I could do without another Snooki WrestleMania appearance though... What is WWE's fixation on that Jersey Shore loser?
Pre-Show: Intercontinenal Championship Match - The Miz def. Wade Barrett (c) to become NEW Intercontinental Champion - This pretty much was a spotfest with both Superstars slapping on signatures and finishers left and right. I wanted Barrett to win it early off that Winds of Change counter to Miz's charge into the corner, but Miz takes the gold home by making Barrett tap to Figure Four Leg Lock to become the new IC champ.
Can't say I'm surprised as Barrett has been mediocre at best as champion, but do I agree with it? Not at all on this change. I felt that Barrett could have used another win to catapult himself further. Now without the gold, I see him fading away into obscurity of WWE's mid-card wasteland again.
Opener: 6-Man Tag Team Match - The Shield (Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns) def. Sheamus, Randy Orton, and The Big Show - I can't believe this booked first. I thought Tons of Funk vs. Rhodes Scholars was going to be first. Well done from both teams. That suicide dive from Rollins out of the ring looked painful but that train wreck of a Spear Big Show did into the masses was insane. I applaud The Big Show for his lack of teamwork after Orton's showboating. Mark that as another memorable WM moment for The Big Show as he left his fistprint in the foreheads of both Sheamus and Orton. The Shield should be proud of their first WM performance. Decent match all around.
Seriously... you could do a drinking game off how many times they show the Cena/Rock rematch video package. They already showed this shit like 4 times during the pre-show.
Mark Henry def. Ryback - Mark Henry dominated this one from start to finish until it looked like Ryback was going to hit the Shellshock. Henry held the ropes and fell on top of Ryback, knocking the air out of him long enough for Henry to score the three count. This one dragged too much for my taste, but I was more shocked that Ryback didn't "hulk up" and pull out the win here. What is WWE thinking on this ongoing list of losses for this guy at PPVs? At least Ryback delivered the Shellshock afterwards though, so there's some sign that this feud will continue over the summer. Hopefully, these two will have a memorable feud like Henry/Show did last year.
WWE Tag Team Championship Match - Team Hell No! (c) def. Dolph Ziggler & Big E Langston (w/ AJ Lee) to retain - Clearly, this should have been the show opener in my eyes. This woke up the crowd after the snoozefest that was the Henry/Ryback match. Gotta love that they trolled the crowd with the same spot from last year that allowed Daniel Bryan to lose the title instantly but wasn't the case with Ziggler.
I felt that Kaitlyn should have came out to get involved in the finish since they never 'offiically' put her title on the line against AJ Lee yet. That would have added more fuel to the fire on their feud.
Fandango (in-ring debut) def. Chris Jericho - After ALL that hype into this match and it ended up being a total buzzkill for me anyway. I will take a moment and say that his Dancing With The Stars-style WM entrance was pretty sweet though. I was disappointed that Jericho didn't get the similar treatment for his entrance to the ring. Jericho dominated majority of this contest until Fandango hit an jumping enzuigiri to counter the Lionsault and scored his signature diving leg drop. Jericho managed to kick-out of the near-fall and the match continued with Jericho capitalizing on his folly from failing from a second diving leg drop and applies the Walls of Jericho. Somehow Jericho torqued his knee during his evasion with the Lionsault which allowed Fandango to roll him up to steal the win.
With him dressed like that, I keep thinking this guy is going to wrestle like John Morrison, but at the end of the day this is still Johnny Curtis from NXT after all so maybe the kid still has hope. Still, for his first match that was mediocre at best - even for a Jericho match. Him and Jericho should have torn the house down on this debut. Even on the post show, WWE is still feeding more sunshine up his ass than he actually did in this match.
WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match Alberto Del Rio (c) def. Jack Swagger to retain - These are the two guys you call when you can't book Kurt Angle vs. Eddie Guerrero at WrestleMania. All jokes aside this wasn't as bad as I was expecting going in. I love that they are finally allowing Alberto Del Rio's talents to shine through instead of limiting his arsenal like when he first debut. All of these successful defenses underneath his belt are making him look like a stronger champion as the months go by. Swagger may have lost steam after the media controversy with his current gimmick, but I don't see him losing steam and disappearing out of the main event scene quite yet. They can easily stretch this program out over the summer.
