Following Royal Rumble ’94, Undertaker went bye bye. After losing his casket match at the Rumble to Yokozuna, he (or someone made up to look like him) literally floated up to the rafters of the arena. When Undertaker returned by Summerslam ’94, he faced an Undertaker impostor who The “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase claimed was the real phenom. The real Undertaker defeated his doppleganger and all was well in the WWE Universe, or so we thought.
Back in the ’80s and ’90s, the WWF was a much different place than it is now. Pay Per View events only took place a handful of times throughout the year, which left several months of anticipation and live house shows to build up the excitement for the next huge event. The pay per view events were filled with drama and action, and none of it was spoiled by the modern day method of blowing their load on Raw and Smackdown. House shows back in the day were even more interesting because if you attended one, you almost felt as if you were in on something that only the people in the specific arena were privy to. Most of the time nothing groundbreaking happened, but once in a while something very cool or spur of the moment occurred. For instance, Diesel won his first WWF championship at a house show shortly after Survivor Series ’94, but the event we’ll be discussing today, The WWF Hart Attack Tour, was pretty routine. It all went down at The Meadowlands Arena in East Rutherford, NJ on Thursday, October 27th, 1994.
As a build up for Survivor Series 1994, The Hart Attack Tour featured a double main event. In what technically should have been the main event since it was for the WWF Championship, (before there were two main title belts) Bret “Hitman” Hart took on his former Hart Foundation tag team partner Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart. The other main event pitted The Undertaker vs. Yokozuna, which gave Taker a chance to exact some revenge on Yokozuna for beating him in the casket match several months prior at the Rumble. It also served as a nice build up for their rematch casket match at the upcoming Survivor Series.
The amazing thing about this card is that the two main events feature 2 WWE Superstars who are main attractions at Wrestlemania 26 which will take place later today in Phoenix, Arizona. It’s wild to think that with all the talented mofos in WWE like John Morrison, R-Truth, Christian, and others, that the WWE opts to feature Superstars who were headlining events back in 1994. Way to keep the new talent down Vince, you basterd! As for the rest of the card, not many of them compete on a scale as grand as the WWE anymore. If anything, you’ll be able to see guys like Doink the Clown, Tatanka, and Billy Gunn on the indy circuit, and chances are you’ll see one of them get inducted to the WWF Hall of Fame somewhere down the line. Jerry “The King” Lawler, I.R.S aka Mike Rotunda, and Abe “Knuckleball” Schwartz aka Steve Lombardi are still employed by WWE in various capacities.
The 1-2-3 Kid, aka X-Pac, appeared recently in TNA, but the others seem to have disappeared. Where has the obscenely awesome Adam Bomb been? Full fledged Bomb Squad members such as myself deserve to know! Lex Luger has been in a quadriplegic state for several years. And of course, we know that the Beast from the East, Bam Bam Bigelow left us too soon.
