because the ending was accidentally spoiled the winner of the match was to face Hogan for the title A month later in the same building however during intermission the local MC announced to the crowd that Hogan would be fac facing gang in a title bout next month inadvertently telegraphing the rumble's finish that snafu was the least of the wwf's worries as the trial Rumble itself was apparently an ill-received mess on the whole in large part because Patterson wasn't in attendance to direct traffic in fact the only reason the rumble idea was Unearthed was due to the need to counter program bunk house stamped McMahon and Patterson met with NBC executive dick EOL who was helping them put the still on titled USA Network special together upon viewing the proposed card abisol expressed dissatisfaction feeling something was missing that's when as Patterson remembers it McMahon told him to lay out the rumble idea to abisol while McMahon still had his doubts about the rumble's feasibility in part due to the match's length Evol felt the opposite he believed it was the perfect spectacle for television due to the timed intervals he correctly believed that the lure was not the in ring action necessarily but the anticipation of who was going to enter next it was a match that refreshed itself every two minutes and abisol could imagine the crowd with the aid of a provided clock excitedly counting down to each ensuing entry largely due to evol's Vision as a veteran TV producer McMahon had Patterson get to work on bringing the modified Battle Royal to television on a night where Hogan and Andre signed the contract for their forthcoming rematch the jumping bomb Angels won the WWF women's Tag Team titles and Dino Bravo dubiously set a bench press record in an extremely dragged out segment the Royal Rumble was introduced to a national audience for the very first time this 20-man version of the match proved enjoyable as the likes of the Heart Foundation Jake Roberts Junkyard Dog and many many others tuck turns storming the ring for the frenzy brawl this time around gang was runner up as hacka Jim Dugen wisely low bridged the charging gargantuan over the ropes winning the match for himself in the greater picture the WWF itself was the big winner the whopping 8.2 TV rating assured the Royal Rumbles place as a WWF tent pole going forward specifically as a pay-per-view beginning in 1989 as for that 8.2 rating nice as it was a much more staggering number lay in the knot so distant future the Hulk Andre contract signing was for a title match to air on NBC on Friday Night February 5th Saturday night's Main Event remained a seasonal late night fixture on the network and with its success came an experimental prime time slot spinning off of the Saturday title the Friday special was simply dubbed the main event given the magnitude of the match nothing more hyperbolic was really needed the story had changed since WrestleMania 3 however Andre had new management in the form of DB OSI who purchased his contract for a million dollars from henan dboi had tried to buy the WWF title from Hogan but virtuous Hogan flatly refused Debo's Plan B was to have Andre act as the world's largest middleman beating Hogan before handing the title over to his new boss and it was a belt worth having the WWF had just changed World title designs introducing the so-termed winged Eagle Championship that would persist for the next decade oft considered the most popular version of the WWF title it was appr propo that the belt was established in time for the veritable rematch of the century indianapolis's Market Square Arena hosted the biggest wrestling match to ever air on free American television and that's not an attempt at mythmaking 33 million viewers tuned in that Friday night to witness history accounting for a 15.2 neelon rating both are records in televised us wrestling that have gone unchallenged in the decades since the referee of record for the match was Dave hebner a choice openly praised by heel announcer Jesse Ventura in story Andre and Heenan disputed the officiating of Joey murel at WrestleMania 3 contest that Andre had actually pinned Hogan early in the bout off the failed body slam attempt however they argued a purported shoddy counting job kept Hogan alive with hebner presiding and with dboi and Virgil standing pensively at ringside Hogan and Andre locked horns in the battle for the ages the match was better paced than their WrestleMania 3 encounter though Andre was still pretty limited late in the 99-minute bout Hogan slammed and leg dropped Andre just as he had a year earlier but that is where the parallel to Pontiac ended Virgil had distracted hebner allowing for Andre to rise up deliver two headbutts and then take Hogan over with that wonky looking underhook suplex Andre made the cover though Hogan got his shoulder up on one but hebner continued his count slapping the mat three times to unthinkably count the champion down the sights and sounds from here are Timeless Hogan's bugey disbelief and protestation Debo's jubilance Andre's exultant commentator McMahon's disgust an Indianapolis crowd reacting with a sustained murmur of shock Andre was announced by Howard finle as the new Champion though in almost no time at all Andre surrendered the belt to dboi per their business agreement the Million dooll Man with his face as red as the top rope laughed maniacally as the belt was was fastened around his waist the apparent New World Wrestling Federation Champion as the dust settled on the end of Hogan's 4-year 1,474 day reign as WWF Champion attention turned to Dave hebner and his errant counting specifically attention turned to the fact that there were two Dave hepners standing in the ring in a storyline twist almost too Fantastical for even a daytime soap the heels had inspired to apparently take an ordinary man and have him undergo plastic surgery to look like Dave hebner this way the corrupt doppelganger could covertly sub into the title match and screw Hogan over with no one the wiser of course the impostor was Dave's real life twin brother Earl who had just signed with the WWF leaving Crockett following bunk house Stampede less than 2 weeks earlier an Irate Hogan then welcomed o to the WWF by launching him into the way where the heel contingent was supposed to break his fall key wordss there being supposed to a week after all this transpired president Jack Tony held up the WWF title ruling that the Andre to dbsi transaction was invalid in essence Andre forfeited the belt thereby vacating it as a historical footnote though in the narrow window between Andre's win and the tuny ruling dboi actually defended the WWE F title at a house show in Los Angeles against Bigalow giving him some claim to being a former WWF Champion but alas the belt was now vacant and a new Champion would be crowned at WrestleMania 4 in Atlantic City via a one- night 14-man elimination tournament by virtue of their statuses as the two most recent Champions Hulk and Andre received buys into the quarterfinal round where they would have to face each other as for who would win that tournament well that was apparently determined in part by the other match that aired as part of the main event for the second time in 3 months on NBC Randy Savage fell short in his quest to regain the IC title from The Honky Tonk Man Savage won orbe it via count out the original design was for Savage to regain the title however honky wasn't thrilled by the plans for the match per the booking Savage would mop the floor with honky in one-sided fashion before gaining the title making for a cathartic end to honky's fluke of a Title reign while honky claims he'd have no problem going along with that plan under most circumstances his issue was the size of the audience figuring the Prime Time NBC airing was going to be widely viewed he felt that getting so thoroughly demolished in front of tens of millions of people would kill off his character for good and in an era where kayfabe still reigned to a degree this was an important consideration honky he also had leverage he wasn't under WWF contract but rather a handshake deal he could just as easily have jumped to Crockett's group with the Intercontinental title if he really wanted to burn a bridge and in fact honky did reach out to JCP officials who advised him that if they were going to do business to not lose to Savage in that sort of route to pacify the reigning Champion the WWF pivoted into the count out finish thereby preserving honky's Title reign for the foreseeable future this left Savage without a title win but not for long when the brackets were configured for the Wrestlemania 4 Tournament they were done in such a way to set up a Hogan dboi final where as many sources have indicated the Million dooll Man Would Have Cheated his way to the championship the way the brackets were configured the six first round matches went from top to bottom Jake Roberts versus Rick Roode Don Morocco versus Dino Bravo Ricky Steamboat versus ver Greg Valentine Randy Savage versus Butch Reed bamb bam Bigalow versus onean gang and Jim Dugen versus Ted dboi these were the brackets as originally presented on WWF television in mid-February and the setup accommodated a Hogan dboi final shortly thereafter however without any explanation on TV the Jake Roode and dbsi Dugen matches were simply switched around this meant that if dbsi were to face Hulk did have to come in the semifinals the new plan was to put Savage over and it made sense the WWF didn't want two heel singles Champions and decided it would be best to have a strong baby face holding at least one of the belts it wasn't going to be Hogan who was taking a wrestling sabatical during the spring and summer months with daughter Brooke on the way and a film vehicle set to begin production Hogan was stepping away from the ring for a while and after carrying the WWF to unprecedented Heights over the previous four years as its star attraction it was an earned break exhausting as being Hulk Hogan probably was it's arguable that sitting through WrestleMania 4 was even more draining the 16 match card featured only two bouts that went past the 10minute mark but it wasn't the most iting of Super Cards thankfully fans looking to save a bit of money had an alternative following the wwf's counterprogramming of starcade and bunk house Stampede Crockett handed out a receipt by booking the first ever Clash of the Champions on the same day live on TBS the action-packed card was capped by NWA Champion flare going to an epic 45 minute draw with 29-year-old ex bodybuilder Steve bordon professional name sting for sting a world champion of Future Days this marked his breakout performance as ring General Flair showed the musclebound face painted Enigma to be a worthy Contender The Clash did a 5.8 rating on TBS and critics lorded the card as being Superior to a sluggish WrestleMania 4 but there was no stopping the WWF machine as Mania accounted for a new record 485,000 pay-per-view buys and $1.4 million at the gate at Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall which was build on TV As Trump Plaza due to a certain future US president buying the naming rights and if anyone watching The Clash was disappointed over another Babyface Challenger falling short WrestleMania at least managed to stick its Landing in non-tournament action demolition won the World Tag Team titles from Strike Force while Hony once more safeguarded his IC title through fluky means retaining over Brutus beef cake former Olympic judoka and top Stampede heel bad news Brown won a 20-minute Battle Royal after double crossing fellow heel Bret Hart only for an angry Hitman to destroy Brown's giant trophy after the match an ascending Ultimate Warrior won an exhibition over Hercules while the British bulldogs and Coco beware lost to the Islanders and Bobby Heenan who wore a reinforced dog trainers jumpsuit for the match this was part of an Le where Haku and Tama kidnapped the Bulldog's mascot Matilda for a time and a fearful Heen and wore the get up to avoid getting bitten by the vengeful Pooch naturally after the match the Bulldogs tried to sick Matilda on Heenan but all the dog would do was lazily hump him the brain claims that once he got backstage he told the assembled group don't worry about the payoff I already got screwed as for the tournament bouts it began with dboi beating dougen with Andre's help then Morocco getting a DQ win over Bravo Valentine Eed past Steamboat while Savage defeated Reed gang won over