STW - WrestleMania 11 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

WrestleMania 11

WrestleMania 11 took place on April 2nd, 1995 from the Hartford Civic Center, in Hartford, Connecticut. It drew 15,000 fans, who paid a total of $750,000. This was down from the previous year's attendance of 18,065

The pay per view buyrate for WrestleMania 11 was 1.3, which was lower than the 1.68 buyrate for WrestleMania 10, but higher than the 1.2 buyrate for WrestleMania 12

We're coming off of the Royal Rumble, where we saw Shawn Michaels make Royal Rumble history by being the first man to win it, from the #1 entry and that earned him a World Title shot at WrestleMania against former friend and bodyguard, World Champion Diesel.

We also saw at the Royal Rumble, Bam Bam Bigelow push NFL Hall of Famer, Lawrence Taylor, who was sitting ringside, which set up their match here at WrestleMania 11, which we'll get in to everything that led up to that happening

Those were the 2 main event matches that WrestleMania 11 was built around. It's been said that 1995 wasn't the strongest year for the WWF, and this WrestleMania wasn't one of the most anticipated ones up to that point. In fact, it ended up having the 2nd lowest attendance for a WrestleMania up to that point (WM7 was #1) What's your thoughts on that? Do you think business was down around this time in 1995?

Let's get to some company news leading up to WrestleMania 11

February 1994 vs February 1995

Estimated average attendance 2/94 3,130**

Estimated average attendance 2/95 3,590* (+12.8%)

January 1995 2,900

Estimated average gate 2/94 $40,000**

Estimated average gate 2/95 $55,800* (+39.5%)

January 1995 $44,220

Percentage of house shows sold out 2/94 13.3

Percentage of house shows sold out 2/95 10.0

January 1995 0.0

Average cable television rating 2/94 2.1

Average cable television rating 2/95 2.1

January 1995 1.9

March 1994 vs March 1995

Estimated average attendance 3/94 3,450*

Estimated average attendance 3/95 3,190** (-7.5%)

February 1995 3,590**

Estimated average gate 3/94 $40,750*

Estimated average gate 3/95 $51,220** (+25.7%)

February 1995 $55,800**

Percentage of house shows sold out 3/94 25.0*

Percentage of house shows sold out 3/95 4.3**

February 1995 10.0**

Average cable television rating 3/94 2.1

Average cable television rating 3/95 2.2 (+4.8%)

February 1995 2.1

Major show 3/95: Wrestlemania preview 2.5 rating

*European shows not included in average

Meltzer said for both Feb & March that the figures are misleading, because the schedule had been cut down heavily

Meltzer reported - Sid Vicious is expected to debut as Sid Justice in the role of Shawn Michaels' bodyguard at the next set of tapings on 2/20-2/22. Michaels announced on television that he was giving up his duties as co-host of Raw (rumored to be setting the stage for the return of Jesse Ventura as an out-of-court settlement for the $1 million Titan owes him over the decision in a lawsuit last year) and would be announcing his bodyguard on that show. The timing of Ventura headed in seems right since if he came in any sooner, he'd be violating the WCW deal he made which was paying him something like $5,000 per week which expires right around 3/1 just to stay home. 

Sid was previously with the company in 1992. He left not long after WrestleMania 8, he then returned to WCW, but wasn't there too long either. Talk about what led to his return here

Meltzer reported - Gary Plummer of the 49ers was a guest on KFMB radio on 2/2 with Hank Bauer saying that Vince McMahon offered him $30,000 to wear a WWF hat and say he was going to Wrestlemania on camera but he turned it down, although didn't say why. Apparently Ken Norton Jr. accepted that deal. 

Pretty big and easy payday to do not much of anything. Any truth to that?

Meltzer reported - Diesel is participating in a celebrity slam dunk contest in conjunction with the NBA All-Star game this week and also in an MTV softball game and judging from a lengthy interview at Raw where they called him Kevin Nash and tried to put him over as a real person as opposed to a cartoon character they look to be committed to building the company around him. It was the same type of interview McMahon did with Hulk Hogan before the match with Sid Justice and again when he came back ten months later after the steroid controversy. Even the normally conservative Japanese mags are calling him a box office failure. 

