There was no doubt the start of the new decade featured two of the biggest stars in the business in WWF World Heavyweight Champion and Intercontinental Champion The Ultimate Warrior. It would be interesting to see the two most popular wrestlers take on one another in what would be known as "The Ultimate Challenge." More on that later.
Although Hogan and Warrior were the most popular and celebrated wrestlers in the WWF, they lacked one thing: "Perfection." That's because that belonged to Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig. Mr. Perfect was one of my all-time favorite wrestlers. A second generation superstar, Hennig had been in the WWF since late 1988 as the Mr. Perfect character. He also had the best entrance theme in my opinion.
When Mr. Perfect debuted, clips would be shown of Perfect doing things such as hitting home runs at every at bat, drilling baskets every shot he attempted, stopping every shot in goal, bowl a 300 game, drilling a 40-foot putt, and throwing "perfect" passes even including to himself.
Several professional athletes would be featured in Perfect's videos such as hall of famers Wade Boggs and Mike Modano and then All Pro tight end Steve Jordan of the Minnesota Vikings. Every clip ended with them saying "that was perfect." These were truly memorable and amazing videos.
Perfect was undefeated on WWF TV for over a year as he had a "Perfect record." Perfect would be managed by "The Genius" (Lanny Poffo who was Randy Savage's brother). Perfect cost Hulk Hogan a match to The Genius on an episode of Saturday Night's Main Event when Hogan was counted out.
Perfect along with Hogan were the final two contestants in the 1990 Royal Rumble. Hogan threw Perfect over the top rope to win the Royal Rumble. Perfect lost his first WWF TV match to Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake at WrestleMania VI.
Sadly, Beefcake's career and life nearly came to an end shortly after WrestleMania when his face was crushed in a parasailing accident in July. Beefcake would make a miraculous recovery over a year later and would be back in the ring wrestling two years later.
Mr. Perfect did not take the blemish on his "Perfect Record" laying down as he replaced The Genius with Bobby Heenan as his manager and winning the vacant WWF Intercontinental Championship, his first WWF title, in a tournament shortly by defeating Tito Santana in the finals after WrestleMania.
Perfect held the title until SummerSlam '90 when he lost to former NWA World Heavyweight Champion "The Texas Tornado" Kerry Von Erich. Von Erich made his WWF debut shortly before as he is the only member of the famous and legendary Von Erich family to wrestle in the WWF. Von Erich lost the title back to Perfect in December.
The Von Erichs, led by patriarch Fritz Von Erich, were a family dynasty that dominated the Texas territory. The Von Erics were very well known for their legendary long-standing feud with The Fabulous Freebirds in Dallas, where the Von Erichs were from. Kerry defeated Ric Flair to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in 1984 in honor of his brother David, who passed away as he was supposed to defeat Flair.
Sadly, they were well known for serious tragedies that took the lives of five of Fritz's six sons at early ages. Jack was electrocuted at age six. David died from an unknown illness in 1984 and Mike, Chris, and even Kerry all committed suicide in 1987, 1991, and 1993, respectively. The entire Von Erich Family would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009.
Tag team action was hot in 1990 as Demolition looked to retake the WWF Tag Team Championship they lost to The Colossal Connection. Demolition would take on The Coloassal Connection at WrestleMania VI. Haku missed a thrust kick and accidentally hit Andre, sending him to be tied into the ropes as Demolition took advantage and defeated them to win back their WWF Tag Team titles.
After the match, Bobby Heenan yelled at Andre blaming him for the loss of the titles. Heenan then slapped Andre in the face, angering the giant. Andre then attacked Heenan as Haku attempted to attack Andre, only to be stopped by Andre, who attacked Haku as well. Andre left the ring to a giant roar of applause as he turned back into a babyface for the final time in his career.
This would be Andre's final WrestleMania appearance as a wrestler and his last WWF televised wrestling match ever. He would make limited appearances over the next year or so, mostly as a "manager" accompanying several different face wrestlers to the ring. His final WrestleMania appearance would be the following year when he accompanied Big Boss Man to the ring against Mr. Perfect.
Andre would wrestle occasionally in Japan until 1992 when he retired from wrestling for good. His final U.S. wrestling TV appearance came in a brief interview at WCW's Clash of the Champions XX event on Sept. 2, 1992.
Andre passed away on January 27, 1993 from heart failure in his sleep at his home in Paris, France as he was in town for the funeral of his father. He was 46 years old. Andre was the inaugural and sole inductee into the WWF/E Hall of Fame shortly after his death in 1993.
Demolition would add a third member as Crush (Brian Adams) joined Ax and Smash shortly after WrestleMania. Ax was having a health concern so Crush was brought in just in case Ax could not wrestle.
Ax took on more of a managerial role but still competed. Demolition would have any two of the three members of Demolition could defend the titles any time as they took advantage of "The Freebird Rule."
This along with constant cheating caused Demolition to turn back into heels as The Hart Foundation challenged them for the titles at SummerSlam '90. The match was a two-out-of-three falls match with Crush and Smash going for Demolition. Both teams traded falls as it was tied 1-1 for the third and final fall.
During the final fall, Smash was knocked out of the ring and went under the ring and came back out as Ax took his place. Eventually, Ax and Smash tried to pull the old switcheroo but were caught by the incoming Legion of Doom, who prevented this from happening. The Hart Foundation took advantage and defeated Demolition to win the WWF World Tag Team Championship for the second time.
The Road Warriors left NWA/WCW to come to the WWF and they changed their names to The Legion of Doom. They would feud with Demolition over who was the better tag team due to both team's success in the WWF and NWA/WCW for the rest of 1990 as LOD's popularity saw Demolition begin to slowly fade out.
