WrestleMania XI..

[RonL21 0]

Ok..I think I'm seriously the only one who liked WrestleMania XI...I just see it getting bashed alot in this forum and I really don't know why...Mabye because I was 10 and a super mark or what..But I always thought it was a decent show.... HBK's and Diesel's match is one of my Favs even w/ the Pamela Anderson/Jenny McCarthy side thing...SO.....What the Hell is Wrong w/ It...

 

Discuss....

[Black Lushus 0]

I liked the HBK/Nash match, myself...the LT/Bam Bam match was good enough. Not sure why it gets hate, really.

[Aero 0]

It's just a really mediocre show that doesn't feel like a WM. Nothing's really awful, but nothing's amazing either. The only standout match is HBK vs. Diesel.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

The undercard was pretty pathetic, as well.

[CanadianChris 0]

Nothing's wrong with it. I mean, it wasn't WrestleMania IX-level bad or anything. It was just a pretty bland show in general. Bret/Backlund was disappointing and anticlimactic, and none of the undercard matches were really exciting. It would have been OK for just a standard PPV, but it didn't live up to the WrestleMania moniker.

[Black Lushus 0]

yes...it felt more Summerslam-ish.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

Just to reiterate what others have said, it was just a very bland show. Leading up to the event it felt like any other PPV instead of the biggest show of the year. First of all the venue is lame. Hartford for a Mania? Diesel-Shawn is totally underwhelming as a title match given that a couple months earlier Shawn was an inactive manager and Diesel was a midcard heel. Bret was totally wasted in a midcard match. Nothing was actively bad, but nothing really clicked either.

[SteakGrowsOnUecker 0]

I disagree about the hype, because back in 95 I recall there was more hype for Mania then for any other PPV at the time. However with the hype the show didn't deliver anything that memorable, just average matches. Theres a reason when highlights of WrestleMania are shown, you don't see much beyond LT/Bam Bam and maybe a clip or two of Shawn/Diesel. I also remember the show had a ton of audio problems along with the screen blacking out for the entire Backlund/Hart match, at least for me. It comes across well though on the Mania box set version as they covered most of the problems up.

[bob_barron 0]

yes...it felt more Summerslam-ish.

 

Summerslam usually the second biggest show of the year in terms of matches, this show felt like a glorified IYH aside from the main events.

 

Backlund-Bret in a feud that had died off- I Quit matches should be brutal affairs, not boring mat wrestling.

Jarrett-Razor ending in a DQ??

 

Ugh.

 

It's not an awful show, but it definetly does not feel like a Wrestlemania

[Black Lushus 0]

well, 95 wasn't the best of years for the WWE

[SteakGrowsOnUecker 0]

Agreed. They followed up Mania with both the first IYH and KOTR 95. At the time those shows made WM XI seem great in comparison.

[CanadianChris 0]

That was also the year they put the Shawn Michaels/Razor Ramon ladder match on for Summerslam at the last minute, and basically told the fans that it was because the card sucked and they wanted a good match.

[Black Lushus 0]

95 did give us the Wild Card match at Survivor Series...I don't care what anyone says, that match was fun!

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

That was also the year they put the Shawn Michaels/Razor Ramon ladder match on for Summerslam at the last minute, and basically told the fans that it was because the card sucked and they wanted a good match.

 

They should have just done Diesel/Michaels II at Summerslam that year. I know that they didn't do face/face in those days and they were hellbent on turning Diesel into Hogan 2.0, but that was the match everyone wanted. It had a great backstory too.

[Black Lushus 0]

that's okay, we got one of Nash's best matches ever the following year against HBK.

 

oh, almost forgot about another great Nash match with Bret Hart at S. Series 95.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Yeah, now that others have brought it up, 1995 was probably my least favorite year of WWF/WWE since I started watching. Only year that comes close is 2002, probably.

[Hawk 34 0]

It always bugged me that they didn't just stretch Bret/Owen into WMXI and give that the I Quit Match instead. It had another 3 months left in the tank, I felt and it was more of a blood feud obviously then Backlund/Hart was. Yokozuna could have returned the next month instead and got the same reaction and impact. They also could have put the titles on Allied Powers, with Owen getting one over his brother in law at such a big stage instead of the Smoking Gunns.

