At Survivor Series 1987 (one of the best WWF ppvs of the 80s) he certainly got pushed. I won't spoil the match but that match (Hogan/Andre team match) and the tag teams match are definitely worth watching.

Calling Jeff Jarrett the del rio of the 90s is hilariously spot on

I listened to Bret Hart on the Steve Austin podcast and Hart called that match against Backlund the only disaster match of his career. They also had an incredible conversation about the match they had at WM 13. Both of them were quite worried the match was going to turn out to be terrible, largely because it was a submission match.

Two days late, but I doubt anyone minds...

WrestleMania X
March 20, 1994 - Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

- The tagline for this show was "Ten years in the making", thus launching a proud WWE tradition of not knowing how to count.

- We get the commentary debut for both Vince McMahon and Jerry "The King" Lawler here. King brings the class to Mania, wearing his royal robe with no top. Of course, now that I think about it, that's still better than the Affliction shirts. I have to say, I remember King as being much better when he started at commentary than he was here. All the blatant cheering for the heels didn't work for me after years of Jesse and Heenan being way more subtle as heel announcers.

Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart *****
Best part of this for me was Owen, with all the false bravado before the match, with that stunned look on his face after scoring the pinfall, like even he couldn't believe he just did that. I have nothing else to say about this match that hasn't already been said a million times already. Watching this live, all I could think of was how sorry I felt for everyone who had to follow that. Greatest opener ever, and still one of the top 5 or so Mania matches of all time.

Mixed tag: Bam Bam Bigelow & Luna Vachon vs. Doink & Dink *
And we go from the sublime to the ridiculous. Two of these competitors are actually quite entertaining; the other two are wearing face paint. Bam Bam makes his first Mania appearance in six years, after falling victim to one of the biggest WTF booking decisions in the tournament at WMIV. Now he's just the victim of a pretty blah comedy match.

Falls count anywhere: Randy Savage vs. Crush **1/4
Savage gets a gigantic pop, bigger than I remembered. This is not FCA as we understand it today. Rather, it's kind of a weird hybrid between a Texas Death match and a Last Man Standing match. Whatever the rules were, it made for a pretty good brawl that hid Crush's limitations well. Macho Man's bump over the top rope was impressive. And with that, we bid a fond farewell to Randy Savage, the unquestioned MVP of WrestleMania's first decade -- four ****+ matches and two of the most indelible moments ever at IV and VII.

Women's title: Alundra Blayze [c] vs. Leilani Kai 1/2*
Dubbing update: Don't ask me how I know this, but Kai's music gets overdubbed by the music Harley Race came out to at Ric Flair's retirement party. Kai, of course, was the defending women's champion at the original WrestleMania, which is the only conceivable reason to trot her out here now. And since this will be my only opportunity, where the **** did they come up with that name for Madusa? Oh, right, the match. Pretty nothing, Kai got way too much offence for as strong as Blayze was built up to be.

Tag team titles: Quebecers [c] vs. Men on a Mission **
Dubbing update: I never thought I'd be upset to hear O Canada, but when it gets dubbed over "Not the Mounties", that's just sacrilege. I want to hear a rap battle between Oscar and PN News to see which one sucks worse. I so wish the Brain was here so I could hear him call MOM "Men from the Mission". And also that Johnny Polo had on his awesome Canadiens jersey with "WE ARE THE QUEBECERS JACQUES AND PIERRE AND I AM JOHNNY" on the back. Yes, it all fit. The Quebecers were so awesome, even better than the Rougeau Brothers were in their heyday. I could watch them on offence all day long. They get an extra half star for actually double suplexing Mabel. Mo was useless, but Mabel actually had some not bad spots. We get the dumb countout finish and MOM celebrating although they didn't win the belts, I take the half star back.

