WrestleMania 13
March 23, 1997 - Rosemont Horizon, Rosemont IL
- Well, if you're going to book an arena instead of a stadium, Chicago is the place to do it. The crowd usually does not disappoint, as we saw at WM2 when they had such incredible energy despite being fed a **** sandwich for most of their portion of the show.
- Vince makes his last appearance at the announce table this year, thank God. JR makes his return to commentary for the first time in four years, to begin his outstanding 10+ year run.
Four-way elimination match, winners become #1 contenders: Godwinns vs. Headbangers vs. Doug Furnas & Phil LaFon vs. New Blackjacks **
Dubbing update: Still no "Don't Go Messing with a Country Boy", which was the music for the face Godwinns. You would know the New Blackjacks better as Barry Windham and JBL. Interesting rules for this one, as anyone can be tagged in by anyone else. Blackjacks and Furnas/Lafon get disqualified rather quickly. Not sure why they didn't just do Godwinns/Headbangers, then. Headbangers liven things up with a few good highspots, culminating with Mosh hitting the Stage Dive (seated senton) for the win and a title shot they'd actually never cash in.
IC title: Rocky Maivia [c] vs. The Sultan -***
Honky Tonk Man is down to do commentary, and JR wastes no time making an in-joke about his being the King's cousin. The Sultan would go on to bigger fame as the decidedly non-Arab Rikishi. We get a couple of "Rocky sucks" chants early. Match was incredibly boring, and the crowd cared not one iota about either of these guys -- the Iron Sheik was the most over guy in the match. They were on Rocky so much that they even booed during a sleeper spot when Rocky got his arm up at 3. Rocky retained on a fluke small package, then needed his dad to save him from a 3-on-1 post-match beating. He had the athleticism, but virtually nothing else that would suggest he'd eventually make his way onto wrestling's Mount Rushmore as The Rock.
Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Goldust *1/2
Heh, I'd forgotten about the letterboxed entrance. This was about what you would expect from these two, also I'm not impressed that they basically did an extended version of stuff they'd already done before.
Tag team titles: Owen Hart & British Bulldog [c] vs. Vader & Mankind **1/4
You have no idea how strange it was to see Vader and Mick Foley teaming up at the time. Bulldog was the inaugural European champion at the time, having beaten Owen for it a month previous. Good wrestling for the most part, although Bulldog's timing seemed off. However, it went a bit too long, especially since the crowd really didn't have anyone to get behind here, which hurt (well, aside from the small section of fans at ringside cheering for Owen). Conventional wisdom was that Bulldog was about to turn face, making the heel/heel match make more sense, but that of course went by the wayside due to future events (I've heard that Bret wanted the finish changed to set up the Hart Foundation angle, which would make sense).
Submission match: Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin *****
The GOATiest GOAT that ever GOATed. I cannot think of a single match that told a better story than this one - it was obvious in hindsight from the introductions which way they wanted to go with this, and they got there in amazing fashion. So many incredible moments...the glass literally shattering for Austin's entrance, the brawl into the crowd to start, the ringpost figure four, Austin passing out without giving up. If the shot of a bloody Austin in the sharpshooter isn't the most iconic picture in the history of wrestling, it's damn close. Bret's nine-year face run ends as he leaves to huge boos, while the formerly hated Austin leaves with the fans ready to follow him to the ends of the earth. Just perfection.
Chicago street fight: Nation of Domination vs. Ahmed Johnson & Legion of Doom **1/2
Chicago crowd pops HUGE for LOD. This is a wild hardcore-style brawl with all kinds of weapons -- garbage cans, a 2x4, a nightstick, a fire extinguisher, a street sign, a noose...and yes, even the kitchen sink Hawk brought to the ring. Best spot of the match goes to Ahmed (?!?), hitting a plancha over the railing onto Crush. Faces pop the crowd at the end with a Pearl River Plunge on the still-unknown D-Lo Brown and a Double Doomsday Device on PG-13. As garbage matches go, this was pretty fun to watch.
WWF title: Sid [c] vs. Undertaker DUD
Shawn Michaels is out for commentary, looking like he's found his smile (and repeatedly flashing the Wolfpac sign). And Bret Hart is out just to cement his heel turn by whining some more. So that's ten minutes burned up before the match even starts. And we get a bearhug three minutes in, are you ****ing kidding me? This was everything everyone was afraid of prior to the show, slow, plodding and so very boring. Sid is horrible. Crowd was not into this whatsoever until the finish, a really, really bad sign for a main event title match. And even the finish is cheap, with Bret running out again to nail Sid, leading to the tombstone. Despite the cool moment with Taker finally posing with the belt at the end, LKJ was right, this is the worst Mania main event ever.
Overall: 4.5/10
It was bad, but it wasn't as bad as I remember. 13 gets a really bad rap because of the ****ty main event and the unwatchable IC title match, but there's really nothing else on here that was that terrible. Plus, you can't say that a show with the greatest Mania match of all time on it could be one of the worst ever. So, with that said, where does this rank? For me, it's right in the mediocre range with V, VI and XII. The fact that the main event was so much worse than any of those three puts it clearly below them, though.
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
13 - 4.5
XI - 4.0
2 - 3.5
IV - 3.0
IX - 2.5
Last edited by True North; 09-20-2014 at 10:05 PM.