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.

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