wrestling / Video Reviews
Jack Likes Wrestlemania: WrestleMania XII
Loading...WRESTLEMANIA 12
We’re live from Anaheim, California, in front of a crowd that would be pretty languid all evening. Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler handle commentary duties for the third consecutive year. The celebrity presence on this show is non-existent, which is most refreshing after the dreadful overkill of Wrestlemania XI.
MATCH 1- AHMED JOHNSON, JAKE ROBERTS & YOKOZUNA VS. CAMP CORNETTE
Yokozuna was a proud member of Camp Cornette until Vader’s appointment to the stable caused a schism. He eventually left to the delight of the crowd, and now he faces his old teammates in a six man! As an added incentive, if the fan favourites win, Yoko gets five minutes alone with Jim Cornette himself!
A pier six brawl kicks things off, and all of Camp Cornette are sent to the floor. Ahmed soars out onto Vader with a huge dive! Back in the ring, the rule-breakers struggle to make their offense have much effect on the ginormous Sumo, and have to wait for Yoko to miss an Avalanche to get some momentum. This is all for naught when Ahmed Johnson comes in and runs through everyone. He attempts a Pearl River Plunge on Bulldog (legit the coolest move in the world, I think. I love the way it looks, the way it sends some hapless wrestler spinning through the air, and then, just, BAM! You’re squashed into the canvas), but Cornette distracts him and Owen breaks it up with a missile dropkick. This isolates Johnson for a little while until he cracks Hart with a clothesline and makes the hot tag to Jake! He doles out some quick punches but can’t get the DDT on Owen and has to play fan favourite in peril himself. Jake takes the longest sustained beating of the match so far, but eventually Bulldog gives him an opening by missing an elbow, and it’s a tag to Vader and a tag to Yokozuna! Yoko dismantles Camp Cornette, avalanching Vader, Samoan dropping Bulldog, then knocking his noggin against Owen’s! Jake DDTs Hart, but action on the floor distracts the referee. Cornette tries to use the tennis racket but gets thwarted and he almost takes a DDT for his trouble, but Vader makes the save, then squashes Roberts with the Vader Bomb to pick up the win. ** ¾. An energetic tag match to open the show, with some fun stretches of Johnson and Yokozuna just mauling their opponents, and the opportunity to see Jim Cornette take a beating adding some drama in the finishing stretch. Not always the smoothest match, but it was a decent start!
MATCH 2- HOLLYWOOD BACKLOT BRAWL- RODDY PIPER VS. GOLDUST
This, uh… match (?) is so strange. Goldust had spent the winter playing sexy mind games with Razor Ramon, but their scheduled Miami Street Fight was derailed due to ‘The Bad Guy’s’ imminent departure to WCW. Goldust then decided to turn his strange advances on interim WWF President Roddy Piper, ostensibly attracted to him for his power. It’s a pity he didn’t wait a month, we could have Goldust trying to feel up Gorilla Monsoon. Unsurprisingly, Piper didn’t react brilliantly, and pledged to “make a man” out of The Bizarre One. He planned on doing this by beating Goldust to pulp in a Hollywood Backlot, thematically appropriate considering Goldust’s fascination with film. Some of the vignettes building up to this really encapsulate the uncomfortable, homophobic genius of the Goldust character. The image of Goldust, with his usual long white wig and striking black facepaint, silently fondling bagpipes on his own nightmarish version of Piper’s Pit while breathing in this really deep, slow manner, as if he’s overwhelmed by all the urges crawling under his skin, is one of the most startling things I’ve ever seen on a wrestling show.
Last year when 411 were voting for the top 30 Wrestlemania matches of all time, I ended up putting this match on my ballot, albeit in somewhere like 24th place. I don’t think I stand by that decision, but I do think this is an exciting, fascinating, influential brawl that a lot of people unfairly dismiss. The initial fight in the backlot is awesome. Piper just bludgeons Goldust with some of the most vile punches I’ve ever seen, and then integrates some hardcore spots that are ahead of their time- he bounces a garbage can off the Bizarre One’s head, and then douses him with a fire hose. Goldust’s only response is to hurry into a fancy Gold Cadillac he drove to the match in and literally run Piper over! He then charges free from the Backlot in the car, and Roddy gives chase in a white Ford Bronco, a stupid O.J. Simpson reference. But aside from that lame joke, this was a great four minutes, and really well shot in a cinematic, multi camera style. To be continued…
MATCH 3- SAVIO VEGA VS. STEVE AUSTIN
The times, they are a-changin’. Austin was still under the management of Ted DiBiase, but he was looking and carrying himself like the Stone Cold we’d all get moderately excited about in the coming years.
