The History of Professional Wrestling
Introduction
To start things off, as all my 'History' threads, I apologize for my sloppy and poor grammar. I type all of this from the top of my head, don't really re-read my work. This isn't so much a 'history thread as its more of a significant moments of the business of professional wrestling. I won't type too much on the deaths of this wrestler or that wrestler because everyone already knows deaths in wrestling is 'business as usual' due to steroids & drugs. I think I want to make this thread to show the positives of professional wrestling and the great moments in the sports entertainment world. Things that really stood out and are mentioned whenever someone mentions history of wrestling.The last history thread I've made was the 'Rise & Fall of Bret Hart' which I was repeatly asked 'did you copy and paste that or did you type it yourself'. And the answer is my grammar sucks and of course I typed it all myself. I enjoy making entertaining or interesting history threads. It always provokes good conversation on my favorite subject matter, which in this case is something very close to my childhood - Professional Wrestling. But if you enjoy this thread, please feel free to check out myRise & Fall of Bret Hart as well as the History of Pride threads Parts 1-4 which is located on the UG. I will also mention, I sadly stopped watching pro wrestling in 2005 as I felt John Cena as the champ that carries the company along with HHH really turned me off from wrestling. So as this thread will end, you will probably notice a lack of history from 2006-present so for those current wrestling fans, I will apologize in advance and gladly hope you reply to the thread of any new things that happened recently that I might have missed in my research.
Back in the very early days, pro wrestling was more of a circus act. It was a sideshow exhibition in North America. The matches started as 'shoots' (real fighting) but the grappling matches were very boring. Through time, the industry started to change. Matches began to become 'works' (predetermined matches). A revolution of the industry came as television became popular. They televised the matches. Another very significant moment happened when the wrestlers were allowed to be interviewed. This built characters and the wrestlers became more remembered by the audience. The promoters started to realize that the 'bad guys' who were being interviewed drew more money. So then, the gimmicks and fake personas became popular within the industry to draw more money.
When Pro Wrestling got popular and many organizations got involved, what happened was each promoter took his'territories'. So the wrestling was more of a local thing back then, shown to the audience of that particular area of the States. The popular organization was the 'NWA', National Wrestling Alliance which started in 1948. This organization really had a chain of 'territories' throughout the United States.
Here is where wrestling changed completely. Vincent McMahon Sr. was the promoter of the North East section of USA, mainly New York. He was known for holding shows in Madison Square Garden and even promoted boxing matches as well. Vince McMahon Jr bought his company from his father. He did not tell his father that he was going to go national and dominate the wrestling industry in America. He said in many interviews, if his father knew what he would do, he wouldn't have gave the company to his father. Vince got money when he left his abusive home with his real mom and step father to go live with his real father. His real father was a promoter and told Vince one day "one of my organizations was stealing too much from me" and needed to fire that guy. Not stealing...but 'stealing too much'. So Vince went to that part of North East and made some money , enough to buy the WWWF from his company. After he bought the company , he got rid of one of the 'W' - World Wide Wrestling Federation into just World Wrestling Federation aka WWF.The WWF began to expand and go into territories which PISSED off all the traditional old men who for years and years held its own territory. Vince started to go national and expand. Vince used television programs of his wrestling event to really capitilize on the market and build a fan base of his organization to gain money to buy out other promotions.
Meanwhile, a North Carolina based wrestling promotion - Jim Crockett Promotions, noticed Vince's take over of the wrestling world and decided to do the same thing, expand and try to take control of other territories. Jim Crockett was sort of an old school traditional company that had Ric Flair, Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes, Terry Funk - those type of southern classical wrestlers. However, unlike Vince, he went bankrupt in trying to expand....
By the mid-80's Vince had control of wrestling world while Crockett's NWA was failing to expand and went bankrupt. To avoid going out of business, in 1988 - Jim Crockett sold his company to Ted Turner who needed a wrestling program for his TBS cable network. Ted Turner was not a wrestling guy, but he was a Georgia southern guy who liked wrestling and knew it could draw ratings. He was in the TV business, not wrestling. He bought Jim Crockett's company and re-named it 'WCW' , World Championship Wrestling. At first, Ted didn't have ambitions to take over wrestling world. In fact, he only bought the smaller company to fill a time slot on his network, like I said - he was in the TV business. He was friends with Vince back then because when Vince bought a Georgia NWA branch, he merged Georgia & WWF together and still was allowed to stay on Ted Turner's network. But they mutually parted ways and Ted now had the WCW for his TBS network.
Before WCW, some key players in NWA were Harley Race who won the NWA Title. The person that beat him was Dusty Rhodes, aka the American Dream. Dusty then lost the belt to the Nature Boy - Ric Flair. These group of old school wrestlers def made up NWA , southern territory and was a huge part of wrestling history as that old school classic southern style wrestling transcended to the WCW in 1988.
As Vince McMahon's WWF grew nationally, Vince understood that marketing pro wrestling would take some superstars that the audience would be interested in paying money to see live and on tv. A very huge wrestler came from Vince's dad's company. His name was Terry Bollea and was responsible along with Vince for bringing pro wrestling to mainstream. Terry was signed with Vincent Sr's WWWF and named 'Hulk' Hogan after the 70's tv series. Hogan was contacted by Slyvestor Stallone to make Rocky 3 in a rather large part including speaking role. Stallone based his Rocky movies off of Chuck Wepner who was a boxer that went the distance with Muhammad Ali and knocked him down, but lost the decision. Stallone also saw Wepner take part in a pro wrestling match , wrestling Andre the Giant. Stallone once again memicked Wepner's life and wanted to do that on the big screen, so he took notice to Hogan. Vincent Sr fired Hogan for taking the part, he didn't want wrestlers to be 'actors' on movie. After Hogan was fired and after taping Rocky 3, he went to Japan to became a big player over there with Antonio Inoki. Inoki & Hogan got along well in Japan. Afterwards, Hogan went to Minnesota for Greg Verne's AWA. At that territory, he met and did some programs (storyline fueds) with Jesse Ventura. After Vince Jr took over WWF, he signed Hogan back to the company. Hogan gained a lot of attention with fans who also knew him from Rocky 3 and just his stature as a wrestler. And on Jan. 23rd, 1984, Hulk Hogan beat WWF champion Iron Shiek to win the WWF world title. This would dawn the Hulk Hogan era that would last a very long time.
