Dolfan Watches Every Wrestlemania On Lockdown

[Dolfan in NYC]

Okay, so the main saving grace of the Taker-Gonzalez match is that it was relatively short.  <15 minutes or so.  So plenty of time for... this.

Yokozuna's Wrestlemania debut is here and he's in the middle of his first monster push. He's challenging Bret Hart for the WWF Championship in the middle of Hart's first reign. 

We begin this match though with an interview with the REAL star of the match... Hulk Hogan(?)  who instantly challenges the winner to a title match.  

Bret and Yoko start up and do the standard big vs little match.   Yoko smashing the fuck out of Bret whenever he gets a hold of him, and Bret doing everything he possibly can to outsmart and outmove Yoko.  Bret is doing his best suicidal bumps and Yokozuna for his part is generally keeping up, including a VERY nice thrust kick that looks like it nearly killed Bret.  Bret rolls through the dreaded FIVE MOVES OF DOOM.  

Mr. Fuji is out there being a nuisance, and of course, he plays a big role in the finish as he throws salt in the face of Bret as he amazingly has the Sharpshooter on, leading to Yokozuna pinning Bret for his first WWE Championship. 

Now, Hulk Hogan is out to PROTEST VEHEMENTLY!!!!  HIS FRIEND WAS CHEATED! 

Fuji stupidly challenges Hogan on the spot.  Hogan "reluctantly" accepts. And of course, less than a minute later, we have a new champ. 

Hogan celebrates, and we fade to black.  Yuck. 

Obviously, history would dictate putting the strap back on Hulk at this point was a catastrophic mistake.  The pop Hogan got for winning was big, no doubt, the following months would indicate that he was ready to leave and the fans were ready for him to leave too.  He famously refused to drop the belt back to Bret, but did drop it back to Yoko and then sat out the remainder of his contract. He then threw Axe Bombers for another year, while testifying against Vince and the WWF, and got a parade in Universal Studios Florida when he signed with WCW.   

Like I said, I really would like a very good sportswriter - who isn't a fan of the sport, but will write respectfully of the subject - to do a whole book on the steroid trial era of the WWF because it would make for an amazing book from an outsider's point of view.  

Obviously, Mania 9 lives down to its rep, but I'm nowhere near as bitter about it as I used to be. (Especially not with 11 looming in the distance.)

As for me, I'm only about 35 minutes or so into my ride, and I'm sure as hell not going to leave that bad taste in my mouth.  I'm pressing on and will make this a long ride as there's a whole lot of good right around the corner.  

[(BP)]

There was this one episode of Sesame Street where Cookie Monster was so hungry for cookies he started thinking a typewriter was a cookie. He ate the keys, the ribbon, etc. For a long while after I saw that as a kid, whenever I saw a typewriter it made me hungry. I also loved the ending of IX back then. What I’m saying is I was a stupid, stupid child. 

[NikoBaltimore]

19 minutes ago, (BP) said:

There was this one episode of Sesame Street where Cookie Monster was so hungry for cookies he started thinking a typewriter was a cookie. He ate the keys, the ribbon, etc. For a long while after I saw that as a kid, whenever I saw a typewriter it made me hungry. I also loved the ending of IX back then. What I’m saying is I was a stupid, stupid child. 

As a kid the marketing really got my attention with the ads and the way they played it up on TV.  It was one of those shows I really wanted to go to.  I never saw any of the show for the longest time though and when I did the stupidity of some things really stood out.

But no matter what we at least had Undertaker in one of my all-time favorite entrances.  I'm with Dolfan in wishing for this to happen later on in the day.  But man is that a helluva entrance.

[PetrolCB]

1 hour ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

We begin this match though with an interview with the REAL star of the match... Hulk Hogan(?)  who instantly challenges the winner to a title match.  

Ah yes. Where we get this Hoganism...

[(BP)]

1 hour ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Obviously, history would dictate putting the strap back on Hulk at this point was a catastrophic mistake.  The pop Hogan got for winning was big, no doubt, the following months would indicate that he was ready to leave and the fans were ready for him to leave too.  He famously refused to drop the belt back to Bret, but did drop it back to Yoko and then sat out the remainder of his contract.

He also hilariously cut that promo in Japan where he said the IWGP title was the most important championship in the world while the WWF title was on his shoulder because he thought no one in America would ever see it. 

