411’s Countdown to WrestleMania 23: The WrestleMania VI Roundtable Review

Posted by Larry Csonka on 03.16.2007

Title vs. Title…

Introduction~!
Hulkamania ran wild at WrestleMania V as Hulk Hogan regained the WWF Title from Randy Savage. But during this time a new "warrior" was making himself known. The Ultimate Warrior was running wild as well over the WWF and it was only a matter of time before the men would come face to face. They did so in that year's Royal Rumble match and the roof blew off the place as these two men stood toe to toe. The match was set, title for title, one man would reign supreme over the WWF. Let's meet our analysts and break down the show!


Our analysts today are…
Leading off is ROH enthusiast Stuart Carapola!

The big man Mathew Sforcina!

A man who raises kangaroos and kills them for sport Scott Rutherford!

And lastly, one half of the 3 R's of wRestling team Geoff Eubanks!


WrestleMania VI~!:

"The Model" Rick Martel defeated Koko B. Ware @ 5:29 via submission

Stuart Carapola: This was nothing special and was just thrown out as an opener to get the crowd hot. Martel had just finished the feud with Tito Santana, and still had a few months to go before his awesome feud with Jake Roberts began, so the match with Koko was just there to kill time for him. Koko never really amounted to anything in the WWF even though he had some amount of success in the Southern territories before coming to work for Vince. Squash match, and Martel won when he put Koko in a Boston Crab after Koko missed a cross body off the second rope.

Mathew Sforcina First off, it's always nice to have a massive (full) arena for WM. It makes it feel like a WrestleMania when there's thousands and thousands of people in attendance, you know? 68K or whatever is was, just a massive sea of humanity. Always pulls any card up a few levels. And you know what else is cool? The motorized ring carts. Surely they are stuck somewhere in storage? Why not bust those out this year, or in 3 years time? You could have 2 red ones, 2 blues and 2 blacks for each brand (maybe a couple of orange or silver ones if they buy TNA or ROH by then). As for the opening match, it's a perfect example of a WM opening match. Shortish, snappy, full of vim and vigor to get the fans into the show. Koko makes a mistake and taps out. Simple.

Scott Rutherford: Martel was just hitting his straps as a heel and Koko was nearing the end of his tenure as a JTTS. Considering who was in there I would actually call this a disappointment and rather dull. Vince hadn't quite got the hang of having a hot opener just yet and would often put out a throw away match to start with and these types of matches are a result. The fast forward button will be your friend.

Geoff Eubanks A snazzy, if fairly uneventful opener to get the crowd buzzing, not that they needed it, because Toronto always provides a phenomenal crowd, especially for this event. I always kinda dug Martel, as I thought he had talent beyond that which he was allowed to display in the WWF, although the Model gimmick, hokey as it was at times, set him apart and really gave him some well-deserved heat, as he played it to the hilt. It was great to see Martel go over clean in this one with his finisher, The Boston Crab, as opposed to his usual manner of cheap victory via a shot of Arrogance to the eyes of his opponent on the sly. Perhaps a home country homage (notwithstanding the derision existing between east and west Canada)? I was also pleased that Koko lost. Although a serviceable performer, I hated his lame gimmick and that fuckin bird. I recall going to see the WWF in my hometown growing up when Koko got ass handed to him by The Barbarian. I was literally the only person in the building cheering for The Barbarian, my encouragement actually echoing off the far side of the arena and back.

Demolition defeated the Colossal Connection to become the NEW WWF Tag Team Champions @ 9:16 via pin

Stuart Carapola: This match marked Demolition's third and final WWF Tag Team Title win, but unbeknownst to the casual viewer at the time was that this was more or less the end of Andre The Giant's in-ring career in the WWF. Everybody now knows that Andre wasn't in good shape when he got in the ring with Hogan at WrestleMania 3, but this was three years later, and he had degenerated so badly by this time that he spent most of the months leading up to WrestleMania doing 30 second jobs to the Ultimate Warrior because that was the longest match he could manage. In fact, Andre never even legally tagged into the match here. He mostly interfered from the apron and only got in the ring long enough to hold one of Demolition for Haku, but Haku missed and accidentally kicked Andre, who got tangled into the ropes and stayed there until after Demolition put Haku away for the win. Andre turned face after the match because Heenan was getting on his case because of the loss, but made the mistake of slapping Andre, prompting Andre to smack him around, and then knock out Haku as well. Heenan and Haku tried to leave, but Andre dragged them both off the cart and used it himself, leaving to the cheers of the fans in what turned out to be his last hurrah on national TV.

