Yeah, fair enough I suppose. When I think "awful gimmicks" my mind goes straight to TL Hopper, Duke "The Dumpster" Droese, Abe "Knuckleballer" Schwartz, babyface Doink, Salvatore Sincere, etc.

These are the worst gimmicks, indeed. They mark the depths of depravity of the era between the Golden and Attitude Eras, not the beginning.

VII is booking gimmick after booking gimmick, there are wayyyy too many matches with characters I can't give a **** about and by this point of the Hogan era I'm so done with all the Americans bull**** that everything other than Savage/Warrior ranges from meh to awful. The exploitation of a war where a LOT of people actually died while Vince was exploiting it for heat makes me furious as well. And I don't know how compelling Slaughter was in the 70s by this glorification as a top guy is undeserved here. He gasses immediately. Tells a decent story but it's cheap heat and he's no more than an upper mid carder.

I really hate WM7

Outside of the completely hideous blindfold match (which I'll be happy to join you in mercilessly piling on), I guess I don't know what other booking gimmicks there are. Everything else is just a straight singles or tag match. Warrior/Savage had their careers on the line as a stip, but still a straight singles match that just has high stakes attached.

Where do I start? A tag team making a debut on a WM (and going over!) a transition tag team dqing a title change, the blindfold match (which I actually don't hate so much aside from the mask wave that kills kayfabe) 6 squash matches including several very unnecessary participants, the awful AWFUL Piper/Virgil business and the continued burial of the much more talented DiBiase, the "new" variation of a tag team, and it's a 13 match marathon.

Only 3 of the matches I would consider better than 4/10: The curtain jerker which was like a 5.5, Bulldog/Warlord which was surprisingly good and Savage/Warrior which stole the show and is a testament to how great of a storyteller Savage was.

Hate, hate HATE this ppv

Huh.

Well, different strokes I guess.

WrestleMania VII is now open for business through the end of next week's Raw

WrestleMania VII

Well we open the show with a country singer busting out America the Beautiful, so right away you have to be pretty psyched.

The Rockers vs. Haku & The Barbarian: This one was a fun Rockers match, a decent bit better than their match with the Orient Express the year before. Think I still slightly prefer their match against the Twin Towers at WM V. ***

Dino Bravo vs. Kerry Von Erich: Sadly, neither of these guys were long for this world at this point. This match was somewhat sloppy and wouldn't have been good if the spots were cleaned up anyway. 1/2*

British Bulldog vs. The Warlord: On paper I expected suckage here, but this is a very fine power match, and one with a hot crowd as well. I enjoyed it. **1/2

Tag Team Titles: The Hart Foundation (c) vs. The Nasty Boys: This marked the sixth and final appearance for the Hart Foundation as a team at Mania. This booking made me very angry as a kid, as I simply couldn't believe they would put the Nasty Boys over the Harts ever, but I realize in hindsight that they needed to free Bret up to start the singles career. Thankfully Bret showed exactly why during this match, since he was awesome in it. This was a good match, objectionable result notwithstanding. ***

Blindfold Match: Jake Roberts vs. Rick Martel: Shoot me in the ****ing face. I can't believe they devoted so much time to this. As much love as I have for the guy, this makes three matches in four Manias for Jake that I'm giving zero stars to. 0*

The Undertaker vs. Jimmy Snuka: Original heel Taker was so creepy. Just a great idea for a gimmick; I'd be very curious as to who came up with it. This was a really well-executed squash, and obviously went on to have historic value as the start of the streak. **

Retirement Match: Randy Savage vs. Ultimate Warrior: Already wrote this up rather recently, but I watched it again here and I feel pretty much the same. I have my nitpicks and little criticisms, but this is great. If you count post-match this would be up at a point of considering five stars. Not just the reunion, but Savage returning to his rightful place as a babyface for the rest of his WWF career. Certainly he was a good and talented heel, but face Savage was the legend that we all fell in love with. Anyway, only really rating the match, so... ****

