Royal Rumble 1995
Date: January 22, 1995
Location: USF Sun Dome, Tampa, Florida
Attendance: 10,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler

Well, another year has passed and other than some different jobbers in the midcard, the only big change is Diesel has replaced Luger atop the company. Yoko is now a non factor, Bret is of course in the title hunt, and Luger is in the midcard doing jack. Other than that there are just not a lot of differences. Of course we have the Rumble, but other than that and a Diesel vs. Bret title match, we’ve got nothing of note.

This was a very weird period for the company as they were pretty much booking as they went instead of having long term plans. At the same time in WCW, everything was more or less thrown together. Also, there’s still no Nitro at this point as it was about seven and a half months away. There’s just not a ton going on at this point in wrestling and it’s clear that a change was needed. However, that wouldn’t come for over a year and a half, and as you’ll see, that was WAY too far off. Let’s get to this.

Your big deal here is that Pamela Anderson is here and will escort the winner of the Rumble to Mania. This would turn out to be one of the worst celebrity things that I can remember as she just looked like she absolutely HATED being there. If you’re getting paid to be there, at least try to not look like you’re just wanting to go get smashed. The intro is as generic of a beach thing as you can possibly imagine. Why does Vince have to be such a freaking mic hog? It’s really annoying.

Intercontinental Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Razor Ramon

These two feuded for what seemed like forever. Razor is of course the champion here as that’s all he ever did. Razor’s intro has reached Orton levels. Jerry gets in a funny line about how Jarrett, a country singer here, is going to star in a Broadway play: Phantom of the Grand Ole Opry. That’s just great. As we have a long feeling out period, we keep seeing the Roadie, who is more commonly known as the Road Dogg.

These two had some awesome chemistry to say the least. The gimmick that Jarrett had hurt him a lot I think. He was hard to take seriously, which is unfair because he looked good, he sounded good, he wrestled well, and he just overall worked as a big time guy. However, due to his gimmick and eventually the guitar he just failed. I’ve never gotten that. Take this match for example: everything is working fine and it’s a pretty solid match.

I don’t have anything to really make fun of in it. Granted that could be because Razor was incredibly underrated here so that might have something to do with it. Razor does all his usual stuff, although instead of the bulldog from the middle rope we get a clothesline. These two are having a very solid match out there if I do say so myself. We go to the floor though and Roadie clips Razor’s knee to send him down.

That causes the count out but Jarrett is intelligent for a change and says that he doesn’t want it that way so we need to keep going. They went for almost fifteen minutes to get to this point if that tells you anything. It was a lot of feeling out stuff but at the end of it we more or less had a stalemate. Razor gets back in and we’re ready to go again. I’ve never gotten the term restart the match. Why don’t they get new entrances?

That’s what started the match and if you’re going to redo them you might as well redo those too. With Razor’s knee destroyed, Jeff of course gets the Figure Four on a bit later. Lawler channels his inner Monsoon and says stick a fork in him, he’s done.

However, since Razor is a face and therefore comes equipped with healing powers, he escapes and makes his comeback. If Vince says he’s got him! No wait he doesn’t, one more time I’m going to scream. He gets Jarrett up in the Edge but his knee gives out and a small package gives Jarrett the title. That was good.

Rating: B+. That was a solid opener. Razor was a big deal at the time and him jobbing to Jarrett should have been the start of a big push for him but for some reason that wasn’t the case. These two were both solid workers that were likely told to just go out there and have a good match and that’s just what they did. This was a great opener.

Some annoying looking woman can’t find Jarrett. Hint: HE’S IN THE RING!

Todd is with Pamela Anderson who has gotten lots of gifts from wrestlers because apparently wooing her will make them win the Rumble. I really hate this.

The annoying woman has found Jarrett but calls him Razor. He looks good with the belt.

IRS vs. Undertaker

This was during the epically long Taker vs. DiBiase’s Million Dollar Team feud. This was actually billed as Death vs. Taxes. I give up. Apparently Taker was at a monster truck rally the night before, in character. That’s just amusing to no end. They say he was there watching his favorite monster truck: Grave Digger. There’s just something hilarious in that. As expected, there’s not a ton here.

Look at the guys in there and tell me you were expecting a solid match with a straight face. IRS simply isn’t a legit opponent here, plain and simple. This is a lot of IRS trying to fight Taker and naturally failing while Lawler says the Druids, who worked for DiBiase, should be at ringside. I’m quite bored during this match as it’s just not interesting at all. Taker apparently was at the NFL 75th Anniversary Black Tie Dinner. WOW that’s an image.

After more beating on IRS, DiBiase brings in the Druids because this wasn’t uninteresting enough. The Druids mess up Old School as the ring sounds weird. This just needs to end like NOW. It’s completely boring and feels like a bad joke or something. Lawler thinks the urn has something to do with Taker’s power. That’s so stupid I don’t even know where to begin. It’s the SMOKE inside the urn, not the urn itself.

IRS gets out of a tombstone because of the Druids and hits his finisher: a clothesline called the Write Off. Yep, his finisher is a clothesline. After sitting up for like the 4th time, a bad chokeslam ends this FINALLY. Oh wait here are the druids for even more wasting of time. King Kong Bundy comes out and allows IRS to steal the urn. I really couldn’t be any less interested. Oh and apparently the cheering of the fans works as well as the urn. I give up.

Rating: D. Oh man this was bad. It ran about 12 minutes but it felt like 45. I mean really, Death vs. Taxes? Who thought that was going to be a good match? This should have been about half as long as it was and a glorified squash. No one bought Taker as being in any kind of danger here and it’s clear that this was just not going to be competitive. It was also really boring with the Druids and DiBiase taking too much time. Just a horrible waste of time.

We get interviews from earlier in the day where Todd pesters the heck out of Bret and Diesel who don’t want to talk to him.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Diesel

Diesel is champion and Bret wants to be champion, end of backstory. They point out that Bret has won two triple crowns while Diesel has won it faster than anyone else (Punk broke that record.) Diesel goes over to talk to Lawrence Taylor and it starts. I really don’t get what they thought that was going to accomplish. Actually I do as it got them a ton of mainstream press, but the fans got screwed over in about 3 months.

WE ARE LIVE! Vince, I hate your marketing obsession. They’ve bought the show. You don’t have to sell it to them again. This actually starts with a slugfest, which naturally doesn’t work for Bret. There’s a bit of a story going on here as Bret is trying to get at Diesel’s legs using all kinds of little tricks and quick moves while Diesel is just straight ahead power. I like that. Bret gets the leg and hammers it early which is odd.

We’re 5 minutes in and we’re on our seconds figure four. Vince says it’s perfect. Vince is wrong. Lawler uses that line I hate about how they’re the same size on the mat. No, Diesel is indeed still taller than Bret. Bret is acting a bit heelish here which the announcers point out. I love that suicide dive that Bret uses. It just looks awesome. Granted any version of that looks great.

Apparently one elbow from Diesel is like 10 average punches. So he has the strength of ten men. That’s amusing indeed. In a funny moment, Diesel gets Bret up in an Argentinean Back Breaker which starts like a powerbomb but Diesel stops to put the hold on. Bret gives a look to the referee and then realizes what’s going on. It looked funnier than it sounded.

In a weird spot, Bret wraps Diesel’s legs around the post and ties them with his tape to beat on him. This lasts about 5 seconds as the referee frees him. That was kind of stupid. We go to the floor…again and Bret hits a pescado but is caught and posted. Diesel goes for him again but then remembers to sell the knee injury. Thanks for that one big guy.

Diesel hits the jackknife but Shawn runs in for the save. He beats on Diesel and works on his leg, yet that’s not enough for a DQ. Well thanks guys. I guess we’re building up some screwjob credits for two and a half years from now. Bret hooks his third figure four of the match as the fans are so bored with it I’m amazed. Lawler channels his inner Heenan and keeps changing his pick. Dang it Nash sell the freaking knee!

Ok, this whole Bret can’t get disqualified thing is freaking stupid. He cracks Diesel in the knee with a chair and that’s not enough for a DQ. The referee has no issue with checking on a submission after that. Owen runs out for the save as this has just gotten stupid. Hey we’ve used chairs, posts, tape and run ins. Why not an exposed buckle? How can no one get that Bret is likely playing possum as he’s done it about once a match for years. Oh sure. Let’s knock out the referee now.

Owen, Shawn and Backlund and Jarrett and the Roadie run in and FINALLY we get the freaking DQ. So let me get this straight: it was always going to be a double DQ, yet we had to sit through all of those run ins, weapon shots and just absurdity to get there? Why did the heels have to wait for the referee to go down? No one else got disqualified earlier for it.

The announcement of the draw, so apparently they still didn’t get disqualified, gets booed out of the building. Bret gets put in the chicken wing but Diesel breaks it up as his knee is just fine all of a sudden. I hate that. The faces shake hands which I’m ok with. Oh NOW the knee hurts again. Thanks for that one Nash.

Rating: B-. I know I blasted the ending and a lot of this match, but that likely wasn’t fair. This really was a solid match for about 80% of it, but dang they did too much with this. If you want to have the ending the way you had it that’s fine, but why have the run ins earlier in the match like that? I just don’t get that part. I get not wanting to have either guy be made to look weak, but this was just too much overkill for my taste.

That being said, when it was just Bret vs. Diesel, there was a of great stuff in there. The psychology was there, but Diesel, I can’t emphasize this enough: SELL THE KNEE NEXT TIME! I mean Bret worked the heck out of that thing and Diesel barely limped half the time. Anyway, this was solid enough, but the booking didn’t make a ton of sense in my eyes.

Holly and 1-2-3 Kid are in the back and say they believe in themselves.

King draws a picture of himself kissing Anderson using a telestrator. He’s talented but that was pointless.

Tag Titles: Bam Bam Bigelow/Tatanka vs. Bob Holly/1-2-3 Kid

This is the final of a tournament after Shawn and Diesel split and dropped the titles. Holly and the Kid are doing the whole underdog that won’t die thing that no one likes but Vince insists we’re always enthralled with. The heels are completely dominating for about the first 8 minutes or so. I know that’s kind of a blanket statement, but dang this just isn’t even close.

Why should we buy either of these guys as having a snowball’s chance of beating Bigelow or Tatanka. They mention Lou Albano which is still kind of sad. We get it: Holly drives cars. As if we don’t have enough dominance here, Kid accidentally hits Holly. Vince points out that the faces haven’t been around for long and were thrown together. Way to bury the teams they’ve beaten Vince.

Oh apparently they were supposed to be the Smoking Gunns but there was a rodeo accident. I don’t want to know. Holly actually tries to tag in Tatanka. This is just stupid at this point. The faces make a brief comeback which given the way they booked it is something close to believable. Kid is launched to the floor and Bigelow goes up for the moonsault. Tatanka picks that moment to hit the ropes though, and Bigelow crashes to the mat back first.

Holly hits a running forearm to knock the stereotype to the floor and the referee starts a double count. He gets to EIGHT and Kid puts an arm over Bigelow for the pin, SEVENTEEN SECONDS after he hit the mat. So let me get this straight. Falling about 12 feet to concrete keeps you down for about 5 seconds in the Kid’s case, but falling about 6 keeps you down at least 20 seconds? Yeah I hate this match.

As if that’s not enough, the Gunns would win the belts the next night on Raw, which makes me want to know something: WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST WIN THE FREAKING TOURNAMENT??? If you want to put the titles on the Cowboys, that’s fine. However, why not just have them go over Bigelow and Tatanka here?

Oh that’s right: to further Bigelow’s mindless face turn that happened because he kept losing to guys like Kid and Lawrence freaking Taylor of all people. Where did that turn wind up? Oh yeah: Japan and ECW. Thanks for taking care of your audience Vince.

Rating: D+. I HATE matches where one team completely dominates and then a mistake at the end gives the other guy/team the win. That’s just lazy booking and it makes the winners look completely weak. Bigelow and Tatanka shouldn’t have won, but the faces should have been the freaking Guns. How hard is it to just think for a minute and not overbook the heck out of a match? This is Vince’s biggest flaw as a booker: he over complicates everything.

Post match, Taylor is laughing at Bigelow so the big bald man shoves him and we have our Mania main event. I hate 1995 wrestling. This takes 10 minutes somehow.

We get a ton of interviews about the Rumble that I don’t feel like recapping. Everyone says they’ll win and say stuff about Pamela Anderson because she’s more important than Wrestlemania.

Royal Rumble

Oh wait we have to let Pam look bored out of her mind and pretend to be into this for awhile first. I hate celebrities being in wrestling. Anyway, Shawn is first and Bulldog as second. Oh and this year it’s one minute because we just HAD to have all those other matches and we don’t have time for actual intervals. Good night Shawn calls spots loudly at times.

Bulldog has Shawn in a gorilla press but of course slams him instead of throwing him over. Shawn is getting the heck beaten out of him as Eli Blu (Skull of the DOA) comes out as 3. We’re 10% of the way through already which is just stupid. Oh come on we’re at the countdown already? Duke Drose is 4th. What kind of a name is the Dumpster? It’s just stupid.

His gimmick was a wrestling garbage man. That’s beyond any and all logic whatsoever. Let the countdown begin! It’s Jimmy Del Ray who means nothing at all for the most part. We get some heel vs. heel mullet action with him fighting Shawn. Sixth is Sione (Barbarian) as I already hate this match. Del Ray is the first guy out as Shawn keeps surviving in impressive ways.

In at seven is Tom Pritchard, Del Ray’s partner because we have to keep a high level of suckage in there. Vince is in full blown over the top mode here as he asks Lawler if every guy that he likes is going to win the Rumble. Also notice that Vince always says Royal Rumble instead of just Rumble. He has to make sure it’s said correctly. Doink is eighth as this match is rapidly catching 93 as worst Rumble of all time.

Everything is all over the place and the time intervals are just killing it. Granted the whole and complete lack of interesting talent is killing it too. Kwang is in at 9 as I’m thinking about throwing on some Family Ties which I’m not a fan of but it would be more interesting than this.

We’re at double digits with Rick Martel who never changes at all. Del Ray is the only elimination at the moment so the ring is full. That’s another issue with this: You can’t get rid of people without making them look weak, but at the same time you can’t let the ring get this full because it’s too cluttered. That clock is really starting to get old in a hurry. Owen is number 11.

Bret runs out to jump him though on his way to the ring in the most interesting thing in the whole match so far. Now everything starts going insane. Timothy Well (of Well Dunn) is number 12 to a big pop? No actually Bulldog threw Owen out about a second after he got in. At the same time I think Martel went out and Droese was thrown over and landed on Earl Hebner in an unplanned spot. Well is gone also.

Oh Martel just got thrown out. Pritchard is out and we have Doink, Barbarian, Shawn, Bulldog, Eli and Kwang. Doink is out as Luke of the Bushwackers comes out. In an elimination that you can only see on the screen and isn’t acknowledged by Vince or Jerry, Barbarian throws out Kwang and then he and Eli eliminate each other. That leaves us with Shawn, Bulldog and Luke. This is making my head hurt.

He’s in there about 10 seconds as Shawn throws him out. He still had a job at this point? Why? Jerry is timing people with his Mickey Mouse watch. That sounds like a simple comedy one liner right? This confuses the HECK out of Vince. You can tell he’s just thrown completely off by it which granted could have been him fighting back laughter. Now I want a Mickey watch. Jacob Blu (8-Ball of the DOA) is number 14 as we’re nearly halfway done and 15 minutes hasn’t passed yet.

Shawn dumps him in about 15 seconds and we’re back to the first two all over again. Former Wrestlemania main event level talent King Kong Bundy is our halfway man. We get a replay of Owen being eliminated, which was a mere five minutes ago. This show should be shown to ROH fans as a torture method. Mo is in next and Bundy becomes my hero by putting him out in three seconds. Naturally Mabel is next as we continue the dumb tag partners in a row tradition.

Of course he goes right after Bundy and we have a bad battle of the big men which can indeed get old. Eighteen (seriously?) is Butch. Bundy is gone and Butch follows soon thereafter. Both guys (Mabel and Bulldog) try to put out Shawn as Luger the midcard guy is 19th. Dang he fell very far very fast. He puts out Mabel with ease.

Mantaur is number 20 as my eyes roll. He’s supposed to be half man and half bull I think but it was never really explained. This is easily his crowning achievement though so take that for what it’s worth. 21st is Aldo Montoya who is more commonly known as Justin Credible and more commonly known as the guy wearing a jockstrap on his face. Henry Godwin is 22nd and the sixth guy in along with Luger, Mantaur, Bulldog, Shawn and Montoya.

He’s a heel here for no apparent reason. We see Pamela who looks like she’s being told she is about to drink yak urine. Our Jordan entrant is Billy Gunn. WAIT A SECOND! He was too injured to fight in the tournament but he can fight here. I hate Vince. Oh apparently they were injured to keep them out of the tournament but they get a title shot tomorrow instead? I’d just fake injuries to get title shot after title shot.

Bart is of course 24th because tag partners always get the same numbers. In case you can’t tell I hate this match to a great extent. Bob Backlund is next as we have 5 left. Oh look it’s Bret playing policeman again. They would fight at Mania in an ok at best rematch from Survivor Series. Next is Steven Dunn since we have to further lower our intelligence. In case you can’t tell, the final two will be Shawn and Bulldog.

Backlund is out after being in about 15 seconds. Bret stays in the spotlight by jumping him again. As that happens, Dick freaking Murdoch is in at 27. He’s 48 here and would be dead in about a year and a half. He’s also in the KKK but that’s not likely to be mentioned. No one has a clue who he is by the way. It amazes me that he can get an entry here. Were they that hard up for talent that he’s the best they can get?

What’s even worse is he’s more energetic than most people in there. Adam Bomb who should have been pushed is 28th. There’s like 10 guys in there and I’m not even bothering to recap them as it’s obvious what’s going to happen in case you can’t tell. Fatu is the penultimate guy. Luger gets Mantaur on the ropes and shakes him up and down to get him out which just looked stupid. He’s out though.