Mathew Sforcina Yes, Andre shouldn't have been here. After all, he never tagged in, if he was hurting at 4, you think he can walk into 6 and not be that much worse? Andre should not have been here. But yet, it's a hell of a send off. Lose a belt to a hot young prospect (well, relatively), putting them over, then the face turn, beating up Haku and Heenan and then Andre gets to leave to the fans' appreciation and respect, while in the cart. Awesome visual, awesome moment, worth the merely ok match.

Scott Rutherford: In the WM5 look back I said something about treating Andre with respect on his way out. I'm glad Vince gave him one last chance to ride out a legend to the cheers of the fans. This match is almost incidental to that considering who was going to win was pretty much fate accompli. Andre and Haku were given a blowjob run to give The Giant a legit title reign as a thank you for his years of service and while they lost here Andre got to make a face turn, give Heenan and Haku a beating and leave with his head held high and the true legend he was. Match was nothing special and was pretty much the last good thing Demolition did before turning heel and being jobbed out.

Geoff Eubanks Having not had access to the NWA growing up and was treated to the AWA after THE ROAD WARRIORS had left the promotion, I never saw the groundbreaking team upon which was based the DEMOLITION concept. As a consequence, DEMOLITION was, and remains, one of my absolute favorite tag teams of all time. In fact, I still favor them over THE ROAD WARRIORS/LEGION OF DOOM, mainly because DEMOLITION, whether face or heel, never sold out as did LOD, being paired with a ventriloquist's dummy and talking about boogers. As a matter of fact, their demeanor didn't change at all from their badass heel image to when they turned face, a rarity to be certain in the WWF/E, and I truly appreciated it.

I didn't realize what was going on with Andre The Giant at the time of this pairing with Haku (basically, that he was dying), the real workhorse of THE COLOSSAL CONNECTION, and, thus, didn't appreciate that I was seeing his last run in the WWF. I pitied Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura having to sell Andre's flaccid offense as lethal. God bless Haku, he really stepped up to make this team appear volatile. Oh, and Bobby Heenan contributed a little, too…hahaha.

This match had a truckload of heat coming into WM6, as the fans were rabid for Ax & Smash to regain their tag belts, yours truly included. As with ECW, the crowd was really the "fifth man" in this one, as they added just as much to the clash as the performers actually involved. It'd sure be nice if Vince would take a trip down memory lane in this regard and see exactly how much solid tag team wrestling can contribute to the product, because this was one of the best matches of the night. Andre's redemption and vindication over Heenan at the match's end was the frosting on the cake.

Earthquake defeated Hercules @ 4:55 via pin

Stuart Carapola: Earthquake had just come onto the scene a few months before this and was immediately positioned as a dangerous opponent who would beat his opponents and then send them to the hospital with rib injuries from the vertical splash he used as a finisher. Hercules was his latest victim, and though Hercules was a strong guy, the outcome of the match was never in any kind of doubt. Earthquake beat him with the Earthquake splash to chalk up another win, and then got a major push after WrestleMania, and would go on to injure Hulk Hogan a few weeks after this, leading to a match with Hogan at Summerslam. Hercules, in the meantime, had reached the end of his usefulness as a singles baby face, and turned heel soon after and teamed up with Paul Roma to form Power & Glory.

Mathew Sforcina Every WrestleMania has a squash or two. This is one of them, and very effective, with Earthquake (now officially just Earthquake since ‘Canadian Earthquake' would have gotten him a pop) hitting two splashes leading to a Herc stretcher job. Sure, the match, as it is, isn't that memorable or anything, but it did it's purpose. Build Earthquake.

Scott Rutherford: Earthquake debuted not long before this as a running buddy for Dino Bravo and was slated to have a run with Hogan post WM so there was little doubt he was going to lose. Probably the most amusing thing about this match was Earthquake losing "The Canadian" part of his name for this PPV since it was held in Toronto. Much was nothing but a squash and a boring one at that.

Geoff Eubanks This wasn't one of the more memorable matches of the night, although it was crucial in the process of building The Earthquake, who went on to be one of the most successful men of his, shall we say, considerable girth in the history of the promotion. At the time, Earthquake was sending jobbers and the lower tier of the roster to the hospital on a regular basis and Herc represented his greatest challenge to date. This isn't a match that has aged well, but, considering the heat going in and what it represented in the build for a future main-eventer in Earthquake, was certainly significant at the time. The hard way busted nose Herc provided Quake and the fact that he and his manager, Jimmy Hart, rolled with it and turned it into a motivational factor was some great improv. God bless the souls of both these men.

Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake defeated Mr. Perfect @ 7:53 via pin

Stuart Carapola: This was set up at the Royal Rumble when Perfect interfered in Beefcake's match against Perfect's manager, The Genius and attacked him with a chair. Perfect was still undefeated here (actually, he had lost to Hogan at a Saturday Night's Main Event taping before this, but it hadn't aired yet), and Beefcake handed him his first televised pinfall loss in the WWF on what was basically a fluke move. Perfect was smacking Beefcake around in the corner, but Beefcake picked the legs and catapulted him into the corner post, knocking Perfect out and allowing him to cover Perfect and end the streak. Well, it wasn't quite Angle making Joe tap, that's for sure. Perfect won the IC Title within a month after this, and Beefcake was supposed to get a shot at the title at Summerslam, but then he had his parasailing accident and missed the show and the next two and a half years as well.

Mathew Sforcina That darn slingshot to the ring post. Always gets Perfect's number. That said, this was a typical Perfect match, thus solid and entertaining, and possibly Beefcake's last good match before the accident, and arguably his last good match period. But still, crowd loved it, and The Genius got his hair cut. Everyone wins!

Scott Rutherford: While not a classic by any definition this match doesn't get nearly the amount of love it deserves. Brutus had slowly been building back up after missing out on his chance for the IC title run and this match was the starting point for a new big push for him. He had worked hard and gotten pretty decent in the ring and managed to go 50/50 with Curt Henning in this match. While some will say Curt carried it I beg to differ and would almost say Brutus carried it because Henning seemed pretty disinterested in being out there. This was Henning's first big loss in the WWF and probably Brutus' biggest win and a good match all round.

Geoff Eubanks There are few matches in the history of WrestleMania that STILL pisses me off as much as this one. I've said it before, I'll say it again, was I the only person who caught on to the fact that Brutus Beefcake (I even despise his NAME) was a grown man wrestling in shredded lavender/pink tiger-striped and fishnet tights from San Francisco who put men to sleep so he could cut their hair…? Brutus epitomized the blueprint of just the type of ‘80s face performer I LOATHED, with his bland, standard move set and, worst of all, pandering attitude to the idiots who blindly cheered him simply because he was a face. Meanwhile, here was Curt Hennig, the definition of a wrestler's wrestler, who (rightfully) dominated the match before Brutus hit his poor man's Hulk-up and rallied, managing about three shoddy moves and stole the Intercontinental Title from Hennig as a consequence. Bullshit. In a sad bit of irony, Hennig, who could still have a career in the wrestling industry today, tragically passed as a result of a cocaine overdose and Brutus is selling coke out of a toll booth on a turnpike near you.

Roddy Piper vs. Bad News Brown went to a double count out @ 6:37

Stuart Carapola: This was the famous match where Piper came to the ring with half his body painted black, to make some kind of racial statement or something. I guess it was supposed to be racially insensitive, but it just made Piper look nuts, though it was pretty funny when he started dancing. The match itself was the pits and ended in a double count out when they brawled out of the ring and to the back, but the thing with Piper painting half his body black is so weird and goofy, it's worth checking out just to see. I think he says somewhere on his DVD that the boys ribbed him by pretending they couldn't clean the paint off of him when he got to the back, and he had to fly home like that.

Mathew Sforcina Oy vey. For those who haven't seen this, basically, Piper, to show that he was for everyman and was a true role model without creed or color, blah blah blah…painted half his body black. The skin tone, not the actual color black, since that would have made him merely a Star Trek fan. But as stupid and idiotic an idea as that is, it didn't actually spell disaster for the match. The fact is was plodding and boring before the non-ending did spell disaster for it. Piper could do so much better, and so could Brown, but when the highlight of a match is Piper putting on a white glove (to counter Brown's Black one…I'm getting color blind here), then you know it's a bad match.

Scott Rutherford: Oh boy. This match is infamous for the reason Piper decides to paint half of his body black in some bizarre attempt at social commentary that went down like a fart in a iron lung. The match was just terrible and by the sounds Brown was pretty offended and most likely going stiff on Piper to prove a point. This match shouldn't even be dignified with exposure.

Geoff Eubanks I was never given a reason to care one-way or the other about Brown and I have a physical hatred of Piper. My only desire in this match was for Piper to have his arm ripped off his body and be beaten to a literal death somewhere in Sky Dome. Didn't happen, plus there was absolutely no resolution one-way or the other and we had a lame ass double count out, of all things, at WrestleMania. A wasted six-and-a-half minutes.

