Original Airdate: Monday, March 27th, 1995
Stockton Memorial Auditorium
Stockton, California
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Tonight, it's Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart in a No Holds Barred Match.
Gorilla Monsoon and Jim Ross are at the arena with Vince McMahon and Todd Pettengill are in the studio. This is a hybrid show, with it being more of a WrestleMania hype show that happens to have a match on it.
We start off with the Diesel/Shawn Michaels story. They do a nice job with the video package here and honestly this is an underrated feud. Todd then hypes up going into Prodigy chat rooms to talk about the match.
We see some Salt-N-Pepa for about 10 seconds before going to another commercial break.
It's now back to Vince and Todd to talk about Lawrence Taylor/Bam Bam Bigelow. Vince says that unlike the Super Bowl, the WWF always delivers on the hype. He obviously hasn't watched WrestleMania XI yet. We get another good video package telling the story. I really have enjoyed Bam Bam's work throughout the feud. It's too bad that this is really all WWF ever did with him that was noteworthy. On a sidenote, Todd's ponytail is just out of control. They then awkwardly talk about how NFL owners are worried that the players may get hurt at WrestleMania.
The 2nd annual WWF Fan Festival is this weekend. Vince says that no other group cares more about their fans than the WWF. Jim Ross is with Bob Backlund and he yells about Bret Hart.
We then move onto Jeff Jarrett and Razor Ramon. They also show the ending of the Jarrett/Backlund Sunday Night Slam match, where Backlund and Razor got into it.
Vince attempts to be funny and then transitions that to talk about King Kong Bundy/Undertaker. Why am I going to make myself watch that match again? Undertaker says that it's time for Bundy to meet his maker.
Vince again tries to be funny and fails. He sends us over to Bret Hart talking about one of his four feuds going on. So Saturday it was all about Hakushi, now it's about Owen and Backlund both times is an afterthought. Such strange booking. Todd actually does a good job of explaining why he thinks that Bret is going to use all of this negativity to his advantage. He is so goofy, but then gives you these little nuggets here and there that show that he actually is pretty good at his job.
No Holds Barred Match
Owen Hart vs. Bret Hart
It's always so nice to hear Gorilla on the announcing, even if it's without Heenan. They start brawling right away and the action spills out to the entrance ramp. They do a quick spot where they go backstage to some boos and then quickly come back out. Bret hits a body slam onto the concrete and then throws Owen back in the ring. JR declares this to be a slobberknocker as Owen gloats. Owen slams Bret into the steel steps while Gorilla yells about him wasting too much time. He throws Bret into the steel guardrail as we go into a commercial break. Bret makes a comeback with Gorilla now criticizing Bret. Owen slows down the momentum by throwing Bret into an exposed turnbuckle sternum first. Bret is able to hit a catapult into that same turnbuckle. He slaps on the Sharpshooter and Owen finally taps. After the match, Bret will not let go of the hold and we never see him release the hold as we go back to Todd and Vince. This was Bret and Owen, so of course it was good.
Match Rating: ***1/4
Jonathan Taylor Thomas talks about his accomplishments and says that he's excited to interview some wrestlers at WrestleMania.
We get some clips of LT and then back to Vince and Todd. We get a pre-taped interview with the Million Dollar Team. IRS and Nikolai Volkoff are nowhere to be found. Bam Bam calls LT a squirrel trying to get a nut. They then hype up both Raw and Mania being live next week.
This was actually a lot better than I was expecting it to be. Todd in particular did a nice job here making the matches feel important. They squeezed in a solid match between Bret and Owen, gave me a little Gorilla Monsoon and an overall good flow to the show. I'm more excited to watch WrestleMania than I anticipated.
Overall Rating: 62%
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