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

Oh dang it 1995 WWF still exists. This is that year that no one likes to talk about and you have to fly through it as fast as you can or you might risk seeing something on it. The big twist this year is that the intervals in the Rumble are only 60 seconds, so the whole match is like 40 minutes long. The other problem is that Diesel is WWF Champion here. The good news is that he’s facing Bret Hart, one of the two men capable of dragging an awesome match out of him. Let’s get to it.

We open with the big deal about tonight’s show: Pamela Anderson arrives. She’ll be escorting the winner of the Rumble to the ring at Wrestlemania. A bunch of guys arrive to greet her.

Intercontinental Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Razor Ramon

Jarrett is challenging and now has the Roadie with him. Razor starts with his usual assortment of punches and a fallaway slam to send Jeff to the floor. After a little toweling off on the floor, Jeff armdrags Razor down and struts. They trade arm holds until Razor gets taken to the mat where Jeff messes with his hair. Careful with the grease there Jeff. Razor gets annoyed and knocks Jeff to the floor for some more Memphis stalling.

Jeff gets back in and is immediately puts in an armbar where Razor can mess with Jarrett’s hair. Some dropkicks floor the champ and a clothesline gets two. Razor catches a boot coming and ducks the enziguri from Jeff, but Razor misses an elbow to keep Jarrett in control. We hit the chinlock followed by a sunset flip by Jeff for two. Another dropkick gets the same and Jarrett is getting frustrated.

Jarrett hooks a sleeper but Razor quickly counters. The counter doesn’t last long though as Jeff hits a swinging neckbreaker for two. Ramon slides behind Jeff in the corner and crotches him on the post to a big pop. We get a messed up (not botched mind you) spot where Razor was going to try a bulldog off the middle rope but Jeff turns around and it had to be a clothesline. Eh no harm no foul. Jeff backdrops Razor to the floor, injuring the champ’s knee. Roadie clips him in the knee and Razor gets counted out.

We won’t get to the rating just yet. Post match Jeff calls Razor a coward for taking the easy way out like that and calls him back into the ring. Razor pulls a Marty McFly and takes the bait, giving us another match.

Intercontinental Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Razor Ramon

Razor tries some quick rollups for two but Jeff goes right for the knee to take over. Jeff does his best Ric Flair imitation but as he goes for the third cannonball down onto the leg, Razor kicks him over the top and out to the floor. Back in and Jarrett puts on the Figure Four, putting Razor in a lot of trouble. Razor escapes and starts his comeback with punches and the belly to back superplex but Jeff counters in mid air for two. Razor clotheslines him down and loads up the Edge, but the knee gives out and Jeff rolls him up for the pin and the title.

Rating: C+. I always remember liking this match and it holds up pretty well. Memphis stalling isn’t for everyone but it’s a good way of drawing heel heat, which Jeff might as well have been an iceberg for otherwise. Razor was awesome at this point and had good chemistry with Jeff, so this worked pretty well all around. The ending was smart as it was Razor’s trademark ending for house shows, but he would usually win in about 30 seconds with the Razor’s Edge. Nice to see them switch things up here.

Pamela Anderson has been given a lot of gifts from various wrestlers. One of the running gags on this show is that Pamela clearly doesn’t want to be here at all and has these “GET ME OUT OF HERE” looks on her face the whole night. Todd Pettingill tries to hit on her and completely fails of course.

Jeff says it’s time to celebrate.

IRS vs. The Undertaker

This is the start of the Undertaker vs. Million Dollar Team feud which went on FOREVER. The bell rings and we stand around a lot. IRS tries to jump Taker from behind and it goes nowhere. Taker glares him down to the floor and the stalling continues. IRS slides in, gets glared down, and hides on the floor again. Finally we head back in with IRS pounding away and getting kicked in the face for his efforts.

Taker grabs him by the tie and swings him out of the corner, followed by Old School as this is dominance so far. IRS and DiBiase get in an argument on the floor, causing DiBiase to call for some druids. Taker loads up Old School again but the druid shakes the rope and Taker goes down. A clothesline puts Taker on the floor where he beats on the druids a bit before IRS jumps him from behind.

The druids send Taker into the steps and there’s an abdominal stretch by IRS. That goes nowhere so Taker misses an elbow to really slow himself down. IRS hits some basic stuff as the crowd is almost completely silent. Druid interference gets two for IRS and also allows him to escape the Tombstone. A clothesline puts Taker down but he pops up and hits a chokeslam for the pin.

Rating: D. At the end of the day, this was about thirteen minutes of Taker beating up IRS. I mean….did ANYONE buy IRS as a threat to the Dead Man here? That was the problem with the eight month long feud between Taker and DiBiase’s group: no one on the team was a real threat to him at all. Bad match here but that had to be expected.

Post match Taker beats up the druids and has a staredown with King Kong Bundy. During the staring, IRS steals the Urn. There’s the launch of the feud and Bundy beats up Taker for awhile.

Diesel doesn’t have much to say about his match with Bret.

Bret is ready for his chance at the title.

WWF World Title: Diesel vs. Bret Hart

Diesel is defending in case you’re really slow. Bret tries to brawl to start but is almost immediately knocked down by a big shot to the face. A clothesline puts Bret on the floor where he chills for a bit. Back in and Bret goes after the knee like a smart Hitman. He puts on a quick Figure Four and after a good deal of time in it, Diesel gets to the rope. Bret does something you hardly ever see enough: he puts the same hold back on. Why don’t more people do that? He had Diesel in trouble, so why mess with what was working?

Diesel makes the rope again and heads to the floor where Bret hits a suicide dive to have the champ reeling. Diesel shrugs it off and sends Hart into the steps to get a breather. With Bret in the ropes, Diesel hits the running crotch attack to his back. There’s a backbreaker to Bret and Diesel bends him across the knee a bit. Bret fires off some right hands but gets whipped hard into the buckle to stop him cold.

The champ loads up the Jackknife but instead puts Bret on his shoulder for a backbreaker. Why he doesn’t JACKKNIFE HIM WHEN HE HAS THE CHANCE is beyond my intelligence as Bret escapes. A big boot (Diesel’s leg seems fine) puts Bret down for two, but Bret gets a boot up of his own, followed by a middle rope clothesline for two. Hart goes up and Diesel tries to slam him off, but the knee goes out, giving Bret a two count.

The kickout sends Bret to the floor and he pulls Diesel’s legs out for the figure four around the post. Actually scratch that as he ties Diesel’s legs together instead and pounds away. The Five Moves of Doom get two but Diesel grabs a rope to block the Sharpshooter. Bret clotheslines him to the floor but a dive is caught in mid-air. The tall guy rams him into the post and hits the Jackknife in the ring, but Shawn Michaels runs in to break up the count.

Shawn beats on Diesel’s leg which isn’t a DQ for no apparent reason. Shawn and Diesel had split up at Survivor Series if you’re wondering why this beating is happening. We get a ruling that the match must continue to the delight (yes I said delight) of the crowd. Bret goes back to the knee, hooking another Figure Four. Diesel can’t get to the ropes so he hits Bret in the bad ribs to escape. Ah selling, how I love you.

Diesel is all ticked off now and pounds away on Bret in the corner. A gutwrench suplex of all things gets two for the champ but a big boot in the corner misses. Bret wraps Diesel’s leg around the post and blasts it with a chair. There’s the Sharpshooter but now it’s Owen coming in for the save and a beatdown on Bret. I would say there’s a great tag match in there, but Bret and Shawn teaming up would mean the end of the world as we know it.

The match is going to continue AGAIN though and Diesel gets two on Bret. The place is starting to lose its minds over these near falls. Bret sends him into the buckle that Owen exposed and pounds away as Diesel is rocking again. Diesel comes back AGAIN with elbows and forearms to the face before punching Bret into the ropes where Hart’s legs are caught. Bret is holding his knee but you never know with him.

Yep, he stands up and lays back down in some classic Hart goldbricking. Diesel goes for the Jackknife but Bret fakes him into a small package for two. Bret tries an O’Connor Roll and the referee is bumped. Backlund, Michaels, Roadie and Jarrett run in and that’s FINALLY enough for the double DQ.

Rating: A. These two had MAD chemistry together and this was no exception. They knew how to work the David vs. Goliath (I’m not sure how fair it is to call Bret David actually) formula to perfection and the matches were great as a result. Why the company kept going with Diesel vs. power guys is beyond me, because his best stuff comes against small guys like Bret and Shawn and always has.

Backlund stays in the ring and puts the Crossface Chicken Wing on Bret. This set up their I Quit match at Mania which even Bret admits sucked. Diesel makes the save and hugs Bret.

More Pettingill and Anderson stuff.

Bob Holly and 1-2-3 Kid are excited to be in the finals of the tag team title tournament.

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

Shawn and Diesel split up and we needed champions. Holly and Tatanka start things off with Tatanka hitting a side slam for two. Holly comes back with a slam and a few dropkicks as this is going nowhere so far. Off to the Kid vs. Bigelow, with the big man running over both of the smaller guys with ease. Bigelow LAUNCHES Kid into the air but gets caught in a rana to send Bam Bam rolling.

Back to Tatanka who whips Kid into the buckles a few times before it’s off to Bigelow to pound on the small guy some more. In something that actually impressed me, Kid backdrops Bigelow to the floor. Both small guys try top rope cross bodies but they escape and dropkick the heels together. Things settle down with Tatanka beating on Holly for a LONG time. Bigelow comes in, allowing Tatanka to distract the Kid. Holly goes to the corner to find no partner and Bigelow splashes Bob.

Holly gets beaten down so badly that he goes to the wrong corner and tags in Tatanka. Thank goodness this isn’t the Attitude Era because it probably would have been legal in some of their matches. Tatanka comes in for more beating on Holly until Bob FINALLY gets in a clothesline for the hot tag to the Kid. Everything breaks down and Kid is LAUNCHED to the floor by Bigelow. Bam Bam loads up the moonsault but Tatanka accidentally hits the ropes to knock him to the mat. Somehow that’s enough for the pin and the titles for the Kid.

Rating: C+. This went nearly sixteen minutes which was just too long. It’s quite good but it would have been great if they cut off five minutes or so. Those launches by Bigelow were awesome looking as Kid continues to be an excellent seller of moves like those. The idea was that it was all Bigelow’s fault, even though Tatanka is totally to blame for Bigelow crashing like that. The Gunns would win the titles back the next night on Raw, making this whole thing pretty pointless.

Post match DiBiase and Tatanka leave Bigelow in the ring, where Lawrence Taylor, NFL legend, laughs at him. Bigelow shoves him down, and there’s Wrestlemania people.

We get a recap of the 94 Rumble, focusing on Diesel’s dominance and Shawn helping to eliminate him.

Shawn laughs a bit.

We look at the ending to the match from last year.

Luger says he wants the title. Lex, it’s been over for you for like eight months now. Let it go dude.

Vince apologizes to Lawrence Taylor.

Here’s Pamela Anderson to watch the Rumble at ringside and MAN does she look miserable.

Royal Rumble

Shawn is #1 and Bulldog is #2. Shawn immediately jumps Bulldog but this isn’t going to last long. Remember there are one minute intervals, which was just a bad idea in general. Smith gets a quick gorilla press, but why throw Shawn OUT when you can just slam him? That clearly won’t come back to haunt him later or anything of course. Smith charges into a boot and here’s Eli Blu (one of the Harris Brothers, who were the big bald bikers who were around for WAY too long) at #3.

Nothing happens so here’s Duke Droese (a wrestling garbageman) at #4. Eli fights Smith and Droese squeezes Shawn until Jimmy Del Ray of the Heavenly Bodies is #5. Nothing continues to happen because there isn’t enough time between entries. Sione (Barbarian) of the Headshrinkers is #6 as Del Ray is tossed out. Tom Prichard of the Heavyenly Bodies is #7 and STILL nothing is happening.

