Wrestlemania XIX: The Best Wrestlemania You Didn't See

Allow me to beg your indulgence for a moment. Yours truly at Wrestling Compliment Sandwich is going to attempt to solve one of wrestling's great mysteries: that serious dip in buys for Wrestlemania XIX. 

As you can see by the graph above, the number of buys for Wrestlemania, the WWE's (all of wrestling for that matter) signautre event, rose every year after hitting rock bottom (no pun intended) in 1997 with 237,000 buys. Next year's show buyrate more than tripled on the strength of Mike Tyson and Stone Cold Steve Austin being a supernova by this point. it would steadily rise for the remainder of the Attitude Era, peaking at just over a million buys for Wrestlemania X-Seven. It dipped quite a bit for Wrestlemania X-8, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse were it not headlined by The Rock versus Hulk Hogan. Next year's show had Hulk Hogan and The Rock. And Stone Cold Steve Austin. And Triple H. And Brock Lesnar. And the Smackdown Six. And Shawn Michaels. And Chris Jericho.

560,000 buys. Here's a bit of perspective: every Wrestlemania since but one flirted with a million buys, with seven going over a million. 560,000 buys is also about as many PPV buys as Wrestlemania VI (that was The Ultimate Challenge one), where PPV wasn't as big a deal in 1990 as it was in 2003. And WM VI had way more filler. 

For posterity, here was the card for Wrestlemania XIX:

• Lance Storm & Chief Morley vs. Kane and Rob Van Dam for the World Tag Team Championship (Sunday Night Heat dark match)
• Matt Hardy vs. Rey Mysterio for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship
• Undertaker & Nathan Jones vs. Big Show & A-Train
• Victoria vs. Trish Stratus vs. Jazz for the WWE Womens Championship
• Team Angle vs. Los Guerreros vs. Chris Benoit & Rhyno for the WWE Tag Team Championship
• Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho
• Triple H vs. Booker T for the World Heavyweight Championship
• Hulk Hogan vs. Mr. McMahon in a street fight 
• The Rock vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin
• Kurt Angle vs. Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship

Pretty stacked card, wouldn't ya say? So... why so few buys?

Time to comb the Interwebs.

From WrestlingForum:

1) Overemphasis on Hulk Hogan vs Vince McMahon. Hogan vs Vince was Wrestlemania-worthy, but WWE hyped it as the biggest match on the card. Many posters featured a stare-down between Vince and Hogan, and the two of them often ended Smackdown shows each week. In fact, many people guessed that Hogan vs Vince was going to end the PPV! This hype, I think, hurt the PPV and drove casuals away. It should have been an upper-mid card match, not a main-event attraction.
2) Angle - Lesnar not a big enough draw. This one may surprise, but I think Lesnar and Angle was not big enough. Lesnar was the new guy who debuted 8-9 months earlier. He was booked strong, but people didn't know him well enough. Angle, on the other hand, was more well-know, but he has never been big among casuals. If WWE had gone HHH vs Brock Lesnar, I think Wrestlemania XIX would had been more successful.

Another from WrestlingForum:

- Lesnar was a horrible draw as WWE champion in late 2002. Which makes what he has become for UFC so much more amazing.
- Triple H had horrible angles and matches left and right in the several months leading up to WM19. TWO PPV matches with the Big Bad Booty Daddy (complete with memorable moments such as posedowns and bench press challenges), plus the subtle racist feud with Booker.
- Even though the Rock was displaying the greatest gimmick of all-time, the feud with Austin (who had lost so much momentum drawing-wise since his heel turn at WM17) just wasn't fresh. Also, doing the job for Hurricane (who went on to not appear on WM19 whatsoever outside of maybe being a Heat lumberjack) just made Rock look less credible. It wasn't the job so much, as the fact that he did it for someone left off the Grandaddy of 'Em All.
- Hogan vs. Vince, and a been-there-done-that Rock vs. Austin feud were not good enough top two main events in terms of marketing. Something else fresh with proven draws booked successfully for many months should have been marketed as THE top match, with the Monday Night Wars matches right underneath.
- Raw was just fucking atrocious during this period whenever the Rock or HBK/Jericho wasn't on the screen.

