1994 ended with the "New Generation" ruling the WWF world following the departures of the grizzled old veterans moving down south in WCW. Diesel (Kevin Nash) ended the year as the top guy following winning the WWF Championship and won the WWF Triple Crown (all three major WWF titles) in one year.
Vince McMahon decided on putting Nash on top as he once again wanted a giant to rule his company. Bret Hart was the WWF Champion for most of 1994 before losing it to Bob Backlund who lost it immediately to Nash.
Hart apparently did not draw well in the United States at house shows in either of his first two reigns as WWF Champion. He drew well in Canada and anywhere else outside the U.S. but apparently not well in the U.S. so McMahon put the belt on Nash in attempt to draw bigger numbers. Unfortunately, it was even worse.
The problem was that Nash was an unstoppable giant heel that got over so well they wanted to make him babyface. Problem is and even Nash will tell you, the WWF made him this nice guy, smiling babyface that the fans did not believe and would not get behind.
They saw this as fake and manufactured and it's not Nash's fault as many want to hate on the guy. He's doing what is told and if a millionaire who is your boss is telling you something you do it regardless and especially if you are going to be the top paid guy in the company. Call me a Kilq sympathizer if you will and I am a huge fan, but I'm telling the truth.
Bret Hart moved down to number two babyface following Diesel's promotion to the top. Soon after, Bret was soon demoted as eventually Shawn Michaels would move to the top babyface and Diesel down to number two and even Razor Ramon probably number three.
Both Bret and The Undertaker took a major backseat to "The Kliq" and both Bret and Undertaker struggled in mid-card roles and were grossly underused. Hart was caught in some terrible feuds in 1995 including the Japanese wrestler Hakushi and continuing a stagnant feud with Jerry Lawler.
The Undertaker would have lame feuds with Ted DiBiase's Million Dollar Corporation members IRS (beyond terrible), King Kong Bundy, Kama after Kama "stole" his urn and melted it into a gold chain necklace, and then a terrible feud with the terrible King Mabel after Mabel accidentally crushed Undertaker's face by sitting on his face and breaking Undertaker's orbital bone.
Jerry Lawler accused Bret Hart of being "racist" towards Japanese wrestlers and especially Hakushi. His matches with Hakushi were actually good. Hart was buried in mid card as he didn't even appear on the actual ppv matches of the July and September In Your House ppvs. He would wrestle the dark matches of those events.
Even worse was his feud with Lawler's "personal dentist" Dr. Isaac Yankem DDS played by Glenn Jacobs. Jacobs would thankfully resurrect his careee by becoming Kane. Yankem was brought in by Lawler to take Hart out after Hart made him kiss his feet in a "Kiss My Foot" match at King of the Ring. A wrestling dentist was an awful and pathetic character gimmick.
Awful and pathetic sum up a lot of 1995 especially the gimmicks. The worst had to be Mantaur, who was half man, half "minotaur", get it? Mantaur? Plus he had horns painted on his bald head to make it look like he was wearing a Los Angeles Rams helmet.
Almost as bad was the "Portuguese Man 'O' War" Aldo Montoya, who at least saw success in ECW as Justin Credible who was one of my favorites. There was still Doink The Clown, who had long run his course, Henry O. Godwinn the resident pig farmer (initials H.O.G. get it?), and Duke "the Dumpster" Droese the WWF's garbage man which were just terrible.
Really terrible was Techo Team 2000, two "futuristic" guys named Travis and Troy wearing silver leather. One of them was none other than Erik Watts (see WCW 1992) and other I have no idea nor do I give a shit who he is. I guess according to Wikipedia he is a Monster Truck driver.
There was a magician "Phantasio" honestly I have zero recollection of him. There was Avatar who was Al Snow as a ninja as Al Snow himself was awesome. Fatu split from The Headshrinkers tag team and went from savage beast who could not speak to all of a sudden being this guy from the street who spoke all street and was "trying to make a difference." Ugh!!