The Hart Foundation defeated The Bolsheviks @ 0:20 via pin

Stuart Carapola: The Bolsheviks had a pretty funny segment earlier in the night where they were supposed to perform the Soviet National Anthem with Steve Allen, but he kept making up songs instead of doing the real anthem. It doesn't sound as funny the way I described it, but I thought it was funny when I was 11. Anyway, The Hart Foundation had already challenged the winners of the Tag Team Title match, so this squash win over the Bolsheviks was just a formality to put the Harts over strong. They attacked them during the Anthem and hit the Hart Attack in about 20 seconds for the win, and the Bolsheviks didn't get any offense in at all.

Mathew Sforcina Ah, Steve Allen, clearly having a great time, before he became spokesman for PTC and thus hated the WWF (or rather, Russo's WWF). The Hart Foundation was really over here, shockingly. I never would have guessed, really.

Scott Rutherford: The Harts were heading into a new push to the tag team titles and pretty much needed a big way to start it. Going over the Bolsheviks in 20 seconds certainly did that. What else is there to say?

Geoff Eubanks Not much to say here…not much about which to say. As with the Earthquake/Hercules match, this whopping :20 encounter served as a means to build Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart as the team stepping up to face DEMOLITION. Jumping the Russians as they massacred their country's National Anthem was perfect at the time, although, again, the gravity of the situation is lost for posterity and could easily have taken place on Superstars and had the same effect.

The Barbarian defeated Tito Santana @ 4:35 via pin

Stuart Carapola: The Powers Of Pain had gone their separate ways shortly into 1990, and Barbarian hooked up with Bobby Heenan as his new manager. This was his first major singles match after going solo, and Tito Santana had basically shifted into Total Job Mode after losing the Tag Team Title at WrestleMania 4. I always loved how the announcers would play up that Tito was a former IC and Tag Team Champion to make him seem like a legitimate opponent, even though nobody ever took him seriously when thrown in there with...well, anyone, really. Barbarian killed him with a clothesline off the top for the win.

Mathew Sforcina Heenan should not have come back to the ring. I mean, I understand why he did (a fair amount of time had passed, and this was the start of The Barbarian under his management and thus he should have been there), but still, I just feel that he should have sold the Andre beat down a bit more. Still, it's not like they had to protect him or anything. Still, Tito takes the bump of the night off the flying clothesline for Squash #3 of the evening.

Scott Rutherford: Tito was now well into his role as JTTS and putting over the hot new singles wrestler at every WM. While the Barbarian experiment never really worked, Tito busted a gut and made him look like a million bucks here and put him over hard. A throw away match to be sure and thankfully they were to be phased out of WM's in the next couple of years.

Geoff Eubanks This remains one of my personal favorite WrestleMania matches, for no other reason than I really dug The Barbarian and thought he had a lot more going for him than he was allowed to display and that I positively HATED Tito Santana, for the same reason I hated Brutus Beefcake. His pathetic overselling of heel offense and his little "endearing" fist pump and "Arriba!" made me sick to my stomach. The Barbarian whipped Chico's ass, plain and simple, and I laughed for the following half hour over it.

Dusty Rhodes & Sapphire defeated The Macho King & Sensational Sherri @ 7:37 via pin

Stuart Carapola:
Considering some of the people involved, I really wasn't expecting much out of this one. However, we did get a really cool surprise when Dusty Rhodes brought out Elizabeth to be in his corner. Elizabeth had done an interview earlier in the evening announcing that she was returning to managing and wouldn't be as afraid of getting involved as she used to be. She did end up getting involved here, and her interference cost Savage and Sherri the win, and then Elizabeth disappeared for another year. Sherri, in the meantime, went above and beyond the call of duty by bumping around enough to make Sapphire look like a passable wrestler and even took the fall. Never let it be said that Sherri Martell was not a company woman.

Mathew Sforcina Savage is really, really talented. Sherri is a very underrated woman. Dusty, for all his faults, knows how to work a crowd. Elizabeth knows what she's doing. Sapphire is like 2 or 3 Diva Search contestants rolled up together, literally. (For the record, I'm a big fat lazy bastard, so I can make comments like that). So what can we learn? No matter how good talent is, a lack of it in one participant can bring everything else down. Still, the faces won, so there's something good. And Savage survived just fine, and this lead to a rather better match the following year…

Scott Rutherford: For all the shit you can put on Dusty and this angle you cannot deny that he got he crowd into one of the more absurd storylines in WWF history. This match sucked but had its own internal logic and entertainment value and wrestlers capable of wrestling these types of matches and making them work are a fast dying breed. Although it was probably a total accident, this was the mid point of the breakdown and eventual redemption of the Randy Savage character and actually served to make future storylines work that much better. Funny how things go like that.

