Austin101

Austin101's "WWF Wrestlemania 14: dX raided" Review:



-Live on PPV from the sold out Fleet Center in Boston on Sunday, March the 29th 1998.

-Jim Ross is with Jerry "The King" Lawler for the first time that this tandem would work together at Mania. This tandem would be used again for Wrestlemania 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 (and the main event of 15)

-Chris Warren sang a rendition of "America the Beautiful" before the show.

-Other celebrity guests in attendance included Pete Rose, Mike Tyson, Gennifer Flowers, Vinny Paz, and Marvin Hagler.

-WrestleMania XIV marked the first time the European Championship was defended at a WrestleMania. It was also the first and only time that the Light Heavyweight Championship was defended at a WrestleMania event.

-This WrestleMania was both the last WrestleMania to use the WWF "New Generation" logo and the first WrestleMania to use the "Attitude" scratch logo.

-The pay-per-view event was mostly remembered for the start of the first World Wrestling Federation Championship reign for Steve Austin. His victory in the main event, against Shawn Michaels (who performed despite his own severe injury), is often cited as the "official" beginning of the Attitude Era. (Or the "Austin Era" as referred to by Jim Ross as some people think the Attitude Era began at Wrestlemania 13.)




Onto the matches......






1) L.O.D. 2000 (Hawk and Animal) (w/Sunny) vs Los Boricuas (Savio Vega and Miguel Pérez, Jr. vs Jose Estrada, Jr. and Jesus Castillo) vs The Truth Commission (Recon and Sniper)vs Bradshaw and Chainz vs two teams from the Nation of Domination (Mark Henry and D'Lo Brown, and Faarooq and Kama Mustafa) vs The Quebecers (Jacques Rougeau and Pierre Ouellet) vs The Rock 'n' Roll Express (Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson) vs The Headbangers (Mosh and Thrasher) vs Too Much (Scott Taylor and Brian Christopher) vs Disciples of Apocalypse (8-Ball and Skull) vs Steve Blackman and Flash Funk vs The Godwinns (Phineas and Henry) vs The New Midnight Express (Bombastic Bob and Bodacious Bart) in a 15 tag team battle royal


MMMMMM, Sunny, daumn! She was always one of my favourites to be honest.

The Nation came out to start the show right after JR welcomes us to Mania 14.

A lot going on inside the ring so it's kind of hard to keep up with all of the wrestling going down in this tag team battle royal.

Still a fun match!

LOD 2000 won, last eliminating The New Midnight Express at 8:19 to earn a shot at the WWF Tag Team Championship at In Your House: Unforgiven in April of 1998.

This match was effected most due to most of the eliminations happening off camera.

However the action was packed and got the Boston crowd ready for the event like most openers do and Sunny was smoking hot!


*





2) TAKA Michinoku vs Aguila for the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship


Fast moving match up right here.

Back and forth action with a lot of high flying moves. Aguila would later be in the WWF and went by the name Essa Rios, just incase anyone cared.

Taka and Aguila both took a lot of high risk moves and the pace to this match doesen't slow down one bit. This is almost comparable to the WCW cruiserweight bouts in 1997, it's to bad the WWF didn't continue to put on classic light weight matches in 98 or 99, but you can't have everything I guess. It's also probably out of place for me to complain about then considering everything the WWF did "Right" in those years.


Michinoku pinned Aguila after hitting the Michinoku Driver at 5:57 to keep the title.

This was excellent for the time it got.


** 1/2





3) Triple H (w/Chyna) vs Owen Hart for the WWF European Championship


Triple H's brother sang a version of "Break it down" DX's theme to lead Hunter and Chyna to the ring.

Owen gets a great pop (which is strange considering he's well known for being a heel)

The two both go at it for awhile and the pace is excellent much like the last match but this match is double the length, so it's a good thing there were two great workers in the ring.

Triple H pinned Hart after a Pedigree (after Chyna's low blow) at 11:29 to retain the European title.

What a match! This is one of those "underrated Mania matches" that barely gets discussed enough.

This is actually quite the contest as Owen was over as a face at this point (by being the lone hart in the WWF) and Hunter was very over as a tweener in D-X and they both had a ton of chemistry together.

Very fun, if you haven't seen it in awhile go and give it another look! Definately one of the better aspects of this event!



*** 1/2





4) Marc Mero and Sable vs The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust and Luna


Mero and Sable were very over (Sable in the good way, Mero int he bad way)

I never did like Goldust like this but he'd go back to normal by late 1998 so all is good in the world.


Sable pinned Luna after a TKO at 9:11.

This was WAAAAAAAAY better then it looked on paper, and an extremely fun match for the third match in a row. (or 4th perhaps if you liked the battle royal)



** 1/2






5) The Rock vs Ken Shamrock for the WWF Intercontinental Championship


Shamrock and The Rock had a series of good matches in 1998 at the Rumble, on Raw, at Mania, King of The Ring, etc.

This one was a good little short brawl and nothing more.

Shamrock originally won the match by making Rock submit to an ankle lock. However, Shamrock "snapped" and refused to release the hold. After being forced to let go, Shamrock attacked the referee and a number of officials, leading to the match decision being reversed by disqualification and The Rock kept the belt at 4:49.