Doink is #8 as the Rumble is going way too fast. It’s like the original Rumble: not enough names to care about and nothing going on at the same time. Kwang is #9 and Rick Martel is #10, I believe in his last WWF match. There are nine people in the ring right now. Shawn is almost out but fights off Kwang to survive. Owen Hart is in at #11 and here’s Bret to jump him in the aisle. Owen survives and climbs in, only to be eliminated in three seconds.

Shawn puts out Droese and Timothy Well (partners with Steven Dunn in the tag team of Well Dunn) is #12 and is out almost immediately. Martel and Prichard go out faster than I can see them and Kwang superkicks Doink out. Luke of the Bushwhackers is #13 and during his entrance, everyone but Bulldog and Shawn are gone. Literally, four people were put out inside of six seconds. Luke is out almost immediately and it’s Shawn vs. Bulldog again.

Here’s Jacob Blu at #14 and HE TOO is gone in like fifteen seconds. This is so stupid. King Kong Bundy is #15 and he beats on both guys for about twenty seconds before it’s Mo at #16. Mo is like the fifth guy to last less than thirty seconds. If your roster is this weak, CUT THE FREAKING MATCH DOWN. Nothing else happens until Mable is #17 for the showdown with Bundy. Mabel dumps him out as Butch is #18 and is gone in less than 20 seconds as well. More on this later.

Lex Luger is #19 and he goes right for Mabel for no apparent reason. He eliminates the fat purple and gold dude before gorilla pressing Michaels down like an idiot. Mantaur, a stupid monster character, is #20. He beats on Luger and Bulldog until Aldo Montoya (Justin Credible with a jockstrap on his face) is #21. Henry Godwinn is #22 as we’re waiting on a bunch of people to get thrown out so everyone can go home. I think this is one of Henry’s first matches.

Billy Gunn is #23 so naturally Bart Gunn is #24. Bob Backlund is #25 and also lasts about fifteen seconds due to a Bret Hart attack. Steven Dunn is #26 as there are like ten people in there. Bret and Backlund fight in the aisle again and old man Dick Murdoch is #27. Mantaur misses a charge at Bart and Adam Bomb is #28. For the second year in a row, Vince decides Adam Bomb is going to win the Rumble. Seriously.

Fatu is #29 and Luger eliminates Mantaur. Crush is #30, giving us a final group of Shawn, Bulldog, Luger, Montoya, Godwinn, Bart, Billy, Dunn, Murdoch, Bomb, Fatu and Crush, or WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE. Thankfully Crush immediately eliminates the Gunns to clear the ring out a bit. We cut to Anderson who gives a very uninterested wave and points to the ring. You know, because this is SO beneath her. Well, not beneath her enough to give the check back or anything but you get the idea.

Dunn is put out off camera and Murdoch almost puts Shawn out. Luger makes the save due to a lack of intelligence as Murdoch tries headbutts on Fatu. Naturally it doesn’t work at all because YOU DON’T HEADBUTT A SAMOAN. Bomb is backdropped out and Shawn throwsn Montoya out. Luger saves Shawn AGAIN and Crush eliminates Fatu. There are six guys left: Murdoch (who hits a dropkick and airplane spin on Godwinn), Godwinn, Shawn, Bulldog, Crush and Luger.

Murdoch gets dizzy from the spin and falls out to get us down to five. Lex dumps Godwinn and we’ve got four left. Michaels and Crush double team Luger as Bulldog gets a breather. They dump Lex and we’ve got three guys left. Smith gets double teamed until Shawn turns on Crush and is lifted into the air. Bulldog uses the distraction to eliminate Crush and it’s one on one. Davey destroys Shawn and presses him onto (not over. That would make sense) the top rope. Shawn is knocked over the top, but in the famous finish, he hangs on and ONLY ONE FOOT touches, allowing Shawn to come back in and eliminate Smith to win.

Rating: D. This is a tricky one, because the stuff that was decent was in fact decent. The problem is there wasn’t much stuff that falls into that category. First and foremost, SEVEN PEOPLE OUT OF THIRTY did not last thirty seconds. If they’re that meaningless to the match, simply do not put them in the Rumble. It looks stupid and there’s no reason to have them out there.

Second, the time intervals. These were a major issues because there’s no time to get ANYTHING going in the match. When you count ten seconds or so to get into the ring (some people take up to twenty), you’re looking at about 45 seconds of action with the new guy before someone else comes out. That’s just not enough time to get anything going at all.

Third, and this is probably the biggest problem of the match, look at the roster here. At a glance, I see four people with actual chances to win: Crush, Luger (they’re both BIG stretches), Bulldog, and Shawn. After that there’s Owen Hart but he was one of the guys that didn’t make it thirty seconds in the ring.

Then you’re looking at guys like Montoya and Well Dunn and the Bushwhackers (who amazingly still had jobs in 1995) and the Heavenly Bodies (by my count there were five tag teams in here, or one third of the match. WAY too many guys at that level) and Dick freaking Murdoch. This is a match that was BEGGING for a midcard to come in and fill in some spots. Guys like Ramon and Jarrett and Bigelow and Tatanka would have helped this match a ton, but instead we get all these fillers. That’s a big reason why this didn’t work.

Anderson poses with Shawn to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. This is a hard one to grade because as good as the world title match is, the Rumble sucks it right back down. IRS vs. Taker isn’t anything good but it’s much more boring than bad. The opener and tag matches are good so I can’t complain much there. 1995 would be AWFUL for the most part though, mainly due to all of the problems you could see coming in the Rumble. Still though, not an awful show by any stretch and it has a great world title match.

Ratings Comparison

Jeff Jarrett vs. Razor Ramon

Original: B+
Redo: C+

Undertaker vs. IRS

Original: D
Redo: D

Bret Hart vs. Diesel

Original: B-
Redo: A

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

Original: D+
Redo: C+

Royal Rumble

Original: D+
Redo: D

Overall Rating

Original: C-
Redo: C+

What in the world was I thinking on the title match? It was great.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

 

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

This is an interesting show as things were transitioning from what we had for the last two years to the New Generation era, and by that I mean it’s Shawn Michaels time. The main event tonight is Bret challenging Diesel, who has been champion for just shy of a year, for the title. Other than that we’ve got some Survivor Series matches here and that’s about it. Let’s get to it.

Oh and Nitro started about two months ago, meaning Luger is gone.

We start with Razor Ramon, talking about being in the first Wild Card match. The idea here was to take faces and heels and mix them up. It was an interesting concept but like most Survivor Series matches, it didn’t mean anything and wasn’t done again.

Mr. Perfect is introduced as a surprise commentator.

We actually get an opening video which is about Bret going A-Diesel hunting. The idea is old vs. new. It’s No countout and No DQ tonight, basically meaning a street fight.

BodyDonnas vs. Underdogs

Skip, Rad Radford, Tom Prichard, 1-2-3 Kid

Barry Horowitz, Hakushi, Marty Jannetty, Bob Holly

The idea here is people that care about their looks vs. jobbers. Horowitz scored one of the biggest upsets ever over Skip. Jannetty needs no introduction as a jobber. The Kid is a mystery partner who is freshly heel here. By freshly I mean this is his first match as a heel. Razor comes out to go after the Kid who screwed him over on Raw on Monday. Yeah Raw is finally a big deal at this point too. Razor is IC Champion of course.

Prichard and Jannetty start things off and Marty has to fight out of the heel corner. The Kid holds him there but Prichard hits Kid with a knee by mistake. The BodyDonnas huddle on the floor until it’s off to Radford (Louie Spicolli) vs. Marty. Radford is called BodyDonna in training because he’s pretty fat. Here’s Holly to face Rad and he takes Radford over with a rana. Radford tries the same thing but gets powerbombed down.

Off to Hakushi who is pretty freshly face I believe. He gets behind Radford but walks into a spinebuster. Off to the Kid who hits a top rope splash on Hakushi for two and it’s off to Captain Skip. Hakushi escapes a belly to back superplex and it’s back to Holly who speeds things up. Prichard comes in as the fans want Barry. A powerbomb counters a rana from Holly but Tom misses a moonsault. Holly hits a top rope cross body for the elimination. Skip immediately comes in and rolls up Holly to tie it back up.

Hakushi comes in again and trips up Skip before elbowing him in the face. A Vader Bomb hits knees though and Skip gets control back. A shot to the chest takes Skip down so here’s the Kid again. The fans want Barry but it’s Hakushi taking over with a Muta Elbow in the corner. A top rope shoulder takes Kid down for two but Hakushi misses a springboard splash. Razor is watching in the back. Kid kicks Hakushi in the back of the head and Radford gets the easy pin.

Barry comes in and gets pounded down and the fans almost explode. Naturally this match would be the end of his push because that’s how it works in the WWF. Radford and the Kid double team Horowitz but he comes back with a jawbreaker to Radford. Skip tells Rad not to pin Barry yet because Skip wants to get the pin himself.

Radford hits a Hennig neck snap as Hennig is stunned at the reaction to Horowitz. Rad stops to exercise and gets cradled by Barry for the pin. It’s Skip/The Kid vs. Barry/Marty. Horowitz gets distracted by a double team and the Kid dropkicks him in the back, setting up a legdrop for the elimination. So it’s Marty down two on one but he avoids a charging Skip in the corner.

A sunset flip out of nowhere gets two for Marty and the Rocker Dropper (a fancy Fameasser) puts Skip down and Marty goes up. Sunny crotches him (it’s 1995 so I can still call Marty lucky for that) but Skip gets countered into a Superbomb (powerbomb off the top, which would be Skip’s finisher in ECW) for the elimination. It’s one on one now and a missile dropkick gets two for the Kid. A moonsault misses Marty though and they’re both down. Jannetty dropkicks him down for two and here comes Sid. A Rocker Dropper takes the Kid down for two but Sid guillotines Marty on the ropes and Kid steals the pin.

Rating: B. This was a good match to open things up with, especially since I don’t think anyone would have been able to buy Barry Horowitz captaining anything but an opening match team. Other than that though, the action here was good and it set the Kid up as a somewhat big time heel which is what he needed so soon after a turn. Good opener.

Razor threw a fit in the back after the loss, throwing a monitor against the wall in the process.

Three members of I guess you would say the heel Wild Card team (Dean Douglas, Owen and Yokozuna) say that Razor needs to channel his energy into their match later, since he’s their partner.

Team Bertha Faye vs. Team Alundra Blayze

Bertha Faye, Aja Kong, Tomoko Watanabe, Lioness Asuka

Alundra Blayze, Kyoko Inoue, Sakie Hasegawa, Chaparita Asari

Let me make this clear for those of you that feel the need to educate me every time there is a Japanese wrestler in a match: I do not care about Japanese wrestling. If I did, I would watch it. I also do not care about women’s wrestling. If I did, I would watch more of it. Therefore, do me a favor and save your history lessons about these girls because I have almost no idea which is which, nor do I particularly care. I’m not saying they’re not talented and that they haven’t had some great matches. I’m saying I do not care about them, nor do I want to learn about them.

Bertha is a fat and not incredibly attractive woman and is Blayze’s main rival for Blayze’s Women’s Title. She tells the fans to shut up in an attempt to get people interested in this match. Asari and Asuka start things off with Asuka kicking her head off with a spinwheel kick. At least I think that’s what happened because we’re getting a wide shot of the arena for the opening bell. Asari, a member of the face team, stands about 4’9 and is a tiny thing whereas Asuka looks like a monster.

Off to Blayze who is more Asuka’s size for a slam on the Lioness. Back to Asari who debuts the Sky Twister Press (a corkscrew moonsault) in America. Asuka doesn’t sell it but you can’t ask everything of her. Vince has no idea what to call it but JR is there to clean up for him. Blayze comes back in and hits a German suplex to eliminate Asuka. Good now I don’t have to keep track of two girls with similar names.

