Boxing and Wrestling have been linked to each other for years, and even had a magazine dedicated to both, founded by Joseph and Benjamin Weider in 1951, appropriately called “Boxing Illustrated-Wrestling News,” which later became just “Boxing and Wrestling.” The relationship was brought up once again in the recently released Peacock Original documentary WrestleMania IX: Becoming a Spectacle.
The documentary goes into exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of WrestleMania IX, which was held at the Ceasars Palace in Las Vegas, NV, on April 4, 1993. Unlike today’s world, where there is little left to the imagination and what goes on behind the scenes is discussed more often, during that time, knowing what goes on backstage was off-limits, so the cameras captured the chaos of putting together WrestleMania IX. Up to now, this was something that had never been seen before. You got a sense of the awkwardness from the wrestlers stuck between keeping kayfabe or breaking it.
Just like the WWE Network and other big ideas ahead of their time, WWE founder Vince McMahon had a vision that one day, capturing the footage from WrestleMania IX would mean something, and it has with this latest documentary. One of the other visions that McMahon had early on was the potential of merging boxing with wrestling, which came together in November 1988.
Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Donny Lalonde- A WWF Production
About five minutes into the documentary, there was a boxing reference as McMahon, according to the documentary, always wanted to get into boxing. In the summer of 1988, Ceasars was looking to put together Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Donny Lalonde and wanted to make it “larger than life,” so they hired the WWF (now WWE) to produce and distribute the event.
Once the WWF was on board, they treated it like one of their events and had Leonard attend SummerSlam in August 1988 to promote the November fight during the company’s second biggest PPV of the year behind WrestleMania. Another clip showed Leonard being interviewed by WWE Hall of Famer Gorilla Monsoon during a Prime Time Wrestling episode. It was a first for a boxing event as the WWE had never been involved in the sport prior to that. Although the event was a huge success, the WWE realized that everyone came together for the fight, but then afterward, there wasn’t anything to connect the fans to and have them keep coming back like a WWE story, so they ended up not doing any other boxing events after that Leonard-Lalonde fight.
The one thing it did was establish the relationship between the WWE and Ceasars Palace, which would be fruitful for years to come.
The Chaos That Was WrestleMania IX
The rest of the documentary told the tale of WrestleMania IX, which involved elephants and camels, putting the event in a parking lot, and an awkward finish that did not go over well with those in the back.
Seeing behind the scenes of Bret Hart–Yokozuna–Hulk Hogan’s fiasco was one of the highlights of the documentary. Hogan showing up to the arena with a black eye and stitches was a hurdle that they got over on the spot, but Hart being told that he was the future of the company as champion, only to have to give it up to Hogan in a conversation with McMahon the night before gives you an indication of how quickly things can change in the business. Although Hart felt stabbed in the back at the time, in hindsight, it was the right move to make. The way they did it felt clunky at best, but that didn’t matter at the time as Hulkamania was still as strong as ever, which helped the sequence get over with the fans watching on PPV and in attendance.
It was interesting to see the WWE pull out video footage from that day and how quickly and unpredictable things can be in and out of the ring. You can tell that the company has used the prior events for lessons learned, but with any of these big events, you can only prepare so much and hope you are well-equipped to handle the issue you hadn’t accounted for from the start. This documentary gives quite a story and is a must-watch if you are a wrestling fan, especially during WrestleMania week.
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