I watched
Wrestlemania X! The big setup here is that since Bret Hart and Lex Luger tied at Royal Rumble, they both get a shot at the title. Rather than do the logical thing and have a match between Hart and Luger (could have been on Raw or on the March to Wrestlemania X special that aired a week before this) they decided to have a mini-tournament. How ridiculously convoluted. Whoever “wins” the coin toss faces Yokozuna first, while the “loser” has to wrestle a worthy opponent. Then the “loser” faces the winner of the first championship match. I have winner and loser in quotes because, logically speaking, the “loser” has the better deal, as he only has to wrestle in one championship match. Since the “loser’s” match has no bearing on the championship the smart thing would be for the loser to lost that opening match quickly to stay fresh and healthy for the second championship match. Not that that’s going to happen, of course, but that would be the smart thing, if wrestlers weren’t all apparently dumb as bricks. Both championship matches will have guest referees, whose names haven’t been announced.
By the way, Jerry Lawler is back from his “vacation” and is on commentary along with Vince McMahon. And by the way, McMahon and cohorts keep saying this is the tenth anniversary of Wrestlemania. Wrestlemania 1 was in 1985. It’s now 1994. That’s 9 years, Vince, not 10. Oh, and we’re in Madison Square Garden.
Among the celebrities are Little Richard and Sy Sperling, president of the Hair Club for Men. Way to be hip, WWF! Conspicuous by his absence in this one is the Undertaker, who is apparently injured.
Anyway, since Bret “lost” the coin toss, he faces Owen Hart in what has become the WWF’s hottest rivalry. Luger faces Yokozuna, then Bret faces the winner of that match. No surprise that Bret lost the coin toss – not that the con toss was fixed or anything!
For some reason, the first match is the Harts rather than Luger-Yoko, which is even more of an advantage (on paper) for the “loser” as he has more time to rest for the second championship match. I thought they had even mentioned once that the Yoko match would happen before the match involving the “loser” of the coin toss, but I guess not.
Again, we open with
Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart. Wow, what can I say, great match. Best Wrestlemania opener ever? Too much to recount here, but fantastic back and forth match with Bret injuring his knee, risking his status for that championship match. Owen scores the upset when Bret (after about 20 minutes) goes for a Victory Roll but Owen blocks it and sits on top of Bret for the 1-2-3! Great storytelling, moves, and selling, and a lot of exciting nearfalls. One of the many cool moves was Bret suplexing Owen off the top rope, which wasn’t done much at that time. Unfortunately, there’s probably nowhere to go but down from here.
Speaking of going down, the next match is
Bam Bam Bigelow and Luna Vachon vs. Doink and Dink. Ugh, I’ve been dreading this match. I had half a mind to just fast forward through this but I decided to tough it out. It was bad enough when Doink turned face, then we lost Matt Borne then Steve Keirn, but bringing Dink on board was the last straw. Dink is insufferable! I have no problem with making things kid friendly, but come on. And I also hate mixed tag matches anyway. They keep talking about what a great technical and mat wrestler that Doink is, but that was Matt Borne (and to a lesser extent Steve Keirn) but not thus guy! I don’t even know who it is at this point. Steve Lombardi, maybe? Ray Apollo? Anyway, this match was actually not as bad as I expected. Not great, but watchable. Bam Bam won it for his team with a flying headbutt off the top onto Doink for the pin. Thank goodness Doink and Dink didn’t win.
Next match is a Falls Count Anywhere match:
Crush w/ Mr. Fuji Vs Randy Savage.
These two have been feuding for a few months as Crush betrayed Savage and hooked up with Fuji. On Monday Night Raw a couple of weeks earlier, Crush cost Savage the championship when he charged in to cause a DQ just as Savage was pinning Yokozuna (in what was probably the best Yokozuna match that didn’t include Bret Hart) to add even more heat to this feud.
There are two people waving Canadian flags during this match between two American wrestlers. Uh, okay.
I didn’t really understand the rules of this match. They didn’t do a good job of explaining. It seems as though you have to pin your opponent outside the ring and make sure he doesn’t get back in within 60 seconds. Savage wins by pounding down Crush, pinning him, then hogtying him to a scaffolding. This was a pretty good match. Shorter than I expected, but brutal, certainly more so than most WWF matches of this era.
Next is for the Women’s Title:
Alundra Blayze (champ) vs. Leilani Kai. This match had no buildup. Blayze’s opponent wasn’t even named until a week or two before the match, and at this point I don’t think anybody has heard of Kai, but then again the WWF is just restarting the women’s division, so it’s going to take time. Consequently the crowd, who has been great so far, didn’t really care too much about this.
Blayze wins with a bridging German suplex. This was a decent, and short match, but certainly nothing special. Blayze looked pretty good here but Kai is 44 years old and obviously past her prime, so they kept things basic. Kai wrestled in the first Wreslemania. So there you go.
I can’t believe that they still haven’t gotten to the Yokozuna-Luger match. They really don’t want the winner of that one to get much rest before the final match, do they? Really weird.
Next match is for the WWF Tag Team Championship:
The Quebecers [champs] w. Johnny Polo vs. Men on a Mission.
