WrestleMania XI was the 11th annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It took place on April 2, 1995, at the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut. A total of seven matches were contested at the event. The main event featured former NFL linebacker Lawrence Taylor against Bam Bam Bigelow, a match which came as the result of an argument that took place between the two at the 1995 Royal Rumble. Taylor won the match, which led to Bigelow being kicked out of Ted DiBiase's Million Dollar Corporation. Shawn Michaels faced WWF Champion Diesel in a title match but was unable to win the championship. Jeff Jarrett retained his WWF Intercontinental Championship against Razor Ramon. Owen Hart and his mystery partner, Yokozuna, challenged The Smoking Gunns for the WWF Tag Team Championship and won the title belts. The match between Taylor and Bigelow brought the WWF mainstream press coverage. The reactions to the match were mixed; some people thought that Taylor performed surprisingly well for a non-wrestler. Others thought that the WWF pushing a football player to defeat a wrestler made professional wrestling look bad. Reviews of the event as a whole have also been mixed, and the event has been called both the worst WrestleMania of all time and the event that saved the WWF. Production Background WrestleMania is considered the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF, now WWE) flagship pay-per-view (PPV) event, having first been held in 1985. It has become the longest-running professional wrestling event in history and is held annually between mid-March to mid-April. It was the first of the WWF's original four pay-per-views, which includes Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, which were dubbed the "Big Four", and was considered one of the "Big Five" PPVs, along with King of the Ring. WrestleMania XI was scheduled to be held on April 2, 1995, at the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut. Special Olympian Kathy Huey sang a rendition of "America the Beautiful" during the event, replacing the previously advertised band, Fishbone. Prior to Lawrence Taylor's match against Bam Bam Bigelow, Salt-n-Pepa sang Whatta Man. Several other celebrities also had roles at WrestleMania. Nicholas Turturro, one of the stars of NYPD Blue, conducted interviews and served as a guest ring announcer. Jonathan Taylor Thomas of Home Improvement was a guest timekeeper for the match between Diesel and Shawn Michaels.