Thoughts On WrestleMania XXVIII - April 2, 2012

And that is why I love wrestling. There was one moment last night during that Undertaker/Triple H match that was defining for me. I'm talking about the spot where Shawn nailed the superkick on to Undertaker which turned him right into a pedigree from Triple H. Triple H goes for the cover and Undertaker kicks out of it. Kicks out of both finishers. The crowd jumps up at the near fall. Shawn falls into the corner with a look of shock on his face. The crowd is going absolutely crazy for it. That moment right there was that reminder on why I love wrestling. Sure, it may have gotten stale lately and there aren't near as many great moments as we'd like them to be. They're there though. It was there last night. That moment right there last night was one of them for me.

Last night was WrestleMania XXVIII. Super Bowl night from Sun Life Stadium in Miami, Florida in front of 78,323 fans. This was a record attendance for that building. The show was outdoors which gave it a really cool visual. The sun setting over the stadium looked really amazing. The set up of the building looked good. The stage had an incredible screen for all their video and graphics. There was some criticism from some of the live fans about the palm trees that had to be set up to accommodate for the staging. It blocked the view for some fans and there were a lot of anti palm tree chants before the show got started.

I'm going to go in order of matches and just give thoughts on each match. The show started with Lilian Garcia singing the national anthem which is always awesome. The production of it to go with it looked great including the jet flyover. Hot crowd to start the show. The show opens with the World title match. Sheamus was the first one down the ramp. Then, Daniel Bryan made his way to the ring with AJ with him. One thing that I noticed was the big reaction that he was getting as they showed him making way down the ramp. As the bell rang, there was a ton of noise being made in the building. Bryan and AJ kiss. Bryan turns around and gets kicked right in the face. Sheamus makes the pin and wins the World title. 18 second match! LAME!!! My first thought was that they just killed the crowd. The crowd was into Daniel Bryan. Lots of chants for him before the show and throughout the rest of the night. Why did they have to squash him? Couldn't they have given at least five minutes for goodness sakes? This honestly got me off to a bad start too and left a bad taste in my mouth. If you remember, this match took place last year for the US title but was bumped to the dark match. This year, it is a squash match. I was annoyed for the rest of the first hour of the show. I really like the Daniel Bryan/AJ storyline. They are the modern version of a 1986 Savage and Elizabeth. The sweet nice girl dating a guy who is nothing but a jerk to her. Crowd likes her but boo him. I love the storyline and it's one of the things I really will tune in for. Plus, I like AJ. She is super cute. LOL. The next match is Randy Orton and Kane. I'm thinking, great, I'm all excited for this opener and now I get probably fifteen minutes of Orton and Kane. I actually didn't think the crowd level really got back at full height until the Cell match which led the second hour off. I'll get there though. Kane gets a win on Orton which did surprise me. It was a solid match. I just was still annoyed over the first match. Intercontinental title match was next with Cody Rhodes defending against Big Show. Lots of cheers for Cody from the fans. Show got the win and became the new champion after the knockout punch. Solid match. Still annoyed from the opener. Divas match next and I was curious to see how this went. Beth Phoenix and Eve taking on Kelly Kelly and Extra's Maria Menounos. Maria had reportedly broken two ribs on Dancing With The Stars. I didn't actually expect her to get much in ring action and then she ends up being in the ring the most. I thought they worked around it really well. Several bear hug type holds that look good but protect her. She still got knocked around a lot and I'm thinking she's stronger than I am doing this with those ribs. Kelly got the hot tag and after ramming the two heels together, Maria did a nice rollup to pin Beth Phoenix. Kudos to Maria Menounos for doing that when she clearly could have said she was hurt and didn't want to do as much.

