wrestling / Video Reviews
Jack Likes Wrestlemania: Wrestlemania XIV
Loading...WRESTLEMANIA XIV
We’re live from Boston, Massachusetts for the 14th Wrestlemania, and perhaps the first of the Attitude Era. Although, it doesn’t quite feel like we’re there yet, there’s too many faces from the New Generation lingering on the undercard. Still, the roars of the crowd sound decidedly less pre-pubescent than they used to. Change is definitely in the air. Even down to the announce team, as Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler call their first Wrestlemania as a duo!
MATCH 1- 15 TEAM BATTLE ROYAL FOR THE NUMBER #1 CONTENDERSHIP TO THE WWF TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS
The Legion of Doom are surprise entrants into this match! They aren’t your daddy’s Legion of Doom either- they’re Legion of Doom 2000, with new tights, Sunny as manager, and shoulder pads that are quite frankly excessive. This retooling is based on an errant prediction from Vince Russo, who believed that by the year 2000 even the lowliest pauper would have Sunny as their manager and wear shoulder pads bigger than their house. Typical Russo!
The ring is rather crowded at the start, and looking back over a list of the entrants now I don’t remember half of them being in it. The likes of the Quebecers, Brian Christopher and Scott Taylor in their pre Too Cool years, and the delightfully random pairing of Flash Funk and Steve Blackman are among the early departures. Eventually the match boils down to the wildly popular Legion of Doom and the mildly unpopular New Midnight Express, Bob Holly and Bart Gunn. The Midnights have the advantage after the Godwinns attack the Legion with slop buckets, and Cornette’s charges throw Animal through the middle ropes, allowing them to isolate Hawk for a short while. Animal soon returns to powerslam Bart though, and the Warriors clothesline both their foes over the top rope simultaneously to take the title shot! **. This was largely unremarkable, although the sheer amount of bodies in the ring meant you were rarely far from an elimination taking place, so the match had some nice forward momentum to it.
We see a recap of all the Wrestlemania festivities! A recap of the Wrestlemania festivities! DX and Mike Tyson held a public workout in the Government Center, in which they tied Steve Austin up and kissed him on his bald head. Austin got over that humiliation just enough to be cordial on Regis and Kathy Lee the next day. A child was permitted to interview Flash Funk. And a V.I.P dinner was held!
MATCH 2- WWF LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP- TAKA MICHINOKU VS. MR. AGUILA
There are some moves in this one that still look pretty impressive by modern standards. Aguila, the future Essa Rios, gives us the first highlight of the match with a wild moonsault onto the champ on the floor. TAKA tries to top him with a springboard plancha! Aguila goes even further with a corkscrew version! He wins that mini battle at least. Back in the ring, Michinoku misses a moonsault, and Aguila shows him how it’s done for a two count. Aguila returns to the top rope but gets caught in mid air by a dropkick from TAKA! That leaves him primed for the Michinoku Driver to conclude things. ** ¼. Just a collection of spots, and even at just under six minutes in length it dragged a little bit, but some of the dives were properly exciting and impressive. What didn’t help matters was Jerry Lawler needlessly mocking the competitors on commentary, having been stung by his son Brian Christopher’s failure to capture the Light Heavyweight Championship. It doesn’t reflect well on the wrestlers or their style if one of the announcers keeps talking about how useless all the high flying moves are, even if said announcer is meant to be a bad guy.
Gennifer Flowers, famed fornicator with Bill Clinton, conducts an interview with the Rock in which she asks how he would run the country if he were President. Through the medium of innuendo, Rocky brags about his impressive cock and warns that the White House staff would have to suck him off. A natural successor to Clinton!
MATCH 3- WWF EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP- TRIPLE H VS. OWEN HART
WWF Commissioner Sgt. Slaughter has handcuffed himself to Triple H’s gal pal Chyna at ringside to ensure she can’t interfere in the match. Let’s see how that works out for him!
