30 Week Journey: Wrestlemania IX (1993)

The world’s biggest toga party was hardly the world’s biggest success for the WWF, but WrestleMania IX in 1993 did bring with it twists and turns that will echo in the annals.

The Lapsed Fan wrestling podcast donned their sandals and grabbed their goblets for a deep dive into a parking lot next to Caesars in Las Vegas for the latest landing on this jet flight known as 30 weeks, 30 WrestleManias.

Hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro assess:

- Vince lays out for Bret Hart what Hogan would like to see happen in the main event (Dramatization)

- The unique, fleeting combination of Jim Ross and Bobby Heenan, a flow that is frequently hijacked by the non sequiturs of Randy Savage, including: What if Sherri were to beat Shawn Micahels for the Intercontinental title one day?

- The debut of Luna, rocking a haircut that was repulsive in 1993 but today can be on girls in nightclubs all over America

- The story behind Hogan’s black eye, and how his surprise title win was received then and is received now.

- Undertaker goes 3-0, in a Chloroform-induced stupor

- A creative imagining of Vince pitching Doink to Matt Osborne, and how Osborne proceeded to make lemonade

- Backlund v. Ramon, the weirdest match in WrestleMania history

- A detailed accounting of the steroid trial that had Vince paranoid the walls were listening, and how that anxiety permeated throughout 1993

Plus guru Dave Meltzer weighs in on all the backstage goings-on as the Hulkster resumes the throne in the august Roman environs. It’s a podcast befitting Caesar, the TLF take on the ninth Mania, the last gasp of an era (call it a “lapsed gasp.”).