Let's Talk About....WrestleMania IV

[King Kamala 0]

I don't get the point of Valentine going over Steamboat. Was it to fuck over Steamboat and keep him from putting on another potentially showstealing match with Savage or was it to put Valentine over?

 

I always had a feeling that wasn't really supposed to be Steamboat's last match since the announcers kind of teased a Steamboat/Valentine feud (And looking at Cawthon's site, they were apparently supposed to have a house show series after the match). And they gave him a hype video before the match where he said that 1988 would be the year of the dragon. I don't think they'd do that to a guy who was leaving.

 

 

And I always liked Ventura mentioning that Steamboat's kid had cheeks like King Kong Bundy when he was carrying him down the aisle (Especially since Bundy had been gone for like six months at that point)

[Bruiser_Brody_ 0]

maybe they felt Steamboat/Savage would overshadow anything else they do and decided they better not go with it? Also, it would be face/face and you know how gunshy they were about doing that sorta thing back then.

 

Savage would have to wrestle 1 or 2 more times if they had the Steamer match, and they wouldn't have gone balls out and ended up just a tease. See Dynamyte Kid/Savage at Wrestling Classic.

[Bruiser_Brody_ 0]

I don't get the point of Valentine going over Steamboat. Was it to fuck over Steamboat and keep him from putting on another potentially showstealing match with Savage or was it to put Valentine over?

 

I always had a feeling that wasn't really supposed to be Steamboat's last match since the announcers kind of teased a Steamboat/Valentine feud (And looking at Cawthon's site, they were apparently supposed to have a house show series after the match). And they gave him a hype video before the match where he said that 1988 would be the year of the dragon. I don't think they'd do that to a guy who was leaving.

 

 

And I always liked Ventura mentioning that Steamboat's kid had cheeks like King Kong Bundy when he was carrying him down the aisle (Especially since Bundy had been gone for like six months at that point)

 

3 months tops, he wrestled Hogan in January's SNME IIRC

[Black Lushus 0]

good point!

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

I've never understood why some people feel that DiBiase should have won the title at this PPV. In WWF terms he had no real credibility as a wrestler at this point, mainly trying to use his money to buy wins or titles.

 

And also I can't imagine them ending a 4 hour+ PPV with a heel title win. Can you imagine a huge tourney like this ending with DiBiase pulling off some sort of screwjob for the title?

 

 

Ted Dibiase didn't have the credibility to be champion? He was the number one heel in the company, was over like mad and had Andre around as his physical muscle. And while he was a fresh face in WWF-land, he had a successful run in the south that had him in line to be NWA champ.

 

You do have a point with a heel title win ending the show, but at this point in wrestling history it wasn't that unusual. Survivor Series, the previous ppv, ended with a heel Andre going over. I just think they missed a golden opportunity to put over Dibiase with Hogan leaving to film his movie. I don't want to go all fantasy booking here, but they could have had Dibiase beat Hogan with interference and shot an injury angle post match. Savage makes the save to transition to that new feud. Gets you to same place but removes the tedious tournament and cements Dibiase as a top guy.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

The big problem with DiBiase is that over the previous ten years, WWE spent about one month with a heel champion (three weeks of the Iron Sheik, one week of DiBiase before the title change was nullified). They did not want to run a heel champion for any length of time. An alternate card for WM IV could have been champion DiBiase against Savage, with Hogan/Andre non-title underneath.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

The big problem with DiBiase is that over the previous ten years, WWE spent about one month with a heel champion (three weeks of the Iron Sheik, one week of DiBiase before the title change was nullified). They did not want to run a heel champion for any length of time. An alternate card for WM IV could have been champion DiBiase against Savage, with Hogan/Andre non-title underneath.

 

 

The New York territory never liked doing a long-term "heel" champion. Even Superstar Graham, who was booked like a heel, was over like a babyface in all of their strongholds. Doesn't mean they couldn't have gotten a couple of months out of Dibiase as champ and drawn a little extra money for the eventual Savage title win.

 

But, whatever, the way they did things worked out fantastic in the long run. It just seems like there a ton of directions they could have gone in 1988.

[yankovic fan 0]

Didn't Warrior/Hercules sniff 5 stars?

 

I KID! It was the 6 man tag that sniffed 5 stars with Heenan.

