April 2, 1995! Are you ready for WrestleMania XI? Tonight we witness the showdown between Shawn Michaels and Diesel for the WWF Championship, and NFL great Lawrence Taylor steps into the squared circle with The Beast From The East, Bam Bam Bigelow! Let’s get to it!
It’s finally here! March 20, 1994! Tonight, the Superstars of the World Wrestling Federation celebrate a decade of the grandest stage of them all, WrestleMania! Bret and Owen Hart face off, and then Bret goes on to face the winner of the WWF Championship match between Yokozuna and Lex Luger later on tonight! Plus, the Macho Man faces Crush in a falls count anywhere match! And for the first time, the Intercontinental Championship is defended in a ladder match as Shawn Michaels faces Razor Ramon to prove who is the true Champion! All this, and much, much more! Let’s go!
Last year, I did reviews of the first six WrestleMania events as part of WrestleMania week. I complained a lot after that week about how bad WrestleMania V was. This year, I’m picking up where I left off, with WrestleMania VII – and the best part about it is, I don’t have to buy the individual events, I can just pull them up on the WWE Network! So, without further adieu, I review WrestleMania VII – Superstars and Stripes Forever!
June 24, 1991. The World Wrestling Federation had a house show in Niagara Falls, NY. The card was nothing really to write home about. Bret Hart beat IRS, Ricky Steamboat defeated Haku, Mr. Perfect retained his Intercontinental Championship over The British Bulldog, The Bushwhackers beat the Orient Express, Greg Valentine beat The Barbarian, Big Boss Man and The Rockers defeated The Mountie and The Nasty Boys, and in the main event, Jim Duggan (replacing Hulk Hogan during the steroid scandal) defeated Sgt. Slaughter in a boot camp match. The only thing extraordinary about the show was that in the front row, a nine year old kid was attending his first live professional wrestling card. That kid was me.
Over the course of the next 22 years, I’ve been to countless wrestling shows, mostly WWE. Countless RAWs and SmackDowns, a few house shows, a Night of Champions PPV, four WrestleManias and more, the training is also important and the use of supplements as sr9009 also help boost the performance on these wrestlers. But nothing in the entirety of my wrestling attendance history can compare with this past Monday night at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, NJ.
Coming off of WrestleMania, and finding out that the advertised Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was not appearing, the crowd was rowdy to start, booing new WWE Champion John Cena and cheering the appearance of Mark Henry. The “Sexual Chocolate” chants directed at Henry did not go unnoticed. A rematch for the Intercontinental Championship between The Miz and Wade Barrett had the crowd equally amped up, as chants of “Let’s Go Barrett” filled the arena. As then-World Heavyweight Champion Alberto Del Rio took on Jack Swagger and Zeb Colter, a very audible “we want Ziggler” chant erupted, and when Dolph Ziggler cashed in his Money In The Bank contract to defeat Del Rio and become the new World Heavyweight Champion, the place came unglued.
A match between Sheamus and Randy Orton was virtually ignored by the IZOD Center contingent of the WWE Universe, as they were too busy chanting for the Ice Cream Man, Cotton Candy, Randy Savage, X-Pac (who was in a luxury box behind the section next to mine), Steve Austin, JBL, Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, referee Mike Chioda, ring announcer Justin Roberts, as well as others. When Big Show came out to interrupt the match, a “Thank You Big Show” chant erupted. We then chanted for ourselves, saying “we are awesome.”
The real tipping point for the audience was the introduction of Fandango. The IZOD Center crowd embraced the ballroom dancing Superstar by humming his theme music throughout the rest of the night, including during the main event between John Cena and Mark Henry.
As the show ended, Cena acknowledged our chants, saying that his favorite one of the night was when we told ourselves we are awesome, because it’s true. The show ended with Fandango’s theme being played through the speakers and the raucous crowd still humming it deep into the night.
To all 16,000 of the rest of you in the IZOD Center last night, thank you for helping me have the most fun I’ve had in 22 years attending wrestling events.