Crush who also should have been pushed is number thirty. Like I said I’m not wasting my time on listing them. The Gunns go out at the same time because of Murdoch and Crush. Murdoch looks pretty good out there actually. We go back to Anderson who points back at the ring as in get off me so I can be miserable and then get my check. I think there’s 9 people in there. Let’s up the stupidity a bit as Vince says that never again will two guys go out at the same time and hit at the same time.

Of course, this ended the show last year and JUST HAPPENED. Luger saves Michaels for no apparent reason. Bomb goes out. I nearly spit out my drink as Vince says he was a favorite. That’s just amusing. He’s young and over and decent. There’s no way he could do anything of note. Montoya is out and AGAIN Luger saves Michaels. Is he that scared of the power of Murdoch? The final six are Luger, Murdoch, Godwin, Bulldog, Shawn and Crush.

Murdoch is by far the most interesting guy in here as he hooks an airplane spin but falls out when trying to dump Godwin. Shawn sprints at Luger which is awesome. This just needs to end as it’s not interesting at all. Godwin is out and we’re at the final four. Crush puts out Luger and I think some nachos sound good here. The heels beat on Bulldog for a bit as we’re just wasting time. Crush tries to jump Shawn but Bulldog sneaks up and drops Crush to get us down to the starters.

We get the famous ending as Bulldog clotheslines Shawn up and over and the music hits for the celebration. But wait. What’s this? Shawn jumps back in and nails Smith to put him over the top and he’s declared the winner. For the only time this will ever be said, Vince is awesome on the mic here. Fink announces that only one foot hit and Vince is stunned. We go to the replay and in one of the coolest and most impressive things I’ve ever seen in wrestling, Shawn’s foot does not touch.

That’s amazing and very risky as if he slips one inch, and who could blame him if he did, the next few months have to be completely altered. Anyway, Shawn wins and he and Pam “celebrate” as it looks like she wants to scream. She even leaves halfway through it as Shawn poses to end the show.

Rating: D+. This has been called the Jobber Rumble and it fits perfectly. I mean look at the list of people. The only ones that were ever going to have a chance were Shawn and Luger, both of whom were midcard guys at best here. The whole thing was just messed up with no monsters to save anything and no one that was a big star to be a big surprise. That’s just stupid.

The one minute intervals are just flat out stupid too. There’s zero time to get going at all and it was just stupid. This did however get two things right: the ending was downright inspired. That’s one o the best ways I can think of to end the thing and the key to it for me is Shawn won completely legally. He earned the win and that’s the most important thing as it ties into the other thing they got right: a midcard guy got elevated.

Shawn goes from IC Title dude to world title shot at Mania in less than 40 minutes. That’s what the Rumble could be for yet never is. They got the end right, but the road getting there was just awful. This could be worse than 93 but I don’t think it quite is.

Overall Rating: C-. This show is just not great at all. It’s the epitome of just being there. It’s not good or bad although it’s leaning towards that latter of the two. The matches are just uninteresting and this feels like it could be on any show at all. Yes we have three title matches, but while they’re good, they could easily have happened on Raws or any run of the mill PPV.

It’s a show where the matches don’t add up to the whole show, as this just feels completely empty despite having some decent stuff on it. I’d say check this out only in extreme cases of boredom or for hardcore fans only. The casual viewer will just be bored to tears, which the ratings around this time reflect. This show was bad, but the individual stuff was ok I guess.

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Survivor Series 1995
Date: November 19, 1995
Location: USAir Arena, Landover, Maryland
Attendance: 14,500
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, Mr. Perfect

It’s show #9 in this series as we’re in the New Generation, which means this likely will absolutely suck. Your main event is Bret vs. Diesel for the title. Nash has held it for nearly a year at this point with Hart off having completely random feuds. Other than that, it’s all Survivor Series matches and a random singles match. We have an interesting concept here called the Wildcard match, which means random teams, meaning faces teaming with heels.

Amazingly, this didn’t happen again. I haven’t seen it in years so I’m not sure why. The card looks rather lackluster actually. Maybe I’m wrong though, as I’ve been surprised before and I may be again. Also, I’m FINALLY caught up from the four shows I lost, so for the first time since 1992, this is fresh material for me. Let’s get to it.

Side note: Nitro debuted two and a half months prior to this, meaning Luger is freshly gone and that Hall and Nash will be gone in less than a year and the true dark days are coming for the WWF. Oh and another note: HHH has since debuted, but he’s barely, and I do mean barely, above being a jobber at this point.

We open with an interview with Razor talking about the Wildcard match that he’s in. I’ll spare you the participants for later. He says he doesn’t trust his partners. Hall so clearly didn’t care anymore at this point and I can’t blame him at all. He was never going to get past the upper midcard there and he bailed. I can’t blame him at all for that one.

Mr. Perfect is introduced to do commentary as we go to our opening video which is about Hart vs. Diesel. Nash is said to be the only person to win the Triple Crown (not called that) in a year. At the time that was true, but now Punk did it, plus the ECW Title, and in fewer days. Take that old man. We’re presented by Karate Fighters and Todd is way too excited over that. Since we’re outside of Washington D.C., everything has a patriotic theme. Oh joy.

Surprisingly, the Public Enemy of all teams was in the dark match. I’m guessing this was a tryout that didn’t work?

Underdogs vs. BodyDonnas

Underdogs: Marty Jannetty, Hakushi, Barry Horowitz, Sparkplug Holly
BoddyDonnas: Skip, Rad Radford, Tom Pritchard, 1-2-3 Kid

Oh dear. Oh dear indeed. This is borderline frightening it looks so bad. Marty Jannetty is the freaking captain of a team of jobbers. Well at least they got his role right. Honestly, this is just awful looking. Sunny is the absolute saving grace of this match. How in the world was she not made into the biggest Diva of all time? That continues to blow my mind. I shouldn’t mention Sunny and blow in the same line as it can have multiple connotations. Her talking intro was always great.

Radford is Louie Spicolli for those of you that don’t know. His debut with Monsoon on commentary was one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard as Gorilla just never got it. Kid is freshly heel here and is officially annoying. This led to a series of some of the biggest wastes of time ever between Kid and Razor. I absolutely hated them all and they got no heat so they naturally continued for about 4 shows in a row.

He’s gone from hanging out with Razor Ramon to teaming with Skip. I thought he was supposed to be moving up on the roster. Razor comes out but the referees hold him back, which gives us time to see the clip of the turn from Raw. Kid fast counted Razor on Raw and took money from DiBiase. What’s so bad about this? He was tired of being Razor’s apprentice and turned heel. This is set up strangely.

The faces are in the bottom right hand corner as opposed to the upper left hand corner like they usually are. It’s just odd to see and I’m having issues getting used to it actually. Bob Holly is still the NASCAR guy at this point and both he and Jannetty have been tag champions with the Kid. Wow they were burying the tag belts even this far back.

Hakushi is getting all kinds of pops, which goes to show you that no matter how many stupid gimmicks you have, exciting wrestling will shine through in the end. Kid comes in and is booed out of the freaking building. Oh I just got why Pritchard is out there. Very soon, as in maybe a month after this, he would be turned into Zip, the other Body Donna. I guess this is a trial run. They touch on Holly being a two sport athlete.

Perfect says he’s an ALL SPORT ATHLETE. That’s either a great slogan or a great tag line. Either way, it’s more proof that he’s awesome. The crowd actually chants We Want Barry. My goodness has the WWF stumbled onto something here? I think they might have. Since they have, naturally, they did nothing with it and I think this was the last thing they ever did with him of note and he was jobbing again in like a week. And Vince wonders why his company more or less died in less than two years.

Holly comes in and takes out Pritchard with a cross body. Skip immediately comes in and rolls him up for the pin. I know that’s kind of cheap, but it’s a sequence that accomplishes two things here: Number one, it clears the ring of some clutter which when you have less than 20 minutes like these guys do, you have to clear the place out relatively quickly. Second, it plays up the idea of survival, because once you get pinned the match doesn’t stop at all. That’s actually very smart, despite it looking incredibly cheap.

Hakushi was freaking sweet in the ring. Again, he’s getting big pops, so he was jobbing and then gone soon after this. He and Bret had some great matches over the summer of 95. You should check those out. This crowd is white hot too which is helping things a lot. These guys are wrestling an almost cruiserweight style match that’s working very well.

See, WWF managed to screw up the light heavyweight division in so many ways. The first way was in the name. What sounds better: Cruiserweight or Light Heavyweight? It’s just a big garble of words to say. Cruiser sounds smooth and sleek. Second, they kept the belt on the inaugural champion for I think 9 months. Dude, that’s freaking stupid. The point of having a title like that is to have a bunch of fast paced matches for the belt.

People aren’t looking for substance in something like this, but rather flash. Third, they had no rivalries or anything like that. It was just a bunch of random one off matches that meant nothing. The other issue with the matches was that they weren’t flashy at all. They were just small guys wrestling. Look at WCW, where the Cruiserweights were a huge part of the show. They’re all over the place with Mexican and Japanese styles and the fans are all over it.

Finally, there was no Mike Tenay or anyone like him. He was annoying to me, but his commentary got the guys over because he was talking about how great they were. Those little stories he told were interesting and you remembered them. That’s what a commentator is supposed to do. The WWF guys would just sit there and say WHOA! The point of this rant/history lesson is that this right here could have been a great division.

With the exception of Radford, these guys are all the right weight and they had the right style. Also, we know these guys. They’re not just random wrestlers having matches but familiar faces having fast paced matches. This, while looking horrible on paper, is actually pretty good. Naturally, none of these guys ever did anything despite getting good reactions, because they’re not 300lb muscle heads.

It’s part of why Vince can’t expand better than he has already: he won’t import and set up new things that he has the resources to accomplish. Ok I think I’m good now. Actually I’m not. Look at the Kid here. He’s a freshly turned heel that has a very limited track record. Wouldn’t being the evil lightweight champion be a great career move for him?

He’s this young guy that sold out and while everyone hates him, he’s the lightweight (I’d call it Flyweight or something like that) champion that everyone hates. Imagine some of the feuds he could have with that before setting up the showdown with Razor (had he stayed).

I’ve said it a million times: the Kid was suited to face small guys but he failed on all levels against big men like Razor. Imagine Hakushi vs. Kid in a 20 minute match to open the Rumble. That’s a freaking classic. But alas, we’re stuck with him wearing a diaper after losing his 128th match in a row to Ramon. Ok, now it’s out of my system for now.

Razor and some of his buddies are watching in the back as Hakushi misses a springboard splash. Kid hits a spinkick to take out the White Angel. Apparently Horowitz is the captain? Then why did they come out to Jannetty’s music and not the Hava Nagila rock song instead? That’s just awesome on so many levels. On top of that, why mention that JANNETTY WAS CAPTAIN EARLIER IN THE FREAKING MATCH?

Seriously, if you’re going to have a team of jobbers, know who the head jobber is. Radford uses the Perfect neck snap that gets no recognition from Perfect. That surprises me. The way Horowitz is laying on the mat it looks like he’s wearing a thong. If wrestling ever dries up, he could strip. It’s not bad. Anyway, Radford beats on him some more but then poses and Horowitz hits a three quarter nelson rollup and pins him to make it 2-2.

Less than a minute later after a fast tag, Kid Hogan pins Barry with a legdrop, which Vince calls a devastating maneuver, to an even bigger amount of booing than he’s used to, which is to say a freaking ton. That leaves us with Marty against Skip and the Kid. Skip and the Kid sounds like the name of a really bad rap duo. When Marty wasn’t looking like a freaking idiot, he was actually pretty good in the ring.

He hits a Rocker Dropper, which is more or less a slow Fameasser on Skip. Perfect says that’ll break your neck. Bad choice of words Curt: it did break someone’s neck once and massive lawsuits against the WWF followed. Granted that’s obscure so he likely didn’t know. Ok, now this part I just don’t get. Marty goes up top, and Sunny shakes the ropes to crotch him. The referee is watching her do this and yelling at her not to, yet somehow this isn’t a DQ.

It doesn’t matter anyway because Marty hits a freaking powerbomb off the top to eliminate Skip. That was awesome looking. We’re down to Marty vs. Kid and if you don’t know who is going to win this then you’re a freaking idiot. Kid hits a running dropkick which is a move that I can never figure out how is possible. Wow that doesn’t sound correct. Both guys go down and we’re at a double count. I have no issue here because they’ve been wrestling a fast pace and they deserve a short break.

For no apparent reason Sid comes out as Jannetty hits one of my favorite moves ever in the jumping back elbow. I’ve always marked like crazy for that move. Ok, now Razor got sent back but Sid doesn’t? Yeah I love wrestling logic. Every time they say Marty I hear Power of Love from Back to the Future. DiBiase distracts the referee and Sid clotheslines him on the top rope as the crowd chants bull for the pinfall.

Kid needs new music that I don’t think he ever got. The big celebration happens. The beat to that song sounds like a faster LOD song, at least to an extent. We see Razor in the back throwing a freaking fit over Kid winning. He chucks a monitor at the wall. DAng man get laid already.

Rating: A-. I really liked this match. On paper this looks freaking awful but it was great in the ring. Like I said, if you just let small guys have a long fast paced match, it’s going to work most of the time. That’s what happened here. There’s no real story here other than 8 guys having a match and it was very, very good. Find this match as it’s worth checking out.

The mostly heel Wildcard team says that Razor better have his head on straight. Cornette’s rant here is great as he looks like he’s about to fly off the floor from his lips moving so fast. Owen says nothing special and Dean Douglas continues to prove that he’s better than Matt Striker at this gimmick.

Alundra Blayze’s Team vs. Bertha Faye’s Team

Since it’s the captains and three Japanese wrestlers each, I’m not going to bother writing out their names because most of them don’t have Wikipedia pages and I doubt more than 5 people have heard of all of them. There’s a big rant coming later about why this is a bad idea, but I’ll save it for after the rating of this match. The only one you need to worry about is Aja Kong for the heel team. The heels get no intro and the faces get something close to one.

Vince immediately tells JR to do the commentary, which is his way of saying I have no freaking clue who I signed for this so get me someone that either knows or cares at all. The bell rings and the botches begin. Yeah this match is rather sloppy. A woman named Chaparita Asari is put in a giant swing by Lioness Asuka which looks awesome. She must have been spun around 12 times. That was impressive.

After it though Blayze gets tagged in for about 20 seconds before slapping the tights of Asari (who stands 4’9) while she’s on the top rope, only to throw out a big flip called the Skytwister Press. It looked awesome as heck either way. It would have even been better if she was closer than the foot off that she was. I mean she missed EVERYTHING. Her arm grazed the other girl, but that was just bad, and considering it was a three foot jump or so, that’s not good.

After some botched chops, Blayze eliminates her with the bad German Suplex that she used. Also on a related note, when women of this era did slams, why did the tuck the head instead of putting their arm under the head? I’ve never gotten that. Watanabe comes in and in one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen, sees Blayze standing between her legs as she’s on the top, and then throws the moonsault anyway. Yeah that was dumb.

Blayze follows that up with a cross body to the floor that almost misses as well. Look, I get that it’s rare to find women that are high fliers like this, but at least hit your opponents please? Hasagawa, a face, hits rolling butterfly suplexes. Ok that looked awesome. Perfect has some really chauvinistic lines. Aja Kong comes in and beats up Hasagawa while we’re randomly thrown to the Spanish commentators. Back to the English guys and JR, who is given the commentary again by Vince.

A big suplex puts out Hasagawa. Less than 30 seconds later, the tiny Asari goes out to a splash and we have our monster. An Earthquake drop puts out Inoue after 40 seconds. What’s with Kong sticking her tongue out with every cover? Does she think she’s the Undertaker or something? In something very smart, the three heels just all go at Alundra at once. That’s really smart.

Eventually it’s Blayze against Watanabe, and after an ok piledriver it’s 2-1 to actually give us a reaction for the first time in this match. I know I’m not saying much here but that’s the first time since the beginning of the match that there’s been more than a minute between eliminations. How much can I say about a girl coming in, getting clotheslined and after a big move getting pinned? The crowd is just dead here until after what’s called a German suplex it’s Blayze against Kong.

Kong hits her in the shoulder as apparently she thinks she’s Rocky Marciano. Both try their finishers but they don’t work and now Kong uses the girth of her stomach to crush Alundra in the corner. We get some decent back and forth stuff until Kong tries to do the Vader body splash thing then beat on her chest.

She does the exact same sequence again before standing her up and hitting the Awesome Kong spinning back fist which hits Blayze square in the arm for the pin. Yep, the women’s champion got pinned by a woman that was never seen on PPV again. Kong uses the old Orient Express’ music which is awesome.

Rating: D. Ok, now I’m waiting on a Joshi or Puroesu fan to come in here and argue with me over this, because I’m going to tear them apart on this one. I’m going to say this once and for all: Japanese wrestling does not now nor has it ever worked in mainstream American wrestling companies. Now before you jump down my throats, the wrestling is traditionally fine. Guys like Chono and Muta can wrestle five star classics and that’s fine.

However, for the most part, these guys never get over and they never will for a variety of reasons. The biggest is clear: we don’t know who these people are. Now I know the biggest argument here is going to be “well then go watch their matches and find out for yourself.” Well no that’s not how it works. When I turn on Raw I don’t want to have to have watched a series of matches to prepare. It’s wrestling, not a college exam.

Wrestling is supposed to be something that anyone can turn on and watch. This is where problem number 2 comes in: we have no idea why these people are feuding. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated, but just tell us why they’re fighting. Is that so hard? I’ve never once heard of a storyline between two big name Japanese stars, not a single one. The system works fine for Japan, but here it’s just a failure. Finally, get wrestlers that aren’t going to botch 20% of the moves they attempt.

I’m sorry, but this was mostly botches. Coupling that with the fact that no one knew who 6 of these women were along with Kong never being seen again other than I think a lone Raw match, this was just a waste of time. The fans were bored out of their mind for the most part too. Bring it on people.

