Wrestlemania 14 - FleetCentre in Boston Massachusetts, March 29th, 1998

The opening video package is pretty low energy compared to later years. Gentle music as the narrator explains to us that our champion and challenger are unique, and don’t care about tradition but since they’re both chasing the WWF Championship that makes them as traditional as it gets. I quite like it, honestly. They’re both part of history whether they care about history or not. 

We then get the classic Wrestlemania theme song which longtime fans will also recognise as Linda McMahon’s theme song. It’s beloved for the first reason, not so much the second.

I don’t really know where this took place in the actual show as it’s been edited out of the WWE Network version and it was removed from all the home media releases too (it’s not on my VHS copy either) but at the event, the DX Band (who perform Triple H and Shawn Michaels themes on the show) performed a sort of new-wave, alt-metal version of America the Beautiful which was so bad, the live crowd booed. Imagine how poor a song has to be to make almost 20,000 Americans in Boston of all places boo America the Beautiful. Hilarious. I think it was right at the start of the show as you can tell in the video package above, it goes from the opening video right into The Nation's entrance music with no pyro or hoopla, which makes me think there was a big edit. 

The show opens with the Nation of Domination’s theme music which is a little jarring but thankfully they’ve spared us all 15 entrances for the opening Tag Team Battle Royal. The second of two Nation of Domination teams made up of Faarooq and Kama Mustafa are coming out and both men look JACKED. Like,pre-wellness policy jacked but that’s none of my business. For fans of the WWF/WWE’s entrance stages, it’s underwhelming. It’s a big steel circle with no signage. To be fair, the FleetCentre in Boston isn’t a massive arena so doing it this way probably gave them lots of extra seats.  

LOD are introduced as the “mystery team” and have the LOD 2000 entrance helmets and shoulder pads, haircuts, theme song, Sunny as their manager and even have “LOD 2000” on their ring gear but they are introduced as the plain old Legion of Doom and JR and King only refer to them as the LOD. Maybe they weren’t sold on the gimmick change yet. I’d make a joke about Sunny but I’m not touching that (and neither should have Shawn Michaels)

15-team Tag Team Battle Royal

Legion of Doom (Hawk and Animal with Sunny), The Midnight Express (Bodacious Bart and Bombastic Bob with Jim Cornette), Los Boricuas (Savio Vega and Miguel Pérez, Jr.), Los Boricuas (Jose Estrada, Jr. and Jesus Castillo), The Truth Commission (Recon and Sniper), Bradshaw and Chainz, The Nation of Domination (Mark Henry and D'Lo Brown), The Nation of Domination (Faarooq and Kama Mustafa), The Quebecers (Jacques Rougeau and Pierre Ouellet), The Rock 'n' Roll Express (Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson), The Headbangers (Mosh and Thrasher), Too Much (Scott Taylor and Brian Christopher), Disciples of Apocalypse (8-Ball and Skull), Steve Blackman and Flash Funk and The Godwinns (Phineas I. Godwinn and Henry O. Godwinn)

It’s fine that you definitely didn’t read the whole list of participants. Neither did I and I typed it all out. I’m not going to recap this blow for blow because…well, obviously. Kurgan is in this match and he doesn’t do anything but given that he’s been in a few movies in his post-wrestling career, is technically the most famous person in this match. The Nation of Domination, Los Boricuas and the DOA (Disciples of Apocalypse) are all heavily represented here. The summer of 1997 was taken up with this lame “faction warfare” storyline where the DOA (a white biker gang) the Nation of Domination (black militants who openly discussed racism in America so y’know, this wasn’t subtle) and Los Boricuas (stereotypical Latino gang members) did do battle in 6 and 8 man tags and triple threats etc. The WWF obviously assumed that the audience would side with the DOA because they’re white and so obviously the good guys? It was as dreadful as it sounds and everyone came out of it less than they were at the start of it. Oh and DOA are nazis in real life anyway (actually not a joke, one or maybe both of the Harris twins have SS tattoos) I also won’t be recapping every little story moment here (like Barry Windham eliminating Chainz because he was feuding with his partner, Bradshaw) because honestly a lot of it doesn’t matter. Stories that either don’t make it to PPV or are just flat out abandoned anyway. (Thus marks my first thinly veiled shot at Vince Russo)

This is the last PPV appearance for Los Boricuas and for the Godwins under that gimmick. (We’ll get very well acquainted with Dennis Knight in particular over the next couple of years) Both teams were staples of the late New Gen period so there is a real changing of the guard energy on this show. 