Any concerns about him doing a dunk contest with his bad knees?

Why did Vince decide to call him his real name at that time?

Meltzer reported in mid February - WCW has now taken the gamble of taking PPV from being a quarterly special megacard to something akin to a bi-monthly special to basically being the monthly major house show with the decision to drop both the June and November Clash of the Champion cards and replace them with PPV shows. This will give WCW nine PPV shows and two Clashes in 1995, the only one remaining being in August, with the distinct possibility of dropping Clashes altogether after the next one and going to ten or 11 PPV shows in 1996. 

We would see the first In Your House pay per view after WrestleMania. Is that why In Your House was born, because of WCW adding more ppvs?

A few weeks later, he reported - The wrestling business in the United States is going to undergo yet another facelift in the wake of the WWF's decision to follow in the lead of WCW and add four more PPV shows before the end of the year. 

The first of the added PPV shows will be 5/14 in Syracuse, NY, billed as "In Your Home," one week before WCW's Slamboree from St. Petersburg. The pattern will continue over the next two months as WCW will run "The Great American Bash" on 6/18 in Dayton, with the WWF following with King of the Ring on 6/25 in Philadelphia. In July, WCW runs 7/16 in Miami while WWF will come back on 7/23.

The four added WWF PPV shows will be approximately one hour, 45 minutes in length and be priced at $14.95. This undercuts WCW which is running a $24.95 list price for its non-Hogan PPV shows (only one on the books right now is Dayton, as they'll apparently do a Hogan injury angle in St. Pete), and up the price to $27.95 for all shows with Hogan. The low price for the new WWF PPV shows will be counterbalanced by an increase in price for the major shows, with Wrestlemania going up to $34.95, making it the most expensive wrestling PPV show to date, and SummerSlam to $29.95.

Probably more important both to the present and the future of American pro wrestling is what the end result of the WWF's decision will be. It's more than just its decisions to change the way it does house shows and PPVs, but its major effect on the future of pro wrestling in the United States and particularly in regard to newer styles and promotions.

Meltzer reported - Tammy Fytch or Tamara Murphy has already been taken off the Events Centers and will have a new role apparently as a cheerleader for Chris Candido, who debuts on television at this coming week's tapings. Candido is as of last word still supposed to be a babyface. At some point it's expected Fytch would turn but that could be a year or more down the road. 

Talk about Sunny's early days in the WWF, she started as Tamara Murphy, doing event centers. When was it decided she was going to be known as Sunny and as Chris Candido's manager? Once she was taken off the event center, they were actually babyfaces very briefly, known as Chris & Tammy spirit

Eddie Gilbert passed away on February 18th, from a heart attack at just 33 years old. Did you ever meet Eddie, or have any stories about him?

On February 28th, the WrestleMania 11 press conference took place at the Harley Davidson Cafe, in New York. Diesel & Michaels talked and we saw Bam Bam shove LT

Meltzer reported - Shane Douglas got a try-out this week as a color commentator and they wanted him for a top babyface spot down the road as well. As of yet he hasn't accepted the deal. 

He would come in later in the year as a wrestler, the heel Dean Douglas. Do you remember his commentator try out at this time? He talks a lot about his time in the WWF, but he rarely, if ever has mentioned the commentator tryout

Was the spot that Shane tried out for the one that Michael Hayes ended up getting as Dok Hendrix?

Speaking of Dok, he'd debut right after WrestleMania. Talk about the creation of that character and why Michael was chosen for it

Also speaking of auditions, Keller reported ECW announcer Joey Styles was offered an audition with the WWF last week. He turned down the audition citing loyalty toward and optimism regarding ECW's future 

We mentioned earlier how the seeds were planted at the Royal Rumble for the Bam Bam Bigelow vs Lawrence Taylor match at WrestleMania. In early March, there was a press conference held, officially announcing Lawrence's involvement at WrestleMania.