WWF title: Yokozuna [c] vs. Lex Luger DUD
Mr. Perfect, who you may recall lost to Luger at WMIX, is the special referee (and gets a decent pop). I'm sure that won't come into play at all. Holy Moses, is this one boring. THREE extended Vulcan nerve pinch sequences. Lex gets nothing going at all, getting cut off at every turn by the champ. The crowd is asleep. Then, when Luger finally rallies and has it won, we get the exceedingly predictable (and exceedingly dumb) finish, as Perfect ignores the pin, and Luger in protest puts his hands on Perfect, who instantly disqualifies him. The ****ty finish wouldn't even get paid off down the road, as Perfect didn't stick around to restart the feud. Luger cements the choker label once and for all.

Adam Bomb vs. Earthquake DUD
Harvey Wippleman and The Fink get into it in before the match, setting up their legendary tuxedo match. Blink and you'll miss this match, Quake squashed Adam Bomb in about 30 seconds.

IC title, ladder match: Razor Ramon [c] vs. Shawn Michaels *****
Many have said this doesn't hold up today, given the ridiculous highspots we've seen in all of the ladder matches that followed. I think that misses the point. This one actually tells a great story, unlike the TLC carwrecks. Remember that they were basically making this up as they went, with not much to go on as far as a template for this type of match. Shawn clearly thinks this is going to be a 2-on-1 match as Diesel interferes early, but it backfires as Earl Hebner ejects Diesel from ringside, causing Michaels to have to rethink his whole strategy on the fly. From there, we get one of the most brutal, punishing matches ever seen to that point, two guys just beating the holy hell out of each other. Some of the ladder spots were still cringeworthy. Shawn sold everything with gusto, just a virtuoso performance. Incredibly entertaining, historic, groundbreaking -- this is easily still worth five stars. The story about Savage telling them off in the dressing room about going long was interesting, I'd never heard that before. But then, Savage was always cool like that. I'm curious as to what they added to make it go over, though, I thought this flowed just perfectly as it was.

WWF title: Yokozuna [c] vs. Bret Hart **3/4
Burt Reynolds is drunk off his ass here, I love it. Roddy Piper is the special referee, coming out to a big pop and with a ****-eating grin on his face. Bret, miracle worker that he was, pulled a 10x better match out of Yoko in their second match of the night than Luger did in their first, all the while STILL selling the knee from the match with Owen. I will say that Yoko had more spring in his step than against Luger for whatever reason. Extra points for the ending, the nuclear pop as Bret gets full redemption for last year, as Owen looks on the aisleway with a look of disgust.

Overall: 8.5/10
Clearly a two-match show, but how about those two matches?? Those two alone make it better than everything besides WrestleMania III by a clear margin, even without throwing in the always-good MSG crowd. Really though, aside from the ending, there wasn't much else of value here, putting it clearly behind III in the end.

Ratings so far:
III - 9.5
X - 8.5
VIII - 7.0
VII - 6.0
VI - 5.25
V - 5.0
I - 4.5
2 - 3.5
IV - 3.0
IX - 2.5

Bam Bam had an attitude by all accounts, Andre sorted him out

I've never heard a bad word about Bam Bam in a shoot interview. Having listened to Bam Bam's shoot, I find it hard to believe he had any kind of attitude at all. It's very recommended btw.

The only one I've heard talk **** about Bammer is Lanny Poffo, but that guy hates everyone.

In the Austin/Bret podcast I referenced earlier, Bret says Bigelow got a big head shortly after he entered the WWF and wouldn't stop bragging about how much he made and how good he was, so Andre "kicked him around like a soccer ball for about thirty minutes" during a house show match.

Love this post. Me and my brother did this exact thread idea two years ago, watching every Mania and rating every match. We were amazed to discover that at the end of it we considered this match to be the greatest Mania match ever. We would never have guessed it beforehand.

It's a tragedy Hogan-Sid went on last. Thanks Vince.

Pretty much every time Bam Bam comes up in a shoot, I've heard people describe his attitude during his first run to be awful.

Unfortunate. Bam Bam is seriously a hero of mine. I have possibly more respect for him than anybody else to ever wrestle. A shame he had to pass so young.

Nash told a story of Bam Bam stooging off Scott Hall for showing up late to a show once.

.isolated, why is that out of interest? I love the story of Bam Bam saving the kids from a fire towards the end of his life. Much respect to that.

