WrestleMania V (1989): The Mega Powers Explode; the Undercard Mostly Fizzles

Hercules and Haku open WrestleMania V with a match that is perfectly functional and almost instantly displaced by everything that follows. Haku attacks early, Hercules answers with power, and both men work a straightforward heavyweight match around strikes, backbreakers and short bursts of control. The clean finish is the best thing about it. Haku catches Hercules with the savate kick, later misses his opening, and Hercules converts the final exchange into the bridging back suplex for three. There is no interference-heavy escape and no need to protect the loser through administrative gymnastics. The problem is that the match never develops a reason to care beyond competence. The reproduced Observer rating is only half a star, and most retrospectives treat it as disposable. WrestleFile is kinder because the work is coherent, but coherence is the floor of a WrestleMania match, not the ceiling.

The Rockers make this match work by treating the size disadvantage as an invitation to move faster rather than a reason to spend eight minutes being flattened. Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty use dropkicks, quick tags and double-team offense to create believable windows against Big Boss Man and Akeem. The Twin Towers answer by making every successful catch feel consequential. Boss Man's powerbomb on Michaels is the visual punctuation, and Akeem's Air Africa finishes the job. The result is exactly right for the period: Boss Man and Akeem remain important Hogan-level heels, while the Rockers lose without looking remotely ordinary. The outside ratings are modest, but the match ages better than many of the card's singles bouts because contrast gives it a built-in story. Every Rockers comeback feels fast because the Towers are enormous; every Tower cutoff feels violent because the Rockers are willing to fly.

Beefcake and DiBiase have enough chemistry for a respectable ten-minute match and then choose the finish most likely to make everybody forget it. DiBiase supplies the structure, controlling with the Million Dollar Dream and varied offense while Beefcake works toward the sleeper and the crowd's expected comeback. Virgil's involvement is predictable but useful because it gives Beefcake a target when the match needs motion outside the ring. The problem is the double countout. Both men brawl on the floor, neither returns, and a match that has spent ten minutes developing a conventional conflict ends as paperwork. The decision protects both wrestlers but advances neither. The reproduced Observer rating is 1.75 stars, which feels close to the match's actual place on the card: not bad, not important, and finished in the least satisfying way available.

Here it is: WrestleFile's first F. The Bushwhackers and Fabulous Rougeaus spend five minutes proving that short matches can still feel punitive. The Rougeaus are capable workers, but the match is built around exaggerated Bushwhacker comedy, awkward transitions and heel stalling that never develops into a satisfying control-and-comeback structure. The finish arrives when Jacques accidentally collides with Raymond and the Bushwhackers immediately capitalize with their battering-ram offense. There is no escalation, no athletic hook and no storyline consequence large enough to justify how rough the wrestling looks. This is not merely modern taste rejecting an old style. Bryan Rose at Voices of Wrestling later gave it minus two stars and called it the worst WrestleMania match to that point, while the reproduced Wrestling Observer record lists an extraordinary minus four stars. WrestleFile does not grade to match Meltzer. It grades the same match and independently arrives in the basement.

Mr. Perfect and the Blue Blazer get less than six minutes and use almost all of them to remind viewers that the WWF roster contains wrestlers capable of a very different pace. Owen Hart flips out of basic offense, hits quick suplexes and near falls, and makes Perfect work harder than the undefeated presentation might suggest. Perfect responds with the exaggerated bumps and timing that make even transitional offense look expensive. The match never gets enough time to become substantial, but it does not waste much either. Blue Blazer misses the split-legged moonsault, Perfect survives the brief comeback and finishes with the Perfectplex. The reproduced Observer rating is 2.25 stars, which undersells how refreshing the match feels in context. It is less a great match than a six-minute preview of what the company's in-ring ceiling can look like when speed and execution matter as much as character size.

The feud deserves a cleaner match than the handicap stipulation gives it. Survivor Series 1988 had executed an excellent double turn: Fuji betrays Demolition, the Powers of Pain adopt him, and both teams switch sides in one sequence. WrestleMania V pays that off by adding Fuji as an active third opponent, which makes thematic sense and wrestling sense only intermittently. Ax and Smash work from underneath more than usual, Fuji contributes the expected chops and cheap shots, and the Powers provide the heavy offense. The finish is satisfyingly poetic. Fuji attempts to throw salt, misses Smash and blinds Warlord, then eats the Demolition Decapitation and takes the pin. That closes the betrayal story cleanly. The reproduced Observer record calls the match a DUD, but WrestleFile gives more credit to the payoff and crowd investment. The wrestling itself remains ordinary.

Three minutes is merciful, which is not normally a compliment attached to WrestleMania. Dino Bravo and Ronnie Garvin trade stiff-looking offense without enough time or narrative to turn the exchange into anything beyond a roster checkpoint. Garvin's chops and stomps have personality, Bravo's power spots are recognizable, and the sidewalk slam ends things before the audience has much reason to invest. Frenchy Martin attacks afterward and receives the Garvin Stomp, giving the segment a small comic button that is more memorable than the match. The reproduced Observer rating is a DUD, and there is little reason to argue for hidden greatness. The match is not catastrophically incompetent; it is simply a pay-per-view bout with television stakes, television length and almost no consequence. On a fourteen-match card, material like this is how abundance turns into drag.