Meltzer reported- The World Wrestling Federation hit a publicity home run this past week stemming from its press conference announcing Lawrence Taylor's participation in Wrestlemania. The news, which received major press coverage world wide, and in particular in the Northeast, will probably turn the 1995 version of Wrestlemania, on 4/2 from Hartford, CT, into the one with the most mainstream publicity since the first two.

The reaction within this profession to this has also shown a 180 degree change from the previous old-school promoters. Most media coverage of Taylor included strongly negative remarks about pro wrestling and almost all openly talked of scripts and "fixed" outcomes. Within the mainstream sports community, Taylor has been heavily criticized for participation because of the latter aspect.

Despite the magnitude of the media coverage itself, it was almost laughable how many major errors were involved. The New York Daily News supposedly broke the story with something billed as an "Exclusive" on 2/26, despite everyone within the wrestling business and several other newspapers having already reported on this for five weeks, listing the wrong date and giving a $500,000 figure for Taylor's fee. This led to media across the country all following in the Daily News' footsteps reporting both the wrong date and the heavily inflated money figure. 

The former was corrected virtually everywhere once Titan held its press conference two days later in Manhattan at the Harley Davidson Cafe, with an incredible amount of media from around the world present. Clips of the press conference aired on local sports reports throughout the United States, news made most newspapers and was carried on ESPN Sports Center (which was the only media outlet to report Taylor's fee as $100,000--which is probably much closer to the truth that the figure reported everywhere else), particularly the clip of Taylor kissing Bigelow during a stare-down and calling him an Easter egg because of his tattooed skull. 

But perhaps the strangest part of this story of "The First Time. 

The Last Time. The Only Time" as it involves Taylor's participation in pro wrestling is that it isn't the first time. 

Taylor's actual fee for being involved in the show is unknown. One source very close to Taylor told us that there may actually be a non-disclosure clause in Taylor's contract regarding the exact fee because Taylor wouldn't talk specifics claiming legal reasons, although admitted it was nowhere even close to $500,000. Two sources close to Taylor have given the legit figure as being $150,000, slightly more than the $135,000 that Refrigerator Perry received in Wrestlemania II. 

The $150,000 figure is the figure that most within pro wrestling believe to be the real figure apart from our own non pro wrestling sources who gave us the same figure. Given the publicity, it's already been a bargain for the WWF 

Titan also recruited six other football players, Reggie White (Green Bay Packers--who was a wrestling fan and at one time was contacted by the NWA to do an angle in Philadelphia), Ricky Jackson (49ers), Ken Norton Jr. (49ers), Steve McMichael (Packers), Carl Banks (Browns) and Chris Spielman (Lions), to be in Taylor's corner for the match in a clear case of overkill (one or two would have been fine but after that from a promotion standpoint it becomes overkill). 

The idea behind it is that they are there to offset Ted DiBiase's stable which will be in Bigelow's corner. Norton's price tag is rumored to be $30,000. With Jim Ross in a decision-making position, WWF is taking the approach of trying to tie itself in as a part of the sports community by paying big money to get its stars in position for photo ops with real athletes to air on its television and for use in publicity. 

Let's talk first about how all of this came to be. Whose idea was it to get LT involved in this? Why was he chosen? Who contacted who first?

Was any other athlete discussed for the spot that LT got?

Meltzer reported - Latest on Jesse Ventura is that Ventura has filed an additional suit against Titan asking for $254,000 in interest on his original reward. The WWF is appealing the original $809,000 award given to Ventura for mainly royalties on videotapes where he did the announcing. 

John Minton, who wrestled in the WWF as Big John Studd passed away on March 20th from cancer at 46 years old. Do you have memories of John you'd like to share?

