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WrestleMania 4 was an unusual show for the choice to diverge from the normal strategy of selling WrestleMania on a huge main event, or stacking the deck with marquee matches as WWE would come to do in the years ahead.
Instead, the focus squarely on a tournament to crown a new WWE Champion after a controversy surrounding Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, and Ted Dibiase’s new Million Dollar Man character trying to buy the title.
The tournament structured invited more stars into high profile matches and set the stage for one to run the gauntlet over the course of the night to emerge as a new main event player. This article takes a look back at WrestleMania 4.
Best Moment: Randy Savage wins his first world title
WrestleMania 4 generally isn’t all that fondly remembered by hardcore fans, but in sending Randy Savage and Ted Dibiase to the tournament finals, two new main event level stars were established. Moreover, the story of Dibiase cheating and collecting a buy en route to the finals, while Savage had to battle hard hitting heel after hard-hitting heel told a compelling story.
The closing moments of WrestleMania 4 were, without question, the best the event had to offer. Miss Elizabeth summoning Hulk Hogan to help Savage counter outside interference from Andre the Giant offered terrific drama.
Moreover, it was a feel-good moment to see Savage crowned champion and celebrate with Miss Elizabeth, not to mention that the end of show theatrics perfectly set up the foundation for Hogan and Savage to tell a story together as partners and then rivals for the year to follow.
Worst Moment: Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant get exposed
WWE in part soled WrestleMania 4 on the promise of a Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant rematch. In placing this showdown toward the middle of the show, the company seemed to acknowledge that, despite the draw, this match wasn’t going to deliver.
Without the buzz of a faux-first-time meeting, the novelty of Andre having just turned heel, or the electricity of 93,000 fans, we were left with a match between a broken down Andre who was way past his prime, and Hogan who had off the charts charisma but wasn’t necessarily a proven worker from bell to bell.
The WrestleMania 4 match exposed the limitations that both of these larger than life stars had at this point. Not only was the match itself middling-to-bad in quality, but the non-finish hurt it further. To be fair, the double disqualification finish protected both men and the fact that these two biggest stars eliminated each other made sense for the larger tournament.
Just the same, it was five minutes of poor action that came to represent the broader flaws of the tournament concept, as WWE had to cram too many matches into the show and hardly any of them were much good.
