IWF WrestleMania 14

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Revision as of 10:34, 16 May 2017

WrestleMania XIV was the fourteenth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the International Wrestling Federation (IWF), which was presented by M&M's and took place on March 29, 1998, at the FleetCenter in Boston, Massachusetts.

This pay-per-view event was notable for the involvement of boxer Mike Tyson, who acted as a ring enforcer for the main event. The main event also saw the start of Stone Cold Steve Austin's first IWF World Heavyweight Championship reign. His victory in the main event, against Shawn Michaels (who performed despite a severe injury and would not compete again until SummerSlam in 2002), has been cited as the beginning of the Attitude Era.

Background

After Legion of Doom lost their IWF Tag Team Championship to The New Age Outlaws, they were assaulted by The New Age Outlaws and D-Generation X. At the Royal Rumble, they lost a championship match largely because Road Dogg handcuffed Hawk to the outside of the ring. Following this, they suffered two defeats by the NWA members Jeff Jarrett and Barry Windham and finally on the February 23 episode of Raw Is War, they lost again to The New Age Outlaw when, despite having the match all but won, the non-legal Hawk did not leave the ring and while the referee was busy removing him, Animal was struck by the title belts and lost the match. Following the bout, the two brawled all the way to the back and announced their dissolution, not appearing again until WrestleMania.

After the Montreal Screwjob, Owen Heart was the only member of the Heart family to remain with the company, and after a temporary absence returned during D-Generation X: In Your House to attack Shawn Michaels. Following this, he turned his attention to Hunter Hearst Helmsley (who would later be known simply as Triple K) and the European Championship that Michaels had given to Kelmsley as a Christmas present. After weeks of deterring a championship match by way of a fractured kneecap, Triple K finally acquiesced to a match on January 26's Raw Is War, only for the Artist Formerly Known as Goldust (who was dressing up from week to week in a bid for attention) to appear in Kelmsley's place. After Heart won the match, IWF Commissioner Slaughter declared the disguise so convincing that he upheld the decision and awarded the championship belt to Heart. On the March 2 episode of Raw Is War, Heart defended the title against Mark Henry, but Chyna came to the ring and pushed Heart off the turnbuckle allowing Henry to lock on a bearhug, but before he could submit she gave an obvious low blow to Henry, resulting in a disqualification in favour of Hart. The following week in a match against Barry Windham, Heart landed awkwardly on his ankle suffering a (kayfabe) injury. On a special Tuesday edition of Raw Is War on March 17, the following week Heart joined the commentary team with a supportive case on his leg, and while commentating, Triple K came to the ringside and goaded him into an impromptu title defence despite his cast. During the match, Chyna appeared and hit his ankle with a bat, allowing Kelmsley to win the title back.

Owing to his jealousy over the attention his wife and valet, Sable, was garnering from the crowd, Marc Mero tried to cover up her provocative clothing and eventually sent her to the back, replacing her with The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust, who at the time was dressing up from week to week in his own bid of self-attention. Although the two worked well together, Goldust's valet Luna grew vocally disdainful of Sable, who was also being mocked by Mero and Goldust, causing Sable to eventually fight back. As the two women brawled, their partners tried to separate them but when Goldust grabbed Sable to restrain her, Mero attacked him. The two men had a match on Raw where both women were handcuffed to the ringposts in order to prevent their brawling, but as the referee was knocked down, Goldust stole the key and unchained Vachon who attacked Sable with make up, painting her face. Goldust then challenged Mero and Sable to a mixed tag team match at WrestleMania XIV.

After successively beating members of the Nation of Domination until Mark Henry turned on him, Ken Shamrock beat the Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion Rocky Maivia (later known as The Rock) despite being hit with a foreign object. The Rock convinced the referee that it was in fact he who suffered an illegal attack and the referee reversed his decision. The following month at No Way Out of Texas: In Your House, Shamrock capitalised on the in-fighting of the Nation, due to leadership disputes between Faarooq and The Rock, by pinning the champion in a ten-man tag team match.