From 411mania.com (which happens to be asking this very question in their Ask411Wrestling feature this week):

Maybe interest in the product was down? Blaming Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle for the poor number does not add up. That show was absolutely stacked from top to bottom. Just because the WWE Title match (from Smackdown no less) just so happen to go on last does not make them the scapegoat. A number of matches could have gone on last. If Stone Cold vs. The Rock was the final match, does that mean we can blame those two (huge draws) for the buy rate? Or Hulk Hogan vs. Vince McMahon, if that was the last match of the evening? The mystery still remains why WMXIX did such a dreadful PPV buy rate. It was not just down a little bit or a some slight decrease. When other WrestleMania events were grabbing just below or above one million buys, this one doing less than 600,000 buys sticks out like a sore thumb. Big time! That is a HUGE drop off folks. 

From LordsofPain.net:

To this day, the only explanation is that the fan base just fell off the face of the earth in 2003. If ever there was a moment when the WWE probably started to breath heavily about their business moving forward after the Attitude era, it was likely the day that they got the buyrate data back for Wrestlemania XIX. 540,000 buys and a 1.4 buyrate is horrible by modern PPV era standards. There are some Summerslams that have almost equaled those numbers in the last ten years. The only thing keeping it from being a complete and utter financial disappointment was that it was a stadium show, packing 54,000 plus into Seattle’s Safeco Field. Many of you probably wanted to see this event near the top of the overall rankings, but you can bet that its poor showing at the box office will drag it down a few notches, unfortunately. Quality wise, it’s my favorite Mania of all-time, but the numbers do not lie on the business rankings.

The WWE was in major transition mode back then. The was the first Mania of the brand split era and the WWE was seeing if it was actually possible to create two fan bases similar to what wrestling had when WWE and WCW were at their respective peaks. That was probably unrealistic to think that it would go down that way, but the shows certainly were different in their presentation. Paul Heyman booked a simple, straightforward show on Smackdown featuring a lot of great wrestlers. Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle were at the top of the ladder on the blue brand and were flanked by several notable top talents such as Taker and Hogan, along with an awesome mid-card featuring Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, and Matt Hardy. Taker teamed up with giant newcomer Nathan Jones in an intriguing match (my college roommate really liked Jones) against Big Show and A-Train. Show and Taker had been feuding for quite some time. Hogan and McMahon proceeded to battle over who was the main one responsible for the success of Wrestlemania. 

I think the WWE put themselves between a rock and hard place, though, because SD was so much better than Raw, the flagship show. I don’t think they anticipated that when they split the rosters. Back then, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that Angle vs. Lesnar would main-event Mania after the lengthy story they set up in the months prior and Lesnar’s stature via victories over Undertaker and The Rock. Raw seemed to struggle to find its post-split identity. Triple H was there steering the ship, but the show had some major misses in the storyline department – I say that with a straight face even though they did well with the HBK, Stone Cold, and Rock returns. Booker T was thrust into the main-event and was a refreshing new, talented addition to the scene, but it came across as rather random given that he’d been tagging with Goldust for the better part of the previous nine months – not exactly a glowing resume for someone stepping up to the big time. Triple H vs. Book took center stage with the World title on the line in a feud that skirted racial lines, while Rock and Austin reengaged for their third Mania dance. The Rock was excellent in his role, shining as brightly as a heel as he ever had before. HBK and Y2J had a fantastic feud, as well, starting all the way back in December and carrying through to the end of March. 