About 10 minutes into this 15 minute match, JR mentions for the first time that the winners of this battle royal get a tag title shot next month on PPV at Unforgiven (Jerry Lawler very briefly acts in such a way that this is the first time he’s heard the name of the next PPV and that he thinks its a silly name) 

The final two teams are the LOD and The Midnight Express who I will talk about in a lot more detail during the next PPV (unfortunately) with the LOD winning and becoming the number one contenders to the WWF Tag Team Championships.

Not a particularly hot opener I must say but it was just kind of a dull punch-kicky battle royal. You’ve seen a battle royal. You know. 

We get a look at 1998’s version of AXXESS. Stone Cold did the talk show circuit, DX hosted a “public workout” with 15k fans present for that famous shot where Mike Tyson and Shawn Michaels kiss Stone Cold while he’s tied up in the ropes to taunt him. We also see that Marc Mero and Sable hosted some events. Imagine paying to meet a WWF Superstar and getting Marc Mero. 

WWF Light Heavyweight Championship

Taka Michinoku © vs. Aguila

Taka’s theme song is AWESOME. So is he in general really. He’s still wrestling in New Japan now in 2023. He’s still really good too! Aguila gets the non-televised jobber entrance. At Wrestlemania. Amazingly this is arguably the highest profile the light heavyweight title would ever be. 

Aguila is better known as Esse Rios who showed up for a little while in early 2000. He’s only 19 years old here.

Jim Ross sings the praises of how fast and athletic and talented these young men are, as well as the light heavyweights in general which makes sense as 1) it’s true and 2) as head of talent relations he probably signed them all. Jerry “the King” Lawler is too busy making racist jokes about the Japanese and Mexicans. 

This light heavyweight division had a lot of potential as we had Taka and the rest of the Kaientai gang who we’ll meet in another review, people like Aguila and also some great characters/WWF style gimmick wrestlers like Brian Christopher and Scott Taylor but the division never saw the light of day. It’s hardly a surprise given Vince McMahon’s comments (in an AOL chat when asked if the light heavyweights would appear on TV more he sarcastically said that “we have an Ethiopian guy coming soon” and Vince Russo years later in WCW when talking about the cruiserweights famously said that “fans don’t give a shit about the Mexican guy or the Japanese guy, I’m an American and that’s what i want to see” No doubt adding “i swear to God” and “bro” somewhere.)

This is a really good match and its early placement on the card definitely helped too as the fans actually react to the big moves and cheer for Taka’s victory with the Michinoku Driver, a move which JR calls Awesome and he’s right. They show some respect for each other post match with King also has a go at them for. As a kid I hated Jerry Lawler because he was really good at playing a heel character but as an adult I hate him because I realise it’s not really a character.

The Rock, the Intercontinental Champion, is interviewed by “TV’s Jennifer Flowers” (me neither) He is asked some soft ball questions about homeless people and politics and The Rock gives some entertaining responses where he buries homeless people, the legal system and, most interestingly of all, busts out “if you smell what i’m cooking” for the first time ever. So this is a milestone promo but really not worth tracking down. The Rock hasn’t quite nailed his character yet - for a while he was doing this kind of “The Rock weighs in on current affairs” type of promo which wasn’t as funny as it sounds. He’d be so much better even just a few weeks later.

WWF European Championship

Triple H © (w/Chyna) vs. Owen Hart

Triple H was played to the ring by the DX band. Have a day off lads. You’ve already wet the bed once tonight. It’s a pretty terrible live performance honestly - the song is barely recognizable. 

Speaking of unrecognisable, Chyna looks like a different human being here. There’s a lot of pretty drastic surgeries in her very near future and she’ll basically have a different head by Summerslam. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Find your bliss, girl. 

Owen Hart has been feuding with DX since Survivor Series and all that unpleasant Montreal screwjob business. Owen could and should have been a main eventer coming off the back of all that but alas. His best work was always as a heel so it’s really not a mystery that he didn’t make it as a main event babyface.

Chyna is handcuffed to Sgt Slaughter at ringside for this one as she keeps interfering in everyone’s matches and we see footage of how she helped Triple H win the European title from Owen on Raw in the buildup. Owen had originally won it from an injured Triple H the month prior by beating Goldust (yeah you read that right. I dunno what to tell you)

This is a really good match with a simple story, these two men work really well together. Crisp suplexes and piledrivers and it all looks great

Jerry Lawler is all over Owen here - partly because his shtick is that he cheers for all the heels and hates all the babyfaces, but also Owen has replaced Bret in his long running hatred of the Hart family which is, if nothing else, impressive continuity. 