On a side note, why the hell didn't Dolph Ziggler NOT cash in Money in the Bank? I'm getting sick of him carrying it around if he's not going to use it.
The Undertaker def. CM Punk to maintain the streak at 21 and 0 - Going into this, everyone knew there wasn't a shadow of a chance in hell that CM Punk would win this after the ending of RAW last week. I was more surprised that CM Punk was dominating the duration of the match, especially with how Punk has been dominating the feud, so you would expect that Taker would be out here seeing red for this match. Compared to his last few WM outings, Taker is definitely showing his age. He's a lot slower in the ring, but him and CM Punk managed to make this work. Tons of counters and reversals in this one, with my favorite being the reversal out of Hell's Gate into a pin attempt and the GTS counter to the Tombstone Piledriver for the finish. Still, I was expecting this one to be a lot more brutal. I guess they were saving for everything brutal and uneasy on the eyes for Lesnar/HHH's rematch later tonight. Oh well, this one was still my favorite to watch so far tonight.
If the rumors are true, Punk's going to be off the radar for a while after this one to heal up that nagging knee injury.
Triple H def. Brock Lesnar in a No Disqualification Match - Just like previously mentioned, this one held up to the expectations. This was brutal from start to finish with Lesnar holding the momentum for the first half of the bout, even besting an interfering HBK and hitting the F5 on both HBK and HHH back to back. After several near-falls from both Superstars, Triple H made a desperate play and applied Lesnar's own Kimura Lock after working his arm earlier with several chair shots to the shoulder. Lesnar counters with two spinebusters on the steel steps but HHH keeps the hold applied. Lesnar hits another spinebuster, only for HHH to counter into a DDT onto the steel steps and dazing Lesnar long enough for HHH to finish the job with the Pedigree. This match was all over the inside and outside of the ring, and definitely made up for the botch last match where the Spanish announce table didn't break when Punk and Taker were on it. I guess that table is fed up for giving it up to WWE Superstars for free...
I enjoyed this match a lot more than their Summerslam bout, but I was definitely surprised that Triple H managed to pick up the win, especially with his career on the line. I thought The Game was ready to hang up the boots for good with that comfy office job up for grabs soon. It doesn't do anything for Lesnar either as he still that contract extension to live up to so I'm wondering what they are going to with him next.
WWE Championship Match - John Cena def. The Rock (c) to become NEW WWE Champion - Apparently, WWE cut the Tons of Funk (Tensai, Brodus Clay, Naomi, and Cameron) versus Rhodes Scholars (Cody Rhodes & Damien Sandow) & The Bella Twins due to time restraints. IMO, if they didn't cut a video promo or cheap plug for sponsors every few seconds they would have had time for this match, which marks the first year in ages that WrestleMania didn't have a Divas related match of some kind. Sure, we had AJ's involvement in the Tag Team match but that was easily forgettable. Then we have the Trish Stratus marks still clamoring over her pregnancy announcement and Hall of Fame induction last night, but they were given even more to talk about with her stunning attire for her brief appearance on the broadcast tonight.
Congratulations Trish on your induction, but let's not forget that there's still other women of wrestling out there who deserve recognition. Instead, it disgusts me throughout the weekend to see all of the talk this weekend from HOF was centered around her. If I'm honest, I will never see why everyone eats off the ground she walks off of. She's hot, I get that. She's won the Women's Championship more times than anyone else. She's WWE's golden girl who does no wrong. Big F'N deal. Trish Stratus could take a dump in public on the sidewalk and everyone would love it.
Onto this title match, it came across a literal repeat of their first encounter from last year. Nothing really surprising, but a lot more finisher reversals and exchanges - which for the record was getting rather old to see this being used for the previous two high-profile matches on the card. You could tell that both the commentary team and the audience were already spent and were looking for this one to be over quickly. Cena teased a few hints of turning to the Dark Side but won it without obeying Emperor Palpatine. The finish was rather weak for my taste, but Cena got what he wanted, both his redemption for failing last year and the WWE Championship is back in his possession.
Boy, it's going to be a rather boring summer in WWEville this year...
Guess who's looking forward to Monday Night RAW tomorrow night? Not this guy... Grading the show as whole from start to finish, I have to give it a 3 out of 5 with the best of the show being Taker vs. Punk and HHH vs. Lesnar without a shadow of a doubt. Everything else gave that huge 'meh' impression.
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