Listen up, to all you filthy little maggots out there! If you think that Sgt. Slaughter’s best days were bodyslamming Nemesis Enforcer in the GI Joe movie then you’d be sorely and severely mistaken! After leaving the WWE for several years to go be an American hero for both Saturday morning cartoons and the AWA, Sarge returned to the WWE in late 1990.
But he came back not just with a nasty heel attitude. He had become an American turncoat and aligned himself with the teachings of Saddam Hussein and even began using Hussein’s childhood friend, General Adnan as a manager. In a world where all of the bad guys nowadays want to also be liked, Sgt. Slaughter became the ultimate heel - a turncoat on the very country that made him a superstar.
10 Sarge Did Not Want To Burn Flag
In the buildup to his WrestleMania 7 title defense against Pukeamania himself, Hulk Hogan, Sgt. Slaughter famously burnt up Hogan in effigy when he set one of the Immortal Puke’s t-shirts ablaze. As the story has been told over the years, real-life former marine, Jesse Ventura had been pushing for Vince to let Slaughter burn up the American Flag for white-hot heat, “because you can do it.” Whether Vince was keen on the idea or not depends on whose telling the story, but certainly, Slaughter had zero interest in setting fire to old glory.
9 Needed Security
Between Slaughter’s old gimmick as a drill sergeant and status as a real life GI Joe, it was one of the most shocking things to see Slaughter not just turn heel, but side with foreign villainous country Iraq.
When the conflict in the Persian Gulf became Operation Desert Storm, supposedly some fans really wanted to get at the turncoat in the worst way. Vince McMahon paid for a security detail to keep his employee safe.
8 First WrestleMania
Despite being nearly as big as Hulk Hogan, Sarge left WWE in early 1984 before the first-ever WrestleMania. That meant that Slaughter’s first WrestleMania was Stars And Stripes Forever. For the first time ever in Mania history, the defending champion was also walking into his very first WrestleMania. At this point in 1991, Sarge was 43 years old and the oldest Mania headliner by far.
7 Replaced Tugboat
During the summer of 1990, Earthquake had taken out Hulk Hogan and put him on the shelf. His good buddy Tugboat endeared himself to the little Hulksters out there and asked the fans to pledge their support (basically getting on the WWE mailing list to receive some swag). While Tugboat would eventually turn his back on the fans and Hulk, becoming Typhoon, the original plan for the entire build to WrestleMania 7 was going to be with Tugboat, perhaps becoming Sheik Tugboat. While that didn’t happen, we might have been very close to living in a world where ol’ “Uncle Fred” would currently be the only member of the Rhodes family to be WWE Champion.
6 First Rumble Title Match
For several years, not only was the WWE Champion part of the Royal Rumble match, the title itself had not been defended at the event. Actually, the only titles defended at the event up until 1991 was the Women’s tag and women’s world titles.
Sgt. Slaughter challenged The Ultimate Warrior in the first-ever world title match at the Royal Rumble, becoming only the second heel champion since Hulkamania started running wild. Slaughter was also the first man to win the title as a heel (Savage was a babyface when he won).
5 Final Tag Team SummerSlam Main Event
In the early years of SummerSlam, WWE tried to have a different flair to the main event. Instead of a title match, they had epic dream tag team matches. SummerSlam 1991 was no different, Warrior and Hogan took on the evil Iraqis, led by Slaughter. The match was notable for three reasons - Sid’s debut, Warrior‘s less than professional exit, and as far as Slaughter was concerned, his last PPV appearance before declaring “I want my country back.”
4 WrestleMania 7 Stars And Stripes Forever
One of the key components in wrestling is trusting who you work matches with. When you’re a tippy top guy like Hulk Hogan was, you typically get a huge say in who you work with. The storyline was certainly there - a former American hero turned sympathizer with the country’s current enemy against the embodiment of Americana and the WWE, Hulk Hogan. Heading into the most patriotic WrestleMania ever, Hogan handpicked Sarge to work with.
3 Death Threats And/Or Poor Ticket Sales
At WrestleMania 6, the announcement for WrestleMania 7 was made. The event would be emanating from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. One of the lofty goals of WWE at this time was to either match or exceed the then-record 93,000-plus attendance of WrestleMania 3. Had the event taken place at the Coliseum, there was certainly that chance. But without an attraction like Andre to sell tickets, they were nowhere near close to making that number. Combined with the supposed death threats against Slaughter and increased security everywhere due to the Gulf War, there was no way to keep the Coliseum secure enough for safety and the event was moved to the nearby Sports Arena instead.
2 Second Heel Run
While the Iraqi-sympathizer run was certainly the most lucrative and well-known run of Slaughter’s career, it wasn’t the first time The American Hero had been a hated villain. Long before he started in WWE as one of Vince’s initial chosen babyfaces, he had been one of Vince Senior’s favorite heels.
He had pretty much the same gimmick - just more of a psychotic drill instructor than when he was a babyface psychotic drill instructor. He got to challenge Bob Backlund for the WWE Title and has the distinction of being the only challenger Backlund never defeated in MSG.
1 Alley Fight
One of the most famous matches of the pre-Hogan era involved the nasty heel Sgt. Slaughter against Pat Patterson. The two future Hall Of Famers engaged in a bloody war and one of the early hardcore matches of the day. Unfortunately for Sarge, he couldn’t overcome Patterson in the infamous Alley Fight, which saw both legends become bloody messes and leave it all hanging out at Madison Square Garden.