There's a Bob holly autobiography? Who asked for that?

It's coming...

One of my favorite wrestling moments is on that PPV . Hogan coming down to save Eugene is all kinds of epic. The roof was blown off of the place when his music hit.

WRESTLEMANIA XII

As I've stated before this is the first Mania since V that I watched live. The story behind that is the previous year I turned 21. There was this new bar/restaurant that opened up near me that me and my girlfriend at the time decided to try. On the way out we walked passed the bar and saw they had that "new" trivia game that linked up all over the country. Back then it was called NTN, but now I don't know what it's called, but I see they have in in Buffalo Wild Wings.

So we go in and play a couple rounds of trivia, and in between the questions I saw an ad for sports trivia on Monday nights so I tell her we need to come back for that. We go back on the Monday and I see a one of my oldest friends who I had lost touch with sitting with a group of friends, so we go over, and they tell me they are there every Monday and Thursday for sports trivia. So from there I joined them every week. A couple weeks before this PPV they invite me to one of the guy's house to watch and I accept not having watched one second of WWF in probably 4 years.

It was while watching this PPV where I learned about RAW and Nitro, and everything that was going on with Monday Nights. I was intrigued but didn't start watching regularly every week until after the upcoming Royal Rumble.

With that out of the way, let's move on to my notes for this PPV.


- For what it was, I enjoyed this opening match. It wasn't a 3 star match by any stretch, but it was a fun opener that got me ready for the rest of the card.

- Yokozuna just kept getting bigger and bigger every year. It was almost like the current year's version ate the previous year's. He looked really uncomfortable and unhealthy here. It's a shame

- Has anyone else noticed the guy who always sits in the front row at almost every Mania up to this point? I first noticed him at either VI or VII. He wears glasses and usually a tank top. At this show he had a WMXII shirt with the sleeves cut off. I've seen him on at least 5 shows now


- I know a lot of people thought the back lot brawl was stupid, and I'm not saying they are wrong, but when I think of this PPV the one memory I have is the sickening thud when Piper just cleanly punches Goldust in the face. It looked like he broke his hand when he did it.

- It's a shame that they had to ruin the Austin/Vega match with all of that stupid OJ crap. It was a good match, and Austin always seems to talk highly of his feud with Vega at this time.

- I'll have to do some research, because I am curious to find out why this Warrior comeback went absolutely no where.

- Did WWF just outright steal Diesel's theme music from the Roseanne show?

- 5-0. This seemed like another spot where they could have reasonably given Taker a loss. Had Nash and Hall given their notice yet, or is that later in the year?

- I really enjoyed this match when I watched it live, and I really enjoyed it rewatching it here. It was a bit more rest holdy then I remember, but it was an excellent match. Had the first half had a little more action in it, I think this would be in the discussion for best Mania match up to this point

- Another personal note. I cleaned up watching this live because I set the O/U on number of falls in the iron man match at 3. Everyone took the over and I made almost $200.

AWARDS TIME


Match of the Night

The easy winner here is the Iron Man Match.

Worst Match of the Night

I don't think the Back Lot Brawl counted as a match, so I'll say the Warrior/ HHH match. Just a squash that apparently didn't accomplish anything.

MVP

Shawn Michaels. His performance in the Main Event was outstanding. He always was a good bump taker, but I think this may have Ben his best performance in that regard. The bump he took when Hart back dropped him over the top rope was epic.

LVP

Vince McMahon. His announcing gets more and more annoying the more I listen. He thinks every time there is a false finish he needs to incorrectly call it a 3 count. I do enjoy his little comments for the people in the act when something gets screwed up though.


RANKINGS

I wanted this to be better since it was my first time back since V, but in reality it wasn't much better than XI

VIII
III
X
VI
V
1
VII
XII
IV
XI
IX
2

It's on to WM XIII with one of the best, if not the best matches in Mania history.

Your intuition is correct. Taker was penciled in to lose until Nash gave his notice. Nash has said this in a couple of shoots.

To me XII is way better than XI simply because XII actually feels like a WrestleMania and XI doesn't.