WrestleMania XI
April 2, 1995 - Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, CT

- WrestleMania in Hartford?



- Vince and King return for their second year on commentary. Vince calls WrestleMania "the standard of excellence in sports entertainment". Given this is 1995, I think we can safely deduce that the standard at the moment is pretty low.

- Vince must have known how bad the show was going to suck, as he went completely overboard on the C-list celebrities under the "quantity over quality" principle. There are also a ton of what I can only assume are legit photographers at ringside as a result of the mainstream coverage due to LT's involvement. They would do nothing but get in the way of the wrestlers throughout the night.

Allied Powers vs. Blu Twins 1/2*
Add Luger to the list of WrestleMania main eventers who took a dramatic tumble down the card the following year. This was a really bad pairing, styles are too similar plus no one in this match is known as an above-average worker. Crowd seemed into it, though. Pyro after the opening match seemed a bit much.

IC title: Jeff Jarrett [c] vs. Razor Ramon **
1-2-3 Kid, apparently just back from the Playboy mansion in those black silk pajamas, comes out with Razor to counteract the Roadie. They had a pretty good little match going until the figure-four ground everything to a standstill, followed by another Honky finish. Jarrett actually had a pretty decent year, but the fact that JJ was one of their better wrestlers at this point spoke volumes about the state of the promotion.

Undertaker vs. King Kong Bundy DUD
Ye gods, this was bad. No idea why they brought Bundy back. The bit with the urn would normally be dumb, but here was actually a welcome distraction from the crapfest in the ring. Taker really never had a good match at Mania until they started putting him with guys who could actually work.

Tag team titles: Smoking Gunns [c] vs. Owen Hart & ??? **1/2
This match came about as a result of the tag team title tournament, where Owen and Jim Neidhart were eliminated under dubious circumstances, so the Gunns gave Owen a title match with a partner of his choosing. And so Owen introduces...Yokozuna. He looks monstrous, I think he may have been near 600 at this point. Gunns continue the theme of the night by cutting an awful prematch promo. The mustache on Billy looks hilarious now. Champs mostly control on Owen for the first half, until Yoko hits the Big Fat Legdrop off an Owen drop toehold to signal the beginning of the end. This was pretty decent, especially for this show. Outcome was never in doubt, though.

I Quit match: Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund 3/4*
Bret called this one of his worst ever matches in his book. I believed it as it was happening, and I believe it even more now. Roddy Piper is once again the special ref, and he attempts to liven up the dull proceedings by shoving a live mic into each man's face at random intervals and shouting, "WHADDAYA SAY???" At one point, Bret shouts "NO!" into Piper's mic as if to tell him to stop acting like such a goof. Hardly any real action at all in this one. Bret finally reverses Backlund's chicken wing into one of his own, and Backlund forgets the stips and screams "YEARRRGH" into the mic, which Piper takes as a submission, mercifully ending this train wreck.

WWF title: Diesel [c] vs. Shawn Michaels ***
Shawn comes out with Jenny McCarthy, who may very well be the most currently relevant celebrity of all the ones on the show (although for all the wrong reasons). This was a good match but really weird to watch -- Shawn was being pushed as the favourite and actually spent much of the match in control of the seven-foot, should-be-unstoppable champion. It broke down some near the end after Hebner got bumped. I could only laugh watching Big Lazy hulk up at the end, and then cringed at the world's second-sloppiest powerbomb (Sid would deliver the sloppiest one to Shawn the very next night). Crowd was solidly behind HBK in the end; I'm undecided whether that was careful planning on the office's part or a double-cross on Shawn's part. Since this WAS 1995, I'm leaning toward the latter. Either way, it led to Shawn turning face on Raw right afterward.