This wasn't as good as the IC Title match at Royal Rumble 98, but these two worked well together and this was a fun little brawl, and once again it was hillarious seeing Shamrock being screwed out of the belt while The cocky Rock kept retaining. This Nation Rock was one of the best IC Champions of all time. I should also point out he cut a very funny promo backstage before the match started. (Taped earlier in the day most likely)

Rock was getting over in a big way in this time period as a heel. He was voted the 2nd most hated man in Wrestling by the end of 1998, to Vince McMahon.



**







6) Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie vs the New Age Outlaws (Billy Gunn and Road Dogg) in a Dumpster Match for the WWF Tag Team Championship


A fun hardcore match here between the two kings of hardcore wrestling against the outlaws.

Roaddogg and Gunn both worked this type of match pretty well with the other two as both teams took bumps (more so funk and foley to no ones surprise.)

Before this match there was that famous Dumpster off the rampway to the floor bump on Raw (That literally took up 45-50 minutes of that broadcast)

After a lot of back and forth wrestling and brawling all the way to the backstage area...

Chainsaw Charlie dumped the New Age Outlaws in a dumpster using a forklift to win the match and the titles at 10:01. It should be noted though that the titles were held up the next night, because they used the wrong dumpster!

That Raw the night after Wrestlemania 14 was legendary. I'd love to watch that show sometime again, that's the night The Rock raised his eyebrow and kicked Farooq out of the Nation and took over as leader. That's the nigth The Outlaws, and the debut of X-Pac all joined DX in a cage match to end the show, as well as Austin-McMahon's opening segment with Stone Cold as champion.


** 3/4






7) The Undertaker vs Kane (w/Paul Bearer)


Amazing build up to this contest.

Pete Rose entered before the match to "guest ring announce" the next match. Before doing so he insulted the crowd, mentioning the Boston Red Sox inability to win a World Series (see Curse of the Bambino) until Kane came out and Tombstoned him. (The first of three consecutive times at Mania.)

Kane was still very intimidating and you legitimately though Taker might lose. This was around the time when people started to notice Taker was undefeated at Wrestlemania so it was a big deal if he lost obvioussly.

The story told by both men on the way to this match was over a year in the making, and this was so highly anticipated and it didn't dissapoint.

One of Taker's best Mania matches, and the same goes for Kane without a doubt.

A big man match that displayed a number of great moves and an excellent finish.

Undertaker pinned Kane after a Tombstone Piledriver at 16:58. This is the best match they've ever had together.

After the match, Paul Bearer and Kane beat down Undertaker which led to a revenge Tombstone from Kane on a steel chair. They would meet again a ton of times, most notably in the first ever "Inferno Match" at Unforgiven 1998 the next month.


The Undertaker goes 7-0 at Wrestlemania.


*** 1/4





8) Main Event- Stone Cold Steve Austin vs The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels (w/Mike Tyson as Special Outside Enforcer) for the WWF Championship


Chris Warren performed D-Generation X's entrance music live.

Tyson and Austin! Tyson and Austin! Tyson and Austin! (As heard by JR weeks before the match)

Tyson has just joined D-X!

HBK: Whoooooo is gonna win at Maaaaniaaaaaaa

Tyson: You will Heart Break!

Getting Mike Tyson was such a great move by the WWF as it got a lot of media attention as well as fan attention. I remember my father watched Wrestlemania 14 live with me and my brother in my living room because he was so into the Stone Cold character and was wondering what Tyson would do.

It got people talking.

Austin gets an amazing pop as expected, and Michaels gets a pretty good reaction to as the tweener-heel in the D-X role.

This would be HBK's last match for 4 and half years.

It's hevily rumored he did not want to drop the belt to Austin, but Taker said he'd be waiting for him backstage if he didn't do the job as it was the right thing for business.

HBK knew it to and he did, and he was hurt anyway so there was no way he was going to keep the belt.

You DO however have to credit Shawn for fighting through the back pain and going as long as he did putting on a fine contest at that. One thing people often forget here is that both these guys were incredibally hurt in this match. Austin's neck and knees, HBK's knee and more importantly back.

BEFORE they both got hurt they put on an amazing classic that was better then this at King of the Ring 1997, a forgotten underrated gem that showcases two of the best North American workers in there primes before there injuries.

This one though considering all the factors was an epic battle and extremely memorable.

Austin pinned Michaels after countering Sweet Chin Music into a Stone Cold Stunner at 20:02 to become the WWF Champion for the first time. With the referee down, Mike Tyson, who was thought to be siding with Michaels, turned on him and counted Austin's pin himself, giving Austin the win.

After the match Tyson knocked out Michaels, whom he'd been friendly with leading up to the event, with a right hook and accepted an Austin 3:16 t-shirt to drape over his downed body.

The fans went crazy!


JR: "THE AUSTIN ERAAA, HAS BEGUN!"




****





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Final PPV Rating for Wrestlemania 14 = 8/10


Quite simply, this is one of the most underrated and fun Mania's to watch ever. Almost every match is extremely enjoyable and that just defines fun. This happened in a period where the WWF was picking up steam as they'd beat Nitro just a few short weeks later for the first time in a year and a half. It was extremely important for the WWF to put on a memorable Wrestlemania at this time from Boston, and they did just that. Nothing less then 8/10 for me as this show was almost perfect, but would have been even better if there were a couple more matches but even without is still fine. A top 7 Wrestlemania to be sure......





Feedback appreciated as always if you want to discuss.....





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