As I work my way thru the past WrestleManias I’ve finally worked my way up to Mania IX. Mania IX was from Las Vegas and was the first out door WrestleMania. I know I watched this show live, back when it happened, but apart from it being outside and the big surprise finish to the main event I remembered almost nothing from this event when I sat down to watch it.
One of the big news worthy items out of this show was that this was Jim Ross’s WWF debut. His debut broadcast for the World Wrestling Federation was at WrestleMania where he replaced Gorilla Monsoon to do play by play along with Bobby Heenan and Randy Savage. Another thing that stood out for me about this show was the amount of people on the show that have passed away. I counted 7 people on this show that are no longer with us: Gorilla Monsoon (hosted the event), Joey Morella (referee), Luna Vachon, Sensational Sherri, Mr. Perfect, Yokozuna, and Crush. This may have been the case in earlier WrestleManias as well but I noticed it right away on this show because three of them were involved in the first match (Morella, Luna, and Sherri).
One other thing of note is that I noticed that the wrestling style really changed with this event. It was just the last couple Manias (VII, and VIII) that some guys started kicking out of big moves, but this year there were big moves and big bumps all over the place. Up until this year only a couple top guys like Warrior, Hogan, and Undertaker, where kicking out of big moves as near falls, but on this show guys were taking big bump, running each other’s heads into the steel post; all kinds of big stuff just for the sake of doing it and getting a pop. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, just pointing out that it was a real noticeable style change from previous years where anything even remotely big was a finish.