Watanabe comes in but misses a dive. Blayze sends her to the floor and does hit her dive to take over. Hasegawa comes in and hits five rolling double underhook suplexes on Watanabe as Perfect makes sexist remarks. Watanabe hits a seated senton off the top for two as this selling thing is still an issue. Aja Kong, a total monster, comes in with no tag and is immediately kicked in the face and suplexed by Hasegawa. Another Rock Bottom suplex puts her down but Hasegawa jumps into a kick to the chest. Something like a belly to back suplex eliminates Hasegawa to make it 3-3.

Asari comes in and is quickly dispatched by a middle rope splash. If you can’t see the ending of this match coming, you fail your exam. Blayze comes in but tags out almost immediately to Inoue. Inoue looks like a cross between a Rocker and the Ultimate Warrior. By the time I finish typing that, a seated senton eliminates her. Kong put out three girls in about 90 seconds.

So it’s Blayze vs. Faye, Kong and Watanabe. All three get in the ring at once but it winds up being Watanabe who is legal. A snap suplex gets two for the champion and a slow motion piledriver gets the pin and the elimination for Blayze. Faye comes in and after some basic shots to Blayze, Faye gets caught in a German suplex to make it one on one. Kong hits a superplex for two and she crushes Blayze in the corner for a bit. Alundra hits a bad rana for two and a standing moonsault for the same. Blayze goes up but gets headbutted down and the spinning backfist gets the pin for Kong.

Rating: C+. The match was fun stuff considering it only had ten minutes to get through seven eliminations. Kong would have been a great challenger for Blayze, if the division had stayed around. Blayze would show up on Nitro in about a month and throw the WWF Women’s Title (and her career too) in the trash. Fun match but too rushed to mean anything.

A Bill Clinton impersonator is here. He says he’s been watching Bam Bam Bigelow since Bigelow was a kid and playing with Pebbles.

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Goldust

Goldust is like a month old at this point. Bigelow is obsessed with fire at this point which makes sense given his looks and attire. This is when Goldust was just a movie guy at this point and not, you know, trying to screw everyone on the roster. After about a four minute entrance, we’re ready to go. Then we get some stalling to go with the long entrance. There’s not even a Marlena yet to look at.

Goldie tries to get in Bigelow’s mind but gets knocked to the floor for his efforts. Back in and Bigelow slugs him down but charges into a boot in the corner. Goldust gets rammed into the post on the floor but he comes back with a clothesline to send Bigelow back to the floor. Back in and it’s a front facelock as this match keeps dragging along. Bam Bam is thrown to the floor but comes back with a clothesline. A headbutt misses and Goldie rides Bigelow on the mat. Bam Bam comes back with an electric chair but gets taken down by a lariat. Bigelow makes a comeback, misses a charge, and gets bulldogged down for the pin.

Rating: F. This was an eight minute match. Look at the length of what I wrote and tell me how this match ran eight minutes. Goldust was all mystique and no substance for a year or so until he figured out how to wrestle a match as Goldust instead of as Dustin Rhodes in a funny outfit. This was Bigelow’s last match in the company ever.

Clinton wastes more of our time. Bob Backlund is with him now. Backlund is a critic apparently.

We recap Mabel vs. Undertaker. Mabel was fat and won the King of the Ring, then last month on Raw he dropped some big fat legs on Taker, crushing his face. Tonight it’s about revenge.

Royals vs. Dark Side

King Mabel, Jerry Lawler, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Isaac Yankem

Undertaker, Fatu, Henry Godwin, Savio Vega

Mabel is on a throne carried by about five guys, all of whom look like they’re about to have hernias. The idea here is you have King Mabel, King Lawler, the blue blood and the Royal Dentist Isaac Yankem. About two years later, Isaac would put on a mask and remember that he’s Undertaker’s brother named Kane. What exactly is dark about Taker’s partners isn’t really clear. Fatu is MAKING A DIFFERENCE and is supposed to be some kind of hero for kids in the projects. He was very happy to become the Sultan a year later.

Taker’s entrance of course is huge. He has this skull looking mask on now which would eventually be purple and look very stupid. Fatu and Hunter Hearst Helmsley start things off. The Dark Side has matching t-shirts that say Rest In Peace. Fatu throws Helmsley around to start but we almost get a Pedigree, which is only broken up by a glare from Undertaker. Off to Godwin who was feuding with Hunter at this point in the standard culture clash feud.

Off to Lawler who immediately tags in Yankem. A big hop toss puts Isaac down but he sends Henry into the corner to escape. Back to Helmsley, which I’m getting tired of typing. If only there was a shorter version of his name. Perfect: “You know Helmsley likes to be called Triple H.” Thank you Mr. Perfect. Anyway, Godwin gorilla presses HHH, holding him up for a LONG time.

Lawler comes in and gets Savio which is a clash of styles if I’ve ever heard of one. Vega pounds away on Jerry as does Fatu. Yankem gets in a knee to Fatu’s back and the evil King takes over. Isaac comes in to slam Fatu and a legdrop follows. Mabel comes in but misses a splash in the corner. Vega pounds on Mabel in a rematch of the KOTR final. A side slam kills Vega but there’s no cover.

Vega gets beaten on in the corner to fill in more time. Yankem is listed as 6’8 or 6’9 here, which means he would have grown about three or four inches by the time he became the Big Fried Freak. A HHH knee drop gets two on Vega as the crowd is silent because none of this means anything. This is all just filler until we get to the Taker tag when the place is going to erupt.

Lawler’s piledriver on Vega gets two. Well it’s not Memphis so it’s understandable. Lawler knocks Vega into the corner…..and here’s Taker. Jerry gets thrown around by the throat and no one will tag him. Tombstone and pin on Lawler, tombstone and pin on Yankem, chokeslam and pin on Helmsley, and there’s just Mabel left. He immediately belly to belly suplexes Taker down and drops the face crushing legdrop before dancing a bit. There’s the situp and Mabel runs for the countout.

Rating: D+. This whole match ran just under fifteen minutes and about two of those meant anything. Everything was waiting for Taker to come in and dominate, which he did quite well, but getting there was pretty dull stuff. This match is more fun for looking at what these people would become rather than what they are now. Taker would lose the mask soon enough thank goodness.

Bret is ready for Diesel and isn’t looking forward to the defense he’d have at the next In Your House against British Bulldog. He talks about Wayne Gretsky and wonders if he himself is still the best ever. Today he’ll find out.

Diesel isn’t worried about Bulldog and he’s going to take care of Bret tonight.

DiBiase and Cornette have a small argument before the next match. Shawn comes in and says chill.

Team Shawn Michaels vs. Team Yokozuna

Shawn Michaels, Ahmed Johnson, British Bulldog, Sycho Sid

Yokozuna, Owen Hart, Razor Ramon, Dean Douglas

This is the Wild Card match with all of the mixed up partners. It’s also Ahmed’s PPV debut. Douglas is the original Damien Sandow, which is a ripoff of the Genius. We get going with Owen vs. Shawn which is of course very fast paced stuff. Shawn sends him to the floor and after ducking a tennis racket shot from Cornette, taps Cornette’s pants with said racket. Back inside and it’s Douglas pounding away on Shawn and suplexing him down.

Shawn comes back with a forearm followed by a double ax off the top rope for two. Douglas misses a Vader Bomb so Shawn comes back with a moonsault press for two. It’s off to Ahmed who gets to destroy everything in sight but he can’t slam Yoko. After a big group beatdown, Dean is able to get a chinlock on Ahmed to take over. Razor gets in some cheap shots which is rather heelish of him.

Back to Owen which lasts all of three seconds before it’s back to Dean. Johnson powerslams Dean down but it’s off to Shawn who is launched by Ahmed at Dean for two. In a more normal act for Razor, he pops Dean in the face to give Shawn a rollup win. Off to Bulldog vs. Owen which should be a good pairing. Owen hits a sweet spinwheel kick for two and Davey is so mad that he tags out to Shawn.

Hart tags out to Razor and it’s time for a rematch from Summerslam 95. JR: “I don’t think they can wrestle each other without a ladder.” They’re tentative to start things off but Shawn throws Razor to the floor, followed by Razor taking Shawn’s head off with a clothesline. They collide in mid-air but Shawn nips up. Razor is like screw that chico and hits the Razor’s Edge out of nowhere. Ahmed makes the save and the fans aren’t sure if they like that.

They collide again…..and then they do it for a third time. Shawn tags in Sid who had his back to the ring for some reason. This is a rematch from Raw and part of an ongoing feud. Razor can barely get up, allowing Sid to pound away at will. Yoko tries to get in a cheap shot on Sid but Sid kicks him away. Razor comes back with some right hands and they clothesline each other down. That’s the fourth time something Razor has done something like that in five minutes.

For some reason, Sid goes up (well he is Sycho) and gets slammed back down for two. A one handed chokeslam (looked awesome) puts Razor down but Sid tags in Shawn instead of powerbombing Razor. Shawn accidentally superkicks Sid, but Bulldog breaks up the pin. Not that it matters as Razor covers again a second later and gets the pin. Sid powerbombs Michaels, his own partner, before leaving. Bulldog and Razor are legal at the moment with Davey pounding away….or not as Davey was just having fun.

Razor and Shawn are both down but Ramon can only get two. Owen gets the tag to beat on Michaels and drops him with a backdrop. Off to Yoko for the first time I believe and he destroys Shawn in the corner. Shawn gets whipped upside down in the corner and it’s off to the nerve hold by Yoko. It’s not like Yoko is flexing or anything but it does look like a nice shoulder to lean on I guess.

Shawn gets up and is promptly elbowed back down. Off to Owen for a double headbutt to put Shawn down again. Owen misses a swan dive and Shawn makes the tag to Ahmed, who cleans house. The yet to be named Pearl River Plunge (Tiger Bomb) pins Owen and it’s off to Razor vs. Ahmed, which would have been a very interesting feud. Razor bulldogs Johnson down and things break down again with Razor beating up all of his opponents.

Ahmed goes to the corner to pose, and he just happens to put himself in Razor’s Edge position. With Ahmed down, Bulldog comes in sans tag. Here come Sid and the 1-2-3 Kid with DiBiase as Razor hits the fallaway slam on Bulldog for two. Razor drills the Kid but walks into the powerslam for the elimination. It’s Shawn/Bulldog/Johnson vs. Yokozuna now.

Shawn gets the fat man first but the right hands don’t do much to Yoko, who slugs Shawn down with ease. Yoko hits the fat man legdrop but opts for the Banzai instead of covering. Shawn, fearing death, avoids the drop and makes the tag to Ahmed. There’s the slam (for the second time) but Bulldog breaks up the pin by his own teammate. Davey gets dropped and Shawn superkicks Yoko down. A splash from Ahmed (with a SQUEAL) gets the pin and the victory.

Rating: C+. For a match with almost no point behind it and some wacky teams, this was pretty good stuff. The Shawn vs. Razor stuff was interesting as you knew they had chemistry but it was fun to see them without a gimmick. Ahmed looked good but not great here, which would be the right description of him for his entire run in the WWF. Fun match that was never tried again, which I can understand.

More Clinton stuff with Sunny sitting on his lap. Lucky guy.

Bret talks about his previous matches with Diesel, both of which rocked.

Diesel says he’s Jackknifed Bret twice but he’s not sure if he can beat him. Diesel won the first one by DQ and the second was a draw. They were both good matches so this should be good too.

Perfect picks Bret, JR picks Diesel.