 

LT/Bam Bam as far as celeb matches was one of the better ones although you aren't going to find any great ones. Shawn/Diesel wasn't bad at all although it didn't work for me since Diesel had just turned and Shawn had spent so long doing nothing and suddenly getting a title shot at WM.

 

The under-card was horrendous. Like most have said, it was just bland. A solid entertaining enough main event, a good title match and a bunch of nothingness. Not unlike most RAW ppv's today but this was MANIA.

[humanoid92 0]

As has been touched on, I think it gets the reputation it does because they took a different approach to the show that year. Look at the previous WM venues to that point. Since WM 3, the only time WM had been held in a "normal" arena was the year before with MSG and WM 7 in LA. Now obviously, MSG is the exception to the rule since it's not exactly a typical no-name arena, and WM 7 had different plans originally. So Hartford didn't exactly feel like a huge venue at the time even though they were held in such "normal" venues again for the next five years until X-7 came to the Astrodome.

 

Then there's the LT/Bigelow hype and issue. I can understand what they were trying to do. For better or worse, look at what they'd done for the past few Wrestlemanias. They were constantly trying to top themselves. 8- double main event, Hogan's "last match", Warrior surprise return; 9- first time the Title changed hands twice, huge surprise twist ending; 10- two previously announced Title matches, the possibility of the belt changing hands twice, and the two mystery guest refs. For 11, there was really nowhere else to go on that front, especially with Nash as Champion (not exactly a guy to carry the workrate). They'd exhausted all their possibilites with wacky endings, big surprises, and multiple Title matches. So they went the LT route with a celebrity match to try to appeal to the mainstream and spark interest. As a marketing strategy? That's fine. But for wrestling fans? Not a whole lot of appeal there.

 

Finally, there were only seven matches. WM 3-7 were the cookie-cutter Wrestlemanias... jam 14 matches onto the show so that nothing besides the major matches can even have a chance to stand out. 8-10 took a logical step back to more normal cards, with 9-10 matches. But by 1995 the WWF talent pool wasn't exactly deep. The New Generation was in full force; everyone from the turn of the decade had either retired, bolted to WCW, or had been put out to pasture. With the likes of Bret, Shawn, Nash, Razor, Owen, Jarrett, Taker, Bulldog, etc. they were fine, but they certainly weren't deep. So they made it a seven match card. Which is fine, (I like small cards over bloated ones) except that people like the Blu Brothers, King Kong Bundy, and LT were part of this seven match card. Right there, that's three matches that aren't exactly going to blow away the big-time wrestling fan.

 

Where you rank the show against the other WMs depends on your philosophy. Do you care more about "one-match" shows if that one match is really good? Or do you care about a card that for the most part doesn't have much crap and is pretty solid across the board but nothing really stands out? Bret vs. Shawn from WM 12, and Bret vs. Austin from WM 13 are miles better than any one match from WM 11, but WM 11 has what I consider to be four ***-***1/2ish matches (IC Title, Tag Title, I Quit, WWF Title). Other than the matches I mentioned, WM 12 and WM 13 don't really have much quality... maybe you can sa Taker vs. Diesel from 12 was pretty good but that's about it. When it comes down to it, I'd put 11 ahead of 13 but slightly behind 12. My reason being that generally I'll go with a stronger overall card with no real standout over a one-match show. I throw 12 ahead here because the one match in question was an hour long, so it took up a large percentage of the show. Also Taker/Diesel was pretty good. And those two matches took up something like 50-60% of the show. WM 13, however, I think very lowly of because it was just an awful show despite having one great match. To those that say WM 11 didn't "feel" like a WM, I say WM 13 felt even less like a WM. WM 11 had a ton of celebrities (Lawrence Taylor, Pam Anderson, Jenny McCarthy, etc.), some mainstream attention from the LT thing, the photographers at ringside, etc. Even small stuff like having a mystery partner that actually paid off for once (Yoko) made it feel like more than a regular show. There were little things to make it seem like more of a big event. WM 13 had none of that. And WM 13 was firmly planted in the monthly PPV era, so it didn't even standout.

