Category: Ramblemania (2024)

Date: April 2nd, 2006
Venue: AllState Arena, Rosemount, IL
Attendance: 17,155

Fun fact: The theme song for this year’s Mania was Peter Gabriel’s hit song, “Big Time.” Which is a bit ironic because if there’s anything that Wrestlemania 22 felt like the least, it was “big time.”

I can recall this show not doing much for me back in the day. The card on paper was a bit lacking, they had just bumped the PPV price tag, and honestly, I was more excited for the returning Saturday Night’s Main Event show that was taking place… which ended up being a bust, but that’s another story, entirely. Now I do recall in the original Ramblemania posting saying that I felt this was a pretty good show in spite of the lack of anticipation, even if it did feature a couple things that bog it down a bit. This was also the first Mania after Eddie Guerrero passed away and… well, that’s relevant in our Smackdown World title match, which is a three-way.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 22 – WWE Wrestlemania 22 (2006)”

Date: April 3rd, 2005
Venue: Staples Center, Los Angeles, CA
Attendance: 20,193

Wrestlemania 21 Went Hollywood in 2005… which meant we got a bunch of WWE Guys re-creating classic scenes from classic movies in order to promote this Wrestlemania 21 PPV, which is emanating from the Staples Center in LA… not quite a big stadium setting and not only that, but these trailers – and there were some good ones – did the biggest mistake any movie trailer can do; they show off all the best parts and so by the time you watch the movie, you’re going “That’s it?”

I don’t know where I was going with that, but in any event, we have Wrestlemania 21, which is notable for kicking off the next era of WWE by way of crowning two new champions who would carry the company for the rest of the 2000s. Just in terms of seeing new main event talent being coronated and established, this serves as an important show in that regard. It also helps that this show

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 21 – WWE Wrestlemania 21 Goes Hollywood (2005)”

Date: March 14th, 2004
Venue: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
Attendance: 20,000

Yep… we have to talk about this show…

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 20 – WWE Wrestlemania XX (2004)”

Date: March 30th, 2003
Venue: Safeco Field, Seattle, WA
Attendance: 54,097

(Note: This was the first Ramblemania post that I wrote after word broke of the McMahon lawsuit in January 2024. All the rest would follow afterwards.)

Wrestlemania XIX returns to America and baseball stadiums… which would’ve been the perfect time to bring back the Macho Man… or at least, have Sid show up and make an appearance or something… but yeah, this is a show that I don’t hear people talk about all that much outside of maybe one or two things; it would be the show where Steve Austin would have his last match (until 2022, of course) and also the botched BORK LAZOR shooting star spot… and yeah, this is not as top-tier stuff as Wrestlemania X-Seven… I don’t think anything came close to that, quite frankly. But XIX has its moments. And we’re going touch on these fast, fast.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 19 – WWE Wrestlemania XIX (2003)”

Date: March 17th, 2002
Venue: Skydome, Toronto, ON
Attendance: 68,237

(Note: The following post was written prior to the McMahon lawsuit from January 2024).

The year was 2002. The year prior, the World Wrestling Federation had acquired all assets of World Championship Wrestling, along with the contracts of a handful of WCW talent. Although they got notable WCW stars such as Diamond Dallas Page and reigning WCW World champion Booker T, they didn’t get any of the really “big” stars who were under contract with Time Warner, such as Ric Flair, Scott Steiner, Goldberg… and guys like Hollywood Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash.

Roughly a year after anyone would have cared, the original nWo (Hogan, Hall, and Nash) were brought in to spread poison throughout the WWF. Unlike in WCW, where the nWo damn near ran the company to the ground – both in storylines and in real life – the rogue organization was put down as quickly as the Brooklyn Brawler. Stone Cold Steve Austin scored a victory over Scott Hall in an undercard match (something that didn’t please Austin and would be one of many factors that would result from his brief hiatus from WWE in a couple months), while the Rock defeated Hollywood Hulk Hogan (and got booed in the process) in a match that saw Hogan booted from the nWo and turned full babyface. And the nWo itself wouldn’t last long either afterwards.