Geoff Eubanks Correction: I laughed till the blubber twins jiggled to the ring for this horrible abortion and disgusting waste of the considerable talents of Savage and Martel. It was his WWF run that really cultivated my hatred of Rhodes, again, because I never saw his NWA stuff till much later. Sapphire didn't help matters, especially here, where she's allowed some significant offense over a real wrestler like Martel. However, the build to this match, where the Royal Couple absolutely decimated Slim and Slimmer, should be used as a tutor for noobs in the business as the blueprint for garnering tacit heel heat. As such, it was a no-brainer that Rhodes and Sapphire would go over for the feel-good come-uppance WM win, which absolutely killed this match for me.

The Orient Express defeated the Rockers @ 7:37 via Count out

Stuart Carapola: Though the Harts had made the challenge to Demolition, the Rockers also made it known that they wanted a shot at the WWF Tag Team Title. In the meantime, they had this match with the Orient Express, who had just come on the scene, and the Rockers lost by count out when Marty got salt thrown in his eyes outside the ring and couldn't make it back in the ring by the ten count. The fact that they lost here should have been a pretty good indication that the Rockers weren't going to get anywhere near the Tag Team Title, but they did go on to have a really good match with the Hart Foundation on Saturday Night's Main Event, but that match ended in a DQ when a three way brawl between the two teams and Demolition broke out. The Orient Express, in the meantime, capitalized on this big WrestleMania win by becoming complete jobbers.

Mathew Sforcina Ah, The Orient Express music. For years, whenever an Asian heel came in for one shots or on shortish notice, they would receive that theme music. I mark for that music. The match itself is kinda weird, with the Rockers off their game slightly and a finish that doesn't help anyone. I mean, we know Mr. Fuji's a bad man, but can't he get his clients a pinfall win? Still, fun while it lasted.

Scott Rutherford: Given who was working this match you would have to term it a disappointment but if taken on face value this match was a handy little tag affair that while not memorable was pretty energetic and fun and the first proper wrestling match since match #4 on the card (with this being match#9). While pretty much a nothing match in the grand scheme of things it did serve the purpose of waking up the crowd and keeping things moving.

Geoff Eubanks Odd as it is, as much as I absolutely revere Shawn Michaels and respect Marty Jannetty's in-ring prowess today, I positively hated THE ROCKERS. I also have loved Japanese wrestlers, by and large, since I first saw Jushin Liger in WCW, so I was really pulling for Mr. Fuji's boys here. A "kissing your sister" moment here, as, after a really entertaining match, THE EXPRESS won via count out. That's two count out "falls" on the card, a factor I feel really contributed to weakening the show, collectively.

Hacksaw Kim Duggan defeated Dino Bravo @ 4:15 via pin

Stuart Carapola: Just a short match where Duggan quickly won after he hit Bravo with his 2X4 behind the referee's back. However, the real point of this match was to get Earthquake over, so Earthquake came in after the match and laid Duggan out, then gave him two Earthquake splashes to add another notch to his belt. Come to think of it, Duggan was often the guy the big fat heel would kill leading up to a match with Hogan. Well, I guess that was a reasonable thing for Duggan to do since Hogan got him a job everywhere he went from the 80s on.

Mathew Sforcina Duggan didn't get much of a reaction? The Canadian fans didn't know how to respond to Dino? Get out of here. Still, at least Earthquake got to destroy another guy, thus building him up even more.

Scott Rutherford: Man, if you're jobbing to fucking Jim Duggan you seriously know you career is hitting the skids. Just a nothing match from two bad workers who couldn't give a damn about being out there and showing all the effort of two men that don't give a rats ass. Cut this match out and give the extra time to the tag match before this and you would be laughing.

Geoff Eubanks I don't recall exactly what led to this match, other than there being some kind of nationalism angle, in which Duggan, the flag-waving moron, battled The Canadian Strongman. To be honest, I don't recall much about this match overall since I was never a big Bravo fan and I loathe Duggan, mainly because I saw him in Mid-South just before he jumped to the WWF and know that which he was capable of doing, as opposed to the drooling, snot-in-the-moustache idiot into which Vince turned him. At just over 4:00, I doubt if anyone else remembers much about this, either.

