wrestling / Video Reviews
Jack Likes WrestleMania When They Have Two Of The Greatest Wrestling Matches Ever On Them: WrestleMania X
Loading...WWF WRESTLEMANIA X
We’re back in Madison Square Garden for Wrestlemania 10th Anniversary (well, 9th really, but it does feel more right to celebrate the 10th Wrestlemania than the 11th), and how the production has changed since Wrestlemania I was broadcast from here! It’s so much brighter and nicer! Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler are on commentary in a radical departure from the Monsoon/Ventura/Heenan combinations of recent years, and Little Richard handles the opening sing-song with a gospel choir.
MATCH 1- BRET HART VS. OWEN HART
Owen is frustrated by Bret outwrestling him in the opening sequence, and shows it by slapping his big brother right across the face! Bret is keen to keep things dignified and mat based as long as possible, locking on an arm bar at every opportunity, while Owen wants a more fiery affair. Some of the best execution of holds you’ll ever see are on display in this match. Owen’s spinning wheel kick is legit sublime, as are his suplexes, both belly to belly and German. Mind you, Bret’s enzuiguri from later in the match isn’t too shabby either. They both try and apply Sharpshooters, but their knowledge of how to escape the hold outstrips their ability to lock it in. Owen goes for a roll up instead, but Bret kicks out so hard he sends his brother tumbling to the floor! He tries to follow with a plancha, but in hitting the move he tweaks his knee, and the match takes a big change in direction, as Owen lasers in on the injury! He hacks away at it with kicks, wraps it round the ring post, and clamps on a debilitating figure four that Bret can only just counter. Hart rallies, and his strategy for selling the affliction is quite interesting in that he essentially just does his normal stuff, but always make sure to display how much executing these moves is wearing on his knee. It makes sense though, it seems perfectly reasonable that Hitman would rather suffer through the pain then readjust his entire game plan. Anyway, he hits a leg drop for a two count, a bulldog for a two count, a piledriver for a two count, a big superplex for a two count! A sneaky low blow from Owen derails his momentum though, and it’s he that gets the first successful Sharpshooter application of the match! Bret speedily switches into his own Sharpshooter, but Owen makes the ropes. Bret tries a Victory Roll, but Owen puts the brakes on mid move, and turns it into a pinning combination of his own for a huuuuuuuge upset win! *****. As close to perfect as any match will ever get. I don’t have Bret’s book to hand, but I’m pretty sure I remember him saying he and Owen planned this match out in advance in the Dungeon? I can’t remember whether that was the story, or whether it was that they did plan it out in the Dungeon but were dissatisfied with it so they scrapped it. If it’s the former, then this and Savage-Steamboat make a pretty compelling argument for wrestling being better as a tightly scripted form of entertainment, rather than an improvisational one, in the same way that stand-up tends to be better than improv comedy. If it’s the latter, well, forget I said that. I think it’s interesting how Bret sometimes refers to matches as “beautiful,” which isn’t a word many other wrestlers use to describe their bouts. Bret’s style is beautiful though. He’s a real aesthete when it comes to executing moves, and so much of what was on display here were just so graceful and fluid, it was completely dazzling. Of course, as well as that you’ve got two great stories, with Owen desperate to upstage his overbearing big brother and being utterly ruthless in his attempts to do so, remorselessly targeting the knee. A tremendous finish as well, fluky enough that it didn’t harm Bret, decisive enough to give Owen genuine reason for pride, and totally stunning everyone in attendance! This is definitely among the greatest achievements in professional wrestling history.
MATCH 2- MIXED TAG MATCH- DOINK THE CLOWN & DINK THE CLOWN VS. BAM BAM BIGELOW & LUNA VACHON
Bigelow and Vachon try to control the match with their power and aggression, while Doink and Dink’s objective is to embarrass their foes at every opportunity. This is personified when Dink smacks Luna on the bottom, so she just kicks him as hard as she can. She then chokes him on the ropes and tries to jump into him, but Dink dodges. Bam Bam Bigelow tries to get at him, but Dink’s too quick. In between all the zaniness, Bigelow and Doink fit in a few OK sequences. The clown drops the, uh, fire skull human with a DDT, but misses his Whoopie Cushion senton. He tries something different with a suplex, but Bigelow’s too heavy and squashes him, paving the way for him to finish with the Flying Headbutt. ½ *. Outdated slapstick that largely existed to mock women and little people.
MATCH 3- FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE- RANDY SAVAGE VS. CRUSH
It’s a Falls Count Anywhere match, but not as we know it- you pin your opponent outside the ring, and then they have 60 seconds to make it back to the squared circle.
