Match 11 - Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. The Rock (Champion) (WWF Championship)
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One of the greatest Wrestlemania main events, and potentially one of the best WWE matches ever. The only reason that this match isn’t 10/10 is the timing of the turn at the end, which we will get to shortly.
The match itself was an all out brawl and an all out slugfest! Austin and The Rock were truly in top form, buoyed by possibly the best hype package ever produced by the WWE. From the opening, where Rock turned round from his standard pose on the apron to a series of punches from the Rattlesnake to the very end, this was pure savagery.
Heads were slammed into posts and railings, turnbuckles were removed as the two went all out to win. At one point, even the bell was used as a weapon as The Rock repeatedly slammed Austin’s head into it, before Austin then retaliated by slamming The Brahma Bull neck-first onto the security railing, before even a TV monitor was used as a weapon.
There was some actual wrestling that took place as well, though it seemed secondary to the ferocity of the bout: Austin had a Stunner countered into a Sharpshooter, with the camera panning superbly onto Austin’s bloodied face, reminding us of the match-up between Bret Hart and The Rattlesnake at Wrestlemania four years earlier, before the Rock then hit a stunner.
It was all happening.
However, the climax came. Vince McMahon entered the ring, only to beaten down savagely by The Rock. In reaction to this, Vince slid a chair to Austin, who then destroyed The Rock with a devastating amount of chair shots. Austin had the win, the Championship, and possibly the most unlikely alliance in all of wrestling was formed.
Though an Austin heel turn would ultimately provide the universe with such nuggets as Kum By Yah, it seemed an odd time to do this. The handshake after the match is now one of the most iconic moments in wrestling, but once again it seemed to be a McMahon taking the limelight during a Wrestlemania in Texas (Austin’s home state), which in my opinion, impaired the ending of an absolute classic.
Dave Meltzer Rating: 4.5/5
Eyes In Rating: 9/10
The Segments
A lot of people say that a wrestling event is only as good as it’s link up packages, whether it be video packages or backstage segments and this PPV proves all of those people right. Cutting back on the celebrity interactions (unheard of for a Wrestlemania) and all the backstage segments were integral to the overarching, cohesive nature of the event.
Jeff Bagwell and Moises Alou of the Houston Astros baseball team were the only celebrity interactions of any note at all!
All other segments were either interviews relating to the competitors desire to win or camera shots of the wrestlers warming up. It was tense and it added to the atmosphere, from Kurt Angle’s repeated watching of his own submission loss to Benoit, to the constant flitting to Undertaker and Triple H warming up for their bout; nothing was out of place or too over the top.
Too many times, WWE try to over-saturate its backstage segments or indeed the entire event with comedy, and this event proves that they don’t need to do that. Let the wrestling do the talking, and people will tune in!
The highlight for me though personally was the hype package for the main event. Hats off to the production team who put together this beauty of a video package.
The story of the animosity between The Rock and Stone Cold is told so perfectly in this 4-minute burst that you can’t help but find yourself invested in the match, and the addition of the Limp Bizkit soundtrack topped it all off.
If you haven’t already seen it, I insist you check out the video at the top of this section, I promise you will not regret it, as it is, without a doubt, one of the best video packages in WWE history.
Is it worth watching? An overall rating
Of course, it is! This PPV had everything you could possibly want from a single wrestling event: Drama, unbelievable matches, unforeseen heel turns, amazing spots and an unforgettable main event – this literally had everything you could want.
Some would argue that Pay-Per-Views in the modern era drag (to be honest, even a 3-hour episode of RAW drags in today’s WWE) but this was the epitome of how to book a PPV. Stellar matches littered this card, from the Jericho and Regal opener to the genre-defining TLC match to the incredible main event, one that is yet, in my opinion, to be surpassed.
This isn’t to say this event was perfect. It’s as close to perfect as the WWE has come thus far, in my opinion, but there were still little bits that could be tweaked: The Gimmick Battle Royal, though full of nostalgia was pointless and was only remedied by its short length.
The Women’s match was terrible and did nothing for either of the competitors, but the pros so drastically outweigh the cons that the negatives pale into relative insignificance.
Another major issue in a lot of PPVs is the over-reliance on backstage segments and hashed together comedic routines: this Wrestlemania proves that if you let the wrestling do the talking, people will buy into it!
This is, simply put, is the greatest WWE wrestling PPV ever, one the promotion is constantly trying to recreate with nowhere near the same result or success. It took the hype surrounding wrestling at that point and delivered an absolute masterclass, an event that, despite being upwards of three and a half hours, I could quite literally watch again, and again.
Well done WWE, well done.
Wrestlemania X-Seven Eyes On Rating: 10/10
Got an idea for Eyes On #3? What PPV shall I retrospectively look at next? What era shall we go to? Comment below or talk to me on Twitter at @Gameplay_Goody
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