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Dolfan Watches Every Wrestlemania On Lockdown


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WRESTLEMANIA IX

Well, we're now in Vegas at the Caeser's Palace Theater.  It's a shocking contrast to the 60k that the Carrier Dome to the 15k Caeser's held. And of course, since it's Caeser's, we're all decked out in Roman gear.  It's the debut of Jim Ross as the lead WWF/E announcer, where he'd stay on and off, for nearly 20 years. 

Now, I should mention, this is from the year I got my first email address (which still works!) and thus Usenet, and a little thing called rec.sport.pro-wrestling and I was fascinated by the vast community of people who loved pro wrestling, and who knew so much more than I ever did.  It's where I first heard about all the *REAL* stuff going on backstage and who hated who and what the wins and losses ACTUALLY meant.  I mention RSPW because "Jim Ross in a Toga" was 1993's equivalent of the coronavirus.  

"The greatest announcer in the history of the universe was wearing a TOGA!!!"  "How dare Vince McMahon humiliate the Oklahoman this way?!?"  "Ross should have quit on the spot!!!"

The internet was a mistake then.  It's a mistake now. 

We begin with the Intercontinental Title match between Shawn Michaels and Tatanka. Shawn has Luna Vachon and Tatanka has Sherri in their corners, respectively, for some reason.  I say that because neither never even acknowledges their presence throughout the match.  I really don't remember Tatanka as being all that great in the ring, but Michaels is selling for his stuff like he's being hit by the Incredible Hulk, so it's making things better. Heenan is having fun making fun of Macho Man and JR at ringside, but it's clear he misses Gorilla, as he and JR aren't quite gelling.  

The match itself just goes on and on and on.  Michaels finally hits a Sweet Chin Music, but again, it's still not his finisher, so that's not it.  I think he was using a Teardrop Suplex at this point?  I honestly don't remember and he doesn't hit it during this match.  

Finish comes as both men are outside the ring, the ref has a 10 count going, Tatanka makes it in, and it *looks* like he hits 9 or 10 as HBK pulls him out to break the count. HBK rolls into the ring and instantly walks into the fallaway slam which was Tatanka's finisher.  But the ref jumps back in and refuses to count, signalling for the bell.  Tatanka by COR.  It looks like its a shoot COR, because neither the wrestlers, the managers, nor the announcers, appear to know what the fuck just happened.  Luna attacks Sherri for some reason. 

Time's up, and yikes, this one's not off to a great start.  End of Day 25.

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10 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

WRESTLEMANIA IX

Well, we're now in Vegas at the Caeser's Palace Theater.  It's a shocking contrast to the 60k that the Carrier Dome to the 15k Caeser's held. And of course, since it's Caeser's, we're all decked out in Roman gear.  It's the debut of Jim Ross as the lead WWF/E announcer, where he'd stay on and off, for nearly 20 years. 

I never understood why Syracuse hasn't played up hosting Mania more than they have over the years.

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1 hour ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

yikes, this one's not off to a great start.  End of Day 25.

Besides Scott Steiner almost dying in the next match courtesy of one of the Headshrinkers, Shawn and Tatanka is the best you're gonna get. TRUST ME. 

And if you thought that match went long, Money Inc vs. Hulk and Brother Bruti will feel like it goes 30 days and nights. Fuck.

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2 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Besides Scott Steiner almost dying in the next match courtesy of one of the Headshrinkers, Shawn and Tatanka is the best you're gonna get. TRUST ME. 

Uhh, hello? TWO Doinks. Come on.

--

Could somebody clue me in as to why Razor was suddenly facing Backlund here? He closes out '92 as part of a big storyline. Has a great match vs Bret at the Rumble. Then he is just paired with Bob.

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Based on the early Manias I’d guess Vince thought having young guys go over major names from previous eras was beneficial. Also, Hall had just had to job to Bret in his most high profile match to date, and it was probably a way to rehab him. If he hadn’t been plugged in to the Rumble match to replace Warrior and had his momentum hurt he may have had a bigger match at WM. 

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5 minutes ago, (BP) said:

Based on the early Manias I’d guess Vince thought having young guys go over major names from previous eras was beneficial. Also, Hall had just had to job to Bret in his most high profile match to date, and it was probably a way to rehab him. If he hadn’t been plugged in to the Rumble match to replace Warrior and had his momentum hurt he may have had a bigger match at WM. 

And now, those young guys are the old guys being put over the present young guys. 

