The Outsiders' Edge

Well thanks for returning to The OE’s coverage of the biggest sports event of the year. Earlier this week I shared my thoughts on the epic Shawn-Taker match. That has been a bit of a minor hit in the internet world, and today I would like to share my observations on the rest of the WrestleMania 26 card.

It was a solid show. I’m not going to sit here and say that it will be forever on the consciousnesses of the wrestling fan’s mind like Mania X-7 or something ridiculous like that, but it was an entertaining way to spend 4 hours.

Here is a run down of the card:

Yoshi Tatsu won a 26 man dark match battle royale. Nobody except the live people saw it, so I can’t really comment. Seeing as how he hasn’t been on Raw the last two weeks since winning, it clearly was a career changing moment. He is a fine man.

The show began with a long ass video package talking about how special WrestleMania is. Thank you WWE. I’m already going to be sitting in a chair for 4 hours watching the damn show, I don’t need to be reminded about its specialness.

Miz and The Big Show defeated R-Truth and John Morrison in a 3 minute nothing match that would have been better at a house show in Piscataway, New Jersey then the biggest wrestling show of the year. There was nothing special here. It ended with the usual “Big Show punching a guy in the face while the refs were turned away” finish we have seen 4356 times the past 10 months on Raw and Smackdown.

"What's Up?" Not your popularity among fans.

The WWE tag team situation really sucks right now. I don’t want to sound like Rick Pitino but, “The Steiner Brothers aren’t walking through that door. The Hart Foundation isn’t walking through that door. The Rockers aren’t walking through that door.”
Can The Mexicools at least walk through that door?

After that amazing exhibition in professional grappling we were greeted by the lightly anticipated three way between Ted DiBiase, Cody Rhodes, and Randy Orton. That sounded a little gay. However to be honest, DiBiase and Rhodes would probably be more recognizable to the general public if they had spent the last two years in gay porn than wrestling. Lets just say there is probably alot of homosexual men and frustrated housewives who would have rather seen those two “get swallowed by The Viper” than the actual match.

Moving on.

This match had a horrific build in the lead up to Mania. Rhodes and DiBiase should have formed a tag team called Mind and Matter. Nobody pays much mind to Cody Rhodes, and Ted DiBiase Jr. doesn’t matter at all. In the weeks leading up to Mania Orton was presented as a half face/ half heel which = zero reaction. The other two guys have been jobbers throughout their entire alliance with Orton and this feud did nothing to change that perception.

It was actually a pretty good match. Orton won with an RKO on DiBiase after punting Rhodes in the head. The action was pretty swift, and the people were really into Orton as a babyface. I have no idea why because the pre Mania Raw crowds could have cared less about him, but the Mania hardcores were completely into him as a face. The crowd stood up when he was about to hit the drapping double DDT on the other two guys like he was Hulk Hogan hulking up for the Atomic Leg Drop.

Randy Orton's reaction to reading the gay porn soliloquy.

Up next was MITB. It was a solid match, but did not feature the suicidal hilarity of most years. I imagine this was a result of the new emphasis on wrestlers’ health due to Linda’s stupid Senate campaign. Having someone like Shelton Benjamin getting injured from falling from a 10 foot ladder through an announce table onto Matt Hardy would probably look bad.

There really wasn’t anything too memorable here except for Kofi Kingston creating a pair of stilts from a broken ladder. That was pretty creative, but wasn’t exactly death defying or anything. There were 10 men here. Thinking back to this match a few weeks later, I have no memory of 8 of them.
Jack Swagger won after taking a hilariously long amount of time to unhook the briefcase from hanging hook. Time just completely stood still during this moment. It took Swagger so goddamn long to take the briefcase down, Stephen Hawking could have made a run in here. Swagger is now the champion on Smackdown. He has already jobbed twice to Randy Orton since winning MITB. I expect that to be the norm of his glorious title reign.

In the next match HHH defeated Sheamus clean in the middle of the ring with a Pedigree. I don’t really want to talk about this match because the result sickens me, but Hunter looked like he had been sleeping in a tanning bed for 9 straight days coming into this match. I wish he had just stayed in it.

Up next Rey Mysterio Jr. defeated CM Punk in a really good 6 minute match. This bout would have been better if they took away the stupid 5 minute pre-match video package and just given the guys more time in the ring. Rey came out in his stupid Mania super hero costume. He was dressed like one of the Na’Vi from Avatar. Yes, because I would definitely wear ring gear that pays homage to the Na’Vi tribe while engaged in a fight defending the blood honor of my family against a hated rival. I love CM Punk’s Straight Edge Society. That group has 5 members if you include Luke Gallows, Serena, CM Punk and the two bald men attached to Serena’ chest.

I didn’t really understand why Rey won this match. I would have loved to see him have to be a memmer of the Straight Edge Society. Plus, they are continuing the feud. Booking 101 says you have the heel win the initial matchup of a long feud so that the fans will pay to see the face get his revenge. Based on the results of the Cena, HHH, and Rey Jr. matches, Booking 101 is no longer a part of the WWE cirriculum.

Following Punk-Rey we go to witness a strange beat down 13 years in the making. With the exception of Shawn vs. Taker, Bret-Vince was my most anticipated match going into WrestleMania. It was just surreal seeing Bret out there on Raw the last few months and competing at WrestleMania after some of the comments he gave on my show back in January of 2009. Check out www.blogtalkradio.com/elevationradio to hear my interview with The Hitman.