Owen comes into the match with an injured ankle, and Triple H goes after it in a not particularly interesting way, he’s all lifeless strikes and stepover toe holds. Hart seems occasionally pained by this targeted assault, but then he also can rattle off enzuiguris and missile dropkicks with minimal fuss. HHH goes for the Pedigree, but Hart sweeps his legs away and tries for the Sharpshooter. Hunter counters by kicking him off into the turnbuckles, but the impact sends Hart flopping head first into the champion’s nether regions! Owen cinches in the Sharpshooter and seems to have the match won, but Chyna has a trick up her sleeve. Powder in the face takes Sgt. Slaughter out of commission, and allows her to help Hunter’s hand to the bottom rope. HHH uses his newly won freedom to distract the referee while Chyna hits a low blow on Owen! The King of Harts buckles into perfect position for a Pedigree, and it hits to ensure at least one championship is staying with D-X. ** ½. A large portion of the match was essentially wasted, as Hunter’s boring ankle work was largely shrugged off by Owen. The finishing sequence was really exciting though. What happened to Owen post Montreal remains incredibly depressing, a white hot feud with Shawn Michaels seems so blindingly obvious, it’s baffling that it never happened. Four months on and he was being humiliated by DX in the undercard like Bret was humiliated by Shawn in the main event. Bleh. On the plus side, Sgt. Slaughter always gave really good performances as the put upon commissioner trying desperately to remain dignified in the face of DX’s bullying, and I felt properly sorry for him when Chyna threw the powder in his eyes. He was like the most inept schoolteacher with the most unruly students.
MATCH 4- MARC MERO & SABLE VS. GOLDUST & LUNA
It’s the Randy Savage/Elizabeth storyline gone utterly demented! Sable had been escorting Marc Mero to the ring for most of his WWF career, but Mero would eventually grow jealous that his beautiful valet was getting more attention than him. He started to bully her, and mocked her by having Goldust, who was going through an especially strange stage in his life, dress up as her in a blond wig and revealing clothing. Compounding Sable’s problems was Luna Vachon, who loathed her for reasons you can probably guess since it was a women’s feud in the WWF. In the end, Sable decided she had to stand up for herself and started getting in fights and stuff. Goldust and Luna became pals because they could chat about how odd they were, and Mero decided that while he was still furious at Sable, he didn’t want anyone getting their hands on her. And that’s where we are!
Luna is not keen on getting into the ring with her female counterpart at the start. It probably doesn’t make her feel much better that the crowd are absolutely electric for Sable and almost everything she does gets an almighty response. This is particularly noticeable when she throws Luna around by her hair and clotheslines her over the top rope! Goldust and Mero do the heavy lifting though, and put together some entertaining sequences.The Wildman tries for his TKO, but Goldust counters it into a DDT. He heads to the top rope, but Mero crotches him and then spins him down to the mat with a huracanrana! Things go from bad to worse for the rule breakers when The Bizarre One accidentally crashes into his partner and knocks her to the floor! Marc follows up with a TKO, but Luna jumps on his back to prevent him from making the cover. Sable tries to do it herself, Luna tries to squash her from the top rope, but the fan favourite moves out the way and Vachon thuds into her own partner! Powerbomb from Sable to Luna! Glee from the crowd! TKO! Sable wins the match! ***. A wildly entertaining mixed tag match that stands head and shoulders above its Wrestlemania predecessors in Rhodes/Sapphire vs. Savage/Sherri and Doink/Dink vs. Bigelow/Luna. Sable was so ridiculously popular and her moments in the match were super exciting, despite moments of sloppiness. They were well timed as well, so they seemed to coincide with the natural peaks of a tag match. Goldust and Mero had to operate within the valleys, but they made those valleys lush with attractive greenery and a flowing river. An admirable effort.
MATCH 5- WWF INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP,- THE ROCK VS. KEN SHAMROCK
If The Rock gets disqualified, the Intercontinental Championship will change hands!
The Rock lands the People’s Elbow just a couple of minutes into the match, but it’s only good for a two count. Shamrock fights back and, his rage uncontrollable, seizes a steel chair! The referee tries to stop him from using it and gets knocked down for his troubles, but the distraction allows the Rock to nail Shamrock with it instead! The challenger shrugs it off quite quickly to hit a belly to belly suplex, and the Ankle Lock gets a sudden tap-out and a title change! * ½. Really short match with no drama or narrative to it at all. We soon find out why though, as Rock’s Nation of Domination stable mates pile into the ring and are promptly dispatched by suplexes from Shamrock., before he reapplies the Ankle Lock. Some officials try to stop his rampage, and they all eat suplexes as well. Because of these unprovoked attacks, the referee decides to overturn the decision and disqualify The World’s Most Dangerous Man! Unsurprisingly he finds that decision upsetting, and assaults The Rock while they try to stretcher him out.
