Event:

We kick off the show with images from the original WrestleMania.  Little Richard sings America The Beautiful poorly.  Pretty sure he was lip synching and he looks like a damn wax statue.  Scary dude.  We get Jerry “The King” Lawler and Vince McMahon on the mic.

Owen Hart defeated Bret Hart
We get a great recap here pre-match.  Probably the best of the series so far.  We’re then treated to a weak ass fireworks display and then FINALLY nearly 15 minutes after the show started we get the first bell.  Owen playing the heel to perfection.  We start out with some good wrestling and reversals from both guys and right off the bat you know this is going to be a good match.  Great stuff.  Bret takes a whip to the ropes/turnbuckle better than anyone in history.  Great looking Camel Clutch by Owen on Bret that they don’t reference by name.  Course not… then it would be a finishing move.  Awesome match back and forth between both guys.  Owen hits a non-named Tombstone and follows up with an attempt off the top rope which he misses.  Owen goes for a Sharpshooter and Bret reverses it but neither man get it locked on.  Nice innovative spots there.  Bret hurts his knee and Owen starts in.  Figure Four, leg sweeps, etc.  Talk about back and forth action!  Bret hits a superplex off the top.  Owen finally manages to lock in the Sharpshooter and Bret breaks and reverses it.  Bret goes for a victory roll and Owen drops down to get the pin and the victory.  Fucking outstanding match.  It made my Top WrestleMania Matches list as an honorable mention and definitely deserves to be there.

Bam Bam Bigelow and Luna Vachon defeated Doink the Clown and Dink
Wow… how in the hell did we get here?  Doink and Bam Bam start out with some standard stuff and eventually Dink and Luna get in on the action.  I mean really… how much can you do with a midget against a regular sized person?  Though I do have to say that seeing a midget go off the top rope is hilarious.  Huge DDT by Doink on Bam Bam.  Doink goes for his finisher but misses.  Bam Bam takes over and hits a head butt off the top for the victory.  So so match, but luckily it was pretty short.  Post match Dink goes after Bam Bam.  He and Luna go to splash dink but they blow the spot.

Falls Count Anywhere Match
Randy Savage defeated Crush (with Mr. Fuji)
In this “falls count anywhere” match you don’t actually lose the match if you’re pinned.  You have to also fail to return to the ring in 60 seconds.  Crush comes to the ring rocking a serious mullet and Savage attacks before the match starts and we’re off.  The first fall comes after about 30 seconds or so which sets the tone for the entire match.  Savage has to make his way back to the ring after being dropped across a retaining fence.  Naturally he makes it back with about 1 second to spare.  Crush goes for the dreaded “salt to the eyes” but it gets reversed.  Savage takes over and hits the elbow.  After dumping Crush to the outside he gets the fall.  Crush back in with 2 seconds to spare.  At this point they begin to battle through the crowd and to the backstage area.  Savage gets a pin and then hogties Crush upside down in the back.  Crush can’t make it back to the ring in time and Savage gets the win.  Decent match, but due to whole “get back in 60 seconds” rule we lose quite a bit of urgency.

WWF Women’s Championship
Alundra Blayze (c) defeated Leilani Kai
Leilani looks like she’s been ridden hard and put away wet.  Pretty typical women’s match for this day and age (pre Diva stuff).  Blaze gets the victory with a German suplex.  Skip this match completely.  The only noteworthy thing about this one is we’re shown Volkoff, Lou Albano, May Young and Moolah in the crowd.

WWF Tag Team Championship
Men on a Mission (Mabel and Mo) (with Oscar) defeated The Quebecers (c) (Jacques and Pierre) (with Johnny Polo) by countout
M.O.M. raps on the way to the ring… dear lord.  Johnny Polo (also knows as Raven) leads the Quebecers.  MOM in charge early.  Quebecers make a comeback and pull off a nice move where one body drops the other over the top onto the good guys.  Mabel gets a hot tag and cleans house.  The Quebecers get an impressive looking suplex on Mabel (damn that’s a big dude).  They hit their finisher and Mabel kicks out.  Thankfully this comes to an end when MOM win by countout.  Pretty piss poor match.