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Lawrence Taylor **1/2
Step right up, witness the end of a good worker's career! Bam Bam was so misused it wasn't funny. He came back just after WrestleMania IX and got pushed to the King of the Ring final against Bret Hart, putting on a terrific match in the process. He should have been in line for a huge monster heel push -- I mean, this guy would have made a better Vader than Vader! He's 370, very good worker, agile enough that he can do cartwheels and moonsaults, badass enough that he's got ****ing flames tattooed on his skull, have I sold you on this guy yet?? So, of course, the office did absolutely **** all with him for the next year and a half, sticking him in a long, dumb angle with face Doink and then shunting him off to the Million Dollar Corporation. Finally, he got a break, getting into this big angle with LT and main eventing Mania, being promised a big push afterward. The match was better than I would've ever expected, he made LT look like a million bucks and in the process came off looking really good himself. And then...what happened? Well, of course, this is the mid-90s, so we all know the answer to that: the Clique happened. They hated the guy, did everything they could to undermine him. He gets turned face and hastily booked as the Paul Orndorff to Diesel's Hulk Hogan, both working in the shadows of the rest of the Clique who are all putting on fantastic matches, but pretty much only with each other. And finally, Bam Bam had had enough and was let go or quit, not sure which. He would finally get some measure of success after leaving, shocking everyone by beating Shane Douglas for the ECW title and then having an OK run in WCW as part of the Jersey Triad, but he should have been so much more than that. What a waste.

Overall: 4/10
Before I started watching, I had real trouble remembering this show at all. That's not a good sign. Be good or be unafraid to suck, but don't be forgettable. And this show was the epitome of forgettable. Of course, what do you expect when you have a Mania in Hartford? Anyway, the last two matches were good, but not much else, and there were a ton of technical difficulties and timing issues that made this probably the worst-produced Mania since 2. Not the worst overall, but definitely bottom 5 material. If you wanted to show someone who had never seen wrestling before what a WrestleMania was all about, this would undoubtedly be the very last one you'd pick.

Ratings so far:
III - 9.5
X - 8.5
VIII - 7.0
VII - 6.0
VI - 5.25
V - 5.0
I - 4.5
XI - 4.0
2 - 3.5
IV - 3.0
IX - 2.5

Wish more people would jump back in, but definitely enjoying True North's and moorobot's recaps as is.

Good review True North.

This PPV isn't that boring. Some of the moments are so bad they are good. Some moments are good but not many are great. But this comes close to damning with faint praise. If it was not for the upside down nature of some of the matches this PPV would be so unmemorable.

No wonder Luger went to WCW despite Bischoff not being a fan of him and giving what he thought was a lowball offer. The Allied Powers is so unpromising. It did make me realize how similar Davey Boy and Luger really were. Muscle heads who could still manage a memorable match with the right opponent who should only be allowed near a microphone if one wants to make something memorable for the wrong reasons. Why two such people were thought to make a good tag team is beyond me. Perhaps they didn't know what to do with them after neither one turned out to be Hulk Hogan 2.0.

Piper was known as somebody whose talk was better than his work, but he found many ways to show that the opposite is true at Wrestlemania.

Sean Waltman is one of those people who is constantly late. It would be time to leave and he would be sitting there in his ring gear despite working the curtain jerker. The clique probably regretted telling him to wear whatever he was going to wear that night to the ring so they could get the Mania party started early.

Jeff Jarrett is a natural uncool heel because he is innately dislikeable and goofy while being passable but not very exciting in the ring. It is certainly nice to have somebody like that in your company, but you hope he isn't one of the top 5 heels you have.

You don't hear nearly as much about backstage politics today in wrestling. I'm not sure if they are less important or just more hidden. In any case, in the 80s and 90s they were hugely important for who got pushed and for what storylines would happen.

For the LT/Bigelow match, LT really did a nice job compared to other celebrities that have stepped into the ring. He was prepared, and even a well past prime LT is one of the better athletes on the card. He took bumps well, which is something that can't be a result of being carried. Had he not wanted to be one the greatest pass rushers ever, he could have made it as a wrestler. But he had no intention of doing so, and still decided to do his job well as opposed to just seeing wrestling as a means of getting a check for doing almost no work as so many celebrities have.

III>X
VIII>VII>VI>V>IX>XI
IV>I>II

Always thought they should of had a blow of to Bret / Owen at this event. they had a wild street fight on Raw just before the event... this should have been on Mania, wrapping up the year from their first match. Would have been a show stealer, for sure.

