Some of the other transitional champs came just as far out of nowhere, perhaps even more. Stan Stasiak was told he was winning the title the day he won it. Ivan Koloff had just come into the federation with an anti-American gimmick a few months prior, very much like Slaughter. I do remember not thinking Slaughter a chance at winning the match back in 1990 before it happened.

Looking at the match histories Slaughter had been pinning Dusty Rhodes, Duggan, and Tito Santana in late 1990. In terms of name recognition, he had to be near the top of the list out of all the heels in the company if not at the very top, although that was largely due to non-wrestling work.

So, I hopped on the Network this afternoon and watched RR '91. Really underrated show. I feel like this would be an all time classic had the Rumble match had something on the line.

Slaughter, Adnan, and Warrior all delivered excellent promos before the match. The Sherri/Warrior seduction early in the show was WAY ahead of its time, and I loved the pop as Sherri dropped to her knees.

Of anyone could provide just a little bit of context for Slaughter getting this title shot, I would really appreciate it. I have been searching for any storyline behind the Warrior/Slaughter match and can't find it. At this point, I would love any type of TV announcement of the match.

I'm going to rank VII 2nd ahead of everything so far except III.

WrestleMania VIII is now open for business until the end of Raw on 8/18.

WrestleMania VIII

Reba McEntire sings the national anthem, and with that we hit the ground running with the show that features the funniest running commentary ever.

Shawn Michaels vs. Tito Santana: Decent little showcase to propel Shawn Michaels on his initial singles push. I do think it was slower than it possibly had to be given the workers involved, but it was still decently watchable. Heenan deadpanning that he'd pinned a few people with side headlocks in his day just slays me. The Brain also does a great job of helping put Michaels over during this match. **

LOD and Paul Ellering Cut Interview: This was alright. Animal and Hawk were better than Ellering, which leaves me wondering why he was there.

The Undertaker vs. Jake Roberts: I've always liked this build and this match, with the creepy babyface of the 80s passing the torch to the creepy babyface of the 90s. Not a technical masterpiece - Taker was still very raw - but the evil Jake finally getting his comeuppance is still quite watchable. **1/2

IC Title: Roddy Piper (c) vs. Bret Hart: Nice face-to-face interview before the match, certainly builds this one well from the start. "Two ugly people looking at each other, that's fun." Heenan GOAT. This whole thing is storytelling at its finest, two friends getting increasingly agitated with each other and Piper even teasing the heel turn before thinking better of it. Love this match. ****

Jim Duggan, Sgt. Slaughter, Big Boss Man, & Virgil vs. The Mountie, Repo Man, & The Nasty Boys: For the second straight time, the guy who dropped the belt to Hogan at the previous WrestleMania is just thrown in on some random tag match a year later. Often these big tag matches can be a decent bit of fun, but this one was pretty worthless. 1/2*

WWF Title: Ric Flair (c) vs. Randy Savage: Another I wrote up pretty recently and a lot more fully in the Savage tribute thread, but this **** is so awesome. Grudge match worked to perfection to pay off a great lead-in angle. Great psychology. Absolutely brilliant selling by Savage on the leg injury, selling that he keeps doing a great job of even during his crowning celebration moment after the match. A classic that I always think doesn't get talked about enough. Oh, and fantastic promos by both men after the match. ****1/2

Rick Martel vs. Tatanka: This was nothing to speak of, just a couple of guys sleepwalking through a wrestling match. 1/2*

Tag Team Titles: Money Inc. (c) vs. The Natural Disasters: The Disasters get about 10% of the crowd reaction that LOD gets. Couldn't this have just been Money Inc. vs. LOD? Now that would have been WrestleMania-worthy. Anyway, this match is very dull and then ends terribly. My only compliment for this is that at least Earthquake and Typhoon are kayfabe smarter than Lex Luger and know to be angry at the ending. 1/4*

Owen Hart vs. Skinner: My inner Owen mark is happy to see him having as many Mania wins as possible, but obviously this quick squash was pretty pointless. Don't even know why this match existed since they didn't even begin a push for Owen at this point; it was just one JTTS squashing another. N/A

Hulk Hogan vs. Sid Justice: While Sid obviously had a tremendous look and natural charisma, he really was awful in the ring, worse than a lot of other wrestlers that I also regard as bad (for instance, I think that he was noticeably worse in the ring than the awful Kevin Nash). Anyway, this is a dull match with little to say for it outside of the fact that it had a good hot crowd. The botched finish is ridiculous. *

The surprise return by Ultimate Warrior was pretty awesome though, and caught absolutely everyone off-guard, so the end of the show still paid off really well.

