While putting together my own card, I followed three rules:
1: I wanted to have a Tournament for the WWF Championship.
2: I wanted to keep the Invitational Battle Royal to kick off the show.
3: I wanted to make sure that everyone who was on the actual card was on the show.
Now, I do think, in hindsight, that 14 wrestlers was too many to have. So, my solution would be an 8-man tournament Here's my first round:
Ricky Steamboat vs Rick Rude
Randy Savage vs Greg Valentine
Ted DiBiase vs Jim Duggan
Hulk Hogan vs Andre The Giant
I originally planned for a 15 man battle royal to kick the show off, instead of a 20 man:
Bad News Brown
George Steele
Harley Race
Hillbilly Jim
Koko B. Ware
Leaping Lanny Poffo
Junkyard Dog
Ron Bass
Sika
The Bolsheviks (Nikolai Volkoff and Boris Zhukov)
The Killer Bees (B. Brian Blair and Jim Brunzell)
The Young Stallions (Paul Roma and Jim Powers)
If you want 20, add the following 5:
Outback Jack
The Conquistadors
Sam Houston
Danny Davis
I have three "new matches" that I liked from The Brain's card:
Bravo/Patera
Reed & Gang/Muraco & Bam Bam
The Hart Foundation/The Rougeau Brothers
With a 15 man battle royal, I make the Hart/Rougeau match a 6 man, adding Danny Davis to the Harts and Sam Houston to the Rougeaus. Perhaps Davis costs them the match, leading to the Harts face turn. Could even plan the seeds for the Rougeaus aligning with Jimmy Hart, as they would later in the summer.
These matches stay the same:
Warrior/Hercules
Beefcake/Honky
Demolition/Strike Force
A slight change to the six man match:
Islanders & Heenan vs Bulldogs & Snake
I really didn't like Koko with the Bulldogs. Just a personal thing. If Jake The snake wasn't in the Tournament, I have him with in the Bulldogs match, moving Koko to the Battle Royal. Not too long after WrestleMania, Jake would go on to feud with Rick Rude, who was managed by Heenan, so maybe something there to make Jake want to be in the match against Heenan.
This means 14 matches, where the original card had 16 matches... This gives some extra time for some of the other matches to expand a bit and keep the show at it's original length.
Personally, I would have added one more match, The Jumping Bomb Angels vs The Glamour Girls for the Women's Tag Titles. A rematch from the Royal Rumble. The Glamour Girls won the belts back in June of 88, so they could have either won here, or the Angels could have retained, continuing the feud.
The order I would have had the matches and the winners:
Battle Royal: Bad News Brown wins, eliminating JYD last
Dino Bravo over Ken Patera
Jumping Bomb Angels over Glamour Girls
Tournament Round 1: Steamboat, Savage and DiBiase advance
Rougeau Brothers (& Sam Houston) over Hart Foundation (& Danny Davis)
Warrior over Hercules
Brutus Beefcake over Honky Tonk by DQ
Tournament Round 2: Savage over Steamboat, DiBiase with a Bye
Muraco & Bam Bam over Reed & Gang
Islanders & Heenan over Bulldogs & Snake
Demolition over Strike Force
Tournament Finals: Savage over DiBiase
If you didn't want a face vs face tournament match, or feel that Steamboat was made to lose as "punishment," you could have Rude beat Steamboat, setting up Savage/Rude in round 2, or flip Rude and Valentine, have Valentine beat Steamboat in Rd.1, while having Savage beat Rude, if you feel Valentine would have been a better Rd. 2 opponent than Rude at the time.
DiBiase still gets his bye into the finals, making Savage's underdog run all the more impressive, while cutting a match from each of the finalists, giving them more time for the Final match. This also eliminates a lot of the guys who "didn't have a chance."
-Bill
