10 Most Unlikely First WWE World Championship Defenses

At WrestleMania VII, Hulk Hogan - again, in the name of America - captured his third WWF Championship, toppling Iraqi sympathiser Sgt. Slaughter in a feud that was definitely tasteful and absolutely did not age badly.

Hogan only faced two people in title defences between WrestleMania VII and his eventual loss of the belt to The Undertaker at that year's Survivor Series: Sgt. Slaughter and Yoshiaki Yatsu.

Yatsu was a bit of an underlying star in Japan, a former Olympic wrestler-turned-professional who became a prominent fixture in NJPW, first as a singles star - claiming victories over the likes of Yoshiaki Fujiwara, The Iron Sheik, Nobuhiko Takada and Curt Hennig - before linking up with Riki Choshu and friends as part of Ishin Gundan and jumping over to AJPW where Yatsu would become a five-time AJPW World Tag Team Champion.

Yoshiaki would wind up at the short-lived Genichiro Tenryu-led promotion SWS, whom had a working inter-promotional relationship with the WWF. The two companies would exchange talent throughout SWS' two-year stint, including the jam-packed Wrestle Dream In Kobe event in April 1991 where Yatsu battled for the WWF's main prize.

The match would be overshadowed though by the infamous match-turned-shoot-fight between John "Earthquake" Tenta and Koji Kitao.