WrestleCrap Induction: WrestleMania XI - The Grandest Stage of the Mall

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http://www.wrestlecrap.com/inductions/wrestlemania-xi-the-grandest-stage-of-the-mall/

When it comes to ranking the top ten Wrestlemanias of all time,
Wrestlemania XI doesn’t exactly spring to mind, and this was true even
in 1995, when there were only 11 Manias to begin with.
The first thing you’ll notice about Wrestlemania XI is that its intro
recalls moments from every Wrestlemania to date, but precisely zero of
those moments have anything to do with wrestling. Instead, the focus
is on the celebrities at those past events (except for Wrestlemania
IX, the previously-inducted “toga party” whose only celebrity was
Natalie Cole, who happened to be in the audience).
Yes, according to the video montage, Mary Hart’s entrance on a
motorized wrestling ring at Wrestlemania III was more memorable than
Hogan-Andre or Steamboat-Savage.
I would guess that this was done deliberately so as not to remind
viewers of how much better the matches were at Wrestlemanias past and
to instead focus on that year’s celebrity involvement, but XI’s star
power was pretty dismal, especially in retrospect. Sure, there was
Baywatch’s Pamela Anderson…
…but there was also tween heartthrob Jonathan Taylor Thomas…
…Playboy playmate/MTV bimbo/future anti-vaccine fear-monger Jenny
McCarthy…

“Yo kid, remind me to wash this hand.”
…and Nicholas Turturro, at best the fourth most recognizable figure
on NYPD Blue (behind Dennis Franz, Jimmy Smits, and Dennis Franz’s
ass).
We can’t forget “musical guests” Salt ‘N’ Pepa, although WWE would
prefer that you did, considering that they removed the group’s
performance in later video releases to avoid paying royalties.
Of course, there was also Lawrence Taylor’s “all-pro team” consisting
of former football players/future WCW wrestlers, pictured here with
WWF champion Diesel, who in just four months had transformed from
leather-clad badass to a seven-foot Jonathan Taylor Thomas with a
goatee. Just look at Nash here. Don’t you think this pose would be
more fitting of Tim “The Toolman” Taylor’s pre-teen son?
Then there was the venue. Wrestlemania III was held in the 78,000 — I
mean, 93,000-capacity Pontiac Silverdome, VI was held in the Sky Dome,
VIII was held in the Hoosier Dome, and X, just like the first
Wrestlemania, was held in the world’s most famous arena, Madison
Square Garden. 1995′s biggest event would be held in an arena
connected to a shopping mall, and unlike Eric Bischoff and the first
Nitro, Vince didn’t have the excuse of having to shill Hulk Hogan
brand Spaghetti-O’s when he picked the location.
To make matters worse, the whole event was plagued by technical
difficulties, which was evident in the very first minute of the live
broadcast when the microphone picked up only the last few seconds of
Vince McMahon’s introduction of America The Beautiful. Speaking of
which, in keeping with the low-budget theme of the year’s
Wrestlemania, Vince selected a Special Olympian to sing the patriotic
song. I will refrain from making a joke about a blind person being
lucky for not being able to see the crappy Wrestlemania card. I have
better taste than that, and Blade Braxton already made that joke about
Ray Charles at Wrestlemania II. I will say this, though: her operatic
rendition was a million times better than Rockin’ Robin’s at
Wrestlemania V.
Kicking off the in-ring action were the Allied Powers, the infamous
pairing of Lex Luger and the British Bulldog. As a kid, I thought that
the two teammates were a perfect fit, seeing as they were both strong
and they both wore their respective countries’ flags on their
crotches.
Not until I was a little older did I realize that Davey Boy’s
technical skill did not mesh at all with Lex’s, um, lesser technical
skill. And speaking of not meshing well, take a listen to their team
theme music, a mash-up of “Rue Britannia” and Luger’s “Eye of the
Tiger” soundalike. Also, I swear Howard Finkel billed them with a
total combined weight of 918 pounds.
The Powers were selected to open the card after having teamed once
before against Tatanka and Bam Bam Bigelow earlier in the year. It
wasn’t exactly the worst main event match in Raw history; no, it
actually ended in a double-DQ and was restarted later in the night,
making it the two worst main event matches in Raw history. Their
opponents on this night would for no reason in particular be the
Harris Brothers’ most recent personas, the Blu Twins, managed by Uncle
Zebekiah (years before he used his last name, “Coulter” and started
managing Jack Swagger). It did sound like a decent WWF Superstars main
event on paper, but then again, this was supposed to be the biggest
show of the year, one that people paid money to see rather than simply
turn on their local UHF station on a Saturday afternoon.
You’ve got to feel for Lex Luger a little here, though. The year
before, he was wrestling for the WWF title, while this year he would
be curtain-jerking against two Berzerker lookalikes. He didn’t even
get a Wrestlemania match out of his interminable feud with the Million
Dollar Corporation and Tatanka. “Lex Loser” indeed.
The Allied Powers demonstrated their tag team coordination right off
the bat when they went for dual powerslams and Lex slammed his
opponent onto the Bulldog’s head. Still, the Powers made short work of
the Blus despite their rampant use of Twin Magic.
Vince then sent us backstage to Nicholas Turturro in Pamela
Anderson’s dressing room, but when we saw the NYPD Blue actor, it’s
obvious that 1) his mic didn’t work, and 2) he was in the Million
Dollar Corporation’s dressing room. Nikolai Volkoff was somehow still
employed at this point, but the WWF never took the obvious step of
having him represent the USSR as the third member of the Allied
Powers.
Moving on from that stellar interview, Intercontinental champion Jeff
Jarrett and the Roadie make their entrance before we catch a word from
the 123 Kid. And by, “a word,” I’m almost being literal, as most of
his promo wasn’t picked up on his microphone.
The Kid would be in Razor’s corner to counteract The Roadie’s
interference in the fast-paced match with so many near-falls that
Vince McMahon declared the match over via pinfall, no joke, at least
half a dozen times. The Roadie tried to land cheap shots every chance
he got, but the Kid was always able to fight him off… until one time
he wasn’t paying attention and the Roadie broke up the Razor’s Edge,
drawing a disqualification. And that, ladies and gentlemen (okay, this
is Wrestlecrap, so probably just gentlemen), is why you will never
hear about the “Double J-Razor classic.”
Still, Jarrett had a bloody nose by the end of the match…
…which must have satisfied the one fan in attendance who expected to
see blood at a WWF event in 1995.
The four-man feud was supposed to continue at the next month’s In Your
House pay-per-view, but The Kid suffered an injury that was presumably
not as serious as the torn anus he is nursing at the time of this
writing. Instead, Razor beat Jarrett and The Roadie in a handicap
match and never won the title back from Double J (except for one time
at a house show, but that was an accident).