McMahon wanted to do a wrestling 'supershow' that countered Jim Crockett's very successful Starrcade ppv that was their 'supershow' since 1983. Two years later, Vince wanted to do "Wrestlemania". He aired wrestling specials on MTV to promote the supershow and signed on some celebrities to bring attention to the event. He even managed to get Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer of all time, to participate. Hogan also enlisted the help of his Rocky 3 co-star Mr.T who would wrestle in the main event against the 'bad guy wrestlers' Piper & Mr.Wonderful Paul Ornoff. Hogan & Mr.T hosted Saturday Night Live prior to the event as a massive promotion by Vince. On March 31st, 1985 , Wrestlemania aired and was a huge success. It was held in Madison Square Garden where Vince's father ran a lot of shows and meant alot to Vince Jr to put the show there. Besides the main event, the card also featured wrestling superstars Steamboat, King Kong Bundy, Andre the Giant, Big JOhn Studd, Iron Shiek, DAvid Sammartino, Tito Santana, and more.
Although Vince's WWF was not the only wrestling company in America, the truth is WCW was small pototoes and wasn't that much of a competition unlike later on in the history (90's). Vince never felt he had to put WCW out of business at the time because he was too busy doing his own thing. Vince had visions and was a revolutionist when it came to business of wrestling. Vince knew it would take superstars and characters to draw money. Hulk Hogan was wildly popular. What if you took the biggest superstars of the company and put them together on the biggest show of the year ? Thats what Vince did. In 1987, on the third Wrestlemania event - Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant in the main event. The event took place in the Pontiac Silverdown in Michigan drawing a record audience of 93,173 fans. Almost one million fans watched the events at 160 closed circut locations in North America. PPV revenues was esimated at 10 million and the number of people who watched the event was in the millions. Hogan ended up body slamming Andre the Giant and winning the match. Andre had a bad back injury and was known to be a jerk who would not put any wrestler over, but he did it because he did like Hogan and had a job to do. Not only was Hogan vs. Andre the single most important moment in wrestling, but it wasn't even the best match of the card. Ricky Steamboat vs. Macho Man Randy Savage was watched by everyone in anticipation of the main event. The match was fantastic and the two wrestlers gained a great amount of fame from the match...
In 1988, Pat Patterson constructed an idea for a WWF wrestling show called the 'Rumble Royale'. Each wrestler would enter the ring after amount of time and the idea is to throw the wrestler off the top rope eliminating him until everyone buy the winner was eliminated. The first edition aired on USA network for free in 1988 in Canada. Jim Duggan won. The event was a hit and the following years, they would make it a pay per view. Big John Studd won in 1989 and Hogan won two times in a row in 1990 & 1991.
In 1990, WWF was dominate with the help of Hulk Hogan. But other superstars were popular as well and people also tuned in for them. At this time, a lot of wrestlers had outlandish 'character' gimmicks to make them memorable to the audience. Some characters connected with the fans, others did not. But some very popular characters besides Hogan were Sgt. Slaughter, Rick Rude, Macho Man Randy Savage, Jim Duggan, Ted DiBiase the Million Dollar Man, Mr. Perfect, Big Boss Man, Earthquake, Demolition, Bad News Brown, Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka, Jake the Snake Roberts, Brutus Beefcake, and of course, the Ultimate Warrior. These 'characters' went over with the fans well. But one of the characters began to really get as much pop (cheers) as the main event Hulk Hogan. That was the character, The Ultimate Warrior. Warrior was a very cartoonish gimmick. He was cheered loudly. The Warrior music blasted at each arena and Warrior used to run to the ring. He was a high impact wrestler, not a great technical wrestler, but everything was slams and running, and more slams and getting the crowd behind him. His matches would be short and sweet. Hogan was a good guy. Warrior was a good guy. In the world of wrestling, good guys always wrestled bad guys and no exceptions. All the good guys would help out all the other good guys while the bad guys would always help the other bad guys. But with the massive popularity of Hogan & Warrior, Vince McMahon thought it would be an interesting idea to put a good guy vs. a good guy in the main event, just to see if it would actually work. Breaking the 'tradition of wrestling'. On April 1st, 1990 in the SkyDome in Toronto Canada, the intercontinental champion - Ultimate Warrior would face the world champion Hulk Hogan with both belts on the line. The Intercontinental Championship (IC) was a secondary belt that sort of signified who was the second best in the company. Hulk Hogan would for years win all of his matches. I believe Vince was worried people would get tired of the same ole formula. So the storyline for the two leading up to the event was that Hogan put forth "The Ultimate Challenge" to the Warrior, and had to know whether Hulkamania or the power of the Warrior was the strongest force in the World Wrestling Federation. Very cartoonish like storyline, but it drew money. In the main event, the two epic good guys of the company really split the fans in half which was also interesting at the time. Warrior was popular enough with the audience, Vince felt he could take the championship, really change things up with the audience. And it was also a passing of the torch to Warrior from Hogan, the former champ. Warrior won the match clean and Warrior was the new champion. Hogan, backstage, was a different story. He felt that Vince did that to bring down 'Hulk-a-mania' (the phrase of the fanbase of Hogan) because he thought Vince didn't want Hogan to get too big, so big that he would be bigger than the company. Vince on the other hand, felt like his company needed a little change.
Putting the belt on Warrior was more of a mistake than anything. At the time, it was done strictly for business decision. Warrior was over with the fans. He drew money and was popular. Backstage, Warrior was an asshole. He was a loner without any friends in the business. He also wasn't a 'wrestler' from day one. Jim Helwig (warrior) was a body builder who was obsessed with working out. He didn't have a passion for the business. After he won the belt, wrestlers and production team said he simply didn't even care. Most wrestlers who personally knew Warrior thought that he didn't deserve it. Warrior had his ego, as did most people, but his ego got in the way of WWF at one point. The date was August 26th, 1991. SummerSlam 1991, was an annual ppv event held each summer that was sort of a sequel to wrestlemania. It had a great card minus all the celebs and hype and such, but an all star card never the less. During the Iraq war in 1991, Vince used that real life event as part of his wrestling storyline. He used three wrestlers as Iran sympthasiers (Sgt. Slaughter, Colonel Mustafa and General Adnan) against the all american good guy heros - Hulk Hogan & Ultimate Warrior and it would take place in Madison Square Garden. The problem was with the Ulimate Warrior. Before the show, Warrior claimed Vince owed him money for WM 7, so he threatened to pull out of the card right before the event. Vince was so upset by this and as a business man who felt he needed to please the fans, he agreed to pay him the money. The match did take place and Vince fired Warrior right after the event, and he did pay him his money that he verbally agreed to. Vince claimed he 'could not wait to fire him.'