WrestleMania XII is now open for business until next Monday night after Raw.

WrestleMania XII

Vader, Owen Hart & British Bulldog vs. Yokozuna, Ahmed Johnson & Jake Roberts: Thought this was reasonably fun. Ahmed's early dive over the top on Vader. Owen with some decent bumps for Yoko. Yoko's ring-shaking falling powerslam on Vader. Owen's missile dropkick off the top to break up a Pearl River Plunge. Match unfortunately slows to an uninteresting crawl during the heat segment where they work Jake over, but I still enjoyed it overall. **1/4

Roddy Piper vs. Goldust (Part 1): The brawl out on the street is mildly interesting I suppose, but I sure wish that they had just settled the whole thing out there. Grade is incomplete for now.

Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega: Distracting from this match with Roddy Piper stuff is terrible. The crowd was as a dead as a doornail for this, and it really brought it down badly even when the action wasn't bad. People just didn't care at all about Steve Austin yet. Between the distractions and the fans sitting on their hands, it was hard to enjoy this one very much despite a fairly strong initial brawling sequence. *1/2

Ultimate Warrior vs. Triple H: The debut of Sable, HHH getting squashed, the last hurrah of the Ultimate Warrior at Mania…this is ungradable since it's a squash, but it probably rates above other Mania squashes in terms of watchability. I didn't mind it at all. N/A

The Undertaker vs. Diesel: I always think of this match that could have stopped The Streak before it became a thing, just because they were setting Diesel up for the next world title shot and it would make sense to put him over…until he signed with WCW, at which point they certainly weren't going to put him over any of their big stars on the way out.

Anyway, not too bad of a power match here, though the pace was just so slow that it took me out of it more than I'd like. It just felt like they were constantly taking extremely long breaks between spots, and that the action to that point hadn't really justified it. Basically it made things pretty boring at times. Anyway, given that it was a Kevin Nash match, it could have been worse. **

Roddy Piper vs. Goldust (Part 2): …and this is where this match falls into "embarrassed to be a wrestling fan" territory. 0*

WWF Title: Bret Hart (c) vs. Shawn Michaels: The first half or so of this match had quite a few dull moments. It's understandable that they needed to have a slow early pace to be able to ramp the match up over time, but this was a part of the match where they could have worked in a fall or two. I can't see it as anything but a storytelling mistake to have zero falls through regulation, especially in the first WWF Ironman Match.

All the same, the action is compelling and great throughout the second half of the match, and especially ramps up during the last 10 minutes of regulation plus overtime. That alone earns this match a really high mark, even if it feels at times like I would rather just watch this match from the 30:00 mark on. ****

Overall: Just as it was built to be, this is very much a one-match show. And while I can't help but think that they left a five-star match on the table in some of their booking decisions with it, the match did still deliver nicely. Most of the rest of the show was pretty rough though, so on balance I end up putting this one just underneath the median for all of the shows so far.

WrestleMania Rankings
1. WrestleMania III
2. WrestleMania X
3. WrestleMania VIII
4. WrestleMania VII
5. WrestleMania V
6. WrestleMania VI
7. WrestleMania XII
8. WrestleMania XI
9. WrestleMania IV
10. WrestleMania
11. WrestleMania IX
12. WrestleMania 2

9 over 11? That's quite a surprise

Dustin and Piper had MOTN for sure with backlot brawl. Sorry Bret and Shawn, but they did.

I tend to agree. I like the Piper/Goldust fight.

By star ratings given to matches they are being rated about equally. Both were busts in terms of long term consequences. IX has better announcing but doesn't have the bad ending. As I explained before I'm not obsessed with endings but think that good announcing is absolutely crucial to wrestling. I was more entertained by IX.

This is a great thread. Props to you guys writing this stuff up.

WrestleMania XII
March 31, 1996 - Arrowhead Pond, Anaheim, CA

- Anaheim's not exactly MSG, but it is a step up from Hartford. This was the "we can't afford to book big stadiums anymore and wouldn't be able to fill them even if we could" era of Mania.

