Wrestlemania 15 Review

Today we review Wrestlemania 15. I watched this event once and thought it was pretty forgettable. Let's see if the review changes my opinion. We are in Philadelphia and hometown Boyz To Men sing America The Beautiful.

Match 1: Triple Threat Match For The Hardcore Title: Billy Gunn Vs Al Snow Vs Hardcore Holly. The first triple threat match in Mania history. Standard hardcore match, all three guys attacking eachother, Holly spins Billy inside out with a clothesline now it's going outside. Snow starts smacking Holly with a hockey stick. Fans get a Flyer chant going. Billy get's the hockey stick and breaks it on Holly's back. Snow breaks a broom handle on Holly, and starts twirling it looking like he's David Lee Roth. Snow starts whailing on Billy with the broom stick. Snow goes outside and finds a table, and sets it up in the corner. Holly attacks Snow and Billy cracks Holly in the head with a chair. Billy tosses Snow into the table, crowd goes nuts. Billy goes to pin Snow but Holly cracks the chair accross his back and pins Billy at 7:07 to regain his hardcore title that he lost to Billy weeks earlier. I guess I will go with 2 stars.

Match 2: Tag Team Title Match: Jeff Jarrett and Owen Hart Vs Test and D-Lo Brown. This would be Owens last Mania. Too bad the match is nothing special. D-Lo and Test co won a battle royale on Heat to earn a tag title shot at Mania. Both guys can't stand each other. Test catches Owen with a powerbomb. Owen recovers fast and gets a sharpshooter but D-Lo breaks it up. Jarrett comes in and gets caught by D-Lo with a sky high. Everything breaks down, in the confusion Jarrett pins D-Lo at 4:23. Ivory gets on Tests case for not being there to make the save. Test and D-lo start fighting. Feh 1 star.

Match 3: Brawl For All Match: Bart Gunn Vs Butterbean. Isaac Hayes is at ringside (hello children). Fink introduces the guest referee, some boxer I don't know, and the judges, Gorilla Monsoon gets a huge ovation, first time I saw this event I felt bad for Monsoon, he looked pretty bad here. Last time I saw him was back in 97. Butterbean gets a first round knockout after two good punches. A smelly little turd of a match. dud.

Match 4: Mankind Vs Big Show. Winner becomes the special ref for the world title match. Both guys are fighting on the outside, Mankind tries for a ddt but Big Show pushes him backwards into the steps. Show throws him back into the ring and starts attacking. Show uses a Russian leg sweep. Mankind pulls out socko and puts the mandible claw on Big Show. Show is barely hanging on. Mankind gives him a low blow, but Show won't go down. Mankind has the hold and is riding piggy back. Show falls backwards and squashes Foley good. Show takes Mankind outside the ring and hits him with some chair shots. He's tosses a chair into the ring then chokeslams Foley onto a folding chaird drawing a DQ at 6:52. Mankind wins by dq so he becomes the special referee. Big Show starts hitting Mankind again with the chair. Vince Mcmahon comes down to ringside and gets in Shows face. Show gets mad and goes to chokeslam Vince, but has second thoughts so the retard Mcmahon slaps Show in the face and gets himself punched out. Everybody loves it. Mankind leaves on a stretcher. Let's go with 1 1/2 stars.

Match 5: Four Corner Elimination Match for the IC title: Roadogg Jesse James Vs Ken Shamrock Vs Goldust Vs Val Venis. Goldust comes down to ringside with a Blue Meanie and Ryan Shamrock, Ken's sister. Venis and Goldust start in the ring. Shamrock and Roadogg both come in and drop Venis and Goldust. Nothing really great in this one. Eventually Shamrock and Venis battle to a double countout at 8:24 so there eliminated. James pins Goldust at 9:47 to retain the title. Im gonna stick with 2 stars.

Match 6: Kane Vs HHH. This feud started when Kane sent a fireball into Chynas face by accident when he tried hitting HHH with it. Just recently Chyna has joined the corporation. As Kane makes his way to ringside he is attacked by the San Diego Chicken who turns out to be Pete Rose in disguise (gay). HHH sneaks in from the crowd and jumps Kane. Kane takes over after a few minutes and punches and clotheslines HHH all over the place. Kane tosses HHH to the outside then dives over the top rope on him. Kane goes up to the top rope, but HHH knocks him off. HHH starts fighting back. HHH catches a high knee that puts Kane down. HHH triest the pedigree but Kane fights out of it. Kane picks up some steel stairs and tries to use them on HHH, but HHH trips Kane who falls face first into the steps. Both guys end up outside again, HHH tries a pedigree on the steps but Kane backdrops him onto the floor. Back inside Kane chokeslams HHH. Chyna is at ringside and she's got a chair. She hits Kane!!! Crowd pops. HHH and Chyna beat down Kane. The match ends in a no contest at 11:33. Everybody cheers that HHH and Chyna are together again. 1 1/2 stars.

Match 7: Womens Title Match. Sable Vs Tori. Nothing to review really. Looks like the standard womens match you find on Raw. Sable messes up a Sable Bomb on tori. Bleh match. Nichole Bass interferes and Sable gets a proper Sable Bomb for the win in 5:06 to retain the title. 1/2 star.

