The opening pyro is even more impressive outdoors, as we are welcomed by JR.
We open with a Belfast Brawl, to be fought by the ever dastardly JBL and Finlay the fightin’ Irishman. Remember Hornswoggle the leprechaun? Well, earlier in the year it was revealed that he was Mr. McMahon’s illegitimate son. Yeah. And JBL beat up on the little guy. For some reason. Finlay then tried to intercede for his former son, but JBL is just. So. Evil. And in a twist of twists, JBL then revealed that Hornswoggle is actually Finlay’s son! With that nonsense out of the way, a brawl between Finlay and JBL is bound to be awesome and I don’t care about the rest of this bullshit. There are no Disqualifications in a Belfast Brawl and JBL goes to work on Finlay as soon as the Irishman reaches the ring. Foreign objects are introduced and much bashing ensues. Finlay does a suicide dive out of the ring only to be hit with a garbage can lid in midair. He doesn’t land too well, but of course gets right back into things because Finlay really is that tough. JBL throws a garbage can at Hornswoggle just because he is that evil.
JBL wins after a Clothesline From Hell. Evil! Yeah, that was as good an opening match as we’ve had in a while. Was the premise of this silly and do I wish that these two had a feud that didn’t involve bastard leprechaun children? Totally, but that was a good brawl and an excellent way to get the crowd pumped.Kim Kardashian is guest hosting for some reason. She could not possibly do less interesting line readings.
What an awesome match. There were good battles, good pacing, surprises, my pick won, and Shelton Benjamin continued to be the real Mr. Money in the Bank. I can ask for no more.
Cena, Orton, and Triple H all have their For Serious faces on backstage.
This year’s Hall of Fame includes Mae Young, Rocky Johnson, the High Chief Peter Maivia, Ric Flair, Jack and Gerry Brisco, Gordon Solie, and Eddie Graham. Mae Young gets the biggest ovation and it’s awesome.
Backstage, Snoop Dog is on hand to host the Play Boy Bunny lumberjack match that will be occurring later on (no, the women are not even fighting for the title. That would require investment in the women’s division. Madness!). Luckily Santino is on hand to be funny. That’s his job and he does it well. Mick Foley has a cameo! Because we all love him. Smackdown vs. Raw bragging rights match. William Regal, the GM for RAW, and Teddy Long, the assistant GM for Smackdown, are in the ring, which is fine by me as I love Regal to bits. They announce the chosen representative from each show. Batista is here for Smackdown and Teddy’s intro for him is more interesting than anything that’s ever come out of the Animal’s mouth. This match is pretty much here because Batista had nothing else to do and they couldn’t shoehorn him into a title match. Umaga is representing Raw. You will all remember how he was wasted on the McMahon shenanigans last year, so I’m looking forward to him, if not his opponent.
Batista spends most of his time writhing in pain and being generally useless. I’m not going to give him props for selling this year. He’s just boring. Orlando rightfully starts to boo when Batista starts mounting a Miraculous Comeback. They know that Umaga is doing all the work here. Batista manages to pull off a Batista Bomb and wins after doing absolutely nothing. Yup, that was pretty much illustrative of why I cannot stand Batista. Whatever. Excellent effort by Umaga in demonstrating that big wrestlers can do much more than just lumber around. Before everything got going tonight there was an over the top rope battle royal for the right to fight Chavo Guerrero for the ECW championship, a match that will be occurring now. Yeah, that’s how important ECW is. Anyway, Kane won. Oh, Kane. No story for you. I’m glad to see Chavo because…I just like Chavo. He’s reliable and fun to watch. This is the first ECW championship match at WrestleMania.
Kane is a sneaky fellow and doesn’t even enter from the ramp because he’s magic like that. Having caught Chavo off guard he immediately pins him after the bell rings and wins the belt. Yeah, that’s how important ECW is. I don’t object to Kane winning things, but that’s a little offensive. Poor ECW. Poor Chavo. There’s a bit with Carlito fighting a seagull and it’s hilarious.
Raven Simone is here for some reason. Oh, she’s with Make a Wish. That’s nice. Ok, props to WWE. Their work with Make a Wish is pretty damn awesome.
Mike Adamle interviews the Nature Boy Ric Flair. Woo! God, Flair looks old. His game plan is to be the man. Well, thanks for that.
