ClassicFan2
Main Eventer
Joined on: Oct 22, 2010 15:25:00 GMT -5
Posts: 3,258
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Post by ClassicFan2 on Apr 6, 2024 8:51:38 GMT -5
so here we hav pretty much the last golden era mania before the new generation starts up i was in jail doing a 90-day stint during this (big bloody fight at a party, many got hurt & arrested), so i didnt get to see it live, but we got to pick one tv show per week to watch and i picked wwf superstars on saturday and they were all gettin into it. it was so funny, most were like wtf is this crap when i 1st had it on, fast forward a few weeks after mania and everyone is comin up askin me about the matches/fueds and what do i think is gonna happen with warrior and that voodoo guy lol. i got em all hooked lol. even the guards were watching it with us. but back to wm8. good card, but felt less of a maina feel than all previous manias. 1st event that went from 14-15 matches (wm4,5,6,7 -wm2&3 had 12 each) down to 9 matches, which showed the lack of roster/stars from previous years. Rating - B- Matches: main event was kinda slow, but i luv hulk & sid and the build up was excellent so was still good for me. and warrior coming back was the highlight of the match piper vs hart was best match on the card and just LOVED it! title match was EXCELLENT as well and GREAT build up. this and hart/piper match put this event from a C rating to a B- for me! taker vs jake was too short for all that build up bummed no tag titlke change, but was cool seeing disasters as good guys other 4 matches were just meh    so what say you on wm8 all u ham n eggers? |
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ClassicFan2
Main Eventer
Joined on: Oct 22, 2010 15:25:00 GMT -5
Posts: 3,258
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Post by ClassicFan2 on Apr 6, 2024 8:51:48 GMT -5
how the card shoulda been:   |
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Post by hbkjason on Apr 6, 2024 9:20:20 GMT -5
I love this WrestleMania. It's just a really fun event. It has a solid opener and epic IC title match and a tremendous WWF title match. I even enjoyed Hogan Vs Sid! Hogans entrance is one of my all time favourites from a WrestleMania. The return of the Ultimate Warrior has me freaking out big time.
This show has some great matches and moments with fun smaller stuff sprinkled in.
I know people love to fantasy book this one, but I honestly would not have changed it one bit! Only thing I would have done is have the LOD actually have a match. Was one of them injured here?
One weird thing about this show is that on the original Silver Vison VHS it makes a point to mention that the British Bulldog Vs Bezerker match didn't take place. Even though the box doesn't mention it.
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Post by tmnt316 on Apr 6, 2024 9:29:14 GMT -5
Yay for me it's probably my favorite single digit WM and is my uncle favorite WM.
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Post by AndrewR85 on Apr 6, 2024 10:07:36 GMT -5
My favourite WrestleMania  |
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Post by The Brain on Apr 6, 2024 10:12:16 GMT -5
Yay for sure
Mach/Naitch and Piper/Bret is more than enough to pass this one. Plus Warrior's return was really well done. Good ol' days of no spoilers leaking.
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sinfony
Jobber
Joined on: Jul 25, 2023 4:22:29 GMT -5
Posts: 38 
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Post by sinfony on Apr 6, 2024 12:11:05 GMT -5
Huge yay for me. Perhaps even my favourite Mania.
Savage/Flair and especially Piper/Bret are two of my all-time favourite matches, though they probably really should have built up to the big Hogan/Flair confrontation here and saved Savage/Flair for Summerslam. They kinda killed Flair by having immediately drop the strap in his first title defence and then had a rather pointless house show programme between them on the premise that Savage apparently just wanted to beat him up some more.
Hogan would never have done the job for Flair in a million years but they could easily have had it end in a DQ with Flair and Perfect beating him down before the Warrior save.
The show does rather fall off a cliff in its intensity after the title match, but only the tag title match is probably irritating in how poor the quality is. Why LOD show up just to do an interview though is really odd booking.