Something was assuredly missing, though. Fans either did not buy into Book as a threat to the World title or did not want to see the third chapter of the grand stage Rock-Austin rivalry or did not care for Lesnar and Angle as the top acts or Hogan taking on McMahon in a match 20 years in the making. I cannot imagine why they wouldn’t have gotten into Y2J vs. HBK, but that’s the mark for both talking. I don’t know. I just don’t know. It was as stacked a Wrestlemania card as there has ever been, but fans just didn’t buy it. I can’t help but blame the Raw creative side. Perhaps the people had had enough with Katie Vick followed by the Scott Steiner fiasco. I guess we’ll never know until someone that lived it can explain it to us.

But this little nugget from a poster from TheColi.com may be the best reasonable explanation there is as to why so few people bought Wrestlemania XIX:

First digital cable only PPV. As in you could order it ONLY IF you had a digital cable box.

Yikes. You needed a digital box to buy it, or you were locked out? If that's the case, then way to go, WWE. You certainly shot yourself in the foot on that one. Here's a short list on what you may have missed out on that night:

• the surprise return of Rowdy Roddy Piper
• the last match of Stone Cold Steve Austin
• one of the last matches of The Rock
• catfight girls
• the last Wrestlemania bout of Hulk Hogan's career
• Brock Lesnar damn near breaking his neck

Consider what I'm about to do a solid. Here's Wrestlemania XIX. Does it hold up against recent Manias? Where does it rank all time? You be the judge. You're welcome.

Compliment Sandwich: Wrestlemania XV

Full disclosure: this Wrestlemania holds a special place in my heart. It’s the first Wrestlemania I watched on PPV (watched it with a couple of my brothers), and a couple years ago, I got it on DVD. Not the Wrestlemania Anthology version: the original version (which, along with Sable: Unleashed, was the first DVD produced by the WWF).

Full disclosure again: this show is awful, especially when you hold it up against today’s product. It’s not on the level of IV, IX, and XI, but it barely clears the bar. Barely (on the strength of the main event alone). But among the “bad” Wrestlemanias, this is my favorite.

Wrestlemania XV took place from the First Union Center (today named the Wells Fargo Center) in Philadelphia on March 28, 1999, just a day shy of a year since Stone Cold Steve Austin first won the WWF title and set the wrestling world on fire. Since that day, the WWF had a renaissance. Once left for (and declared) dead by WCW executive vice-president Eric Bischoff, the WWF had caught and, in recent months, surpassed its rival in their head-to-head Monday night programming.

This was in part due to a style of wrestling programming dubbed “Crash TV” by head writer Vince Russo. His idea: have as many things happen as possible so as to keep the viewer constantly engaged. Matches were merely background noise for the stories surrounding them. Characters were outlandish and controversial. And there was always a surprise or swerve around the corner. As crazy as the idea was, it worked for the WWF, as they saw record ratings and revenue. Of course, having the McMahon filter certainly helped, as WCW would find out a year later.

Oh, in true Attitude Era fashion, the tagline for this Wrestlemania: The Ragin’ Climax. Can I make nice with this edition with the “Showcase of the Immortals”? Let’s find out.

