Well, you may not enjoy all of Fall Brawl ‘94. 

As for Hogan/Warrior at WM VI, did you ever read Hogan’s work of fiction…I mean, autobiography? There’s a whole chapter on him wrestling in front of 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium. Which he has retold many times. He was in the main event. Funny, I remember a Canadian with black hair wrestling against a Brit with black hair. Perhaps, as I’ve stated many times, Hogan wrestled at Wembley in another universe, and that multiverse’s Hogan is the one who is interviewed.

Anyway, I digress. In the book, Hogan admits that when he handed the WWF Championship to Warrior, he did it to steal the spotlight. What a selfish man he was. One might argue Warrior’s reign would not have worked anyway, but was it ever given a chance? Hogan/Earthquake overshadowed Warrior’s title reign. Hogan did the same when Goldberg won the WCW Championship. So, Warrior’s pros and cons aside, Egomania ran wild with its 24-inch pythons at WM VI, so one has to ask whether he really lost clean, pinfall aside.

"There can be only one, brutha!"

"Whatcha gonna do, when the Kurgan runs wild on you?"

"I'm Juan Sanchez Villalobos Ramirez, brother...chief metallurgist to King Charles, of Spain and I am immortal...because I say my prayers and take my vitamins!"

I am a real E-gyp-tian, 
Cutting the heads off Kur-gans

I assume he was also supposed to play bass, instead of John Deacon, for the Queen soundtrack.

Ed Leslie would have probably have been cast as as either Kastagir or the survivalist.

No, I haven't gotten around to Hogan's book yet. I'm tempted, but then I haven't really felt like reading a piece of wrestling fiction.

I thought in Bret Hart's book he said McMahon basically challenged Hogan with the clean loss to Warrior to see if he was willing to do it.  Of course, Bret wouldn't really have behind the scenes knowledge of that angle. So who knows.  Yeah, the biggest arms in the world and the biggest ego in the world. Maybe there's a correlation.

Speaking of Hogan, I won this videotape back in the day (via a tabloid news competition):






Firstly, it was only 45 minutes, whereas most compilation tapes ranged between 60 minutes and 2 hours.

It also rehashed matches. Hogan vs. Andre at WM III had been on at least 2 prior Hogan tapes. Still, the atmosphere of this match has probably never been bettered on WWF soil.

Hogan vs. Randy Savage (Paris, 1989) had already been featured on one other Hogan tape and WWF World Tour 1989/90. This was one of their best bouts (I’d say even better than WM V).

Hulk Hogan & Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Sgt. Slaughter & Colonel Mustafa features, and that’s the only match on the tape which hadn’t featured on another tape. It’s reasonable.

Then we have Hulk Hogan vs. The Undertaker from This Tuesday in Texas, which is only watchable at best - and had already featured on the Supertape ‘92 match. Also, it’s joined in progress.

Hulkamania Cash Cow would have been a better title for this tape. It was gonna be directed at Hogan fans, right? And, most likely, those fans would have already seen/owned The Best of Hulkamania, Hulk Hogan Real American and Hulkamania Forever (and other Hogan tapes). So why on Earth didn’t Coliseum give us something fresh?

I know it has been discussed that there were only a limited number of matches, given it was from an era of squash matches. But, come on! How about a Hogan/Savage bout that had not yet been featured on videotape? How about a SNME bout we hadn’t seen featured? How about Hogan vs. Piper from The Wrestling Classic? So many choices, but they gave us a 4-match tape where 3 matches had already been released. Even as a kid, I felt that that was lame.

Incidentally, it was obviously the UK version I won. The US version featured 2 other matches, both of them Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter. I think us UK fans had a lucky escape. I mean, come on, a 6-match tape featuring 3 matches involving Hogan and Slaughter, one of which was a tag match. That’s overkill. I imagine even the most ardent Hogan/Slaughter fan would have been pining for something different. 

This did happen with other tapes. At least two 90s Bret Hart tapes featured a little bit too much Bret/Austin (angles and bouts) despite the fact the Best of Raw tapes also showcased that feud. You can have too much of a good thing, however marketable something is.

It would be nice to hear a Coliseum Video/WWF employee talk about the mindset between match selections.

I just watched Summerslam 1994.

McMahon’s steroid trial is finally over with him in the clear, and for co-main events we’ve got the brothers Hart battling for the WWF Championship and the Undertaker vs…the Undertaker?

There have been a series of vignettes with Leslie Nielson trying to solve the mystery of the Undertaker(s). Uh, okay. The vignettes were mildly amusing (he plays the Frank Drebin character from the Naked Gun movies, essentially) but they are basically breaking kayfabe by trying to pass Leslie Nielson off as “the world’s greatest detective”. Whatever.

