Happy Wednesday Everyone!
I actually think WWF WrestleMania VIII is a decent enough show overall, although it loses steam after the great Ric Flair Vs Randy Savage match. I decided to set myself a challenge this week, whereby I assume that I’ve been mandated to do a certain thing by the promoter and then have to book a show to fit this criteria.
In this instance, I’m rebooking WrestleMania VIII under the assumption that Vince McMahon has demanded that the Main Event be Ric Flair Vs Hulk Hogan. In real life, McMahon decided he needed something different on top, which is why we got Hogan against Sid and Flair against Savage. In this reality though Vince has decided that we’re going to do Flair Vs Hogan and it’s up to me to book the rest of the card.
With that in mind, let’s see what I can cook up.
As always, please feel free to share your own booking ideas and thoughts in the comments section.
You can view the real card for the event by clicking below;
Opening Match
Money Inc (Ted Dibiase and IRS) w/ Jimmy Hart Vs Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith
12 Minutes
I was originally going to open with Money Inc Vs Owen Hart and Jim Neidhart, but I checked the WWF roster at the time and Neidhart wasn’t actually on the books, so I went with a follow-up to Smith eliminating Dibiase in the Royal Rumble match instead. Dibiase will be mad about that and will attack Smith, leading to Smith recruiting brother-in-law Owen to be his partner at WrestleMania VIII. It’s not like Owen and Davey won’t be a great team and we can give them the win here to pop the crowd in the opener after a competitive tag contest.
Match Two
The Mountie w/ Jimmy Hart Vs Hacksaw Duggan
6 Minutes
This one is an easy story. Mountie is a conniving Evil Foreigner who cheats whilst Hacksaw waves the flag for the good ol’ US of A, tough guy! It doesn’t need to go too long, with Mountie getting pinballed around by Duggan for a bit until he uses the Shock Stick to pick up a win for Quebec here at WrestleMania VIII.
Match Three
20 Wrestler Battle Royal
Nasty Boy Knobbs, Nasty Boy Sags, Beau Beverley, Blake Beverley, Kato, Tanaka, The Repo Man, The Model Rick Martel, The Berzerker, Skinner, Sgt. Slaughter, The Big Boss Man, Tatanka, Wrestling Superstar Virgil, Bushwhacker Luke, Bushwhacker Butch, Tito Santana, Koko B. Ware, Chris Walker and Jim Powers
10 Minutes
This is just a Battle Royal to give some folks a payday, with Walker and Powers needed to beef up the numbers otherwise it would be uneven. Tatanka can win last eliminating Martel in order to continue his push.
Match Four
Shawn Michaels w/ Sensational Sherri Vs Marty Jannetty
12 Minutes
In this reality Marty manages to get his stuff together and doesn’t get fired, meaning we can actually do the logical follow-up match at WrestleMania VIII between these two. Shawn eventually picks up a dirty win thanks to Sherri and we’ll leave Marty’s revenge for SummerSlam in some fashion.
Match Five
WWF Intercontinental Title
Champ: Rowdy Roddy Piper Vs Bret Hart
14 Minutes
You don’t need to change anything about this as it’s a great match. Bret goes over to regain the Intercontinental Title.
Match Six
The Undertaker w/ Paul Bearer Vs Sid Justice
10 Minutes
We keep Sid a babyface following the Rumble and set him up to wrestle Undertaker here in a battle of the big blokes. Sid can have it won with a Powerbomb but will stupidly go after Bearer, allowing Taker to sit up, get a Choke Slam and keep the streak going. The match will probably be pretty bad because Sid is atrocious, but it’s a win for Undertaker on the big event.
Match Seven
No DQ
Jake The Snake Roberts Vs Macho Man Randy Savage w/ The Lovely Miss. Elizabeth
15 Minutes
Every match these two had always seemed to be really short, so here at WrestleMania VIII they get a decent chunk of time to work with so that they can finally pay the feud off, with a returning Papa Shango surprisingly coming down to the ring to help Roberts. Roberts won’t go for the pin though and will call Undertaker down to the ring to deliver the finishing blow. Taker will refuse though due to being sick of taking orders from Roberts and will actually help Savage instead, sending Shango out to the floor and allowing Savage to come off the top with the Macho Elbow to Roberts in order to finally win the feud.