In 1991, outlandish and cartoon characters drew money. We saw this with the Warrior and such. But there was one wrestler that had the height and presence to make a great character. His name was MArk Calaway. He was a wrestler for the territories in mid-80's and eventually made his way to WCW where he wrestled as Mean Mark Callous. He did tag team matches but didn't really take off. In 1990, he signed with WWF and made his debut as 'Kane the Undertaker' in November of 1990. His gimmick was a 'dead man' modeled after a morticial from old Western movies, wearing trenchcoat, black hat, boots, gloves. He was allowed to no-sell his opponents moves to seem like he didn't feel pain. He was brought in as a heel. Survivor Series 1991, Undertaker defeated Hulk Hogan for the world title. Hogan won his title back on a "Tuesday in Texas' event. Undertaker switched managers (since he didnt speak) from Ted Diabiase, to Brother Love, to finally Paul Bearer who worked very well with Taker as they both looked very strange outlandish. Paul Bearer would hold an 'urn' where Taker got his powers from. Undertaker's gimmick would be the longest lasting 'cartoonish' gimmick that also worked the longest as well.
In 1991, Ric Flair had major problems with his employer, NWA / WCW. He had the NWA title, but signed with WWF in August of 1991. He began appearing on television as the 'Real World HW Champion'. Flair would issue many challenges to Hogan & Piper. Flair appeared on WWF with the NWA belt. WCW sued him in an attempt to reclaim the belt, but when you won the NWA belt, the wrestler had to put a 25k deposit for the belt. Since they never returned the 25k to Flair, he went out on WWF television with it. Back then, it rocked the Wrestling world if you were a hardcore fan. Flair was the KING of WCW and that type of wrestling south. After the Taker / Hogan fued where the belts were exchanged, the belt was announced as 'vacant' due to the crazyness of the Hogan/Taker matches. Royal Rumble 1992, Jan.19th, 1992 would be the decision of who was the WWF champion. The winner of the rumble would take the belt home. Hogan & Taker entered, but would be eliminated. Ric Flair entered the ring as the third wrestler and lasted in the ring the entire time. He won the Rumble & and the title.
Macho Man Randy Savage had the look, the skills and the gimmick to be a great pro wrestler. He used his real life wife, Miss Elizabeth to enhance his character. His signiature quote 'OHHHHHH YEAHHHH' would be used for years. At Wrestlemania 8 on April 5th, 1992, in a great fued with Ric Flair, Macho Man won the title from Flair just three months after Flair won it. The main event for Wrestlemania 8 was Sid Justice vs. Hogan. Sid was a larger than life villain character that only Hogan could win. Hogan won by DQ when he was attacked by other villains and the unexpected happened as Hogan was being beat up, the Ultimate Warrior music blasted and the return of the Ultimate Warrior. Warrior ran to the ring to save Hogan and knock out the evil Sid Justice.
Wrestlemania 8 would also feature Bret Hart really breaking off into a single's star. Hart came from a tag team, the Hart Foundation, but wanted to be a bigger star so he went into singles. He defeated Roddy Piper for the IC title, this was significant because no one had pinned Piper's shoulders in 17 years straight, but that night, Hart pinned him clean. Hart was the IC champion and was a singles champion who got over well with the fans. He could wrestle better than the old men who were the main events who had charisma, but not the technical wrestling like Bret did. At the end of 1992, Warrior was once again missing shows, being a pain in the ass and Vince was tired of a bad employee. Hogan was larger than life and did movie projects and his time was being used in other areas to make money. He wasn't with the company that much.
At this point the main players were Hogan, Warrior, Flair, & Macho Man in 1992. The common element of these wrestlers were they were older. Without Hogan & Warrior, Vince wanted to promote some new up and coming superstars to main event champion status. Flair was a God of Wrestling to the hardcore fans and the southern WCW fans (which werent alot). But Flair couldn't carry the numbers like Hogan. Hogan was able to carry his name to a household name. EVERYONE knew who Hogan was. Flair couldn't produce that popularity as a champion. Flair had better technical skills, mic skills, everything but he didn't have that Hogan-esque popularity. With that being said, Flair needed to do a job to a younger champion which Vince would risk banking on that could continue to make the company money as a champion. He chose Bret Hart to be that Hogan successor.
Bret Hart came from a wrestling family. He was one of 12 children of Stu Hart, a legendary wrestling promoter of Canada. Vince managed to purchase Calgary Stampede Wrestling, which Stu Hart ran, so Bret Hart naturally continued his career through the WWF. Bret Hart & brother Owen Hart found great success in Vince's company. Bret started as a tag team with Jim Anvil Neidhart and their tag team was known as 'The Hart Foundation'. Hart Foundation took off and became a great tag team and eventually captured the belt. But Bret wanted to become a single's champion. He won the IC title from Mr. Perfect, Curt Hennig in SummerSlam 1991. He continued great success in that sort of mid-card position as a secondary champion (IC belt). Bret Hart was a good worker in the ring and was a loyal employee behind the scenes. His gimmick was a good guy that wrestled out of honor and family tradition (Hart Family). At SummerSlam 1992, Bret told Vince that he could have a great match for the IC title against Bulldog in UK where it was held. Vince let Bret and Bulldog main event and the two had a great match, the belt was won by Bulldog in his home country and that allowed Bret to be available to wrestle for the WWF World Title if Vince felt he was marketable and 'over' with the fans (Over means the crowd gets either behind or really against the wrestler). When Hogan was gone here and there for his movie career, Vince took the risk of making Bret the champion. I believe Vince felt that Bret wasnt the biggest guy in there, but his in ring abilities would make up for the fact he wasn't a roided monster. Roids were rumored among the business and Bret was a perfect guy to get away from that aspect of the business. It was honestly good PR, Bret would be a loyal company man champion and he was a wrestling guy, unlike Warrior who had a body building background and absolutely no love for the business, just there for the fame / paycheck.... On October 12th, 1992 - Bret Hart was booked to win the title against champion Ric Flair. Hart put Flair in his 'finishing move', known as the sharp shooter and submitted Flair for the WWF world title, signifying a new era in the WWF. Out with Hogan and in with Bret Hart. A new era would begin. Now wheather or not the fans would enjoy this new era will always be up for debate.
