• On This Day In Pro Wrestling History (March 29, 1998) – The Austin Era Begins
On this day in Pro Wrestling history on March 29, 1998, WrestleMania XIV took place at the FleetCenter in Boston, Massachusetts.
The event featured Kane’s WrestleMania debut match against The Undertaker & Stone Cold Steve Austin main eventing his first WrestleMania and going on to defeat Shawn Michaels in the main event to win his first WWF Championship.
Below are the results:
– Battle Royal to determine the #1 contenders to the WWF Tag Team Championship: LOD 2000 (Animal and Hawk) (with Sunny) won by last eliminating The New Midnight Express (Bodacious Bart and Bombastic Bob) (with Jim Cornette)
– WWF Light Heavyweight Championship Match: Taka Michinoku (c) def. Aguila to retain the Title.
– WWF European Championship Match: Triple H (c) (with Chyna) def. Owen Hart to retain the Title.
– Marc Mero & Sable def. The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust & Luna Vachon
– WWF Intercontinental Championship Match: The Rock (c) (with D’Lo Brown, Kama Mustafa and Mark Henry) def. Ken Shamrock via DQ to retain the Title.
– Dumpster Match for the WWF Tag Team Championship: Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie def. The New Age Outlaws (Billy Gunn and Road Dogg) (c) to win the Titles.
– The Undertaker def. Kane (with Paul Bearer)
– WWF Championship Match with Mike Tyson as Special Outside Enforcer: Stone Cold Steve Austin def. Shawn Michaels (c) to win the Title.
You can watch the highlights from this event in just 60 seconds below:
• Reason Behind WWE Changing The United States Title Match At WrestleMania 34
As seen on this week’s episode of SmackDown Live, Rusev was added to the United States Championship match at WrestleMania 34, thus making it a Fatal 4 Way. This happened after Rusev pinned US Champion Randy Orton in a tag team match.
According to DirtySheets.Net, Rusev was added to this match because WWE had three Triple Threat Title matches at WrestleMania 34 (Intercontinental Title, US Title & SmackDown Tag Team Titles matches all being Triple Threat matches), so WWE officials decided to change it and make it a Fatal 4 Way.
Dirty Sheets also noted that WWE officials considered Rusev, Dolph Ziggler & Baron Corbin for the fourth spot in the match and Rusev ended up being selected because of his strong merchandise sales.
Prior to this change, Rusev was a favorite to win the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.
