Month: March 2013

WrestleMania goes Hollywood! AKA some of the wrestlers parody movies for the adverts.

Match 1 – Eddie Guerrero Vs Rey Mysterio – On paper this should have been awesome. Instead it wasn’t. In fact it’s my least favourite match from either guy ever. Just horrible. A massive blip on their incredible 2005 series. Eddie just doesn’t look “on” and Rey is constantly pissing about with his mask. Takes me out of the match and seems to take them out of the match too. Gets worse with every watch and this is no different. Thankfully they go on to do MUCH better. MUCH BETTER. But it still confuses and saddens me that this is what they manage to pull out at WRESTLEMANIA. *.

Match 2 – Chris Jericho Vs Christian Vs Chris Benoit Vs Kane Vs Shelton Benjamin Vs Edge – The first ever Money in the Bank Ladder Match! Whoever climbs the ladder and successfully retrieves the briefcase will be able to cash it in at any time within the next year for a title match! Damn, look at all that CANADIAN talent! Kane’s entrance is awesome. Last year they had graphics of a New York skyline on fire. This year they set fire to a bunch of ladders at the top of the stage! Everyone tries to jump him on his way down to the ring, but he steamrolls over them all and charges down to the ring to try and get a ladder before everyone catches up with him and he gets a double suplex on the floor. Everyone starts flying over the ropes to take as many people out as possible, but Kane is the one left standing in the end when he takes to the ropes and dives on everyone on the floor! Always impressive to see someone the size of Kane do that. Shelton was great too with his dive, similar to how Undertaker does it, only he flipped over at the end. One of many Shelton spots that would help him cement his name as a MITB MVP during his time with WWE. The Ladder pulls its weight here too, taking a nice bump off a German suplex lol. Benoit starts going crazy (uhhh… yeah) and tries to put as many people as he can in the Crossface, so Kane smashes a ladder onto one of his arms to show him the pain everyone else has been feeling. And thus begins the incredible selling of Benoit’s arm that would become a big part of this match, and a big part of it being great. One of the other big parts is of course Shelton’s great spots, and he keeps them coming. Always great when you can have a ladder match where a lot of the spots actually make sense and shit. Shelton’s numerous risks makes sense for his character in that he’s young and still relatively new to the singles scene (as of the draft the previous year), and being his first singles match at WM and with such high rewards on the line, he is determined to make an impact and do whatever he can to win. Then you have Benoit who keeps taking big bumps, all of which focus on his arm, giving him more and more reason to really sell it and give us the story of Benoit being injured and trying to fight through the pain to win the contract. Benoit is such an awesome seller, he continues to sell the arm WEEKS after WM. And while those two are the big parts of the match, everyone else had something going for them too. Kane is the big powerhouse who can take out everyone in a split second when he needs to, changing the whole match. Christian is the sneaky little heel with Tomko on the outside trying to help him at any given chance. Edge is beginning his ultimate opportunist gimmick and the finish is really where he shines in that sense. Honestly though, Jericho actually seems out of place lol, which is funny considering kayfabe wise he’s the guy who invented this match, so you’d think he’d have a bigger part. So yeah, in the end Edge comes in from out of nowhere, smacks Benoit in his bad arm with a chair and steals the win! Just an incredible match, and definitely the best MITB match ever. Doubt any of the others will beat it. ****1/2.

Eugene randomly shows up returning from injury or something. His music doesn’t play until he’s half way to the ring which kills any kind of pop he might have gotten lol. Muhammad Hassan and Davari show up to talk shit, then HULK HOGAN comes down to a massive, massive pop to make the save. He was inducted into the HOF the day before, hence his appearance.

Match 3 – The Undertaker Vs Randy Orton – The Undertaker was a Legend. Randy Orton was a Legend Killer. He had taken out (aka RKO’d lol) numerous wrestling legends up until this point, and after a mediocre face turn and disappointing WHC run, Orton was looking to redeem himself by defeating one of the biggest Legends of all time at WrestleMania; making him the first and only person to do so. However, The Undertaker is unlike any other Legend that Orton has faced so far, and would not give up so easily… I remember all the internet rumours around this time, all claiming that Orton was indeed going to win, and finally put an end to the Streak. While I have been caught up in The Undertaker’s last 3 WrestleMania matches (23, 24 and 25), this is the one match where I went into it believing that The Undertaker was going to lose. It made the whole situation even more interesting that it already was! ‘Taker gets perhaps his lamest WrestleMania entrance to date, as they try to have him “float” to the ring (aka stand on a moving platform that is hidden by all the smoke :p ). Just looks… lame. Orton’s entrance is more noteworthy at this WrestleMania, even though it is absolutely nothing special. He basically moved down to the ring pretty fast, not running, but not taking his time either. He spent no time in getting into the ring, and was showing no fear. A great way to get Orton over IMO, as simple as it was. Orton gets put over a little more from the very start of the match, as he wins a couple of exchanges against The Undertaker, which frustrates the Dead Man, and causes him to begin to throw those big soup bones. However, Orton keeps himself in the game, nearly hitting an RKO! Nice spot with ‘Taker countering the RKO, throwing Orton out of the ring and into the side of the announcer’s table (which DIDN’T injure Orton’s shoulder, so that’s a big achievement in itself 😛 ). ‘Taker takes his fair share of bumps too though, missing a big boot in the corner and getting caught up in the turnbuckle, then getting dropkicked off the apron into the guardrail. The Undertaker keeps coming back, as we basically expect from his these days in his Dead Man gimmick, but Orton stayed on his level, took punishment from The Undertaker, and constantly put a stop to any momentum the Phenom was building. I can’t even begin to imagine how much bigger this match would have been if Orton didn’t have the face turn in 2004, because he was already getting some major heat in this match, but a lot of people couldn’t forget about that relatively awful face turn that slowed down his growth as a major star. I loved how Orton reversed the Last Ride attempt out of the corner, something that a lot of people are sick of. It showed us that Orton had really done his homework, and came to WrestleMania fully prepared to win. Bob Orton Jr (Randy’s Dad)’s involvement was a nice addition too. Speaking of nice… the Chokeslam reversed into the RKO is one of the most awesome things to happen in an Undertaker WrestleMania match. Watching live, I truly believed that the match was over right there, but somehow the Dead Man kicked out! Orton signals for a Tombstone, since his own finisher didn’t work. The Undertaker reversed it into a Tombstone of his own, and is able to pick up the win in his hardest fought victory since his WrestleMania 14 match with Kane! 13-0 now, and this is his best WrestleMania match so far. A great back and forth contest for the most part, with Orton looking better than ever during the whole thing. This was also the best The Undertaker had looked for a couple of years too, and I’m not sure if he could have looked as good as he did if he was in there with that many people, but Randy was one of those guys. Looking back on the match, if Orton had won and ended the Streak, I would have been fine with it. Orton looked like gold, and at the time he was pretty great both in the ring and as a character, unlike now where he bores me to death :P. ****1/4.

Match 4 – Trish Stratus Vs Christy Hemme – NO.

Match 5 – Shawn Michaels Vs Kurt Angle – Man, just look at this WM. 5 matches, and we’ve had the awesome MITB ladder match, Undertaker Vs Orton and now this? If only Eddie/Rey delivered, this would be one awesome start to a show. Hell it still is an awesome start to a show lol, but could have been even better. Ok, so I’m not the biggest fan of Kurt Angle. He does far too much shit that annoys me more than anything when I watch him wrestle. But even I call this a dream match. I wanted it to happen just as much as anyone else. And while I don’t (could change as I watch it here) consider it to be the greatest match of all time or anything, I do really love it, so I am absolutely looking forward to watching this! HBK starts things off with a slap to Angle’s face, and all this does is piss Angle off who starts to mat wrestle HBK and show him up. So HBK responds by taking the match to the mat too, locking in a headlock that seems to take Angle off his game a little as it’s not the kind of thing you’d expect HBK to do, especially against a guy like Kurt. A lot of people have a problem with this, and well, I do kinda get it in the sense that they do the headlock stuff for a little too long. Ok, so HBK locks in a headlock and takes Angle off his game because he isn’t expecting this approach. But then once Angle settled down and shit, being the Olympic Gold Medallist and shit, shouldn’t he have just been able to tear HBK apart and escape something as simple as a headlock? Once they get passed the headlock part though, things definitely get better. Shawn continues to surprise Kurt by having more of a mat based game, this time applying different holds to keep Angle at bay, all the while Angle is still able to provide counters and reversals to show us that he IS the better mat based wrestler. With HBK frustrating Angle, Angle decides to try and turn this into a brawl and they begin to exchange rights and lefts in the corner and from here the match goes to another level. ANGLE SLAM INTO THE RINGPOST. Was supposed to go back first into it, but was more of his leg than anything else, but the story of the match is the back stuff so we know what they wanted to do, not worth hating on the match because it wasn’t executed perfectly lol. The back work works well on a couple of levels, as HBK has the history of back problems thus “weakening” his back, and a great deal of Angle’s offence involves suplexes which target the back, and of course Angle’s finisher, the Angle Slam, targets the back too. So we have Angle having a REASON to hit so many suplexes, and HBK being able to sell his back and show his pain etc which he is great at… until he kips up lol. No matter what Angle does to HBK, this is WrestleMania and the self proclaimed Mr WrestleMania has even more will to win and resilience at this event than any other. He begins to make his big comeback following a huge moonsault on the outside. He does his 5 moves of doom sequence, tunes up the band… only for Angle to catch him in the Ankle Lock! Fuck me, I’ve actually heard people complain about this too. Oh he didn’t go after the leg/ankle before this point so why is he trying to win with the submission now? Uhhh… maybe because it was the best way to counter the superkick? What should he have done, grabbed the leg of Shawn, then let go of it to attempt an Angle Slam that Shawn could have countered far easier than he could have potentially countered the Ankle Lock? Morons. The Ankle Lock doesn’t work as Shawn makes it to the ropes, so what does Angle do? Attempts an Angle Slam this time! And what happens? Shawn counters. Another Ankle Lock attempt as it was more effective before, but Shawn is able to see it coming this time and counters, only to be hit with the Angle Slam! All of this sequence actually makes sense to me in a kind of “realistic” way with Angle simply going for what is easiest to do in that situation, then when it doesn’t work he goes for something else. Speaking of, HBK kicks out of the Angle Slam, so Kurt has to resort to drastic measures with a moonsault of his own! HBK moves, Angle crashes and burns. And now something in the match that does kinda bug me. Angle hits an Angle Slam off the ropes. His finishing move. From the ropes. A SUPER Angle Slam. Which sends HBK crashing down back first. His injured back. And it doesn’t end the match. That’s where things go into “overkill” territory for me. But things are made up for when Angle just grabs Shawn and starts talking trash because he had the audacity to kick out, and Shawn responds with Sweet Chin Music out of nowhere! My favourite part of the match haha. HBK is far too hurt to make a cover straight away, so when he does Angle can kick out. Both men are hurting bad and stay on the mat for a little while before Angle gains almost a second wind as quick as a flash locks in another Ankle Lock! Shawn refuses to tap out at WM, but Angle applies a grapevine with the Ankle Lock, and Shawn can’t do a damn thing, and eventually has to give up and tap out. Wow, I actually liked this more than my last watch. First time I saw it I thought it was incredible and ****3/4. Then I watched it again and it went to ****1/4 which is still a superb rating, but I didn’t think it was THAT great. Watched it again a while back for a top 100 matches poll and while I kept my rating, I liked it more. This time around I actually liked it even more. Not as much as the first time, but certainly enough to up my rating! ****1/2.

Piper’s Pit time! He went into the HOF the night before. His guest? Steve Austin. Love them slapping each other rather than shaking hands. Perfect given who they are. Then Carlito shows up to ruin it. Bah.

Match 6 – The Big Show Vs Akebono – A sumo match. NO.

Match 7 – John Bradshaw Layfield Vs John Cena – WWE Title time. JBL has held the belt for 10 months now. The longest reigning WWE title run since Diesel in 1995. And here comes the up and coming, hugely popular John Cena to try and end the 10 month reign. This match in a few words: JBL dominates, Cena makes a very short superman comeback and wins out of nowhere. And that’s the end of this historic 10 month title reign. Yey. Bullshit. DUD.

Match 8 – Triple H Vs Batista – Oh man was the build up to this match awesome or what? We have the whole Evolution stuff, then Orton being kicked out and from there we had a ton of tension in the background between HHH and Batista that was played up on brilliantly. They did a nice slow burn face turn for Batista, and when he finally Powerbombed HHH through the table and announced he was facing HHH at WM, the crowd fucking erupted and he became one of the most popular wrestlers in the world. Once again, despite being the heel, HHH gets his theme music played live to the ring lol. Always feels weird to me when the heel gets that treatment. But who am I to complain? It’s fucking MOTORHEAD so it’s all good. Not the shite we’ve had in recent years (WM 28 being a huge and terribly shitty example of some of the worst live music from some god awful “singers” to ever be performed at a wrestling event). So the slow burn build up for this match was incredible… and then it all goes downhill for the match lol. The main problem with this match is time. It just seems to last FOREVER. 21 minutes for a Batista match should not happen lol. Make it around 12 minutes long and this probably could have been really good, but all the good stuff (and there IS a lot of good here) is overshadowed by the overly long parts that really bore the shit out of me. Not exactly what a WM main event should be imo. Batista was far too green still to work a match this long. Still, better than the WWE title match lol. **1/2.

Where it all begins again… except that saying didn’t really mean a damn thing lol.

Match 1 – The Big Show Vs John Cena – Cena’s first ever WM! Yey woo exciting right? And his opponent is the US champion The Big Show, someone who Cena would face again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again over and over and over and over and over for the rest of time in a bunch of really fucking shitty, dull, boring predictable matches. BUT THIS WAS THE FIRST I THINK SO YEY. First singles between them anyway. They’d had interactions since Survivor Series when Cena turned face and joined Team Angle (or Benoit? One of the two…) over Team Lesnar which Show was a part of. Some RR stuff too, then a triple threat at No Way Out to determine the #1 contender for the WWE Title (won by Angle). But possibly their first singles match, or at least their first big singles match. Being so early still in his career, Cena IS viewed as the genuine underdog here, so the Giant Vs Puny Man structure works really nice here, especially at the time because you could believe that Cena could just as easily lose the match rather than win no matter what. Plus Cena isn’t the face of the company so he was able to look more vulnerable and he didn’t have his Super Cena comeback yet. Show throws Cena around, slams him down, crushes him with all his weight, while Cena keeps trying to fight back at all costs only to end up getting swatted down again by the giant US champ. COBRA CLUTCH by Big Show! F-U to Big Show… and BIG SHOW KICKS OUT!!! Cena is shocked, what is he going to use now to beat the giant? Deck him with a chain of course! He teases it, but the referee makes him take it off. While the ref is seeing to that, Cena decks Show with… uhhh… word life knucks or something lol, then follows it up with another F-U and Cena becomes the US champ! This was pretty good. ***.

Match 2 – La Resistance Vs Booker T & RVD Vs Jindrak & Cade Vs The Dudley Boys – The first of 2 four way tag title matches… because WWE wanted EVERYONE on the card for WM 20 is seems lol. Urgh, the shitty mashup theme for Booker and RVD is as shitty as they are at wrestling and tag champs. Yeah, Booker and RVD are the tag champs going into this match. 9 years later and Booker T is getting inducted into the HOF in the same arena. I hope Shield attack him on his way out to the stage. INJUSTICE that such a shitty fucking wrestler is being inducted. This match… happens. Guys do moves. Giant NOTHING match if I ever saw one. Booker and RVD retain the titles. Pointless as fuck. 1/4*.

Coach is sent to find The Undertaker, and ends up stumbling across Mean Gene and Bobby Heenan coming out of a room with Mae Young and Moolah. Heenan being dragged in by Mae screaming “not again, not again, I haven’t been well” and his arm trying to keep the door from shutting is hilarious.