Bigalow via count out before Roode and Jake went to a teered 15minute draw in the quarters Hulk and Andre went to a double DQ fulfilling dboi and Andre's plan to eliminate Hogan by whatever means dboi then beat Morocco and Savage outlasted Valentine while gang got a buy in the lone semi-final Savage managed to defeat gang via DQ with Bob uker once again on hand as Master of Ceremonies and Wheel of Fortune's Vana White taking the timekeeper role Savage and dboi met in the historic final Andre interfered on dbs's behalf at every turn prompting Savage to ask Elizabeth to fetch Hogan Hulk proved to be the great equalizer in the end when dboi snared and exhausted Savage in the million dooll dream Andre prevented Savage from grabbing the top rope as the referee admonished Andre Hogan snuck into the ring with a steel chair and walloped dbsi across the spine Gathering his bearings Savage ascended the turnbuckles and then as flash bulbs flickered in strobe like fashion delivered his patented flying elbow to pin dboi and win the WWF title Hogan celebrated with the happy couple but it was Savage's turn to shine and with a new Babyface act to top the WWF for at least the next few months the world would get to see how professional wrestling would look without its most recognizable star Savage's Supporting Cast would become even more colorful over the days ahead as the WWF continued cleaning out the dying territories and their surviving Rivals late in the spring the Rockers returned to the WWF earning a second chance after their all too brief 1987 foray with demolition holding quarter's Champions the Babyface side of the fence was well stocked with Strike Force the Bulldogs the Rockers and a face turned Heart Foundation who now feuded with a heel turned rjo brothers and when Bret Hart wasn't teaming with his brother-in-law he was working some higher profile singles matches after an excellent Saturday night's Main Event bout in late 87 with Savage the Hitman was making a case for himself as a rising solo star another incoming Babyface Duo was the apocalyptic powers of pain the warlord and the Barbarian the two were introduced by Santana after demolition had injured Martell putting him out of action the powers were coming off of a feud in Crockett land with the Road Warriors so it only made sense for the WWF to program them against another Mad Max inspired combo these Thunder doers were all a lawless breed so a little Law and Order was necessary the big boss man arrived fresh off an all Japan run but made his bone States side as Big Bubba the terrifying bodyguard of Jim cornette and the Midnight Express for the role of Boss Man Ray trailer channeled his former life as a corrections officer dispensing subjective Justice onto his opponents particularly their skulls and their rib cages build at over 350b Bossman complemented heavy-handed strikes with stupefying agility for a man of his size speaking of freakish athletes that brings us to recent AWA world champion Kurt henck the son of Larry the ax henig received a promising turn in the form of Mr Perfect a champion athlete in every regard perfect was introduced to WWF audiences through vignettes in which he excelled at activities like bowling darts and golf perfectly demonstrating the finer points of each the smarminess shown by henig in these introdu trory videos was cheerfully over the top but not as over the top as the spring-loaded bumps he'd take off Babyface flurries an old urban legend claims that two unique gimmicks were to be given to henig and another incoming wrestler one would get to be Mr Perfect and the other would be the Red Rooster if that's true then poor Terry Taylor got the short end of the stick on that one the recent UWF and world class star became the rooster through strange means manager Bobby Heenan gave him the silly Monica to prove that he could take anyone to the top and their name was immaterial but when Taylor started losing matches on the regular Heenan disowned him to which Taylor defiantly kept the rooster name and adopted a haircut most foul from Red we go to Blue as 23-year-old Owen Hart arrived in the WWF taking on the role of masked Daredevil the blue blazer though the Blazer gimmick has become intertwined with Owen Legacy for very very unfortunate reasons the character allowed the junior heavyweight to stand out in an overly muscular Federation of the 80s giving Owens something that helped him stand out on a physical level besides all those Nifty flips and Dives of course with Savage leading the way the WWF remained prosperous and Powerful throughout mid1 1988 and the Macho Man proved to be a formidable draw a credible star in his own right but Hogan would of course be back before long and once he returned The Mega Powers would subtly kick off one of the most compelling Main Event angles in Federation history Hogan ended his several month sabatical on July 31st 1988 headlining the 15 match Wrestle Fest in front of nearly 26,000 fans at Milwaukee County Stadium Hogan defeated Andre in a steel cage finale while world champion Savage went on eighth defeating dboi in a 15-minute bout the overstuffed card took place 24 hours before Crockett brought his Great American bash tour into the city as the battle between the top American promotions continued raging though McMahon's WWF remained the superpower Crockett's group was getting lighter on resources losses from pay-per-view overspending and other woses had Jim Crockett promotions pointed toward an abyss in the spring of 1988 the cash strapped Crockett was looking to sell the deed before the house became unsalvageable by this time former Georgia stockholder and McMahon Confidant Jim Barnett was working for JCP having been pushed out of the WWF when Vince learned he still kept in touch with Crockett Barnett had brokered the 1985 sale of the TBS time slot from McMahon to Crockett and was about to help Jim Jr with another favorable deal he asked crocketts if he'd be interested in selling the promotion to the man that owned the station Ted Turner himself Turner's deeper pockets would all but ensure the livelihood of what was soon to be formerly known as Jim Crockett promotions however there was a major caveat that Turner insisted on in order to complete the purchase and it involved the reigning NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair had to be part of this Enterprise if Turner was going to assume ownership which sounds like a no-brainer he was the biggest star and most dynamic performer on Crockett's team plus he had the belt and everything in 1988 however Flair came very close to making a jump that would have drastically altered professional wrestling history as we all know it the Crockett power structure had become divided Jim and Dusty roads took one side while Jim's siblings including announcer David and cameraman Jackie were OPP opposed to how extravagantly things were being run also at odds with Jim Crockett Jr were Flair's fellow Horsemen an Anderson and Tully Blanchard the two felt they'd been underpaid for far too long despite all the heavy lifting they'd done for the organization by the end of summer Anderson and Blanchard dropped the NWA World Tag Team titles to the Midnight Express before starting with the WWF a month later as the brain Busters managed by Heenan as for flare when word reached McMahon that Anderson and Blanchard were having a spat with Crockett the WWF hon show contacted the Nature Boy straight up asking him if he wanted to come to New York literally New York while the offer was being mold over a tentative plan was in place for Flair to make his debut in August at Madison Square Garden as part of the wwf's latest pay-per-view offering for the NWA world champion to jump to the WWF while the alliance's strongest surviv iing territory appeared to be withering to an inevitable death it would have given McMahon the Checkmate he'd sought for some 5 years he'd have total control of the board but Flair had doubts yes his relationships with Crockett and Dusty were agonizingly strained and sure an and Tully were headed out of the door but Flair also felt Duty bound to the National wrestling Alliance as its Champion Harley Race spurned a generous offer from Vince to screw the NWA over 5 years earlier and Flair found himself in a similar spot not wanting to let down the people who were counting on him and as mentioned Flair had to be on board as a condition of Turner's purchase if Flair left there'd be no sale and so many of Flair's longtime friends and colleagues would all be out of work the target date for the intended WWF debut came and went with Flair still carrying the Crockett flag that Autumn it became the Turner flag on October 11th world championship wrestling was formed as the catchall group for the JCP Acquisitions come November 2nd the sale was finalized and World Champion flare now worked for billionaire Ted Flair would later Express regret for not leaving at the time as he wrote out of some kind of misguided loyalty I missed an opportunity to go to the World Wrestling Federation regarding that New York card that flared would have debuted at it just so happened to Mark the completion of what we know today as the big four Summer Slam premiered from the gardens hallowed Halls on Monday August 29th 1988 a capacity crowd of 20,000 were on hand to witness what would become a necessary link between the all important WrestleMania and the much more chill Survivor series and as was the case with Survivor series and the rumble summerslam's creation was another thumb to an already ailen Crockett's eye McMahon had drawn up a deal for the pay-per-view providers that gave him an exclusivity window meaning nobody could run a wrestling pay-per-view 30 days before or after one of his events this meant that with SummerSlam on the books a planned JCP pay-per-view for September got shelved entirely the first SummerSlam was mostly a breezy Affair an assortment of lower impact matches instead of definitive blow offs feuds like the Heart Foundation versus The Fabulous rjo brothers and Jake Roberts versus Rick Roode were assu in favor of putting these men into different matches though Roberts did attack Ravishing Rick during his bout with the Junkyard Dog for the most part SummerSlam 88 wasn't especially historic had Flair debuted as the hyped up mystery guest on the brother love show instead of the Lesser payoff of Hacksaw trying to beat Brother Bruce up perhaps the first SummerSlam is remembered as something far greater than something akin to an ambitious episode of prime time wrestling though there is one notable exception the most important occurrence came five bouts deep into the 10 match card IC Champion The Honky Tonk Man had reached day 454 as title holder and was slated to face Brutus Beefcake once more however Ron Bass viciously attacked beef cake on that weekend's syndicated programming causing the barber to have to bow out through his cornfed grin a matchless honky cheerfully demanded that someone anyone come out for a face off right there and then after all every conceivable threat already had a match for that night right wrong those Famous Last Words gave way to the aggressive strains of one of composer Jim Johnston's best concoctions The Familiar music an excited crowd response heralded the arrival of the frenetic un containable Ultimate Warrior less than 30 seconds later Warrior completed the unexpected squash in more than one sense honky didn't even get out of his jumpsuit as Warrior clothes lined and splashed him into Oblivion ending the Eternal ostensibly misbegotten reign with Nara smudge in his war paint throughout 1988 the warrior was built up as the next great Babyface Idol though greatly Limited in ring and speaking in riddles that would give any cryptologist a migraine Warrior had an obvious magnetism he kicked people's asses and he didn't take long doing it something that impressionable youths in the audience just caught on to to the young fan base this Warrior was destined to reach the same plane of greatness as Hogan and Savage who shared co-headline duty at this SummerSlam the reunited Mega Powers matched up against the mega buck dbsi and Andre's derivatively named team a possibly on the take Jesse Ventura was slaughtered in as guest referee but Hogan and Savage had a greater weapon at their disposal late in the match as the heels pushed the powers to the brink the Peaceable Miss Elizabeth saved the day with her men in Peril Elizabeth stepped up to the apron and removed her skirt now compared