Wrestlemania 12 Review

I have developed a scoring card to give the most accurate star rating possible for my reviews. For the most part I think they are pretty accurate:


5 Star Match= A 3.0 star IMDB rating
4 1/2 Stars Match= A 2.5 star IMDB rating
4 stars Match= A 2.0 star IMDB rating
3 1/2 stars Match= A 1.5 star IMDB rating
3 stars Match= A 1.0 star IMDB rating
2 1/2 stars Match= A .7 star IMDB rating
2 star match= A .5 star IMDB rating
1 1/2 star match= A .3 star IMDB rating
1 star match = A .2 star IMDB rating
1/2 star match = A .1 star IMDB rating
Dud= A O IMDB rating


(I can tell right off the bat that the rating system is gonna fail in this scenario just because this Mania has the fewest number of matches ever so the combined score will not be as high as a 4 hour Mania)


Here we go. We are at the Anaheim Pond for Wrestlemania 12. I watched this one
live on PPV and considered it a so-so PPV. The card looked pretty bad and hardly
any of the matches are memorable except of course for the main event and the backlot brawl which wasn't really a match anyway. Let's get to the review and
see if the matches are better than I remember.

Not included on the home video were the Ted Turner wrestling spoof which was a ripoff of MST3K in my opinion and the Tag match to fill the Vacant Tag titles. Body Donnas beat the Godwinns in an umemorable match for the titles.


Free For All Match

Vacant Tag Team Championship Match

The Bodydonnas w Sunny Vs The Godwinns w Hillbilly Jim


Generic tag to get some last minute subscribers to bite. Donnas cheat to win the tag belts about 8 minutes in. 1 1/2 star.


Match 1: Six Man Tag Match: Vader, Owen Hart, British Bulldog, Vs Yokozuna, Jake The Snake Roberts, and Ahmed Johnson. Nobody wastes time here, they go to it right away. Faces beat on the heels until they make a mistake and the heels take over. Ahmed tries for the pearl river plunge on Bulldog but Owen comes off the top rope with a dropkick that stops it. Jake gets a hot tag but is quickly stopped and is getting pummeled by Vader. Vader splashes him in the corner and Jake is in trouble. Vader slams Jake setting him up for a flying elbow by Owen, Jake kicks out. Bulldog hits the running powerslam on Jake, but Jake kicks out, (double take) huh????? Bulldog misses something and now Jake needs to make the tag. Fuji is at ringside waving an American flag which I thought was gay. Yoko gets the tag and starts punching down Vader in the corner, crowd loves it. Bulldog and Owen come in and get their heads rammed together. Everybody is in there now, Jake gets the DDT on Owen and Cornette comes in to get kicked by Jake. Vader gets Jake from behind and sets him up in the corner for the Vader bomb and the 1-2-3 at 13:10. A pretty good opener and a pretty good six man tag. I say 2 1/2 stars.

Backlot Brawl: I didn't even consider this a match. Both guys have a hardcore match in the backstage area. Goldust is driving a gold Cadillac, so Piper busts in the windows with a ballbat Goldust bails out and Piper starts hitting him with garbage cans and throws him into a lunch table. Canned sodas go flying and Piper throws GD into the dumpsters a couple of times. Piper starts beating GD up on top of the Cadillac, Goldust gets in a low blow. GD gets back in the car and runs into Piper, injuring his leg. Piper gets in a "white Bronco?" Now it gets stupid, they edit in the OJ chase footage, im suprised nobody booed this thing out of the building.

Match 2: Steve Austin Vs Savio Vega. Austin has just recently dumped the ringmaster gimmick and is now going by Stone Cold. Ted Dibiasie is still his manager. Savio takes the early advantage, but Austin turns it around pretty quick. Piper calls by cellphone midmatch saying he ain't done with Goldust yet.
Austin is working over Savios shoulder. Both guys go through a nice set of pinning predicaments. Austin slams Savio and goes up top, he comes off but catches a foot in the face on the way down. Savio misses a spinning wheel kick that hits the ref. Dibiasie distracts Savio so Austin can smack Vega with the million dollar belt. Austin puts on the million dollar dream, the ref wakes up and counts out Savio. Austin wins the match at 10:09. 2 stars.