Match 3 – Chris Jericho Vs Christian – Fuck yes. FUCK YES. Love the shit out of this match. LOVE IT. Made me a Christian fan too. Build was great. Christian and Jericho making a bet to see who can get laid first by Trish and Lita, then Jericho falling for Trish for real, Trish finding out, Christian getting jealous because Jericho is spending too much time trying to court Trish than concentrating on their tag team. And then we also have Christian acting like a creepy little bastard hitting on Trish. Just awesome stuff. THIS is how you build to a WM match. Tim White is the referee. I thought he got fucked up in that HIAC match in 2002 and couldn’t referee any more so he killed himself. Repeatedly. On camera. For like a month straight. Ah what do I know. So guess what? This match is still sweeeeet as fuck. Jericho is great early on, looking to HURT Christian and managing to use some of his high flying offence into his HATE~! filled offence too, and does it perfectly. Then the transition spot for Christian to gain control involves a back suplex over the ropes to the outside, and the first camera angle makes it look like Jericho’s head smashed on the apron on the way down. Then they showed another angle and completely ruined it lol. Bastards :P. They eventually bump heads and from there Jericho gets the chance to come back, and we go all out into a back and forth match with both guys doing anything they can to win. Despite splitting from Edge in 2001, Christian was still mostly stuck in tag teams for the next few years so he never really got much of a chance to show how good he can be in singles competition. And when he did get a chance he was stuck in shitty feuds with the likes of Booker T (that awful IC title run they had together in 2003). But it’s great to see Christian step up his game at WM against a guy like Jericho and end up looking like the greatest thing ever, and from here on out Christian would be mainly a singles guy and boy did he ever run with that. Shame WWE never gave him a fair shake, though at least when he returned in 2009 he had the opportunity pretty much every week to look awesome. TRISH shows up looking smoking hot, while Jericho and Christian continue to go back and forth, both now desperate to just get the win before they take much more damage. This is also the night we find out that Trish likes it rough! Christian throws her into the corner, Jericho checks on her but she elbows him in the face “by mistake” and Christian rolls him up for the win! And then is happens… SLAP TO JERICHO! She joins Christian because she likes it rough! ARE YOU TELLING MMMM MMMM ARE YOU TELLING ME CLB HAS GOT THIS BEAUTIFUL WOMEN? The hell happened to JR lol? Match is still awesome. Not quite as awesome as before, but maybe I was just throwing a higher rating on it because most of this show was dire and I loved this so much. ****.

Match 4 – Mick Foley & The Rock Vs Ric Flair, Batista & Randy Orton – Well this still sucks. Yeah, I don’t like it. I’m one of about 6 people in the world who doesn’t seem to like this match. You’ve got a very green Batista, Flair in his old age who isn’t into his crazy old man grove yet, Rock who hasn’t wrestled in a year and doesn’t look good (I swear half of his punches completely miss), Foley who isn’t quite in the shape he wanted to be in (would change that for Backlash), and then Orton who is the best guy in the match who is also somewhat green but not as bad as Batista. Best part of this match is Flair mocking the People’s Elbow. Rock tries to mock Flair’s strut a few times but ends up looking like a retarded robot instead. Orton pins Foley clean with an RKO. Foley is disappointed. Helps build to their Backlash match, but honestly I don’t think it was needed. They should have had their singles match here instead. Ah well, we get another month of them feuding still, though I guess they could have fitted that stuff in before WM if they didn’t bother with The Rock crap. *.

Match 5 – Sable & Torrie Wilson Vs Miss Jackie & Stacy Keibler – NO.

Match 6 – Tajiri Vs Shannon Moore Vs Ultimo Dragon Vs Rey Mysterio Vs Nunzio Vs Chavo Guerrero Jr Vs Billy Kidman Vs Jamie Noble Vs Akia – Dammit, they cut out Dragon’s fall during his entrance on the DVD. I still have the unedited version that I taped back in the day though. So this is a Cruiserweight Open for the CW title. 2 guys start (Dragon and Moore), then when someone gets beat, someone takes their place until someone wins the match overall and is champ. Some decent action, couple of nice spots here and there, nothing more. **.

Match 7 – Goldberg Vs Brock Lesnar – A “dream match” at the time, and boy was everybody disappointed! Both guys were leaving the company after this match, everyone knew it, and they both phoned it in BIG TIME which caused some major resentment from the live crowd. Lol, half of this feud seemed to be between Austin and Lesnar (Austin was the guest ref)… which makes no sense since there was never gonna be a pay off. Guess they just wanted to keep Austin looking good as he was actually staying around a little afterwards. They do fuck all for a great deal of the match. Goldberg wins. Austin stuns both of them. DUD.

Match 8 – Rikishi & Scotty 2 Hotty Vs The Basham Brothers Vs The Self Proclaimed World’s Greatest Tag Team Vs APA – Damn, what it is with the seemingly random tag champs going into this show? Booker & RVD, and now Rikishi & Scotty? Crazy to see Bradshaw here, knowing that he would be the WWE champion in a few months time, and wouldn’t lose it until WM next year! Yet another pointless match at this event, just like the first 4 way tag titles match. Urgh. Best thing about this match is the final minute or so where Bradshaw just fucking murders EVERYONE before Rikishi pins Danny Basham to retain the tag belts. 3/4*.

Match 9 – Molly Holly Vs Victoria – Women’s title on the line, and the loser gets their head shaved (or just if Molly loses she gets shaved? I dunno. I don’t care). NO.

Match 10 – Eddie Guerrero Vs Kurt Angle – WWE Title time, and Eddie Guerrero is defending! Was awesome to see Eddie with the belt back then. Massive, MASSIVE mark out moment to see him win it at NWO the month before against Lesnar. Sadly I never liked this match. Hell I thought these two had pretty bad chemistry overall, with the exception of their super fun and really good 2 out of 3 falls match on SD. LOL, Molly Holly is still getting shaved on the entrance ramp while this match takes place. Might I just say that the MSG crowd are pretty fucking SHIT at this event. However, the early goings of this match are dull as fuck so I don’t blame them for not caring here. Front headlock. Arm bar. Headlock. YAWN. Angle can’t even do a slow paced match right lol. Eddie eventually ends up injuring his mid section after a failed dive, so Angle works that part over but not in any kind of exciting way. LMAO at Cole complaining that Angle is punching Eddie, shouting that it’s a wrestling match, not a boxing match, yet was likely marking out like a little girl when Rock was punching people earlier in the night. Eddie makes some nice come backs, but completely and utterly ignores the mid section that he hurt and had worked over. What is it with guys going all retarded when they face Kurt Angle? Benoit was the same. They just seem to forget about basic wrestling selling and storytelling. Frog Splash from Guerrero doesn’t end the match, and Angle is able to recover nice and quickly to lock in an Ankle Lock. Eddie looks to be in bad shape and realises that with the Frog Splash not working, he has to lie, cheat and steal his way to victory. He unties his boot to try and help the blood flow to his ankle, and from there Kurt goes for another Ankle Lock, Eddie slips out of the boot, and rolls up Angle for the win! Great finish, but fuck the rest of this match was terrible. *.

Match 11 – The Undertaker Vs Kane – WrestleMania X was where “It All Begins… Again”. Part of that was The Undertaker “beginning again” so to speak, by leaving his American Bad Ass/Big Evil gimmick behind and returning to his roots as the Dead Man. At Survivor Series 2003, The Undertaker faced Vince McMahon in a buried alive match. While Vince got destroyed in the match, it was The Undertaker who ended up 6 feet under… thanks to his own brother Kane! For the next couple of months, Kane would constantly take great pleasure in letting people know that he was the one who killed The Undertaker. Then, at the 2004 Royal Rumble, just when Kane was building momentum… the lights went out and the gong went off. For the next couple of months, Kane would receive many “signs” that his brother was alive and well, and ready to return at WrestleMania to get revenge! There is so much about this match that I love. Firstly, the build up was fantastic. The mind games played by The Undertaker without him even appearing was done so damn well. Then we have the entrances. Kane’s was pretty good, with the whole city background on the stage being on fire. The Undertaker’s was just epic though, even more so than WrestleMania 14. It had a similar set up, with the druids coming out holding torches and creating a pathway. However, this time we were greeted with an “Ohhhh YEEES!” by PAUL FUCKING BEARER, who was also making his return since 2000! WWE really knew how to keep people in suspense with this too, making it the second to last match on the card, and also waiting a little while longer before The Undertaker’s music hit. The pop when he does finally come out is great. How I would have loved to have been in attendance that night, to witness the return, and the entrance, of The Undertaker. I remember reading comments the next day about how everyone hated the way The Undertaker looked when he came back, but the people in attendance didn’t care, and neither did I. The fact he was back, and as the Dead Man, regardless of how much he still technically looked like he did when he was the ABA, overshadowed any of the negatives. Unfortunately, one of those negatives happens to be the actual match lol. Once the return and entrance is over… there isn’t too much to this one. Kane’s character had completely changed since their WrestleMania 14 match 5 years ago, and his in ring abilities had gone downhill too. Plus the booking of the match was more of a squash match, so we didn’t get the incredible brawl that we saw all those years ago. They start off with a pretty decent brawl, then transition into the FIP spot (holy crap, 12 matches in and that’s the first time I have mentioned FIP! :p ). A couple of sloppy moments, but for the most part it’s ok, just extremely basic and forgettable. ‘Taker doesn’t take too much offense from Kane though, as this is a squash match for the most part. The biggest moment for Kane in the match is when he counters Old School into a Chokeslam (after Undertaker tries to counter the Chokeslam with a Chokeslam of his own though lol). Kane thinks he has things in control, until The Undertaker sits up and gets another massive pop. Nothing Kane does has any effect on The Undertaker, which causes Kane to become afraid, and eventually leads to his downfall. Tombstone from The Undertaker, which gets another massive pop, and this one is over. This match really isn’t about the match when I look back on it. It’s just a way to bring back The Undertaker in his Dead Man gimmick, and Kane was a perfect opponent to be fed to him. When I look at it as more than just a wrestling match, I really enjoy this one. His return was epic, his entrance was epic, and the fact he used a Tombstone to finish Kane instead of the Last Ride (which I liked, but got bored of during his ABA/Big Evil run towards the end) was epic. Far, far from being a classic, but overall it isn’t bad. **1/2.

Match 12 – Triple H Vs Shawn Michaels Vs Chris Benoit – At the RR at the start of the year, Chris Benoit won the Rumble match, allowing him to challenge for the title in the main event of WM. During the same event, HHH and HBK had a brutal (and I don’t mean violent…) Last Man Standing match for the WHC which ended in a draw. HBK wanted a rematch, but Chris Benoit jumped from SD to Raw in order to challenge for the WHC at WM! HBK desperately wanted in the match, and found a way when he superkicked Benoit before Benoit could sign the WM match contract. Benoit was still getting the title shot due to the RR win, but now HBK was the main who signed the contract to also get a match. And thus the first ever triple threat match for a major title at WM is made! Kinda crazy to think it took WWE 20 years to give us a triple threat for the title at WM. Then they started throwing them at us over the next few years and none of them came close to this one. Mainly because the story’s going in to them sucked (love triangle with Vickie/Edge/Big Show and then randomly Cena thrown in?). Gotta love how this really does feel like a TRIPLE threat match for quite a while, with all 3 guys going at it without having to have one guy taken out, 2 guys left in the ring, guy on the outside comes back in so another guy goes outside and so on. Then when they do switch to having just 2 guys going at it, the third guy is taken out with something that makes you believe he would stay away for a while, for example HHH getting superkicked. Of course the best example of this is when HHH and HBK both suplex Benoit from one announce table through another, allowing Shawn to have Triple H all to himself. A cool moment… until you realise that it’s another chapter in the HHH Vs HBK story and they’ve been having shitty battles for nearly 2 years now lol. Thankfully the action between them is actually really good here. Both HBK and HHH do some nice blade jobs, putting over how much of a WAR this match is. Benoit makes it back to the match eventually, to break up a pin attempt following a Pedigree. Awesome superkick to Benoit while he has HHH in the Sharpshooter. Crowd really get teased at the end, thinking that HHH might pull out the win when Shawn tunes up the band, goes for Sweet Chin Music only to be sent flying over the ropes by Benoit, who turns around to have HHH waiting to Pedigree him! Luckily Benoit counters into a Crossface, and HHH lasts as long as possible before finally tapping about! Benoit is the new World Champion, for the SECOND TIME. Yeah, WWE really played up on this whole “Benoit never won the title in his 15 year career” or whatever… but he won the title in WCW during his last match lol before coming to WWE. Anyway, still a huge moment. Great build to it from the RR, and the MSG crowd go nuts for him finally doing it. Eddie Guerrero, the WWE champion, comes out to celebrate with his friend. Great moment that will forever be tainted in the eyes of many fans because of what Benoit went on to do. Match is great, and while I’ve never loved it as a ***** match like a lot of people, I’ve still always thought very very highly of it. Now? Well I still think it’s pretty fucking great, just not as much as before. ****1/4.

I consider this to be the single greatest PPV ever, not just WWF/E, and not just WM. Can it hold up?

Match 1 – Matt Hardy Vs Rey Mysterio – Bossy sprint here for the Cruiserweight title! They get under 6 minutes, and manage to throw in some nice storytelling, a fast pace, great action (all looks nice and smooth too, no botches which is impressive given some of the things they were doing and the speed they did it in) and a screwy finish to get the heel (Matt) some heat and set up to a great rematch (which happened on SD afterwards, and was awesome). They did more in under 6 minutes than most guys could do in 15. Very impressive, and a match I’ve always loved. ***1/2.

Match 2 – The Undertaker Vs The Big Show & A-Train – This was originally scheduled to be a tag team contest, with Nathan Jones as ‘Taker’s tag partner. However, it was decided before the event that Jones wasn’t ready yet, so he was “taken out” during a backstage segment on Heat before the show. The match came about during a feud between The Undertaker and The Big Show. After the HIAC match at No Mercy 2002 between Lesnar and Undertaker, Big Show attacked The Undertaker and threw him off the stage, putting him out of action until the Royal Rumble. At No Way Out, they had a one on one match, and A-Train got involved. Nathan Jones was a new Smackdown superstar, and on TV The Undertaker had taken him under his wing, so he began to help out the Dead Man against the 2 giants. Of course, all of that was pointless anyway, since The Undertaker would go alone against them anyway :p. Big Show and A-Train try to use the numbers game to take the early advantage, but ‘Taker is a wise old veteran and knows exactly what he needs to do. He even manages to hit a Chokeslam in the first minute of the match! A-Train is the victim of the move, and Show prevents the 3 count by pulling him out. Pretty funny hearing A-Train, a monstrous man in his own right, telling Big Show to “get him!” because he was unable to :p. Like I said, The Undertaker knows exactly what he needs to do in this match, so he is trying to end this one as quick as possible. Unfortunately, Show and A-Train are able to get the better of him eventually, and so the beat down of the Dead Man begins. ‘Taker tries to lock in a couple of submission holds in hopes of getting a quick tap out instead of a pin, which can be broken up easier. Show and A-Train decide that a submission victory might be a good idea too, and begin to take turns at locking in an abdominal stretch, cheating in the process. A-Train makes the mistake of getting cocky, and telling ‘Taker that he “ain’t so bad”, and even goes as far as to slap him in the face. This just pisses Big Evil off, and he starts a nice little come back. Show comes in to break up another pin attempt, and ‘Taker has had enough of the constant 2 on 1 attacks, so he just goes punch crazy, and eventually finds himself dominating his 2 opponents! Good fun! Show and A-Train again get the upper hand, with Show hitting his Chokeslam. Before he can go for a cover though, he runs out of the ring to meet Nathan Jones on the rampway! Jones levels Show with an awesome looking spinning kick, and then helps ‘Taker set up A-Train for a Tombstone, and the win! This match is a lot of fun, no doubt about that. It’s a very nicely worked handicap match too, but doesn’t really go beyond the basics of the handicap match formula, which stops it being a better match. That being said, it’s still a good match, and something I can easily sit through any time. **3/4.

Match 3 – Victoria Vs Trish Stratus Vs Jazz – Muuuuch better than last year’s triple threat. The dynamic of two heels and a babyface works better than 2 babyfaces and a heel tbh. As much as I like LITA she is a little sloppy in the ring lol, so with someone like Victoria in her place for this match, there is much less awkward looking spots and shitty looking moves lol. Stevie Richards is on the outside too to add a little to the match. He’s Victoria’s bitch. He ends up smacking himself in the head with a chair and taking a Bulldog from Trish. Victoria runs full speed into a Chick Kick and we gots our self a new women’s champion! Good diva match by WWE standards. **.

Rock cuts a promo. And I watch it. What is going on you think? Well, this happens to be quite possibly the best Rock promo ever. Not saying much I know, but I do really like it.

Match 4 – Team Angle Vs Los Guerreros Vs Rhyno & Chris Benoit – Tag titles time baby! Plenty of talent in this match (and Chavo Guerrero Jr). I liked the team of Benoit and Rhyno, especially for WM. Both guys missed last year’s WM with neck injuries, so it was cool for them to team together at this WM after recovering. Some great hard hitting action in this one, mainly with Eddie and Benoit when they go at it. Man, crazy to think they are both the main champions at the end of next year’s WM! Benoit launching Eddie into the air and catching him in a Crossface is SICK in the most awesome way possible. Rhyno hits quite possibly the best GORES ever during this match, and unfortunately it’s his GORE that ends the match… for the tag champs Team Angle. Huge fan of this. ***3/4.