As Bret Hart was now the WWF champion. This meant that the smaller guys like Bret Hart could rise to the top of the WWF mountain. Bret Hart was part of a tag team that managed to win over the fans enough to get to the title. As this was happening, another similar wrestler was also on the same exact path. His name was Michael Hickenbottom from San Antonio , Texas. He wrestled as 'Shawn Michaels' part of the Rockers along with tag team partner , Marty Jennetty. Shawn also would go off as a singles star, but he would go off on a very different route than Bret Hart, his future rival in wrestling. Shawn Michaels would turn heel and turn on his tag teammate. The way he did it would really make an impact on his character and future career. December 2nd, 1991, on an episode of Brutus Beefcake's talk show, Shawn would turn bad guy by super kicking Marty threw a glass window. It looked brutal for the time period (1991). Shawn would be a pre-madonna villain which would be cocky, arrogant, and would call himself sexy which would be his theme music. He teamed up with Sensational Sherri who managed him as a singles star. He was on the same route as Bret Hart except for the fact Bret did it as a baby face while Shawn was on his way as a villain. Something very important that I should mention is that in order for a wrestler to be successful, they have to be themselves with the volume turned all the way up. The cartoon gimmicks in the past never last long and become dated. Undertaker gimmick is the longest lasting 'gimmick' cartoonish character, but only had longevity because he kept changing the gimmick up along with the times and re-invented the character, even began speaking later on. Bret Hart was a stoic individual who took the business very seriously, that is who he was backstage and he displayed that on camera, which made him famous. Shawn on the other hand was a wild child behind the scenes. Rumored to doing drugs, getting in fights in bars, typical immature things that got him into trouble all the time. Well, when he became a heel and allowed him to be ultra cocky on camera, it WORKED for the fans. They hated him with a passion and he became very famous. It doesn't matter if you are a good guy or a bad guy in the business around this time, as long as people will pay money to see you wrestle (pay for the good guy to see win or pay to see the bad guy get his ass kicked), you were successful. Shawn was himself with the volume turned way WAY up in the ring. He had the ability to put on extremely good matches and had the charisma to catch the audience's attention even if he wanted them to hate him. So as Bret rose to the top, he left the IC belt vacant and the company was looking for someone that possibly could be the NEXT guy...And Vince believed Shawn Michaels was that next guy. On October 27th, only two weeks after Bret won his world title, Shawn beat Bulldog for the IC title as the second champion. The two would eventually elevate their fame in the company to meet each other at a higher stage. They have worked together during the 'Hogan era' including were the first two to have a latter match in WWF. They also wrestled each other in tag team matches (Rockers vs. Hart Foundation).
On Jan. 11th, WWF Raw made its weekly debut on USA Network. Raw would continue to be on television to this day (2012), 19 years. Raw would be a weekly wrestling show on primetime television. Before, wrestling programs were always taped with small audiences. They taped the show live audience and used the camera angles as they happened, rather than editing it later. The program featured Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, Yokozuno & Steiner Brothers. The show would be a hit for years and even had to expand into two shows, Raw on Thursday and later Smackdown on Thursday Nights, but I'll get to that later. Macho Man would serve as a commentator along with Vince McMahon. Vince loved to be a part of the show and wasn't just going to be a behind the scenes guy, so he took the part of a commentator. Macho Man was NOT happy as a commentator and not a main wrestler in the organization. He eventually left the WWF to head to WCW.
A few weeks after Raw aired, Royal Rumble 1993 took place and had Yokozuno win the Rumble to set up a Bret Hart vs. Yokozuno match for Wrestlemania 9. Bret Hart would defend his title against Razor Ramon (Scott Hall). Scott Hall was a guy from WCW that was hired by Vince. He came up with a 'scarface' gimmick, so he came on screen as a cuban villain using Al Pacino catchphrases to get over with the crowd. He became very successful at this gimmick. Hart beat Razor to set up WM 9. April 3rd, 1993 - Wrestlemania 9 was held in an outdoor arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. This would mark the first event Jim Ross (who worked for the smaller WCW organization) would make his WWF commentating debut. Wrestlemania 9 would mark the first issue Vince would have with Bret Hart and his ego. Bret was always a good worker, but like every wrestler who makes it at the top, their ego is inflated naturally and makes it harder to deal with. Vince saw these problems with Hogan, Warrior, Sgt Slaughter and others. Hogan finished his side projects and Vince still knew he could draw money from him. Now it was time for Vince to try to hold two superstars at the top at the same time, Bret Hart & Hulk Hogan. The two had nothing in common, both were good guys and from different eras. Hart would later refer to Hogan as a 'dinosaur' in many interviews. The idea was that Hogan would lose to Bret Hart as a 'passing of the torch', similar to Hogan-Warrior in WM 6, but this time Bret would be the 'right' guy to get the torch passed, since Hogan wanted to do other stuff. Hogan on the other hand had absolutely no intentions of doing that again. The truth is Hogan was very upset about WM 6 and thought Warrior didn't deserve that win that he gave away. Hogan wouldn't want to make that mistake again. It was widely rumored that Hogan refused to lose to Bret Hart, he wanted to lose to Yokozuna who was a much bigger in stature rather than losing to a small Bret Hart. Hart was upset about this. Vince decided and came to terms with Hogan that Hart would lose to Yokozuna by cheating and the good guy Hogan would return to the ring and then beat Yokozuna to win the belt, thus avenging the loss of a fellow good guy (Hart). Hart did it and the whole thing looked silly. Hart lost to Yokozuna, and somehow Hogan ran in the ring and won the title. From a business stand point , it made sense. Hogan was still the biggest wrestler of all time and could draw attention. On the other hand, it upset Bret Hart who felt he deserved to beat Hogan and officially proclaim himself as the champ of the company.
King of the Ring 1993 was established as a unique PPV which featured an eight man tournament of the wrestlers. Bret Hart, Bam Bam Bigelow, Curt Hennig, Razor Ramon, Lex Luger, and more. The main event featured Hogan losing the belt to Yokozuna. Bret Hart, who was still very popular despite Hogan being back in the WWF, won the tournament by beating the three heels, Mr.Perfect, Razor and Bam Bam Bigelow. Bret Hart was the first King of the Ring winner. The event also had Shawn Michael continuing to be the IC title holder.
