Let's Talk About...

[King Kamala 0]

I won't let this die- even if I become synonomous with it like Dandy is with his Town Halls in the WWE Folder.

 

 

This was the year that nearly drove me away from wrestling for good. In fact, sometime shortly after King of The Ring that year I stopped watching for about a year. So the stuff I have seen from the second half of the year was through the magic of video tape and WWE 24/7 online. I know that many will argue that this was WWF's worst year (and rightfully so) but I'd argue that WCW was worse, at least until around the time Nitro started. WWF was boring shit, WCW was absurd shit. Amusingly enough, I was such a WWF loyalist as a mark that I pretty much stopped watching WCW once Hulk Hogan signed because I thought he was a traitor. ECW was completely off my radar at the time. We didn't get it way up here in Maine and I don't remember hearing much about it outside of the occassional PWI article until some of the guys appeared at In Your House:Mind Games a year or so later. So with that said, I'll weigh the pros and the cons of the WWF that year since that's the company I was watching most at the time.

 

 

Pros

Shawn Michaels. He came out of the year relatively unscathed. While Bret Hart was inexplicably stuck in lame feud after lame feud (Jean-Pierre Laffitte, anyone?), Michaels basically carried the company work-rate wise. Like him or not (and I know the majority of the board falls into the latter category), the man stole nearly every PPV he was on.

 

SummerSlam '95. I'll forever defend this show. Perhaps the most underrated SummerSlam of all time. Sure, the main event is indistuably a negative star affair but for the most part, it's a solid affair. Besides the ladder match, you've got a neat Hakushi-123 Kid opener, a decent Barry Horowitz-Skip match, Bret Hart carrying Issac Yankem to a *** match, and a surprisingly watchable Undertaker-Kama casket match.

 

Survivor Series '95. Best PPV of the year and the last great old-school Survivor Series. All of the elimination matches are fun with the exception of The Darkside Vs The Royals and Bret Vs Diesel is a classic.

 

Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett doesn't belong anywhere above the upper mid-card but for my money, he made a damn fine midcard heel and in a year of incredibly lame heels, he shined. His feud with Razor didn't produce any classics but it could always be counted on to provide a solid *** affair.

 

Bret Hart. God bless him, even though he was stuck in many lame feuds with many lame opponents, he almost always managed to have a decent match.

 

Cons

 

Diesel's World title reign. I don't disagree with Diesel being champion at the time in theory but once he won the title, they stripped away everything about the character that made it great and transformed him into Hulk Nash. It didn't help that he was stuck with a myriad of lame opponents. Do gooders bodyslamming hosses might have worked in '85 but not in '95.

 

The Million Dollar Corporation. If not for the Dungeon of Doom, this would easily have been the worst stable of its times. DiBiase was obviously half-assing it during his managerial run in the WWF and the stable itself was the biggest collection of hasbeens and never weres this side of...uh...The Dungeon of Doom. The only memorable moment invovling this group was DiBiase's constant beratement of a destitute Nikolai Volkoff (the memory of Volkoff wearing the same tights as DiBiase except with a cent sign instead of a dollar sign still makes me chuckle).

 

The never ending parade of lame, new characters. I can't think of a period where more awful characters were introduced in the WWF than '95 and the first half or so of '96. It seems like they were trying to compensate for a lack of talent by saddling people with "zany" gimmicks...that lack of talent leads to-

 

Monthly PPVs- the company barely had enough talent to pull off doing five PPVs (See the '95 Royal Rumble match) that year let alone ten.

 

The '95 Royal Rumble match for reasons already explained.

 

King of The Ring PPV. We all know the story with this one.

 

Bret Hart being saddled with lame feuds. Did Bret's grudge with Vince start earlier than we once thought? That's the only reason I can explain him being involved in feuds with a French Canadian pirate that stole his jacket and an evil dentist (Whatever happened to that guy anyways?).