Overall: Savage/Flair and Bret/Piper are enough to make this a really good show, with a hat tip as well to the Shawn Michaels opener, the Roberts/Undertaker blowoff, and the Warrior return, all of which help elevate it to greatness. Not quite to WM III's level, but I don't have much hesitation in putting it ahead of every other Mania to this point.

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

I was at WM8 and it was the highlight of my 8 year old existence to that point. I can't begin to explain how incredulous I was that I was even going. And I remember being on the edge of my seat the whole show. The only real negatives were the tag championship match ending and the final main event, which I hated everything other than Hogan's entrance. Really fun show then and Brain makes it great now. I'm not a total grouch. I do enjoy some Manias

I think Flair/Savage at WM VIII is one of the forgotten classics of its generation. A lot of it probably has to do with Flair's run being a semi-flop, the mid-card position of the match, and disappointment in no Hogan/Flair main event. It's probably my favorite WM match of all time. It's also another reminder of how bad Flair is with money. He allegedly got fined a large portion of his Mania payoff due to blading.

When you have as many great matches as Flair, it is easy for a match that would be at the top of the resume for almost anyone else to not stand out compared to the others.

And when you think of Savage's best match, obviously WM III comes to mind.

Flair/Savage gets a bit overshadowed by the other accomplishments of these two. But this is a match/feud I personally will never forget. This is the first Wrestlemania match I remember watching live on PPV in detail. I remember what the room looked like and how it was organized. No outcome of a match since has left me feeling so negative.

You were that bothered by Savage going over?

I would have been even more bothered at the time had Flair lost to Hogan or just about any other face in the WWF. It's not that I disliked Savage, I just really wanted Flair to dominate the WWF.

I read that because hitman had gone "hardway" and flair was caught on camera Vince ended up fining each Flair and Savage like 5 grand for that blade job. But they each made a few hundred k for that match.

Then Bret admitted in his book that he bladed too, and just successfully hid it and convinced Vince that it was hardway.

Shawn Michaels vs. El Matador Tito Santana

The Show Stopper vs. the company man who refuses to steal the show. It’s pretty clear that Tito Santana had a ton of talent from these Manias, but it is also clear he rarely was involved in a match that actually showcased it properly. This match is just an acceptable opener, and Tito is a bit past his prime by now anyway. 2*

Martel vs. Tatanka

generic 1*

Eight man tag

“Let’s get all eight of these guys on the card and have none of them provide anything of value”. 1/100th*

Undertaker vs. Jake Roberts

The writing really makes the Undertaker look strong while burying the DDT and Jake. However, the angle is the only thing worth remembering now as the match is quite bland. 1*

Money Inc vs. Natural Disasters

0* It is amazing how swift a death tag team wrestling died.

Owen Hart vs. Skinner

What a waste of talent. You have somebody like Skinner, you should let him put on a show. Anyway, this match isn’t bad. It should have been longer, sure, but a decent really short match is so much better than a long well below average one.

Sid Justice vs. Hulk Hogan

This is basically a Monday Nitro main event. Two overpaid guys wrestle a terrible match and somebody big returns or debuts. The greatest moment in the history of our sport*.

Piper vs. Hart

Face vs. face works a higher percentage of a time than many people think and this battle is no exception. Unfortunately Piper is worse than worthless on the mic at this point no matter who he faces. He’s like the annoying kid in school who is loud because he thinks he is funny and clever but is neither.

Piper is more over at the start of the match. This match is good but it is the kind of match that would be a lot less enjoyable with average or below commentary as it gets slow very frequently. It is a nice storytelling match that is executed pretty well. 3 1/2*

Flair vs. Savage-

The second best match in Mania history to this point. I’d like to thank Jim Herd and general incompetence for pushing Flair to WWF at the end of his eliteness to create this match. The angle was so very good and the match fit in extremely well with it. 4 ½*

This is basically a two match mania, yet it still is in contention for the #2 overall spot so far. Again we have amazing commentary, some good promos, several complete wastes of time and some greatness, without much in-between. Bobby puts on one of the best performances of all time on color commentary and that is enough to barely give it the edge over the others in the same tier.