We go to a Bill Clinton impersonator for absolutely no reason. They did this at Mania 10 and the guy was awesome. This is just weak. Bigelow is on his way to the ring and the Lewinsky Enthusiast says he watches Bam Bam every Saturday. He watches Fred and Barney too. Yes, this actually got PPV time.

Goldust vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

Goldy is a rookie here, having debuted in late October in one of the worst matches I’ve ever seen. Hopefully this is better. It can’t be worse. Bigelow is the epitome of a jobber to the stars here, despite having main evented an In Your House recently. He would be gone very soon though. This match is just flat out boring. It runs a bit over eight minutes and is just run of the mill stuff. You could see anything here at say an indy show or a house show.

While not entirely a squash, it’s very close to one as Bigelow never really is winning past more than maybe a punch here or there. I get why this is on the PPV, but I wish it was more like 5 minutes or so. There’s just not a lot to say here. Goldust wins with a bulldog. Yep that’s all I’ve got.

Rating: C. Honestly, what else can I give this? It’s a generic match that there’s absolutely nothing special at all about. I can’t really grade it so I’ll just call it average. Goldust is brand new so no one really knows anything about him. It’s fine, but overly long.

Back to the president, who is now chatting with Bob Backlund. Backlund was doing a weird gimmick where he wanted to be President. He actually ran for Congress in I think New Hampshire. Naturally he was destroyed, but at least he tried. These are more bad attempts at comedy.

We get a recap of Taker getting his face crushed by Mabel, which leads us to this.

Dark Side vs. Royals

Dark Side: Undertaker, Savio Vega, Fatu, Henry Godwinn
Royals: Mabel, Jerry Lawler, Isaac Yankem, HHH

Dang I was hoping it would be Darkseid. This is Taker’s first match in I think a month, and that’s the team he picks? Geez. As for feuds, the only one I can think of is HHH vs. Henry which apparently is just getting going. The idea of the other team King Lawler, Isaac is the royal dentist (it’s 1995 just go with it. He’s more commonly known as Kane in case you didn’t know that) and HHH is regal-esque I suppose.

Lawler does a short promo explaining this since at the time he’s the only one that has a clue about how to talk at this point. Mabel comes out on the throne that King Macho used to use. That’s just amusing. He is with Sir Mo, as a small part of my soul dies. The king is wearing sunglasses, but not the kind Savage wore. He could pull those off. Mabel, not so much.

Taker of course gets his own entrance, as he should. He’s wearing this weird mask that looks like a skull mixed with Warrior’s face paint. It’s not paint, but it’s in that shape. It just looked weird. Fatu is in his make a difference era, which was somehow stupider than Rikishi. In a great looking shot, Taker pulls off the hat but the camera is from behind him and we see Mabel’s reaction to Taker’s face. That’s awesome.

The curtsey that HHH used was just sweet. He needs to be a full time heel. Vince says Fatu is one of the premiere athletes in the WWF. That’s beyond laughable. After some stupid fear spots from the heels, we’ve got Godwinn vs. future Kane. WOW. Mr. Perfect refers to Helmsley as HHH. That name wouldn’t actually take effect for over two years. How far ahead of the game (pun intended) was he?

Oh all of the faces are wearing shirts that say Rest In Peace on the back. Wow what a show of team unity that is. While Lawler’s selling was great, Savio continued to be a complete waste of oxygen. He dances a bit and according to Vince, that means “Come on Jerry Lawler get up and let’s go.” Did Vince major in interpretive dance or something in college? It amuses me that of all the heels, Yankem would become the second most successful.

He pulls off a half decent dropkick which amazes me. I’ll never get over a guy that big being able to get in the air like that. It was sloppy but it was good enough I suppose. Vince brags about Vega. Was he an affirmative action guy or something? What talent did he ever have? He takes the Lawler piledriver as we are LIVE from USAir Arena. Can someone explain the point of those to me? I just don’t get it.

Savio gets back in with what we would refer to as a Rock Bottom. It doesn’t have a name here yet though, and it wouldn’t have been wasted on someone like Savio so there we go. Ok, now we have a sequence that is literally too dumb to describe. Ok no it’s not because I’m going to describe it but you get the idea. All right, now you all know that Lawler’s big move is the piledriver. He’s beaten a ton of guys with it and it’s devastating right?

The people were surprised that Vega kicked out of it a few seconds before, so apparently it’s a good move right? It worked on Savio a few seconds before, so logically it should work now. Instead though, Lawler hits it again, and while he’s sitting on the mat, Savio jumps up and dives to his corner to tag Taker, and THEN collapses from it. What in the world was that supposed to be?

Now I could understand if it was a move like a sharpshooter or something where it’s an extremity and you could get to your corner on pure adrenaline. Even a powerbomb or something like that where you land on your back would make something close to sense here, but not a freaking piledriver. You get dropped on your head but apparently Vega has a titanium cranium and can withstand blows to it like that. That just looked so stupid. Sell the move you imbecile.

Now that Taker is in, I think you can figure the rest out. In less than three minutes, two tombstones, a chokeslam and Mabel running means a clean sweep. Taker was AWESOME here as they put him over as an unstoppable force that was obsessed with revenge, which is when he’s at his best.

Above all else: the crowd was white hot for him as he continues to be possibly the most over face in the company at the time. Also, who would have thought that in less than three years, Taker vs. Isaac Yankem would have been the second main event at Wrestlemania with Taker looking like he was going to go down. Taker beats up Mo after the match so this was a good ending.

Rating: B-. This was a tale of two matches. The first part, which is before the tag to Taker, was ok at best. The second part, after the tag to Taker, was awesome. When Taker is used exactly right, he’s one of it not the most exciting wrestlers to watch ever. No one, and I repeat no one, goes off on someone like Undertaker. When he’s ticked off, he’s my all time favorite character to watch. This might as well have been a handicap match.

Taker would go on to feud with Diesel very soon after this. I think it started at the Rumble. Taker and Mabel had a worthless casket match at the next PPV that I actually forgot about. It was just horrible as Vince pulled the plug hard on Mabel and fed him to Taker.

Bret says that he’s not worried about facing Bulldog at the next PPV and that he feels like Wayne Gretzky.

Diesel says he wants the Bulldog too but he’s not sweating Bret. I probably should mention that Smith got cheated out of his title shot at the last PPV and therefore he’s getting a rematch with the winner of Bret vs. Diesel at the next In Your House.

Cornette is now with the other Wildcard team and says he wasn’t with the other one earlier. DiBiase says not to cross him. My goodness what I would give for a long term program between those two.

Wildcard Match

Team 1: Yokozuna, Owen Hart, Razor Ramon, Dean Douglas
Team 2: Shawn Michaels, Ahmed Johnson, Sid, British Bulldog

The idea here is faces mixed with heels. That’s a decent idea actually, but it begs the question of what is this going to accomplish? The point of a Survivor Series match is to continue a feud, but there’s nothing major going on here feud wise. This is Ahmed’s PPV debut, so no one knows much about him. Cornette is trying to figure a way to manage both teams which is amusing. Yoko’s fat has reached gargantuan proportions.

Dean Douglas here is the teacher gimmick that was 100x better than what Matt Striker did with it. Razor’s pop is still solid and he’s STILL the Intercontinental champion. Did he ever lose that thing? Razor’s pop is still solid, but at this point I completely understand him leaving. He’s been stuck in the same place for three years now and is STILL feuding with the 1-2-3 Kid. He could wrestle, he got pops, he could talk, yet he never got out of the midcard. That just makes zero sense.

He easily could have been a main event level guy and maybe even have had a very short title run. Are you telling me people wouldn’t have bought Razor vs. Diesel for the title? I would have been interested in it. At least he was vindicated though as he went to WCW and was a major reason as to why the WWF almost died.

As for why these people are in the match, Shawn is because he’s on the verge of breaking through the glass ceiling, Owen, Bulldog and Yoko are Camp Cornette, Razor and Douglas had fought for the IC Title at the last PPV where Douglas had been awarded the title after Shawn had to forfeit it and Sid had fought Razor on Raw this past Monday. Ahmed is there…just because I guess. He slammed Yoko a few weeks ago so he’s been booked very hard early.

Vince really wanted to make him world champion, but injuries and a lack of talent prevented that from happening. Shawn’s pop is ridiculous. He was in the angle where he had been really badly injured time after time but kept coming back, which would ultimately result in him getting hurt one more time and returning at the Rumble, where he would win it to face Bret in the Iron Man match at Mania. Perfect can’t stand him, saying Shawn has nothing on him.

At least Perfect keeps up his feuds from the past. Ross makes a political analogy out of this which completely fails. Naturally they argue over who is going to start. Shawn can’t find his corner. Yep he’s likely bombed. We start with Shawn and Owen, so this will at least begin well. In case you didn’t notice the first 10 times, this was made by President Gorilla Monsoon. These two start hot with Shawn hitting a very impressive move.

He’s thrown over the top, skins the cat and grabs Owen’s head with his legs to pull him over, and then skins it again to get back in. Who in the world named that move? What kind of a creepy name is skinning the cat? Is that some weird reference that I’m just not getting, or did people actually skin a cat and think this looked like it/ That’s just creepy.

Anyway, they stay hot in the ring. How in the world was this not the main event of the 98 Rumble? Everything was there, yet it never happened. I’ve always thought it was because Shawn was afraid Owen would shoot on him and kill him, which is understandable I guess. Dean comes in and punches Shawn down which is surprising. Shawn has TR on his boots. I have no idea what that means.

This was during the time where Shawn was so far above just about everyone not named Hart that it was a given that he would be in the title picture very soon. This is easily the best time of his career from an in ring perspective. We get the warm tag to Ahmed and Perfect changes his stance on him about every two seconds which is amusing. Now it’s Ahmed vs. Yoko, in a match that could set wrestling back decades.

Thankfully Douglas comes back in. What am I saying? It’s a scary thought when he’s the improvement. Razor shows some heel tendencies by beating on Ahmed a bit in the corner. Honestly, they picked Ahmed to get beaten on out of all the people they have on their team? In a cool spot, Ahmed picks Shawn up and launches him into Dean with a cross body. That was cool. Eventually Douglas tries to bail but Razor stops him before punching his partner into a roll up by Shawn for the pin.

Shawn used the tights, but since he’s almost the top face in the company we’ll overlook that. We move on to Owen vs. Bulldog which should be good. Davey offers a left handed handshake which even thinking about is making typing feel weird. Owen takes it but both have the same idea and punch each other with their right hand. They tag out to Razor and Shawn, who apparently are nervous about fighting despite having had a ladder match two months prior.

Ross gets in either a huge insult or a joke, asking if they can wrestle each other without a ladder. Vince laughs, but it’s one of those that’ll be a week’s pay laughs. They stand there looking at each other for about a minute, so we cut to an arena shot and we can barely see them finally make contact. Dude, were the production people on drugs or something? These cuts make zero sense most of the time.

Anyway, we have them going at it after missing ten seconds of it due to needing to see the 192nd row for some reason. Shawn goes for the forearm but Razor isn’t in place I suppose and it’s more like a shoulder block. Shawn nips up anyway, as Razor suddenly remembers he’s supposed to be up. That was a weird looking sequence. Razor actually gets the Razor’s Edge clean and covers but Ahmed makes the save. That was really surprising.

Shawn ducked and Razor just got him up and hit it like Shawn was a jobber. This is a weird match. Within 30 seconds we have two instances where both guys are down. Oh yeah they’re both in the clique. That’s why this is a weird sequence.

For some reason Sid is facing the crowd as Shawn gets the tag to him and we have Razor vs. Sid now. Has there ever been a more overrated big man than Sid? If there has been I can’t think of one. Naturally he got a huge main event push everywhere he went, but he still was just bad in the ring most of the time. In ANOTHER weird spot, Sid is stomping Razor and Yoko comes in, hits him once, gets kicked in the chest and then leaves as Sid goes back to stomping. Yeah that was pointless.

Oh look two guys are down again. What’s with this stop and go style of wrestling? I really don’t care for it. Sid tries to go to the top but since he used to be a Horsemen, that doesn’t work as he pulls the Flair spot from it. Sid does impress me though as he hits a one handed chokeslam on Razor, who weighs about 270. Wait, why is Sid up that fast after getting slammed off the top? Sid calls for Shawn to kick Razor and you know where this is going.

Yep Shawn kicks Sid but doesn’t really seem to mind. Razor covers him but Bulldog runs in for the save with a leg drop that somehow misses and hits Sid. Razor covers him again like nothing went wrong and pins him. Vince and Ross are confused as to why Bulldog tried for the save there. Maybe because his partner was about to get pinned boys? Could that have something to do with it? Apparently not.

See even Vince and JR can’t figure this thing out and one of them likely came up with it. Ok so it’s 3-3 now as I’m trying to remember who is who here. Ok so it’s Bulldog vs. Razor, making it heel vs. face but the face is on the heel team and the heel is on the face team but the heel on the face team is acting like a heel despite supposedly being a face for this match while the face on the heel team is acting heelish, meaning that everyone is doing their job? I need a chart or something here.

This is like the smark’s nightmare match. As Bulldog is beating on Razor, Sid comes back and powerbombs his partner Shawn. I really hate this match. Oh and Bulldog goes to the apron despite never tagging in Shawn. Shawn of course kicks out to a short but loud pop. We’re back to Shawn and Owen now, which hopefully makes this more sensible. Since that would be the best case scenario, we switch out to Yoko to make this bad again.

JR says this is a bigger mismatch than Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett to really date the show a bit. Uh oh it’s Yoko with the evil nerve hold! They discuss the idea of Shawn being world champion but they’re not sure if it could ever happen, which more or less cements that it’s going to happen in the future. Owen runs in to stomp on Shawn a bit while the referee isn’t looking, which again confuses Vince. It’s run of the mill heel tactics, so why is this weird?

A diving headbutt by Owen misses and allows Shawn to tag Ahmed. A Pearl River Plunge, called the Tiger Bomb which is a better name, ends Owen to make it 3-2. That gives us Razor vs. Ahmed which on paper sounds appealing but in reality it’s not a great match up due to Ahmed’s limited ability. Granted he’s a rookie so I’ll cut him a break here. Razor does manage to get a bad Edge on him but sans tag, Bulldog comes in to beat on Razor instead.

Kid and Sid come out and trip Razor, leading to the powerslam and a 3-1 disadvantage. It’s Yoko vs. Shawn, Bulldog and Ahmed for those idiots out there keeping score. They mention that the next night it would be Shawn vs. Owen on Raw, which is the infamous black out match which led to the Rumble return and victory for Shawn.

Ahmed comes in and slams Yoko (kind of) but the Bulldog breaks it up. Shawn and Ahmed end him, leading to sweet chin music and a splash from Ahmed which for some reason comes with a scream while he’s in the air to end this.

Rating: C+. The wrestling was ok, but I have no clue what the point of this was. It’s one of those matches where it’s just thrown out there to see if it works and apparently they didn’t think it did because it was never seen again as far as I can remember. The psychology was all screwed up here since it was faces and heels together which throws everything off. This was an ok concept on paper, but in reality it was a failure to me.

We kill some more time with Sunny sitting on the fake President’s lap. This is stupid.

We recap Diesel vs. Bret which is part three of a trilogy apparently. I have issues with a trilogy going nearly a year, but whatever. Bret points out that he’ll have the advantage in a longer match, while Nash points out that he is going to try to knock Bret out. That makes sense. Bret says Diesel has been walking about with his title. That makes a bit of sense because Bret got one rematch but there was no winner. That kind of makes sense I guess.

The announcers talk about who will win.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Diesel

Bret gets a ridiculous pop. The announcer calls this the WWF’s Championship. It just sounded weird. Bret is still the only man that can make pink look intimidating. Apparently this is no holds barred which I think was mentioned earlier. Both guys pull a turnbuckle pad off. Yeah it’s no holds barred. They imply they might run out of PPV time, which is a rarity but can happen.

Bret goes for the leg but Diesel immediately goes for a power move. That makes a lot of sense actually as Diesel has the mindset of he can’t get caught with a bad leg. The announcers mention that this could go anywhere which pretty much guarantees that it won’t. Bret keeps running from him which again kind of makes sense as he’s trying to run Diesel down and avoid the big power moves.

Of course Vince thinks Bret is wrong here. I’m sure Vince is right here. After all he’s a former WWF Champion remember? They’re starting really slowly here which is ok I guess. Bret is in trouble and that means it’s a good thing. He’s one of the best ever at just getting beaten up which happens even more with Diesel beating on him with a chair. Back in the ring, Diesel goes for the Jackknife but Bret grabs the leg. That’s so basic it’s amazing.

Bret finally gets to the knee as they try to make this sound like it’s about survival. Perfect says that everyone is the same when they’re on the mat. No not really as Diesel is still really tall. Ross says this is vintage Hart which has now entered the lexicon of wrestling jokes. We hit the figure four so at least the thought process is solid here. Diesel gets the ropes and Bret doesn’t let go. It’s no DQ so what can the referee even do? Not anything when you think about it.

Naturally Bret lets it go because he’s just a nice guy I guess. Bret finds a cord at ringside and ties one end to the post and the other to Diesel’s leg. He can naturally tie knots. He used to be a cowboy after all. Nash fights out of it though so there’s no point to that whole sequence. Now Bret gets a chair, which makes sense because all that cowboy stuff must have worn him out. Diesel’s leg is still tied as he knocks Bret down.

Ok Bret pops right back up and hits him with the chair. Bret gets crotched on the top rope and slammed off as Diesel finally unties himself. Ross suggests that Bret was a boy scout since that was a great knot. No Jim, he was COWBOY BRET HART! Bret goes chest first into the exposed turnbuckle and Vince says he should give up right now, and Vince would know all about when Bret should quit. He would prove that in two years.

Diesel puts Bret in the same position for the 619 and tries to run back and jump on him but he can’t because of the leg. Instead he just jumps in the air and crashes down on him. That’s both smart and stupid at the same time. If his leg is hurt, how can he jump? However, it’s smart because it’s an intelligent and innovative move.