to the skin bearing of the Attitude Era Elizabeth's Act was a little more modest but nonetheless made for a memorable finish Savage and Hogan fired back on the understandably distracted heels and Hogan pinned dboi following an atomic leg drop summerslam's 400,000 pay-per-view buys were equal to what WrestleMania 3 did a year and a half earlier and in a reasonable ballpark to Mania 4 as a secondary card SummerSlam seemed to have lasting power while the card wasn't anything too special the big IC title change and the memorable ending Justified the first summerslam's existence speaking of that memor able ending a little bit of subtle storytelling was employed during the baby fa's celebration Savage Hogan and Elizabeth were mostly all smiles until Hogan jubilantly lifted Elizabeth the cause of their Victory onto his shoulder the physicality and disputable hand placement caused the Macho Man to give his tag team partner the side eye silently questioning the innocence of Hogan's apparent good cheer alas the moment passed and SummerSlam ended with positive vibes the angle with Elizabeth both the skirt removal and Hogan's celebration came at a time when the earth while kidfriendly WWF was pushing the envelope a bit with their content the aforementioned angle where beef cake was attacked by bass was actually pretty Brutal by WWF standards of the time instead of just battering beef Cake The Outlaw took his trusty Spurs and gouged them into brutus's forehead drawing blood for 1988 WWF this was pretty crazy even crazier was the angle involving rude and Roberts that aired post SummerSlam ever the womanizer rude liked to invite female fans into the ring for a postmatch rude awakening weakening their knees with a ravishing Embrace however during the Spring one female spectator spurned rude's invitation with a calm smile she then informed the embarrassed ravishing one that she was Cheryl Roberts the wife of J the snake further fueling the humiliation Roode and Roberts feuded throughout the months ahead leading to Rude crossing the line in a rather creative manner during his SummerSlam match with jyd rude pulled his airbrushed trunks down revealing a second pair underneath this pair had Cheryl's face drawn on the crotch and backside causing Jake to hit the ring in a blind rage Roode pulled the same stunt on the September 10th episode of superstars once more drawing Jake toward the ring only this time instead of Simply beating rude up Roberts ripped off the tights entirely apparently exposing rude to the arena crowd in actuality rude had flesh colored underwear on but the blacked out blurring on TV gave home viewers the impression that rud's unmentionables had been bed that also wasn't Jake's only questionable angle after finishing up with rude Robert spun off into a rivalry with Andre here we learned that Andre was deathly afraid of snakes something hammered home by Andre clutching his chest and having an apparent heart attack when Jake threw Damian at him on one broadcast there was also the storyline in which dboi bought the contract of Hercules from henan with the stated intention of making Hercules his literal slave which Hercules as you can imagine didn't take too kindly to and as for the angle in which the oneman gang became AEM discovering his supposed African Roots during a tribal ceremony well it's on YouTube look it up at least you get to hear Jive Soul bro I suppose these edgier angles came during a year of change for the WWF The Federation remained the most powerful wrestling entity in the United States by a wide margin still adhering to those loose tenets of its flexible Sports entertainment Playbook however the Old Guard was getting phased out former Hogan Challengers Paul aorf and King Kong Bundy left the WWF in January color commentator Bruno samartino departed in March becoming a bitter public critic of what he felt had become a sleazy drug infested WWF Butch Reed finished up after WrestleMania 4 ditto Ricky Steamboat who one year earlier looked poised to Reign longterm as Intercontinental Champion 50ish George steel wound down his time in midcard novelty and ceased wrestling for the WWF in August and by November's Survivor Series Don Morocco the Junkyard Dog and the Killer Bees had all departed though Jim bronzelle did work the pay-per-view without Brian Blair Harley Race who suffered a nasty intestinal injury as a result of falling on a table during a match with Hogan that year finished up after the 1989 Royal Rumble Superstar Billy Graham never really fulfilled that promised big comeback leaving his commentary post earlier in 1989 and as BR Hart later wrote the old school boys who prided themselves on realistic matches had all but been eradicated Sports entertainment was the order of the day at Wrestlemania 1 but so much had changed since 3 and 1/2 years later only six of the 22 individuals who competed on that all important card were still actively wrestling for the WWF The Warriors and boss man rockers and perfect dbos and a themes and so many more helped front the Embrace of technocolor excess a new shade of gaudiness in the post Rock and wrestling world new body guys replaced the old body guys seemingly bigger than ever literal snakes bulldogs and birds helped fill out the WWF family while a neon explosion colored in every drab Gap in the portrait if it seemed like agreeable reality was escaping the WWF checklist then that's because Vince and Company were deciding what reality was and in this reality you couldn't have too much character the 80s were all about big and though the decade was winding down the surplus of big in the World Wrestling Federation was only ramping up call it dysmorphia call it greed call it oblivious call it what you will but in the WWF size was still clearly King and that obsession with size would lead the WWF down a very dark Road the old saying is that what goes up must come down it's an inevitability over the preceding 5 years the World Wrestling Federation had soared to ionospheric Heights reaching above and beyond what was once even fathomable for a squared Circle Empire as it outgrew its Northeastern Thom many times over along the way the WWF rewrote the rules on what a wrestling organization could and should do to attract an audience while the Federation carved out new and exciting niches territorial stalwarts withered to empty shells unable to change with the times and where their ruins lay the WWF had long before then set up shop usually to strong Returns the fall always follows the rise though post Rock and wrestling WWF was still tunneling new ceilings for itself the fall was going to have to wait this WWF had become a mainstream Powerhouse a household name and late 1988 was a time in which established 80s powerhouses continued their tensile flexers the Los Angeles Dodgers won their second World Series in the decade powered literally by an inspirational home run off the bat of an injured Kirk Gibson Michael Myers was back for more Mayhem helping the fourth Halloween installment reach number one at the box office guns and roses's year old Appetite for Destruction spawned another chart topping single in Sweet Child of Mine incumbency extended to Politics As Americans voted for a third consecutive Republican term preferring Vice President George HW Bush over Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis by a comfortable margin Ronald Reagan may have been moving out of the white house but the ideals would remain the same there was a clear parallel to the almighty WWF here as while a viable upstart Savage may have replaced the popular incumbent Champion Hogan their industrial dominance remained total the television output was unlike anything seen before in wrestling two cable programs several syndicated weekend shows and five or six highly anticipated NBC specials per year gave the WWF a stronghold in every nook and cranny in the United States that's not even counting the now established big four pay-per-view events of the Royal Rumble WrestleMania SummerSlam and Survivor series and if those Titanic cards weren't enough the bigger us markets were also afforded near monthly Super Cards on their local premium sports channels the MSG Network had long been broadcasting the wwf's monthly New York cards while Boston's nesson and Philadelphia's prism beamed out events from the Boston Garden and the Spectrum respective ly in the summer of 1988 Los Angeles got in on the action as LA Sports Arena cards were aired live on The Eclectic Z channel the events may have been glorified House shows but in an era where pay-per-view hadn't yet become saturated getting bonus supercards exclusive to your home region was kind of neat by the summer of 1989 the WWF ceased the live broadcasts of their Philly Boston and La events while New York stayed in the TV rotation even with jettisoning the former three cities the wwf's television Onslaught remained Fierce the few opposing ORS that remained had nowhere near the Firepower Ted Turner's world championship wrestling was starting to find its footing after the completion of the Crocket sale but at least money wasn't going to be an issue going forward meanwhile the AWA memphis's CWA and Dallas's world class pulled their resources into a pay-per-view that December entitled aw UA super Clash [Music] 3 less than 1,700 fans filed into Chicago's UIC Pavilion to witness an event that rated mediocre at best and complete Amateur hour at worst really the behind the-scenes Shenanigans leading up to superclash were more fascinating than the event itself the numerous disagreements between promoters over every little detail M an already tenuous looking card and Vince McMahon later went on to charge that the clashing showrunners couldn't agree on ordering a cup of coffee together let alone share One Vision on producing a wrestling super card and even then McMahon decided to gum up the works of superclash in his own Vince likee way the all important match at superclash was a unification bout pitting a champion Jerry The King Lawler against world class title holder Carrie von Eric among the wrestling fraternity it was an Open Secret that von Eric had lost his right foot after a 1986 motorcycle accident and that he'd been wrestling with a prosthetic ever since as it turned out there was an obscure Illinois State athletic commission rule that barred wrestlers with artificial limbs from performing wary of this edict McMahon reportedly contacted the commission to alert them about planned headline of Von Eric's predicament seeking to sabotage the unification bout after much to do about a hearing the commission simply granted an exception for von Eric allowing super Clash 3 to go on as intended fortunately for Vince and unfortunately for the promoters behind the event super Clash 3 went on as intended though Lola versus von Eric was pretty good outside of the BS blood stoppage meanwhile McMahon had his own pay-per-view to attend to the second annual Survivor Series held in the same Richfield Coliseum where the celebrated 1987 card took place whereas superclash was a giant series of calamities the only real concern McMahon may have had centered on an issue between two individuals that were on opposite teams in one of the matches a jarring incident had occurred at the October 6th TV tapings in Toledo Ohio in an attack backstage jacqu cruo of the fabulous rjo Brothers violently jumped Dynamite Kid of the British bulldogs punching him out with a of quarters concealed in his fist the beating left Dynamite bloody and knocked out several of his front teeth the fight stemmed from a series of events that apparently began with Mr Perfect covertly pulling a somewhat benign rib on the ruo's and jacqu believed that the Bulldogs who had a serious reputation as bullies and pranksters had to be the ones responsible perfect told Dynamite that jacqu was planning to rat them out for something they hadn't even done so Dynamite found Jac in the locker room and beat him him up in front of several of their peers jacqu swore revenge and got it in the form of the hallway sneak attack in Toledo with brother Raymond on hand to back him up to make matters more awkward jacqu and dynamite were due to be on opposite sides of a 2man elimination match at Survivor Series given Dynamite's reputation as a callous brute there were legitimate concerns about what he might do to pay jacqu back to remedy the situation McMahon held a summit with the rjo and Bulldogs less than 10 days out from Survivor Series Vince demanded peace between the