Pip, my brother and I got together and carried on our tradition of watching WrestleMania together. This was the 25th anniversary of the show so were expecting big things and a great show. What we got (with a couple of exceptions) was neither. Overall I’d have to say it was a pretty bad show with just a couple of high spots – certainly not what we were expecting from the biggest show of the year… and the 25th anniversary at that. I’ll take it one step further and say that the only thing that made this one watchable was that Pip and I were hanging out and drinking heavily (Beeramid 2009 pics here).
Carlito & Primo vs. John Morrison & The Miz – no fucking idea why this wasn’t shown. I’m not a huge fan of tag team wrestling but these guys are pretty solid in the ring and it would have been nice to see more of the roster on the 25th WrestleMania show. This is especially true when we got what we did (keep reading).
Money In The Bank – good opener but I don’t think it should have been the opener. This match included CM Punk, Mark Henry, MVP, Finlay, Shelton Benjamin, Kofi Kingston, Christian Cage and Kane. REALLY sloppy but I suppose I can forgive it cause there’s just so much going on. Pretty sure Shelton took a header and no one caught him. Ouch.
Kid Rock Performance – OK… I love his music but what… the… fuck! There’s absolutely NO NEED for him to sing 4 songs. This is time that was wasted and should have been spent elsewhere on the show.
Diva Battle Royal – Um… OK. Have a dude win Miss WrestleMania??? As Pip said, that’s the kind of thing that you should do like the 5th or 6th time you have this battle royal… not the first and CERTAINLY not on this show. The announcers didn’t even know who was in the ring. Pathetic. These weren’t announced on the show so in case you’re interested here’s the divas that were included: Santina Marella, Eve Torres, Jillian, Katie Lea, Brie Bella, Nikki Bella, Beth Phoenix, Alicia Fox, Gail Kim, Kelly Kelly, Layla, Maryse, Michelle McCool, Melina, Maria, Natalya, Mickie James, Tiffany, Rosa Mendez, Joy Giovanni, Molly Holly, Jackie Gayda, Sunny, Torrie Wilson and Victoria.
Chris Jerico vs. Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka & Ricky Steamboat (with Ric Flair) – There’s dust that’s younger than Snuka and his one man-boob sticking out was just terrible. I can’t remember Piper EVER doing a dropkick and his one-legged variation reminded me why. Steamboat was awesome… simply amazing. We made a comment that he could get in there today and win the IC title. It was so great to see a “legend” that still has it. Thank you Ricky Steamboat! The Wrestler was a great movie but the whole Rourke tie-in was gay on the PPV. We totally saw it coming and his doing with 1 punch what the other guys couldn’t do three on one? Come on. WWE fans deserve better than this.
Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy – I actually put the boys to bed during this and heard that I didn’t miss much. The final twist of fate was pretty cool through from what I saw on the replay.
JBL/Rey Misterio – huh??? JBL’s been talking for weeks about how he’s going to do something “special” at WrestleMania. So he goes out, proceeds to lose the Intercontinental title in 21 seconds and then quit? Whatever. JBL deserves better than this.
Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels – WOW!!! Fucking wow. This right here made it worth the $55 that I spent on the show. Absolutely unbelievable. This match just got itself a spot in my “Top 10 WrestleMania matches” list. SO glad that they kept the streak intact. In fact I’ll be super fucking bitter if they ever end it. Mean Mark Calloway deserves to retire with it.
Edge vs. The Big Show vs. John Cena – I thought for sure that Edge or Show was going to take it. I was pleasantly surprised that Cena took it down. I really like him as champ rather than playing the role of chasing the title.
HHH vs. Randy Orton – OK… what the hell happened here? They were running WAY late on the show and someone must have told them to go home right then. Weak ending to a pretty poor match and it was even worse that this was the main event of the show. I can only assume (based on this debacle) that this feud isn’t over.
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
This felt like any other show. Aside from the “legends” match and the piss poor HOF stuff there was nothing special about this “25th anniversary edition. How can you NOT have Hogan, Warrior, Hart, Savage, etc. on this show? I know that there’s a TON of bad blood there but come on!
How could we have this show without the McMahons? This just seemed pretty poorly thought out. I’d definitely give the writing crew a bad grade here.
Anyone watch the HOF on USA Saturday night? 20 minutes of Steamboat, 5 minutes of “the others” and the rest of the show for Austin. Stone Cold is OBVIOUSLY the biggest player there but you’ve just GOT to include some more people in your coverage.
And why… in the hell… was Koko inducted? If you watch the montage they showed it goes like this:
Koko beating a jobber
Koko beating a jobber
Koko as part of a 3 man tag match
Koko beating a jobber
Oh, Koko lost that match
Koko beating a jobber
Koko beating a jobber
What the hell… I’d just like to announce right here that I’ll be inducted next year as the WWE’s number 1 fan. Apparently all it takes is longevity.
Ugh…
* chewie runs away and waits for the DVD to come out which he KNOWS he’ll have to buy *
I heard Wrestlemania was pretty crap, but only from the stance that it should have been an awesome 25th anniversary celebration. I haven’t watched wrestling since before Benoit went cuckoo, but I check in every once in awhile.
We did record a wrestling special for the Geek Savants, however!
Absolutely cannot wait to hear what the Savants have to say about the world of pro wrestling!
Just for the record… I got the DVD of this show this weekend. Haven’t cracked it open yet, but in order to keep my collection complete it had to be done.