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Post by MKSavage on Apr 6, 2024 12:44:40 GMT -5
Definitely a yay for me. I was really into wrestling at this time, so anything they did was great to me. This event had two all-time great matches (Bret/Piper, Flair/Macho), and it had perhaps, the greatest return in history. Also, Hogan not leaving the PPV as the champion was a huge win, especially since Macho won the title.
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Post by MKSavage on Apr 6, 2024 12:54:59 GMT -5
Huge yay for me. Perhaps even my favourite Mania. Savage/Flair and especially Piper/Bret are two of my all-time favourite matches, though they probably really should have built up to the big Hogan/Flair confrontation here and saved Savage/Flair for Summerslam. They kinda killed Flair by having immediately drop the strap in his first title defence and then had a rather pointless house show programme between them because Savage apparently just wanted to beat him up some more. Hogan would never have done the job for Flair in a million years but they could easily have had it end in a DQ with Flair and Perfect beating him down before the Warrior save.
The show does rather fall off a cliff in its intensity after the title match, but only the tag title match is probably irritating in how poor the quality is. Why LOD show up just to do an interview though is really odd booking. I imagine this is what they wanted to do, but for whatever reason they didn't go through with it. Maybe Vince really wanted Hogan to beat Flair and win the gold, so he could say that the WWF was better than the NWA/WCW. But with Hogan going away after WM8, maybe they switched it to Flair/Savage so the champion leaving WM would be a good guy. Who knows. However, if Warrior is the one that comes out and saves Hogan during the Hogan/Flair match, and Flair leaves WM8 as Champion, then that would probably put Warrior as the #1 contender to Flair for Summer Slam. Though, if they played it out, Savage and Warrior could have faced each other at SSL92 to see who the #1 contender to face Flair for the belt at the next PPV. The winner could face Flair at Survivor Series 92, and the loser could face him at RR93. Then Bret could win the rumble match and face Flair at WM9. Though, if they go that route, then there's no one to face Flair for the title at Summer Slam 1992. They could basically do the same thing and have him and Perfect interfere in the Macho/Warrior #1 contenders match, or they could give him someone to beat on the card. But with Bret, Bulldog, Taker, Macho, and Warrior all tied up, that doesn't leave a big star for him to face. I guess they could go with Sarge since he was a former WWF champion, and that would give Flair another win over a WWF guy who was a champion at one time. Always fun to think about the what ifs... I know The Brain would be happy with Flair holding the title for that long a time. |
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Post by rkmo: 9 Month Warning on Apr 6, 2024 13:57:13 GMT -5
Midpack for me. Not the worst, not the best. Pretty good matchups on the card but better possibilities existed. Main event is deflating, and the multi-man tag left me wanting to string up the Family Feud host by his nipple hairs. IC and WWE Title matches are bangers.
Got a shirt for a steal too 😎
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sinfony
Jobber
Joined on: Jul 25, 2023 4:22:29 GMT -5
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Post by sinfony on Apr 6, 2024 17:06:31 GMT -5
Huge yay for me. Perhaps even my favourite Mania. Savage/Flair and especially Piper/Bret are two of my all-time favourite matches, though they probably really should have built up to the big Hogan/Flair confrontation here and saved Savage/Flair for Summerslam. They kinda killed Flair by having immediately drop the strap in his first title defence and then had a rather pointless house show programme between them because Savage apparently just wanted to beat him up some more. Hogan would never have done the job for Flair in a million years but they could easily have had it end in a DQ with Flair and Perfect beating him down before the Warrior save.
