WrestleMania 25 took place last night from Reliant Stadium in Houston, TX with a sellout attendance of 72,744. Like I said, I loved the show. I didn’t like everything on it but overall I was very happy with the show. First, I’m going to give you the results of the show and then I’ll go into my thoughts more in depth in the next paragraph. The tag title unification match was moved to before the show and the move wasn’t announced until the day of the show. The Colons defeated Miz and Morrison in a lumberjack match to become the unified tag team champions. WWE.com in the past has shown the pre show battle royals on the website but nothing this year. The match should be on the DVD. Not big on them getting moved off the show. The show opened with Nicole Scherzinger singing America The Beautful which was a nice rendition. Big pyro display to kick off the event. Always impressive. Money In The Bank opened the show and there was a big pop from the fans upon the announcement by Lillian. Just an incredible match. Shelton started the match big with him doing the somersault off of the ladder on the floor and landing on the group. Kofi did an awesome spot where he leapfrogged the ladder and then took out the two that tried to take him out. Kane and Mark Henry did a good power spot where they shoved both ladders over which contained all of their opponents. Fun moment when Hornswoggle did the tadpole splash to the floor including him bringing out a step ladder from under the ring. At one point, Mark Henry tried to stand the ladder up and then Kofi ran up the ladder as Henry held it while trying to get to the briefcase. It looked awesome!!! There was a moment where three ladders were all lined up perfect from the floor. Shelton scaled the ladder from the floor right up to the briefcase and it looked great. How about Shelton launching MVP in a power bomb out of the ring landing on a couple on the outside. Christian was super over with the fans and I loved him getting shoved over on the ladder and catching himself with his foot on the ropes. He balanced and got the ladder back up as the fans went nuts!! The match came down to CM Punk and Kane trying to get the briefcase. Punk kicked Kane off and then got the briefcase to win Money In The Bank for the second straight year. I was shocked to see him win again as I didn’t think WWE would do it. I’m thrilled with it though!!!! Next up was Kid Rock’s performance and he ran through about four songs. As he performed the last song, the divas made their way down to the ring walking by Kid Rock. No introductions which means that we had no clue who was in the match!! For the record, the five returning stars were Sunny, Molly Holly, Torrie Wilson, Jackie Gayda, and Victoria. About midway through, I kept trying to figure out who the one woman was in the ring. Who was it? Well, it was Santino Marella dressed as a woman. He ended up dumping out Beth and Melina at the end of the match. Santino got on the mic saying that he was Santino’s twin sister from Italy named Santina. He is crowned Miss WrestleMania and did his dance to go with it. Next was the three on one elimination match with Jericho taking on Steamboat, Snuka, and Piper with Flair in their corner. Big pop for the legends and the biggest was for Piper. Snuka was eliminated first from the walls. Piper then got eliminated following a kick and pin. This brought it down to a nice five or so minute one on one between Jericho and Steamboat. This was awesome!!!! Steamboat was all over the top rope hitting moves. Jericho punched Flair off the apron and then Steamboat did the skin the cat move which got a big cheer from me. The fans were popping like crazy for Steamboat. Jericho ended up winning with the codebreaker. Flair got in the ring afterwards and was delivering some big chops!! Jericho hit the codebreaker on Flair and then called out Mickey Rourke who was at ringside. Rourke ended up getting in the ring and they went at it. It was all punches. Rourke knocked Jericho down and then Flair held up Rourke’s arm. That brought us to the extreme rules match with Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy. Matt countered Jeff’s whisper in the wind with a big shot as he nailed him with a chair shot. Jeff at one point put a trash can on Matt’s head and blasted him with crutches. Matt hit the twist of fate and Jeff was able to kick out. Jeff then stacked two tables and put Matt in between them with a chair on top of him. Jeff then did a dive and took them out. The finish had Jeff going for his ladder leapfrog spot and missed the legdrop. Matt then hooked Jeff’s head in the chair and hit the twist of fate which landed like he hit it on him with a standing chair. Matt Hardy gets the win. The Intercontinental title match was next and if you blinked, you missed it. Rey vs. JBL. Rey walked out to his normal tradtion of dressing as a cartoon character and was dressed as Heath Ledger’s Joker. This match was over fast. JBL kicked Rey before the bell rang. As Rey tried to recover, JBL yelled at the ref to ring the bell and start the match. The ref rang the bell and Rey nailed JBL. Rey hit the 619 and the springboard splash for the win and won the Intercontinental championship. After the match, JBL was frustrated and got on the mic saying that he quit. Next was the main event of the night and one of the best matches ever. Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker. The streak vs. Mr. WrestleMania. Shawn was lowered on to the stage in all white. He then went into his traditional entrance from there. Undertaker’s entrance was incredible as always. He rose up through the stage and then did his traditional entrance. There were so many great spots and counters in this match that are just impossible to recap but I’ll try. The fans were split in this match with Undertaker and HBK chants. The crowd was just incredible in this one but it was easy to get into cause it was such a great match. Shawn went for the superkick and Undertaker just dropped on to the mat to avoid it. Shawn then went for the figure four and then it was countered into the choke but Shawn got to the ropes. Shawn went for the moonsault on to the floor but Undertaker just swatted him away to avoid it. Incredible and scary spot when Shawn was on the floor. Undertaker went for his big dive that he only does in rare occassions. As Undertaker went to jump, Shawn shoved the ref out of the way and pulled the cameraman in the way. Taker landed on the cameraman and it looked nasty along with Undertaker about landing on his own head. It was scary and looked nasty in every replay. I was concerned about the guy that he landed on too. They traded finishers for a while followed by kickouts. Shawn kicked out of the chokeslam and the last ride while Undertaker was kicking out of superkicks. GREAT spot where Shawn skinned the cat back into the ring but Undertaker caught him into a tombstone position. Shawn was flying all around trying to get out of it but got hit with it it. I thought that was the finish and then Shawn kicked out. Taker went for another tombstone and Shawn countered it into a DDT. Shawn caught Taker square with a superkick but Taker kicked out again. The finish had Shawn going for a moonsault in the ring but Taker caught him and put him in a tombstone. Taker gets the pin and is 17-0 at WrestleMania. Just incredible!! An incredible match!! It was 30 minutes in length. The first of the two title matches was next with Edge defending against John Cena and Big Show. Vickie was at ringside but taken out of the equation when Edge accidentally hit her with a spear. Show was tied up in the ropes at this point. Funny moment with him yelling at the ref to get him out now. The finish of the match was really cool with Cena picking up Big Show for the attitude adjustor while Edge was also on top of Show. So, Cena picked both of them up. Edge did roll off unfortunately, but Cena hit Show with it. Then, he hit Edge with it. Cena pinned Big Show to win the World title. Afterwards, he made his way into the crowd and celebrated with the fans including Nascar’s Carl Edwards as they are good friends. Next, the 2009 Hall Of Fame members were announced to the live crowd. Austin was introduced last and walked out in his suit. Big pop for him. Austin then disappeared as the rest of the guys waved to the fans. Austin’s music hit and he drove out on the four wheeler back in his normal gear. Austin then flew to the ring on that four wheeler and drove it around. He made his way into the ring and called for the beer and did his normal beer bash for the fans. The fans were eating it up and I was as well. Just great to see Austin again and it was definitely played up on TV that this was the farewell to Austin. Austin went out to the floor and gave JR a beer. They toasted as Austin wore his cowboy hat. Just a great moment. Austin then drove back up the ramp with an awesome steady camera shot of him driving as he held his arm up for the fans. Just an incredible moment as JR said that we’d all remember when the Austin era began and ended. Last match of the night was Triple H defending the WWE title against Randy Orton. If Triple H used any objects, he would be DQ’d and lose the belt. No McManons could get involved either. Yeah, this match just fell flat. The crowd just wasn’t into it at all. Orton did have a big group of fans there with the RKO chants breaking out. Each of them hit their finishers right at the beginning of the match. The fans got into a bit with the punch exchange. Even the finish didn’t get that big of a reaction. Orton threw Triple H into the ref and hit the RKO. Orton then pulled a sledgehammer from under the ring. As Orton climbed in the ring, Triple H punted him with the concussion kick. He nailed Orton with the sledgehammer and nailed him with punches followed by the pedigree. The ref then got back up and made the three count as Triple H retained the WWE title. Then, we of course got the music video wrap up of the event which always is well produced.