Flair is having a match against Shawn Michaels, and if he loses he will have to retire. Shawn enters first, in a relatively tame ensemble. He is clearly taking this seriously. It would be a little crass to upstage Flair, I suppose. Flair, as always, is resplendent in enormous blue spangled robes with white feather trimming. If Dumbledore was a wrestler, he would look like this. Things start out with a great deal of grappling, as one would expect. Shawn attempts a moonsault to the outside, but he lands on the announce table. Flair starts to take control as a result, manhandling HBK. Shawn does ANOTHER moonsault, but it looks like he lands awkwardly again. The match moves a little slow, but, come on, Flair is, like, six hundred years old. He still does pretty well, though. After some more back and forth in the ring, Shawn gets ready for some sweet chin music, but Flair gets to lock in the Figure Four hold first. The match rolls on with some more holds and counters. Finally, it’s time for a Superkick, but Flair kicks out. Shawn looks like death, letting us know that he’s having a heck of time putting the old man away and it’s killing him to do it. Flair gets in a low blow when the ref isn’t looking. Yeah, he’s a legend, but he still fights dirty. I cannot take the Figure Four seriously. It does not look painful in the least. I love that everyone cheers every time Ric tries to cheat. Being old is awesome! Suddenly everything you do is loveable.
They really amp up the drama for the finale. Flair is struggling to his feet, begging Shawn to just get it over with. Shawn is absolutely heartbroken about what he has to do, hesitating before one final Superkick. Then it’s over and Flair is left in the ring to say goodbye to the fans. He’s crying, his family is crying. Hell, I’m tearing up and I’m not even a huge Nature Boy fan. That was an excellent send off, and well deserved.And then Ric Flair rode off into the sunset and did not continue to drag out his career with another wrestling company. Sigh.
Edge tells us he’s going to beat the Undertaker to prove that you can’t count on anything, just like he couldn’t count on Hulk Hogan to win at WrestleMania when he was a little kid. Basically, Edge wants to crush all the children’s dreams. What a jerk. Canadians suck.Sigh. Another lumberjack tag match for the Divas, because God knows none of them are capable of carrying a match on their own merits as performers and athletes (heavy sarcasm alert!). Oh, and they might be pretty, but they are NOT entertaining enough without the aid of a male celebrity; in this case, Snoop Dogg, who rides to the ring in a pimped out golf cart, while the women walk. Wow. Stay classy, Snoop. Also, we keep focusing on Snoop and his ride, not the actual women. I’m trying to figure out who’s here! God damn it, then they all just mill around the ring, and there is no point in their being there.
ANYWAY. Our first team consists of Ashley (remember her from last year? Yeah) and Maria. Neither of them are brilliant wrestlers, and both of them are wearing the least functional ring gear I’ve ever seen and JR agrees with me. Thank you, JR! Both of them seem more interested in dancing with Snoop, which does not surprise me.Here we go: their opponents are Women’s Champion Beth Phoenix and Melina. Am I supposed to believe this is a contest? Beth can kill people just by looking at them. Sadly, they are accompanied by Santino Marella (remember, we can do nothing without men!). Santino used to date Maria and now he’s with Beth or something so: scandalous! Whatever, I look forward to Beth and Melina crushing their competition.
Ashley does at least try some moves, but she works very slowly. I also worry about the security of her top. As if things aren’t tough enough for the ladies, the lights go out during the match, but they keep going. Maria almost pins Beth, but Santino interferes, prompting King to also interfere. It’s too late for poor Maria though, as Beth finally gets the pin. Honestly, that wasn’t a bad match. I’ve seen far, far worse. Ashley and Maria, though not in the same league as Beth (few in the WWE are) or Melina, put up an ok fight. What pisses me off is, again, the pointless lumberjack diva parade, the celebrity appearance, and the Santino and King involvement. All of that detracted from the match and made it the nonentity that the WWE wanted it to be. This was not about women’s wrestling, but it could have been. Beth is more than capable of carrying a match with lesser opponents. As I said, this was not a terrible match by any means, but the focus of this segment wasn’t on the match at all, and that’s bullshit. The WWE clearly thinks that the fans won’t give a shit about women’s wrestling without all the bells and whistles (and male aid to help those poor females). And the fans will continue to not give a shit unless the company takes some damn initiative and shows some faith in the ladies.
Now back to manly issues of manliness. Cena returned at the Royal Rumble after being horribly injured, because he’s super like that. He just wanted to be at WrestleMania again. Triple H won the Elimination Chamber and there were some shenanigans that led to both of them facing Randy Orton at WrestleMania for the WWE title. Hmm, big brass band up the ramp and on the entrance. Cena must be here. The band really gets into playing Cena’s theme. It’s a pretty cool entrance, but this is Cena so: obviously. Orlando boos Cena and he’s just like, “Yeah, ok.” This is why I can’t help but like John Cena. Triple H enters next, looking appropriately huge and intimidating. Orton, as WWE champ, enters last. I still don’t like him. I probably never will. However, at this point he’s kind of still working the young cocky guy persona, which I at least found watchable.
In a shocking twist, Orton is actually the underdog here. Weird. And he even pulls off some cool moves. Weirder. There’s a cool bit where Orton tries to RKO Cena but Cena shoves him into Triple H in mid-air. Triple H mostly leaves the confrontations to Cena and Orton, coming in when things need to be broken up. Those are the bits I look forward to most, actually. There are times when I really don’t mind watching Triple H clean house, and this is one of those times. Then we have a spotlight on just Hunter and Cena and I wonder where the heck Orton is until he comes in just in time to break up the pin and then immediately pin Cena.