- I really don't remember a whole lot about what was happening around this time. I was just finishing up university, and I was about 6-8 months away from getting back into wrestling in a big way, so most of what was going on didn't leave a huge impact on me. I actually had to go look up who the IC and tag champs were, I honestly had no clue. Of course, if the titles had been defended on the show -- first (and I think only) time ever with only one title match -- I wouldn't have had to, now would I, Vince?

Vader, Owen Hart and British Bulldog vs. Yokozuna, Ahmed Johnson and Jake Roberts *
Yokozuna recently split from Cornette, and gets five minutes alone with him if the faces win (lol at this idea). Seeing Fuji with an American flag is just bizarre. Hell, just seeing a face Mr. Fuji is bizarre. Yoko looks even bigger than he did last year, might be close to 700. This didn't do anything for me, no talent to speak of on the face team and it just seemed to move really slowly.

Hollywood Backlot Brawl: Goldust vs. Roddy Piper
Piper was a last minute sub for Razor Ramon, who I believe was on a drug suspension. I know, I was shocked too! Piper works Goldust over pretty good in the parking lot before sending his stunt double in to get run over. Try making the editing a little less obvious next time. Both guys get in their cars and head back to the arena. To be continued...

Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega **1/4
The extended segment outside the arena killed the crowd dead for this one, not that they had much reason to care about either of these guys to begin with. Vince ensures no one at all gives a crap by inserting the Piper-Goldust chase on several occasions for the fans watching on PPV. Too bad, too, because Austin put on a clinic. One of the biggest tragedies in the business (non-death, obv) was Austin's neck injury at Summerslam 97, because if THIS Austin had been pushed to the moon in the Attitude Era instead of the brawler we ended up getting, he would've absolutely, unquestionably, no-doubt-whatsoever gone down as the GOAT.

Ultimate Warrior vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley DUD
Crowd pops big for Hunter...oh wait, that's just because they know who's coming behind him. Total squash. HHH said a few years later that Warrior was the most unprofessional guy he'd ever seen as a result of his experience in this match, so I guess we have Warrior to thank for teaching young Mr. Levesque how business was done.

- Backstage we get our first look at Marc Mero, who immediately gets into a pull apart with Helmsley. This would of course lead to them feuding over Sable.

Undertaker vs. Diesel ***
The build for this was terrific, with each costing the other the WWF title at the previous two PPVs, and playing mind games with each other all the way leading up to this. I have to say, I was impressed by this one, started out strong and still had enough legs at the end despite slowing down in the middle section. One of the better big man matches you'll see, and probably Taker's best match ever against a big man.

Hollywood Backlot Brawl, take 2: Goldust vs. Roddy Piper 1/2*
I personally hated it, but the crowd ate it up -- they were more into this than pretty much anything -- so I can't mark it down too heavily. I mean, the purpose is to entertain, right?

WWF title, Iron Man match: Bret Hart [c] vs. Shawn Michaels ****
Technically sound, with some incredible bumps by Shawn, but for me at least, very disappointing compared to what I (and everyone else) was expecting going in to this one. The personal problems between the two greatly interfered with the match quality. If they'd been more willing to work with each other and done a few falls, this could have easily gone down as the greatest match of all time. As it was, they did a 30-minute 5-star match preceded by 30 minutes of nothing of note.

Overall: 4.75/10
Well, it wasn't a TERRIBLE WrestleMania, but this one just didn't have any oomph. The ironman match was good but underwhelming, Diesel/Taker exceeded expectations but was unspectacular, and there wasn't anything else really good on the card. Closest comparisons for this show would be V and VI, and it falls short of V wrestling-wise and well short of VI in terms of atmosphere, hence the rating.

Ratings so far:
III - 9.5
X - 8.5
VIII - 7.0
VII - 6.0
VI - 5.25
V - 5.0
XII - 4.75
I - 4.5
XI - 4.0
2 - 3.5
IV - 3.0
IX - 2.5