WrestleMania XI
Actual main event: Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Lawrence Taylor
What the main event should have been: Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart
You don’t know how close I was to just writing “anything else” for this one. I do believe there’s a place for celebrity matches at WrestleMania, as it does bring some nice mainstream media attention to the event, but the freaking main event? Are you serious, Vince? Come on, man, you’re better than that. Okay, maybe not during this rough transition period for WWE, but there’s still no place for this in the main event. So how did I fix it? Pretty simple actually.
The actual WWE Championship match for WrestleMania XI saw 1995 Royal Rumble winner Shawn Michaels battle Diesel in what turned out to be a decent match. Kevin Nash actually had quite a long run with the title, so it actually was hard to leave him out of my main event, but I would have gone with Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart here. The two had put on quite a show in the opening match at WrestleMania X and went on to have more great matches throughout 1994, including a great cage match at SummerSlam.
Bret would be out of the title picture for this event and took on former WWE Champion Bob Backlund in a very strange and awkward “I Quit” Match, while Owen found himself teaming up with Yokozuna to take on The Smoking Gunns for the tag titles. I think the story with Bret and Owen could have taken a small break from their program in late ’94 and resumed in early ’95, possibly getting into it at the Royal Rumble. One could have eliminated the other, and Owen always had the “I beat you last year at WrestleMania” card to play, and we likely would have gotten another five-star classic from these two.
Or a tag match where Bret and Owen reunite to take on Lawrence Taylor and Phil Simms. I’m good either way.