These two are not awful fond of each other and start the match with a pretty nice brawl. Austin gets the better of it by driving Savio into the ring post a couple of times, and starts to work over the arm with some more technically sound offense. He can’t sustain it though, and falls victim to a fiery Puerto Rican comeback revolving around clotheslines. Vega tries to hit his trademark spinning wheel kick, but Austin dodges and the referee feels the full brunt of it instead. This new anarchical state allows Austin to waffle his opponent with the Million Dollar Belt, and then drives it into him again when Vega’s head is dangling over the ring apron. The Million Dollar Dream is cinched in, and DiBiase revives the referee with a glass of Coca Cola, which sounds like the hook of an advertising campaign but is in fact a spot in a professional wrestling match. Said referee sees Vega’s limp body and calls for the bell, handing Austin the win. ** ¾. This couldn’t afford to be really good because much of the match was ignored in favour of footage of O.J. Simpson’s 1994 car chase, which we were told is footage of Piper haring after Goldust. They kept things relatively basic and it was likeable enough, although they’d go on to have better matches as anyone who has listened to even one episode of Steve Austin’s podcast will be well aware.
MATCH 4- THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR VS. HUNTER HEARST HELMSLEY
The times, they continue to be a-changin’. Helmsley is escorted to the ring by then unknown pretty human Sable.
Triple H goes on the attack and hits the Pedigree, but famously Warrior gets straight back up! Warrior then goes through his signature moves, finishing with the big splash in under two minutes. N/R. The match is more interesting for what went on around it. Ultimate Warrior’s return received a response that is tepid at best, which is telling considering the hype surrounding his return. HHH, meanwhile, would get in Vince McMahon’s good books for taking one for the team here, and seemed set to become the 1996 King of the Ring. That didn’t happen of course because of the Curtain Call, so this match offers a really interesting and vaguely terrifying glimpse at what WWF might have looked like in 1997- The Ultimate Warrior headlining, and a crushingly inexperienced Triple H flailing desperately at him as a challenger.
In the back, Todd Pettengill welcomes Marc Mero to the World Wrestling Federation! He’d have a thoroughly respectable few years and then be inexplicably resented as a wildly overpaid representative of everything that was wrong with the WWF at the time. A grumpy Triple H appears, and initiates a pull apart brawl!
MATCH 5- THE UNDERTAKER VS. DIESEL
The match gets off to a searing start, as the two slug it out in the ring and then war on the floor. Undertaker rams Diesel into the steel steps, and then takes to the air as if he was a vampire rather than a zombie. A flying crossbody gets a two count, and then the Deadman goes old school! Back on the floor, Diesel goes into the ring post but dodges a chair shot, which is the opening he needs to get some offense of his own that flirts with illegality. He hurls ‘Taker into the guardrail, and rams him into the ring post. Back inside a big side slam gets two, and unfortunately the bout slows down a bit. The middle stretch of this match is definitely the least interesting, as Diesel utilises too many slow submission holds in his bid to nullify the Phenom. There’s a pretty fun moment where they thwack each other simultaneously with big boots though, and then all of a sudden business picks up, as Diesel hits the Jacknife Powerbomb! No cover though, as Diesel’s convinced he can take his time and soak in his inevitable victory. He drags ‘Taker back to his feet and lands another one, but continues to celebrate instead of covering. When he does go for the pin, the Deadman reaches up and grasps him round the throat! I adore it when a wrestler’s moveset matches his gimmick, and I love the way that choke looks like ‘Taker is escaping the grave. Understandably, the future Kevin Nash isn’t as enamoured with the move as I am and suplexes his way out of it… but Taker just sits right up! And crashes into Diesel with another flying clothesline! Chokeslam! Tombstone Piledriver! That’s enough for Undertaker to win it! *** ¼. The middle portion really let the match down, but the beginning generated enough momentum to just about tide it over. The finishing stretch was really great. Diesel’s decision not to go the pin immediately after hitting the Jacknife signposted the finish, but in a good way, a way which made you anticipate how cathartic it would be to see this big cocky lump get his Chokeslam and Tombstone and punishment for daring to forget about Taker’s undead powers of recovery. Plenty of bombs were thrown in this as well, and big man matches struggle to be properly good unless that happens. This was properly good, and all of Taker’s best slugfests would take inspiration from it.