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This thread has reminded me how shitty Ted DiBiase’s Mania booking was post-WM4.  He wrestled on 5 through 9, and EVERY one of those matches ended in some form of countout or DQ.  Like clockwork, every year:  Death, taxes, and a bullshit Million Dollar Man finish at Mania.

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On 4/26/2020 at 10:55 PM, Dolfan in NYC said:

DAY 24

This whole thing took about 35-40 minutes and absolutely positively should have been the final match of the night.  No questions asked.  

I've said it multiple times on this message board over the last two decades, but starting with the pre-match Flair/Perfect promo, going through the match, the post match chaos, and both post match promos, it's the best ~45 minutes of WW(W)F/E television ever. 

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They really should have had WMIX on a Saturday night purely for aesthetic reasons, the old outdoor Caesars Palace venue looked bad ass once the sun went down. The only thing I really remember from this WM was watching it with my uncles mailman friends and all of them thinking Hulk had "steroid cancer" since he was so skinny.

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DAY 26

We are now at the WrestleMania debut of the Steiners and they're facing The Headshrinkers.  It still blows my mind that of these 4, Fatu would be, far and away, the one to have the most successful WWF/E career.  (Arguably the most successful career in general.)  Now, I like stiff matches.  This one though... hoo boy.  I think they owed each other money or something.  

It's an interesting match too as the Shrinkers are in firm control basically for the duration of the match. Repeatedly smashing the shit out of Scotty including some lariats that look like they could've legit concussed the dude.  Rick's hot tag moment doesn't last long as the HS have answers for all of his nonsense too. It's so great seeing a guy who has a headbutt as a main move run into a guy who's gimmick includes an undamageable head. Funny moment at the end as Scotty tags back in for the last time in a hot tag, and the HS just start beating his ass again. Scott's like, "oh fuck this", and does a Frankensteiner that looks like it could've ripped Samu's head off and that's it.   That was a lot better than I remember.  

JR was basically a pig in its on filth with how happy he was calling a Steiner Bros. match.  

 

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I had a whole thing written up about the Crush/Doink match, but it looks like the board ate the draft and I'm not retyping everything. Here are the main points: 

  • Doink walked, so Bray Wyatt could fly.  
  • Doink in 2020 would be WWE Champion, fight me.
  • The match is fine, the double Doink angle was awesome.  

We now are in a Razor Ramon/Bob Backlund match, for some reason?  Razor is nominally a heel.  I say nominally, because the crowd is solidly pro-Razor and is cheering everything he did. Backlund looks basically lost out here. This ended before it even get started as a small package gets a pretty big pop for Razor. 

Money Inc. does an interview where they sort of take responsibility(?) for Hulk Hogan's face.  More on that... on the next ride.  

End of Day 26. 

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DAY 27

Money, Inc. is taking on the Mega Maniacs (Hogan and Beefcake) for the WWF Tag Titles. DiBiase is out in a VERY boss all white outfit.  Because of an actual injury, Beefcake is wearing a huge metal face mask that makes him look like a reject from a Mad Max sequel that was never made.  And Hulk Hogan.....'S EYE.  Jesus Christ.  

Hogan's famous black eye is fresh as a daisy.  You can tell the doctors have done everything in their human powers to make the swelling go down, but there are some burst blood vessels in the eye itself, and that makes the lower half of his eye a disgusting black. And it's all I can look at. 

Now the story of the eye itself is the subject of some mystery (lol).  The kayfabe story is Hogan got jumped outside a gym yesterday by DiBiase's hired goons. The official story is Hogan had a jet ski accident... that only hurt his eye. The story that everyone else believes though, is one Randy Savage confronted Hogan earlier in the week, they argued and Randy sucker punched the shit out of Terry (over Savage's divorce, or over Hogan dating Elizabeth's friend, depending on who's telling the story).   The fucking Chesire Cat grin you can *hear* in Savage's voice as he describes the "tough guys" that did that to Hogan... *thought emoji*

Now, I'm typing all this because I don't want to deal with this match itself.  It's basically focused on Beefcake trying to keep his mask on and doing the majority of the work.  That's not a recipe for a good match. DiBiase and Shyster for their parts are trying, but Beefcake's underselling everything, and it's making the match itself lethargic.  The crowd is restless too, as they clearly want Hogan in the match because... well, fuck Beefcake.  

This match is going to go on forever, I just feel it.  I'm riding and riding, and I'm losing interest rapidly.  

