King of the Ring (1995)

King of the Ring
King of the Ring
Promotion	World Wrestling Federation
Date	June 25, 1995
City	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Venue	CoreStates Spectrum
Attendance	16,590
Buy rate	150,000
Tagline(s)	Guts & Glory
Pay-per-view chronology
← Previous; In Your House 1	Next →; In Your House 2
King of the Ring event chronology
← Previous; 1994	Next →; 1996
King of the Ring tournament chronology
← Previous; 1994	Next →; 1996

The 1995 King of the Ring was the third annual

event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) that featured the ninth King of the Ring tournament. It took place on June 25, 1995, at the CoreStates Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

. This pay-per-view is somewhat notorious among WWE fans as it is considered one of the worst ever pay-per-views produced by the company.

The

Tatanka and Sycho Sid. Diesel won the match by pinning Tatanka. The main matches on the undercard were Bret Hart versus Jerry Lawler in a "Kiss My Foot" match and the King of the Ring final, which was won by Mabel, who defeated Savio Vega

.

In a departure from regular protocol, the Savio Vega vs IRS match originally on Sunday Night Slam where the winner was added to the 8 man tournament, is included on the WWE Network feed of this show.^[3]

Production

Background

World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) since 1993.^[4] The PPV featured the King of the Ring tournament, a single-elimination tournament that was established in 1985 and held annually until 1991, with the exception of 1990; these early tournaments were held as special non-televised house shows. The winner of the tournament was crowned "King of the Ring."^[5] Unlike the non-televised events, the PPV did not feature all of the tournament's matches. Instead, several of the qualifying matches preceded the event with the final few matches then taking place at the pay-per-view. There were also other matches that took place at the event as it was a traditional three-hour pay-per-view. Considered as one of the WWF's "Big Five" PPVs, along with the Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, the company's five biggest shows of the year,^[6] the 1995 event was the third King of the Ring PPV and ninth tournament overall. It was held on June 25, 1995 at the CoreStates Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.^[1]^[7]^[8]

Storylines

The main storyline going into the pay-per-view was the

legitimate rib injury suffered at a House show on June 9 in a ladder match against Jeff Jarrett meaning he could no longer compete in the tournament. As a result, the final Quarter-Final place was decided moments before the pay-per-view aired.^[1]

As well as the annual King of the Ring tournament heading into the event, there were two other major

legitimate injury received from Sid on the April 3 edition of Raw.^[14] Michaels defeated King Kong Bundy, who had DiBiase in his corner throughout the contest. After the contest, Bigelow and Diesel came out to congratulate Michaels on the victory.^[11] During this feud, Diesel suffered a legitimate elbow injury, but was able to compete at King of the Ring. To explain the injury, footage was shown on the May 29 edition of Raw of Sid performing a Chokeslam and Powerbomb onto Diesel at In Your House 1.^[12] Because of Diesel's injury, this storyline never got any further buildup until the actual pay-per-view.^[1]

The other main feud heading into King of the Ring was between Jerry Lawler and Bret Hart, which began two years earlier at the 1993 King of the Ring. At the previous pay-per-view, In Your House 1, Lawler defeated Hart after outside interference from Hakushi and his manager Shinja. On the May 22 edition of Raw, Hart confronted Lawler at the announce table and demanded a rematch. Lawler accepted and added in a stipulation that the loser must kiss the winner's feet. To prepare for this, Lawler spent the next few weeks walking around stables barefoot in horse manure and not washing his feet at all until after he beats Hart. On the June 10 edition of Superstars, Lawler defeated Aldo Montoya and then forced him to kiss his foot.

Reception

The event has received universally negative reviews from critics.

In 2015, Kevin Pantoja of 411Mania gave the event a rating of 1.0 [Extremely Horrendous], stating, "In the running for the worst WWF Pay-Per-View in history. I’ve yet to review one worse, though I can recall a worse WCW one. Nothing on this show is redeemable. The nonsensical booking, the boring matches and the painfully boring main event all were horrible. Everyone in attendance deserved a refund and to have the show wiped from their memory."^[15]

In 2021, John Canton of TJR Wrestling gave the event a rating of 3/10, stating, "This is one of the worst PPVs in WWE history. Rating it 3 out of 10 might be generous by me. That’s how bad it is. Choosing Mabel to win King of the Ring meant two bad matches from him while the great Shawn Michaels only got to wrestle once. Meanwhile, there was a lot of Savio Vega and I don’t know if people were clamoring for him. The show was also hurt by the lack of a WWE Title match since Diesel only wrestled in a tag team match that really didn’t feel like that big of a deal."^[16]

In 2020, Paul Matthews of Classic Wrestling Review described the event as the "most disappointing [PPV] of all-time," stating, "Was this the worst PPV of all-time? It is certainly near the bottom. I would call it the most disappointing one of all-time. They could have put together a better tournament with their roster. Vince chose to push one of the worst choices imaginable. In order to not sacrifice anyone too big for that experiment, he had to fill the brackets with lesser stars. He shot himself in the foot and this show suffered for it. It’s unfortunate Diesel couldn’t wrestle a one-on-one match in his condition. However, they could have booked a better main event. This PPV is the epitome of the bad booking in ’95."^[17]

Aftermath

Following his victory, Mabel was given a major push as a main eventer, culminating in a match with Diesel at SummerSlam for the WWF Championship, which Mabel lost. Mabel would continue to feud with Diesel after this event, as well as continue his feuds stemming from the KOTR tournament (such as The Undertaker). He also briefly feuded with Yokozuna, with whom he had allied over the course of his feud with Diesel.

After being humiliated by Bret Hart, Jerry Lawler decided to recruit some help in the form of his personal dentist, Isaac Yankem, D.D.S., who would lose to Hart by disqualification at SummerSlam. The feud would finally end when Hart defeated Yankem in a steel cage match on the October 16 edition of Raw, in which Lawler was placed in a shark cage above the ring for trying to interfere.

Because the event was held in

ECW Arena were present. During the "King of the Ring" final between Mabel and Savio Vega, these fans began chanting "ECW, ECW" in protest at what they were watching unfold in the ring. This public support of ECW gained the attention of Vince McMahon, and he later booked small invasion-type angles involving the ECW promotion in 1996 and 1997 with the cooperation of Paul Heyman

.

Results

No.	Results	Stipulations	Times
1^S	Sunday Night Slam

Tournament brackets

The tournament took place between May 14 and June 25, 1995. The tournament brackets were:

Mabel

The Undertaker

Mabel

Kama

Shawn Michaels

Mabel

Savio Vega