WWF World Title: Bret Hart vs. Diesel

Diesel is defending and this is No DQ and No countout. Diesel immediately takes a buckle pad off, so Bret takes another one off to match him. Bret immediately charges him into the corner and goes after the leg but Diesel pounds him over the back to take over. Diesel knocks him to the floor and Bret is limping. The champ follows him out and hits a HARD ax handle to put Bret down again. It’s a slow start so far but they have a lot of time.

Hart gets sent into the barricade and goes back in but he bails to the floor immediately. Back in and Diesel wins a slugout, knocking Bret to the floor with a big right hand. Diesel whips him into the steps and keeps the pace slow. A theme of the promos had been wearing Bret tiring Diesel out so there’s some good psychology going on here. Diesel puts Bret down with a hard chair shot to the back and Hart is reeling.

Back in and Diesel loads up the Jackknife but Bret keeps grabbing the leg to block it. Now he bites the champ’s hands to escape. The fans are starting to get into this too. Bret goes for the knee and the champ is in trouble. They do the same opening sequence as Bret goes for the knee but Diesel hits him in the back. This time though, Bret gets him down and cranks on the knee. See, THAT is storytelling.

Perfect says the line that always gets on my nerves of “they’re all the same size on the mat.” JR properly says “the size and power advantage are negated on the mat.” What JR says is true. Diesel is still however bigger than Bret on the mat or standing up. Anyway, Bret cannonballs down onto the knee and there’s the Figure Four. Diesel makes the rope but Bret stays on the bad leg.

Hart tries the Sharpshooter but Diesel thumbs him in the eyes before kicking him into the exposed buckle. Bret picks the leg again and wraps it around the post before tying a cord of some kind around the post. He ties the other end of the cord to Diesel’s leg, making the champion a sitting duck. Bret gets a chair but Diesel uses the free leg for a big boot. Diesel crawls for the chair but Bret gets to it first and wears out the knee with chair shots. The leg is still tied to the post.

With the leg still attached, Bret pulls off the backbreaker. Bret takes the chair to the top but Diesel punches him down to crotch Bret. Hart gets slammed to the mat, giving Diesel the chance to untie his ankle. Diesel chokes Bret with the cord and hits the side slam for two. Diesel sends Bret chest first into the exposed corner and puts him in 619 position for the running crotch attack, but he can’t run because of the bad leg. Instead he jumps into the air and crashes down on Bret, which looks more painful than the running version.

Diesel can barely hit Snake Eyes onto a covered buckle and Bret is in trouble. He tries another one but Bret escapes and rams Diesel into the exposed buckle. A Hart Attack clothesline gets two on the champ and Bret starts his comeback. That would be his second comeback if you’re keeping track. A middle rope clothesline gets two as does a Russian Legsweep. Bret clotheslines Diesel to the floor and tries a plancha but Diesel just steps to the side and lets Bret crash.

Bret starts getting back to the apron but Diesel knocks him off, and for the first time ever, through the Spanish Announce Table. They head back inside and Diesel calls for the Jackknife but Bret falls onto his face from exhaustion. Diesel picks him up to try again but BRET IS GOLDBRICKING and rolls Diesel up for the title out of nowhere, shocking the fans.

Rating: A. Outstanding match here with both guys looking awesome. It takes the right kind of opponent to get a great match out of Nash, but when you put a smaller guy like Bret or Shawn in there, you’re going to get a good result almost every time. These two had some masterpieces against each other and this was one of the best ones. I had a blast with this and it worked really well with Bret getting more and more violent and sadistic before faking Diesel out and using a wrestling move to win the title. That’s psychology people, and it’s great.

Diesel snaps post match and lays out Bret and some officials. Bret takes two Jackknifes and says I’M BACK to end the show.

Overall Rating: B. This was a pleasant surprise as with 1995 you often think of something disappointing but instead this was good almost throughout. The Goldust match was terrible but other than that and arguably the Undertaker match, the rest of this is all solid to quite good stuff. Throw in a new world champion and there’s not much you can call bad here. Very good show.

Ratings Comparison

BodyDonnas vs. Underdogs

Original: A-

Redo: B

Team Bertha Faye vs. Team Alundra Blayze

Original: D

Redo: C+

Goldust vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

Original: C

Redo: F

Dark Side vs. Royals

Original: B-

Redo: D+

Team Shawn Michaels vs. Team Yokozuna

Original: C+

Redo: C+

Bret Hart vs. Diesel

Original: C+

Redo: A

Overall Rating

Original: B-

Redo: B

As close as the previous show was to being the same, this one is almost entirely different, yet it leads to a very similar overall rating. That’s a very interesting thing and one of my favorite things to see in doing this.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/11/14/history-of-survivor-series-count-up-1995-bret-slays-the-giant/

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 pissed 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 masturbation 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 PISSED. 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 PISSED, 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. Just make the porn version already and end this stupid thing. You know that Vince would do it too if he thought it would make money.

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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Monday Night Raw
Date: May 30, 1994
Location: Struthers Fieldhouse, Youngstown, Ohio
Attendance: 1,500
Commentators: Randy Savage, Vince McMahon

Thank goodness we’re wrapping the month up here because I don’t think I can take much more of the build towards King of the Ring. The last few weeks have been nothing short of dreadful and there is no reason to think that it is going to get any better in the near future. Maybe they can wrap it up on a nice note so let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

We open with a recap of the qualifying matches so far and there is one spot left. For some reason it is Tatanka vs. Crush instead of Jimmy Del Ray, as announced last week (which was taped the same night as this show). I’m thinking….common sense stepping in?

Opening sequence.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Crush vs. Tatanka

Crush has Mr. Fuji while Tatanka has Chief Jay Strongbow, meaning Vince gets to talk about the Hall of Fame. This means the bizarre situation of Vince mentioning Bobo Brazil, which is quite the clash of the generations. Feeling out process to start with Crush getting sent into the corner for a consultation with Fuji. This actually seems to work as Crush gets in a shot to the face, only to get clotheslined over the top.

We cut to Strongbow, who looks so bored you would think he was watching a Chief Jay Strongbow match. Back in and Crush misses a charge into the corner, allowing Tatanka to hit a middle rope clothesline for two. Hold on though as Tatanka has to break up a battle of the old managers as we take a break. Back with Crush holding a bearhug, as per WWF back from commercial laws.

A belly to belly gives Crush two and a rake to the eyes cuts Tatanka off again. Crush makes the mistake of ramming him into the buckle though and it’s time for the warpath. Tatanka faceplants him and a top rope chop to the head gets two. Strongbow decks the interfering Fuji but Crush drops Tatanka as well. That means Crush has to go after Strongbow and his overly large pants. Tatanka goes for the save and it’s the world’s fastest double countout at 11:05.

Rating: D+. Not much to see here, as too much of the focus was on Strongbow vs. Fuji. I get the idea, but how much interest was there in either of them in 1994? Strongbow looked so miserable out there and I don’t know if anyone has really cared about Fuji for the better part of ever. This wasn’t very good in the first place, and odds are something happens to get one of them into the tournament anyway. Great way to start the show.

The brawl stays on post match until referees break it up.

It’s time for another King of the Ring Control Center, which works fine as a one off but egads these are rough in a marathon. That being said, I do need Todd Pettengill’s KING OF THE RING 1994 shirt (It even has the date!). Anyway, we go to Roddy Piper at home in Oregon, where he says he isn’t interested in talking trash because all he wanted to do is help the kids. He’s no king.

Todd goes over the brackets as we know them so far, including Owen Hart, who already has thoughts on Crush vs. Tatanka going to a double countout. He should just get a bye and move on to the next round! Todd tells us to have fun on Father’s Day but make sure to save enough energy to turn on your TV for the show. How complicated is that TV?

Ted DiBiase is in a funeral parlor and thinks it smells like money. He has been in contact with the Undertaker and the two of them will be getting together again soon. When that happens, the rest of the WWF will be resting in peace.

1-2-3 Kid vs. George South

Feeling out process to start as commentary talks politics. South forearms him in the back and gets in more jobber style offense until Kid scores with some kicks. A headlock is countered into a belly to back suplex to drop Kid again. Not that it matters as a sloppy la majistral finishes South at 2:33.

It’s time for the King’s Court, meaning Lawler gets to insult the crowd as a Memphis heel can do. With that out of the way, Lawler gets to the point with his “Stu and Helen Hart are really, really old” jokes before bringing out Bret Hart as the guest. Lawler brings up the King of the Ring from last year and asks if Bret remembers it, or did all of the oil on his head make it slip his mind.

Bret gets a bit more serious but Lawler brings out the other two guests: Shawn Michaels and Diesel. Lawler asks if Bret is crazy for thinking he can beat Diesel, sending Bret into his usual response to Diesel. That doesn’t seem to bother Diesel, who promises the VIP treatment for Bret: Very Intense Pain. The Jackknife plants Bret in a hurry and the triple stomping is on. Pretty standard segment here but Diesel is a fresh player in the main event, at least partially due to the lack of anyone to challenge Bret at the moment.

Smoking Gunns vs. Reno Riggins/Austin Steele

Bart and Reno trade knees to the ribs to start and it’s quickly off to Billy for a crucifix. A swinging neckbreaker drops Riggins but Bart misses the elbow. Steele, looking like a Buddy Landel tribute, gets whipped into the corner over and over and there’s a top rope bulldog from Billy. Hold on though as Randy Savage needs to read the ad for Firestarter, airing later this week on USA. A dropkick/suplex combination drops Steele again and the Sidewinder (powerbomb/top rope elbow) gives Bart the pin at 3:31.

Rating: D+. The Gunns were the best team of this era but it isn’t like that means a lot. They are good enough to be consistently in the title hunt, though pretty much any two people thrown together could fit that description at the moment. Just a squash here, which isn’t exactly inspiring a lot of the time.

The official decision on Tatanka vs. Crush: a rematch next week, but it’s a LUMBERJACK match, because you want all of the 1994 roster in one place!

Come to the Wrestlemania Revenge Tour!

Jeff Jarrett vs. Chris Hamerrick

Hamerrick was around in the midcard in the dying days of ECW. Some armdrags take Jarrett down to start as we hear about the Arsenio Hall Show coming to an end. Vince: “Does Jeff Jarrett resemble Barney Rubble from the Flintstones?” Jarrett comes back with some stomping into a slingshot suplex, followed by the middle rope fist drop. The chinlock goes on as we talk about anything but the match. Hamerrick gets in a dropkick (with Vince pointing out how little contact it made) but a missed charge lets Jarrett grab the Figure Four for the submission (over the WE WANT DOINK chants) at 3:53.

Rating: D. Jarrett as the country singer was not good in any way and I don’t think there is any way around that reality. He’s talented in the ring but this whole gimmick just feels lame. It doesn’t help that Jarrett is the definition of a solid hand rather than someone who is going to have an exciting match, leaving us sitting through a bunch of stuff like this: technically fine, but really boring.

Jerry Lawler suggests that Roddy Piper will be on the King’s Court last week without actually saying his name. It would be a Piper impersonator to really hammer in the joke.

Overall Rating: D-. The big story of this show was the Crush vs. Tatanka verdict and they somehow got a decision together in the span of about thirty minutes. I don’t believe Jack Tunney could tie his shoes in that amount of time, so this was a stretch in more ways than one. Another rather bad show here, but you kind of have to expect that coming in.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: May 16, 1994
Location: Memorial Auditorium, Burlington, Vermont
Attendance: 2,500
Commentators: Randy Savage, Vince McMahon

Let’s have some sumo wrestling. That’s the big story this week as Earthquake and Yokozuna will have a sumo match with the ring ropes taken down. Why that is supposed to have my attention for an hour long show is beyond me, but maybe we can get another King of the Ring match to fill the time. Let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

The opening video looks at the sumo match, with both guys being big and good at sumo. Earthquake as a face still just feels wrong.

Opening sequence.

