Wrestlemania 23

[Loss]

It was last night. I followed the results online and found occasional streaming, but didn't get to really watch the show. MITB, Undertaker/Batista and Michaels/Cena seem to be getting a lot of praise, and MVP is also getting a lot of praise for keeping up with Benoit on the mat, which shocked everyone. The one thing I really had to see as it was happening -- Vince freaking out and getting his head shaved -- I got to see through the streaming I was watching at the time, and Vince didn't disappoint there.

 

From all feedback, it appears to have been a good big show where everyone worked hard, and it also looks like most of the finishes were right on the money as well.

 

The important question now is if they can sustain the buzz they've had lately. I'm sure Backlash will have a bunch of Wrestlemania rematches, as it always does, and I think Kennedy is a better future opponent for Cena than he is Undertaker, but it will still be interesting to see what direction they take, and how they'll hold over the top of the card until the currently absent big names (HHH, Foley, possibly Jericho) start returning.

[sek69]

One thing that bothers me that they want to push the WWE and World titles as equal yet MITB and Rumble winners will always end up going to RAW to face the champ unless it's someone like Taker where it doesn't matter which one he picks since it's not like he needs the rub. I know that the WWE title is the one with the history, but if just once they had a guy who was up and coming decide to chase the World Title it would at least kayfabe wise lend some credibility to the title.

 

Right now Smackdown's like the ROH of WWE brands: better wrestling but people will leave in a heartbeat to win the WWE belt.

[Phil Schneider]

Here are my reviews of the two title matches from Segunda Caida

 

6. John Cena v. Shawn Michaels WWE 4/1

 

This was really the match that ends all arguments about John Cena. Shawn Micheals is personally the most loathsome thing in wrestling. I have such a visceral hatred of him, the fact I enjoyed this match as much as I did was pretty much a miracle, and it was all Cena.

 

Micheals comes out in this preposterous Christian stripper outfit with goofy crosses hanging down and mingling with his chest hair, he looks like a Ted Haggard rent boy post Protease. Then while Cena is coming to the ring he is making faces like a drag queen doing Cher. He is like Paul Lynde at this point, I have no idea how anyone can take him seriously. The first part of the match is all about crafty Micheals outsmarting Cena. Micheals is pretty terrible in this part, ducking punches like he is bowing to a Japaneese lady, throwing wrestling school trainee level chops and mincing around the ring like a less masculine May Flowers. Cena was great though, showing frustration through his face, struggling against poorly executed holds, and bumping big for whatever those punch like things were supposed to be. At one point Micheals had Cena in a loose headscissors, and Cena must have held his breath because his face is turning purple. Micheals does hit a nice Asai, although even the coolest thing about that was how Cena catches it against the table so it looked like his back was broken.

 

The next section was Micheals working the leg and he basically used stomps and chop blocks which he can pull off. People are bitching about the leg selling, but I thought it was fine, Cena sold it a ton when it was being applied, and also sold it during the first part of his comeback, until he was able to shrug it off. He didn't just stop selling, there was a transition. Somewhere in this Micheals takes a shitty looking posting and blades, but still basically controls. The piledriver on the steps was pretty great looking, although I don't get why Ross kept calling it a spike piledriver. Who was the spiker? I guess Jesus is his Arn.

 

You normal Micheals formula match has the opponent control the match, destroy Shawn's surgically repaired back, hit all of his finishers, Micheals then Resurrects hits his superkick and pins his opponent. It is a match structure that makes his opponents look like shit,. Here he controlled the match, while he doesn't really have enough stuff to control a match, at least he doesn't make all of Cena's stuff look like shit, by ignoring it.

 

The finish run was a lot better then in the other title match, you had the kick outs of the finishers, but they weren't just running through their finishers for two counts, they were mixing it up. I loved the constant drop toe holds by Cena, they looked great and it is a very cool set up for the STFU. Cena's fatigue selling was awesome, and I liked them laying on each other at the end, although Micheals rubbing Cena's cock was pretty fucking uncomfortable, I guess jerking Cena off was a match strategy "Hunter is always spent after I do this."

 

Pretty amazing one man show, it seems pretty crazy to say, but Cena may be the best wrestler in the world right now. No one around works big time main event wrestling better. He may not do as many cool things as say Austin Aries, but everything he does counts.

