Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, Connecticut
Depending on who you speak to, the eleventh annual Wrestlemania was either among the best or the worst of the World Wrestling Federation's flagship event.
Featuring a pro football player in the main event and perhaps more focus on the celebrity guests than any of the actual in-ring competitors, Wrestlemania 11 certainly provided enough opportunity for criticism. Though by the same token, there was enough to enjoy here to prevent it from slipping into Worst. Show. Ever territory.
Wrestlemania XI....Staring a Bunch of Non-Wrestlers
To cement the idea that tonight was less about the wrestlers themselves and more about the involvement of singers, actors, sportsmen, and other celebrities, our opening video package told us that 'the revolutionary force in sports entertainment continues, with Wrestlemania.' whilst we were treated to a look back at some of the stars who had graced the World Wrestling Federation with their presence over the last ten years.So we had shots of Cyndi Lauper running backstage with Wendi Richter, Muhamed Ali and Liberace from Wrestlemania 1, folks too vast and numerous to name from Manias two and three, Bob Barker and Vanna White's appearance at Wrestlemania 4, Run DMC busting out their Wrestlemania Rap at the fifth event, Donald Trump, Willie Nelson, Chuck Norris and others from six and seven and so on.
Since Wrestlemania 9 was so devoid of star power, our video here had Jim Ross and an elephant in place of any bonafide celebs.
Salt-n-Pepa were our musical guests (shown backstage fawning over Bret 'The Hitman' Hart), and Lawrence Taylor's All-Pro Team (including none other than future WCW United States Champion Steve 'Mongo' McMichael) was also in the house.
Our stars of the show fully introduced, it was time to pan into the Hartford Civic Centre and a haunting rendition of America the Beautiful by a Special Olympian whose name I couldn't quite catch and haven't been able to find since.
What is Wrestlemania?
It was a much more somber Vince McMahon who welcomed us to tonight's show along with broadcast colleague Jerry 'The King' Lawler. The trademark Welcome every-wan! growl was gone, replaced by Vince explaining just what Wrestlemania actually was.Lawler also explained the show for "those joining us for the very first time" by likening the company's biggest event to a Broadway show.
With all that out of the way then, it was on to the ring for our opening match.
The Allied Powers (British Bulldog & Leg Luger) vs. The Blu Brothers (Jacob & Eli Blu w/ Uncle Zebekiah)
As far removed from his run as The Next Big Thing as he would ever get in the World Wrestling Federation, Lex Luger was about to see out his final days in the WWF in a makeshift tag team with Davey Boy Smith.Sure, this team had promise and could have added some much-needed levity to the company's flailing tag scene had the Bulldog not soon turned heel and Luger gone back to WCW, but alas, it wasn't to be.
Tonight, The Allied Powers, complete with their admittedly awesome theme music, made their official debut in a match against The Blu Brothers, who later fans might remember better as Skull & 8-Ball, The Harris Brothers, or whatever they were called when they had Vince Russo's back in WCW.
Over in less than seven minutes, the bulk of the match saw the good guys take control before Davey Boy rolled up one of the twins for a quick three count.
Your Winners: The Allied Powers
As Bulldog and Luger celebrated a victorious debut, Jim Ross caught up with a frustrated Uncle Zeb and The Blu Brothers making their way backstage.
'Well, it looks like your plan backfired,' Ross goaded, prompting Zeb to say something about being hornswoggled before storming backstage.
Technical Difficulties #1
Vince and Lawler next told us we were going backstage where Nicholas Turturro was with Pam Anderson in her dressing room.Instead, we got Turturro backstage in the Million Dollar Corporation's dressing room, (Gerald Brisco was there too for some reason). As the corporation laughed and joked among themselves, Jenny McCartney swooned on screen and wrapped herself around the guy from NYPD Blue.
That took us back to Vince and Jerry, who hyped the appearance of Lawrence Taylor and his football player buddies at tonight's event.
'Football,' explained Lawler. 'Is where eleven men spend a lot of hours trying to move a small object a hundred yards. It's just like the Post Office.'
All the while, The Allied Powers' theme music continued to play.
It's as this point that we should mention the sheer abundance of ringside photographers at this event.
