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