 

So anyway, for the most part, WM 11 is okay with me. I like the Razor/Jarrett match despite the non-finish (those two always had great chemistry), I'm a mark for the Owen storyline, and I love the way they handled Shawn Michaels on the way up. I was convinced he was going to win the Title here; one of the few times I ever bought a heel walking out of WM as the Champion. So I think it's a pretty good show. I just think the reasons above are why it has the reputation it does. As far as I'm concerned it's certainly better than the likes of 13 and 15, and not much worse than 12. Comparing it to any of the really old ones or really recent ones is hard though because then you're just comparing completely different eras. That's why I can't really rank "the best" from top to bottom.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

When you need a WrestleMania that history perceives to be bad to sound not bad, call humanoid92 to the rescue!

[Black Lushus 0]

haah he certainly tries!

[humanoid92 0]

It always bugged me that they didn't just stretch Bret/Owen into WMXI and give that the I Quit Match instead. It had another 3 months left in the tank, I felt and it was more of a blood feud obviously then Backlund/Hart was. Yokozuna could have returned the next month instead and got the same reaction and impact. They also could have put the titles on Allied Powers, with Owen getting one over his brother in law at such a big stage instead of the Smoking Gunns.

 

LT/Bam Bam as far as celeb matches was one of the better ones although you aren't going to find any great ones. Shawn/Diesel wasn't bad at all although it didn't work for me since Diesel had just turned and Shawn had spent so long doing nothing and suddenly getting a title shot at WM.

 

The under-card was horrendous. Like most have said, it was just bland. A solid entertaining enough main event, a good title match and a bunch of nothingness. Not unlike most RAW ppv's today but this was MANIA.

 

I totally agree on Bret vs. Owen. They never really put the finishing touches on the rivalry. I know they did the deal on Raw where Owen would get his last chance ever at Bret, or something like that, but a show like this definitely could have used a match like that. Bret vs. Backlund had to be blown off but that easily could have easily been done on Raw or at the first IYH. And why put it on the show in the first place only to give it nine minutes? They had just gone 40 at Survivor Series. Now it's down to 10?

 

Aggreed on delaying Yoko's return and putting the belts on the Allied Powers as well.

 

I disagree with the horrendous undercard stuff though. The Tag Title match was short but good, as was Bret/Backlund, even if it was completely underwhelming. And I really like Razor vs. Jarrett even though their Rumble match was better. Taker/Bundy was bad, but that was typical Undertaker stuff at the time. The only thing that just had no point was the Blus match, which was really weak but was at least kept short.

 

I do like your suggestion though because it essentially subs Bret vs. Owen for Bret vs. Backlund (huge upgrade), Powers vs. Gunns for Owen & Yoko vs. Gunns (could have been an upgrade), and Backlund vs. a different opponent (no idea who though... not a lot of strong faces at the time) for The Blus vs. Powers (upgrade by default).

[humanoid92 0]

When you need a WrestleMania that history perceives to be bad to sound not bad, call humanoid92 to the rescue!

 

Haha, I know I don't always agree with the masses but in a lot of instances I actually do. I just feel the need to speak out when I don't agree with the consensus. There are just certain things that bug me about the whole "historically perceived" notion. I like what I like. Also, I think people go to the extreme too much when it's not warranted. Everything has to be the best ever or the worst ever when it usually really falls somewhere in the middle. It seems like the stuff that's remembered as good has to be considered legendary, and the stuff that's remembered as bad as to be considered as awful. I'm not saying WM 11 was a great show by any means but do I think most people are too hard on it? Yes. Is it one of the better WMs? No. But that doesn't make it brutal. (Although I must admit, even as an 11 year old football fan from Jersey where LT was a legend I still thought the celebrity match was pointless and had very little interest in it at the time.)

 

Take a lot of shows from 1998 and 1999. Obviously, the company was making boatloads of cash at the time, which is their goal. Mission accomplished. I don't fault them for it. And because they were making so much money and they were successful at that time, that period is "historically perceived" as a favorable one. But as far as I'm concerned, a lot of the matches were garbage. There were lively characters and for the most part good storylines, and say what you will about Russo (I hate him) but he was never boring. But most of the matches were brutal in my opinion. So as a fan, I didn't really like that time period that much as a whole. Even though it was a profitable time for the company. Well, just because the company is making money at the time, why should I have to like everything about the product?