Sgt Slaughter is the “commissioner” of the WWF. The use of the term commissioner in wrestling was started by Paul Heyman in ECW. He made Todd Gordon commissioner onscreen so that they could refer to him as “Commissioner Gordon” like from Batman. And WWF would use it for decades going forward all for a not-very-good Batman joke. 

Chyna uses, without exaggeration, a bathtub full of white powder to blind Slaughter so that she can get involved and low blow Owen to set up for an awesome looking pedigree. This finish honestly put Chyna over more than Triple H. 

King suggests that Chyna decked Sgt Slaughter for “saying something dirty to her” which is actually pretty funny. 

Mixed Tag Team Match

Marc Mero and Sable vs. The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust and Luna Vachon

Marc Mero is doing what would become known as the “Marc Mero” gimmick here where he’s very jealous of Sable’s “super stardom” which leaves Sable as the only face in this match. Marc used Goldust to get attention and humiliate Sable by dressing up as her but when Luna kept attacking her, Marc had to step in. That angle could have been a good way to turn Mero face and realise “what really matters” but it didn’t pan out that way. They were married in real life and allegedly things weren’t great at the time in real life either.

Michael Cole describes this feud as having escalated into a “snowball of insanity” in the video package which….yeah, fair. 

I actually really like The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust stuff. He was less than 3 years into his run here and was already freshening things right up. The weird distorted version of the Goldust theme is cool too. A lot of the early Goldust stuff was pretty homophobic and it really does boil down to “eww he’s a bit gay, boo” however, his gimmick remains pretty much unchanged when he becomes a face later in the year so ...I dunno what to tell you. I guess whether he’s a heel or a face depends on which US State they’re in. For what it’s worth, his heel turn at the end of 1997 was based on him being a dick to his wife, not on kissing boys. 

Sable is crazy popular here but sadly, it's the attitude era so there’s only one reason why. The crowd is full of crude signs about her boobs and 69s and so on and it would only get worse. I have no real time for Sable as either a person or a performer. She made zero efforts to improve and she was famously very open about how little she liked wrestling and just wanted to be famous, but I do pity her for the way these gross late 90s crowds treat her. 

The crowd is hotter for this match than it deserves, which is mostly thanks to Sable and her plastic surgeon. The match is long stretches of heel vs. heel action though so that they’re reacting at all is good news. 

Luna deserves better but she does at least get to kick out of Sable’s sloppy powerbomb which would become her finisher. They then go to the ropes and very obviously call spots and discuss the next stretch. I think Sable hit the powerbomb too early and Luna kicked out on the fly and kept it going for another 90 seconds for some reason. She wins with a very sloppy TKO and Marc celebrates like he just won the WWF title which I did think was funny. Sable and Marc Mero have been at odds since late 1997 and I hope you aren’t sick of it yet because (spoiler) this angle isn’t going anywhere.

Tennessee Lee is in the ring to introduce “the world’s greatest singer, the world’s greatest entertainer, the world’s greatest wrestler” Double J - Jeff Jarrett. Jeff returned to this gimmick following his part in the NWA invasion (which I’ll discuss more during Unforgiven next month) which was a good move. Tennessee Lee is played by Rob Parker who was a big star in the territory days. He’s an awesome talker and a really funny guy and was under utilised in this role. He comes out with Jennifer Flowers (still no idea) to be the guest ring announcer for this next match. 

WWF Intercontinental Championship

The Rock © (w/D’Lo Brown, Mark Henry and Kama Mustafa) vs. Ken Shamrock

The Rock is so much better than everyone else on the mid-card it’s not funny. People had predicted he’d be the biggest star in the business by the year 2000. I wonder if they’ll be right (wink)

The Rock hits The People’s Elbow really early in the match to almost no crowd reaction and for a 2 count. My, how times would change.

The Rock hits a stiff, vile chairshot behind the referee’s back which is what he and Shamrock’s feud is best known for. Shamrock took so many brutal chair shots over his run, mostly from The Rock. He swung that chair like he was trying to detach Ken’s head from his shoulders.

This whole feud has been great and has been running since late December. The Rock retained at the Royal Rumble with a dodgy Dusty finish involving brass knucks and a reversed decision. That’ll be important in a minute. 

