WRESTLEMANIA XIV - 1998
Shawn Michaels (c) vs. Steve Austin for the WWF Championship with special guest enforcer Mike Tyson
The entire hype video is just Mike Tyson doing the crotch chop. The glass shatters and it's like the Hogan era again. Austin is over like rover.
HBK exudes douchiness and I love it. Hearing the crowd pop for Austin is great. It's documented that both men involved found this to be a failure of a match from a creative standpoint. By this point in his career HBK was checked out and/or fucked up so the match you see here is apparently beat-for-beat the match Austin and Triple H were having on the house show circuit at the time, but it's not bad. Towards the end it starts to drag until
the classic finishing sequence. Oh yeah, and Mike Tyson turns face just because.
3.5 WrestleMania Star stars out of 5
WRESTLEMANIA XV - 1999
Main Event: The Rock (c) vs. Steve Austin in a No Disqualification match for the WWF Championship with special guest referee Mankind
This is a very Attitude Era match, which is to say there's lot of brawling, and I didn't really like it, but it works. It ends in a fun sequence similar to the previous year.
3 WrestleMania Star stars out of 5
WRESTLEMANIA 2000 AKA WRESTLEMANIA XVI - 2000
Main Event: Triple H (c) vs. The Rock vs. Big Show vs. Mick Foley in a four-way elimination match for the WWF Championship, with a McMahon in every corner
This is pretty awful. It's not even an entertaining disaster it's just... boring. Like last year there's a lot of brawling except with no buzz to the fight like with Austin/Rock. It just goes on and on and there's an entire portion towards the end that is nothing but McMahonery.
2 WrestleMania Star stars out of 5
WRESTLEMANIA X-7 - 2001
Main Event: The Rock (c) vs. Steve Austin in a No Disqualification match for the WWF Championship
Simply the best. This is what WrestleMania is about. The problem with most of these Mania main events is you expect absolute classic matches from Hogan/Savage, Hogan/Andre, or HBK/Bret but they don't reach their potential. In fact, most come up quite short. This one doesn't. It's a rare moment in time where you have two top guys that are crazy over and have great chemistry. That's all the story is. They both want to be the best. It's a simple story and it I think "wanting to be the best/champion" can be a lazy story for wrestling in most circumstances, but here it is completely earned because it's real. The infamous heel turn doesn't work for most people, but I love it. It's character depth, and motivation. Something that rarely happens in wrestling because there's always money to be made in doing things a certain way. That's my main complaint with these Hogan matches: his character and choices ruin the matches themselves and the stories. Kudos to Austin for trying something different at the height of his popularity, and in my mind, succeeding. It all comes down to character - the callbacks to Austin's career throughout the match that culminate in the unthinkable where he allies with his greatest enemy. Good shit.
5 WrestleMania Star stars out of 5
Updated rankings and ratings:
17 - Austin vs. Rock - 5/5
6 - Warrior vs. Hogan - 4/5
14 - Austin vs. HBK - 3.5/5
12 - HBK vs. Bret Hart - 3.5
3 - Hogan vs. Andre - 3/5
7 - Hogan vs. Slaughter - 3/5
5 - Hogan vs. Savage - 3/5
15 - Austin vs. Rock - 3/5
4 - Savage vs. DiBiase - 2.5/5
1 - Hogan/Mr. T vs. Piper/Orndorff - 2.5/5
10 - Yokozuna vs. Bret - 2.5/5
16 - HHH vs. Rock vs. Foley vs. Big show - 2/5
13 - Sid vs. Undertaker - 2/5
9 - Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna - 2/5
2 - Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy - 1.5/5
11 - Lawrence Taylor vs. Bam Bam Bigelow - 1.5/5
8 - Hogan vs. Sid - 0.5/5
9 - Hogan vs. Yokozuna - 0/5