It seems I only remember about four matches from every Mania. The main event, and then three completely random matches that somehow stayed in my mind despite generally not being 'memorable'. For VI it was Bad News vs Piper, Rude vs Snuka, and Demolotion vs. Haku and Andre.

Demolition-Haku and Bad News-Piper have pretty obvious reasons for being memorable. Am surprised at Rude-Snuka being your fourth though.

I don't understand why one of the biggest stars in wrestling (Piper) was booked to go against an overweight wrestler approaching 50 without much fame. I suppose the company was lacking in heels. It would seem Piper vs. Rude would make a lot more sense, but perhaps some pitfall prevented that.

I think Piper vs. Rude had already blown off by then. Pretty sure they feuded following SummerSlam '89 when Piper helped Warrior win the IC Title back.

I won't say this many times about wrestling: it all makes sense now. It appears that Rude vs. Piper never faced each other in a singles match on PPV despite a somewhat lengthy feud. Not unheard of at the time with fewer PPVs and more revenue coming from house shows, of course.

funny how certain matches do stick with you and some don't, sometimes irrespective of quality. hell, I just watched WM 6 like 8 weeks ago, and didn't remember today that Snuka fought Rude. Couldn't possibly tell you a thing about that match.

Easy. Piper wouldn't job on a ppv. The company said, "**** it. If you ain't gonna job we will put you with Bad News since he refuses to job as well"

Alright Dylan, allow me, it's been a day by now.



WrestleMania VI is now open for discussion. We will transition to WrestleMania VII after Raw on Monday, August 4th.

WrestleMania VI

This unfortunately marks the last we'll hear of Jesse Ventura at WrestleMania.

Rick Martel vs. Koko B. Ware: After having WrestleMania V off, Koko returns for yet another obvious Mania job. Martel seemed to become a lazier worker right at the same time as he turned heel; I can't remember The Model having much in the way of good matches. This was a lame, bad opener. 1/4*

Tag Team Titles: Colossal Connection (c) vs. Demolition: Andre couldn't go at all anymore, so this was basically a handicap match with Haku taking on both members of Demolition. That makes for better ringwork than if Andre were heavily involved though, so no complaints. I thought that this was solid. The Andre face turn afterward is a nice sendoff and helps the match segment as a whole. **1/4

Earthquake vs. Hercules: Slow and plodding and not at all interesting. 1/4*

Mr. Perfect vs. Brutus Beefcake: Gorilla leaving Jesse stumped during Brutus's entrance is always funny to me. Thought this was a solid match and a nice bit of work putting Brutus over without hurting Perfect much. It was really stupid, though, that they blew off Perfect's undefeated streak at a house show like two weeks before this to the Ultimate Warrior. Why? Warrior was about to go over Hogan clean. Nobody would even remember him being the first to beat Perfect. If you're putting Brutus over here, give him the full rub and let him end the undefeated streak of a year and a half, and make a big deal out of it. **3/4

Roddy Piper vs. Bad News Brown: I have no idea what the half-blackface is about. Also he missed a spot in between where his kneepad ends and his boot begins. This is a slightly intriguing brawl I guess, boo as usual at the non-ending though. *1/4

The Hart Foundation vs. The Bolsheviks: Since they were explicitly setting up Harts vs. Demolition, I guess this quick squash is fine, but I prefer that they leave this type of really quick squash to guys like the Ultimate Warrior who aren't likely to put on a good longer match to begin with. N/A

The Barbarian vs. Tito Santana: After winning the first-ever WrestleMania match, Tito seemed to exist at Mania purely to put people over. This feels like far too many matches already on this card that are predictable squashes or semi-squashes. Great job by Santana of selling the hell out of the top rope clothesline. Spot looked awesome. *1/2

Randy Savage & Queen Sherri vs. Dusty Rhodes & Sapphire: It really annoys me that they basically reduced Savage to a comedy match again here (much like his WM 2 match against George Steele). Gorilla busts out the "history has been made here at the Skydome" line that usually signifies a title change. I don't know WTF history was made here. Anyway, I found this a bit more entertaining than I have in the past. *3/4

Great post-match interview by Savage and Sherri, by the way. I can't quite say the same for the weird continuity issue where Bobby Heenan gives a sweaty, frantic promo about Andre turning on him after he has already returned to the ring with The Barbarian and looked perfectly fine.

