On this day in wrestling history, Sgt. Slaughter became the first heel to win the WWE Championship at a pay-per-view, but that’s only the beginning of this story.
In August of 1990, Slaughter turned heel by turning his back on the United States and declared himself an Iraqi Sympathizer (storyline). This was during the standoff that led to the first Gulf War, which started two days before the Royal Rumble.
With Slaughter turning heel resulting in scores of death threats to the point extra security was brought in for the venues and his home, it’s understandable to miss what appears to have been a shoot moment.
Setting up WrestleMania
The intent was to set up Slaughter and Hogan to face each other at WrestleMania VII, and that ended up being one of the top matches of the year as Hogan was the purest of faces.
Slaughter spoke with Kenny McIntosh at Inside the Ropes Magazine this past August, and he went into detail of the events leading up to and through the match.
“Well, what made it a little easier is—I didn’t know until two hours before the show—so I wasn’t thinking too much about it, I was just going on with my character.
“A few hours before match time the referee said, ‘Vince wants you in his office.’ I headed over and there was Randy Savage and Sherri. Warrior was nowhere to be found. Vince told us what he wanted and left Randy and I to get it done. When Vince trusted in his talent he didn’t have to worry so much. He worried about the other things he had to worry about instead.”
Slaughter then went into detail on their plan and how it didn’t go like he expected it to.
“Randy and I came up with the scenario where he hit Warrior with the sceptre. When it happened in the match I heard this ungodly sound of glass shattering—Randy had hit the Warrior right between the eyes with that sceptre. It was obliterated. It didn’t go in the ring, but it was all over the floor. After that Warrior was supposed to be lying in the ring, but when I went over he was still sprawled over the second rope.
“I tried to pull him back in but he was dead-weight, he was completely knocked out. I finally got him off the rope and threw him into the ring, and I saw glass sticking out of his head like a spear. It was an incredible sight.
“The match was supposed to go another ten minutes at that point. I thought, ‘What do I do? He’s knocked out. I don’t want to just cover him and that be it—the heat is going to go on Randy.’ I figured Warrior wasn’t moving, so I would just drop an elbow on him and hopefully that would wake him up and he’d kick out of it.’ So I dropped the elbow and covered him—I didn’t even grab his leg because I thought he was going to kick out.
“And I heard, ‘One,’ so I grabbed his leg; ‘Two,’ I was still waiting for him to kick out and he didn’t kick out; ‘Three.’ The match was over and I was like, ‘What the hell?’ So I celebrated—I was the new World Champion.”
“Warrior was still lying in the ring moaning. I don’t know how he did it, but he rolled out from one end of the ring to the other and started running back to the dressing room. I thought, ‘How is he doing that? He was completely knocked out!’
“Like I was telling you earlier, a ‘potato’ means you are too stiff. Well, a receipt means, ‘You hurt me, I’m getting the payback’—and that’s what Randy Savage did. Warrior had hit him so hard in a match that he broke his hand and his arm. Randy was out for six weeks, or whatever it was, and wasn’t getting a pay check. That was taking money out of his pocket—which, other than breathing—the biggest thing in Macho Man’s life was making money. So that was his receipt to the Warrior for breaking his wrist and causing him financial burden.
“Randy hit him so hard. He couldn’t wait to get out there. I was expecting just a little tap, and Warrior was going to fall back in the ring and we would continue our match. We had something planned where Adnan was going to grab the foot for the finish, but we never got to that. But that was Randy’s receipt and that’s what happened.”
What’s funny/odd about this was, and I’m only guessing when it was taped, but right after the attack Savage and Sherri cut a promo and the top of the scepter was loose and wobbling. I made a joke about it to my friend and we always thought it was something with the prop.
It’s cool how there’s always something to learn and this was one of those stories within a story, and it definitely helped play into Slaughter’s heel character at the time.
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