Thoughts on WrestleMania.

I don’t really have some big huge blog post planned. Mainly because it’s 12:30am and today has been long and exhausting. I won’t give one big review since Holt will probably do that over at SC when he gets back, but instead, I’ll go bullet point style and just talk about some highlights.

• Edge vs. Alberto Del Rio was the first match? Holy hell, what a way to start WrestleMania 27. Edge retained in a shocker (I was like 110% sure they’d give the strap to Del Rio, as he’s been getting a huge push lately). I love Edge, and I feel like a lot of the internet community thinks his act is old. Maybe it’s because I’ve been away from wrestling for so long that he’s still fresh to me, but I’d be pushing him as one of my main guys. Being on SmackDown kind of feels like it’s the same as Junior Varsity. Put Edge back on Raw, have him feud with someone like CM Punk for the WWE Title, and we’ll be good to go.

• Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan for the US Title got bumped to a Dark Match before the show started. Then it changed to a lumberjack battle royal with no title on the line. Um… what? How did you bump this, and not the shitty Corre 8 man tag match that lasted 90 seconds? They are absolutely misusing Sheamus.

• Cody Rhodes actually has a pretty decent gimmick right now. He’s obsessed with his now “grotesque” face, and he sort of has this Mankind vibe to him. Holt brought this up, and I’m totally plagiarizing him, but it’s ok since we’re all BFFs anyway. Rhodes should be in line for a nice upper-mid card push. Perhaps for the IC Title? This feud with Rey isn’t great. It doesn’t suck, but it’s not really all that special.

• Speaking of Rhodes, it’s always weird when a wrestler wears the trunks with no knee pads. Just trunks and boots. It looks like he’s out picking up the newspaper in his slippers and underwear. Dude, get some knee pads or get long pants.

• CM Punk vs. Randy Orton turned out to be one of the better matches of the night (probably the 2nd best match all night, to be honest). How CM Punk is not headlining every show from here on out is a mystery to me. He is a genius on the mic, knows how to work the crowd, and his style is completely unique to the WWE. Orton caught Punk in a mid-air RKO that made me yell out “HOLY SHIT” as it happened. Orton is a scary, scary individual. When they hold the draft, I kind of want Orton on SmackDown so he can just own everyone and be the World Heavyweight Champion over there.

• Jerry “The King” Lawler vs. Michael Cole was about as awful as you’d expect. It went on way too long, and the decision by the Anonymous Raw GM to reverse the decision was dumb. They hinted at revealing who it was more than once, but didn’t. This “Anonymous GM” angle hasn’t been properly thought out, and it feels like they used it because they couldn’t think of anything else. Hey, at least Stone Cold was there to stun everyone. Not sure why Booker T got stunned, but hey, why not?

• Hearing JR and King back together to announce at WrestleMania makes 13 year old me absolutely ecstatic. Love Jim Ross.

• Snooki got booed hardcore. Then she hit some wildly athletic back handspring elbow and the Georgia Dome erupted in a universal, “Um… what? How… ?” followed by a confused applause for Trish Stratus’ giant boobs. Side note: John Morrison’s gimmick sucks, and they need a new one for him. He is being terribly misused. Same goes for Dolph Ziggler.

• Triple H vs. the Undertaker was legitimately one of the best matches I’ve ever seen. I claimed it was the best right after I saw it, but I was also on the tail end of a 42 ounce Amp energy drink. I was pretty excited. It’s still up there for me in terms of “Holy shit, did this really happen?” For those wondering, a normal submission finisher is applied for roughly 15-20 seconds before someone submits. In a big match, like a title match or a PPV match, it can go for 30-45 seconds. In historic PPV matches at WrestleMania, it can go on for over a minute. Undertaker had HHH in the Hell’s Gate submission hold for 1:49 seconds before he tapped out. That’s an eternity.

• Match quasi-recap: Triple H hits Undertaker with THREE Pedigrees. THREE. ‘Taker kicks out of all three. Then HHH says “fuck it” and hits ‘Taker with the Tombstone. ‘TAKER KICKS OUT! Triple H retreats to the other side of the ring with a look of sheer terror on his face like, “what the hell do I have to do…” Triple H kicks out of a choke slam, followed by the Last Ride and a Tombstone back to back. ‘Taker is pissed and wondering what HE has to do. After ‘Taker gets absolutely owned with a steel chair (this is what probably legit hurt him, as I’ve never seen ‘Taker this groggy and falling, but old age certainly doesn’t help, either), HHH goes and grabs a sledgehammer. Somehow, ‘Taker springs up and wraps his legs around Triple H’s throat and locks in Hell’s Gate. Triple H looks like he’s going to pass out. He grabs the sledgehammer with his last ounce of strength, hoping to break the hold. He can’t hold it anymore, drops the sledgehammer, and finally taps out on ‘Takers’ thigh. The match went over 30 minutes, and absolutely stole the show.

• Taker looked legit hurt, and they had to drive him out on a cart. Nice move, WWE. The LayCool/Ziggler match was next. Michelle McCool (the “Cool” part of ‘LayCool’) is married to Undertaker in real life. So, she’s supposed to go work a match after seeing her husband carted past her in the back, straight to the emergency room? Yikes.

• John Cena is absolutely terrible. What the hell is with bringing out a 50 person all black choir? Then a prayer from DMX. Then John Cena’s entrance music. I was legitimately baffled. I can usually figure out even the lamest attempts to win a crowd, but this? Um, what the hell? Was he playing to the large portion of black people that live in Atlanta? I guess…

• The Miz, however, had one of the best promos I’ve seen in years. He’s watching multiple monitors in what looks like a control room, hitting buttons. It’s videos of past champions (Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Stone Cold, Rock, Ric Flair) and then it’s intertwined with his time on The Real World and how he created “The Miz” alter ego. Then it shows clips of him training on WWE’s reality show Tough Enough. Then BOOM, cue “Hate Me Now” by Nas and P. Diddy. Cut to audio of Miz saying “I’d rather you all hate me for what I am, than love me for something I’m not.” The words HATE ME NOW up on the monitors. Absolutely brilliant. Push Miz as a big time heel that doesn’t need the approval of everyone, and have him start to legit win matches instead of interference or cheating. They owned his past on MTV, and he basically said, “So fucking what? You don’t like me? I’m the WWE Champion, bitch. You don’t have to like me.” I loved every single second of this promo, and they absolutely need to pay Nas whatever he wants for the rights to that song so Miz can come out to it from now on.

• The WWE Title match ends in a double count out. Um… yeah. Way to handle your main event, guys. Then Rock comes out and says “start the match again, no DQ, no count outs” blah blah blah. Ten seconds later, he nails Cena with a Rock Bottom. Miz retains.

• The worst part about the main event is you made your Champion, someone you should be aggressively pushing, look like a giant pussy. He was an afterthought the entire time, as the WWE Title match was the backdrop for a budding feud between The Rock and John Cena. So, um… the guy who holds your biggest and best title is an afterthought in the main event of your biggest PPV of the year? Way to go, WWE. Way to go.

• Overall, WrestleMania was pretty good, but I was a little disappointed. It didn’t suck, because I would have paid $65 for ‘Taker/HHH alone, but the dropping of the US Title match and their blatant mishandling of their own champion is cause for concern. Monday Night Raw should certainly be interesting.

EDIT: Whoops. I originally said I didn’t have time for a big blog post. Um, 1500 words later, I guess I was wrong.