I liked Bam Bam Bigelow, and he did a hell of a job pulling a good match out of Lawrence Taylor, but Bammer just seems terribly out of place competing in the final match of a WrestleMania. Probably even moreso than other lame WM main event guys like Bundy or Miz.

I agree with that to some extent. I actually forgot the note where it felt good to watch this in an arena that felt big time unlike the Hartford Civic Center.

I will disagree with your assessment of Bundy being a lame ME opponent. Maybe looking back on it 30 years later it feels like that, but they built him up as a legit monster for over a year leading up to that. And as an 11 year old kid, he felt really lever as a villian against Hogan. I just think he fell victim to being in the ME of the worst WM possibly ever

Was it a total shock of were people expecting hogan to appear? This was during my hiatus.

He was indicted into the Hall of Fame the night before, so everyone knew he was there.

Speaking of which...

WrestleMania 21
April 3, 2005 - Staples Center, Los Angeles, CA

- Well, I made it -- less than a year between reviews! The next several will be interesting to go through, as I don't think I've seen any of them in full.

- Lilian Garcia does America the Beautiful again. They then run through clips of all the fantastic movie parodies they did leading up to the show, as part of the WrestleMania Goes Hollywood theme. I can't decide which one is my favourite, they're all so good. The set is terrific as well, with the spotlights, old-school marquee displaying the matches, red carpet in the aisle and the theatre curtain over the TitanTron.

Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero ***1/2
Eddie and Rey are the Smackdown tag team champions, BTW. Add Eddie to the list of WrestleMania freefallers, co-main eventer to curtain jerker in one year flat. It fit into the storyline, though, which was Eddie losing his confidence since losing the title to JBL, and trying to build himself back up by proving he could beat Rey, even though they were partners. Crowd is solidly behind him. Rey annoys the living **** out of me by adjusting his mask constantly throughout the match. Eddie controls most of the way with mat wrestling and stiff-looking power moves that looked like they could snap Rey in half. He can't finish, though, and is visibly frustrated, moreso when Rey counters a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker into the West Coast Pop for an out-of-nowhere win. Eddie did the respect handshake afterward, saving the heel turn for later. This was nowhere near their legendary Havoc 97 match, but still quite good.

- Backstage, HHH can't resist trying to bury JBL for no reason other than he can.

- I object to JR calling Rob Schneider one of Hollywood's biggest stars just on general principle.

Money in the Bank ladder match: IC champion Shelton Benjamin, Chris Benoit, Christian, Edge, Chris Jericho and Kane ****3/4
The original, and still the best. I can't possibly do this justice here. Unreal spots, pacing, selling (especially Benoit selling the **** out of the arm all match) -- just brilliant. Nothing looked contrived here at all, no slow climbing or blatantly setting up spots. Plus this really launched Edge to the top as the start of his Ultimate Opportunist character. Unfortunately, the star of the match, Benjamin, was the only one whose career went downhill afterward. I had to see how on earth they set up for Benjamin's famous ladder run without making it obvious; Christian did just a phenomenal job subtly getting the ladder into position and holding it in place entirely within the flow of the match. This completely revitalized the ladder match and would give fans a guaranteed great match to look forward to at Mania every year.

- And now we get Eugene down to talk about WrestleMania moments. And midgets. This draws out Muhammad Hassan, upset that he's not even on the card, to accuse everyone of being bigots and to beat down Eugene. Hassan puts Eugene in the camel clutch, when Real American hits and the place comes absolutely UNGLUED. Hulk Hogan, inducted into the HoF the night before, comes down to get rid of Hassan and Daivari, and does the super-extended posedown for everyone (including fellow former WCW champion David Arquette, lol). This was actually pretty awesome.