About a week or so before WrestleMania, Former Quebecer Pierre debuted on television over the weekend doing his pirate gimmick using the name Jean Pierre Oulette. A promo aired with him going over his family history and claiming when he beats all the Superstars in the WWF he will write his own book on the entire universe 

Talk about how that gimmick came to be

Keller reported - Chad Fortune & Erik Watts were offered contracts by the WWF last week to form a tag team 

They would come in as Techno Team 2000, but wouldn't last very long

Meltzer reported that Ed Cohen offered Jim Herd a job as a local promotor (I assume in St. Louis? Dave didn't say), but Herd declined the offer

WWF Mania on Mar. 25 acknowledged the arrest of Brian "Crush" Adams. Pettengill said that as a result of Adams' arrest (acknowledging his real name on TV) on charges relating to controlled substances and weapons violations "the WWF has sent notification he has been terminated" 

The WWF aired aired a two hour special on USA Network Sunday night, March 26th The Road to Wrestlemania with the pretaped matches of Lex Luger beating Tatanka, Bam Bam Bigelow pinning Seone, and Bob Backlund beating Jeff Jarrett via DQ when Razor Ramon interfered 

Prior to WrestleMania, you guys hosted a 3 day fan fest event. Any memories of that activities that took place during that event?

Tickets were $15 down from $22 the previous year. Mania and Action Zone were broadcast live from Fan Fest over the weekend 

Paul Levesque was there, waiting for his WCW release to start. Chris Candido & Tammy Sytch were also there. 

You guys definitely got a lot of media attention heading into WrestleMania. The week of, Shawn Michaels was interviewed for a half hour on New Sports (WK: If L.T. and Bigelow were guests on the Howard Stern Show broadcast on radio and on the E! cable network. Bigelow insisted nobody was going to tell him to lose the match. Stern, normally a pro wrestling hater at the time, put the deal over and even said he was going to order the PPV. USA Today ran stories during the week, including a story that said L.T. was guaranteed $1 million. 

You guys held a public workout in Times Square, in New York, on Tuesday, March 28th

The Allied Powers beat Tony Devito & Mike Bell in 3:28

Owen Hart beat Nick Barbary in 2:19

Jeff Jarrett vs Tony Roy ended with no winner in a no contest in 3:19

Then, Bam Bam Bigelow & Lawrence Taylor had an in ring confrontation. Bigelow extended his hand for L.T. after much prodding, but L.T. pulled his hand back. Bigelow attacked Taylor and a pull apart brawl ensued with Lex Luger, British Bulldog, and Diesel making the save. 

WrestleMania 11- The celebrities were Pamela Anderson, of Baywatch who accompanied Diesel to the ring, Jenny McCarthy, who accompanied Shawn Michaels to the ring. Jonathon Taylor Thomas of Home Improvement and Nicholas Tuttero from NYPD Blue

It was rumored that Alundra Blayze would be wrestling Bull Nakano for the woman's title at Mania, but that didn't happen. Why not? Was it ever planned and/or discussed? It did happen the next night on Raw

The show opened with a montage of scenes from past Wrestlemanias, focusing entirely on the celebrities rather than the main events (since they would have had to have focused on Hogan and Savage), but Mr. T was conspicuous by his absence from the clips. 

They claimed the WWF has a history stretching back more than 50 years. 

Special Olympian Kathy Huey sung America the Beautiful. The band Fishbone was supposed to perform the National Anthem but they no showed the event. Is that true?

Davey Boy Smith & Lex Luger beat The Blu Brothers in 6:34. A routine opener. Smith looked huge. He started off strong but double-teaming put the heels in charge. Luger got the hot tag at 5:10 and nailed one of the brothers with the forearm. Uncle Zebediah (Dutch Mantel) distracted the ref and the twins switched. The fresh brother set up a piledriver but Luger tagged out to Smith who scored a sunset flip on the brother attempting the piledriver. The match was clumsy in spots. 1/2*

The Blu Brothers were the first of the three names the Harris Brothers would go under in WWF. They'd later be The Grimm Twins, and Skull and 8 ball, apart of DOA. The Harris’ wrestled in Portland, where they were known as the Bruise Brothers and held the PNW Tag Titles 6 times. Ron Harris was also PNW World Champion on two occasions. In 1993, they went to Smokey Mountain Wrestling. They continued to bounce around the Indies, even making a stop in ECW, before going to the WWF. 