Demolition vs. Tenryu/Kitao: Like…I don't remember Tenryu or Kitao being part of the WWF aside from this (except for Tenryu being one of the hatchet men on Luger in the '93 Royal Rumble). And it doesn't seem like this crowd knew who they were either. They certainly didn't care about them anyway. I will go to my grave never having the slightest idea why this match existed. The ringwork would be passable if the crowd cared about the match, but as it is this whole thing felt extremely dull. Nothing was going to successfully follow Savage/Warrior. Still, this was a ****ty curtain call for a legendary tag team. 1/4*

IC Title: Mr. Perfect (c) vs. Big Boss Man: Temporarily subbing in Lord Alfred Hayes for Bobby Heenan at the broadcast table is a pretty amazing downgrade. Anyway, I like this match quite a bit. Certainly Boss Man's peak as a worker; he had gotten considerably slimmer since he was a fat slob plodding around at WrestleMania V, and he was good here. Loved the bump he took into the steps late. **** DQ endings at WrestleMania, especially in title matches…but whatever, I'm happy with this match. Even as slow as Andre is hitting his spots, I think that it was clearly worth it to have him out there to pop the crowd so strongly. ***1/4

Earthquake vs. Greg Valentine: Greg "The Babyface" Valentine was the dumbest ****ing thing in the world. Like, I don't know how it's possible to be a less natural babyface than Valentine was. This strikes me as a match to just put Earthquake over in a squash to put him over early in his run, but Earthquake already had one of these matches at WM VI, so yeah I don't get it. 1/4*

LOD vs. Power & Glory: Squash is fine here I suppose, but this was too short to even rate. N/A

Ted DiBiase vs. Virgil: Crowd was really into this feud. When it happened I wasn't expecting much since I never took to Virgil, but they certainly put on a decent product together. I don't even hate this ending, because it set up a nice payoff at the SummerSlam that followed. Sure, if one is going to set up the other it should be the other way around, but that's just nitpicking. Solid match, but it's incomplete enough to keep the rating down a bit. **1/2

Tito Santana vs. The Mountie: There were matches that could have been left on the cutting room floor. But I guess I shouldn't argue against a couple of decent workers getting a WrestleMania paycheck. Anyway, the collision spot to open this match appears to be a botch, and then within a minute the match is over. Another of the "too short to rate" variety. N/A

WWF Title: Sgt. Slaughter (c) vs. Hulk Hogan: I never got into this angle, but it appears that the masses did since the crowd was hot for this one. I also have never been able to muster the respect for this match that other people seem to have. It's okay, but nothing more. I honestly think that Hogan vs. Bundy five years prior is slightly better in a vacuum, though this one does have a better crowd. **1/4

Overall: Savage vs. Warrior is obviously great, and then several other good matches drop in throughout the show. There's a fair bit of bad filler, but aside from the Martel/Roberts disaster the bad stuff is generally kept short. I think that this beats WrestleMania VI (largely a one-match show) fairly easily, and after thinking for a moment I'm going to put it above WrestleMania V as well.

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

Wrestlemania VII

Savage vs. Warrior is the second Wrestlemania match that still holds up as truly great. Randy Savage should have been known as Mr. Wrestlemania. He’s in just about all the best matches we‘ve seen so far. This PPV also has a ton of complete duds. Cut an hour off, correct a few flagrant booking/writing errors, and this could have potential.

Why

Valentine vs. Earthquake: WHY?

Dino Bravo vs. Texas Tornado Kerry Von Erich: Why is Bravo in every Wrestlemania?

Jake vs. Martel: Why blindfolds?

Mountie vs. Tito: Why not let these two have a real match?

Demolotion vs. Tenryu and Kitao, Road Warriors vs. Power and Glory: Out of all this talent you can’t even get one passable match?

Warlord vs. Bulldog: Why are half a dozen matches on this card clearly worse than a Warlord match?

Virgil vs. Ted: Why wasn’t Virgil ever world champ?

