WrestleMania 4: The birth of the WWF Championship Tournament

Rich in star powerThere is this concept of a hat-trick in sports and the definition for the same goes like this -- any three successive similar outcomes make a hat-trick. The same concept goes with success as well. With the first three editions of WrestleMania turning out to be blockbusters, the WWE team was extremely elated at the happenings and decided to continue with it.Once again the crowd count reached close to 20,000 and such an attendance for live events before the 90s was just incredible. Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant were quite famous by then and had created a unique name for themselves among WWE circles.This time around, WWE is aiming for a record attendance in Texas for this WrestleMania 32 and we surely got to watch out for it. With all that being said, we will quickly recap some of the interesting things that went down at WrestleMania 4-

#3 Date, Place, Venue and Match Card

Atlanta city hosted WrestleMania 4

The fourth edition of WrestleMania was yet another visual treat and the WWE fans savoured it well. WrestleMania 4 took place on 27th March 1988 at the Historic Atlantic City Convention Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. As mentioned earlier, the attendance for the show was 19199, to be specific. This particular WrestleMania event was the fourth under the WWF banner.

Let us quickly glance through the match card of WrestleMania 4 which contained 16 matches – 13 singles, 2 tag matches and a battle royal. The event witnessed a 14-man tournament on a round robin basis to determine the WWF Champion.

Singles Action

Bad News Brown eliminated Bret Hart for the win (20-man Battle Royal)

The Ultimate Warrior vs. Hercules

Brutus Beefcake vs. The Honky Tonk Man (c) (WWF Intercontinental Championship match)

WWF Championship Tournament:

Round-1

Ted DiBiase vs. Jim Duggan                         

Don Muraco vs. Dino Bravo        

Greg Valentine vs. Ricky Steamboat

Randy Savage vs. Butch Reed                    

One Man Gang vs. Bam Bam Bigelow                     

Rick Rude vs. Jake Roberts          

Quarters             

Hulk Hogan vs. André the Giant (DDQ)  

Ted DiBiase vs. Don Muraco

Randy Savage vs. Greg Valentine

One Man Gang reached the Semis

Semis

Randy Savage vs. One Man Gang (with Slick) by disqualification               

Ted DiBiase was the other semi-finalist

Final

Randy Savage vs. Ted DiBiase (WWF Championship Match)

Tag Team Action

The Islanders and Bobby Heenan vs. The British Bulldogs and Koko B. Ware      

Demolition vs. Strike Force (c) (WWF Tag Team Championship Match)