WrestleMania Run

[john_siv]

Another 5 matches done and we're now deep into the Attitude Era!

 

Lawrence Taylor vs Bam Bam Bigelow – Where WM9 sucked in the ring, it had least had a unique and novel setting.  This one was just plain boring.  However this particular encounter is widely considered the Savage vs Steamboat of celebrity matches.  Before the bout, Lawrence Taylor’s all-pro team all run down to the ring as if they’re running out for an NFL game.  This amusingly also sees the Million Dollar Corporation run down individually as well – Bundy looks blown up as a result and DiBiase running down in his suit just didn’t look right.  I seem to remember Salt 'n Pepper doing a rendition of ‘What a Man’ with the lyrics adapted to fit the occasion, but it’s tragically been cut on the network version, probably due to copyright issues.  Interesting to see Steve McMichael on the all-pro team, only months before he started stinking up the airwaves on Nitro.  Pat Patterson is on guest ref duty, specifically to guide LT through it one imagines.  One of my favourite Jerry Lawler lines is uttered as he describes LT as someone ‘from basically off the street’ while dismissing his chances of victory.  Credit where it’s due to LT, he really puts in a shift here.  His forearms look stiff, he gave the powerbomb a go and he sold really effectively.  Bam Bam also did a wonderful job of helping him get through it and between them they managed a WrestleMania main event that was at least better than Taker vs Sid, Sid vs Hogan, Cena vs Miz and arguably, HHH’s snoozefests against Randy Orton, Chris Jericho and Roman Reigns.  It’s well worth noting that Lawrence Taylor, with no prior in-ring experience whatsoever, worked a longer match on this show than we’re likely to see from Bill Goldberg this weekend at WrestleMania 33.

 

Undertaker vs Diesel – This is an interesting match as 1996 was really the year that The Undertaker showed there was more to his in-ring repertoire than just chokeholds and sitting up.  Diesel was on his way out but his last few months on the job, as a sarcastic heel where arguably his best work with the company.  This is a pretty underrated bout as it was a really solid big man match, with some good near falls.  What strikes me with this Mania is the visual presentation is almost identical to the previous year, with the only real difference being that the microphones under the ring were turned up full blast, so you really could hear every bump.  One would imagine that was to keep the crowd awake during the Iron Man Match.  This was Paul Bearer’s last WrestleMania with The Undertaker for quite some time, as he would later turn on him at SummerSlam (a twist that genuinely shocked me back in the day).  Bearer has got the urn – ah, the days when a heel could start a program with Taker just by nicking the urn.  The match starts with both guys slugging it out immediately – I miss bouts starting this way.  Too many encounters these days, after months of build-up (sorry, weeks in most cases) and bad blood start out a mere collar and elbow tie-up.  This might be controversial, but you could make a strong case for this one being match of the night from this Mania.  The Iron Man match has a fantastic last ten minutes, but the fifty minutes beforehand reportedly led to a fair percentage of the live crowd leaving early.  Whereas these two were just going at it full pelt for 15 minutes and it’s got a lot more re-watch value.  Undertaker comes back from two Jacknifes here, marking the first time the streak was in any real jeopardy.

 