Piper and Goldust have made to Anaheim! Which means we can continue the…
HOLLYWOOD BACKLOT BRAWL THAT IS NOW NO LONGER TAKING PLACE IN HOLLYWOOD OR A BACKLOT BUT IS STILL A BRAWL- RODDY PIPER VS. GOLDUST
So Piper chases Goldust through the backstage area and into the ring, though it still doesn’t feel at all like a normal match, which I think is good. Maybe one of the reasons for this is that Goldust decides to ramp up the homoeroticism at this point, bending Roddy over for a piledriver and then massaging his hands across his bottom. He then attempts to make out with Roddy, who responds by grabbing Goldust’s testicles and trying to crush them in his palm. A spanking ensues, and Piper even gives Goldust a kiss on the lips, for no reason other than “homosexual acts are despicable when done by homosexuals, but when straight people do them violently it is just terrific!” By this point, one of the main flaws with the match should have become quite notable- because nobody’s bothered to come up with a way the match can end, there’s nothing really for Piper and Goldust to build towards, they could just fight forever if they wanted to. However, having successfully held the live audience’s with a steady stream of sexually charged antics, they memorably overcome this self imposed challenge by, fucking insanely, having Piper tear off Goldust’s bodysuit to reveal skimpy women’s lingerie underneath, at which point the Bizarre One flees in disgrace and Hotrod celebrates in the ring. So, inadvertently, the first ever Hollywood Backlot Brawl becomes the first ever Bra and Panties match! And the sexiest too, I think we can all agree. It’s pretty darn clever in one respect, since it’s such an odd, striking image that it really does seem an appropriate conclusion to the match- they found one of the very few ways they could end a theoretically endless brawl without it coming off as an anti-climax. But, again, it’s homophobic as anything. I think I can only rate this bout a N/R.
So that’s the match! It’s weird, cluttered with dreadful jokes, and thrives on the homophobic fears and insecurities of its audience. Why is it so good? Numerous reasons! It’s perhaps the earliest example in the WWF of a match that spent a substantial chunk of its run time outside the ring, sprawling through strange environments, utilising strange weapons, stringing together strange comedy spots. This kind of format would become so wildly popular during the Attitude Era that WCW would eventually devote an entire video game to it, and it remains one of the most popular subjects of nostalgia for that time. I admire the ambition it takes to do something as genuinely groundbreaking at this, and they actually did a great job of stringing some kind of coherent match together out of three different segments from three different locations, spread across almost the entire show, filmed in a cinematic style alien to the usual pro wrestling presentation. In these respects, this can be considered a genuinely radical redefinition of what a pro wrestling match can actually be- Wrestlemania I’s main event showed that wrestling matches didn’t have to have wrestlers in them to be credible, Wrestlemania X’s Ladder match showed they didn’t have to pay any attention whatsoever to standard wrestling rules, this one shows they don’t even have to take place in a wrestling ring. Plus, as a bonus, the match really encapsulates the Goldust character, if you could only watch one match to get a sense of what one of the most incredible (in every sense of the word) characters in professional wrestling history was all about, it would be this one. It’s noteworthy that, of all the matches on the show, matches with The Undertaker and Bret Hart and Shawm Michaels in them, this is the match that draws the loudest crowd reactions, and it’s not because there’s something inherently exciting about an ageing Roddy Piper, that’s for sure. The groping and the fondling and the transvestism came from a small minded desire to shock and horrify on the part of the WWF, with no regard for how offensive and regressive they were being. Yet the way Goldust performed was so magnetic, you can’t help but admire it on some level. The ways he constructed all these surreal images, even just across the matches and promos we see on this show, is just remarkable. He’s one of the most remarkable performers in the history of wrestling, and this is a remarkable match.
MATCH 6- IRONMAN MATCH FOR THE WWF CHAMPIONSHIP- BRET HART VS. SHAWN MICHAELS
A heck of a video package precedes the match, the sort of serious, sports style work that still seems depressingly original to this day. Shawn Michaels makes a jaw dropping entrance on a zip line from the top of the Anaheim Pond and does not start crying and begging to be let down because he is not me.
This match still splits opinion to this day- there are people who absolutely hate it, there are people who view it as the greatest match of all time. I think it’s a phenomenally impressive athletic achievement and a compelling watch for a lot of its sixty minute runtime, but it’s less than the sum of its parts As you’d expect, the match begins cautiously, and I think it’s probably the most fascinating part of the match. They start off just exchanging holds on the mat, then gradually start to integrate some slightly more high impact moves, always returning to the holds once they’re done. It’s not the most technically accomplished mat work of all time, and it’s not a thrill a minute, but it’s serious and intense and helps create a mood of tough, athletic competition. It pretty much goes on for 25 minutes and I don’t feel it drags at all. These guys are properly good at the wrestling.
