Let’s take a second to look at some random Wrestlemania trivia.

Jeff Hardy and Goldust share the worst win-loss records with 0-5. After them are Crush and the Dudley Boyz, each with 0-4.

“Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff is the only wrestler to go from the main event of one Wrestlemania to the opening match of the next. Similarly, Lex Luger and Eddie Guerrero have gone from having world title matches on one show to being in the opening match the following year. Edge and Chris Jericho have done the reverse by being in the opening match one year and then the main event the following.

Hulk Hogan vs. Zeus was once in the cards for the main event of Wrestlemania 6.

For three years in a row, scheduled matches were dropped from Wrestlemania’s card due to time restraints: British Bulldog vs. the Berzerker (Wrestlemania 8), Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Kamala (Wrestlemania 9) and a ten-man tag match (Wrestlemania 10).

Shawn Michaels and Finlay have both opened three Wrestlemanias in a row.

Bret Hart and Owen Hart have a combined 20 matches at Wrestlemania. Only one of those matches (Bret vs. Austin) has ended with a Sharpshooter.

Wrestlemania 4 is the only time Ted Dibiase has won or lost a match via pin. He’s never won or lost via submission despite his finisher.

Yokozuna has wrestled four world title matches over the course of two consecutive Wrestlemanias.

Undertaker vs. Big Boss Man is the only heel vs. heel match to take place at Wrestlemania.

The mini-tournament in Wrestlemania 10 was decided with a coin toss in-story. Had it started with Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna, Lex Luger would have had a singles match with Crush before facing the winner.

If you face Kurt Angle in a title match at Wrestlemania, you will win. If there is no title on the line, you will lose.

#17) WRESTLEMANIA 5

Date: April 2, 1989
Era: Hogan Era
Location: Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, New Jersey
Notable Debuts: Shawn Michaels, Mr. Perfect, Owen Hart, Big Boss Man

Returning to the Trump Plaza for the second year in a row, Wrestlemania 5 is based on the Mega-Powers EXPLODING! Randy Savage has the belt and Hogan needs to have the belt. During this era, most of Hogan’s feuds fall into at least one of two categories: monsters or friends driven mad. King Kong Bundy? Monster. Paul Orndorff? Friend gone mad. Andre the Giant? Both. Savage isn’t a monster, so he has to go heel to make it work. And so, as part of Hogan’s Law, Randy Savage is driven insane by jealousy. Just like what would happen in real life, but with less rapping.

The Atmosphere

To hype up the Mega-Powers, they introduce the PPV by showing images of the two accompanied by clouds and lightning and shit. Some promos are pretty good, like Dibiase, Demolition, Rick Martel’s post-match rant against Tito Santana and the Bushwackers talking about their upcoming match while filling their faces at the Wrestlemania brunch. Others, like the Rockers, not so good.

They have some interesting bells and whistles for non-wrestling segments, like showing how in-shape Mr. Fuji is by playing footage of him starting and ending a marathon while dressed in his regular suit. Jesse Ventura poses on top of the announce booth for a minute or so for the sake of getting the fans to cheer him, but later gets outright enraged when they play a trailer for No Holds Barred and he starts accusing Hogan of cutting in on his Hollywood success. Run DMC come out to do the “Wrestlemania Rap”, which is a supreme disappointment. Not only is the sound bad, but it’s really generic. They don’t know about any of the matches or anything specific to that night. They just drop in terms like “piledriver” and ask “Who’s gonna win?”

There’s a big Piper’s Pit segment where Roddy Piper interviews Brother Love and Morton Downey Jr. If you haven’t seen this Wrestlemania, you more than likely know this segment for the part where Piper sprays down Downey with a fire extinguisher in retaliation for blowing cigar smoke in his face. Don’t be fooled, the rest of this is really boring. It’s these three guys insulting each other and then taking a bunch of half-minute breaks to let the reactions stew. The part that I find really amusing is how the DVD butchers it.