This was a decent match (one cool spot was when Jacques backdropped Pierre over the top rope onto Oscar on the floor), though the ending was awful and awkward, as the Quebecers got counted out. I’m not even sure which Quebecer was legal, but it didn’t really matter. Then, MoM were celebrating in the ring with the belts (refusing to give them up) like they were the new champs, which of course they weren’t. I hate when wrestlers act like they’ve won a championship when the clearly haven’t due to having won by DQ or countout. It just makes them look dumb. MoM did get a pretty good crowd reaction, though.
The next match, finally, is for the WWE World Heavyweight Title:
Yokozuna w/Mr. Fuji & Jim Cornette vs. Lex Luger.
I saw a “Lex Loser” sign in the crowd. Wow! Mr. Perfect (who was a babyface who hadn’t wrestled in a while due to injury) was the guest referee. This match was incredibly slow, mostly consisting of long rest holds. Yokozuna’s cardio is so bad. All the more reason this match should have happened much sooner. After a long 14 minutes or so of not much happening, Luger, who has tossed both Cornette and Fuji into the ring, knocks Yoko out with his bionic forearm, then goes to cover, but Mr Perfect isn’t counting. He’s trying to help Fuji and Cornette out instead. So Luger touches Perfect – barely – and Perfect disqualifies Luger. Obviously Luger is furious afterwards and confronts Perfect and this will obviously set up a feud between the two of them (meaning Perfect must be about to start wrestling again) so I guess this accomplished that. There was a loud “BS” chant after this match as the crowd obviously wasn’t too happy.
Next match is
Adam Bomb (w. Harvey Whippleman) vs. Earthquake. Earthquake recently returned to WWF and is still a babyface. Whippleman gets into a tussle with ring announcer Howard Finkel and Adam Bomb comes out and is about to rough up a terrified Finkel when Earthquaek runs out to the rescue, attacking Bomb from behind. The bell rings, and Earthquake, already with the advantage, finishes off Bomb in 32 seconds. Not much to discuss here, just a nearly record setting squash. Rather shocking, actually.
Next is the Ladder Match for the Intercontinental Title:
Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon.
I like how they set this up. Shawn Michaels was stripped of the Intercontinental title by Jack Tunney for not fulfilling his commitments, then Ramon won a battle royal and subsequent match vs. Rick Martel to become the new Intercontinental champ. When Michaels got reinstated, he insisted that he was still IC champ and carried around his own IC belt. Now, both his belt and Ramon’s belt are at stake in this ladder match, to decide the undisputed IC champ. The winner will have to take both belts from above the ring using the 8 ft ladder. As with the Savage-Crush match, there are no DQ’s here.
Anyway, this is an all-time great match. Again, too many cool spots to mention. Razor gets the win when Shawn gets his foot, then his arm, stuck in the ropes and Razor is able to climb up and get the belts. Diesel had been ejected so he wasn’t there to help out. This was another brutal match, with the ladder of course being used as a weapon. I’ve read online reviews that claim that this was the first televised WWF ladder match, but I don’t think that’s true. I seem to recall one before this. My memory sucks, but I think it might have been Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon and it might have been on Superstars of Wrestling, or something like that? Anyway, this was a fantastic match.
Next we were supposed to have a 10 man tag team match but I guess they were running short on time and decided to skip it. They showed the heel team arguing about who should be the captain. That’s too bad, as I was looking forward to this.
They’ve been showing one highlight from each of the previous 9 Wrestlemanias. For Wrestlemania 7, they showed that stupid, terrible blindfold match between Jake Roberts and Rick Martel.What?
Are you effing kidding me? They showed that garbage instead of the Randy Savage-Ultmate Warrior retirement match followed by the reunion of Savage and Miss Elizabeth? Seriously? Okay, I know they’re divorced by this point, but still, they showed the worst moment from Wrestlemania 7. They could have done better.
While I’m griping, Vince & co. have referred to this as the 10th anniversary of Wrestlemania, because it’s the 10th Wrestlemania, I guess. However, the first Wrestlemania was in 1985. It’s now 1994. That’s 9 years, Vince, not 10.
Anyway, the final match is for the WWE World Heavyweight Title:
Yokozuna (champ) vs. Bret Hart.
The special guest referee is Rowdy Roddy Piper! Someone in the crowd had a “Hot Rod #1” sign. Hard to believe that in that pre-internet time someone knew who the guest referee would be, but that’s what it looked like to me.
Bret Hart wins the championship when Yoko drags him over for the banzai drop, gloats a bit while standing on the middle turnbuckles, then slips and falls. Bret just gets out of the way then rolls up Yoko for the pin. Personally I thought it was a lame ending. The match was okay, but I wasn’t too crazy about it. After Yokozuna stormed off, a bunch of babyface wrestlers, starting with Lex Luger (and Bert Reynolds) came out to celebrate with Bret Hart, in a pretty cool moment.
Overall, two spectacular matches and nothing that was really terrible, though nothing particularly memorable wither other than maybe the Savage-Crush match, so a pretty good Wrestlemania.
Are you effing kidding me? They showed that garbage instead of the Randy Savage-Ultmate Warrior retirement match followed by the reunion of Savage and Miss Elizabeth? Seriously? Okay, I know they’re divorced by this point, but still, they showed the worst moment from Wrestlemania 7. They could have done better.