Later on in 1993, Survivor Series 1993 featured the Hart Family against Shawn Michaels' Knights. Survivor Series was a gimmick PPV where they would pit four wrestlers against another four wrestlers. Each time one was pinned, he was eliminated until the team was left with winner(s). Bret was able to wrestle next to his brothers Owen, Bruce & Keith against Shawn, Barry Horowitz, Greg Valentine, and Jeff Gaylord. 1993 also had one other signinficant moment in wrestling history. The birth of Lex Luger all american wrestler gimmick. Lex started as a bad guy in WWF, but then when Hogan left, they tried to emulate that gimmick on luger since he had the body for it. Luger even did an all american bus tour where he went city to city to meet fans. But the fans did not rally behind Luger the way they did for Hogan. Luger did go well over with the crowd, but never had the 'it' factor. He was a wrestler that would be a part of the main event, but never THE main event, if that makes sense. Luger did manage to have a great moment where they had a wrestling show on a navy ship and body slammed 400 lb Yokozuna that def got him over with the crowd.
Kevin Nash was a wrestler who worked strange gimmicks in WCW. He was a seven foot , very powerful charismatic wrestler. Shawn Michaels, one day, went to Vince McMahon and said you need to hire this guy, I can work well with him. Vince signed on Kevin Nash and he appeared for the first time in a house show as Shawn Michael's bodyguard named Diesel. He didn't speak much, wore dark sunglasses and looked after Shawn Michaels. Michaels being the IC title holder with Diesel backing him up. It was a very great gimmick because the two seemed to work well together and have great on screen chemistry. Diesel entered the 1994 Royal Rumble. 1994 was the beginning of an era featuring Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Diesel, Razor Ramon, Underaker, Yokozuna, and Owen Hart. It was a new crew of a younger generation of wrestlers. Silly gimmick characters still bounced around during 1994 such as Doink the Clown , Repo Man, and other goofball gimmicks, but the top guys were chosen by the fans and Vince listened. Without Hulk Hogan in the company, Vince had to supply new superstars that would draw money. Razor & Diesel were taking off in a big way in the company.
WCW was pure garbage. It was always available on Ted Turner's TBS and even managed to get Ric Flair away from the WWF back to the company. They had talented wrestlers, but did not have the leadership to take the company to the next level to actually compete with Vince McMahon. The leadership and bookers came and went. They first tried non-wrestling guys like Jim Herd and Kip Frey, but completely failed. So they turned to Ole Anderson who was not a likable guy and hard to deal with. Next came Bill Watts, a very old school wrestling guy. But Bill Watts and the others were so stuck on the system of old school southern wrestling, the program was not entertaining. It was atheletic, the wrestlers WORKED matches, but there wasn't great characters, storylines and even the rules were made to make the matches more boring. No jumping off the top rope, Watts got rid of the mats on the floor. The program was stuck in the NWA territory roots and needed desperately to get out of that and get with the times. Each 'new' president came in , changed everything, failed and onto the next guy. This happened frequently. Finally in 1994, a young savvy business man named Eric Bischoff was working as a color commentator. He started with commentating for AWA in Minnesota and eventually threw his name in the hat as the next 'leader' of WCW. He got the job when he went to Bill Shaw and Bob Dhue who was the VP of WCW and asked for the job. Somehow, Bischoff got the job in place of Bill Watts and named the Executive Vice President. Bob Dhue worked with Eric as partners, but clashed various times and resigned. It seemed now Eric had control of WCW. And he wasn't going to stay in that traditional southern boring NWA style wrestling. He was going to change things in the company to save money, get the program more interesting and attract big superstars to the company using Ted Turner's money as leverage. Bischoff moved WCW to Orlando, Florida to shoot shows in a MGM studio to save costs, the audience would be there as they were coming to the theme park, saves money, better lighting, better product. At the time in Orlando, Hulk Hogan was filming his Thunder in Paradise tv series for TNT. Eric and Hogan met up and Eric convinced Hogan to sign with WCW. On June 11th, 1994, Hulk Hogan signs with WCW. That attracted a lot of media attention. Hogan back, but not with the popular WWF. Suddenly eyes were turned to see Hogan in this different company.
The obvious match up would be Hogan versus the current WCW champion, who was Ric Flair. It was a dream match for hardcore fans, but it was done low key in WWF years before. Hogan vs. Flair would be signed for Bash at the Beach 1994 on July 17th, 1994 in Orlando. Shaq escorted Hogan to the ring and also had Mr. T with him as well. Hogan naturally won the title in his first match by pinning Flair after his signature leg drop. This was more significant than what it seemed because it was the FIRST ppv that actually beat a WWF ppv (King of the Ring 1994) in buyrates! All of a sudden, with the signing of one wrestler, Vince McMahon had some major competition.
Back in the WWF, Wrestlemania 10, the 10th anniversay took place back in Madison Square Garden. And even though you had a Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Luger, and Yokozuna storyline going in the beginning and main event, everyone turned their attention to the IC match. Shawn Michaels wrestled Razor Ramon in a latter match for the IC title. The match went down as one of the greatest matches ever in wrestling. Razor ended up winning the IC title after 19 minutes.
Wrestlemania 10 proved another time that Bret Hart was the leader of the company. He beat Yokozuna in a WM rematch from the previous year to win his title back. But Hart and Yokozuna was well played out storyline and Hart needed another wrestler to have a great storyline with. What storyline could Bret do that would connect with the audience and or sell tickets ? The answer was a family fued. Owen Hart played the villain, a jealous younger brother tired of hearing about his more famous older brother, who believed he should be champion. The two brothers had a brilliant fued that connected with the audience. Most people have siblings whom they've had fueds with. The audience related to the storyline going on. Bret HArt was quoted on saying that people came up to him saying "I have a brother i have a problem with.." etc, etc. The storyline worked well and evolved into a great match up at SummerSlam 1994. The title was on the line and it was Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart in a cage match. The match was incredible. Owen and Bret knew each other so well, they knew how to put on a great match. Bret Hart said in an interview, the storyline made it look like they hated each other, but in real life, behind the scenes, they couldn't have been more close. Working together brought them closer and better relationship. Bret ended up winning and keeping the title.
Hogan pretty much was the face of WCW in 1994. Right away, he brought in his friend to work for the company, Brutus Beefcake. He rematched Flair in Halloween Havoc 1994 in a cage match and then proceeded to work a storyline with his friend Brutus Beefcake for Starrcade 1994. The company had Hogan all over it with some very talented wrestlers on the undercard, Vader, Sting, Harlem Heat, Nasty Boys, Arn Anderson, Jim Duggan and even managed to get Mr.T to wrestle Kevin Sullivan at the big WCW ppv, Starrcade.
