WrestleMania 26: Bones Made, but no Made Men

Well boys and girls, it's that time of year again, WrestleMania!! Overall I found the event to be rather mediocre compared to previous Manias. Once again the WWE has blown their chance to start the creation of the futures SuperStars.

We were late starting to watch the show, which worked out because I was able to fast forward through Fantasia's brutal National Anthem version. Where oh where is Lilian?

Match One: ShowMiz vs MorTruth

Average match, it wasn't really any better than a RAW match. Nothing special from anyone really. But I did like Morrison's delay on the ropes as he leaned into Show's hamhock sized fist. I didn't expect MorTruth to win, but I expected a better showing. Their first chance to start creating a new star was blown here. Daniel Bryan should have cost ShowMiz the match, furthering the Miz/Bryan storyline. It might have piqued some interest in NXT, with it's dropping ratings, it needs it.

Rating: 2 stars

Match Two: Orton vs DiBiase vs Rhodes

I liked the placement of this match. Something to appease the crowd early. The match starts off like I expected with a gang up on Orton. I was confused by the constant reference to this match as an elimination match, until in Vintage Michael Cole he reminded us that it wasn't an elimination match. Way to be on top of things WWE. Awesome. Attempt two, failed. Once again, putting either DiBiase or Rhodes over Orton on the biggest stage of the WWE would have gone a long way in creating either one of them as a legitimate threat, instead they both get to look weak against the Viper. While Orton will move on, we'll get stuck with a DiBiase/Rhodes feud.

Rating: 2 1/2 stars

Match Three: MITB

Not as much of a clusterfug as I expected, with four too many SuperStars than needed. Some nice high spots, a few blown spots that were recovered. As much as I like Kane, he shouldn't have been in this match, he's too big and everyone knows his time is past. Bourne, Benjamin and MVP shouldn't have been in there either. One a spot monkey, one will never get a shot and the other is still feuding with Miz, supposedly, although that seems dropped. I was expecting McIntyre to win this one as pay off for his "I didn't lose those two matches" storyline, and he is McMahon's chosen one. I was surprised by Swagger's win. I laughed at how long it took him to get the briefcase though. I was thinking well if Swagger cashes in tonight like he claimed he would, at least they would take a step in creating a new big name.

Rating: 3 stars

Match Four: HHH vs Sheamus

I was looking forward to this match. I assumed, and you know what they say about assuming, that HHH would put his training partner Sheamus over by taking a loss. I don't know what I was thinking. Sheamus did look better in this match than he has against any other SuperStar, dominating for the most part. Of course as strong as they made him look, they lost all that momentum with HHH suddenly coming awake from dead weight to hit a pedigree and win the match. Chance three of creating a new name, shot to shit.

Rating: 2 1/2 stars

Match Five: CM Punk vs Mysterio

Again not what I expected. Of course my better half was saying 'Of course Rey wasn't going to win. he wasn't going to join SES', which made it my duty to explain about how it was better storyline wise for Rey to lose so he can sabotage SES from inside. She just smiled at me like I was a retard, 'They will feud as long as the writers want them too'. Le Sigh. The match itself was shorter than it should have been, but there were some nice reversal of moves. Still, I was disappointed in the ending.

Rating: 2 stars (3 stars because of Punk's awesome prematch promo)

Match Six: Bret Hart vs McMahon

Pitiful. What a lame payoff for a lame storyline. First it made Vince look stupid, like he really thought people would fall for the Hart family turning on Bret? Second, everyone knew they were going to turn on Vince, hell the dog came in the room and said 'Do you think people are falling for this shit?' The match was as horrible as I expected it to be. I watched most of the match near tears. I've never been much of a Hitman fan, but to see a once great and well respected performer make a return in such a pitiful, weak shadow of their former self was sad. Just the fact that they had to have someone else do the actual beating on Vince made it more pitiful. Then when it should have ended it kept right on going. Not only was this match pitiful, but it sapped the energy from the crowd for the rest of the night. Hopefully the Hart Dynasty will get a push out of this. At least then something good will have happened.