Vince McMahon introduced a grunge rocker by the name of Rad Radford, who was Louie Spicolli. McMahon was always one behind the times as Grunge rock died like two-three years prior to Radford's debut. The late Louie Spicolli was very talented and a great worker but the character did not work even though I enjoyed it and Spicolli in general.
There was also Man Mountain Rock, who was formerly Maxx Payne in WCW before coming to the WWF. Rock was far different than his Maxx Payne character and was a guitar rocker that played a guitar that shot fireworks out of it while he was playing. Man Mountain Rock would not last long in the WWF.
Another bad gimmick was pair Lex Luger and The British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith as a teammate known as "The Allied Powers." Even worse was the WWF combined both their entrance themes together. Both were struggling midcard and the idea made sense but they were never given a push in the tag team ranks. Eventually, the pair split up as Smith became a heel while Luger left the WWF.
Lifetime jobber Barry Horowitz won his first WWF match ever. Sadly, Horowitz winning was actually one of the better things to happen to the WWF in 1995. Horowitz pinned Skip (Chris Candido) of The Bodydonnas. Skip's manager-valet was Sunny (Tammy Sytch) as she was one of the better things to ever happen to the WWF.
Everyone had to be some sort of gimmick in 1995 instead of real life which was starting to insult long time wrestling fans' intelligence. One such was Paul Levesque, who debuted in the WWF in 1995 as the blue blood, aristocrat snob Hunter-Hearst Helmsley.
Levesque worked in WCW for a little over a year prior to coming to the WWF where he was first Terra Ryzing and then later Jean Paul Levesque, who was a French aristocrat who did not speak any French whatsoever but just spoke English with a French sounding accent.
Levesque used the similar character in the WWF except he wasn't French but was from his actual hometown of Greenwich, Connecticut. Vince McMahon made him the typical aristocrat type guy from Greenwich that McMahon himself hated.
Soon after joining the WWF, Levesque joined the famous or infamous Clique, better known as "The Kliq." The Kliq had been formed by real life best friends Michael Hickenbottom (Shawn Michaels), Kevin Nash (Diesel), Scott Hall (Razor Ramon), and Sean Waltman (The 1-2-3 Kid) a couple years prior.
Levesque fit in with The Kliq, which was named that thanks to Lex Luger saying the group was nothing more than a Clique. They would also be nicknamed "The Wolfpack." The Kliq was notorious for being influential for booking matches and working high profile matches among one another.
Bret Hart was actually friends with Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash and they suggested to Hart that he join them, but he refused as he did not want to be part of a group and wanted to do his own thing and work with his family. The Undertaker had his group of friends known as the "Bone Street Krew" that featured Yokozuna, Kama (later The Godfather), Fatu, Henry Godwinn, Crush, and Savio Vega.
The Kliq worked with each other as Shawn Michaels won the 1995 Royal Rumble and took on Diesel for the WWF Title at WrestleMania XI. Michaels lost to Diesel in a thrilling match and turned babyface the next night on RAW as Michaels' new bodyguard the returning Sid Eudy attacked Michaels after he blamed "Sycho" Sid for the loss and "fired" him.
Diesel rushed to Michaels' aid and the two reunited as on-screen friends: "Two Dudes with Attitudes." Vince McMahon wanted to turn Michaels babyface for a while due to the overwhelmingly positive crowd response towards Michaels so they didn't put the World Title on Michaels, yet. Michaels would become the Intercontinental Champion.
The WWF should have though and turned Diesel heel as Diesel according to reports was the lowest-drawing WWF Champion of all-time according to house show numbers. House shows averaged under 2,000 fans a night at house shows with Kevin Nash as champion.