The Undertaker vs. Randy Orton ***
Orton had just gone back to being the Legend Killer after a thoroughly awful face run over the summer, where he beat Benoit for the title, got kicked out of Evolution as a result, and then was summarily buried by HHH in his first title defence. Nice video package to intro this, I'd forgotten he RKOed Stacy Keibler during the build. Druids with torches for Taker's entrance. This was very methodical (read: slow), particularly in the middle portion with multiple restholds, but the crowd stayed in it through to the frenetic finish. One of the best spots I can remember to close, with Orton reversing a chokeslam into a surprise RKO that could've been easily bought as the finish, only to get too full of himself and try a tombstone, which of course is reversed by Taker for the pin. Pretty solid, all things considered.

Women's title: Trish Stratus (c) vs. Christy Hemme 1/2*
How sad is it that THIS was the only secondary title match? Christy was the inaugural Diva Search winner, and a spread in Playboy got her this spot at WrestleMania. Unfortunately, she couldn't work a lick, which makes this probably the only "heel underestimates inexperienced face" angle where the face was actually properly estimated the whole time. Half-star solely for Trish's heel work.

Shawn Michaels vs. Kurt Angle *****
Absolutely brilliant. Told a simple but great story -- two top-level guys wanting to prove themselves against the other on the biggest stage possible, unwilling to quit until given absolutely no other option. The finish, with HBK fighting valiantly but futilely in the heel hook, was one of the most compelling in WM history. It's so hard to make a crowd care this much about a match with nothing at stake, no gimmicks and no historical implications (a la Bret/Austin), and it's a testament to how amazing both these guys are that the match rose to such a high level. They were able to keep the crowd interested during a two-minute side headlock! It's unfortunate that this got matched against Flair/Steakboat in the greatest matches bracket, because this clearly deserved to go further, just a textbook example of how to put on a great wrestling match.

- Piper's Pit with Austin (and Carlito). Nothing especially noteworthy, although watching Piper try to beat the What? chant was funny.

Sumo match: Big Show vs. Akebono
No rating for sumo matches, but I didn't hate this. But then, I actually think sumo is pretty cool.

WWE title: JBL (c) vs. John Cena *
JOHN CENA SUUUU...oh, wait. Oof, this was not good. I mean, obviously if you're going to run with Cena as the franchise, you have no choice but to put him over the guy who's held the belt for almost the entire year, and when that guy's JBL, you have to accept that you're not going to get a good match. Even so, this still came in under expectations. JBL killed the crowd dead with his boring, limited offence and gave Cena virtually nothing until the end, not exactly the showcase you'd expect for a guy who's being pushed as the future. Easily the worst WWF/E title match at Mania aside from Sid/Taker at WM13.

- Mean Gene Okerlund introduces the 2005 Hall of Famers - Nikolai Volkoff, Iron Sheik, Paul Orndorff, Bob Orton, Jimmy Hart, Roddy Piper and Hulk Hogan.

World heavyweight title: Triple H (c) vs. Batista **1/2
The angle leading to this was great, especially when they ended the slow burn and finally pulled the trigger on Batista's face turn -- still one of the best moments in Raw's history. HHH, of course, gets Motorhead to play him down to the ring. This one started out following a very similar pattern to the previous match, with HHH methodically controlling things and not giving much to Batista in the way of comebacks, before they picked things up with a nice bloody brawl over the final few minutes to wake the crowd up. Nothing terribly offensive, but I feel like this could've been booked a lot better.

Overall: 7.25/10
This felt like the polar opposite of last year's show. Whereas XX's strength lay in a pair of blowaway main events that left a great lasting impression, 21 featured amazing work in the undercard -- particularly MitB and HBK/Angle -- and fell flat where it counted most. It's not a bad show by any means, not even close, but when the main events are the worst matches on the card, the show suffers greatly. I would compare this best with Wrestlemania VIII (elite first half, terrible second half), with 21 coming in just slightly over.

Ratings so far:
X-7 - 10.0
III - 9.5
XX - 8.75
X - 8.5
XIV - 8.0
21 - 7.25
VIII - 7.0
VII - 6.0
X8 - 5.5
VI - 5.25
V - 5.0
2000 - 5.0
XII - 4.75
I - 4.5
13 - 4.5
XI - 4.0
2 - 3.5
IV - 3.0
IX - 2.5
XV - 2.0

WRESTLEMANIA 13

HEAT!