 

The Undertaker. '95 may have been the low point of his career, Foley came along at the perfect time. Basically, 'Taker was the antithesis of HBK that year. Whenever he was in a PPV match that year, you could almost guarantee it would be the worst of the night. It's a pleasant surprise to see how much he's improved since, I'm still not sure whether the improvement can be attributed to a much higher quality of opponents or Taker himself improving. Probably a combination of both. The only good thing that came out of that year for him was that bitchin' Phantom of the Opera mask he rocked after Mabel broke his face.

 

King Mabel. Worst King of The Ring ever. Billy Gunn was bad but at least he didn't main event the second biggest PPV of the year.

 

I could go on for longer here but for my own sanity and for yours, I'll stop.

 

 

So what are your thoughts on 1995? Worst year in pro wrestling? Underrated ('95 apologists, you can come out of hiding!)?

[Guest]

This was the year where I started to enjoy wrestling as much as I possibly could have. WCW was a pile of junk, but I liked it anyway, seeing as they were doing big matches on Nitro. The Dungeon of Doom is as bad as it gets, so I don't hold that period on a pedestal. On the other hand, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero made their WCW debut in '95. Nothing to complain about there.

 

I haven't seen very many shows from the WWF in '95, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

[ChrisMWaters 0]

A pro for me about 1995, even if it was near the end of the year:

 

The first match, IIRC, between Hulk Hogan and Sting.

 

Where Hogan was doing "The Darkside of Hulkamania" and Sting came out wearing red and yellow.

[Guest Hasbeen2]

Who could forget the Big Show falling off the roof in Detroit, then coming back up to fight some more? Same for the Renegade, RIP, he just didn't have it.

 

The Dungeon of Doom could have been decent but it had to be sanitized for obvious reasons. I didn't like the way they used Flair and Vader for the most part but Hogan was there, then Savage, so it was expected. I thought WCW ended the year great with the WCW vs Japan show, with two or three really good matches. Other things I liked in the year were Harlem Heat except for the manager nonsense, and Arn vs Flair, and Sting being gullible as usual.

[King Kamala 0]

I haven't seen very many shows from the WWF in '95, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

 

 

Eh, the only shows worth seeking out are SummerSlam and Survivor Series. Though WrestleMania and Royal Rumble that aren't nearly as bad as people make them out to be. They're both the kind of show with a lot of matches in the **-*** range but nothing in particular sticks out.

[Brocklock 0]

Well, with the great year ECW had and the amazing year AJPW had. It's not altogether a bad year for wrestling, but it was bad for the big two.

 

Bret and Shawn were on fire in 95, as they were having good matches with everyone. That's about it for the WWF, although Nash was alot better than he was credited for in the ring, but his title run was so dull and undeserving.

 

WCW was horrible for the first 8 or so months, but I enjoyed it once Nitro started. I will say Alex Wright was underrated his whole career and had a good rookie year (Sure, vets like Arn and Pillman led him to good matches, but he still impressed.) He was a highlight of WCW 95. The last four months of 95 had a bunch of good matches on a near weekly basis on Nitro plus a really good PPV in Starrcade and a decent one in Fall Brawl.

[Papacita 0]

WCW sucked and what little bit of ECW I followed that year was gold.

 

WWF...granted, this was at the height of my mark period, but I still think this year gets too much of a bad rap. Granted, the bad stuff was pretty bad, but from SummerSlam on there's some fantastic stuff going on (Horowitz and Skip, Dean Douglas/Razor/Kid storyline, Shawn's concussion Angle, Bulldog's heel turn [hey, I liked it], Diesel's post Survivor Series "shoot" on Vince, etc), and from what I recall the pre-Mania stuff was pretty solid as well (the post Mania Raw with Sid turning on Shawn was fantastic). And match wise, as mentioned, Bret especially was just on fire.

 

I'd still put 95 ahead of 02 on the bad year list.

[King Kamala 0]

I won't argue with Diesel being the worst WWF World champ of all time but I'm going to have to disagree with the group that said Diesel was undeserving of the WWF World title. When he turned face back in November '94, he was immedietely the hottest babyface they'd had in a couple years. Maybe they gave it to him a little bit earlier than they should have but it's not like Bret was lighting the arena box offices on fire. The biggest crime they did as I said earlier was change him to a do gooder, superhero Hulk Hogan type. Nash is at his best as a baby when he's basically playing a toned down version of himself (minus the shoot comments).

