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Jack Likes WrestleMania But Has His Concerns About The Cult Of Celebrity: Wrestlemania XI

March 8, 2015 | Posted by Jack Stevenson
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Jack Likes WrestleMania But Has His Concerns About The Cult Of Celebrity: Wrestlemania XI  

WRESTLEMANIA 11

Despite it being WWE’s home state, this is the only Wrestlemania to have been held in Connecticut. The opening video package focuses entirely on the celebrities that have appeared at Wrestlemania over the past decade, which is ominous. Like, there is no mention of professional wrestling at all. Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler handle commentary duties, while Jim Ross lingers on the entrance ramp getting interviews.

MATCH 1- THE ALLIED POWERS VS. THE BLU BROTHERS

A sharp fall from grace from Lex Luger, who was competing for the WWF Championship at last year’s event. The Blu Brothers carved out a respectable career out of being every single midcard tag team in the whole of the Nineties- The Blu Brothers, D.O.A, The Harris Twins! They’re managed by Uncle Zebekiah, sinister Southerner who now goes by the name Zeb Colter!

Everyone brawls from the get go, which leads to the Blus getting whipped right into each other. The Powers compete to see who has the best powerslam and clothesline. The result is inconclusive, but Bulldog definitely has a nice vertical suplex, which he hits on Jacob. The match settles down with Bulldog playing the fan favourite in peril. He inevitably makes the tag to Lex though, who clobbers Eli with his trademark forearm! Zebekiah distracts Luger, allowing the Blu Twins to pull the ol’ switcheroo. Jacob tries to piledrive Luger, but does so in the Allied Powers’ corner, and that poor piece of positioning allows The Bulldog to fly in with a sunset flip and get the win! *. Bad, boring power match, although Bulldog did his best to inject some life into it.

MATCH 2- WWF INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP- JEFF JARRETT VS. RAZOR RAMON

The 1-2-3 Kid is in Razor Ramon’s corner, The Roadie accompanies Jeff Jarrett.

The Bad Guy hammers the champion across the ring with punches, and clotheslines him right over the top rope. Jarrett seems reluctant to return to the match until he suddenly Sunset Flips into the ring. Ramon blocks it though! The Roadie hops onto the apron to take a shot at Razor, but Double J ends up crashing into him! Ramon attempts the Edge, but Roadie pulls Jeff to safety. The champion decides to try and take the count-out, but the Kid blocks his exit and forces him back into the ring. Again the Roadie jumps onto the ring apron to cause trouble, but Ramon is able to take care of both him and Jarrett! Ultimately, Double J is able to calm things down with chinlocks and a sleeper. The challenger eventually powers out with a backdrop suplex that leaves both men down. They get up, collide, and fall down again. Up they come again, they punch each other in the face, and down they go for a third time! With The 1-2-3 Kid playing cheerleader, the Razor recovers first, and capitalises with a Fallaway Slam. The Kid tries to get involved, but it backfires so much that Jarrett can cinch in a Figure-Four! Razor toughs it out though. They head to the top rope, where the Bad Guy lands a back superplex! He follows up with the Razor’s Edge, but the Roadie hits the ring and saves the title with a DQ. *** ¼. Good, solid match. I enjoyed all the chaos at ringside, and it helped the DQ finish feel vaguely appropriate and not a complete anti-climax. There was some good wrestling when it came down to just Razor and Jarrett as well, although by the end it felt like it had dragged on a little too long. I doubt we’ll get much better on this show.

MATCH 3- THE UNDERTAKER VS. KING KONG BUNDY

King Kong Bundy and his manager Ted DiBiase stole the Undertaker’s urn, and ‘Taker wants it back!

The Deadman hammers away on Bundy to start, and is able to take him off his feet after three clotheslines. Bundy comes back with a clothesline of his own that sends ‘Taker over the top rope, but he lands on his feet because he’s mega cool, and just rips the urn away from DiBiase. He hands it to Bearer and returns to the match, at which point Ted calls in the cavalry. Kama, the Supreme Fighting Machine, comes down to ringside and steals the urn back from Bearer, then flees up the entrance ramp proclaiming he’s going to melt it down and turn it into a gold chain. Rude. Meanwhile, Undertaker blocks a Bundy avalanche, and finishes with a flying clothesline! *. There wasn’t much to the in ring action, but the mini crime wave occurring at ringside livened things up a bit.

MATCH 4- WWF TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS- THE SMOKING GUNNS VS. OWEN HART & YOKOZUNA

Yokozuna was Owen Hart’s choice as a mystery partner, and an impressive one at that. The Smoking Gunns seem concerned.