Average: Perfect vs. Bossman, Snuka vs. Undertaker, Slaughter vs. Hogan.

Good:

Hart Foundation vs. Nasty Boys: A few years ago when I rewatched some Nasty Boys matches, I wasn’t expecting to find good worker, but for a few years they certainly were.

Rockers vs. Barbarian and Haku: Finally a textbook opening match. One of the better matches I’ve seen from Barbarian and Haku. It is shocking that they selected Duggan to be on commentary here. But somehow he is still better than current Lawler.

Great: Warrior vs. Savage

This Mania has significantly more bad matches than 6, and fewer mediocre matches. Out of the two cards, this event has 3 of the best 4 matches, maybe 4 out of 5. But it also has 7-8 out of the 10 of the worst matches. It depends on what you prefer.

This PPV is pretty close to VI and V in quality. I'll rank it officially later.

Dunno if you were asking why blindfolds in storyline, or why would you make such a crap match regardless of storyline, but Martel had sprayed his Arrogance cologne in Jake's eyes, blinding him. So the idea was now Jake would have revenge by making Martel feel what he had felt.

I understand what they were going for with the blindfold thing, but you just cannot make an audience sit through "these guys can't find each other" for that damn long. It dragged out forever.

The question was closer to the latter. I suppose this wasn't a bad storyline, but they should have been a bit more creative and had the blindfold only at the very start of the match with a clause that allows participants to take off the blindfold after accomplishing something, thus cutting down the "find each other" time drastically instead of putting people through this legendarily awful match.

Yeah that could have been decent actually, likely let the babyface Jake earn his right to remove his blindfold early on and then **** with his enemy who can't see anything.

The last time I watched that match, I really liked it. I was also around 14. I'm going in....

I thought No Holds Barred was pretty good when I was a little kid.

DON'T DO IT

WrestleMania VII
March 24, 1991 - Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum L.A. Sports Arena, Los Angeles, CA

- Oops. I don't see a hundred thousand people here, Vince. That's what happens when you let Jesse go, none of his Hollywood buddies come out to your show in L.A. And could you please do us all the favour of not continuing to insult our intelligence with the whole bomb threat/security concerns story? Thanks. Most stories I've heard had Hogan/Warrior II headlining here as far back as before WrestleMania VI, until Warrior bombed as world champ and Vince had no choice but to pull the plug. Hogan/Slaughter was an OK main event, but it was never, ever going to fill the Coliseum.

- A bit of an odd situation with the celebrities at this show, they were supposed to have Bob Costas and somebody else on for a "panel discussion" on instant replay in wrestling, only to have Costas pull out due to the poor taste Iraqi angle.

- Willie Nelson does a really nice, understated version of America the Beautiful that gets an unsurpriingly huge ovation. Then Hacksaw Jim Duggan comes out for colour commentary (oh, no) in an Uncle Sam outfit that is decidedly NOT understated.

Rockers vs. Haku & Barbarian ***1/2
Now THIS is a Mania opener! Rockers were at their absolute peak here, and the future Faces of Fear really meshed well as a tag team, much more than the sum of their parts. Rockers looked in much better shape here than at their first two Manias, draw your own conclusions. Some pretty inventive spots in this one, my favourite had to be the two spots where Marty was in rana/powerbomb position -- Shawn came in the first time to dropkick Barbarian into a rana, but when they tried it a second time the ref put Shawn out and Barbarian took advantage of the distraction to come in and double-team Marty with a double hotshot. Marty played Ricky Morton in this one as well as Ricky ever did. The hot crowd popped pretty big for the pinfall. Mark it down, HBK gets his first win at WrestleMania.

Dino Bravo vs. Kerry von Erich 1/4*
Bleh. Sloppy, plodding and just generally dull. Kerry wasn't satisfied with just one of the worst finishers of all time, he had to have TWO (the claw and the discus punch).

Warlord vs. British Bulldog *
Basic power match, nothing special. Davey Boy did a nice job keeping the crowd into it during the weak-looking restholds. Starting to lose to the good feelings from the first match.