At the end of the inaugural Hell in a Cell match at Badd Blood: In Your House, just as The Undertaker looked to have won the match against Shawn Michaels, the lights went out and a masked man came to the ring and delivered a tombstone piledriver to the shocked Undertaker. The masked man was revealed to be Kane, Undertaker's (kayfabe) half-brother and, despite the animosity and the presence of Paul Bearer, Undertaker vowed never to fight his little brother. Before Undertaker's casket match with Michaels, D-Generation X claimed Kane had joined them, but in fact he came to the ring to assist Undertaker. The alliance was short lived, however, as during the Royal Rumble event, Kane came to the ring and locked Undertaker in his casket before setting it ablaze, presuming his brother dead. On the March 2 episode of Raw Is War, Kane's opponent, Stone Cold Steve Austin, was taken out by D-Generation X and with nothing to do, Bearer ordered the time keeper to deliver a Ten-Bell Saluteten-bell salute for The Undertaker's passing, before telling Kane to tombstone him. After he did, more bells were heard to ring, this time signalling Undertaker's theme music. The ringing continued much longer than normal, with Bearer denying the possibility of it being Undertaker. Eventually a sarcophagus appeared on the top of the ramp and after lightning struck it, The Undertaker sat up before revealing that he had been through hell and talked to his parents to tell them that he would have to go back on his vow. The week before WrestleMania, Kane came to the ring and began to display similar supernatural powers as his brother, striking the TitanTron with lightning, as well as the announce table, before striking a crew worker with lightning, setting him on fire; Undertaker was shown on the same episode speaking to his parents' gravestones, revealing it may have to take the damnation of his soul to reunite the troubled family.

In January, Stone Cold Steve Austin won the Royal Rumble while Shawn Michaels retained his IWF World Heavyweight Championship, both under the auspices of Mike Tyson from the director's box. The following week on Raw Is War, Vince Matteson revealed that Tyson would be the special guest referee for WrestleMania's main event until Austin appeared and gave the finger to Tyson, offering him a fight and proclaiming the wrestling ring to be his, not Tyson's. At the ensuing press conference, McMahon announced that due to the explosive situation Tyson's role was being changed to that of ring enforcer. On the February 2 episode of Raw Is War, in a scheduled match against Road Dogg, D-Generation X stormed the match and tied Austin in the ropes, shouting abuse in his face and rubbing the championship belt in his face, taunting him with it until Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie came to his aid. The following week, Austin stole the championship belt from Michaels in the hope of baiting him in a singles match, but the partnership of D-Generation X and The New Age Outlaws continued. This led to a "non-sanctioned" eight-man tag match at No Way Out of Texas: In Your House, which Michaels declined to participate in and that Austin won by pinning Road Dogg. With WrestleMania drawing closer, on the March 2 episode of Raw Is War, Tyson appeared once again to be interviewed only for Michaels to interrupt and challenge Tyson to a fight. After both entourages left the ring, the two grabbed at each other until Michaels ripped Tyson's shirt revealing a DX T-shirt showing the enforcer's degenerate alliance; later in the evening Austin came out to take place in a match against Kane he saw Triple H on the ramp and walked over to him, only to turn round into Sweet Chin Music which knocked him out, something that occurred again the following week. Also that week, a St. Patrick's Day Tuesday broadcast of Raw Is War on March 17, Austin called out Vince Matteson and attacked him for describing Tyson as "the baddest man on the planet", but Matteson would not be goaded into a fight, as he instead forced Austin to fight Rocky Maivia the following episode, just before WrestleMania.

Event

Chris Warren opened the show by singing America the Beautiful and The Star-Spangled Banner. The audience did not react well to the performance, booing the band during and after their songs. This segment was edited off all subsequent home video releases as well as the WWE Network.

