Well, the previews make it look interesting but unfortunately it starts off with a dud: the Headbangers with the Japanese light-heavyweight champion vs another team of Japanese wrestlers. I make no apologies for skipping through this one because, frankly, all the participants just bore me. Fast-forward through this one to the appearance of "Sable" (not sure why?) who introduces Vince McMahon, flanked by his "corporate cronies", Pat Patterson and Jerry Brisco. There was little to this segment other than Patterson giving Sable a little pat on the backside, resulting in Sable turning and slapping the bejabbers out of Patterson, at which point Jim Ross hilariously states, _"Patterson's getting a little liberal in territory he's not familiar with..."_ (Pat Patterson is openly gay, and the first WWF wrestler/executive to 'come out'.) Now we have Ken Shamrock vs Jeff Jarrett, and again, I don't have a LOT of vested interest in this match, simply because I still don't like Jarrett and I still haven't figured out (I don't think he has either) what the WWF wants to do with Ken Shamrock. The match was surprisingly good, though. Next up is a match between Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson vs Dan "The Beast" Severn, which frankly surprises me; watching Dan Severn in the early days of the UFC, it was easy to see that this guy was legitimate, a true wrestler with a long history of collegiate championships and even a championship in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (which is _not_ a scripted sport). I couldn't see Severn making the switch from something like legitimate combat sports to "sports entertainment" like the WWF, but here he was. The match was short-lived but still interesting, and not really much of a surprise. Now we come to one of the stupidest, silliest segments I ever had the displeasure of sitting through: some kind of "handicap" match (maybe it wasn't penned that way but it was definitely a handicap match) between "Al Snow & Head" (the head of a mannequin) vs "Too Much", a tagteam consisting of "Brian Christopher" and "Scott Taylor". Not being familiar with the evolution of the "Al Snow & Head" story, I didn't know what to expect but the sheer idiocy of allowing Jerry Lawler to "referee" the match just made it even more ridiculous. I mean, look, I know the stories are scripted but can't we at least have a semblance of believability to them? This was so ludicrous and one-sided that it didn't even come across as entertaining. Next, please? But wait...I may have to skip this one, as well, because I can't STAND Sean Waltman and Owen Hart is as boring as dirt. The only thing Owen does well is whine...and I'll give him credit: He does that really well. The Sean Waltman character - ANY and ALL of them - are an unfunny joke: the guy is too small to be a wrestler so he pretends to know some sort of martial arts. Idiotic, and very UN-entertaining. Waltman has _always_ come across - regardless of his character, or which promotion he was working for - as one of those sniveling little punks who can't get the job done on his own, so he hides behind the "big guys" like De-Generation X (in this case) or Razor Ramon, or the NWO, WolfPack, etc. Absolutely no use for him and his moronic little flappity-flap-flap "martial arts" moves. Now we have this long, rambling diatribe by "Paul Bearer" that amounts to nothing but a time-waster. Following this comes a match between the World TagTeam champions, "The New-Age Outlaws" vs the "New Midnight Express" along with Jim Cornette. Of course, since "The New-Age Outlaws" are a part of De-Generation X, you know how this one turns out. Moving right along, we come to the final "King of the Ring" match between Ken Shamrock vs The Rock (as Dwayne Johnson's character is now known). This was a decent match but unfortunately "Triple H" (Paul Levesque) sat ringside with Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler, and wow... it's a good thing he stuck to the wrestling part and never tried moving to an analyst's position: the guy can't talk for diddly. His ringside banter was embarrassingly horrible...and I don't mean crude, vulgar, or anything; I just mean he COUDN'T. Some guys have it (Jesse Ventura readily comes to mind) and some guys want it, but Levesque just missed the boat all the way around. He has absolutely no ringside announcing skills at all (although I will admit, I found it amusing when, after replacing his headset, Triple H - in a humorous test of his headset, said into the mic _"Testes one, two...three? Testes..."_ Paul Levesque's lack of mic skills notwithstanding, the match between Shamrock and The Rock was a great match (probably the best match I've seen Shamrock have in his WWF career), with a very unique ending. Now we have the first of two "Main Events": the "Hell in a Cell" cage match between Mick Foley's "Mankind" and The Undertaker. This was the now-famous "Oh my gawd, he's dead...he's dead..." match where Mick Foley allowed himself to be "thrown" from the top of a 16-ft cage onto a table and Jim Ross only added to the moment with his inane blathering about how Mick Foley had been broken in half, etc. (As much as I enjoy JR's ringside analysis, the one thing that really bothers me - at this point, anyway - is his constant defense of pro wrestling, trying to protect the facade and pretend that it's all genuine pain, broken bones, and busted spleens, etc. This was no different as he kept sarcastically referring to "knowing how to fall" as though Foley had truly just been thrown off the cage when it was plainly visible that Foley had actually leaped off the cage and done a flip in mid-air so as to land on the broadest part of his back. Did it hurt? Undoubtedly. But was it real? Of course not. But try getting JR to admit that...) All this notwithstanding, the match was one of the best - if not THE single best match - in the history of professional wrestling. How and why Mick Foley is able and willing to put his own body through such pain just for the sake of entertaining people is beyond me, but you have to give the guy major kudos: He put his own self through all sorts of physical trauma in this one single match. Taking nothing away from Mark Calaway, of course; both athletes did an amazing and superb job of putting on the "match of a lifetime" and the results are a match that people - even 27 years later - are still talking about. It really does rank as one of the greatest matches in the history of sports entertainment/professional wrestling. Now we come to the "First Blood" match: the bout for the WWF Heavyweight Championship between Kane vs "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. It was pretty much anything and everything you would expect (and more!). Overall, not the greatest card WWE has ever put together but wow, those final two matches have earned a place in history and both are well worth sitting through the rest of this.

Man...Mick Foley is one tough crazy SOB!! The Undertaker vs. Mankind HIAC is probably the craziest match ever!

Features probably my favourite/most iconic wwe match of all time (undertaker vs mankind)