Match 3: Ultimate Warrior Vs Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Sable makes her WWF debut by escorting Hunter to ringside. The Warrior is back and gets a huge ovation. Hunter attacks Warrior and gets the pedigree. Warrior simply pops up and doesn't sell it for a second (I would love to see a jobber do that nowadays, he would probably get blackballed for life). Warrior does his usual clothesline combo and gets the press slam and splash for the pin in 1:39. Does a fart count as a rating? Maybe not so lets go for the dud. Marc Mero makes his WWF debut in an interview and gets into a fight with Hunter, Mero would then take Sable as his manager in a few days afterwards.

Match 4: Undertaker Vs Diesel. Kevin Nash's second to last WWF PPV match for the next 6 years. Diesel would be leaving for WCW in a month to start the NWO. Nash had just recently turned heel after attacking his buddy Shawn at a recent house show. Diesel starts the attack, both guys end up outside. Taker slams Diesel into the steps head first. Taker back Diesel into the ring post. Diesel reverse an irish whip and throws Taker into the guardrail. Diesel then backs Taker up into the steel post. Diesel hits the sidewalk slam but taker kicks out. Diesel picks up Taker and gives him snake eyes in the corner. Both guys get each other at the same time with the big boot and there both down. Both guys beat the count, Taker comes off the top rope with a flying clothesline. Taker gets caught and Diesel gives him the jack knife, but Diesel doesn't go for the cover. Instead he gives him a second jack knife. After waisting a good 30 seconds he goes for the pin but Taker puts a chokehold on him. Diesel kicks him to put him back down. Taker gets back up and puts a chokehold on Diesel again. Diesel breaks it and gives him a belly to back suplex. Taker is up again. They start slugging it out. Taker catches Diesel with a flying clothesline, Taker hits the chokeslam. Taker says it's over. A tombstone ends it in 16:41. Okay match I guess. 2 stars.

Roddy Piper chases Goldust back to the arena and beats him up in the ring and tears off his suit. Goldust bails and Marlena comes to ringside to get him out of there. Piper celebrates. I didn't care for this "match" just a way to eat up some time because this PPV had the smallest card in Mania history. Ill throw it a 1/2 star just for entertaining crap.