Match 5 – Chris Jericho Vs Shawn Michaels – HBK’s first WM since 1998! Great story to the match going in, playing on real life, with Jericho having emulated and idolised Shawn growing up and when he first got into the business. But now Jericho wants to be the first Chris Jericho and wants to be bigger and better than HBK ever was. I like that this feud began building as far back as November 2002 (as far as I can remember) with the Elimination Chamber match at Survivor Series. Remember when they would build up feuds for WM over the space of a few months? Instead nowadays we get fatal four way matches 4 weeks before WM to decide who takes on the fucking STREAK. Start of the match is just basic wrestling holds and exchanges. Both are out to prove something here; Jericho wants to prove he’s better, and HBK wants to prove he’s still as good as he ever was. Some fun little things like HBK laying across the ropes to anger Jericho and showing that he can still be a cocky little bastard when he wants to be. Eventually Jericho gets a chance to work over the back of Shawn, and as we all know the back is what kept HBK out of wrestling since WM 14 in 1998. Nothing noteworthy from Jericho in all honesty, but things really start to pick up when Jericho gets cocky from being in control and starts emulating HBK’s move set, which drives HBK to make comebacks and show that he is still the best at doing those particular moves. The longer the match goes, the more HBK begins to feel like his old self, but Jericho seems to have a counter for just about anything Shawn can throw at him, so in the end a good old fashioned roll up finishes off Jericho, and HBK wins one more time at WM! Really good match overall. Some great storytelling and great action, with Jericho putting on a great performance, really having his first big WM match (let’s face it, triple threat at WM 2000 sucked, he was only in a short opener at WM 17, then although he was in the main event last year defending the title, his match was overshadowed to hell and the match blew too). Jericho hugging it out with Shawn at the end then kicking him in the balls was awesome. ****1/4.

GOLDBERG IS COMING! AND SO ARE LOTS OF PERVES WITH THE MILLER LITE CAT FIGHT GIRLS AND TORRIE WILSON AND STACY IN BED. They took the tag titles match off the card for that crap.

Match 6 – Triple H Vs Booker T – WHC match time. Apparently the build up to this was all about race, and how HHH didn’t think a black guy like Booker could be world champ. I swear I never thought any of this was race related back in the day. I just assumed HHH thought what I thought; that Booker shouldn’t be world champion because he’s fucking terrible! That being said, if there was ever a time for Booker to become world champ, it was here and now (maybe we could have been saved from the King Booker crap in 06. Imagine no King Booker as World Champ on SD 06… but instead someone GOOD. Oh god, I love SD 06 as it is, but if they had a great world champ that year? *day dreams about the potential awesomeness of that*). Referee Nick Partrick. Ric Flair on the outside. Booker T in the match. World Heavyweight Title on the line. This screams WCW all over. HHH’s entire 2003 was spent with him sucking 99% of the time and burying any WCW talent he came into contact with lol. Match revolves around Booker T trying to prove to the world and to HHH that he IS worthy of being a world champion. He is constantly fighting back from everything HHH throws at him, never really allowing HHH to get in full control until later in the match. This forces HHH to resort to things he usually wouldn’t do, including coming off the top rope, where Booker counters with a kick (ended up looking kinda like Booker hit a SCM lol). So with Booker T being able to come back and counter everything, Flair has to get involved to cause the unfair advantage. Using the steel steps he injures Booker’s knee, and now HHH can work over the leg and wear down his challenger. GIVE UP YOU DAMN FOOL! Flair on the outside is awesome. Crowd are pretty fucking DEAD for anything HHH does, but absolutely explode when Booker does anything. It’s like they all kinda EXPECTED Booker T to win so they bought into any pin attempt from him. And with how the build up went I guess I can’t blame them, even if I never for a second wanted him to win, or really thought it would (for the reasons that everyone else though he would, anyway). Lawler is awesome on commentary btw (shocking I know, he sucked pretty much since he returned after Survivor Series in 01). His jabs at Booker’s criminal background is awesome. HOUSTON HANGOVER! How many times did Booker do that in WWE? I remember him doing it to Big Show (Vengeance 02?), and then here. Any other times? Booker sells the leg tremendously, which leads into the finish. He tries to capitalise after the Houston Hangover, but just collapses and gets Pedigreed. HHH takes about 20 seconds to cover due to the fact he just took the Houston Hangover, and this one is over. Ask a Booker T fan about that and they’ll claim there was about a minute between the Pedigree and the cover lol. I always liked this match. Great stuff. Booker looked better here than he EVER (and I seriously mean that) did in his entire career. His best match ever not including large multi-man matches (where he was never a major part in those matches getting high ratings). ***3/4.

Match 7 – Vince McMahon Vs Hulk Hogan – Great build to this match, with plenty of genuine personal issues between them. It was a match people wanted to see. And then it happened. And it lasted 20 minutes. And I fucking hated it. BUT I hated Flair/Vince from the 02 RR, then when I watched it for my RR reviews a few months ago, I ended up loving it. Everyone else seems to love this match, so will my opinion change like Flair/Vince? Honestly I hope so because I don’t want to have sat through this only to still hate it lol. Worst spear/double leg take down from Hogan at the start, followed by some awful fucking punches lol. Whole thing is pretty dull until about half way in when Hogan decks McMahon with a chair and proceeds to beat the fuck out of him. LOL, highlight is poor old Hugo Savinovich getting decked with a chair and busted open too, when Vince ducks a chair shot. More chair shots. Both guys bleeding. Leg drop off a ladder through a table. Steel pipe comes out and we get that AWESOME visual of a crazy McMahon with blood pouring down his face as he raises up from the ring apron. PIPER! ROWDY RODDY PIPER!!! FINALLY, SOMETHING TO MAKE THIS MATCH INTERESTING! Teases hitting McMahon with the pipe, but he decks Hogan and we all saw it coming light years away. Hulk up, leg drop, win for Hogan. This is still shite. They could have condensed this into 5 minutes. Start with the chair shots, do the table spot, bring out the pipe, then Piper, then do the finish. 1/2*.

Match 8 – The Rock Vs Steve Austin – Third time at WM. Austin won the last 2 matches, now Rock is back from Hollywood because he has unfinished business. He’s done everything else, now all he has to do is beat Austin at WM before he can fully leave for Hollywood. Video package has Limp Bizkit, and is really good, though not quite on the level of WM 17. Austin is out to destroy Rock right from the start. He doesn’t NEED to beat Rock like Rock NEEDS to beat him, it’s more of a case of he WANTS to beat Rock to prevent Rock from beating him. Some sweet chop blocks from Rock send Austin crashing down, and Rock begins to work over the Rattlesnake. He even pulls out a Sharpshooter, nice call back spot from their previous WM match (or at least it can be viewed that way). Rock is feeling confident now, so he puts on Austin’s vest to add insult to injury, but it just seems to anger Austin. ROCK BOTTOM BY AUSTIN, WHILE ROCK IS WEARING AUSTIN’S VEST. STUNNER BY ROCK WHILE WEARING AUSTIN’S VEST. Match turns into a giant finishing stretch from here, with plenty of finisher kick outs, but unlike a lot of matches these days it makes sense given the story. 3 Rock Bottoms from The Rock is what finally puts Austin down. Just like it took 3 matches at WM for Rock to finally win. All goes back to the great promo Rock cut earlier in the night. “The only thing that matters, everyone remembers… is ACT 3”, and that is what this match is. Act 3. Where Rock finally wins, and does it with 3 Rock Bottoms, but the first two don’t matter because everyone just remembers the final one that puts Austin away. Just a wonderfully simple story told in a great way combined with a great match to begin with. And while we didn’t know it at the time, this would also be Austin’s last match. Should have been Rock’s too tbh, because he didn’t do shit worth mentioning following this. Absolutely nothing he’s done has even come remotely close to being as good as this. I’m a bigger fan of this match than most people, and even on this watch, I’d place it ahead of their WM 17 match. ****1/2.

Match 9 – Kurt Angle Vs Brock Lesnar – The match that almost never happened. Angle’s neck was fucked going into WM, and nobody was sure if the match could happen. Remember the match on SD where they did the Eric Angle switch? Originally they were going to put the title on Lesnar there (fuck knows who would have been his WM opponent). But Angle agreed to wrestle at WM and then go for neck surgery, and thus this match was still able to take place. I was hyped as fuck for this one back in the day. Haven’t seen it in a while either so I’m looking forward to it again. Their SummerSlam match is a ***** match imo, and their Iron Man is probably the best Iron Man match ever (Rude/Steamboat comes close). These two had great chemistry all stemming from their competitive nature due to their amateur wrestling backgrounds. Basic mat stuff in the beginning as both men use their amateur backgrounds to try and gain control and prove who the better WRESTLER is. Ends up being a stalemate so out come the GERMAN’S and Lesnar takes them better than guys half his size. Fucking LOVE the one into the turnbuckle; works perfectly with Lesnar having injured ribs, giving Angle something to focus on. Lesnar is still a fucking BEAST though and keeps fighting back and using his power when he can, but Angle continues to try and wear down his young challenger using those injured ribs to his advantage. Angle tries everything he can to keep Lesnar down, including the deadly Ankle Lock, but nothing is going to derail the next big thing tonight. F-5! Angle kicks out, so Lesnar hits another… but doesn’t go for a cover. Instead Lesnar tries for a WM moment… SHOOTING STAR PRESS! And he lands on his head. OUCH. Great visual, and a crazy moment that will forever be remembered at WM… but damn, in the words of Tazz “HOW IS LESNAR NOT DEAD?”. Lesnar managed to get another F-5 in, and he becomes the new WWE champion! Thought this was mostly really fucking good, but the finish falls flat (on its head…) after the botched SSP unfortunately. Doesn’t affect my opinion on the match too much, but enough to lower my old rating just a little bit. Still, a great main event for WM. ****.

Icon Vs Icon. Flair Vs Undertaker! Oh and Hogan Vs Rock too, but eh, FLAIR VS UNDERTAKER BABY!!!

Match 1 – Rob Van Dam Vs William Regal – Second year in a row where Regal is involved in the opening match with the IC title on the line! Regal is more gritty and nasty in his matches now compared to where he was last year at WM. His series with Edge over the IC title is pretty much where he started being his old self again (everyone check out the Edge PPV matches, Vengeance 01, RR 02 and NWO 02 btw because they are great), and with a guy like RVD he can really get some nice shots in because RVD isn’t exactly a light worker with those kicks of his (he’s known for busting people open with them because he’s not as careful as he should be… ha, just noticed Regal is bleeding from the mouth as I type this out). KNEE TREMBLER makers an appearance, but it isn’t his finisher so it’s not seen as a major move, which is odd because he just ran full speed and smashed his knee into the side of RVD’s head lol. Match is back and forth all the way with both guys hitting some nice stiff shots and getting their signature moves in. Regal countering that unique kick that RVD does when he catches someone’s foot into the awesome half nelson suplex that Regal is known for makes me giddy as fuck. At the start of the match Regal goes for brass knucks, but RVD kicks them out of his hands. After the suplex Regal picks them up off the floor, the ref catches him and takes them away, so he pulls out another pair and… gets kicked in the face. 5 Star Frog Splash and RVD wins the IC title. Bah. Shitty result, good match. ***.

Match 2 – Christian Vs DDP – European title match time! Match was only made on Raw the week before WM lol, but they had a backstory so it’s all good. Basically, Christian was on a losing streak and would have tantrums in the ring. DDP, being the positive person he is, helped Christian to overcome his tantrums and losing streak! Christian won a match on Raw, DDP was happy for him, then Christian turned on him because he didn’t need him anymore! Even in 2002 DDP was helping people! This match is so much fun. Great back and forth match, with some fun spots. Loved when DDP went to punch Christian, do Christian ducked, only for DDP to get him in the powerbomb position and hit the spinning sit out powerbomb! DIAMOND CUTTER! DDP retains the title, then gets on the mic and makes Christian feel so bad he has another tantrum. LOL. I like this a lot. ***.

Match 3 – Goldust Vs Maven – Hardcore title match! Maven is the champion after beating THE UNDERTAKER (with help from The Rock during the build to their NWO match). Starts off good, with Goldust really laying it in to Maven, and Maven taking a few nice bumps. Then they get into the ring and have a couple of hilariously botched spots with the trash cans. GOLD SHOVEL! Remember folks, before HHH was burying everyone in sight, Goldust was doing it in style! The 24/7 rule is of course in full effect, and Spike Dudley shows up and steals the title! Crash chases him to the back, and throughout the night we get a bunch of mini-matches for the title, with Maven winning it back at the end of the night. Fun while it lasted. *.

Match 4 – Kurt Angle Vs Kane – This match is happening because… uhhh… I can’t for the life of me remember. And there isn’t a video package to help me lol. I actually remember not knowing why it was happening back in 2002 as well lol. Something about Kane having a head injury is mentioned so that’s… about the only backstory I got lol. Angle takes advantage of it by nailing Kane with the ring bell before the match can start (because hey, the bell can’t be rung haha!). Kane being the monster that he is, manages to shake off the effects of the ring bell, but Angle is relentless and won’t give Kane a moment to rest. Cool to see someone like Kane get overhead belly to belly suplexed. Some good stuff in this match no doubt, and it’s far from bad, but damn, it’s such a throwaway match, which is a shame because Angle had probably his career year in 2001 in terms of character, popularity and matches. Finish is absolutely shit as well lol. Could have been so much more tbh. **3/4.

Match 5 – The Undertaker Vs Ric Flair – Fuck yes. THIS is the match that needs to be seen at WM 18. Hogan/Rock was built up as the big important “Icon Vs Icon” match, but this match to me was easily the bigger match. Screw Icon Vs Icon, this is LEGEND VS LEGEND. Two of the greatest of all time. Build up for this match was awesome as well. Rock/Hogan’s was… well shit, but this was tremendous. We’ve got ARN ANDERSON, David Flair getting his arse kicked, Flair punching a fan and getting arrested, Flair giving up his 50% ownership (temporarily) just so the board will grant his request for the match. Just awesome stuff. Not only that, but this whole thing all really began the brand split too (which was a great idea at the time, when they actually gave a shit about the brand split). This match is just an all out brawl. Normally I would get bored with long brawls, but these 2 kept me interested all the way. I don’t get why they made such a huge thing about Hogan/Rock finally wrestling at this event, when The Undertaker/Flair is just as big. Flair is one of, if not the biggest legend in wrestling, and The Undertaker had been a HUGE star in WWF for just over 11 years at this point. To me, this match was way bigger than Hogan/Rock, but of course WWF don’t think so, which is why it was build up completely different to Hogan/Rock. Most of the match is just The Undertaker beating the living hell out of Flair, with punches, kicks, and a huge superplex. It wasn’t like a normal superplex, where they are only on the second rope, but it was a top rope superplex, which is impressive on its own, but even more impressive when it’s done by a near 7 footer and a 50 year old man with back problems. Flair eventually makes a comeback, and starts to beat the hell out of ‘Taker with a led pipe. The Undertaker doesn’t really sell the Led Pipe shots too well, as he pretty much recovers straight away, but Flair still manages to stay in control. Figure Four applied by Flair, and The Undertaker falls back down and is pinned for a 2 count. He then sits up, and Flair is shocked. The Undertaker grabs Flair by the throat, stands up and Chokeslams Flair for a 2 count only! Great stuff! For some reason The Undertaker attacks the ref (in a no DQ match…), but before he can hit Flair with the led pipe, Arn Anderson appears and hits his trademark Spinebuster! Huge pop for that, which only gets Flair a 2 count. The Undertaker then proceeds to beat down Arn, until Flair makes the save with a chair. The Undertaker takes the chair shots, then knocks down Flair, and sets him up for the Last Ride. He doesn’t seem to be able to get Flair up, so he hits a Tombstone instead. 1..2..3. The Undertaker is now 10-0 at WrestleMania! This is just one of the many amazing matches The Undertaker would have in 2002. This is also up there as one of his absolute best WrestleMania matches as well! This was also Flair’s best match in probably 5 years, and for The Undertaker to be able to do that is quite an achievement considering that Flair had confidence issues with his abilities thanks to WCW. ‘Taker’s WrestleMania match the year before might have been a perfect example of an Attitude Era brawl, but this was a perfect example of a brawl, period! ****1/4.

Match 6 – Edge Vs Booker T – The feud that started over a shampoo commercial in Japan. And it resulted in a match at WRESTLEMANIA. My head hurts just typing that. It’s amazing how little interest I have in watching this. So fuck it, I ain’t gonna. NO.