See, the original segment has Brother Love wearing a kilt to mock Piper. He and Piper get in an argument, Piper tears off the kilt and Brother Love runs up the ramp in his briefs, leaving Piper to deal with Downey. On the DVD, they argue for a second, Downey interjects with a mild gesture of his own, Roddy silently stares at Downey for a while and then walks over to him. With zero explanation, Brother Love has completely vanished altogether.

The Matches

The opener is Hercules vs. King Haku. Hercules is out for revenge on his former manager Bobby Heenan and is taking it out on his current stable. It’s nothing too special, but it does succeed where Orndorff/Muraco from Wrestlemania 2 failed. It’s two powerhouses with good mobility allowed to have a full match with a decisive winner to get the crowd going. Haku misses a headbutt off the top rope, Hercules grabs him and pins him with a German suplex.

The Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty) face the Twin Towers (Akeem the African Dream and Big Boss Man) in what looks like it should be a squash. After all, one team is fresh off of feuding with the Mega-Powers and the other is a team of young rookies at a fraction of their size. Everyone brings their A-game and all their strengths are brought forward to give us a good, competitive match. Rockers use strategy of letting the heels chase them and getting them back with surprise aerial assaults and double team attacks. Boss Man eventually gets his hands on Jannetty and makes him the lettuce in a Twin Towers sandwich. I make no apologies if that sounds perverted.

Jannetty gets crushed by a double Avalanche, but the Rockers stay in the fight. Michaels gets clotheslined into oblivion by Akeem, but it isn’t over. Boss Man misses a splash from the top and the Rockers capitalize with a botched double dropkick. It isn’t until Jannetty gets on Boss Man’s shoulders and gets taken down by a powerbomb/spinebuster hybrid that things look grim for our heroes. Akeem gets a splash on Jannetty and the match is over.

”The Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase goes up against Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake. This one isn’t worth much, no pun intended. Dibiase has to carry Beefcake here, especially since Beefcake’s offense is mostly bodyslams. Most of it is Beefcake winning until Virgil pulls something and Dibiase capitalizes. Late in the match, Dibiase gets the Million Dollar Dream on Beefcake, but Beefcake runs over to the ropes. Beefcake smashes Dibiase’s head into the turnbuckle a couple times and puts Dibiase in the sleeper, but he has to let go in order to chase off Virgil. Dibiase and Beefcake end up on the outside, where they are counted out. Beefcake beats up Virgil and Dibiase post-match, but he doesn’t get any real payoff.

Now, if you haven’t had any respect for the WWE’s editing team before, watch them turn this stinker of a match into what looks like the most important match in wrestling history.

In the commentary, there’s a joke made about Beefcake giving Donald Trump a haircut. Coincidence or foreshadowing?! …Coincidence. Probably just coincidence.

The Bushwackers (Luke and Butch) vs. the Fabulous Rougeaus (Jacques and Raymond Rougeaus) is a solid tag match, but there’s not too much to talk about outside of the Bushwackers stealing Jimmy Hart’s jacket and threatening to tear it in half, then stopping in order to throw the Rougeaus into Hart. Just a basic match that doesn’t offend. The Rougeaus are too busy celebrating their impending victory towards the end to notice until it’s too late when the Bushwackers hit the Battering Ram on Raymond, do a double-gutbuster and pin him an instant before Jacques can make the save.

Mr. Perfect vs. the Blue Blazer disappoints… in that Perfect doesn’t have his theme. No, I’m kidding, the match is as good as you’d expect from two talented guys in the early stages of their careers. Even Ventura is really high on it and says he’s been looking forward to seeing them go. The two have brilliant chemistry and really should have had more (and longer) matches. The Blazer gets a crucifix, but can’t get the three count. He argues with the ref, gets a mother of a punch to the face from Perfect and is finished off with the Perfect Plex.