Nash takes a head first shot to the exposed buckle. Perfect says this is a great fight and he’s correct. It’s a bad match though. Bret is in control now as we’re running out of time. He hits that perfect Russian leg sweep of his. I love that move. With Diesel on the floor, Bret goes for a pescado but over rotates and crashes badly. As he’s trying to get back in, Bret gets knocked to the floor through the Spanish Announce Table which deserves its own place in the hall of fame.

This was a new thing at the time so that was considered a huge spot. It’s just a run of the mill table and not the kind they have now so this looks and sounds a lot better than the traditional kind. Back in the ring Bret collapses as Diesel goes for the Jackknife. He picks Bret up again and there is the small package for the title. Diesel calls Bret a few profane words after this before jackknifing Bret in half. He also hits two refs which stuns Ross as Diesel turns heel. We get a recap of the show as we’re done.

Rating: C+. Like Perfect and I combined to say, it was a good fight but not a good match. There’s no flow to this at all as it’s just almost random spots going back and forth. It felt like an Attitude Era title match, which is fine if you’re Austin or someone like that, but Bret didn’t need to use that style and it failed to me. Still, it’s entertaining enough I guess, but I’m rarely a fan of no holds barred matches for the title. It just isn’t my thing. It was ok, but far from great.

Overall Rating: B-. This show is the epitome of just barely above average. There’s some good stuff here but there’s also some bad stuff. There really isn’t a truly bad match outside of arguably the women’s match, but that was something that is going to be loved by marks and hated by smarks so there we go. Other than that, this is pretty good I suppose. The title change was big as it ended a year long run.

Other than that, the matches are all at least decent, but nothing really jumps off the page as great. It’s good for a one time view, but it’s not likely to be something you’re going to watch more than once. Granted I think that has to do with the company as a whole at this point as very little was going right around this time. Still, it’s ok, but like I said don’t get your hopes up.

 

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Survivor Series 1994
Date: November 23, 1994
Location: Freeman Coliseum, San Antonio, Texas
Attendance: 10,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Gorilla Monsoon

Given that commentary team, I’m a bit worried. Your main match here is Taker vs. Yoko in a rematch of the Rumble’s casket match where something like 10 guys beat up Taker and caused him to be taken out of the company for about three or four months. Tonight the guest referee is Chuck Norris. Nope I’m not making that up and I guarantee there will be a ton of jokes about it.

Other than that we have Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund for the WWF Title which is an I Quit match where someone has to throw in the towel for you, which is how Backlund lost the title back in the early 80s. Other than that we have three Survivor Series matches which don’t look very appealing.

I think they finally got the balance right here with two singles matches that were huge and the rest were traditional matches. It looks ok on paper and since this is my second time reviewing it, I know it’s at least pretty good. Let’s see if it’s as good as it was four days ago.

We open with clips of all the teams getting pep talks from their leaders. Shawn is very cocky, which would come into play later on. Lawler is the only captain that doesn’t want a camera on these meetings. Since we’re in Texas, everyone is wearing a cowboy hat. Oh how I love these theme PPVs.

The announcers run down the card with Gorilla not being able to get a word in. Yep it’s going to be one of those kinds of nights. As Fink introduces the first team, he’s really hard to understand. If I didn’t know what to listen for I’d be completely lost here.

Teamsters vs. Bad Guys

Teamsters: Shawn Michaels, Diesel, Owen Hart, Jim Neidhart, Jeff Jarrett
Bad Guys: Razor Ramon, 1-2-3 Kid, British Bulldog, Fatu, Sionne

Sionne is the Barbarian replacing Samu. Your feuds line up like this: Razor vs. Diesel, since Razor took the IC belt from him about a month or so prior to this. That’s about it really. Oh Bulldog is there because of Owen and Neidhart. Other than that, yeah there’s no feuds or drama going on at all that I can remember. On the way to the ring, Shawn dives in front of Diesel to be in the spotlight. They’re tag champions at the time. Oh that’s right.

They took the belts from the Headshrinkers so that’s at least most of the team. Vince says that Survivor Series only comes once a year. Well yeah so does every other day of the year but we don’t have a freaking PPV for it. Although I have a feeling that if Vince could get away with it he’d try to. Gorilla trying to sound like a cowboy is rather amusing. Vince and Gorilla argue over who the captain is. Shawn is really turning into the heel that he would become famous as.

Gorilla is once again glad he retired. Did this guy hate his career or something? In a running story of this match, Fatu is having trouble with his new boots. He was barefoot for years and apparently wearing boots is a plot point to a match now. Yep that makes great sense. They mention that they can’t find Jarrett’s new CD anywhere as Gorilla continues his love affair with kayfabe.

You know, Barbarian really wasn’t that bad of a worker. He had more or less the same gimmick with a few minor tweaks for his entire career and he always managed to find work. Sure he’s generic but he stuck with his stuff and he got steady work out of it. That’s really all you can ask for isn’t it? We get Owen vs. Bulldog which is of course great. Owen is now the Rocket King. Yeah that’s not a weird name at all.

If there has ever been a match of two guys that could have been world champion but never could pull it off, this is it. Bulldog does that delayed suplex on Anvil which is rather impressive. The faces have momentum so naturally, they stop things dead for another foot issue with Fatu. Jarrett and Razor go at it for awhile, which was a very good feud actually.

Shawn’s hair is ridiculously short here. He almost looks like Rick Rude if that tells you anything. Jarrett really was good in the ring. For some reason people never took to him as a superstar. I think it was the singing thing. It’s sad to hear Gorilla not be able to get more than a few lines in at a time. Vince insists that he is the best commentator of all time and he’s going to make sure you know it too.

The heels do a lot of harmless standard stuff on the Kid that isn’t really interesting at all. Diesel finally comes in and within two and a half minutes he’s eliminated everyone but Razor. It’s three jackknives and a shot that leads to a count out. That makes it 5-1 with Razor being the only guy left. As you can tell Diesel is an absolute freak at this point in time. Shawn yells at Diesel to stay in the match.

Razor is beating Diesel who to be fair is worn out at this point since he can’t buy a tag. Diesel hits the jackknife and Razor is dead. Shawn gets in for the first time and he wants Razor held up for the kick. You know what’s coming here and yep, Shawn kicks Diesel. Now the cool part: Diesel doesn’t go down. He goes to one knee, but the kick doesn’t knock him completely down. Diesel is TICKED. He goes after Shawn who runs.

The rest of his team tries to calm him down with Owen and Jarrett screaming that they need to get back before they lose. Shawn gets counted out and apparently that’s enough to eliminate all five guys and yes, Razor wins like that. Ok, let’s see why this is stupid. Number one, only Shawn was legal. If he’s the only one legal, then another ten count should have started up. Now if no one else got in before that, then sure it’s a count out.

Also, if Jarrett and Hart were so worried, why didn’t one of them run back? That would at least have made sense. This was just an odd ending. No scratch that. It was a freaking stupid ending. What was the plan here? Was this supposed to be intelligent?

To be fair though, this really did look cool and was a good face turn as this was I think the third time that this had happened. The people were getting behind Diesel at the time and they pulled the trigger on him at the perfect time. Even the fans don’t sound thrilled about Razor, the biggest face in the match, winning like this though. That’s just never a good sign.

Rating: C-. It was ok at best before Diesel got in there but then he stole the show. This was a rollercoaster of a match with no eliminations for 13 minutes then four in less than three then five at once. That’s a bit too much over the top stuff for my taste. The in ring work was solid, but this was just for Shawn and Diesel and the face turn, so that’s all fine and good I guess. It wasn’t bad, but this could have been better. I’m just not sure how.

Todd is in the back with Pettingill as he’s leaving the arena. He says that he made Diesel and that he got stabbed in the back. He throws down the belt thereby vacating them and drives off as Vince tells Todd that Diesel is on the way. Ok wait. First of all, why is Vince telling Todd this? Couldn’t it just have gone to Todd?

I know Vince likes to be involved in everything but this is ridiculous. Second, Shawn had time to get his bag, stop to talk to Todd, walk with Todd, get in his car, talk to Todd more, and Diesel was just on his way? Did he stop to have a taco or something?

Royal Family vs. Clowns R Us

Royal Family: Jerry Lawler, Cheesy, Queasy, Sleazy
Clowns R Us: Doink, Dink, Wink, Pink

Yes this is a midget match. They have three guys that look like them and yeah, that’s about it. Lawler is borderline abusive to his guys though. Since this match completely sucks, here’s the short version: Doink and Lawler do maybe a single move and then the small guys run in for a comedy spot. It’s high class stuff like running over and making faces at the other team and then running back to their corner. Yep it’s one of those kinds of matches.

The commentators imply that the kings are kids, despite them having FACIAL HAIR. To prove the stupidity of this match, the announcers point out that when one of the big guys is pinned, the guy that pins him is in essence eliminated too since it can only be big vs. big and little vs. little. This comedy stuff goes on for about ten minutes. That’s just freaking stupid. The holds and moves they do are things like armbars and wristlocks too.

While they’re on the mat, the guys run back and forth and all six run over Lawler. I wish I had a gun so I could shoot either myself or the screen. And now the six all run over Doink. All this is done to make faces at each other. Yes I hate this match quite a bit. Why do we always have to have these comedy matches? There’s never a point to them and only Vince likes them. I hate this so much. Oh look, it’s a Burger King crown. This is just so funny. How did Lawler get here? He had a career.

Dink wants to fight Lawler, so he gets on Doink’s shoulders. Lawler counters by getting on one of the small king’s shoulders. I’ll give you two guesses as to how this goes. It’s been only the two big guys the whole match. We get a random Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade ad as apparently the WWF has a part of a float. I don’t care either. As we get a test of strength, it’s a double criss cross by the midgets. Take me now.

One of them gives Lawler an object and he nails Doink. You would think that would be the pin but nope, it’s time for more comedy. I feel like I’m at a bad circus. Instead Doink goes on offense and it takes a reversed cross body to eliminate him. Over the next five minutes it’s the clowns getting beaten after cheating from Lawler. Of this whole thing, only Dink is actually entertaining.

His offense makes sense, he’s energetic, he plays to the crowd and he’s not boring. That’s such a nice change of pace. Of course Lawler’s team gets the clean sweep. Afterwards he takes credit for the whole thing and all six guys come after him which is just rather stupid. To end this awfulness, Doink comes back and pies Lawler. Yep, that’s how it ends.

Rating: G. That’s below an F. That sums it up I’d think. Dink gets a passing grade. He was actually really fun and entertaining. That might be because it was actual wrestling, but I could be wrong.

We hear about the Women’s Title change three days ago in Japan where Alundra Blayze lost to Bull Nakano. I haven’t seen it but from what I’ve heard it was a great one. Wouldn’t it be great to either see the match or a rematch or something instead of what we just sat through? Nope apparently that wasn’t good enough though, so instead we have Lawler getting pied by a clown. Nakano is here, so why can’t we have the match? I hate Vince at times.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund

The deal here is that Backlund says that since he never gave up in 83, he never should have lost the title and therefore has had a 13 year title reign (he had the belt for two years when he lost it). He also says there’s no counter for the Cross Face Chicken Wing while Hart says that everything has a counter. Owen and Bulldog are the respective seconds and one of them have to throw in the towel to get the win.

Both have sworn they won’t do it. By those rules, regular submissions don’t count so you can give up all you want and it won’t count. That….is kind of stupid. They start out rather hot and fast which would be the peak of that aspect of the match. Bret uses a heabutt a lot. Has he ever gotten hurt using one of those? Not that I remember at least. We’re already on the mat as they actually compare the resumes of these two, and I think Backlund is slightly in the lead.

Six years as world champion is very hard to ignore. They mention a poll that was taken and 79% say that the Chicken Wing is the better hold? Gorilla, much like myself, refuses to believe that. They’re doing a very slow start here as Stu and Helen are watching from ringside. This is a bit odd as Bret will do…HOLY CRAP! Bret put on the abdominal stretch and Monsoon DIDN’T COMPLAIN!

That has never happened before and will likely never happen again. Dang I need a stiff drink after that. Orange juice will do fine. Anyway, as I was saying before I had my heart attack, Bret is doing a bunch of submission stuff and then Backlund will go for the chicken wing. That’s a bit of a cool idea I think with Bret being the master of all submissions and Bob being the guy with one big home run hitting move that he knows will win him the title if he can get it.

The impressive thing here though is that Bob is not only hanging with Bret here but at times flat out beating him. That’s saying a lot for someone that wasn’t a regular wrestler for years on end. Vince says that Bret doesn’t know how to submit. How amusing is it that he says this about Bret at the Survivor Series? Apparently Vince is right here though since Bret never did give up.

It never ceases to amaze me how much a few years can change things and how ironic so many of these lines would eventually become and now are in hindsight. Now for a nice change of pace, Backlund does a lot of mat work on Bret. He works over his arm, which makes sense for a change. Bret hits the post shoulder first in one of the most time honored bumps ever. That’s been used for years and it still works to this day.

Bret keeps trying to make his comebacks but Bob keeps taking him down, seemingly with ease. That’s the mark of a great wrestler: he can do his stuff and make it look easy. Now we get to what is likely the stupidest part of the match as Bret makes his traditional comeback and puts on his other submission hold: the figure four. Now this is fine, but Backlund gives up. However, the match doesn’t end because Owen refuses to throw in the towel.

So in other words, Bret has won the submission match, but he didn’t do it properly? Yeah that just sounds stupid. IN other words, you could just get some jerk to be the towel guy and then break your opponent’s leg or something, but since the towel isn’t thrown in it means nothing? Yeah that makes great sense.

I have to give the fans this: for a match that’s about 90% mat work, they’re staying interested. Hopefully this Sunday at Breaking Point (this is Thursday, three days before that), that’s what happens too. Backlund manages to reverse it for all of a minute. Bret gets ready for the Sharpshooter but Bob is back in it. Oh never mind no he’s not. Gorilla is finally able to talk a bit as Backlund actually wins a fist fight here. He’s quite underrated.

He follows it with a piledriver as I’m impressed by this guy. Bob works on the arm even more and the selling from Bret is great as he looks like he’s in agony. The fans are actually still in this too, which makes me feel better than they could actually get into very old school style like this. This is practically out of the 50s or 60s. Anyway, after another three minutes or so of getting beaten on, Bret makes probably his third comeback and gets the Sharpshooter, but Owen runs in for the save.

Bulldog chases him and we get the bit spot of the match as he freaking LUNGES at Owen but Rocket moves out of the way and Bulldog smacks the steps hard. He’s out cold, and Owen doesn’t know what to do now. As Bret looks down at this, he gets locked in the Chicken Wing. Now what follows is something you’ll hardly ever see again; Bret is in the hold for over nine minutes straight. Yes that’s correct, nine minutes. How many Raw main events don’t even get that long?

Now imagine Hart being in the same hold that long. The thing is, the fans are going to be rather bored when you think about it. Actually maybe not. Two things are going to happen here. First of all, people are going to start thinking that there’s no way that Bret is going to lose. Second, with every passing second that goes by, the people start thinking that any second now it’s going to happen, and that build up even more tension.

That is actually something close to brilliant when you think about it. After the first four minutes or so, Owen begins pleading with his family to save Bret and saying that he didn’t mean for this to happen. Ok wait a minute. If Owen is trying to get his parents to throw in the towel, doesn’t that mean that it doesn’t have to be the predetermined towel thrower?

Ok that’s all fine. However, if that’s the case, why can’t Owen just throw it in himself? Wouldn’t that make a lot more sense? Maybe because he’s the other thrower he can’t do that? That actually makes sense because if that was allowed then it would be like a Vince Russo match with one person having to throw in the other towel first to lose. But wait, if anyone can do it, why not just have a big gang come out and take the towel from Davey and throw it in?

See why I’m not a fan of this era’s booking? It has holes in it that you could drive a truck through. Anyway, Stu keeps saying no way while Helen is on the verge of screaming. Owen begs and begs, eventually getting down on his knees. As a credit to Bret, even though he’s been in this thing nearly ten minutes, the whole time he’s been trying to roll around and move a bit so that it’s not just him laying there.

That’s the mark of a great worker: the main story is on the floor because as evidenced earlier, the wrestlers can give up all they want but the towel has to be thrown in to end the match. Bret could literally lay there forever and it would have fit the rules of the match perfectly.

However, he realized that it was better to at least look like he was trying, which makes the match more believable, despite the focus not being on him at all. That’s a very nice little touch and another reason why Bret is better than you, along with getting to screw 20 year old Sunny. That makes him divine.

While this is all happening, including the pleading from Owen, Bulldog is still out like a light. He hasn’t moved in like 10 minutes and no one has come to help him. You can see him laying there out cold behind Stu while Owen is freaking out. Only in the WWF could an employee lay on the floor for that long and have no help given to him at all. Also, I think Stu has lost some age in the past year.

He looks MUCH better than he did the year before. Last year he looked like he was about 90. Now he could pass for 60 or so. That’s rather impressive. Dang he’s 79 years old at this point. I’m impressed indeed. Anyway, Helen can’t take anymore and snatches the towel away from Stu to throw it in and give Backlund the title as the fans are a combination of stunned and MAD, but more of the former.

Bob freaking Backlund just won the world title. However, the more important thing is that as soon as they throw the towel in, Owen jumps to his feet cheering before sprinting to the back pumping his fist, revealing it was the greatest acting job since a diva had to act like Vince was hot. Bret deserves an award here for the selling. It’s amazingly great. We now get the awesomeness that is the celebration of Backlund’s victory.

He is euphoric over winning here, holding his hands up in the air and with the belt around his waist. It’s so simple but his facial expressions shove this to such a high level of awesomeness that it’s insane. Since it goes with it, I’ll include Owen’s interview as part of this. As we cut to the back, the look on the face of Owen is amazing as well.

See what happens when you give the best workers the best storylines? You get great material. Anyway, Owen admits that it was all a setup and that this is the greatest day of his life, since he’s going to get all of the titles and that he’ll never quit. His face here is mind blowingly awesome. That whole thing was epic.