Jake "The Snake" Roberts defeated "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase @ 11:45 via Countout

Stuart Carapola: This feud started a whole year earlier at WrestleMania 5 when Jake Roberts was wrestling Andre. Dibiase got involved in the match and tried to steal the snake, and then injured Jake some months after that. The injury (I believe it was supposed to be a broken neck) was so bad that it was worried that Jake's career might have been over. But Jake recovered and he and Dibiase played cat-and-mouse for the next few months, ending up on opposing teams at Survivor Series and crossing paths in the Royal Rumble. After the Royal Rumble, Jake stole the Million Dollar Belt, which he used as bait to get Dibiase into the ring for this match. Though Jake had an incredible promo before the match where he said that Dibiase's greed would destroy him, the match itself wasn't anything spectacular, and Dibiase won by count out. Jake did DDT Dibiase after the match, and then he took his money and started handing it out to fans at ringside.

Mathew Sforcina This match includes one of the most bizarre visual images I've seen in a wrestling match, with the crowd, during a headlock, spontaneous start and keep up a wave. That's the sort of out of the box thinking we need more of in this day and age, now that the ECW mutants are dying out. Snap to it fans! Still, for a Million Dollar Title match, normally not a good thing outside of the Virgil win, this was pretty cool, with Ted getting back his belt after Jake stole it.

Scott Rutherford: Man, the problems with these earlier WM's is that matches tend to bleed together and get lost. Take this match for example, you have one guy who was THE master of ring psychology and the other one of the best workers in North America during the late 80's/early 90's. On almost any other night this would be your show stealer or most memorable match but here, as match number 11, the crowd is pretty tired and just wanting to see the main event. Sure the match was good but I always think what they would have been able to give us if they went on earlier with 5 more minutes of match time to really tell the story that they are capable of. As it stands this fits into a "lost little gem" category and that's about it.

Geoff Eubanks On the other hand, THIS match was a co-main event in my mind. Coming to fruition over Roberts taking up DiBiase on his open challenge to anyone interested in taking his coveted Million Dollar Belt, a silly, fairly stock premise, this program caught fire immediately and delivered in one of the best matches of the night and one of my absolute favorite WM matches of all time. Pitting two masters of psychology against one another, combined with the anticipation of the soon-to-come Hogan/Warrior bout, this one had the crowd positively unglued (who can forget the 67,000-strong crowd busting out the wave mid-match?). In the end, Roberts failed to get the duke, but did manage to get his heat back, DDT-ing The Million Dollar Man post-bout, "Too little, too late," as Jesse Ventura said. A fantastic contest that stands the test of time and a stunning example of just how good these two men were in their prime.

The Big Bossman defeated Akeem @ 1:50 via pin

Stuart Carapola: Boss Man and Akeem had been tag team partners as the Twin Towers, and had even done a main event run with Hogan and Savage in 88-89. The team dissolved when Ted Dibiase tried paying off the Boss Man to get the Million Dollar Belt back from Jake Roberts. Boss Man got offended that Dibiase thought he could buy him, turned face, and effectively ended the Twin Towers as a team. Little did Boss Man know as he came to the ring for this match that Dibiase was still hiding out at ringside, and he attacked the Boss Man before the match even started to get back at him for turning Dibiase down. So now Boss Man had an even bigger hill to climb against his former partner, but although Akeem had that early advantage, Boss Man fought back and put Akeem away with the Boss Man Slam in under two minutes. For some reason, a feud between Boss Man and Dibiase never went anywhere, and they never had a PPV blow off.

Mathew Sforcina And then Ted proceeds to pop up again and attack Bossman, who as a upstanding law enforcer was above taking bribes. At least, after he turned face. But it's weird, for what is a climax of a tag team breakup, this is pretty short and silly. I mean, if they booked a count out in the OE/Rockers match, couldn't they have shaved off a couple of minutes off that and stuck it in here? Not that I want to, as a rule, take time away from guys like the Rockers to give to Akeem, but still, too many matches means stuff like this is rushed. And that's not good.

Scott Rutherford: The Bossman was a newly minted face here and was actually pretty fucking over. What's more this is the period of his career where he lost a shit load of weight and became a very good worker. I'm sure some of the newer to wrestling fans would balk at all that but it's the truth. What would surprise you more is that Bossman actually started carrying people to good matches…I shit you not! This was a squash and a half and that's pretty much it.

Geoff Eubanks As a big fan of The One-Man Gang from Mid-South, I was appalled when the WWF abandoned the gimmick that brought him to the dance and re-dubbed him The African Dream. Granted, it's so absurd it's hilarious, but I thought The Gang was too good to be relegated to a comedy act. Compounding that was the absolute squash here when Slick's TWIN TOWERS imploded leading us to this match. Yes, the WWF was pushing The Bossman as a face and he needed the win, but I was shocked and disappointed that this one didn't even last 2:00. Teams falling apart is a big deal, IMO, and I thought THE TOWERS deserved a bigger blow-off than this.