WWF Championship
Yokozuna (c) (with Mr. Fuji and Jim Cornette) defeated Lex Luger by disqualification
Mr. Perfect is the special guest referee and Yokozuna comes to the ring first which sucks – champ should always be in last.  DAMN is Yokozuna big dude.  RIP sir.  Luger gets a real near count with a cross body off the top rope.  Follows that with a HUGE elbow drop.  He then goes for a slam and doesn’t even come close.  Naturally after the failed body slam attempt by Luger, Yoko takes over.  It’s not his fault but being so big his move set is very limited.  He goes into a nerve pinch (rest) hold for a few minutes until Lex gets up and breaks the hold.  At this point, we go into a terribly frustrating portion of the match.  Yoko beats down Luger who gets up, gets some offense in for a minute and then gets beat down by one single punch/kick from Yoko and we follow that up with a minute of a rest hold.  Ugh.  Luger fights back to his feet once again and gets hit with a HUGE belly to belly suplex.  Lex manages to hit Yoko into the exposed turnbuckle.  Luger knocks Yoko off his feet after multiple clotheslines.  Luger then follows that up with a slam (wow) and hits the loaded elbow/forearm.  Yoko out cold.  Cornette and Fuji in to the ring and Luger attacks them and the covers Yoko forever and a day.  Perfect goes to see how Cornette and Fuji are but doesn’t make the count.  Luger gets off of Yoko and goes after Perfect wondering why he’s not counting pushing him in the process.  Perfect then DQs Luger which leads to the crowd starting in on a “bullshit” chant.  I agree folks… fucking terrible.

Earthquake defeated Adam Bomb (with Harvey Wippleman)
Pre-match, Wippelman and Fink (?) get into it.  Why, I have no idea.  Who in the hell wants to see that?  Adam Bomb out and grabs Fink.  Earthquake out to make the save and… oh yeah… to have a match.  He gets the squash victory.  Bad but mercifully quick.

Ladder Match For The WWF Intercontinental Championship
Razor Ramon (c) defeated Shawn Michaels (with Diesel)
This is the ladder match that started it all.  No rules.  The storyline here is Shawn Michaels has a belt that he claims he is the rightful owner of since he never lost it.  Razor’s got a belt that he won when Shawn vacated his title.  To win, you’ve got to scale the ladder and retrieve both belts.  Outstanding mullet for Shawn who’s led to the ring by Diesel.  Razor’s out to some of my all time favorite entrance music.  No ref in the ring but have a couple outside the ring.  Great back and forth action here at the beginning.  Diesel gets involved and nails Razor on the outside.  He promptly gets removed from ringside for the duration of the match.  This naturally makes no fucking sense cause there are NO RULES in this match, so technically what he did was just fine.  In any case, the match continues and Razor removes the padding from the concrete and immediately gets back body dropped out of the ring onto the exposed floor.  Sucks for you Razor.  HBK gets the ladder and begins laying into Razor.  He hits the “ass out” elbow off the ladder which is hilarious.  HBK slams Razor and then proceeds to splash him off the ladder for a what I consider to be my first true “holy shit” moment in professional wrestling.   Razor turns it around and nails Shawn with the ladder out of the ring.  Razor attempts to climb the ladder but Shawn comes off the turnbuckle knocking Razor off the ladder.  Both men climb the ladder and Razor hits a suplex off the ladder.  At this point, the original ladder is broken and twisted.  Shawn hits Sweet Chin Music and follows that up with a big pile driver.  Shawn then “rides” the ladder out of the corner onto Razor – great spot.  Shawn sets up Razor under the ladder and attempts to climb the ladder.  Razor back up and knocks Shawn off the ladder who gets crotched on the top rope in the process.  Shawn’s leg gets wrapped up in the ropes and he can’t get free to stop Razor from climbing the ladder and grabbing the belts and the victory.  Absolutely AWESOME match which is why it made my Top 10.

WWF Championship
Bret Hart defeated Yokozuna (c) (with Mr. Fuji and Jim Cornette)
Roddy Piper is the special guest referee for this match and Yoko once again comes to the ring first.  Interesting to note that this is the second WrestleMania is a row where this is the billed main event.  Nice that we get an actual match this time rather than the screwy “Insert Hulk Hogan As Champ” that we got last year.  Bret’s really limping on his way to the ring selling his injury from his previous match nicely.  Yoko takes over early and is in charge for the majority of the match.  Bret manages some offense and Yoko strikes back to take the advantage.  Piper is REALLY fast with his counts on chokes, count outs, etc.  It’s very weird that for such a big guy, Yokozuna never really sweats.  He’s gassed but not sweating.  Yoko charges into a corner and misses which Bret follows up with a bulldog, a forearm off the 2nd rope and a clothesline leading to a bunch of near falls.  Bret goes for another and is caught with a big belly to belly suplex.  Yoko drags Bret to the corner to go for the Banzai Drop and falls off the ropes?  What the fuck?!?!?  Bret gets the pin without another move.  Absolutely terrible ending to a pretty decent match.  Post match, the locker room empties and comes into the ring to give Bret his props.  Owen comes out and scowls at Bret as the show goes off the air.

