9 Reasons Why 1995 Is The Worst Year In Wrestling History
1995 was a great year for movies; Casino, Heat, Se7en, Empire Records, Billy Madison, Clueless, and so many more now-classics graced the silver screen. Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, Married…With Children, NYPD Blue, and The X-Files ruled on TV. Hip hop was taking over music thanks to Gangstas Paradise and Waterfalls.
RELATED: 10 Wrestlers You Didn't Realize Wrestled For WWE In 1995
But while it was a banner year for various forms of pop culture, 1995 in professional wrestling might have been the most universally accepted as the worst year ever. Not just for WWE, either. But all for any and all promotions. Changes were coming all over entertainment, and the wrestling world didn’t quite yet know how to deal.
9 King Mabel
1995 was also the year of the reign of King Mabel, and what an awful reign it was. Vince loves his tremendous big men. But Mabel was actually too big to be an effective big man.
But The Chairman actually tried to press on with pushing the big man. He would compete in a stinker of a SummerSlam main event with Diesel before literally breaking The Undertaker’s face.
8 Diesel’s Title Reign
Speaking of Big Daddy Cool, he captured the WWE Title in late 1994 in shocking fashion, defeating Bob Backlund in less than ten seconds. But then over the course of the next year, instead of being the kind of Diesel that fans fell in love - the brash and cocky giant.
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He became a baby kissing babyface, which severely weakened his cool factor. The bad matches against the likes of The British Bulldog, Bam Bam Bigelow, and the aforementioned Mabel certainly didn’t help either.
7 The Evil Dentist And The Hitman
Between 1993 and 1995, it’s hard to determine which year was worse for Bret Hart. It was almost like Vince didn’t believe in him as a top guy and kept heaving every conceivable blunderer of blunders at him.
Aside from a few great title matches, Bret spent most of the year feuding with Bob Backlund, Jerry Lawler, and the King’s personal dentist, Isaac Yankem. Lord bless Glenn Jacobs for the tenacity to keep pulling off these lame characters before landing Kane.
6 The Renegade
We move down south now to WCW for a spell and meet their version of the neon-painted nincompoop, The Ultimate Warrior. WCW called their version, The Renegade. Somehow, the real deal was actually the better worker! As the heels were mounting offenses against The Hulkster, he needed some backup and kept intimating that he had the “ultimate” backup coming.
Instead, The Renegade showed up. No matter how much paint they put on him, he unfortunately didn’t have it. Even Arn Anderson couldn’t get this guy over, and Double A has made broomsticks look appealing.
5 The Son Of Andre
Let it be said that no matter what, the wrestling business is an awfully tactless place sometimes. In an attempt to exploit the myth that was WrestleMania 3 and Hulk Vs. Andre, WCW debuted The Giant.
They brought him in and immediately pushed that he was the son of Andre. Leading up to their match at Halloween Havoc, Hogan even tried to murder The Giant by pushing him off the roof of Cobo Hall.
4 The Yeti
The other half to the abysmal 1995 Halloween Havoc main event was the match between Hulk and The Giant. Besides it being painfully obvious that it was Paul Wight’s first ever match, they went in all sorts of gaga to round out the end of the match.
RELATED: The 10 Worst Halloween Havoc Matches, According To Cagematch.net
That included the massive Yeti - who looked a lot more like a giant mummy than a frozen Sasquatch. Together, the two titans delivered the strangest looking tandem bear hug, and perhaps it was the first ever. Certainly the move hasn’t been done since.
3 Uncensored
It was an ambitious move to try and pull off WCW Uncensored 1995, let’s all give WCW that much credit. Every single match was supposedly some sort of unsanctioned grudge match. But that also made every match feel a bit off.
Even the standout match - the cinematic King Of The Road match was considered an unmitigated disaster that wound up costing Dustin Rhodes and Barry Darsow their jobs.
2 WrestleMania 11
A few weeks after Uncensored, it wasn’t like WWE had a much better offering with WrestleMania 11. They just had the wherewithal to bring in Lawrence Taylor and at least try to drive up the buy rates.
The show was nowhere near WrestleMania-level. At least Shawn Michaels and Diesel had one of their most memorable matches, but the rest of the card was willed with clunkers.
1 Pirates, Garbage Men, And Minotaurs
The era of the occupational gimmick was in full force in 1995, with all sorts of walks of life being represented and poorly for that matter. But the WWE seemed to be all about representing every member of the workforce with the likes of Duke The Dumpster Droese and IRS.
They also didn’t seem to mind integrating completely ridiculous gimmicks either like Jean-Pierre Lafitte, a wrestling pirate who stole Bret Hart’s jacket. Even more ridiculous was the Minotaur known as Mantaur - a burley, stocky man who Jim Cornette couldn’t even get over.