Post-match we’ll have Sid run down to attack Undertaker, and then shockingly help Roberts and Shango put a beating on Savage for a Heel turn, because being nice has got him nowhere and now he’s going to form a terrible trio with Roberts and Shango. Taker and Savage will be at a disadvantage, until the unmistakable sound of Ultimate Warrior’s music will hit, leading to him sprinting down to the ring for the rescue to send the Heels packing. The three babyfaces will have a tense standoff as they all have reason to distrust and dislike one another, but Elizabeth will calm things down and that will lead to Taker skulking off whilst Warrior and Savage shake hands until Warrior leaves to give Savage and Liz a chance to celebrate.
Match Eight
Titles can change hands on a DQ or Count Out
WWF Tag Team Titles
Champs: The Road Warriors (Animal and Hawk) Vs The Natural Disasters (Earthquake and Typhoon) w/ Jimmy Hart
12 Minutes
These two teams did a count out finish back at Royal Rumble, so Hart has finagled a way to get the DQ rules waived here, meaning the same result will lead to TND being crowned the new Champions. It will look like TND are going to be in a position to win thanks to Hart, until Paul Ellering makes his WWF debut to send Hart packing. In the confusion, Hawk will come off the top rope with a clothesline to Typhoon for the three count in order to give The Warriors the win.
Main Event
WWF Title
Champ: Ric Flair w/ Mr. Perfect Vs Hulk Hogan
18 Minutes
We can give Hogan a win on Saturday Night’s Main Event over Flair in a tag match of some kind in order to set him up as the challenger for WrestleMania VIII, and on the show itself Flair and Hogan can have their usual good match until it’s time for Hogan to hit the Leg Drop of DOOM and close Mania as the Champion.
In Conclusion
One thing I’ll say for my version of this show is that it builds throughout to a crescendo at the end with some big matches, which doesn’t really happen in the real WrestleMania VIII. After Flair Vs Savage, the show kind of goes off a cliff and they just never get the momentum back. Here we’ll see if the lack of some cool down matches will burn the crowd out or if structuring the card like this will cause the show to continuously build momentum.
Roberts, Sid and Shango as a Heel trio is a bit out of left field, but I reckon then could find a way to make that work and you’ve got the added drama of their babyface rivals potentially combusting at any moment. I think it’s probably time to try and get Savage away from Roberts following this show though, so we can do the feud with Flair over the summer where Flair states that Liz was his before she was Savage’s. That was an entertaining storyline and the matches were generally good, so we can pencil that in for the summer.
Roberts never really got to do a big blow-off match with Warrior due to Warrior getting fired in 1991, so we’ll actually do that match whilst Taker can do a spooky feud with Shango over the summer. Considering that we were probably getting Hogan Vs Sid whether we liked it or not, then we can do that over the summer as well, with the eventual plan being for Bret Hart to win the Rumble and then win the WWF Title at WrestleMania IX so we can make a new star.
Going forwards from this I’m thinking SummerSlam might look like;
WWF Intercontinental Title
Champ: Bret Hart Vs Davey Boy Smith
WWF Title
Champ: Hulk Hogan Vs Sid
Ric Flair Vs Randy Savage
Jake Roberts Vs Ultimate Warrior
WWF Tag Titles
Champs: The Road Warriors Vs Money Inc
Papa Shango Vs The Undertaker
Shawn Michaels Vs Marty Jannetty in some kind of a gimmick match
There would likely be a couple of additional matches thrown in as well, but I think that’s mostly okay for the meat of the card, with Bret/Davey and Flair/Savage almost assured to be great. So long as Shawn and Marty can deliver the goods then we should have more than enough for an easy thumbs up there, even if Hogan and Sid stink the joint up.
I hope you enjoyed this. We’ll return to WCW next week. Take care until then!