March 24 1991
WrestleMania 7: Hulk Hogan vs Sgt. Slaughter
Ultimate Warrior vs Randy Savage
Three years later in early 1991, the United States was involved in the Gulf War against Iraq and Saddam Hussain. So of course, Vince McMahon being Vince, cashed in on an ongoing real-life war to build towards WrestleMania VII on March 24 1991.
Once pro-USA Sgt. Slaughter had turned his back on his country and became an evil Iraq sympathiser in late 1990. He had aligned himself with Col. Mustafa (Iron Sheik) and General Adnan and was pushed as the company’s new top heel. Slaughter’s rise to the top only started in November 1990 a few months after the Gulf War started in August, so there’s your evidence if you had any doubt that McMahon wasn’t hot-shotting Slaughter and cashing in on the real-life events taking place in the Middle East.
So of course who better than to remove the wretched Iraqi sympathiser Slaughter from his perch? Mr. red, white and blue, American hero Hulk Hogan obviously.
At Royal Rumble 1990, Slaughter beat The Ultimate Warrior for the WWF title after Randy Savage had interfered and cost the Warrior the match. This would lead to an excellent Warrior vs Savage match at Mania, arguably one of Warrior’s best. Hogan won the 1991 Rumble match later that night too so the two main Mania matches were set-up and ready to go.
One of the most interesting situations surrounding WrestleMania 7 was the venue change. Originally the event was advertised as being from the huge outdoor 100,000 seater Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but it was later changed to the much smaller indoor Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. The WWF said the reason for the switch was due to security concerns over turncoat Sgt. Slaughter’s apparent alliance with Saddam Hussain, but the real reason was that ticket sales for the event were horrible and depending on who you ask anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 tickets were sold before the move was made official. Of course, the WWF wouldn’t say the move was due to poor ticket sales, but it was obvious that the Slaughter debacle wasn’t sitting right with a lot of fans, and even superman, I mean, Hulk Hogan couldn’t save the day with promises of beating Sarge and taking back the WWF title.
The Hogan – Slaughter match was by the numbers, but the match of the night by far was Savage – Warrior. It was a classic and I recommend you have a look at it. It has been pinpointed as the first main event level match where the wrestlers kicked out of finishers. Before then a finisher was named as such for a reason. But here Savage and Warrior kicked out of each other’s, and it took Warrior a while to eventually hit enough of his that it kept Savage down. The post-match face turn with a heel Savage realigning with Miss Elizabeth was nicely done too, and a real WrestleMania moment.
March 26 2001
The Final Nitro
Similarly to last week, we need to point out that wrestling outside of WWF/ WWE does happen over WrestleMania season, and this week we had the historical happenings to the lead up to the final ever edition of WCW Monday Nitro on March 26 2001. Please find our recent and historical recaps of the surreal events here
and here.