Rating: A. The only thing keeping this from an A+ is some of the holes in the booking, but this was magnificent. However, I could very easily see how some people wouldn’t be into this. It’s very hit or miss and while I and most of the other old school fans would love this, a lot of people wouldn’t get why it’s great and for once, I’m perfectly fine with that. It’s not something that everyone can get into and that’s fine.

It’s a very different style than any of us are used to since it’s such an old school style. It’s the epitome of hit or miss with people likely either loving it completely or wanting a hatchet to cut out their eyes so they will be less bored. However, the stuff at the end is almost impossible to love. The emotions and acting here are top notch and the whole 45 minute plus (yes it’s that long) segment is just amazing to me, but like I said, if you disagree here, I understand for a change.

Now since I doubt most of you remember Backlund’s reign, I thought you might like to see how it ends. This is four days after Survivor Series in Madison Square Garden.

Backlund then crawled up the aisle to leave. He made Nash look like a god and it worked beautifully. However, later on he complained about how Nash took the celebration too far and didn’t show him enough respect. Dude, you’re 45 years old and more or less a novelty act who got beat in 8 seconds so that they could save Nash vs. Hart. Get over your hall of fame self.

Vince and Gorilla can’t believe it. Vince booked it, why couldn’t he believe it?

Guts N Glory vs. Million Dollar Team

Guts N Glory: Lex Luger, Mabel, Adam Bomb, Smoking Guns
Million Dollar Team: King Kong Bundy, Tatanka, Bam Bam Bigelow, Heavenly Bodies

Bundy isn’t really the captain. He’s just listed first here. I don’t think there actually was one here. This was the tail end of the awesome Tatanka vs. Luger feud, which kick started at Summerslam. The idea was simple: Tatanka and just about everyone else on the planet thought Luger had sold out to DiBiase, but there was no concrete proof. Basically DiBiase kept helping Luger, but there was never anything for sure.

Tatanka kept saying Luger did it, but Luger denied it. This led to a match at Summerslam, where in reality Tatanka was the one that had sold out all along. It was a lot better than it sounds here and that’s your main basis for this match. It’s really more DiBiase vs. Luger, but Luger had to get his army of lower midcard faces to help him out so here we are. Have I ever mentioned that I absolutely hate Men on a Mission? I absolutely loathe them.

Mo isn’t here for this, but we still get Mabel and Oscar, making M.O. out of them, so in a weird way we have all three of them. Yeah that was stupid. Luger and Tatanka start here as Vince recaps everything I just said. I beat Vince to it. Take that you old man. While Luger is getting chopped, Mable raises the roof on the apron, showing the cutting edge intellectual capacity he brings to this team. They somehow botch a clothesline where Luger hits him in the back of the head.

Pritchard comes in but before Luger kills him we get Mabel vs. Bundy. Please take me now. Wait apparently no we don’t. Ok so wait, Mabel came in and challenged Bundy, then stepped out just to come back in. Yeah I hate this match already. The crowd chants Whoop there it is. Bundy is out in less than ten seconds and Pritchard comes back in. Since he’s tiny and Mable has his own gravitational pull, this is going to be quick.

He goes to the second rope and hits a freaking CROSS BODY BLOCK onto Pritchard to kill him completely. Vince botches the call by saying that the Gigolo calls himself Del Ray. Is anyone else getting a migraine? I know I am. Somehow for the third time in four minutes we have Bundy vs. Mable.

Yep I’ll have that image in my head for the rest of the show, and somehow it’s less stupid than this. Amazingly, this showdown is awful. Let’s go to Bigelow. He has that pesky thing called talent though so he just doesn’t fit in here at all. He goes for an enziguri which misses but Mabel tries a spin kick. I would say hits, but he literally misses by at least 10 inches. I mean this was awful. The fans loudly groaned at the sight of it.

I have to finish it. I have to finish it. I have to finish it. This HAS to improve. I don’t think it can actually get worse. They both go to the floor so they can lay there for awhile since it’s past their nap times. They have to stop for one an hour after they eat. They take a lot of naps.

Mabel gets counted out as Bigelow beats the count. Somehow that fat tub of goo would be the King of the Ring and top heel within 8 months. Vince must have been on the REALLY GOOD crack at this time. Or maybe he didn’t have any in him at all and that’s what caused all this. So now we have Del Ray vs. Billy Gunn. Somehow, this is better. Read who’s in there, and think about that for a minute.

Now we shift to Bomb vs. Bigelow and Adam hits that SWEET slingshot clothesline of his. Dang I love that move. He dominates just like he would do against Mabel at In Your House but after one shot from Bundy, Bigelow puts him down and moonsaults him out of it. I’ve always hated when a guy gets hit with one shot and since it’s from behind, it’s a knockout shot. What’s the deal with that? Del Ray hits two sweet superkicks that do nothing at all.

However, after a standard illegal elbow, he’s gone to Luger. Good to see that some things never chance. The Guns beat on Tatanka for the better part of ever and it’s just barely interesting. They were just such a worthless team. You can tell they’re real cowboys though. They’re wearing khakis. Yep the Beautiful People match is certainly more interesting, especially with those shots of Velvet’s figure. Dang.

Anyway, Bart goes for a crucifix and gets caught in the End of the Trail, which is apparently the name of Tatanka’s finishing move. Forget that it’s the Papoose To Go. We’re 4-2 now with the excellent team of Billy Gunn and Lex Luger against the four heels. Oh this isn’t going to be pleasant. I really can’t stand Vince saying YES NO! Is he really that impatience? A splash ends Billy, making it AMERICA vs. four. Oh boy I can barely contain my excitement.

As I look at my clock, we’ve been at this beatdown for six minutes now. Oh joy indeed. Why do I need to see Luger get beaten up that long? Wait, that might mean an injury which means him off TV. BLAST HIM WITH EVERY FREAKING THING YOU’VE GOT PEOPLE! Our ot nowhere Luger rolls him up for the pin and then literally lays there on the ground while Bundy gets ready for the splash.

It was without a doubt the worst looking thing I’ve ever seen in a match like this. That’s the end and the heels celebrate before beating on Luger forever. The faces finally run out for the save. I guess they wanted to see the annoying one get beaten on too. This segment just went on forever.

Rating: C-. I know I blasted this match a lot, but for some reason by the end it wasn’t horrible. I think it was the faces losing clean that fixed a lot of this. That’s what the match should have been: the heels getting a clean win which is something that hardly ever happens. It’s a match where the pieces don’t add up to what you get at the end, which is a good thing.

Backlund has a press conference to talk about how he’ll be a role model. Yep for all of three days.

Undertaker vs. Yokozuna

Before this, we have the debut of the deity himself, Chuck Norris. He’s the guest referee tonight, which shouldn’t be a problem for him. He can certainly count to ten. He counted to infinity twice, so ten is easy. He’s there to keep people from coming out to beat up Taker. That’s a good idea, since he’s so strong that he never does push-ups. He simply pushes the world down. After two of the slowest intros ever, it’s time to go.

Before the match even begins, we can already see the problem here: no one believes Yoko has a chance, and he doesn’t. Yoko can’t really do anything to Taker so Taker starts beating on him. The managers interfere to turn the momentum over. Yeah that doesn’t work. Momentum implies movement, and I don’t think they’ve actually moved in this match. They’re just so freaking slow. Now with Taker it makes sense, but with Yoko it’s just due to fatness.

He took some time off after this match and came back even bigger. That can’t be good. Anyway, Norris is mostly just window dressing for the majority of this match. He’s shown a few times standing there. Dang I ran out of jokes for a minute. I’ll make up for it later. Eventually Bigelow and Bundy come out and yell at him, leading to IRS running in and nailing Taker then putting him in a sleeper.

Taker would feud with DiBiase’s team until I think the following Summerslam, so yeah that went on way too long. The fat guys don’t do anything to Norris, and I can’t blame them. After all when the Boogeyman goes to bed at night he checks the closet for Chuck Norris. I’d be afraid too. So yeah, the rest is rather predictable, as has been the first part of the match. Yoko keeps trying but at the last second Taker rises up. The lack of drama is freaking killing this match.

It’s clear that no one believes Yoko has a chance. It’s fine to want to send the fans home happy, but at least try to build some drama. At least make Yoko look like he has a snowball’s chance out there. For no good reason, Jarrett comes out and Norris kicks him in the chest. Well that was rather pointless.

Yoko gets kicked into the casket to end it. I know that’s really lackluster, but seriously there was just nothing else to say about it. It was just as you would expect it to be: not that interesting, slow, and completely lacking in drama. This was pretty bad.

Rating: D+. Yeah this was bad. As I’ve said a million times, the best thing a match can do is have you guessing who is going to win. There was absolutely zero doubt here who the winner would be. It’s a great sign when you know who the winner is going in and they get you caught up in it anyway.

For a great example, see Taker vs. Shawn. We knew Taker would win, but it got us going anyway. As for this, Norris was the big celebrity of the show and he did what he was supposed to do: beat up a midcard guy. It was ok for a pointless main event, but this wasn’t interesting at all.

Overall Rating: C-. This is about as back and forth of a show as you’re ever going to find. The first match is ok, the second is beyond awful, the third is great, the fourth is ok, and the last is awful. Also, a LOT of people will disagree on the title match, and like I said before I’m fine with that. It’s a tricky one to call and it really depends on your taste as a fan. I loved it, and for me it almost carries this show. Overall, the show is certainly watchable, but it’s forgettable.

The title change that mattered was the following weekend so this one meant little. Other than that, it’s a very forgettable show. Taker won the feud as he always did, there was an awful match, Luger managed to blow another one, and there was an ok opener. Seriously, nothing here stands out. It’s ok if you’re really bored and just want to kill about 3 hours, but don’t go out of your way.

 

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Summerslam 1995
Date: August 27, 1995
Location: Pittsburgh Civic Arena, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 18,062
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Vince McMahon

We’re in the In Your House era now and if you’ve read my reviews of the earlier ones, you know what my thoughts are on the booking that was going on in this era. If you haven’t, go read them now you lazy jerks. Dang people trying to just read what comes later and avoid all of the intellectual labor. Anyway, we’re in 1995 and the business is at a seemingly dead end.

No one really knows where to go right now and it would take Hogan’s shocking turn in about 11 months to change everything. Hall and Nash are clearly almost on their way out at this point, which is interesting as they’re both in the singles title matches tonight. Now if you want proof that the business has no idea where to go, think about it. We’re at the point now where your big matches are a rematch of what was a big deal….a year and a half ago, and Diesel vs. Mabel.

Yes, that’s your main event: Diesel vs. Mabel. Bret Hart is fighting an evil dentist, and Barry Horowitz has a match on a pay per view. Think about that for a few minutes while we dig into what is considered one of the worst PPVs ever, Summerslam 1995. Side note: Nitro debuted 8 days after this.

Standard intro talking about the two big matches. Oh and Shawn is a face now. In the back we have Dean Douglas who is critiquing the matches tonight. For those of you that don’t know, Douglas was Matt Striker done properly.

1-2-3 Kid vs. Hakushi

Apparently Kid is from Minnesota, Minneapolis which is a place that’s known for it’s cheap heat. Yeah that joke makes no sense to me either so just go with it. Kid more or less botches jumping into the ring so he must have gotten genuine Columbian cocaine today. Hakushi lost a match to Barry Horowitz earlier in the day so take that for what it’s worth. This is actually a pretty good match so far with some very nice back and forth stuff going on.

Waltman really isn’t that bad against other cruiserweights. The heel is completely dominating as we have a lot of smarks in the crowd who are cheering him. He’d turn face soon enough so that’s all well and good. Lawler insults the Kid and the Pittsburgh fans, which isn’t really that hard to do. He sends Kid to the floor with a SWEET looking back kick. Kid makes his comeback which is actually pretty good. It’s a lot of interesting looking high flying stuff that works really well for someone of his size etc.

Eventually he goes for a spinwheel kick and gets caught in a suplex/powerbomb kind of move for the pin. I really like that ending as it made sense to have Kid keep going for bigger and bigger moves before finally getting caught. That’s a nice little touch to end on.

Rating: B. This was a very solid opener I thought. It was fast paced and exciting as both guys were jumping all over the place and it just flowed really well. The fans were into it which isn’t saying much as this is a very hot crowd to say the least. Good choice for an opener.

In the back, Mabel says that he won’t tell Doc what his surprise is for later.

HHH vs. Bob Holly

Holly is still the racecar guy here while it’s still very early in HHH’s WWF career. He’s been here about 4 months at this time so this is easily his biggest match to date against his toughest opponent. Lawler says that HHH is the kind of guy that eats Kentucky Fried Quail. Is that an insult or a compliment? Anyway, there’s a natural heel thing about HHH that works so well with this blueblood character.

Just about everyone that he would face would have a culture clash with him because who doesn’t hate some rich guy that thinks he’s better than you? BREAKING NEWS! The British Bulldog is here! This is apparently shocking and terrible as he turned heel last week, attacking Diesel. How can something like this happen? A WWF wrestler that’s a pretty big star coming to a WWF event? Yes folks, anything can happen in the WWF, even a guy coming to work.

We of course go split screen to show Smith walking. Oh my goodness, get these people an Emmy blast it! Even being the rich guy vs. the redneck, this is a very boring match. There’s no drama to it at all as Holly just isn’t that good and HHH doesn’t know how good he is yet. Imagine telling Vince back then that HHH would not only be a ten time world champion but also his son in law and the heir to the throne. After about 8 minutes of pure boredom, HHH wins with a not yet perfected pedigree.

Rating: D+. This is just flat out boring. No one wanted to see it and it’s more or less a glorified squash match. Where’s the fun in that? In my eyes, there’s very little indeed. Seriously, why was this on Summerslam again? Did they not have anything better that they could have put on here? They spent half the time talking about Smith so even the announcers didn’t care.

We see a video talking about the WWF vs. Pittsburgh firefighters in a tug of war for some charity thing. Bam Bam, Mabel, Henry Godwin and Savio? Something just doesn’t fit in there. It’s for charity so I can’t make any jokes about it really.

Smoking Guns vs. Blu Brothers

Blu Brothers were later known as DOA, Creative Control, Harris Brothers and I think the Bruise Brothers. They’re twins so this works really well s it’s easy to get heel heat by just switching. The Cowboys are just flat out boring. They’re ok in the ring but DANG they’re bland.

This is pretty much a tag version of the previous match as no one is interested and it feels like a weak house show match. It’s about 5 minutes long and is just a heel domination leading to the hot tag and the faces hitting the Sidewinder to end it. That’s all there is to it and no one could care less at all.

Rating: D. This was even worse than HHH’s match as it just doesn’t fit on Summerslam at all. It’s a bland match that feels like it belongs at a house show on its best day. Why would someone want to pay for something like this?

Barry Horowitz vs. Skip

This is actually kind of a cool story. Horowitz for those of you that don’t know is one of the biggest jobbers of all time, ranking up there with the Brooklyn Brawler. He hadn’t won a match in years yet somehow kept a job. Anyway, one night he pinned Skip when he wasn’t paying attention. A week later he somehow gets credit for another win after going to a time limit draw. For some reason, that warrants a match here at Summerslam.

Can someone explain to me why this is happening and not maybe a tag title match? It’s the second biggest show of the year, Raw has long since been established as the A show, and In Your House has debuted. Do we really need to give these guys, a relative newcomer and a jobber time on Summerslam, but not the world tag team titles? Sunny is Skip’s manager and I’m convinced she’s an alien. No human could be that hot.

Anyway, they start hot as Barry is wearing suspenders to go with his tights. They’re gone in about 8 seconds so what was the point of them? This is actually a pretty good match with some nice technical stuff. Sunny is sent to the back, causing 75% of male viewers to change the channel. For some reason she doesn’t leave which is a good thing. Candido is impressing me actually. His offense is very crisp and sharp with no botches or anything like that.

He passed away at only 33 and he was already an established veteran so he would certainly still be active today. Skip hits his diving headbutt finisher but pulls him up at the last second which even Lawler says is a bad idea. As he’s doing this, for no apparent reason, Hakushi comes out and distracts Skip. This allows Horowitz to roll him up for the small package while Skip’s hand is very close to Barry’s package.

Rating: B. This was a very good match. The story was fine and the in ring work was very good. There’s no noticeable botches or anything like that and you get an excellent feel good moment. However, I have to ask again: is this more important than a tag title match? Even a squash tag match would be fine, but there’s no need to have these two get 10 minutes plus at Summerslam.

Dean Douglas says that Horowitz didn’t deserve to win.

Todd says that Barry should have won and shows a short clip from the ladder match. Shawn comes in and says he’ll win no matter what.

Women’s Title: Bertha Faye vs. Alundra Blayze

Now THIS is one of the weirdest characters of all time. Weighing in at 230 pounds, Faye was just an ugly fat woman that Harvey Whippleman was in love with. She wore a skirt that showed her underwear and was fat. That’s about it. What was the point or thought behind this character? We’ve been trying to figure that out ever sense. Her song was called Sweet Loving Arms if that tells you anything. They did everything they could to make Blayze a big deal and it just never worked once.

This is a pretty short match which is likely good. Blayze of course knows some martial arts because every diva is skilled with them right? How many women use a kick as a major point of their offense?

Anyway, Alundra (how odd of a name is that anyway?) hits a bunch of kicks and big moves but she can’t beat the big fat chick, leading to the worst sitout powerbomb of all time and as the champion gets her shoulder up at 2, the three comes down and we have a new champion. She and Harvey celebrate in the aisle after the match.

Rating: D+. Oy vey this was bad. Neither was incredibly skilled in this match, which wasn’t fair as both could actually wrestle pretty well. Faye was a comedy character and Blayze would get the belt back in about two months or so. This was a waste of time though and wasn’t entertaining at all.

Recap of Taker vs. Kama, which was a pretty bad feud. Kama, aka the Godfather, stole his urn at Mania and made it into a necklace. He then beat up the creatures of the night, causing this to become a casket match. They did this at an In Your House show as a dark match which wasn’t that good. This has more time and is on a bigger stage, so maybe this is better.

Paul Bearer and Taker say Kama is in trouble.