While WCW failed to produce good storylines and great memorable match ups, WWF was still sitting as king with Bret Hart, Taker, Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, and Diesel. WWF decided to go a route that would gather much attention to their annual Wrestlemania (11) in 1995. Bret Hart was on the card, but against Bob Backland. The focus actually was not on Hart in this event. The focus was on two things. One , was the signing of a NFL legend, Lawrence Taylor. Unlike Muhammad Ali or other celebs from the past Wrestlemanias, Lawrence would actually COMPETE in the squared circle against a WWF superstar. Vince chose Bam Bam Bigelow. Bam Bam was a very popular wrestler, never a world title holder or anything, but def a face of the company at the time. Bret Hart was quoted to saying he thought Bigelow was one of the best big guys in the company. The Main Event would be Lawrence Taylor versus Bam Bam Bigelow that would attract attention of ESPN and other media outlets to promote the event. It was a smart marketing move to bring in LT and not really put him against the top guys like Hart, Diesel or title contenders to sort of lower the level of credibility to the belt or those guys having to sell to him. Bigelow was actually a smart move. LT was booked to win over Bigelow. The co-main event was the WWF Title, Diesel versus Shawn Michaels. Although Diesel was Shawn's bodyguard, in a classis 'oops, i started a fued', Shawn accidently superkicked Diesel previous event forcing the two to have a fued with each other. Hart lost the belt to Bob Backlund, which in turn lost it in a squash match against Big Daddy Cool, Diesel. Diesel vs. Shawn, and to add some hype to it, Diesel was escorted out with Pamela Anderson Baywatch who at the time was considered the world's most beautiful woman and Shawn was with Jenny McCarthy. Diesel ended up winning the match keeping the belt.
Vince was having success with his ppvs, so decided to add some more to the year. He invented 'In Your House', a series of ppvs in between the 'big' ones. The first In Your House debuted on May 14th, 1995 and featured Diesel against another big man, Sycho Sid. Sid Justice left the WWF to work for WCW for a period of time, but resigned with WWF. Sid would continue to bounce around the big promotions including an ECW run in the following years. Jerry Lawler was also booked against Bret Hart in a fan favorite fued. Jerry Lawler was an old school wrestler who worked as the champ in the memphis region of the territory days. He became nationally known when actor / comedian Andy Kaufmann wanted to work as a wrestler because he enjoyed being a bad guy. It was actually one of the first celebs to participate in wrestling. Kauffman began working his gimmick as a famous hollywood guy that beat up women until one day Jerry Lawler, the King of Memphis wrestling intervened and started a fued with him. Kauffman and Lawler appeared together on the David Letterman Show, a very popular talk show and the two got into an altercation on tv where Kaufman was slapped by Lawler. Kaufman responded by cussing , which the networks had to beep out, and then threw coffee on Lawler. The altercation looked real and for years people thought it was legit, until the Jim Carrey movie, "Man on the Moon" came out which exposed the truth that in fact, Lawler and Kaufman were actually good friends and just were really good actors that fooled everyone to thinking it was a shoot. Lawler still had some popularity and worked matches with Bret Hart. Lawler later got involved as a commentator where he remained until this day.
Paul 'Paul E. Dangerously' Heyman worked for WCW in 1988. He started as a wrestling photographer that made his way to being an onscreen manager for wrestlers. Paul Heyman was worked for WCW from 1988 until 1992 when Bill Watts fired Heyman on basis which he said Heyman was faking his traveling expenses. Paul Heyman then went to ECW which was ran by Tod Gordon. ECW stood for Eastern Championship Wrestling. A Philadelphia independent wrestling organization. After the booker left the company, Heyman was doing creative stuff behind the scenes as well as being a manager. The NWA title was out of place. The NWA still was around led by the President, Dennis Coraluzzo. The belt was still defended in different territories. The title was vacant after the Flair / WWF fiasco where Flair went on tv with the belt. NWA sued WCW to not use NWA to describe their title, so WCW had to invent its own world title belt. NWA withdrew from WCW in 1993 , so NWA turned to ECW as the place to put their belt & name. ECW was chosen because it was the most independent televised wrestling event at the time. So in 1994, an tournament was held in ECW to proclaim the NWA champion. Shane Douglas was the ECW champ and was booked to win the tournament against Too Cold Scorpio (later known as Flash Funk). Paul Heyman and Tod Gordon along with Shane Douglas decided to destroy the NWA title and make it worthless. After Douglas won the title, he took the mic and said tha NWA is dead and proclaimed the NWA belt as the ECW World Title. On that point, ECW changed its name from Eastern to 'Extreme' Championship Wrestling. The NWA president was furious and made interviews about how upset he was because he had no idea what Heyman, Gordon and Douglas was going to do that. ECW was born for a company that catered to hardcore wrestling fans that wanted something more than just cartoon gimmicks like WWF at the time or the boring format of WCW at the time. Heyman was a very creative individual who had the intelligence and experience to change the face of wrestling. Tod Gordon left ECW and Paul Heyman was the sole owner of the company.
Eric Bischoff walked into a meeting with Ted Turner to discuss WCW. Ratings were up higher than ever before with Hogan, Flair, Macho Man & Sting in the company by 1995. Eric begins speaking and Ted interupts him within the first minute and says "Eric, what can we do to compete with WWF ?". Eric wasn't prepared to answer that question, but quickly responded "uh, uh, give me prime time tv like Vince". And Ted turned to his network guy and said "Give Eric primetime on TNT". On September 4th, 1995, Monday Night Nitro appeared on TNT head to head with Vince's WWF Raw on USA Network. This would mark 288 weeks that WCW would go head to head with WWF in a 'ratings war'. This also marked the beginning of the "Monday Night Wars", a legendary fued between two companies - Vince McMahon versus Eric Bischoff & Ted Turner. The first Nitro was held in the Mall of America in Minnesota. The card featured double main event, Sting vs. Flair & Hulk Hogan vs. Big Bossman. Back then, Vince took wrestlers at their word. They didn't have exclusive contracts. Lex Luger said 'dont worry Vince, I'll resign with you soon', and kept putting it off. Vince trusted him. Sting was good friends with Luger from the days of WCW. Eric didn't like Luger, but Sting kept pressing Eric to sign Luger, his friend. So Eric, thought okay, I'll try it. Lex saw the sum of money which was much more than Vince offering and took the deal. Luger's contract was up and Vince expected him to stay with the company and resign, but behind his back, Luger signed with WCW and Eric asked him to appear the night after his WWF show on WCW Nitro. So as Flair vs. Sting was going on, Luger walked to the ring and the fans were shocked. It did what Eric Bischoff wanted to do which was create an 'anything can happen so you have to keep watching' atmosphere. Vince was pissed, not only at Luger, but he finally knew he had some REAL competition for his wrestling company. Nitro still could not beat Raw in the ratings as WWF had a loyal fan base and still had many marketable wrestlers, but all that would change later.