Now, on to my more in depth thoughts on the show. Nice to see WWE use that time limit for the show right to the maximum. It went right at four hours. Best WrestleMania crowd since Chicago for WrestleMania 22 in my opinion. The lineup of matches definitely hurt the ending. I said this all along but Shawn and Undertaker should have closed that show. That match was just like Hogan/Rock from WM18 where the fans were so into that and not into things as much after that. Interesting that Triple H was the victim of both of those dream matches going last on the card. I noticed that the fans had been great all night but after Shawn/Undertaker, they fell off a bit for the World title match but were still into it. They were not into Triple H/Orton at all. Yep, Shawn/Undertaker should have closed it. Without a doubt. That Money In The Bank ladder match was just incredible. So many memorable spots and I was cheering through the whole thing. Best Money In The Bank match in history. The crowd was just eating it up. When the match ended, my first thought was sending my condolences to the rest of the WWE roster who had to follow that one. Now, there was one exception that I KNEW was going to follow and take the lead by far and that was Shawn and Undertaker. The divas battle royal should have been so much better. What was the point of bringing back the divas if we barely even see them? I was thrilled to see Molly but she was barely on camera. WWE should have introduced them. Just seemed like a waste. I did get a laugh out of trying to figure out who the mysterious female was in the ring which was Santino, or Santina. I’m thinking that Ricky Steamboat should wrestle more often!! He looked incredible in the ring!!! I was cheering big time over his high flying spots. The classic deep arm drags got me cheering along with the top rope chops. Wow is all that can be said and the crowd was loving him. The Mickey Rourke stuff was just kind of “ehh” to me. That whole thing just fizzled over the last several weeks with Jericho and Rourke. However, Steamboat saved this whole match big time!!!! They were having to do some major bleeping on Piper’s language. Must have forgotten the new PG TV rating. LOL. Loved seeing all of the legends as always. Jeff and Matt was very good. Really enjoyed it. Lots of good spots and back and forth. I really thought that Matt needed to get the win so I’m happy with that. I was thinking last week with how this match really was like Bret and Owen from WrestleMania 10 and how Owen’s win set that feud up bigger for the whole summer. Now, Matt has that win just like Owen did on Bret. Rey/JBL. Whatever. A short JBL match so I’m happy, 21 second win. I’m already trying to figure out where I’m going to put Shawn/Undertaker on my top WrestleMania matches ever. It is going to go really high on the list!! I was on the EDGE OF MY SEAT for most of this match. The counters and kickouts to the big moves were as dramatic as you can get. They were selling each other’s moves like crazy and I loved watching Shawn scramble like crazy to get out of it with that mentality of he had to avoid this or it was doom. Same with Undertaker where he ducked the superkick and tried to avoid taking those. Just such great mentality in this match with how it was done. I’ve talked to one of my friends getting his live views on WrestleMania and we are both just drooling over how great that match was. Hearing his live perspective of it is just amazing. He saw one of the best matches ever in history!!!! The World title triple threat match was fine. I thought it really built momentum throughout it. Cena winning wasn’t a shocker and I loved the finish cause that was just impressive. Stone Cold Steve Austin. Classic!! Great to see him out there having fun with the fans. That place was going crazy. How fast was he going on that four wheeler on the way to the ring??!!!! Wow. How great was Austin and JR getting to do one more toast together at ringsideI!! Who is going to be the next guy to take WWE to the next level like Austin did? Like I said, Orton and Triple H was a letdown for me. Just wasn’t really into it and it wasn’t very exciting. It finishing the show didn’t help it any especially without any drama. They aren’t closing the show with an Orton title win. I loved the opening of the show with the WWE superstars telling their favorite WrestleMania moments. When Kid Rock performed Cowboy, all I could think was Jeff Jarrett. Ch-Ch-Ch-Chosen one. LOL. It was cool to hear the old John Cena music for a little bit. Note to WWE, take a listen to the reaction that Christian got at WrestleMania!!!!! The fans love him so push him!! Did I hear a Candido chant when Sunny was leaving the ring? Like I said, I really enjoyed the show. If you didn’t see Shawn and Undertaker, you missed one of the greatest matches in wrestling history. Words can’t describe it and seeing it without knowing who was going to win was amazing. There were times where you thought you knew who was going to win and then the match would go a different direction. They really kept you on the edge of your seat and wanting more. Forget the seat cause Houston sure did. They were standing through it!!! You want a match that will glue you to the screen. Watch that one!!!!