The Rockers vs. The Orient Express: Somewhat enjoyable, though it falls quite a bit below what I would expect from these two teams going at it. On a good day, with a better ending, these teams seem like they should be able to put on a four-star classic. Gorilla even calls The Rockers out for underperforming, saying "they look a bit lethargic out there, Jess." **1/2

Dino Bravo vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan: Dino Bravo continues to pull singles bookings at WrestleMania. Why? Same could be questioned about Jim Duggan I guess, but I at least understand the novelty act of Duggan. This match was complete garbage. 0*

Jake Roberts vs. Ted DiBiase: Excellent pre-match promo by Jake. Even as a babyface, he was an absolute master on the mic. I thought this match started off really strongly and then hit a lull in mid-match that brought it down. Obviously burdened by a ****ty ending too. Still, I liked it. **3/4

Big Boss Man vs. Akeem: "The Twin Towers Explode" wasn't as much of a money feud as the Mega Powers edition was. Keeping this match mercifully short was a good idea. 1/4*

We very subtly get DDP's WrestleMania debut here, as he comes out as Honky and Valentine's chauffeur of the pink cadillac. I always did like Honky's songs, but Honky's total inability to stay with the beat kills this segment.

Ravishing Rick Rude vs. Jimmy Snuka: For a short and fairly predictable match, I thought this was reasonably watchable. Loved Rick Rude. He was gone to WCW within a year, so he retires with an unblemished record at WrestleMania. **

Title-for-Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior: For the second straight year, the main event delivered in a big way. Atmosphere in the Skydome was truly awesome for this match, and whoever choreographed this match mapped out a very good story. I like the way they spend the first act of the match legitimizing Warrior as being on Hogan's level. Ending spot is excellent. Post-match is excellent. Gorilla and Jesse nail it on the call. You couldn't ask for much more out of a big match between two musclebound WWF brawlers. ****

Overall: Show is mostly not very good, but gets bailed out by a strong ending. A strong finish can do a lot to make an entire show seem better. While I put Hogan-Warrior a tick above Hogan-Savage from the last Mania, the WrestleMania V undercard was stronger IMO and makes it the better overall show.

WrestleMania Rankings
1. WrestleMania III
2. WrestleMania V
3. WrestleMania VI
4. WrestleMania IV
5. WrestleMania
6. WrestleMania 2

I don't have much to say about the first three matches, but have more to say about the rest of the card.

Koko B Ware vs. Rick Martel

Pretty fast start and the crowd is ready. After the start the match gets pretty boring. Below average start. 1 1/2*

Demolition vs. Colossal Connection

The crowd loves Demolition and are mostly into this match. It’s like half a classic late Andre match and half a match between Haku and Demolition. 2*

Earthquake vs. Hercules

Alright building of a new monster match. *

Perfect vs. Beefcake

Pretty cool promo by Beefcake’s standards beforehand, but it wouldn’t be much longer if at all that acting larger than life like that no longer was in style. It seems as if the match has two botches within the first few seconds. The question then became obvious: how well could Perfect carry this jabroni? Somewhat, but not very. Perfect could sell and execute but he didn’t quite have the match design and call ability to squeeze a four star match out of a stiff like prime Flair.

Poor Lanny Poffo. Probably a better worker than half the guys on this card and he’s getting haircuts in an awful outfit. 2*

Bad News vs. Piper

The build for this match is good. But I don’t understand why Bad News is facing somebody at the level of Piper at this point. Bad News was alright…for being 45 and overweight. The match is a relatively boring brawl with some cheesy stuff by Piper. 1*

Hart Foundation vs. Bolsheviks

They couldn’t find the Hart Foundation better opponents then this? This is a Saturday morning Superstars match, not a Wrestlemania match. 1* for keeping it short and great announcing.