Match 7 – Steve Austin Vs Scott Hall – Whole build up to this was weird and stupid as hell. Austin gets attacked by the NWO a couple of times… so they he kidnaps Hall and beats the shit out of him and whatnot… and somehow this leads to a match. Uhhh… why? Austin got his revenge, right? Made Hall look like a bitch too. Not good. Austin was just coming off his incredible 2001 run, but was really burnt out from it now and unfortunately he isn’t on the same level any more. Hall unfortunately was never the same after he left the WWF in 1996. He was making more money and having to work less, giving him more time to give in to his demons (hopefully his time with DDP can help him out, it’s doing wonders for Jake Roberts so far!!!). So 2002 Hall Vs 2002 Austin really isn’t the “dream” match it could be. 1997 (pre-neck injury) or 2001 Austin Vs 1995 Scott Hall (Razor Gimmick) would certainly have been a match I’d have paid to see. This isn’t AWFUL or anything though, don’t get me wrong. They do the best they can given their own personal situations at the time, it’s just really hard to look past the fact that it could have been so much better. Hell, even if Hall came in 2001 for the Invasion and worked Austin it probably would have been 10x better. Anyway, enough of thinking about how much better it could have been lol, I should just concentrate and enjoy what they ARE doing. Hall is a favourite of mine, going back to his Razor days, and while I was never a big fan of Austin, his 96/97/01 stuff is enough to sway me to like him. Nash is on the outside, and keeps getting involved. Strange that they didn’t place Nash in this match tbh, because he looked to have been in better shape (though he might have torn his quad sooner this way lol). Best thing this match has going for it in all honesty is the punches. Both guys throw some great right hands, and love to throw them often. Oh and Hall bumps off the Stunner awesomely. Screw that fake bouncy shit Rock does, Hall is the man when it comes to Stunner sells. Oh and Angle too, always liked how he did it. Ref gets taken out, and Hall ends up getting multiple stunners, Nash gets ones too, but then the second ref gets taken out. They tease the Outsiders/Razors Edge, and the place fucking comes unglued. But it was near the ropes, and dammit, I have whenever anyone goes for a move that is set up in the powerbomb position near the ropes, because 100% of the time someone is going over the damn ropes. Fucking hate that spot. Especially because it means we don’t get the move, and dammit, I want a Razors Edge at WM! Stunner by Hall! 2 Stunners to Hall! Second one was awesome. Austin wins. Match is… well not good really. Which is a shame because I so wanted it to be. Even taking out of consideration what they could have done at different times etc, it isn’t good. *.

Match 8 – The Dudley Boys Vs The Hardy Boys Vs APA Vs Billy & Chuck – 4 corners elimination tag team titles match! People complain about the recent musical performances at WM… fuck, this needs to be bitched about at the same time too lol. A bunch of shitty bands who have done about 4 songs up to this point. APA tear shit up at the start of this match. Man, I don’t think any of these teams aside from Billy and Chuck are even together by the next PPV thanks to the draft. So yeah, APA are just beating the fuck out of anyone and everyone in the beginning of this match. Billy and Chuck, Dudley Boys (Hardy Boys are too scared). Fucking sweet Clothesline from Hell to Billy who turns inside out and then some, but he isn’t the legal man. 3-D to Bradshaw and fuck, APA are gone. Bah. Hardy Boys and Dudley Boys have their long history so it’s cool to see them go at at. Oh fuck, Stacy shows her ass, gets spanked and kissed, allong Bubba to recover and with the help of Billy, hits a doomsday device on Jeff! Match essentially turns into a Hardy’s Vs Dudley’s match, so it’s pretty good. Weird, disjointed counter sequence into a reverse DDT that allows Jeff to tag out. Dudley’s got for the WAAASSSUP headbutt, but Billy shoves D-Von off the ropes and he lands through a table that was set up earlier! Dudley’s are gone! Billy & Chuck Vs Hardy Boys part if pretty much just one big finishing stretch rather than slowing down and going into a normal tag match, and it’s a lot of fun. Billy & Chuck retain the belts. I really like this match, never hear anything about it so I’m assuming it’s also underrated too lol. ***.

Remember how I said the hardcore title gets changed a bunch of times throughout the night? Well, the highlight happens here when Molly Holly who decked Hurricane Helms with a frying pan and won the title, gets smacked in the face with a door… by CHRISTIAN. Awesome. Creepy little bastard that he is! Shame he doesn’t keep it.

Match 9 – Hulk Hogan Vs The Rock – Man, on paper, this looked absolutely utter SHITE to me lol. But I was extremely surprised with just how good this turned out. Expecting it to hold up all the way. Besides, how can I NOT love a match where Rock is a babyface and gets BOOED out of the building?! Another bad build up involving the NWO and WM 18. The whole truck being smashed into the ambulance with Rock inside was fucking retarded. Like I already said, Flair/Undertaker build up blows this out of the water. Sure, that match wasn’t build up to be as BIG as this match, but it ended up looking bigger and better through the build lol. Fuck me this crowd is awesome. Hogan does nothing more than shove Rock into the corner and pose, and they absolutely EXPLODE. YOU AIN’T NUFFIN, MEATBALL. Oh man, Hogan with the THUNDERLIPS trash talk. Great to see The Rock slowly getting pissed off at the people for booing the hell out of him, while cheering like crazy for Hogan despite all the heel stuff he’s doing. Raking his back, low blow, using the belt to whip him… yet when Rock returns the favour they absolutely shit on him! Rock Bottom and a Leg Drop from Hogan isn’t enough to keep Rock down, but 3 Rock Bottoms and a People’s Elbow end the match and give Rock the win. Fun finishing stretch for sure. Rest of the match is ok, made better by an incredible crowd. Honestly though… I didn’t think as much of the match as I used to lol. Still really good for what it is, but I wasn’t quite feeling it like I used to. ***.

Match 10 – Jazz Vs Trish Stratus Vs Lita – Well 2 out of 3 ain’t bad lol! LITA and TRISH! Yey! Fast pace or this match with plenty of moves being thrown about, and a lot of stiff sounding shots too lol. Oh and some usual awkward spots that we get in diva matches when they try things that, well, only the guys should be doing in all honestly. Lita teases taking off her top but then doesn’t, so -***** for that. Not really sure what to make of this one. It’s weird. *.

Match 11 – Chris Jericho Vs Triple H – Wanna talk about shit builds for matches at this event? Look no further than this. HHH Vs Stephanie is pretty much the build up. Jericho is Stephanie’s bitch, cleaning up dog shit and whatnot. But Jericho is the champion so he has to be the one to wrestling HHH lol. Instead of leaving Stephanie out of it (though her tits do fall out of her top later in this match…) and having HHH Vs Jericho for the title, building on the fact HHH injured his quad in that tag match involving Jericho, and Jericho still locked in the Walls after he tore it and whatnot… they do the whole Stephanie Vs HHH with them breaking up bullshit. Urgh. At least during the match they use the story of the leg injury and shit, with Jericho going after the leg. It’s smart and shit, but fuck is it DULL. When it comes to HHH Vs Jericho, HHH should always be the heel and Jericho the face. Really doesn’t work the other way around imo. PEDIGREE TO STEPH. And her tits can’t stay in her top too well. LOL. Pedigree to Jericho, new champ. Yawn. **.

Widely regarded as THE greatest WM event ever. I’m not one of those people who think that though. However, it IS a good (great even) event and a ton of fun to watch still. And with my original version of the show (ebay + people who don’t know how rare something is = happy Cal) allows me to watch it completely unedited and WITH the My Way song.

Match 1 – Chris Jericho Vs William Regal – IC title match. Jericho pissed in Regal’s tea, so Regal got pissed and is now trying to murder Jericho. Regal is also the commissioner. He was awesome back then as a character but wasn’t quite into his grove as the deadly gritty bastard that he used to be and would be again soon enough. I WILL MAKE CHRIS JERICHO FEEL HE’S BEEN HACKED UP WITH A BLOODY HATCHET. Gotta throw that line in their from a Regal promo that is part of the video package for this match. Regal hits some fucking awesome and unique throws/suplexes here. One of my fav things about the guy, along with his disregard for other people allowing him to just murder them with awesome uppercuts and forearms. Shame he was watered down for the first year in WWF. Regal reversing the Walls of Jericho into the Regal Stretch is sweeeet. Regal really is the best thing in this match, but that isn’t saying Jericho is useless or bad, just that Regal is awesome as fuck. Finish kinda feels flat, with Jericho getting the Lionsault and the win out of nowhere essentially. But aside from that, this is a good and fun opener. Regal rocks. **3/4.

Match 2 – APA & Tazz Vs Right to Censor – God I fucking hate the RTC. They were awesome heels lol. Their entrance music makes me want to strangle them. LMAO Tazz is so small he almost falls through the ropes instead of bouncing off the top rope! Tazz takes a bit of a beating, tag to Bradshaw and then this one turns into a nice chaotic brawl with everyone getting involved. Some BIG fucking bumps from big guys like Goodfather and Bradshaw, then a nice big Clothesline from Hell and this is over. Short and sweet, RTC lose at WM, people are happy. *3/4.

Match 3 – Raven Vs The Big Show Vs Kane – Triple threat match for the hardcore title! Absolute destruction in this one. Awesome. ONE MIGHT SAY THAT RAVEN WANTS TO CRACK KANE’S CRANIUM. ONE MIGHT SAY THAT I JUST SAW RAVEN’S HEAD GO THROUGH A WALL! Raven’s head literally puts a hole in a wall. Awesome. LMAO at Show trying to padlock off an area to keep Raven to himself. Kane breaks the lock in about 2 seconds. Should have saved a spare one for Mark Henry all those years later in that cage match. RAVEN THROUGH A GLASS WINDOW. KANE AND BIG SHOW THROUGH A DOOR. KANE AND SHOW THROUGH THE WALL. Then Raven just shows up through a door and attacks them both lol. GOLF CART CHASE! They crash and nearly take out the power to the arena. LMAO Kane driving a Golf Cart with a referee in the back. A billion stars just for that. Raven gets run over too. Awesome. Nice big spot from the stage to end this one, and Kane becomes the new Hardcore champion! Boat loads of fun and awesome spots. FUNFUNFUNFUNFUNFUNFUNFUN. ***.

Match 4 – Eddie Guerrero Vs Test – European championship match time! Saturn has the most awesome hat ever. Match starts off fast, Eddie trying to use his speed but Test just bounces him around and looks to be in firm control, until he gets his leg caught up in the ropes. Eddie targets the leg, but Test doesn’t give a fuck and even holds all of Eddie’s weight on his back while also IN A SLEEPER and somehow his leg doesn’t bother him. Sweet tilt-a-whirl into a POWERBOMB by Test though. That’ll redeem his shitty selling. Low blow behind the ref’s back, then Saturn comes in for a swinging neck breaker, but Test ain’t giving up that prestigious European title so easily! Malenko comes down to get involved, and Eddie decks Test with the title belt for the win! This was ok. Short match, nothing much to it, but fun enough. **.

Match 5 – Kurt Angle Vs Chris Benoit – Big fan of the opening part of this match. Both guys are absolutely determined to lock in their submission hold, and end up exchanging holds on the mat as both men are desperate for control and trying to make their opponent tap. Despite being the Olympic Gold Medallist, Angle is unable to out-wrestle Benoit, so BAM. Right hand decks the Crippler, and this one turns into a fight. Benoit wasn’t expecting it, allowing Angle to really work over Benoit. But Benoit is a tough bastard and won’t stay down for long, so this match soon becomes and back and forth affair with both men again going for a submission victory, and I quite liked a lot of the counters both men came up with for them too. Angle taps out, but the ref is hurt and doesn’t see it. Since he now knows he can indeed lose this match via submission, he decides to go for a pin win instead, as that might be safer. Some finisher kick outs… then a boring roll up and Angle wins. You know I liked a lot about this match. It was good, it really was… but I didn’t get that “epic” feeling from it that I used to back in the day. Felt like it was missing something and I have no idea what it is. Still good and I still like it, but nothing more. ***1/4.

Match 6 – Ivory Vs Chyna – NO.

Match 7 – Vince McMahon Vs Shane McMahon – Father Vs Son Street Fight. Owner of WWF Vs Owner of WCW. Mick Foley as special guest referee. Foley was originally supposed to be Vince’s opponent, but personal issues between them prevented them from getting it done. Real shame, especially since they never had a true end to their angle in December when Vince fired him. But ah well, this was a ton of fun on last watch. Apparently WCW guys were supposed to get involved too, but one of them (Stasiak?) leaked it in an interview and they ended up watching the show instead (not a bad punishment, but of course the others would no doubt have preferred to have been involved in the show rather than just watching it). This match really has a bunch of angles all thrown together. Foley and Vince. WCW and WWF. Shane and Vince. Stephanie and Trish. Vince and Linda. And to WWF’s credit, they all get some sort of conclusion here, except for the WWF vs WCW one as that was obviously only just beginning with this match. So here we have 2 non wrestlers, the owner and son of the owner of the company, beating the hell out of each other and taking risk after risk after risk. Must be great for the boys in the back to watch their boss and his son do all this shit when they really, REALLY don’t have to do anything. Then again some of the boys might hate it because they are outshining them in every bloody way lol. TRISH SLAPS VINCE! TRISH TURNS FACE! TRISH AND STEPHANIE CAT FIGHT! Vince after being slapped looking up and seeing his wife is awesome. He looks absolutely fucking disgusted and mouths “you BITCH” to her lol. Foley makes sure Vince doesn’t do anything, but then gets cracked in the head by a steel chair and Vince throws his sedated wife (long story lol) into the ring to watch him beat the hell out of their son. Man, what a fucking pop for Linda STANDING UP. Low blow ever to Vince, then Foley gets back involved. Awesome coast to coast to Vince with a trash can in his face, and Shane picks up the big win in a superawesomemegafun match. ***.

Match 8 – The Hardy Boys Vs The Dudley Boys Vs Edge & Christian – This one is TLC II! Triangle Ladder match at WM last year involved tables. Then E&C began making chairs their signature weapon, so we got the first ever TLC match at SummerSlam. Rematch-a-Mania right here! In fact, a few rematches her. This happened last year at WM and again at SS. Ivory Vs Chyna happened at the RR. Austin Vs Rock was the main event of WM 15. BOOO THIS EVENT SUCKS! LOL. LMAO at when D-Von goes for a table. He goes outside, looks at a table that’s already set up. Grabs it. Lets go of it. Goes under the ring. Doesn’t see any so he grabs the original table and decides to use that. And then FOR NO REASON AT ALL HONEST they set up 4 tables on the outside. Oh man, Christian takes on hell of a bump off a ladder to the outside. I think like everyone else, he was supposed to get caught on the ropes… but he cleared then completely and… nope, the replay shows he was clearly always aiming for the floor. NOT AS IMPRESSIVE NOW. Spike, Rhyno and LITA LITA LITA LITA LITA all get involved for their respective teams. Cool to see D-Von and Christian both handing from the belts and battling after the ladder got taken out from under them. LOL at Jeff trying to use the ladders as stepping stones, only for them to fall. We get the big Spear from Edge off the ladder to Jeff who ends up hanging from the titles. Looked impressive, but we’d seen it before (the often forgotten tag ladder match between E&C and the Hardy Boys on Raw in 2000. I think it made it to the second ladder match set though, so there are no excuses people!). Remember those 4 tables from earlier? Well they actually were set up for a reason OMG! Only good thing about that spot is that they used the giant ladder for it, so they could set the ladder up in the middle of the ring rather than the stupidly obvious (and utterly retarded) placement of the ladder near the ropes. With the help of Rhyno, E&C win the tag titles at WM 2 years in a row! This is good, but not great tbh. Last year’s triangle ladder match blows it away imo, and the first TLC is a big step above this too. And we’d get an even better TLC match on SD in a month too. ***1/2.

Match 9 – Gimmick Battle Royal – Heenan and Mean Gene commentating on this one! LOL, they take up 10 minutes just with introductions for this one. Though half of that is waiting for the Iron Sheik to actually make it down the ramp. Haha, Heenan calls Mean Gene Tony. Best part of this match tbh is the commentary between Heenan and Mean Gene as everyone makes their entrances. Match is garbage, but dammit, some great nostalgia watching these guys. Pretty funny that Jim Cornette is probably in better shape than 90% of the wrestlers involved in this. ONE MAN GANG. Actually just watched a WCW match of his earlier today. Against the SUPER GIANT NINJA. It was terrible. And OMG was the US champion. In 1996. I wonder why they had Tugboat as… Tugboat rather than Typhoon. I WANTED A NATURAL DISASTERS REUINION DAMMIT. Lol, the entrances last twice as long as the match. Rumour has it that the Sheik only won because he wasn’t physically able to take a bump over the ropes lol. I enjoy this, screw the haters! *.