 

I remember renting this when the local supermarket had a fairly decent video rental section with a lot of classic B movies. They had WM IV, an NWA/WCW transition era tape, and one of the Hulkamania tapes of the time. Mom would always let me rent a horror flick or something (wtf?) but never the wrestling. Then one day she must have had a change of heart but she let me rent WMIV. I remember watching the bloody thing in one sitting. It was long but worth it I think. I enjoyed the heck out of it even as a youngster.

 

I now am the proud owner of a VHS copy of it. I tried burning it to DVD for preservation purposes, but it's got copy protection on it that my dvd/vhs thing won't crack. (For the record WM1 and 2 don't have it and I'm yet to track down an original Coliseum WMIII that doesn't appear to cost an arm and a leg. I might just spring for the dvd anthology set.

 

It's still a great piece of work. I was amazed to discover some people don't like it, but I'm a tournament fan by nature.

[Black Lushus 0]

I loved the whole atmosphere around the WM4 tournament.

 

Survivor Series 98 would go on to sour me to tournaments.

[cabbageboy 0]

But...but...Survivor Series 98 is the apex of Russo era WWF booking!

 

Anyway, Ted DiBiase was not a credible wrestler in the WWF at the time of WM IV. I repeat: Not in the WWF. I had just started watching wrestling shortly before the first Rumble, so I had no exposure to DiBiase's Mid South/UWF work (I don't think it was even on TV here anyway). DiBiase hadn't even wrestled on a PPV of any kind before WM IV...would you really give this guy the title? He hadn't really beaten anyone and really hadn't even wrestled very many matches. Most of his heat came from his wacky skits with Virgil paying people off to humiliate themselves, and also from his attempts to use Andre to buy the title.

 

This isn't to say he couldn't have had a run with the belt at some point in 1988, maybe for a couple of months in the summer before losing it back to Macho.

[King Kamala 0]

I agree with cabbageboy- what had DiBiase done before WrestleMania IV besides the vignettes, buying the title from Andre, and winning a couple of squash matches. I'm not opposed to the thought of a DiBiase title run but I thought WMIV ended perfectly with Savage overcoming the odds.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

Dibiase spent his first few months in the company beating most of the company's other top babyfaces, including Steamboat, Roberts, Bigelow and Duggan. He was also put over in multiple battle royals on the house show circuit. He even had a few victories over Hogan (via DQ).

 

From the moment he entered the company he was being groomed for the title. Everything he did in the first year of the run was to build him up big time. What else were they supposed to do build up credibility?

[King Kamala 0]

It's hard for me to get perspective on how hard they were pushing DiBiase at the time since I didn't start watching until February '94. Most of those aforementioned big wins seemed to be on the house show circuit.

 

And most importantly- why the fuck would you want to end a 3 and 1/2-4 hour show with a heel going over in the main event?

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

And most importantly- why the fuck would you want to end a 3 and 1/2-4 hour show with a heel going over in the main event?

 

Let me just reiterate that I didn't say it was a better idea to have Dibiase win the belt, but it seemed like the logical move based on what they were building up. Hell, I would have cut the thing back to 3 hours, ditched the tournament and done Bam Bam v. Andre, Savage v. HTM and Hogan v. Dibiase as my top three matches.

 

It's hard for me to get perspective on how hard they were pushing DiBiase at the time since I didn't start watching until February '94. Most of those aforementioned big wins seemed to be on the house show circuit.

 

I think it's hard to gain perspective on how a guy was positioned if you weren't actively watching during that era. The house show circuit is where guys were built up and the tv shows existed to merely push the house shows. Dibiase was put over other top babyfaces in big WWF strongholds and positioned as Hogan's nemesis on television. That was enough to place him in a main event position.

[King Kamala 0]

Allow me to put on my fantasy booker hat.

 

I actually didn't mind the idea of the tournament but I felt a 16 man tournament was a bit excessive. The KOTR tourneys had it right with eight men tournaments. I would have done DiBiase/Bigelow, Hogan/Andre, Savage/Steamboat, and One Man Gang/Duggan as the tournament matches. Roberts/Rude would have been a non-tournament match (to set up their Post WM feud) and I'd just add Muraco, Valentine, Bravo, and Butch Reed to the battle royal

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

Allow me to put on my fantasy booker hat.