MATCH 6- DUMPSTER MATCH FOR THE WWF TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS- THE NEW AGE OUTLAWS VS. CACTUS JACK & CHAINSAW CHARLIE
Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie, who is legitimate contender for best wrestler ever Terry Funk inexplicably wearing some tights on his head, had a match on Raw interrupted by the New Age Outlaws, who sealed them in a dumpster and pushed them off the stage! Now, Jack and Charlie go for the tag team championships, and if the Outlaws want to retain them, they’ll have to avoid being put in the trash themselves!
Jack displays the perils of a Dumpster match early by missing a dive off the apron and sailing right into the trash! The Outlaws are the first to have a real chance of winning the match, having thrown both Cactus and Chainsaw into the dreaded dumpster. Just as they’re about to close the lids however, Jack pops up and claws their mandibles! The brawl finds its way into the ring, as does a ladder. Foley and Gunn climb it, while Dogg bounces a cookie tray off the head of Charlie. He stumbles backwards into the ladder, knocks it over, and Cactus and Billy fly into the dumpster! A tremendously cool spot! Gunn recovers best and takes Jack backstage with Road Dogg. They throw him into some food and drink, but Foley makes a far greater impact by dishing out some chair shots! He deposits The Outlaws on a forklift pallet, and Funk returns to drive the vehicle over to another dumpster, then drops the champions in for the victory and the titles! ***. These Attitude hardcore matches are quirky as heck and I like them a great deal. They’re never absolute epics or anything but they’re such a breeze to watch. The dumpster match is much better than its cousin the casket match as well- they’re both frustratingly static objects that you can’t really incorporate into the match properly, but it’s infinitely more satisfying to see bodies plunge into a dumpster than get locked in a casket. Some of the spots were unnecessarily dangerous for what’s essentially a comedy bout, but this was still heaps of fun.
MATCH 7- THE UNDERTAKER VS. KANE
The Undertaker and Paul Bearer had could be described as “a bit of a falling out,” and Bearer decided to get revenge on his former pal by bringing his deformed, masked hell brother out of an insane asylum and getting him to wage war on the Deadman, and indeed the entire WWF. There were many other twists and turns but each was more inexplicable than the last, so the match is much easier to comprehend if we just stick with that as a backstory. Pete Rose serves as special guest ring announcer but his ulterior motive is to mock Boston for their poor baseball skills in one of the best, most accomplished celebrity cameos in Wrestlemania history. Kane endears himself somewhat to the crowd by shutting him up with a Tombstone Piledriver!
There are two spots in this match that are legitimately jawdropping. The first sees Undertaker leap onto Kane’s shoulders out of nowhere and take him down with a headscissors of sorts. It really takes you by surprise, and it’s pretty amazing to see one near seven foot man on the shoulders of another near seven foot man. The second crazy moment is an Undertaker plancha, which Kane dodges by the tiniest of margins to send his big brother smashing through the Spanish announce table. The dive itself looks amazing, but it also circumvents a problem with these kind of spots, which often see one man loitering round like a numbskull on the floor just waiting for the other guy to leap onto him. Here, though, it really feels like Kane avoided getting cleaned out by a mere hair, and it makes the moment so memorable and exciting. The rest of the match can’t live up to its undisputed highlights, and a lengthy chinlock Kane prevents it from building much momentum. Having said that, the finishing stretch is rather rad. Taker looks to finish with a Tombstone, but Kane counters into a Tombstone of his own! It’s only enough for two though. The Phenom roars back with a meaty clothesline, and then lands a chokeslam for two. Tombstone connects this time! One, two, but not three because Kane just zombies right back up! Undertaker decides to try again, but it’s the same result- Tombstone, two count, Kane shrugging it off! A flying clothesline dazes the Big Red Monster, and a third Tombstone just, just gets the three, Kane kicking out a millisecond afterwards! ***. On the plus side, this was an awesome spectacle. On the minus side, it was quite dull in places. On the extenuating circumstances side, these guys are fucking goliaths, so you can’t expect a mile a minute pace. Back to the plus side, what you remember after the match are the really good bits- Taker’s freakish athleticism, and the compelling finishing stretch with Kane summoning his older brother’s remarkable powers of endurance, and barely losing even when he does. On the whole, while it’s wildly inconsistent as a match, I think it was as good as the Taker-Diesel match from Wrestlemania XII.
We get one of the ‘Attitude’ video spots that were way too serious and brilliant for the era they were supposed to represent. “I know what you’re thinking… I’m not a real athlete… I’m just a wrestler.” No! I’m not thinking that, Steve Austin, The Undertaker and Ken Shamrock respectively! Not after this startlingly powerful video package, at least.