Match 10 – The Undertaker Vs Triple H – Poor Undertaker. His WrestleMania match in 1999 was so bad, he had to take some time off, and even considered retirement… Ok, so that’s not exactly true, but for a man like The Undertaker, having a match as bad as the HIAC with Boss Man can’t be good for him :p. In late 1999, The Undertaker took some time off to heal from an injury (I want to say elbow… but I’m not sure). I’ve read rumours that he was supposed to be back in time for WrestleMania 2000, but in February that year, he suffered a groin injury and his return was postponed. I don’t know if any of that is true, since it came from the internet :p. In The Undertaker’s absence, Triple H had emerged as a huge star, and was the top heel in the company at this point. ‘Taker had always claimed the ring as “his yard”, and HHH was now claiming that The Undertaker’s “yard” was right in the middle of HIS world. Naturally, they would want to find out who really ruled the ring, so we got a WrestleMania match out of it. I really enjoyed the whole build up for this match, with Stephanie getting a restraining order on The Undertaker, Kane helping out, and HHH just being his awesome 00-01 badass self. Even though this WrestleMania was in Houston Texas, the home town of The Undertaker, Triple H (the HEEL), got his entrance music played live by Motorhead. No idea why they decided on that, other than HHH probably wanted it to happen because he is a huge fan of Motorhead lol. Doesn’t bother me though, I like Motorhead too :p. WrestleMania 17 is often considered to be the best WrestleMania, and even the best PPV of all time. I disagree with that, but I will agree with the people who say this is the defining Attitude Era PPV. Everything on this PPV, aside from the Gimmick Battle Royal (LOL), just screams Attitude Era, and this match is right up there as one of the biggest Attitude Era style matches of the night. The match starts, and it begins as nothing more than a brawl, which is all this match would turn out to be. However, in this case it is FAR from being a bad thing. The feud had become personal, so it made sense for them to brawl, especially The Undertaker as that was his main style during this time period. The Undertaker dominates the early minutes of the match, until HHH slows things down with simple but effective wrestling moves. Triple H has ‘Taker down, and as soon as he does, he goes out for the sledgehammer! Just as he is about to level the Dead Man with it, the referee takes it away! Pedigree attempt is reversed, and the referee takes his first bump of the night. Huge Chokeslam from The Undertaker, but Triple H kicks out! ‘Taker is pissed off, and attacks the referee (who would not move for about 10 minutes now :p )! Now the match starts to heat up, and we get one of the better Attitude Era brawls. They end up in the crowd, and work their way to a structure set up by WWE to hold technical equipment and cameras. It has multiple levels, and they keep climbing to the top level, where The Undertaker Chokeslams Triple H to hell! Well, if hell was a nice soft mat, then he was indeed Chokeslammed to hell :p. The angle we saw on the PPV looked cool though, until they started to show replays where you could see how soft his landing was :p. We then see how soft it is again, when The Undertaker launches himself off the structure with an elbow drop! Sure, the landing was soft as fuck, but this is wrestling, so I didn’t really expect them to land on concrete from that height lol. They eventually find their way back to the ring, and the referee is still down. The Undertaker is in firm control, and notices the sledgehammer in the ring. He picks it up, looks at HHH, feels the scar on his head from the sledgehammer shot he received a few weeks earlier, and decided it was payback time! Triple H does what he can to avoid the sledgehammer shot, and we end up with a back and forth slugfest in the middle of the ring! Triple H goes for a Tombstone, but The Undertaker reverses and lands his signature move! However, the referee is still out of it, so The Undertaker decides to land the Last Ride too! He elevates the Game up, and crashes down to the mat himself! Triple H grabbed the sledgehammer on his way up, and nailed ‘Taker in the head! Very smart move by Triple H! The referee is awake now, and makes the count, but The Undertaker kicks out! ‘Taker is busted open, so HHH targets the wound with numerous rights to the head in the corner. The Undertaker reverses this into a Last Ride out of the corner, and gets the win at WrestleMania, and in his home town! This is far from a wrestling classic, but it’s still a damn classic! Like I mentioned earlier, it is one of the better brawls of the Attitude Era, between two of the top starts in the WORLD. I’m not usually a big fan of all out brawls, but when they are done right, like it was here, they can be awesome. Definitely a great WrestleMania moment for The Undertaker, defeating the top superstar of 2000 at the biggest show of the year in his home town! ****1/4.

Match 11 – The Rock Vs Steve Austin – Yeah, the build up video for this complete with My Way is AWESOME. AWESOME I TELLS YA. No DQ stip is seemingly randomly added at the beginning of the match, but as we all know, there was a reason in the end. Somewhat of a unique stare down between these two before the match, when Rock is posing on the ropes and Austin is stood at the other corner not taking his eyes of The Rock and has a little smirk on his face. With that out of the way, Austin takes the fight right to the Rock and this one is ON bitches! Big brawl here as you would expect, and Rock is a total cunt when he bullies the referee and scares him so much he falls over the steel steps. THAT’S YOUR PEOPLE’S CHAMPION! Austin gets revenge for poor Hebner by smashing the ring bell into Rock’s face and busting him open. AUSTIN IS THE REAL HERO DAMMIT! LMFAO, how did I never see this before? Austin is smashing Rock’s head on the table, then the referee tells him to stop and we just see The Rock in the background fall through the table, breaking it. So tables have been hating Rock since 2001? Despite Austin getting revenge for the steps stuff, he’s a bit of an annoying prick by constantly getting in Austin’s face for doing illegal shit (IT’S NO DQ, FUCK OFF EARL). But Austin is pretty relentless, just mauling The Rock until the ref distracts him long enough for Rock to make a comeback, and now Rock wants revenge for being busted open. Smashes Austin’s head into an exposed turnbuckle, then BAM, ring bell into his face too. Crowd boo The Rock. I cheer the crowd. Austin is busted open too, but keeps fighting. Rock is just the same, fighting through the pain and the blood, even managing to lock in a… uhhh… leg submission hold thingamabob. Austin does the same, and JR calls it a Sharpshooter, but trust me, it ain’t no Sharpshooter lol. Neither of them can do it right, however I do appreciate what they were trying to do, with both men bleeding while sat in the hold, just like WM 13 with Bret and Austin. Rock keeps getting to the ropes after numerous Sharpshooters, so Austin pays homage to his Ring Master days and locks in a Million Dollar Dream! THIS is how much the title means to Austin. He had to leave wrestling for a year to get neck surgery, and he’s come back from that, won the RR and now main eventing WM in his home state. He NEEDS this win, and it becomes more and more clear the longer this match goes on. Rock however just keeps coming back, forcing Austin to get more vicious. Busting Rock open, using the Sharpshooter, going back to the Million Dollar Dream… and still The Rock fights back, even landing a Stunner of his own. Then, Mr McMahon of all people shows up ringside! People’s Elbow… and McMahon pulls The Rock off of Austin! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? ROCK BOTTOM BY AUSTIN! Not even that gets the job done! McMahon grabs a chair, and Austin holds The Rock up! Are Austin and McMahon working together? SAY IT AIN’T SO! Rock STILL won’t stay down and Austin is PISSED. He NEEDS to win this match dammit! ROCK BOTTOM! Vince causes a distraction, so Austin can recover and nail the Stunner! KICK OUT! Austin absolutely cannot believe it, so he grabs the chair again and absolutely MURDERS The Rock with it. Chair shot after chair shot after chair shot after chair shot until finally The Rock can’t go on any more, and Steve Austin is once again the WWF Champion! And then it happens… Austin and McMahon shake hands! STONE COLD IS SHAKING HANDS WITH SATAN HIMSELF! So this is still awesome. Finishing stretch has to be up there as one of the best too. The devolution of Austin in this match is awesome as he gets more and more angry and paranoid that he can’t keep The Rock down, and aligning with McMahon in order to finally get the one thing he wants the most is just icing on the cake. ****1/2.

AKA WrestleMania 16: No Singles Matches Allowed.

Match 1 – D-Lo Brown & The Godfather Vs The Big Bossman & Bull Buchanan – Boy does this match just scream “WRESTLEMANIA”! To its credit though, it isn’t bad. They keep up a nice pace with the exception of Bull and his fucking bear hug (ARRGHG FUCKING BEAR HUG!!!), and I always liked Bull’s scissor kick thingy (would go on to be his finisher, but here it’s a normal move for a 2 count lol). Godfather being super over combined with HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS on the outside make this a fun opener, nothing more. I’ve definitely come across much worse matches that were even less pointless too. *3/4.

Match 2 – 15 Minute Time Limit Hardcore Battle Royal – So we get a bunch of guys fighting for the hardcore title. Match is 15 minutes long. Hardcore title is on the line, and can change hands numerous times during that limit. Whoever is the champ at the end is… well the champ. Unlike the future Scramble matches that WWE did, everyone who wins the title is the official champion. Oh and you can only pin the actual champion to win the belt. Its less confusing if someone competent explains the rules lol. I’m not that guy. This match is crazy fun. Just a ton of guys whacking each other with weapons. Tazz wins the belt about 30 seconds in, then Viscera takes it from him and holds it for quite a while with people actually avoiding the big man, except for the APA who just wanna beat up someone. Poor Crash is busted open and I’m not entirely sure he was supposed to lol. Pete Gas bleeds too. Hard to tell what are blade jobs and what are accidental because everyone is just constantly getting hit in the head with a variety of weapons. Vis eventually loses his belt when the APA slam him off the ropes and beat him up, then pile 3 or 4 guys on top of him lol, giving FUNAKI the title! Taka is pissed and decks his own partner. THAT’S HOW IMPORTANT THIS TITLE IS! Funaki gets the fuck out of there and we end up backstage… where members of the Mean Street Posse end up winning the title! MEAN STREET POSSSE HAD SOME TITLE WINS! Finish sees everyone on the outside while Tazz, Crash and Hardcore battle it out in the ring. Crash wins the title back with 30 seconds left (though looked like Tazz kicked out…). Tazz locks on the Tazzmission, then Hardcore smashes a glass jar or something over their heads and goes for a pin. 1… 2… and the ref randomly stops counting… then the clock runs out… then Hardcore is announced as the champion and even Howard Finkle doesn’t understand. Botch? Botch. Fun shit though. **3/4.

Big video package for the WM weekend/fan axxess thing… and oh hey, UNDERTAKER AS THE AMERICAN BAD ASS! Never noticed that before lol. So to everyone who said it him returning at JD looking like that was out of the blue… FUCK YOU! 🙂

Match 3 – Al Snow & Steve Blackman Vs T & A – HEAD CHEESE! TRISH’S TITS! CHESTER MCCHEESYTON! THIS IS THE GREATEST WRESTLEMANIA OF ALL TIME! But seriously though, Al and Steve were a great team, and I loved the Head Cheese stuff. Funny shit. And Trish’s tits are great of course LOL. T & A were a good team too. Surprised that they never won the belts in 2000. 2 Cool got them for a month, why not T & A? Always loved this match, still do after this watch too. Really fun sprint between two new teams trying to make their mark on the biggest show of the year, to hopefully build momentum for them as they work their way to a potential tag title shot. They throw everything they’ve got at each other until in the end its Test and Albert that pick up the win (with Al and Blackman not staying together for long after this). CHESTER THE MOLESTER. LMAO. He gets kicked by Blackman after the match. **3/4.

Match 4 – The Hardy Boys Vs The Dudley Boys Vs Edge & Christian – Tag titles are on the line, in a triangle ladder match! Like the previous match, we have tag teams trying to make their mark on the grandest stage of them all, only this match is for the tag titles and is a ladder match, which means they can make a MUCH bigger mark way easier too. Love how this triple team feud all developed. Started in 99 with Edge & Christian Vs The Hardy Boys, resulted in a tag team ladder match. The Dudley Boys showed up on the scene, and basically while E&C and the Hardys were battling each other to see who the better team was, those DAMN DUDLEYS went after the tag titles and won them at No Way Out. And of course who can forget that AWESOME tag team tables match at the RR between the Hardys and the Dudleys. So now it was time to combine the feud between the Hardys and E&C with the tag team champions, and well, from this point on it was MAGIC for nearly 2 years. Everyone holds their own here and everyone puts their body on the line in order to give the fans something special. Starts with just ladders, but of course that favours the Hardy Boys who are the more daredevil team and are smaller and lighter, therefore faster, than everyone else, so The Dudley Boys need to even things up with the TABLES. I like how this match allows them to bring in tables and not just be a case of “ladders are cool but what about tables too? Let’s use tables because… TABLES!”. Instead The Dudley Boys being the “masters” of the tables decide to bring them out in order to cause more damage to their opponents and also gain a bigger advantage, something they need since they aren’t comfortable with ladders (a pre-match promo reveals they are afraid of heights, so they need every advantage they can get). Oh and D-Von’s selling of a double suplex off the ladder is AWESOME. Guy looks like he’s having BACK SPASMS. Bubba’s powerbomb to Matt from the Spanish Announce table through a table is awesome. Always like powerbombs where people hold them above a shoulder rather than straight in the middle (with a crotch in their face). Looks more brutal imo. Whole match is just awesome, with some really memorable spots. Big Swanton off a ladder to Bubba through a table in the isle way. Bubba’s powerbomb to Matt through the table. And then the “walkway of death” with 2 ladders holding up a table to walk on, which leads to Matt being thrown off at the end and the table he goes through just fucking SHATTERS, leaving E&C to grab the belts! Holds up immensely well and is still one of my favourite ladder/tlc style matches between these 3 teams. ****1/4.

Match 5 – The Kat Vs Terri Runnels – Closest thing to a singles match here… and it’s a “Cat Fight” where you win by throwing your opponent out of the ring. Not just over the top rope like a RR/Battle Royale… but through the ropes, under the ropes… doesn’t matter. Val is the guest ref too. I’m skipping this shite. NO.

Match 6 – Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko & Perry Saturn Vs 2 Cool & Chyna – 6 matches in… and it’s already the FOURTH tag match. LOL. So Eddie wants Chyna, Chyna wants to murder Eddie (until Raw 24 hours later, then she loves him. Women. Make up your damn minds!!!). The rest are just there because I guess WWF didn’t want a man Vs women match at WM. LMAO at Lawler teaching JR “hip terminology” like “DO-RAG”. DOUBLE WORM! Eddie on his hands and knees crawling away in fear from Chyna and grabbing hold of the ref is awesome.  Referee: WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? LMAO. Then Scotty gets double teamed on the outside and whipped into the barricade… and we literally see Grand Master Sexy stood WATCHING HIS PARTNER fly past him on his way to crashing into it. LOL. Eddie grinding while Chyna’s head is between his legs is awesome. Press Slam to Eddie… while she holds his nuts! Chyna pins Eddie. At WM! LOL. Poor Eddie, he never had much luck at WM, between losing to people like Chyna or just not having good matches. Which is weird because the guy was fucking awesome. *.

Match 7 – Kurt Angle Vs Chris Benoit Vs Chris Jericho – Triple threat 2 fall match for the IC and European title. First fall is for the IC title, second for the European title. BOB BACKLUND is the reason this match is happening, claiming he was showing Kurt “tough love” and wanted him to prove that he could be the best ever. Kurt has yet to show us that he’s the best ever, and since he’s been going downhill for the last 5 or so years I don’t think he’ll end up anywhere near the best ever lol. So I used to really like this match. I’m genuinely confused as to why. Normally even if I stop liking a match, I can SEE why I used to like it, but usually by then my tastes have changed and it’s just not my thing anymore. This match? I’m lost. NOTHING was good. It was literally “I suplex you, I pin you, he breaks it up, he suplexes me, he pins me, you break it up, you back breaker him, you cover him, I break it up, I back breaker you, I pin you, he breaks it up, he suplexed me, he covers me, you break it up” repeated a few times, then Benoit pins Jericho to win the IC title. Then Jericho pins Benoit for the European title. Fuck this shit. 1/2*.

Match 8 – Road Dogg & X-Pac Vs Kane & Rikishi – Well, from one tag match to yet another. 5 tags in 8 matches. Yey. They’ve been doing the whole Kane Vs X-Pac angle since like… October of last year? And the big pay off match is… a random tag match with Rikishi? WHY? Heels pretty much get decimated, but in super fun fashion during this short match. STINK FACE TO TORI. Tombstone to X-Pac and this is over. Kane gets his big revenge. Sort of. Kind of. Not really. But I guess it’ll have to do. PETE ROSE! CHOKESLAM! STINK FACE! Wish we got more Pete. He could have showed up backstage during the hardcore match Kane was involved in next year. Should be a WM tradition dammit. This was short but fun. *1/2.

