Guest Post: Remembering WrestleMania 14

A Fan Recollection

“Stone Cold” Steve Austin was in the main event of WrestleMania 14. This figure of him was released a few years ago from Mattel and is a nice depiction of how he looked in the late ‘90s. (From the personal pro wrestling memorabilia collection of Russell Franklin of The Pro Wrestling Exuberant.)

What was the first WrestleMania you ever watched, either live as it aired or shortly after?

For me, it was WrestleMania 2 back in 1986.

I had only been watching pro wrestling for seven months and it was the first major event to occur in my time as a fan that I was aware of.

WrestleMania 2 was being held in three different cities on the same night with four matches at each venue. It would start in New York, with Roddy Piper vs Mr. T in a boxing match as the showcase attraction. Then it would move to Chicago where the showcase match was a battle royal featuring wrestlers and NFL players, including the popular Chicago Bears player William “The Refrigerator” Perry. The final city would be Los Angeles, where in the main event of the entire show Hulk Hogan was defending his world title in a steel cage match against King Kong Bundy.

In the days prior to the show, I was extremely disappointed to discover that WrestleMania 2 wasn’t available as a pay-per-view with my local cable provider.

They would not begin to offer pro wrestling PPVs until the following year, starting with WrestleMania 3.

The concept of pay-per-view itself was new at the time. How it worked was to order an event you had to call your local cable provider (and endure lots of busy signals and re-dial over and over again until getting an operator on the line) the day of event and order it over the phone. Then the cable company would de-scramble the picture on a special channel come event time.

For fans who did not have access to the PPV through a cable provider for WrestleMania 2, the other option to see the show live was by viewing it through closed circuit television. This involved buying a ticket at a movie theatre that was airing it live and watching it there. Tickets though at the one closed circuit screen showing WrestleMania 2 in my local area sold out long before I even knew what closed circuit television was and that it was available as an option to watch WrestleMania 2 live.

It seemed I would have to wait the months it took back then for VHS releases to come out at the video stores after they were initially released in theatres, or an event occurred.

I still remember well the thrill of seeing my first WrestleMania when I finally got a VHS copy of WrestleMania 2 and watched it.

K.L. Robinson

, a fiction writer here on Substack, can relate.

K.L. writes The Extroverted Writer, and he is a huge pro wrestling fan who has watched it for decades. He is also a former pro wrestling referee like me, I came to learn after corresponding with him here.

I recommend subscribing to K.L.’s Substack, so you can read his compelling serial fiction series Underside. It’s a supernatural detective mystery with a compelling main character.

He previously wrote about a past WWE event for The Pro Wrestling Exuberant last year.

Now, for his second guest post,

K.L. Robinson

writes about a WrestleMania event that was special to him.

I encourage you to share your own WrestleMania fond memories in the comment section of this post.

Also, anyone interested in writing a guest post for The Pro Wrestling Exuberant is welcome to DM me. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve written about pro wrestling before or not, if you enjoy watching it and have something you want to write about related to it, I’d enjoy hearing from you.

- Russell Franklin

.

Hello everyone and welcome to my second guest post here with The Pro Wrestling Exuberant.

I’m beyond thrilled that Russell Franklin reached out to me as a returning guest writer.

We kicked around a few ideas but something he pitched me that I really liked the idea of was going back and reviewing old PPV’s. He gave me a time frame he wanted me to focus on and given the pro wrestling season at which we currently find ourselves, I went back and revisited WrestleMania 14.

There are a handful of reasons that I chose this PPV. The first biggest reason is that it was the first ever PPV I purchased. (For those of you who might not remember, there was a time when you had to purchase WWE shows like Mania through a pay per view provider. It’s wild looking back at that when you think about it.) The other biggest reason I chose this PPV was because it cemented my love for professional wrestling. There was a moment at the end of this show that completely hooked me into the pageantry and thrill of the genre of wrestling.

There are a few fun facts about this Mania that I didn’t know at the time. This was the first Mania to not feature Bret Hart since 1986. This followed Bret’s jump to rival WCW after the Montreal Screwjob. This Mania also would mark Shawn Michaels’ last match until he returned in 2002. He left wrestling after this Mania due to a severe back injury at the Royal Rumble that same year.

WrestleMania 14 was made up of 8 matches.

The opening match was a tag team battle royal which was won by LOD 2000. One thing about this match that it brings to my mind is that I do wish we had more of these types of battle royals in today’s wrestling. The unique spin of a tag team battle royal is interesting, and it’s something I don’t think gets used enough in today’s wrestling environment.

The second match was a light heavyweight championship match between Taka Michinoku and Águila. It was the only time that the light heavyweight championship was defended at a WrestleMania, which I thought was interesting.