MATCH 8- WWF CHAMPIONSHIP- SHAWN MICHAELS VS. STEVE AUSTIN
There are four pretty significant things going on in this match. The first is that both of the participants’ characters are total dickheads and I think this is the first Wrestlemania main event where that’s the case. I mean, you can argue Hulk Hogan, with his planet sized ego and instant distrust of all foreigners, wasn’t the nicest man either, but he was clearly intended to be a hero and nearly everyone considered him one. Wrestlemania 13’s main event featured Sycho Sid, who was, uh, psychotic, and the Undertaker, a creature of the undead who was developing a taste for beating the shit out of referees whenever they gave a decision against him. Yet ‘Taker still had a clear sense of right and wrong, as we saw later in the year with his refusal to fight his brother Kane, and in comparison to the likes of Michaels, Hart or Austin, he wasn’t particularly obnoxious or needlessly aggressive, unless you were wearing the zebra stripes. Austin and Michaels though, were proper, unreconstructed pricks. Shawn was a gleeful degenerate, Austin was instinctively violent and didn’t like anyone. You wouldn’t want your daughter dating either of them- HBK would probably perform an obscene act with her right in your face, and Austin would probably beat the heck out of her, in 2002, if her name was Debra. Obviously no one was bothered by this though- Austin would be the biggest megastar since Hogan, while Michaels and his DX cronies became a romanticised, beloved stable. This is one of the clearest signs yet that the Attitude Era is dawning- callous faces and cool heels, 50 shades of grey at the very least.
The second significant thing is that this match is a big brawl. Mat classics had been rare in the Wrestlemania main event anyway, but this match is the first headliner to spill so far away from the ring they end up on the stage area. Or, to be more accurate, the stage area within the stage area, as Michaels and Austin fight to where the DX Band had played the champion down to the ring live, and Shawn crashes some cymbals into his foe. It’s not a particularly lengthy diversion, but it still counts as the first time it happened, and Austin and Rock would build on it next year for a more substantial brawl well away from the ring. It’s fun watching these Wrestlemanias chronologically to see the Attitude Era staples slowly emerging across two or three shows.
The third significant thing is that this is a heck of a match. As we’ve just gone over, it’s a huge brawl, and not just in the sense that they fight on the stage for a bit, there’s minimal technical wrestling to be found in the ring as well. It’s well documented that this is because Steve Austin is coming off a broken neck and Shawn Michaels’ back is in absolute agony, but it can’t be mentioned enough what a phenomenal achievement this bout is considering their respective physical states. Michaels in particular looks in absolute agony for most of the bout, whether he’s flipping spine first into the turnbuckles at great velocity in one of the most astonishingly unnecessary things I’ve ever seen, or delivering some punches, or just walking across the ring. If this match had been mildly better than a late eighties Andre the Giant match, we could have had no complaints, but instead the pace is great and there’s plenty of exciting moves. Austin gets backdropped into the crowd and clocked with the ring bell, before his knee is bashed into the post three times. Michaels works over the injured body part in the ring with some intense offense, culminating in a Figure Four Leglock! Austin fights his way to the ropes to force a break, before giving himself a lifeline by desperately catapulting the champ into the ringpost! Shawn tries to regain control with a sleeper, but Steve staggers back into the corner and the referee gets squashed unconscious. Michaels bowls over Austin with a flying forearm then kips right back up! He goes to the top rope, and lands his signature flying elbow for just two! It’s time to tune up the band, he decides, but Austin ducks. Stunner- no! Michaels counters by shoving him into the ropes. He attempts to follow up with a kick to the gut, but Stone Cold catches his leg, spins him around, and there’s the Stone Cold Stunner! Mike Tyson slides into the ring and stabs his DX brethren in the back by counting the three! Annoyingly quickly actually, it would have felt much more satisfying if he’d just done so at a normal pace.
The fourth significant thing is that early in the match Shawn Michaels gets his arse out. Actually, no, wait, the fourth significant thing is that Steve Austin has won his first WWF Championship and turns the company into an creative, financial, and cultural juggernaut nigh on unprecedented in professional wrestling. And he’s done it in a great match, and Shawn has bowed out for four years (two if you count his bout in 2000 for his own ‘Texas Wrestling Alliance) with a performance so gutsy and commendable that it almost masks the bad taste of his general unpleasantness for much of the nineties. **** ¼.