Savage attacks Crush as he makes his entrance, but doesn’t come off well from the resulting brawl. Crush Military Presses him into the guardrail and gets the first pinfall of the match very quickly. Savage makes it back into the ring with only two seconds to spare, his progressed hindered by Crush’s manager Fuji bashing him with a flag pole. Savage roars back and gets a pinfall of his own after landing the Flying Elbow inside the ring, then rolling his opponent to the outside. Crush seems out cold, so Fuji grumpily dumps some water on him to wake him up. Fuji’s barely concealed disdain for even his own clients is hilarious. He just seems to demand unreasonable amounts from them- “you WILL dominate one of the greatest wrestlers of all time in a Falls Count Anywhere match without ever being in any danger yourself!” You WILL defeat Bret Hart and Hulk Hogan for the WWF Championship one after the other even though there is literally no need for you to do that other than to satisfy my own hubris!” You WILL laugh at my famed backstage “ribs!” They brawl into the crowd, and Savage shoves Crush head first through two sets of double doors to get a pin. They’ve end up in some kind of weird room devoted to scaffolding, so Savage decides to give the scaffold some purpose by tying Crush to it! He can’t get free in 60 seconds, so Macho wins! Then heads over to Paramount Theatre, which was showing the event life, and celebrates with his adoring public! ** ¾. The nearly minute long breaks in the action should have killed the flow of this match dead, but they worked around the limitations pretty well and had a fun brawl. It probably helped that it was so short, with only three real set pieces. This could probably work well in a modern environment, given that fighting all over the arena is an established thing now.
MATCH 4- WWF WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP- ALUNDRA BLAYZE VS. LEILANI KAI
Leilani Kai becomes the only wrestler to compete on both the 1st and 10th Wrestlemania! Although she did miss the eight in between.
Blayze flies around with some sunset flips for some quick twos. Kai wisely opts to slow the pace down with some bodyslams and snapmares and a nice butterfly suplex, but she eventually charges straight into a spinning wheel kick! Blayze finishes with a Bridging German Suplex. * ½. The New Generation ‘Era’ is probably the closest WWE have ever come to getting women’s wrestling right. Alundra Blayze was really talented, and she had a good feud with Bull Nakano. They had quality matches that were distinct from what was being offered by the rest of the roster. Of course, the division had literally no depth, and we saw that to an extent here, although Blayze’s offense was sufficiently athletic and fun to ensure that this was still better than a lot of modern Divas’ matches.
MATCH 5- WWF TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP- THE QUEBECERS VS. MEN ON A MISSION
Men on a Mission control initially with their superior power, but fall victim to The Quebecers willingness to do some illegal choking! The rule-breaking champions have a fine line in moves that involving back dropping each other- Jacques flips Pierre into the air and onto ‘Mo,’ and then does the same again over the top rope! Neat! Pierre misses a big top rope legdrop, and that allows Mo to tag in Mabel. He trundles through his foes with ease until he gets caught with an impressive double suplex. Pierre lands a swanton, with Jacques helping to flip him over! Why does the Quebecers’ offense primarily consist of Jacques assaulting Pierre? The theme continues when Jacques accidentally elbow drops him after Mabel lands a splash, with Mo leaping on his partner for extra weight. The Quebecers continue to suffer a beating on the floor, and eventually decide to just take the count out loss, the third consecutive Wrestlemania in which the tag champions have attempted to do that, with varying success. ** ¾. Quite a fun, quirky tag match, with both sides contributing some interesting manoeuvres, and the bout not going so long as to expose their limitations.
MATCH 6- WWF CHAMPIONSHIP- YOKOZUNA VS. LEX LUGER
The two WWF Championship matches have special guest referees because they’re too important not to be handled by volatile amateurs. Mr. Perfect is placed in charge of this, one year after losing at Wrestlemania IX to Luger in controversial circumstances. Yokozuna is accompanied by Fuji and his “American spokesperson,” Jim Cornette.
This match peaks pretty much right at the start, with a decent brawl that spills to the outside. Luger bashes Yoko with a flying axe handle off the ring apron, then trundles him back in and flies off the ropes with a high crossbody for two. Yoko denies him a bodyslam though, and after he removes the turnbuckle pad for seemingly no reason, the match slumps. The champion locks in a nerve pinch, the most tedious, lazy submission hold of them all, and refuses to let go for so long it almost becomes an era. You have the Golden Era, the New Generation Era, the Yokozuna Nerve Pinch Era, The Attitude Era, Ruthless Aggression Era, and finally Reality Era. On and on and on it goes while a smattering of the crowd chant “boring!” Imagine how vocally a 2015 New York crowd would turn on this with Bret Hart waiting in the wings! Eventually Luger finds a way out of it, but saunters into a belly to back suplex. Remember that exposed turnbuckle? Yokozuna does! He tries to ram Luger into it, but the challenger blocks and sends Yoko in head first! It’s clothesline clothesline clothesline, and the big metallic forearm! This panics Cornette and Fuji, who pop up onto the ring apron. Luger hurls Cornette into the ring, and dishes out some punishment to Fuj’ to leave him laying in the squared circle. He then makes the pin, but Perfect excuses himself to remove the managers from the ring. It’s obvious he just doesn’t want to count though, so Lex gets in his face, puts his hands on him, and gets disqualified! 0. This was absolutely atrocious. The show ran so long that a ten man tag match had to be bumped, and the following bout went 30 seconds, so why so much time needed to be devoted to that fucking nerve hold is a mystery. It killed the bout completely. Outside of that the action was pretty moribund, certainly not good enough to redeem it in any way. The worst match in Mania history up to this point.