 

I actually didn't mind the idea of the tournament but I felt a 16 man tournament was a bit excessive. The KOTR tourneys had it right with eight men tournaments. I would have done DiBiase/Bigelow, Hogan/Andre, Savage/Steamboat, and One Man Gang/Duggan as the tournament matches. Roberts/Rude would have been a non-tournament match (to set up their Post WM feud) and I'd just add Muraco, Valentine, Bravo, and Butch Reed to the battle royal

 

It was a 14-man tournament.

 

Anyways, it's all a matter of tase. I love the tourney at the 1998 Survivor Series and despise the one at WMIV, despite being an old-school mark. Go figure.

[King Kamala 0]

Allow me to put on my fantasy booker hat.

 

I actually didn't mind the idea of the tournament but I felt a 16 man tournament was a bit excessive. The KOTR tourneys had it right with eight men tournaments. I would have done DiBiase/Bigelow, Hogan/Andre, Savage/Steamboat, and One Man Gang/Duggan as the tournament matches. Roberts/Rude would have been a non-tournament match (to set up their Post WM feud) and I'd just add Muraco, Valentine, Bravo, and Butch Reed to the battle royal

 

It was a 14-man tournament.

 

Ugh I'm an idiot. Still anything more than 8 is IMO excessive for a one-night tournament.

[MillenniumMan831 0]

I think WWF's hardon for face/heel matches at the time really hurt the tournament. Especially after teasing Savage/Steamboat and heel/heel matches on WWF TV in the weeks prior.

 

And in the spirit of the thread:

 

[Lil' Bitch 0]

Wrestlemania 4 gets a bum rap for how long it took (16 matches and 3 and a half hours). I didn't have much of a problem with that, since I got to watch it in several sittings. This is the one with the 14-man championship tournament. Hogan and Andre each get a bye into round 2, where they meet each other.

 

It begins with a 20-man battle royal that may be my new favorite non-Rumble battle royal. Everything comes off really well here, especially the ending, where Junkyard Dog takes on the team of Bad News Brown and Bret Hart. It sucks so much that two of those guys are dead and one of them has their career end on a sour note.

 

The problem with WM4, other than the length, is the way they tried to book it. The whole thing is based on Savage's final victory in the tournament, and rather just use the tournament to build on that, they push it by having the heels basically dominate the PPV.

 

The tournament starts with Dibiase pinning Duggan due to Andre's interference. Muraco beats Dino Bravo, but only by DQ. Randy Savage beats Butch Reed in the only clean victory of the entire first round. Valentine vs. Steamboat was very, very good, but it doesn't feel right that Steamboat jobs so early when he and Savage stole the show a year earlier. One Man Gang vs. Bam Bam Bigelow starts off as a pretty sweet big man match, but ends abruptly with a lame count out finish against Bigelow. Then there's Rick Rude vs. Jake Roberts, which was an interesting match. It ended up being a draw, eliminating both guys from the tournament and giving One Man Gang a bye. The story of the match looked to be that despite a little cheating here and there, Rude was the superior wrestler, but wasted too much time with his taunts and gyrating to win the match. Unfortunately, it was still pretty boring at parts.

 

The non-tournament Ultimate Warrior vs. Hercules is pretty surprising, if only because despite Warrior winning, he did it in a non-dominating way, much like a roll-up.

 

Round two begins in the tournament with Andre vs. Hogan. A lot more energy than their WM3 match. Even though it ends in a double DQ, it's still a great match to watch. Then we get like 20 minutes of Hogan posing. With Andre hurt and Virgil injured by Hogan, Dibiase has to fight Muraco himself. He still wins cleanly, by the skin of his teeth and advances with a bye to the finals. Savage also wins barely by rolling up Valentine during a Figure Four attempt. Not a bad match, though pretty short.

 

Brutus Beefcake beats Honky Tonk Man by DQ, cheating us out of both a title change and the chance of seeing HTM lose some of his hair. Instead, Jimmy Hart loses a little bit of his mullet. Big deal. Then there's the Islanders and Bobby Heenan vs. the British Bulldogs and Koko B. Ware. I don't know what was worse, Heenan getting the pin or the fact that it was part of the whole crappy Matilda storyline.