L.O.D & Ahmed vs Faarooq, Savio & Crush – This was the first WrestleMania I watched live, and it’s probably the least 'special-feeling' WrestleMania of them all.  Due to Nitro destroying Raw every week in the ratings and Titan business being in the toilet, this really didn’t feel any different to any other pay-per-view.  Also, Shawn Michaels complete fucked up the build-up to this one with his smile-ectomy.  However due to his pathetic behaviour, we did get the Submission match between Bret Hart and Steve Austin, so every cloud.  I’ve always remembered the Chicago Street Fight as a fun, wild brawl and it didn’t disappoint on a re-watch.  This bout actually followed The Hitman and Stone Cold and it was probably the only match that could, so good layout by the bookers.  JR is on commentary and really adds a lot.  That was he was under contract but didn’t actually work the three previous Manias is absolutely ridiculous.  Vince had his moments at the booth but he really wasn’t in Ross’s league.  Just imagine JR calling the Razor/Shawn ladder match or the Iron Man Match.  I forgot the Nation didn’t just include the three guys competing in the match.  We also get JC Ice and Wolfie D, Clarence Mason, a young D-Lo Brown and various other ‘brothers’.  Wolfie D is wearing a baseball cap with ‘The Nation’ written on it.  Damn I’d like to own one of those.  The LOD and Ahmed entrance is pretty badass as they bring the kitchen sink with them and Ahmed is sporting LOD shoulder-pads.  This was basically a tornado 6 man tag with weapons galore – think the sort of match you’d have with your mates on WWE 2K17.  Considering the participants it was a very wise way of going about things.  In fact it’s probably Ahmed’s best match ever, and he barely executed a single wrestling move!  The Chicago fans were rabid for this bout which really elevates it.  Mason and D-Lo try and choke out Ahmed and JR amusingly refers to them as ‘Mason and that other guy’.  Only a year or so later we’d learn, through Ross himself, that D-Lo had a PHD in accounting, so credit to JR for going away and doing his homework.  So much is going on in this match that the cameras can hardly keep up!  Seriously, I forgot how much fun this was, albeit a complete ripoff of what ECW was doing at the time.  JC Ice quite embarrassingly breaks kayfabe and actually hands Ahmed a 2x4 for the finishing spot.  Both of the rappers then take the Doomsday Device, backflipping for the bump, which I always felt was too dangerous to be worth doing.  Don’t agree?  Just ask Henry Godwinn. 

 

Taka Michinoku vs Aguila – Not a particularly high profile match here, but almost all the other matches on this card have wrestlers that I’m covering elsewhere in this Mania run.  Something tells me Aguila was Essa Rios under a mask.  Can anyone correct me if I’m wrong?  Aguila was only 19 apparently, can anyone think of a younger competitor at WrestleMania??  Quite an enjoyable high flying spot fest between these two, but not really in the same league as the cruiserweight bouts being shown every week over on Nitro.  A few iffy spots and a lack of flow hurt it somewhat.  But it still beats anything on 205 Live.  Taka takes some pretty impressive bumps to the outside, but none that can hold a candle to his Royal Rumble 2000 elimination spot.  Superfan Vladimir is in the front row for this Mania.  While he’s been at most of them, I can’t recall seeing him in the crowd for a few years now.  Let’s hope he’s safe and well.  This match it immediately followed by one of the highlights of the show as Gennifer Flowers interviews The Rock.  I could spend a fair old while quoting it, but I’d suggest you just log straight onto the network and take a look at it yourself, it’s a real treat!

 

Shane McMahon vs X-Pac – RussoMania is running wild as we get to WrestleMania 15!  This show gets an awful lot of flack for being pretty lousy in the ring, however it’s one I personally hold in pretty high regard.  This is essentially a storyline show, in the vain of Survivor Series 1998, and from that perspective it was brilliantly done.  All the acts on the show were over big time, the crowd was red hot and it did an impressive buy-rate.  The business is about making money, not about how enjoyable a show is when watched again in the future and in that regard, this was a damn good WrestleMania.  The twists and turns through the show, with HHH and Chyna re-uniting then ditching DX and the swerves around who would guest ref the main event were all enjoyable and well done.  And it’s probably not the worst Mania in the ring as it happens.  Shane vs X-Pac was surprisingly excellent (complete with Mean Street Posse, Patterson & Brisco and Test all interfering), Rock vs Austin was an exciting main event and most of the other matches were paced well enough to get by.  Only the Taker vs Bossman Hell in a Cell was offensive.  Where this particular match really benefits compared to other McMahon matches was that Shane was booked as a non-worker that needed interference and nefarious tactics to gain an advantage over the real wrestler.  McMahon matches began to really test the patience and lose credibility when they started to be presented as equals to the workers.  This is Michael Cole’s first WrestleMania and, as noticeably inferior to JR as he is, he’s a lot more bearable than he is today.  He basically just called the action as an old school play-by-play guy, advocating fair play and bemoaning heelish behaviour.  The announcing was certainly easier to listen to than today’s nonsense, where there’s 4 or 5 guys at the desk with no one playing a clearly defined role.  Test is assisting Shane at every turn during this one.  He really was a missed opportunity – he should have headlined against HHH at Armageddon that year rather than Vince.  After all, it was his bride that Hunter drugged and married in Vegas, surely he should have been the one desperate for revenge??