MATCH 7- EARTHQUAKE VS. ADAM BOMB
Adam Bomb and Harvey Whippleman bully Howard Finkel, so Earthquake comes out and pins him with the big splash in thirty seconds. N/R.
MATCH 8- LADDER MATCH FOR THE UNDISPUTED WWF INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP- RAZOR RAMON VS. SHAWN MICHAELS
Shawn Michaels was the Intercontinental Champion, but he was not down with defending the title much, so Jack Tunney stripped him of it, and Razor Ramon picked up the strap in a Battle Royal. Michaels, however, felt the belt was still rightfully his, and began brandishing his own version of the belt. So here we are, both titles hanging above the ring, to be won in a Ladder Match!
They run through a nice little wrestling sequence to start, which culminates in Razor Ramon hitting a chokeslam/Rock Bottom type thing. Shawn survives that to send Razor to the floor, where Michaels’ bodyguard Diesel contributes some punishment. The referee is not taking any nonsense tonight though, and sends him to the back! Razor grabs a ladder but takes too long sliding in into the ring. Commence ladder violence! Michaels baseball slides the ladder right into him, and in the ring he barges it into his front and back! He then tries to climb, but it’s too early for that, and Ramon punishes him for his impatience by yanking his tights down so his arse hangs out. Shawn recovers from this crippling blow by pulling the tights back up, and leaping off the top of the ladder into a dazzling sky of flashbulbs, crashing down with a splash to his foe! I think that is the exact moment when everyone realised the Ladder Match was there to stay. They continue to invent more and more crazy moments- Razor pushes the ladder over with Michaels on it to send him hurtling into the top rope, then slingshots Shawn into a ladder propped up in the corner to send object and man tumbling to the floor. Ramon quite reasonably thinks he has a good chance of winning, but Michaels flies in off the top rope to dislodge his climb! More brutality gnarls the ladder a bit, and Shawn bodysurfs it down from the corner on top of Ramon! He thinks that surely the match is his now, and climbs the ladder with The Bad Guy directly beneath it. This proves a bad move, as Razor wiggles the ladder and HBK freefalls into the ropes, getting all tangled up. He gets free just in the nick of time to see Ramon yank the belts out the air and tumble to the floor, with Shawn’s desperate, last gasp grasp into thin air proving utterly futile. *****. I think this is marginally the weaker of the two all time history making classics of the evening, which is a back-handed insult if such a thing exists. The effect this has had on WWE history is unparalleled- it created so many spots that are now almost a compulsory part of any Ladder match, it’s like watching a regular singles match that happened to invent the Irish whip and the near fall and the ten punches in the corner, all inside twenty minutes. In that respect it’s the most significant match of the nineties, but on repeat viewings it does suffer a bit from the fact that its key moments have since been borrowed and enhanced by other, more chaotic Ladder matches. Bret-Owen keeps its artistry all to itself, while Michaels-Ramon had to share it with others. Plus, it’s not as good, bell to bell, as their Summerslam 1995 rematch. Which is saying something, considering this is still essentially perfect! Everything is executed with aplomb. The ladder spots were all so smooth and satisfying, they timed them so incredibly well, and the drama just kept getting ratcheted up level after level towards the end. There’s no obvious flaws, even the opening wrestling sequence didn’t feel superfluous. Remarkable.
MATCH 9- WWF CHAMPIONSHIP- YOKOZUNA VS. BRET HART
Roddy Piper handles refereeing duties for this one. If they wanted to use former wrestlers, they could have least got someone stable! What was wrong with Tito Santana?
Hart’s knee injury has not really healed from earlier in the night, but he bravely slugs away at Yokozuna anyway. That’s the general theme of the early stages- Hart peppering Yokozuna with blows, while the champion essentially just tries to choke him. A lengthier one of these chokes seems to have Hart prone for a big splash, but at the last minute he dodges! Hitman hits a double axe handle and gets a two count, but Jim Cornette drags Piper from the ring! Roddy justifies his appearance by punching him right in his Louisville Lip. Cornette’s intervention does allow Yoko to retain control though, and he really takes advantage with his ever impressive leg drop! Hart avoids a corner splash through, and starts to shift through the gears. Bulldog gets two! Elbow drop gets two! Clothesline gets two! Dive from the second rope sees him get caught in mid-air and dropped with a belly to belly! Yoko tries for the Banzai Drop, but Hart rolls out the way, and covers the stunned champion straight away to pick up the win! *. I didn’t think this was good as their match from the previous year. While IX hosted a fun, peppy cat and mouse match, this one was just kind of a slow, sludgy slugfest until the finishing stretch, which was too short and ended in a strange, anti-climactic way. Yokozuna is this show’s Least Valuable Player. Still, the reaction from the crowd when Bret won was just tremendous! And there’s a great post match angle as well- all the good guys join Hart in the ring to live him high on their shoulders and celebrate the title win, while Owen Hart lurks on the entrance ramp, quietly seething about how, yet again, his spotlight has been stolen from him.
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