WrestleMania XI (1995): Shawn Michaels Saves What He Can, Then Lawrence Taylor Closes the Show

WrestleMania XI opens with Lex Luger and the British Bulldog against two enormous men dressed like they have wandered in from a lumber camp with a grudge.

There is nothing offensively broken about the match. Bulldog supplies the movement, Luger supplies the forearm, and the Blu Brothers supply the size. The problem is that WrestleMania is supposed to begin with a little voltage. This begins with six and a half minutes of perfectly ordinary syndicated television.

The twin-switching business gives the heels something to do, and Bulldog's sunset-flip finish at least arrives cleanly. But there is no sense that the night has started. The match feels less like an opening statement than someone checking whether the microphone works.

Razor Ramon and Jeff Jarrett are good enough to rescue the middle of this match and unlucky enough to be handed a finish that makes the rescue mostly academic.

Jarrett works the leg, Razor answers with power, and the figure-four sequence gives the championship match an actual structure. The 1-2-3 Kid and the Roadie provide the expected ringside friction without immediately hijacking everything. For a while, the match resembles the sort of solid Intercontinental title bout that could have given the card some desperately needed backbone.

Then Razor prepares the Razor's Edge, the Roadie jumps in, and Jarrett gets disqualified. The champion keeps the belt. Nobody gets the catharsis. It is a finish designed to continue a feud on a night that should be collecting payoffs.

The Undertaker versus King Kong Bundy is six minutes of proof that large objects do not automatically create large drama.

The stolen urn is the story, not the wrestling. Undertaker gets it back from Ted DiBiase, Kama steals it again, and Bundy spends the interruption trying to turn basic offense into menace. The match never develops enough rhythm for any of it to matter. Bundy hits the avalanche. Undertaker survives. A powerslam and clothesline finish the job.

The historical footnote is more interesting than the bout: the broadcast explicitly acknowledges that Undertaker has never lost at WrestleMania, an early seed of the Streak mythology. That fact will become enormous. This match remains very small.

Owen Hart's mystery partner is Yokozuna, which is the first reveal of the night that feels appropriately oversized.

The match itself settles into a sensible formula. The Gunns move quickly, Yokozuna changes the geometry of the ring, and Owen keeps finding ways to be the cleverest person in the picture. The accidental dropkick to Yokozuna gives the champions a believable opening before the challengers simply become too much.

Yokozuna's Banzai Drop does the damage, and Owen tags himself in to take the pin and the championship. That tiny act of opportunism is the best character beat in the match. It is not great wrestling, but it advances Owen and gives the show a real title change instead of another reason to come back next month.

Bret Hart and Bob Backlund had already demonstrated that they could make submission wrestling feel desperate. WrestleMania XI asks them to repeat the trick while Roddy Piper chases both men with a microphone like an increasingly concerned game-show host.

The stipulation wrecks the pacing. Every hold becomes an excuse for Piper to ask whether somebody quits. Backlund answers in noises. Bret answers in frustration. The crowd spends much of the match waiting for the two excellent wrestlers to escape the machinery surrounding them.

Bret finally traps Backlund in his own crossface chickenwing. Backlund makes an unintelligible sound, Piper decides that is close enough to a resignation letter, and the match ends. Bret himself later regarded the bout with unusual contempt. It is difficult to argue with him.

For twenty minutes, WrestleMania XI remembers that WrestleMania is supposed to contain a major wrestling match.

Shawn Michaels does most of the aerodynamic work. He bumps, dives, cheats, climbs, pokes eyes and makes Diesel's power offense feel considerably more violent than the rest of the card. Diesel deserves credit, too. He keeps the match simple enough that Michaels' speed always has something solid to crash into.

The crowd gradually decides it prefers the challenger, which is not exactly the emotional blueprint WWF brought to Hartford. Michaels' Sweet Chin Music produces the match's best near-fall, except Sid has the referee occupied and the count never begins. Diesel recovers, survives the sequence and eventually wins with the Jackknife.

The finish protects Shawn enough to launch the Sid angle afterward, but the larger frustration is placement. This is the WWF Championship match. It is the best wrestling on the show. And it is not the main event.

Lawrence Taylor has no business being this competent.

That is the pleasant surprise at the center of WrestleMania XI's strangest decision. Taylor is not smooth, and nobody should confuse his forearms with Bret Hart's. But he moves with conviction, understands the moments that matter, and never looks terrified of the assignment. Bam Bam Bigelow deserves an enormous share of the credit. He builds the match around Taylor's strengths and absorbs the awkwardness without advertising it.

The entourages make the match look important. The crowd responds. Bigelow controls enough of the middle to give Taylor a comeback, and LT's second-rope forearm provides a clean, memorable finish.

The philosophical problem survives the good execution. WWF closed its biggest annual show with a football player defeating a full-time wrestler while the WWF Championship match sat underneath. The publicity was real. So was the message.