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WWF WrestleMania 13
Oh man, if there ever was a WrestleMania caked in controversy and issues, it was this one! The entire show was supposed to be centered around a rematch between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels from the year before. The initial plan was for Hart to defeat Michaels to recapture the belt he lost to Michaels the year before. Sadly, for Hart, Michaels didn’t want to job to Hart, and instead retired as champ, feigning a career ending knee injury the previous month.
The bottom line as Stone Cold Steve Austin would say, is that Michaels refused to do the honors for Hart as Bret had done for him the year before. Speaking of Stone Cold, this switch placed Hart in a feud with Austin which led to an I Quit match that would steal the show. More on that in a bit however as Ken Shamrock made his WWF debut as an official in that match too.
Many things had to be moved around last second, and one of which was the main event that saw WWF Champion Psycho Sid defend his belt against The Undertaker. Less than 30 days before the show, it still didn’t seem possible that The Undertaker would be the main event after a year straight of losing to Mankind, but Vince McMahon was in a pinch and turned to his most trusted soldier.
WrestleMania 13 came at a time in which the WWF was getting their butts kicked by the WCW who had the NWO, a faction featuring a bunch of WWF stars that had jumped ship. Vince McMahon and the WWE were down, but not out. They needed a big night, but sadly, didn’t get one as WrestleMania 13 was one of the worst Mania’s of all time.
The night would open up with a Tag Team four-way match that featured the Headbangers defeating The Godwins, Doug Furnas and Phil LaFon and The New Blackjacks. The only thing memorable about this disaster of a match, is Todd Pettingell in a backstage interview rushing to say “let’s play Blackjack” as they headed to the ring with zero crowd pop. The Blackjacks consisting of a young JBL and Blackjack Barry Windham never quite panned out.
All 18,197 fans at the Rosemont Horizon sat on their hands for the opening match, but that was sure to change soon as The Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment “The Rock” was up next to defend his Intercontinental Championship against The Sultan.
There was only one problem with this, he wasn’t “The Rock” yet, he was still Rocky Mavia and struggling badly to get over with the fans. The biggest and only pop in the match came when his father, Rocky Johnson came in on his behalf to protect him from a post-match beatdown by The Iron Sheik and Bob Backlund.
Hindsight being 20/20, this match actually produced quite a few fun facts. The first being that the Iron Sheik was not only close friends with Rocky Johnson in real life, but also the Rocks catchphrase “jabroni” actually came from The Iron Sheik first. The Rock may have came up with the “Smackdown Hotel” and “Do you smell what The Rock is cooking?”. But, jabroni, was all Sheiky baby!
Also, another cool fact lost on everyone at the time, but The Sultan was actually Rikishi Fatu and The Rocks real life cousin. He wouldn’t last much longer as The Sultan, and eventually come back as just Rikishi, and it would turn out to be the best run of his career.
It wasn’t much longer until the WWF took the IC belt off The Rock, and placed his babyface run on the shelve for a bit. He would return late summer as a heel, joining the Nation Of Domination. He would eventually go on to become one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.
Speaking of The Nation, they would take on the makeshift tag team of Amhed Johnson and the Legion of Doom. Johnson was suffering from the million-dollar body but ten cent brain complex. This was the culmination of a feud that began 9 months earlier when Johnson was attacked by the Nation of Domination.
Despite the gigantic push given to Johnson, including winning this match, he never fulfilled the potential his incredible body gave him. He would quickly burn bridges, become injury prone and perhaps worst of all, sounded liked he had peanut butter crackers in his mouth every time he cut a promo. Jim Cornette once called him about as useful as a plate of piss! JC, was pretty spot on!
Ron “Farooq” Simmons would eventually disband that version of The Nation of Domination by firing Crush and Savio Vega. He would then recruit Mark Henry, D’Lo Brown, The Rock and Kama in a re-structured Nation that did pretty well!
One extremely intriguing feud coming into the night was Hunter Hearst Helmsley versus Goldust. Unlike many other matches on this card that were rushed into being booked, this had been going on since the later part of 1996. Goldust came out as being “straight” and actually married to Marlena in real life. This alone turned him from a hated villain, to a likable babyface. HHH couldn’t stand the fact that he couldn’t be with Marlena, and thus, the premise for the feud began.
The feud had several incredible layers to it as well. The most recent coming into WrestleMania 13 was the addition of Chyna as HHH’s bodyguard. At the time, the thought of a strong women over powering men was unheard of in the WWF. Chyna, changed everything! This match itself gets overlooked in what was a tremendous feud as HHH took the pinfall victory. Not too mention, Chyna shook Marlena with an insane bearhug that left her laying.
I talked about matches rushed onto the card with little to no build, and very little reasoning behind them, one of those was for the WWF Tag team Championship. A battle of two heel teams saw Owen Hart and The British Bulldog defend their championships against Mankind & Vader. Despite having 3 Hall Of Famers invovled, the match was 16 minutes of boredom and led to nothing when it ended in a double count-out.
The show featured a double main event, both matches rushed together, but one of which delivered big time! That match being the I Quit Match between Bret The Hitman Hart and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Hart was turning Heel and turning on American fans, while Austin was on the cusp of one of the greatest babyface runs in company history.
The match absolutely tore down the house as both men used everything from ring bells and chairs, to ropes and whatever they could get their hands on. It was a bloodbath that saw one of the greatest finishes in Mania history as a blood soaked Stone Cold refused to submit in the sharpshooter, and passed out from the pain as UFC Champion Ken Shamrock called for the bell.
What happened next has been talked about to death over the years, but only because it was so memorable and changed everything as we knew it. Fan favorite Bret began to attack an out cold Stone Cold until Shamrock stepped in and sent the Canadian flying. Bret would flip off the fans on his way back to the locker room as his heel turn was now complete. Meanwhile Austin struggled to his feet as the crowd came unglued. This was the first successful double turn in industry history.
The great part about this classic was that it wasn’t even supposed to happen. The original plan for WrestleMania 13 called for Stone Cold versus Brian Pillman and Hart defeating Shawn Michaels for the strap. Major injuries to Pillman and Michaels, changed everything and made this a reality.
The night would end in a snooze fest as The Undertaker and Sid traded bear hugs and close lines until the Deadman walked away with the title. This was a great way to cap off the year for Taker who saw him wind up on the losing end quite a few times against Mankind, including having Foley take his longtime manager Paul Bearer from him.
It was a boring way to end the night, but at least fans got to close the show cheering one of their favorites. Sid was gone from the company shortly after while The Undertaker spent the rest of 1997 trying to avoid the dark secret from Paul Bearer that turned out to be Kane.
