With WrestleMania just around the corner, Matthew Roberts takes a trip in the TWM Time Machine to look at five WM matches you may have forgotten about but that are nevertheless worth firing up.
Steamboat/Savage, Hogan/Warrior, Michaels/Ramon, Hart/Austin, Rock/Hogan, Michaels/Undertaker…those are just some of the matches in the annals of WrestleMania history that are at first off people’s lips whenever this time of year rolls around and we consider the best and most memorable matches in the events history. This list isn’t meant to be the “best” and as it’s labelled “forgotten WrestleMania matches” they clearly aren’t the most memorable in the eyes of many fans. All though deserve at least some form of recognition and/or re-evaluation. They are presented to you in Chronological order…
The Funk Brothers Vs Tito Santana & The Junkyard Dog (WrestleMania II)
The early years of WrestleMania aren’t exactly reknowned for great wrestling; the epic Randy Savage/Ricky Steamboat match from WM III aside little is remembered from the first few years in terms of in-ring quality. WM II is most famous as a show for being held in three different venues across America. And if people remember any matches from it, it’s a fair bet that this isn’t one of them. But even allowing for my Terry Funk bias this is well worth a look for those of you who think that the WW(F)E of the mid 1980’s was the completely sanitised “sports entertainment” product it appeared to be.
First of all it’s a
pleasantly weird situation to see Dory (known here as Hoss) and Terry Funk team
up in the WWE, what with them being former NWA World Champions and all that.
There’s a perverse pleasure also to be gained by simply seeing the completely
unsuited team of Tito and JYD team up.
But even putting all that to one side, this is simply a great
entertaining brawl. For a start Terry
Funk, who for sheer longevity and the ability to get over anywhere over a span
of forty plus years has a claim to being THE best ever, is a joy to watch here
and I firmly believe the WWE would be a much better place if every new recruit
to the Performance Centre was told to study his selling. Dory throws around
suplexes, Tito plays a masterful babyface in peril and JYD, well, does what he
does. Which includes slammning Terry on
a ringside table! You could almost be
forgiven for thinking you’re watching ECW two decades too early…
Mr Perfect Vs The Blue Blazer (WrestleMania V)
WrestleMania V is perhaps ONLY remembered for the quite brilliant main event between Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan, where the Megapowers “exploded” after a year long storyline that had been set running the year previously. An overly busy undercard really only has Rick Rude’s Intercontinental title win over The Ultimate Warrior (in the first thing approaching a good match Warrior had ever had on WWF TV) and Shawn Michaels’ WM debut in a match where the Rockers take on the Twin Towers to recommend it. And this match, between Mr Perfect and The Blue Blazer.
Yes, it only last six minutes and it can be a difficult watch if one brings to mind the events that would lead to Owen Hart’s death a decade later but if you ever needed a reminder of just how good both men really were you can do a lot worse than this.
It’s fast paced, not a
moment or motion is wasted and it’s two guys going out there with the mindset
of this is what they’ve given us…let’s make the most of it. And boy, they do.
The Steiner Brothers Vs The Headshrinkers (WrestleMania IX)
WrestleMania IX is perhaps the worst WrestleMania ever. There may have been shows with worse matches; there may even, as doubtful as it sounds, been shows that meant less. Few in Mania history can combine the worst of the worst quite like IX. If it’s remembered for anything other than that at all, it’s for the ridiculous finish of Hulk Hogan waltzing off with the WWF Title. Unless a show deserves to be remembered for having the best (and still not great, by the way) Tatanka match ever.
But in amongst all the gloom one match stood out. The Steiners in the WWF never seemed to be a good fit; history may remember it as a “in it for the money” interlude between their WCW runs. Some of it may have been their attitude, some of it may well have been that the “opposition” wasn’t really suited to their style for the most part. But there were highlights, and this was one. Here, in a match commentated on by WCW voice Jim Ross making his WWE PPV debut, two teams who had a little bit of a history in the WCW went out and had a match which served up the Steiners people know. It was a little bit rough around the edges but had a stiff intensity that wasn’t often (if ever) seen in the WWF of the early 1990’s. And yes, Jim Ross introduced “Slobberknocker” to WWF vernacular as a result!
Legion Of Doom & Ahmed Johnson Vs Faarooq, Crush & Savio Vega (WrestleMania XIII)
WrestleMania XIII is perhaps remembered as a one-match card. And when that match was the quite brilliant Bret Hart – Steve Austin battle (which, lest we forget, was far from the original plan for the show until HBK lost his smile) it’s understandable. That is one of the greatest WWE bouts of all time. There were other moments on the card to savour though and perhaps most surprisingly of all was this match.
It’s not so much that this Chicago Streetfight was a wild and crazy brawl that may have reminded some of ECW just a few weeks before that company made it’s PPV debut or that a match with Crush or Ahmed Johnson had any right to be anything other than mediocre. It’s that these six men (and some extras at ringside) were able to assemble an exciting and heated match that kept the crowds attention minutes after one of the greatest bouts in WWE history. And to be fair to Ahmed, it does feature him hitting a somersault plancha.
Raven Vs Kane Vs Big Show (WM X-Seven)
WrestleMania X-Seven is generally regarded as one of the best shows, period, that the WWE have ever put on, never mind in terms of Mania’s. It was certainly regarded at the time as the best to date. People remember the epic Austin/Rock main event, the riotously entertaining battle of the McMahons, the TLC Tag Team match and the gripping Undertaker/HHH match (not so arguably the first great match of Taker’s streak). If people remember comic relief from this show it’s usually the gimmick battle royale that featured such names as The Iron Sheik, The Bushwhackers, Earthquake and Kamala. To forget the Triple Threat match for the Hardcore Championship at that matches expense is a travesty.
As these matches tended to be at the time the main action takes place away from the ring. Kane easily breaks free from being locked in a gated area, Raven gets thrown through a glass window and Kane is thrown through a door before him and Big Show go through a wall. Raven tries to escape by driving away in a golf cart only for Kane to follow suit (with the referee riding shotgun) with Raven getting run over in the ensuing chaos. For ridiculous fun, this match takes some beating.