Oh, and as was mentioned earlier, yeah, Hogan is VERY noticeably off the gas. I'm guessing he's already turned on Vince and the WWF and is giving the Feds all kinds of dirt.  I need a very GOOD sports writer like Jeff Pearlman or David Maraniss to write the definitive book on the WWF Steroid Trial.  That would be fucking amazing. 

Oh god, this match is still happening. Okay DiBiase has finally got the mask off.  The ref gets bumped. IRS and Brutus are both down.  Hogan and DiBiase are *waiting for the tag while the ref is down*... (Oh god I hate this match.) Hogan finally gets in, grabs Brutii's mask and clocks Ted and Irwin....  and gets DQ'ed.  

To quote the Simpsons, "Marge, I'm confused, is this a happy ending or a sad ending?"

"It's an ending, that's enough."

Hogan/Beefcake/Jimmy Hart celebrate, because THEY LOST.    This took years off my life.

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Okay, so I need to really wash the taste of that last match out of my mouth, we have Luger/Mr. Perfect. Knowing how Mania 9 ends, this is basically the last chance at a good match. 

Luger's doing his Narcissist gimmick at this point. And I should point out a friend's story, who went to see a WWF house show in Albany.  Luger & Razor Ramon were in a tag match.  And in a very cute moment, Luger is posing in his mirror admiring himself, and Razor's standing beside him, looking him over, and starts nodding his head going... Yeah! That's impressive!

The match itself is decent.  Luger's doing lots of power spots, hurting Curt throughout the match.  Curt is working Luger's back to prevent the torture rack and to set up the Perfectplex.  

The end comes as they fight over a backslide, and Luger reverses puts his feet on the rope and gets the pin.  Hennig runs to the back to beat up Luger, but gets decked by Shawn Michaels to start their feud.   This wasn't Perfect's best day. 

Well, the match was much better than I remember.  I think it gets a bad rap because it is a small, unremarkable island floating in a sea of feces.  

We'll explore the depths of that sea on the next ride...  End of Day 27. 

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Kind of mad that I even had to imagine present day Doink being ruined by 20 minute promos and constant video packages with violins and dumb filters.

Luger wasn't permitted to use the torture rack in WWF. I think Bruce addressed why at some point but I don't remember.

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I got a kick from watching this show a couple of years ago for the Bret video package. That’s because Luger straight up hits Bret with a running Misawa elbow at the press conference. I don’t think that elbow/forearm ever looked that good outside of that day. I had to replay it a few times just because I loved it.

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Hogan must’ve started shooting Thunder in Paradise right after this show because he has the black eye in the pilot. They had to write in a back story where he’d gotten sucker punched by Jim Neidhart for being too good at arm wrestling. 

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DAY 28

Alright, this is going to be QUITE the ride...  

I'm convinced the WWF signed Giant Gonzalez because WCW had some kind of double agent on the inside. That or Vince got a good deal on body length catsuits, but they only fit people over 7 feet tall. Taker comes out on his funeral chariot with vulture(~) in what would be one of his most signature entrances. The only thing I could think of was how much more badass it would have been if Mania had been held about an hour or two later and this entrance had happened during the golden hour of sunset. Or straight up, at night.  

So, this match.  Reams and reams of internet ink has been wasted on how awful this match is... and they're not wrong.  However, I've sat through the Punjabi Prison match.  I've sat through his tag title match against Kronik in 2001.  And most importantly, I've sat through his final match with Goldberg.  I'm confident in saying, this wasn't even in Taker's Bottom 5. 

Now, that said, this match is the pits.  Taker is doing everything he can to drag something watchable out of the Giant.  Gonzalez only knows how to half sell and is slower than molasses.  He's at least cooperating with Taker in whatever he does, so at least that's something. This is the WrestleMania debut (!) of the rope walk.  Not sure why it took this long, but he didn't do it in the other matches. 

The finish is the Gonzalez chloroforming Taker into unconsciousness. Taker does a stretcher job out of the arena, but MIRACULOUSLY comes back.  I'm legit surprised they didn't do a ref bump and have GG win on those shenanigans, which frankly, based on the booking for the next couple of years for Taker, would have probably been the correct booking decision. 

As Charles Barkley says... "turrible".

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2 hours ago, (BP) said:

They had to write in a back story where he’d gotten sucker punched by Jim Neidhart for being too good at arm wrestling. 

It would've been funny if that's what they said during the PPV instead of the "jetski accident".

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