Eventually tempers flare, and the action spills to the floor, where Michaels drives Hart into the ring post, the impact ricocheting him into the lap of the timekeeper. Shawn tries for Sweet Chin Music, but the Hitman ducks and the poor old timekeeper gets cracked in the jaw. It’s a pretty goofy spot, the first serious misstep of the match. It seems like a really unnecessary divergence, almost like a comedy spot that you’re expected to take seriously. Back in the ring, Hart clamps on another submission hold. Noting that Earl Hebner seems more focused on just watching Michaels’ face than seeing if he wants to quit, he angrily bellows “ASK HIM! IT’S NOT A STARING CONTEST!” Which is the sort of stressed out, passionate, spontaneous outburst that makes you feel like this is a legitimate bout and Bret is desperate to win it. It helps to further the ‘real sports’ atmosphere this match has. In fact, it’s only when they start to abandon the mat work once and for all that the match starts to sag. Shawn starts to target Bret’s shoulder, ramming it into the post and squashing it with a hammerlock splash. It just seems too easy for him, like he could have just started doing this at any point but inexplicably decides to wait thirty minutes to try. It contrasts sharply with all the mat wrestling, which as I’ve said seemed properly tough, athletic and competitive. The action picks up in the final stages, but this is where the match’s most serious structural flaw starts to become really noticeable. On paper, I love the idea of the match finishing 0-0, I love the thought that Shawn and Bret were both so obsessed with proving their absolute superiority that they wouldn’t let their bodies give out for even three seconds across a gruelling sixty minutes. I can also imagine that, watching the match live with no idea of the result, this near falls would seem much more dramatic, especially come the 50th minute or so when one pin or submission would create a huge mountain for one of the two competitors. When you know full well that nothing is going to happen though, that these moves will continue to be traded for sixty minutes come what may, there isn’t really any drama to them. I think this happens to a certain extent with other matches where you know the result and when the match will roughly end as well, but it’s worse here when you’re constantly reminded of the sixty minute time limit, via the announcers or the on screen clock. It makes it feel like less like a finishing stretch, more like an exercise in killing time.
Bret Hart was absolutely fucked over by the sudden death period. He had every reason to believe that if he could just hold out for the whole sixty minutes, he’d retain the title. Theoretically, he’d go into the match thinking “if I concede a fall, I only need to equalise in order to retain the championship,” and that might have changed the way he wrestled the whole match. To suddenly tell him that he’s got to wrestle a Sudden Death period just because Roddy Piper made some vague proclamation about how “there must be a winner” is, in the words of the man who implemented it, “a miscarriage of justice.” But, of course, the match does go into overtime, and after a couple of the most dramatic minutes of the match, since now we know we’re close to finding a winner and the action now has a sense of jeopardy about it, Shawn is eventually able to land Sweet Chin Music, and slumps across Hart to win his first WWF Championhip. It’s hard to find Michaels’ victory celebrations and Vince McMahon’s fawning commentary anything other than nauseating. Traditionally, underdog stories are built around the idea that the underdog is likeable. It’s debatable whether Shawn’s on screen persona was easy to get behind at this time, but knowing how unpleasant and downright cruel he could be in reality around this time just makes it seem like the villain has triumphed. Even putting that aside it’s just not quite right to have one underdog overcoming another one; Bret’s defeat of Yokozuna in the Wrestlemania X main event felt like a genuinely momentous and joyous occasion, so maybe if Shawn had accomplished his boyhood dream without ending someone else’s, if he’d done it by beating an unfathomable monster like Vader or Diesel or even Yokozuna, maybe it would have been easier to celebrate.
I really like this match and would watch it again, which I’m not sure is reflected in how I’ve reviewed it up to this point. The first half of the bout is really great, the second half I’m more indifferent to but I don’t find it boring or anything, and I don’t think it’s fair to detract too much from the overall rating for it because I think watching live it wouldn’t have been such an egregious flaw. On the whole it’s satisfying and rewarding viewing, but I think that’s because of how impressive the effort of going for an hour is, rather than a result of being truly sucked into the bout and investing lots of emotion in it. You come out of the bout with a huge respect for Shawn and Bret and their achievement, and to be honest I think that was all the latter at least really wanted. It’s also the genesis of Bret’s self righteous, paranoid persona that he’d perform during his final months with the WWF, which is one of the best characters in professional wrestling history, so it has that going for it as well. On the whole, the first televised Ironman match in WWF history is a hit- just, not a hit in the way most matches are. **** ¼.