This is it! BoredWrestlingFan’s WrestleMania week is in full swing, which kicked off with the WrestleMania 29 prediction podcast. My contribution to WrestleMania week this year will be reviews of the first six WrestleMania events, which started Monday with 1985′s WrestleMania, and will finish up Saturday with a review of WrestleMania VI. And don’t forget to tune in to BoredWrestlingFan Radio this Sunday at 2PM Eastern as I will be reporting LIVE from Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ, the site of WrestleMania XXIX!
WrestleMania V, the Mega Powers Explode! I’d just started to really get in to pro wrestling around this time. In fact, the Saturday Night’s Main Event where Hogan and Savage split up over the tag team match they had against the Twin Towers may be one of the first wrestling shows I really remember watching. We didn’t order this one on PPV, but I rented it on VHS as soon as it came out. I distinctly remember a lot of this show, which is surprising, since I can barely remember any of last year’s WrestleMania. Oh well, let’s roll!
This is it! BoredWrestlingFan’s WrestleMania week is in full swing, which kicked off with the WrestleMania 29 prediction podcast. My contribution to WrestleMania week this year will be reviews of the first six WrestleMania events, which started Monday with 1985′s WrestleMania, and will finish up Saturday with a review of WrestleMania VI. And don’t forget to tune in to BoredWrestlingFan Radio this Sunday at 2PM Eastern as I will be reporting LIVE from Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ, the site of WrestleMania XXIX!
Today, we’ll be taking a look at WrestleMania IV. This one went nearly four hours and featured a tournament to determine the new WWF Champion after it was declared vacant by WWF President Jack Tunney. Andre The Giant won the title in controversial fashion on an episode of The Main Event, and immediately sold it to “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase, who was immediately stripped of the title. I don’t remember much at all about this particular show, other than it was so big they had to put it on two VHS tapes. Now you can store the entire thing and watch it on devices smaller than VHS tapes. Such as what I’m doing. Tablet at one side, computer on the other. Let’s roll!
Author note: Wow. I can’t believe it’s been an entire DECADE since the WCW brand became the property of World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. A few notes about this article. This is NOT a reprint – this review has never been posted elsewhere, and in fact was written on March 23, 2011. I tried my best to keep my vast knowledge of all things wrestling that have happened in the last 10 years out of this and write it from the perspective of somebody who may have been watching it as it aired on March 26, 2001. The other note is that I had initially pondered creating a graphic and category on the site for WCW Nitro – however I scrapped that idea, realizing that it was far too much work for a one off article. I hope you enjoy this look at the final Nitro, and I hope you feel just as old as I do when you think about the fact that it was ten years ago!
Earlier today, the headline on WWF.com read “WWF BUYS WCW.” What does this mean for Nitro? Will we find out tonight? We’re off and running from Panama City Beach, FL to find out!
We here at BoredWrestlingFan.com don’t take ourselves too seriously when it comes to what we do. We approach our articles and reviews with a lighthearted attitude and will often poke fun at wrestlers and wrestling organizations. When I heard about the “Stand up for WWE” campaign, I knew I had to do something. I had to give back to the company who has provided me with countless hours of entertainment since I was just 8 years old. This is my contribution.
If you would have asked me a decade ago what I’d be doing on a typical Monday Night in ten years, I probably would tell you I’d be flipping back and forth between WWF Monday Night RAW and WCW Monday Nitro. Then I’d be looking forward to WCW Thunder on Wednesday and WWF SmackDown on Thursday, then ECW on TNN Friday night.
Fast forward.
We here at BoredWrestlingFan.com are saddened to hear of the passing of Captain Lou Albano.
Lou’s feud with Cindy Lauper was a huge part of the growth of the World Wrestling Federation into a global organization in the early 1980’s, and over his career he’s managed over 50 wrestlers, two dozen of whom won championships.
We’d like to send our condolences to the family, friends, and fellow fans of Captain Lou’s. He’s a legend who will truly be missed.