Casket Match: Kama vs. Undertaker

Kama still works for DiBiase at this point. Hmm Taker in a violent gimmick match in Pittsburgh. Same thing happened later on in the Mankind Cell match. Kama of course isn’t afraid, as no heel has been in forever. Well at least in the beginning this is far better. What this should be is more or less Kozlov vs. Taker, and that’s what we’re getting. Kama is hammering him with big power strikes and Taker is absorbing them.

Kama is showing fear of the coffin so we’re getting inside his head too. This is light years ahead of what we had last month at In Your House. Taker goes to the floor and DiBiase kicks at him, leading to Bearer taking his jacket off to fight Ted. That is something I’d pay to see. Ted having been retired for awhile and likely out of shape vs. Paul Bearer. Oh my goodness that would be funny.

Kama suplexes him onto the closed casket. I can’t imagine a back injury in a casket match with Taker can you? The Rest In Peace chant really is awesome here. This is kind of standard Taker stuff, which means that it’s going just fine. Taker gets beaten down, then makes his comeback.

They both go inside the big wooden box at the same time and Kama crawls out, giving us the dragging him back under visual that Shawn made famous at the 98 Rumble. Eventually it’s tombstone and the dark box for Kama to give Taker the win.

Rating: B-. I was liking this. Kama is the perfect kind of heel to feed to Taker. He’s big and strong with good fighting skills, which makes it easy for Taker to fight him off and look good doing it. This was a long feud for Taker but no one really put much thought into it. All it really was supposed to do was keep him busy until he could move onto something big, which he did as he started feuding with Mable for a few months before moving on to Diesel soon after that.

We hit the recap button on Bret vs. Isaac Yankem, who is just an agent of Lawler to try to fight Bret. Some of the lines by Todd here are great. “Lawler did what he does best: got somebody else to fight his battles for him.” “He went out and got someone else to fight for him. He got a dentist.”

“Yankem was a demented tooth fairy.” You know, for all that Bret and Kane have done for the WWF, this might be their best stuff. Think about it: Kane is a crazed dentist which sounds like a bad horror movie. Wow, See No Evil 2 here we come! Anyway, Bret is the guy that has to fight a crazed dentist. How over the top can you get?

Bret Hart vs. Isaac Yankem

Isaac is from Decatur, Illinois. That just sounds funny to me for some reason. Hart says he’s tired of Lawler, and asks if a chiropractor is next. That made me laugh. No sweet leather jacket for Hart which sucks. This is another good matchup for Hart as he’s against a big guy that he can take down after getting beaten up. That’s a nice thing to get going which always works well. Taker is apparently on the Superstar line. That’s just a funny thing to imagine.

Crowd is WAY into Bret here. This is a pretty good back and forth match for the early part as they hammer on each other with Bret slowly breaking Isaac down but Kane hitting a power move to stop Bret dead in his tracks. Eventually the big guy takes over and works Bret into the ground pretty well. Bret has a sweet counter for this neck pull move that’s hard to describe. Basically Bret back flips out of it. It’s really cool looking.

The referee grabs Isaac by the hair and pulls him away which is just not smart. It makes the wrestler look bad because a referee is manhandling them and it’s just not professional. You can hear that Vince is seriously ticked off over it. Yep he’s fired. Anyway, this is mainly over the kiss my foot match that Lawler and Hart had where Lawler had to kiss not only Bret’s foot but his own.

He says it was like kissing a hog with halitosis, which is horrible. Also, Lawler sells sea shells by the seashore for six cents on Saturdays. They’re on the floor for awhile which is just more time for Hart to get beaten up as Isaac looks good. Kane even does a very short walk of the top rope to land a leg drop to the back of Bret’s head as he was hanging over the top rope.

DAng why hasn’t he done that since? Wow has Kane really been in the WWF nearly 15 years? That’s almost hard to believe if you think about it. Finally Hart has had ENOUGH and throws a suicide dive and beats the heck out of Isaac. Sharpshooter leads to Lawler helping Isaac get out which he more or less had to do. He’s now a manager instead of a commentator so Vince is on his own.

Oh this isn’t going to go well. Brea beats on him for a bit, drawing a mad pop from the crowd, but allowing Kane to hit a double axe from the top to save the King. Lawler eventually grabs Bret’s foot and tries to pull him out as Isaac helps him. This causes the referee to FINALLY DQ them after counting to six. They hang Bret between the top and middle ropes and pull on him which has to hurt badly.

Instead of just going in reverse of what got Bret in that position, the suits that run down decide to shove Bret’s head through the ropes, hurting him even worse. Did they not pay attention to Foley losing an ear in a similar thing? Oh he’s fine though. Being this close to Canada gives Bret his super human powers. It’s kind of like the sun with Superman, but Bret could take him in Canada.

Rating: B-. This was pretty good, but it was in essence a handicap match. While that’s all well and good, this should have been Bret vs. Lawler for one big and final blowoff match, maybe in a cage. Yeah I think that would have worked just fine. Kane was a good enough choice, but the focus was more on Lawler, which hurt things a bit. Either way, the stuff in the ring was very good and this was a solid 15 or so minute match.

IC Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon

No transition here or anything at all other than the Razor promo. It’s the rematch of the ladder match. It doesn’t need much of an explanation so there we go. Shawn climbs the ladder in the aisle to stare down Razor which is a semi-famous image, or at least it was back then. Vince telling someone to get down is just wrong on so many levels.

They raise up the belt which is something you don’t often see. Doc Hendrix jumps in on commentary. Vince says that you would have to be Andre the Giant with a jetpack to reach the belt. Or you could just get a ladder but who am I to argue. Doc offers up a surprising stat: only once in Summerslam history up to that point, in 1993, did the IC Title not change hands. Hey he’s good for something.

Shawn says lift it up and there’s the bell. They slug it out to start and both guys escape finishers. Shawn is knocked to the floor and then stops Razor from getting the ladder. Why? Shawn has to bring it back also doesn’t he? Razor blocks Shawn’s suplex and suplexes him to the floor. I love that move. Not sure why but I always have. Either that or it just sounds good and I’m trying to fill in space.

Both finishers miss again and we get a double clothesline to give them a breather. Razor gets to the ladder which is enough for Vince to say he’ll win. Sid, the guy that gets the winner, is watching in the back. Shawn gets the ladder and control but it’s not like the match is ending anytime soon so the drama isn’t there at all.

Down goes the ladder and Shawn and he might have hurt his knee. Oh that’s funny. Shawn’s knee never gets hurt. The fans aren’t sure if they like what Razor is doing here or not. Shawn is more or less dead and falls as Razor tries to send him into the ladder. This is a much more psychological based match than before but they have some experience this time so that might have something to do with it.

Razor has been dominating for a good while here. No attempt at going for the belt yet though which doesn’t really surprise me. Lots of leg work which is logical. Shawn manages to send Razor to the floor but another knee shot takes away any kind of advantage Shawn may have gotten. Razor is wrestling heel here and it’s working pretty well. Granted that’s his natural style so it’s easy for him.

He goes up but Shawn literally makes a diving save to send him down. Doc declares this the greatest match he’s ever seen. It’s good but seriously, the best you’ve ever seen? That might be a stretch dude. Then again given how many drugs he probably did this might be the only match he can remember seeing. Shawn suplexes Razor off the ladder and everyone is down.

Razor eats ladder in the corner and Shawn takes over. Shawn goes up and hits a moonsault press. It kind of misses but it was close enough to still look ok. A splash from the top of the ladder misses and everyone is down. They slug it out on dop of the ladder and a headbutt from Razor sends both guys flying down. Doc says Ted and Sid have to be dancing in the streets. Or they could be watching in the bac on a monitor but same thing I guess.

Shawn charges with the ladder but goes through the ropes to the floor. Razor is like screw this and gets a second ladder. He finally gets the Edge off the ladder and both guys are down again. If there’s one criticism here it’s that they’re staying down for too many long stretches of time. Granted I can totally understand them needing a break.

Vince wants to know which one is the legal ladder. Is there a ladder checking team that I’m not aware of? Both guys climb up a ladder at the same time and Shawn gets more or less Sweet Chin Music to knock Razor off. And then like an IDIOT he jumps at the belt and misses completely, crashing down onto the mat. Shawn sends him to the floor and climbs again, getting his hands on the belt but just not grabbing it. He goes up again and gets it so I’d think the second one was just a slip or something.

Rating: B+. While not as good as their initial match, this is indeed an excellent one. The problem here is simple: how do you follow the greatest gimmick match of all time to that point, especially with the same two guys in it? Every spot you can look at and say it was better the first time or that wasn’t as good as the one you did last year.

That’s the issue they’re facing here, so while this is good, by comparison it just isn’t as solid of a match, which can mainly be attributed to the expectations they had coming into this match I think.

In the back Dean Douglas has a few choice words to say about the “Bad Guy”. This leads to Ramon coming in and beating him up, kickstarting their feud which would actually be Ramon’s last in the company before heading to WCW.

WWF Title: Diesel vs. Mabel

Please help me get through this. Mabel won the KOTR because Vince got really high one night and decided he wanted to see how well he could screw up Summerslam, so he gives us this. Let’s see, how many other options were there that are better than this? Maybe every single person on the roster? Are you telling me you couldn’t have thrown someone like Owen Hart maybe in there? He would have at least given a decent match.

The problem here is simple: Mabel is too freaking fat for Diesel to muscle around like he’s always done, and it’s going to throw Diesel off his game. Therefore, you have a champion off his game and a big man that can’t do crap. Does this sound like a good equation to anyone at all? Mabel comes to the ring as KOTR with Sir Mo. Oh yes I can see the greatness so clearly here. Vince talks about how Bulldog and Luger are here.

Ooh, why did we not have either of those as a good main event? Oh I remember. We had to use that at In Your House instead of here where it would actually matter. Luger of course would be back in WCW 8 freaking days later after infamously having been in WWF one night and debuting for WCW the next night on the debut episode of Nitro, which when you think about it is absolutely brilliant and an amazing move.

Mabel looks like an idiot with that crown. In case you can’t tell, I hate this freaking match. We keep hearing about the royal plan. Oh yes, Mabel is clearly an evil genius. Give me a break Vince. Mabel starts on offense and Diesel gets beaten up. Soon thereafter we switch that up and put Mabel on offense as I have my family hide all sharp or blunt objects to keep me from hurting myself.

Shockingly enough, Diesel can’t do much other than punch and clothesline him, mainly because it’s the only offense he can use without getting a hernia. Oh yeah, Mabel is wearing his shiny purple and gold ensemble here. Mable eventually gets back in control and as I was waiting on, he sits on Diesel. He puts his hands on Nash’s face but doesn’t pull back, yet somehow it’s called a chinlock.

This goes on for EIGHTY FOUR SECONDS. Yes, I get that Mable needs a rest in there as after 5 minutes someone of his gravitational pull would get tired. HOWEVER, a minute and a half is WAY too much to have a fat guy sitting on his opponent. That’s all he’s doing: high impact sitting. Moe comes in of course and gets beaten up. Apparently this is the great and mighty royal plan: get your manager/tag partner/fellow homeless guy to beat on Diesel.

Oh my lord my feeble brain can’t comprehend such intricate and complex thoughts! Luger runs in for the save as I think the referee has sought out psychiatric help after having to stand out there and put up with this nonsense for ten minutes. Oh wait here’s part 2 of the plan: a leg drop on the floor!  Luger beats up Moe, proving that he’s indeed smarter than a 5th grader.

The referee returns from rehab long enough to count a two on Diesel. Mabel jumps off the second rope in his attempt to change the rotation of the Earth but misses a splash. This combined with what’s called a clothesline from the second rope but is more Diesel jumping on Mable lead to the slowest count of all time and a succ…..a succ… I’m sorry but there was nothing successful about this match at all. Diesel keeps the belt let’s go with that. He poses with the belt to close us out.

Rating: F+. Do I really need to explain this one any further? I hate this match and I hate Nelson Frazier, who is easily one of the worst “wrestlers” of all time in my eyes.

Overall Rating: F. This was a hard one for me, but overall the good moments of this show just can’t get out from underneath the epicness of the nonsense on the card. Hakushi/Kid and Horowitz/Skip are actually quite good matches. I was impressed with them. However, there is no way you can justify having those two plus HHH and the Guns’ squashes all be on this show.

You have a 9 match card and I could see at the very most, four belonging on a major show: the opener because you simply need a hot opener to set the stage which that one certainly meets the requirements for, the Hart/Isaac match, Taker and Kama, and the ladder match. Of the two in the middle, they could have easily been altered to put Hart and Lawler together. The second and third matches are just wastes of time, plain and simple.

The HHH match I can kind of see the point in as it gives an up and coming star a PPV match to get himself over. I can almost come to validate that one, but not by much. The Guns’ match however has no business on a PPV, none. The next match was one of the best in ring matches of the night, but I ask again: WHY IS BARRY HOROWITZ WRESTLING AT SUMMERSLAM???

Women’s match was bad but since it’s a title match it can be justified I suppose, and then the main event I’ve already vented on. I’m sorry, but an opener, a ladder match that’s an inferior version of a match from a year and a half ago and two above average midcard matches simply are not enough to sell a PPV for me.

This show is just a flat out failure. It has its moments and would have been passable as a much lower level show, but this is unacceptable as the second biggest show of the year, which is saying how bad WWF was at this time when you had this and Mania 11, perhaps the worst of all time, as your big shows. This was horrible.

In Your House 7: Good Friends, Better Enemies
Date: April 28, 1996
Location: Omaha Civic Auditorium, Omaha, Nebraska
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Vince McMahon
Attendance: 9,563

So Wrestlemania has come and gone, and of course the big deal is that Shawn Michaels, the undisputed king of the midcard has broken through the glass ceiling and defeated Bret Hart to become the world champion, ushering in the new era of the company. No one knew what that era was, but I guarantee you no one knew about the juggernaut that was about to steamroll both Vince and the WWF that July when the NWO would form.

Shawn would continue to be the face of the company until around November when a new star would emerge. Little did the company know (whenever I type that I always hear the voice from Stranger Than Fiction which always creeps me out) that by putting the title on Shawn, they ultimately made the move that would save them in the long run, but I’ll remain cryptic and explain that concept for later on for those of you that don’t get the historical aspect which would be impressive as it’s very indirect.

Anyway, as for tonight, the title of our show refers to Shawn and Diesel, who are going to have their big match that would end their feud once and for all: a No Holds Barred match for the title. The most important thing about tonight though was very simple: it was Hall and Nash’s last televised appearances with the company.

These departures, the so called Curtain Call incident, next months’ In Your House, and Bash at the Beach which was held in July of that year, are four nights that shaped the business as a whole and may be four of the 5 nights that are the reason the WWE won the Monday Night Wars. Explanations coming later including one in this review, but for now let’s start the show! Oh yeah and Foley is here now also.

Standard recap video package to open as it once again tries to play this off as equal to Mania but no one really buys that. No one gave Diesel a chance as no one believed that Shawn was going to lose in his first title defense. It was simply not going to happen after the amount of time and effort he had put into his buildup.

Diesel had turned on him at a house show which prompted Shawn to say what the company tried to build up as a famous line “I’m going to kick his 7ft face.” Yeah that really isn’t that famous. Time for the first match.

Owen Hart/British Bulldog vs. Jake Roberts/Ahmed Johnson

This is kind of a rematch from Mania, minus Vader and Yoko per team. The whole showdown with Vader and Yoko never happened as someone woke up and realized that match would just bomb so they turned it into a 6 man by adding these guys. Owen and Bulldog were by far and away the best tag team around this time but they didn’t get the tag titles until September and they held them until May which was some kind of a record or something that I don’t feel like looking up right now.

They were kind of emulating the original Hart Foundation with the power/speed and while it wasn’t as effective, it was good enough to dominate the tag division for about 9 months. Anyway, here we go in a rather pointless tag match.

We get a pre match interview from Jake but Vince of course cuts off one of the best promo men of all time to push some stupid story, as Vince has to be the center of attention. Before the match, Cornette’s annoying lawyer has a court order banning Jake’s snake from being used. Jake of course rips it up and throws the snake on the heels. Why is it that every heel has a horrible fear of snakes? WWE needs a psychologist on staff to help deal with this.

Apparently Johnson was a surprise partner, even though he was Jake’s partner last month. Part of the story is that Bulldog is worried he’s not as strong as Johnson based on arm wrestling or something. Oh and he broke Johnson’s thumb. So far this is a pretty formula based match with Jake and Owen doing most of the heavy lifting. Whenever Johnson is in, Bulldog runs to tag in Owen to avoid the confrontation.

Johnson is over as we have a very hot crowd. Johnson somehow botches a clothesline. That’s like the most simplistic move of all time. DONALD FREAKING TRUMP did a decent one. Apparently this was supposed to be Bulldog vs. Jake. Vince of course says Owen would be nothing without Bret, even though Bret wouldn’t be around for about 6 months at this point.

Jake is in the ring far more than Johnson as the company knew that Ahmed just flat out sucked in the ring but he was over and had a great look. We go to the rest holds as you can tell this isn’t going to be over anytime soon. This should sum up things very well for you: Jake is in the ring for about seven minutes straight, taking most of the offense.

He finally makes the tag to Ahmed, and Johnson is literally in the ring 30 seconds before tagging back out. That’s how much faith they had in him. Ending comes when everyone is brawling and Bulldog hits Jake in the knee with Cornette’s tennis racket a few times and puts him in a leg lock for the submission.

Rating: C. This isn’t a bad match. Ahmed had no business being on live PPV, but it’s not bad. It was decent for an opener and that’s about all you can ask for here. Jake shows he still has it and he would get a decent little push in the next few months. Nothing special really, but just a little something to keep the fans happy.

Intercontinental Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Goldust

Yes that Ultimate Warrior and that Goldust had a match. Warrior had made a return at Mania, squashing HHH in less than two minutes and taking a Pedigree, yet being on his feet before HHH was. Goldust is accompanied by Marlena, who was supposed to be really sexy I guess, but she never did it for me at all.

