Everyone knows of my passion for all things professional wrestling. I’ve watched the good, the bad, and I can put a positive spin on pretty much anything. Wrestlemania is of course, the biggest WWF/E show of the year; the grandest stage of them all, the showcase of the immortals, blah, blah, blah. Well back in April of 1993, the WWF was in the middle of a pretty low period in terms of popularity. Hulkamania was fading fast and there was a severe lack of popular, established talent to fill that void. Bret Hart had been inserted as the top face champion and while popular, I don’t think he was the muscle bound, high intensity, all-American super-hero that Vince thought they needed at the top. Personally I loved Bret Hart – the hardworking ring-technician, a victorious underdog in a roster full of puffed up giants and grunts. Proving everyone who thought you had to be a brick shithouse to be successful wrong. At least that’s what I thought.

But first, the undercard. For the biggest show of the year, it was surprisingly lack luster despite the return of newly off-the-roids Hulk Hogan from a near year-long absence. And what did he do? He tagged with Brutus Beefcake against Money Inc. (consisting of the near-retired Ted Dibiase and IRS) and then LOST by a blatant disqualification. Crazy. Let’s see, the crap fest continues with Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzales, a 7-foot tall monster in a hairy muscle suit that could barely walk let alone wrestle. Match ended with a DQ win for Taker via a chloroform soaked rag if you can believe that. Poor Mr. Perfect was saddled with the lifeless Lex Luger. Mr. P was not a very good face to begin with and struggled with Luger who was practically using Mr. P’s own gimmick that he had mastered years before. Add to that some very forgettable “mat classics” like Razor Ramon vs. Bob Backlund, Doink the Clown vs Crush, and Tatanka vs. HBK (Shawn wasn’t the Showstopper quite yet) and you’ve got quite a cocktail of mediocrity. Even the sole undercard match of any merit – Steiners vs. Headshrinkers had a train wreck ending as I was sure Scott had killed the Headshrinker Samu with a sloppy Frankensteiner.

And now, the Main Event. Bret Hart defending the WWF title against the seemingly unstoppable Yokozuna, who had been tearing through every face on the roster. As you would expect, it was slow paced match and perhaps watchable until the finish. Bret had begun to overcome the odds and even had put Yoko in the sharpshooter. With the ref knocked out, Mr. Fugi blinded Bret by throwing salt in his eyes, allowing Yoko to steal the victory and his first WWF title. The fans were as shocked at the bullshit as I was. Then guess who shows up to check up on Bret; none other than Hulk Hogan. For some ridiculous reason Fugi immediately challenges the fresh and rested Hogan to face the obviously winded and tired Yokozuna right then and there. Hogan accepts. Twenty-one SECONDS later he wins his fifth WWF title. Again, for some ridiculous reason Fugi went to the well yet again with the salt (as if Hogan hadn’t just seen the previous match) and blinded Yoko instead, allowing Hogan to get the win. I suppose this was meant to be poetic justice.

Unfortunately the real losers were the fans as nobody gave two blue shits about Hogan anymore, Vince showed how little faith he had in Bret Hart as a credible champion, almost ruined Yoko’s status as a monster heel and basically set the whole company back about two years in one fell swoop. The booking here was just unbelievably bad, and really made you feel like the WWF believed that the fans would accept whatever they put out there. I was SO mad and disappointed in the whole affair that I really did drop out the wrestling scene for a while until close to the following January’s Royal Rumble to see what was new. Thank God the Vince and Co. made up for all this garbage at Wrestlemania 10 and set things on the right path again.

The event was held outdoors, and had an Ancient Roman theme so all the announcers and such were wearing togas and sandals. All the extremely cheesy window dressing couldn’t cover up the pure disappointing drivel that was Wrestlemania 9.

Too harsh? 😉