World Wrestling Federation Intercontinental Championship Match
WWF Intercontinental Champion Jeff Jarrett (w/ The Roadie) vs. Razor Ramon
As reigning champion Jeff Jarrett and his Roadie made their way to the ring, McMahon reminded us just how the country music wannabe won the gold at the 1995 Royal Rumble.That took us to a pre-match promo, again with dodgy sound quality, in which 123 Kid spoke on Razor Ramon's behalf. The Kid claimed that Razor was ready, and that if the Roadie got involved, the 123 Kid would be there to see him off.
Heading to the ring, The Bad Guy and his cornerman wasted no time in charging after the heels, clearning the ring long enough for Razor's trademark pyro before the match really got under way.
The involvement of 123 Kid and the Roadie on the outside only added to the excitement generating between the ropes by both champion and challenger, who had the crowd eating out of the palm of their collective hand.
In the second longest match on the show, Razor took the fight to his opponent with a flury of aggressive tactics, only to be thwarted at every turn by The Roadie.
Jarrett was no slouch either, using skill and speed to counter the brash brawling style of his challenger.
Towards the end of this utterly enjoyable title match, The Bad Guy looked set to reclaim his title, setting up J-E-DOUBLE-F for the Razor's Edge. That was enough to prompt a Roadie run-in, and a disqualification courtesy of referee Tim White.
Ramon won the match, but Jarrett would live to defend his title another day.
Your Winner by Disqualification: Razor Ramon (Jeff Jarrett retains the Intercontinental Championship)
In the post-match, Jarrett and his lackey delivered an epic beatdown to Razor and The Kid until a gaggle of zebras broke it up.
On the contrary, a bloody Jarrett declared himself to be the greatest Intercontinental champion of all time, then marched off backstage, probably to deal with a gimmick infringement lawsuit filed by The Honky Tonk Man.
Backstage we went once again, where finally the audio problems had been taken care of and Nicholas Turturro, still in the Corporation locker room, was able to explain that Pamela Anderson was nowhere to be found.
Even though McCartney must have clearly been in the room the whole time in order to come on camera at the right moment, Dibiase's goons acted like it was the first time they'd seen her.
A smile did fall across her face however at the sight of the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels, who claimed that, despite rumours to the contrary, everything was fine, Pamela Anderson would be later walking to the ring with HBK, and walking out with the new World Wrestling Federation Champion.
Michaels had introduced The Master and The Ruler of the World as his new bodyguard sometime between his Royal Rumble victory and his title shot tonight.
For his part, Sid basically yelled down the camera about Big Daddy Cool Diesel having nightmares.
The Streak Continues...
King Kong Bundy (w/ The Million Dollar Man) vs. The Undertaker (w/ Paul Bearer)
That was enough to lead us to tonight, where the colossal Bundy made his first 'Mania appearance since Wrestlemania 3.
Most of the in-ring action here was your typical Undertaker vs. Big Dude affair, meaning it sucked pretty bad, but the story involving the urn was at least enough, for a couple of seconds at least, to prevent this from being a total dud.
Having beat up on his opponent a bit, 'Taker went outside and reclaimed the urn from the clutches of Ted Dibiase. Taking his time, he then strolled over to Bearer and returned the prop to its rightful owner, then went down on one knee and saluted Bearer, who raised the urn (complete with flashlight) high above his head.
Rather than take advantage of this distraction to, you know, attack his opponent or something, King Kong Bundy simply stood in the middle of the ring and watched on gormlessly.
'That doesn't belong to you!' cried Ross, sounding like a parent scolding a child as Kama took his new toy backstage to go oggle over Jenny McCartney some more.
Back in the ring, absolutely nothing interesting happened. After a bit of kicking and punching, 'Taker delivered a clothesline to his opponent and went 4-0 at Wrestlemania.
Your Winner: The Undertaker
Backstage, the guy from NYPD Blue told us that the hot girl from Baywatch had fallen out with Shawn Michaels and was currently nowhere to be found.
'How can you play chess at a time like this?' shrieked Turturro.
I'll give you one thing, this segment was actually laugh-out-loud funny.
'Who's Pamela Anderson!?!' Backlund cried when Turturro asked if either chess player had seen the missing beauty.
'That's what's wrong with society today!' Backlund screamed in response. 'All these young people, taking advantage of their elders.'
In an attempt to save face, the former two time WWF Champion quizzed his young adversary on the name of the 34th president of the United States and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
'That's what's wrong with the WORLD! They think they know it all!' he yelled, before heading off to see if he'd have any better luck in a wrestling match against Bret Hart later on in the show.
Speaking of whom,The Hitman's younger brother Owen Hart was up next, with the unveiling of his mystery partner.