Match 9 – Triple H Vs Mick Foley Vs The Rock Vs The Big Show – WWF Title is on the line in a fatal four way elimination match with a McMahon in each corner! Stephanie in HHH’s, Vince in Rock’s, Shane in Show’s, and Linda in Mick’s. I’m not even going to get into the build up for this one because there is a LOT that I would have to talk about. All I’ll say is that Show won the RR but the awarded the match to The Rock anyway. Then Show beat The Rock at NWO to win his WM title shot. And then The Rock still ended up getting in the match lol. Foley was kinda random, but hey, he finally got to live his dream by wrestling in the main event of WM so I’m fine with that. Show begins to start dominating early, so everyone teams up against him for a moment until Foley decides he just wants to MAIM THE GAME instead, but gets a chair shot in on Show allowing Rock to hit the Rock Bottom… and Show is the first to be eliminated about 5 minutes into the match! See ya, Show! HHH is left alone with 2 people who absolutely hate him, so he tries to convince them to join forces with him… and gets double teamed for his troubles. Eventually they break down and Foley and Rock have no problems beating each other down as well as HHH, until HHH finally convinces Foley to join forces with him. He and Foley can take out The Rock, then Foley can have HHH all to himself. Foley likes that idea and so begins the destruction of The Rock! Woo! KILL HIM, MICK! Foley ends up injuring himself for real when he doesn’t jump far enough and crashes into the edge of the table rather than going through it and landing on The Rock. HHH tries to improvise and drive Rock through the table anyway but the damn thing just doesn’t seem to want to break lol. With Foley hurt, HHH sees his chance to get rid of him, and after 2 Pedigrees, Foley sort of retires again. And now we are left with Rock and HHH, the match everyone says should have been the main event anyway. Yeah, maybe it should have been, but then what would have happened at Backlash? I’m fine with WM being like this in order to have BACKLASH 2000 in all its awesome glory. PILEDRIVER ON THE STEEL STEPS. Love that spot regardless of who does it. Match gets a little dull now unfortunately, and drags on a little too long. McMahon then turns on The Rock and HHH becomes the first heel to leave WM as the champion (Hulk was still with WCW at this time so he couldn’t come out and challenge for the belt LOL). Match is ok. Gets dull in parts, and Show being part of it was pointless since he got eliminated fairly quickly. Swerve with Vince was fairly obvious. Oh and of course Rock still have to have the last word and ends up giving everyone a Rock Bottom and shit. He’s like Cena in that he can’t sell the affects of anything. ***1/4.

 

THE RAGIN’ CLIMAX! Wait… WHAT?

The intro video with Classy Freddie Blassie is pretty sweet. Guy has an awesome voice over voice. They should have taken samples or shit of his voice so they could use it for the rest of time.

Match 1 – Al Snow Vs Hardcore Holly Vs Billy Gunn – Hardcore title match! Wasn’t too long ago that Road Dogg was the hardcore champ, and Billy Gunn was seemingly in the IC title scene. WM comes around… and Billy Gunn is the hardcore champ, and Road Dogg isn’t just in the IC title scene, he is the IC champion! Fuck knows how or why things got switched around so drastically lol. But I always liked Road Dogg more so was cool to see him with a bigger title. So this match… just 3 guys hitting each other with weapons, basically. Not as chaotic or as fun as the likes of the Chicago Street Fight or Dumpster Match from the previous 2 WM shows, but still fun to watch. Clothesline… HELLO CHAIR! Lol, great commentary Cole! Snow goes through a table, then gets a Fameasser on a chair, but Holly hits Gunn with a chair then covers Snow to become the new Hardcore champion. Highlight of his career. *.

Match 2 – Owen Hart & Jeff Jarrett Vs D-Lo Brown & Test – Tag titles on the match, and D-Lo and Test won a battle royal earlier in the night to get the title shot. The last 2 guys in the match got to team together, even though they aren’t normally a team. They were fighting each other while 2 others in the match eliminated each other, so they didn’t know they won and just kept fighting until they got attacked from the tag champs. So they aren’t a normal team and they don’t exactly get along. If this were 2013 they’d win the tag belts. Hey, D-Lo may very well win a title in TNA now he’s been revealed as the VP of Aces & Eights LOL. Well this was a nothing match. Filled with nothing. Owen and Jeff retain when D-Lo is left alone as Test… goes outside to shout at women. DUD.

Match 3 – Butterbean Vs Bart Gunn – Boxing match. Yeah… Brawl for All tournament in 1998 happened. Winner was supposed to get some money, and then a title match with Austin as the reward. They wanted Dr Death to win, but Bart knocked him out and went on to win the whole thing. His reward? Not a title shot against Austin or any kind of push… but a boxing match against a professional boxer. Who knocks him THE FUCK OUT. Nice one. DUD.

Match 4 – The Big Show Vs Mankind – The winner of this gets to referee the WWF Title match between Austin and Rock in the main event. Show wants to win for the Corporation so they can ensure Rock retains the title. Mankind wants to win because he wants to be involved in the main event of WrestleMania. This one isn’t very long, but it’s a decent-ish fight. Show falling back with Mankind on his back looked painful as fuck and was really put over as a big spot, even though it’s a simple enough spot and nothing compared to what he’s done in the past lol. Then again watching the replay… I think Show did in fact land with ALL of his weight on poor Foley! Show uses a chair on Foley and… nothing happens. No DQ or anything. Chokeslam onto 2 chairs set up and… DQ. Cool spot except Foley barely touched either chair… and that’s the move that wins him the mach via DQ… not getting blasted in the back with a chair. Stupid. Show turns face and knocks out Vince after he slaps him for losing. *.

Match 5 – Road Dogg Vs Ken Shamrock Vs Val Venis Vs Goldust – Four Corners IC title match! Basically, 2 guys in the ring, 2 on the apron. They can be tagged in. Elimination style. Some good action in this one. Val is a great wrestler, somewhat underrated. Road Dogg isn’t the best wrestler but is so fucking over it doesn’t matter. Goldust is finally back ad Goldust and not the Artist formally known as Goldust and seems to be in better shape than the previous year too. And Shamrock is solid. All of them combined with some fun sequences and a hot crowd make for what I’m predicting will end up being one of the better matches on this show. Ryan Shamrock is at ringside too. She’s currently with Goldust. Did a film with Val. And they were originally gonna do an incest angle with Ken. Yeah. What is it with WWE and incest angles? Sick fucks. Shamrock and Val end up getting counted out when they brawl on the outside (Ken is pissed that Val fucked his sister… he was probably jealous LOL), so we are left with Goldust and Road Dogg. In the end, Ryan accidentally grabs Goldust’s foot, and Road Dogg… I wanna say rolls up Goldust… but it was the worst roll up ever. Worse than Rock’s rollup from… whatever match it was from. Yeah I liked this. Wasn’t great, but solid. **.

Match 6 – Triple H Vs Kane – Pete Rose dressed as a chicken attacks Kane LOL. REVENGE FOR LAST YEAR! Except he gets Tombstoned again. I sooo wish this was a tradition every year and not just 3 years lol. HHH takes the fight to Kane, and Kane takes a nice bump into the steel steps. Nice to see a HHH WM match where he isn’t controlling things and making me bored out of my mind. Kane might not be the greatest in ring performer ever but I like his work and he’s far more interesting on offence than HHH is at this time. KANE DIVES OVER THE ROPES! Chyna (the reason this match is taking place) shows up to help Kane (she turned heel). Steel steps are thrown into the ring, Kane tries to use them, but they end up leading to his downfall. For about 30 seconds. Best thing HHH does in this match is take a back body drop off the steel steps on the floor. Massive chokeslam to HHH, then Chyna brings in a chair claiming to want to hit HHH. Nah, she hits Kane. So Chyna left HHH to join the Corporation and Kane. And then at the end of this match… turns on Kane and joins HHH. DX get back together. Then later in the night both HHH and Chyna turn on DX and join the Corporation. Yeah, Russo was an awesome writer! Urgh. Match is solid. Whole storyline behind it is dumb as fuck though. No surprise of course. Russo was all about SWERVES and shit rather than logical angles. **.

Match 7 – Sable Vs Tori – NO.

Match 8 – Shane McMahon Vs X-Pac – European title is on the line. Shane is the champ! How did he win it? Chyna helped him. Which makes her face turn earlier stupid. And that face turn is then made stupid when she turns heel again with HHH at the end of this one. Urgh. There is a reason I hate WWF in 1999. This event is a great example. Shit matches for the most part and dumb swerves and angles. Anyway, the match. X-Pac is fucking pissed that some rich kid basically stole his title, and is now hiding behind a bunch of Corporate goons to try and keep the belt. Mean Street Posse are sat at ringside, Test is in his corner, and Patterson & Briscoe attacked X-Pac on the way to the ring. Shane is a cocky little prick and he’s awesome. Test does his job well on the outside, especially love the attack on X-Pac that sends him crotch first into the ringpost, then X-Pac just falls back to the mat almost like the ringpost gave him a powerbomb lol. Remember when there were like, 6 members of the Posse? Me either, but there were loads of them here lol. Only two survived, then they found someone else lol. Match is very, very well worked, allowing Shane to control the match in believable ways while showcasing his athleticism too. X-Pac is great at fighting the odds, constantly coming back against the young non wrestler and eliminating any outside threats allowing him to really go to school on Shane. In the end, X-Pac looks to have his title won… and then the shit with HHH and Chyna happens and Shane retains. Aside from the retarded booking of HHH and Chyna, this is a good match, especially for a non wrestler. **1/2.

Match 9 – The Undertaker Vs The Big Bossman – The Undertaker’s character had changed quite since the year before. He was now a demonic leader of The Ministry of Darkness stable, along with Paul Bearer who had joined forces once again with ‘Taker. We soon discovered that the Ministry’s plan wasn’t just about beating the hell out of everyone; it was about taking over the WWF! This naturally led to a feud between the Ministry and the Corporation, ran by the McMahons. Since Boss Man was the “enforcer” of the Corporation, he was sent to take care of The Undertaker at WrestleMania, in the first and only Hell in a Cell match to date at this event! There really isn’t much to say about this one. It’s a basic brawl which for some reason takes place inside the Hell in a Cell. The feud didn’t need this match to be a HIAC match, and it showed. It could have easily been a No DQ match, and they could have had the exact same match, just using the guard rail to throw each other into as opposed to the cell wall. The only real “brutality” in this match is when Boss Man handcuffs ‘Taker to the cell and hits him repeatedly with his night stick. Undertaker gets busted open a little bit (and we can clearly see when he cuts himself lol), and the handcuffs break when he falls down. They spend the next few minutes, which feels a hell of a lot longer, just slugging it out with each other until ‘Taker hits a Tombstone and wins. THANK GOD. After the match is over, Boss Man gets hung from the HIAC as it is raised up. That is the only memorable moment from this match lol. This is bad. Even as a huge Undertaker fan, I don’t get much enjoyment out of this. It goes on longer than it needs to, and is filled with virtually nothing that you would remember afterwards. Like I said, the most memorable moment happens AFTER the match. I’m also pretty sure that the fans were booing during the match, seemingly because it was still going on, as they were booing BOTH men :p. Without a doubt the worst Undertaker WrestleMania match ever. DUD.

JR returns to commentate the main event! Vince comes out too, says he’s the referee now since Mankind is in the hospital and Show was arrested for punching him. SHAWN MICHAELS!!! HBK!!! He informs Vince that only the Commissioner can name the referee for a WM main event. What a random rule LOL.

Match 10 – The Rock Vs Steve Austin – The first of their WM trilogy… and their worst WM match together haha. But is it actually bad? I never thought so, so I’m just expecting it to hold up nicely as a good match but nothing more. First like, 10 minutes of this are spent outside the ring with both of them just beating the shit out of each other. Was it even a No DQ/No Countout match? Had a look and yes, it was No DQ. Doesn’t say shit about no countout though lol. Ah well. AE brawls were pretty tiresome by this point, but at least the main event matches with it were able to do them that little bit better. Austin and Rock beat the shit out of each other, and I always have fun watching Rock get mauled! Then the moment they get back into the ring… Rock Bottom out of nowhere and we get the first kickout. Then Austin decks the ref with a chair. By accident of course lol. Austin sells the Rock Bottom pretty much for the time he was on the mat getting pinned. So a 2 count. Takes a steel chair to keep him down for a little bit. Shades of Austin in their WM 17 match with Rock beating Austin down with the chair. Obviously means nothing now, but is gonna be a nice callback spot at WM 17 should I remember lol. Austin continues to not sell shit when he is nearly beat with a sleeper, but after his arm goes down twice, he pretty much IMMEDIATELY gets back up and starts trading punches with Rock like nothing happened. I hate those sleeper spots as it is, but this might be the worst ever. There isn’t even any real struggle for him to stand up and escape the hold. He just stands up and throws punches. More finisher kick outs, another ref gets taken out, so McMahon shows up to help Rock. Then Foley shows up to take out McMahon and be the normal referee. More finishers, then a final Stunner to keep Rock down and Austin wins the WWF Title. Huh. I remember this being better. Finishing stretch is actually pretty bad tbh. **1/4.

 

THE AUSTIN ERA HAS BEGUN!

Match 1 – 15 Team Battle Royal – Fuck naming everyone lol. Can you imagine them doing this today? WM would be like a 3 match show as they’d have to put everyone together to make up 15 teams! LOD RETURN! WITH SUNNY! YEY SUNNY! SO this is a clusterfuck. And I think the first 2 teams to be eliminated are done so through interference from people not even in the match. 2 COOL form in this match! Though it’s some time before they are called that, or are babyfaces, or act like they would end up doing. But still! LMFAO Henry is in the match for a while even after D-Lo is eliminated. LOD win. This blew. DUD.

Match 2 – Taka Michinoku Vs Aguila – Essa Rios is Aguila, right? Ahh who cares, he doesn’t even get his own entrance LOL. Light Heavyweight Title match. Monstrously massively high moonsault from Aguila to the outside. Not to be outdone, Taka does a Crossbody just as high. Match is fun, nothing more. Fast paced spot filled match, something we didn’t see often in WWF at the time. It is what it is. **.

Match 3 – Triple H Vs Owen Hart – The prestigious European Title is on the line! Chyna has to be handcuffed to Slaughter (commissioner at the time) so she doesn’t get involved in the match. LMAO they do a face to face spot… hard to tell who has the bigger chin! Wonder how Owen felt wrestling against the people who helped screw his brother Bret the year before. Nice to see him bring some HATE~! to the match while still being able to look like a good wrestler who can be smooth as anyone. So like… when did HHH get… good? Because between his WM appearances so far and his RR matches up to this point that I watched a few months ago… the guy is just so fucking DULL on offence. LMAO HHH even attacks THE WRONG ANKLE of Owen’s at one point. Owen had an ankle injury or something and apparently just had the cast off today. Not sure if it was a real injury worked into the angle or just an angle. But either way it eventually becomes the focus of HHH… and I say eventually because he spends some time on offence not doing a damn thing with it at first lol. Well… not too much of a focus for HHH. Owen makes a big comeback not too long into it, and pretty much destroys HHH for a while and pretty much stops selling the ankle until he kicks HHH in the head and randomly decides to sell it again. And then HHH DOESN’T GO BACK TO THE ANKLE. Chyna throws some powder in Slaughter’s eyes so he can’t see her hit Owen with a low blow. Pedigree and this is over. Good, because it sucked. *1/2.

Match 4 – The Artist Formally Known As Goldust & Luna Vachon Vs Marc Mero & Sable – NO.

Match 5 – The Rock Vs Ken Shamrock – IC title on the line here. Rematch from the RR where Shamrock won, but Rock HEELED IT UP and got Shamrock DQ’d after the decision and kept his title. They brawl to begin with, with Shamrock trying to murder Rock for screwing him out of the title for so long. Rock gets back in control with the use of the steel steps, and even hits a People’s Elbow… and Shamrock kicks out of it and there isn’t any kind of caring because it doesn’t appear to be a finisher yet. Shamrock fights back, a chair gets involved, ref bump, chair to Shamrock… and he kicks out again. Ankle Lock! Rock taps out! New champ! Nation jump in and attack him but he takes them all out. MARK HENRY shows up and gets a belly to belly for his trouble. Shamrock goes back to the ankle lock… Faarooq comes out and…  turns back around! He ain’t helping no Rock. Awesome. Shamrock ends up having the title taken from him because he wouldn’t let go of the hold after the match and attacks a bunch of refs. Well this was… a match. *.