 

The tournament continues into the third round, which is just Savage vs. One Man Gang. Savage wins by DQ, being beaten down by Slick's cane. That's followed by Demolition beating Strike Force for the tag titles... also via a cane spot. Sloppy booking, guys. Finally, the main event is the tired Savage vs. Dibiase with Andre in his corner. Elizabeth runs off to get Hogan from the back to watch Savage. The match is pretty short for a main event and even though Savage wins, it's by a blatant chair shot by Hogan while the ref wasn't looking. Then Savage and Hogan celebrate in the ring by shaking hands about 12 times. Seriously, every time they look at each other, they extend their hands, shake and then turn around for a moment.

 

Really, though. Anyone else notice what a scheming asshole Hogan was underneath it all in his WWF days? At Wrestlemania 2, he strangles King Kong Bundy with his bandages. At WM3, he tries to piledrive Andre on the cement. At WM4 we have the chair thing.

[Black Lushus 0]

uhm, you missed the pretty darn good tag title match between Demolition and Strike Force.

[King Kamala 0]

That Hogan/Andre match at WrestleMania IV is awful, just awful. I can hardly stand watching any Hogan/Andre matches except for WMIII (And even that one sucks, the atmosphere sort of makes up for it).

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

Really, though. Anyone else notice what a scheming asshole Hogan was underneath it all in his WWF days? At Wrestlemania 2, he strangles King Kong Bundy with his bandages. At WM3, he tries to piledrive Andre on the cement. At WM4 we have the chair thing.

This guy did:

 

And that, among other reasons, is why he's my favorite wrestling announcer of all time...

[The Amazing Rando 0]

I tended not to notice it, but once I gave Rumble 92 a good watch I noticed how Hogan was constantly back raking and I believe he also choked some people with his shirt (as did someone else, I think). Going back now and seeing that stuff, it's amazing he got cheered sometimes.

[Black Lushus 0]

and listen to Jesse Ventura's commentary throughout the years...he was always calling Hogan out for the heel tactics.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

I tended not to notice it, but once I gave Rumble 92 a good watch I noticed how Hogan was constantly back raking and I believe he also choked some people with his shirt (as did someone else, I think). Going back now and seeing that stuff, it's amazing he got cheered sometimes.

Dude, forget '92... watch '89; Hogan at his cheatin' best, and Ventura apoplectic about all of it...

[Black Lushus 0]

If I'm not mistaken, there were times when Hogan, I'm talking 80s Hogan, not Holllywood Hogan, would BITE people's heads. He was far from a saint.

[Diamonddust 0]

If I'm not mistaken, there were times when Hogan, I'm talking 80s Hogan, not Holllywood Hogan, would BITE people's heads. He was far from a saint.

 

If I remember correctly, 95% of Hogan's offense in the 1989 Summerslam main event against Zeus and Savage was cheating - biting, scratching, using Sherri's purse, etc. I look back at it now and love how Ventura would call him out on it every chance he'd get.

[CanadianChris 0]

I tended not to notice it, but once I gave Rumble 92 a good watch I noticed how Hogan was constantly back raking and I believe he also choked some people with his shirt (as did someone else, I think). Going back now and seeing that stuff, it's amazing he got cheered sometimes.

Dude, forget '92... watch '89; Hogan at his cheatin' best, and Ventura apoplectic about all of it...

That match was amazing to watch for Jesse's commentary alone. That was (I think) where Hogan debuted the spot where he goes for the three elbowdrops, and instead of dropping the third elbow, he stops, looks out at the crowd, and rakes the guy's eyes with his boot. To which Jesse exclaims, "I'll tell you what -- I don't understand how the Pukesters can cheer for this guy. He's as dirty as they get, Gorilla!"

[King Kamala 0]

I think the peak of Jesse's Hogan bashing was WrestleMania V.

 

 

Speaking of which, I don't understand why WrestleMania V doesn't get nearly the same amount of flak as IV. Yes, V is a little bit better than IV but not that much better. The crowd is still dead throughout, the card is just as long, and there are probably the same amount of good matches.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

I think the peak of Jesse's Hogan bashing was WrestleMania V.

 

 

Speaking of which, I don't understand why WrestleMania V doesn't get nearly the same amount of flak as IV. Yes, V is a little bit better than IV but not that much better. The crowd is still dead throughout, the card is just as long, and there are probably the same amount of good matches.

 

One reason: Hogan v. Savage