Demolition (Ax and Smash) defend the Tag Team Championship against the Powers of Pain (Warlord and Barbarian) and Mr. Fuji in a handicap match. With Demolition, in order to look watchable, they need a smaller, faster tag team to play off of. With the Powers of Pain, in order to look watchable, they need a miracle. In other words, this is a boring match. The inclusion of Mr. Fuji is a brilliant move, since it brings excitement in the idea that at some point Demolition can get their hands on him. He only enters the ring when Demolition are at their weakest and quickly tags out after a few shots.

He does miss a legdrop off the top rope, which is really impressive for a guy that age/shape and the ring soon fills with all five guys. Warlord holds Smash and Fuji tosses the salt, only to accidentally hit Warlord instead. The Powers of Pain are cleared from the ring and Demolition hit the Decapitation on Fuji for the win, being ever so careful when doing the move, since Fuji’s old and all.

Dino Bravo vs. “Rugged” Ronnie Garvin is pretty forgettable. Garvin gets the jobber entrance (meaning he’s already in the ring) and Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka shows up for absolutely no reason. No reason at all. Like, Garvin’s in the ring and Dino Bravo comes out, but then Howard Finkel announces Snuka to the crowd. Snuka walks down the ramp, the place cheers and he leaves. What the hell was that about? If you’re going to make a comeback, try not to do it during another guy’s match unless you plan on interfering.

Garvin’s offense isn’t very exciting. The commentators hype him up by saying that the longer the match goes, the harder Garvin fights, which means nothing when Dino Bravo gets him with a sudden side suplex (Sidewalk Slam) and pins him. Of all the Hogan Era finishers, the side suplex is the worst. You see Dino pull it off and then wonder, “Huh? That piece of shit move is supposed to end the match?” Afterwards, Garvin attacks Dino’s manager Frenchy Martin and gives him the Garvin Stomp.

The Brainbusters (Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard) take on Strike Force (Tito Santana and Rick Martel) with the match hyping the return of Santana and Martel as a tag team. It’s a good match as you’d expect. Starts with a lot of fast brawling and signs that Strike Force still has the same cohesiveness as before, though Ventura speculates that they might be rusty. Blanchard gets Martel with leg scissors, but Martel is able to momentarily turn that into a Boston Crab. Arn and Santana come in, causing a spot where both members of Strike Force put their opponents in a Figure Four.

Things go south for the team when Santana makes a blind tag to Martel, runs across the ropes and accidentally hits him with a Flying Forearm. Santana plays the face in peril, but once he gets close enough to his corner for a tag, Martel decides that he’s had enough of this and storms off. The Brainbusters take Santana and put him down with a spike piledriver. Strike Force is no more.

Jake “The Snake” Roberts faces Andre the Giant with Big John Studd as the referee. During Jake’s entrance, when nobody’s looking, Heenan removes the top turnbuckle pad. Jake is thrown into it immediately and almost the entirety of the match is Andre in charge. By this point in his career, Andre matches are a terror to sit through, so seeing him slowly shove Jake around isn’t the greatest thing to watch. Every time Jake tries to fight back, he’s shut down. That is, until he’s able to smash Andre’s head into that exposed turnbuckle. Jake goes to bring Damien into the ring, but referee Studd refuses to allow that. Studd is attacked from behind by Andre just because. Ted Dibiase and Virgil try to steal Damien. Jake quickly runs back to stop them and then uses the snake to scare Andre away from Studd. Jake wins by disqualification.

The quality tag team action continues with The Hart Foundation (Bret “Hitman” Hart and Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart) vs. the Honky Tonk Man and Greg “The Hammer” Valentine. Not only is it pretty action-packed, but Anvil of all people shows some amazing agility when he’s in the ring. Honky Tonk Man lays out Bret with the Shake Rattle ‘n’ Roll neckbreaker and decides to tag in Valentine instead of going for the pin; a mistake the commentators chide him for. Valentine tries the Figure Four, only to be tossed off before he can make it. Things get busy in the ring and the ref gets distracted. Jimmy Hart throws in his megaphone, which is intercepted by Bret. He hits Honky Tonk Man with a lousy shot to the arm that knocks him out. The Hart Foundation wins.

