10 Worst WWE Roads To WWE WrestleMania
9. WrestleMania VII
By 1991, the WWF's mainstream popularity had dipped.
The Hulk Hogan character had done it all - so much so that he was asked to pass the torch one year earlier - but the Ultimate Warrior was a diminished return of the technically limited, muscled demigod ideal. It didn't help that Hogan looked helplessly to the skies, immediately after lifting his shoulders the nanosecond before the referee struck three, as if he was defeated by a cruel act of God rather than his opponent.
Hogan remained a massively popular attraction, but much like the industry he had propelled to unseen heights, he was cycling down. As such, his match opposite Iraqi sympathiser Sgt. Slaughter failed to ignite the box office. The event was moved from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to the significantly smaller Memorial Sports Arena.
The WWF, in a transparent PR exercise, cited security concerns, such was the apparent success of Slaughter's traitor act. In truth, a riot was hardly forthcoming. The Road to WrestleMania VII was paved with such cheap and contrived heat that few would have been moved into doing so.
McMahon's hot streak of creativity - just one year earlier, he had promoted his first major babyface versus babyface match to much critical and commercial success - was over. He substituted it for insipid and desperate patriotism in the run up to a show which signalled the company's near-death throes.