Background King of the Ring was a
pay-per-view (PPV) event held annually in June by the
World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) since 1993. The PPV featured the
King of the Ring tournament, a
single-elimination tournament that was established in 1985, and held annually until 1991, except for 1990; these early tournaments were held as special non-televised
house shows. The winner of the tournament was crowned "King of the Ring." 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. Other matches 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, 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.
Storylines The main storyline going into the pay-per-view was the
King of the Ring tournament itself. The first qualifying match took place at
In Your House 1 where
Mabel squashed Adam Bomb in the first round. The next First Round match took place on the May 15 edition of
Raw, where
Bob Holly defeated
Mantaur to proceed to the Quarter-Finals.
Razor Ramon proceeded to the Quarter-Finals on the May 20 edition of
Superstars of Wrestling defeating
Jacob Blu. The next First-Round match took place on
Superstars of Wrestling on May 27, where
Kama defeated
Duke Droese via
Pinfall. Unlike Jarrett, The Roadie managed to advance to the Quarter-Finals, defeating
Doink the Clown on the June 3 edition of
Superstars of Wrestling because of a distraction from Jarrett at ringside. Even though all of the places for the Quarter-Finals were now filled, Razor Ramon suffered a
legitimate rib injury 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. 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. During this feud, Diesel suffered a legitimate
elbow injury but was able to compete at King of the Ring. To explain the injury, the footage was shown on the May 29 edition of
Raw of Sid performing a
Chokeslam and
Powerbomb onto Diesel at
In Your House 1. Because of Diesel's injury, this storyline never got any further buildup until the actual pay-per-view. 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 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==