Notice that they randomly throw in Heenan saying how this is the biggest Wrestlemania even though Heenan doesn’t do any commentary during this show. They just didn’t want to pay Ventura.

The Ultimate Warrior defends the Intercontinental Championship against “Ravishing” Rick Rude. Rick Rude is in trouble because last I checked, HE DOESN’T KNOW ANYTHING! HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW THE WARRIOR’S NAME NOW! Sorry. Rude makes a boneheaded mistake of attacking the Warrior immediately and it backfires. He ends up hurting himself by kicking Warrior in the stomach, as he forgot to give Warrior time to remove his title belt. The two lock up and Warrior tosses Rude across the ring.

This is definitely one of Warrior’s better showings. Rude works well with Warrior, though I’m not quite sure if he should be given more than half the credit. When Rude gets momentum, he hits a piledriver and gets up to do his gyrating taunt, stopping because his back hurts from all the punishment Warrior’s inflicted. He tries the Rude Awakening, but Warrior powers out of it. Warrior keeps dumping Rude out of the ring over and over again. He suplexes him into the ring, which turns out to be a mistake. Heenan grabs Warrior by the ankle and makes him trip. He holds onto the leg so that Warrior can’t kick out. The ref probably should have noticed Warrior’s legs hanging out of the ring, but oh well.

Bad News Brown vs. “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan is one of those matches that is widely looked down upon, but I like it. It’s short, it’s fun and it has a good dynamic. The two guys have a very similar style and it leads to a good brawl. My main complaint is that Hacksaw does the “HOOO!” routine way too much. They take it to each other until Bad News misses a Ghetto Blaster. Hacksaw gets him with a 3-Point Stance and Bad News decides to arm himself with a steel chair. Hacksaw gets his 2×4 and they have a weapon fight, earning them a double disqualification. Hacksaw wins the exchange and celebrates, all while the biggest gob of snot you have ever seen hangs out of his nose and onto his beard. I couldn’t find any pictures, but it’s a sight to behold. Honestly, I’m more impressed than grossed out.

The Red Rooster vs. Bobby “The Brain” Heenan is mercifully short and has to be. You see, after Rude/Warrior, Warrior grabbed Heenan and gave him a botched Gorilla Press that legitimately hurt him. Heenan is in visible pain as he stumbles to the ring. I do like how he’s wearing a smaller size of Andre’s Tarzan tights. Match starts, Heenan misses a shoulder into the corner, he gets rolled up and the match is done. The Brooklyn Brawler ambushes the Rooster and gets chased off.

Now it’s time for the Mega-Powers to EXPLODE! Love that.

Randy “Macho Man” Savage defends the WWF Championship against Hulk Hogan. Miss Elizabeth is ringside, but doesn’t specify a corner. The fighting at the start is intense and increases when Savage uses Elizabeth as a shield. Hogan breaks out the mat skills, which is a rarity. Savage cuts him open and Ventura suggests that the ref might stop the match. Gorilla Monsoon laughs it off because they would never stop a title match because somebody is bleeding.

You know, unless the company suddenly goes PG because Linda McMahon’s running for office. *sigh*

Hogan throws Savage out of the ring and Elizabeth attempts to help him up. Savage snaps at her. Hogan grabs Savage and tries to run him into the metal post, only to have Elizabeth stand in his way. Savage gets angry at this too and has her sent off into the back. Savage does an axe-handle to the outside, knocking Hogan’s throat into the railing. Hogan’s brought in and Savage drives down with a top-rope elbow drop. That’s Hogan’s cue to Hulk up, hit the boot, do the legdrop and get his title back.

Eh, it’s your usual Hogan fare, but once you get past that, it’s pretty damn good. As the show goes off the air, Hogan’s music keeps skipping on the sound system. You’d think they could have fixed that on the DVD.