 

I just don't understand why there has to be a correlation. Why fans automatically equate "successful" with "good." In any other form of entertainment, these are the same people that defend sitcoms that get low ratings and albums that don't sell well. Why is wrestling different? Why do you have to like the so-called popular stuff and not the underappreciated stuff? It seems like if enough people online say something is "the best" then it automatically becomes the best and everyone who doesn't agree is an idiot.

 

It goes the other way too. In 1994, business was down. But I liked a lot of the shows and the matches. So "history" and the WWF remembers this time period negatively since they weren't making that much money. But I remember it fondly because I liked the product and the matches. What's so wrong with that?

 

And I'm not just going against the grain for the hell of it. Business is down now too but I can't stand the current product. And I loved 2000 and the beginning of 2001, which was still a very successful time period.

[RonL21 0]

When you need a WrestleMania that history perceives to be bad to sound not bad, call humanoid92 to the rescue!

 

Haha, I know I don't always agree with the masses but in a lot of instances I actually do. I just feel the need to speak out when I don't agree with the consensus. There are just certain things that bug me about the whole "historically perceived" notion. I like what I like. Also, I think people go to the extreme too much when it's not warranted. Everything has to be the best ever or the worst ever when it usually really falls somewhere in the middle. It seems like the stuff that's remembered as good has to be considered legendary, and the stuff that's remembered as bad as to be considered as awful. I'm not saying WM 11 was a great show by any means but do I think most people are too hard on it? Yes. Is it one of the better WMs? No. But that doesn't make it brutal. (Although I must admit, even as an 11 year old football fan from Jersey where LT was a legend I still thought the celebrity match was pointless and had very little interest in it at the time.)

 

Take a lot of shows from 1998 and 1999. Obviously, the company was making boatloads of cash at the time, which is their goal. Mission accomplished. I don't fault them for it. And because they were making so much money and they were successful at that time, that period is "historically perceived" as a favorable one. But as far as I'm concerned, a lot of the matches were garbage. There were lively characters and for the most part good storylines, and say what you will about Russo (I hate him) but he was never boring. But most of the matches were brutal in my opinion. So as a fan, I didn't really like that time period that much as a whole. Even though it was a profitable time for the company. Well, just because the company is making money at the time, why should I have to like everything about the product?

 

I just don't understand why there has to be a correlation. Why fans automatically equate "successful" with "good." In any other form of entertainment, these are the same people that defend sitcoms that get low ratings and albums that don't sell well. Why is wrestling different? Why do you have to like the so-called popular stuff and not the underappreciated stuff? It seems like if enough people online say something is "the best" then it automatically becomes the best and everyone who doesn't agree is an idiot.

 

It goes the other way too. In 1994, business was down. But I liked a lot of the shows and the matches. So "history" and the WWF remembers this time period negatively since they weren't making that much money. But I remember it fondly because I liked the product and the matches. What's so wrong with that?

 

And I'm not just going against the grain for the hell of it. Business is down now too but I can't stand the current product. And I loved 2000 and the beginning of 2001, which was still a very successful time period.

I was just a kid during the early 90s period....So i was unaware of stuff like Financial loss and stuff like that....I just loved everything about his time....I guess i look a stuff differently because I was a mark for so many years before i discovered how wrestling really worked and it was only a couple years ago that I really started looking at Internet Wrestling Sites....Folks that jumped on in 98 and soon after I think look at wrestling differently than I do because I was once oblivious to everything that went on backstage...I remember the good ole days when SuperStars was taped like 3 weeks worth of shows and you actually had to watch them to get the results..and if you missed it there was always the recap shows...

[Lil' Bitch 0]

It didn't help that Backlund botched the finish of the match by forgetting to say "I Quit!"