Shamrock dominates The Rock and taps him out quite fast with the ankle lock! But we’re only just getting started really as The Nation runs in and Shamrock effortlessly dispatches them too before returning to the ankle lock!

Faarooq comes out last in just jeans which is a bit sexy quite frankly but then doesn’t help The Rock! This was part of the jealousy storyline they had going - The Rock was cocky and thought he was the leader of the Nation and this is Faarooq teaching him a lesson. This is the culmination of a couple of different long running stories for The Rock.

Officials try to calm down Shamrock but he continues to go bezek! He’s in the zone! He can’t be controlled! He won’t calm down despite the fact that he should be delighted to be Intercontinental Champion at last. He belly to belly suplexes three referees and an unnamed official in an ill-fitting suit (probably an indy wrestler, nice payday!) and in the end the referees reverse the decision and award the match and the title back to The Rock! Another Dusty finish.

Honestly this was a good match, the crowd was hot and Shamrock looked like a million bucks here with a great gimmick but...I hated this finish. The reversed decision annoyed me. Especially since this was the blowoff to a 3 month long feud. 

As I wrote that, Shamrock dumped The Rock off the stretcher and beat the hell out of him at the top of the entrance ramp using the DX band’s kit! That was pretty awesome. Ok, all is forgiven. This was great. It doesn’t feel like this feud is over - see you at King of the Ring.

We get the awesome Attitude era “don’t try this at home” style advert where the superstars talk about being real athletes but don't expressly say "don't try this at home". This just pulses with nostalgia for me. I still remember every word and sound bite from it.

Dumpster Match for the WWF Tag Team Championship

The New Age Outlaws (Roaddogg and Bad Ass Billy Gunn) © vs. Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie

Mick Foley is one of the main reasons I’m excited to rewatch the attitude era. He’s amazing and doesn’t get half the love he deserves mostly because of all his legacy ruining runs later in his career where he refused to stay retired. So it’s fitting he’s tagging with Terry Funk here who had his first ever retirement in 1988. Everyone hates the Chainsaw Charlie gimmick but amazingly it was Terry Funk’s idea! They’ve pretty much abandoned it here anyway as they all just call him Terry Funk.

The New Age Outlaws have their awesome theme music but Roaddogg does his opening shtick as they walk to the ring with less energy than we’d come to expect from this. It feels odd to me seeing them as heels as they were my favourites as a kid and I always think of them as faces. They aren’t officially in DX yet here even though they’ve been working with them since late last year. They’re coming off a run which saw them reem the LOD multiple times and almost retire them so they should be white hot here but the fans haven’t quite caught on yet. 

In Mick Foley’s first book he talks about this match and run and how the original plan was for him to feud with Terry Funk and it to build up to a barbed wire death match pre-taped at Terry Funk’s ranch. That idea was given up when they realised that Mike Tyson would be at this event and so that would mean a huge amount of outside press coverage. Vince didn’t want the rest of the world thinking that’s what the WWF was all about. 

This is rough as Funk and Foley take all the worst bumps in the match. The worst one being a powerbomb off the apron onto Funk into the dumpster which legitimately injured Terry’s back. Terry Funk wrestled at Wrestlemania 2!
JR gives a little shout out to Jakks who were the toy company producing all the WWF figures at the time. Really fond memories of my little collection of those.

The finish comes with them brawling backstage and The Outlaws being deposited into a dumpster via a forklift. Funk is screaming like a mad man and uses the forklift to pin the lids shut afterwards, screaming and banging on the outside of the dumpster. You can see the huge red bruise already forming on Terry Funk’s lower back from the powerbomb into the dumpster which is pretty gross. I was waiting to see them celebrate with the tag team title belts but it sadly never comes. This felt like a happy ending after The Outlaws had beaten down the LOD and had victimised these two guys for the last month but it would all be undone 24 hours later on Raw.

A big dirty edit on the WWE Network version of the event after the match here as we swiftly move onto the hype package for the next match which, to be fair, is awesome and you can see it by clicking the button above! 

I have a huge amount of love and respect for these video hype packages, mostly the music that was used. The same 8 or 9 production tracks for all of them for years. I’m going to do my best to capture these videos from the PPVs where I can and upload them. I fear WWE's copyright police will make that impossible. At the moment I’m watching the WWE Network version of the events but I will imminently be retrieving my massive VHS and DVD collection from my parents house and be able to get the original, unedited releases. 