Rating: 1/2 star

Match Seven: Jericho vs Edge

Decent match up, but I expected a bit more bang for my buck. With the build for this match I expected more stops to be pulled out. Maybe Edge really isn't at a 100%. I was glad to see Jericho pull out the win, he deserves more than a month title reign after carrying both brands for the better part of a year. His talent in the ring, on the mic, and a making faces deserves a length title reign. I liked the spear on the announce tables. Even with the loss it made Edge look strong. Of course, once again a chance was blown to create a new name for the future. Swagger should have come running out, rolled Jericho in the ring and won the title. Perfect chance blown. Again. Again.

Rating 3 1/2 stars

Match Eight: Five on Five Diva Tag match

Why was this added to the card? Why wasn't this the dark match instead of the Battle Royal? Why was this placed so high up on the card? Why was Vicky in the ring? Why did they make me feel like they were more making fun of Eddie than paying homage? No one looked good in this match, well looked good ring skill wise. The diva division is in dire need of a refocus, dedication to wrestling or just dropping it instead making them all valet's.

Rating 1/4 star

Match Nine: Cena vs Batista

Hold on let me get behind a protective shield. Okay. You know this match was so much better than I thought it would be. Maybe it was because we had just seen that horrible Diva's match, I don't know. I thought Batista looked powerful and legitimate, I was surprised that he sold the STF at the end so well. His hand was moving so slow when he tapped out, I thought he was passing out. Cena went through a few "hulk up" moments, but Batista countered them. Cena actually started out the match with mat wrestling. This was the first match of the night that had me actually into the pin attempts. Batista should have won the match in my opinion. One he's been great as a heel the last few weeks, and it's always better for the Face to chase the title. The fans get into it more. Once again, no Swagger and blown chance number 348. Well at least he didn't cash in the MITB and lose to either Cena or Jericho. That would have really sucked.

Rating 3 1/2 stars

Match Ten: Taker vs HBK

This match was no where near as good as last years. Maybe it was because the build up this year was so well done, or maybe because lightning can't strike twice. The match was still the best of the night, but overall it didn't really have to try that hard. I expected there to be more outside objects since there was no DQ or Countout. Not a bad spot through the table and Taker sold the knee injury very well afterwards. Even, Lawler sold it well, making it sound like he was whispering to the other guys that he thought Taker's leg was broke. The match was a solid three star match. It was nothing that wasn't seen before. A lot of kick out of each guys finisher. But the end put it over the top for me. With Taker's look of 'I don't want to do this', telling HBK to stay down, and HBk climbing up Taker's chest, giving him the throat cut sign and slapping him. That one moment gave it a whole nother star. To me it made the match and summed up HBK in doing so. At least they got something right in this WM.

Rating: 4 Stars


Overall: 2 3/4 Stars


Final Thoughts

Once again some guys made bones, but there were no made men. On WWE's biggest stage they once again blew chance after chance to create some new top faces. Orton's still young, as is Punk and Cena. Batista, Jericho and HHH have a few good years left. Edge and Mysterio maybe, but he's injury prone. Taker's on his last legs, as is HBK. The time is now to create the next generation of big names.

DiBiase or Rhodes should have gone over Orton. Especially with a rumored Orton/Christian fued on the horizon. A win for either would have made a fued between the two seem like there was more to it. Now they are both one step away from joining the Job Squad.

Sheamus should have gone over HHH. Sure he looked strong and dominant, but then he looked weak falling for HHH, oh my I'm out of it routine. I really thought that Trips would put him over since they are training partners and what not. I guess nepotism is still alive and well in the WWE.

Sure Swagger won the MITB, but does anyone really see him as a World Champion after burying him for the better part of a year? Really? Really!? McIntyre should have won the MITB. It fits better. McMahon has already called him the chosen one. He was undefeated until a few weeks ago and even that was built into the McMahon's chosen one storyline. Winning the MITB made perfect sense, so of course WWE didn't go that route.

Thank God for Matt Striker. If i were Lawler and Cole I would be asking, why is Striker suddenly announcing with us on PPV's? Lawler and Cole were horrible. At this point I think Striker could do it alone. He can call action, offer up anecdotes about the guys, talk about the moves since he was a wrestler. He is a total package announce wise.