Coming into this match, I knew that both men were going to be severely limited physically. Vince is now 64 years old, suffers from back pain and was never a great ring technician to begin with. He has had alot of good street fights through the years, but age has to be catching up with him. Bret is 52 years old, coming off a stroke, severe concussions that ended his active career, and a right knee replacement. That being said, both men actually did very well performing the physical elements of the match. Vince did a great job of selling and taking a massive beating, while Bret looked very good throwing on the sharpshooter, and hitting elbow drops, and some of the other basic offensive things he used to do during the early days. It was good seeing Bret get out there and receive a little peace and closure in his life through this match and his recent reconcilation with Shawn Michaels, however the match itself was put together in such a strange, backwards way.

Bret came to the ring first after a massive pop. Vince then came out and informed Bret that the match was now a lumberjack match and it would have a special referee. Vince than revelaed that the lumberjacks were all of Bret’s brothers, sisters, and member of the Hart Dynasty. The special referee was Bruce Hart who had been doing a stellar impression of Bernie Lomax from “Weekend at Bernie’s” throughout the previous night’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony and the beginning stages of this match. I think the aviator sunglasses were welded onto his face. This was a pretty interesting surprise, but it was kind of dumb when a minute later Bret revealed that actually, he had met with the Hart Family beforehand and that The Hart Family was actually on his side and had  created a unified front against Vince.

Alright, I understand pulling a fast one on Vince, but shouldn’t this surprise had been revelaed during the course of the match instead of beforehand? Just too much going on at once. So of course the Harts than turned on Vince and created what was basically a 1 vs 15 handicap match. I’ll be honest, it is kind of hard to cheer for a 64 year old heel getting beaten down by an entire family. This almost became a retirement match for Vince when he took a brutal bump from an off the rope Hart Attack administered by Tyson Kidd and Harry Boy Smith. After getting beaten on by the family for awhile, Vince then hid under the ring and pulled out a tool of some type and caused the Hart Family to back away like he was holding a thermal detonator like Leia when she was dressed as a bounty hunter in Return of the Jedi.

Vince then hopped in the ring and proceeded to get beaten down for a very, very, veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery long time by Bret. The beating included all sorts of elbows and kicks, and a crowbar. The worst part was when Bret hit Vince close to 20 times with a single chair. If it was any other performer taking a beatdown like this, they would be over to a Rock like level as a babyface, but this was Bret v. Vince, so the people weren’t going to start booing The Hitman and cheering Vince. Finally, after a ton of chair shots and teases that resulted in kicks to the man area Bret finally clamped down the Sharpshooter and we got the moment we had all been waiting for. Vince tapped out and The Harts all had a group hug. I wanted to give Vince a hug after this match. It was just booked so backwards and the psychology sucked. People want to see the face get beaten on forever and then have the heel get beaten in the end. They’d rather not see a 15 minute face family on heel beat down. Apparently Vince wants to retire the Mr. McMahon character so he wanted to go out by getting the holy hell beaten out of him. Whatever. People just wanted to see Bret hit the Sharpshooter, not the Vince McMahon vanity project. That was just strange to watch. Its good to see Bret is back in good health, but that was just weird.

I like Bret Hart's jeans in this picture.

Chris Jericho then defeated Edge in a very good singles match. Jericho did a fantastic job of working over Edge’s torn achilles. This match reminded me of alot of the older matches I saw on my Bret Hart DVD this week. I was watching some great singles matches from Bret against the likes of Ted DiBiase and Ricky Steamboat. I love watching the old time, slower paced style of one guy targeting the other’s specific body part and doing everything possible to work over that particular area. It gives the match a great story and makes every move feel important and logical. This is unlike today where most matches are clearly heavily scripted out and are basically Move A followed by Move B followed by Move C followed by the finisher. My favotie spot in this match was when Jericho worked over the achilles by putting Edge into a half Boston crab. Y2J got the victory after hitting Edge with the title followed by a kickout. The finish really caught me off guard. I guess I am just used to the typical WWE Mania finishes of the face kicking out of the heel’s finishing move and getting the victory. However, unpredictability can be good if done correctly. A very deliberate, retro early 90s WWE match. I’ll take a well worked story over a spot fest 8 days a week,

Following Edge-Jericho there was a horrific multi-woman tag team match. It was horrific. It is amazing how bad the female workers in TNA and WWE are at wrestling. They all look hot and a few are decent here or there, but the total divas’s division is filler. Gone are the days of Trish vs. Lita.
The final match for this review is Batista vs. John Cena. The two big men actually had a much better match than I was expecting. It was a little clunky in points, but had a nice mixture of athleticism and strength. The finish came when Cena was able to reverse a Batista bomb into a STF which caused Big Dave to tap out. Batista and Cena aren’t quite Kurt Angle-like ring technicians, but they are really good at all of their signature moves. All of their major moves are also super over so the crowd is always into their finishes. The five knuckle shuffle into a spine buster was another sequence of this match that I enjoyed. In a perfect world, Dave would have won this match. He has been the best heel in the company since turning last year. His promos and outfits have all been fantastic. The build for this match was tremendous, and the two giants  definitely lived up to the hype.

Batista may have lost to John Cena, but he is forever a bad ass.

You can read my review for Shawn-Taker in the entry that is just below this one.

~ by lordelevation on April 7, 2010.

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: Batista John Cena, Edge Jericho, John Cena, Randy Orton, Vince McMahon Bret Hart, WrestleMania 26, WWE Batista, WWE Edge., Yoshi Tatsu WWE