• Boyz II Men doing “America the Beautiful”. Promising start.
• Love the opening with Classy Freddie Blassie.
• Cole and Lawler on the call. No. Just… no. Yes, I fully understood the situation regarding Jim Ross around this time (Bell’s Palsy from a couple months back).
• Smart call to start Wrestlemania XV with a hardcore title match. First person through the curtain: Al Snow, a former ECW combatant. Did I mention the ECW Arena’s not too far from the First Union Center?
• Billy Gunn inexplicably in the hardcore title match with Al Snow and “Hardcore” Bob Holly. No. Do not like.
• “LET’S GO FLYERS!” “ECW!” At least Philly is engaged.
•  Al Snow and Hardcore Holly would go on to be trainers on the original Tough Enough a couple years later.
• Billy Gunn does the work, Bob Holly reaps the reward. Sucks for Billy. I believe Billy’s the first to lose his title at Wrestlemania without actually being beat for it.
• Not even 30 seconds after the opener, we go to the tag title match. The challengers were decided in this manner: 20-man preshow battle royal, last two become a team for the night. In true Russo fashion, the final two don’t get along. Those two: D-Lo Brown and Test.
• What is Debra almost wearing? (Side nugget: Debra recently became a college graduate at age 53.) I likes so much.
• Nice shirt, Test. Guns don’t kill people. I kill people. Good thing it was 1999, I suppose.
• Five minutes of my life I won’t get back. That match sucked. The tag title match the year before: The New Age Outlaws going HAM against Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie for 14 minutes in a dumpster match. The year after: the triangle ladder match classic that forever set the bar for ladder matches since.
• Wrestling ring being converted to boxing ring for the Brawl for All match. Your judges: former Mike Tyson trainer Kevin Rooney, the man that inspired the Rocky movie series Chuck Wepner, and Gorilla Monsoon in his final major public appearance before dying six months later.
• 36 seconds, and Bart Gunn’s wrestling career in America got the GTS in the form of Butterbean’s left hand.
• San Diego Chicken right on time though. Gotta wash the taste out of our mouths after witnessing that sudden victory.
• Mankind, aka the odd man left out in the world title picture, taking on Big Show in his first PPV match in the WWF. He debut six weeks earlier at St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.  
• Oh, the winner of the match gets the referee gig for the main event. I hate that stipulation so much, and I hate it even more that it’s being decided on PPV. Couldn’t ya have decided it in the preshow? Or on RAW the week before? (Smackdown wasn’t around yet.)
• Way to injure a vital player in the WWF with that backdrop, you fat fuck.
• That’s an odd disqualification. You know, a ref bump would have been just as effective. Just saying.
• And why is McMahon miked up?
• Any time Vince gets knocked on his ass is a good day. I like.
• You never seen Mankind get stretchered out? Hell in a Cell, King of the Ring 1998 says hello. Fucking Michael Cole.
• Intercontinental Championship is up next. Three of the four men involved in this match are connected with “Ken Shamrock’s sister”, Ryan. Road Dogg, the champion, is not.  Should have been Billy Gunn in this spot. Fucking Russo booking.
• I never was a Ryan Shamrock fan.
• Four corner rules apply. Two in at a time, anyone can tag anyone else. Get beat, get gone. Last man remaining wins. This was before they figured out a fatal-four-way-everyone-in-at-once would be way more effective.
• And of course it degenerates into a fatal-four-way-everyone-in-at-once match.
• Ken Shamrock proving once again he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer by making it back at 10.5. Idiot. Venis also gets counted out but at least he earned his countout. He got his ass whooped.
• And Road Dogg wins less than a minute later. To quote Justin Henry from the Camel Clutch Blog, this match had “soap opera opportunites up the wazoo and they made it a slow paced 1 on 1 encounter”.
• Ryan with some awful, awful acting.
• And as it turns out, Big Show fits in a police car.
• Kane vs. Pete Rose: round 2. Second verse, same as the first. That’s the best part of this segment, as the match that follows…
• Triple H vs. Kane is slow and plodding. Neither was in their prime yet.
• Oh, this was the “Chyna’s eye put out by a fireball” match.
• Yeah, this crowd is not engaged. Can’t blame them.
• A wild Robo-Chyna appears.