General Thoughts

• The Heavenly Bodies beat The Bushwhackers in a dark match.
• Throughout the DVD, we’re showing “WrestleMania Moments” from the previous events.
• I absolutely LOVED Vince McMahon when he was a “just” a ring announcer.  Pure gold on the mic.
• The opener here between Bret and Owen is better then the entire WrestleMania IX card put together.
• The “celebrities” for this event are terrible.  Sy Sperling (the Hair Club For Men guy) and a Bill Clinton lookalike?  Come on.  Rhonda Shear and Donnie Whalberg as timekeeper and announcer?  The one bright spot here is Jenny Garth as the guest timekeeper for the main event… nice.  Love me some 90210.
• The ring sounds completely “hollow” during the counts.
• Pretty sloppy programming as there was a 10 man tag match that was apparently scheduled and scrapped.
• Even though there’s some stinkers in here, the fact that it contains two of my Top WrestleMania Matches makes it a decent show.

As for TNA I certainly can’t fault them either… these are big names in the wrestling business and they’d be stupid just to let them sit at home or worse yet to go to work for another competing promotion.  The problem that I’ve got with TNA here is the WAY they’re using their talent.  When I tuned in a couple of weeks back I could have sworn I was watching a WCW Monday Nitro show from about 10 years ago.  I was given a show with Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan calling the shots, Hall & Nash causing a ruckus and Sting hanging out in the rafters.  I mean really… is this the best you can do TNA?

In any case, I got to thinking about just how may retreads TNA actually had so I went and did some research.  Without further adieu, here’s what I found from the current TNA roster.

1. A.J. Styles (Allen Jones) – WCW
2. Bobby Lashley (Franklin Lashley) – WWE
3. Brian Knobbs (Brian Yandrisovitz) – WCW & WWE as part of the Nasty Boys
4. Brother Devon (Devon Hughes) – ECW & WWE as part of the Dudley Boys
5. Brother Ray (Mark LoMonaco) – ECW & WWE as part of the Dudley Boys
6. D’Angelo Dinero (Elijah Burke) – WWE
7. Dr. Stevie (Michael Manna) – ECW, WCE & WWE as Steven Richards, Big Steevie Cool, etc.
8. Jeff Hardy (Jeff Hardy) – WWE
9. Jeff Jarrett (Jeff Jarrett) – WWE, WCW as Jeff Jarrett and Double J
10. Jerry Sags (Jerome Saganovich) – WCW & WWE as part of the Nasty Boys
11. Kevin Nash (Kevin Nash) – WCW, WWE as Diesel, Kevin Nash, etc.
12. Kurt Angle (Kurt Angle) – WWF, WWE
13. Matt Morgan (Matt Morgan) – WWE
14. Mick Foley (Mick Foley) – WCW,ECW, WWE as Mankind, Dude Love, etc.
15. Mr. Anderson (Ken Anderson) – WWE as Mr. Kennedy
16. Orlando Jordan (Orlando Jordan) – WWE
17. Raven (Scott Levy) – ECW, WCW, WWE
18. Rhino (Terry Gerin) – ECW, WWE
19. Scott Hall (Scott Hall) – WCW, WWE as Razor Ramon, Diamond Stud, Scott Hall, etc.
20. Scott Steiner (Scott Rechsteiner) – WCW, ECW, WWE
21. Sean Morley (Sean Morley) – WWE as Val Venis
22. Sting (Steve Borden) – WCW
23. Syxx-Pac (Sean Waltman) – WCW, WWE as X-Pac, 1-2-3 Kid
24. Tomko (Travis Tomko) – WWE as Tyson Tomko
25. Daffney (Shannon Spruill) – WCW
26. Ric Flair (Richard Fliehr) – WCW, WWE
27. Taz  (Peter Senerchia) – ECW, WWE
28. Tara (Lisa Marie Varon) – WWE as Victoria
29. Christy Hemme (Christy Hemme) – WWE
30. Eric Bischoff  (Eric Bischoff)
31. Hector Guerrero (Hector Guerrero) – WWE as the Gobbledy Gooker
32. Hulk Hogan (Terry Bollea)  – WWE, WCW

32 names.  And that’s not to mention some of the off camera talent such as writers, road agents and referees.  The list grows even more if you include folks that have had developmental contracts with the WWE.  One thing that I found very entertaining is the stories behind some of these folks.  Why they went to TNA, why they left WWE, etc.  If you’re looking for some good stories head to Google or Wiki and enjoy!