Edge (c) vs. Del Rio for the World Heavyweight Championship
If I was surprised that Bryan and Sheamus had been bumped to dark match status, I was floored when we learned that the World Title match would open the show. My old-school mentality still says heavyweight titles shouldn’t be curtain-jerkers, but Edge and Del Rio put on a match that was well-paced, and a title match to open the show did provide a new change of pace. I particularly enjoyed the story the two told, especially Del Rio working Edge’s arm the entire match and building toward the use of his finishing move. Too many submission wrestlers fail to properly work the body part that’s susceptible to their finisher. One minute they’re focusing on the head and body, the next they’re cinching in an ankle lock.
Cody Rhodes vs. Rey Mysterio
I expected this match to be good going in, but it easily tied with Taker/HHH for my favorite match of the night. Nothing in this match was more important than making Rhodes look good, and that’s exactly what the match accomplished. Each man carried their fair share of the weight and put on a good show that ended with Mysterio giving Rhodes the win he needed to propel him to the next stage of his career.
Kane, Big Show, Santino, and Kofi Kingston vs. The Corre
So this match, nothing more than a platform for the four babyfaces to look goofy, was kept on the main card; but Daniel Bryan and Sheamus, two excellent workers, were bumped to the dark match? I don’t know what upset me more: that, or the fact that this match wasn’t even long enough for me to finish deciding to take a bathroom break.
Randy Orton vs. CM Punk
Randy Orton’s easily my favorite wrestler on the active roster . He’s the total package: great look, great gimmick, good mic skills, and an excellent in-ring performer. CM Punk is arguably even better, especially in terms of wrestling, so I knew I’d see something special when they locked up. Unfortunately, the match didn’t quite live up to expectations. Their chemistry was excellent, but the bout felt rushed and too impersonal for all the hatred that had been building between the two for so long. They deserved more time; hopefully the feud will continue at Extreme Rules in May.
Jerry "The King" Lawler vs. Michael Cole
For this match, I paid to see two things: Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Lawler beat the stuffing out of Michael Cole. I did not pay to see Michael Cole spend far too long on offense–long enough for the live crowd to break out a "boring" chant. I do understand that Swagger was the reason Cole was able to get in a few hits on The King. But I, along with everyone else in the arena and watching around the world, didn’t want to see that. Have Swagger trip up Lawler, then let Austin stun him so King can beat Michael Cole up and down the arena for a good ten minutes, then pin him and be done with it.
That’s not what we got, however. No, we got the anonymous Raw GM reversing the decision, making Cole the winner of the match, which meant the story–and Cole’s horrendous character–would continue.
I’m not as down on Michael Cole’s announcing as many seem to be. I think he’s a good play-by-play guy, but PBP announces should not be heels. They need to call the matches and help the audience invest in the characters. As a heel commentator, Michael Cole focuses only on putting himself over and running down his broadcast colleagues and most of the talent. Where’s the payoff? Why is an announcer being pushed harder than active wrestlers?
Oh, right. Because this is sports entertainment.
Undertaker/Triple H: No Holds Barred
For the past two WrestleManias, Undertaker’s matches stole the show. That doesn’t always happen, but when you’ve got two talented workers like HBK and Undertaker in the ring together, you expect greatness. You also worry that subsequent matches will fail to meet or exceed the lofty expectations set by classics such as HBK/Taker I and II. I was therefore very pleased when it was announced that Taker/HHH would be a No Holds Barred Match. It would be a different beast than the last two matches between Undertaker and HBK, and therefore less likely to be judged against those bouts.
More than something just different, it was something special, and contained all the elements from which WrestleMania classics are made: raw emotion and a brutal brawl that still felt and looked brutal even within the confines of the WWE PG era. (The commentary provided by Jim Ross and the King was also good, but of course I didn’t experience that until I watched the recorded show at home a couple days later.)
I’m of the belief that hardcore matches don’t need to spiced up with fire and blood to be hardcore. Taker and Trips sold every chair shot, every bone-crunching impact so that when the match was over and both men lay bruised and broken in the center of the ring, you knew they’d put each other through the grinder, and all without shedding a single drop of blood.
Even better, there were moments during the match when I believed that Triple H could have beaten the Undertaker. Let me clarify: I didn’t think he would. But the key to any Undertaker WrestleMania match is making the audience believe that he might lose, that the streak might be broken. After ‘Manias 25 and 26, I remember thinking, "If HBK wasn’t booked to go over, who else could?" Triple H made me believe in the chance that he could be the guy to add a "1" to the loss section of Undertaker’s WrestleMania win-loss record.
John Morrison, Trish Stratus, and Snooki vs. Dolph Ziggler and Laycool
I understand why WWE brings celebrities into the WrestleMania fold: it attracts mainstream attention and possibly creates new fans of the product who initially only tuned in to see what their favorite star could do in a wrestling ring. It’s tradition, after all. Celebrities have been a part of all but a few WrestleManias. But I don’t care about that. I acknowledge it, but my desire as a wrestling fan is to see great wrestling, and this match took away time that Morrison and Ziggler might have used to put on a great one-on-one match.
