The Greatest Wrestling Match I've Ever Seen

In the same way that many kids of my generation watched The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast or whatever their Disney film of choice was, over and over on VHS, I watched Wrestlemania VII. In case you're unfamiliar, like I imagine many of my readers are, Wrestlemania was, and continues to be, the WWF/E's most important pay-per-view event. At the time, the WWF only had four main pay-per-view events a year, so Wrestlemania was the main event of them all. But even now, when they have one every month, Wrestlemania is still seen as the most prestigious since it's the event with all the history. When I was a wee lad of about five or six, wrestling was my favorite thing on the planet. My brother and I ate, slept and breathed that shit. We had a whole assortment of PPV events on VHS courtesy of my mother's boss who would tape them for us (my parents were too po' to afford it themselves), but the one I kept coming back to was 1991's Wrestlemania VII. To this day, I'm not exactly sure why I love it so much, but I do have my theories. For me, Wrestlemania VII represents one of the last times professional wrestling was completely innocent. By the time I started watching the WWF, they were starting to transition from the glory days of Hulk Hogan and "wholesomeness" where wrestlers were either the good guy or the bad guy and everything was black and white. There wasn't the constant need to butch up the already homoerotic sport; men could wear sparkly robes and wear tight spandex trunks and still kick major ass in the ring. It was inevitable that the WWF had to move forward and change with the times, but I missed those old days, even if the old days hadn't exactly gone away yet.

There are many fine matches on the Wrestlemania VII card, but the one I'm discussing today is this epic confrontation:


Yes, my friends, now this is what wrestling is all about. This match isn't my favorite so much for the technical aspect--if you're looking for the best in that respect, why not try another Macho Man Randy Savage match with Ricky Steamboat at Wrestlemania III--as the incredible amounts of dramatic tension that is built into the match's backstory and everything that goes on in the ring. The creative team behind this match deserve medals for their work here; the fact that they managed to work so many different emotional angles--from revenge to reunited lovers--is a modern day miracle.

To start off with, the match is Career Ending Match, the first of its kind, according to our night's commentators Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. What this means is that whoever loses the match will never wrestle again. Whoa, now that's what I call having a dark cloud looming over you. One mistake and you're history. But, as if that isn't enough to build the emotional tension, we have to go into the backstory. After the Ultimate Warrior won the WWF Championship at Wrestlemania VI, Savage had been pestering him for a chance at winning the belt. Finally, after Savage's manager Sensational Queen Sherri confronted him at the Royal Rumble in January, he gave her his final answer:

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

[Side note: When I was a kid, there were two people who absolutely scared the shit out of me. The Ultimate Warrior was one of them (the other was Charlie Chaplin, oddly enough, but that had more to do with this really strange nightmare about him I had as a child that completely freaked me out rather than him being "scary"). There was something about the combination of his blazing intensity and his crazy face makeup that always gave me the heebie jeebies. This moment above certainly didn't help in this regard.]

Macho Man is obviously pissed (wouldn't you be?) and decides to act out on his aggression. During the Warrior's championship match, Sherri runs down to the ring and distracts him. He gets annoyed and chases her outside the ring and down the walkway to the dressing room. The Warrior gets down quite a way when...


BOOM. Out comes Macho Man with a clothesline out of nowhere. Betcha didn't see that one coming, did ya, Warrior? Now that he has taken the beast down, Savage decides to acquaint a nearby spotlight with Warrior's face.


Savage runs off and we then cut to the end of the match. The Warrior's real opponent, Sgt. Slaughter, has pushed him into the ropes. Savage has somehow ended up on the floor of the ring (I'm not sure how. All I know about the match is what is in this 30 second clip package) so he takes his sceptor and pummels Warrior in the head with it.


OH SNAP. The Warrior ends up losing the match and the title, so the reasons for revenge in this feud are even higher coming into this match.