Even the Roadie doesn’t want you watching Wrestlemania XI.
Next, we were taken backstage once again to Nick Turturro, who had to
re-do his previous interview and pretend like he had just found Jenny
McCarthy in the green room.
Jenny offered up a lukewarm assessment of the Supreme Fighting Machine
Kama before she and Nick were joined by Shawn Michaels and his new
bodyguard. Sycho Sid told the viewers at home that Diesel’s dreams had
“become to nightmares.”

Turturro didn’t ask Sid any softball questions.
Next up was the King Kong Bundy-Undertaker match, which centered
around The Million Dollar Corporation stealing the Undertaker’s urn.
Jerry Lawler reminded us of Bundy’s pin of SD Jones in “nine seconds,”
which was considerably shorter than the actual 24-second duration of
that match and unfortunately waaaaaay shorter than this snoozer. Vince
mentioned the Undertaker’s undefeated Wrestlemania record, which at
this point stood at a whopping 3-0.
Certified A-lister Larry Young was the special referee on this night,
April 2nd, 1995, which coincidentally marked the end of the Major
League Baseball strike (which was the only reason Young got this gig
in the first place).
The only remotely entertaining aspect of this match was the fight
over the urn, the source of The Undertaker’s power, which for some
reason The Million Dollar Man brought to ringside instead of locking
in a safe deposit box in one of his many mansions. The Undertaker
merely walked up to DiBiase and took it out of his hands, then passed
it to Bearer, only for DiBiase to get Kama to kick Bearer and grab the
urn in one fell swoop. Kama then giddily told JR that he would melt
the urn into a chain, further stretching out this feud until
Summerslam. Oh, and Undertaker won after a bodyslam and a clothesline,
after which Bundy promptly rolled out of the ring and walked backstage
rather perturbed. Four and O! Woo!
Nicholas Turturro still couldn’t find Pam Anderson backstage, so he
got the next best thing: Mongo McMichael! He then walked in on JTT
beating Bob Backlund at chess. The former WWWF champion then drilled
the Home Improvement star on the capital of Honduras, to which he
answered, “Tegucigapla.” Wrong, it’s “Tegucigalpa,” moron!

