Opening the show with WrestleMania's second ever battle royal was a gamble with an entire tournament to get to, but Bret Hart's runners-up role carried far more weight than Andre The Giant himself when he was chucking 'The Hitman' onto his partner two years earlier.
Getting turned on by another heel isn't typically the best start to a babyface run, but Hart's fire raged enough following Bad News Brown's backstabbing that his trophy-smashing exploits did at least get him over.
The dreary match fans were forced to suffer through - to a soundtrack of unnerving disinterest from the Trump Plaza crowd - just to get to it did not justify the payoff. Not least when The Hart Foundation's actual switch still had to play out on television. Andre's legacy may be celebrated through one of these every year, but the 'Show Of Shows' crap history with the contest reflects the grim reality of the gimmick.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years.
As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say.
With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling.
Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.
