Rebooking the WWF in 1991

[Mr. Nerfect]

I'll be honest -- I've never seen WrestleMania VII. The card looks fucking awful though. The retirement angle with Savage, Warrior and Elizabeth is classic, but with control of the book, are you really looking to retire Savage? And are you really looking to put the WWF Title on a heel Sgt. Slaughter?

The way I see it, your big centerpieces for Mania are Hogan, Savage and Warrior. Your realistic main events are Hogan vs. Savage, Warrior vs. Savage or Hogan vs. Warrior. Now, if you do Hogan vs. Warrior II, is a heel Hogan out of the question? Was he losing steam with fans at the time, and if so, was it noticeable enough to warrant the change? Hogan as a heel against Warrior means you probably go further with Warrior with the strap though, which might have been wearing thin too. That also means you need a face opponent for Savage, so that might disqualify it right now. But a heel Hogan is something I'd be looking at.

You could run Hogan/Warrior at the Rumble, give Hogan the belt back, and run Hogan vs. Savage and try to pluck the same heart strings as that Warrior/Savage actuality, but with that no-good-wife-stealing-product-of-a-racist-community Hogan as the foil. Then you need to find something for Warrior.

I'm going to betray my lack of knowledge of the product at the time, but is Warrior vs. Undertaker off the cards as a possibility? The match may have blown, but it'd have spectacle, right? Am I wrong in assuming that Jimmy Snuka came back as a bit of a turd? He was probably up all night murderin'.

I'm going with Hogan vs. Savage, which I guess means that Savage wins the 1991 Royal Rumble. I know title shots weren't automatically afforded to winners then, but he's the guy that makes the most sense.

The Hart Foundation were the WWF World Tag Team Champions for WrestleMania VIII, where they dropped the belts to The Nasty Boys, which makes me want to snap my own neck, but Dave Meltzer actually gave the match a good rating. Could you switch the belts and start Bret's singles push with him challenging Mr. Perfect for the Intercontinental Title at Mania?

As for who beats The Hart Foundation? How about putting the belts on either Barbarian & Haku or The Rockers and have that match be for the belts, while Demolition and LOD fight each other in that "dream match?" It sounds like The Demos were at the end of their run, so they could have put LOD over to go on and make The Rockers bounce around the ring.

I know Virgil is a punchline now, but he seemed very over for the time he was feuding against DiBiase. Is that storyline integral to WrestleMania, or would DiBiase vs. Piper with the Virgil turn coming at Mania be preferable? I'm reading that Dusty had a program with DiBiase heading at the start of the year. Maybe DiBiase & Virgil vs. The Rhodeseses could have been extended, either as a tag or with Dusty going against DiBiase and Dustin beating Virgil earlier on the show?

Since you already had Sgt. Slaughter doing the heel gimmick, putting him against a pro-American guy somewhere on the card is a given -- just nowhere near the main event. Dusty Rhodes also falls into that category. I'm not sure how great the match could have been, but maybe with a "Boot Camp" gimmick, it could have tapped into more of what made Dusty Dusty? Slaughter could have beaten down Dustin to set the match up. There's also Jim Duggan, but I know how much you guys hate him. He's another guy that could have been tortured by Slaughter (not literally) heading into a possible Slaughter vs. Dusty match.

Jake Roberts was around. He was a face. Weirdly enough, one of my first instincts was to put him against Big Bossman. Law vs. anarchy. Both were faces at the time, so you'd probably have to turn one. A turn could help the match get over though. The match may not make too many salivate, but I'm trusting Jim Cornette on Bossman's potential here. I guess you could also do Rick Martel vs. Jake Roberts, just without the blindfold bullshit.

Earthquake is around and adds that classic big guy "spectacle." Or something. If you don't do Warrior vs. Undertaker (too soon for Taker and you don't want either man to lose), you could put Earthquake against Warrior for a squash and Bossman against Taker. With Taker vs. Bossman I'm actually thinking about saving people from the future Hell in a Cell match they'd have by burning it here.

So far I've got:

* Hogan vs. Savage for the WWF World Title
* Ultimate Warrior vs. either Undertaker or Earthquake (gentleman's choice)
* Ted DiBiase vs. Roddy Piper
* Mr. Perfect vs. Bret Hart for the Intercontinental Title
* Sgt. Slaughter vs. Dusty Rhodes in a Boot Camp Match
* Big Bossman vs. either Jake Roberts or The Undertaker
* POSSIBLY: Jake Roberts vs. Rick Martel with full vision afforded to both men, unless Roberts is blind
* The Rockers vs. Haku & Barbarian for the Tag Titles
* Demolition vs. LOD in the P.T. Barnum "Something for Everyone Match" -- maybe a "Losing Team Must Disband" stip? Too much?

This is going to sound weird, but I really want to see a "British Bulldog vs. Texas Tornado" match. I don't know why. Probably name symmetry. Maybe have The Mountie beat Tito Santana too.

[Jordan]

Originally Posted by Noid I'll be honest -- I've never seen WrestleMania VII.

Dude, you can't be as big of a nerd as you are about WWE and not have watched every Wrestlemania, come on man.