Wrestlemania IV: Scattergun recap

Rented this one this weekend and finally got around to watching it last night. Since I had no interest in sitting through the whole 4 hours or so of it (back when that was a novelty in a Wrestlemania), and couldn't anyway, lest I incur a late fee, I made liberal use of the chapter menu and just cherry picked the matches I wanted to see. Here are my thoughts:

Setting a precedent that Vince McMahon would later follow, Bad News Brown screwed Bret Hart in the Invitational Battle Royal. Somehow, Bret dropkicking Brown from behind and breaking the trophy got a pop from the crowd, led to the Hart Foundation face turn, and eventually led him to main event status. Weird, isn't it.

Speaking of this match, it's really weird to see a Battle Royal just for the sake of a Battle Royal these days, considering they only do them for title shots these days (and, on Smackdown!, World Title changes). I used to consider myself a fan of this match, but after seeing enough of the older ones, I think it's the modern, made for TV quick, creative elimination vintage of them that I'm a fan of, because they can be boring as hell otherwise. I will cop to liking the fight for your right variation in TNA, which apparently everyone else thought was the worst thing ever. I dunno, it amused me that they had to fight just to get in to the match.

Watch all four Macho Man matches reminded me of how beautiful Elizabeth was (their original run was before my time, and she was considerably skankier in WCW, especially after she hooked up with Lex Luger) and how radically different she carried herself from the modern, oversexed Divas. Not that I mind the current model of "talent enhancement", I'm actually quite fond of a lot of them, but there's a stark contrast between even someone like Trish Stratus and Liz. It's also interesting to hear the announcers more or less treat her with respect; even when Jesse Ventura was talking about who was hotter, Liz or Vanna White, it was still more respectful than Jerry Lawler's over the top objectification of every woman in the company. And, of course, her presence became more of a downer as the show went on, considering how things played out.

The Honky Tonk Man/Brutus Beefcake IC Title match was better than I expected. Shockingly so, considering how bad Ed Leslie was for most of his career and the fact that Honky wasn't known for his work rate. The finish kind of blew, but I didn't care, since, you know, it's been almost 20 years.

Speaking of crappy finishes, Bam Bam Bigelow was totally screwed. How do you get counted out when you're on the apron? Again, this was even more of a downer given his fate, and the fact that he's one of the biggest cases of wasted potential in the history of the business.

I thought Demolition did their finisher on Rick Martel on the outside in their match on this show, putting him on the shelf and leading to Strike Force's break up? Must have been another show. It was interesting to hear the crowd get behind Demolition as the match went on.

Hulk Hogan's promo was hilarious, on a Warrior level of incoherent absurdity that made you wonder what he was on, exactly. The only thing that made me think he was in on the joke was the fact that he was talking about cracking a fault line that runs from New Jersey (where the show took place) and Tampa, Florida, and causing everyone to fall in to the ocean. Anyway, at the end, he's talking about getting Donald Trump and apparently the rest of the Eastern Sea Board to hold on to his arms while he dogs paddles to safety, and he does the backstroke off screen when the promos over. I don't remember Warrior ever doing anything that self awarely goofy, but I haven't seen a lot of his promos, either.

It was interesting to see how over Warrior was during his match with Hercules, which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The disk cut out at the end, but I can re-read Scott Keith's rant if I desperately want to find out what happened. It makes Chris Masters look even lamer when you realize he's ripping off Herc's finisher, complete with his mannerisms, somehow.

Steamboat vs. Valentine was solid, entertaining stuff. It's hard to believe there was a time that chops weren't accompanied by a "woo!" from the crowd, but maybe I just couldn't hear it due to the fact that Steamboat hit really fucking hard. This was pretty much Rick's fairwell to the WWF, which he acknowledged by waving to the crowd before leaving. I wonder what he did between then and his short comeback in the early '90s? If only they put that stuff on DVD.

Speaking of Valentine, how hard is it to believe that of all the people on this show, he's still wrestling? I know he was going to be at an indie show down here, at least.

We could have had Savage vs. Steamboat II, but apparently having two faces fight in 1988 would have ripped the fabric of space and time or something.

Speaking of hard to believe, of all of the dead people in this show, how is Jake Roberts not one of them?!?!? That's one I'll never understand, how Jake survives while so many other guys drop like flies. Maybe he's cleaned up his act since the Beyond the Mat/Heroes of Wrestling days, but still; the guy all but drank turpentine, and he's still alive and kicking?

The starkest contrast between then and now was the fact that the main event of this show led in to the year long Mega Powers angle and the eventual pay off in the following year's main event, setting up months worth of matches between the Powers and Dibiase/Andre. They just don't make 'em like that anymore. In fact, I can't think of a 'Mania main event in the last ten/fifteen years that flowed out of the previous one so beautifully. Of course, given the monthly (and some times twice monthly) ppv schedule and the 5 hours of original TV, everything's accelerated, but it's still sad that they can't do anything like this anymore. Kennedy's title match was the closest they've come to even trying in the last few years, and we all saw how that went to hell, so it takes a lot of good fortune (that neither Savage or Hogan got hurt, for one, and that no one cared about steroids back then, for another) to pull this off.