Barbarian vs. Tito

New decade, same flagrant racism. The match is like two good algebra students doing basic arithmetic; they could have done much better but it seemed the script didn’t call for it. ½*

Savage/Sherri vs. Dusty/Sapphire

Putting Dusty into some silly sideshow wasn’t that horrible of an idea at this point in his career, but Savage is still excellent in the ring at this point and should be in a position to showcase it. It’s more about storyline than wrestling, and the storyline does what it is supposed to. 1*

Orient Express vs. Rockers

This is a decent match. But for the participants it is a bit slow. Perhaps Gorilla shouldn’t have said something about the Rockers looking lethargic. 2 1/2*

Duggan Vs. Bravo

How the hell was Bravo in so many Wrestlemanias? Vince didn’t just like bodybuilders. He liked strong guys that weren’t bodybuilders, but weren‘t really good wrestlers either. 1 ½*

Ted vs. Jake

Amazing promo by Jake. This match is pretty slow and the crowd entertains themselves by doing a wave during the marathon hammerlock fest. It isn’t terrible but it’s a ring psychology/mat wrestling match and not a spot heavy affair. It could have been significantly less fun with a different crowd. 2*

Bossman vs. Akeem

Believe it or not, for a brief moment before they made him so over the top, Slick was pretty damn good on the mic. But that was years before this.

This match is nothing more than a stepping stone for Bossman’s career and feud with Ted. It does what it is supposed to do effectively I suppose. 1 ½*

Rude vs. Snuka

Perhaps they shouldn’t have had these matches back to back, because both are clearly about building for the future rather than focused on the here and now. Rude steps on Snuka on his way to feuding for the world title. But Rude really works well during this short match, and Snuka isn’t bad either. Not every match has to be a marathon; in fact it is better to mix in some short ones. 2 ½ *

Warrior vs. Hogan

If you watch carefully Hogan carries Warrior in this match. Warrior is exhausted for quite a bit of the match (really sucking air) and Hulk does a clever job making him look less bad and letting him catch his breath. Warrior misses some offense, very obviously barely touches Hulk on some other moves, screws up, etc. For all you the bad things said about Hogan, he could have made Warrior look awful but instead did the best he could given his own limitations despite the risk to his place at the top that Warrior posed.

The fans love this and it is decent. I remembered it being better than it seemed on this watch. 3*

This is a decent PPV but nothing special. They do a better job avoiding the complete clunkers this time.



WM III>VI>V>IV>I>II

Yeah LKJ if you don't mind taking over this and running it, that would be awesome. My schedule has become pretty crazy lately and I'm struggling to find time to watch some of these.

I also remembered every One Man Gang match from Wrestlemania IV, and that he got a bye. That marked about half of what I remembered from the PPV. But I wasn't sure if he was wrestling as Akeem or One Man Gang.

WrestleMania VI
April 1, 1990 - SkyDome, Toronto, Ontario

- Our long national nightmare is over! Trump Plaza is a distant bad memory, and we make our first visit to one of the all-time great WWF towns in Toronto. We say hello to the awesome Mania theme they would use for the next three years, but a sad goodbye to Jesse Ventura, doing his last WWF PPV. They had the good sense to go back to actual professional singers to open the show this year, as Robert Goulet does a nice rendition of O Canada.

Koko B. Ware vs. Rick Martel *1/4
Dubbing update: Koko must have switched to his last WWF theme by this point, as "Piledriver" is dubbed in (along with an obvious Fink overdub, although I give him credit for syncing it so nicely with the video). They still haven't quite figured out how to open Mania yet. Good energy from the opening bell, then slows down a bunch when Martel goes on offence. Martel didn't really show me as much as I was expecting here -- without the high-energy face comeback he seems very ordinary, although he worked the crowd well. Crowd is electric already, popping for every little thing.

Tag team titles: Colossal Connection [c] vs. Demolition *1/2
Screw the dubbing, I have the uncut match on my computer and I'm watching it as God and Rick Derringer intended. Haku works the entire match for the champs, as Andre can't do ANYTHING besides stand on the apron and lay in a weak-looking shot now and then. Nothing exciting until the finish, where the Demos get Andre tied in the ropes, and then give Haku Demolition Decapitation for the win and the titles to blow the roof off the place in what was pretty much their last hurrah at the top of the tag team division. I seriously can't believe they were still trotting Andre out there, it's embarrassing and sad. That being said, Andre deserved a nice sendoff from the fans, and he got it as Heenan committed suicide on international TV by berating and then slapping the Giant for costing them the belts. Andre riding off alone into the sunset to a thunderous ovation was a very cool moment.