Maybe I graded this WrestleMania hard. I don't know. I expected so much more with this card. I was actually excited about the card this year as opposed to last year where I just wanted to see Taker/HBK I. I felt let down by almost every match ending except for the Taker/HBK match. I'm sure that's not what WWE had in mind for a fans. Then again, I'm not WWE's target Demo. I don't buy merchandise, cheer for who they tell me to cheer for, and I have a sense of story. There were points last night watching the show that I thought, why do I watch, if I'm constantly disappointed with the product? I think this all the time, but like a hard habit, it's hard to break. I've been watching Wrestling for almost 30 years.

One last thing. What the hell is up with the PPV pricing? You know if I was actually paying for matches I wouldn't mind so much. Out of a four hour PPV, we may have had two and a half hours of wrestling. The rest of the time was talking about the Axxess weekend, hall of fame, advertising the next PPV and stupid how we got here segments. Do they really think their fans are idiots? If the bought the fucking PPV they probably know the build up to the damn story.

Man, I wish I was in charge.

Monday Night War Report

So this is the first official week of the New Monday Night Wars. Who will win? Who will lose? Who will fade away?

Before we jump into things, let's just leave the ratings at the door. It's too soon to be calling rating out each week. It's too soon for that to matter. For the opening salvo I'll give Raw a 3.3 rating and Impact a 1.6.

Here's the breakdown. Each week we'll look at four categories, matches, production, segments and announcing. Each category will be graded, then each show will get it's final grade for the week and announced as the winner.


Matches:

Impact: This week week got seven matches. A really good one, Six mediocre.
Raw: This week we got five matches. A really good one, Two bad ones. Two mediocre

Grades: Impact: C+ Raw: D+
Winner: Impact

Production

Impact: Still we are getting the one minute breaks for commercial breaks. The camera men still seem to get lost from time to time.
Raw: If nothing else, you can always count on Raw's production values.

Grades: Impact: C Raw: A
Winner: Raw

Segments

Impact: While most of the segments did include Hogan, they all were part of furthering the storylines.
Raw: Most of the segments furthered the storylines, but they still insist on the guest host filler idiot segments.

Grades: Impact: B Raw: C-
Winner: Impact

Announcing

Impact: Tenay can get on my nerves as can Taz, but they helped sell the action tonight, almost as well as RVD did his beating from Sting.
Raw: Most of the time it seems like Lawler and Cole are talking about something totally different than from whats going on in the ring. At least tonight Lawler didn't call anyone by the wrong name, and unless I missed it, we didn't get a vintage the whole night.

Grades: Impact C+ Raw: D+
Winner: Impact


Final Grades

Impact: C+ Raw C
Winner: Impact - even with my grading giving them three of the categories, Raw's production was almost enough to give Raw the win.


Raw may win the ratings, but this week I give it to Impact.

1-0

The Good, The Bad, and The Rant: RAW

We kick the show off with Undertaker making his way to the ring. He cuts a promo on HBK that started off a little slow but gained steam. HBK came out and things picked up. Both guys took turns cutting promos on each other. Nice way to start the night. The WrestleMania match is now no DQ. I'll give them this they are making it look like Taker has a chance of loosing the match at WM 26.

Match One: Kelly/Kim/Torres v Fox/Lea/Maryse.

SHort match like always, there was nothing of merit, not even looking at the divas. Torres got the pin on Maryse with an armbar. I guess she'll be challenging for the Diva's title next. One thing about the diva division it is predictable. Get a pin on the champ and win the title. Yay.

Hornswagle with Criss Angel, and the Bella Twins. Senseless magic that has nothing and I mean nothing to do with wrestling.

Match Two: ShowMiz vs Morrison/Truth.

Match thrown out after Morrison and Truth left Show laying outside the ring and Miz laying over the ringside barrier. Well they needed to do something to make Morrison and Truth look like they have a chance of winning. Then again WWE is known for giving the Tag TItles to thrown together teams. After all it's not like the titles mean anything. Right Vince?

