One MIND-BLOWING Secret From Every WWE Royal Rumble

1991 - Mutiny Was Afoot

WrestleMania 6, an excellent show by the standards of the time, watched live by 64,287 people, was nonetheless the beginning of the end of the WWF boom. The show was outperformed by WrestleMania 5 the year prior (560,000 versus 767,000), and worse, the Ultimate Warrior failed as a draw.

A lot of factors converged here - Hogan played the magnanimous real hero in the post-match, no wrestling boom lasts forever regardless of who’s on top, Warrior had already worked his major heel opponent, Rick Rude - but Warrior was a novelty act, albeit a very popular one. Business softened with Warrior on top, and so the decision was made to go back to Hogan - even though 1990 was the right time for him to lose.

Vince McMahon was stuck, and whenever he got stuck, he got desperate. His grand plan for WrestleMania was to exploit ongoing tensions in the Gulf - and he was undeterred, emboldened even, when war broke out. Sgt. Slaughter, repackaged as an Iraqi sympathiser, was used to transition the belt between Warrior and Hogan. The public was aghast at this storyline development; WrestleMania 7 was a disaster.

The lens through which to view all of this is important. Nowadays, relative to WWE’s history of controversy bait, the events of 1991 feel almost quaint - but in 1991, the promotion still presented itself as the most family-friendly interpretation of pro wrestling ever or imaginable.

Days before the Rumble, the conflict in the Gulf was initiated. According to the January 28, 1990 Wrestling Observer Newsletter - written at a time when Dave Meltzer was arguably at his most thorough and impassioned - “many within the front office feared a media backlash against such an obvious attempt to heavily exploit the war”.

Meltzer even reported that “a few heavy hitters in the front office were privately considering quitting the company”, and that others pleaded with Vince, until the very last minutes before the PPV aired, to abandon the title switch and resulting storyline plans.

Michael Sidgwick

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!

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