World Wrestling Federation Tag Team Championship match
WWF Tag Team Champions The Smoking Gunns (Billy & Bart Gunn) vs. Owen Hart and Yokozuna (w/ Jim Cornette and Mr. Fuji)
Who should he pick? None other than another two-time former champion, Yokozuna. Boasting a lot more weight, and facial hair, than the last time we saw him (at Survivor Series 1994) Yoko waddled to the ring to engage in a great tag team title match with Owen and the Brothers Gunn.
Before he did though, we went backstage, where the champions gave their reaction to Yoko's surprise appearance. Both men admitted that the sumo star was the last person they thought they'd be facing that night.
Regardless, they were ready for a fight, and headed to the ring as Jerry Lawler reminded us that it was six years to the day that Owen made his Wrestlemania debut as The Blue Blazer (against Mr. Perfect at Wrestlemania 5).
Owen had come a long way since then, and played his part perfectly here, adding speed and agility in short bursts between his larger partner's brute strength and power. On the opposite side, The Smoking Gunns certainly held their own, but it wasn't to be their night.
Following nine-plus minutes of engrossing action, Yokozuna flattened the future Mr. Ass with the Banzai Drop, then tug out to allow Owen to claim the victory.
Your Winners and NEW WWF Tag Team Champions: Yokozuna and Owen Hart
After a spot of promotional consideration courtesy of the Stridex Blimp (prompting Lawler to claim that the 123 Kid had acne), we went backstage to Todd Pettengill and Bam Bam Bigelow.
Pettengil reminded Bam Bam about his confrontation with Lawrence Taylor at the Royal Rumble, then insisted that most of the country were behind LT, who, according to The Toddster, had friends 'all over the arena.'
In response, Bigelow called LT 'a flash in the pan,' who wasn't going to make a fool out of him.
From there, we went -via McMahon & Lawler- to Howard Finkle, who gave us the rules of our upcoming submission match between Bret 'The Hitman' Hart and the pyschotic Mr. Bob Backlund.
Finkle also introduced WWF legend Rowdy Roddy Piper who, for the second year in a row, put in an appearance as the special guest referee in a Bret Hart Wrestlemania match. (Piper officiated the main event of Wrestlemania 10)
Submission match
Bret 'The Hitman' Hart vs. Bob Backlund (Special referee: Rowdy Roddy Piper)
Your writer may be in the minority when I say this, but the second Hart/Backlund wasn't half as memorable as their now infamous 'towel match.' at the previous years' Survivor Series.As Bret got to work apparently trying to rip Backlund's face off, Jerry Lawler asked Vince McMahon who The Hitman had defeated for the Intercontinental Championship back at Wrestlemania 8.
After much goading, the owner of the World Wrestling Federation couldn't remember the match he himself had booked, and yelled 'BRITISH BULLDOG!'
With that out of the way, we had a lot of time on our hands in which Bret basically dragged his opponent around the ring by the ankle and occasionally applied a submission hold.
That's all that seemed to happen for the longest time other than Piper thrusting the mic into Backlund's face to see if he wanted to quit.
Bob eventually made a comeback, and even went as far as to stalk The Hitman with his famous cross-face chickenwing, only for Hart to apply one of his own and get the win after Backlund garbled something into the microphone.
S
Your Winner: Bret 'The Hitman' Hart
As The Hitman celebrated, Backlund staggered, dazed and confused, away from the ring, where he told Jim Ross that he had 'seen the light,' whatever that meant.
From there, we rejoined Nicholas Turturro, who said that Pamela Anderson had in fact left the building, and that some 'celebrity changes' had been made for tonight's WWF title match.
Speaking of which, that was next, but not before we had a word from the champion.
World Wrestling Federation championship match
WWF Champion Diesel (accompanied by Pamela Anderson) vs. Shawn Michaels (w/ Sid and accompanied by Jenny McCartney)
With his planned escort having apparently vacated the Hartford Civic Centre, Shawn Michaels went with Plan B, making his way to the ring arm-in-arm with Jenny McCartney as Sid followed close behind.When the champion was announced, it turned out that he had found Pamela Anderson, and brought her to the ring with him.
Before Diesel's music had even finished playing, he threw HBK out of the ring, then brought Pam back between the ropes for a bit of pre-match posing.
The bell rang, the match was on, and oh, was it ever on.
