WrestleMania XV

Despite being held in the midst of a very successful WWE streak, WrestleMania 15 is (rather strangely) mostly a dud. Only an Austin/Rock finale saves it from being an extremely poor show.

When one match on the card features boxer Butterbean duking it out with Bart Gunn, you know something isn't quite right. This event features perhaps more individual matches than any other in WM history (certainly until that point), but most are rather short (perhaps that is a mercy in this case).

I can't quite put my finger on why this event just falls flat, as the card contains a number of talented performers. X-Pac, Undertaker, Triple H, Mankind, Big Show, & Road Dogg are all here, but they just aren't put in positions to succeed.

To be honest, even the Rock/Austin finale isn't all that great of an overall match. The "pop" is incredible, yes, but the match itself is just "okay". A bit too frantic for my taste with very little pacing.

Overall, WrestleMania 15 continues the tradition of the past 10 or so years of this event of the odd-numbered ones being mediocre (oddly, the even-numbered ones are pretty good). Watch for Rock/Austin, but almost the entire rest of the event can be skipped and nothing really major will be missed.

How was this a "Ragin' Climax" between Austin/Rock when the two had a rematch a month later? Or was it a climax between Big Show and Mankind, who also had a rematch one month later? Wrestlemania is usually the turning point for WWF/E storylines, though with XV the event a month after, Backlash, was. Classic moments include: Undertaker's entrance, Mankind pulling a trick out of the Cactus Jack playbook and allowing Show to CRUSH him, Tori walking to the ring looking like her mother had just died because she had just found out she was losing, the Jarrett/Owen tag team and a sub par main event between Rock and Austin topped off with Rock's first overselling of the Stone Cold Stunner.

**1/2

This is a very good PPV special that keeps me entertained even today. Especially with one of the best matches I've ever seen- The Rock Vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin. This plus much, much more (including the chokeslam of baseball man Pete Rose in a chicken suit) make this a highly watchable tape. Mick Foley is always pretty damn good as Mankind. A+

Wrestlemania XV didn't live up to my expectations, which is not very surprising given that some of the show was haphazardly booked. I mean, pushing Road Dogg to the IC title and Gunn toward the Hardcore title made no sense given the opposite build up that had been going on for weeks (not to mention the fact that Road Dogg is NOT IC title material.) HHH still hadn't found himself, though his match with Kane was pretty good. X-Pac's bout with Shane was surprisingly enjoyable and one of the best matches of the night. The women's title match and the brawl for all were horrible, but hey, what were you expecting? The tag-title match made no sense, and the Hell in a Cell match was just plain abysmal. Still Austin and Rock put on a good, solid main event, though they would outdo themselves a month later. After first buying this PPV, I felt like I had wasted my money, but in retrospect, it wasn't horrible. Still, definitely not a great PPV by Wrestlemania standards. Do yourself a favor and watch X and VIII, for some truly memorable Wrestlemania action.

The best thing you can say about most of the matches of "Wrestlemania XV" is that they are relatively short (in the case of a boxing match, 30 seconds short - at least that's unusual) and they don't overstay their welcome. But too many unclean finishes, too much (bad) soap opera and too little actual wrestling make this a middling Wrestlemania. Obviously the main event, Rock vs. Austin for the WWF title, is the big draw, and after a draggy all-over-the-arena slugfest it does gain some electricity when it moves back inside the ring.