Wrestlemania 7 at the LA Coliseum

I’ll say this, had they been able to sell out the LA Coliseum, I think that WrestleMania would have looked as epic as I remember that time period being in my mind. I feel so robbed that we don’t have that visual of all those guys in an outdoor arena. I just picture it looking like something out of Greek mythology haha. I feel like that Mania would have been the definitive visual of WrestleMania had it happened.

Had Vince not found an arena I guess they could have just ran the show at the Coliseum but just had HEAVY tarping of the arena. I think they could have just moved everybody to the lower levels, gave away some tickets to locals and it would have looked just fine. The whole Slaughter assassination thing was WWE talk for “we didn’t sell enough tickets”. That was just a spin job on the media. I think they would have just ran the show as is and never mentioned the Slaughter thing.

I was gonna say that very thing. I love WrestleMania 9 to this day, visually, it’s great. The small crowd almost matches the step down in stardom though for that time, if that makes sense haha. 7 was like everybody in their glory, the Warrior/ Savage match would have looked beyond epic in that environment. The one thing I don’t like about 7 is that it looks so regular. Even 8 looks amazing, it’s such a big arena. 7 is like in a regular arena, it looks so unimpressive. I’ll always be bitter they didn’t have that show, damn the Gulf War 😆.

It's kind of funny how Wrestlemania 7 didn't have enough fan base to fill a 100,000 seat stadium, yet a year later Wrestlemania 8 feels an 80,000 seat stadium and had a lesser match card than the year before.

It was a down year for all businesses as I understand it. Bruce Prichard always goes into it on his podcast but I think had it been a normal year, all evidence would suggest if they filled the stadiums for 6 and 8, 8 having an inferior card like you stated, I would imagine they would have packed the house for 7 too which had all the same stars 6 had. 8 is the one that would have concerned me looking at them on paper.

Ugh, you just had to post a picture of that 2 faced, backstabbing, crooked traitor

...and also in the picture is Sarge & Hulk

I chalk it up to a combo of the war having just ended and LA sports in general having trouble consistently drawing in fans (outside of the Lakers and Dodgers). Due to Desert Storm at the time, security was tight everywhere and made travel more difficult. This no doubt hindered a lot of the domestic and international travel that would have benefited WM. Throw in the fact that the 16,000 tickets they sold is what they normally drew when in LA at the time and we can see outside of their “regular” fans in the area that nobody else wanted to travel or attend it at the time. A year later when things calmed down and I can see why attendance jumped back up.

I agree though that we missed out on a really cool visual of the “Golden Era” coming out to an outdoor stadium full of 100,000 fans. It’s also a shame a lot of the blame seems to be pointed at the Hogan/Slaughter feud when that thing was red hot at the time (even after the war ended). While not great in the ring, heel Slaughter oozed heat and those old promos of him burning the Hogan poster and shirt are gold (as well as the doctored photos of him hanging with Saddam Hussein).

Looking back on it now I totally agree, 8 was a great card. If you put yourself in THAT time though, like Shawn was just half of the Rockers, Bret was half of the Hart Foundation, they weren’t draws yet. Hogan was winding down big time, Warrior was unadvertised. Savage was winding down. I agree with you though that I do like 8 better, it’s one of my favorite Manias. I can see how at that time though it wasn’t as grand as 7, WM7 had all the stars in peak form. 8 was a bit of a transition into what would become the hallmark stars of Manias going forward, but maybe not fully appreciated yet at that time.

I think 8 just had a more intriguing card. I love heel Slaughter but he never came off to me as on the level of typical Hogan heels. Slaughter was a midcarder before his title run and was one not long after it ended. Sid came off as a main eventer regardless of being a face or heel so to me that matchup had a “bigger” feel to it. Add Flair to the mix, as well as both Bret and Taker who had been elevated greatly between WM7 and WM8, and to me WM8 just comes off as a bigger event despite Hulkamania not being at the peak it once was.