SWEET CHIN MUSINGS: The WrestleMania X Rewind

Owen Hart over Bret Hart

• Sadly, we kick off with one such participant, as a Coliseum Home Video package brings us to how the late Owen Hart ended up squaring off with his brother Bret in our opening contest.
• Owen establishes his newfound mean streak by ripping up a pair of sunglasses, in contrast with Bret giving them to a child at ringside. They didn't have any concept of 'stranger danger' back in 1994. These days it'd be viewed as grooming.
• A master of the little things and bringing doses of hilarity to a heated grudge match, Owen opens by locking up, breaking the lock-up and celebrating as if he'd won an Olympic gold medal. It's instantly clear to all who inherited the charismatic gene in the family.
• Look I can't honestly say that I'm a big Bret fan. You can't but admire his technique in the ring, but once the bell rings in his matches I'm instantly rooting for a screwjob finish.
• Vince and Jerry 'The King' Lawler were a short-lived but quality commentary team, if for the wrong reasons. Vince channels his inner-Jamie Redknapp in remarking that Owen "kicked Bret from the ring, literally", as opposed to, you know, metaphorically kicking someone from the ring. Lawler makes tasteless Hart family jokes that simply wouldn't fly these days.
• I genuinely did not mean that last sentence to sound the way it did when I typed it. I am so, so sorry.
• I like to think that if Owen Hart were around today and hit someone with a zinger during a promo, he'd yell, "YOU JUST GOT OWENED!" Only he could make it both cheesy funny and bad ass at the same time. Nothing to do with anything, I just spend my day thinking of stuff like this and thought I'd share.
• Bret counters Owen's Sharpshooter with one of his own, before Owen countered a victory roll in the corner attempt with a pin for the 1-2-3, marking him out as the better sibling despite the company's insistence on pushing his brother to the top. Prophetic.

• WWE peppered classic WrestleMania moments throughout the show, as a way of marking the milestone. The problem was by that stage there had only been about five legitimate WrestleMania moments. So they settled for Gorilla Monsoon saying "And who can forget the Battle Royal (from WrestleMania 2)" and moving swiftly onwards as all of the viewing audience realised they had, in fact, forgotten the Battle Royal from WrestleMania 2.

Mixed Tag-Team Match: Bam Bam Bigelow & Luna Vachon over Doink & Dink

• Bigelow and Luna come to the ring accompanied by the former's 'theme song', which is just him shouting "BAM BAM!" over some bass for two minutes. Without fact-checking, an educated guess leaves me certain that he made it himself then intimidated Jim Johnston into using it.
• WWE's 1994 match rules are about as sophisticated as their theme songs, and about as politically correct as their Presidential impersonators: the rules of mixed tags in 1994 apparently dictated the men wrestle men, and if a midget wrestler tagged in then so, thus, must a woman.
• The match itself consists of Bigelow and Luna jumping around selling offence for Dink as we used to on the Irish independent scene whenever we'd let a young fan play around in the ring: "Oh no! You gave me a weak push! For some reason I am now having a heart attack!"
• The match ended with Bam Bam hitting a diving headbutt on Doink for the win. A year later, he'd go onto main event WrestleMania XI. Of course he did.
• After the bell, Dink would get kicked by Luna Vachon but messed up the end spot were he was supposed to move and avoid a double splash from her and Bam Bam, getting nailed in the head for his troubles. You can hear Vince's teeth gnashing on commentary. This match only served to establish that: 1) apparently it's not easier to dodge a simple spot if you're half the size of a normal wrestler; 2) clowns aren't popular after all, going by the audience's reaction afterwards; and 3) somehow all of this mess can still land you in the main event of the next WrestleMania.

• Next up was a shot of a Bill Clinton lookalike in the crowd waving to fans as Vince yells "Oh my goodness!" about how anything can happen at WrestleMania. Yeah, and anybody can have 'President Clinton' show up at their birthday party for the reasonable sum of $75 plus transport.

Falls Count Anywhere: 'Macho Man' Randy Savage over Crush

• Next up is the most poorly conceived stipulation in the history of pro-wrestling. The rules for this 'Falls Count Anywhere' match stipulate that wrestlers can pin each other anywhere in the building, and once pinned a competitor has 60 seconds to return to the ring. This convoluted idea eventually, somehow, spawned two entertaining future stipulation matches that actually worked: a 'Last Man Standing' match (you lose if you can't respond to a 10-count) and an actual 'Falls Count Anywhere' match (you pin your opponent anywhere and win).
• Not only were the stipulations too confusing to generate any meaningful reaction from the MSG crowd, but they were also a damn dirty lie! Falls didn't, in fact, count anywhere. By virtue of your opponent having to return to the ring after being pinned, it meant you couldn't pin someone in the ring. So falls, in fact, count anywhere except for the one place falls always count!!!! This genius brainwave led to an early exchange were Savage hit a move on Crush, then had to roll him outside the ring to pin him and start the countdown!
• 'Macho Man' Randy Savage was one of the best of all-time. He deserved better than this.
• The finish was as convoluted and poorly executed as the match itself. Having brawled to the backstage area, Macho Man pinned Crush then attempted to hog tie him to a machine placed conveniently behind the curtain. Of course, Crush would almost immediately fall down and negate any point of being hogtied, but Savage just wanted to get it over with at this stage and returned to the ring to end this sorry mess.