 

8. Undertaker v. Batista WWE 4/1

 

The disappointing Batista v. JBL matches always started with great big man slugfests, but they would be main eventing and have to go 20+ so you would have long chinlock sections. This wasn't a main event, so they could work a brawl the whole match. I really liked most of this match, big guys going after each other, and some big moves sprinkled in. The tope was awesome looking, and pretty crazy to do with only one guy catching. The match fell apart a little at the end though, as they really did this obligatory WWE main event finish. A guy hits his secondary finisher for a dramatic two count, then the other guy hits his secondary finisher for a dramatic two count, rinse repeat. It is pretty cliched and it really looked tacked on here. Still this was damn fun for a match nobody expected anything from.

[Marty]

God, Phil, that was an awesome review of both matches, particularly the WWE title match. Absolutely 100% agreed about Shawn Michaels, especially the entrance. I was at a party for WrestleMania and our group had pointed out the same thing about Michaels' outfit - stripper outfit with crosses. Shawn's like a Green Day song - a Walking Contradiction.

[Loss]

I really need to see this match quickly.

[Marty]

Along with the title matches, I also thought the MITB and U.S. title matches were between decent to very good.

 

The MITB match had a chunkload of different stories to it. The big story was the Jeff Hardy-Edge spot, but watch that match, and you'll see how neat it develops. Whenever Jeff does big spots, such as this one, there's always some hesitation on his part, but then he thinks, "What the heck?" and does it. This one was different. Jeff gets to the top of the ladder, hesitates, but this time Matt Hardy demands Jeff to hit the swanton, because it was Edge that he was going to take out, and it's a nice bit of continuity to the old Edge-Matt feud. Matt was on a very nice quasi-heel run during the whole match, as he threatened to hit Sharmell when King Booker climbed the ladder alone, seemingly for an easy win. Instead, Booker had a heart and protected Sharmell. Matt was possibly the best heel in the match, and it's a shame that on RAW the following night that the Hardyz won the tag titles like nothing happened the night before. Finlay also showed heart when consoling Hornswoggle. Punk looked good as the scrappy rookie coming close to winning and extending the match when he had to. Very good stuff all around.

 

Many people were disappointed in Benoit-MVP, but I think it was good for what it was. Many people said that MVP got zero reaction, but it's hard for a big reaction to happen to a new guy when his match got thrown onto the card relatively at the last minute. Really liked MVP working on Benoit's shoulder, though, as the story was MVP trying to take away Benoit's grappling abilities, including that of applying the Crossface. It made the finish make a lot of sense with Benoit winning with the Swandive, one of the few times I recall him doing that. Solid stuff.

[Resident Evil]

A lot of that match was Michaels too. Nobody dances alone in wrestling so it's not a one man show. No match is ever a one man show and it's disrespectful to say that. In fact, a lot of what I liked about that match was due to Michaels as well as Cena. Cena was both good and bad in there.

 

Taker vs Batista was awesome. The Taker is one of the better wrestlers going right now and Batista came ready to play.

[Loss]

Re: Matt Hardy, I think he's having the best and most consistent year of anyone in wrestling right now. He seems to have a decent to very good match every week on Smackdown. By far, the best I've ever seen Kennedy look is when he was working over Matt Hardy's knee a few weeks back and Matt was selling it like a champ. I also think he does a really good job at portraying himself as a star without much of a push, and he has the ability to feel like an odds-on favorite in matches you know he has no chance of winning. Honestly, reuniting the Hardyz seems like a slight step backward, considering that both seem to finally have unique identities and be somewhat over as singles stars after years of failed attempts. I think the idea of them teaming on a part-time level is fine. In a perfect world, WWE would use their most established tag team to rebuild the belts, but I've given up on that happening. I just really think they're at a point where they could strap a rocket on either guy -- Matt or Jeff -- and they're finally at a point where it would work.

[World's Worst Man]

HBK vs. Cena and Batista vs. Taker were both great in spots, but had long stretches of crap. In the case of the latter, the start and finishing runs were both good, but the middle portions were very dull. The former was bordering on terrible at various moments early on (both guys looking lost, awkward inactive moments, just very "fractured" work), but had a fantastic stretch run. Both decent matches, so along with a fun MITB match, it made for a passable show. Just wasn't anything spectacular I don't think.

[Resident Evil]

Batista and Taker was almost flawless. Where are the long stretches of crap? Michaels and Cena wasn't perfect but I can't find anything noticably wrong with Taker vs Batista.

[sek69]

I don't know if this deserves a separate thread or not, but apparently the DVD release not only removes the boos from Big Dave's entrance (why? he was the de facto heel in the match) they also reshot the Trump-Boogeyman skit according to the thread at DVDVR.