Match 8: European Title Match: Shane Mcmahon Vs X-Pac (sounds like a zit cream to me). A Mcmahon holding a title devalues the title in my opinion. Shane winnning this belt devalued it and Vince winning the World title was crap in a big way. Test in in Shane's corner. As X-Pac makes his way to ringside he's attacked by Patterson and Brisco. X-pac dispatches them quickly. Shane runs X-pac chases him around. X-pac eventually catches him. Shane is down, so Test helps out by running X-pac spread eagle into the steel post. I bet he won't be in any porn movies:)
Shane tries a corporate elbow but misses, takes off his belt and slaps X-pac with it. Shane goes outside X-pac goes after him and beats up the mean street posie who are at ringside for being a s**** gimmick. Shane gets control again and drops an elbow off the second rope. He goes back up top but X-pac dropkicks him and he squashes the corporate grapefruit in the turnbuckle. Test interferes again but gets ran into the steps. X-pac finds the belt and whips the rich boy all over the place. Bronco buster on Shane. Test hits X-pac with the euro title. X-pac recovers and gets the x factor on Shane. Chyna is distracting the ref?? What's going on. HHH comes in and pedigrees X-pac and puts Shane on top for the pin at 9:20. Outlaws come down to ringside but get beatdown by HHH Chyna and Test. Kanes music hits and here he comes. DX is dead for now. Billy would join HHH and Chyna and feud against X-pac and Roadogg for the right to DX only to have all of them join together by the end of the year. 2 stars.

Match 9: Hell In The Cell Match: The Undertaker Vs The Big Bossman. Taker is back together with Paul Bearer here, and is the leader of the ministry of darkness. Nothing interesting until Bossman handcuffs Taker to the cage. Bossman brings out the nightstick and starts laying the shots in. Taker falls down and the chain on the handcuff breaks. Taker is bleeding from the forehead. Taker shrugs off the attack and grabs a steel chair and slams it into Bossmans back. Bossman gets thrown into the steel cage. Taker catches Bossman with the flying clothesline. Bossman kicks out at 2. Taker goes up top and walks the top rope, but Bossman kicks the rope and Taker falls down on his cadaverous nutsack. Taker manages to regain control of the match and dumps Bossman on his head with the tombestone. Taker scores an easy pin at 9:31. Edge Christian and Gangrel come down from the ceiling and pass a neuse down through the cage. Taker puts it around Bossmans neck and the Brood go flying up into the rafters, Paul Bearer has the control to the cage and raises it, hanging Bossman in the process. That's some crazy s***. This was two months before Owen's death and if you look at the WWF they were really going nuts with people repelling from rafters and flying around on cords. Since Owen's death they haven't touched it with a 10 foot poll. Too bad they needed Owen's death to stop trying these hair brained stunts. I give it 2 stars. The match wasn't much but the finish helped a little.

Match 10: World Title Match: The Rock Vs Stone Cold Steve Austin. Jim Ross is introduced as special color commentator. Earlier in the nigh, Vince Mcmahon named himself the special ref since Mankind was too injured and Big Show was arrested for attacking Vince. Shawn Michaels the acting comissioner comes out looking like he's been vacationing inside a bottle somewhere and says Vince can't decide who the special ref should be. Only the comissioner can. Also this is a no disqualification match. Both guys go at it immediatly. Ausin beats Rock all over the building for a good 3 minutes. Rock manages to slam Austins bad leg on some scaffolding by the entrance way. Then they fight over to the announcers table and both go through that one. Both are back in the ring and Rock hits the rockbottom but Austin kicks out at 2. The ref goes down after something. Rock's got a chair and he's smashing Ausins leg brace. Rock catches Austin with a samoan drop for 2. Rock is mad at the second referee for not counting fast enough so he rock bottoms Tim White. Austin gets up and scores a stunner but there ain't no ref. Hebner hauls ass to the ring and starts counting but Rock kicks out at 2. Mcmahon comes down to ringside to distract Austin. Rock hits Austin low. Mcmahon gets in the ring and knocks Hebner down. Vince and Rock attack Austin. Crowd is going crazy, what's going on?? Mankind is coming to ringside. Mankind decks Vince. Mankind is the current ref. Rock hits a second rock bottom but decides to go for the corporate elbow. But he misses. Austins up, Rock tries another rock bottom but Steve fights it off and hits a stunner and gets the pin at 16:55. We have a new champ. Vince looks like he crapped his pants. Better than last years main event. Vince confronts Austin and says that is his belt. Austin beats him up for the hell of it. 3 1/2 stars.

Overall Opinion. 10 matches??? But the majority of matches were not awesome. Rock/Austin was great, but they didn't get much help from the undercard. It might not sit right with attitude fans, but this show scores a 4.4 rating. I liked the main event match slightly better than last years.


Best Match: Rock Vs Austin.
Worst Match: Brawl For All.



Current standings:


Mania 10: 7.3
Mania 3: 7.1
Mania 6: 7.0
Mania 5: 7.0
Mania 7: 6.9
Mania 4: 6.8
Mania 8: 5.9
Mania 13: 5.7
Mania 14: 4.9
Mania 2: 4.8
Mania 12: 4.6
Mania 15: 4.4
Mania 1: 4.1
Mania 11: 3.9
Mania 3: 3.8