One of the most star-studded tournaments in the history of professional wrestling took place at WrestleMania 4. The night is also known for the launch of one of the biggest storylines in professional wrestling history: The Mega Powers Explode!
Continuing the trend of the first three WrestleMania’s, the fourth installment featured various celebrities throughout the night including WWE Hall of Famer Bob Uecker, Vanna White & Robin Leach. Be on the lookout for Bob Uecker’s undying pursuit of Vanna White & Vanna having no idea what’s going on while Mean Gene updates everyone on the tournament brackets.
WrestleMania 4 was also a 4-hour spectacular, which came on two VHS tapes if you wanted to rent or buy the show to own.
Vince McMahon had a brilliant booking strategy for this entire show; utilizing Atlantic City, New Jersey (which was thriving at the time) to bridge the gap between his two biggest markets: Philadelphia & New York. WrestleMania 4 also featured an early draft of what we now call “Axxess.” There were also some great backstage promos during this even by Hulk Hogan, Andre The Giant, Randy Savage and others.
Aside from a 15 minute time limit draw in the tournament between “Ravishing” Rick Rude and his rival at the time, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, most matches were extremely short due to 16 total matches booked on this card. Also, the tournament included 14 men because Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant both drew a first round bye and kicked off the quarter-finals of the tournament. Now that I have presented you with some facts on the show, here’s my brief review on what took place.
On February 5, 1988, Hulk Hogan defended the WWE Championship in a WrestleMania 3 rematch against Andre The Giant. In perhaps the most controversial WWE Championship match in history, Andre The Giant defeated Hulk Hogan for the WWE Championship. This was the first “Earl Hebner Screw Job Finish.”
The WWE Championship was vacated, WWE President Jack Tunney booked a tournament for the title in Atlantic City and the rest is history.
WrestleMania 4 took place on March 27, 1988 at the History Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall & is considered by many a memorable WrestleMania due to the unique nature in which the card was booked. The show kicked off with a Battle Royal, the second in WrestleMania history, which was won by Bad News Brown.
The “Final Five” in the match were Bad News, Bret Hart, The Junkyard Dog, Paul Roma & Harley Race. The Battle Royal also included WWE Superstars George Steele, Hillbilly Jim, Ken Patera, Nikolai Volkoff and Jim Neidhart among others.
Aside from the tournament, WWE also featured a Tag Team Championship match where the beginning of the end of Strike Force began as Demolition defeated Strike Force to become the new WWE Tag Team Champions. Rick Martel would later blame Tito Santana for the loss and a subsequent loss to The Brainbusters at WrestleMania 5, but we’ll get to that in my WrestleMania 5 review coming soon.
In a singles match, The Ultimate Warrior had his first glimpse of WrestleMania glory as he defeated Hercules. Both men were strategically excluded from the tournament as McMahon didn’t want Warrior to be put in a tournament that he would not be winning. This was the WWE PPV debut of The Ultimate Warrior and is something that every wrestling fan should see…even if it was an ugly 5 minute match.
The Honky Tonk Man defended his Intercontinental Championship against Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake in a match which saw Honky lose via disqualification. Brutus, as always, wanted to cut Honky Tonk’s hair and try to cut Jimmy Hart’s hair for the 2nd straight year at WrestleMania. He failed to win the Intercontinental Championship and was never able to achieve that accolade in his career.
The Islanders and their manager Bobby “The Brain” Heenan took on The British Bulldogs w/ Matilda & Koko B. Ware in a six-man tag team match where Bobby Heenan got the pinfall over Koko. The story here was that Bobby was TERRIFIED of Matilda and wore a protective suit so he wouldn’t be attacked by the English Bulldog that he actually dognapped in the weeks leading up to the match.
The WrestleMania 4 WWE Championship Tournament is something that you have to watch for yourself. The booking was brilliant throughout (aside from a possible missed opportunity to have a Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage WrestleMania 3 rematch) and built up Randy Savage throughout the night to win his first WWE Championship.
The booking of Andre The Giant vs. Hulk Hogan in the opener of the quarter-finals was lame intentionally. Vince McMahon didn’t want any moments on the show to take away from what was to come later in the night.
Macho Man defeated “The Natural” Butch Reed, Greg “The Hammer” Valentine, The One Man Gang & “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase to achieve his dream. Savage & Miss Elizabeth both rocked different attires in each and every match that night. Hulk Hogan, who helped Savage win the championship against DiBiase, was retrieved from the backstage area by Miss Elizabeth to counter the interference by Andre The Giant.
While Hogan celebrated with Savage & Elizabeth, the fans had no idea where this story was headed. The Mega Powers were on top of the wrestling world and with the beautiful Miss Elizabeth by their side, there was no stopping this dynamic tag team.
However, one year later, this entire story was set to explode at WrestleMania 5.