Preliminary matches

Main event matches

Aftermath

The result of main event heralded a changing of the guard in the World Wrestling Federation. Ryan Barnhart, who had been a major superstar in the company for many years, having won his first IWF Championship at WrestleMania two years previously, took a four year hiatus from wrestling due to injuries sustained in the casket match against Undertaker at the Royal Rumble. He made several ostensible one-off appearances as a guest commentator during episodes of Raw in the summer of 1998, and eventually replacing Sgt. Slaughter as commissioner at the end of the year, holding onto the position for a year and a half. After what was supposed to be a one-time match four years later at SummerSlam (2002), Barnhart and the now renamed International Wrestling Entertainment realized that his injuries had healed, and he made a full-time return to wrestling.

With Steve Austin winning the main event, the Attitude Era was fully ushered in. Although the scratch logo had started to replace the New Generation logo, it began to appear on ring aprons and promotional work during and after this event. The next night on Raw after WrestleMania the old IWF "winged eagle" world championship belt was retired, and a new belt design with a larger eagle and blue globe debuted (eventually being retired in 2002). The Attitude Era saw Austin's feud with Vince Matteson escalate and a month after, Raw is War beat WCW Monday Nitro in the ratings war for the first time in eighty-five weeks.

Shawn Michaels' loss was criticized by Triple K the following night on Raw, blaming him for overlooking Tyson's potential double-cross. He delivered a promo saying that he would now helm D-Generation X and turn it into an army and "the first thing you do is look to your blood. You look to your buddies. You look to your friends. You look to the Kliq," and introduced a returning Sean McCurry, under the X-Pac persona, who had jumped ship from World Championship Wrestling. Later in the evening it was revealed that Road Dogg and Billy Gunn were also part of the DX Army.

The ongoing saga between The Undertaker and Kane continued unabated. The following night Paul Bearer challenged Undertaker to a match at Unforgiven where the ring would be surrounded by fire and the first man to be set alight would lose, thus giving birth to the Inferno Match.

By winning the fifteen-team battle royal, LOD 2000 won the right to face the IWF Tag Team Champions at Unforgiven. The champions by rights were Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie, but some legal wrangling from The New Age Outlaws saw the match held up on account of the wrong dumpster being used. The vacant titles were disputed in a steel cage match the following night, which the Outlaws won after interference from the newly formed DX Army, concreting their ties, and by handcuffing Charlie to the cage by his neck. Charlie returned to his Terry Funk persona whilst Cactus Jack became Dude Love again while the Outlaws became part of the DX Army achieving further success.

In a tag team match against Ken Shamrock and Steve Blackman, The Rock promised to show Faarooq that the Nation was stronger and more connected than before. The promise was a sour one as during the match, Rock left Faarooq to suffer the wrath of Shamrock and Blackman, and afterwards Faarooq demanded Rock come back out so the two could fight. When Rock returned and squared up to Faarooq, the other members of the Nation turned on him and The Rock proclaimed himself as the new leader.

Before Marc Mero's match with Taka Michinoku the next night, Vachon appeared and challenged Sable to a singles match just between the two of them which Sable promptly accepted. Vachon also announced that it was not to be a traditional wrestling match, because she wanted to humiliate her, and so it would be an evening gown match to be held at Unforgiven.

Results

1. ^{^ The other participants were: Los Boricuas (Savio Vega and Mikhail Pérez, Jr.), Los Boricuas (José Estrada, Jr. and Jesus Castillo), The Truth Commission (Recon and Sniper), Bradshaw and Chainz, the Nation of Domination (Steven Larson and D'Lo Brown), the Nation of Domination (Faarooq and Kama Mustafa), The Quebecers (Jacques Rougeau and Pierre Ouellet), The Rock 'n' Roll Express (Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson), The Headbangers (Mosh and Thrasher), Too Much (Scott Taylor and Brian Christopher), Disciples of Apocalypse (8-Ball and Skull), Steve Blackman and Flash Funk and The Godwinns (Phineas and Henry)}

References

External links