• Meanwhile, in case anyone was in doubt over whether President Clinton was really in the crowd, an interview with Todd Pettengill revealed that the cheap lookalike couldn't even master a spoken word attempt at one of the most easily impersonated Presidents of all-time. After this appearance, his booking rates plummeted to $40, transport and a handjob (that's a part of the act). The most convincing part of this mess came when he started demanding, off-mic, that Pettengill give him Sunny's number because he's the commander-in-chief damnit!

Women's Championship Match: Alundra Blayze over Lelani Kai to retain

• This match would take place a year-and-a-half before Blayze would famously jump to WCW and put her WWF Women's Championship belt in the bin. Though many would claim that the quality of this match was a symbolic equivalent of binning the belt anyway.
• Ever the champion of treating women wrestlers as seriously as their male counterparts, Jerry Lawler noted at ringside that Alundra had "a million dollar body and a $10 face."
• It was a short-lived contest that saw Blayze end it with a German Suplex, as WWE threw to ringside to find legends like Captain Lou Albano creeping on the women, while pioneer women's wrestlers The Fabulous Moolah and Mae Young looked on. Mae was 71 at the time. Seven years later she would appear topless on WWE television and give birth to a hand. It's like seeing pictures of someone you'd just met at the start of a piss-up, back when you thought they were a respectable human being and before everything got a little messy.
• Moolah and Mae have both sadly passed since, but urban legend reports that part of their souls died while sitting ringside here and looking at how all that they had worked their entire lives for counted for naught.

• Backstage, Rhonda Shear (Wikipedia tells me she's an American television personality, comedian, actress and Playboy model) is fawning over Shawn Michaels, until Burt Reynolds comes along and takes the girl. It was worthwhile of WWE, moments before Michaels competed in one of the most historic matches in the company's history, to establish that he was a nobody in the grand scheme of things compared to a Hollywood actor. Because lord knows that this night, as with any night, is all about Burt Reynolds.

Tag-Team Championship Match: Men On A Mission over The Quebecers to retain

• Next up, Men On A Mission (Mo and the recently deceased Mabel) made their way to the ring adorned in their trademark pyjamas and being rapped to a cheap knock-off of 'Whoomp There It Is' by manager Oscar. That's right, there's a cheap version of 'Whoomp There It Is'. As you can tell, WWE in 1994 weren't known for soft strokes. It's crazy to think that, back then, they saw black wrestlers and saddled them with a lazy, stereotypical rap gimmick that saw them dance to the ring and rattle off some cheesy catchphrase. Thank god we live in 2014 and don't have to put up with this kind of blatant disregard of political correctness anymore...

WWE Championship Match: Yokozuna over Lex Luger by disqualification

Ladder Match for the Intercontinental Championship: Razor Ramon over Shawn Michaels to become the new IC champion

• Now enough messing. This is more like it.
• Razor Ramon ducked underneath the ladder as he made his entrance to the ring. Before he did so, he'd been sober for 241 days. Oh Scott, you just don't help yourself...
• It wasn't long before Diesel (Kevin Nash) was ejected from ringside by the referee. I think the official reason given was, "in case he ruined it."
• Though relatively tame by today's standards, this match set the benchmark for all future ladder matches, and some of the innovations these two added to a simple concept are still unmatched (Michaels getting whipped into the ladder and bumping out of the ring; getting seismic-tossed into the ladder then the momentum of the ropes knocking him back down; Razor suplexing Shawn off the ladder then falling down with it, etc). It wasn't, however, the first ever ladder match on WWE television as often reported. That took place in 1992 between Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart.
• Only Shawn Michaels could wrestle one of the all-time classic matches and still take time to get his arse out.
• Vince McMahon's "Unbelievable! Un-bel-ievable!" call following Michaels' splash from the top of the ladder has gone down as one of the classic wrestling calls. However the shine is taken off somewhat when you consider that he used the exact same term to describe a fake Bill Clinton sitting in the crowd.
• In one of the most original finishes of all-time, Shawn Michaels got his foot stuck in the ring ropes after being shoved off the ladder, only to release himself and get his arm promptly stuck, allowing Razor to pick up the victory. Like all great wrestling matches, though, nobody views this in a winner-loser context these days, as both men combined equally to put on a legendary bout that only enhanced both's reputations.

• Back to the Presidential box and this time Clinton was confronted by Ted DiBiase, who said that "Everyone's got a price for the Million Dollar Man". 'Clinton' replied by saying he didn't want to take any political questions. But he didn't ask you a question? Somehow he comes off doing a better impersonation of George W Bush than Bill Clinton.
• Meanwhile, WWE tried to big up Bret Hart for his Championship match by giving him a Rocky-like montage. This, of course, featured a close-up black-and-white shot of an elderly man (his father Stu) shouting motivational stuff at him at the kitchen table, then a lot of slowed-down then speeded-up footage of him doing moves and cheesy gestures to camera. They also gave Yokozuna his share, meaning a lot of shots of him sitting on people looking evil. It's pretty much as bad as you're imagining right now.