Cena is interviewed by Josh Mathews. He looks sad, he can't beat Batista, he broke his neck, he took his title. Oh woe as me.

Match Three: Orton v Legacy.

Finally the first match of the night. The match was enjoyable, but I felt like it was a waste. If they are heading toward a Orton v Rhodes v DiBiase match at WrestleMania, shouldn't they get to the Legacy split already? This did nothing for Orton or Legacy. The ending was what had to be. If Orton won it would have weakened Legacy. However I will say that the chance of Orton beating Legacy was more believable than the chance of Jarrett beating Beer Money.

Mathews catches up with Batista who says that he won't interfere in Cena's match and that he wishes Cena good luck. I would have liked it better if Batista didn't say anything like he has the last few weeks and just had the smug smile and looked like he was going to say something.

Triple H comes out and cuts a promo on Sheamus. Sheamus comes out to rebut. Trips cut a great, awesome promo back at Sheamus, proving that Trips is a student of the game like it's claimed and he did learn something from his time with Flair. Sheamus and Trips come to blows with each man exchanging the upper hand. Ends with Sheamus walking away to lick his wounds. I've been a fan of Sheamus since his stiff matches with Golddust on ECW and SuperStars. I hope this match with HHH will finally allow him to put the last few months of paper champion behind him. I think HHH will put him over at WrestleMania.

Santino with Criss Angel. Yay more stupid magic tricks. Although Santino's Ralph Machio comments were great.

Match Four: Bourne vs Regal MITB Qualifier.

Bourne gets the win a quick match.

Now it's time to run down the WM card and plug Austin next week with the contract signing of McMahon and Hart. Even money on Austin ending up the special ref in the match.

Next weeks card is run down with WrestleMania recall matches. Cena vs Show, HHH vs Orton and Jerricho vs HBK. Only looking forward to the HBK/Jerricho match. I've seen the other combinations so much, nothing could make them fresh again.

Criss Angel comes out to announce the Main Event. It seems that's all the Guest hosts have been good for lately. They do stupid humnan tricks backstage, then announce the Main Event. It's a good idea lets keep doing it.

Match Five: John Cena vs McMahon in a gauntlet match.

Kozlov comes out leaves Cena laying and leaves. McMahon goes for the pin, doesn't get it.
McIntyre comes out leaves Cena laying and leaves. McMahon goes for the pin, doesn't get it.
Swagger comes out leaves Cena laying three times and leaves. McMahon doesn't get the pin.
Mark Henry comes out, leaves Cena laying. McMahon doesn't get the pin.
McMahon goes for the time keepers bell, Henry stops him Batista arrives spears Henry. Batista goes after Cena, but is stopped by Kofi. Kofi attacks Batista until he's left laying by a powerbomb. Batista leaves Cena laying and McMahon finally gets the pin.

Batista is left standing over Cena with the lights dim as Raw goes off the air.


The Good

- Never thought I would say this, but Batista. I'm loving Batista's run as a solo heel. He's just egotistical enough, just cocky enough, just angry enough, just quiet enough. He does all of this in the right ammount. Well done, and who ever came up with this heel run, did a great job.
- HHH, HBK, Taker's Promos. Well played by all three.

The Bad

- Worthless segments that do nothing for the story. At. All.
- Only one real wrestling match out of five.
- Divas

The Rant

I've read elsewhere on the Interwebs that both TNA and WWE put out good product tonight. I have to wonder what show did they watch? The WWE segments were awful as were all but the Orton v Legacy match. However the night's promos, except Cena's were awesome. Even Batista's short promo was well done.

The announcing on RAW is so stale. I hope that when JR returns they put him back on Raw and send Cole packing. Maybe when Vince ships him off he'll say, "Vintage McMahon." The guest hosts have gone from stale, to mildewed, to rotten.

The Good, The Bad, and the Rant: Impact

Impact kicks off with Hogan and Abyss making their way to the ring. Abyss is sporting splashes of Hogan's yellow and red. Flair and Styles make their way to the ring both robed and Styles robe has a hood to cover his face, with Phenominal One written across the back.

