BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
WrestleMania 29 has come and gone. It was pretty much exactly what you’d expect it to be. If you’re a fan of wrestling you’d know the conclusions they went with were the obvious ones. I know sometimes a story will have a natural conclusion and even the obvious ending is the right one, but I don’t know about that with this. Some matches, yes, but the whole show just felt lackluster as a whole.
I’ll start with the good. It was cool that The Miz won the IC title, but I’m also a fan of Wade Barrett so I hope this isn’t his downfall. The “official” opening match was solid. The Shield winning was awesome. Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns getting a big win like this in a pretty decent match will only add to their growing credibility. They’ve not had to face really any mid-carders. They’ve had a great debut period where they’ve worked tons of former World Champs and main eventers. I was pleasantly surprised that Mark Henry got the win over Ryback, but it was a pretty shitty match. The Team Hell No/Zig-E match was a bright spot as well. The best match of the night was the Undertaker/Punk thing. It was a good story, but the actual action was shitty.. I probably need to watch it again, but I think once the dust settles it’ll be on par with the likes of Taker/Edge or even Taker/Batista. If this match had been on a Smackdown without the aura of Mania and the steak being on the line, it would have been a great TV match, but forgettable. The story rocked and it pulled you in. That’s all you can ask for with Undertaker matches these days. It’s always a big emotional war of Taker overcoming all odds to get the win. I’m not a bitter Punk fan or anything. I do think the streak should end, but not Punk.
The show wasn’t fun. Nothing felt special. Del Rio has gotten so much better and came into his own, but his match with Swagger was boring. I hope the Swagger project is over. Keep Zeb and give him a new guy or even a tag team, but Jack Swagger is not a World Title guy. Stop it already. Triple H defeated Brock Lesnar because he’s a much better fighter, he’s stronger, he’s more experienced in submission wrestling, and he’s just the best thing EVER. Seriously, just ask him. If the internet isn’t full of shit, Triple H has done some awesome stuff in his corporate role. His performances just don’t do it for me. His promos are the same thing over and over and every time he has a big match Shawn Michaels has to come back and cut promos to REALLY sell it. He can’t on his own and he’s always going to be Shawn Michaels’ second no matter what role he takes on. Michael’s IS “Mr. WrestleMania” for a reason. It just sucked to have to see him show up dressed like an unemployed NASCAR fan for the biggest show of the year. It was a waste. The suspense and story of the match was painful. The story of the Rock/Cena match was just as painful. I don’t care that Cena won, but it just didn’t click. The crowd wasn’t as alive as they should have been for a main event match. Cena would always have that whole “people might cheer, people might boo, but they’re at least reacting!” thing going for him. I think that’s done. It’s hard to cheer for this guy and booing him is pointless. He’s just boring and stale. I’m going to go ahead and speak for the entire universe and announce that we are all officially burnt out on this stuff. This show was a “call in” show. The WWE didn’t give a shit about this show. They took our money in plans of actually attempting something big at next year’s big “30”. You can just tell they were holding back in terms of build, star power, and even the action. The storytelling in a WWE wrestling match has gotten really formulaic. It’s like WWE fans and critics automatically think a match is “great” when it’s over 15 minutes and involves kicking out of a million finishers. It’s big finisher, a close 2 count tease, and then rinse and repeat until they run out of spots. It’s cool for a match or two, but any match the WWE books to be a “big match” will have THIS formula. And now they’ll break the random barrier around the time keeper as a big “oh my” spot. It’s the same thing over and over. This was pretty much $70 down the drain. You could have went out to a decent concert, out to a nice dinner, a few nights at the movies, a few DVDs, about a dozen five dollar foot longs from Subway, booze, drugs, clothes, donated to a charity, bought a few tickets to local indie shows, or even $70 worth of paint. Watching it dry would at least last longer than four hours.
|