sides and reportedly threatened to withhold Dynamite's royalties and event payouts if he was to retaliate begrudgingly Dynamite complied the way their Survivor Series match was structured the rjos were the first team eliminated about 5 minutes into the bout the Bulldogs would carry on past the 35-minute mark meaning jacqu and Raymond could pack up and get out a Dodge before the bulldog dogs came back through the curtain for Dynamite's part he even worked a few spots with the Ros early in the bout to satisfy Vince it ended up being Dynamite kid's last match with the WWF as he and Davey Boy Smith had given their notice Bret Hart later wrote of his ex- brother-in-law those of us who really knew him realized that getting his teeth punched out was the beginning of the end for him numbers were down for the 1988 Survivor series with only 13,500 fans filing into the Richfield Coliseum on Thanksgiving night while year-over-year buys fell slightly from 325,000 to 310,000 but for those who did witness the event they got a card similar to 1987's in terms of fast-paced action and considerable developments the powers of pain and demolition carried out a somewhat confusing double turn during the 20-man match as Mr Fuji double crossed ax and smash late in the bout prompting the tag team Champions to leave their now ex-manager laying warlord and Barbarian helped Fuji up shortly before winning the match at which point the crowd noticeably cheered when the celebrating Powers lifted Fuji onto their shoulders fortunately TV over the uing weeks clarified the alignments of both squads less ambiguous was Randy Savage's manifesting distrust of Hulk Hogan the two had to fight back from three on two against Big Boss Man AE and and it was made more daunting by the fact that boss man had handcuffed Hogan to the ropes Savage took a beating but continued surviving before a freed up Hogan managed to save the day as was the case at SummerSlam Savage emoted clear skepticism as Hulk got a little too close to Miss Elizabeth during the postmatch celebration from his commentary perch Jesse Ventura pointed this out sprinkling a few more drops of kerosene into what was still a manageable flame but for how long would it stay manageable while Survivor Series business took a dip from the previous year WrestleMania 5 wasn't likely resigned to the same fate the designs were far too ambitious to not capture the Public's [Music] attention On The Road to WrestleMania the traveling WWF circus picked up a few more colorful vagabonds for two decades New Zealand's Luke Williams and Butch Miller tore through countless territories as uncouth Brawlers wrestling as the kiwis and the sheep herders in recent years the sheep herders had earned critical Acclaim for their violent brawls with good-looking Babyface Duo the Fantastics in both the UWF and crocketts group so it was a bit of a curious idea to bring in 40s something's Williams and Miller and recast them as Oddball Good Guys henceforth known as The Bushwhackers the two dropped the surnames to become simply Luke and Butch while Miller claimed to have initially opposed the idea The Bushwackers became an unlikely Legacy Act of sorts for the WWF as their good-natured grimness and playful barbarism extended their shelf life as talents like the sheep herders Ron garin's in ring style was predicated on grizzled toughness and not so latent sadism though when the former NWA world's champion came to the WWF in late 1988 he was still the same Gavin that chopped his opponent's 50 shades of red he did take on the shower handle of rugged Ronnie Garin but really he remained the same orary battler one had seen elsewhere former UWF and NWA National tag team champion Tim Herer debuted around the same time though didn't share the same upward Mobility as The Bushwhackers and Garin despite possessing decent athleticism herner never caught on with the WWF audience and quit the company a year later due to disputes with management someone who did get a sizable push was a returning Big John Stud after 2 years away once a towering Cornerstone of the Heenan family stud was now opposed to former manager Bobby Heenan spurning the brains attempt at a reunion this had the consequence of setting stud opposite old rival Andre the Giant with their customary alignments changed unfortunately as time would tell the magic of their earlier Feud just wasn't there earlier in 1989 the WWF made two major Acquisitions from WCW though neither of them was going to lace up a pair of boots to bolster the commentary team the WWF signed Tony Shani in the months ahead shobani called Regional events with Lord Alfred Hayes did wrestling challenge with Guerilla mon soon and even called a couple of pay-per-views Shian only lasted a year in the WWF however opting to leave due to the high cost of living in Connecticut the other signing lasted far longer than a year four horseman manager JJ Dylan made the move to the WWF taking on a key job in Talent relations not only did Dylan's business Acumen help lighten the load of his bosses that were managing three touring troops and a Litany of broadcasting outputs but Dylan had Plum connections within WCW if anyone could help acquire a valuable star from Turner's Empire it was Dylan perhaps the most celebrated of all the debuts wasn't a human being but a pricey prop Ted dboi was mythed that he couldn't win or buy the WWF Championship so he decided to create his own vanity belt dbsi starred in several weeks worth of vignettes where he visited Connecticut Jeweler Terry Betteridge during the commission of this all important project in the final vignette dboi was stupified when he saw the finished product the million Championship three cubic zconia dollar signs fronted the center plate while the actual belt was comprised of goldplated dollar signs the belt wasn't actually worth the million dollars it supposedly cost but that hardly mattered years later dboi said you talk about A Conversation Piece everybody wants to take a picture with the million dooll belt and me the million dooll belt made me more money than the WWF title ever would have and speaking of making money the WWF sought a way to save a few bucks to do so they had to be frank about what they were in February of 1989 the WWF argued before New Jersey state senate that professional wrestling was an entertainment product and not legitimate sport the goal was to get wrestling deregulated in the state of New Jersey in order to remove oversight from the state's athletic commission the commonly held belief is that athletic commissions provided unnecessary bureaucracy in their oversight of wrestling events making corrupt demands and levying Superfluous taxes if deregulation was achieved the WWF would seek to remove overbearing roadblocks in other states as well with a new precedent being set the wwf's Revelation that what they did was Showbiz was hardly a revelation at all but it did fly in the face of protecting the business the long-held Edict of rebuking any notion that wrestling is at all staged and now here was the largest of all the wrestling companies pulling the curon back with one brisk tug ultimately at the time the bill didn't pass the WWF went on to hold two pay-per-views in the state of New Jersey in 1989 and they turned out to be the federation's last televised events in the Garden State until 1997 when then Jersey governor Christine Witman pushed through a bill to endstate regulation of pro wrestling one of those 1989 cards was WrestleMania 5 running it back at Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall a planned 14 match card would end with Hogan regaining the WWF title from Savage at the conclusion of a heated battle but first they had to split [Music] further dissension was teased at the 1989 Royal Rumble in Houston when in the midst of his 10 eliminations Hogan threw out bad news Brown who himself had Savage teetering over the ropes the Macho Man went out as well and immediately returned to the the ring to register his anger toward Hulk Miss Elizabeth quickly helped restore peace between the combustible heavyweights but a split only seemed more inevitable as for the event itself the first pay-per-view incarnation of the Royal Rumble did disappointing numbers drawing a mere 165,000 buys about half of what Survivor series did 2 months earlier no stated prize for the Rumble winner and an unin inspired undercard may have played a role in the poua metrics the event itself was pretty average with 19,000 fans witnessing Rick Roode jumping the Ultimate Warrior during a pose off to set up a WrestleMania Showdown and stud winning the titula battle after anticlimactically eliminating dboi who himself had deviously purchased the number 30 spot from fellow heels slick the event also marked the last nationally televised WWF women's title match for nearly 5 years as Champion Rockin Robin defeated Judy Martin Robin won the title from Sensational Sherry the prior Autumn but women's wrestling in the WWF was clearly on life support the most prominently featured woman in the WWF remained Elizabeth whose ringside presence would inadvertently prove to be the final nail in the mega poers is coughing on February 3rd for the second year in a row NBC aired a live Friday night broadcast of the main event and like the 1988 broadcast the table for wrestlemania's main course would be set coming out of the prime time special a reported 20,000 fans filled Milwaukee's Bradley Center while a shade under 20 million TV viewers witnessed as Hogan and Savage teamed up to take on Boss Man and AEM in the early going AEM threw Savage to ringside where the Macho Man landed with a thud on top of Elizabeth in a pretty wild Visual and this prompted an upset Hogan to run over to Aid his friends a dazed Savage was at least moving while Elizabeth was motionless when Savage regained his vertical base he turned and saw Hogan kneeling over Elizabeth's body upon which Macho's body land language grew more tense and unsteady before Savage could intervene however AE dragged him back into the ring leaving a distraught Hogan to pick Elizabeth up and rush her to the first aid room Savage endured a two-on-one beating at the hands of the Twin Towers while Hogan remained at Elizabeth's side far away from The Ring thankfully Elizabeth came too allowing a relieved Hogan to run back to the the ring and save his bestest friend in the whole wide world and then with Hogan back in his place on the apron it happened Savage while making the overdue tag smacked Hogan across the face before deserting him in a furious Huff the Macho Man stormed back up the aisle while a bewildered Hogan managed to Vanquish the heels pinning AEM following a leg drop an ie great Hogan then bolted to the dressing room in search of Savage and found him beside the recuperating Elizabeth openly burying Hogan when the hulkster confronted him Savage flew into an alltime angry rant spitting venomously about Hogan's cowardice his diminishing star and the fact that he had lost in his eyes for Elizabeth he told Hogan that he couldn't even come at him like a man and challenge for the title when Hogan appealed to Elizabeth to try and talk some sense into Savage the pacing WWF champ turned back and smashed Hogan in the head with the belt sprawling him out on the carpet a pained Elizabeth put herself on top of Hogan to try and shield him from Savage's ongoing Fury only for the Macho Man to forcibly throw her off of Hulk only after further intervention from Brutus beef cake and a hoorde of WWF officials was Savage finally separated from Hogan Macho Man Randy Savage versus Hulk Hogan for the WWF Championship was set to headline WrestleMania 5 subtitled The Mega Powers Explode Miss Elizabeth later declared impartiality choosing to stand in a neutral corner for the match to further build the heated Showdown on Monday February 20th the WWF ran a special 3-hour edition of prime time wrestling called face to face that conveniently went face to face with wcw's shy Town Rumble pay-per-view the hook was a series of debat likee interviews between the participants in WrestleMania 5's biggest matches Savage and Hogan of course were the main course in this evening of contentious talking points Savage immediately became the wwf's strongest villain since the prime of Rod Piper at scheduled House show outings against fellow heel bad news Brown whom Savage entered into a side Feud with back when he was a baby face some crowds actually cheered for unquestioned heel bad news it didn't really matter who