Commentary runs down the show but Vince seems to mistime things a bit and is left standing there for a bit before the camera cuts away.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Sparky Plugg

Bigelow has Luna Vachon with him and wastes no time in hammering away. Plugg ducks a dropkick though and dropkicks him to the floor as the racing jokes abound. Back in and Bigelow has had enough of this and runs him over again, setting up a headbutt for two. A charge into the corner hits Plugg’s boot so Bigelow enziguris him down for two. The chinlock goes on, even though it seemed like they were wrapping up.

Bigelow cuts off a comeback with a knee to the ribs and drops another headbutt. Plugg avoids a charge though and grabs a bulldog into a DDT. The high crossbody is good for two more on Bigelow as the fans are excited as you’re going to see for a Plugg comeback. Luna grabs the foot though and it’s a clothesline into the Swan Dive to give Bigelow the pin at 6:29.

Rating: D+. This didn’t work very well and that shouldn’t surprise you. The main point of the match was to get in as many racing jokes as possible. When those dried up, you were left with a pretty dull Plugg match and I think you can figure out how well that went. Cut off about two minutes here and it’s a lot better.

Here’s the King of the Ring Report. Todd Pettengill gives us a quick rundown of the tournament before moving on to Bret Hart vs. Diesel and Jerry Lawler vs. Roddy Piper. This time around, they have an address where you can send donations for the children’s hospital that brought Piper out of retirement. We also get a quick look at who has qualified for the tournament so far.

Diesel vs. Mike Moraldo

Diesel’s Intercontinental Title isn’t on the line. Diesel knocks him down to start and sends Moraldo flying outside to make it worse. Back in and some kicks to the ribs set up the bearhug with Diesel just dropping him hard. There’s a side slam to plant Moraldo again and Snake Eyes connects. Commentary talks about celebrities and Diesel picks him up (after a camera cut) for the Jackknife and the pin at 3:10.

Rating: D. What does it say that you had to cut something out of a completely one sided match that barely broke three minutes otherwise? Diesel was starting to get better but he didn’t have the most thrilling squashes so far. Then again, maybe he just needs a long match with Bret Hart on pay per view.

A guy at a gas station saw the Undertaker.

It’s time for the King’s Court with Jerry Lawler saying that the fans would find their own picture if they looked up the word repulsive. Lawler moves on to Roddy Piper, who was drafted into the army when he turned 18. He didn’t want to go so he put on a dress and high heels. It didn’t get him taken into the army, but it got him taken out by a doctor. After a break, here are this week’s guests, with Ted DiBiase and Nikolai Volkoff of all people. DiBiase explains things in a hurry: Volkoff is broke, so now DiBiase owns him (there’s a “you broken it, you bought it” joke in there somewhere). Volkoff: “I hate you.”

Lawler says DiBiase looks like a million bucks but Volkoff looks like ten cents. DiBiase agrees, so we have some new gear for Volkoff. We’ll start with some “Property Of The Million Dollar Man” trunks, followed by a tuxedo shirt, with Volkoff hating everything about this. McMahon talks about Volkoff being an Olympic weightlifter, “Just like Mark Henry today.” DiBiase and Lawler laugh a lot to wrap this up. All this for Nikolai Volkoff in 1994? There was NO ONE else to do this?

Owen Hart vs. Tony Roy

Vince ignores the match to talk about the Hall of Fame induction ceremony as Owen takes over to start. Owen knocks him down and drops a middle rope elbow to keep up the beating. A knee to the ribs cuts Roy down again as Savage reads copy about an upcoming USA movie. Owen gets in a gutwrench suplex and finishes with the Sharpshooter at 2:19.

Post match Owen rants about how much better he is than Bret Hart. Owen sends Roy outside and puts some Bret sunglasses on him. Isn’t that just saving him money at the merch table?

Duke Droese is sleeping in a dumpster and is grateful for the wake up call. You have a guy in a dumpster and Nikolai Volkoff on the same show. How is this supposed to work?

The ropes are being taken down so Vince tells us to call somebody. I called a local beekeeper. He wasn’t thrilled with me telling him about a 27 year old sumo match on Raw and then screamed a lot because the bees went nuts over the phone ringing. I’m visiting him in the hospital later.

Yokozuna vs. Earthquake

It’s a sumo match with the ropes gone. The first person to shove the other out of the ring wins. They take their time getting ready, tease the start a few times, and then stand back up. That goes so well that they do it again as we are now a few minutes into the stalling. They finally collide and grapple, with neither going anywhere. Yokozuna headbutts him and starts driving Earthquake back before they wind up back in the middle for some standing. Earthquake finally switches places, shoves him down, and wins at 6:03.

Rating: D. I get the idea here but egads they didn’t exactly make this interesting. It’s a case where it might be accurate, but it wasn’t interesting. This almost has to be it for Earthquake and uh…..what a great way to go out I guess. It’s certainly an idea, but you’re only going to get so far with this kind of an idea.

House show ads.

Recap/preview wrap us up.

Overall Rating: D-. This was pretty awful with nothing worth seeing on the whole thing. The sumo deal at the end wasn’t so much bad as much as it was a big miss. The most interesting thing on this show was the mention of a weightlifter who wouldn’t be in WWE for about two years. I think that sums up the whole night as well as anything else, as the horrible stretch continues.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

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Monday Night Raw
Date: May 2, 1994
Location: Memorial Auditorium, Burlington, Vermont
Attendance: 2,500
Commentators: Randy Savage, Vince McMahon

It’s time for another new month as I keep trying to finish up 1994. This time around we are in between Wrestlemania X and King of the Ring, putting us halfway between an all time classic and one of the worst shows in recorded history. I’m not sure what that is going to mean at the moment but maybe we can get something good out of this one. Let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

Last week, Captain Lou Albano was WAY too excited over the Headshrinkers getting a Tag Team Title shot this week. Johnny Polo (soon to be known as Raven) came out to yell so Randy Savage held him for a shot from Albano. The Quebecers ran out and it was such a mess that we had to go to the opening sequence. Did seem like a fairly hot ending though.

Opening sequence.

Tag Team Titles: Quebecers vs. Headshrinkers

The Quebecers are defending and have Johnny Polo here to balance out Afa and Albano. Pierre and Fatu start things off in a match that would be incredibly different today. Fatu runs him over without much effort and then drops Pierre with a headbutt. Jacques comes in and gets headbutted by Samu as everything breaks down. The champs are clotheslined out to the floor in a heap and it’s time to walk to the back with Polo. Hold on though as we get the old “either come back and fight or lose the titles” announcement, which Savage calls the ONLY decision. Savage doesn’t quite know what ONLY means and we take a break.

Back with Fatu slamming Pierre for two and a big chop lets Fatu pose a bit. A clothesline Fatu outside though and Jacques sends him into the steps. That shouldn’t hurt but a clothesline/STO combination seems to. Pierre is slammed onto Fatu for two and we take another break.

Back again with Samu coming in off the hot tag to clean house but misses the charge and gets his head caught in the ropes. The piledriver plants Samu and for some reason Vince thinks that would work. Instead of covering it’s the Cannonball though, with Samu rolling out of the way. Afa and Albano beat up Johnny Polo as Jacques hits Pierre by mistake. Pierre hits Jacques back and it’s back to Fatu for the double Stroke. Fatu’s top rope splash connects for the pin and the titles at 20:14.

Rating: C. The match was a lot longer than it needed to be but I’ve always liked the Headshrinkers so it was good for a smile. They were never going to be the next big thing (though they held the titles until September) but this was still in the early days of Raw when a title change was still a big deal.

King Of The Ring report, with Todd Pettengill explaining the tournament and talking about how hard it is to win. There are some qualifying matches starting this weekend with only eight spots available. The show is going to be even better with Art Donovan making a special appearance. I don’t think special is the right word.

Chief Jay Strongbow talks about how Tatanka is on the warpath. He sounds like he’s reading announcements at the local library.

Tatanka vs. Derek Domino

Make your own Eric Clapton jokes. Tatanka starts fast by ramming him into the corner a few times and snaps off a belly to back suplex. Domino hits a loud chop, which just annoys Tatanka again (you NEVER annoy Tatanka). IRS calls in to explain that he destroyed Tatanka’s headdress because there were gift taxes due. A head fake sends Domino down and a middle rope chop drops him again.

Some whips into the corner rock Domino again and a suplex has him falling over like a row of….never mind. Commentary does its pop culture stuff before moving on to Doink wanting revenge on Jeff Jarrett. We hit the armbar, because this match needs an armbar almost four minutes in. Domino gets in a few more shots but Tatanka goes on the war path to start the comeback. The Papoose To Go finishes Domino at 5:18.

Rating: D. This was a good bit longer than it needed to and it isn’t like Strongbow means very much in Tatanka’s corner. The armbar in the middle made me wonder how in the world this could have kept going, but that’s 1994 WWF for you. The jobber didn’t do much good either, as Domino didn’t have much of an effect.

House show rundown.

It’s time for the King’s Court, with Jerry Lawler running down Piper’s Pit to start. Piper isn’t around anymore but he does have a new hobby: collecting dust. Speaking of relics, you have Razor Ramon, who is living life in the PAST lane. That brings us to his guest, the man who defeated Ramon for the Intercontinental Title: Diesel.

Lawler asks about the lack of Shawn Michaels, but apparently Shawn sacrificed himself to help Diesel win the title. We see a clip of Diesel knocking Shawn off the top rope (by mistake) in the title match but he’ll be back soon. As for Razor Ramon, he wasn’t quite bad enough to hold onto the title. Diesel needs something else to do though, so he wants Bret Hart and the WWF Title at King of the Ring.

Fans have been seeing the Undertaker in various places. Like…..outside on a slide!

Yokozuna vs. Mike Davis/Scott Taylor

Yokozuna has Jim Cornette and Mr. Fuji with him as usual. Yokozuna knocks Davis down to start and drops the leg as Savage reads a copy about a “world premiere movie encore”. A swinging Rock Bottom plants Taylor (the future Scotty 2 Hotty) and he gets sent outside, which Cornette says is the Yokozuna Delivery Service. Yokozuna throws Davis in the general vicinity of the rope instead of over it, leaving Taylor to get planted with a belly to back. Back in and commentary talks about wacky things in baseball because this isn’t exactly going anywhere. A double Banzai Drop wraps it up.

Rating: D+. It could have been worse, but this was a rather slow paced squash with Yokozuna being a bit beyond the point where this was impressive. It was hardly terrible but you’re only going to get so much out of a match like this. At least Cornette was there for a good line with the delivery service.

Post match Davis gets his own Banzai Drop, with Yokozuna sitting on him for a bit longer. There’s another for Taylor as well, with Savage begging for someone to get Yokozuna a chair. Cue Earthquake to clear Yokozuna out.

Post break Earthquake is sick of hearing about being asked when he’ll face Yokozuna so the challenge is on.

Overall Rating: D+. The opener helped a lot as it was a fairly decent match with some time to go along with the title change. We’re on the way to the King of the Ring, which is going to be a long haul because a lot of the show can’t be advertised, though Earthquake vs. Yokozuna in a total freak show match could be a bit of fun. The rest though….egads this could be rough.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

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

…..no. No please don’t make me do THIS show! I’ll pay you to not make me do this waste of a show. If there’s a bottom of the barrel for Summerslam and perhaps the WWF in general, this is it. The main event tonight is King Mabel vs. WWF Champion Diesel in a match that is the preferred method of torture in 19 countries. There is however one bright spot: Shawn vs. Razor II, again in a ladder match. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is like a trailer for the main event matches on tonight’s show, such as the main event, the ladder match, Bret vs. Lawler’s royal dentist and the FINAL blowoff to Undertaker vs. DiBiase’s Corporation.