Nash had a lame three-month feud with Sycho Sid and even teamed with Bam Bam Bigelow to feud with Sid and The Million Dollar Corporation that Sid was now a part of. Diesel then took on Mabel from Men on a Mission, who Vince McMahon decided to make the terrible decision of having him win the King of the Ring in June 1995 and pushing him in the main event was one of the worst decisions ever.
Diesel defeated "King" Mabel as he was known as then at SummerSlam in a terrible PPV and lousy main event. Even Diesel said Mabel was bad in the match. It wasn't Nash's fault that Mabel was pushed on him. Lex Luger made his final WWF appearance as he helped Diesel win and would go back to WCW shortly after.
Shortly before SummerSlam, The British Bulldog helped Mabel in attacking Diesel and turned heel I don't get why he helped or was associated with Mabel. It was good to have Davey Boy Smith turn heel and get him out of the crappy Allied Powers tag team with Lex Luger that was going nowhere and making him a main eventer.
Smith faced both Diesel and Bret Hart in separate WWF Championship matches at the In Your House PPVs in October and December, respectively. His latter match with Hart was a thrilling rematch from their epic encounter at SummerSlam 92.
SummerSlam 95 was a terrible PPV and the reception of having Diesel and King Mabel in the main event was poorly taken. So the WWF announced that the previously scheduled Shawn Michaels-Sid Intercontinental Championship match was scrapped for a Shawn Michaels-Razor Ramon WrestleMania X Intercontinental Championship rematch at SummerSlam.
Their epic ladder match was so greatly receptive that the WWF figured a rematch would help the struggling company and their struggling event. Both Michaels and Razor were babyfaces but still would put on a great show. Some say this ladder match was better than the first one as Michaels won it and retained the Intercontinental Title.
The Kliq's latest charade came in October 1995. Shawn Michaels was legitimately attacked and injured outside a night club in Syracuse, NY when he was beaten up by a group of Marines. Michaels was supposed to defend his Intercontinental Championship against Dean Douglas at that month's In Your House PPV from Winnipeg.
Shane Douglas came over from ECW to the WWF in the summer of 1995 and was forced to be the Dean Douglas teacher/educator character due to Douglas' real life career as a teacher. Douglas had a run with Kliq members Razor Ramon and The 1-2-3 Kid and now set to take on Michaels for the Intercontinental Title.
Michaels claimed the injuries he suffered from the attack would prevent him from wrestling as some thought he was able to wrestle. Michaels was forced to vacate the title to Douglas. However, The Kliq's politicking forced Douglas to drop the title immediately to Razor at the PPV. Douglas was living with The Kliq and their antics and soon left the WWF and headed back to ECW.
Other wrestlers who incurred the wrath of The Kliq were Chris Candido (Skip) over Candido's girlfriend Sunny (Tammy Sytch) as Michaels and Sunny apparently had a relationship while Candido and her had one. Also Bam Bam Bigelow had his problems with The Kliq and by the end of the year, he was gone from the WWF.
Then Carl Ouellet, who was then known as the French Canadian "Pirate" Jean Pierre Lafitte, had his issues with The Kliq, most notably WWF Champion Diesel. Lafitte had a great series of matches with Bret Hart in the fall of 1995, led by September's In Your House 3 thriller. He was set to take on Diesel at a house show in his home of Montreal.
Ouellet was supposed to lose cleanly to Diesel as Diesel was the babyface and Ouellet was the heel even though he would likely be the face in his hometown. Ouellet did not want to lose cleanly to Diesel in his home and the two argued a finish at the show in Montreal.
Eventually, the match would end in a double count out in a brutally stiff match where the two viciously would beat on each other even going back to the dressing room. Eventually, Ouellet got fired from the WWF late in 1995 and he blamed The Kliq for "burying" him.
WrestleMania XI was perhaps the worst WrestleMania ever. Read WrestleCrap's review here it's hilarious. WrestleMania XI took place on April 2, 1995 and was held at the Hartford Civic Center, which is actually a mall.