Eh. It was an all right match. As I said, this was when I could still stand Orton and he was the underdog here. That doesn’t excuse a win out of nowhere (I HATE that!), but the other options were Triple H and Cena and no one here really needed another title. Triple H mostly carried that match, as one would expect. Not bad, not great.Big Show is taking on Floyd Mayweather in one of the least silly wrestler/celebrity feuds we’ve had. Mayweather takes FOREVER to get to the ring. Does he think he’s the Undertaker or something? Dude, you’re just a boxer, and a strangely dressed one at that. He has this weird enormous fur/leather vest thing. With matching shorts. It’s odd. Ok, let’s get this started already! Oh God, with the circling and the jabbing and the I don’t care. Show, crush him so we can move on.
Show starts decimating Floyd’s entourage. Why is this not over yet? After taking a beating, Mayweather’s entourage try to take him away from the ring, but Show won’t have any of that. Finally, FINALLY, Mayweather cheats and takes out Big Show. The crowd isn’t happy and I don’t blame them. I know why the WWE has celebrity matches, but I always hate watching wrestlers have to lie down for non-wrestlers. Plus, that was a Miraculous Comeback if ever I saw one. Little boxer man, I don’t put up with that from John Cena, I certainly won’t put up with it from you. Kim Kardashian is back, still failing to work up any believable enthusiasm.
Our main event is part of a long series of confrontations between Edge and the Undertaker. This is probably one of my favorite feuds. Their bad blood aside, Edge also has the World Heavyweight championship. Taker, as always, has his winning streak on the line. I’ve run out of jokes regarding Taker’s long entrances. Whatever, it’s cool. I have to say, though, it manages to be even more impressive outdoors. The flames get to be more…flamey.Edge comes out with his wife, Vickie Guererro, incapacitated and in a wheelchair after having been Tombstoned. Yes, Vickie Guererro, Eddie’s widow, and current GM of Smackdown. Vickie is a delightful villain, blatantly misusing her power and manipulating the system. She’s also brilliant at getting the crowd to hate her. The Edge/Vickie team up was one of the many things I enjoyed about this feud. Taker is vastly unimpressed with Edge, while Edge is looking even more murderous than usual. I love this contrast: Edge’s energy vs. Undertaker’s seeming lack of motion.
Things start off, as they often do, with a stare down. Oooh, Taker is looking mean. I wouldn’t want to be Edge. Hey, I just realized, Smackdown has the main event this year! Hurray for the blue brand!
I don’t really have much to say about this match. It’s just GOOD. The back and forth is pretty even. They take turns having the upper hand. It’s made clear that the only reason Edge is here and has a chance is because of his cheating and sneaky attacks on the Undertaker, as well as aiding Taker’s other enemies. When Edge counters the Chokeslam and other moves, it’s clear that he’s acting purely on instinct. He’s not better than Taker, he’s just really good at getting out of tight spaces. I like that he’s not afraid of the Undertaker, though. He really believes he can take the Phenom down, preferably in the most underhanded way possible. After two previous tries, Taker finally goes Old School on Edge, but then Edge takes out the ref. He also foolishly takes time to taunt Taker. Silly Edge. This is not going to end well for you. He also swipes a camera to use while the ref is still out (this is a callback to what happened at Survivor Series earlier in the year). Even so, Taker still gets back up. Just as Taker finally gets a Tombstone and a pin, another heroic ref runs in, but Edge manages to kick out! And then come the Edgeheads, Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins, Edge’s minions. Taker deals with them and then eats a Spear, but still kicks out. Edge, I told you this would not end well! Another Spear! OH NO IT’S TAKER’S INSTANT DEATH SUBMISSION MOVE! I CAN ONLY TYPE IN CAPS! EDGE TAPS! UNDERTAKER WINS THE CHAMPIONSHIP!
Here’s what I love about Taker’s match comebacks: They aren’t really Miraculous. He always lets us know that each win is killing him a little more. He has to fight his damndest to win, and, really, if he wasn’t the Phenom he would be toast. He always makes his opponents look good this way. And that’s the way I like to end WrestleMania, with the Undertaker posing in the ring. Oooh, fireworks. Those are nice too.
I would just like to note that in the WrestleMania wrap-up montage, the women’s match does not get a spotlight. At all. That is despicable, to be perfectly honest. Well, that was a pretty good WrestleMania. Definitely solid. Nothing made me go, “OMG that was the greatest match ever!!!!” But it was fun. I vastly enjoyed Money in the Bank (as always), as well as Finlay/JBL, and Undertaker/Edge. Everything else was perfectly fine, other than the silliness of the women’s match. However, I am sad that there was not a tag match.
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