Since the number of comments on Scott's rant are getting unwieldy, I'm giving my thoughts on the show here. For those that don't care, please disregard. For those that do....
It's funny, last year for Mania I spent like an hour typing up a WAAYYY too wordy comment on one of the threads, that was basically column length. Then just before I was done with it, I got up to hit the bathroom & when I came back, somehow my daughter who was 1 and a half at the time managed to delete the whole thing. Probably for the best. I had a friend in Miami who was there for this show, according to him different sections were popping for different things, and they were only uniformly excited for Rock/Cena.
Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus was just a complete misfire, of course. Even if the logic was to go for that Honky Tonk/Warrior moment, the problem isn't just that people like Bryan, it's that his title reign hasn't been all that long or all that awful. He's had a few clean wins and some of his less clean wins have been more due to luck than his proactive cheating. I don't think this one helped Sheamus as much as they thought it would, either. Bryan looks bad, but not bad like he got his ass handed to him, mostly just bad like he got fooled. Sheamus on the other hand just looked like he stole one. I hope this plays out to a longer feud where Bryan ends up getting the title back because I feel like they wanted now to be the time to run with Sheamus as a top babyface and it just isn't quite where it should be.
Randy Orton vs. Kane pissed me off for how much time they got when compared to the prior match. I wasn't expecting anything too grandly exciting, and I wasn't disappointed, although the chokeslam off the top looked pretty cool. I'm shocked that Orton did the job, cleanly at that. Still, this didn't serve anybody. My friend I was watching with who's a big mark and an even bigger Orton mark said that Orton looks like he's ready to take a year off and get re-focused. We can only hope.
Cody Rhodes vs. Big Show was also a whole lot of nothing. I don't, however, think it's a big a waste for Show to have the IC title. It's basically just been a prop for Cody for the last few months, to the point that it even blended in with his outfits. Big Show will probably at least defend it a few times against the many heels still bouncing around the midcard. So I actually think the upshot might be a good thing. Show should have done something more embarrassing to Cody to really put a point on the whole angle.
The Divas Tag was most definitely a Divas tag. I was surprised how much Maria Meowmix actually got in there & wrestled. I was also fairly certain that stain on the back of her pants was either shit or period blood. I hadn't thought of the makeup having rubbed off.
Undertaker vs. HHH I felt like had a lot of the same effect as their match last year: really well written, well booked story to the match, but Taker just wasn't up to doing more with the actual working. I wanted them to use the Cell more. I'll go as far as to say it's kind of bullshit to sell the match in part on Hell in a Cell and then barely even use it. I know they wouldn't be doing any spots on top of the cell but I at least wanted someone to get bashed through part of the mesh. Also, they should have brought more weapons out to the ring so that it wasn't just HHH reaching for the sledgehammer over and over. All that said, the structure of the match was brilliant, and really unique. There haven't been a lot of matches where the guest referee is so integral to the psychology of the match. Some of the near falls still, even now, got me thinking that maybe they'd really end it. I loved the moment at the end with HHH getting carried out, and if all three guys never appeared in a wrestling ring again, it'd be a great visual for their careers to end on. That said, now that we've got the big round 20-0, Taker either needs to never wrestle again and let that be his legacy, or he needs to put someone over to end the Streak next year. No more adding to the Streak, though. On balance I'd say I enjoyed this one, but I don't think it was transcendent.
Team Johnny vs. Team Teddy, I don't really get the hate for. I thought if they had tried to do any more than they did, it would have been too much and the match would have been a mess. I loved the moment where Miz deflected the Rough Ryder onto Dolph, like he was saying "fuck that, you take it". The finish with Eve, however, was pretty stupid and didn't need to be done. There is literally nothing Zack can do to come out of that without looking like a bitch: he takes her back after she plays him and then when she turns on him again, what does he do? If he gets mad he looks like an asshole woman beater. He blows her off then he just looks like he's trying to put up a front, plus it makes him look bad for queering things for Team Teddy when he supposedly doesn't even care. I just don't get what they think they're doing with his character. Also, Laurinaitis (me & my friends kept calling him Leonidas in our drunken stupor by this point, and we kept imagining how awesome Raw would be if it were run by a Spartan GM) looked like he was raiding Brother Love's closet.
CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho was my favorite match of the night. I love that they knew the only way to compete with the main event brawl style or the hardcore style of the other two mains was to go out & put on a technical clinic. I haven't been too impressed by Jericho's character this time around (it feels like rather than a reinvention, he's just playing his last heel character in his Fat Elvis period) but I loved the little touches where he was yelling about Punk's father. I also love that we've seen him bust out the old school Liontamer twice in a week. I love even more that we've seen Completely Mental Punk twice in a week. He did that once or twice before he got hurt and became a commentator, like when he took out Evan Bourne. It's an awesome element to his character that he can normally be the wiseass, laid back Pipe Bomber but then turn it up to 11 and really decimate someone. I also also love that he's giving the Anaconda Vise its time to shine as a backup finish.
People need to give props to Brodus Clay for having one of his first times ever on a live mic on TV be in front of the biggest crowd he's ever performed for and not choking or flubbing anything. Once they figure out who Brodus's character really is beyond "fat dancer", they'll have something to work with there. The dancing Mommas was a cute Wrestlecrap moment, in a good way.
John Cena vs. The Rock was....wait first I just gotta say: does anything say "Gangsta is dead" moreso than Machine Gun Kelly, who I've heard people try to say is the next Eminem, wearing skinny jeans like he's in a Strokes cover band on the side? Someone needs to get that guy a sandwich, he's built like an Ethiopian dumpster baby. Anyhow, this match was the kind of Main Event Style epic I was expecting. Rock knew how to use acting to cover for the moments when he couldn't keep up, cardio wise. Cena seemed like he was aiming for a "serious" approach, by not hamming it up quite as much on his way to the ring, but in the end his spots just aren't built for it. He shouldn't have done the 5 Knuckle Shuffle at all, let alone used it as though it was a legitimate move to get a near fall with. I was not honestly expecting Rock to take it clean as a sheet and to just have it end like that. I'm not in the "Cena Heel Turn" camp, necessarily, but I have to wonder: if the whole idea is that he can't turn heel because he needs to keep selling merchandise and doing Make A Wish visits, how is jobbing him clean to the movie star going to keep him over enough with the marks to do either of those things? Here's how I saw the build & outcome of this match: Cena was dead serious about hating the Rock for all this time, Rock basically thought of Cena as a joke, and then Rock proved he was right all along. Good if you're a Rock fan, bad if you are gonna be wrestling in WWE next month and not on a movie set somewhere. I was also a little disappointed at the lack of a Brock appearance but I'll hold judgement until we see what happens on Raw tonight.
So there you have it. Overall it was a good Wrestlemana and I felt like it lived up to the hype. They really shocked me with a lot of the outcomes, althought not always in a good way. In the end, it will be the kind of Wrestlemania people will still be talking about in a few years, and that's the best mark of success a Mania can have. So as always, don't take my word for it, go to WWE.com and...oh...nevermind.
It's funny, last year for Mania I spent like an hour typing up a WAAYYY too wordy comment on one of the threads, that was basically column length. Then just before I was done with it, I got up to hit the bathroom & when I came back, somehow my daughter who was 1 and a half at the time managed to delete the whole thing. Probably for the best. I had a friend in Miami who was there for this show, according to him different sections were popping for different things, and they were only uniformly excited for Rock/Cena.
Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus was just a complete misfire, of course. Even if the logic was to go for that Honky Tonk/Warrior moment, the problem isn't just that people like Bryan, it's that his title reign hasn't been all that long or all that awful. He's had a few clean wins and some of his less clean wins have been more due to luck than his proactive cheating. I don't think this one helped Sheamus as much as they thought it would, either. Bryan looks bad, but not bad like he got his ass handed to him, mostly just bad like he got fooled. Sheamus on the other hand just looked like he stole one. I hope this plays out to a longer feud where Bryan ends up getting the title back because I feel like they wanted now to be the time to run with Sheamus as a top babyface and it just isn't quite where it should be.
