For many this is the worst Mania of all time and it's hard to disagree (although 11 pips it for me just) something was really wrong in McMahonland at the time of this show and it spilled onto the screen for the world to see.
First off the "Toga Party" aspect, holding the event at Ceasar's Palace was a major botch. It gave the event an identity, but one that was hokey and screamed "FAKE WRESTLING EVENT TRYING TO BE MAINSTREAM", the venue wasn't suited to the event but you can tell Vince "got a deal" on it so they went with it. They'd have been far better returning to MSG or going to Boston than trying Las Vegas.
What was wrong with the WWF of the time was Vince's possible and eventual trial for the Steroids beef... for the 2nd half of 92 into 94 this was a major factor in decisions made, although the trial itself would not hit until 94.
That it was a possibility meant the WWF almost made conscious efforts to distance itself from anyone with the "wrestler look" of the past. Lex Luger was perhaps the only "traditional" guy on the card in the image Vince was known for favouring. Everyone else had visibly slimmed down, lost mass or simply got bulkier like Scott Steiner and Crush.
The talent on offer was severely lacking, as Ric Flair, Warrior, Piper, Davey Boy, Marty Jannetty, Big Bossman, Sgt Slaughter, Jacques Rougeau had all been released or depushed to the point of non value... some due to the steroid issue, some because Vince had squeezed what he could out of them and got cheaper replacements in.
The biggest shift had been new World Champion Bret Hart, it had been telling that his two PPV defences to that point had been against "midcard" talent, Shawn Michaels and Razor and now he was going to face the most anti-roided wrestler in Yokozuna in a match he had no hope of winning.
Was Yoko a bad talent, not at all, for his size he was extremely agile and the Sumo gimmick was refreshing. But this was classic "rocket ship to the moon" territory, his booking to win the Rumble was clumsy and ruined somewhat by the idiotic Randy Savage pin attempt. Yoko was in that spot so Vince could point to him and say to his accusers "Look, my top two guys are clearly not roid users, what more do you want?" Of course this didn't wash so he was left with a problem... How to sell your biggest PPV, the majority of which is made up of talent who have debuted less that 2 years prior? Of course he went cap in hand to Hogan.
Much has been made of Hogan's return and Vince's relationship with him. Did he NEED Hogan at the event? Not really, but he seemed intent on not using Randy Savage by that point, the one guy who could have been inserted into the card and carry the "big name" aspect. So Hogan came on board, ostensibly in a much reduced role to his normal one, a tag title match teaming with Brutus Beefcake? Brutus "The man with no face" Beefcake? While Randy Savage commentated?
Of course what happened shows why this match was made but the logic was baffling at the time the card was announced and even up to the show itself... The Mega Powers reforming against Money Inc would have sold the event and given Bret and Yoko the breathing space needed to focus on what they had to do. Putting Brutus, a man who through no fault of his own had no business wrestling at all in there made it obvious where they were going but we'll get to that.
The card itself was dull, dull, dull. Papa Shango paid for his botch the prior year by being in the dark match. The show opened with Shawn Michaels for the 2nd year running only this time, the promise of WM8 has disappated somewhat. Shawn had won the IC title from Davey, perhaps as originally planned but the Summerslam match was still far too fresh in people's minds. they weren't ready for Davey to lose that belt yet, nor for him to leave and certainly weren't ready for Shawn to have it. But the change was made, primarily to add some spice to Bret's first PPV defence.
This was after his shocking betrayal of Jannetty at the Rumble that led to his release, it somewhat backfired though as the replacement was the undefeated Tatanka, someone who was being pushed at a stronger rate than Shawn was. He knew it too. Tatanka and others in shoots have said how Shawn sabotaged what was supposed to be an IC win by planting seeds of Tatanka having an "attitude". What is clear is that Shawn had Vince's ear even at this point, so for the 2nd PPV running we got a clusterfuck ending, Shawn retaining the title with Sherri shoehorned in there. That Shawn didn't actually lose that IC title ever tells a lot about what happened here. Tatanka got the win but it was a hollow one and soon his push was over.
Crush made his PPV return against the debuting Doink in a match that was at one stage to involve Davey Boy. The story is that Diana had put the idea into Davey's head that this was a demotion and they were making fun of him by "wrestling a clown". Doink was a great character in that Matt Borne iteration, and the double Doink idea was very novel. Crush did enough to be the next fed to Shawn and then he was legit hurt in a match with Yoko that kept him out for nearly a year. It was a shame as Kona Crush was an interesting character, not what you'd expected from him and with time it could have gotten over more than his eventual heel return did.
The Steiners first Wrestlemania appearance is forgettable. Brought in as the replacements for the LOD, Vince just never seemed comfortable pushing them. Perhaps their reps were as fierce as he'd heard and didn't want the hassle he'd had with LOD again. The match with the Headshrinkers is only really memorable for the unintentionally hilarious and somewhat phallic "Brainscan" drawing by Heenan. Vince apparently didn't want the team at all, just Scott and to make him the next Bret Hart - the brothers stuck together and that led to their leaving but you could tell even here, they weren't gonna be around for long.