Wrestlemania X-8 eminated from Skydome in Toronto. It had Rock vs. Hogan in what was billed as an Icon vs. Icon match. Sadly, it’d be the only match on the card that was Wrestlemania-worthy and even that would eventually be repeated in a B-level PPV a year later. I will admit that going into this one, the show was largely a blank to me and I remember nothing about it. Even most PPVs have something that sticks to mind that isn’t the main event, but in the case of X8, I recall nothing. Not a good sign.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 18 – WWF Wrestlemania X-8 (2002)”

Date: April 1st, 2001
Venue: Astrodome, Houston, TX
Attendance: 67,925

(Note: The following post was written prior to the McMahon lawsuit from January 2024).

For the first time since Wrestlemania VIII, Wrestlemania returns to a stadium setting – with the seventh iteration of the show being held at the Reliant Astrodome in Houston. If there was ever a sign that the WWF was doing hot business, this is pretty much the culmination. Their revenue was growing, their numbers were growing… it only made sense to go from the usual arena setting to a much larger venue.

And boy, did it pay off. The setting looked great, the crowd was monstrous and molten hot for the entire time that this show took place. And how did the WWF repay those 67,000+ fans for shattering a then-attendance record? With easily the best damned Wrestlemania card that there ever was… and I truly, TRULY believe that.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 17 – WWF Wrestlemania X-Seven (2001)”

Date: April 2nd, 2000
Venue: Arrowhead Pond, Anaheim, CA
Attendance: 19,776

(Note: The following post was written prior to the McMahon lawsuit from January 2024).

Despite early marketing referring to the show as Wrestlemania 2000 – hell, we got a couple video games using that name even – the show itself would simply be referred to as Wrestlemania. Not even Wrestlemania 16, but just Wrestlemania… because this is a reboot or something.

The WWF in 2000 was firing on all cylinders. A new influx of talent from WCW resulted in a group of workhorses that the company desperately needed, we had a new, dominant heel in Triple H as well as an insanely popular top star in THE ROCK to fill the void left by the absence of Stone Cold Steve Austin, and while numbers weren’t hitting the peak of the Attitude Era, money was being made hand over fist, thanks to a late-99 decision to turn the privately-owned WWF into a publicly traded company… which ended up being a very smart move in hindsight. With two excellent PPVs preceding this one, there was no doubt that Wrestlemania 2000/16/whatever would continue the hot streak.\

Spoiler Alert: It didn’t.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 16 – WWF Wrestlemania 2000 (2000…duh)”

Date: March 28, 1999
Venue: First Union Center, Philly, PE
Attendance: 20,276

(Note: The following post was written prior to the McMahon lawsuit from January 2024).

Last year, Wrestlemania kicked off a period that would be the most profitable period in the WWF’s history, the Attitude era. It also kicked off a bunch of controversy in relation to pushing the envelope, but it got the job done in promoting the promotion as a fast-paced, edgy product that WCW could never pull off. While the storylines on WWF television made little sense at time, it helped that the writing and action was a tad better and more intense than what was being offered on WCW, who were merely content showing off the same stars that made them famous and not making any conscious effort to make any new stars. Because of this, along with the incredible Austin/McMahon rivalry that dominated WWF television among other factors, the WWF was able to change its fortunes and reclaim its spot as the top wrestling promotion in North America.

A year after Wrestlemania XIV, which was an awesome in itself, we got Wrestlemania XV. And if there was any show that served as the very epitome of “Russorific”… THIS would be it.

I’ve once said that Wrestlemania XV is like the village idiot: filled with such stupid shit and yet you can’t help but laugh at its plight or pleasure. Watching recently, it’s painfully clear that this show has aged terribly over the years and the stuff that’s been floating around here is pretty wretched. Mania’s first Hell In A Cell match featured a hanging that was disturbing (whereas a hanging would be greatly welcomed at THIS year’s Cell match), a wrestler who got lucky in a boxing tournament got his lights knocked out by Butterbean, Pete Rose got tombstoned by Kane once again, and on top of all that, we had Nicole Bass… whose manly physique would give Chyna a run for her money… or something.

If there was any saving grace, it was Rock/Austin. A good main event with a satisfying finish even with all the bullshit taking place. But their Backlash encounter the following month would be a much better affair.