Rick Rude defeated Jimmy Snuka @ 3:55 via pin

Stuart Carapola: Rick Rude had a big main event coming up at Summerslam as he challenged for the WWF Title in a steel cage, but he was just killing time here, and so he got the match with Snuka to give him something to do until Summerslam. Snuka, on the other hand, had made a big return to the WWF at WrestleMania 5, but never capitalized on that return with any kind of main event, or even upper-midcard run. Despite Steve Allen making a second appearance here to do commentary with Gorilla and Jesse, making some stupid jokes along the way, Snuka couldn't overcome Rude, and went down after taking a Rude Awakening neck breaker.

Mathew Sforcina We establish that Rude is around, a threat, and oh yeah, he is like the only guy to have beaten Warrior in like forever. This is important since…

Scott Rutherford: After running red hot last year Rude sort of dropped off the radar somewhat and was put into WM almost as an afterthought. Like I talked about with the Roberts/Dibiase match, these all blend together and really mean nothing and therefore you have nothing to really talk about like I will the next match. Although watching Rude matches today you know Vince would be thinking he dropped the ball because he had money drawing heel world champion all over him. However, he did have another great run with Warrior over the world title after this.

Geoff Eubanks Every so often, we have an "old guard versus new guard" match, such as THE NEW AGE OUTLAWS versus LEGION OF DOOM or, ironically, THE NEW AGE OUTLAWS versus THE DUDLEY BOYZ. This was just such a case, in my view, as WWF mainstay and everyone's favorite murdering coke-hose Snuka fell to an on-the-rise Rude. This was personally disappointing to me, as the Snuka/Magnificent Muraco program was the story that pulled me into the WWF and pro wrestling as a whole from the start and I disliked Rude greatly. His entire gimmick nauseated me, his airbrushed tights were lame and I hated Bobby Heenan when he was managing (damn, he was good at his job, and I was a total mark). Of course, much later on, I'd come to appreciate Rude's in-ring prowess and Heenan's genius, but at the time, I was displeased. As with The Earthquake and The Bossman, this was a display that Rude was more than on his way up the ladder, as it seems this WM was about sowing seeds, as opposed to finishing feuds.

The Ultimate Warrior © defeated Hulk Hogan © to become the NEW WWF World Heavyweight Champion @ 22:54 via pin

Stuart Carapola: This is the fabled Title For Title match which was probably among the best matches either man ever had. The reason it was so good was that they reportedly spent weeks planning the match out move for move and rehearsing it day after day until they had it down pat. They didn't call a single move during the match itself, and that's probably what saved it since neither man had Randy Savage in there to carry him. They first teased a match between Hogan and Warrior, the WWF's two indestructible forces, at Royal Rumble 90. They ended up being the only two men in the ring at one point, and they had a short skirmish, which ended in a stalemate. Over the next few weeks, they'd continually get involved in one another's matches and post match brawls, and finally the first ever WWF Title vs. IC Title match (that I know about, anyway) was signed for WrestleMania 6. In a lot of ways, this was the only match on the entire show that anyone really cared about, but it lived up to the hype. They went neck-and-neck and neither man clearly dominated the other. Hogan kicked out after Warrior's press slam/big splash finishing combo and went through his usual finishing routine, but Warrior moved out of the way of the leg drop and hit another splash to score the win, become the first WWF/IC Champion, and also hand Hogan his only clean loss of his entire 83-93 WWF run. Hogan handed Warrior the belt and hugged him after the match in a great moment. Too bad Warrior's title reign would never live up to this match.

Mathew Sforcina The torch was passed. That seems so stupid now, but back then, it was damm serious. This was a company changing moment, coming in no-one knew who would win, a dynamic not repeated in the WM main event until WM22, with Cena/HHH (unless you could WM2000, but then, everyone KNEW it would be Rock, or maybe Foley. They'd never be so stupid as to let a heel walk out as champ…). After all, Warrior was on a role, Warrior was unstoppable. But this is Hulk Hogan. NO ONE beats Hulk Hogan. But on this night, someone did. Yes, today we can see this was a total mistake, and that it was doomed. But on the night, half the crowd cheered and the other half was in shock as Warrior beat Hogan, won the World Title, and seemed to usher in a new era for the WWE. But it was not to be…but that's for next year.