If there is ever an embarrasing moment that feeds the "it's fake" crowd it was Giant Gonzales vs Undertaker. In WCW El Gigante was a necessity, a Ball player contracted to Turner's team who couldn't play anymore...so they made him a wrestler and he was awful. There was no logic, reason or benefit in Vince signing him but for whatever reason he did... maybe it was expressly to feed him to Taker but the outcome was the worst 2 moments of Taker's career, the abysmal Rumble moment and then their match at Mania. Mercifully it was short but it really did nothing for Taker when there were other options... He could have been the one to team with Hogan, he could have taken on Yoko allowing Bret to face off against Hennig or Lex Luger, all would have been better than what he got... the proof in the pudding is that this is the one match of the streak that NEVER gets mentioned.
Lex Luger v Mr. Perfect on paper should have been a good match, it almost was. Lex did look good in the ring at the time and it's easy to see why Vince picked him for the mega push shortly afterwards. Hennig was the one who perhaps didn't bring his A-game that night, be it a hangover of his back problems, be it him pissed he wasn't getting a main event with Bret or pissed that he was going to have to work with Shawn, the guy who he had just ratted out for lying to Vince wasn't thrilling him. Who knows but this and Summerslam 93 were the matches where he looked his worst and almost better off retired... that he had the rematch with Bret at KOTR means they could have done it at Mania if they'd wanted...
Razor Ramon's first Mania was memorable but more for his opponent. Bob Backlund had returned at the Rumble and had confounded expectations. He had gone an hour and raised many a WTF? from the fans with his frankly bizarre ring demeanour, moving like a lovechild of Eugene and Muhammed Ali. This carried on into Mania, no music, intro in the ring... This was the last true "squash" at Mania in the tradition of SD Jones and George Wells... but the guy over the ring from Ramon had been the man for 7 years before Hogan... Whatever Backlund was doing at the time was good enough to keep him around and he evolved into the Mr. Backlund character that was at times genius... What this did for Razor was give him a very strong win over and give that first spark that he could work as a face. Much of the crowd wanted him to kill "Opie" as Heenan would call him. By Summerslam he had turned and never looked back.
So we come to it... the main event... I want to go on record and say nothing was Yoko or Bret's fault - the match was a mismatch of styles and was never going to be a classic. In many ways you can liken this to Montreal, I can imagine Bret being told for a good spell he was going over, Yoko being told the same and then both guys finding out on the night what was really going down. If I had been Bret I'd have been off to WCW as soon as possible but Hogan already had that avenue covered as well. For Yoko all the good work done by Bret to put him over was wasted the moment they allowed the ridiculous challenge from Fuji... if your manager does that and you lose, you squash him after... not stick with him for another year.
Hogan swanned out and Bret allegedly says "go for it", he was probably saying "Fuck you Terry" but Hogan walks out the champion, as we all knew he would the moment he was teamed with Beefcake not Savage... had it been the latter, Randy would never have stood for Bret losing the title that way only for Hogan to pick it up. Perhaps thats WHY he was sidelined for the show.
My problem with it is simple, Vince had nuked a lot of talent in that year, some enforced but others like Flair were not forced and this had also happened the year before and the year before that... indeed since Mania 6 main event level guys had systematically been "weeded out" by Hogan and Warrior... Imagine if Rude had stayed, by 9 he would have been a champion once or twice over, perhaps facing Bret and putting him over. If Roddy Piper was still there he and Bret could have rematched from the prior year with Roddy finally going for the World title. If Big Bossman was still there, he would have made a better challenger to Bret as a Big Man than Yoko.
Hogan had once again engineered it to perfection, he could swan in for one big payday on the promise of working with Bret at Summerslam then not do so, jobbing out to Yoko but only in the most inanely stupid way possible... and Vince LET him do it, that's the crime he did commit in that period, letting Hogan control so much talent wise that 93-95 became the near death knell for his company regardless of the trial outcome. When Savage walked the story and accepted version is Vince was deeply hurt, why? he'd not used him for 2 years by that point... Most guys would leave and Vince was lucky others didn't follow suit.
It's hard to find much positive in that era, every decision made seemed to be bad with only mild chinks of light such as King Of The Ring, the signing of Bam Bam and Monday Night RAW, the hiring of Jim Ross and Jerry Lawaler cutting through the gloom. Vince nearly lost the WWF, we nearly lost the WWF and this show was a big, big part of that.
How would I have changed it.. it's hard to say as I would have been making changes all along so my roster of 93 would be far different. In keeping with the realistic changes I would certainly bring Bam Bam in a few months earlier if possible and match him with Earthquake or Jacques if he's a face.
I'd have had Hogan and Savage team against Money Inc and win the titles. Yoko would have faced Undertaker and Bret would have gone against Piper or if I could at all save him, Davey in a rematch from Summerslam if not and Piper was a no, then Hennig.