Wrestlemania 5 has a lot of underrated matches buried amidst some that are hard to watch, but the last hour definitely steps it up and makes it a better show.

#16) WRESTLEMANIA 11

Date: April 2, 1995
Era: New Generation
Location: Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut
Notable Debuts: Jeff Jarrett, X-Pac, Road Dogg (so to answer your question, nobody notable)

Wrestlemania 11 is another one of the more unique Wrestlemanias due to how heavily it relies on the celebrity factor and how much of a time capsule that ends up making it. Considering the insignificant changes in the roster, a lot of it comes off as a lesser sequel to the far more popular Wrestlemania 10. The double main event includes the champion Diesel facing his former friend Shawn Michaels as a follow-up to a hot face turn for Diesel that is hurt tremendously by making him so smiley and clean cut that they forget what made him likeable in the first place. The other main event is New York Giants legend Lawrence Taylor facing Bam Bam Bigelow. Ah, yes. If there is any glaring flaw in the WWF at this time, it’s how scant the list of top heels is. Outside of Michaels, who is on his way to becoming face, Ted Dibiase’s army of midcarders is the best they have.

The Atmosphere

We’re treated to flashbacks of all the celebrity appearances that have meant something over the years and it’s immediately followed up on with some embarrassing shots of the celebrities interacting with the wrestlers. Jonathan Taylor Thomas posing with the Allied Powers, Nicholas Tutturo checking the Undertaker’s pulse, Diesel palling around with Lawrence Taylor’s NFL friends and so on. The whole show is riddled with audio problems, especially the commentary, which had to be rerecorded by Lawler and McMahon afterwards.

Other celebrities include Pamela Anderson – who is huge at the time – and Jenny McCarthy, who has yet to become well-known at this point. Pamela is supposed to be in Shawn Michaels’ corner, but she vanishes, so he has to use Jenny as a replacement. Backstage, her reaction to one of Sid’s loud, crazed rants is priceless.

Bam Bam is the only one on the show able to pull off a good promo without a hitch. At least it’s better to watch than a scene of Jonathan Taylor Thomas besting Bob Backlund in a game of chess and Backlund flying off the handle.

The Matches

Our opening bout is The Allied Powers (Lex Luger and “The British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith) vs. Jacob and Eli Blu. It’s a pretty good showing, though sloppy at times. For instance, it starts with the Allied Powers doing some power moves to the undefeated Blus at the same time to start the match, including a couple of powerslams that accidentally fall into each other.

Bulldog plays the face in peril for a bit, but tags in Lex, who is able to smash… let’s say Eli… with his metal-laced forearm. The pin attempt is broken up by Jacob, who then proceeds to switch places with Eli when Lex is too busy attacking the Blus’ manager Uncle Zebekiah. Shortly after, Jacob brings Lex into Bulldog’s corner and attempts a piledriver. Bulldog makes the blind tag, hits a sunset flip and gets the surprise pin.

Jeff Jarrett defends the Intercontinental Championship against Razor Ramon. Jarrett has the Roadie in his corner and Razor has the 1-2-3 Kid. It’s another solid match, starting with Razor outclassing Jarrett by repeatedly knocking him out of the ring and a spot where Jarrett keeps trying to prevent being punched by Razor in addition to hitting the Roadie, only to end up being punched by Razor into Roadie on the apron.

There are a lot of good reversals and uses of mind games throughout, a lot of the time playing on Razor’s injured knee. A couple double knockouts and a broken Figure Four later, Razor is able to get Jarrett up for the Razor’s Edge without blowing out his knee. Despite that, Roadie runs into the ring and gets his boss disqualified by clipping Razor’s knee. The Kid runs in to help out Razor, but gets beaten down too. The faces make a comeback to an extent, but the officials break up the fight.