Lex Luger was seemingly set to be the next run away star in the WWF over the previous year, but that changed, and he was put into a team out of no where with The British Bulldog. They started teaming on the January 2nd Raw, where they beat hey defeated Bam Bam Bigelow and Tatanka. However, they weren't called the Allied Powers until a few months later. 

Talk about the decision to put them in a team and what was each man's reaction to it? Davey Boy had gained fame in the legendary tag team The British Bulldogs in the 80s, but Lex hadn't been a tag team wrestler up to that point, and he was a top challenger and rumored future WWF World Champion before that.

In the first of several glitches, the lights went out as Jim Ross tried to interview Zebediah after the match. At this point they cut backstage for an interview with Pamela Anderson. Nick Turturo was there and he was trying to say something about Anderson being missing to set up an angle for later in the show, but the sound kept going out so they had to postpone the interview.

The next match was for the Intercontinental title, Jeff Jarrett defending the title against Razor Ramon. Jeff beat Razor for the title at the Royal Rumble, in January. This was Razor's 2nd WrestleMania in a row challenging for the IC title. The previous year at WrestleMania 10, he won the famous ladder match against Shawn Michaels

Razor Ramon beat Jeff Jarrett via DQ in 13:32 so Jarrett retained the IC title. 1-2-3 Kid came out with Ramon to counter Roadie. Ramon got the early advantage but set up the Razor's Edge but Roadie pulled Jarrett out of the ring by his legs for safety. Jarrett tried to run away to the locker room but Kid blocked him and chased him back into the ring. Jarrett took over for three minutes until a collision. Ramon once again took over scoring several near falls. At one point Kid tried to crotch Jarrett on the ring post but Jarrett kicked him and he crashed into the security railing. 

At 10:28, Ramon missed a leap off the top rope and "injured" his knee. Jarrett put on the figure four but Ramon reversed it. Kid helped Ramon add leverage to the hold but the ref caught them and forced Ramon to break the hold. Ramon superplexed Jarrett and set him for the Razor's edge but Roadie did a run-in, clipping Ramon's knee for the DQ finish. 

Kid ran in for the save nailing both with spin kicks, one of which gave Jarrett a legit bloody nose. The heels came back and Jarrett locked the figure four on Kid until Rene Goulet and several refs broke it up. Good match with a bad finish. **3/4

They cut backstage to once again try the Pamela is missing interview again. Turturo said she had vanished and nobody knew what happened to her. Shawn Michaels and Sid showed up. Michaels implied he knew where Anderson was and Sid said Diesel was afraid of him. Turturo vowed to get to the bottom of things.

The next match was Undertaker vs King Kong Bundy. This feud started at the Royal Rumble after Undertaker beat IRS, Bundy came out and beat up Undertaker, planting the seeds for this match

Undertaker pinned King Kong Bundy in 6:36. This was a poor match but there was enough going on outside the ring to save it. Undertaker's music got a big pop. American League umpire Larry Young (a long-time pro wrestling fan dating back to the days when baseball Winter League umps shared the same apartment complex as the wrestlers did in Puerto Rico more than a decade ago) was the special referee. Ted DiBiase had the urn that IRS had stolen at the last PPV. Undertaker grabbed the urn back. 

DiBiase called for Kama (Kama is in reality long-time good-friends with Undertaker and the two had been joking to friends how after Mania they couldn't hang out together for a while) to come out. Kama kicked Paul Bearer and got the urn back. Bundy dominated Undertaker in a slow-motion match until Undertaker didn't sell a splash into the corner and scored the pin with a clothesline. Kama left with the urn, vowing to melt it down into a medallion to wear around his neck. 1/2*

This was King Kong Bundy’s first WrestleMania match since WrestleMania 3, in 1987. Bundy’s all time pay per view record is 2-4. He was 1-3 at WrestleMania, 1-0 at Survivor Series and 0-1 at the Royal Rumble. Bundy does stay in the WWF and on TV until the end of 1995, but does not appear on another pay per view for the WWF. 

There was a rumor at the time that Razor Ramon was supposed to turn heel and wrestle Undertaker in this match. Was that true?