The problems behind the scenes of WCW was an ongoing thing. Eric was the new guy in charge, but you still had booker problems, wrestlers feeling they were screwed, etc. Paul Heyman was one of those guys from 1992 and made it clear his company's arch enemy was WCW. He never had a problem with WWF. Shane Douglas felt Flair was always holding the newer guys down, so he left and went with Heyman in ECW. Steve Austin was a tag team wrestler fired for an injury in WCW. Heyman knew him and called him up and said would you want to come on ECW and just express how you feel and Steve said sure. He had promos where he mocked Hulk Hogan. Heyman in 1995 was also bringing in some very great technical wrestlers. Eddy Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Dean Malenko, and Chris Benoit were amazing performers that performed all over the world. Those technical guys really put on great matches for ECW to bring a 'great wrestling' aspect to ECW. WCW and ECW got into a lawsuit and part of the settlement was actually a talent exchange. ECW got Cactus Jack from WCW, whos real name was Mic Foley. Mic hated the politics in WCW and really made a big impact in ECW in 1995. The 'dream match' at the time was ECW superstar Sabu against WCW superstar Cactus Jack, so the two had some matches together and Foley never went back to WCW. He was WCW tag team champ and spit ont he belt and threw it down on ECW tv. In Philidelphia, people loved the local ECW. It connected with the fans on a personal level. The local Philadelphia crowds began chanting 'ECW ECW ECW' at a WWF King of the Ring 1995 PPV featuring Mabel vs. Savio Vega. That is when Vince first took notice that they are an up and coming wrestling organization.
1995 ended on a very interesting note as WWF women's champion Alundra Blayze signed with WCW. Eric Bischoff convinced her to show up on Nitro and throw the WWF belt in the trash can. Madusa would never again allow to be in the WWF. In October , Hogan wrestled The Giant (Paul Wight). Giant was brought in as Andre the Giant's son , part of a storyline. He was massive in size, 7 feet tall, largest man in professional wrestling at the time. Hogan vs. Giant did sell well for Halloween Havoc. Macho Man wrestled Ric Flair for the title in their annual Starrcade PPV. It seemed to be mimicking WWF's past (WM 3 - Andre vs. Hogan, WM 8 - Savage vs. Flair). Vince went on record saying that WCW copies the WWF, a dated model, which he probably wasn't far off until 1996 rolled around where WCW managed to break away and begin a new era of wrestling.
As 1996 rolled around, the plans of the epic famous match of Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels Iron Man match weren't exactly invented yet. Bret Hart actually lost the championship to the Undertaker at the Royal Rumble 1996, while Shawn did win the actual Royal Rumble. In the following two months, Vince would want to take the belt away from Hart and crown a new champion to carry the company against WCW who was catching up with Vince. Bret Hart had been wrestling since 1992 as a good guy champ. His gimmick never changed and people believed he lacked charisma. What Bret lacked, Shawn had. Shawn was a performer that had all the in ring abilities of Bret Hart, but had much more charisma. Vince took notice that Shawn was over with the crowd. It was time for a change. But Bret Hart , or his ego, was not ready to hand the championship off to another performer. In his mind, he was the best. As people make Shawn / Bret to be enemies, they really didn't have that much bad blood in 1996 leading up to the WM 12. It was more of Bret just ego hurt that he wouldn't be 'the guy' anymore. That he would have to take a backseat to Shawn Michaels. Probably a little jealousy, but their 'real life' fued would happen in 1997 which I'll get to soon. Bret was discussing things with Shawn and Shawn told Bret that he would take the belt and have matches with Diesel, Razor, 1-2-3 Kid, and HHH - who were all of Shawn's friends in the locker room (known as the Kliq). Bret felt like he would be a poor leader of the company and all he would do is take advantage of his situation and put his friends over. Bret was a guy that could work a match with anyone and was always open to working with different type of guys. He also broke Hogan's tradition of being a champ. He dressed with the guys in the locker room, he didnt have special treatment like Hogan. He hated the 'dinosaurs' as he called them and wanted to be different than that. But all these really good things he was doing for years, he would have to let another guy rise above him and he didn't like that. The angle Vince used for WM 12 was that this was Shawn's real title shot and the chance of a lifetime to capture the wwf title. It was a good guy vs. good guy match up to a certain extent, however the storyline did push that Shawn was the guy to cheer for. The match went down on March of 1996 and was one of the greatest matches of all time. The rules were that in one hour, the wrestler with most pins or subs would win. It was tied 0-0, and Shawn won in over time. Now, Bret seemed to get mad at Shawn on screen and rumors he was mad at him for putting on a match that didn't benefit him, but Bret claimed later in life that he was only doing that as a 'work' because he had plans they would rematch at WM 13, the following year and this could build a long fued between the two rivals. The two had a lot in common. They both were near same height, age, in ring ability, same build, etc.. They were tailor made to put on a great match.
