[1991-02-01-WWF-The Main Event] Wrestlemania Main Event announcement / Interview: Hulk Hogan

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Gene mentions Hogan, Warrior, Duggan and Savage as potential opponents for Slaughter at Wrestlemania. Jack Tunney confirms that Hogan will face Slaughter. Slaughter is standing by with comments and does a great interview.

 

Hogan is interviewed in the ring. His interview is even better than Slaughter's, even accusing Slaughter of wanting to take a million gallons of oil to gag his Hulkamaniacs. He has everyone in the audience recite the Pledge of Allegiance for good measure before waiving the flag to wrap things up.

 

You know what they say about how fascism will look when it returns.

 

All wildly tasteless, but the build is really good.

[shoe]

Pretty obvious announcement. Like Duggan is going to headline Mania.

[PeteF3]

I wonder how intense Jack Tunney's deliberations really were.

 

Other than referring to Hogan and the Pukeamaniacs as "infidels," Sarge dispenses with any Iraq references overt or otherwise, and Adnan is also dressed much more low-key than usual. Pressure from NBC, maybe? It's a refreshing departure from Slaughter in any case, as this is essentially where the "Slaughter Rules" stuff is born and I recall that being pretty good stuff.

 

"At WrestleMania VII, me and Sgt. Slaughter are going to war, brother!" Oh, Jesus. Hogan manages to tie this crap back to pro wrestling, bringing up how Sarge is protected by the freedoms he's supposedly fighting against. Effective and well-done promo but it completely ruined whatever good vibes had been built up by Sarge's performance in the ring and on the mic.

[PeteF3]

Like Duggan is going to headline Mania.

I'm envisioning an alternate universe in which Tunney's intense deliberations lead him to another decision and Hogan is relegated to doing commentary for Haku/Barbarian vs. the Rockers.

[Kevin Ridge]

Okerlund talks up the number one contenders to the Slaughter’s title at WrestleMania. Duggan is one of the candidates. Sure. Jack Tunney after deep consideration picks Hogan as the one to challenge for the Title. Savage got ripped off here.

 

Slaughter will do whatever it takes to keep the title. We get our first Pukeamania references by the Sarge. Jesse was using Pukesters back in the late 80's though.

 

Back to ringside with Okerlund and Hogan. Hulk is ready to go to war with Slaughter and Adnan. Ugh. Hulk plays up the Persian Gulf war and his Hulkamaniacs. Slaughter is protected by the rights of Americans. Hulk gets silly with talk of Slaughter drowning the Hulkamaniacs with gallons of oil and shooting them with Scud missiles. Hogan leads the fans through the Pledge of Allegiance.

[soup23]

I legit laughed when Gene busted out Duggan as a candidate for Slaughter at Mania.

 

Pretty good promos to thrust this program into the wrestlemania build. I do think the promos are better than the stuff we saw a year earlier.

[flyonthewall2983]

The Pledge of Allegiance thing is a nice call-back to something Slaughter did himself during his feud with Sheiky Baby way back when.

[ajtroma]

I remember reading an issue of Sports Illustrated in a waiting room that just took a mighty shit all over this special.

[Matt D]

I always kind of wished they did WM VII as Hogan vs Slaughter and Warrior vs Savage - Career, and then had the winners face off. It always bugs me for some reason that Slaughter never got to give Savage the title shot he wanted to so that being at least a possibility would be fun. Plus I bet they could probably have sold a bigger place out on the promise of Warrior vs Hogan II on top of everything else.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

"Look at my shirt, brother!"

[garretta]

These were a couple of really good promos here. I liked Sarge going from Iraqi sympathizer to desperate heel champ who knows he's in for it at Mania. My favorite line is, "It(the title)'s mine, and I don't have to share with anybody!" Every heel champion in history has thought that way, but Sarge is the first champion to verbalize it.

 

As for Hogan, other than the stuff about the million gallons of oil and the Scud missiles shooting down the Hulkamaniacs, this was as good a promo as you could get out of this whole regrettable mess. Vince has brought the Gulf War into this, and it can't be taken out just like that, so let Hogan play superpatriot to the hilt. I especially liked the line where he reminded everyone that, deplorable as Slaughter's words and actions are, they're protected by our Constitution. So many times when we see foreign menace angles in wrestling, babyfaces tend to ignore that. Remember when Jim Duggan tried to tell Nikolai Volkoff that he couldn't sing the Russian national anthem because this was the land of the free and the home of the brave? Wrestling hasn't gone far on the evolutionary scale when it comes to freedom of political thought, but it's at least started the journey.

 

You could have made a legitimate case for all four of the named wrestlers getting championship matches at Mania, even Duggan since he'd just beaten Sarge by DQ earlier in the evening. But only Hogan's character was strongly identified enough with patriotism and the American way to sell a pay-per-view main event against Slaughter the foreign menace.

 

I would have liked to have seen the Savage/Slaughter situation cleared up someway, since they keep mentioning the bargain Sarge made with Sherri about giving Randy a title shot, but given how hated Sarge was and why, Randy would have been an instant babyface, even if it was for one night, and Vince (rightly) felt that that would have taken some of the steam from the retirement match with Warrior at Mania. Maybe they could have met right after Mania at a taping, with Liz in Randy's corner for the first time in over two years, and called it his last contracted match before retirement like they did his real-life bout with Rick Martel, but that was as close as they could have possibly gotten.

[drew wardlaw]

Was really holding out hope Duggan would headline mania :/. Love Slaughter referring to Hogan as immortal slime.

[drew wardlaw]

Oh wow I posted too soon. Hogan with the pledge of allegiance and calling his arms patriots. Man he really is something.