the opponent was a lot of people just wanted to see Savage get his ass kicked WrestleMania 5 seemed to be the safest bet for that to happen as Hogan versus Savage sat a top a fairly intriguing card elsewhere in the April 2 lineup Warrior and rude would battle over the Intercontinental title while Tag Team Champions demolition would defend their belts in a handicap match against the powers of pain and former manager Mr Fuji a concession that had give the heels a man advantage while allowing ax and smash a chance to beat up the turn coat in a match setting Jake Roberts and Andre the Giant were set to settle L mon long Feud while the Red Rooster looked to get revenge on former manager Bobby Heenan in an angle that introduced repackaged enhancement Talent Steve Lombardi as the Brooklyn Brawler most of the other nine matches didn't have much in the way of long storyline build but that was just WrestleMania in those days four to six Grudge matches and the rest of it one of a kind bouts featuring the remainder of the bigger names and aside from Hogan Savage the most acrimonious bout of the day was actually WWF versus WCW as had been the case one year earlier WCW once more counter programmed WrestleMania with a clash of the Champions special on TBS originally Ted Turner was going to put a pay-per-view called wrestle War up against WrestleMania 5 and may have had more sway among cable companies due to you know being Ted Turner how however he opted to host wrestle War the following month instead going with the free Clash broadcast as resistance the WWF won the night however as not only did Clash draw amly 5,300 people to the massive super doome in New Orleans but WrestleMania 5 did a claimed 767,000 buys which would have been the most for any wrestling pay-per-view to that point and a record that stood unchallenged for almost 10 years after the fact to rub further salt in the wound the WWF managed to get a commercial onto wcw's broadcast promoting a 900 number that one could call to obtain Wrestlemania results maybe Turner should have taken his chances on that wrestle War pay-per-view close to 19,000 fans paid a then record $1.7 million to fill out board walk hall for what turned out to be a rather lowkey Mania save for the designated Thrills the undercard was mostly action-packed early on Hercules beat king Haku the Twin Towers pummeled the supposedly hungover rockers Brutus beef cake fought Ted dboi to a double count Out The Bushwhackers defeated the rjo and Mr Perfect vanquished the blue blazer following a Run DMC performance demolition retained their belts by well demolishing Fuji adino Bravo victory over Ronnie Garin was more notable for Superfly Jimmy snooker making a random walk on Cameo that served as his Federation comeback after 4 years and the Brain Busters then defeated Strike Force after Rick Martell walked out on Tito Santana following a miscommunication spot Roberts defeated Andre by disqualification after the giant attacked guest referee stud Andre was meant to P it off into that rekindled rivalry while Roberts was set to Feud with DB OSI who interfered late in the match then the Heart Foundation beat Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine in the 11th match Roode upset the warrior to win the Intercontinental title after Bobby Heenan tripped Warrior on a suplex attempt and held his foot down post match Warrior beat Heenan up and dropped him very awkwardly off of a gorilla press bad news Brown and Jim Dugen then fought to a double DQ while a dinged up Heenan went on to lose to the rooster in about 30 seconds but looking to the main event Savage was the aggressor though Jesse Ventura could have been termed co- aggressor generally biased as a heel announcer Ventura went Above and Beyond on this night verbally assailing Hogan during the match with double barreled Gusto calling him a chump somewhere between 11 and 58 times Savage alternated between hiding behind the neutral Elizabeth and attacking a wound he'd opened on Hogan's head ironically Savage had a legitimate wound of his own he wrestled with a large white bandage on his arm due to a gnarly staff infection in his elbow caused by a ruptured burer sack despite being less than 100% Savage gave a virtuoso performance he took a pretty pretty crazy bump from The Ring to the floor off of a Hogan charging slam and flew around the ring with his usual abulance in the end Savage delivered his patented flying elbow but Hogan hulked up on two from there the Challenger completed his time honored Superman comeback pinning Savage after dropping the big leg after 371 days the Macho Man's Reign had ended Hulk Hogan was once more situated at the top of the WWF beginning his second reign in Grand fashion a mostly agreeable WrestleMania 5 concluded with the restoration of the status quo returning the WWF to the pecking order established during its mid 80s growth period And by sheer coincidence Hulk's greatest rival from that period had just returned to the fold one of the stranger sites at Wrestlemania five involved the return of Rowdy Roddy Piper 2 years after his reputed Farewell match against the now late Adrien Adonis his return appearance held true to that prior billing Piper didn't compete in a match at WrestleMania 5 but rather in an awkward prolonged war of words with resident antagonist brother love who was doing a piper impression and talk show bloard of the day Morton Downey Jr after the hot rod ran brother love off the bit eventually culminated with Piper spraying chainsm smoking Downey with the contents of a fire extinguisher away from The Ring Piper had found notable film roles in particular the lead in John Carpenter's 1988 cult classic they live playing the role of a valorous yet cynical Drifter Piper discovers through the aid of magical sunglasses that Society is governed by humanoid alien that dictate The public's choices through subliminal messaging iconic moments from they live include an ambitious fight sequence between Piper and actor David Keith and a gun wielding Piper ad libbing the line I've come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass and I'm all out of bubble gum originally the appearance at WrestleMania was just a oneoff an added attraction involving a former star but soon Piper open negotiations with both the WWF and WCW and reportedly leveraged a WCW offer into getting a more favorable deal back with Vince by May Piper was Dawning the tights once more wrestling dboi at House shows in California and western Canada Piper's renewed availability proved convenient as he was a substitute for Jake Roberts who had just been arrested and charged with punching out a bar Patron after after a Daytona Beach TV taping the prior December Roberts's Feud with dboi was put on hold and Jake the Snake was written out with a neck injury inflicted by the Million dooll Man ultimately Roberts was sentenced to 10 years probation a judgment that was later thrown out when an appet Court ruled that Roberts's Council was incompetent known in judiciary circles as the liony Huts rule speaking of dbrc he was one of several WWF Stars making a mark in the Video Game World WWF superstars from technos Japan hit arcades that may in which dbsi and Andre were cast as the boss team that you reached via the usual beat everybody else in the game format Superstars was colorful fun and well received but the same could not be said for wwf's first Fay onto the Nintendo Entertainment System the game game simply titled WrestleMania was published by a claim granted the NES was more limited than arcade technology but WrestleMania felt about as primitive as pong by comparison it's hard to say what was more jarring with it the inclusion of Bam Bam Bigalow more than 6 months after he left the scant interface or the fact that Hogan could regain energy by collecting crosses that scrolled through the ring neither Mr Perfect nor Bret Hart starred in either game instead they starred on the house show circuit pushing each other to the brink in slick fast-paced battles that showcased each man's precision and Technical prowess the two usually battled to a time limit draw demonstrating parity some of the bouts would make it onto Regional WWF broadcasts but in the eyes of perfect and the Hitman their greatest shared outing came that August at the the wwf's first ever card in Alaska a crowd of 8,000 in Anchorage witnessed what both men believe was their finest bout and it's one of those times where you truly wish someone had bootleg footage a wrestler not setting the world on fire was stud despite being booked to win the 1989 Rumble it was apparent that stud had lost more than a step in his two years away matches with Andre and AE at House shows were dismal Affairs and the renewed stud Andre rivalry did nothing for business by early June low payoffs irritated stud to the point where he quit the WWF all together also gone was the WWF women's title the division had basically whittled down to Champion Rock and Robin and routine Challenger Judy Martin after former champ Sensational Sherry aligned with Savage to for for a rather inspired heel Duo after Robin retained the gold over Martin at a house show in late June the belt and the division vanished all together for all this talk about House shows perhaps the wwf's most unique live event occurred on Saturday May 6th one of the federation's touring Loops was running that night at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium the day before WCW held its planned wrestle war card in the same venue and because we've seen the two promotions wreak passive aggressive havoc on each other so far in 1989 we should only expect more of the same shouldn't we in order to give WCW less time to set up for the following day's pay-per-view the WWF intentionally stretched out its House show running a time limit draw between Brett and perfect and having honky face Hillbilly Jim in a match where neither man made contact for the first 6 minutes other matches were just restle fests with the intent of killing time part of the reason for the stalling in this portion of the card was because the WWF was flying in Savage Beefcake dboi and Robert's pre-arrest from another house show where they'd all gone on early and then tacking them onto the end of the Nashville card into two bonus matches the show didn't end until well after 11130 p.m. the spiteful Marathon really did no damage to wrestle War but the attendance was where the Federation could claim victory their untelevised card pulled in about 8,000 fans whereas wcw's pay-per-view in the same building only Drew 5,200 really who needs spite when you've already got a firm strangle hold on the war and speaking of War an old Crockett General soon crossed the boundary into enemy territory in late 1988 Dusty roads was removed as Booker of what was now world championship wrestling due largely to his booking of a bloody angle involving himself which went against Turner's sanitized programming mandate and after a few months wrestling and cooperating with the Florida based p WF promotion the American Dreams strolled into America's top wrestling outfit while the three-time NWA world champion was an unquestionable icon for the industry and an assured Hall of Famer at this juncture he was not immune to a WWF creative makeover they tinkered with Harley Race 3 years earlier and now Dusty would endure the process though the polka dotted getup from roads' WWF run was often Mal minded the tonal shift from American Dream to the Common Man wasn't all that dissimilar from the blue collar Swagger that was long aart of Dusty's lunch paale Mo then there were the debut vignettes in which rhs performed various workingclass jobs like sanitation worker butcher plumber and so forth according to Dusty the vignette in which he delivered pizza was a rib on his ex-employer as wcw's Executive Vice President Jim heard had been a regional manager for Pizza Hut many believed that the character change was a rib on Dusty himself an attempt to Humble somebody that had been a big star away from Vince's opes and yet WWF crowds all across America still reacted more than favorably to the dream even if he was unclogging toilets in video packages roads later opined being like I am Vince didn't realize how strong I really was with the public public meanwhile the public was treated to a star vehicle from another industrial icon if treated is the word on June 2nd no holds B starring Hulk Hogan as pretty much himself infested theaters earning $16 million off of an $8 million budget