Well it's actually connected to a mall but still. You don't hold the top PPV in the company at a mall. That's for more like RAW or even one of the In Your Houses but not WrestleMania.
The main event and closing match for WrestleMania XI was Bam Bam Bigelow vs. NFL legend Lawrence Taylor. The background for the match happened at the Royal Rumble in January where after Bigelow lost a match, he saw Taylor sitting front row laughing at him.
Bigelow then pushed "LT" out of his seat making it look like he legitimately put his hands on a "fan." Bigelow then challenged LT to a match to which Taylor accepted. It looked bad to have an NFL player in the ring but it gave the WWF much needed press and mainstream exposure since LT would be in the ring.
Even the celebrities appearing at WrestleMania were really lame. There was Nicholas Turturro from NYPD Blue who was like the 3rd or 4th best person on the show. They had Jonathan Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement. I remember being 13 at the time and the girls my age in my grade were in love with him while I thought he was a little tool (Home Improvement, Tool Time, get it?).
Well what wasn't lame was Pamela Anderson, who accompanied Shawn Michaels to the ring and Jenny McCarthy, who came to the ring with Diesel. Diesel then left the ring with both Anderson and McCarthy, perhaps the two hottest girls in 1995. Salt-n-Pepa sang Whatta Man before the Bam Bam Bigelow-LT match.
Bigelow was accompanied to the ring by Ted DiBiase and the Million Dollar Corporation while LT was accompanied to the ring by football players both past and present: Ken Norton Jr., Chris Spielman, Steve McMichael, Rickey Jackson, Carl Banks, and the legendary Reggie White.
LT actually performed very well in his first professional wrestling match and defeated Bigelow when he gave Bigelow a flying forearm off the second turnbuckle for the 1-2-3. Bigelow would have a short run with Diesel before he would leave the WWF at the end of 1995. He went from the main event to out of the WWF in just seven months.
Even the Royal Rumble really sucked for 1995. The Bret Hart-Diesel WWF Championship match ended with numerous heel wrestlers interfering in the match and attacking both men. The Royal Rumble match itself sucked as the intervals for each wrestler to enter was only one minute down from two.
The reason for the reduction in time was simply the entry list for the Royal Rumble was its weakest ever. Shawn Michaels and Davey Boy Smith were the first two to enter the Royal Rumble and they were the final two when it was all said and done.
Smith looked to have thrown Michaels over the top rope to eliminate him, but Michaels' one foot would not hit the floor as he managed to have it not touch the floor as you need both feet to hit the floor to be eliminated. Michaels got his way back in and threw Smith over the top rope and eliminated him as Smith thought he won.
The WWF decided to help grow its much-needed revenue by increasing the number of PPVs from the big five of Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series to now running a PPV every month of the year.
Starting in May 1995, the WWF introduced the In Your House PPV. The In Your House PPVs would only be two hours when compared to the big five, which was three. The original In Your House PPVs would be a lot cheaper though than the big five as it was only $14.95, a little more than half the price of the other big PPVs.
Every month where the original five PPVs were not being held the WWF would hold an In Your House PPV and would have a PPV all 12 months of the year starting in 1996 as 1995 have 10 PPVs in the 12 months as only February and March did not have one which was before the In Your House was created.
The original In Your House PPV originated from Syracuse, NY on May 14, 1995. The WWF actually gave away a house at the first In Your House PPV. The house was from Orlando, Florida. The first In Your House surprisingly sold well even though it wasn't a good PPV. This sold the best of the PPVs under the In Your House brand.
Soon after this PPV, all In Your House PPVs would have a tagline next to them like In Your House: Rage in the Cage, In Your House: Good Friends, Better Enemies, etc. Eventually by 1999, the In Your House name was completely dropped the the monthly PPVs would simply be like Judgment Day, No Way Out, No Mercy, etc.