The match was largely forgettable but there was a throwaway comment by JR about it being ironic that Taka won the light heavyweight title on December 7th which was the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. The comment was one of those things that when you look back at JR’s body of work, it could be scrutinized. Ask yourself given what we know, was that his call or one that Vince McMahon made?

The third match was HHH vs. Owen Hart for the European championship. This match would be worth rewatching simply because of who was in it. Owen and HHH are masters of the craft of wrestling, and while the story wasn’t the strongest going in, they ultimately delivered a great match that told a fantastic story.

Reliving this match just really put another sting on the fact that Owen passed away far too young. I also actively believe he should be enshrined in the HOF one day.

HHH ultimately won this match after Chyna got involved.

This is the only figure I have of Ken Shamrock in my entire collection, as it’s the only figure I have ever come across of him in a store. It was released from Mattel on a Legends line in the last year or so. (From the personal pro wrestling memorabilia collection of Russell Franklin of The Pro Wrestling Exuberant.)

The next match we’re going to talk about is Ken Shamrock vs. The Rock for the intercontinental title. This match ended in a no-contest when Shamrock wouldn’t let go of the ankle lock. Shamrock ended up taking his frustration out on officials and referees.

This match wasn’t a clinic on professional wrestling by any means. However, it brings the question of why wasn’t Shamrock positioned as more of a badass? I mean, Steve Blackman had the walking weapon gimmick, but he really had no charisma. Shamrock wasn’t the walking embodiment of charisma either but with the right mouth piece as a manager he could have been able to be a monster like Lesnar ended up being.

Then we had the tag team championships defended in a dumpster match when the New Age Outlaws took on Chainsaw Charlie (Terry Funk) and Cactus Jack. This match has moments that are still played on video. While this wasn’t a clinic in terms of catch-as-catch-can wrestling, it was a hell of a story in the hardcore world as it should have been.

The end came when Cactus and Charlie deposited the New Age Outlaws into a backstage dumpster via a forklift and captured the tag team titles. While New Age Outlaws lost that night, I really believe that this was the match that put that team on the map and helped them get elevated to their position within DX that took shape post Mania 14.

The co-main event that evening saw Kane Vs. Undertaker in the first of two matches between the big men. The second would take place at WrestleMania 20. This match also saw the introduction of Pete Rose as a special guest ring announcer. He would trash Boston (the city where the event took place) and end up getting a tombstone for his trouble. This would be the first of three appearances by Rose in what became a bit of a running story through the years. Pete Rose would eventually earn a spot in the celebrity hall of fame wing and it started with this appearance.

This is my favorite piece of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin memorabilia I own. It was released, along with cups of several other wrestlers, in the early 2010’s in 7-11’s as part of a SummerSlam promotion. This cup was not easy to come by. I had to go to numerous 7-11’s in different areas before I finally found the Austin cup, The clerk initially wouldn’t sell me the cup unless I filled it with soda. I didn’t want to fill it and insisted he sell me the empty cup for the marked cost. He relented. (From the personal pro wrestling memorabilia collection of Russell Franklin/The Pro Wresting Exuberant).

The main event saw Shawn Micheals vs. “Stone Cold” Steve Austin with special guest enforcer “Iron” Mike Tyson. Everything in this show was built around this match. The build for this started with Stone Cold winning the Royal Rumble in January of the same year. The build to this match is dubbed as the true start of the Attitude Era.

Introducing Mike Tyson added another level of curiosity to the match when he was introduced on an episode of Raw. There, Tyson, and Austin got into the infamous brawl that is still referenced as a turning point in the Monday Night Wars. One question was if Tyson would act as an impartial official if called upon to do so. In typical wrestling fashion Tyson found himself figured into the main event. With a right hand, Tyson laid out Shawn Michaels and this led to Austin securing the victory and ushering in the Austin Era.

I remember the moment that Austin won the title. The emotion, and the elation, about that title win cemented everything that I would learn in my love affair of wrestling. If it’s done correctly, you will be connected to the outcome, and it creates an emotion and a moment that you’ll never forget. Even at 34, wrestling, when done right, still sparks these moments of emotion. Look back no further than WrestleMania 40. We can talk about that at a later date.

When I go back through and look at WrestleMania 14, I wouldn’t call it the best WrestleMania ever, but I’d call it maybe the most important WrestleMania in history. Austin, in winning the WWE Championship, opened a whole new door and ushered in a brand-new moment in the company. It started a groundswell that WWE would ride to ultimately defeating WCW in the Monday Night Wars.

This was a catalyst, and it can’t be understated how important this PPV and this match were to the history of professional wrestling, and more specifically WWE.

Thank you for reading.

What are your thoughts on WrestleMania 14 and do you believe it was as important as I do?

I’m K.L. Robinson, and thanks again to Russell Franklin and the Pro Wrestling Exuberant for this platform to discuss what I love.

We’re on the road to WrestleMania!