Our Celebration of Professional Wrestling continues!

I always enjoy watching wrestling with a good, chatty crowd.  When I saw this Wrestlemania, the running commentary was pretty enjoyable. The show was a little less so; with the exception of a few matches the show felt a little “meh” – nothing downright terrible,  just not terribly exciting. Won’t go into a lot of detail on each match, just some thoughts on each.

1) Money in the Bank Ladder Match
This was Kane and Mark Henry vs 6 guys who could actually climb a ladder. It was the usual MitB contrived spot fest, with the ladders being set up for big moves off them (some successfully, some not so much). Actually, a good portion of the match was spent outside as one guy after another springboarded onto an increasingly larger pile of guys on the floor. Even Hornswaggle somehow managed to topple six 250+ pound guys, completely negating about a dozen different laws of physics. We were also sure Shelton Benjamin broke his neck with a senton off a 15 foot ladder, and thereafter named him Zombie-Benjamin for the rest of the match when he miraculously reappeared. CM Punk repeated as the winner though Benjamin, Kofi Kingston and Christian made much more impressive showings.

2) 25-Diva Miss Wrestlemania Battle Royal
Kid Rock played a medley of his songs that I don’t care about anymore, which somehow ended up being the intro for all 25 Divas as they all hit the ring at once. It’s too bad there were no formal introductions, as some former Divas made one night only returns like Molly Holly, Sunny, and Jackie Gayda. Even the newly re-signed Gail Kim didn’t get much of a mention… just a few offhanded comments that they were there. So imagine you were Joe Blow wrestling fan, watching from the cheap seats – hell, even front row… you had a dozen identical blondes mixed with a dozen identical brunettes and Santino. Of course I mean Santino’s “twin” “sister”, “Santina”. Who has the identical size and build as Santino, right down to the tattoos. Of course, the announcers didn’t even noticed shim until Santina won the match. Right. Post-match dancing ensues. I found it funny; my cohorts seemed less than amused.

3) JBL vs Rey Mysterio
Rey has a history of wearing a superhero themed outfit at Wrestlemania, this year sporting a Joker costume. JBL comes out promising the most dominant victory in Wrestlemania history and proceeds to get beat in about 9 seconds. Flabbergasted and embarrassed, JBL quits on the spot. Not sure where this was going, I was hoping back to a commentating spot on Smackdown.

4) Chris Jericho vs Roddy Piper/Jimmy Snuka/Ricky Steamboat w/Ric Flair
This match was almost a complete waste of time as Jericho dispatched Snuka and Piper with relative ease, but it was 56 year old Ricky Steamboat that really brought it and sold the match to the crowd who were quickly dying. Steamboat brought out his classic armdrags, karate chops, flying bodypress and even “skinned the cat” (pulling himself back in the ring over the top rope from the outside) though the camera missed it. The crowd ate it up. It was great stuff, he and Jericho clicked well and made me pine for a one on one rematch at Backlash. Jericho got the surprisingly hard fought win with the Codebreaker, and then proceeded to beat up Flair and then berated Mickey Rourke who was sitting at ringside with Frank Shamrock. Jericho called him into the ring to either apologize or fight him and they got into boxing-type exchange where Rourke knocked Jericho on his ass with a left hook. Meh – typical celebrity stuff at Mania I guess.

5) Matt Hardy vs Jeff Hardy
So this is the match that should have elevated Christian to Main Event status, but they gave the push to Matt Hardy instead to seemingly pull one over on the “Smart” fans. Oh well. Surprisingly, the Hardy brothers don’t have a whole lot of ring chemistry fighting against each other. This also was an “Extreme Rules” match, so it mostly felt like a series of spots rather than a real grudge match. Best spot of the match had Jeff placing Matt prone on a table on the floor, with a chair laid on his chest. Then he stacked a table on top of that table, then splashed through the works from the top rope. Took forever to set up, but looked good. Ladders and such made an appearance, but after the Money in the Bank earlier, it was just more of the same rather than something to get excited about. Matt got the surprise win with a Twist of Fate on Jeff while his head was lodged in a folding chair. Nice finish in an otherwise so-so match..

6) Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels
Now here is the only real dream match on the card, and it really delivered. Just an awesome, well paced, old school matchup. First half of the match had some great back and forth action – both guys playing a conservative game at first, both escaping several submission hold attempts. Crowd was very much split between both guys. When the action spilled to the floor, things changed directions. Taker went for his flying plancha over the top rope to the floor, Shawn pulled a cameraman in the way and Taker not only mostly missed the guy but basically landed on his head on the floor. We thought we had our second broken neck of the evening. What then changed was that HBK started playing the heel a bit, demanding that the ref count Taker out, the crowd booing him from then on. Taker slowly made it back in at the nine count. Of course, Taker is already a zombie so it wasn’t that much different than normal. Then we get the dueling finishers sequence, crowd going crazy for it. The look on Taker’s face after Shawn kicked out of a tombstone was priceless. Another superkick got two; Shawn risks it all and goes for a top rope moonsault, landing right into another tombstone for the win for Undertaker. Great, great match, well worth a rewatch. Taker showed he could still go, given the right opponent. Michaels continued to be the best worker in the company, despite his growing age.

7) World Heavyweight Title – Edge (Champion) vs Big Show vs John Cena
Cenea made his entrance with about 25 Cena impersonators, making us wonder if Cena was the Zombie after all, and infected everyone backstage. Or maybe a GNAP Smurf. The guys pulled off a decent triple threat match, even managed to bring the crowd back in a bit after being worn out by Taker/HBK. It was pretty standard Triple Threat fare, nothing particularly dramatic. Though Cena did manage to somehow lift both Big Show and Edge on his shoulders at the same time, teasing a double F-U but Edge slipped off. Crazy. Cena got the win by FUing Edge onto Big Show in the end. Nothing seemed to be resolved with the Vicky/Edge/Show love triangle though.

8) WWE Title: HHH (Champion) vs Randy Orton
So this one felt an awful lot like the HHH/Jericho main event of Wrestlemania 18. Meaning that the “real” main event was two matches prior, so not only is the crowd ready to quit for the night but both guys just felt really lethargic in there. Very slow paced despite it being a very hot feud considering how Orton beat up all of the McMahons, Stephanie included (who they’ve revealed is still married to HHH). You’d think the guys would be a bit more fired up. Slow, back and forth stuff, though once the ref was bumped HHH didn’t let go of control of the match, pretty well destroying Orton with pedigrees and sledgehammers for the ho-hum pinfall to retain. Crowd goes indifferent. I don’t know why they didn’t put the strap on Orton to further his monster push, seeing as Cena had already given the crowd the babyface main event victory they need to go home with. And with such a decisive victory over Orton in what felt like a feud blow-off match, I’m not even sure why the feud would need to continue (which it is).

So yeah, Wrestlemania 25 was a bit of a yawner, a lot of the matches felt like TV main events or off one of the lower profile PPVs. But this is Wrestlemania, where it should all be hanging out. It’s too bad as the Houston crowd was really hot when something that was actually exciting was happening. It’s no Mania 2, 4 or 9 in terms of being a total snoozefest but at least it had Taker/HBK and Ricky Steamboat to save it.