Match 6 – The New Age Outlaws Vs Terry Funk & Cactus Jack – DUMPSTER MATCH for the tag titles! This match reminds me of the Chicago Street Fight from WM 13, in that it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect. It’s a DUMPSTER match involving CACTUS JACK AND TERRY FUNK. Some sick spots that all likely legitimately hurt, lots of weapons and just overall CRAZINESS. Terry and Cactus no doubt take the most vicious bumps, but props to Billy and Dogg for some of the stuff they take too. Amazing that Terry takes the bumps he does at 53 years old. And he’d probably take them again today if they asked him to lol. Funk using a forklift to drop the Outlaws into a dumpster for the win is just classic FUNK awesomeness. New tag champs! Though they would be stripped the next night on Raw because they didn’t use the right Dumpster. Then we’d get an awesomely violent cage match between them where the Outlaws join DX. This was tons of fun. **3/4.

Match 7 – The Undertaker Vs Kane – Damn, where do I even begin with this one? IMO, the feud between The Undertaker and Kane is the greatest of all time. I loved every minute of the epic build up to this one match, and that build up lasted ONE YEAR. Yep, an entire year of build up for just one match (similar to Hogan/Sting I guess, except this one delivered). Ok, I’ll try and summarise this one as best I can without writing too much :p. Hmm… now I think about it, I guess the whole thing really started in 1996, when Paul Bearer turned on The Undertaker. But I’ll start off from when the feud really kicked off, which was at WrestleMania 13, when The Undertaker won the WWF Title. Bearer had left The Undertaker the year before, but now he was the champion, Bearer wanted to manage him again. The Undertaker refused, until Paul Bearer blackmailed him, threatening to reveal a dark secret from The Undertaker’s past. Reluctantly, The Undertaker agreed to let Paul manage him once again. It wasn’t too long though, before The Undertaker had finally had enough of Paul, so Paul revealed the secret; The Undertaker was a murderer! He had burnt down his home as a child, killing his parents, and supposedly his younger brother Kane. However, Bearer revealed that Kane was alive, and he had been taking care of him all these years, and he would soon arrive in the WWF to take revenge! Paul Bearer would constantly show up to tell The Undertaker that Kane was coming, but it was a couple of months still before we eventually saw him. During the first ever HIAC match against Shawn Michaels, Kane made his debut, ripping off the cell door, and Tombstoning The Undertaker! Week after week, Kane would come out and attack The Undertaker, who refused to fight back because of a promise he made to his parents years ago. Then, in January 1998, it seemed that Kane and The Undertaker had worked out their problems, as Kane came out to help The Undertaker against DX, and agreed to join him at ringside for the casket match between ‘Taker and HBK at the Royal Rumble! It was at the Royal Rumble that we discovered the whole thing was a set up, as Kane and Paul Bearer locked The Undertaker in the casket, and set it on fire! However, when the casket was opened, The Undertaker was nowhere to be seen. A few weeks later, while Bearer and Kane were in the ring, the familiar sound of The Undertaker’s gong hit the area, and a casket appeared on the stage. Lighting stuck it, and out came The Undertaker! Apparently the fire did nothing to The Undertaker, and his absence was explained by him going to visit the graves of his parents, so he could apologise to them for doing what he promised he would never do… And so a match between the Brothers of Destruction was made for WrestleMania 14! A couple of awesome things happened before the match even started, first with Kane attacking Pete Rose, which got him a pretty decent pop despite Kane being a big time heel. The second was The Undertaker’s epic entrance. This was the first time he received a special entrance at WrestleMania, and to this day it is still one of his absolute best. Druids came out with torches (flame on a stick, not those battery operated things!), which made a tunnel of fire for The Undertaker to walk through. And then there was his costume, which has been referred to as a “Bat Man” style outfit, which made him look even more dangerous. The Undertaker starts things off with huge rights and lefts to the face of Kane, but Kane doesn’t seem to feel them. They go back and forth for a few minutes, just punching and kicking each other until Kane gains the advantage. Kane even gets the chance to Tombstone The Undertaker in the early going, but instead opts to slam him into the corner and pummel him some more. This match isn’t about winning or losing, it’s about two brothers wanting to beat the living shit out of each other for different reasons, which is why it makes perfect sense for them to not go for a cover or a finisher so early, and for them to brawl throughout this match. The Undertaker even starts to cover his face to avoid those massive punches from Kane, something The Undertaker had NEVER done up to this point. That one little thing shows just how much of a threat Kane was to The Undertaker at the time! Great athleticism from The Undertaker has he leaps onto Kane’s shoulders to beat his head in, but Kane just throws him off and continues his assault on his older brother. Bearer even distracts the referee allowing Kane to use the steel steps a couple of times. I wish this match had been No DQ tbh, because they could have done a lot with the stipulation. The Undertaker tries his best to make a comeback, but ends up walking right into a Chokeslam from Kane! Kane covers, but lifts up The Undertaker after a 2 count! Again, these guys are just showing that it isn’t about the victory, it’s about the destruction, and I fucking love it! One of the more memorable spots in the match comes when The Undertaker does his dive over the ropes, only for Kane to move, forcing The Undertaker to crash right through the announcer’s table! Now THAT was a great spot! I mentioned how I would have liked this to have been No DQ, but tbh they do an awesome job of getting in spots like that without the stipulation lol. The Undertaker is far from done though, but is still overwhelmed by his brother, who continues to beat the living shit out of him. They exchange plenty of punches, before The Undertaker manages to set Kane up for a Tombstone, only for Kane to reverse and land his own! Poor ‘Taker, that’s two years in a row that has happened to him! Just like last year, he manages to kick out, and this epic fight continues! The Dead Man catches his first break with a massive Chokeslam, which Kane gets right back up from, only to walk into a Tombstone from The Undertaker! He covers, but Kane kicks out! This would mark the first time ANYONE had ever kicked out of the Tombstone! Not only that but Kane gets right back up, only to receive ANOTHER Tombstone! Paul Bearer looks like he is about to have a heart attack, until Kane kicks out AGAIN! The Undertaker is on a roll now, but Kane refuses to stay down, until The Undertaker hits a THIRD Tombstone, which only just keeps Kane’s shoulders down for the 3. The Undertaker may have won the match, but Kane and Paul Bearer destroyed him after the match, just like he was destroyed during the match. This is not a technical classic whatsoever. But if anyone on this planet was expecting it to be, then they need to have their head examined. This was a personal and fierce rivalry, which called for a brawl, and that is exactly what we got. Both guys went into the match with the intention of destroying the other, and that is basically what we got, and it was awesome. Kane lost, but looked far stronger than The Undertaker. This is now The Undertaker’s best WrestleMania match! ****.

Match 8 – Shawn Michaels Vs Steve Austin – Mike Tyson is the special enforcer on the outside, and also a member of DX, despite the fact his favourite wrestler is Cold Stone Steve Austin LOL. So Shawn’s back is fucked at this point, and would retire from wrestling until 2002 (well, he had a match in 2000 in his own company that he ran for a little while down in Texas). Shawn frustrates Austin early on, jabbing him in the face… so Austin gets fucked off and chases Shawn down and just beats the fuck out of him lol. Painful to watch HBK take any kind of back bumps here, knowing the condition of his back at the time. Hell, even Austin wasn’t in too good health at the time, having only been back from his neck injury that happened at SummerSlam a couple of months now. HHH and Chyna cause some distractions, forcing the ref to eject them from ringside, but Austin goes after HHH for the hell of it and ends up causing another distraction unintentionally lol. LOL, fans chant “Holyfield” half way through the match. Commentators pretend they can’t make out what they are chanting. HBK works over the knee of Austin, nothing groundbreaking or particularly good in all honesty. Nice finish with the superkick and stunner counters leading to a Stunner that connects and wins Austin the match. Eh, this wasn’t that good. Better than it had any right to be given the condition of both men. That post-WM press conference is included on the DVD (was it on the Anthology one too?), and Tyson at least explains that him joining DX then helping Austin win the title was all planned from the beginning. Thank fuck he said that because I was always confused about it until now. LMFAO TYSON CALLS HIM COLD STONE AGAIN. BILL APTER! Hi Bill! **3/4.

 

The show is famous for one match, but how is the rest of the event? Time to find out if there is a reason nobody really talks about anything else that happens!

Match 1 – The Godwinns Vs The Headbangers Vs The New Blackjacks Vs Phil Lafon & Doug Fernas – 4 way tag match with… nothing on the line? #1 contendership? Nope. Ok then lol. Big brawl to start with, initiated by the Blackjacks (Barry Windham and Bradshaw). Bradshaw should grow back his moustache. Ummm… what? Both Headbangers end up getting tagged into the match. And they have to fight each other. What? I get the rules are that anyone can tag anyone… but surely logic would dictate that you can’t have both team members in the match at the same time… what they gonna do? One pins the other, eliminating both of them from the match? LMAO, you know how I said there was nothing in it for the winning team? Well according to JR, the winning teams gets a shot at the WWF champion… Owen & Bulldog if they retain later. LOL. Dammit, the two good teams in this match (Lafon & Furnas and the Blackjacks) get eliminated together when they battle on the floor and shove the referee around. Bah. Godwinns aren’t too bad though, big tough team and I recall a good Free For All match between them and the Blackjacks either the Final Four PPV prior to WM or Canadian Stampede a few months after. Either way it was a fun stiff contest. Headbangers are more high fly-y that I remember them. Moonsault attempt, splashes from the ropes, crossbodies etc. Headbangers win. Match overall was… watchable. Shame the two good teams went first. **.

Match 2 – The Sultan Vs Rocky Maivia – Rock’s first WM. Against Rikishi. LOL ok. HONKY TONK MAN!!! For… some reason he’s doing commentary. Guess maybe he’s scouting for the next big star (which ends up being… Rock-A-Billy or Road Dogg Jessie James LOL)? Iron Sheik and BOB BACKLUND are the managers or whatever of Rikishi Sultan. TONY ATLAS. In the crowd. Arnold Skaaland. Lou Albano. Plenty of legends watching this match! LMFAO at Lawler when talking about Rock’ speech at the Slammy Awards: “It was so boring even Christopher Reeves got up and walked out”. And that holds true to this day when it comes to all his promos! And this match, for that matter. Boring chants and everything. Rikishi just sits in a sleeper hold. Rock pretends to fall asleep. I actually fall asleep. Best part of this match is Rikishi’s awesome superkick. Guy was just fucking BORN to superkick people. Should have been his finisher. Rock hits the worst school boy I’ve ever seen for the win. Then gets destroyed after the match. LOL. Then Rocky Johnson shows up for the save. ROCK HAD TO BE SAVED BY AN OLD MAN. Who then gets attacked anyway. Ha. Shit match. DUD.

Match 3 – Hunter Hearst Helmsley Vs Goldust – Oh great. They sucked at the RR, so let’s give them to chance to suck at WM! Yey! Well this starts off good at least. Goldust just kinda squats in the ring, which confuses HHH, allowing Goldust to attack him while he’s off guard. Goldust pretty much beats the shit out of Hunter, and they do a spot where he gets tried up in the ropes, only facing the outside which I don’t think I’ve seen, and Goldust rears back and smashes the future Game with a massive right hand. Pretty fucking sweet transition spot for HHH to get in control too. Great bump by Goldust. And now HHH sucks the life out of the match with his dull as shit offence. Like their RR match, it feels like it lasts forever. HHH wins. Urgh. *.

Match 4 – Vader & Mankind Vs Owen Hart & The British Bulldog – Tag titles on the line! Uncle Paul managing Vader and Mankind. What a mach this looks to be on paper. Never hear anything about it so I’m worried it’s gonna be shit. Paul Bearer, what a manager. He died 2 days ago. RIP Bill Moody. Tag champs have been having problems since the RR when Owen “accidentally” eliminated Bulldog. Nearly cost them the titles at The Final Four PPV last month. They even had a match against each other in the finals of the European title tournament to crown the first champion (which is incredible and imo the greatest Raw match ever). Can they leave WM with the belts? Can they leave on the same page? Time to find out! Last year Vader teamed with Owen and Bulldog, this year he’s fighting them! No Cornette though. Oh man, Cornette in one corner and Bearer in the other? Then the talent inside the ring? If that had happened, and happened in the 80’s in JCP this probably would have been ***** lol. I’m rambling. LOL, Owen tags Bulldog into the match… while both men are in the ring. And the ref is fine with it apparently. Bulldog shows his power, suplexing Mankind then suplexing Vader! Bulldog and Vader had a pretty great match in WCW in the early 90’s, definitely worth seeing. Both teams in this match are heel, and have no problems bending the rules and breaking them as much as possible. URN TO THE HEAD. Paul Bearer’s reaction to it is AWESOME. Mankind and Vader are great controlling the match, essentially being the heels leaving Bulldog and Owen as the babyfaces… or at least as much as they can be. Mankind hits his signature elbow off the apron to the floor, but Vader holds Owen in the back breaker position while he does it! Wish Vader and Mankind were a team for longer, they could have been great, especially if they kept bringing up their history and always teasing them fighting each other, finally leading to some crazy match between the two. Vader Vs Mankind HIAC? Nah, first HIAC was only in October later in the year, wouldn’t want them to team well past that to have one in 98. Just a cage would be fine then. Man, poor Owen really takes a fucking beating from Vader at one point. Man, just realised, only 2 people in this match (out of the 5 including Bearer) are still alive today. That fucking sucks. Owen’s comeback is nice, big belly to belly to Mankind on the floor, then a devastating enziguri that takes Mankind down long enough for the tag to be made! Mandible Claw to Bulldog! Vader smashes into Owen, who in turn falls into Mankind and Bulldog who fall out to the floor, where Mankind keeps the hold applied and they both get… counted out. Damn, was hoping for an actual finish here, but ah well. One question: WHY DOES NOBODY TALK ABOUT THIS MATCH? Seriously, it’s really fucking good! ***1/2.

 Match 5 – Bret Hart Vs Steve Austin – It’s the infamous Submission match! Ken Shamrock, at the time known for being a big MMA star, is the guest ref. This feud is awesome btw. Whole build up in 96 with Austin drawing Bret out of retirement to face him at Survivor Series, to the changing of the guard almost with the fans slowly beginning to turn on Bret and cheering more and more for Austin because he was a bad ass who took shit from nobody. And of course this match is known for really being THE match where the fans finally make Austin a babyface and turn Bret heel. This match, and the feud leading into it really was the big game changer for the WWF at the time, and it helped their ratings sky rocket and overtake WCW who were on top of the wrestling world. Didn’t happen overnight of course, but this imo (not even sure if it’s opinion tbh) is the reason why things starting moving up for the WWF. These two men fucking HATE each other, and you feel like the moment they start wailing away at each other the moment the match begins. Austin takes an awesome bump into the ring post too, sounds tremendous. They battle into the crowd in something we would start seeing more and more often over the next year before it became a regular occurrence for 98 and 99 and ended up being meaningless and usually pretty shitty. This feels more like an Old School brawl than the AE “forced” brawls that we got for the most part. These two have reasons to hate each other beyond one of them holding a title and the other wanting it, plus some insults thrown in there. When they get back into the ring, Bret turns it into more of a wrestling match to suit him, and he begins to target the leg, to cause Austin pain and set up the Sharpshooter as submission is the only way to win this one of course. BUT there is still all that HATE here, so just kicking the leg and putting it in leg locks isn’t enough; time for a chair! Lol, Bret spills a can of coke or something onto the time keeper. Bret tries to “Pilmanize” Austin’s ankle, something of a revenge spot for what Austin did to Pillman, but Austin avoids it and uses the chair on Bret’s back, and now has a weak spot of his own to work over. Austin throws Bret outside right in front of his own family, just to really rub it in, so Bret makes him pay by smashing Austin’s head into the guard rail that Austin just sent him into when he flew out of the ring, and the BLOOD begins to pour! This whole feud between Bret and Austin is all about how Austin is a violent unforgiving no good SOB.. and the fans are starting to LIKE it, and Bret stands for everything good and pure and can’t believe that this is happening. So it’s interesting to see Bret slowly begin to get more violent the longer this match goes. Went from punches to the head to smashing it against the guard rail and making Austin bleed. Kicking the legs to smashing them with a steel chair. Bret is turning into the thing he is trying to fight… but the fans are seemingly still turning on him even though now he’s doing what they are cheering Austin for. Some of this stuff doesn’t mean that much to THIS match, but really helps fuel the rest of the feud and the whole US Vs Canada war that we end up getting. As far as this match goes, it still gives us a great story and some awesome action. SHARPSHOOTER! The infamous finish to this infamous match; blood pours down the face of Austin, Bret has the Sharpshooter locked in tight… and then Austin passes about before he even thinks of giving up! The match ends there, but the fans love and respect the sheer toughness of the Texas Rattlesnake! Sweet jebus this match is wonderful. It truly is. Without a doubt the best WM match up to this point, and unless I love a match or two even more than before when I get to them, only ONE match can stand up to this one. *****.