 

[cabbageboy 0]

WM XI goes at the bottom of the list of WMs simply because it's just....boring. It was a show from the nadir of the WWF's mainstream business, had no hype or heat, and featured a non wrestler in a main event match that he was actually supposed to be the main focus of. It's not that the show flat out sucks, it's just that it's so utterly boring, bland, and missable. Just about everything here had something wrong with it on some level:

 

--Bret/Backlund had died off, Backlund's heat was gone once he jobbed to Diesel in 8 seconds. And that "I QUIT" match sucked. If there is one thing about Bret, until roughly the Austin feud he never had blowoff matches that were as violent as the stips demanded. I have the same problem with the Owen cage match.

 

--I hated, and I mean HATED Shawn Michaels. It doesn't help that I'm a huge Bulldog fan and the RR that year made me a bitter bastard, but seeing a guy I detested in HBK getting a title shot....well, fuck that. That match was such ass backward storytelling too, with the inspirational face Diesel going against the heel Michaels. WTF? Anyone with a brain knows you can't do that match with those guys...it needs to be a plucky underdog HBK vs. the 7 ft. heel Diesel, which they did much better the next year.

 

--I didn't care about Bigelow. Honestly, why would this guy main event WM? He had no real heat and his issue with LT started over him losing at the Rumble. This match was better than most celeb matches, but it overall had no purpose and only buried Bigelow's WWF career.

 

--Jeff Jarrett was a heatless wonder as IC champ. Seriously, I liked Razor Ramon big time and wondered why on earth he would be jobbing or even having trouble at all with Jeff Jarrett. JJ was a poor man's HTM at this point...imagine HTM with no heat whatsoever. And the match was a DQ.

 

--As I sorta mentioned, Bulldog was buried into a team with Lex Luger, who himself had been buried. And they weren't in a title match. Owen/Yokozuna won the belts, and that team was so heatless and forgettable I honestly had forgotten that they even teamed until I watched the show a couple years ago.

 

In the end, this PPV was at the WWF's nadir business wise and creative wise as well. Most of the matches aren't anything you'd be ashamed to see, but there's nothing here you NEED to see. It's maybe the lone WM with nothing on it that you need to see. Even WMs 12 and 13, which both also suck, have the Iron Man match and Bret/Austin. And what the hell, 13 also has a delirious 6 man street fight with Ahmed/LOD vs. The Nation that I enjoyed.

[Hawk 34 0]

I always wondered why WWF picked Bigelow of all people? He wasn't helping get rid of the stereotype that wrestlers were just fat guys and bad actors. He was a solid worker but not the best. Did they pick him because they knew losing to L.T would damage a guy's career at least for the time being and didn't want to risk hurting someone worthwhile?

 

Not sure who in 1995 would have been a better choice from a p.r standpoint and from protecting the business aspect. Owen? He was a good chicken-shit heel that could have worked but would the media buy into L.T Vs a 5'11 white guy with a goofy look?

 

The rest of the heels in 1995 were just the same as Bigelow with the exception of Shawn and Jarrett. Perhaps a heel Luger would have been better given that Luger had some clout.

 

In the end, I guess it wasn't going to make a difference.

[UseTheSledgehammerUh 0]

For one thing, Vince's play by play SUCKED. He deliberately explained each character as if there were some 10 million new viewers that had ordered to see LT. Vince trying to put over The Blu Brothers and World Title choker turned mid-carder Lex Luger was particularly funny.

[humanoid92 0]

I can understand not liking WM 11, but I just want to add my two cents to a few of the points you made. And again, I don't exactly "like" WM 11; I just don't detest it like a lot of people seem to.

 

WM XI goes at the bottom of the list of WMs simply because it's just....boring. It was a show from the nadir of the WWF's mainstream business, had no hype or heat, and featured a non wrestler in a main event match that he was actually supposed to be the main focus of. It's not that the show flat out sucks, it's just that it's so utterly boring, bland, and missable. Just about everything here had something wrong with it on some level:

 

As a fan, especially at the time, I don't see how the fact that it took place around the low-point of the business has anything to do with enjoying or not enjoying the show on its own merits (or lack thereof). Especially since a lot of those labels get thrown around after years of hindsight. And the show DID get hype because of the LT thing. Maybe not to the degree they enjoyed with Tyson a few years later, but there were a ton of mainstream stories about LT. If you really wanna go nuts, you could argue that this experience with LT was a precursor to the Tyson thing, except with Tyson the timing was right, the business was already getting hotter, Tyson was a lot more relevant than LT, and they knew how to use him effectively without putting him in an actual match.