The WWE Hall Of Fame took place on Saturday night. Most of the ceremony aired on WWE.com with the inductions of The Funks, Koko B. Ware, The Von Erichs, Howard Finkel, and Cowboy Bill Watts. That all went for about one hour and twenty minutes in length. Keep in mind that WWE was enforcing the new speech time limit rules, three minutes for the one doing the inducting and ten minutes for the Hall Of Famer. The shorter speeches actually worked in my favor cause based on what I’ve read in the live report, the WWE.com stuff, and the TV special, very little was edited out. So, I doubt that I’ll be buying the WrestleMania DVD cause I have just about all of the Hall Of Fame now. Thanks for saving me $35 WWE. I’ll watch it when it airs on WWE 24/7 in a few months. One thing that I LOVED was that WWE made plenty of announcements that they would be ejecting fans who continue to yell out just to yell out. This has gotten VERY annoying in recent years and there have been some fans that are just plain rude. They posted that they would be removed from the building without any warning. I was definitely able to tell a difference in the ceremony as the yelling was at a minimum for sure during the WWE.com portion of the ceremony. Todd Grisham hosted the WWE.com portion of the ceremony while Lawler took over for Steamboat and Austin. The speeches were good but kept short. Funks were great as was Dusty inducting them. Honky Tonk inducted Koko. Howard Finkel was fun. Seeing Kevin Von Erich and Michael Hayes together was just awesome even though I’m used to seeing them together hosting the World Class shows on WWE 24/7. Bill Watts speech was better than I expected it to be. I enjoyed JR’s introduction of Watts as well. The USA special opened with Todd Grisham bringing out Jerry Lawler to hand over the hosting duties. Flair was introduced and he looked down at Shawn Michaels. They pointed to their WrestleMania watches that were gifts from last year and I thought that was a fun moment. Flair said that Steamboat was the greatest opponent that he ever had putting over their matches in the 70’s as way better than their 80’s/90’s matches. He said that Steamboat embodied what a good guy was supposed to be with how he treated the fans. Flair said that the ladies LOVED Steamboat and they he would put Steamboat up against The Von Erichs anyday on who was the bigger ladies man. Steamboat had tears in his eyes when he was introduced. He and Flair embraced and then tied up which got a huge pop from the fans. I loved it as well!! He talked of how he and Flair were able to grab the fans attention in their matches. He put over all of his great opponents over the years going through all the great names that you remember and including Austin who was his last opponent. He talked of Triple H and how a younger Triple H was talking to him on the plane one day. He said that Triple H was very respectful of him giving him the window seat, armrest, and just asking so many smart questions about the business and wanting to learn. Triple H was shown in the crowd bowing to Steamboat. He did point out his family in the audience but it was cut out of the broadcast. Just a great speech with Steamboat and also Flair. Last was Vince McMahon inducting Austin. McMahon talked of their relationship over the years and called him the greatest WWE superstar ever. Vince talked about some of their matches and how Austin would constantly say “sorry” during their matches when he’d hit Vince too hard. Vince joked that he thought his name was “sorry” by the time he got to the locker room. That was edited off the TV special. Funny moment. Austin’s music video was shown and it had been updated. Looked great. Austin was introduced to a big pop. Austin started off joking about his suit and how he had just popped a button off of it. It was a really funny moment. Austin gave big credit to the guy who put the music video together saying how incredible that it was. Agreed!! Austin thanked the fans who had been so loyal to him talking about how he had been through knee injuries, neck injury, a divorce, another knee injury, another divorce, and how the fans were always there to welcome him back. It was left off of the broadcast but Austin apologized for walking out of WWE in 2002 saying that he didn’t agree with the creative team at the time and they both lost a lot of money cause of it. Austin joked about how the results of his aptitude test in high school said that he’d be a park ranger. He said he loved park rangers but that just wasn’t going to do for him. He said it was an honor to perform for the fans and had no regrets about anything. Fans chanted “thank you Austin” and also “one more match”. He said he “didn’t know about that” at the one more match chant. He said that he was closing the door on his wrestling career but looked forward to entertaining the fans in other avenues. Austin wrapped it up saying that he could talk for another hour cause he hadn’t used any of his notes. He thanked the fans and said that he loved everyone from the bottom of his heart. Austin closed with “and that’s the bottom line cause Stone Cold said so”. He finished up with a beer toast and handed his other beer to Cena and they toasted together.