[odessasteps]

The Suntory Effect

 

[For Great Justice]

It's interesting to me seeing both WM 8 and WM 9 have twist endings (for better or worse) and it got me realizing how rare those are nowadays. Rollins at 31 is the last notable one I can think of and that was 5 years ago. And before that, I guess the Rock stuff leading to Miz winning at 27, then before that, hell, a decade earlier with Austin's turn.

 

[Elsalvajeloco]

5 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

We begin this match though with an interview with the REAL star of the match... Hulk Hogan(?)  who instantly challenges the winner to a title match.  

I maintain the best part of that interview was Hulk Hogan calling Bret Hart a Hulkamaniac. Now that's how you pull rank.

[thee Reverend Axl Future]

We all know that this is some Twilight Zone cornfield twist shiznit, and the COVID-19s will continue to dominate out lives with no light on the horizon, until Dolfan finishes the total sum of each and every WrestleMania and peace, health and prosperity can be restored. So get to cycling, brother.

- RAF

[MoeCristyV.1.6]

The match ending of Luger vs Perfect was Hennig having both feet in the ropes. How the ref missed that I never know. And the GOAT bump Scott takes is also missing. That put me on my feet as a kid seeing that.

[Gordi the former AEW fan]

On 4/30/2020 at 11:11 PM, Dolfan in NYC said:

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".

Who are you to doubt El Gigante? He's a jam-up guy!

[Dolfan in NYC]

WRESTLEMANIA X

I'm skipping past the intro of the first nine Manias leading up to this.  And God Bless America.  Oh boy, the announcers are Vince and Lawler.  I forget if JR had been let go or whatever at this point, but I'll tell you right now, I'd forgotten how terrible this team was.  1994 Lawler in particular is insufferable.

Now, here we fucking go.  Bret vs. Owen.  

The story was that Luger and Bret "tied" at the Royal Rumble.  (Though iirc, Lex's foot barely but clearly hit first.)  So they both won the right to face WWF Champion Yokozuna, but one had to go first, but the other had to face a "suitable opponent" to make it fair.  Lex would have had to have wrestled Crush if he'd lost. Fortunately, Lex won and we got this.  

So Owen comes in looking focused and ready.  Bret comes in looking focused, but displeased that he has to actually has to do this.  And that's roughly how they'd wrestle the match.  Owen fully controls the first 10 minutes of the match. First of all taunting Bret after every offensive move, because he's awesome.  Then slowly wearing his brother down.  Bret for his part is telling his own story here.  He's getting hurt, but he's VERY conflicted about what's going on. He's playing the "let him get this all out his system" big brother-little brother fight.  In fact, Bret's doing this so well, he actually does not land a strike on Owen until more than 12 minutes(!) into the match. 

It's around now then that Bret starts taking this seriously and switches to the "oh crap, I don't want to lose" mode. I think the move that finally woke him up was a FUCKING jumping piledriver that Owen hits.  God damn Owen put some mustard on that.  

Bret finally takes full control in the last third of the match, and starts rolling through the Five Moves of Doom.  Owen dutifully kicks out of everything and Bret finally hits a jumping piledriver of his own to almost put the match away.  But again, Owen's kicking out and countering everything his brother is throwing.  

The crowd has been fully dragged into this match as Bret was a heavy favorite in this match and is now in serious trouble.  

The finish comes as Bret's desperate and rolls deep into his bag of tricks and tries to pull out a victory roll... But Owen's final counter is enough and aside from a couple of true believers, EVERYONE in the arena is shocked!  Owen pulls off the biggest upset in WrestleMania history to that point (quite possibly ever) and I'm grinning from ear to ear.   Now THAT was fucking awesome.  

End of a long Day 28.

[Raziel]

JR was doing Radio WWF at this point so that removes him from ringside.  I forget offhand if Monsoon was up with him or not.

[Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie]

2 hours ago, Raziel said:

JR was doing Radio WWF at this point so that removes him from ringside.  I forget offhand if Monsoon was up with him or not.

I'm not 100% sure but I think when WrestleMania X rolled around, he was gone due to his first Bell's Palsy attack. I want to say Radio WWF for this one was Gorilla and, of all random people, Chet Coppock, but I'm not 100% on that. If I'm somehow right I don't know how that lodged in my memory bank.