 

I agree that a non-wrestler in the main event is bogus- even as an 11 year old I couldn't get excited about it.

 

--Bret/Backlund had died off, Backlund's heat was gone once he jobbed to Diesel in 8 seconds. And that "I QUIT" match sucked. If there is one thing about Bret, until roughly the Austin feud he never had blowoff matches that were as violent as the stips demanded. I have the same problem with the Owen cage match.

 

Agreed about Backlund's heat. This was a disappointing blowoff- there's no way around it. The violence thing I can't understand. First of all, the SS 94 cage match made sense within the context of the feud, even if I would have rather seen them go with something like a marathon match or a submission match. Blood, more brawling, and foreign objects would have detracted from it, not added to it. Before Austin, the only time Bret had a feud that deserved a ton of violence was Lawler, and simple things like putting him in a sharpshooter for 5 minutes and getting disqualified are more effective than bladejobs and 10 minutes of chairshots. And the SS 95 match with Diesel was pretty violent for its day.

 

Besides, until '97 with Bret and Austin and then the first two Hell in a Cell matches, the WWF never did a ton of "violent" stuff. And even then, that just brought on the terrible formulaic main event brawls in '98 and '99. Which were, for the most part, incredibly violent and incredibly boring. I'd rather see a heated match along the lines of Flair/Savage than Rock nailing Foley over the head with a chair 30 times. I'm just not big on the excessive violence in the first place. It has its place, like in Bret/Austin. But I don't think Bret/Owen deserved that treatment.

 

Also, the precursor to the increase in violent main events can actually be partially attributed to Bret himself- he was the first one to take the announcer table bump (SS 95) and then Shawn started taking a few in '96 and his matches with Nash and Foley kind of moved it along.

 

--I hated, and I mean HATED Shawn Michaels. It doesn't help that I'm a huge Bulldog fan and the RR that year made me a bitter bastard, but seeing a guy I detested in HBK getting a title shot....well, fuck that. That match was such ass backward storytelling too, with the inspirational face Diesel going against the heel Michaels. WTF? Anyone with a brain knows you can't do that match with those guys...it needs to be a plucky underdog HBK vs. the 7 ft. heel Diesel, which they did much better the next year.

 

I'm with you on the Bulldog support but I've never understood your logic about the Shawn/Diesel match. I've heard this argument about that particular match a hundred times. I like that they did it backwards with Shawn as the small guy heel. You're telling me every time a small guy challenges a big guy, the small guy HAS to be the inspirational underdog? Every time? Even if the opposite fits right into the storyline? So every story is supposed to be exactly the same? I like that they went the other way here. Plus Shawn was always way better as a heel than a face. There are a ton of negatives about the Nash reign, but I've always thought this (along with Raw the next night) was one of the one bright spots (the other two being the Bret matches). I think you're underestimating the dynamic in this one. There seemed to be a real buzz that Shawn was walking away with the Title here. I think this one gets lost in the shuffle. Also, in my opinion, that IYH match with Diesel/Shawn is way overrated. I don't think it's all that much better than the WM 11 match. Different, yes, but not necessarily better.

 

--I didn't care about Bigelow. Honestly, why would this guy main event WM? He had no real heat and his issue with LT started over him losing at the Rumble. This match was better than most celeb matches, but it overall had no purpose and only buried Bigelow's WWF career.

 

Agreed. Felt weird and out of place. Didn't help anyone in the long run.

 

--Jeff Jarrett was a heatless wonder as IC champ. Seriously, I liked Razor Ramon big time and wondered why on earth he would be jobbing or even having trouble at all with Jeff Jarrett. JJ was a poor man's HTM at this point...imagine HTM with no heat whatsoever. And the match was a DQ.

 

I loved '95 Jarrett and he absolutely had heat. Maybe not Honky Tonk Man heat, but the guy was over. And basically Jarrett was in there to give Razor someone to chase now that Shawn and Diesel were out of the IC scene. And since a face was carrying the WWF Title, it helped to have a heel IC Champ, which is actually something they did quite often.