 

 

[AboveAverage484 0]

I'm hard pressed to even think of a good match in WCW circa '95, let alone a great one. I have Guerrero vs. Ohtani from Starrcade at ****, but that's pretty much a 1996 match. Shoot, next best ones I have from that year are Flair vs. Arn and Pillman/Badd at ***¾.

[spman 0]

The WCW mid and lower card in 1995 wasn't so bad, but the ridiculously stupid booking in the Main Event just overshadowed everything. I contest that the Dungeon of Doom was the single worst long term angle in wrestling history in terms of not just sheer stupidity, but not drawing, and killing the heat of everything and everyone associated with it. The greatest example of this is Halloween Havoc 1995, Hogan and Giant battle in monster trucks, ending with Hogan "throwing" The Giant off Cobo Hall, the announcers selling it like The Giant actually fell off the building, and then the whole thing ends in a schmoz in the ring when Hogan gets attacked by a Mummy. You really need to tripping on some crazy amount of acid to even begin to come up with something that stupid, let alone actually book it on a Pay Pew View.

 

The stupidity in WCW in 1995 was far more insulting then anything WWF was doing. Nothing in WWF around this time, save for maybe King Mable, even came close to topping WCW in terms of sheer stupidity. The Renegade, Dave Sullivan, that match with Dustin and Darsow on the back of the truck, John Tenta's endless number of gimmicks, Hogan beating Vader in a strap match by dragging Flair to the ring corners, a major PPV that has a gate of $0 because you stupidly booked it as a free show on the beach, the list goes on and on and on and on forever. At the very least WWF had a fairly large number of consistant workers that didn't get buried in Michaels, Jarrett, Waltman, Bret, Hall, Hakushi, Candido, etc. etc. etc.

[Brocklock 0]

I'm hard pressed to even think of a good match in WCW circa '95, let alone a great one. I have Guerrero vs. Ohtani from Starrcade at ****, but that's pretty much a 1996 match. Shoot, next best ones I have from that year are Flair vs. Arn and Pillman/Badd at ***¾.

 

I liked:

 

 

Wright/Kanemoto - Starrcade

Wright/Pillman - Great American Bash

Hogan/Vader - Superbrawl (The first match and way better than I thought it would be)

Wright/Arn - Slamboree

The Joshi Tag from World War 3

Eddie/Benoit - 10/16 Nitro

Eddie/Benoit - 11/6 Nitro

Eddie/Benoit - 11/25 Saturday Night

 

[SteakGrowsOnUecker 0]

I'd like to point out though that if King of the Ring 95 is the all time worst PPV, the October 95 In Your House show really is a close second in my opinion. I remember watching this piece of crap and even then it felt like one of the least important and uninspired shows ever. Just nothing worthwhile happened and the atmosphere of the show was just dreary and terrible. Goldust's TV debut was here against Marty Jannetty and Shawn gave up the IC title (which leads to a Razor/Dean Douglas snoozefest). And Mabel/Yokozuna and a Diesel/Bulldog main event that ends in a DQ electrified the crowd. Just awful.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

The never ending parade of lame, new characters. I can't think of a period where more awful characters were introduced in the WWF than '95 and the first half or so of '96. It seems like they were trying to compensate for a lack of talent by saddling people with "zany" gimmicks..

 

My number one pet peeve from that era. The WWF was full of completely awful gimmicks during that time period. The worst, and what actually made me mad in early '96, was right after Wrestlemania, when they came out with a whole slew of new, completely stupid, characters. It was like, "Yeah, we don't have Razor, Diesel, or 1-2-3 Kid anymore...but we have WHO!, and THE GOON, and FREDDIE JOE FLOYD, and TL HOPPER!" Meanwhile WCW was getting ready to start the nWo, and was featuring cruiserweights and guys they signed over from ECW. Vince just didn't have his hand on the pulse of wrestling fans at all by that point.

