• Edge retained the World Title over Alberto Del Rio
  I thought for SURE that Del Rio was going to walk out of Mania with the strap.  Not sure where the WWE is going to go with his character at this point but it’s clear he’s going to continue to feud with Edge based on the fact that Edge beat the hell out of his car post match.  I’m guessing we’ll get some sort of Edge/Christian/Del Rio feud in the upcoming weeks here.  This was a solid opener and I really had high hopes for the show after this one.  I was kind of disappointed that they kept telling us that Edge was 0-3 when defending the title at Mania.  Kind of gave away the outcome in my opinion.
• Cody Rhodes beat Rey Mysterio
  I can’t say I’m shocked that Cody got the win here.  I think he actually needed this match (career wise) way more than Rey does and I’m happy to see Rey putting over a younger competitor.  That said, this wasn’t Rey’s finest match.  I’m guessing that we’re going to see Rey against that new high flier that they’ve been introducing.  So so match and DEFINITELY not the worst on the card.
• Kane, Big Show, Santino & Kofi beat The Corre
  Who cares?!?!?  This was thankfully rather short and actually wasn’t too bad to watch.  I’m not quite sure why the Corre wouldn’t get the win here though… why not build those guys?  I mean they DO have 3 title belts between the four guys right?
• Randy Orton beat CM Punk
  Another WTF match for me.  If you’re going to go through WEEKS of building CM Punk as a bad ass and a few MORE weeks of having Orton dismantle his team then why WOULDN’T Punk win this match?  Makes no sense from a storyline perspective.  Punk at this point is buried.  Stupid booking by the WWE in my opinion.  That said it was a good match with Orton playing the “my knee won’t hold me” card and a very nice finish with a RKO out of nowhere.  Quite frankly either this or Edge/Del Rio is match of the night.
• Michael Cole beat Lawler by DQ
  This was just piss poor.  Lawler actually got the win and then the RAW GM (why do we still have THIS storyline going on) comes on and tells us that Austin interfered so Cole gets the win.  This was so bad it made Vince/Bret from WrestleMania 26 look like a masterpiece.  This makes NO sense on so many levels.  Complete waste of a match.
• The Undertaker made HHH tap
  This was decent but it was missing something…. and that something was HHH’s career.  For a No Holds Barred match this was pretty uneventful.  You can tell that both guys were really working hard but they’re just nearing the end of the road.  I’m guessing we’ll see a rematch of this one at next year’s Mania with Taker going for 20-0 against HHH’s career.  Not sure why in the hell Taker was carted out after the match.  He must be setting up his 6 month hiatus that he typically takes after WrestleMania. Decent match but not nearly what Shawn/Taker was the last couple of years.
  

At this point in the night we realized that there was something wrong timing-wise with the show.  We had about an hour remaining with 3 advertised matches.  Houston… we have a problem.  As it turns out, Sheamus/Daniel Bryan for the US Title was a dark match.  That sucks cause I’m guessing that would have been a hell of a lot better than some of the crap we got.

• Snooki, Trish, Morrison beat Ziggler & LayCool
  Lame, lame, lame, lame, lame.  I knew for a FACT that Snooki wasn’t going to lose but come on folks… you’ve got to give us SOMETHING better than this.
• Miz retained the WWE title over John Cena
  I think we all saw this coming a mile away.  Maybe not the way they got there but the end result.  Cena/Miz go to a double count out and out comes Rock (saying “Fuck THAT shit…” which is really funny).  Rock gets on the mic, restarts the match, gives Cena a Rock Bottom and Miz retains.  We’re clearly headed toward a Cena/Rock program which doesn’t NEED the title involved.  This was mildly entertaining though I was just sort of waiting for things to happen.

I’m not sure if I’m just a jaded wrestling fan or what, but I’ve been pretty disappointed with the last couple of year’s offerings.  This is the biggest show of the year and I’m just always hoping for a HUGE show from the WWE.  Maybe I’m just building things way up in my mind to the point where I can’t be satisfied.  That said… I can’t WAIT for April 1st, 2012… WrestleMania 28 in Miami!

What did you think of the show last night?

As in previous years, Pip and I started out early creating our WrestleMania 27 drinking game that will help us along the way to building this year’s Beeramid.  We’ve actually laid off the last couple of weeks creating new rules partially because we already have 15 rules (remember, the list is modified up until game day) and partially because we had really no idea what matches we were going to see.  At this point we’re only a couple of weeks out and there are officially 7 matches on the card.  A card that’s shaping up nicely if I do say so myself.

