Ok, usually I do my reviews with bullet points as I watch but I wasn’t able to do that because we had company (Thanks for coming guys, I had a blast. Even you Strife…. ) So I’m gonna just spew out thoughts from what I remember.
The show started hot with the Money in the Bank match, I would have started the show differently and paced it a little differently but whatever.
Punks victory was surprising and Shelton is lucky he isn’t dead. Kofi came out looking pretty hot after that match as well….
Kid Rock was and I useless. 4 songs was a little excessive and that time could have been used for the tag title match which I hear was good and will apparently be now a dvd-exclusive.
I hated the way the divas came out during Kid Rocks performance. No one got name recognition which I think was kind of the point of bringing back some of the old divas. The Santino thing was funny. I didn’t like the way the announcers sort of played dumb, I would have done things differently, and I would have let some of the old divas like Sunny and Torrie and Molly get a bit of a shine. That being said, it wasn’t totally without merit, I just would have changed the mechanics a little.
Up next was Jericho vs. The Legends which wasn’t really anything I didn’t expect other then the surprising performance of Steamboat. It was booked well to cut Piper and Snuka relatively early. Steamboat and Jericho worked well at The Dragon came out smelling like roses. Jericho got the win and then KO’d by Micky Rourke which was expected but also pissed me off and I will explain why later.
Hardy vs. Hardy followed, I enjoyed it. It was spotty fun and pretty much what I expected. The finish was sickly sweet.
Rey and JBL for the IC title was next and I have some issues with it. I hated that they gave away the match for free Monday on Raw only to have a 20 second squash on a ppv I paid $60 for. If the payoff was JBL retiring (I assume he is on tap to replace Taz as an announcer on Smackdown) then why not do a match, have JBL dominate for the most part and then Rey win with an inside cradle or something similar and then run the I Quit angle….
Up next was Shawn Michaels and Undertaker. Now I’m pretty sure this match will be heralded and a WrestleMania classic for years to come and I’m not disputing that, however it was a little overbooked for my taste. I get the whole Undertaker streak thing and the importance of it but kicking out of that many finishers just shouldn’t happen. Instead, why not have both guys continually find ways to escape or reverse the others finisher. If I was Chris Jericho I would be annoyed. He had to see for (with all due respect) Piper and Snuka and then get knocked out by a non-athlete yet Shawn Michaels kick out of 39 tombstones. But with all that being said, the match was very very good.
Cena won, no big surprise… Match was decent and I was impressed at Cena carrying Big Show and Edge, albeit briefly, on his shoulders. I believe he’s done something similar to that in the past but the specifics escape me. Oh, and Cena’s entrance was lame.
This all lead us up (if I am remebering everything correctly) to the main event. Now I don’t realy have a problem with the match as a whole, its not like it was sloppy or not well executed, its just that they put so much hype into the match that it needed something intangable (sp?) To put it over the top. They built it up to be such a personal thing between the 2, why would HHH, or Orton for that matter want to lock up, or do a headlock etc. They should have wanted to murder each other. I’m not saying the match didn’t feature aggression, there was some sledgehammer stuff and some spots on the floor but at least do some color or something to live up to the way you’ve presented the storyline. It would have been a good Fully Loaded main event but not for WrestleMania 25.
But with all that being said, I enjoyed the show as I usually do. WWE brought the spectacle we have come to expect and they didn’t dissappoint. If everything goes according to plan, my clan will be sitting there in Phoenix enjoying WrestleMania 26.
-God this pbp guy needs to die.
This is my last stop before WrestleMania…. Here we go.
-There seems to be a distinct lack of heel Don West on the show lately. Sad….
-Gail Kim has arrived. To no fanfare.