Turturo reported that Anderson had an argument with Michaels and had walked out and hadn't been seen since. The football players did an interview challenging DiBiase's wrestlers. Turturo continued looking for Anderson and encountered Bob Backlund playing chess with Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Backlund got upset that Turturo interrupted the chess game and got furious when Thomas checkmated him. Backlund did a tirade about how kids today think they know everything.

Owen Hart & Yokozuna won the WWF tag title from Smoking Gunns in 9:42. Yokozuna looks to have actually gained weight since he was last seen, particularly in the lower body. Both Jim Cornette and Mr. Fuji managed the new champs. Hart was good but not spectacular. He mainly sold but Yokozuna got in and legdropped Billy. Hart rammed Billy's back into the post. Hart tried a dropkick from the top but Billy moved and Yokozuna got hit. Billy tagged out briefly to Bart, but quickly tagged in and Yokozuna hit him with a belly-to-belly. Bart ran in to help but Cornette pulled down the ropes as Bart tried to rebound so he took a backwards bump over. Yokozuna gave Billy the banzai drop, Hart tagged in, teased going for the sharpshooter but instead scored the pin. **

This was Owen's first title in the WWF. Very long overdue

This was Yokozuna's first match back since the Survivor Series 1994, where he lost a casket match to the Undertaker. We recently did a show on Yokozuna where we talked about in detail about what he was doing during that time. But, why was he on a long layoff?

How did the idea come to be for Yoko to be Owen's mystery partner?

A few weeks before Mania, Meltzer said that you guys were interested in Chris Benoit to be Owen's mystery partner. Chris was in ECW at the time. Is there any truth to that?

Keller reported before Mania, Chris Benoit has been contacted by the WWF. Sources say the WWF wants to team Benoit with Davey Boy Smith to reform a "British Bulldogs" type team. Benoit, for now, is sticking with Japan and ECW commitments 

The next match was Bret Hart vs Bob Backlund in an I Quit match. It was a rematch from their Survivor Series match, where Bob beat Bret for the World Title, when Bob's designed cornerman, Owen Hart talked his Mom, Helen into throwing the towel in, when Bob had Bret in the cross face chicken wing

Bret Hart beat Bob Backlund in the I Quit match in 9:34. Special ref Roddy Piper got a huge pop, the largest on the card but a slight margin over Hart. The stipulations helped the match since the rest holds were now submission holds that meant something. Hart got a figure four early but Backlund made the ropes. He kept working on Backlund's leg. Backlund used a hammer lock after being blocked for doing the chicken wing. Backlund got the chicken wing on but Hart reversed it for a big pop. Piper kept asking Backlund if he wanted to quit. At 9:34, Backlund grunted but Piper ruled it was a submission. After the match Backlund looked crazed and kept telling Jim Ross that he had seen the light. *1/4

This was the second straight WrestleMania that Roddy Piper was the special referee for a Bret Hart match. At WM 10, he ref'ed the Bret vs Yokozuna match, where Bret pinned Yoko to win the World title

This was Bob's last pay per view singles match. His final record (including later appearances at the 1996 and 2000 Royal Rumbles) is 1-7. His only victory was defeating Bret for the World Title at the Survivor Series 1994 

The next match was for the World Title, Diesel defending against Shawn Michaels

Diesel had originally come in as Michaels's bodyguard and later won the IC title and won the Tag Team titles with Michaels. At the 1994 Survivor Series, Michaels accidentally kicked Diesel in the face. This led to an argument during which Diesel dissolved the tag team and vacated the championship. Three days later, Diesel defeated Bob Backlund to become the new World Champion 

Michaels then won the Royal Rumble match to get this match at WrestleMania

Diesel pinned Shawn Michaels to retain the WWF title in 20:35. This was a very good match but it was all Michaels. Turturo was ring announcer and Thomas was timekeeper. With Anderson missing, Michaels came out with Jennifer McCarthy of MTV. When Diesel came out, it was with Anderson, solving the mystery of her disappearance. Lawler said Turturo was a lousy detective since he couldn't solve the mystery on his own and McMahon said that maybe he could get a job working for the government. 