1. World Heavyweight Championship – Edge (c) vs. Alberto Del Rio
   Rumble winner Del Rio goes after his first WWE title.  This should be a good one.  They’ve been building Del Rio up pretty hard over the last couple of weeks.  I’m guessing we’ll see Christian enter into this one somewhere alon the way.  My pick at this point is Del Rio to take the title.
2. WWE Championship – The Miz (c) vs. John Cena
   Miz has been nothing short of AWESOME lately.  Up until Rumble I didn’t think Miz was anything more than a transitional champion.  Now I’m almost sure he’ll walk out of Mania with the title after defeating Cena.
3. Triple H vs. The Undertaker
   Taker and Shawn stole the show for the last two years.  He’s a year older, but I’m guessing he’ll do it again this year with HHH.  The WWE’s toughest job is making it appear that “The Streak” may actually end.  Taker goes 19-0.
4. Jerry Lawler vs. Michael Cole (with Jack Swagger)
   I’ll put this in the “who gives a shit” category, but I’m guessing it’ll be rather entertaining (especially with special guest referee Stone Cold Steve Austin.  Jerry Lawler has never been on a Mania card.  I’m guessing he gets a win in his debut event.
5. Randy Orton vs. CM Punk
   Not sure what’s happened to Orton’s heat as of late.  Punk is the best heel on the show in my opinion.  This has the makings of a 5 star match in the middle of the card.  Thinking Punk should go over, but with politics backstage Orton will get the win.
6. Rey Mysterio vs. Cody Rhodes
   I always enjoy watching Rey wrestle.   I can’t stand the Cody Rhodes character so I’m very much looking forward to Rey getting a big win here.
7. Trish Stratus, Snooki and John Morrison vs. Dolph Ziggler, LayCool
   Um… OK.

Oh yeah… don’t forget about the most electrifying man in sports and entertainment… The Rock will be the guest host of this year’s show.  He and John Cena have been having an epic war of words of late so you can pretty much guarantee that Rocky will be getting involved.

What about Kane, Sheaumus, Big Show, Kevin Nash/Diesel, Wade Barrett, and the rest of the Divas?  Like I said, it’s gonna be a great WrestleMania.  Thanks for stepping it up Vince!

Showmiz vs. Morrison & RTruth – This was a decent opener.  I didn’t really surprise me that they kept the straps on Showmiz.  Once they lose, The Big Show has absolutely no program to work.  That said, it’s not going to be too long before Miz has fewer belts than he does now.

Orton, Rhodes & DiBiase – Happy to say that I called the outcome of this one.  Nothing real surprising here with Orton getting the win.  I have to say that these guys are definitely better apart than they were together.  I can’t stand Rhodes (not sure why but he just looks “weird”) but DiBiase is gonna be a star in the near future.  I’m guessing that this feud is far from over.

Money In The Bank – Nice looking match.  Honestly I was surprised that Swagger got the win here.  I’m not a big fan of his and I’m very interested to see how they build that character toward his title shot.  You can be sure that it won’t be based on his mic skills.

HHH / Sheamus – I thought HHH would actually put Sheamus over here but was happy that he didn’t.  This was a much better match that I expected.  I’m curious as to if this feud is just going to die.  Thinking they might play the “mutual respect card” and have HHH take him on as a pet project.  If they go that route, the first thing they need to do is get Sheamus a damn tan.

Rey / Punk – Good stuff here. Didn’t think there was a chance in hell that Rey would lose and he didn’t.  Always like watching Rey wrestle.

Hart / McMahon – Totally lame. Was pretty disappointed in this one.  I always though that if there was one wrestler that could come back and look decent it would be Bret.  I was wrong.  It wasn’t terrible, just SLOW.  Can’t blame the guy for having a stroke but I expected more from the Hitman.

Jericho / Edge – Good match.  Glad that they left the strap on Jericho but this is far from over.  I do have to say that since the Rumble in January Edge looks MUCH better in the ring.  Thinking this may be the strap that Swagger ends up getting a run with.

Women’s Match – Bunch of ass running around.  This was a total waste of time and should have never been put on the card.

Cena / Batista – GREAT match until the end where it got a bit sloppy.  Pip mentioned that he thought Cena has a heel run in him in the next year or so and after giving it some thought I tend to agree with him.  Think Cena would be a great heel.

Taker / Shawn – Not as good as their match last year but still the best of the show.  I’m VERY happy to see that this was the main event.  There aren’t too many “legends” left in the WWE and a match with two of them should headline WrestleMania regardless of if there’s a title on the line.  Sorry to see Shawn go but SO glad the streak is intact.  I just don’t see a reason for the WWE to build up that streak for so many years to throw it away at this point.

Overall MUCH better than last year.  No real surprises but I feel much better about spending the money this Monday than I did last year.