III
VIII>VII>VI>V
IV>I>II

Yeah that's a good observation about the tag division froM WM VII to WM VIII. During that year Shawn and Bret both went singles, and that gutted it quite a bit. The Natural Disasters were kind of semi-over, but having them as the top babyface team in the company to that point was quite a step below having the Rockers and Hart Foundation.

Things obviously improved at least a bit during the year that followed, with the Steiner Brothers joining the company.

Lost my 90% complete review when my computer crashed. Hopefully I'll be able to redo it tomorrow, but it's iffy.

WrestleMania VIII
April 5, 1992 - Hoosier Dome, Indianapolis, IN

- Eight WrestleManias in, and now four of them have been held at venues which have been or will shortly be demolished. I loved the opening crowd shot, this one felt very much like WrestleMania III. Two great matches on this card, but the real star of this show...colour commentator Bobby Heenan. I will warn people right now that there will be a liberal dose of Brain quotes in this review. With that in mind, we kick off with Reba McEntyre singing America the Beautiful...

Brain: Boy, can Tito's sister ever belt one out!
Gorilla: Will you stop?!
Brain: That's Arriba McEntyre!

Shawn Michaels vs. El Matador **1/2
Early Shawn Michaels matches are a bit odd to watch now, for a couple of reasons. All the intervening years have made it really strange to hear Sherri doing the original "Sexy Boy", and Sweet Chin Music was just a transition move and wasn't called as such yet. This was good enough, but too many headlocks for my liking. Shawn wouldn't really round into being the Showstopper for another couple of years.

Brain: [referring to Sensational Sherri] That's MY pin-up girl!
Gorilla: I think you should see your oculist.
Brain: There's nothing wrong with my feet.

Gorilla: Highly unlikely that you're gonna pin anybody with a side headlock. In all my years I've never seen anyone pinned with a side headlock.
Brain: I've pinned a few people with it.
Gorilla: You?
Brain: Yes.
Gorilla: Where, in your dreams?
Brain: I can beat a man a million different ways. I had a guy give up one time during instructions.

Gorilla: There it is! El Paso del Morte! But Michaels rolled right outside the ring.
Brain: What'd you say that was, Extra Hot Pace Picante?

- LOD (over) does an interview with the newly arrived Paul Ellering (not over) to eventually set up the Rocco angle (still can't wipe that from my memory).

Undertaker vs. Jake Roberts *
The pop for Taker's entrance makes it hard to believe he was one of the top two heels not even six months previous. Watchable from a historical standpoint, but not much to see wrestling-wise.

Brain: C'mon, ref! 1,2,3,4,5...
Gorilla: What are you doing?
Brain: I'm showing you the referee could've broke the hold. He's intimidated by that monster!
Gorilla: Why don't you go down there and referee?
Brain: I'm needed here.

IC title: Roddy Piper [c] vs. Bret Hart ****
Bret had just started on an absolutely insane run of PPV matches -- between Summerslam 91 and Royal Rumble 95, he had over a dozen matches that were *** or better, with at least half of those being **** or better. Great story for a face-face match, two friends trying to keep their cool and failing, Bret's technical expertise frustrating Piper to the point where he nearly snaps, Bret finally figuring out a way to outsmart Piper in the end. This was the only job I remember Piper ever doing in his WWF run. Nice moment after the match with Piper strapping the belt onto Bret.

Brain: Have they ever met before in the ring? I don't know that.
Gorilla: You don't know a lot of things for a broadcast journalist!
Brain: I didn't care to find out. How do you like that, Mr. Know-it-all? Don't you have a banana to peel or something?

Gorilla: Eye to eye, nose to nose. No Love lost here.
Brain: Are they saying anything? No, they're just staring at each other.
Gorilla: Just looking.
Brain: Two ugly people looking at each other, that's fun.

Gorilla: What would you do if you were The Hitman?
Brain: Well, I'd have my agent buy it for me. And if that didn't work, I'd waffle him out back with a tire iron. I'd get it some way, any way I could. Doesn't matter as long as you get it.

Brain: Use it! Use it, waffle him with it! You know that old saying -- 'What the hell, use the bell!' HIT HIM! Give it to me, I'll hit him!

