Kevin Reviews The WrestleMania Openers (11-15)

As we head into part three of this journey through the opening contests in WrestleMania history, we’ll move through eras once again. The “New Generation” era comes to an end about halfway through this set and we officially enter the “Attitude Era”. Now, we won’t cover the biggest matches in turning over from one era to the other (Austin/Bret, Austin/Michaels), but we do get an interesting look at how things have changed just by the first match of each show. You can even start to see a Vince Russo influence as time goes on.

WrestleMania XI
The Allied Powers def. Jacob and Eli Blu in 6:34
Right off the bat, this didn’t feel like a WrestleMania. The arena was one of the smaller to host a Mania and just seemed so blah. The Allied Powers consisted of the British Bulldog and failed experiment, Lex Luger. Their theme song was all kinds of awesome though. Jacob and Eli Blue would have about fifteen different gimmicks in their career, including the Harris Brothers, Creative Control and members of the terrible DOA stable. They were with Uncle Zebekiah and it’s funny to see Zeb Colter with long hair. The match itself was just like this WrestleMania as a whole. Underwhelming. Bulldog took the heat for a while, while the Blu brothers pulled off twin magic. Luger got a very mild tag because the fans stopped caring about him once he kept coming up short. A sunset flip from Bulldog won the match and they got a post-match pyro display that was far too good for the performance. Dull opener and possibly the worst so far. Only Bulldog would still be around by the end of the year and he’d actually be a high profile heel by then.*

WrestleMania XII
British Bulldog, Owen Hart and Vader def. Ahmed Johnson, Jake Roberts and Yokozuna in 13:08
On a WrestleMania that had a good chunk of time already dedicated to the Ironman main event, some guys had to get thrown into a multi-man match to make room for everyone. Apparently, the original plan was for Vader to go over Yokozuna in a singles match but that was scrapped. Most likely because Yokozuna was absurdly big at this point. The babyface team weight over 1,000 pounds combined and I’m sure almost 75% of it was Yokozuna. The main focus of the match was on Vader and Ahmed Johnson looking good. Both guys were poised for a big 1996. Vader should have absolutely dethroned Shawn Michaels at SummerSlam. Everybody was given a shot to do their thing and the crowd was into everything. Despite nearly everyone using the DDT by this point, they popped hard when Jake did it. Jim Cornette nearly took a DDT but Vader stopped him and hit the Vader Bomb on Jake to win. The right team went over, though the WWF was a few months shy of completely ruining Vader. Bulldog and Owen got an early look at being a team, which they were great at later on, while the babyface team had a rough go the rest of the way for their careers. This was fun. ***

WrestleMania 13
Number One Contender’s Match: The Headbangers def. Doug Furnas and Phil Lafon, the Godwins and the New Blackjacks in 10:38
An ultimately uninteresting WrestleMania started with an ultimately uninteresting tag match. I do give them props for trying something different with an elimination match but the teams involved didn’t really interest a lot of people. The Godwins and Headbangers found the most success of the teams but still not much. I always liked Furnas and Lafon though they had less charisma than a pebble. Bradshaw’s mustache was easily the highlight of this thing. It didn’t take long before the Blackjacks were disqualified and Lafon and Furnas were counted out. Oh look, it came down to the teams that actually lasted a while. Vince had weird obsession with the Godwins and hillbillies in general. He talked about Phineas doing stuff with farm animals a bit. The rest of the match was sloppy and dragged on. The Headbangers would win and earn a title shot but nobody really seemed to give a damn. ½*

WrestleMania XIV
LOD 2000 won a 15 Tag Team Battle Royal in 8:19
We were officially in the Attitude Era as WrestleMania XIV rolled around. This show, with the addition of Mike Tyson and the culmination of Steve Austin’s rise to the top, did a monster buyrate. Did it get off to a great start though? Not so much. Ten years after WrestleMania IV started with a battle royal, another did so here, but of the tag team variety. They completely telegraphed the outcome as only one team had an actual televised entrance and that was the returning Legion of Doom. With a slightly new look, entrance helmets and an odd pairing with Sunny (though she looked great), it was the WWE’s way of trying to keep them fresh. The main issue though, was that LOD was largely still the same team they had been for over a decade so it was still stale. There was a lot going on here but so little at the same time. The in-ring stuff was boring but there were interactions from Sunny and Jim Cornette at ringside, as well as a Barry Windham run in. Why you ask? So Barry could screw Bradshaw by eliminating his partner Chainz. That’s how desperate they were for teams. People were confused throughout. Mark Henry’s partner got eliminated and he stuck around for another three or four minutes. It came down to the new Midnight Express and LOD 2000. The latter overcame an attack from the Godwins to win. It was only slightly better than last year’s trash.¾*

WrestleMania XV
WWF Hardcore Championship: Hardcore Holly def. Al Snow and Billy Gunn (c) in 7:06
Ah. This is the peak WrestleMania of the Vince Russo era. Billy Gunn and Road Dogg moved on from tag team competition. The former chased the Intercontinental Title, while the latter went after the Hardcore Championship. In classic Russo fashion, they would win the opposite titles. SWERVE BRO! Anyway, all three guys got major pops from the crowd, proving that guys in a division like the hardcore one were more over than some important talents nowadays. They would go on to have what became a typical Hardcore Title match for the era. While there wasn’t really any story set up, it did prove to be a relatively fun encounter. It was three dudes wailing on each other with weapons for the sake of the crowd’s enjoyment. That isn’t always the best recipe for success though it mostly worked here. I can’t stress enough just how hot the crowd was. This was an early incarnation of the tried and true “stolen finish” that is used for far too many Triple Threat matches these days. Gunn hit a Fameasser on Snow but Holly used a chair and stole the title. Snow and Holly wouldn’t move up in the card much after this (though Snow had some fun with Rock and Mankind), but Gunn won King of the Ring which led to a failed singles push. The hot crowd helped along a decently fun encounter here. **½

After a mostly enjoyable series of matches during part two, things fell in part three. The openers were all, outside of the Hardcore Title match, concerning the tag team division. That would be okay but the tag team division was pretty dire at the time. Too much Godwins, Headbangers, etc. I thought the six man match at WrestleMania XII was the best of this series. While the WWE was moving into their most successful financial period in the late 90’s, the openers to their lackluster Manias during the time we also just that, lackluster. We’re getting ready to move into the 2000’s, and the first five years of that decade are probably my favorite period as a wrestling fan. Next up, we’ll be seeing guys like Chris Jericho, Rob Van Dam, Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero, which should all be fun. In this batch, there were three bad matches and two pretty good ones.