Dean Douglas (Shane Douglas as a high school teacher) will be grading tonight’s matches. That’s a brilliant idea. Someone else should watch a lot of matches and grade them in detail.

Hakushi vs. 1-2-3 Kid

The Kid is still a face here and is starting to look someone older. Hakushi is a Japanese guy who is covered in individual characters, even on his face. Feeling out process to start as they fight over a top wristlock. The Kid backflips out of a wristlock and armdrags Hakushi across the ring to take him down. Things speed up with the Kid hip tossing him down but being kicked off by Hakushi into a stalemate. They run the ropes again but both hold a rope and try superkicks but neither can connect.

Hakushi goes to the throat as Vince calls the show SummerSlime. A tilt-a-whirl slam puts the Kid down and Hakushi poses on the ropes for a few long moments. Hakushi hits a Vader Bomb for two and Vince thinks the match should be stopped. The Kid is sent to the floor and Hakushi hits a gorgeous moonsault from the mat to the floor followed by a top rope shoulder block for two back inside. A swan dive misses though and Kid sends him to the floor for a dive of his own. Back in and a slingshot legdrop gets two and a frog splash gets the same. The Kid tries a spin kick but gets caught in a quick powerbomb for the pin.

Rating: C+. Solid opener here with both guys looking good throughout. Hakushi really was something special and the fans would turn him face through pure love of his high flying abilities alone. The Kid would be turning heel soon after this in a move that most people didn’t care about for the most part.

Doc Hendrix (Michael Hayes) is WAY too excited about what Mabel’s master plan is for Diesel. Mabel says we have to wait and does a decent evil laugh.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Bob Holly

This is the future boss’ PPV debut. Helmsley is the stuck up blue blood here so he walks around with his nose in the air. Holly takes him down with some armdrags but gets in a cheap shot to Bob’s head. Holly comes back with some kicks in the corner but runs into a knee to the face to put him down. Helmsley chokes away in the corner before hitting a HARD whip across the corner. A backbreaker gets two and a Flair knee drop gets the same.

We go split screen to see the British Bulldog arriving but he has nothing to say. Helmsley hooks an abdominal stretch but has to hiptoss Holly over the top after he counters. Holly comes back with some dropkicks and some jobber level offense including a backdrop. He tries a second one though and gets caught in a Pedigree for the pin.

Rating: D. Well he had to get better after something like this. HHH didn’t look like anything of note but the Pedigree was a good finisher. It was actually his second finisher as he started with a Diamond Cutter but changed it quickly into his run. Holly would also completely change his character in coming years until it finally clicked with the hardcore character.

We get a video of a charity tug of war between wrestlers and Pittsburgh firefighters. It’s for charity so no jokes here.

Blue Brothers vs. Smoking Gunns

The Brothers are Jacob and Eli but are more famous as the bald Harris Brothers (also known as DOA, Creative Control, the Bruise Brothers and about ten other names over the years). Their manager is Uncle Zebekiah, who is currently (as of July 2013) Zeb Colter in WWE. Jacob elbows Billy down to start before it’s off to Eli for a slam and some elbow drops. Billy gets a quick two count on Jacob before it’s off to Bart for some arm work. Jacob whips Bart into the corner before bringing Eli back in to get caught by a cross body for two.

The Gunns get a near fall off some double teaming but Billy walks into an H Bomb (double powerbomb) to stop the momentum dead. Eli puts Billy in the Tree of Woe but tags in Jacob instead of doing anything about it. Jacob draws in Bart to allow for more double teaming and Eli gets two off a powerslam. Billy comes back with a face plant to Jacob and makes the tag off to Bart. Everything breaks down and the Blus are sent into each other, allowing the Gunns to hit the Sidewinder (side slam/guillotine legdrop) on Eli for the pin.

Rating: D. This wasn’t so much bad as it was completely uninteresting. That’s the problem with so many parts of 1995 WWF: the people just weren’t interesting at all and there was no reason to care about a lot of the matches. All you had here was a midcard tag match that ran about six minutes. It wasn’t any good and there was no story to it, so why was I supposed to care?

We recap the rise of Barry Horowitz. He literally didn’t win a match in years but won a miracle against Skip (Chris Candido) on Action Zone. They went to a ten minute draw a few weeks later and tonight is the final chance for redemption.

Barry Horowitz vs. Skip

Skip has a 22 year old Sunny with him here, putting all the attention on her. Barry has the awesome rock version of Hava Nagila as his theme music. Horowitz starts fast and drops a knee on the fitness guru for two. A knee to the chest puts Skip down and Barry takes down the suspenders. Skip is clotheslined to the floor but Barry pulls him right back in. An O’Connor roll gets two for Barry and he suplexes Skip to the floor. Sunny tries to bring in a towel but gets ejected instead.

She doesn’t leave though and trips Barry up to finally shift momentum. A suplex and a middle rope legdrop get two on Horowitz and the beating continues. Horowitz finally gets up and hits a few shoulder blocks for two but his offense is rather limited. Skip comes back with a clothesline but the fans are chanting for Barry. A powerslam puts Barry down again and some quick legdrops get two for Skip. Off to a chinlock but Barry is quickly up, only to have both guys try dropkicks at once.

Skip is up first and gets a close two off a swan dive. The fans are starting to get behind Horowitz here, but it’s hard to care about a jobber in this big a match. A piledriver is countered and Barry starts his real comeback with a dropkick. He goes up but gets crotched again, allowing Skip to hit a superplex for no cover. Cue Hakushi who Skip cost a win earlier this week to dive over Skip, allowing Barry to roll him up for the pin.

Rating: D+. The match wasn’t terribly boring or anything but at the end of the day this was a ten minute match with Barry Horowitz facing Skip at Summerslam. That’s not the easiest thing to get into and is more of an historical anomaly than anything significant at all. Nothing to see here at all other than Sunny.

Dean Douglas calls the last match a travesty.

Shawn says he has nothing but the IC Title so there’s nothing Razor can do to take the title from him.

Women’s Title: Bertha Faye vs. Alundra Blayze

Blayze is defending and Faye is this rather frumpy fat chick designed to be disturbing. She also has Harvey Whippelman with him as her worshiping admirer. Alundra fires off some quickly kicks to start and the 280lb or so Faye runs her over in response. A bad looking hair pull sends Blayze down and some legdrops get two. Bertha misses a middle rope splash and a victory roll gets two for the champion. Three clotheslines get no count for Alundra as Harvey has the referee. Some middle rope dropkicks stagger Bertha but she avoids a third before hitting a Batista Bomb for the title.

Rating: F. See, Faye was fat and that’s the extent of her character. The title would literally be trashed on Nitro in a few months in the right ending for it. Nothing else to say here.

Remember how I said this show sucked? It’s somehow going to get worse.

We recap Undertaker vs. Kama. Kama stole the Urn at Wrestlemania and melted it down into a big chain which ticked off Taker’s Creatures of the Night (goth fans). They brought a black wreath but Kama destroyed both the wreath and the Creature himself. Tonight it’s a casket match.

Taker says Kama went too far.

Undertaker vs. Kama

Kama is more famous as Godfather and is the Supreme Fighting Machine here, which is kind of an MMA gimmick. Taker pounds away in the corner to start before choking Kama down, only to be kicked in the back when he looks at the casket. Taker knocks Kama over the top and onto the casket to freak him out before hitting a quick splash in the corner. Old School connects and Kama is thrown into the casket but pops right back out. A top rope clothesline puts Taker down for a second but he sits right back up.

Kama hits a quick belly to belly suplex but Taker is right back up again. He throws Kama into the casket again but DiBiase makes a quick save. Kama pounds on Taker in the corner and clotheslines him onto the top of the casket where DiBiase can get in some shots. The managers almost get into it but we’re lucky enough to get more of Taker and Kama’s slow brawling. Kama posts him and rams Taker face first into the casket. A suplex onto the casket works over the back a bit but Kame, the genius that he is, can’t open the casket with Undertaker on top of it.

They both stand on the casket and Undertaker backdrops Kama into the ring to block a piledriver. The fans get WAY into this all of a sudden but Kama takes him down with a powerslam. The genius covers Taker but he sits up a few seconds later. Off to a chinlock because this match hasn’t gone on long enough already. Bearer shoves Kama’s feet off the ropes to break up the hold so it’s off to a headlock.

Taker finally fights up but gets whipped into the corner to stop him cold again. The jumping clothesline puts Kama down and a regular clothesline puts him inside the casket, but Undertaker falls in with him and the lid closes. Kama fights out again and hits a neckbreaker in the ring to put the Dead Man down again. Not that it matters as Taker stands up, hits the chokeslam and tombstone and throws Kama into the casket for the win.

Rating: D. WAY too long for the level of “action” in this match. Also did anyone think Kama had a chance against Undertaker in a major match? There was nothing here and the match running seventeen minutes didn’t help it at all. Undertaker would move onto a feud with King Mabel which was at least different than the year of Undertaker vs. DiBiase.

We recap Isaac Yankem vs. Bret Hart. I’ll let Todd Petingill explain it to you in his voiceovers:

“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.”

Tell me that “He got a dentist” line doesn’t sound straight out of bad horror movie trailer.

Isaac Yankem vs. Bret Hart

You might know Yankem better as Fake Diesel, who you might know better as Kane. Isaac’s music is made up of dentist drills which is rather creepy. Bret wants to know if he has to fight an evil chiropractor next. The fans lose their minds for Bret, which makes you wonder why he’s fighting A FREAKING DENTIST. Isaac grabs him by the throat and sends Bret into the corner to take over early. This is his debut so Bret isn’t sure what to do with him.

Bret’s right hands in the corners don’t get him anywhere but he avoids a charge and takes Yankem to the floor with some clotheslines. A plancha takes Isaac down and a middle rope clothesline looks to set up the Sharpshooter but Isaac blocks. Instead a backslide gets two for Hart, only to have Isaac throw him into the ropes and tie up Bret’s arm. The hard whip into the corner puts Bret down and the ropes look pretty loose. Yankem stomps Bret down in the corner and puts him on his back for a choke but Hart counters into a small package.

Lawler rants about having to kiss Bret’s feet after a previous match and is thrilled when Isaac clotheslines him to the floor. Bret is rammed back first into the post and the selling is the mastery you would expect it to be. Back in and Yankem hits a top rope Fameasser for two and a pair of clotheslines for two. Bret knocks him to the floor and sends him into the steps before getting two off the bulldog back inside. The backbreaker sets up the middle rope elbow but Lawler breaks up the Sharpshooter.

Bret is sent into the steps again as Lawler is playing cheerleader. Yankem loads up the top rope clothesline but Bret slams him down and pounds away in the corner. Bret trips Yankem up and ties the legs around the post to stomp away before going after Jerry. Isaac escapes and dives off the top onto Bret before tying his head up in the ropes. That’s finally enough for the referee and he throws the match out.

Rating: C. This took time to get going but you could see the potential in Yankem. The problem is he was a gimmick wrestler in the vein of T.L. Hopper and Repo Man: you can only go so far with one idea. That’s why Kane was the idea that worked: it was a character that could evolve and had more than one idea to him, thereby making him interesting and someone with staying power. That’s why WWF in 1995 was so terrible: they were all about the dull one note characters and the interest never was there.

Razor Ramon says he’s ready to become a four time Intercontinental Champion and there’s nothing Shawn can do to stop it. Shawn’s pain brings him pleasure and he better be ready to dance.

Intercontinental Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon

This is the second ladder match and Shawn is defending. Michaels is over like free beer in a frat house at this point so Razor is the heel by default. The original plan was Shawn vs. Sid but I guess Vince decided to give the show one awesome match to go with the rest of the drek. Also Doc Hendrix is on commentary now. Vince says you would have to be Andre the Giant with a jetpack on your back to reach the belt. SOMEBODY MAKE THAT MOVIE NOW!!!