His long absence was intended for him to lose weight. It didn’t work.
Owen Hart then came to the ring for the second tag team match of the
night, this time for the tag team titles. Jerry Lawler claimed to have
told the sound man to cue up his mystery partner’s music, leading
Vince McMahon to jokingly accuse Lawler of causing all the sound
problems. This has been cited as fact on Wrestlemania XI’s Wikipedia
page. Owen revealed his mystery partner to be Yokozuna, who had not
been seen since losing to The Undertaker in a casket match at Survivor
Series. Truth be told, Yoko had already lost to Taker in 42 straight
casket matches on the house show circuit, but I suppose that 43rd loss
was the last straw.
The heel team beat the cowboys after an okay match (high praise for
this particular event), to which the grown-ups in the front rows
responded with approval. No celebration, though, could compare with
that of Owen Hart, who pinned Billy Gunn after a Banzai Drop from
Yoko.
Backstage, Todd Pettengill and his mighty mullet interviewed Bam Bam
Bigelow, who vowed to the Toddster that he would not be known as the
man who lost to Lawrence Taylor. I would hope not, as that’s the kind
of infamy that would ruin your career.
Next came what was sure to be an all-time classic, Bret Hart vs. Bob
Backlund in an I Quit match. Just over four months before, the two had
competed in an underrated classic at Survivor Series, so their rematch
on the grandest stage of them all would go down in the history books
as one of the greatest ever, right? Well, dear reader, neither you nor
I nor the audience counted on three things: a live microphone, special
referee Roddy Piper sticking said microphone in the wrestlers’ faces
every ten seconds and asking “Whaddaya say?!”, and the entire match
consisting of the two wrestlers taking turns applying submission
holds, psychology be damned.
To top it all off, Bob Backlund never even said, “I Quit,” but rather
screamed, “Gaaaaaahhh!” into the microphone before Roddy declared Bret
Hart the winner. No wonder Hart called the match his worst ever in his
autobiography (obviously written before Wrestlemania 26). Roddy Piper
hadn’t been involved in such crap since he tried putting over the
Gobbledygooker on commentary, coincidentally in the Hartford Civic
Center.What’s worse, Vince couldn’t even answer a simple trivia
question about the Wrestlemania from three years prior. Actually, that
still wasn’t nearly as bad as the match itself, but it was pretty
pathetic.
We got yet another update from Turturro, whose microphone worked 95%
of the time this time, to tell us that Pamela Anderson was nowhere to
be found. Todd Pettengill then conducted an interview with a broken
microphone. Let me rephrase that: he conducted an interview with
Diesel using a broken microphone (although an interview with a
microphone would probably have been much more effective at building
the title match up). Diesel forgot that he was still the WWF champ
before suddenly snapping from calm and collected to angry and
shouting.
Come title match time, challenger Shawn Michaels was accompanied not
by Pamela Anderson, but by another stunning blonde, and in addition to
Sycho Sid, Shawn had Jenny McCarthy on his arm. I guess she was the
booby prize.
Diesel then brought out Pamela herself before playing Goliath to Shawn
Michaels’s David. A Goliath we were supposed to cheer for, by the
way.

