WrestleMania Reflections: WrestleMania VI (Patreon)

WrestleMania VI, April 1, 1990

The Skydome

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Attendance: 67,678

By: Bruce Mitchell

No Spoilers, no Access, no Week, no Hall of Fame, no Pre-Show, no Companies Making Their Year, No Brand, No Best Match, No Ratings, No Demos, No Stars (I mean there were Stars, just not at WrestleMania - there’s a reason why Steamboat/Savage was the best ‘Mania match all those years), No McMahons, Wrestlers were Wrestlers and Superstars was syndicated, pay-per-views weren’t monthly, just every once in a while. And fans knew, yeah, they pretty much always did, and they wanted their favorite good guys to win and their favorite bad guys to lose, and there was one hell of a lot more of them and only a few of us were movie critics…

Back then, WrestleMania drew live fans from the market for one night, like the young Edge and Christian, like Lance Storm and young Renee Young, not from all over the world for a whole week. So I didn’t drive for hours to go to The Skydome, I drove for an hour and a half to join thirty plus people crammed onto four couches in a small Greensboro apartment for the rare opportunity to see a major pro wrestling show live on (a much-smaller) tv.

A few of us read the Observer and knew enough from watching World Class and the WWF to wonder how the hell they were going to get a WrestleMania main event out of the notoriously inept Warrior, who thought Ted DiBiase The Million Dollar Man didn’t have the right color nipples to be a pro wrestler. Once the guy lost his breath running to the ring and shaking the ropes there wasn’t much left to see except whether he was going to carelessly drop his opponent over his head and injure him, like he did to Bobby The Brain Heenan.

The only two to figure out what to do with the guy at that point were The Honky Tonk Man, who let him squash him to end his then-ironic Greatest Intercontinental Championship run in like 90 seconds, and Andre The Giant, who laid down for him in less time than that every night at house shows (after knocking the crap out of him early on to remind him not to be so careless with the potatoes.)

That was just the match, though. The money in pro wrestling for many years was in setting the table, in igniting the imagination of the fans so they wanted to see the wrestlers they cared about fight to a finish. It was the star-power that counted most (and a major part of working and booking for a wrestler was establishing that star power in the eyes of paying customers.)

There was no doubt that Hulk Hogan, at that point, was the most popular hero in the game. His gimmick was smart and simple. He was your hometown favorite team, except this team won the big rivalry game every time, won the conference, won the National Championships and World Series and Super Bowls every year and even beat the unbeatable Giant. The opponents might be big and bad, but like Popeye tearing open that can of spinach in the cartoons, once the Hulkster pointed and bellowed “Youuuuuuuu” at his cheating-dog nemesis, he was going to drop that leg and win. If you were a Hulkamaniac of course, you won with him.

The WWF resorted to the Camp Classic Twin Referee finish to completely cheat him out of the WWF title in large part to make the point he really didn’t lose.

“The plastic surgery,” Hogan cried!

It wasn’t like the other wrestlers had a problem with this approach. Except for maybe Jack and Jerry Brisco and Dory and Terry Funk, most wrestlers of the day didn’t grow up dreaming of being champion, and all were in the business to make the most money they could. You did that by feuding and ultimately getting leg-dropped by the Hulkster, not by messing up his winning persona by trading the belt back and forth with everybody in the company. You’ll notice that Bobby Heenan had the Brains to chase Hulkamania through three major companies and never beat him.

The Ultimate Warrior hadn’t lost in the WWF by then though, not even came close. He was a hero too, fit the action-figure model Vince McMahon had revolutionized the business with, and had an idiosyncratic, energetic outer-space cartoon promo style that captivated the kid’s merchandizing market.

The WWF hadn’t had a good guy versus good guy main event like this since Vince’s father had promoted Bruno Sammartino challenging Pedro Morales for the WWWF championship in Shea Stadium almost twenty years before (and that was when twenty years was twenty years, not how long Bobby Lashley had to wait in line to be WWE Champion.)

It had never had a good guy versus good guy IC Title vs WWF title match.

The Ultimate Warrior simply never lost.

Hulk Hogan simply never lost.

Would one of them cheat? Well, obviously Hulkamania was still Running Wild and The Ultimate Warrior “ate the toxins other men feared”, and Vince McMahon was much more confident in constituently manipulating his characters then, so no.

Successful wrestlers, with the notable exception of Randy Savage, took into consideration that every night, every market, and every crowd was different. Heels called the action in the ring by instinct, according to how the crowd was acting. The infamous Mr. T vs Roddy Piper match demonstrated under certain circumstances, why that approach could have disastrous results.

So the WWF did something revolutionary for the time. They took their two biggest house show draws off the road and had Vince McMahon’s consigliere Pat Patterson, ironically a natural at calling it in the ring through his own wrestling career, work out, coach, and have Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior practice their WrestleMania match again and again away from prying eyes.

The three did a great job. The characters, the hype, the incumbent versus the new favorite, the match construction, the rehearsals, all added up to a WrestleMania main event as memorable as any in the history of McMahon’s Masterstroke. It ebbed and flowed and told a compelling, botch-free story for a lot longer than any Warrior match on or off TV ever had.

Remember all those fans stuffed on those couches? Some of them were Hulkamaniacs. Some of them were Warriors. More than a few (this was Greensboro after all) wanted to see The Four Horsemen beat both their asses.

All of us were captivated by this match though, and when for the first time in all those years since Hulk Hogan walked out on that WWF St. Louis TV taping to save the not-long-for-the-spot WWF Champion Bob Backlund from Roman Reigns’ forefathers The Wild Samoans, Hulk Hogan COMPLETELY MISSED the leg drop the place exploded. When the Ultimate Warrior finished the deal and actually pinned Hulk Hogan clean, it was complete pandemonium, akin to the Red Sox finally beating the Yankees in the World Series or something. I’m sure the appalled neighbors had no idea what the hell just happened.

The WWF, Hulk Hogan, and The Ultimate Warrior had paid off all that intrigue.

The truth was, Steroid Storm Clouds were rising, and Hulk Hogan needed to make himself scarce. Vince McMahon wasn’t ready for the likes of Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels yet, but he envisioned The Ultimate Warrior as the new top WWF hero and Hulk Hogan as the Babe Ruth of the Federation.

The most intriguing moments of the night weren’t that leg drop or clean pin, though. It was the aftermath, as The Ultimate Warrior was presented with the belt. The camera caught Hulk Hogan’s facial expressions and body language, his good sport regret as he congratulated Warrior on winning his championship, slickly stealing the spotlight from the young star much like he would many years later from The Rock at another WrestleMania. Because of that, the Ultimate Warrior didn’t quite have the moment that was laid out for him and that he needed if he was actually going to follow Hulk Hogan as the biggest money-draw in pro wrestling.

Watching this, Hogan’s old rival, Jesse The Body Ventura, had the line of the night:

“Maybe Hulkamania really will live forever.”