This is the first review of an ongoing series that I will be doing here at iFight365 alongside my usual pieces for the site. Please don’t expect detailed play-by-play accounts of the matches as I feel this style is unoriginal and overexposed, hopefully my way is a little different and refreshing! Anyway, on with my first show, Wrestlemania XV from 1999, now released as a Tagged Classic from Silver Vision.

The first thing that struck me was just how over everyone was; the crowd went nuts for the entrances of everyone up and down the card. A big positive for Russo’s initial WWF run was that he found something for everyone to do, and this was reflected by everyone from the midcard up being relevant and over with the crowd, something that unfortunately is not the case in today’s WWE.

This was especially in the case in the opener, where in Philadelphia, then the hometown of the still fresh and innovative ECW, with the crowd responding especially well to the Hardcore Championship match, the participants being noted extreme luminaries Billy Gunn and Hardcore Holly, as well as the slightly more respected Al Snow. Anyway the match is typical attitude-era brawling, with the hardcore weapon-based style that was later driven into the ground by both WWF and WCW in 2000.

However at this point the style was still relatively fresh in the ‘big leagues’ and all of the weapons spots got a good response from the crowd. Also notable is Snow’s blatant sucking up to the fans with the Air-Sabu move and the unusual spectre of Mr. Ass being the most over person in a match.

If I recall correctly, the lead up to this match was also put together in typical Russo style with Road Dogg pushed in the Hardcore division in the build up to Wrestlemania, and then being abruptly swapped with his New Age Outlaw partner Billy Gunn for no reason other than to swerve the fans. Hardcore Holly won the match with a chair shot, and the only thing I can think to say is that he looks and acts exactly the same as he does in 2008, he’s just not as over now!

The next match showcased another Russo staple, that of the mismatched partner’s who don’t get along, in this case being D-lo Brown and a very green Test. Their opponents and then WWF Tag Champions, Jeff Jarrett and Owen Hart, were a very tidy little tag team, but unfortunately their ring work was not really all that conducive in getting over in smutty 1999 WWF, case in point being that the most over part of their act at this show (and in general) was their bikini-clad valet (and future Mrs. Austin) Debra. This match was another short one, more a TV match by today’s standards and certainly not really worthy of being a Wrestlemania match, more just an excuse to get three of the year’s more reliable mid-carders, (and Test) onto the card.

Test goes through all of his moves at lightning pace, throwing out pumplehandle slams and a good looking gutwrench powerbomb as if they were transition moves, while Owen Hart is the stand out player, definitely giving a good showing for himself in a very short amount of time. Jarrett and Hart went over, with Jarrett getting Brown in a Jackknife cover following a Hart top rope drop kick.

The Brawl For All Match was next, and is, with hindsight, an absolute joke and failure on every level. True, Bart Gunn had managed to win the WWF’s 1998 tough man competition, beating such notables as Bradshaw and Steve Williams (WWF’s preferred winner of the shoot competition, showing that McMahon didn’t understand the concept from the outset. It’s sad to see Gorilla Monsoon looking so ill at ring side, in what would be his final onscreen WWF appearance.

The video build for this match is also hilarious with all the boxing luminaries predicting Gunn to win, in actual fact the video package and entrances ended up being longer than the match… Future Jackass the Movie star Butterbean ended up knocking out Gunn quicker than Johnny Knoxville, essentially ending Gunn’s WWF career and probably hurting the tough-guy reputation of wrestling for years to come.

Next up was a much slimmer ‘Big Show’ Paul Wight against Mankind, with the opportunity to referee the main event at stake. Big Show came out to Vince McMahon’s ‘No Chance in Hell’ music, while Foley was really, really over with Philly crowd. While Wight has really come on as both a personality and a worker, in 1999 he really wasn’t good enough to justify the huge amount of money ($1m a year for 10 years guaranteed that he was paid to defect from WCW).

The match is essentially a squash of Foley, with Mankind bumping like a mad man to get Big Show over as a complete monster. One particular spot sees Show fall backwards with Foley on his back, a brutal looking move, that Foley later said in his first book, he had used back in 1993 to legitimately try to shorten his career in a match with Vader. That he does it again here either calls Foley as a bullshit artist, or provides further evidence that Foley was willing to do anything for the business in order to help his career along.

Mankind won this match by disqualification following a really weak looking chokeslam through two folding chairs. Show turned face in the first of an endless series of character adjustments for him in 1999 in a hilarious for all the wrong reasons angle with Vince McMahon post-match angle, which the crowd still loved.

At this point, although there hasn’t been anything great or even particularly great by today’s standards, ring-work wise, the show still feels entertaining as it has gone along at a good pace, and the crowd’s reaction to everything really adds a great atmosphere to everything.

The Intercontinental Title Four-Way match came next. The aforementioned Road Dogg was the Champion and his challengers were Val Venis, Ken Shamrock, and Goldust. I believe that Shamrock was ahead of his time in the wrestling business and shudder to think how great potential matches of a career peak Shamrock against Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar would have been. Road Dogg was the most over person in the match, with Venis a close second. It’s amazing where lack of character development can get you and while Sean Morley still has a job today, you can bet that he wishes it was still 1999 while jobbing in dark matches and the occasional RAW appearance.

While the match is nothing special, it is at least something that the Intercontinental Title was defended at Wrestlemania, and in a match with a somewhat relevant back story to it, something I can’t recall happening for a number of years through the more recent Wrestlemanias. While the match does not have that much of a cohesive flow to it, all of the spots that the wrestlers hit are over with the crowd, so at least it never gets boring. Shamrock and Venis are both eliminated by count out so we’re left with Goldust and Road Dogg, a main event at any arena in the country. Road Dogg retains after some back-firing outside shenanigans involving the Blue Meanie and Ryan Shamrock and I am still amazed that Cute Kip and BG James have so far been two of the most over people on the show!