The Miz (c) vs. John Cena
Other than the fact that having a soul choir literally sing John Cena’s praises apparently means that Cena has been promoted from Superman to Christ Incarnate, the pre-match video packages were outstanding. It was especially interesting to look back on Miz’s early days on Tough Enough and as the host of SmackDown and the Diva Search, which led to his tag team days and finally his arrival as a player in WWE’s main event scene. I admit, I remember watching him as the host of SmackDown and thinking, "This kid will never amount to anything." I was wrong, and I’m glad. Miz is a strong character, and that’s what it takes to succeed in McMahon’s empire.
As for the match itself, I couldn’t really invest in it. The Rock’s appearance seemed inevitable; it was merely a question of when he would appear and how he would make an impact. Sure enough, Miz and Cena get counted out, The Rock strides down to the people’s ring, restarts the match, and plants Cena with a Rock Bottom. I was worried at first that Rock would end up looking like the heel–the kids next to me were quite displeased with the sudden turn of events–but his ensuing smackdown on The Miz evened things out.
A whippin’ on both men, a pose on the turnbuckle, and Rock heads to the back, leaving the crowd to file out of the arena and discuss the show on the ride back to their hotels and homes. Which brings me to my overall thoughts.
The Good
Before WrestleMania 27, the last live show I’d attended was the Raw immediately before SummerSlam 2004, where Randy Orton captured his first heavyweight championship. A wrestling savvy friend knew where the wrestlers parked to get into the local arena, so we and a few other fans set up an autograph ambuscade and got more than a few John Hancocks, Chris Benoit’s among them.
So it had been awhile since I’d last admired the well-oiled WWE presentation machine, and I was looking forward to watching the crew do their work as much as the matches themselves. Pick any live production you want; they’ve got nothing on the WWE. Between and during matches, I watched the crew hastily piece together constructs to be used in the next match, such as Miz’s inflatable "AWESOME" prop; and feel the anticipation that something big was about to go down when a cameraperson broke away from the action and went to stand at the entrance ramp, obviously waiting for someone to run in. It was also interesting to watch the proceedings in and around the ring, then glance up at the big-screens to see how things appeared to those watching on television.
The atmosphere was another crucial component that made attending the show memorable. Being with a large crowd makes wrestling events more memorable, whether you’re in the arena or in a bar surrounded by rowdy patrons who enjoy crowing and fist-pumping during big moments. Hanging out with more than 70,000 other wrestling fans, Woooo-ing with gusto before the show went live, jumping to my feet and exploding along with everyone else during entrances and big moments, and taking sides during Cena’s and Undertaker’s matches created a sense of interactivity and kinship (even between the adults and five-year-old kids that screamed for John Cena through mouthfuls of Fruity Pebbles) that simply cannot be achieved in a living room environment. It was a blast and something I hope to do for next year’s WrestleMania.
The Ugly
When Lost debuted in 2004, I watched the first season, and it was terrific. Great action, great character development, and an intriguing story to follow. Season two started off the same way, but around mid-season, I noticed a disturbing trend. At the end of every show, I’d find myself thinking, "That was a good episode. I liked learning more about so-and-so’s background." But then I’d realize that despite the episode’s high quality, nothing really happened. No questions were answered, no momentum was gained or utilized. I could have skipped any number of episodes and still felt caught up when I did deign to watch again.
That sums up WrestleMania 27: a good show with some standout moments, but nothing happened. I could have watched the Raw before the PPV, then tuned in to Raw the following night without missing a beat. No titles changed hands. No story lines culminated. Nothing happened.
WrestleMania is often referred to by fans as the super bowl of our sport. But super bowls mark an ending so that, come next season, new, fresh matches can commence. That didn’t happen at ‘Mania. Again, the matches were mostly excellent, but short of Rhodes getting a much-needed win to advance his career and Triple H and Undertaker beating the hell out of each other, nothing else changed. I can’t help but believe that "sports entertainment" is somewhat responsible for WrestleMania 27 getting stuck in the mud and spinning its tires for four hours. If "sports entertainment" were a hot dog, WWE would take their dog heavy on the entertainment, light on the sports.
Everything’s got to be about entertainment in WWE, not wrestling. King can’t get a legitimate victory at WrestleMania because WWE has to further Cole’s character, which is really hurting the product: Cole spends more time putting over himself rather than plugging the talent. Rock has to screw over John Cena so WWE can plant the seeds for a match that’s a year away. Three members of the Corre hold championship belts, yet what has WWE done with them besides treat them as props?
Perhaps my biggest problem with WrestleMania 27 and the WWE product as a whole: rarely do matches feel like legitimate athletic contests. Few and far between are the matches that end cleanly, without ref bumps or outside interference or the now-dreaded chime of the anonymous Raw GM’s email. That, above all else, is why I took a two-year-long break from wrestling not too long ago. You want sports entertainment, Vince? We the fans want balance. Sports entertainment is about wrestling, promos, and stories. If you lack one, you lack the appeal that makes professional wrestling such a draw in the first place.
Don’t misunderstand; I’m not asking for things to go back to the way they used to be. There are elements of the PG era that I think serve the sport well. Hardcore matches should be infrequent, for example, because that very infrequency makes them more exciting when they do come around.
I just miss wrestling.