Randy Orton vs. Kane pissed me off for how much time they got when compared to the prior match. I wasn't expecting anything too grandly exciting, and I wasn't disappointed, although the chokeslam off the top looked pretty cool. I'm shocked that Orton did the job, cleanly at that. Still, this didn't serve anybody. My friend I was watching with who's a big mark and an even bigger Orton mark said that Orton looks like he's ready to take a year off and get re-focused. We can only hope.
Cody Rhodes vs. Big Show was also a whole lot of nothing. I don't, however, think it's a big a waste for Show to have the IC title. It's basically just been a prop for Cody for the last few months, to the point that it even blended in with his outfits. Big Show will probably at least defend it a few times against the many heels still bouncing around the midcard. So I actually think the upshot might be a good thing. Show should have done something more embarrassing to Cody to really put a point on the whole angle.
The Divas Tag was most definitely a Divas tag. I was surprised how much Maria Meowmix actually got in there & wrestled. I was also fairly certain that stain on the back of her pants was either shit or period blood. I hadn't thought of the makeup having rubbed off.
Undertaker vs. HHH I felt like had a lot of the same effect as their match last year: really well written, well booked story to the match, but Taker just wasn't up to doing more with the actual working. I wanted them to use the Cell more. I'll go as far as to say it's kind of bullshit to sell the match in part on Hell in a Cell and then barely even use it. I know they wouldn't be doing any spots on top of the cell but I at least wanted someone to get bashed through part of the mesh. Also, they should have brought more weapons out to the ring so that it wasn't just HHH reaching for the sledgehammer over and over. All that said, the structure of the match was brilliant, and really unique. There haven't been a lot of matches where the guest referee is so integral to the psychology of the match. Some of the near falls still, even now, got me thinking that maybe they'd really end it. I loved the moment at the end with HHH getting carried out, and if all three guys never appeared in a wrestling ring again, it'd be a great visual for their careers to end on. That said, now that we've got the big round 20-0, Taker either needs to never wrestle again and let that be his legacy, or he needs to put someone over to end the Streak next year. No more adding to the Streak, though. On balance I'd say I enjoyed this one, but I don't think it was transcendent.
Team Johnny vs. Team Teddy, I don't really get the hate for. I thought if they had tried to do any more than they did, it would have been too much and the match would have been a mess. I loved the moment where Miz deflected the Rough Ryder onto Dolph, like he was saying "fuck that, you take it". The finish with Eve, however, was pretty stupid and didn't need to be done. There is literally nothing Zack can do to come out of that without looking like a bitch: he takes her back after she plays him and then when she turns on him again, what does he do? If he gets mad he looks like an asshole woman beater. He blows her off then he just looks like he's trying to put up a front, plus it makes him look bad for queering things for Team Teddy when he supposedly doesn't even care. I just don't get what they think they're doing with his character. Also, Laurinaitis (me & my friends kept calling him Leonidas in our drunken stupor by this point, and we kept imagining how awesome Raw would be if it were run by a Spartan GM) looked like he was raiding Brother Love's closet.
CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho was my favorite match of the night. I love that they knew the only way to compete with the main event brawl style or the hardcore style of the other two mains was to go out & put on a technical clinic. I haven't been too impressed by Jericho's character this time around (it feels like rather than a reinvention, he's just playing his last heel character in his Fat Elvis period) but I loved the little touches where he was yelling about Punk's father. I also love that we've seen him bust out the old school Liontamer twice in a week. I love even more that we've seen Completely Mental Punk twice in a week. He did that once or twice before he got hurt and became a commentator, like when he took out Evan Bourne. It's an awesome element to his character that he can normally be the wiseass, laid back Pipe Bomber but then turn it up to 11 and really decimate someone. I also also love that he's giving the Anaconda Vise its time to shine as a backup finish.
