MARCH 24
1990
World Championship Wrestling included a ***3/4 match between Ric Flair and Ricky Morton, which was taped on March 13 in Columbus, GA. Also on the show, Brian Pillman and Tom Zenk interrupted a Midnight Express match against Zan Panzer and Bob Cook to retrieve the stolen U.S. Tag Team Titles. The show did a 3.3 rating.
1991
WWF Wrestlemania VII aired live from Los Angeles, CA, in the LA Sports Arena before 15,500 fans. In the main event, Hulk Hogan defeated turncoat Sgt. Slaughter to win the WWF World Title. Also on the show, Jake Roberts defeated Rick Martel in a blindfold match that acted as the final culmination of their feud while Ted DiBiase and Virgil squared off for the first time. However, the best and most memorable match of the show was the career ending match between Randy Savage and the Ultimate Warrior, a ****1/2 fairly tale come to life where Savage lost the match but reunited with the estranged Miss Elizabeth in a classic post-match angle. Unfortunately, life did not imitate art for these two, but the moment remains a powerful one for longtime WWF fans. The show did approximately 400,000 buys, the lowest in four years in an early sign of the WWF’s upcoming decline, and you can watch it on the WWE Network.
1994
AJPW held a card as part of the Championship Carnival in Hirakatsu before a sellout 3,400 fans. An in-ring highlight saw Kenta Kobashi face Akira Taue in a ***3/4 30-minute draw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH8hQNUuq-c
1996
WCW Uncensored aired live on pay-per-view from Tupelo, MS, before 9,000 fans. The main event was perhaps the most preposterous pay-per-view headliner of all time, as Hulk Hogan teamed with Randy Savage to face Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Meng, The Barbarian, Kevin Sullivan, Lex Luger, Z Gangsta, the Ultimate Solution and the cast of “8 Is Enough” in a 25-minute three-tiered cage match. The show did have one particularly strong match on the undercard, though, as Steven Regal and Fit Finlay had a brutal ***3/4 match. The show did just under 225,000 buys, and you can watch it on the WWE Network.
1997
WWF Monday Night RAW aired live from Rockford, IL, in front of a sellout 7,557 fans. The key moment of the show saw Bret Hart deliver a long promo explaining his heel turn, which was quite possibly the greatest promo of his career. It lasted over 15 minutes and Hart summarized all of the events since Wrestlemania XII in a logical way and blamed the American wrestling fans for his woes. Shawn Michaels attempted an interruption and even got in a few shoot comments including that Bret was a mark and that he needed a handwritten note from God to get the belt before Bret attacked Shawn’s injured knee with his new killer submission, a figure-four leglock around the ringpost. The show did a 2.4 rating, compared to Nitro’s 3.0 rating. Nothing better summarizes the ratings gap between the companies at the time than that the post-Wrestlemania RAW did a lower rating than a Nitro with a Randy Savage-Prince Iaukea main event.
In The “To Watch” Queue:
Barry Windham vs Ricky Morton (WCW Worldwide 03/24/91)
Jun Akiyama vs Takao Omori (AJPW 03/24/94)
Stan Hansen vs Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 03/24/94)
Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi & Stan Hansen vs Toshiaki Kawada, Akira Taue & Giant Baba (AJPW 03/24/95)