most reviews were pretty brutal toward the picture though Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times Did liken Hogan to a gallant teddy bear who goes berserk every 10 minutes or so if that's not a winning wrestling gimmick what is to promote the movie the WWF had the film's antagonist go after Hogan at WWF events including the Saturday night's main event from the prior weekend the one in which Hogan superplex the 350b boss man from the top of a steel cage said antagonist was the human Rec machine Zeus played by actor and former amateur track competitor Thomas tiny liser the story was that Zeus was angry about losing to Hogan in the movie and now wanted to beat him in real life which would be like the mechanical shark operator trying to eat Roy Schneider on the set of any other movie but anyway Zeus became a thorn in Hogan's side on WWF television eventually aligning with Savage beef cake even the score as Hulk's new sidekick and a match between the teams was set for the 1989 SummerSlam in East Rutherford a lot of weirdness surrounded the 89 card demolitions record setting 16-month reign as Tag Team Champions ended on a July broadcast of Saturday night's main event at the hands of the brain Busters but instead of a rematch on the pay-per-view card the Busters faced the Heart Foundation in a non-title match worse the hearts were still booked to lose which Brett claimed resulted in a highly contentious meeting with Vince early on show day stranger yet Andre was arrested at a house show in Cedar Rapids Iowa a week before the card after physically accosting a news cameraman at ringside Andre allegedly caught cameraman Ben hilderbrand filming his match with the Warrior when he was only authorized to film crowd shots for a local news feature hilderbrand charged that he was turning his camera off after filming entrances for the match but because Andre lost in a manner of seconds to Warrior hilderbrand was still shutting his equipment down when the match ended Andre saw this and apparently assumed hilderbrand broke protocol by filming the bout in all nothing happened to Andre he posted a bond of $1,285 left town and never spent any time in jail SummerSlam itself self turned out to be a very good summertime supercart highlighted by the hearts Busters opener nuclear crowd response for Dusty a thrilling six-man pitting the Rockers and Santana against the Ros and Martell and Warrior regaining the IC title from Roode after a cheeky assist from Piper for warrior it was almost inarguably the best match of his career to this point not everything could be a highlight though the red roosters match with Mr Perfect was cut short after rooster injured his lower leg guest ring announcer Ronnie garin's specialized introductions for rival Greg Valentine contained about as much wit as a life insurance commercial and though it's hard to call it a low light mean Jean famously dropped an F bomb during a bungled backstage interview with rude and henan so clearly SummerSlam 89 was an event that ran the gamut but at least the main event stuck the Landing even if one of the participants was barely trained Hogan beef cake and Savage walked Zeus through the entire match the night before he didn't have to do much but Zeus was still being counted on to hold up his parts of the Showcase according to Beefcake Zeus was understandably nervous about his debut match the barber claims that he and Hogan employed a strange tactic to keep Zeus loose and to prevent him from working too stiff they would occasionally mutter the phrase free James Brown which apparently made Zeus laugh at the time Brown was serving a jail sentence for a number of charges stemming from a September 1988 incident but at least the Godfather of Soul's predicament could Aid a key WWF bout the heroes prevailed once more in the end with Hogan pinning Zeus after striking him with sher's loaded purse and then finishing with his usual the impressive crowd of 20 ,000 at The Meadowlands was complemented by 625,000 pay-per-view buys a 56% year-over-year increase business was good but it did Mark the last time for over 8 and 1/2 years that a WWF pay-per-view cleared 600,000 buys and as a hot SummerSlam often does it gave way to an eventful autumn [Music] right after SummerSlam Savage won The Unofficial kingship of the WWF from Dugen who himself won the Royal props from Haku in the spring a subsequent coronation ceremony presided over by Savage's real life brother Lanny the genius pufo saw the Macho Man become the Macho King while Sensational Sherry took on the title of Queen demolition wound up regaining the World Tag Team titles from Anderson and BL ured at the October 2nd Superstar tapings the former Horsemen had given their notice to the WWF and intended to jump back to a somewhat more stable WCW where old buddy Flair awaited with the belt as it would turn out only one of the two made it back Bret Hart nearly followed them out of the door frustrated with unfulfilled promises The Hitman spoke with flair Jim herd and Jim Barnett about a possible move but when the initial offer was reduced by close to 25% Hart passed and stayed on with the WWF he and a host of other stars would be on hand for the wwf's first ever event in the United Kingdom taking place on Tuesday October 10th at the London Arena more than 15,000 fans witnessed Hogan vanquished Savage in a world title bout Hart lose to Dino Bravo and Dugen de feat honky in a special dark match featuring some local Stars 31-year-old David fit Finley competed in a six-man tag while the event was historic in its own right events from the remainder of that European Excursion proved just as noteworthy coko beware and WWF executive Jim Troy were both fired after an alcohol fueled brawl in Belgium that spanned several venues the Birdman did end up getting rehired the following month shortly before Survivor Series around the same time the Rockers were almost let go after drunkenly destroying a number of Hotel chandeliers reportedly when the hotel's phone operator was unable to patch Marty janetti through long distance to America where his father had just undergone heart surgery some reports have it that the Rockers were actually fired but rehired within 24 hours after paying for the damages they'd caused one name that did head out the door in this period was Barry Windam who had just returned during the summer playing an iy outlaw nicknamed the Widowmaker Windam was actually advertised for the 1989 Survivor Series as a member of savages team but departed from the WWF around the same time that brother Kendall and Father Robert AKA Blackjack Mulligan were arrested for their part in a counterfeiting scheme for which the two served prison time the man who replaced Windam on Savage's team debuted in a rather creative manner Dino Bravo had claimed to be stronger than the IC Champion The Ultimate Warrior and went so far as to challenge the warrior to a push-up contest to add a heavy pun intended degree of difficulty manager Jimmy Hart sought out a fan to sit on Bravo and warriors's backs as they did push-ups while scanning the crowd Hart fixated on a very large large man and invited him into the ring the man was introduced simply as John from West Virginia and he declared that he weighed 460 which fit what the contest called for Bravo went first and did five strained push-ups with big JN seated over his back but when Warrior prepared to go second Jon suddenly flattened him with a seated senton he and Bravo then began pummeling Warrior indicating that the selection of JN by the mouth of the South was not random in the slightest John turned out to be 26-year-old John tenter a former Suma wrestler that spent time in both all Japan and in Vancouver's Allstar wrestling which was closer to where he actually lived in WWF Cannon tenta was dubbed the Canadian earthquake later shortened to Simply earthquake with Andre the Giant in sharp decline the 67460 lb Quake had a reasonable shot at being the wwf's next great monster another Behemoth entered the WWF landscape in 1989 but took far longer to reach television Dusty's real life brother-in-law Fred otman wasn't too much shorter or lighter than tenter and started getting a look in untelevised matches wrestling as a surly construction worker named big Steel Man by Autumn otman changed characters becoming a big friendly sailor named Tugboat Thomas the surname was later dropped as Tugboat mowed down opponents at House shows but he wouldn't cross onto the WWF story boards until the spring of 1990 speaking of Dusty he gained a sidekick in the form of 55-year-old Juanita right a one-time wrestler that used to transport wrestlers in the St Louis territory Wright was was renamed Sapphire and introduced to WWF audiences as a ringside fan of dusties that the dream took an appreciative liking to Sapphire's first on camera appearance came at the 1989 Survivor Series in Chicago held on Thanksgiving night before 15,000 fans at the Rosemont Horizon the 89 card was the most purchased Survivor Series to date at 385,000 buys a 24% % increase from the prior year the larger audience was treated to Vince's extra flemy show opening voice over in which he rattled off all the teams and members while testing the limits of human vocal cords it genuinely is pretty amazing how Vince made and the earthquake all one word more importantly WWF fans witnessed an Earnest attempt at building a successor to the Hulkamania throne with the exception of the long forgotten 1985 wrestling classic the 1989 Survivor series was the first time a WWF pay-per-view ended with zero involvement from Hulk Hogan in the evening's Main Event Hulk's elimination match went on third of the five broadcast bouts and concluded with Hogan Standing Tall after pinning dboi standing to at night's end was Warrior as he captained Jim nart and the Rockers to Victory over the Heenan family aing Andre was eliminated via count out right after the match began but heels rallied to eventually get it down to just Warrior on the Babyface side in the end the Intercontinental Champion vanquished the outbound Anderson before pummeling Bobby Heenan on route to the final elimination yes Heenan wrestled in the match though that wasn't the original plan Heenan filled in for Blanchet who'd been fired after after a TV taping on November 1st following a failed drug test the firing also killed off any interest WC W had in bringing tly back into the fold and they rescinded their offer the brain Busters last televised match air two days following Survivor Series in which they put over the Rockers in a two out of three Falls match on Saturday night's Main Event taped the day before Blanchard was canned a Fed Up henan walked out on the team during the bout and fired them during a mid-match promo backstage as a way to write the Busters out the Survivor Series wasn't the wwf's last pay-per-view of the year on Wednesday December 27th to help close out 1989 the WWF ran a curious double feature entitled no holds Bard the match the movie in actuality the title had it backwards as the broadcast consisted of the No Holds Bard movie followed by by a recently taped steel cage match pitting Hogan and beef cake against Savage and Zeus in Zeus's final WWF appearance more historic was the commencement of Andre the Giant's final Title reign at the December 13th Superstars taping in Huntsville Alabama Andre teamed with fellow henan client Haku to win the Tag Team titles from Demolition in a brief match smash never tagged in once as was isolated by the heels and pinned by Andre his former partner in the masked machines tag team the new Champions wrestled as the Colossal connection and allowed for Andre to preserve his adult body while Workhorse Haku shouldered the load axe remembers Andre working through crippling back issues but never complaining adding he loved the business and I feel he just wanted to be around it for as long as he could the title win wasn't the the only Landmark moment in Andre's career during this time on October 28th he lost in a matter of seconds to the warrior at Madison Square Garden it was the only time in Andre's storied career that he'd ever been pinned inside the hallowed MSG scoring that symbolic win over Andre and being the last man standing when the curtain fell at Survivor Series made it clear that Warrior was headed for the penthouse suite and he was on a collision course with the room's primary occupant the 1990 Royal Rumble may go down in history as the WWF pay-per-view with the loudest crowd around 16,000 