They slug it out to start and things speed WAY up until Razor avoids a superkick. A quick Razor’s Edge is escaped and we have a stalemate. Razor hits his driving shoulders and whips Shawn over the corner and out to the floor. Doesn’t that put him closer to the ladders? Shawn jumps Ramon as he goes for the ladder because SHAWN gets to bring in the ladder. Razor suplexes Shawn to the floor with Shawn hitting his knee on the barricade. You can hear Vince see Wrestlemania flash before his eyes.

Back in and both finishers miss again and they clothesline each other down. Razor kicks him into the corner and hits a middle rope fall away slam. We get the first ladder brought in as Sid watches in the back. Shawn heads to the floor as the ladder is thrown in but Razor drops him with a great right hand. Shawn shoves the ladder over to stop Razor’s climb and going up himself, only to have his tights pulled down and his leg caught in the falling ladder. Razor slams the leg in between the ladder in a smart move.

The knee is slammed into the ladder as Razor is starting to go heel mid match. He slams Shawn down onto the ladder a few times as the fans aren’t sure what to think of this. The ladder is placed on the middle rope but Shawn can’t be whipped across the ring. He can however send Razor (who has bad ribs, mentioned for the first time here) into the ladder. Razor comes right back and drops the knee on the ladder before cannonballing down onto the leg. Shawn uses the good leg to shove him to the floor, only to have Razor wrap the leg around the post.

Razor makes his climb but Shawn comes off the top with an ax handle to break it up. Both guys go up the same side of the ladder but it’s Shawn taking Ramon down with a belly to back suplex. Shawn moves the ladder into the corner and sends Razor hard into it before doing the same again in another corner. Michaels’ knee is suddenly fine as he stomps on Razor but climbs the ladder for a moonsault press. A splash off the top of the ladder misses though and both guys are done.

Ramon moves the ladder back to the middle of the ring and both guys climb very slowly. They slug it out on top of the ladder but both fall to the side, crotching themselves on the top rope. Shawn picks up the ladder and charges but falls to the floor with Razor falling out as well. Razor pulls out a second ladder and is fast enough to catch Shawn going up in a Razor’s Edge to put both guys down again.

Both guys climb a ladder but neither are directly under the belt. Shawn kicks Razor’s ladder down and jumps at the belt but crashes down to the mat instead. Ramon is backdropped to the floor on another Razor’s Edge attempt, leaving Shawn to climb up…..and fall when he tries to get the belt. Shawn is TICKED about the botch (how often do you hear about him making one of those?) and sprints up the ladder to retain.

Rating: A. This is a different kind of match than they had in 1994 but it’s still excellent stuff. The first match was all about the high spots but this was based in drama and who could survive the match. I wasn’t wild on Shawn forgetting his knee injury and the botches at the end, but that’s nitpicking an excellent match. This worked very well and was great stuff for nearly half an hour.

Razor hands Shawn the belt post match and reaffirms his face status.

Dean Douglas says the previous match wasn’t all that great and Ramon lays him out.

WWF World Title: King Mabel vs. Diesel

Diesel is defending and Mabel has Sir Mo with him. The idea here is Mabel has some kind of a Royal Plan to take the title off Diesel. Diesel fires off right hands to start but gets taken down by a big clothesline. The champion comes back with running clotheslines in the corner but can’t pick the fat man up. More clotheslines stagger Mabel and a running shot sends him out to the floor.

In the ONLY interesting spot of the match, Diesel dives over the top to take Mabel out. Mabel no sells it and sends Diesel into the post but has to stop for a Twinkie break. He finally charges into a boot and Diesel pounds away back inside. Mabel reverses a whip and hits the worst Boss Man Slam you’ll ever see. It looked like Diesel was hitting a DDT on the arm. The buckle pad was ripped off somewhere in there.

Mabel sits on Diesel’s back for another breather before hitting a slam. Mo gets on the apron as Mabel misses an elbow drop….and the referee is bumped off camera. Mo comes in for a double team and Luger runs in for the save but gets nailed by Diesel who thinks Luger is on Mabel’s side. Diesel is knocked to the floor and Mabel drops a leg before throwing the champion back in. Luger beats up Mo in the aisle as Mabel gets two off a belly to belly. A middle rope splash misses and a middle rope shoulder from Diesel is enough to retain the title.

Rating: F. Just….yeah. I’d love to know what Vince was on when he came up with this idea but it’s one powerful drug. Mabel was one of the worst heels of all time as he couldn’t move and was waddling around in shiny purple and gold. This was a terrible match as Diesel couldn’t do anything with the fattness. This might be the worst main event of all time. Luger would be in WCW in eight days on the debut of a show called Nitro.

Overall Rating: D. This show has one good thing going for it: Shawn vs. Razor is 34 minutes long counting intros and post match stuff. The rest of the show, only decent opener aside, is drek. This was a very bad time for the company as the Kliq was dominating everything (notice that they’re in the opening matches and the main events) as Bret was fighting a dentist. Things would pick up a bit by next year but the company was on its deathbed by then. This show is definitely bad but it’s not the worst show of all time.

Ratings Comparison

Hakushi vs. 1-2-3 Kid

Original: B

Redo: C+

Bob Holly vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley

Original: D+

Redo: D

Smoking Guns vs. Blu Brothers

Original: D

Redo: D

Skip vs. Barry Horowitz

Original: B

Redo: D+

Alundra Blayze vs. Bertha Faye

Original: D+

Redo: F

Undertaker vs. Kama

Original: B-

Redo: D

Bret Hart vs. Isaas Yankem

Original: B-

Redo: C

Razor Ramon vs. Shawn Michaels

Original: B+

Redo: A

King Mabel vs. Diesel

Original: F+

Redo: F

Overall Rating

Original: F

Redo: D

The original had higher individual ratings but the overall rating was lower. I really was bad at this.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/07/29/history-of-summerslam-count-up-1995-worst-ppv-ever-pretty-much/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

AND

Remember to check out Wrestlingrumors.net for all of your wrestling headline needs.

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 pissed 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.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

AND

Remember to check out Wrestlingrumors.net for all of your wrestling headline needs.

Summerslam 1994
Date: August 29, 1994
Location: United Center, Chicago, Illinois
Attendance: 23,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler

Things have changed a lot in the last year. First and foremost, we’re living in Bret Hart’s WWF now as he regained the world title at Wrestlemania over Yokozuna, more or less vanquishing him once and for all. On that same show though, Bret’s brother Owen pinned him clean in the masterpiece of an opening match. Owen has chased the title all summer and tonight is his opportunity at it inside a steel cage. The other main event is the Undertaker vs. the Undertaker in a match that I want to put off talking about for as long as I can. Let’s get to it.

We open with highlights of the WWF softball team (that exists?) playing in a charity game against the Chicago media. Shawn of course plays without a shirt on. The video goes on for like five minutes with Monsoon doing commentary through every inning. Randy Savage, a former professional baseball player, hit a three run home run. The WWF won 9-7.

On to the actual wrestling tonight with Macho Man as Master of Ceremonies again. As Savage is posing in the ring, Lawler tells us that Diesel (currently Intercontinental Champion) and Shawn won the tag titles from the Headshrinkers last night in Indianapolis.

Headshrinkers vs. Bam Bam Bigelow/I.R.S.

Bigelow and IRS are part of DiBiase’s Million Dollar Team. This was originally going to be for the belts but the Samoans lost the titles last night. The production values have been upgraded by this show as we now have logos for every team/wrestler in the aisle as they come to the ring. The Headshrinkers have Afa and Lou Albano with them which I believe was Albano’s last managing job in the company.

Bigelow runs over Fatu to start but misses a charge and walks into a superkick for two. A slam doesn’t work on Bigelow so he comes back with an enziguri. That shouldn’t work on Fatu and thankfully he rolls away from the diving headbutt. Off to Samu for a double superkick but the Samoan misses a charge, allowing for the tag off to IRS. Now it’s the tax man’s turn to miss a charge in the corner and fall outside where Samu sends him into the steps. Back in and Fatu stays on IRS until Bigelow pulls the top rope down to send Fatu out to the floor.

The Million Dollar Team takes over on Fatu but a double clothesline puts he and Bigelow down. A double tag brings in Samu to face IRS as things break down a bit. A middle rope headbutt gets two on IRS and Bigelow is clotheslined out to the floor. IRS takes a double Stroke and Fatu adds the top rope splash but DiBiase has the referee. Bigelow goes after Albano which draws in Afa for the DQ.

Rating: D+. A DQ? In the opening match? 1994 was an odd year for this company. The match wasn’t bad but the lack of the titles being on the line brought the level of interest way down. Without that it was a Superstars main event which is ok, but the Headshrinkers were never in any real trouble at all and it wasn’t much to see.

Everyone brawls up the aisle.

We now get to the white elephant of the show: Leslie Nielsen and his partner from the Naked Gun movies is here to solve the mystery of the Undertaker. See, Undertaker had disappeared after the Royal Rumble but had vowed to return. DiBiase had a fake Undertaker doing his bidding but the real one was supposed to return tonight.

WWF’s brilliant idea? Bring in some detectives from crime spoof movies to solve the case. Nielsen comes complete with inner monologues about what he’s doing and completely out of place jokes (Nielsen: “I’m on the case.” Partner: “We’re both on the case.” The camera pans down to show them both standing on a briefcase.). Don’t get me wrong: Leslie Nielsen is hilarious, but this isn’t what I want to see at the second biggest show of the year.

Razor Ramon is ready to get his Intercontinental Title back tonight from Diesel. He’ll have Chicago football legend Walter Payton in his corner tonight.

Women’s Title: Bull Nakano vs. Alundra Blayze

Nakano, the challenger, is a Japanese monster and has Luna Vachon in her corner. A quick clothesline and a hair drag put Blayze down as Nakano looks strong early. We hit a chinlock less than two minutes in but Blayze gets her feet on the ropes. A spin kick puts Nakano down for a few seconds but she comes back with a choke to take over again. Off to a modified Boston Crab as Nakano is destroying the champion so far.

Blayze FINALLY makes the rope but Nakano pounds her right back down like she’s not even there. Bull starts a Sharpshooter but after turning Blayze over (Nakano doesn’t step over) she reaches down and pulls her up by the arms in a PAINFUL looking hold. Blayze finally gets an arm free to grab a rope but almost immediately Nakano has a modified cross armbreaker on the champion. Alundra FINALLY comes back with a hair takedown but Bull is easily out at two. Bull easily counters a powerbomb attempt and drops a knee for two, only to miss her guillotine legdrop finisher. Blayze hooks a quick German suplex to retain.

Rating: C. This was an interesting match but it was hard to get into at times. Nakano was a monster who destroyed Blayze for about eight minutes and then Alundra got a quick suplex for the pin in fifteen seconds. Bull would win the title in a few months in Japan in a near masterpiece.

Shawn and Diesel brag about winning the tag titles but say Diesel will have no problem with Razor Ramon tonight. This is right around the time where the Kliq had taken over backstage and were basically running the company, hence them dominating the title scene.

Intercontinental Title: Diesel vs. Razor Ramon

Shawn and Walter Payton are in the respective corners and Diesel is defending. The toothpick toss actually staggers Diesel and Ramon fires off right hands to start. A discus punch finally puts Diesel on the floor for a meeting with Shawn, likely over how they can get the WWF Title. Back in and Diesel uses the big man forearms to work on Razor’s back before taking him down with a big boot. There’s the corner leg choke but Razor comes back with more right hands.

The extra big man puts the big man in a sleeper but Razor comes out of it with a belly to back suplex. Diesel comes right back by launching Razor out to the floor, allowing Shawn to untie a buckle pad. Payton finally goes after Shawn but the distraction lets Shawn clothesline Razor down. Back in again and the champion hits his elbows and knee lifts in the corner but the referee stands in front of the exposed buckle. The referee looks at Shawn like an idiot, allowing Diesel to whip Ramon into the buckle for two.