 

And yes, I also barely watched during '95...just wasn't enough compelling in WWF to make me pay attention, and WCW was certainly not much better. I guess I started to get back into it around WM 12.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

I remember that this was the first period, since I became a fan in 1991, where I was terribly indifferent to the products that both WCW and WWF were churning out at the time. However, by the time that the late summer had come around, things were absolutely on the upswing.

 

PROS

- The continued rise of ECW

- Nitro and the beginning of the Monday Night Wars

- WCW signing guys like Guerrero, Malenko, Benoit, Sabu, etc.

 

CONS

- WCW signing washed-up ex-WWF talent

- The depush of Bam Bam Bigelow following WrestleMania XI

- King Mabel

- Some of the worst PPV showings ever

 

MATCHES TO WATCH

- Bret Hart vs. Jean-Pierre Lafitte from In Your House, September 1995

- Brian Pillman vs. Johnny B. Badd from Fall Brawl 95

- Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon, Ladder Match from Summer Slam 95

- Koji Kanemoto vs. Alex Wright from Starrcade 1995

- Benoit/Malenko vs. Guerrero/JL from Nitro, October 1995

- Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel, WWF Championship, WrestleMania XI

- Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith, WWF Championship, In Your House, December 1995

- Bret Hart vs. Hakushi, In Your House, May 1995

- Jeff Jarrett vs. Razor Ramon, Intercontinental Title, from WrestleMania XI

- Michaels/Ahmed/Sid/Bulldog vs. Owen/Yokozuna/Razor/Douglas from Survivor Series 95

[Guest tom cody]

Yeah 1995 was pretty low. Waylon Mercy was getting world title shots for crying out loud. The Royal Rumble that year may get a lot of good reviews but aside from the Shawn Michaels performance I just can't see it.

[CanadianChris 0]

Bret Hart being saddled with lame feuds. Did Bret's grudge with Vince start earlier than we once thought? That's the only reason I can explain him being involved in feuds with a French Canadian pirate that stole his jacket and an evil dentist (Whatever happened to that guy anyways?).

I don't think it was a grudge with Vince so much as the Clique making sure they were on top. And, since they were all faces at the time, where was Bret going to fit in?

[King Kamala 0]

I'd like to point out though that if King of the Ring 95 is the all time worst PPV, the October 95 In Your House show really is a close second in my opinion. I remember watching this piece of crap and even then it felt like one of the least important and uninspired shows ever. Just nothing worthwhile happened and the atmosphere of the show was just dreary and terrible. Goldust's TV debut was here against Marty Jannetty and Shawn gave up the IC title (which leads to a Razor/Dean Douglas snoozefest). And Mabel/Yokozuna and a Diesel/Bulldog main event that ends in a DQ electrified the crowd. Just awful.

 

 

That was an awful PPV. Maybe in the Bottom 5 of PPVs put on by the WWF. In fact, every one of the In Your Houses that year were generally terrible but at least most of them had one match worth watching (1 had Bret/Hakushi, 2 had Jarrett/HBK, 5 had Bret/Bulldog). In Your House III and IV may have been the worst back to back pair of PPVs until Kevin Sullivan's run with the book in WCW in '00.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

The Royal Rumble that year may get a lot of good reviews but aside from the Shawn Michaels performance I just can't see it.

 

When did these start happening?

 

[Mecha Mummy 0]

The Royal Rumble that year may get a lot of good reviews but aside from the Shawn Michaels performance I just can't see it.

 

When did these start happening?

 

Yeah, that was a top contender in the WORST Royal Rumble poll a couple of months ago. The short window between entrances really kind of killed it for me.

[King Kamala 0]

Not to mention perhaps the lamest group of entrants since the first Royal Rumble if not ever.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Yeah, I remember renting that Royal Rumble with a friend, and during the Rumble match he kept asking me "Where are all the cool guys?"

[The Dames 0]

The highlight of the year by far was Starrcade 1995. That was the first WCW PPV where I realized how strong WCW's workers were compared to WWF's at the time.