This is one of the shows I was looking forward to rewatching because as we all know it contains one of the greatest matches I've ever seen. And if our opinions count for anything it's the best match of all time. I will say that I was disappointed with the overall quality of the card. I wonder if it is because I watch with a different eye now or if the Hart/Austin match just blocked out any bad memories I had. Well either way, let's get on to my thoughts:

- Why is this show called Heat? Can someone explain that to me? There was nothing even close to having a heat or fire like theme.

- I'm a little upset I didn't get to see Rockabilly in all of his glory wrestle. I wonder if WWE will ever include pre-show matches in the PPVs.

- Speaking of pre-show matches, it just dawned on me that WCW never had them from what I remember. I also wonder how effective they were and are into getting people to buy the show

- I should have known this wasn't going to be as good a show as I remember when almost the first words out of JR's mouth was introducing The Godwins

- I have no recollection of Doug Furnas ever being in the WWF, but he is here and apparently he was around for Survivor Series, because I heard that he was the first person to call Dave Meltzer after the Screwjob

- It's nice to see The Rock in all of his Success Perm glory making his Mania debut here.

-How did Backlund and the Iron Shiek get together kayfabe wise?

- I see that HHH's punishment was over since they gave him a nice win here

- Vince has always been a fan of bad finishes, but to have a double count out in a title match at WM just seems shady to me

- How the **** is Todd Pettingill still on my computer monitor? Who thought it was a good idea to keep this douche employed for so long? He has so much change the channel heat it's unbelievable

- It truly is remarkable how perfect the Hart/Austin match was from start to finish. Not only was it A+ storytelling, but the aftermath was industry changing. If even one thing was done differently, or didn't have the desired effect, the whole industry would look completely different today.

- Usually I think the idea of a special referee is largely silly, but here Shamrock added that extra something to put it over the top. Compared to Piper in XI, he might be the best special ref ever.

- This is the second straight Mania with no outside celebrity involvement. That's not a bad thing, but if I remember correctly XIV has the best use of a celebrity ever.

- The Chicago Street Fight was an enjoyable train wreck of a match.

- I really enjoy watch Sid mess up during a promo.

- Another gimmick that usually doesn't work well is the guest commentator, but like with Shamrock earlier, Michaels really nails it here. I really liked him aging on Hart when he came out to interfere in the ME.

- I also found it odd how they didn't announce it was a no DQ match until after it started. It kind of felt like Vince changed it when he thought adding Hart into the mix would help things. I think it was the right move, just odd

- JR mentions that Taker is undefeated at Mania, but no mention of a streak yet. I'm curious as to when it's actually mentioned

AWARDS TIME

Match of the Night

Is there any question as to the winner here?

Worst Match of the Night


This one is tough because aside from Hart/Austin everything else is mediocre at best. Probably the Tag Title match was the worst because of the terrible finish.

MVP

Bret Hart. He did it all here. I know Austin was the person who benefitted the most from this, but none of it would have happened if not for Hart. He was at his prime here and it's a shame about what happened afterwards.

LVP

Todd Pettingill. **** you, Pettingill.


RANKINGS

Like I mentioned earlier I liked this one a lot more before I rewatched it, and I think I have to rank it in the bottom half of shows so far.

VIII
III
X
VI
V
1
VII
13
XII
IV
XI
IX
2

Well it's now on to XIV where there are only two things I remember off the top of my head. Austin beat Michaels for his first title and I think this was the debut of the greatest celebrity in WM. That's right: Pete Rose

Apparently Austin had never bladed before, agreed to let Bret blade him since Bret was a pro at it and it was a big spot that they didn't want to mess up, and then in mid-match he got squeamish about it and tried to audible out of it in mid-match. Bret told him "it's too late" and got him to go along. That was the story relayed on the Lapsed Fan at least. It's so hard to imagine that match not having blood.

