17 Wrestlers Who Took Forever To Get To WrestleMania (and Why)

Slaughter debuted with the company way back in 1980, well before Wrestlemania even existed. In his two runs, he feuded with Pat Patterson and the Iron Sheik, earning Match of the Year Honors for his Alley Fight with the former. As a heel, Sarge was an ill-tempered hardass, but as a patriotic babyface, he was one of the company’s top stars and one of the first wrestlers to have his own action figure - not as part of LJN's WWF toy line, but as a GI Joe! Slaughter exited the WWF just months before the first Wrestlemania over the GI Joe figure and/or missed dates. Corporal Kirchner was later brought in to fill Sarge’s role as the babyface military man, competing at Wrestlemania 2. 


The Sergeant enlisted in the AWA and didn’t return to the WWF until 1990. Now an Iraqi sympathizer, Slaughter won the WWF title and defended it in a losing effort against Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania 7. He had missed six sure-fire Wrestlemania appearances, but Sarge had at last made it to the very top of the WWF. And to think that Sarge’s comeback and title run only came about because Vince McMahon insisted that his biggest show of the year center around Hulk Hogan beating Saddam Hussein by proxy.



(The following year, Slaughter would be part of the winning team in the 8-man tag at Wrestlemania 8, making him the only entry so far to have actually won a match at Wrestlemania)