Kane and HHH always produce presentable outings and their Wrestlemania encounter was no exception. While Kane is a much more rounded and (very) layered character nowadays, I still prefer his earlier Michael Myers-lite gimmick, as it was truly something that stood out, while creating an instant bankable monster heel character for Glen Jacobs to play.

Kane is also much younger (obviously!) and faster here and the resulting match is easily as good as their No Mercy 2002 World Title match and much better than their more recent TV matches (the ones on RAW that seem to happen annually before Wrestlemania where ex- ‘Mania opponents are paired up’. Literal high spots include Kane’s plancha and some deft bumping by HHH to make Kane look like a killer. I begin to notice a trend of outside interference occurring in seemingly all of the matches on this card, something that again rings true to the Russo-booked TNA 2008 product and this continues here as the very over Chyna interferes, with another swerve and another disqualification finish at Wrestlemania.

The crowd popped big for the seeming reunion of De-Generation X (something that should also be familiar to 2008 WWE viewers and so the booking was obviously right for the crowd, but it still seems a little daft to have so many non-event finishes and repetitive booking at the biggest show of the year…still this is probably more a sign of the times than anything else.

The Women’s Championship match was next, and no one really expected a technical masterpiece with Sable and Tori involved. Still, the match was really, really poor, with Sable noticeably hesitant and supposed veteran Tori contributing very little. In particular they both make a complete hash of the Flair/Steamboat pinning reversal sequence and Sable totally blows her own finishing move. What I really did not want to see was another interference, especially by the original man-beast Nicole Bass, but this was exactly what would happen.

Incidentally Bass and Tori would go on to have one of the worst matches of the year at the incredibly dire UK No Mercy PPV later on in 1999.

X- Pac vs. Shane McMahon for the European Championship was a pleasant surprise, in that no one thought the younger McMahon would be up to much as a wrestler, probably contributing something along the lines of his Father. What we got instead was a gutsy brawl, which admittedly had a lot of the attitude-era shortcuts, including the lamented interference and weapons shots, but still managed to produce a contest that was easily the second best match of the night.

While Shane McMahon has recently been criticised for upping the bar to much for full time wrestlers while only working a very sporadic schedule himself, at this point just the fact that he could perform at this level as a novelty act was seen as a breath of fresh air. The interference that occurred in this match, from Patterson and Briscoe to the Mean Street Posse, HHH and Chyna and Test, all happened for a reason and were crucial parts of the story that match told and to this end I would have kept this match as the only one to have the run-ins and kept the rest of the card ‘clean’.

Still, the match is well worth finding and watching and X-Pac in particular deserves credit for holding together what could potentially have been a real car crash of a match. Post match we see yet another Russo swerve with HHH and Chyna coming out and turning heel on the rest of DX, and I can certainly remember why everyone was getting tired of the overbooked nature of Russo’s product by the end of 1999.

Undertaker vs. The Big Bossman is often overlooked when it comes to discussing Hell in a Cell matches. It isn’t even on the upcoming Hell in a Cell DVD release. There’s a reason for this and that is that it’s rubbish.

When I think of Hell in a Cell matches, I think of the end of blood feuds like the original HBK-Taker masterpiece, or the Undertaker- Lesnar match from No Mercy 2002. Heck, even the average at best Nash-HHH match at Bad Blood 2003 was better than this steaming turd.

Ray Traylor was an incredible worker for a big man at his peak, a great monster heel opponent for Hulk Hogan and competing some of my favourite matches in his 1994 series against Vader (also look up his 1993 match against Kenta Kobashi for a lost classic). However, by this point, he was certainly on the downswing of his career and this match did a lot to damage the Hell in a Cell’s reputation as WWF’s premier gimmick match until Foley and HHH revived it in 2000.

The only highlights of this match were Undertaker’s awesome entrance music and his satanic character in general, and the post match angle with the lynching of the Bossman, something that was sadly never followed up on in the hyper-kinetic WWF of 1999.

The main event was prefaced by the return of Jim Ross to the WWF announce booth following his latest bout with Bells Palsy and Ross’s superlative announcing certainly added that extra special main event vibe to the following match. The ongoing guest referee shenanigans that had proceeded through the show culminated here with Vince McMahon’s attempt at being the referee being negated by the return of the always popular Shawn Michaels.

The match itself, between defending Champion The Rock, and Stone Cold Steve Austin, was a powerful brawl that was the absolute pinnacle of what the WWF was aiming with when they changed their main event style to compliment Austin’s new limitations from 1997 through 1999. As Rock and Austin’s first main event meeting it certainly stands up as a stand alone match with all the requisite crowd fighting and finisher trading that we came to expect from these two.

However, when looked at in the wider context of their series of PPV main event level matches that would span through to Wrestlemania XIX in 2003 it is the least of their outings. Still this is no disrespect to this match as it is a fine example of attitude era WWF and as such should be praised for giving exactly what the fans expected of it. Austin’s clean win, with a returning Mankind making the cover is exactly what 1999 WWF was all about and could have paid off the then year long McMahon-Austin rivalry if WWF hadn’t seen more dollar signs and decided to extend it into the summer.

Wrestlemania XV as a show is well worth getting as part of the Tagged Classics range. It comes along with first Stone Cold DVD, Hell yeah, which I will be reviewing at a later date, and would be worth the price by itself. While the ring style and booking used is different from today’s product, the show really gives an insight into what made the WWF 1999 product the best pro-wrestling show on the planet and on the back of this I would give it a hearty recommendation, for historical reasons if nothing else.

You can pick up a copy of this show, combined with the Tagged Classics release of ‘Hell Yeah’ through Silver Vision by clicking here.

James Mustoe
james@ifight365.com