Tag team titles: Hart Foundation [c] vs. Nasty Boys **1/2
Hot beginning and finish (controlled by the champs) surrounding a boring, super-slow middle (controlled by the Nasty Boys, naturally). First good Brain quote of the night, mocking Gorilla: "There's one to the cervial dervial part of the back." I think that was the only time I've ever seen the ref more concerned with putting the illegal man out than counting after the Hart Attack, leading to the cheap finish. Nasties get carried to their only decent WWF match by the Harts. This, of course, was the final match for the Foundation before Bret got the big singles push. If you had told me that Bret would be defending the world title at Mania in two years' time, I would've had you committed.

Blindford match: Jake Roberts vs. Rick Martel -****
Worst match in WrestleMania history up to this point. Whoever had the idea for this one should have been fired. Let's just move on.

Undertaker vs. Jimmy Snuka 1/2*
And thus, a legend was born. Total squash and rightfully so. Crowd was in total awe of Taker, and was even starting to cheer him just a little bit.

Retirement match: Ultimate Warrior vs. Randy Savage ****1/2
To this day, this is still my favourite match of all time, made a little sadder by my recent realization that all four of the principals in it are now no longer with us. I loved everything about it - starting with Warrior walking to the ring for the only time ever, ending with the beautiful reuniting of Savage and Liz, and with a hundred other little moves, reactions, comments, facial expressions, clothing choices and psychological tactics in between. Easily Warrior's best match ever, not surprising given the amazing chemistry he always had with Savage. Funny, though, how Warrior wrestled in the best match on the show two years in a row, won both matches, yet was pretty much completely forgotten about at the end of each.

Demolition vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Koji Kitao 1/4*
I was totally confused by this at the time, having no idea who these Japanese guys were. Now, 23 years later...I still have no idea. Completely nonsensical match, I can see putting an up and coming team over Demolition before they split up, but two guys who would never be seen in the WWF again? Ridiculous.

IC title: Mr. Perfect [c] vs. Big Bossman ***
Heenan is at ringside for this one, and so our substitute commentator is...Lord Alfred Hayes?!? Oy, kill me now. Anyway, this is the culmination of the feud between the Bossman and the Heenan Family, which started with one of the dumbest angles ever...the bound-for-WCW Rick Rude being "suspended indefinitely" for derogatory comments about the Bossman's mother. Really, Jack Tunney made an announcement on Superstars and everything. Perfect's overselling is much more appropriate against a guy the size of the Bossman, you can actually believe he's being hit that hard. Bossman took some nice bumps as well. Andre's appearance near the finish was a nice callback to last year. Overall, this was really well worked, tossup between this match and the opener for MOTN runner-up if not for the shmozz ending.

Earthquake vs. Greg Valentine 1/2*
No idea why they turned Valentine face, but it really didn't take, as even this hot crowd couldn't get into him. This is one of three or four matches that could've been cut without anyone missing it.

Legion of Doom vs. Power and Glory 1/4*
Like you'd have anything other than a Road Warriors squash here. Too many short matches on this show, though.

Ted DiBiase vs. Virgil *1/2
Maybe it's just the length of the show, but I had a hard time getting into this one. I remember really loving this feud, but this match seemed to be the low point. Wasn't bad, Ted carried Virgil to a pretty decent effort, and introducing Sherri into the mix was interesting.

Tito Santana vs. The Mountie DUD
Tito STILL wearing the Strike Force gear. I had thought he was El Matador by now for whatever reason. Jacques had the rench horn theme instead of "Not the Mountie" at this point. And as I finish typing that, it's over. Another one that really didn't need to happen.

