WrestleMania Reflections: WrestleMania IX (Patreon)

WrestleMania IX

Caesars Palace

Las Vegas, Nevada

April 4, 1993

Yokozuna defends the WWF Championship against Hulk Hogan

Official Attendance: 16,891

By: Bruce Mitchell

28 years ago today is the anniversary of WrestleMania IX. It marked both the debut of Jim Ross in the World Wrestling Federation, the beginning of a run that cemented his case as being the most popular, best wrestling announcer ever, and a brief, problematically surprise return of Hulk Hogan to the WWF Championship role.

Before that, Ross had been the announcing face of the opposition, WCW, the voice of the day’s great wrestling match. He had just made a play to head WTBS’s wrestling division when his mentor Cowboy Bill Watts had resigned from the same spot, but Eric Bischoff, a WCW announcer well down the ladder from Ross, surprised everyone by getting the job. More importantly, Bischoff got Turner Broadcasting to finally open up the company purse to allow Eric to successfully bid on top pro wrestling talent, a decision that led to the biggest money boom period in pro wrestling history.

Bischoff, not wanting Ross around because of his ambitions, past power, and ties to the Cowboy, pushed him off the air and out of the company. Tony Schiavone became the voice of WCW and Jim Ross’ WWF debut at this WrestleMania was only slightly less a shock than Hulk Hogan leap-frogging Bret Hart to the WWF Championship in a bonus, surprise main event at the end of the show.

Bischoff’s TV Game Show Host good looks and natural ability to talk that corporate talk made TBS executives, who didn’t much care for pro wrestling, feel more comfortable with him than either Ross or Tony Schiavone, who also pitched for the job. Ross was out, and fortunate that Vince McMahon gave up play-by-play for production and Gorilla Monsoon was getting a little long-in-the-tooth for the demands of being the lead announcer.

Vince McMahon knew how to market his product, how to boil his key characters down to simple, recognizable tics. Everybody from Oklahoma is cowboy, right. Hence, he put Ross in a cowboy hat. Back then, he didn’t seem the type, and now its his internationally recognized trademark.

Southerners have a touch or cornpone in them, right? Hence, Good Ol’ JR, …and come to think of it, Kiss My Grits Cameron Grimes.

McMahon’s High School Quarterback management social structure also targeted Ross in ways that have stayed with him to this day.

WrestleMania IX wasn’t a great success ahead of time, and promoting a worker as the top babyface, instead of a larger, more-muscle-bound action-figure type, wasn’t something McMahon was very comfortable with at this point. He felt the show needed a boost and had brought back Hulk Hogan before WrestleMania, and Hogan had insisted on his longtime bobo Brutus Beefcake, whose face had been badly injured in a recent parasailing accident, turning babyface, along with his manager Jimmy Hart, the three becoming the Mega-Maniacs and challenging Money, Inc. for the WWF tag team titles. The Mouth of The South surprisingly became the latest of a long line of wrestling figures to tie their fortunes to The Hulkster, usually successfully. Beefcake (“Dizzy Hogan”) was the first, and ironically enough Eric Bischoff, was the last man remaining.

New WWE Hall of Fame Warrior Award recipient, Titus O’Neil, isn’t one, though. It’s more like he and his fellow WM 37 host Hogan are exchanging things of value.

The first indication that something was up on the show was The Mega-Maniacs didn’t in fact win the tag team championship. Beefcake was hindered more than usual in the ring by the facemask he had to wear due to the accident, and after some stuff, Hogan grabbed it to use in the fight, and the Maniacs got DQ'd.

Hulk Hogan had his own reason to wear a facemask, though. He turned up at the event with a legit black eye, claiming his own in-water mishap. That had to be why he sported the shiner, not that a pissed-off Randy Savage popped him one for letting his ex Miss Elizabeth live with him and his own wife Linda in their spacious Florida home. Liz had waited until Savage went on the road and took off to the Hogans without telling Savage.

To say that the paranoid, controlling Savage would have had a tough time in the Me Too Era  is an understatement.

Whatever Savage suspected, and however much it may have mirrored When The Mega Powers Explode, as Hogan said over and over again over the years, The Hulkster never cheated on Linda - well, not until she forced him to cheat on her by being so mean to him. At least Hulk got permission from his best friend Bubba The Love Sponge to sleep with Bubba’s wife, he was considerate like that, only Bubba secretly recorded them and they got blackmailed by Bubba’s jealous co-workers. Bubba’s marriage and career were ruined but Hogan got 8 million dollars from the lawsuit over the tape of he and Bubba’s wife having sex getting posted on the Internet without his permission, money he needed because somehow Linda got a huge percentage of his earnings in the divorce and he was out of his element. You know, committing adultery and all and the pressure caused him to say all that stuff before they started, so now Titus O’Neill is his co-host.

Which goes to show you, and I even attended a multi-media presentation by Hulk Hogan, his nephew Horace, and Eric Bischoff on both how hard the divorce was on Hogan even though he never cheated on Linda and why I should buy and sell their protein powder, that Savage thing couldn’t be true. Hogan even showed a big screen mini-movie where he acted out his own suicide attempt (again, Mean Linda) only Muhammad Ali’s daughter called him out of the blue to talk him out of it.

I had never seen Hogan do any serious acting like that, I have to say.

Brutus Beefcake was on the outs by then, so he wasn’t on the panel with Hogan, Horace, and Bischoff. Hogan had set Beefcake up in an office-cleaning business but surprisingly it hadn’t worked out.

I don’t remember if Jimmy Hart was there or not.

Anyway, Yokozuna had beaten Bret Hart for the WWF Championship when Yoko’s snaky Japanese manager Mr. Fuji threw salt in his eyes. (I wonder if The Peacock Network will cut that part out.) Hogan, who shortly thereafter refused to lose the WWF championship to Bret Hart (because he was “too small”) came out to “check on” poor Bret.

Mr. Fuji, who extended his career by any number of years thanks to out-of-the-ring favors he had done the company, ended his WWE Hall of Fame career in grand style by then immediately challenging Hogan to a title match with Yokozuna.

Salt goes into Yoko’s eyes, leg-drop, Hogan is new champ.

Since Hogan snubbed Bret Hart, Yokozuna traded up for new manager Harvey Whippleman in the rematch, who, swear to God, set off a camera flash in Hogan’s eyes so Yokuzuna could pin him for the title.

Vince McMahon, tired of dealing with Hogan, then decided to go with Bret Hart after all. Hogan ended up with Jimmy Hart and Eric Bischoff and Ric Flair in WCW.

For years Hogan, who kept track of these things, tried to figure out how to get his win back from Yokozuna but never could.

Hopefully he and Titus aren’t pestering the Head of the Family about a surprise match next weekend…