Yoko gets off to a promising start with a big slam on Bart, but misses an elbow drop. Bart seems capable of keeping up with Owen on the mat as well, and the Gunns have success with double teams, hitting Hart with a double leg sweep and a back suplex/neckbreaker combination. The Sidewinder gets them a two count. Hart brings in Yoko, and he gets instant results with a leg drop to Billy. He controls until Owen accidentally hits him with a missile dropkick! Billy runs into a Belly to Belly by Yoko though, and the Banzai Drop wins the titles, with Owen stealing the pinfall! ** ½. Fun little five minute tag match, although nothing you haven’t seen on Raw a million times.

MATCH 5- I QUIT MATCH- BRET HART VS. BOB BACKLUND

Roddy Piper officiates a Bret Hart match at Wrestlemania for the second consecutive year! His main purpose is to rasp “WHADDYA SAY” in a most annoying fashion whenever either competitor is in the slightest bit of trouble. Jerry Lawler informs us on commentary that he’s not prejudiced, he just hates everyone! So next time you hear some tedious fucker say that and think they’re all edgy and witty, remind them Lawler was using it as part of his repertoire of groansome one liners, 20 years ago. Bob Backlund’s night got off to a bad start earlier in the show when he lost to Jonathan Taylor Thomas in a game of chess. Does this also mean he will lose to Bret Hart in a game of ‘an I Quit Match?’

Backlund has himself a fine line in “ageing and deranged.” It doesn’t help him in the face of a Bret Hart onslaught though, as he gets bashed around with hard strikes and locked in a choke hold. Backlund refuses to quit though! Hitman wants the Sharpshooter but struggles to get it, so settles for a figure four leg lock. Backlund gets free by kicking Hart in the head, and then clamps on a variety of arm submissions. Hitman is disinterested in quitting- he hasn’t even hit any of his favourite moves yet! He eventually gets the opportunity to do so and takes full advantage of it, delivering a backbreaker and a flying elbow from the second rope. He locks in the Sharpshooter, but Backlund makes the ropes. Hart charges at him but ends up crashing into the ring post, and Backlund capitalises with his signature Crossface Chicken Wing. Bret switches it into one of his own though, and Bob gasps “YEAHHHHHH!” when asked if he wants to quit, which will have to do. ** ½. It was admirably different to the rest of the card, and certainly very technically proficient, but it never really built to anything and had too many problems with the rules, from Piper’s incessant questioning of the wrestlers to Backlund forgetting the safe words.

MATCH 6- WWF CHAMPIONSHIP- DIESEL VS. SHAWN MICHAELS

Diesel used to be Shawn’s bodyguard, but the power relationship has inverted, with Michaels now challenging Diesel for the WWF Championship! Shawn’s new pal Sid has his back at ringside.. There are probably some interesting comparisons to be made between Diesel and Roman Reigns- handsome, powerful wrestlers with rich black hair and well groomed beards, not incompetent in the rings, anointed as standard bearers for WWE by Vince McMahon himself… yet with wildly unsuccessful title reigns that are regarded as historical punchlines? We’ll see. We’ll see. Celebrities a-plenty at ringside, and maybe it’s because I wasn’t an American in the nineties, but I barely know any of them. Child star Jonathan Taylor-Thomas takes care of timekeeping while the awkward Nicholas Turturro, which is from a police drama, handles ring announcing. Shawn Michaels was meant to be accompanied to the ring by Pamela Anderson, but Diesel has snared her away! He has to settle for Jenny McCarthy instead. The over emphasis on celebrities is really killing this show, it’s almost as if it’s dying from an easily preventable disease, like measles.

Shawn tries to go on the attack before the bell, but the champion easily dispatches him to the floor and celebrates this minor victory with pyrotechnics and Pamela Anderson. Diesel forearms Michaels to begin the actual match and Shawn flops around like he’d just been electrocuted. He’s then send flying out the ring and crashes into a camera man, which was kind of inevitable considering that there are a veritable fuckton of people snapping photos at ringside. Sid attempts to help out with a distraction, but Big Daddy Cool ain’t falling for it, and punches Michaels when he tries a sneak attack. A big boot sends HBK back to the outside. Eventually Michaels is able to gain some traction with his agility, sailing onto Diesel with a crossbody out to the floor and then following it up with a baseball slide. Another one doesn’t work out, but it doesn’t matter too much as Diesel misses an elbow and smacks the ring post, allowing Shawn to stay in command. Back in the ring, a top rope bulldog continues the success of the strategy. A flying elbow out the corner gets two, as does another one concentrated on the back. He tries a DDT a couple of times but the champ keeps powers out of it, so Shawn decides he can’t keep up all this pinballing and locks in a sleeper. However, that just serves to tee up Diesel’s comeback, knock down the referee, and trigger a brawl on the floor. This comes back to haunt Shawn as he cracks the champion with Sweet Chin Music in the ring, but the official is too woozy to count. Sid tries to help out by removing his turnbuckle pad, but Diesel back suplexes him into the exposed steel! That leaves both men down. Surprisingly, Shawn recovers first, but gets caught in mid air and dumped with a side slam! Diesel then slingshots him into the exposed turnbuckle (well, it doesn’t quite work out and he only hits the second turnbuckle, but they were shooting for the exposed one at least) and the Jacknife polishes off proceedings. *** ½. Very good, dramatic championship bout, although it’s always better when Goliath is the heel, not David. It’s just kind of vaguely dissatisfying when the undersized underdog is also meant to be sneaky and unpleasant. Still, the pace was excellent, there was a lot of action ,and it was cool to see former Michaels bodyguard Diesel not falling for his replacement Sid’s tricks, having done them himself once upon a time.