Earthquake vs. Hercules DUD
They had to rebrand Earthquake by taking the "Canadian" out of his name in preparation for this show, just in case he might have gotten cheered north of the border. Not much more than a squash here.

Mr. Perfect vs. Brutus Beefcake **1/2
So Perfect, who many thought was in line for a title run of some kind just a few months before, ended up wrestling the champ's good buddy on the big show instead. And losing. This was supposed to lead to Beefcake getting a shot at Perfect's IC title that he would win shortly after Mania at Summerslam, but of course the boating accident put an unfortunate end to that. Perfect has the Sell-o-Meter turned up to 11 here, flying over the top on a simple right hand early, then a big flip on a whip to the buckle. I liked the story they told here, with Perfect dominating the last half of the match but too cocky to put Beefcake away, leading to a slingshot to the buckle out of nowhere for a fluke Beefcake win and another huge pop.

Roddy Piper vs. Bad News Brown 1/4*
Piper really should've stayed retired, Royal Rumble 92 and his IC title match with Bret Hart were really the only high points to his career after coming back. This is certainly no exception, with the half-black stunt, a very dull exhibition of brawling and a non-finish. Crowd was the only thing decent about this, solidly behind Piper.

Hart Foundation vs. Bolsheviks DUD
God, those carts are moving slow. No idea why they didn't want to do a normal match, especially with the most talented team on the roster. At least they saved us from the long version of the anthem.

- Hey, WrestleMania VII at the LA Coliseum! Can't wait to see that.

Tito Santana vs. Barbarian *
Poor Chico is still in his Strike Force gear, just can't let go. He had maybe the best bump of the entire show, taking the clothesline off the top nearly on his head. Otherwise, pretty generic match.

Mixed tag: Randy Savage & Sensational Sherri vs. Dusty Rhodes & Sapphire -**
I have never seen this match in it's entirety, and I really didn't want to start now. Dubbing update: As if they couldn't make this match any worse, "Common Man" is replaced by one of the worst pieces of crap I've ever heard, even worse than WM4 replacing "Jesus Christ Superstar" with "Jesus Christ This is Awful". Jesse goes off on one of his hilarious rants as the faces are announced as weighing 465, saying that means Dusty must only weigh 200 and that he'd buy 565 way before 465. Speaking of Jesse, remember how hard he cheered for Savage against Hogan? That is NOTHING compared to how hard he goes off on Rhodes and Sapphire here. As for the actual match, the less said about this, the better, it is just atrocious, particularly when Sapphire is in. Poor Sherri is reduced to selling for Sapphire tapping her gently with her hip. Easily the low point of Savage's career, but he would of course have better days ahead.

- Intermission time, as we get duelling interviews from Hogan and the Warrior, both basically claiming to be Jesus Christ offering to save the other. Unreal.

Orient Express vs. Rockers **1/4
Akio Sato is Pat Tanaka's partner in the Express here, instead of Paul Diamond, who teamed with Tanaka as Badd Company in the AWA, as the masked Kato. The Rockers continued their proud tradition of getting trashed the night before WrestleMania, as they looked a step slow, something even Gorilla noted, and sloppy, with a blown double dropkick and a pretty suspect double backdrop. Still one of the high points as far as wrestling goes tonight.

Dino Bravo vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan DUD
Duggan doesn't seem to realize that he crossed the border as he tries to start a "USA" chant before the match and fails miserably. About as bad as you'd expect with these two.

Million Dollar Belt: Ted DiBiase vs. Jake Roberts **1/2
Jake cuts one of the best face promos I've ever heard before the match. As is still the case at SkyDome, I'm thinking the crowd is way into the action, but no, it's just the idiot fans doing the ****ing wave. Nice exhibition of mat wrestling (although a bit slow in the middle) that could've done with a better finish.

Big Bossman vs. Akeem 1/4*
THE TWIN TOWERS EXPLODE! Dubbing update: What, you don't have "Jive Soul Bro" OR "Hard Time"? Unbelievable. Bossman's Corporate Ministry-era theme really doesn't fit the face character. Bossman had trimmed down and was pretty good at this point of his career; Akeem, sadly, was not. Mercifully short.