 

The finish was disappointing. Still a good match though. Other than Bret, Jarrett seemed to be the only guy not in the Clique that Razor consistently had good chemsitry with in the ring.

 

--As I sorta mentioned, Bulldog was buried into a team with Lex Luger, who himself had been buried. And they weren't in a title match. Owen/Yokozuna won the belts, and that team was so heatless and forgettable I honestly had forgotten that they even teamed until I watched the show a couple years ago.

 

I agree that they should've found something better to do with Bulldog. He and Luger weren't in the Title match because they had just started teaming and they were going to start building toward Luger and Bulldog vs. Owen and Yoko, which is actually a solid tag feud with a built-in history.

 

Say what you will about the Owen & Yoko team but that they ended up being forgettable (after all, Owen had a billion tag partners afterwards) is another point that's pure hindsight. At the time, this match at least accomplished a few things:

 

- Gave Owen a very logical place to go after the Bret feud. His storyline of trying to replicate Bret's achievements by starting with the Tag Titles was eventually forgotten but this could have been great long-term subtle booking if not for other circumstances.

 

- Had a mystery partner that actually delivered for once. Also gave a new role to Yoko, who had run his course in singles competition.

 

- Had a pretty good match.

 

- Got the belts off the Gunns and gave the tag division a welcome breath of fresh air.

 

In the end, this PPV was at the WWF's nadir business wise and creative wise as well. Most of the matches aren't anything you'd be ashamed to see, but there's nothing here you NEED to see. It's maybe the lone WM with nothing on it that you need to see. Even WMs 12 and 13, which both also suck, have the Iron Man match and Bret/Austin. And what the hell, 13 also has a delirious 6 man street fight with Ahmed/LOD vs. The Nation that I enjoyed.

 

The thing about it being boring and bland may be true. But the reason I defend this show (at least to some extent) is for this reason: WM 12 and 13 have the one big match, but if you're gonna make me sit down for three hours and watch a show, I would easily pick 11 over 13. (I'd only pick 12 over 11 because Bret/Shawn is so long and takes up such a large percentage of the show. Eliminate the final match on each show and I'm picking 11.) 13 is just an embarrasment outside of Bret/Austin and if I'm watching a show, I'd rather go with one that's at least solid across the board for the most part instead of a one-match show.

[humanoid92 0]

I always wondered why WWF picked Bigelow of all people? He wasn't helping get rid of the stereotype that wrestlers were just fat guys and bad actors. He was a solid worker but not the best. Did they pick him because they knew losing to L.T would damage a guy's career at least for the time being and didn't want to risk hurting someone worthwhile?

 

Not sure who in 1995 would have been a better choice from a p.r standpoint and from protecting the business aspect. Owen? He was a good chicken-shit heel that could have worked but would the media buy into L.T Vs a 5'11 white guy with a goofy look?

 

The rest of the heels in 1995 were just the same as Bigelow with the exception of Shawn and Jarrett. Perhaps a heel Luger would have been better given that Luger had some clout.

 

In the end, I guess it wasn't going to make a difference.

 

Interesting point. Part of it was certainly his size. No one would have bought him going against someone like Owen. Maybe if Yoko hadn't been on hiatus before the show, they could have used him. But that would have killed him in the future and they may have been reluctant to put him over the guy that had just been WWF Champion for so long.

 

I'd never considered the Luger thing before but that's actually pretty intriguing. Going off what we discussed on the first page, they could have gone with a card that looked more like this:

 

LT vs. Luger

World Title: Shawn vs. Diesel

Submission: Bret vs. Owen

IC Title: Razor vs. Jarrett

Bulldog vs. Backlund (fallout from SS 94)

Undertaker vs. Bigelow

Tag Titles: Gunns vs. ...umm, anyone but the Blus. Maybe use another heel with Yoko as the mystery partner. Or two guys from the Million Dollar Corporation (IRS, Tatanka, Bundy, Kama, etc.)

 

Probably an upgrade.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I thought Bigelow worked in that role, since he fit the mold of the "big ugly bully" kind of guy they were going for in that angle with LT.