Tonight’s Raw set up two matches for Backlash. Orton opened the show and wanted his rematch. He said that the McMahons and WWE owed him one. He threatened to take more action if the McMahons got in his way again mentioning Linda by name and the grandchildren. Vince walked out and Orton stepped out of the ring. Vince said that Orton would not be getting his rematch cause he didn’t deserve it for everything he had done to his family. He did say that there would be a match at Backlash with Vince, Shane, and Triple H against Legacy. Vince did say that he was up for a fight tonight as Orton had challenged him. The match was set for later on. Shane and Triple H tried to talk him out of it but Vince was determined to go through with it with no help. The match took place. Vince was on offense for a little bit but then Orton took over. He hit the RKO and was going for the concussion punt. Shane ran in and stopped him. Legacy jumped on Shane. Triple H got involved but the triple team was on. Then, Batista’s music hit and he made his return. Orton took one shot and then bailed. Batista, Triple H, and Shane took care of the others. Vince got on the mic and said that he would not be able to make it to Backlash and announced that Batista would be his replacement in the tag match. The other Backlash main event match was announced by Vickie Guerrero. She announced that Edge would get his last World title rematch against Cena in a last man standing match. Vickie also said that she is now the current GM of Raw for good. Fun 10 man tag team match with Jeff Hardy, Cena, Steamboat, Punk, and Rey against Matt Hardy, Jericho, Kane, Big Show, and Edge. Steamboat looked aweome in this match as well. The fans were going nuts for him. The show was in Houston as well over at the smaller building which also hosted the Hall Of Fame ceremony on Saturday. Fans were chanting “you still got it” at Steamboat very loudly. I completely agree!!! Big pop from the fans on the deep arm drags. Steamboat was in the ring for a long time. The finish had Rey hitting a 619 on to Jericho and Edge. Rey hit the splash on to Jericho while Steamboat hit the high crossed body on Edge. Rey pinned Jericho for the win. Afterwards, the team celebrated and left the ring so that Steamboat could celebrate with the fans by himself as the rest of the team applauded from the aisle. The Colons defeated Miz and Morrison in another tag title lumberjack match when Carlito pinned Miz with the backstabber. There was a 10 divas match with the Raw team against the Smackdown team. The Raw team won when Mickie James pinned Natalya with a DDT. Santina Marella (notice I said Santina) talked of what the plans were from here. Beth Phoenix and Rosa came to the ring. Beth was mad at Santino saying that he was embarrassing himself and mad over being eliminated last night. Beth challenged for a match. Santina accepted. The finish had Beth with Santina over her head but then fell backwards with Santina getting the win.
Other notes from Raw. How great was Steamboat yet again??!!!! How odd was it to see Edge and Matt Hardy working together? Santino doing the dancing is just hilarious. This Santino and Santina typing is starting to get frustrating. Ha ha. WWE is serious over those replay buys as they weren’t showing hardly any video of the event tonight. They usually show the finale music video during the broadcast and have for the last several years. Nothing tonight.
The WWE Draft special will take place next Monday on USA. Special three hour show and start time of 7pm central time. Who will be switching shows? We’ll find out. I’ve heard nothing about it.
The April programming for WWE 24/7 has premiered. Here is your lineup of stuff to see this month. The theme is Large and In Charge with the concept being about the big men in wrestling. Big Ones airing include WCW SuperBrawl V (Hogan vs. Vader), WWE No Mercy 2004, WWE Survivor Series 2008. Old School house shows include: MSG (10/23/78), Maple Leaf Gardens (8/18/85), MSG (4/30/90), MSG (9/23/85). TV Classics airing include (NWA (October 1986), ECW (September 1996), Monday Night Wars (Raw & Nitro from December 1997), World Class (June 1983), Mid-Atlantic (December 1981), and Prime Time Wrestling (February 1988). A couple of home video releases will be airing including the old Diesel Coliseum Home Video and the Brock Lesnar: Here Comes The Pain DVD. Hall Of Fame profile is on Gorilla Monsoon. Shorties for the month will be big men matches.
With all the talk of Steamboat, I just had to mention that 20 years ago this week was the Clash VI Steamboat/Flair match. Unreal!!!! Can you believe it has been that long? Still one of the greatest matches of all time!!
That is it for this week. Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.