McMahon and Jerry Lawler on commentary. I don’t know why they couldn’t have Jim Ross and Lawler, but oh well.


First event is the Headshrinkers (w. Lou Albano and Afa) vs Bam Bam Bigelow and IRS (w. Ted DiBiase).

This was supposed to be a title match, but the Headshrinkers lost the title the night before to Diesel and Shawn Michaels. And that team isn’t wrestling here. I have no idea why they had the Headshrinkers lost the title the night before a PPV. Really stupid booking.

Anyway, this was a decent match. Nothing great but solid, though it have a dumb ending as Afa got caught getting in the ring and attacking Bigelow so Bigelow/IRS win by DQ.


Next match is for the women’s championship: Alundra Blayze (champ) vs. Bull Nakano (w. Luna Vachon).

These two had an entertaining match on Raw a few weeks ago that ended in a double countout. Blayze retains her title here when Nakano misses a senton off the top rope as Blayze gets up, kicks Vachon off the apron, then gets Nakano with the bridging German suplex (which was her finisher) for the win. This was a good match. Unfortunately it didn’t save the women’s division in the WWF.


Next match is for the Intercontinental Title: Diesel (champ) w. Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon w. Walter Payton.

We’re in Chicago, so it makes sense for Razor Ramon to have local sports hero Walter Payton watch his back. Razor had lost the Intercontinental title a few months ago to Diesel thanks in part to interference from Michaels. Shawn Michaels actually wearing the tag team belt during this match was a nice touch, I thought.

This was a good match, thanks in large part to Razor’s efforts. At the end, Diesel is holding Razor, Shawn comes in (the ref is busy with Walter Payton for some reason) and superkicks, but Razor gets out of the way and Diesel is the recipient, and he is out, but Razor also collapses. Razor eventually crawls over to try and cover Diesel. Shawn tries to pull Razor away, but Walter Payton grabs Michaels just in time to prevent it, and Razor covers for the win!

I knew Razor would win because they’re not going to have Diesel walking around with both the tag team belt and the Intercontinental belt for very long, which is another reason I thought it was dumb to have them win the tag team belt just before this PPV.


Next up is Lex Luger vs. Tatanka.

The story here is the Ted Dibiase, who has been forming his Million Dollar Coproration, has been trying to buy Luger’s services. Luger has been insisting that he hasn’t sold out to DiBiase, and Tatanka has been constantly confronting Luger, saying that he thinks Luger has been lying and has sold out to DiBiase. This match promised to hopefully settle the question of whether or not Luger sold out.

After a so-so match of about 6 minutes, Luger gets distracted by DiBiase standing on the apron offering him money, and Tatanka is able to roll Luger up for the pin. Luger then confronts Tatanka, and eventually Tatanka attacks Luger from behind, pounding him. He continues to beat on Luger for a while, then he goes over and hugs DiBiase. The whole thing was a setup! It was Tatanka that had sold out the whole time, not Luger! The match itself was nothing great, but the whole buildup of this story over the past months as well as the final turn here at the end of the match were really well done. Tatanka’s heel turn didn’t amount to much of anything, but at least the turn itself was really well done. I could see being totally surprised by this swerve.

The crowd had been quiet during this match. I think it’s because they didn’t know whom to root for.


Next match is Jeff Jarrett vs. Mabel.

This is being billed as country music vs. Rap.

There was virtually no buildup to this match. They really should have done Jarrett vs. the 1-2-3 Kid, as those two had a bit of a feud going plus it would have been a much better match. Anyway, I know this is a minority opinion, but I thought that this was moderately entertaining, mostly due to double J’s antics. Anyway, double J goes for a sunset flip, but Mabel fights it off and attempts to fall on Jarret but Jarrett moves out of the way and Mabel lands hard, then double J rolls him up with the win. Mabel proves himself a sore loser as he chases Jarrett to the locker room, even though Jarrett won this match totally clean, with no cheating. Should a babyface be doing that?


Next we get Bret Hart (champ) vs. Owen Hart for the WWF Title in a cage match!

The rules here are the you have to climb over or go through the door and get both feet on the floor. No pinfalls or submissions.

This was a great match. So, it is possible to have a great cage match without blood. How about that?

They got a good amount of time, over 30 minutes, to work this, which helped.

There was one spot in here where Bret reverses Owen’s sharpshooter into one of his own which was really cool, but would have been even cooler in a traditional match where submissions actually count. And Owen would have won this match if he’d shaved his head! I don’t know how many times he got over then got pulled back in by his hair.

Bret wins the match when both guys are on the cage wall on the outside, fighting each other and trying to go down, and Owen’s legs get caught in the bars of the cage and Bret is able to drop down for the win.