 

Dames

[cabbageboy 0]

WCW improved and went in a more adult, serious direction by late 1995. But man the previous 8 months or so of WCW in 1995 sucked so much shit it's not even funny. The key is that no one really CARED especially or it would be as reviled as the dreaded year 1999. As in there was no MNW yet, so people could either watch or not watch WCW and it didn't matter.

 

The WWF had some solid individual matches in 1995 but the overall direction of the company was so dire that year. Everyone was misused, from Bret to UT. Diesel's title run had a series of truly horrid post WM opponents. Bulldog did a goofy heel turn that no one liked.

 

The real dead zone for the WWF however wasn't technically 1995. I'd say the real dead zone was maybe the Rumble in 1996. They didn't even have enough guys to fill up the actual Rumble, had to bring in jobbers from the USWA and crap.

[CanadianChris 0]

The only serious competition for 1995 as worst Rumble ever is 1999.

[King Kamala 0]

There's no way anybody could tell me that Royal Rumble '96 was the worst ever. All the guys had their own entrance music!

[StrapFinlay 0]

Bret Hart being saddled with lame feuds. Did Bret's grudge with Vince start earlier than we once thought? That's the only reason I can explain him being involved in feuds with a French Canadian pirate that stole his jacket and an evil dentist (Whatever happened to that guy anyways?).

 

He has been badly used for 90 per cent (if not more) of his career since then.

 

In hindsight, 1995 was terrible but at the time it didn't seem too bad, not to me anyway. Though I should stress the only time I really "enjoyed" WWE was from King of the Ring '98 until WrestleMania XI.

 

In 1995, we didn't know what heights could be reached. We didn't expect gratuitous blade-jobs and daredevil dives from idiotic heights. Of course, it will never get to that stage again as they went too far.

 

Of course, until a few years ago all WWE PPVs were thrown-in for no extra cost to UK customers, so that may be my reasoning

 

As for individual events, we all have our own views. I genuinely preferred WM9 to Sunday's offering. Too many PPVs, not enough pushing of the envelope now. Matches are looking like standard television affairs with a bit of extra time.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

There's no way anybody could tell me that Royal Rumble '96 was the worst ever. All the guys had their own entrance music!

 

I certainly don't think it was. The talent was fairly thin, but it wasn't a train wreck, and the match itself was reasonably entertaining.

[King Kamala 0]

I haven't seen the match in years but I remember it being entertaining considering the superthin weak roster. As a mark, I remember thinking The Headhunters were going places when they entered then they were eliminated less than a minute later and never showed up in the WWF again.

 

This deserves a thread of its own IMO but I think The Headhunters may be the most random Royal Rumble participants of all time. Up there with Mil Mascaras and a shitload of luchadors I don't remember names of in the '97 Rumble, Carlos Colon in the '93 Rumble, and Dick Murdoch in the '95 Royal Rumble. In fact, if I were to make a list of the Ten Most Random Rumble participants, I bet at least nine would be from '93 to '98.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

I haven't seen the match in years but I remember it being entertaining considering the superthin weak roster. As a mark, I remember thinking The Headhunters were going places when they entered then they were eliminated less than a minute later and never showed up in the WWF again.

 

This deserves a thread of its own IMO but I think The Headhunters may be the most random Royal Rumble participants of all time. Up there with Mil Mascaras and a shitload of luchadors I don't remember names of in the '97 Rumble, Carlos Colon in the '93 Rumble, and Dick Murdoch in the '95 Royal Rumble. In fact, if I were to make a list of the Ten Most Random Rumble participants, I bet at least nine would be from '93 to '98.

 

Perfect in 02 to round out the list?

[cabbageboy 0]

No, I didn't mean the 1996 Rumble itself was one of the worst ever. I mean the roster was sad at that point, the direction of the company was blatantly obvious (Shawn was winning it and then beating Bret at WM), and I reacted worse to that than I did Diesel as champ. Sure, Nash kind of bored me back then but I don't recall being up in arms over him as champion.

 

And guess what? By then I had another option in WCW, so I started watching more and more of that even before the NWO angle hit big. So I guess in that respect 1995 was worse, since WCW sucked hard most of that year and we didn't get ECW where I live until mid 1996.