10 Wrestling Matches That Shaped Vince McMahon’s Vision Of Sports Entertainment

8. Randy Savage & Lanny Poffo Vs. The Rock N' Roll Express - CWA, June 25, 1984

At Survivor Series 1995, towards the finish of Bret Hart's No Disqualification WWF Championship victory over Diesel, the Excellence of Execution was blasted through the Spanish announce desk by his gigantic opponent. Shocked fans rushed to ringside from the cheap seats in order to observe the wreckage, the likes of which - in the Federation, at least - was unprecedented.

Sabu had been destroying furniture in ECW for years by that point, but he was not the first man to do so on American soil.

Randy Savage, working in Memphis, was a peripheral figure in this match, the first nine minutes of which are a chore to get through in retrospect. Lanny Poffo might have anointed himself as The Genius, but it was his brother Randy who lived up to it the moniker; Lanny's robotic selling would have shone through, even if he had not lived under his brother's shadow. At the nine-minute mark, Savage grabbed a prone Ricky Morton and drilled him with a piledriver through a wooden table stationed at ringside. That's as mundane a sentence as "Savage engaged Ricky Morton in a collar and elbow tie-up" today - but back in 1984, it was a shockingly violent act.

Savage's innovation shaped WWE's go-to big match spot in the decades to come. The Spanish announce table breakage is so ubiquitous nowadays that it's a meme.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!