Up to this point, the heat in the show had been decent but during the beginning and end of this match the heat was excellent. The audience was split 50-50. Michaels was fantastic taking bumps for Diesel for several minutes. Michaels sent Diesel over the top with a clothesline and followed with a crossbody onto the floor. Michaels started a scuffle with a photographer but Diesel tried to save the photographer and ended up crashing into the steps selling his ribs. The match showed as Michaels worked on Diesel. He nailed Diesel with an elbow off the top with Diesel halfway across the ring. 

He got the sleeper on in 12:50 when they did the usual spot where Diesel's arm fell limp twice but not the third time. Diesel made the comeback with Michaels taking the Flair bump over the turnbuckle. The two were brawling on the floor. The ref jumped from the ring to keep Sid from getting involved and the ref twisted his ankle. (The storyline of this spot changed on television the next night with instead of the ref twisting his ankle, it was Sid who kept the ref outside the ring so he missed the spot where Michaels delivered the superkick). 

Michaels delivered the superkick but the injured ref got in too slow and Diesel kicked out. Sid used a knife (what kind of a sick person would play on his stabbing incident with Arn Anderson as a high spot?) to remove the padding from the turnbuckle. Diesel was supposed to slingshot Michaels into the unprotected turnbuckle to lead to the win, but the spot was screwed up and Michaels hit a padded turnbuckle, then used a foot to the face and the jackknife for the pin. The only weak spot was Michaels recovered too quickly after being pinned as he got up immediately. Diesel brought out all four celebrities into the ring with him for the a post match celebration. ****

Bret has said that Shawn sabatoged Diesel in this match by turning himself babyface during the match by working that type of style. Do you think that's true?

Shawn appeared pretty slim in this match. Leading into Mania, Keller reported - Shawn Michaels is dedicated to being as slim as possible in time for Wrestlemania, with his goal being to weigh less than 200 pounds with tight abs, both for the sake of appearance and endurance. He is taking very seriously the idea of having to carry the wrestling end of the WWF's biggest show of the year with Diesel 

Meltzer wrote - WWF allowed all the photographers at ringside at Mania but they got in Shawn Michaels' way during the title match so that policy is thought to be over already. WWF wanted as many photos of Diesel surrounded by celebs and of Taylor and Bigelow in as many places as possible. 

This was the 2nd WrestleMania in a row that Shawn worked with one of his buddies. Of course the previous year was against Razor. The Kliq wasn't officially formed at this time, as HHH wasn't officially there yet, but was some of that influence starting at this time? You've said that Vince had said that Shawn would never be his champion, and even though he didn't win it here, he was here wrestling for the title at Vince's biggest show of the year & he'd win the title the next year

Did Shawn have any problems with losing clean in the middle to his friend?

What did you think of how Shawn took the jacknife?

Speaking of HHH, Shawn has said that when Kevin and him were sitting backstage at Mania, HHH came up to them and introduced himself, and said that Terry Taylor suggested that he hang out with them, so HHH came up to them and asked if he could travel with them, and they agreed to it

Was there any debate on which match to put on last, this one of the Bigelow/LT match? 

That takes us to the final match of WrestleMania 11, Bam Bam Bigelow vs Lawrence Taylor. We talked earlier about how the seeds to this match was planted at the 1995 Royal Rumble when Bam Bam pushed LT, because he thought LT was laughing at him because he lost the tag team title match that he was in

Here's some more events leading up to this match:

A couple of weeks after the Rumble, Bigelow was forced to publicly apologize to LT. However, a week or so later, Bigelow retracted his apology and said he wanted LT in the ring and that LT had no right coming to the Rumble, despite being as an invited guest of Diesel, and laughing at Bigelow on his home turf. 

Bigelow kept challenging LT every week and seemingly every week, LT’s manager and lawyer kept appearing on TV to tell Bigelow to stop defaming LT and challenging him, because LT wasn't going to wrestle him. However, LT ended up accepting Bam Bam's challenge.