Kane debuted at October 1997's WWF In Your House: Badd Blood where after weeks of his former manager Paul Bearer promising that "Kane is alive", he appeared and tore the door off the Hell in a Cell with his bare hands and tombstoned The Undertaker, costing him his match with Shawn Michaels. Kane is the younger brother of The Undertaker, and was presumed dead as when they were children, The Undertaker set a fire which burned down his family home killing both of this parents. Kane survived, apparently badly burned and disfigured, and has been raised in secret by Paul Bearer ever since. Paul somehow managed to keep that a secret during the six years he managed The Undertaker on WWF TV, but also apparantly while he was also raising The Undertaker as a sort of adopted step-father? To be honest, the whole thing falls apart if you tug at the plot threads but that doesn't make it any less awesome! This was the first real, dark PG13 "soap opera" type storyline the WWF ever did

In this awesome video package, we also see footage of Kane and Paul Bearer burning the casket with The Undertaker trapped inside it from the Royal Rumble. Say what you want about attempted murder, it was very very nice of Kane to wheel the casket up the ramp onto that huge fire blanket before setting the fire. Easy to clean up.

Howard Finkle introduces “baseball legend” Pete Rose who gets a lot of heel heat from the Boston crowd. I don’t know anything about sports so let’s just assume it’s justified. He heels out on the crowd too until Kane arrives and tombstones him. This was an odd angle as surely The Undertaker should have been the one to beat up the heel guest ring announcing celebrity. Still, pretty cool of a legit sportsman to agree to take the tombstone and the crowd pops HUGE for it. It’s a really good looking tombstone too. I’ve seen wrestlers who’ve been in the business for years take much worse.

The Undertaker vs. Kane (w/Paul Bearer)

Man, Kane’s OG theme song is so cool. Chills. The Undertaker’s entrance is the first one that feels like a real “wrestlemania entrance” with the druids with burning torches and the build up, the thunder and lightning. 

The druids robes are all a little bit too small as we can see most of their faces which ruins the magic slightly - it’s just a load of lads with goatees (as was the style at the time) 

Spoilers! but Undertaker obviously wins this to make him 7 - 0 at Wrestlemania. No mention is made of the streak but even at this point, being undefeated in 7 matches at Wrestlemania is pretty impressive and they could have mentioned it. JR does mention Undertaker's “previous success” at Wrestlemania having won the WWF title last year.

JR makes the point that Kane is “the younger brother” and not “the little brother” as he’s absolutely massive. He’s actually a little taller and definitely more muscular than Undertaker here. Glen Jacobs is only in his 20s.

There’s some really great spots in this one considering their size. Kane suplexes the Undertaker and dumps him gut first on the top rope and they sag and drop massively with the weight! Kane then hops to the top rope and then dives onto the prone Taker with such speed, it was basically a springboard. The Undertaker leaps up onto Kane’s shoulders like he’s going for a poison-rana! Then Kane sits down and awkwardly dumps him with a front facing electric chair. Undertaker lands sloppy but he can hardly be blamed as he’s never had to take these kinds of bumps from being lifted before. He’s working so hard to make Kane look good here. 

Vlad the superfan sighting!

The Undertaker does his incredible dive to the outside with Kane sidestepping and driving him through the announce table. This was an amazing match for two big lads who aren’t famed for their workrate. Kane looked so strong and had Undertaker beat, even picking him up before a 3 count. A story driven affair punctuated by a good few big spots which got everyone - including me - out of their seats.

A scary tombstone from Kane as he struggled and then dropped before it looked like he had Taker settled. To be fair, all three of the tombstones on Kane look scary as hell as well so I think it’s just an issue of both men being so tall. Especially the second one, Kane gets spiked! Maybe I'm just being a mark and they were all fine and both men are just pros. Neither of them got injured.

As I watch these shows I might change my opinion but on memory alone, this clean pinfall loss is the best Kane would ever be booked. He no sold so much of Undertaker’s offence and kicked out of three tombstones (that last one only just barely got the three count) I’m glad the story is continuing and excited for a rematch for now but I suspect I’ll be sick of seeing Kane and Undertaker wrestle by the end of the year.

I want to make special mention of how great Paul Bearer is here. During the build to his, and even during this match, his shrill voice worked so perfectly as a heel and his Southern preacher voice was ideal. His campy over-acting when he interacted with the Undertaker deserves so much love. This was hokey in the best of ways and this entire storyline was one of the first examples of the WWF doing really over the top storytelling. It worked in huge part thanks to Paul Bearer. 