Snake Eyes onto a covered buckle puts Ramon down again and an elbow to the back gets two. We hit the chinlock with a knee in the back and a comeback attempt is countered by a boot to the face. Diesel hooks an abdominal stretch but eventually gets caught holding the top rope. Razor puts on an abdominal stretch of his own, only to be hiptossed down onto his bad back. Snake Eyes onto the exposed buckle is countered into a rollup for two and Razor starts coming back with right hands.

The middle rope bulldog gets two on Diesel as the fans are getting louder and louder. The Jackknife is countered but Diesel suplexes him down before Razor can follow up. Shawn tries to bring in the belt but gets caught in a tug of war with Payton. The referee yells at Payton so Shawn tries a superkick but of course hits the champion. Payton pulls Shawn out and Ramon pins the out cold Diesel for the title.

Rating: C+. As political as the Kliq was, they could usually put on some solid matches. Razor was just big enough to make you believe he could go toe to toe with Diesel while still being small enough to look like an underdog. Payton was there as a celebrity and didn’t add a thing to the match at all. That superkick would set up years of stories, as Shawn and Diesel would start to disintegrate, which led to WM XI, which led to Shawn’s face turn, which led to everything up until Austin in a way.

Diesel rants about Shawn screwing up and blames him for the loss.

Shawn says he’ll get Diesel another shot and vows revenge on Payton. Don’t worry: Diesel would be world champion in three months.

Tatanka and Lex Luger are in the back where they hear the results of a WWF Hotline poll. 54% think Luger sold out to Ted DiBiase but he still denies it. Tatanka is convinced because of the times DiBiase has been watching Luger and the few times DiBiase has helped Luger win a match. Earlier today DiBiase went into Luger’s dressing room with a bag and that’s enough proof for Tatanka. Luger swears he didn’t sell out.

Lex Luger vs. Tatanka

The fans aren’t sure how they feel about Luger at the moment. They finally lock up with Luger taking it into the corner for a clean break. A shoulder puts Tatanka down but Luger still won’t follow up. Tatanka grabs the arm as we’re still in first gear. A cross body gets two for Tatanka and it’s time to slug it out with Lex taking over. Tatanka starts the war path and hits a top rope chop for two but a high cross body only hits mat. Luger starts his comeback but here’s DiBiase with a bag of money. Lex shouts that he didn’t sell out, allowing Tatanka to roll him up for the pin.

Rating: D. The match was very slow paced which isn’t good in a short match. We were waiting for the angle here instead of the match which is fine, but it didn’t make the match any less dull. Tatanka was into a more serious phase of his career here and his matches got a lot less fun to watch as a result.

Post match Luger is mad and he kicks the bag out of DiBiase’s hand…..only to have Tatanka reveal the HE sold out by destroying Luger. Tatanka puts him in the Million Dollar Dream and shoves money down Luger’s throat. This has always been a favorite of mine.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Mabel

Jeff Jarrett is a country singer from Tennessee and Mabel is a 500lb+ monster in purple and gold. Mabel lumbers around like an oaf while Jarrett struts. Jarrett’s wristlock is easily thrown off so Mabel struts a bit. A clothesline puts Jeff on the floor as we’re somehow two minutes into the match. Jeff trips Mabel from the floor to take him down and drops a middle rope elbow for no cover. Some middle rope ax handles stagger Jarrett a bit but a third is caught in a bearhug.

A sleeper finally gets Mabel down but he drops Jeff into the corner to escape. The big man actually hits a spinwheel kick for two as Abe “Knuckleball” Schwartz, a baseball themed guy, is in the crowd with a sign saying he’s on strike. See, Major League Baseball was on strike at this point, and if we reference something that’s going on in the world, it’s funny, right? Mabel misses a middle rope splash but blocks a sunset flip attempt. He tries to drop onto Jeff’s chest but misses completely, allowing Jarrett to score the fluke pin.

Rating: D-. This was very dull as Jarrett had nothing to work with at all. Mabel was just so huge that it was almost impossible for anyone to do anything against him. Unfortunately for us Mabel would be pushed down our throats the next year, somehow main eventing the 1995 edition of the show. The match sucked.

The detectives are in the aisle, Undertaker pops up behind them, neither sees him, more PPV time is wasted.

We get a LONG recap of Bret vs. Owen. Owen had felt he was living in Bret’s shadow and turned on his entire family at the 1993 Survivor Series when he was the only member eliminated due to a mistake by Bret. Bret offered to team up with Owen to win the tag titles which appeased Owen for awhile, but at the Royal Rumble Bret wouldn’t tag out and the referee stopped the match due to his knee injury.

Owen snapped and kicked out Bret’s good leg, turning full heel in the process. He demanded a match with Bret at Wrestlemania and defeated him clean in the opening match. Bret won the title in the main event, so Owen wanted a shot at the title throughout the summer. Tonight is Owen’s big chance in a cage match.

Bret says his recent battle with strep throat won’t affect him tonight.

WWF World Title: Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart

It’s escape only to win. Owen jumps him as soon as Bret is inside the cage, raining down right hands in the corner. Bret comes back with an atomic drop and a clothesline as their parents are watching in the front row. Owen pulls Bret down as he tries to climb out before going for a climb of his own. Bret pulls him back down and goes for the door, only to be pulled back in as well. We’re still very early in the match at this point.

Bret keeps lunging for the door but Owen keeps pulling him back in. They swap the roles for the next turn but Owen still can’t escape. With the door closed Bret tries to climb out, only to be slammed off the cage wall. Owen climbs up and manages to get all the way out but he can’t get down on the floor before Bret makes a save. Owen is pulled back in and they fight on the top rope with Bret being knocked back into the ring. Instead of climbing out again though, Owen dropkicks Bret down and climbs again.

The champion makes another save before climbing up to the top of the cage, straddling the top of it. Owen pulls him back in and they continue slugging it out on the top rope. Bret rams him into the cage wall but loses his balance in the process, putting both guys back down. Jim Neidhart and Davey Boy Smith, both brothers in law of the two in the ring, are watching in the crowd.

Bret punches Owen down again and drops an elbow but Owen makes another save. This time as Bret comes down though, he slams his knee into the mat to put him in real trouble. Neidhart, who has since turned on Bret and sided with Owen, is very pleased. Even though Bret is down, he isn’t down enough to stop Owen from leaving. He gets slammed down off the cage but Owen grabs a climbing Bret’s leg, pulling him back inside.

Owen is up first but Bret makes about his 49^th save of the match. Bret rams him face first into the steel and goes up again but Owen reaches through the bars to bring him back in. Back in again and Owen plants the champion with a piledriver but Bret still makes a save. Owen throws Bret down off the cage but Owen falls as well. Bret crawls for the door and gets the upper half of his body out, only to be pulled back in again by his younger brother. The drama on these near escapes is getting higher and higher.

Back in and Bret slingshots his brother into the cage, rattling his brains even more. They both slowly get up and Owen is rammed face first into the cage. The problem is that as Bret rams him in, Bret rams his knee into the cage and injures it. The champion tries to get out but can’t climb that fast, allowing Owen to make ANOTHER save. Owen makes another attempt to get out but his exhaustion slows him down and lets Bret stop him.

They slug it out on the top rope with both guys being rammed face first into the cage. Bret knocks Owen down but gets pulled back down as well. A double clothesline puts both guys down one more time and it’s Owen going up first. He climbs to the corner though, allowing Bret to catch up with him and superplex Owen off the top of the cage. Bret crawls for the door but Owen makes the save and puts on the Sharpshooter.

There aren’t any submissions in the match but it can make it impossible for Bret to climb. However Bret, the master of the Sharpshooter, counters into one of his own and Owen is in trouble. Bret goes for the escape but he STILL can’t keep Owen down long enough. They ram each other into the cage and both fall down before Owen climbs again. Both guys climb to the outside and it’s a race to the bottom. Owen is rammed into the cage though and gets his legs caught in the cage bars, allowing Bret to drop down and retain the title.

Rating: A+. This match was all about drama and they certainly gave us that. The match ran over half an hour and had nothing but near escapes the entire time. Bret didn’t so much win this match as he did survive it. This match has been called the last great cage match and it’s really hard to argue with that. Excellent match with great drama throughout.

Post match Neidhart jumps Davey Boy, throws Bret back in and locks himself in with them. A huge beatdown of Bret ensues as the Hart Brothers try to get in the cage. Davey Boy FINALLY gets in and the other brothers follow to save Bret.

In the back Owen says Neidhart is his real family. A series of great tag matches followed.

We recap the Undertaker disappearing at the Royal Rumble. 9 guys beat him up and locked him in a casket but his “spirit” levitated out of the casket, swearing to return. We get a bunch of people saying they had seen Undertaker in delis and coffee shops but DiBiase said he would bring Undertaker back.

Paul Bearer said that was impossible but Ted brought out the “Undertaker”. Anyone with a pair of eyes could tell it was a fake which was the point of the whole thing. Paul tried to regain the power of the Undertaker using the Urn but DiBiase’s money stopped him. The real Undertaker’s voice came over the PA, saying that he would be back.

Undertaker vs. Undertaker

We’ll call them real and fake to tell them apart. The fake one is played by ECW’s Primetime Brian Lee who wrestled in the WWF as Chainz. For the real entrance, we have druids, a casket containing the Urn and then the real guy. The entrances alone take about 10 minutes. Real is a few inches taller and blocks a right hand before pounding on Fake a bit. A big boot and uppercut send Fake to the floor, allowing Real to suplex him back in for no cover.

Fake is thrown to the floor again but Real follows him out this time. Back in and Fake hits a Stunner across the top rope to take over. This is VERY slow so far and the idea isn’t interesting at all. Real blocks Fake’s Old School but Fake sits up. The Real’s Old School connects but Fake clotheslines Real down. The crowd is SILENT for this nonsense which Vince writes off as being in shock.

Real misses a charge and falls to the floor where Fake sends him into the steps. Back in and Real wins a slugout but walks into a good chokeslam for no cover. Fake Tombstones him down but takes too long to cover, allowing for the sit up. A second Tombstone is countered into the Real one, followed by two more for the pin.

Rating: F. Well that happened. Seriously, what else do you want me to say about this? It went on for ten minutes, they were aspiring to hit a snail’s pace and the Chicago crowd, as in one of the most insane groups of fans you’ll ever see, was quieter than a cemetery watching this mess. Taker would literally spend the next year feuding with DiBiase and company.

Taker gets his Urn back and we cut to the back with the detectives finding a closed briefcase. “The case is closed.” Seriously, that’s how they end this.

Overall Rating: D+. BIZARRE main event choice aside, this wasn’t the worst show of all time. Bret vs. Owen is a masterpiece which eats up ¼ of the show and there’s some other decent stuff sprinkled in on top of the card. The rest of the show is pretty terrible though and there’s nothing other than the world title match worth going out of your way to see.

Ratings Comparison

IRS/Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Headshrinkers

Original: C+

Redo: D+

Alundra Blayze vs. Bull Nakano

Original: D+

Redo: C

Razor Ramon vs. Diesel

Original: B-

Redo: C+

Lex Luger vs. Tatanka

Original: C-

Redo: D

Jeff Jarrett vs. Mabel

Original: D-

Redo: D-

Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart

Original: A

Redo: A+

Undertaker vs. Undertaker

Original: B

Redo: F

Overall Rating

Original: C-

Redo: D+

…..a B? I’d like to know what I was on back then so I can go get more of it.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/07/28/history-of-summerslam-count-up-summerslam-1994-from-great-matches-to-leslie-nielsen/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

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