- Lex Luger does a remote promo hyping the WBF. Waste of time, but we see he at least used to know how to take off a shirt.

Big Bossman, Sgt. Slaughter, Virgil & Hacksaw Jim Duggan v. The Mountie, The Nasty Boys & Repo Man 1/4*
Another of Vince's patented "squeeze as many guys onto the card for a payday as possible" matches. Ray Combs of Family Feud comes out to insult the heels for no real reason other than to prolong my agony. There have only been three or four non-elimination tag matches with more than 6 guys that I ever thought worked really well. Needless to say, this is not one of them.

Gorilla: WrestleMania VIII truly an event of international significance, as once again we are being seen literally all over the world. The worldwide show is coming up in England, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and a whole lot more, and it's all coming up very shortly.
Brain: Maybe even Newark!
Gorilla: Newark?
Brain: It's a foreign country.
Gorilla: Oh, please.
Brain: So's Indianapolis, if you think about it.

WWF title: Ric Flair [c] vs. Randy Savage ****1/2
Normally I hate when an angle is stapled onto a match that's already been signed, but this is the exception that proves the rule. Flair and Perfect's head games with Savage and Liz led to just an amazing grudge match. Flair and Perfect cheat like bastards in this one, so fun to watch. Savage's sell job on the leg is one of the best you'll ever see. Hard to believe you could make an argument that this might not even be Savage's SECOND-best match at WrestleMania, because it is an absolute classic. Best WWF title match at Mania so far, and best pair post-match promos you'll ever see ("YOU HAVEN'T BEEN BEAT UP PROPERLY!!"). Trivia; Not only the first appearance by Shane McMahon as part of the suit brigade, but the only time I've ever seen Billy Red Lyons outside the Canadian event centre segments on Saturday afternoons on CHCH.

Brain: You know, if you want to be fair to Flair, you gotta be fair and say that's a heck of a robe. Only a man as fair as Flair would show up to WrestleMania VIII...
Gorilla: WILL YOU STOP!?!

Brain: I just got down from the booth! He had your tights! I saw it, it's on camera, it's on tape, I got it! There's nothing to worry about!
Perfect: There is something to worry about!!

- So, that's the show, five matches, two of them classics...sorry, what? This is only intermission? Hogan and Justice still ahead? Oh, crap.

Tatanka vs. Rick Martel 1/2*
Was anyone paying attention to this match? I was listening to the commentary. Gorilla making Brain lose his cool was hilarious. Nothing match with a out-of-nowhere nothing ending.

Brain: Where did those ten lumpy Indians go?
Gorilla: They're Lumbee, not lumpy.
Brain: Oh, I thought you said lumpy.

Brain: You know, those Indians have only got about 300 miles and they're home.
Gorilla: So? What does that mean?
Brain: They live in Cleveland. Ever heard of the Cleveland Indians?
Gorilla: They come from North Carolina!

Brain: Instead of being thrown out of the ring, HE should've done the pitching.
Gorilla: WHO should've done the pitching?
Brain: T-t-t-t-tanka. But then again, if the Indians had more pitching, they would've been a better team.
Gorilla (disgusted): Why don't you stop?

Brain: Did you ever say hello to Tatanka?
Gorilla: Yes.
Brain: Did you do it properly?
Gorilla: Yes.
Brain: You said, hey-how-are-ya, hey-how-are-ya...

Tag team titles: Money, Inc. [c] vs. Natural Disasters 1/2*
Slow, plodding match mostly controlled by the Disasters. Crowd wasn't really buying them as faces. Cheap countout finish hurts it big time.

Owen Hart vs. Skinner DUD
Lasted all of a minute, Skinner gets all the offence before Owen rolls him up for the pin. What a waste.

Hulk Hogan vs. Sid Justice 1/4*
I'm zipping though this only because I refuse to spend my 40th birthday tomorrow reviewing Hulk/Sid. SO BORING, and the finish was one of the biggest botches ever. We've got 22 more to go, but I'm pretty sure this is the worst closing match in Mania history. Sid is unquestionably the worst main eventer in history (and he got TWO!). Gets out of negative stars only because of the hot crowd and how electric the return of the Warrior was.

Overall: 7/10
End this at intermission and it's up there with III at the top of the list. The final hour was a huge letdown. However, two four-star matches will still go a long way toward making for a good card overall. In the end, the commentary sealed this as making it definitely better than VII.