I am currently finishing Bret's book, and that is the story he tells in there about it. I have also heard Austin tell the story without the part about him trying to call it off. It was the perfectly placed cut and added so much to the match. Austin also mentioned that he wanted Bret to do it because he had the stroke backstage to withstand the heat

WRESTLEMANIA XIV

X-RATED

WRESTLEMANIA this year comes to us from Boston. Going into this I really could only remember the main event and Pete Rose, but just. Those two memories alone I felt this was going to be a very good show. The crowd was really hot that night, and I think that was a sign on things to come for both WWF and WCW. I also feel that this was still a transition time for WWF. It felt like they weren't fully committed to the Attitude Era yet. For instance, they were still using the old bubblegum pop WRestlemania theme song and even though the logo in the corner of the screen was the new one, there were still sights of the old blocky logo. Anyway, on to my thoughts on the show

- I am a sucker for a good battle royal, but this was not a good battle royal and putting it on 1st was really a poor choice. Battle royals are usually good in the middle of the card right before intermission if there is one, or the second to last match.

- I'm not usually a big fan of Sunny, but she looked really good here

- I also have exactly zero recollection of the New Midnight Express. And who thought using Bob Holly and Bart Gunn would give that any chance of success. But it was nice to see the Rock n Roll Express get a WM payday

- I usually like watching cruiser weights wrestle, but for what ever reason they just never clicked in the WWF like they did in WCW. Maybe it had something to do with the bigger WWF ring? I don't know but it just came off better in WCW.

- Really enjoyed to storytelling in the HHH/Owen match. I did not like the fact that the European Championship was ever defended outside of Europe. It was just a bad concept that should have been renamed after they brought it back over from England

- Just a great interview with the Rock. I watched some of the RAWs toward the end of 97 and early 98 sometime back, and Rock was still trying to find us way on the mic, but here he seemed to nail it. I think I may watch a few leading up to this sho to see when it did start to click to him

- I also really enjoyed the two vignettes they did promoting the new Attitude Era. Especially the one with the old school legends putting it over. Very nice touch

- Let me state again that I am not a fan of mixed tag matches or inter gender matches, but Goldust & Luna vs the Meros was a good match. I also forgot that Sable was pretty damn decent in the ring. And I also think Luna gets over looked quite often when female performers are discussed. I think a Luna type performer in today's women's division would go over very well

- I mentioned a couple shows ago about this guy who keeps showing up in the front row at a lot of WMs. If anyone was curious who I was talking about, he is back and has his bet seat yet. He is wearing a red tank top as is his custom, and he is seated opposite the hard camera just left of the center of the ring. He is also two seats don from the real annoying ECW fan that tries to look like the love child of Mick Foley and Rob Zombie.

- I really hated the Tag Title dumpster match. It was just a bad idea compounded by bad storytelling, finished off with a horrible ending. Anytime the ending of a match happens back stage, then it's going to b a bad idea. I understand what they were going for, they just should have known it was going to be almost impossible to pull off.

- What really surprised me was how little I could get into the Taker/Kane match. It was just very slow and awkward from the beginning. I was surprised becaus I remember it being a really nice, long build leading up to it. I guess after thinking it through, the supernatural/fire/lightning bolt aspect really took me out of the moment. I just found it hard to believe that two men would attack each other with fire and lightning and then try to get a pinfall victory. Maybe this would have worked better as a LMS or an escape the steel cage match.

- Paul Bearer has the worst kicks in the history of pro wrestling

- Great entrance by both Austin and Michaels here.

- I liked this match almost as much as I remember I did when it was live. I did not remember how truncated the ending was. Usually you can tell that they are going into the finish, but this was just a Stunner and then Tyson is counting 1-2-3. I don't know if something was botched, or Michaels was too hurt to continue and they just called it early, it just didn't look smooth

- Also, the after match celebration seemed a bit muted too. I know Austin still wasn't full blown beer drinking hell raising Austin yet, but I felt he could have done a little more after the match. Maybe having Tyson there and punching Michaels caused it.