In what would prove to be Nash's only Wrestlemania title match, and the first of several for his buddy HBK, the two former tag team champions went at it in an absolute fantastic twenty minute barnstormer.
Things started pretty slowly, with the champion tossing his smaller adversary around the ring and back over the ropes, where Shawn almost flattened one of the many ringside photographers before dragging him out of the way, presumably for the snapper's own safety.
Heading back to the ring, HBK took control, but not for long.
Both men went back and forth several times, dragging the crowd along for one hell of a ride that was halted only occasionally by big Sid jumping up on the apron to distract Big Daddy Cool.
As the match went on, more photographers took a mauling at the hands of HBK, but again, whenever he did, it was pretty obvious he was trying to move the guy out of the way before he got seriously hurt.
After one of the best matches we'd see from the WWF all year (which isn't really saying much), the challenger delivered a superkick to the champion, and looked to have the match won, only to find that his own bodyguard had injured referee Earl Hebner outside the ring.
By the time Hebner got back to the ring, Diesel was able to kick out of Michaels' pin attempt and regain the advantage, taking him down with some heavy impact moves before hitting the Jackknife Powerbomb.
A three count later, and Kevin Nash was the first man since Hulk Hogan at 1987's Wrestlemania III to walk into Wrestlemania as champion, and walk out the same way.
Your winner and still WWF Champion: Big Daddy Cool Diesel
Michaels was carried to the back by Sid, who told Jim Ross that Diesel had not seen the last of the Heartbreak Kid. Meanwhile, Diesel invited all the celebs into the ring for some post-match celebrations.
Backstage, Todd Pettengill caught up with an irate Shawn Michaels and Sid.
Sid, for his part, kind of ranted and raved a lot and again promised that his man would get his day in the WWF soon.
Finally, it was on to our main event.
We first got the introductions of the Million Dollar Corporation and the All Pro Team, the latter of whom took over the ring and saw off a potential attack from the heels.
WWF vs. NFL
Bam Bam Bigelow (w/ The Million Dollar Corporation) vs. Lawrence Taylor (with the All Pro Team)
Yeah.
LT then made his way out to the ring with the same dude who so hilariously yelled out 'HE'S CRAZY THAT GUY!' back at the Royal Rumble. All the while, the girls from Salt-N-Peppa kind of just danced around, and at this point, I'm not even sure why they were there.
Let's be honest, this was not a technical wrestling classic, but then it was never supposed to be. As pure spectacle though, it was nothing short of thoroughly entertaining.
With Pat Patterson officiating, Taylor kept most of his offence to nothing more complex than a series of shoulder barges and flying forearms. Nor was he afraid to absorb a fair amount of punishment from The Beast from The East, most of which he sold believably.
Add in a few outside skirmishes between the Million Dollar Corporation and Taylor's All Pro Team, and what we had here was a fun main event.
He tried again, this time with a flying headbutt, only for Taylor to kick out and mount a comeback with more fists and flying forearms, including one from the second rope that earned him the three count.
Your Winner: Lawrence Taylor
As Taylor's men (and his son), got the victor back to his feet, Ted Dibiase derided Bam Bam Bigelow all the way to the lockroom, calling him an embarrassment and a disappointment.
And with that, ladies and gentlemen, my copy of WWF Wrestlemania 11 came to an end.
So, was this one of the best or worst Wrestlemania's of all time? It was hardly either. Though certainly not a show I'd recommend you run out and watch right this moment, it nonetheless had its moments, including the WWF Championship match, our football vs. wrestling main event, and that funny bit with Bob Backlund. I don't think the idea of an NFL star going over a pro wrestler was all that bad either, at least not the way it was executed here. Taylor took a good whupin' from Bigelow, and only narrowly emerged with his hand raised.
One thing that does puzzle me, is that I clearly remember watching this show when it took place, and recall Salt-N-Peppa singing 'What a Man' as LT's theme music. I'm assuming that since that isn't on this WWE edited version that I have, it was a separate segment that they cut out altogether, or they simple couldn't get a license to use it beyond the big event.
- WWF Royal Rumble 1995
- WWF In Your House 1
- WWF King of the Ring 1995
- WWf In Your House 2: The Lumberjacks
- WWF Summerslam 1995
- IWA King of Death Match Tournament
- WWF In Your House 3: Triple Header
- WWF In Your House 4: Great White North
- WWF Survivor Series 1995
- WWF IN Your House 5: Seasons Beatings
- Hulk Hogan and The Wrestling Boot Band Album Review