Now it’s time for Undertaker vs. King Kong Bundy, represented by the Million Dollar Corporation. Undertaker’s out to get back his urn, which Bundy has stolen months before. Undertaker does steal it back from Dibiase mid-match and gives it to Paul Bearer, who opens the urn up to reveal a big flashlight inside. Then Kama the Supreme Fighting Machine comes out, steals it himself and cuts a promo to Jim Ross during the match that he’s going to melt the urn into chains. But what about the actual match?

The wind is taken out of Bundy’s sails when you consider how much taller Undertaker is and how less imposing that makes Bundy look. Like with Giant Gonzales, we get another match where Undertaker can’t do all too much against his opponent. It’s not like he can Tombstone or chokeslam the dude. They do what they can at times and outside of the lengthy chinlock sequence, they play it to their strengths. It’s still an average match at best, ending with Undertaker no-selling an Avalanche, bodyslamming Bundy, hitting a jumping clothesline and then getting the pin.

The Smokng Gunns (Billy Gunn and Bart Gunn) defend the Tag Team Championship against Owen Hart and Yokozuna. Yokozuna is Owen’s surprise partner, which leads to a reaction promo for the Gunns, who try to act all confident about their chances, but are definitely scared shitless. They do try and are able to use their tag team continuity as an advantage against the newfound heel team. Lots of teamwork moves and double-dropkicks. Owen and Yokozuna are able to give it back in ways like Owen tagging in Yokozuna, taking down Billy with a drop toehold and having Yokozuna legdrop him in the back of the head.

Owen accidentally gets Yokozuna with a Missile Dropkick, taking him out of the match for a moment. Owen’s able to pull down the rope at an opportune time to get Bart out of the ring and make it just him and Billy. This holds until Yokozuna gets back in and crushes Billy with the Banzai Drop. Billy Gunn destroyed by a giant ass. Oh, the irony.

It isn’t quite over, since Bart is able to save Billy and kick Yokozuna off of him. Bart gets dealt with and Owen is tagged in. He sees the prone Billy and grabs him by the ankles for a hinted Sharpshooter. He then decides to hell with it and simply pins him. Jerry Lawler reminds us how much of a time capsule this show is by exclaiming, “Michael Jordan AND Yokozuna are back!” Anyway, despite how obvious the outcome is from the moment they announce Yokozuna, it’s definitely my pick for match of the night.

Bret “Hitman” Hart faces Bob Backlund in an “I Quit” Match with special guest referee “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. This is one of those matches that’s recalled as one of the all-time worst in Wrestlemania history (I believe Bret calls it one of his worst matches in general), but it really isn’t all that bad. The two are able to do some good submission-based grappling for the length of the match and hint at their respective finishers at various points. There are mainly two reasons the match is so ill-regarded. The first is Piper constantly asking the victim of the holds if they give up. Though I do think it’s funny when Bret has Backlund in a submission hold and after Backlund refuses to quit, Piper asks Bret if he wants to quit instead.

After Backlund escapes the third attempt at a Sharpshooter, he sends Bret into the corner post, damaging his shoulder. Backlund grabs him for the crossface chicken wing, but Bret reverses it into his own chicken wing and grapevines it. Here’s the second giant flaw with the match. Piper holds the microphone to Backlund’s mouth and while it would make perfect sense for Backlund to yell, “I QUIT!” and bring the correct closure to his feud with Bret, he just lets loose with loud gibberish that doesn’t sound a thing like it. Piper decides he said it anyway and ends the match. Post-match, Jim Ross interviews the deranged Backlund, who screams about how he saw a light and wanders off.

Again, it isn’t one of the better matches, especially from these two, but I’ve seen far worse.

Now it’s time for the double main event, starting with Diesel defending the WWF Championship against “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels. Michaels has Sid in his corner to be his new bodyguard, but he ultimately does nothing the entire match. He’s just a looming threat. While Michaels gets Jenny McCarthy in his corner, Pamela Anderson walks out with Diesel. With all the celebrities involved, there are a ton of photographers just chilling around ringside, which causes Shawn to lose his shit on more than one occasion. They keep getting in his way throughout the match and he keeps shoving them around.