I have a question for you guys. We all know that the RAW after WM is generally considered the best RAW of the year every year, and the RAW after this show was really good, especially the opening segment with HHH taking over DX. My question is, Is this the year where that show becomes a thing? This is the first one that I remember being great, but were others just a good and I'm not remembering correctly?

AWARDS TIME

Match of the Night

The main event takes the title here because of not only what Austin would become after this win, but Michaels gutting it out when he was clearly hurting here.

Worst Match of the Night

I already mentioned it in my notes, but the Tag Title match was just terrible. I'm sure most reading this will think the Battle Royal should be, but I really didn't like the Tag match, and as I stated earlier, have the finish back stage really put the whipped topping on this turd.

MVP

Shawn Michaels. They way he fought through the obvious pain and took bumps like a pro really made the match for me. Great performance

Best Celebrity Performance
Pete Rose. As much as I have constantly ragged on the the WWF for including main stream celebrities in the show, this was a great show in regards to that. All three celebs acted like they really wanted to be there, and in Pete's case he seemed to really enjoy it. Also the fact that he was willing to take a tombstone from Kane made it even better. It was refreshing to see this type of involvement when we are used to seeing celebs with a look on their face like they would rather be anywhere else. See Jennie Garth, Pam Anderson, or Jenny McCarthy for proof of that

Sign of the Night

Poopbag 3:16. I think with the proliferation of signs starting here, I will make this a recurring award. Poopbag 3:16 made me laugh every time I saw it, so I'll make it the inaugural winner

SHOW RANKINGS

I think since the overall quality of matches was good, and the better matches were great, this makes XIV one of the better ones up to this point. I also think it's the best one since VIII.

VIII
III
XIV
X
VI
V
1
VII
13
XII
IV
XI
IX
2

And now it's on to XV. I remember it being in Philly and I remember the Rock/Austin match. Other than that, we will see.

In terms of when things clicked for The Rock on the mic, you pretty much saw it right there. Watching live, it was just a "Wat. That was...kind of awesome." He was awful at every aspect of wrestling until basically right then.

Also, XV is basically garbage, so set your expectations low.

But you do get the first appearance of "Left my vest at home" Austin, so that's always fun

I remember he was terrible as Smiling Babyface Rocky, and then his Reporting the News NOD Rock was bad too. Speaking of Smiling Babyface Rocky, I have a awesome/terrible story to tell when you get to the RAW in AC in your Monday Night Wars thread


Fannnnnnnntastic!

One other note that I wanted to put in there that I forgot had to do with the Shamrock/Rock match. Since I started watching stuff from this era on the Network, I always cringe when I see an unprotected chair shot to the head. I have wondered if I always had that reaction or if is because of everything we have learned about head trauma since. Then I saw the video package before this match. When I saw that shot to the face Shamrock took, I instantly remember watching it live at the time with my group of friends. They must have shown the replay 10 times and I remember we were all sick after watching it

During my childhood, my friends (who also loved wrestling) refused to accept that anything we saw was real. They were convinced that the blood was just fake blood capsules, that the sound of steel whacking a human head was just sound effects, etc. They thought I was the crazy one for thinking that anything that happened was painful or anything else. It was frustrating.

Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes about wrestling (this is from memory so it is a paraphrase):

The fans used to think we really were hurting each other but we weren't. Now we really are hurting each other but nobody believes we are. -Dutch Mantell/Zeb Colter

I think I mentioned it here before, but I fortunately or unfortunately was smartened up to an extent in the mid 80's because my mom had a friend through her work who was a pro wrestler in the 60's. He was the one who told me about how Dusty Rhodes was in charge of NWA booking at this time and how his real name was Virgil Runnels.

Also at the time of XIV one of my friends in our group had a brother who wrestled the local indies. He was Penn. Championship Wrestling Lt. HWT champ and came up with D-Lo Brown. That will play a part in that story I alluded to earlier

Absolutely not, but only because I know that the post-Mania Raws for the next few years after this were quite forgettable. This was memorable more for being the clear start of a new era than for being just the night after Mania.

Is the fan you keep seeing "Vladimir"

https://www.google.com/search?q=Vlad...w=1366&bih=599