People need to give props to Brodus Clay for having one of his first times ever on a live mic on TV be in front of the biggest crowd he's ever performed for and not choking or flubbing anything. Once they figure out who Brodus's character really is beyond "fat dancer", they'll have something to work with there. The dancing Mommas was a cute Wrestlecrap moment, in a good way.
John Cena vs. The Rock was....wait first I just gotta say: does anything say "Gangsta is dead" moreso than Machine Gun Kelly, who I've heard people try to say is the next Eminem, wearing skinny jeans like he's in a Strokes cover band on the side? Someone needs to get that guy a sandwich, he's built like an Ethiopian dumpster baby. Anyhow, this match was the kind of Main Event Style epic I was expecting. Rock knew how to use acting to cover for the moments when he couldn't keep up, cardio wise. Cena seemed like he was aiming for a "serious" approach, by not hamming it up quite as much on his way to the ring, but in the end his spots just aren't built for it. He shouldn't have done the 5 Knuckle Shuffle at all, let alone used it as though it was a legitimate move to get a near fall with. I was not honestly expecting Rock to take it clean as a sheet and to just have it end like that. I'm not in the "Cena Heel Turn" camp, necessarily, but I have to wonder: if the whole idea is that he can't turn heel because he needs to keep selling merchandise and doing Make A Wish visits, how is jobbing him clean to the movie star going to keep him over enough with the marks to do either of those things? Here's how I saw the build & outcome of this match: Cena was dead serious about hating the Rock for all this time, Rock basically thought of Cena as a joke, and then Rock proved he was right all along. Good if you're a Rock fan, bad if you are gonna be wrestling in WWE next month and not on a movie set somewhere. I was also a little disappointed at the lack of a Brock appearance but I'll hold judgement until we see what happens on Raw tonight.
So there you have it. Overall it was a good Wrestlemana and I felt like it lived up to the hype. They really shocked me with a lot of the outcomes, althought not always in a good way. In the end, it will be the kind of Wrestlemania people will still be talking about in a few years, and that's the best mark of success a Mania can have. So as always, don't take my word for it, go to WWE.com and...oh...nevermind.
Yeah, I don't care what happens after tonight with Cena. They rarely make these matches mean anything, so it's silly to act like Cena is ruined. All I know is that I love The Rock and seeing him win, even if it was a fake match, was a thrill. I can't explain why I cared so much, but I did.
ReplyDeleteI'd say I am pretty much in line with all of your sentiments. Definitely not a home-run show, but I enjoyed it overall, it was a good PPV with very high expectations.
ReplyDeletehttp://bluebarcage.blogspot.com/2012/04/wrestlemanias-useless-facts.html
ReplyDeleteFeel free to impress your friends with these tidbits.
But I agree with the main sentiment; it was a good show from a wrestling standpoint, a shitty one from a booking standpoint, and disappointing for the high expectations.
I think the office needs a shakeup, Vince/Dunn have seen better days.
Random Thought #1: I'd love to see a skit where John Cena goes to see one of those "Make a Wish" kids and they tell him that he let them down because he lost to the Rock.
ReplyDeleteRandom Thought #2: Punk should come up with a new move and call it the "Pipe Bomb".
I was delighted that Rock got a clean, indisputable win, regardless of what it means for Cena, Lesnar or any impending heel turn.
ReplyDeleteConsidering this is the guy who went year after year doing jobs in the main events at Mania from '99-'01 despite being one of the biggest stars, allowed himself to get squashed at points in order to make stars out of people like Lesnar, and even in brief stints in '03 tried to put guys like Hurricane over, it's about time he had a big WM moment with some glory at the end of the show.
They may have tossed away a chance to do something potentially amazing and crazy with Lesnar or Cena, but I'm glad the show finished on a high note for an all time great who until yesterday hadn't enjoyed the big WM moment that others like Taker, HBK, Bret, Austin and HHH have.