fans filled the Orlando arena and boy were they ever vifer nearly inducing Tremors as they popped for every bit of baby face shine during the 3-hour broadcast the thunderous reaction for Jake Roberts when he entered the main Fry at number four while arch nemesis Ted dboi waited alone in the ring is why fans of that certain age swear by the era and it's a good thing that fans at home got to witness the rumble because it was getting a bit dicey for a moment there in the weeks leading up to the pay-per-view the WWF found themselves in a fight with cable providers like request TV and viewers Choice battling tooth and nail over the 10% cut the Distributors took from the federation's pay-per-view income at one point there was a real possibility that the providers might not even a the rumble due to the dispute the WWF even allotted airtime to Rally Their audience having Guerilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura implore viewers to call or write their Distributors and complain about the rumble possibly not being carried after so much convoluted wrangling McMahon ended his war against the providers and Inked a 7-year deal with viewers choice about a week out from The Rumble in all about 260,000 households a 58% jump from a year earlier bore witness to one of the most electrifying confrontations of all time IC Champion Warrior entered the scramble at number 21 and made an immediate impact by eliminating the likes of Bravo nid har and DB OSI who lasted 45 minutes as the matches Iron Man a then Rumble record four entries later later WWF champ Hogan stormed the ring and quickly got rid of the likes of snooker and Haku for the minute that followed Warrior and Hogan decimated everyone in their path throwing out Santana honky Michaels and Martell until only the two singles Champions remained commentators Shani and Ventura eagerly buzzed along with the Orlando faithful as they realized the two resident Supermen were sharing the ring for the first time ever the inevitable staredown gave way to a rudimentary test of Might as Hogan and Warrior teased the preliminary steps of a full-on slugfest but nothing was decided here as Hogan and Warrior ended up in a Double Down following a double clothes line while they both lay prone the Barbarian hit the ring at number 27 bringing a quick end to a most interesting Showdown shortly after Barbarian and rude had Warrior teetering over the ropes when Hogan plowed into them knocking his fellow alpha dog to the floor Hulk inadvertently caused Warriors elimination or was it blatant Mr Perfect wound up the runner up after getting launched over the ring post by a triumphant Hogan Warrior finished in sixth place but he wasn't soon forgotten by the impressionable fans that tantalizing confrontation between musclebound Heroes was the start of something bigger the WWF had every intention of delivering Hogan versus Warrior in a proper setting now they had an audience dying to see it and the build to it was certainly something else in a Saturday night's Main Event broadcast that adds six nights following the rumble Hogan and Warrior teamed up to face perfect and the genius the good guys reigned supreme but the jubilant mood quickly turned during a postmatch skirmish as a hyperfocused warrior clubbed his belligerent opponents with clothes lines he accident struck a dazed Hogan with one once back to his feet an angry Hogan found himself nose to noose once more with the Intercontinental Champion exchanging fighting words with his theoretical equal each man soon laid out a challenge for Wrestlemania 6 at Toronto's Skydome Hogan's point of view mirrored that of the audience he had to know who the strongest force in the WWF was millions of young fans had long been wondering the same on the February 25th episode of wrestling challenge president Jack Tony announced that both the world and InterContinental titles would be on the line for a Monumental encounter dubbed the ultimate Challenge as for the weeks and weeks of build to Sunday April 1st Hogan and Warrior took turn cutting these highly intense fringy promos on each other warriors soliloquies were already in that realm of gods and demons and voices and all of that jazz and while Hogan tended to be pretty over the toop himself the hulkster was content to toss aside any remaining semblance of tangible Humanity going shot for shot with warriors's particular brand of disjointed ravings it's hard to say what was crazier Hogan's attempt to convert Warrior to some sort of cult-like Hulkamania belief system or an oddly low-key Warrior imploring Hogan to crash his own private airplane in order to better understand what he was up against at WrestleMania on the subject of unique orators heavyweight boxing champion ion Mike Tyson was due to serve as guest referee for a title match between Hogan and Savage on the February 23rd Main Event special on NBC in a pretty big coup on the wwf's part unfortunately for the WWF Tyson suffered his first career loss 12 nights earlier losing via 10th round knockout to James Buster Douglas in Tokyo in the veritable upset of the century a bmuse Tyson pulled out of the reing gig so sudden Feelgood story Douglas stepped in as guest official of course somebody just had to get punched by the new champ and that somebody was the Macho King Hogan defeated Savage at that live NBC special in Detroit while Warrior defeated Dino Bravo in a matter of minutes the two Babyface Champions had another confrontation at Show's end as it was Full Speed Ahead toward that huge Main Event in Toronto among the WWF faculty it was well known that at WrestleMania Hogan was going to do something he hadn't done since April of 1981 get pinned cleanly in the middle of the ring in that yonder era Hogan was a promising villain doing a job for popular Tony Atlas here the infallible Hulk was being tasked with passing a coveted torch to Hulk this was possibly a sign that his time at the top was over Bret Hart recalled that Hogan after being asked to put Warrior over showed up in the dressing room with a long face and a distrust trustful look in his eye clearly afraid that this was a sign that he was on his way down it was the first time I saw Hulk Hogan second guess himself at a time when Super Mario 3 was hitting American store shelves McMahon and the WWF were marketing Warrior as the next link of an evolutionary chain the new and improved version in a successful product line and new and improved has a tendency to render a previous model obsolete no matter how warm the memories were Hogan versus Warrior headlined a 14 match WrestleMania 6 compared to Prior Manas it was a slight Improvement that half the bouts featured some kind of tangible story element demolition were challenging Andre and Haku for the tag belts seeking to win them for a third time the only other title bout was for Debo's unofficial million doll title which Nemesis Jake The Snake had stolen and stashed away in a bag that con aain Daman if dboi wanted it back he was free to come and get it Jake beckoned the dbsi Roberts Feud spawned another WrestleMania match the law and order-m minded big boss man at the behest of dboi helped attack Roberts during a match in order to make off with the million dooll title and the bag containing Damian however when dboi tried to pay him for his Services Bossman suddenly took exception likening the payoff to a bribe disgusted Bossman returned the belt and Damian to Roberts despite the P of dboi and Slick now a baby face boss man would take on former partner AE at WrestleMania in mixed Tag Team Action Savage and Sherry were to team up to face Dusty and Sapphire stemming from an altercation of the Royal Rumble two other matches were spawned from acrimony at the rumble Piper versus bad news after they eliminated each other during the namesake bout and perfect versus beef cake following Perfect's folding chair attack on the barber as he wrestled the genius earlier in the night a host of proven names filled out the rest of the card popular Babyface Duos the hearts and the Rockers would be in action the former facing the Bolsheviks and the latter a new tandem in the Orient Express consisting of old rockers rival Pat Tanaka and former all Japan regular Akio Sato the power of pain were split up before WrestleMania and a solo Barbarian would go one-on-one with Santana a between rivalry's rude matched up against snooker while dougen was paired up with Bravo earthquake and Martell now gaining some traction as the narcissistic model were given some stepping stone matches against Hercules and Coco respectively most peculiar was the selection of celebrities which seemed to show the age of the decision makers Robert gou was a fine choice to sing O Canada but former tonight show hosts Steve Allen and gossip columnist Rona Barrett didn't seem to jive with the tastes of the younger audience though Barrett did provoke some unintentional laughs in one bumper segment when she informed Monsoon that she couldn't dig up any dirt on the wrestlers due to their clean reputations the more contemporary stars were in the audience though some of them weren't well known yet in addition to TV actress Mary Tyler Moore teenaged Edge and Christian were among the reported 67,000 fans at the Skydome as well as future SummerSlam and all-in competitor Steven Amel and lest we forget Diamond Dallas Page driving the big pink Cadillac that brought Honky Tonk Man and his Entourage to the ring said Entourage included Greg Valentine who had since dyed his hair black and began dressing like another Elvis impersonator though really Valentine looked more like a caveman pretending to be Roy or amid all the hoopla and nervous energy of a major production was a somber reality this was the swan song for Andre the Giant the 2020 biography of his life claims that by the end of his WWF run some athletic commissions were refusing to clear Andre for activity due to his diminished physical condition the title run with Haku was a last harah of sorts and everyone seemed to know it the once unbeatable Andre never tagged into the 9 and 1 half minute title bout Haku did The Lion Share of the work while Andre occasionally stepped in to deliver a blow to either demolition member in the end a miscommunication caused Andre to fall into the ropes tied up at the arms Heenan tried in vain to free Andre only for both to watch as demolition finished Haku with their decapitation finish for the third time and smash were champions of the world their Triumph quickly took a backseat to the bigger story an Irate Heenan chewed out a dazed Andre over the mishap brow beating his charge in animated fashion at the end of his TI raade and after dropping a very audible F-bomb Heenan made the mistake of slapping Andre this sobered Andre's mood right up as he grabbed hean by the front collar and began pummeling him to the joy of the Skydome crowd Haku also took a beating when he tried to intervene the scene ended with Andre riding off on the motorized ring cart to a standing evation perhaps not everyone in the Skydome caught the symbolism of the eighth wonder of the world riding off into the sunset but the hero's reception remained fitting nonetheless Andre went out the way he should have as a legend to the sounds of undivided agulation the rest of the undercard played out with considerably less ceremony perhaps it's no small coincidence that after Andre's Grand exit earthquake came out and flattened Hercules in under 5 minutes one monster exits the other ascends the biggest upset of the night was beef Cake's win over perfect handing Kurt henig his first nationally televised pinfall loss in the WWF the remainder of the Show's first half saw the expected winner go over in Martell Barbarian and the hearts who defeated the Bolsheviks in a mere 19 seconds less expected was whatever the hell Rod Piper did to himself before his match with bad news a questionable half and half paint job was apparently Piper's misguided attempt to Champion all people while taking on his African-American opponents and yeah adding to the regretful of the whole spectacle was the fact that as a rib on Andre and Arnold scolan dumped out the solvents that would remove the paint from Piper's body and water alone was not enough to clean Rod up as Piper later noted it took me 3 weeks to get that off in the evening's second half rhs and Sapphire won a comedy bout over Savage and Sherry the Orient Express beat the Rockers via count out and Bravo lost to dougen who tried to Rally the Canadian Crowd by by chanting