Ratings so far:
III - 9.5
VIII - 7.0
VII - 6.0
VI - 5.25
V - 5.0
I - 4.5
2 - 3.5
IV - 3.0

I'll pretty easily put Sid's other closing match down as a worse one. Hogan-Sid was really bad but at least had the decency to end before it went on for too long. Sid-Undertaker was a ****ing eternity.

Entirely possible, I haven't seen at all since it aired. I keep hoping they shortened the tape for 13 down to one match.

RIP Hoosier Dome

So this is an off week, right?

Nah, I watched it so you have to.

WrestleMania IX is open through the next episode of Raw...

How bad can it be with three titel matches?

At least this Wrestlemania set up the Hogan/Bret Summerslam match ...

WrestleMania IX

Oh boy, from WrestleMania VIII to this. To be fair, I don't share the hate that others have for this show and I've always thought that others were harder on it than it deserved, but we'll see how I feel upon this watch.

IC Title: Shawn Michaels (c) vs. Tatanka: Michaels diving into an armdrag by Tatanka from the top rope is a great damn spot. Michaels was hitting a new level here, clearly having improved as a singles wrestler since his match against Santana at the prior WM. He bumped hard and worked his ass off in this match, which I suppose he owed to the world after he apparently politicked his way around dropping the title here. ****ty ending, but a very entertaining match. ***1/2

The Steiner Brothers vs. The Headshrinkers: Holy ****ing **** at Rick Steiner catching Fatu into a powerslam from Samu's shoulders. Awesome. This match had a number of cool spots, a good pace, and was plenty of fun. ***

Doink vs. Crush: I think I'm maybe alone in this, but I'm okay with the end of this match. Overall the action wasn't particularly entertaining though, since Crush is limited and got the vast majority of the offense in. *1/2

Razor Ramon vs. Bob Backlund: It's downright awkward how little reaction Backlund got before turning heel. This match is a big pile of garbage, but at least it's short. 1/4*

Tag Team Titles: Money Inc. (c) vs. The Mega-Maniacs: Finally Mike Rotundo got the opportunity to reclaim his rightful place as the wrestler who comes out to Real American. I really like to believe that the battered face that Hogan had here was due to Savage clocking him, but that rumor was never really substantiated. Anyway, this is a dreadfully dull match, a dreadfully dull match that gets nearly 20 minutes at that. But at least it has a really stupid ending. 1/4*

Mr. Perfect vs. Lex Luger: I like the acknowledgment of Perfect's very real back injury and the psychology in the match revolving around it. As per usual, Luger could go pretty well as long as you gave him a highly capable wrestler to work with. Love the missile dropkick by Perfect. Ending is a bit lame, and I don't really get Luger going over when they were immediately setting up Perfect vs. Michaels for the IC Title and had no immediate plans for Luger, but meh. Didn't love the match quite as much as I did on my last viewing of it for the Hennig tribute thread, but it's still plenty watchable. **1/2

The Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez: The sheer spectacle of seeing Giant Gonzalez is always impressive, but after that wears out in the first 30 seconds things go south since he was basically on a Khali level of inability to actually work (with maybe a bit better mobility). This was really bad, though admittedly I was probably more entertained by this than by the tag title match or the pointless Razor/Backlund match. 1/2*

Hulk Hogan cuts a bad promo foreshadowing the worst WrestleMania ending ever.

WWF Title: Bret Hart (c) vs. Yokozuna: Nice work by Bret in this match to make this a pretty watchable underdog story. It was clearly easier to work with Yoko before he packed on an additional 150 lbs. too. Unfortunately we were headed for part 1 of a disastrous ending to the show. **1/2

WWF Title: Yokozuna (c) vs. Hulk Hogan: **** this ending. 0*

Overall: Certainly a bad Mania, but I do think that there's enough watchable stuff on here to keep it off the very bottom of the heap. There's a distinct cutoff at this point between five Manias I would give a thumbs up to, and now four that I would give a thumbs down to.

WrestleMania Rankings
1. WrestleMania III
2. WrestleMania VIII
3. WrestleMania VII
4. WrestleMania V
5. WrestleMania VI
6. WrestleMania IV
7. WrestleMania
8. WrestleMania IX
9. WrestleMania 2