WWE WrestleMania 5: The ultimate face-off between Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan

This event marks the birth of many starsWe are less than a month away from the most picturesque WWE event of the year, WrestleMania 32. Talk about the list of top 5/10 sporting events in a calendar year and guess what, WrestleMania would always feature in that list.An event with such an anticipation and build-up has always contained something phenomenal and the WWE team would try everything at their disposal to make it a blockbuster.This year’s Mania would be the biggest ever in the history of the company, which gives us more reason to tune in. We, the WWE fans, watch WWE all round the year and still eagerly wait for WrestleMania. We watch 54 RAWs, 54 SmackDowns, 54 NXTs, 11 other WWE PPVs and a lot of live events, but still when it comes to WrestleMania, all these shows become just too ordinary.Mania is aloof and one of its own kind. WrestleMania 32 is very important for the company as the WWE ratings have abated in the past 12 months and the company would try to get back on track by reaping the maximum benefits from this show.With that being said, we will quickly go and recap some of the interesting things from WrestleMania 5-

#3 Date, Place, Venue and Match Card

The fifth edition of WrestleMania was launched under the WWF banner and it took place on April 2, 1989, at the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, New Jersey. As is the case with Mania always, this PPV too was a visual treat and the WWE fans savoured it well. The event was witnessed live by around 19000 WWE fans and contained 14 matches in all.

Let us quickly glance through the match card of WrestleMania 5 which contained 14 matches – 9 singles matches and 5 tag team matches.

Singles Action

Hercules vs. King Haku

Brutus Beefcake vs. Ted DiBiase

Mr. Perfect vs. The Blue Blazer

Dino Bravo vs. Ronnie Garvin

Rick Rude vs. The Ultimate Warrior (c) (WWF Intercontinental Championship match)

Jake Roberts vs. André the Giant (Big John Studd as special guest referee)

Jim Duggan vs. Bad News Brown

The Red Rooster vs. Bobby Heenan

Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage (c) (WWF World Heavyweight Championship match)

Tag Team Action

The Twin Towers vs. defeated The Rockers

The Bushwhackers vs. The Fabulous Rougeaus

Demolition (c) vs. The Powers of Pain and Mr. Fuji (Handicap match for the WWF Tag Team Championship)

The Brain Busters vs. Strike Force

The Hart Foundation vs. The Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine

#2 Title changes and highlights from the Show

This show had three title matches in all – Intercontinental Championship match, Tag team Championship match and a blockbuster WWF World Heavyweight Championship match.

The first title match of the night was a Handicap match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship between Demolition (c) and The Powers of Pain and Mr. Fuji. Demolition defended their titles and put on an impressive fight to defeat their opponents. They retained their titles and were slotted into new feuds post Mania 5.

The second title match of the night featured Rick Rude and The Ultimate Warrior (c) and they locked horns in a match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship in which Warrior defended his title succesfully against Rick Rude. Rick won the match and the title, marking the night where The Ultimate Warrior was pinned for the first time in WWF.

Something that caught the everyone’s eyes that night was the main event for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship between Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. Let us talk about this in detail in the next slide.

#1 The Main Event

Hogan main events for the 5th straight time at Mania

In what was a remarkable main event, that ranks high in the history of WrestleMania, Randy savage defended his WWF World Heavyweight Championship against the immortal, Hulk Hogan.

In a match that lasted for over 15 minutes, Hogan and Savage gave out everything they had and fought for the title. A lot of action took place outside the ring and Miss Elizabeth played a major part in the match by blindsiding the referee on a couple of occasions and was eventually sent back by the ref during the closing moments of the match.

Savage hit Hogan with a diving double axe handle, followed it up with a hotshot and drove his elbow into Hogan's throat on the apron, damaging Hogan's throat in the process.

Savage hit the knee drop on Hogan that yielded a near-fall and followed it up with a Savage elbow from the top rope. He again tried to cover Hogan, but in vain. The immortal one hulked up and hit Savage with punches, a big boot and a leg drop all in succession to win the match and the title in style.