Match 6 – Faarooq, Savio vega & Crush Vs Ahmed Johnson & The Legion of Doom – Chicago Street Fight! Which… seems a little overkill after what we just saw lol. Young D-Lo in a tux! Ha, awesome. So this is… exactly as advertised: a fucking street fight. Looks and feels chaotic, just one giant brawl between the two teams. Perfect tbh. Was exactly what it should have been. Tons of fun. There is a fire extinguisher that they use a couple of times too… and fuck knows what’s in it but it seems to cover the place in dust and dirt almost, and gives this match a more gritty, real street fight kinda feeling. ***.

Match 7 – Sid Vs The Undertaker – For the first time at WrestleMania, The Undertaker finally got to main event the show and wrestle for the WWF Title! It had already been nearly 6 years since the Dead Man had held the belt, but could he overcome the massive “Psycho” Sid to remain undefeated at WrestleMania AND win the belt? No real story going into this match, which is REALLY weird considering it’s the MAIN EVENT to the biggest show of the year. The entire main event/WWF Title scene was all over the place for the first couple of months in 97, starting with Sid being the champion, losing to Shawn, who had to give it up because of a knee injury. Then Austin won the RR, but cheated to do so, and his title shot was at The Final Four PPV, which saw Austin, Bret, Undertaker and Vader battle for the vacant title. Bret won, but lost the next night to Sid. Vader disappeared from the WWF Title scene for a couple of months, Bret and Austin continued their feud, which left The Undertaker to be the most logical number 1 contender. And so we ended up with this match :p. The Undertaker was massively over still at this time, so it made sense for him to be in the main event. As for Sid, while he is far, FAR from the best wrestler ever, his size and look was perfect for the wrestling business, and he was one of the first real tweeners in WWF, as despite being a top heel, he would still get cheers (MSG cheered him over HBK at the 1996 Survivor Series). Plus, he was obviously a pretty good draw (he always claims he is, and it’s hard to prove otherwise) since they kept putting the belt on him, and had him main event WrestleMania. Before the match can officially start, Bret Hart comes out and starts to “shoot” on HBK (who was on commentary), The Undertaker, and Sid. Sid clubs his face with a huge right hand, and Powerbombs him! Sid then tells Bret to get his “whiney ass” out of the ring, which gets Sid a huge pop. Sid wastes too much time running his mouth at Bret, which allows The Undertaker to jump the champion and the match is underway! ‘Taker dominates early on, hitting a Stinger Splash to Sid in the corner, followed by a slam, and then Old School. Sid doesn’t go down from Old School, so The Undertaker comes at Sid with another Stinger Splash, only for the monster of a champion to catch the challenger with a bear hug! Nice work from Sid, he already felt the Stinger Splash, and knew The Undertaker was going for it again, so he was able to counter it into a power move that benefits him in his quest to Powerbomb The Undertaker! As The Undertaker tries to fight out of the bear hug, Sid lets go a couple of times and just smashed his first and forearm into the back of the Dead Man! Simple stuff, but really effective back work from Sid! Sid continues with the back work as they go to the outside, which includes a huge slam onto the announce table, followed by a slam into the ring post! Back in the ring, Sid locks in a camel clutch, which again concentrates on the back area of The Undertaker. Sid may not be a great wrestler in terms of having a large move set or being able to take certain moves, but the guys knows how to work the psychology side of a match really well. The Undertaker manages to get some rest when he throws Sid out of the ring and over the guard rail. The brawl on the outside for a moment, before returning to the ring where Sid regains control of this match. A big powerslam takes down Sid one more time, and The Undertaker locks in a nerve grip, which just seems to piss off the champion more than anything lol. We then get a repeat of one of my favourite spots, which actually happened a year earlier, where both Sid and The Undertaker boot each other in the face!  This is actually only the second time I have ever seen this match, so I had no idea that was going to happen, as I had forgotten pretty much the entire match :p. Sid has hardly taken any punishment in this match, and because of this, he is the first to his feet, and is able to continue his domination of The Undertaker. Sid even comes off the second rope numerous times, but does it once too often, allowing The Undertaker to counter, just as Sid did with the Stinger Splash at the start of this match! With Sid down, The Undertaker goes to the ropes, but unlike Sid he is successful! Tombstone attempt coming up, but Sid reverses it, and Tombstones The Undertaker! He covers, and surely has this match won, right? NO! The Undertaker’s finisher didn’t work on the Dead Man, so there is only the Powerbomb left. Bret Hart shows up now, and levels Sid with a chair! Payback for the Powerbomb earlier no doubt. Back in the ring, things look bad for Sid as he gets Chokeslammed to hell! Somehow he still manages to kick out though, and even avoids the leaping lariat of The Undertaker! Sid sets him up for the Powerbomb, but Bret shows up again to distract Sid, allowing The Undertaker to land the Tombstone and win the WWF Title! Wow, this isn’t nearly as bad as people say it is! Despite being 21 minutes, which by all rights it never should have been that long, this is actually pretty good. It didn’t feel like 21 minutes, and never really had any dull parts. Sid did lock in a few submission holds, but they all had a reason and a purpose, and added to the match IMO. Both guys came out looking strong, Sid especially, who kicked out of the Chokeslam, countered so much of The Undertaker’s offence, and dominated the majority of the match. He also only really lost thanks to Bret too. As for The Undertaker, beating Sid for the title was big enough, but he also kicked out of the Tombstone, and survived the match long beating he took from Sid. The only thing I didn’t really like about this match was Bret’s involvement. It took away from the finish IMO, and really it was all rather pointless in the end. Bret didn’t feud with either man after WrestleMania (it wasn’t until 4 or 5 months later at SumerSlam that Bret had a match with The Undertaker), and Sid left not long after this match. But anyway, despite that, I still really enjoyed this match, and thought it was way better than basically everyone else makes it out to be. **3/4.

 

Free for All pre-show included on the Tagged Classic DVD (no idea if it was on the Anthology one), and we actually get to see a match too. I think it was WM X where they SHOWED that a match was going on but showed some video packages over it instead haha. Match ain’t worth talking about though. Nacho Man Vs The Hukster is definitely a match worth watching though! I loved those skits lol.

Match 1 – Vader, Owen Hart & The British Bulldog Vs Yokozuna, Jake Roberts & Ahmed Johnson – If the good guys win, then Yoko gets 5 minutes alone with Cornette! Wish this was just Vader Vs Yoko tbh lol, they look great pummelling the shit out of each other at the start of this. Ahmed flies over the ropes! Shame he doesn’t stay out of the ring the entire time. Fun seeing Owen and Yoko go at it, since last year they won the tag titles together at this very event! Yoko was of course managed by Cornette for a couple of years, but once Vader showed up at the RR a couple of months back, he and Yoko got into it and Cornette ended up siding with Vader, so Yoko wants to get his hands on Cornette. Good tag team action, with each face taking turns at being the FIP for a little while, but Jake is the last to do so and he takes the most punishment since he’s the older of the 3, and doesn’t have the mass and power of the likes of Ahmed and Yoko that make it harder to keep them down. Wish Jake had managed to stay sober during this time, him during the AE would have been pretty awesome. His dark character would have fitted right in as a manager that could wrestle every now and then too. Hot tag to Yoko, who does awesome in that role just steamrolling over everyone. But in the end Jake tags back in, hits a DDT… and the ref is too distracted by everyone on the outside fighting. Cornette comes in to use the racket, then Vader hits a Vader Bomb in the corner to pin the Snake and win the match, saving Cornette! This was good! ***.

Match 2 – Rowdy Roddy Piper Vs Goldust – Crazy Hollywood Back Lot Brawl! Was originally supposed to be Razor Vs Goldust, but Razor wasn’t comfortable with the Goldust gimmick. Match starts with Piper and a baseball bat, with Goldust trying to run over Piper. Yeah, this is truly a crazy match! Awesomely crazy too. They really go to town on each other to make sure everything looks real and shit. So much so that Goldust ends up taking a shot to the head with the bat and Piper gets RUN OVER for real. And just think, this isn’t even the most brutal match involving fighting out back with cars in 1996 (Finlay Vs Regal in WCW)!!! They also originally wanted something involving OJ Simpson… but uhhh… well that would have just been in horrible taste… so instead they just re-enact a chase scene that really took place lol. The chase takes place in between other matches, before they both finally make it back to the arena, and eventually in the ring. They brawl a little, then Piper strips Goldust and reveals he wears a thong and bra lol, then Piper beats him. Crazy and unique match. But it’s great fun and really brutal and shit. I like it. **1/2.

Match 3 – Steve Austin Vs Savio Vega – Austin is still the Ring Master and has DiBiase as his manager. I always liked the Ring Master gimmick tbh. Was never that high on his Stone Cold character from 98 and 99. This version of Austin reminds me of a lighter version of the 01 Austin; he has a nice mix of wrestling and brawling, only he doesn’t have the crazy gimmick and the charisma isn’t shining through as much. This one starts off strong, Savio wants to beat the hell out of Austin, and Austin will beat the hell out of Savio to defend himself. Then it slows down as Austin begins to work over the arm, but I guess it doesn’t matter too much because they keep taking calls from Piper as he’s chasing Goldust anyway lol, so the attention isn’t fully on this one.  They even do a split screen to show video footage of the chase scene with Piper lol. Ref bump, shot with the Million Dollar Title belt, Million Dollar Dream applied. DiBiase keeps trying to wake up the ref, resorts to throwing water in his face. He finally wakes up, and Austin wins. Match is… fundamentally sound and shit… but not very engaging. Kinda dull to sit through. They have a much better match at an IYH PPV later on (STRAP MATCH). *.

Match 4 – Hunter Heart Helmsley Vs The Ultimate Warrior – The master of the burial gets BURIED in seconds on the biggest show of them all by a returning Ultimate Warrior… who sticks around for a few months before sodding off again lol. Warrior no sells the Pedigree completely. LOL. DUD.

Match 5 – The Undertaker Vs Diesel – Once again, The Undertaker faces a big guy at WrestleMania. This time, however, his opponent isn’t a foot taller than him, or at least 100lbs heavier than him. Instead, The Undertaker matches Diesel in height and weight (roughly). Also, Diesel is way beyond the likes of Gonzalez and Bundy when it comes to in ring work. He might not be a great wrestler, but up to this point Diesel actually has more “great” matches under his belt than The Undertaker! Of course, Diesel had the opportunity to wrestle with guys like Razor, Shawn, Bret and others, while The Undertaker was stuck wrestling talentless nobodies for the most part. So for the first time in The Undertaker’s WrestleMania career, BOTH men are evenly matched. Plus, 1996 was the beginning of The Undertaker really stepping up his game and becoming a tremendous wrestler (it helped that 1996 was the year where he started getting decent opponents too lol). The build for this match was based mainly around the WWF Title, to begin with. Diesel had been WWF Champion for nearly a full year, before losing to Bret Hart at the Survivor Series in 1995. At the next PPV a month later, The British Bulldog got a title shot. The following month, at the Royal Rumble, The Undertaker for a title shot. Diesel was obviously not pleased with this, as he felt he deserved a rematch against Bret. But he carried on, and entered the Royal Rumble. Diesel was the last man to be eliminated, as his own best friend Shawn Michaels superkicked him over the ropes! Diesel seemed angry at first, but high fived Shawn as he celebrated his win. Diesel remained in the ring, and only started to leave when The Undertaker was coming out for the WWF Title match. Diesel got in The Undertaker’s face, and a brawl started out. Referees broke it up, and the WWF Title match got underway. The Undertaker hit the Tombstone on Bret, but before the referee could count to 3, Diesel showed up and got The Undertaker disqualified! Diesel did get his rematch at the next PPV against Bret, inside a steel cage! Unfortunately, The Undertaker promised Diesel earlier in the night that he would not leave as champion. So what did The Undertaker do? He ripped his way up through the ring, and dragged Diesel down to hell! Bret retained, and The Undertaker gained a measure of revenge on Diesel. The feud was no longer about the title, it was now personal. Diesel officially turned heel, and became the bad ass he used to be at the beginning of his WWF career. The Undertaker played his usual mind games, including sending out a casket to the ring for Diesel. When he opened it, a life-like dummy of Diesel was inside! The Undertaker was giving Diesel a glimpse into the future… Before I get into the match, I just wanted to share a line of commentary from The King during this match that makes me laugh every time: “Paul Bearer would look ok if it wasn’t for his face” :p. One of the main things in their feud leading up to this match was the fact that Diesel claimed he was not afraid of The Undertaker. Diesel seems to want to prove this during their match, and he does a pretty good job of it IMO. He starts off by charging into the ring and going toe to toe with The Undertaker to start things off; showing that he isn’t intimidated and he will take the fight right to The Undertaker! More great storytelling from Diesel in this match, as he continues to show no fear, fighting the Dead Man head on, and dominating him! He isn’t trying to end this match quickly so he can get the hell out of there, no, he is slowly dissecting The Undertaker, and playing to the crowd why he is doing it. I love the sequence during the match where The Undertaker tries to make a comeback. He starts punching Diesel in the face, but Diesel also wants to land a right hand, and they end up punching each other at the same time! They stagger back, then charge forward and land Big Boots to the face at the same time too! This was the first match I ever saw that spot happen, and I still love seeing it to this day. The Undertaker begins to get desperate in the match, so he takes a risk by climbing to the top rope, and comes flying off with a huge clothesline! Diesel is resilient though, and quickly gets up and lands a Jackknife Powerbomb! Diesel isn’t finished yet though, and waits for The Undertaker to get back up, and lands ANOTHER Jackknife! Diesel again doesn’t want to finish things just yet, as he plays to the crowd once again, then goes to pummel the Dead Man. The Undertaker grabs him by the throat though, and tried to get back up, only to be sent back down to the mat by Diesel. Diesel’s cocky attitude and seeming desperation to prove he isn’t afraid of The Undertaker comes back to bite him in the arse, as he keeps giving The Undertaker time to rest, allowing the Dead Man to get up and drop Nash to the mat with a Chokeslam! A Tombstone follows, and The Undertaker picks up the win! Both men are favourites of mine, so I always liked this match more than the majority of people, based on that fact alone. However, over the years, and again on this watch, I love this match based on the action and storytelling. Diesel is an awesome heel, and really plays up the whole “not afraid of The Undertaker” story throughout the match. This is also one of the better “big man vs big man” matches around, and so far is The Undertaker’s greatest WrestleMania match! ***3/4

Match 6 – Bret Hart Vs Shawn Michaels – WWF Title on the line here in a 60 minute Iron Man match. I really, really really really really REALLY wanna skip this and just say NO, but it’s a WM main event and a WWF Title match so like I’ve said before, I kinda feel like I have to watch a big match like this. No matter how boring and long and dull and shit it is. So, let me sum up the first THIRTY MINUTES of this match. Bret uses a headlock… and Shawn works over the arm. That’s pretty much it. For half an hour. Shawn controls most of it with the arm work too. Ok, so it’s an hour match, and them taking it to the mat and slowing the pace down MAKES SENSE, but guess what? This isn’t a real sport. It’s entertainment. And unfortunately the first half of this match is DULL AS SHIT. Then once they get to the second part of the match (almost literally, it’s around the 29 minute mark where they do it)… they seems to decide “well, we can’t go all out for an hour… but we CAN for half an hour… so let’s do it”. And from here Bret COMPLETELY IGNORES THE ARM WORK which was the BULK of the FIRST HALF of this match, and they now both decide they can bring out the big guns. High flying moves, Piledrivers etc. Once they get to that half way point, the literally just render the first half of this match utterly pointless. It was there to fill time and NOTHING more. And honestly that pisses me off. If I’m going to watch a long match, I don’t want them to make half of it pointless. Yeah, I don’t expect them to go all out for the entire time, but guess what? There are way more interesting ways to keep the pace slow and “fill” time. Almost every other Iron Man match in WWE history has managed it. In fact, not almost… they ALL have. Even Cena/Orton kept the action going the entire time even if that wasn’t exactly a classic (was originally tied as the worst Iron Man match ever for me… but I’m already thinking it’s gonna end up ahead of this match once I’m through with it). The action for the next 20 minutes is ok, nothing amazing or anything, but watchable. Last 10 minutes slow down again, not just because they are selling the fatigue or shit, because damn, Bret goes back to the headlock and sits there for a bit. Shawn gets locked in the Sharpshooter and survives for 40 seconds or so, and then the time runs out. So Bret retains right? Nah, OVERTIME! Superkick. 123. Shawn wins the title. Boyhood dream comes true. Cool moment, but the 60+ minutes to get there were pretty bad. This is NOT a good match at all, and I absolutely do not like it. **.