MATCH 7- LAWRENCE TAYLOR VS. BAM BAM BIGELOW

It’s the Wrestlemania II Battle Royal gone mad. Jerry Lawler sums up the issues with this match conceptually when discussing the storyline of Diesel training Lawrence Taylor: “Come on McMahon, you don’t expect Diesel to have taught Lawrence Taylor what it’s taken Bam Bam Bigelow an entire career to learn, do ya?” Apparently, we should expect that, and we should be delighted by it. Lawrence Taylor is flanked by a parade of famous footballers, including future WCW wrestler and commentator Steve McMichael. Bam Bam Bigelow has the Million Dollar Corporation his corner, surely a contender for worst stable in history. Ageing Nikolai Volkoff! Ageing King Kong Bundy! Kama! Bad guy Tatanka! Irwin R. Schyster! Yikes! Pat Patterson is special guest referee, there to make sure the inexperienced Taylor kept it together, mirroring the role he played in the first Wrestlemania main event with Mr. T.

Taylor gets off to a fiery start with some forearms and clotheslines Bigelow out to the floor! Those forearms would turn out to be his bread and butter throughout the match. Bam Bam returns to a bulldog, which gets a two count. The rule breaker flees back to the floor, triggering a big argument between the footballers and the Corporation. In the ring, Bigelow inevitably takes control, but misses a big headbutt. It doesn’t change the course of the match much though. Bam Bam locks in a Boston Crab, and transitions into a leg lock. Taylor resists the pain and makes the ropes, then roars back with a back suplex! Bigelow makes it back to his feet first though and keeps Lawrence down long enough to hit a spectacular rolling moonsault! He can’t cover immediately though as he tweaks his knee on impact, and when he does make the pin it only gets two. Lawrence tries for a powerbomb and… kind of hits it, but unsurprisingly it doesn’t keep Bigelow down for long. A diving headbutt from the top rope only gets two! In trouble, Lawrence throws some more forearms, and a flying version… gets the three count! *** ½. So, yeah, the booking is deeply frustrating and an example of wrestling’s crippling inferiority complex; there’s no way all these footballers deserved this much respect. Having said that, as a match this was an utter miracle, and Taylor deserves a whole ton of credit for his part in it. Bam Bam dictated the match of course, but it takes more than a thimbleful of natural talent to seem a compelling, hard hitting threat on mere forearms alone. Bigelow sacrificed himself admirably and it’s heartening that he got a Wrestlemania main event out of this. The *** ½ rating isn’t just by celebrity standards, this was a legitimately exciting battle of power. Deeply impressive.

5.0
The final score: review Not So Good
The 411
There are some good matches on this show, and the Lawrence Taylor-Bam Bam Bigelow match is historic and remarkable, really really worth seeing. The problem with Wrestlemania XI is that it feels like it isn't aimed at wrestling fans, instead trying to charm a broader market with celebrities. This is weird, because aside from the footballers, those celebrities only appeared in a few scattered backstage vignettes of no real consequence, and at ringside performing insignificant tasks in the Diesel-Michaels match. I don't see how any great fans of Pamela Anderson would tolerate a middling three hour wrestling show just to see her walk down an aisle and sit at ringside. Of course, Taylor and his All Star footballers were much better woven into the show, but even then, the next wrestling boom came as a result of Steve Austin and a consistently exciting TV product, not as a result of legions of football fans sticking with the WWF long after Wrestlemania had gone off air. Taylor-Bigelow did attract a larger buyrate than the Ironman match did next year though, so maybe there was a method to Vince McMahon's madness. Still, what with all this now irrelevant celebrities and Vince's references to commentary to fans "tuning in for the first time," it really doesn't feel like a show that is meant to be enjoyed by the kind of fan who subscribes to the WWE Network. It's a show that's worth seeing the once (although you could say that about literally every Wrestlemania), but with no in ring classics and the frustrating atmosphere, it wouldn't make for especially fun repeat viewing.
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WrestleMania 11, Jack Stevenson