It was said that Diesel was training LT for the match. Was that a way to try and sprinkle some LT dust on Diesel?

Who really trained LT for this match and what did that training consist of?

LT and Bigelow had a staredown at the WrestleMania Press Conference and had a physical altercation at the public workout in Times Square the week before the big match, which we talked about earlier

Who else was considered for this match against LT, or was it always Bigelow?

Bam Bam had the Million Dollar Corporation at ringside with him, which included manager Ted DiBiase, Tatanka, Nikolai Volkoff, King Kong Bundy, Kama and IRS

LT had football players at ringside which included Reggie White, future Four Horsemen member and WCW U.S. Champion Steve McMichael, Ken Norton Jr, Chris Speilman, Ricky Jackson and Carl Banks

Lawrence Taylor pinned Bam Bam Bigelow in 11:42. Salt'n'Peppa did a special version of "Whatta Man" prior to the match. The cornermen were introduced one at a time. Pat Patterson was the special ref for this match (to make sure LT didn't get lost). Bigelow wore a football jersey with "LT" on the front at the WWF logo on the sides. It would be inaccurate to call this a technically good match, but LT was better than any non-wrestler I've ever seen put in such a situation. 

They had a staredown during the intros and teased a brawl with the corner men. Bigelow shoved LT and LT slapped Bigelow, which got the biggest pop of the entire show. Bigelow did a terrific job of selling for LT to get him over, including taking a backwards bump over the top to the floor after a clothesline. The two teams again nearly got into it on the floor. LT's psychology and selling were impressive for a first-timer. Bigelow took over and locked on a resthold as Taylor blew up. Bigelow sold his knee after missing a top rope move and LT used a less then perfect looking jackknife. 

Bigelow got a near fall after a head-butt off the top. LT used a shoulderblock and a forearm off the middle rope for the pin. As Bigelow walked back to the locker room, DiBiase was yelling at him and calling him an embarrassment for losing to a football player. The match was entertaining and both deserve credit for keeping it from being bad. **3/4

This ended up being better than people expected, and you could see at the end LT was blown sky high. What did Vince think of his performance, and why did we never see LT back in the WWF again after this?

Who got more credit for the match? Bam Bam or LT?

It's been rumored that Bigelow was promised a big babyface push if he lost to LT. Is that true? He was turned babyface after this, but he didn't really get a big push

Do you think he'll ever be inducted into the celebrity wing of the HOF?

The next night on Raw, we saw Alundra Blayze regain the Woman's title after beating Bull Nakano. Immediately after the match, Monster Ripper, or Rhonda Singh, the future Bertha Faye attacked Alundra, putting her out of action for several months. 

Also, Michaels & Sid did an in ring interview with Vince said he can live his life fine without a bodyguard. Sid's facial expression changed. Michaels blamed Sid for interfering and causing the referee to turn his ankle, so he said he was doing Sid a favor and giving him the day off when he faced Diesel. Sid called Michaels a "stupid little puke" and demanded respect from Michaels. They cut abruptly to a break. When they returned, Michaels was flat on his back in the ring and Diesel was making the save 

Sid ended up powerbombing him several times, turning Shawn babyface

Why was it decided to turn Shawn babyface the night after Mania and was that the plan for a long time going into Mania?
 

WRESTLEMANIA XI FINAL POLL RESULTS

• Thumbs up 126 (32.1%)
• Thumbs down 160 (40.8%)
• In the middle 106 (27.0%)

BEST MATCH POLL

Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel 205

Lawrence Taylor vs. Bam Bam Bigelow 43

Razor Ramon vs. Jeff Jarrett 18

Hart & Yokozuna vs. Smoking Gunns 14

Bob Backlund vs. Bret Hart 9

WORST MATCH POLL

Undertaker vs. King Kong Bundy 194

Bob Backlund vs. Bret Hart 27

Blu Brothers vs. Luger & Smith 23

Lawrence Taylor vs. Bam Bam Bigelow 15

Where do you rank WrestleMania 11 out of all of the ones that you were apart of?