WWF title: Sgt. Slaughter [c] vs. Hulk Hogan **3/4
I hated the buildup, but the match was pretty decent for these two. It obviously didn't have the epic feel of Hogan/Warrior, but it was definitely a main event calibre match, and a pretty entertaining brawl. Crowd goes completely ape**** for Hogan, might have been the last time he got an ovation that loud in his first WWF stint. Maybe the funniest moment of the night was Regis just blurting out, "Here comes the warning!" during the hulk-up, almost as if he knew how Hogan matches usually finish. I can't believe Gorilla had the nerve to proclaim the war officially over with Hogan's win (a month after Desert Storm ended), I wonder what they had to threaten him with to say that.

Overall: 6/10
This was pretty comparable to the past two years, and I think it surpasses both. The wrestling was easily better than VI and on par with V, while the crowd pushed it past V as far as having that big event feel. It was too long, as was typical for this time period, but the bad stuff was mostly short, and the top matches were all good to great. Second best WrestleMania so far.

Ratings so far:
III - 9.5
VII - 6.0
VI - 5.25
V - 5.0
I - 4.5
2 - 3.5
IV - 3.0

Even if it's down to just the three of us, I'm definitely enjoying the other writeups (but I hope more join/rejoin us as well). WM VIII is a fun one.

Martel vs Jake - eh I thought it was fine/entertaining enough. Would give it like *. However, given that Martel almost took Jake's sight, this match should've had some more violent stipulation rather than a less violent one. Just a no DQ match where they do a standard Jake pummels Martel, Martel cheats to get upper hand and lands a couple good shots, Jake DDT's Martel on a chair would be a lot better.

BTW, if I ever do make it onto Jeopardy, I'm totally ragging on Alex Trebek for this show.

I've already started VIII and it is legendary. This will be the first review with a theme.

I have a few questions regarding the build to WM VII.

First, how did Slaughter end up with a title shot at Royal Rumble? How long had he been back and did he come back as an Iraqi sympathizer from the start? My research has turned up little info. It looks like he came back as a generic anti-American heel that hated Americans for accepting Nikolai Volkoff. My research also indicates that Slaughter was using the noogie as his finishing move before adopting the Camel Clutch.

Also, why was Warrior's title run considered such a failure? He only had one PPV title defense, vs Rude at SummerSlam '90. The buyrate for that event looks decent and the match wasn't a classic, but still good enough. It's kinda funny, looking at Meltzer's ratings, Warrior put on a decent to good match on pretty much every single PPV he appeared on. You can't really judge his IC Title win over HTM, but it got a HUGE pop from the crowd.

Back then, success or failure as champion was measured by house show attendance, and it plummeted with Warrior as champion. The reasons why can be debated, but it probably can be attributed to some mixture of Vince trying to remake Warrior in Hogan's image (as he would do with even less success with Lex Luger and Diesel) and somewhat of a lack of quality opponents. The only really credible heel threat to Warrior at the time would have been Earthquake, but he was plugged in with Hogan.

Slaughter was one of the biggest stars in the company around 1984 as an American patriot themed face before going to the AWA and continuing that gimmick. He also was known outside of professional wrestling in the GI Joe series as the same. It was a bit like a mini Hogan coming back and turning heel and anti-American. I think he returned at Summerslam 1990 or around that. He wasn't an Iraqi sympathizer immediately.

If I recall right Warrior was feuding more with Savage at the time than Slaughter and I can't recall the kayfabe reason stated for giving Slaughter the title shot. Obviously the behind the scenes 'why' was to get the title match set against Hogan for WM VII and build further for Warrior/Savage.

Warrior became a problem backstage once he became world champion. He was difficult for the management and had legit heat with a lot of the other wrestlers.

I am familiar with Slaughter's history with WWF in the 80s and why he left for AWA.

As big of a star as he was in the mid-80s, I have to rank him as the most out-of-nowhere WWF/E Champion of all time. The fact that he headlined Wrestlemania as a heel is also pretty amazing, too. Prior to the Rumble, the only items of significance I can find regarding Slaughter's run is a house show feud with Nikolai Volkoff and losing a Survivor Series match by DQ.

And the kayfabe reason for Macho costing Warrior the title was that Warrior wouldn't give Savage a title shot and Slaughter said he would.