USA dboi retained his million dooll belt via count out over Roberts who did give away a bunch of dbs's cash to some ringsider boss man toppled AEM in a brief match and rude put away snooker but come the witching hour both Hogan and Warrior forwent the ring carts in favor of making their own TS into battle Warrior's choice to run the length of the Skydome entranceway came with great risk as he was being counted on to carry his part of a match that would push past the 20-minute Mark and Warrior had a noted tendency to blow up in much shorter bouts fortunately he had a strong dance partner in Hogan if one ever doubts the Ring generalship of the hulster let this match serve as proof that when he wants to Hogan can carry a less skilled wrestler to an excellent Main Event it helped that Pat Patterson mapped out the entire feature giving the Champions a prec size template to follow Hogan LED Warrior through all the dramatic beats before a fairly divided crowd and an extremely unbiased venturer which is a stark contrast to his excessive burial of Hogan just a year earlier following an Earl hebner ref bump each man had a visual pinfall on the other providing an out for whomever lost those moments and each legitimate pinfall attempt had the 60,000 Plus on hand living and dying on every near finish with his face paint sweated and ground away Warrior gained the upper hand and entered into his finishing sequence the Big Splash was only good for two as Hogan powered out of the pin before commencing his headshaking energy summoning routine of invincibility all prior Challengers had fallen to the time- tested formula as Hogan walloped warrior with right hand and laid him out with the big boot but the leg drop missed Warrior rolled away and immediately crunched Hulk with a follow-up Splash rendering The Immortal mortal after all the Ultimate Warrior had pulled the sword from the stone defeating Hulk Hogan clean as a sheet underneath the shock hysteria and Euphoria a conflicted and lamentful Hogan handed over the world title to Warrior an open affirmation that the Superman six years his Junior was worthy of leading the pack beneath fireworks and bewildered eyes Warrior continued his celebration in the ring while a humbled hulkster rode off on the ring cart taking in The Changing of the Guard via his backwards exit Hogan may have played nice on camera but he was apparently less wistful behind the curtain he reportedly told in the locker room that Warrior was going to fail as champion and that Vince would come running back to him before long the record setting $3.5 million gate for Wrestlemania 6 was a healthy chunk of change for a Hogan title bout but how future metrics would look without Hogan playing lead remained to be seen in his first major appearance as Champion Warrior wasn't exactly received well 12 days after WrestleMania a crowd of 53,000 at the Tokyo Dome rejected warrior in his championship match with DB oi viewing him as a road warrior wannabe the match took place as part of an incredible joint effort on the part of WWF New Japan and all Japan entitled wrestling Summit the three groups barely navigated rough political Waters to put on a 12 match super card filled with genuine historic Curiosities matches like Hogan versus Stan Hansen and Savage versus gichi Renu have earned praise while a time limit draw pitting Brett against the maharu masawa version of tiger mask was clunkier than one might have hoped speaking of tenu he departed all Japan around this time to form the SWS the superworld of sports the group would enter into a working agreement with the WWF who had great interest in expanding their reach into the Far East East back State Side Warrior vacated the Intercontinental title to concentrate solely on the Big Belt this set up a tournament to Crown a new IC champ ultimately won by Mr Perfect after defeating Santana in the finals with the title win came a new manager as Heenan sidled in to guide the career of the Flawless athlete another new Champion was crowned in the WWF shortly thereafter though through very unconventional means shortly after winning his third world tag team title demolition axe suffered an allergic reaction to shellfish while on the Japanese tour leading to a temporary heart condition though the 42-year-old heavyweight vet was soon medically cleared Vince decided to expand demolition into a three-man Squad bringing in 26-year-old Portland star Brian Adams to fill out an Unholy Trinity the 6'7 Adams was dubbed crush and permitted to defend the belts with smash as part of the loose Freebird rule axe still wrestled occasionally but was basically made the team's deao manager out of Vince's concerns about his health and since the team turned heel earlier in the spring axe could remain active by illegally subbing into matches behind the ref's back despite all three demolition members having distinct paint schemes and body types this functionally ended a strong three-year run for ax and smash who'd come a long way from their initial skinny as Road Warrior imposters and the timing was appropriate because the real deal was on its way in Road Warriors animal and Hawk had grown increasingly tired of the way Jim herd ran WCW and were particularly annoyed when manager Paul ellering decided to quit he himself fed up with herd at their wits end with the company the Warriors reached back out to the WWF now ready to make the jump animal and Hawk agreed to a three-year deal shortly thereafter but did have to accept a slight name change Vince already had his warrior in the main event so animal and Hawk abandoned the Road Warriors label to become the Legion of Doom which was actually the name of an ellering Le stable the two had been part of in the mid 80s later that summer another Warrior arrived the modernday warrior with his father's worldclass territory having fallen apart krie von Eric left his uswa Texas heavyweight title behind to sign with the WWF it seems McMahon no longer had a problem with an artificially limed wrestler taking to the ring like the Road Warriors von Eric would have to undergo a slight name change becoming the Texas tornado given that his finishing discus punch could pass as a funnel cloud incarnate the name was at least least fitting while the Warriors and von Eric were impressive signings in terms of name and Prestige the talent pool was noticeably drier than it had been in recent years the demise of so many territories had blown up valuable pipelines for talent to greatly improve in the chances of grabbing a proven name that still had something to offer or a promising young Talent with years ahead of themselves were at least a wee bit Slimmer to go along with crush the only 20s something picked up in this time were 25-year-old Shane Douglas fresh off a disastrous run as a dynamic dude and 29-year-old Paul Diamond plucked from the smoldering Timbers of the AWA neither made it past the lower midc card in a pretty crowd at WWF a couple of 80s retreads got another go round but with some changes to their familiar presentations also fleeing the AWA was 41-year-old Sergeant Slaughter settling back back into the WWF after 5 and a half years away once a proud Patriot Sarge now took umbrage with American fans for accepting a face turned Nikolai volov as one of their own while the Americans have gone soft Tac could have been an interesting one real world events soon pointed Slaughter's character down a more regrettable path and speaking of regrettable paths former tag team champion Tony Atlas was back and hey The Man known as Mr USA would have been a great foil for Slaughter in his Newfound hatred of Americans right well yeah but instead of doing that the WWF decided to have Atlas ReDiscover his roots as sabba Simba which uh didn't come off very well at all really the highlight of sabba Simba's short time on the roster was Piper burying the gimic on commentary on a more comedic note journeyman Playboy Buddy Rose turned back backup in the Federation bringing a charming bit of satire to the undercard Rose starred in a faux commercial for a weight loss product called the blowa away diet which involved a box full of generic looking powder and the use of an oscillating fan the powder did nothing to alter Rose's corpulent frame though he claimed to only weigh a scant £217 after its usage a number of these recent signings weren't going to crack even the upper midc card as the w WF already had an impressive number of established Stars occupying those spots one of them was Beefcake who was still riding high on the strength of his win over perfect at WrestleMania with Hogan written out following an attack at the hands of earthquake that spring Beefcake was pretty much the number two baby face in the company situated behind Warrior lending Credence to that depth chart ordering was the fact that beef cake was going to challenge perfect for the IC title at SummerSlam but then tragedy struck on July 4th 1990 while celebrating independence day with Brian Blair and other friends Beefcake was badly injured in a Paris sailing accident Beefcake was assisting a woman so that she could take the ride when the boat driver took off prematurely beef cake didn't get out of the way in time as the woman's knees smashed him in the face at a high rate of speed and the damage was catastrophic beef Cake's facial skeleton was crushed the area between the oral and nasal cavities was broken and Beefcake had bone shards and tissue traveling through his windpipe One account has it that a paramedic had to force his hand into beef Cake's mouth to keep the roof of his mouth from collapsing and suffocating him miraculously he survived and also had his vision preserved but his ability to ever wrestle again was in serious doubt in all it took eight titanium strips 32 screws 100 ft of wire and more than 100 Staples to construct a new face for Beefcake as beefcake struggled to recover from his harrowing ordeal his old friend Hogan was on his way back following the aforementioned earthquake attack he was scheduled to go one-on-one with the 460 pounder at SummerSlam in what was build as one half of a double main event and given how Warrior was doing as Champion that billing is understandable just as Hogan had predicted Warrior was not ushering in Banner days as WWF Champion and business was tanking there were a number of reasons why the Title reign was flopping Warrior lacked fresh challenges for the title as regular opponents Rick Roode and Mr Perfect had already been vanquished enough times by Warrior Andor Hogan and nobody Stateside really viewed Dino Bravo was a viable Contender there was also the lack of tactile Humanity on warriors's part Hogan may have been a cartoonish superhero but he was at least relatable in the eyes of the general public Warriors cryptic monologues and altogether disquieting presence appealed to a smaller section of the audience than Hogan's broader appeal did a segment in which Warrior shared the stage with a young female fan did little to humanize the WWF Champion as his rain continued taking that nose dive he'd once snarled about Warrior was stated to face Roode inside a steel cage in the other half of summerslam's double Main Event the fact that Hogan was getting equal enough billing really shows how much things had gone South for warrior in just a matter of months Hogan was ordained to wear the crown for a third time on some distant day for the WWF restoring Hogan's Champion was to restore the status quo bringing the WW UF back to a time of Maximum Prosperity but instead decisions made over the year ahead and choices made in previous days would haunt the World Wrestling Federation proving that being the strongest doesn't make you bulletproof what goes up must come down and as 1991 and Beyond would show there were plenty of jagged rocks for the WWF Empire to car them off as it plumbed the undesired depths [Music]

Channel: Cultaholic Wrestling

Views: 809,056

Keywords: wwe, wwf, wwe documentary, 80s wrestling, wwe documentaries, wwf documentary, classic wwf, classic wwe, hulk hogan, macho man randy savage, the mega powers, the mega powers explode, randy savage, wrestlemania 3, wrestlemania 4, wrestlemania 5, wrestling documentary, vince mcmahon, wrestling territories, territory system, nwa, jim crockett, wcw, ultimate warrior, golden age, golden age of wrestling, wwe full ppv, wwe history, wrestling history, hulkamania, miss elizabeth

Id: 7KpscPo8XX0

Length: 125min 42sec (7542 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 17 2023