Scott Rutherford: It's funny how the aftermath of this match STILL runs today. Hulk only ever put over a few people in his time in such a way that you knew he was passing the proverbial torch and the failure of Warrior to really grab the opportunity is the main reason Hogan uses as to why he wont do it ever again. Anyway, this match is great for so many reasons and is one of those matches I point to and use as an example of how you work a match not wrestle it. The actually wrestling is pretty sloppy and average at best but the story they told and how they built an epic feel for this contest is just breath taking. While it's surprising that this isn't the best match either man wrestled it's a testament to the will of the men involved to create something memorable and work hard in achieving it. No matter what you think of these two today, back then they created one of the true special moments in wrestling history.

Geoff Eubanks One of the worst kept secrets in the IWC is my tangible, all-encompassing HATRED for Hulk Hogan. His one-trick pony act got old to me within a couple years, and I was there since the day he replaced the "injured" Bob Backlund in the rematch for the HWT against The iron Sheik. By this time, I despised Hogan so completely I could barely focus on the television screen. On the other hand, and I'm about to blow any cred I may have built in the last two years, I was a total Warrior mark. Before he debuted in the WWF, I was thinking how cool it would be for there to be a wrestler who bolts out of the chute and was just absolute kinetic energy for the duration of the match, until he hits the curtain and heads backstage. Enter The Ultimate Warrior. I dug his talk of "The Darkness" and his intensity. Of course, now we see how one-dimensional his character was and what an egomaniacal lunatic he is, but that is now and this was then.

Considering these two have the combined technical prowess of, say, DiBiase's little toe, the fact that this match was as good as it was and is still, the large portion of the contest displaying how equal they were in the ring, is little short of amazing. This match stands on its own even today, but for those who missed the build, we recall how well this entire affair was constructed, both men watching one another's back in the face of the threat of The Earthquake and Dino Bravo, to ensure that both would be injury-free so as to settle the issue at WrestleMania. Hmm…throw in the tag belts and this premise sounds kinda familiar, doesn't it…? Well, it worked then and it's working today.

Still again, the crowd was a major factor in this bout, contributing to making this contest one of the most unforgettable main events in history. The fact that the fans were split nearly dead even down the middle added to the excitement. In the end, when The Warrior actually got the clean three over Hogan, I was literally jumping up and down, screaming so loudly, my brother and his friend came running from four houses up the street because they thought I was being killed…hahaha! All in all, a classic, certainly, and one not to be missed.

The Conclusion:

Stuart Carapola: As much love as this show gets, I hate to say it, but it really was a one match show. WrestleMania wassin the middle of a years-long stretch where the show would be bogged down with a ton of matches, mostly filler, that would only last five or six minutes at most by necessity. It was a great building and a hot crowd, which made for a great atmosphere, but the amount of work Hogan and Warrior put into their preparations amounted to one of the best matches of either man's career, and Hogan handing the title belt to his conqueror was a great moment. Still, I wouldn't put this among the best WrestleMania's just because of that one match.

Mathew Sforcina Does one match, one moment make a card? Not really. WrestleMania VI tends to get a free pass with most people because it's where Hogan Lost To Warrior, or maybe Where Andre Said Goodbye, but beyond that, the show's way too crowded, way too wishy-washy and just filled with bad matches. If it went out today people would be up in arms and running to the ROH message boards. But still, it's sure as hell historical, so maybe it does get a bit of a free ride.

Scott Rutherford: WM6 is always considered on the better ones but that's only because of the main event being super historical. There are a few decent under card matches but nothing really "big" happens in them to place them in the "historical curiosity" and thus give this WrestleMania that special feel that it should. By all means, check it out but be prepared to be completely under whelmed.

Geoff EubanksOverall, a fairly forgettable WM when compared with some of the later blow-away shows, but this was certainly quite a good'un for the time, and back before they started dumbing down for the casual fan. A notable downer, in my opinion, were the backstage promos. With two exceptions, those being Bobby Heenan's exasperated rant following the COLOSSAL CONNECTION'S loss of the tag titles and the subsequent loss of Andre to The Heenan Family and Jake Roberts' quiet, intense eloquence prior to his match against DiBiase, felt painfully scripted to the syllable. The wooden interaction with the absolutely goofy Sean Mooney; (THERE'S a name you've not heard in awhile…and for good reason, as evidenced here) made the interview with the absolutely daft Miss Elizabeth conducted by the equally passionless Rona Barrett, seem like a Rock promo. For those unfamiliar with this era, I'd definitely recommend WrestleMania 6 to get a feel for where the WWF was at the time and for those who were around for this one the first go-round, it's a nice little stroll down memory lane. Hell, there's no Vince anywhere…how bad could it be?