WCW at this time had Giant, Luger, Sting, Flair, Hogan, and Savage for their program. Nitro and Raw would exchange victories each week for their Nitro & Raw programs. June 10th would be the last time for another 82 weeks that Raw would beat Nitro in ratings. In June & July of 1996, everything in both companies would change and go a different direction with one company would win the battle for the next few years and the other winning the war. May 27th, 1996 on an episode of Monday Night Nitro, Razor Ramon would walk down in the crowd, jump over the rail and interupt a match to speak on the microphone. "You people know who I am. But you don't know why I'm here...." Fans went completely crazy. Two weeks later, Diesel appears on WCW Nitro and they intimidate Eric Bischoff. "You want a war???" - Scott Hall. How did these WWF superstars end up on Nitro for May & June of 1996. Let me go back a little bit. Vince McMahon did not have exclusive contracts. Hall & Nash contracts were up. Vince was told by Hall & Nash, yeah we want to stay in WWF where we are superstars. Hall gets a phone call from WCW and they offer him a ton of money. Hall leaves. Nash didn't even speak to Vince about him leaving. He just sent a fax saying he's been offered a better deal at WCW. On May 19th in the Madison Square Garden, Razor and Nash would wrestle their last match before leaving to WCW. Nash wrestled Shawn and Razor wrestled HHH. Razor and Shawn were the good guys wrestling the bad guys Nash and HHH. After the Nash / HBK match, Razor and HHH entered the ring. At this point, they BROKE character and hugged each other and held each other's hands up. Vince was okay with them doing this, but felt they took it too far. For decades, wrestlers in the ring would never break character and only have good guys wrestle bad guys and never doing it any other way. Well you had two bad guys celebrating with two good guys. The audience has never seen this before. No one really knew Nash and Hall's contract was up. It was known as the 'Curtain Call'. Nash and Hall left for WCW. Shawn was the WWF champion. So the ONLY thing Vince could do is punish HHH for his involvement and thats what he did. HHH was booked to win the King of the Ring 1996, but after the Curtain Call, the push went to another wrestler which would be the best decision Vince has made.
June of 1996 in WCW was the program to watch at this time. Nash and Hall were on Nitro in street clothes, not wrestling gear. Eric Bischoff was able to sign Hall and Nash with Ted's money, but what to do with them ? Eric did a lot of business with Japan. In Japan, they had a very successful 'invasion' angle, where a group of wrestlers from another organization would invade that company and draw a huge crowd. Thats what Eric was going for. An 'invasion' angle. Nash and Hall would 'invade' WCW and leave the fans wondering if the invasion was a real life thing happening or if it was just more worked storylines. People back then didn't have internet. So when they watched Nash and Hall invade WCW, they thought it was actually WWF invading WCW! That Vince was sending Diesel and Razor to disrupt the company. Fans just saw Razor and Diesel on WWF programming a month earlier, and now they are on Nitro. It was a really great concept and worked well. Worked well for the fans, but NOT Vince. WWF sued WCW claiming they were using their company as part of WCW storyline. Nash and Hall were known as the 'Outsiders', a name which would refer to their tag team name later in the company, but people thought 'outsiders' meant 'wwf'. Eric had to interview Hall and Nash and directly ask them on live tv "do you work for WWF" and both had to answer "NO" to help WCW win their lawsuit. Since Hall and Nash were not using their WWF alias' 'Diesel' and 'Razor', using their real names - that helped win the lawsuit for WCW. WWF was unsuccessful, but Vince was still not happy. Vince retaliated in a very dumb way. Nash and Hall were all everyone was talking about, so later in the year, Vince would have a fake Razor Ramon and a fake Diesel (Played by Kane) in the WWF. The 'fake' wrestlers did not go over well. A copycat gimmick was a dumb idea and would not be able to recreate the real thing. WCW did this in 1995 by using a 'Renegade' character which was a copy of WWF's Ultimate Warrior. And that gimmick was not over as the original like the rest of them.
June 23rd, 1996 - King of the Ring 1996. Steve Austin left ECW to sign with WWF as the Ring Master with Ted Diabiase as his manager. Typical heel wrestler, cheated to win, broke the rules, nothing new... Ted Diabiase left WWF and Steve Austin was by himself. Management, said just let the guy do what he wants to do as a villain and the fans began to react very differently with his character. Instead of hearing 'boos' , people started to cheer for Austin. His nickname was 'Stonecold'. IN the finals, Austin wrestled and beat JAke the Snake, who was very religious man. Stonecold on the mic said, "You talk about John 3:16. Well Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass". And people connected with his attitude. He had a 'Fuck You' attitude that the fans began to enjoy watching. The audience was changing in 1996. They were sick of good guys vs. bad guys every single week for the the past years. They tried to make Austin a heel, but every time they went live on Raw or a PPV, the more and more cheers he got. They identified what they needed to do with Austin and that was let him 'raise hell' and the fans can cheer him if they want, which they did. Around this time, Vince tried to sign the Ultimate Warrior once again to gain some ratings over WCW and thats all it was really, just to try to get fans back to the WWF. Warrior once again , starting missing wrestling dates and was fired by Vince. His 1996 run would be his last time he stepped foot in the WWF ring. HHH wrestled him at WM 12 and said it was one of the worst experiences working with Jim Helwig. Called him unprofessional and a douche.
As the 'invasion' angle was going on in WCW, it lead to a main event ppv match at Bash at the Beach 1996. Outsiders claimed they had a third member of their group and he would be their partner in the main event against WCW's Sting, Luger and Randy Savage, but not reveal the third mystery man. This created a buzz in the wrestling world about which WWF star would be crossing over next and everyone had to tune in. It was a great way to steal WWF fans. Because WWF fans were fans of a particular superstars and they would follow their career rather than stay loyal to a company that lost their favorite superstars. WWF fans are now watching WCW. WCW fans are still watching WCW. It was a bad time for Vince. Behind the scenes, there was no WWF wrestling coming over to parter with Nash and Hall. Originally it was going to be Lex Luger, but then Eric thought it would be a bad idea, so 3 days before the event, it would be Sting that betrayed WCW wrestlers and join Nash and Hall. But Eric met with Hogan. Hogan was using the same ole gimmick of an all american hero good guy and noticing more and more boos each time he went to the ring, as I mentioned, the audience was changing. They wanted to cheer for the anti-heroes rather than the heroes. So Hogan mentioned, what if I turn heel. And its something that Eric felt hasn't been done before. Hogan would be the third member and become a bad guy villain. This would re-launch his career into another run as the most successful wrestlers in the business of all time. Nash and Hall wrestled the three without a third member. Hogan walked to the ring , the audience expecting to help Team WCW, but in a shock to the audience, he leg dropped Macho Man twice and held the hands of Outsiders. Hogan got on the mic and a ton of debree was thrown into the ring. Trash, sodas, popcorn, you name it, was thrown in the ring. A big fat fan tried to jump in the ring, but Nash held him out with his foot and Hall started to stomp on the kid's head. Security rushed him out. Mean Gene got in the ring and Hogan proclaimed this the "new world order" of wrestling. It was an amazing epic event that rocked pro wrestling, that lifted it into new heights beyond the "Hulk-a-mania" days of the late 80's.
(to be continued)