Where to, Stephanie? To the scrapheap!

This was during the height of the Attitude era, back when Vince on TV as a despicable asshole was pure genius and not a tiresome attempt at past glory… but that didn’t excuse the number of stupid ideas scattered here. Like I said before, this show hasn’t aged well and is pretty unbearable to watch.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 15 – WWF Wrestlemania XV: The Ragin’ Climax (1999)”

Date: March 29th, 1998
Venue: FleetCenter – Boston, MA
Attendance: 19,028

(Note: The following post was written prior to the McMahon lawsuit from January 2024).

Wrestlemania XIV was the show that sold me as a wrestling fan and began a long, fruitful investment that continues to this very day. While I didn’t catch the show live, I did get to watch a replay of it at a friend’s house and it was also one of the first WWF home video tapes that I purchased. I won’t lie and tell you that a lot of the enjoyment and pleasant memories of this show are fueled by nostalgia, but I’ve always contended that this was my favorite Wrestlemania card and one that I go back to often.

Now whether that statement holds true today is another story, as I have bore witness to every Wrestlemania since then and I can count a number of those shows that have surpassed or even exceeded my enjoyment of that one show to the point that it’s been years since I lasted Mania 14. And since I’m on this trip of revisiting these older shows, the question invariably becomes whether this show still holds up or has it aged about as poorly as most of the Attitude Era stuff has?

Some context before we begin: Survivor Series 97 and the whole screwjob in Montreal proved to be a turning point for the WWF. What was thought to be the final death knell for the company turned out to be the moment where things started to turn around. Vince McMahon, knowing people hated him for his role in that whole mess, decided to turn himself heel and position himself as an antagonist towards the company’s fast rising star, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Then the WWF brought Mike Tyson into the fold, teasing a fight with Austin, but then making him the special enforcer for the eventual Austin/Michaels WWF title match at Mania XIV. While there were other stories going on – the ongoing Undertaker/Kane feud and the Rock/Shamrock rivalry going full boil among others – that one major angle was the thing that all eyeballs were on.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 14 – WWF Wrestlemania XIV: D-X Raided (1998)”

Date: March 23, 1997
Venue: Rosemount Horizon, Chicago, IL
Attendance: 18,197

(Note: The following post was written prior to the McMahon lawsuit from January 2024).

The year is 1997. After a long period of trailing the WWF, Turner-owned promotion World Championship Wrestling had garnered the number one spot in wrestling with their red-hot nWo angle that has done nothing but kill the WWF in the ratings. It wasn’t a secret that the WWF was really hurting during this time and while some would claim that the WWF product was much better than what WCW was offering, you certainly couldn’t tell when the WWF produced shows like Wrestlemania 13, which is a show that was pretty substandard in terms of PPV standards and certainly downright abysmal by Wrestlemania standards. And while one would be hard-press to call this a worse Wrestlemania outing than Wrestlemania IX or Wrestlemania XV, the simple truth of the matter is by the thirteen iteration, the spectacle and pageantry that Wrestlemania once commanded was long gone.

Lacking celebrities and the sense of grandeur that had been enjoyed years prior, Wrestlemania 13 was a show that was, for intents and purposes, nothing special. For a PPV that was supposed to be a showcase of the immortals, one glance at the card would one confusing this for a In Your House PPV event of lesser stature. A bunch of matches that nobody could get excited over and a WWF championship match between two giant men that should inspire awe, but instead feel uninspired.

But Wrestlemania 13 is often referred to as a one-match show… and that one match – the now infamous submission match between Bret “Hitman” Hart and Stone Cold Steve Austin – is considered by many to be one of the greatest, if not THE, greatest Wrestlemania match of all time. Yes, it does get a bit graphic. Yes, it does get a bit brutal… but at the end of the day, it told a very simple story of two guys who hated each other so much they were willing to put it all on the line and it was a match of such brilliance that it was able to pull off a double turn with relative ease, making the once-beloved Hart into a hated villain while turning the once-despised Austin into the sort of anti-hero that would plant to seeds to his nearing success.

One amazing match almost makes sitting through the rest of this show almost worth it… almost.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 13 – WWF Wrestlemania 13 (1997)”