[Happ Hazzard]

One thing they never explained about WM X was why Yokozuna should have had to defend his title twice in the same night, it wasn't his fault Bret and Lex tied in the Rumble. You'd think Cornette and Fuji would have kicked up a stink about it, especially after Yoko had foolishly defended his title in a second match at 'Mania the year before and lost it only minutes after winning it.

[DJ Hero Morganti]

Mania X was before 3 way matches really started right?  

[AxB]

WMX was the same year as The Night The Line Was Crossed, a couple of months after. But it was a while before three ways became widespread... it was the Three Way Dance tag matches that really made them a thing. Before that, they were a thing that happened once.

Although I'm fairly sure that The Night The Line Was Crossed wasn't the first triangle match ever.

[Brian Fowler]

14 minutes ago, Morganti said:

Mania X was before 3 way matches really started right?  

Yeah. I'm not sure if Smokey Mountain had ran their one yet, but WWF wouldn't until I think some house shoes and after RAW went off the air stuff around 96.

[Mister TV]

2 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Yeah. I'm not sure if Smokey Mountain had ran their one yet, but WWF wouldn't until I think some house shoes and after RAW went off the air stuff around 96.

I swear I remember WCW having a “Triangle Match” on the Saturday morning show in 1990 or 1991. Only two in the ring at a time with the third person able to tag in or jump in to break up a pin fall or submission. 

[BobbyWhioux]

4 hours ago, Happ Hazzard said:

One thing they never explained about WM X was why Yokozuna should have had to defend his title twice in the same night, it wasn't his fault Bret and Lex tied in the Rumble. You'd think Cornette and Fuji would have kicked up a stink about it, especially after Yoko had foolishly defended his title in a second match at 'Mania the year before and lost it only minutes after winning it.

IIRC the "suitable competition" match was framed as Cornette's condition for Yoko defending twice in one night.  Or maybe Tunney preemptively decreed that it wasn't fair to make the champ pull double duty unless the second opponent did also.  They had Tunney explain that, as "co winners" they both had earned the wrestlemania title bout, and since triangle matches "didn't exist" yet, that meant the round robin approach.

There was definitely at least one promo where Cornette boasted about Yoko's prowess including that caveat.  "As long as his opponent has the same amount of matches, he'll defend the title as many times as you want in a night, 2, 5, 50 whatever [cuz nobody can beat 'em]" so they publicly accepted the fairness of the "suitable competition" stipulation (and of course Luger's "suitable competition" would have been their hatchetman, Crush, which would've made things your standard "soften 'em up" angle.)

Not that WM9 was mentioned of course, since Hogan was on to WCW and thus Unpersoned from WWF history, but I assume the difference in logic we were suppose to accept was that Yoko didn't know he'd be wrestling twice at 9, whereas at 10 he had advance knowledge of both opponents and had contractually agreed to both matches, whereas Hogan was a surprise.

[BobbyWhioux]

now, what they didn't explain at all was why the winner of the toss automatically got the first title match rather than getting to choose whether they wanted first or second

 

[SirSmUgly]

I just said this like a month ago in another thread, but Bret/Owen has my favorite finish in WWF history (maybe my favorite ever) because it's a callback to KotR '93 and Bret/Bam Bam, which Owen was obviously kayfabe watching very closely as he prepped for this match. 

[Dolfan in NYC]

DAY 29

Owen cuts a promo that almost rivals "kicked your leg out of your leg" celebrating his win.  Aw fuck it.  I'll forgive it.

The Fink is in a wig for some reason. 

Now, for as good as heel Doink was... D*ink and D*nk....  ugh.  The whole thing that's appealing about the character was that he turned an archetype on its head, exploited the fears a lot of people had, and performed the character incredibly. But since Matt Borne got fired for drugs, and Ray Apollo took over, we get this.  So D&D face Bam Bam Bigelow and "his main squeeze" Luna Vachon. This is supposed to be a comedy match, but Dink is having trouble keeping up.  Luna's looking shoot frustrated with this whole thing and is trying her best but Dink keeps fucking up spots.  Bam Bam and Doink are basically doing a squash match around this growing garbage fire.  Bammer does a flying headbutt that ends things.  And Dink BADLY fucks up a spot where he is supposed to roll out of the way of a double splash, but ends up getting fucking clobbered by Luna (who looks ESPECIALLY displeased --- more so than usual).  Yikes what a mess. 