He’s also accompanied by his bodyguard Brusier Mastino. Earlier tonight….wait a second. Brusier Mastino? That’s the name that Kane used when he was a jobber in WCW back in the early 90s. That’s clearly not Kane here as he was playing Isaac Yankem at the time. What the heck? Why use the name of a guy that did absolutely nothing in WCW as a character here?

According to Wikipedia, the man with Goldust is the same one that played Mantaur a year ago. Huh? That’s really weird. Anyway, earlier tonight, Warrior was giving an interview when Marlena blew cigar smoke in his face and Goldust threw gold dust into his eyes. Why would you want to tick him off? GOldust ran away and fell, apparently hurting his knee. Goldust is coming off a mini feud with Savio, and McMahon says that he hopes that feud isn’t over. What is Vince on anyway?

The music hits, the crowd pops, Vince screams, and Warrior jogs to the ring. The massive pyro display is kind of a cool touch for him. We haven’t started the match yet and Lawler is up to two movie references. Make that three, and there’s the bell. Goldust starts our epic showdown by hobbling to the back and apparently leaving.

Then, in something you can tell Vince is furious over, the Warrior picks up Marlena’s cigar from the aisle and starts smoking it. The fans have no idea what to think of this, especially after those Warrior PSAs from the late 80s about not smoking.

Movie reference #5 by King. The bodyguard leaves as Warrior gets Marlena’s director’s chair and sits it in the middle of the ring. Mastino comes back with Goldust and Marlena, screaming “HE’S GOT THE CHAIR!!!”, like it’s the end of the world or something. As Lawler makes his seventh movie reference, Warrior is sitting in the chair, smoking the cigar, as the trio leaves to Lawler’s ninth movie title joke.

Warrior keeps messing with his hair as Lawler calls him a Rebel Without a Clue for number 10. Goldust gets on the mic to say something but the fans boo him. He threatens to come out there and kiss every person if they don’t shut up as this continues to be the weirdest match of all time and we haven’t even started yet. Number thirteen hits as Goldust and Marlena get into the ring, while the cameraman keeps getting shots of her back.

Warrior holds up Goldust’s robe like a bullfighter. Warrior gives Marelena her cigar back which she pops right into her mouth like it’s no big deal at all. In what takes another full minute, Warrior gives Goldust his robe back, accompanied by the fifteenth movie pun by Lawler. I know you might be getting sick of my counting them, but seriously, they’re the most entertaining thing going on right now.

This is at 10 minutes and counting so far and they haven’t even touched each other. Apparently Goldust being outside the ring for seven minutes isn’t enough for a countout either. McMahon says Warrior will do whatever it takes to get the match started. I’m not even going to acknowledge that with a joke or an insult. Goldust sits in the chair and rubs his chest as Marlena…does something.

Even Vince is sick of the jokes at #18. Warrior takes the cigar again and puffs away as King is starting to repeat jokes. Vince asks what everyone is wondering: what is going on? Goldust sticks out his hand which Warrior puts the cigar into before clotheslining him to the floor. Goldust walks to the back for the count out. Are you kidding me? THAT’S IT? The bodyguard takes some clotheslines and a slam as Warrior is announced as the winner.

Vince and Lawler both say something to the effect of the winner of what contest? There was a match here? Post match, Lawler breaks into the twenties in jokes as Warrior puts Goldust’s wig on with the bodyguard’s hat over top of that and climbs the ropes to end this.

Rating: G-. This is so bad it’s below an F. This went on nearly 15 minutes and the contact between the two was a cigar to the hand and a clothesline. The crowd was on fire before the “match” and then we get this? This is why Warrior is blacklisted in wrestling forever. Not this particular thing, but the full thing of shenanigans like this. This was a total waste of time, there was no match, and the fans had no idea what was going on. Easily the worst segment of all time.

We cut to the back to see Bulldog FREAKING out about something as he tries desperately to get into Shawn’s dressing room, saying something about his wife Diana. This turned out to be the start of Shawn’s next storyline and his first real feud. The story would go on to be that allegedly Shawn either hit on or attempted to rape Diana backstage, which would turn out to be false and just a way to get Bulldog a title shot. This would lead to a match at the next In Your House.

We come back to the arena with Warrior’s music still playing and you can see that Vince is ticked at what just happened in the “match.” Vince attempts to play off his anger by saying that he’s mad that Goldust was such a coward. While that’s at least somewhat plausible for the time being, knowing that Vince was the boss the whole time makes it laughable. As he and King talk, apparently, IT’S TIME, IT’S TIME, IT’S VADER TIME!!!

Vader vs. Razor Ramon

And it’s official: Razor is jobbing on his way out. Since no one knew he was leaving though, this wasn’t a given domination by Vader at the time. This is an interesting pairing here, as Razor usually does a lot of power moves but in this case, he’s having to do more hit and run stuff.

His size makes this plausible though, so it’s an interesting match. Vader of course dominates most of the match with Razor getting in some shots here and there, but ultimately getting knocked right back down by Vader. In an odd scene, Razor kicks out of the Vader Bomb. Razor amazes me by hitting a standard suplex on Vader after ten minutes have gone by. The more I see of his stuff, the more Razor impresses me.

Razor hits his big man finisher with the second rope bulldog but that doesn’t work. He almost gets Vader in the Razor’s Edge following a missed Vader Bomb but he can’t do it. He does however hit an electric chair drop on him which is quite impressive. Finish sees Razor set him for the Edge but getting backdropped and Vader just sits on his chest for the pin.

Rating: B. This was a very solid match. Razor made Vader look like a million bucks here, just like he should have. Razor’s last night would be three weeks away, but for all intents and purposes he was done after this match. Vader was going to be the top heel over the summer as he would eventually challenge Shawn for the title at Summerslam. I think Vince knew what he had with Vader, but Vader was too much of a business risk with how insane he was.

After the match, Doc Hendrix shows up and says that President Monsoon has determined that based on Vader’s victory here, he’ll be on the next In Your House, facing Yoko. Vader had injured Yoko on Raw by breaking his leg, resulting in a very funny scene where they had to bring a forklift to carry Yoko out of the arena, but apparently it has healed.

Cornette goes into one of his legendary rants, talking about how Yoko is a dead man. He says that Razor is the example of what Vader does to people in the ring. Razor came into this match as a handsome man and left looking like Margot Kidder.

For those of you that don’t know, that’s the woman that played Lois Lane in the Superman movies. What that has to do with anything is beyond me, but it’s Cornette doing what he does best: ranting and raving like a crazy man.

Tag Titles: Bodydonnas vs. Godwinns

Ok, there’s actually a somewhat lengthy backstory here. The Smoking Guns had vacated the tag titles because Billy hurt his neck, leading to a tag title tournament. The finals were held on the preshow of Mania 12. Prior to that, Sunny, the Bodydonnas manager and the woman that I think was most of our first fantasies, won the Slammy for best buns.

At the end of the match, Phineas had the match won and Sunny allegedly flashes him, which is stupid because you can clearly see she’s covered up, but man it was 1996 so it was shocking at the time. This led to the Godwinns losing the match.

This is the rematch, but earlier in the night, once again on the preshow, the cameras saw Phineas and Sunny off in the back of the building and Sunny flashes her chest at him. Another thing, the Godwinns have comical nicknames. Henry O. Godwinn (HOG) and Phineas I. Godwinn (PIG). They have Hillbilly Jim as a manager now, meaning they can use his old music, Don’t Go Messin With a Country Boy, meaning they get huge pops.

We cut to the back where Mr. Perfect, absolutely rocking the suit he’s in, is with Sunny and the champions. Sunny, looking instant orgasm hot, says that she showed PIG a thing or two and hits on Perfect, before saying that tonight the Donnas are going to outwrestle them. Perfect has a great line by saying that Sunny certainly has the greatest, most amazing pair of…….tag team wrestlers he’s seen in quite some time.

Ok it was funnier when he said it.

Anyway, on with the match. Of course, we have the biggest sex symbol in the history of the company on the way to the ring so we stay on a wide shot of the crowd the whole duration of their entrance. This is another standard though not bad tag match which really is a tale of two halves: to begin with the Godwinns just beat the living tar out of the champions before PIG gets beaten down in the other corner.

This is what you would expect from two such teams. The big guys overpower the smaller ones as the smaller heels do what they can to hang in there until they finally get the advantage. This eventually leads to the power guys making their comeback. Anyway, that eventually happens and Sunny runs to the back, drawing all the attention with her. She returns with a signed photo of herself, autographed to Phineas.

This distracts him as Jim is about to throw the slop onto Sunny. In the ring, Henry hits the reverse DDT on one of them, but he’s distracted by what’s going on outside. The BodyDonnas switch and Henry gets rolled up for the pin. After the match, the losers console their love struck partner, but as they leave he hides the picture in his overalls.

Rating: B-. This wasn’t a bad match. It was standard formula stuff which is what most good tag matches are. The main focus was on Sunny which makes sense as she was the biggest star of all these people. There were some great theme-based tag teams back in this era and these were two of the most memorable.

We cut to the back with Mark Mero apparently ticked off at HHH over being jumped earlier tonight on the preshow. Sable is jaw droppingly hot at this point and somehow people care even less about Mero than they would later on.

Time for your main event recap. They screw up by saying No Holds Barred Championship, implying it’s a new title or something. You know what they meant, but it was written poorly. How sad is it that I rented this tape so many times that I haven’t seen this recap in years yet I know the narration word for word? You know, the build up for this is making it feel pretty epic. At the time, this was a big match as Shawn had never beaten Diesel.

Shawn promises the Kliq a party tonight no matter what. Diesel says he’s got a surprise planned. I know what it is, but I won’t spoil it for you.

WWF Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel

JR is an interviewer. That’s just a shame. Maurice Mad Dog Vachon is in the front row. Shawn’s entrance is cool. He throws up a hand sign, power walks down the aisle, and takes off the vest and the belt before sliding in to start the slug fest. This is very fast paced and it’s working really well. We’re a minute into this and Shawn has come off the top rope twice.

Once for a twisting moonsault and the other to hit Diesel in the head with the boot he stole from the Spanish announcer. Diesel gets the best snake eyes I’ve ever seen as he throws Shawn up into the air to smash him down into the buckle. Diesel is just beating Shawn up at the moment but for some reason, considering it’s no holds barred, Diesel takes the tape off his wrist and chokes out the referee.

Then he whips Shawn with the referee’s belt. Diesel hangs Shawn over the ropes, which is pointless as Shawn can clearly touch the floor which would just make him uncomfortable and not unconscious. This is getting very violent. Not as bad as some of the future stuff, but at the time this was big stuff. Momentum swings when Diesel does the classic chair to the top rope spot to hit himself in the head.

Shawn is doing the Ricky Steamboat method of getting the heck beaten out of him then doing something big to win. He’s getting the tar beaten out of him and having him kick out time after time makes him look strong. Diesel was leaving so it wasn’t a big issue at all. Diesel jackknifes Shawn threw the announce table, which was a new thing at the time so there’s no joke to it. Shawn looks dead after this, and rightfully so.

Diesel goes into the ring with the title which is a nice touch. Vince screaming at Shawn to let it be over is so melodramatic it’s funny. Shawn of course doesn’t listen and is up on his feet like the true no seller he is. Shawn starts his comeback and we have no commentary which I really like. We all know Shawn’s moveset down to the letter when he’s making his comeback but it’s nice to just see it.

It gives the sequence the feeling of a house show and it’s a very nice little break from the norm. Of course Vince can’t let us have something cool for awhile without him so he’s back. He hits some of the most wicked chair shots to Diesel I’ve ever seen. These two are putting on a heck of a show out there as you can really feel like they hate each other.

While they were very close in real life, seeing them beat on each other like this is nothing but great as you can feel the natural chemistry that they share. This is great. Shawn hits the screw you elbow after a brief Diesel comeback but the kick is blocked, despite Vince screaming give it to him Shawn give it to him! Now we get the famous part of the match.

Diesel goes over to Vachon, the guy from earlier, and attacks him. He chokes him to the ground and RIPS HIS PROSTHETIC LEG OFF. I don’t care how scripted it was, that was sick. There’s nothing at all that makes you a bigger heel than that.

He attacked an old man and literally ripped his body apart. Shawn low blows him to stop him before hitting him with the leg, then hitting the chin music, after stomping loudly on the mat about 12 times. Seriously, if you hear the stomping, WHY WOULD YOU TURN AROUND? Also, the genius cameramen has the cameras on Shawn’s feet so you see Diesel fly back from the kick but not the impact of it. The pin ends the show.

Rating: A+. I absolutely loved this match when I was a kid and I still love it to this day. It had the big match feel and it never lets up. These two had mad chemistry together and this is probably their best match ever. They don’t use a ton of weapons which is what makes this good. There are indeed a few good things in there but it never overshadows things to become stupid like a hardcore match.

They use a chair, a rope, a boot (one time), and a prosthetic leg. The fire extinguisher and the table are semi weapons as it wasn’t the table that hurt but the power bomb through it, and the extinguisher is more of an annoyance than pain. Even with 6 weapons, it never gets old or boring as they’re well spaced out.

This is just a fun match and a great way to make Shawn look incredibly strong in his first title defense. People still use this as a reference for Shawn’s ability in no rules matches, and it holds up today with ease. Great match and one you should all see.

Overall Rating: C-. The main event is amazing, but the middle is killed worse than Mania 25 was by Kid Rock. It just sucks the life out of the show and it never recovers until the main event. However, I’d recommend that segment just to see how out there it is. Overall, this show is somewhere between good and bizarre.

The main event is a great match and probably somewhere on my list of favorite matches of all time, but nothing else here is really good at all. There’s some ok stuff, but nothing ever rises above that. Avoid the show, watch the main event.

Wrestlemania 11
Date: April 2, 1995
Location: Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, Connecticut
Attendance: 16,305
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler
America the Beautiful: Kathy Huey

Oh goodness, we did have to get to this eventually didn’t we? If you remember my review of WM 9 being the worst WM ever, I should have said it would be the worst for the next two years. This show is one of the most interesting in wrestling history from a reaction standpoint. From the fans’ perspective, this show is what’s played on a constant loop in the seventh circle of purgatory, minus the WWF Title match.

The number one issue I have right off the bat with this is that it’s from Hartford, Connecticut. Seriously, HARTFORD??? Wrestlemania has broadcast from New York, LA, Chicago, Toronto, Las Vegas, and now HARTFORD? It just doesn’t sound right. Another factor here is that there’s a whopping total of 7 matches. What’s the main event you ask?

Would it be Shawn Michaels getting his first WWF Title match since becoming a main eventer against his former bodyguard Diesel? Nope. We get Bam Bam Bigelow who was wrestling a clown last year against Lawrence Taylor, a former football player and current contestant on Dancing With The Stars. The sad thing is, I’m not making this up. The weird thing though is, this show allegedly brought the WWF back into the war with WCW.

The ratings were decent and it got the company the main stream exposure it’s looking for. Think of it like the modern day TNA: the hardcore wrestling fans like us mostly hate it, but the common fans eat it up. Go figure. Anyway, let’s get on with this so I can look for a hammer to apply to my head.

The opening video is about various Manias through the years which tends to be a theme in these opening videos.

Your celebrities this year are Pamela Anderson (actual celebrity), Jonathan Taylor Thomas (Randy on Home Improvement. Another child star that did nothing.), Jenny McCarthy (Mini-celebrity now, she was at the last SNME so points for that I guess), some guy from NYPD Blue, and Salt N Peppa, who hit on Bret Hart which just looks ridiculous. A special Olympian sings America the Beautiful, and it’s time for our first match.

Ok not quite yet as we get a very interesting chat from Vince and Jerry about what Wrestlemania is.  You don’t get to hear that much from Vince.  It’s short and sweet but it got the point across just fine.  NOW on to the match.

Lex Luger/British Bulldog vs. The Blu Brothers

No that’s not a typo, it’s spelled Blu. These guys have the gimmick of being two incredibly hick brothers from the mountains. You know them better as D.O.A., the Harris Brothers, or those two big white bald guys that are in every promotion on the planet. My goodness how far has Lex fallen in a year? He’s going after the WWF Title and next year is curtain jerking in a tag match?

The twins are named Jacob and Eli in case you were so bored you were actually wondering. Lex and Davey go by the name the Allied Powers. That delayed vertical suplex by Davey never gets old. It’s nothing short of amazing. Definitely like the fact that Bulldog’s tights are about 3 sizes too small.  Oh yeah we have a match to get to.

For some reason the Brothers come down second.  The Brothers try to jump them which winds up in a pair of powerslams for them.  Note that this is just a powerslam and not The Powerslam by Bulldog so it’s just a normal match.  Bulldog is in trouble early on as the power of evil double teaming has him hurting.

A double big boot puts Bulldog down as Luger is just worthless on the apron here.  The fans aren’t incredibly impressed.  Jerry says that Bulldog has only lost once at Mania which isn’t true as he lost at both #3 and #4.  Luger comes in and the fans pop just slightly.  I guess the jump back to WCW was the right move indeed.  Another powerslam gets no cover.

The loaded forearm gets two as the other twin makes the save.  Uncle Zebekiah gets drilled and it’s Twin Magic time.  One twin goes for a powerbomb/Piledriver but Luger makes a blind tag, allowing the Bulldog to hit a top rope sunset flip for the pin, prompting a fireworks display to go off.

Rating: D. Not bad, but just there. It’s nothing special at all and I’m not sure how many people really cared.  The crowd was about as dead as I’ve ever heard for a Mania opener, and that’s including The Executioner vs. Santana back in 85.  Wow I feel old for writing that.  Anyway this was pretty bad and could have been on any Superstars show back in the day.

Jim Ross talks to the Uncle who says this is what they deserved for being in the big city.  They pinned the wrong guy and that’s not the last you’ll see of the twins.

The NYPD Blue guy is with the Million Dollar Team (DiBiase’s stable of mostly jobbers) when he’s supposed to be in the dressing room of Pam Anderson but the mic doesn’t work. As an aside, during the show Lawler accidentally knocked some cords loose and he and Vince had to redo the entire commentary on the show from watching video. Due to that, the commentary you’ll hear on these matches isn’t live at all.