That fan misspelled “Sycho Sid.” Sort of.
Instead, the same fans who rooted for Owen and Yoko cheered for Shawn
at every chance and even chanted Sid’s name before he ever got
involved in the match.
Softball Sid of all people should have been an expert at underhanded
tactics, but when he finally attempted to cheap-shot Diesel outside
the ring, Earl Hebner jumped off the ring apron and twisted his ankle…
I think. All the cameramen at ringside failed to catch this key moment
in the match.

Along the way, Shawn suffered the obligatory Wrestlemania pantsing.
In the meantime, Shawn superkicked Diesel and had him legitimately
pinned (he’s the heel, by the way), but when Hebner at last got back
in the ring to make the count, Diesel got his shoulder up a split
second before the count of… two. Kevin Nash never really had a flair
for the dramatic.
Sid then tore off the top turnbuckle, which would come back to haunt
Michaels when he was slingshot by Diesel directly into the… second
turnbuckle. Close enough.
Diesel then hit the jackknife, depositing HBK onto his butt, which
was apparently still painful enough to put him down for a three-count.
Botches and all, it was still Kevin Nash’s best non-Bret Hart match
ever, so he celebrated in style with two chicks at the same time. But
this was 1995 WWF, so he had to bring the kid sidekick and the
goofball into the ring, too.
Backstage, Shawn correctly claimed to deserve to be champion, while
Sid complained that there should have been two referees. Who does he
think he is, Gorilla Monsoon? I’m just glad that Mrs. Eudy didn’t
suffer a miscarriage of Justice back in 1960.
Next up, Salt ‘N’ Pepa definitely did not perform “Whatta Man,” and we
instead saw the entrances of the main event’s de facto lumberjacks,
The Million Dollar Corporation and Lawrence Taylor’s All-Pro team.
Bam Bam charged at Salt ‘N’ Pepa for the derogatory lyrics that the
group never sang about him in the performance that never happened.
I remember hearing people complain about this match years after it
happened, and I couldn’t understand what the big deal was, until I
actually saw the PPV on tape and realized that for some reason it was
the main event of the whole night, and not an undercard match
sandwiched between Bundy-Taker and the Smoking Gunns.
Although the main event got off to a fiery start, things started
going south about two minutes in when LT got visibly winded. From then
on, Lawrence Taylor spent the entire match doing a single move, a
forearm smash. Granted, it was a pretty good forearm smash, but
outside of a PWI poll from the 80s, nobody cares how well-executed
your forearm smash is.
LT was supposedly trained by Diesel, but when it came time to do
Diesel’s trademarked jackknife, Taylor flubbed it completely. Hmmm…
botched jackknife, two moves total… maybe he was trained by Kevin
Nash.
In a classic call-back move, just as it looked like Bigelow had the
match in the bag, the lights suddenly went out, and who else but The
Undertaker himself would come back and cost Ted Dibiase, Bam Bam, and
the Million Dollar Corporation the main event, taking back his stolen
urn in the process! No, just kidding. None of that happened. Instead,
LT came back from behind to beat Bam Bam with, you guessed it, a
forearm smash.
(Speaking of what-ifs, if this match had taken place just four years
later, the WWF could have justified Bigelow’s loss by booking an angle
where LT had paid off Kama to send some of his hos to Bam Bam’s hotel
room and tire him out the night before, but that sort of risqué angle
is the kind of thing you just can’t make up)
To make the ending of this Wrestlemania even more anti-climactic,
LT’s victory celebration has had the Salt ‘N’ Pepa music removed from
it on video releases, meaning that future generations will believe
that after LT won the big one, he celebrated in near-silence from the
audience. Which is probably what happened, come to think of it, but at
least there was music played over top of it.
So in summary, this Wrestlemania saw an Allied Powers match, a DQ
finish in a title match, Bret Hart’s worst match ever, a title match
relegated to secondary status, and a main event where a football
player beat a mid-carder, all emanating from the same shopping complex
where the Gobbledygooker hatched from his egg. While that might seem
like crap to you, there is actually a very good reason to consider
Wrestlemania XI one of the greatest Manias of all time, and it comes
from none other than the chairman himself, Vince McMahon:
….
Vince, can you hear us?
….
I’m sorry, we seem to be having technical difficulties that prevent us
from hearing from Mr. McMahon at the moment. So yeah, this event was
just crap.

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