Since Nash and Michaels are all buddy-buddy in real life, they play off each other really well in the ring and put forth a good showing with a lot of screw-ups here and there to keep it from being a great showing. Lots of exciting reversals to start the match until Diesel puts an end to it with a well-placed punch. He has things taken care of for a while until missing a boot to the face and getting crotched in the ropes. From there it goes with some good back and forth with some unfortunate reactions from those outside of the ring. Jenny and Pamela can’t bring themselves to give a shit about the match and the fans chant such things as “SID!” and “LET’S GO SHAWN!”

Michaels hits an elbow drop from the top rope and puts Diesel in a sleeper, but Diesel’s able to power out. Diesel dominates and off-screen, the ref steps to the outside to yell at Sid and accidentally busts up his ankle. Michaels gets Sweet Chin Music out of nowhere, but can’t get the immediate pin. When the ref does make the count and Diesel kicks out, the fans are not happy. As this is happening, Sid cuts the top turnbuckle pad off so Michaels can use that to his advantage.

Now, you might be asking, “Hey, man! You said Sid didn’t do anything of note in this match! What about cutting the turnbuckle?” Yes, exposing the turnbuckle might seem like it means something, especially when Diesel grabs Michaels and slingshots him into that corner, but the thing is that Michaels doesn’t get enough air and completely misses the top turnbuckle. He falls short and hits the middle pad, making the whole spot worthless. Oops! Diesel gives him a boot, a terrible Jackknife Powerbomb, gets the pin and then celebrates with the celebrities.

That leaves Lawrence Taylor vs. Bam Bam Bigelow. Bam Bam has the Million Dollar Corporation backing him up (King Kong Bundy, Kama, Irwin R. Schyster, Tatanka and Nikolai Volkoff) and LT has a team made up of Steve McMichael, Ken Norton Jr., Chris Spielman, Rickey Jackson and Carl Banks. Salt and Peppa appear on a stage nearby the entrance to sing a variation of “Whatta Man” relating to the match. Unlike the aforementioned Run DMC rap six years earlier, this one actually works because they will at least namedrop the guys involved with the show and make references to the angle. The whole performance is removed from the DVD, meaning Salt and Peppa are shown loitering on the stage for no real reason.

Despite his lack of experience, LT gives a passable performance, enhanced by Bam Bam making him look like a champ. During the brief spurts of offense, LT mainly relies on some stiff forearms, but it’s the uniqueness of the style that makes it more acceptable. He does do a strained suplex that would be totally fine, but the commentators insist it’s a Jackknife taught to him by Diesel, so we know it’s a botch. Bam Bam gets a lot more offense in, such as a Boston Crab and a cartwheel moonsault off the top. He jams his knee during that last move, which explains why he can’t immediately pin LT.

At the end, Bam Bam does his top-rope headbutt, but LT kicks out. LT makes a comeback and finishes Bam Bam off with a jumping forearm from the second rope. He gets the pin and Ted Dibiase is furious at Bam Bam for losing to a football player. “Whatta Man” plays off LT as he leaves the ring, but on the DVD he’s unceremoniously taken away to zero music or fanfare. Also cut from the DVD is a skit afterwards where a Bill Clinton impersonator appears on a splitscreen with a telephone in hand, asking for Pamela Anderson.

It’s a short PPV and the main event might turn off a lot of people, but there’s nothing outright horrible about any of the matches. At their worst, they’re just mediocre.

Day One (#25-24)
Day Two (#23-22)
Day Three (#21-20)
Day Four (#19-18)
Day Five (#17-16)
Day Six (#15-14)
Day Seven (#13-12)
Day Eight (#11-10)
Day Nine (#9-8)
Day Ten (#7-6)
Day Eleven (#5-4)
Day Twelve (3-1)

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• The Wrestlemania Countdown: Day One
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Posted in reviews, Wrestlecomics, Wrestlemania Countdown by Gavok |