"Bill Clinton" is sitting with Jack Tunney.  I still fail to see why Vince paid some guy to do this. 

Randy Savage is taking on Crush in a Falls Count Anywhere match... with the Texas Death Match stip that you get to continue if you can get back to the ring in 60 seconds.  This match suffers badly because of this stipulation, because it quickly becomes "Hurry up.  And wait."  Plus Savage appears to be pretty much half assing this match.  Crush isn't really giving him much to work with either, because he's bad.  The final spot is cute because Savage is tying Crush up in a steel scaffolding that's covered in cables for some reason, but Randy has no idea how to tie a knot apparently because it all comes loose as soon as he walks away.  

Anyway, this was Randy's final WrestleMania as he would be gone from the WWF in a few months after this.  And after KotR '94, he'd never make a live appearance on WWF/E TV again. 

[PetrolCB]

16 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Anyway, this was Randy's final WrestleMania as he would be gone from the WWF in a few months after this.  And after KotR '94, he'd never make a live appearance on WWF/E TV again. 

His last PPV was at The SummerSlam as "host" or whatever. He still did commentary on Raw up until he quit. I think he was even at ringside the week before he abruptly left. Then we got that odd, but nice send off by Vince on air the week after that.

[Dolfan in NYC]

Todd Pettengill interviews "Bill Clinton" and IRS.  It should be noted that they were clearly told to ad lib, because neither the impersonator nor IRS have anything meaningful to say... at all. I think the point of this was to make fun of Clinton for a tax raise (which wasn't really a tax raise, but I'm not going to get into that....  Aside from this... If you have ever had to sign up for COBRA - first of all, I'm sorry;  second of all, the name COBRA comes from the bill that Clinton passed in 1993 - The Consolidated OmniBus Reconciliation Act)

Remember how I said Jerry Lawler was insufferable before?  Well, during the Harts match, all he could talk about was how stupid and ugly Martha Hart was. Alundra Blayze is now out to defend her newly won WWF Women's Championship against Leilani Kai.  Well, apparently Blayze is the ugliest woman Jerry has ever seen in his life, because he WILL NOT SHUT UP ABOUT IT.  He's literally ruining a fine match with his commentary. Christ, it's no wonder she threw the belt in the trash. 

Kai is older, but is doing decently well.  You can see in Blayze the start of the modern women's style.  The match is over super quick and we get a shot of former champs watching including Fabulous Moolah (AND Mae Young(!!)).  I'm pretty sure Kai has the distinct honor of being the only person to appear in multiple Manias and have all matches be unsuccessful title challenges. 

Ronda Shear from USA Up All Night is being interviewed by Pettingill now, and he's interrupted by HBK.  Shawn is HIMSELF interrupted by Burt Reynolds.  Burt and Ronda look like they're literally seconds away from leaving the set to go have sex.  

Now we get to the Tag Titles.  There could be volumes written about the divergent paths taken by ALL the participants in this match.  Men on a Mission with Oscar, and the champs, The Quebecers, with Johnny Polo. Mabel eventually becomes Viscera.  Oscar I'm pretty sure lost all his money and was begging at one point (or maybe that was Mo, I can't remember).  Johnny Polo becomes Raven -- and it's super weird seeing him like this. And Pierre... well, today he's being old and occasionally awesome as PCO in Ring of Honor.  

Anyway, I wasn't expecting much, but both teams have their working boots on.  Mo is doing his part by taking bumps and generally getting beat down.  Jacques is doing his usual good stuff. Pierre is adding some other quick strike/flip elements which make me wonder if he didn't just pick Scotty Steiner's brain for everything it was worth one day.  Even Mabel has some good power spots. 

MOM appear to have the belts won, but Johnny Raven distracts the ref so they don't get the count.  Mabel cleans house, and splashes Pierre on the floor in a nasty spot.  The Quebecers decide to vote for independence from this match, and take the COR loss and keep their belts.  

Much, much better than I remember.   

Next ride is going to see Flexy Lexy try to take the WWF Championship and then... THE ladder match.  (and if I'm feeling spry, Bret will get a try too)

End of Day 29.