The classic Classy Freddy Blassie promo where the old timers like Gorilla Monsoon and the Big Cat Ernie Lad talk about how tough they were but that the modern stars are “men without fear” and today they cheer for them. Another of the early WWF attitude adverts. It’s amazing. Any wrestling fan over 30 will probably remember this video and, as the legend goes, Vince welled up the first time he was shown it. 

Video package for the main event and amazingly, the first mention or appearance of Vince McMahon tonight during it. This is the last show for a very, very long time where Vince McMahon wouldn’t be featured heavily and mentioned at least once in every segment. The video package makes it look like Tyson and DX are the babyfaces and feuding with Vince McMahon. There’s almost zero mention of Stone Cold Steve Austin. Imagine. Don't worry Steve, I've got you.

Stone Cold Steve Austin was a bad guy who was merciless and driven but also insanely entertaining. He won a lot of fans at the 1996 King of the Ring with his famous "Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass" speech after winning but in recent months was solely responsible for a massive up-swing in the WWF's ratings as people tuned into Raw to see what this badass renegade who openly disrespected his boss and "the system" would do or say next. He was very clearly the next big star for the WWF but when he won the 1998 Royal Rumble to earn this title match, I don't think anyone imagined just how huge he would be for the company. His popularity would continue to explode over the next year to the point where at his peak, he surpassed the almighty Hulk Hogan himself. But that's a debate for another time. 

The heavy, heavy focus on Mike Tyson is jarring in hindsight but at the time, he was one of the most famous human beings on planet Earth so….fair. Tyson comes out to what would basically become X-Pac’s theme song. He got a huge amount of eyes on this PPV which was ideal for Stone Cold’s big moment as that certainly helped Steve Austin become the biggest star in history (spoiler)

Mike keeps crotch chopping at the camera men at ringside but clearly doesn’t know where the hard camera is as he has his back to us for most of it. Great job, Mike.

Austin and Michaels both get the entrances that start backstage which is cool and gives this a huge big fight feel. HBK looks miserable and gives a “this is for you Earl” to the camera. Earl Hebner was in hospital at the time. Or maybe he just means because Earl was the referee who helped him out in Montreal to start this title reign.

WWF Championship

Shawn Michaels © (w/Triple H and Chyna) vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin

Special guest enforcer: Mike Tyson

Shawn Michaels has a very badly injured back here. This is his first and only match since the Royal Rumble in fact. He hurt it landing awkwardly on a casket during his casket match with The Undertaker. He was always going to drop the title to Stone Cold here but it’s interesting to wonder what would have happened if he’d been healthy. Hard to imagine this era HBK not pushing to retain. 

This was a massive passing of the torch moment as Shawn was really the last man standing from the New Gen era with Diesel, Razor, Yokozuna and finally Bret Hart leaving. It all sounds like cliche and hyperbole in hindsight but it cannot be emphasised how much of a true passing of the torch moment this was.

Austin and Michaels both hate this match but Tyler Breeze uses it at his wrestling school as an example of a classic main event with some great story telling and selling. 

A really slow match which is focused on HBK working Austin’s knee. The crowd is really hot for Austin but the pace here is killing them. Shawn’s back is obviously really bothering him and his selling gets a little uncomfortable for those of us who know this is his last match for over 4 years because of it. He’s visibly struggling to stand up straight as the match wears on.

Austin amazingly feels like a passenger here. It’s so far from the Stone Cold main events we’d come to know and love, but we do get a little outside of the ring brawling. The commentators are really playing up Mike Tyson’s roll and after Triple H and Chyna get ejected, the story becomes about whether Tyson is going to help Shawn out. After ducking a superkick, having his first attempt blocked, then reversing a second sweet chin music to hit a Stone Cold Stunner, Steve Austin wins and becomes WWF Champion for the first time! The Austin era has begun.

I wasn’t a fan of the finish sadly. The back and forth with the finisher counters exchange is brilliant but Iron Mike got in the ring far too quickly and fast-counted HBK which robbed the moment of its grandeur. 

We didn’t get the classic beer bath post-match either. This is very much still early doors for Stone Cold and the attitude era. It’s going to get a LOT crazier from here. The PPV does end on a fitting high of Stone Cold Steve Austin crowned the new WWF champion with Jim Ross delivering some all time great sound bites.