LOD teamed with The Ultimate Warrior to defeat all three men in a six-man tag team match on an episode of Saturday Night's Main Event. LOD teamed with Warrior and Kerry Von Erich to defeat Mr. Perfect and Demolition at Survivor Series.
LOD proved they were the better team as they went on to bigger and better things as they would win the WWF Tag Team Championship the following year at SummerSlam. The Legion of Doom/Road Warriors became the only tag team to win the AWA, NWA/WCW, and WWF World Tag Team Championships.
Ax left the company shortly after as Smash and Crush continued as Demolition until the middle of 1991. Smash (Barry Darsow) was repackaged as The Repo Man and Crush remained as Crush, but was now a happy-go-lucky Hawaiian surfer dude based on Adams being from Hawaii.
While LOD and Demolition feuded, The Hart Foundation found new number one contenders for their titles in fellow babyfaces The Rockers. This would be the precursor to the legendary Bret Hart-Shawn Michaels feud.
The Rockers were booked to win the titles during a two-out-of-three falls match on October 30, 1990 from Fort Wayne, Indiana in a match that was to be aired on an upcoming episode of Saturday Night's Main Event. During the match, the top rope broke and Vince McMahon felt the match could not be aired on TV.
The Rockers defeated The Hart Foundation to win the WWF Tag Team Championship. However, the title change did not officially take place because of the broken rope as the WWF did not acknowledge this title change on their TV shows and it is not officially recognized by the WWF/E.
Some believe that Jim Neidhart was on his way out and to keep him in the WWF, they would keep the titles around the Harts waists. The match can be shown in its entirety on the Shawn Michaels Story: Heartbreak and Tragedy DVD. The match featured no commentary whatsoever because the match never aired on TV so no announcers could go back and provide play-by-play.
So now we move on finally to "The Ultimate Challenge" between WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan and the Intercontinental Champion The Ultimate Warrior in a very rare, at the time, babyface vs. babyface main event match at WrestleMania VI on April 1, 1990.
This wasn't just a match between two babyfaces, it was a match between THE two top babyfaces in the company at that time. The match was also a Title vs. Title match as both Hogan and Warrior's titles were on the line.
WrestleMania VI took place from the SkyDome in Toronto, Canada, the first WrestleMania to be held outside the United States. There were a reported 67,678 fans in attendance, including two young teenagers from Toronto who would eventually become Edge and Christian in the WWF/E. There were several celebrities at the event such as Mary Tyler Moore, Steve Allen, and Robert Goulet.
The main event match between Hogan and Warrior was dubbed "The Ultimate Challenge" as fans wondered who was the better of the two and who could win a match cleanly without any outside interference as both men did not lose a match in the company at that time unless there was some sore of outside interference.
Both men showed strength and traded moves as it went back-and-forth as the match was actually a really good contest as the fans in attendance at the SkyDome and all around the world watching were clearly split between who to root for in the match.
Warrior showed incredible strength as he lifted the near 300-lb. Hogan over his head and gorilla press slammed him to the mat like he was 100 lbs. Warrior hit his big Warrior Splash as he looked to have won the match and the WWF Title.
But Hogan kicked out at two and began to "Hulk Up" and no sold Warrior's attack. Hogan would give Warrior three right-hand punches and then throw him into the ropes and gave him the big boot as he was setting up for his leg drop finisher.
As Hogan was about to hit the leg drop, Warrior moved out of the way and Warrior hit Hogan with the Warrior Splash to win the match and become WWF World Heavyweight Champion for the first time in his career.
This marked the first time in Hogan's time from 1984-1993 that Hogan lost a match cleanly and this was the only time Hogan lost the WWF Title cleanly in his career. Hogan shook Warrior's hand and the two hugged and embraced after the match to solidy both men's status as babyfaces in the company.
The main event of WrestleMania VI was very good, but the rest of the PPV was not all that great as there was a total of 15 matches, 14 before the Hogan-Warrior match and most were really short matches and most featured little to no storylines whatsoever.
For a real brief time, The Warrior was both the WWF World Heavyweight and Intercontinental Champion. That did not last long though as the WWF vacated the Intercontinental Championship because rules stated that a wrestler could not hold both singles titles at the same time.
The Ultimate Warrior successfully defended the World Championship after WrestleMania against Haku, Mr. Perfect, and Ted DiBiase. The Warrior successfully defended the title against nemesis Rick Rude in a Steel Cage match at SummerSlam '90. Rude left the WWF shortly after SummerSlam.
Hulk Hogan did not have as kind of post-WrestleMania as he was ambushed in a sneak attack on The Brother Love Show in May by the 450-lb. Earthquake. Earthquake storyline "broke" Hogan's ribs with repeated Earthquake splashes.
While Hogan was off television, there was a story that Hogan was considering retiring and fans were urged to write to Hogan to get him to come back. Eventually, Hogan came back and fought Earthquake at SummerSlam with his former nemesis the Big Boss Man in his corner to help him out. Hogan defeated Earthquake by count out and would defeat throughout the country at house shows.
Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior's paths crossed again as they teamed up with each other along with Tito Santana to take on Ted DiBiase, Rick Martel, The Warlord, and Power and Glory (Hercules and Paul Roma) in a special Grand Finale Survivor Series Elimination match featuring the survivors in each Survivor Series match as this was the only time in Survivor Series history this happened.
Hogan and Warrior were the survivors of the match and they celebrated as both men were on top of the WWF. However in 1991, only one of the two would be on top. In fact, the other would be gone from the company altogether.
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