411’s Countdown to WrestleMania 28: WrestleMania 9

WORST MATCH: Undertaker v Giant Gonzales [DUD] Gonzales wasn’t a wrestler per se, but rather a freakshow attraction. Vince McMahon loved him and tried like hell to get him over although the drawn on muscle suit was a bit weird. His lumbering matches were mostly unwatchable and made up of rest holds and choking. Undertaker wasn’t exactly a work horse at the time either. Gonzales’ selling was horrendous at best and this match was one of the prime examples of him not knowing what he was doing in the ring.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE SHOW: Jim Ross in a toga. It pretty much summed up how broken the show, and the WWF, was at the time. Vince was going for something almost circus-like in appearance and while it provided some interesting visuals it tended to show how much the WWF was focused on appearance over the quality of the product. The product on this show was lousy.

MVP OF THE SHOW: Shawn Michaels. I was tempted to go with Bret Hart for his personal sacrifice. Jobbing to salt in the eyes and having to watch, through salty eyes, Hogan take his title just 20 seconds later. Shawn showed he was the future of the WWF. All action and excitement, determined to steal the show regardless of who he was stuck with. This was one of those performances that’d lead to his actual singles push the following year.

OVERALL SHOW RATING: 3.0 – It wasn’t a good year for the WWF in general. Their talent pool was shrinking and they hadn’t quite figured out what to do when Hogan was no longer viable as a main eventer so they just put the belt back on him. And he was no longer viable as a main eventer. WM9 isn’t just one of my least favorite Mania’s but is widely considered to be one of the worst. Unless you really like Hogan there’s no need to see it at all.

WORST MATCH: Yokozuna vs. Hulk Hogan [-*****] This star rating is for everything from the scummy backstage politicking, the total burial of Bret Hart and Yokozuna and the stupidly moronic decision to take Hulk Hogan almost entirely off the house show circuit afterwards. Thankfully, this massive ego stroke resulted and the burial of Hulkamania and the rise-and-rise of Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart and the smaller more exciting workers.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE SHOW: No one highlight stands out for me but I liked a lot of little things like Bobby Heenan riding the camel out backwards, The Undertaker staggering back out after being carried to the back, Bret Hart and his hard work in the main event and ditto Shawn in the opener.

MVP OF THE SHOW: Shawn Michaels, but really we are talking about picking the best of the worst more than anything. Shawn gets the gong purely based on the fact he had his working boots that night and bumped liked a madman all match long. While we’re not talking a superstar breakout performance here, you add this to his Survivor Series match with Bret Hart at the end of the previous year and you start seeing the main event potential of the man.

OVERALL SHOW RATING: 3/10 – There’s only one match that was really good and one other that was OK (Shawn/Tatanka) and the rest is crap with a super-shitty main event clusterfuck. Jeez, even if the undercard was super-solid I would have give it that same rating purely on the Hogan B.S. I hate this PPV and it has a rep as the worst WM for a reason.

WORST MATCH – The Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzales: [1/2*] There was actual potential here if they’d kept this to only a few minutes. Early on, the Undertaker made a comeback against Giant Gonzales and, had the match ended there, I wouldn’t have minded it. It would have been a short match where the Undertaker overcame a bigger opponent and proved how dominant he is. Instead, it kept going and going and ended with a lame DQ and post-match attack. On a weak card, this wound up being the weakest match.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE SHOW – The Rick Steiner Counter: In the Steiners/Headshrinkers match, the Headshrinker went for the Doomsday Device on Rick Steiner and he countered it into a slam/suplex sort of thing. It was a fantastic move that completely blew me away… just about the only move to do that for the entire show.

MVP OF THE SHOW – The Commentary Team: The most entertaining thing about this show was the commentary by Jim Ross, Randy Savage, and Bobby Heenan. The Macho Man was random and nonsensical (I swear, “Do the thing!” was his mantra that day…), Heenan was an over-the-top heel color man, and Ross was the glue that held the whole thing together. For three men who hadn’t worked together, they had a remarkable dynamic and were usually more entertaining than the match they were talking about.

OVERALL SHOW RATING: 3.5 – The show began well with Shawn Michaels bumping like a madman and an entertaining tag match, but slipped into mediocre-to-poor territory for the rest of the show. Only a couple of matches were actually bad, but nothing (aside from the main event) even came close to the start of the show. The only redeeming factors were the opening matches, the main event, and the hilarious commentary. Without the commentary, I probably would have fell asleep.

WORST MATCH – Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez: [DUD] This is one of those matches that makes me second guess whether or not I should do negative star ratings (I don’t, for the record). Utterly terrible, slow, boring, and a shining example of why Gonzalez should never have wrestled in the first place.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE SHOW – HBK and Tatanka steal the show: It was difficult to pick a highlight of such a bad show, so I’ll just go with the opening match again as it really was just a fun match.

MVP OF THE SHOW – Bret Hart: I’ll go with Bret as the MVP of this show simply because he got a decent match out of Yokozuna, which was thought to be just about impossible at the time. The ultimate professional, Bret had no problem doing jobbing duties this year.

OVERALL SHOW RATING: 4.0 – While this is definitely a bad show, it’s always held a bit of charm to me and nostalgia despite a rather dreadful card. The opener is worth checking out and the Steiner brothers have a good match against the Headshrinkers, but the rest of this show is not worth your time at all.

WORST MATCH: Bob Backlund vs. Razor Ramon [DUD] – This match was just totally worthless and all it did was make Backlund look terrible. Anyone that didn’t see Backlund in his prime probably wonders what the hell was so special about him. Other than him having some wrestling ability, I don’t see what was so great about Backlund myself. However, you could say that this match was a symbol of this whole PPV.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE SHOW: The Roman Coliseum stuff and Yokozuna wins first title – No match is really a highlight on this PPV. I liked the Roman Coliseum stuff, I thought it was cool for the time. However, the one time Wrestlemania has a theme (unless you are gonna count WM 21’s Hollywood thing as a theme,) it ends up being the worst Wrestlemania ever. Yokozuna did get to say he was WWE Champion at one point during this show. I thought it was a total crime to Yoko, to have Hogan win the title like that, especially because it was obvious Hogan was leaving pretty soon. It lasted about five minutes but Yoko still won the title belt.

MVP OF THE SHOW: Bret Hart – Bret wrestled in the main event, got a decent match out of Yokozuna, lost the title, and then had to watch Hulk Hogan win the title for no reason at all. Poor Bret, he was the face of the company at this point and he just got totally disrespected.

OVERALL SHOW RATING: 2.0 – Total waste of a PPV and I can’t believe we have to actually call this a Wrestlemania because fans could totally skip this one and not miss anything. Shawn Michaels vs. Tatanka was decent but had an out-of-nowhere countout finish, which was stupid. The Steiners only Wrestlemania appearance had a decent match as well, that actually ended. Undertaker had his worst Wrestlemania match at this PPV with the idiot Giant Gonzalez. The Tag Title match was actually not bad, but the stupid finish makes it silly. There were three other matches but they don’t matter at all. Then to top it off, Hogan gets to win the title in about 20 seconds from Yokozuna and basically sends a slap in the face, to all the boys in the back. Terrible PPV, that I am very surprised WWE still mentions today.