Let's move to hour two. Triple H vs. Undertaker in the cell with Shawn Michaels as the referee. This was all of hour two! It was a fast hour two as well. Jim Ross gets to call the match!! That was fantastic!! Big entrance for Shawn and he looked happy to be back on the big stage. Triple H's entrance looked cool as did Undertaker's. I was waiting to see the reaction when Taker pulled that hood off knowing that he had short hair now. The hood came off and there was a blast of thunder and a look of wow from Triple H. The match got underway and the drama in this match was off the charts. Triple H started doing what he did last year. Pounding Undertaker with a chair over and over. Telling Shawn to stop the match or he was going to end him. Taker kept telling Shawn do not stop this match. Shawn kept getting put in a bad spot not knowing what to do. The sledgehammer gets into play but Shawn pulls it away from him before he can use it. Triple H continues to tell him to stop the match. Shawn goes to do it but Taker puts Shawn in the arm submission to stop it. The only thing that Taker could do to keep it going was to take matters into his own hands. Triple H then made the save for Shawn who is then down for a while. Triple H then got caught in the submission and was barely hanging on. Charles Robinson makes his way out to ref the match and Undertaker chokeslams him to the mat. Another referee out. Undertaker goes for the tombstone but Triple H slipped out. Taker runs right into a superkick from Shawn and then turns to catch a pedigree from Triple H. Two finishers and then Taker kicks out before three. Shawn collapses in the corner not believing what is going on. The crowd is going NUTS!! Triple H then grabbed the sledgehammer again and Shawn tried to stop it. Shawn gets tossed to the floor by Triple H. Undertaker then sits up and looks square at Triple H who gets a look of fear on his face. It was awesome. Taker goes on BIG offense. Finishers continue to get kicked out of. There was a moment where Triple H was desperate and went to crawl to the sledgehammer and Taker stepped on the sledgehammer preventing him from picking it up. Triple H's turn to take repeated chair shots and dishes out some major payback from earlier. Shawn at this point is yelling at Triple H to just stay down. Shawn's facials were incredible in this match as he looked so torn through the whole match on what to do and completely in shock of what was occurring. Triple H grabbed the sledgehammer again and took a very weak swing at Undertaker who caught it. He pulled it away and then Triple H gave him a defiant DX chop. Undertaker nails Triple H right in the head with the sledgehammer. Picks him up and tombstones him. One, two, three, and 20-0 goes The Undertaker. Off the charts drama in this match and the crowd was going nuts for it. After the match, Shawn helped up Undertaker to his feet. They hugged one another. Shawn and Undertaker both help Triple H to his feet and walk him to the back. It was a huge moment watching these three icons of the business walking to the back together.

Hour three started with the Hall Of Fame inductees all being introduced on stage. Great to see all of them. Four Horsemen at WrestleMania. Got to love that! Edge was the last introduced and got his music played for him. He was standing there taking it in with tears in his eyes. Great moment. Next was the Team Johnny and Team Teddy tag match. It was fine. I haven't been into this storyline at all so I wasn't very excited about it. Even less excited when Team Johnny won meaning we get more Johnny Ace. The finish had Eve costing the match for Zack Ryder. Then, after the match she laid him out. Can they do any worse booking for Ryder? They have stopped his momentum completely. He's late 90's clueless Sting. He was one of the hottest things they had going and now they've booked him into oblivion. WWE title match was next with CM Punk and Chris Jericho. Loved the entrances for both of them. Pyro was set off for Punk outside the stadium. Things really picked up at the end with the submission exchanges and the crowd was eating it up. Punk gets the win with a clean tap out and the crowd went nuts for it. Big win for Punk and he remains WWE champion. After that, we got a dance segment for Brodus Clay. My thought was I'm glad they went with the Bryan squash so we could get this segment into the show. Ugh!!!!

Main event time with John Cena and The Rock. If you didn't see the "We Are Young" promo video for them. You need to look it up on You Tube. Great stuff!! MGK came out and performed a song to intro Cena. He got on the mic and started talking bad on Rock and good on Cena. Fueled the boos and they booed as he finished. Cena comes out and gets BOOED. One person there said they had never heard boos so loud. New merchandise as Cena will apparently be in green for the near future. Flo Rida performs for The Rock and then Rock makes his way out to a huge ovation. What star power feel it had to it. The match was fun and the crowd was really into it. Ringside was jumping up on the big moves and happenings. Loud chants and there were so many chants going that it was hard to tell what was being said. Interesting that the match started with the Hogan/Rock spots. Stare at one another and look at the crowd on opposite sides. Then, the tie ups and power shove downs. Rock hit the people's elbow which got the crowd up. Impressive spot where Rock went for the high crossed body and Cena rolled through picking him right up into the AA. Rock kicks out to a huge pop from the fans. Cena looks stunned over Rock kicking out. Rock decides to go for a people's elbow of his own. After bouncing off the ropes, Rock catches him into a Rock Bottom. Three count and The Rock gets the win to a huge reaction from the fans. Cena rolled out to the ramp sitting there looking frustrated as Rock celebrated in the ring. Fun match.

Overall, I enjoyed the show. The crowd made this show ever better. When you have a good crowd, it can add so much and this crowd was ready for this show. Makes me wonder how much better it could have been if they hadn't done the squash in the opener. It seriously took me an hour of the show to recover from that annoyance. Good WrestleMania and there is obviously good and bad on the show just like anything. That is it for today. Have a great day. Take care and God bless!!