After the match, Neidhart clotheslines Davey Boy Smith from behind (and his wife Diane takes a bump!) then Neidhardt and Owen lock the cage back up with a chain and padlock that Neidhardt brought with him and proceed to beat on Bret. The Hart brothers and Davey Boy frantically try to climb the cage to get in an help Bret, so Owen keeps knocking them down will the Anvil continues the beatdown. Eventually they get in plus someone gets some bolt cutters and cuts the lock, and Owen and the Anvil leave, resplendent in their dastardly deed!


For the final match, it’s The Undertaker (w/Paul Bearer) vs. The Undertaker aka Underfaker (w/Ted Dibiase).

A lot of prematch ceremony. DiBiase and his Untertaker come out. Paul Bearer brings out a coffin but it’s only got the urn in it. Then, the real Undertaker comes down the aisle. He and the fake undertaker are identically dressed, except that the real Undertaker now has purple highlights where before he had (and the fake Undertaker still has) gray. It will help us to tell them apart during the match, though frankly I think the fake Undertaker’s nearly 3 inches shorter than the real thing. They’re obviously different facially as well, of course, but you really can’t see their faces with their hair covering everything. How do these guys even see what they’re doing?

Anyway, the crowd was quit during this match. I figure it was either because they were drained from the previous match (possible), they didn’t know which Undertaker to root for (possible, I guess, but not likely, since I think they were pretty much all rooting for Bearer’s Undertaker and the purple helped to tell them apart) or because this just wasn’t a very good match (very possible).

Paul Bearer’s Undertaker, the real Undertaker, wins after surviving a Tombstone to deliver two of his own for the pin.

Frankly, this was a lousy, boring match and I think it was a major good by WWF to have this go on last instead of the cage match. I’m not sure what the thinking was there.

The Undertaker sure was involved in some lousy feuds during this era.


A mixed bag, overall. One great match(Hart vs. Hart) some good matches, a couple of mediocre matches, and one bad match (the Undertaker thing, which was, by the way, the co-main event).

Yeah, I love the cage match too. Yes, if you maybe think too much about the escape rules they seem silly, but in the context of the WWF, it works. I just don't like it when they do cage matches with both escape the cage AND pinfalls. Just pick one

This is one of my least favourite PPVs of that era. 

The opening tag match was pointless given that the Headshrinkers had lost the tag team titles. At the time, I wondered why the WWF had done what they did. I also thought that in a kayfabe sense, because even heels deserve fairness, Diesel & Shawn Michaels should have defended the belts against IRS and Bam Bam Bigelow, creating probably a more intriguing match. Logically, it makes sense, I feel. Within the context of kayfabe, IRS and Bigelow had been promised a tag team title shot, so why not give them one? (Yes, I realise Diesel would have had to wrestle twice).

Blayze vs. Nakano was reasonable, I guess, but the women’s ‘division’ was frustrating back then. It was just one (usually no more than one) opponent at a time fed to Blayze. She and others deserved better.

Razor/Diesel was fun - and heated. Lots going on there. I could sense Diesel’s frustration after the match. It told a good story.

I did not care about Luger/Tatanka. It was frustrating to think that a year earlier, Luger was challenging for the world title yet here he’s wrestling Tatanka over who has sold out. I could not have cared less. The Tatanka heel turn was effective, I guess. (Luger’s stock plummeted further; at 1995’s SummerSlam, he didn’t even wrestle on the card, instead performing a run in during Diesel vs. King Mabel)

Mabel vs. Jeff Jarrett was solid, I have seen far worse bouts. Good commentary, too.

I did like the Bret/Owen cage match on its own merits. But I just never felt “escape the cage” rules were conducive to a good match. Seeing Bret and Owen try for falls or submissions within the cage would have made the bout a five-star classic, I’m sure. Instead, and it was the same when Bret and Shawn had a cage match, 95% of the bout is about trying to escape. So it’s great on its own - how could it not be with Bret and Owen involved? - but if I was giving out stars, it’d be 4 stars. 

Now, to the main event (why did it go on last?). Not sure about the Leslie Nielsen thing, but it was okay. However, the match wasn’t a good one. On paper, it may have sounded fine. Hell, how many comics have we read about doppelgängers battling the heroes? It just didn’t work. It was boring. Expecting this to follow Bret/Owen was akin to the time the WWF expected Chris Jericho/Triple H to follow The Rock/Hogan.

I did read once that there were plans for a series of matches between the two Undertakers (what a bleak thought). I also read that one proposed idea was for lightning to strike the ring in the match, “merging” the two Undertakers. Even by the supernatural standards of the character, that would have been bizarre.