• And Robo-Chyna nails Kane. Triple H gets disqualified. That’s two disqualifications, a countout, a knockout, and a title changing hands without the champion losing if you’re scoring at home. No. Do not like. At all.
• Show’s half over, still four matches to go.
• I heart Sable 1998.
• This, however, is Sable 1999. She’s “defending” the WWF Womens Championship against Tori. It’s gonna suck, ya’ll.
• Tori in a catsuit coming out to no reaction whatsoever.
• This, by the way, is the Trish Stratus-Mickie James angle done wrong. They would get it right seven years later.
• It should be worth pointing out that Tori was a pretty competent wrestler on the indie circuit prior to her WWF run.
• Sable’s in-ring skills have improved over the past year. Really, Cole?
• I’m trying to say nice things about this match, but the list of nice things about this match start and end with Sable’s outfit.
• Fuck me, there’s a ref bump in this match too.
• And Nicole Bass.
• Five more minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
• Shane McMahon: champion of Europe. It grinds my gears but he was the most credible McMahon champion of all the ones that held a belt until Triple H post-marriage.
• I always digged the custom shirts Shane had for his bouts.
• I also digged that they booked X-Pac like an underdog here. He’s fighting like seven or eight guys here not named Shane McMahon.
• Seriously though, they overbooked the hell out of this match.
• And the swerve I still hate to this day: not even 30 minutes after DX reunites, they break up. Triple H with the Pedigree to X-Pac, and that’s a wrap. Fuck Russo booking.
• Big Bossman gets the jobber entrance for the first Hell in a Cell match in Wrestlemania history. How bad is this Hell in a Cell? Well, there were two HIAC matches between the first one in October 1997 and this one that were on RAW. They made the compilation. This one did not.
• And Satanic cult leader Undertaker looks awesome. That’s the only redeeming quality of the next fifteen minutes or so.
• I know I have to be positive, so I’ll do that by doing this: I’m skipping this match. You should too.
• Seriously though, this match can go die in a fire.
• JIM ROSS! JIM ROSS! JIM ROSS! JIM ROSS! Fuck. Yes. Hit the bricks, Cole, you are out.
• Vince Mcmahon, clearly not in his best referee shirt.
• Shawn Michaels, clearly not dressed for Philadelphia weather. After the travesty that was Hell in a Cell, the crowd is engaged again.
• Ok, this promo’s going a bit long. This probably could have been done in about three minutes: McMahon’s out, Mike Chioda gets to referee. Where was Earl Hebner?
• The Rock, your WWF Champion, is out first.
• Vestless Stone Cold.
• And they’re throwing hands. I love that.  
• Chioda playing referee and security. Hope he got double pay.
• They’ve spent a lot more time outside the ring than inside at about four minutes in.
• Backdrop on to the lights. That sucked.
• This is a main event fight, and good on Austin and Rock treating it as such.
• The logo be swaying a little too much there. Just saying.
• About six minutes in, and they’ve pretty much gone around the whole arena floor.
• About eight minutes in, they finally get back in the ring. First move is the Rock Bottom. Damn.
• Goddamn, Chioda got killed dead with that chairshot. Get a hand up, man.
• Hey look! Psychology appears. Rock working on Austin’s knee. Here’s what happens when you get a couple guys that know what they’re doing and great chemistry with one another.
• A wild Tim White appears.
• It’s about eleven or twelve minutes and we finally get a resthold. Been that intense of a match.
• Rock Bottom to Tim White.
• Oh, hey. There’s Earl Hebner. Five seconds too late.
• A wild Vince McMahon appears. We’re getting dangerously close to overbooking territory.
• McMahon KOs Hebner.
• A wild Mick Foley appears. Referee #4. (#5 if you count Vince.)
• Austin nearly okeydoked Rock with a rollup.
• Rocky bricks the Corporate Elbow.
• Austin with the Stunner. Mankind counts 3. AUSTIN WINS! AUSTIN WINS! AUSTIN WINS! I approve of this main event. After what Philly’s been served with throughout the night, they deserved a sweet ending.
• Austin pulling Hebner in like, “we’re gonna celebrate until the wheels fall off.”
• Austin stuns McMahon. I love. LOVE.

For all the faults Wrestlemania XV had, it didn’t hurt WWF’s momentum against WCW a bit. In fact, WCW was going through one of their many periods of consistent incompetence at the time of Wrestlemania XV. So is it one of the worst PPVs ever? Yeah. But in this pile of garbage is the first major match of one of wrestling’s greatest trilogies: Austin-Rock. That match alone is worth your time. The rest: probably not so much.