This is one of the smartest undercard matches because the wrestling and the storyline become the same thing. Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard bring the tight tag structure expected from the Brain Busters, while Tito Santana and Rick Martel initially look reunited and functional. The match changes when Santana accidentally hits Martel with the flying forearm. Martel reaches the corner later and simply refuses the tag. There is no elaborate misunderstanding and no manager required to explain the heel turn. He walks away. Anderson and Blanchard then dismantle the abandoned Santana and finish him with the spike piledriver. Voices of Wrestling specifically praises the match, and the reproduced Observer rating is 2.5 stars. WrestleFile goes higher because the match accomplishes two jobs at once: it is good tag wrestling and the exact mechanism through which Strike Force ends.

The story is simple enough to explain in thirty seconds and the match takes nearly ten minutes to explain it anyway. Andre is afraid of Jake Roberts' snake. Big John Studd is Andre's longtime enemy and the special referee. Ted DiBiase eventually tries to steal Damien. Andre attacks Studd and gets disqualified. Jake throws the snake into the ring and Andre leaves. Every important beat is understandable. The problem is the physical match connecting those beats. Andre's mobility is badly diminished by this stage, so much of the action consists of choking, clubbing and Roberts working around what Andre can safely provide. TJR calls the match a dud, and the reproduced Observer record gives it minus three stars. The feud has legitimate character logic, but the decision to ask Andre for almost ten minutes exposes limitations that shorter spectacle booking could have hidden.

Bret Hart again acts as the card's quality-control department. Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine are a temporary heel pairing rather than a historically important team, but Bret and Jim Neidhart give the match enough pace and structure to make seven minutes productive. Honky gets a believable advantage with Shake, Rattle and Roll but tags out instead of covering, allowing Valentine to continue the punishment. Bret survives the figure four and gutbuster sequences, Neidhart supplies the power comeback, and the finish uses Jimmy Hart's own megaphone against his team. It is cheating by the babyfaces, but the poetic symmetry works in front of the crowd. TJR calls it pretty good and credits Bret heavily, while the reproduced Observer rating is 2.25 stars. WrestleFile sees a compact, well-paced tag match that knows exactly which wrestler should carry the difficult sections.

Rude and Warrior produce the second-best major singles match on the show because Rude understands that Warrior's best matches need structure more than complexity. Warrior overwhelms him early, Rude survives long enough to introduce actual transitions, and the match builds around whether Warrior can maintain control once the challenger starts countering the predictable power sequences. Rude's missile dropkick, piledriver and surfboard give the middle enough variation to keep Warrior from simply cycling through signature offense. The finish is classic Bobby Heenan: Warrior suplexes Rude from the apron, Heenan grabs Warrior's ankle, and Rude lands on top for the pin. It is Warrior's first WWF pinfall loss and gives Rude the Intercontinental Championship without making Warrior look cleanly beaten. TJR remembered the match more positively than expected, and the reproduced Observer rating is 2.5 stars. The result matters more than the number.

Bad News Brown and Jim Duggan spend less than four minutes working toward the conclusion everyone could have predicted once Duggan brought a two-by-four and Brown found a chair. The early exchange is basic brawling, Brown briefly controls outside, Duggan rallies with the three-point stance and then the weapons appear. Both men hit each other, the referee throws the match out, and WrestleMania V collects another non-finish. There is a version of this segment that works as a heated television angle because the characters are clear and the violence is immediate. On pay-per-view, positioned as the twelfth match of a fourteen-match card, it feels like one more reason the show could have been shorter. The reproduced Observer rating is a DUD. WrestleFile gives slight credit for brevity and character consistency, but there is no meaningful match to recommend underneath the objects.

Thirty-one seconds makes this more angle than match, and grading it requires judging whether those thirty-one seconds accomplish anything useful. Bobby Heenan enters already selling the damage from Ultimate Warrior earlier in the show, tries an immediate cover, misses a charge and gets pinned by the Red Rooster. Brooklyn Brawler attacks afterward, extending the feud. There is no wrestling quality to evaluate beyond basic execution, but the segment at least reaches its purpose quickly. TJR calls it a dud while conceding that its brevity is a mercy; the reproduced Observer record also lists a DUD. WrestleFile gives it F / 3.6 because the segment is not pretending to be a substantive contest. It is a thirty-one-second payoff to a manager-wrestler feud. That does not make it good. It does make it less offensive than matches that waste ten times as long accomplishing the same amount.

The main event is the reason WrestleMania V survives its own undercard. Randy Savage works like a champion trying to prove the entire company has misunderstood him. He slows Hogan, targets the throat, uses Elizabeth's divided concern as emotional leverage and repeatedly turns Hogan's power against him. Hogan, to his credit, spends far more of the match selling than the caricature of late-1980s Hogan would suggest. The result is a championship match in which Savage looks dangerous because the structure allows him to be dangerous, not because the commentary simply says so. Elizabeth is removed after trying to protect both men, leaving the final act cleanly between champion and challenger. Savage hits the elbow. Hogan kicks out, hulks up, lands the big boot and leg drop, and wins his second WWF Championship. The finish is familiar. The year-long path to it is what makes the familiarity feel earned.