Match 5: Ironman Match for the World Heavyweight Title: Bret The Hitman Hart Vs Shawn Michaels. Jose Lothario comes to ringside and points to the roof. Michaels does a Wrestlemania moment when he repells from the top of the pond into the crowd. The ref gives both guys the rules and here we go. Both guys start things off slow with basic wrestling and weardowns. Eventually the action spills out of the ring. Michaels trys sweet chin music but nails the timekeeper by accident. While both men go back into the ring and continue using weardowns the meatwagon comes for the timekeeper. Michaels sends the Hitman shoulder first to the ringpost and then f bombs the cameraman for getting too close (you know I like Shawn alright but I can't think of any wrestler who would break character and tell people to f off or push people around when he was supposed to be the face, he acted like a total dick from 95-97). Shawn gets a shoulder breaker (another wrestling move that seems to have been shelved). Michaels starts working over Bret's arm. So far no pins with 32 min to go. Hitman turns things around with an awesome pile driver that literally bounces Shawn's head a foot and a half off the canvas, Shawn kicks out of the pin. Bret goes up top but Shawn catches him and slams him off the top rope. Michaels set up for the superkick but Bret bails out of the ring. Fans boo. Shawn dives over the top rope and they cheer. Shawn caught the railing on the way down. But is still the first one up. Instead of trying for a countout Shawn throws Bret into the ring. Shawn tries the fishermans suplex but Bret kicks out, so Shawn uses the sleeper. Shawn sends Bret to the turnbuckle and charges. Bret backdrops Shawn over the turnbuckle to the floor. Bret goes after him picks him up and runs him to the post, and sends him back inside. Hitman sends shawn to a crushing turnbuckle collision. Bret knocks Shawn down in the corner and does a mini banzai/cannonball drop from the second rope into Shawns lower back. Hitman follows up with a belly to back suplex from the second rope, Bret goes for the pin but still no good. Bret tosses Shawn out of the ring and he collides with Jose Lothario. Alot of booing directed at Bret. Both guys start having a punch fest, Hitman wins it. Shawn rolls up Bret but Hitman kicks out and Shawn goes outside again. Bret dives through the ropes and collides with Shawn. We have 11 min remaining. Both guys are back in the ring. Shawn catches Bret with a flying forearm then does his trademark nip up. Still no pins. Shawn goes up top and hits the flying elbow. But still cannot score a pin. Shawn goes up again and hits a moonsault but Bret still kicks out. Shawn goes up again and catches Bret with a frankensteiner pin, and Bret kicks out again. Shawn goes to the well one too many times, and tries for another frankensteiner. Bret simply steps backwards, Shawn splats on the mat and Bret puts on the sharpshooter. Michaels won't give up. Time limit expires. Bret thinks he has won. But Gorilla Monsoon the acting president says there must be a winner. Bret is disgusted. Piper (who was acting as temporary President when the match was made said there must be a winner. Bret comes back in and start going to town on Michaels. Bret gives him a huge backdrop. Out of nowhere Shawn gets the superkick but he is too weak to cover. Bret is still moving. Shawn waits for him to get up and gives him a second kick and scores the pin in overtime in 1 hour 3 min and 44 seconds by my count. Shawn celebrates and a distraut Hitman leaves the arena never to be seen again in a WWF ring until Nov 96, when he would start his heel turn. Although it can be traced to really starting at the conclusion of this match, because he felt he was robbed. Shawn holds the title belt and is loving it. The ref tries putting the title on Shawn but can't quite get it on. Shawn just gives him a push and mutters something along the lines of get outta here, there's that attitude again. Shawn closes the show with some posing. Tuff choice I want to say 5 stars but the only thing I didn't like about the match was there weren't any pinfalls scored before the end. I would have given it a perfect 5 if both guys had scored 1 pinfall each then gone into the overtime finish. Also if they were planning on doing this they could have just billed it as a standard match and have it go to a 1 hour time limit. But having no pinfalls scored made the match kinda boring after a while. Great technical wrestling, and each guy put on a pace that makes me question why they can't put on more 1 hour matches. These guys paced themselves and made it look like they weren't even that tired at the end. I am going with 4 stars.



Overall opinion, a hair better than 11 but still not a very good overall Mania.
The undercard was forgettable. Only 5 matches 6 if you wanna include the backlot brawl. But they had to do it this way for the Ironman Match. They should have included the vacant tag title match from the free for all on the home video release. It wasn't better than a 1 and a half if I remember correctly but it could of helped. Even though this show has such a small card it still pulls a mediocre 4.1 which keeps it out of the worst Mania category. The main event is the only match responsible for giving it this high a rating. If they had done the bottom card better this could have gone up in to the 7 region easy. Weak undercard but the main event saved it. Still a great ppv can't be judged by just one great main event in my opinion. Were rating the overall feel here. This show slides in just behind Mania 2, which is a bit suprising. Then again, I watched this one live and walked away feeling kinda meh.

Best Match: Ironman Match (big suprise huh)
Worst Match: Warrior Vs Hunter


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 2: 4.8
Mania 12: 4.1
Mania 1: 4.1
Mania 11: 3.9
Mania 3: 3.8






Tomorrow we go to unlucky Mania 13.