At the second In Your House PPV on July 23, 1995 from Nashville, then-Intercontinental Champion Jeff Jarrett, whose character was an aspiring Country Music star from Nashville, "sang" his "hit country music song" "With My Baby Tonight" live in concert at the event. Weeks before the event, Jarrett unveiled the music video of the song.
Jarrett sung the song as it was bad and was being booed. As it later turned out, Jarrett lipsynced a prerecorded version of the song by his "Roadie" (Brian James best known as Road Dogg Jesse James). Jarrett then lost the Intercontinental Title to Shawn Michaels following botched interference from The Roadie.
Jarrett and The Roadie both left the WWF the day after the PPV. Jarrett returned to the WWF in December 1995, but left again shortly after and went to WCW. The Roadie returned in late 1996 and began a storyline where he was the real country singer not Jarrett. Roadie eventually became The Road Dogg Jesse James and formed a successful tag team The New Age Outlaws with Billy Gunn.
Bret Hart's lousy 1995 would end a lot better as he finally got a WWF Championship match against Diesel at the 1995 Survivor Series. He faced Diesel to a no-contest at the Royal Rumble but had to wait nearly an entire year before getting another World Title match as he spent the year buried in lame and pointless feuds.
Hart battled Diesel in a thrilling no disqualification match due to their previous two encounters ended in DQ finishes. Diesel sent Hart crashing through a table on the outside. He would then bring in a seemingly unconscious Hart into the ring to finish him off. However, Diesel had second thoughts as Hart was out.
All of a sudden, Hart rolled Diesel into an inside cradle to win the match and win back the WWF Championship as he was "playing possum." An angry Diesel would then give Hart several Jackknife Powerbombs after the match as he was slowly turning back into a heel. Diesel's reign as WWF Champion ended after 358 days, just shy of a full calendar year.
The WWF used Shawn Michaels' bar attack in Syracuse in their storylines. He returned to the ring following the attack at Survivor Series. The following night on RAW, Michaels faced Owen Hart. During the match, Owen gave Michaels a kick to the back of the head.
The match would come to an abrupt end when Michaels collapsed in the middle of the ring later in the match. The action was stopped and Michaels was taken out of the ring and to a local hospital via ambulance. The WWF made it look so real that no one knew this was a story.
Michaels had storyline received post-concussion syndrome from the attack in Syracuse and the kick to the head from Owen. It appeared that Michaels would be forced to retire from wrestling as he did not wrestle for the rest of 1995. Owen took credit for nearly ending Michaels' career. Michaels would eventually make his grand return to the ring at the Royal Rumble in January 1996.
Not only did WWF get real competition from WCW because of some of the past WWF superstars like Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage among others signing in WCW, WCW entered and officially declared the "Monday Night Wars" in 1995 by launching WCW Monday Nitro to go head-to-head with WWF's RAW.
Nitro was live every Monday night whereas RAW was live one week but the next few weeks were taped right after the live edition. Unfortunately, many at the tapings knew the results long before they were played on their scheduled Monday Night broadcasts. Eric Bischoff would take advantage of this and give away RAW results on his live weekly Nitro.
Bischoff also used his Nitro as a platform to surprisingly bring back two WWF wrestlers back to WCW in Lex Luger and Madusa Miceli. Luger appeared on the inaugural episode of Nitro one night after wrestling his final match in the WWF without letting them know he was jumping ship to WCW.
Then in December, Madusa, known as Alundra Blayze, the reigning WWF Women's Champion appeared on Nitro and at Bischoff's request, she threw the Women's belt into the garbage. She would be blackballed from the WWE until 20 years later she was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, where at her induction speech, she brought out a trash bin and retrieved the old Women's title and brought it back to the WWE.
1995 was just a terrible year overall for the WWF. They had some of the lowest house show attendance and PPV buyrates in the history of the company. However, in terms of plain business not just the in-ring garbage, the worst was yet to come.
Well written i remember WWF 1995 as a bunch of garbage
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