The show does rather fall off a cliff in its intensity after the title match, but only the tag title match is probably irritating in how poor the quality is. Why LOD show up just to do an interview though is really odd booking. I imagine this is what they wanted to do, but for whatever reason they didn't go through with it. Maybe Vince really wanted Hogan to beat Flair and win the gold, so he could say that the WWF was better than the NWA/WCW. But with Hogan going away after WM8, maybe they switched it to Flair/Savage so the champion leaving WM would be a good guy. Who knows. However, if Warrior is the one that comes out and saves Hogan during the Hogan/Flair match, and Flair leaves WM8 as Champion, then that would probably put Warrior as the #1 contender to Flair for Summer Slam. Though, if they played it out, Savage and Warrior could have faced each other at SSL92 to see who the #1 contender to face Flair for the belt at the next PPV. The winner could face Flair at Survivor Series 92, and the loser could face him at RR93. Then Bret could win the rumble match and face Flair at WM9. Though, if they go that route, then there's no one to face Flair for the title at Summer Slam 1992. They could basically do the same thing and have him and Perfect interfere in the Macho/Warrior #1 contenders match, or they could give him someone to beat on the card. But with Bret, Bulldog, Taker, Macho, and Warrior all tied up, that doesn't leave a big star for him to face. I guess they could go with Sarge since he was a former WWF champion, and that would give Flair another win over a WWF guy who was a champion at one time. Always fun to think about the what ifs... I know The Brain would be happy with Flair holding the title for that long a time. I do think Hogan's umming and ahing about whether he was going to stay put in the WWF or go full-time with acting probably influenced them in going right into a house show programme with Hogan & Flair. Better to get the money in the bank ASAP than to risk Hogan walking out at any moment and them having never made a dime out of those two working together, plus they must have been alarmed by now the house show crowds were slumping after Summerslam 91... that's pretty much the only defence I could offer on their behalf for why they raced into things instead of building it properly for Mania.
I think you could still have inserted Sid into a Flair v Hogan match at Mania. Maybe you have him continue his ranting and moaning about Hogan having got the title shot ahead of him and how Sid Justice belongs in the main event and he ends up coming to ringside sometime during proceedings. In effect, you could just go with the angle they ended up using with Flair at Summerslam: if I'm going to be cut out of the title match by Tunney, then I'll just insert myself into the title match, because I damn sure belong in it. You could even have him throw some barbs at Flair too, how he's certain he'd have won the Rumble if Hogan hadn't cheated him out of it and Flair got lucky with that.
So Sid comes down to ringside mid-match, maybe he forces Mr Perfect to withdraw to the back, now Flair's alone out there, or is he? Who's Sid truly gunning for out there? In the end he ends up nailing Hogan for the DQ and you get the two of them beating him down - cue Warrior, the aftershow angle is Sid furious at Warrior for sticking his nose into Sid's business and you build their feud from there, leaving Flair free to defend the title against Savage at Summerslam and you aim for the Warrior vs Sid showdown at the same event. If they had kept Sid away from working directly with Warrior until Wembley, he probably wouldn't have quit. It was putting them together on a nighty basis on the houseshows that pushed him over the edge.
I also think those two matches would have better suited the atmosphere you could - with a little research of the UK fanbase of the time - have likely expected at Wembley. Savage was popular in the UK, but Warrior was huge with the young crowd. I always felt sorry for Savage having to come out as the babyface champion there and, while the crowd is giving him a good reaction, they definitely want to see Warrior win the title from him. It would have made more sense to pair Warrior with a monster heel like Sid and leave Savage to have the full crowd behind him vs Flair.
That would also have built up Flair's heat as he would have definitely have been heavily booed by the crowd. Maybe you don't even let Savage win the title, but use the brass knuckles spot they had at WM8, but have it lead to Flair getting the pin (the crowd is going to go home happy later anyway with Bulldog's IC win). So now Flair's come out of a Mania main event vs Hogan with the title still around his waist (which almost never happened) and now he and Perfect have sucker punched Savage to retain the title at the next PPV. Now people must really be riled against this guy... instead of him just winning the title and losing it at his first PPV....
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Post by ASR (therockisback) on Apr 7, 2024 23:57:04 GMT -5
Great show. Savage vs Flair & Bret vs Piper...amazing.