Match One: Hogan/Abyss vs Flair/Styles

Flair and Styles gain the upper hand and the lights go out. When they return we have Sting in the ring along side Hogan and Abyss. Hogan rips his shirt and Sting beats him with the bat, before attacking Abyss. After a slight pause Styles and Flair join in to bust open Hogan and Abyss. As Flair and Styles are leaving Hogan tells them that this ain't over and they will face eachother again later on tonight in a no DQ match. Your winners Hogan/Abyss by DQ.

Backstage Dixie questions Sting who grabs her by the throat and tells her that he owes her nothing., before walking off.

Styles and Flair are with Borash. Flair cuts a decent promo, that proves when he doesn't go off rambling that even now Flair can cut a promo better than most. Abyss is showing screaming "Why Sting, Why?" SO much for no more sissy Abyss.

After commercial we see Brooke and Hogan's girlfriend clone Brooke (that is kind of creepy, I mean she looks like an older twin of Brooke). Brooke is crying and Clooke is trying to comfort her.

Kazarian is in the ring saying that he will lead the X-Division into the coming war for Monday nights. Daniels comes out and says if anyone will lead the X-Division it will be him since he was X-Division before X-Division was cool. Doug WIlliams comes out proclaiming that the X-Division is alive and well since he's the champ. Bischoff comes out and says that Kazarian is supposed to face Williams at Destination X, but he's changing it to tonight and it's a threeway with Daniels, starting now.

Match Two: Daniels v Kaz v Williams

Decent match with a few nice spots and double pin attempts that I hadn't seen before. It's nice to see the X-Division in a match longer than two minutes showcasing what that branch of TNA can offer. Williams retains after Chaos Theory on Daniels.

Shannon Moore attacks Williams after the match and Bischoff comes back out to inform Williams that he will now be facing Moore at Destination X.

Dixie is with Borash saying that since Sting has re-signed his contract he will have a match tonight, but he won't know his opponent until everyone else does.

Match Three: BP v Tara/Love v Wilde/Sarita for the vacated Knockout Tag Titles.

Ok match, putting BP over with the tag titles that were vacated with the leaving of Awesome Kong. I think Hamada should have been given the chance to choose a new partner, leaving Wilde and Sarita out of the match since the match was really about pushing two storylines they weren't involved in being BP vs Love and Tara vs Dafney. BP win the titles.

The BP are celebrating with Borash and Lacey Von Erich proves that she should be seen and not heard.

The Pope is being interviewed about his upcoming match with Desmond Wolfe. Wolfe attacks his injured heel beating him with a chain before walking off telling him to keep the chains. teehee.

Match Four: RVD v Sting.

RVD comes through the crowd with a heel kick off the top rope catching Sting off guard and gets a quick pin.

While RVD is celebrating Sting attacks with the bat. RVD is hit in the knee, the stomach, back, pretty much everywhere. After doing the job for a returning RVD, this allows Sting to still look strong without hurting RVD's return. Nicely done. Plus, with the attack on Hogan and Abyss, grabbing Dixie, and not attacking RVD and later Hogan with the bat they've managed to move Sting from loved to hated in less than an hour. Well done. Much like Hogan ten years ago, it's time for Sting to finally go heel.

Nash and Young are in the ring with a one time contract for Hall and Waltman for a match at Destination X. Hall and Waltman appear, but say they want another stipulation in the match, that if they win they get TNA contracts. Bischoff pops up on the teletron and agrees, but if they loose they are to go do whatever it is that they do. Bischoff then makes a match right now between Young and Waltman. Even my dead grandmother can see that this is going to end in a swerve at Destination X with Nash throwing the match for Waltman and Hall. The only question is, will it be by sacrificing Eric Young or with a finger poke of doomesque ending? I'm hoping for a sacrifice of Eric Young. Please Gods, no fingerpoke.

Fifth match: Eric Young v Sean Waltman

Short fast paced match that saw Young pull out the win, further inforcing my swerve vision.