- And now, the moment we've all been waiting for -- DDP's WrestleMania debut! Oh, and Rhythm and Blues and the Bushwhackers come out and do stuff I couldn't give a **** about. Valentine with a jet-black dye job pretending to play the guitar is just sad.

Ravishing Rick Rude vs. Jimmy Snuka **
Rude out with a new, more serious look as he prepares for his move up the card. Dubbing update: WTF, they have to dub over Superfly's music? That thing was so generic that I can't imagine having to pay any money for it. I liked this match, nice back-and-forth action.

Title for title: WWF champion Hulk Hogan vs. Intercontinental champion Ultimate Warrior ***1/2
You can pretty much point to this match as being the end of the golden age of wrestling. Warrior runs down to the ring like an idiot and blows himself up before the match even starts, which Jesse astutely points out. Anticipation for this is off the charts. I don't think I've ever seen a crowd split down the middle as much as this one, every move by both guys greeted with huge cheers. The crowd, in fact, really made this match, as it was really rudimentary and would be considered pretty boring in any other context. I mean, you've got the extended test of strength, a bear hug, a long headlock spot in the middle. The charisma of these two guys was enough to keep the crowd into it all the way through to the dueling hulk-ups and the unpredictable finish. I still have Hogan/Savage as being better, switch the crowds around and there's absolutely no comparison.

Overall: 5.25/10
This is an interesting contrast with the previous year. Wrestling-wise, V was unquestionably better. Everything else-wise, VI was miles ahead. I give a very slight edge to VI overall, but it still wasn't a terrific show by any means.

Ratings so far:
III - 9.5
VI - 5.25
V - 5.0
I - 4.5
2 - 3.5
IV - 3.0

Nice writeup. We're bringing the golden age to an end before Savage-Warrior though?

In my research it appears Vince signed a deal with a record label to produce the first record, and they had a disagreement on royalties, and that's why some stuff is dubbed apparently.

Thanks. Yeah, I think so, at least from a money-drawing standpoint. This was the point where business started to noticeably slide before the steroid trials.

Guess I wouldn't think to use success of business as the dividing point. Always seemed to me that the Golden Era was sent off at the end of WrestleMania VIII when Hogan originally left. You may be right that WM VI was the end of the peak period, but I don't think the story of the Golden Era is finished unless you include the two years that followed (even if they were in decline).

7 is the hardest watch for me of the first ten. Have fun, gents.

I like 7 quite a bit overall, even though Hogan-Slaughter is the least interesting main event they trotted out since Hogan-Bundy five years earlier.

Yeah, I'm actually looking forward to 7 quite a bit, lot of enjoyable stuff even discounting Savage/Warrior. I certainly can't believe it could be a tougher watch than 2, 4 or 9.

In my mind I never had a precise ending date for the Golden Era. I'd say VII is within it. The Golden Era ends in my mind approximately when the horrible gimmick rapid influx starts and Hart is made the #1 face.

The horrible gimmick rapid influx really hit its peak well after Bret became the #1 face. Bret takes over as #1 face in late 1992, and while I think some of the awful gimmicks arrived in 1994, 1995 was when they really hit full stride with the absurdly terrible gimmicks.

I always think that the company clearly became something different when Bret takes the title from Flair up in Canada, and starts a down era that I tend to say ends to some extent at Austin 3:16 in June 1996. So a little over 3.5 years of the New Generation stuff before a slow burn toward Attitude Era. The New Generation wasn't the most compelling product a lot of the time, but at least Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels were making sure that almost every month featured at least one really good PPV match.

Why? Best of the first seven imo. Rockers vs Barbarian/Haku, Nastys/Harts, Warrior/Savage, and even Slaughter/Hulk was very good.

VII has the most genuinely good matches of any of the first seven perhaps but a ton of worthless matches.

A lot of the awful gimmicks hit well before 1994 and around the same time. Skinner, the Berzerker, the Mountie, The Dragon (Ricky Steamboat in a mask), Repo Man, Nailz, Damien Demento, Max Moon.