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koreygunz
Main Eventer
Elite Trader
287 Refs in WFClassifieds and counting
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Post by koreygunz on Apr 8, 2024 14:11:38 GMT -5
Always have a soft spot for WM8 because it was the first PPV I ever ordered and watched live. Alot of replayability for me. Bret vs Piper was great (loved it even as a 7 year old!). Warrior returning was cool too.
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Post by ASR (therockisback) on Apr 8, 2024 14:23:13 GMT -5
I loved Warriors return
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Post by jason88cubs on Apr 9, 2024 18:48:42 GMT -5
i like the ppv probably not the greatest place to have it though, crowd didnt seem that into it
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Post by ASR (therockisback) on Apr 9, 2024 19:03:34 GMT -5
Hogan vs Flair would have been MONEY
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sinfony
Jobber
Joined on: Jul 25, 2023 4:22:29 GMT -5
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Post by sinfony on Apr 10, 2024 6:51:45 GMT -5
Hogan vs Flair would have been MONEY Only if they would have built it up properly though.
That means not throwing their first meeting away at house shows or having Hogan easily dominate Flair in the tag match shown on Saturday Night's Main Event (the match that made it inevitable that Sid was going to be the main event) or having Monsoon continually belittle Flair's past achievements on every broadcast, which ultimately made it sounds like Flair was someone who had just had a belt made for himself like DiBiase, rather than someone with the status of a multiple champion of the rival company.
The core problem was that the WWF then operated on the principle that no other wrestling existed except the WWF, so Flair coming in with the NWA title belt had absolutely no impact with a large section of the WWF viewership of the time. Flair was essentially portrayed as a crank claiming to be the (grammatically gibberish) "real worlds champion" and yet another one of Heenan's hare-brained projects. I think Vince secretly enjoyed showing NWA/WCW that their champion wasn't a huge deal in WWF land.
Yes, Vince had to have Flair win the Rumble - doing so in the process more as a result of the Sid/Hogan clash than due to Flair personally eliminating any of the top contenders under his own steam - to get at least some mileage out of him, but Vince surely felt much happier seeing WM headlined by Hogan having to take on the next big monster heel, while Flair was given second billing and booked to immediately lose the title to Savage. I'm sure that they only gave it back to Flair in September - right after having failed to book him to wrestle at all at the second biggest show of the year - because they wanted Warrior to win it ASAP from a heel champion, rather than from another face, hence the countout finish at Summerslam.
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Post by ASR (therockisback) on Apr 10, 2024 23:36:16 GMT -5
Hogan vs Flair would have been MONEY Only if they would have built it up properly though. That means not throwing their first meeting away at house shows or having Hogan easily dominate Flair in the tag match shown on Saturday Night's Main Event (the match that made it inevitable that Sid was going to be the main event) or having Monsoon continually belittle Flair's past achievements on every broadcast, which ultimately made it sounds like Flair was someone who had just had a belt made for himself like DiBiase, rather than someone with the status of a multiple champion of the rival company. The core problem was that the WWF then operated on the principle that no other wrestling existed except the WWF, so Flair coming in with the NWA title belt had absolutely no impact with a large section of the WWF viewership of the time. Flair was essentially portrayed as a crank claiming to be the (grammatically gibberish) "real worlds champion" and yet another one of Heenan's hare-brained projects. I think Vince secretly enjoyed showing NWA/WCW that their champion wasn't a huge deal in WWF land. Yes, Vince had to have Flair win the Rumble - doing so in the process more as a result of the Sid/Hogan clash than due to Flair personally eliminating any of the top contenders under his own steam - to get at least some mileage out of him, but Vince surely felt much happier seeing WM headlined by Hogan having to take on the next big monster heel, while Flair was given second billing and booked to immediately lose the title to Savage. I'm sure that they only gave it back to Flair in September - right after having failed to book him to wrestle at all at the second biggest show of the year - because they wanted Warrior to win it ASAP from a heel champion, rather than from another face, hence the countout finish at Summerslam.
The build up would have been crazy. I still can't believe it didn't happen. |
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