The US Army are surrounding the ring and Angle comes out cutting yet another serious promo in a suit. Anderson interupts from backstage, Angle goes after him and beats him toward the ring where he keeps throwing Anderson out to the troops so they could beat on him for a minutes before throwing him back in the ring. Ends with Anderson laid out and Angle smiling on the shoulders of the Army with his warrior metal back.

Jarrett confronts James Storm about being forced into a match and how much Storm owes Jarrett. Storm says he don't owe Jarrett nothing, it's what have you done for me lately and Sorry about your damn luck, which is one of the best catch phrases in TNA.

Match Six. Jarrett vs Beer Money, with Foley as Ref.

Decent showing from Jarrett, which just goes to show that when he doesn't have to worry aobout running the company he can still be the company man. I've always been a fan of Jarrett's. Beer Money gets the win after a pin from Slick who came out to stop Jarrett from using the barbwire bat that Foley had given him.

Scattered through ou tthe night there have been segments of people talking to Hogan about not doing the match tonight, including Brooke, who he promises that tonight is the last time he gets in the ring.

Match Seven: Hogan/Abyss v Flair/Styles

In a matter of second Flair is bleeding and looking like someone that's been attacked in a horror movie. Not a bad match but not great. Hogan/Abyss get the win after an assisted Black Hole Slam from Abyss on Styles.

Hogan and Abyss celebrate before being attacked by Wolfe with a chair. Flair and Styles join the fray until The Pope makes his way in the ring. In short order Wolfe, Flair and Styles gain the upper hand beating Pope, Hogan and Abyss to the mat. Then music hits and Jeff Hardy charges the ring laying out everyone standing, the show goes off with Hardy perched to leap from the top rope.


The Good

-Sting Heel- About time and well played out. Face it Sting has grown stale over the last few years, maybe it's from hangin out in those rafters. Even his turn in MEM, didn't help freshen him up, with his suits, glasses and no makeup. Maybe this will add some flavor to this almost used up stick of gum. I hope so. If he's going to stay around the freshness could help.
-Segments that actual did something for the story. No lucky charms, no magic, no diva pillow fights or Springer segments.

The Bad

-Production- still we have the one minute segments between comercials with guys walking or preparing to walk to the ring. Really we don't need it. There were also a few times where it felt like the camera man was in the way and forgot what he was filming.
-Too Much Hogan- I know the thought is that when Hogan is on the screen rating's spike, and they may even have rating proof to back it up. But seriously we didn't need to see him in three segments and coming out to aid RVD. The only thing that accomplished was to push Sting further along into the hated category for attacking a held back Hogan.



The Rant

Tonight's show title should have been Misdirection. For weeks now we've heard how Hogan was saying he was going heel soon. How he would turn on Abyss. So everyone was expecting it, Hell I was. When Sting came in the ring, I thought well he's going to attack Sting as well. Glad I was wrong. In a short bit of time I grew to love Sting as a heel. It's about time. I just hope he does something with it, and it's not short lived.

After that bit of misdirection it got me to thinking. Has the last few weeks been all misdirection? Have they purposely had shows that weren't that great, with less than fifteen minutes of actual wrestling, just to lure everyone into thinking they wouldn't be much competition for RAW? Look at what we did see tonight. The surprises didn't surprise me. I wasn't shocked by RVD, (I think it was revealed on purpose to lure fans), Moore wasn't a surprise, nor was Hardy, hell between them two and Hardy's girlfriend it was all over twitter that they would be on the show anyway. What surprised me was the use of Daniels and Beer Money. Not just their use, but how they were used. Daniels didn't come out at the prude mad because a "porn star" was on the show, he came out as the egotistical "I'm the reason the X-Division is here" guy he was a few months ago. Beer Money didn't come out as the whinning, "were being held back" tag team they were last week or a few weeks ago, they came out as "sorry about your damn luck" what do we get out of this team they were a few months ago.

I found the show enjoyable and fast paced. Hell we got seven matches, eight if you want to count the Angle/Anderson segment as a lumberjack match. If TNA could just clean up the production, cut some dead weight from the roster, and focus on wrestling this war might just be more than a skirmish. God I hope so.