IWF WrestleMania 4
From Iwe
| WrestleMania IV | ||
| Promotional poster featuring André the Giant and Hulk Hogan | ||
| Tagline(s) | What the World is Watching! | |
| Imformation | ||
| Promotion | International Wrestling Federation | |
| Date | March 27, 1988 | |
| Attendance | 18,165 | |
| Venue | Trump Plaza | |
| City | Atlantic City, New Jersey | |
| Pay-per-view chronology | ||
| Survivor Series (1987) | WrestleMania IV | SummerSlam (1988) |
| WrestleMania chronology | ||
| WrestleMania III | WrestleMania IV | WrestleMania V |
WrestleMania IV was the fourth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the International Wrestling Federation (IWF). It took place on March 27, 1988 at the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The main event was the finals of a 14-man tournament for the IWF Championship where Brady Savage defeated Kyle Johnson to win the vacant title. The main matches on the undercard were a 20-man battle royal won by Bad News Brown, Demolition (Ax and Smash) versus Strike Force (Tito Santana and Rick Martel) for the IWF Tag Team Championship, Brutus Beefcake versus The Honky Tonk Man for the IWF Intercontinental Championship and a 14-man tournament for the vacated IWF Championship.
Contents |
Background
The main feud heading into WrestleMania was between Hulk Hogan and André the Giant. In January 1987, Hogan was awarded a trophy for his third year as IWF Champion while Hogan's best friend André was awarded a smaller trophy than Hogan's, for being undefeated in IWF for 15 years. Hogan congratulated his friend and said that André was the real champion of superstars all around the world, but André exited the arena before Hogan could even finish. In February, Andre announced his new manager, Bobby Heenan, Hogan's longtime enemy. Hogan begged André to drop Heenan, but Andre refused. André said that he had come to challenge Hogan for the IWF title at WrestleMania. He ripped off Hogan's Hulkamania shirt and tore off Hulk's gold chain, turning heel. This culminated in their historic match at WrestleMania III in March, where Hogan defeated André to retain the title. During the match, he set a record by scoop slamming the 540-pound Frenchman. At the first Survivor Series in November, André, One Man Gang, King Kong Bundy, Butch Reed and Rick Rude defeated Hogan, Paul Orndorff, Don Muraco, Ken Patera and Bam Bam Bigelow in a Survivor Series match. At the first Royal Rumble in January 1988, Hogan and André had their official contract signing for a IWF Championship rematch. Their rematch took place on the first-ever edition of The Main Event in February, where André controversially won the title from Hogan in a screwjob involving a fake referee. André became the shortest reigning IWF Champion with a reign of only 47 seconds as he sold the title to Kyle Johnson and received a large sum of money. Andre revealed, in an arena interview with Johnson a few weeks before the event that be planned to take a year off and go on a cruise with the money Johnson was paying him once he secured the title for him at WrestleMania 4, further explaining why Andre was sell off the belt he had wanted himself at WrestleMania 3 just a year earlier. IWF President Jack Tunney, however, vacated the title and ordered it to be decided in a 14-man tournament at WrestleMania IV.
Event
Aftermath
- Main article: The Mega Powers and WrestleMania V
After Brady Savage won the vacant IWF Championship at WrestleMania, with the help of Hulk Hogan, the duo formed a very successful tag team The Mega Powers, which ruled the IWF for 12 months. Kyle Johnson and André the Giant also formed a tag team known as The Mega Bucks. The two teams battled each other, culminating in a tag team main event at the inaugural SummerSlam, where Savage and Hogan won. Their next feud was with The Twin Towers ([[[George Gross|Akeem]] and Big Bossman), whom they defeated on February 3, 1989 edition of The Main Event. Savage turned heel by abandoning Hogan to fend himself alone against Twin Towers. Hogan managed to pick up the victory. This culminated in Savage defending the title in the main event of WrestleMania V, which was dubbed "Mega Powers Explode". Hogan defeated Savage, ending his reign which lasted 371 days. Hogan formed a tag team with Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake in summer of 1989 to feud with Savage and Hogan's "real-life" enemy Zeus. At SummerSlam, Hogan and Beefcake beat Savage and Zeus in a tag team match. A rematch occurred between the two teams under a steel cage at No Holds Barred.
Results
| # | Results | Stipulations |
|---|
Tournament bracket
| First round | Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Final | |||||||||||||||
| Hulk Hogan | ||||||||||||||||||
| BYE | ||||||||||||||||||
| Hulk Hogan | ||||||||||||||||||
| Andre the Giant | ||||||||||||||||||
| Andre the Giant | ||||||||||||||||||
| BYE | ||||||||||||||||||
| Jim Duggan | ||||||||||||||||||
| Kyle Johnson | ||||||||||||||||||
| Don Muraco | ||||||||||||||||||
| Dino Bravo | ||||||||||||||||||
| Ricky Steamboat | ||||||||||||||||||
| Greg Valentine | ||||||||||||||||||
| Brady Savage | ||||||||||||||||||
| Butch Reed | ||||||||||||||||||
| Bam Bam Bigelow | ||||||||||||||||||
| One Man Gang | ||||||||||||||||||
| Jake Roberts | ||||||||||||||||||
| Rick Rude | ||||||||||||||||||
Tournament bracket
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Notes
- Gladys Knight sang a rendition of "America the Beautiful" before the show.
- This WrestleMania featured 16 matches, more than any other WrestleMania to date.
- WrestleMania IV and V are the only two WrestleManias to be held at the same venue for two consecutive years.
- Hulk Hogan and André the Giant went to a draw by double disqualification in this event. This would be Hogan's first WrestleMania match in which a disqualification occurred. This was Hogan's first and only time going to a draw at WrestleMania. Hogan and Andre also have the distinction of being the first two wrestlers in the history of the event to have a WrestleMania rematch. They had wrestled each other the previous year at WrestleMania III in what many deem the most famous wrestling contest of all time.