Carlito & Primo vs. John Morrison & The Miz – no fucking idea why this wasn’t shown.  I’m not a huge fan of tag team wrestling but these guys are pretty solid in the ring and it would have been nice to see more of the roster on the 25th WrestleMania show.  This is especially true when we got what we did (keep reading).

Money In The Bank – good opener but I don’t think it should have been the opener.  This match included CM Punk, Mark Henry,  MVP, Finlay, Shelton Benjamin, Kofi Kingston, Christian Cage and Kane.  REALLY sloppy but I suppose I can forgive it cause there’s just so much going on.  Pretty sure Shelton took a header and no one caught him.  Ouch.

Kid Rock Performance – OK…  I love his music but what… the… fuck!  There’s absolutely NO NEED for him to sing 4 songs.  This is time that was wasted and should have been spent elsewhere on the show.

Diva Battle Royal – Um… OK.  Have a dude win Miss WrestleMania???  As Pip said, that’s the kind of thing that you should do like the 5th or 6th time you have this battle royal… not the first and CERTAINLY not on this show.  The announcers didn’t even know who was in the ring.  Pathetic.  These weren’t announced on the show so in case you’re interested here’s the divas that were included:  Santina Marella, Eve Torres, Jillian, Katie Lea, Brie Bella, Nikki Bella, Beth Phoenix, Alicia Fox, Gail Kim, Kelly Kelly, Layla, Maryse, Michelle McCool, Melina, Maria, Natalya, Mickie James, Tiffany, Rosa Mendez, Joy Giovanni, Molly Holly, Jackie Gayda, Sunny, Torrie Wilson and Victoria.

Chris Jerico vs. Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka & Ricky Steamboat (with Ric Flair) – There’s dust that’s younger than Snuka and his one man-boob sticking out was just terrible.  I can’t remember Piper EVER doing a dropkick and his one-legged variation reminded me why.  Steamboat was awesome… simply amazing.  We made a comment that he could get in there today and win the IC title.  It was so great to see a “legend” that still has it.  Thank you Ricky Steamboat!  The Wrestler was a great movie but the whole Rourke tie-in was gay on the PPV.  We totally saw it coming and his doing with 1 punch what the other guys couldn’t do three on one?  Come on.  WWE fans deserve better than this.

Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy – I actually put the boys to bed during this and heard that I didn’t miss much.  The final twist of fate was pretty cool through from what I saw on the replay.

JBL/Rey Misterio - huh???  JBL’s been talking for weeks about how he’s going to do something “special” at WrestleMania.  So he goes out, proceeds to lose the Intercontinental title in 21 seconds and then quit?  Whatever.  JBL deserves better than this.

Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels – WOW!!!  Fucking wow.  This right here made it worth the $55 that I spent on the show.  Absolutely unbelievable.  This match just got itself a spot in my “Top 10 WrestleMania matches” list.  SO glad that they kept the streak intact.  In fact I’ll be super fucking bitter if they ever end it.  Mean Mark Calloway deserves to retire with it.

Edge vs. The Big Show vs. John Cena – I thought for sure that Edge or Show was going to take it.  I was pleasantly surprised that Cena took it down.  I really like him as champ rather than playing the role of chasing the title.

HHH vs. Randy Orton – OK… what the hell happened here?  They were running WAY late on the show and someone must have told them to go home right then.  Weak ending to a pretty poor match and it was even worse that this was the main event of the show.  I can only assume (based on this debacle) that this feud isn’t over.

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

This felt like any other show.  Aside from the “legends” match and the piss poor HOF stuff there was nothing special about this “25th anniversary edition.  How can you NOT have Hogan, Warrior, Hart, Savage, etc. on this show?  I know that there’s a TON of bad blood there but come on!

How could we have this show without the McMahons?  This just seemed pretty poorly thought out.  I’d definitely give the writing crew a bad grade here.

Anyone watch the HOF on USA Saturday night?  20 minutes of Steamboat, 5 minutes of “the others” and the rest of the show for Austin.  Stone Cold is OBVIOUSLY the biggest player there but you’ve just GOT to include some more people in your coverage.

And why… in the hell… was Koko inducted?  If you watch the montage they showed it goes like this:

Koko beating a jobber
Koko beating a jobber
Koko as part of a 3 man tag match
Koko beating a jobber
Oh, Koko lost that match
Koko beating a jobber
Koko beating a jobber

What the hell… I’d just like to announce right here that I’ll be inducted next year as the WWE’s number 1 fan.  Apparently all it takes is longevity.

Ugh…

* chewie runs away and waits for the DVD to come out which he KNOWS he’ll have to buy *