The True Story Of WrestleMania X

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WWF WrestleMania X from Madison Square Garden was a landmark event for the company.  Held on March 20, 1994 from the “Worlds Most Famous Arena”, it was an anniversary show of the greatest risk the WWF had ever taken 10 years prior.  Clips from the previous 9 WrestleMania’s were shown throughout the night to further illustrate this point.

The show was built around four main storylines, the first and biggest was the three-way battle for the WWF World Championship as it was set up in a mini tournament of sorts. Lex Luger would get the first crack at champion Yokozuna for the belt, while Bret Hart would get to face the winner in the main event.

The opening match of the night was Owen Hart vs Bret Hart in a match many had thought was unthinkable.  Owen had turned on his brother at that years Royal Rumble and suddenly the Hart family feud became the hottest storyline in the WWF.  So much so, it overshadowed the World Title picture and the push of Lex Luger.

The card featured two Intercontinental champions in Razor Ramon and Shawn Michaels.  Their ladder match would go on to become one of the greatest in company history as both belts hung above the ring.  Finally, the fourth and biggest storyline saw macho Man Randy Savage attempt to gain revenge against former friend and now rival, Crush in a Falls Count Anywhere match.

As mentioned, the night started off with the shocking win of Owen Hart over his brother Bret.  Until this point, it seemed unthinkable that Bret could lose to his baby brother.  It was a solid match booked perfectly, this one win set up another year’s worth of feud between the two and catapulted Owen to the next level of his career.

From there, Owen would go on to win the King of the Ring in June, and then go on to challenge Bret Hart for the World Championship at Summerslam in August.  This one win, would be the only one Owen would ever get over Bret, but by far, the most important!  At 20:21, it was easily the longest match on the card and for good reason.

Bam Bam Bigelow and Luna defeated Doink and Dink in a match that couldn’t end soon enough. This will go down as a mixed gender tag match because Luna fought in it, but there isn’t much to report on this one other than this was the start of Doinks downfall with the company.

Randy Savage and Crush went at it from there in a Falls Count Anywhere Hardcore match.  This too was a first of its kind as it featured the unique stipulation that the person pinned, would have a count of 10 to get back in the ring and restart the match, despite just losing.  Savage would go on to win in what became his last ever WWF Pay Per View match.

This was also during the time that the WWF first tried re-launching a women’s division.  They did so by featuring Madusa Miceli of AWA and WCW lore, under a new name and face gimmick of Alundra Blayze.  It worked with decent popularity as she defeated Lelani Kai on this evening.  Kai was a throwback to the first WrestleMania at the Garden.

In the fourth straight match that was a bit of a clunker, Men On A Mission swung and missed at their chance to unseat The Quebecers for the Tag Titles. WWF tried capitalizing on the mid 90’s rap craze at the time, the problem being, Men on a Mission couldn’t rap and never got over with the fans. They’d win by countout in a lousy finish.

Finally, we got to the moment of the show that was going to put Lex Luger over for the WWF World Championship.  This was supposed to be the peak of the storyline that began over the summer.  Let’s back up for a bit and retrace out steps for a moment.

Hulk Hogan left the WWF with very little notice in June of 1993.  This made it impossible for him to drop the belt to Bret Hart at SummerSlam as he promised he would. The WWF panicked and had him drop the belt to Yokozuna and then immediately search for a new muscle head American Flag toting hero.  They couldn’t go with Hart, he was undersized and Canadian.

Despite being a heel for almost all of his WCW run, and all of his WWF run, they went with Luger.  The angle starting off with him body slamming Yokozuna on the deck of the USS Intrepid.  It started off great, but then it was one terrible decision after another.  Instead of putting him the main event of RAW each week and having him take down top competition, they put him on a bus called the Lex Express and sent him across the country on a USA bus tour.

By the time he got to SummerSlam, you would have thought he was a sure thing to defeat Yokozuna for the WWF Championship.  Instead, he won by count out in an awful match and promptly lost all steam. Making things even stranger about that match, he celebrated and they had fellow wrestlers place him on their shoulders and parade around the ring as balloons fell from the rafters. Why such celebration for a non-title win?

Months would go by before he got another shot by Co -Winning the Royal Rumble with Bret Hart. The sole fact that he “tied” to win the Rumble, pretty much sealed his fate and gave the WWF an out if they decided no to go with him long term.  Sure enough, when it came time to pull the trigger and put the belt on Luger at WrestleMania, they got cold feet and went in a different direction, having him lose to Yokozuna.

The loss came via a bogus DQ from special guest referee Mr. Perfect.  This was a throwback to their feud from 93 and WrestleMania IX.  Nothing would come of this, as the night turned out to be a 1 off for Perfect. Making the entire thing even more puzzling.

From there, Razor Ramon and HBK would tear down the house in an electric Ladder Match that saw Ramon go over for the gold.  Razor may have won the match, but just like Owen had done earlier, the big winner was HBK who stole the show!

After a 35 second squash match that saw the returning Earthquake sit on Adam Bomb, it was time for the main event. At this point, after losing to Owen, you just knew that there was no chance in Hell Hart was losing this match too.  Sure enough, it was a clunker and slow match as Yokozuna was gassed from his previous fight.

Bret Hart would win as guest referee Rowdy Roddy Piper counted to three and the fans went crazy for Hart.  This finished sealed the push of Luger, and began the push of Owen towards Brett’s title.

Lex Luger remains one of the biggest “what if’s” in WWE history?