Lawler describes football as a game where eleven men spend hours trying to move a small object 100 yards, which is just like the post office.  What that has to do with this is beyond me but it sounded good at the time.  Oh it’s about the NFL guys here for the main event.

Intercontinental Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Razor Ramon

No real story here other than they’re feuding for no apparent reason. Jarrett is in his country music gimmick here and even the Fink sounds bored out of his mind here. Jarrett won the title at the Rumble thanks to the Roadie (Road Dogg in case you didn’t know that) interfering. 1-2-3 Kid and Ramon are in the back and say that Ramon is ready.

Razor was so over back then it’s insane. Vince makes a weird comment saying that Ramon knows where he is at all times. Not sure why that’s a compliment. Don’t most people know where they’re located? It’s either a Vince line or a rib that 3 people get.  Razor is all over Jarrett to start this off.  Jarrett hits the floor and Razor gets to shoot off his pyro.  He gets about three covers in the first 2 minutes, all off punches.

Double J may have hurt his tooth.  Rollup gets two for Razor.  Roadie saves Jarrett from the Razor’s Edge and Jarrett tries to leave but the Kid is waiting in the aisle to stop that. Five minutes in and JJ’s biggest move has been a hard Irish whip. You know for all of his detractors, Jarrett can wrestle quite well. I’ve always wondered why he didn’t get the recognition as a star that he deserved.

Jarrett tries to get on offense but can’t get anything long term going at all.  He gets thrown to the floor again as the crowd dies all over again.  Jeff gets some dropkicks in and here comes the guy from Tennessee.  We hit the chinlock and the fans get going a bit.  At least it’s a fast one as Razor gets a backslide for two.  Sleeper goes on Razor and again it lasts just a few seconds.  Oh hey here’s another chinlock to keep us interested.

This match just isn’t flowing. It’s like they’re working move to move and it’s showing badly. In a really stupid looking sequence, they both hit the ropes and hit head to head. Then they get up and hit the ropes again and both punch each other. It’s more or less the same spot twice in a row. Just looked stupid. This referee is counting ridiculously fast too.

Fallaway slam gets two.  Discus punch gets Jeff down.  Can Razor do anything else besides punch and go for the Edge?  Razor hurts his knee going for a top rope bulldog, which is the same knee that was hurt THREE MONTHS AGO at the Rumble. Of course it’s still sore. Why wouldn’t it be?

Figure four by Jarrett as the Roadie pulls on Jarrett’s arms for more leverage. I’ve always wondered about that. How does it make it hurt more? I love how Razor’s knee is hurt badly, yet he can pick a 230lb man up, sit him on the top rope and belly to back suplex him from it without his knee giving out.

He gets him up for the Razor’s Edge but Roadie chop blocks him for the DQ. Post match, all four men brawl. JR asks Jarrett about his cheating and Jarrett says he’ll always be the IC Champion. If by always he means until he jumps to WCW and then back to the WWF, loses to Chyna after being hit by a fish and then is banned from the company because Austin hated him, they yes he’ll always be champion.

Rating: D+. This was WAY too many punches and rest holds. These two have had far better matches before, such as at the Rumble. Razor probably had 90% of his offense from throwing punches.  Jarrett wasn’t anywhere nearly as serious as he should have been at this point and that change wouldn’t come for many years.  Definitely a weak match from them.

Since there was no audio earlier, let’s redo the exact movements from the interview earlier on. Pamela Anderson is nowhere to be found. Shawn and Sid say that Diesel is afraid.

Todd Pettingil gets in a 3 point stance with a football player and that’s all there is to this pointless bit.

The Undertaker vs. King Kong Bundy

This is the result of a mini feud with DiBiase and Kama over the Urn being stolen for about the 12^th time.  A baseball umpire is refereeing the match for no apparent reason.  Bundy charges straight at him to start but that gets him nowhere.  Old School can’t take him down.  A bunch of clotheslines finally put the bald man down.

Bundy knocks him to the floor and Taker gets the Urn back.  Now of course Bundy is in big trouble as Taker is all ticked off.  Here’s Kama (Godfather) to steal it back again.  This is going as fast as I’m typing it so it’s not like I’m skipping over a ton of stuff.  Taker grabs Kama’s face but Bundy makes the save and Kama escapes.

Ross grabs an interview with Kama who says he’s going to melt it down and make a chain out of it and put it around his neck, which he wound up doing.  Bundy chokes away in the corner, showing off his vast array of offensive talents.  This referee is rather bad at counting.  Bearer plays cheerleader to try to get Taker out of a chinlock.  Avalanche hits in the corner but Taker is no Special Delivery Jones so it has no effect.  A slam and the jumping clothesline of all things end this.

Rating: F+. Oh man this was bad.  Taker was completely lacking direction at this point and it was painfully obvious that they had no clue what to do with him.  He would feud with Kama for a bit before feuding with King Mabel for a bit until FINALLY Mankind debuted to give Taker something to do long term.  Terrible match.

Oh look, the NYPD Blue guy still can’t find Pamela Anderson.  Steve McMichael says he’ll take down Kama.  The rest of the All-Pro Team says they’ll take care of the Million Dollar Team.  The NYPD Blue guy does find Jonathan Taylor Thomas beating Bob Backlund at chess though.  I never thought I’d have to type that.  Backlund’s rant about the world being screwed up is hilarious.

Tag Titles: Smoking Gunns vs. Owen Hart/???

Owen has a mystery partner here. The Smoking Gunns are a great example of the failure of tag wrestling during this time period. They were definitely talented, but absolutely no one cared about them. They’re practically forgotten but were one of the most successful tag teams from this time frame.

As you probably know, the partner is Yokozuna.  Oddly enough the partner comes out before the Guns, the champions, do.  This is of course about Bret somehow because Owen is completely obsessed with Bret.  Yoko weighs a few tons by this point and is straight up waddling to the ring.  The Gunns say they don’t care who the partner is.  Billy with a mullet and a mustache is freaky looking.

More fireworks for the champions here.  What’s with that tonight for the tag teams?  Owen and Billy start us off.  That’s the most talented combination out there I guess.  Apparently Owen and Neidhart were eliminated from the tag tournament to determine the #1 contenders so this is a result of that.  The Gunns work on the arm of Owen to start which lasts only a few seconds as it’s off to Yoko.

The leg drop misses and Yoko takes over again.  And never mind as it’s back to Owen again.  Cornette is yelling at the fans which is one of the more entertaining parts of the show.  Double Russian legsweep to the Canadian by the American cowboys.  Yoko gets sent to the floor as we’re in the Colossal Connection formula here: Owen does the vast majority of the work while Yoko is brought in as the heavy hitter.

Apparently Men on a Mission have turned heel on the Gunns.  Riveting indeed and unfortunately it set up King Mabel.  The Gunns hit a modified Sidewinder (side slam/legdrop combination) for two on Owen.  Yoko comes in and gets the legdrop on the back of Billy’s head to more or less kill him.  I’m surprised Yoko has been in the ring this long.

LONG nerve hold by Yoko on Billy to waste a lot of time.  Yoko misses a legdrop and Bart comes in.  Everything breaks down and Billy gets killed by a belly to belly from the fat man.  Banzai Drop ends Billy and Owen gets the pin for the title, which might be his first in the company if that’s possible.

Rating: D+. Eh just a tag match here.  The Gunns were boring beyond belief and Yoko was so fat that he could barely move at all.  This was simply to have a title switch on the show much like the first show in the series.  Boring match and somehow the best one so far I think if that’s possible.

Bigelow says he’ll destroy Lawrence Taylor.  There was a Mania Work Out and they had a skirmish there too.  This feud never really got going for me but the media actually paid attention so there’s that I guess.  This interview takes forever and nothing special is said at all.

Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund

This is an I Quit match with Roddy Piper as referee for no apparent reason.  Vince says Roddy knows something about submission.  What in the world would that be anyway?  This was their second submission match technically as the other was a throw in the towel match that had to end in submission if I remember right.  Piper would be Commissioner by the next Mania.

Backlund is more or less crazy here which was rather impressive given how completely different he used to be back in his glory days.  I’m still mad about not getting Bret’s glasses when I was a kid.  The annoying kid next to me got them.  I did however get a Slaughter helmet.  Bret gets a headbutt to start and the fight is on.  Sharpshooter can’t go on early.

Vince doesn’t remember Piper losing to Bret at Mania 8.  Some fan he is.  Bret goes for the Sharpshooter again and can’t get it.  You couldn’t tell that from Vince as he keeps changing his reaction every five seconds.  “Yes!  No.  Yes!  No.”  Is he the Zodiac or something?  Figure Four goes on but Backlund reverses it.  Neither guy says they quit as we get a quick check-in with the German commentators for no apparent reason.

Bret works the knee again as this is rather boring.  Piper needs to quit asking them if they quit so often.  Backlund works on the arm as I try to find a good novel to read so I don’t have to watch this for awhile.  Backlund hooks a Fujiwara armbar and Bret says No to Piper.  That was a shocking line then apparently which is amusing given that in an I Quit match in 99 with HHH vs. Rock, HHH said Suck It when he was asked if he quit.

Backlund likes that armbar.  Jerry talks about breaking into a pyramid (what the heck?) and seeing a picture of Stu Hart with a headlock on King Tut (where does he get these jokes from?).  Sharpshooter almost goes on but Backlund gets to the ropes before it gets cinched in.  Bret charges again and his shoulder hits the post to put him in real trouble.

There’s the Crossface Chickenwing and Bret is in trouble.  And never mind as he casually reverses and gets a horrible version of it on Backlund for the submission.  You know, from all that devastating work that he did on Backlund’s arm the whole time.  This was an awful match if you didn’t get it.

Rating: F+. This was really bad. Backlund was just flat out too old to be a serious main event threat by this point and while Bret was sharp as ever, Bob just didn’t have it in him anymore. Bret has called it the worst match of his career and he might be right. Backlund’s I saw the Light thing led to an angle where he would run for President of all things. As you can guess, it went nowhere.  Also, having a Bret match lack any and all psychology is very weird indeed.

Backlund is leaving and says he saw the light.  This would mean he became a Presidential candidate.

Ok, the NYPD guy was annoying at first. Now he’s just making me mad. NO ONE CARES.  They’re changing the celebrities around.

More audio issues as Todd tries to talk to Diesel. He finally says that he’s going to keep the title. He slips up when he’s trying to say if he’s going to regain or retain the title and finally screams HOLD ONTO IT. This was back when Nash was actually really good and got the reputation he’s lived off for years now.

Celebrities are introduced as Jerry Lawler reveals he accidentally unplugged some cords.

WWF Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel

The deal was supposed to be McCarthy came out with Diesel and Anderson, who was viewed as ten times hotter and more important than McCarthy (nonsense) would come out with the Rumble winner, Shawn. For obvious reasons, this got reversed. The NYPD Blue guy is the ring announcer and he’s miles better at this than he is as an interviewer. He shouts almost everything he says and for the sake of this, it works really well.

The story here is Diesel was Shawn’s bodyguard but realized he was awesome on his own so he turned face and won the WWF Title. Sid replaced him as the bodyguard and the exact same thing would happen in about a year. Shawn has finally morphed into the character that would make him a legend by this point.  As weird as this sounds, Diesel is a freaking beast at this point. Sweet intro, the music was cool, he has Pamela Anderson, just the complete look. What in the world happened to that?    Anderson simply couldn’t want to be here less if her life depended on it.

Shawn hammers away to start as we’re already into the power vs. speed area.  Diesel had been champion since a few days after Survivor Series so he had almost 7 more months with the title here.  Diesel sends Shawn to the floor as we look at the ladies.  Sid distracts the referee but Shawn can’t get in a shot on Diesel.  Suplex puts Shawn down.

Back to the floor again as Sid and Diesel stare each other down one more time.  Diesel counters a sunset flip as this is more or less one sided so far.  Nash gets sent to the floor but Shawn Skins the Cat and dives down to crush Diesel.  Baseball slide has the champion in trouble.  We look at Anderson again and sweet goodness does she want to be anywhere else but here.

The fans loudly chant for Sid, thus proving that this entire match is booked wrong.  Shawn hits a splash off the apron to the floor as Diesel is in trouble.  Back in the ring Shawn stomps away and hits a bulldog for two.  I’ve never liked that move at all.  Reverse cross body off the middle rope gets two again.  Shawn works on the arm and gets a LET’S GO SHAWN chant in his honor.

Ok make that he’s working on Diesel’s ribs.  A top rope elbow to the back gets two in what is for some reason a highlight reel clip for Shawn.  Never really have gotten why but it certainly is.  Off to the chinlock now as the fans still like Shawn better.  Diesel fights back and gets Snake Eyes to get some momentum going.  Flair Flip in the corner and Shawn hits the floor again.

Nash follows and it’s time to see Shawn’s tights pulled down as is the tradition for big matches he’s in for no apparent reason.  They slug it out on the floor and the referee twists his ankle getting down.  I guess it wasn’t an Attitude Era thing.  Back in the ring Shawn gets Sweet Chin Music but there’s no referee which would be a factor in Shawn’s reasoning as to why he lost.

It gets two and the fans boo loudly on the kickout.  Sid goes to an old school heel move and rips off the turnbuckle pad.  Diesel gets a suplex to avoid being rammed into it and both guys are down.  Shawn gets an arm over him for a long two as the fans aren’t seeming to care much here.

In a slick counter, Diesel catches a bulldog off the middle rope in a side slam.  Nice move.  Shawn circles Diesel but gets his legs tripped from under him.  Diesel goes old school with a slingshot into the exposed buckle.  If only that had actually been where he landed, as Shawn’s head hit the middle buckle instead of the top one.  Big boot and Jackknife end this anyway.

Rating: B. As you can tell, I really like this match. It’s not famous at all but it’s definitely solid all around. There was a story with the ribs, a controversy that would lead to rematches and a clean ending. The match also got enough time to put on something decent and it showed. Shawn was clearly coming into his own but still wanted to prove himself. Solid effort all around and a very good match.  These two had some of the most forgotten great matches of all time and this is one of them for sure.

Shawn and Sid complain to Ross and say it’s not over, which it wasn’t.  The celebrities celebrate with Diesel forever and Nash gets both chicks.

Shawn complains even more in the back.

Lawrence Taylor vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

If you have never seen a person die and you want to…actually if you want to I’d recommend psychiatric help. But anyway, right here you’re about to see a man’s career die right in front of your eyes.

Here it is. Let it be known throughout the universe and all the world, that the reason that WM 11 is called the worst WM of all time is this match and this angle right here. Here’s the idea: for those of you that don’t know, LT is one of the best football players of all time, bar none. He was at the Royal Rumble in the front row and Bigelow shoved him, leading to this.

Instead of the WWF Title being on the line in the main event of the biggest show of the year, we get a retired football player against a barely upper midcarder that was about 8 years past his prime. Do I even need to explain why this was a bad idea? Each man has a group of 5 supporters at ringside so it’s more or less a lumberjack match.  Their entrances take the greater part of forever.  Oh and Salt N Peppa sing LT to the ring.

Pat Patterson of all people is the referee.  There are so many jokes I could make about that I don’t know where to start.  This is by far and away the main event of the show which still makes my head shake.  I used to complain that Lawrence couldn’t wrestle but that was the point I think: he wasn’t supposed to be able to wrestle but rather be able to fight.

Diesel had been showing him some stuff apparently.  The bell hasn’t rung yet so we’re just hanging around and waiting to start.  Patterson wants a handshake but Lawrence slaps Bigelow instead and it’s on.  Taylor likes to throw forearms which makes sense as it’s a basic strike.  Taylor sends him to the floor with Bigelow doing the majority of the work to get himself over the top.

Bigelow misses a corner splash and Taylor gets a belly to back for two.  More forearms which keep working so naturally he keeps going with them.  Taylor gets in the face of the Million Dollar Team as we’re still waiting on the big brawl between the guys on the floor.  Lawrence gets caught on his way back in and now we get into the main part of the match.

They’re going very slow which is understandable here.  Falling headbutt misses Taylor but he can’t capitalize and Bigelow takes over again.  Boston Crab goes on which shifts into a sloppy half crab instead.  Ok now it’s shifted into more or less Bigelow pulling on Taylor’s leg.  This is a very different kind of match and not incredibly interesting.

The rope is finally grabbed and Taylor goes back to the forearms.  A suplex gets Taylor out of trouble for a bit and both guys are down.  Bigelow gets the advantage again and hits the Moonsault but hurts his knee, having to roll off.  He covers shortly thereafter and gets two to ZERO reaction.  I think the fans were confused or flat out didn’t care.  Either way it’s not a good sign.

LT gets a gutwrench suplex that is called a Jackknife for two.  Enziguri puts Taylor down again and this is really needing to end like now.  Top rope headbutt gets two and a tiny reaction.  Taylor makes his big comeback and hammers away with the forearms and now the crowd is getting into it.  In the big spot of the match, LT goes to the middle rope and hits a flying forearm to get the pin.  Taylor might have been hurt but he seems ok.  DiBiase rips into Bigelow post match, setting up his failure of a face turn.

Rating: D+. Well they tried.  I’ll give them that: they tried.  For the life of me I don’t get why this is what they closed the show with.  Well actually I do as it was certainly the biggest match, but it shouldn’t have been if that makes sense.  Taylor’s offense made sense as he kept at it with the forearms, but the match didn’t work for the most part.  Still though, not completely unwatchable but not incredibly good.

Overall Rating: F+. Yeah this show is still boring.  It feels more like an In Your House rather than what it should have been, which is the biggest show of the year.  Shawn vs. Diesel is good and that’s about it.  Everything else is completely forgettable to say the least and the main event is one of the biggest headscratchers of all time.

To give you an idea of how odd this show is, it runs less than two and a half hours.  Think about that.  Wrestlemania ran less than two and a half hours.  The show was shockingly well received though and it got a solid buyrate for the time.  It doesn’t hold up well at all and that’s what kills it.  95 simply wasn’t kind to PPV and this is probably the second worst show of the year, after Summerslam.  Bad show.

Thoughts?