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6/10

Mixed feelings about this one... Back when Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse "The Body" Ventura were calling the action, Ventura's ever-so-subtle favoritism towards the "heel" was hilarious. There was no doubt that Ventura sided with "the bad guy", based on his slights towards the "babyface" fan-favorites, his verbal sparring with Monsoon about favoritism or biased referees, etc. He never came right out and "cheered" for the heel characters, but that wicked laugh when the heel got one over on the babyface, or the "face" got injured during a match, etc... it was all hilarious and just added to the fun of the WWF, not to mention how much better and more entertaining the play-by-play and ringside commentary became. Ventura left to pursue politics and in steps Bobby Heenan, another quick-witted verbal sparring partner...but in spite of his quick wit (and he had it, no doubt), Heenan couldn't pull off "subtle", choosing to blatantly root for the villains, cheering them on, and practically screaming - at some points, not even "practically" but quite literally - at his co-commentator (whether it was Gorilla Monsoon or Vince McMahon). Heenan - thankfully after only a short time - exited stage left, and now we're left with Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler; Lawler considers himself a real comic but his ringside "commentary" borders on infantile and "subtle"...well, that's long since gone. Now it's Lawler screeching openly in favor of the heel character, offering to help brutalize the "face" or cheat the referee, etc. The humor that Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura brought to the ringside announcer's table has been replaced with something that is as UN-funny, UN-entertaining, and as juvenile as you can find. I certainly am not missing Hulk Hogan or his ego, but that witty back-and-forth verbal sparring between Monsoon and Ventura...I'd sure love to have that back. As far as the card itself, well...it had its low points and then its, well, lower points. There really were no "great" matches on the entire card. I would have to probably call the match between Scott Hall (Razor Ramon) and Michael Hickenbottom (Shawn Michaels) probably the only redeeming quality of the entire PPV...and that was only because it was a "ladder match" and they made it interesting enough _without_ having it go on interminably. The so-called "match" between Yokozuna vs Lex Lugar wound up being nothing more than a 15-minute (if that) _"Let's run into each other and call that wrestling"_ match...with about 12 minutes of that being nothing more than Yokozuna "gripping" Lugar's trapezius while Lex pretended to writhe in unbearable agony. What an absolute waste of anyone's time. To add insult to injury, "Special Guest Referee" Curt Hennig had to play his part in the show, causing an outcome that resulted in the attending crowd chanting _"BULL$H** BULL$H**..."_ for several long, awkward moments while McMahon and Lawler tried to pretend the crowd was entertained with such a steaming turd. Fast-forward to the closing match, which involved Brett "Hitman" Hart vs Yokozuna and I won't spoil it by telling you the outcome of that but wow...if things hadn't been bad enough already, the WWF found a way to make it worse. The closing few moments of the card were intended to build up to the next big PPV but - speaking for myself - it just made me glad it was time to turn it off and write a scathing review. It wasn't as bad as Wrestlemania IX - I'm not sure anything will ever top that for stinkers - but it certainly wasn't much of an improvement. And if you can't improve on something as wretched as Wrestlemania IX, then maybe you should think about something else...maybe a football league or... wait...no...