Cena losing to the Rock doesn't hurt him at all. I wish people would get off that nonsense. It didn't hurt Chris Jericho to get knocked out by Mickey Rourke, and it didn't hurt Big Show to lose to Floyd Mayweather, so why would it hurt John Cena to lose to the Rock?
ReplyDeleteNeither Show nor Jericho were the supposed biggest babyface in the company after those Wrestlemanias. Cena losing to Rock basically says that everyone currently in the WWE is worse than the best of the Attitude Era, even 10 years after their retirement. While most people already know that to be true, it makes for a weird business strategy.
ReplyDeleteAlthough if I sounded too negative about that outcome in my article, I think that actually opens an interesting door for them to take Cena's character in, and it allows people like Punk and others to help fill the void now that Cena might not be seen as top dog anymore.
Wait, what? Now Cena should have gone over so more kids want him for Make a Wish?
ReplyDeleteI dunno, the hoops some people are jumping through to claim Cena is ruined for life because he lost clean for the first time in...ummm...did he lose clean to HHH one time back in 07 or 08 maybe?, is a little crazy. Cena hasn't been more interesting to me since the early days of his rapper gimmick, when it was just starting.
"John, I asked to meet you before Wrestlemania. Now that you lost to The Rock I wish I never had, because apparently I only liked you when you were unstoppable and never lost cleanly."
ReplyDeleteRead what I said above. Or below, if you're one of those weirdos who doesn't change the posts to "Oldest First".
ReplyDeleteMaybe they should start calling his elbow drop the pipe bomb.
ReplyDeleteBad analogy on my part.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Rock winning opened more doors for Cena character wise, especially after the whole spiel about "I need to win this" and "I'm doing this for the boys in the back".
Good post, Ryan.
ReplyDeleteI think you crystallized what I felt about the Sheamus/Bryan match. Not only were we robbed of a Danielson classic, but the fluke win doesn't help Sheamus or the title. Maybe I'm too much the old-ROH-fanboy type, but it just seems that when you have a title on a guy like Danielson, you have a golden opportunity for him to go out making the new title holder look like a million dollars.
I was thoroughly put off by both the Orton/Kane and the Divas tag matches.
I thought the HHH/Taker match worked out really well and HBK balanced out Taker's limitations. I totally don't believe this is the last we've seen of HHH wrestling, though.
I loved the Rock/Cena match. Of course, I bought the PPV because I'm a Rock mark. So, take that for what it's worth.
Richards/Elgin > WM28
ReplyDeletei know people are sick of hearing that, so i thought i would say it again..
Sweet. I heard there was a Canadian Football League playoff game that was much more exciting than the Superbowl. Guess what, I'm still watching the Superbowl.
ReplyDeleteSpecial Japanese Version Bonus Track Opinion for Mania: Undertaker's robe was ten shades of awesome. Those spikes were killing it. Equally awesome were Bryan's new long robe and Jericho's multi-colored LED jacket. Not so much awesome was Cody Rhodes wearing what appeared to be Jeff Jarrett's hand me downs, and Cena's new Hornswaggle-green shirt.
ReplyDeleteTrying to make applesauce out of oranges, I see.. I get it though, the Superbowl is full of all those wacky commercials that I'm sure you love.. Complete with commentary for the casual audience.. Enjoy..
ReplyDeleteDear god Ryan Murphy is the smarkiest douche ever.
ReplyDeleteGo suck a dick, Brian Posehn.
ReplyDeleteDon't tell me what to do, slightly fatter Kevin Smith!
ReplyDeletebecause this was one of the few instances where the promotion made it MATTER who wins and who loses.
ReplyDeleteSuper Bowl commercials as a thing are very 1997. The Super Bowl itself, however, is the epitome of pop-cultural cache.
ReplyDeleteI'm envisioning the South Park where Stan became a youth hockey coach and one of the kids on the team had cancer, and he eventually cajoled Stan to promise to win the last game, which turned out to somehow be against the Red Wings and went about as expected.
ReplyDeleteHe lost basically cleanly to CM Punk. Before that, Batista.
ReplyDelete