Wrestlemania IX Review 

Date: 04/04/1993 

Location: Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, NV 

Announcers: Jim Ross, Bobby Heenan, and Randy Savage

The Business 

The show had 430,000 buys, which historically probably doesn’t get enough credit. That was the highest PPV number since Rumble ‘91 with Warrior vs. Slaughter and wouldn’t be eclipsed until Wrestlemania XIV in 1998 (Austin vs. Shawn). That makes this the best-performing WWF PPV in just over seven years. As bad as everyone correctly panned the angle and matchup of Hulk and Edward Leslie against Money Inc., most fans didn’t give a fuck. They just wanted to see Hogan. 

That being said, KOTR, with the first announced Yokozuna vs. Hogan match, came in at just over half of the buys of this show. After being away for a year, Hogan felt more like nostalgia than a returning star. 

Results/Ratings

-Intercontinental Title Match: Tatanka def. Shawn Michaels (c) by Count-Out in 18:13 **1/2

-The Steiner Brothers (Rick & Scott Steiner) def. The Headshrinkers (Samu & Fatu) in 14:22 **3/4

-Doink the Clown def. Crush in 8:28 **

-Razor Ramon def. Bob Backlund in 3:45 1/2*

-World Tag Team Title Match: The Mega Maniacs (Hulk Hogan & Brutus Beefcake w/ Jimmy Hart) def. Money Inc by DQ in 18:27 *1/4

-Lex Luger def. Mr. Perfect in 10:56 *1/4

-The Undertaker (w/ Paul Bearer) def. Giant González (w/ Harvey Wippleman) by DQ in 7:33 DUD 

-WWF Title Match: Yokozuna (w/ Mr. Fuji) def. Bret Hart (c) in 8:55 **1/2 

-WWF Title Match: Hulk Hogan def. Yokozuna (c) (w/ Mr. Fuji) in 0:22 NR

Snap Bumps

-I’m not entirely sure the plan was for Hogan to lose the title at any point soon after this. Vince went so hard into this, there’s no way all this was done for a three-month title run where he’s not even defending the title at house shows when he worked them. Because of two matches, we got two Hogan posedown routines, and he was the most over person on the show by a country mile. When Hogan took some time off to do separate movies, he came back and drew. Unfortunately, the house snow rematches with Money Inc., and the KOTR match with Yokozuna, fans were into seeing it once for nostalgia purposes and found other shit to do. 

The Bret/Yoko match was pretty good, but it was hurt by being just a smidge under nine minutes, which is short for a Mania main event. Even Hogan and Sid Justice went over twelve the year before. The match did not have the gravitas of a Mania main event. 

-The tag title match was pretty bad. Money Inc. did double heat on Hogan and Beefcake, despite picking just one to sell, seeming pretty fucking problematic. Jimmy Hart jumping in the ring, turning his jacket inside out to stripes, and counting three was bad enough, but all of them celebrating with the belts like they won them was next-level dorkdom. The crowd still cheered the posing routine, but none of that made sense. The match was too long, the DQ finish sucked, and Beefcake did not look good at all. 

-If Beefcake can have his mask taken off, his face struck repeatedly, and still celebrate his DQ loss after, why do I care about his face again? Oh yeah, I keep forgetting I don’t. The crowd still ate it all up, though. 

-Man, that Giant Gonzalez was horrible, huh? 

-I thought Luger and Perfect started well enough and were building to a better match, but it started falling apart at the end. Luger’s body compeletely changed since being in WCW. He lost a lot of agility and lost his tiny waist. He was built like a tank. He clearly gassed out towards the end, too. What went from looking a little off started looking messy. I also hated the finish with the ref not seeing Perfect’s legs on the ropes after a dreaded backslide. 

-Curt called Lex “the Lexiscist” by accident in a promo. I popped for that one. Unfortunately, it was his best match on the show. 

-Did I mention Undertaker’s opponent wasn’t very good? 

-They did an angle where Perfect ran after Luger after the match and got into it with Shawn Michaels, kicking off their IC title feud that climaxed at Summerslam. Interestingly, they brought Perfect back into a main event tag match at Survivor Series, had him beat Ric Flair to force him out of the WWF, and then ended up having him win for Luger at Mania and put him in an IC title feud. That makes no sense. 

-The IC title match was good until the shitty DQ finish (the first of two title match DQs on the show). How much Shawn worked as if Tatanka was super green jumped out. Tatanka still was in some ways, but Shawn felt the need to kind of idiot-proof the match like he would a guy, and he felt like he needed to protect a lot. 

-The Steiners/Shrinkers had a good match, minus the fucked up Frankensteiner at the finish. They got time, but the Shrinkers took too much. When this match was at its best in WCW, the Steiners threw big guys around. This formula didn’t work as well. 

-You could see that Brian Adams was still green, but Matt Borne did a good job hiding it and worked a decent match with him. I kinda liked the two Doinks finish and the part where Borne and Steve Keirn mimicked each other’s movements like a mirror was fucking awesome. 

-There was no fucking reason at all to have Razor wrestle Bob Backlund. The crowd loved the heel Razor, but this was bad and meaningless, a combo with literally zero value to a wrestling show. 

There was a former basketball player on this show who was the drizzling shits. 

The Verdict: Thumbs Down 

There were a couple of good matches, but there was too much Hogan on this show, too many matches, and Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez is still objectively one of the few worst matches in the show’s history. After Doink vs. Crush all the way to the main event, it’s a pretty awful show, and nothing outside of that stretch brought the level up to even being acceptable.