Welcome to Wrassle-Mania! A Look Back at Wrestlemania 26
After such an impressive build-up, it seems hard to believe that Wrestlemania 26 has come and gone. WWE are, of course, fond of exaggeration and hyperbole but, in this case, many of their assertions going in to the event were on the money. This was undoubtedly one of the most hotly anticipated ‘Manias that I can remember, and the rematch between Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker was certainly the most hotly anticipated Wrestlemania match that I can remember. The question was, would it all live up to the hype and expectation? Spoilers follow throughout as I attempt to give my own answer to that question so, if you haven’t yet watched the show and are planning to, I advise you to stop reading now.
The show kicked off with the usual patriotic montage as guest Fantasia sang the national anthem. The stadium looked absolutely amazing, with an enormous stage set-up, huge ramp to the ring and a great deal of pyro. WWE are expected, by virtue of being the biggest and richest wrestling promotion, to have the best production values in wrestling but, in fairness I still don’t think that they always get the credit they deserve. Critics should not underestimate the role this plays in WWE’s dominance of the industry; if TNA could match these production values it would vastly improve their ratings in my opinion, simply because many fans would immediately take the promotion more seriously.
So, after the usual impressive victory package it was on to the first match, the Unified Tag Team Championship match pitting R-Truth and John Morrison against ShowMiz. While this may not have really been one of the feature attractions, I was nevertheless somewhat disappointed by the brevity of this match. The challengers showed a few of their nice moves and then, before you knew it, Morrison was lying flat on his back. Having said that, the result does not displease me in the least, as I had no particular desire to see Morrison and Truth remain a team, while ShowMiz are great value and should stay together for a long time yet. The tag match was followed by the triple threat match between Randy Orton and his two former Legacy stooges, Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase. Frankly, it made sense to get this one out of the way early as well, since the majority of fans had seemed under whelmed by the build to this. The match itself was executed well enough but suffered due to the fact that is was so painfully predictable: Orton fought bravely until the numbers caught up with him, then the two beat him down for a while, until miscommunications caused them to start fighting each other, allowing Orton to get the win. Tired, all too often repeated formula that just goes to show that sometimes, doing what makes sense isn’t always the smart thing to do. On the plus side, Orton was massively over with audience, who just loved everything he did. A good crowd can lift a mediocre match sometimes and that’s what happened here.
So, it wouldn’t be WWE without some shameless shilling and tedious attempts at humour so, following the triple threat we got a bit of both. After the usual unnecessary singing from Jillian Hall (and how on earth is that gimmick still going?) Santino Marella informed us that anything could happen when you bite into a Slim Jim. Upon biting into his, Jillian transformed into Mae Young who proceeded to snog the unfortunate cobra, before another bite replaced her with Gene Okerlund. Finally, Melina replaced Gene and the pair walked off screen, ending this pointless segment. Now, as much as I pop for anything that gets Mean Gene on the screen, I am sick and tired of Mae Young snogging guys a third of her age. For goodness’ sake Vince, get it through your head, it’s NOT FUNNY ANYMORE! IT NEVER WAS!
Thankfully we had wrestling again after that, in the form of the Ten Man Money in the Bank Ladder Match. These matches don’t really need any kind of review, do they? We saw lots of crazy spots, some of which clearly didn’t come off quite the way they were supposed to, and some exciting moments as people almost got the brief case. Michael Cole managed to call a Twist of Fate when Christian actually hit an inverted DDT off of the ladder on Matt Hardy, which, once again, seemingly had every smark on the net calling for his head. Yeah, because Jim Ross never called a move wrong, did he? It’s the heat of the moment guys, nobody’s perfect. To be fair to Cole, Hardy was trying to hit the Twist of Fate at the time. In any case, I was extremely pleased when Jack Swagger won the match. I am happy to say that I was nowhere near calling this and never would have but then, I never thought CM Punk had a chance of winning MITB the first time he did, either. Hopefully, Swagger will seize this chance to step up to the next level.
After a quick look back at the Hall of Fame from the previous night, it was on to Triple H and Sheamus. I had originally called Sheamus to win this one but, looking back at Hunter’s Wrestlemania record, I began to have my doubts, rightly so as it transpired. Win or lose didn’t really matter in the end, as this was by far Sheamus’ best match thus far in WWE. A lot of credit must go to Hunter for selling Sheamus as a real threat. There were a couple of near falls that were actually hard to call, the crowd were seriously into Triple H and, when all was said and done, this was the best match to this point on the card. Absolutely awesome video package to recap the feud before the match, as well.
Another impressive video package followed, refreshing our memories of the excellent CM Punk-Rey Mysterio feud. I must say, I never thought that there was any possibility that Mysterio would lose this and be forced to join the Straight Edge Society, as it seemed to me that that would absolutely kill his character but, even so, this was a fun match, if a little short. There were some excellent sequences in this match, including a truly outstanding DDT counter by Mysterio, and the finish was a work of art. The last year has been outstanding for Mysterio, particularly the feuds with Jericho and Punk, while CM Punk himself can seemingly do no wrong. Everything the man does is awesome.
Twelve years in the making! Bret Hart finally gets his hands on Vince McMahon. We all knew what this was – a feel good moment in which Bret would get revenge. Two things were guaranteed to happen in this match: Vince would get screwed in some way, and then he would tap out in the sharpshooter. In that sense, the audience were not disappointed. However, this was another example of that strange situation where doing what makes sense doesn’t actually work. This was just a beat-down, pure and simple and, as such, it went on for way too long and got boring. Then again, why would Bret finish this quickly? Why wouldn’t he torture Vince? It made sense within the confines of the story but it didn’t make for good entertainment.
We had reached the business end of the show now, a fact further illustrated by the fact that the next match up was the World Heavyweight Championship match between Edge and Chris Jericho. Maybe it was just the TV but Edge did not seem particularly over here, while the Chris Jericho fan club were definitely front and centre! It seems as if Edge’s face run is already losing steam. The match itself was very good, and the longest to that point but fell short of being a classic. However, I was glad to be on the money in predicting a Jericho victory, since his championship reign deserves to continue. After the match, Edge hit Jericho with an awesome spear off the announce tables but the majority of the crowd actually seemed to boo this. This is the third time, as far as I recollect, that Edge has been pushed as a main-event babyface and it has never worked. Perhaps it’s time for WWE to simply accept that the guy is a natural heel.
By this point of the show I was feeling pretty happy as a viewer. Although nothing had jumped out at me as a must-see classic, I had spent the entire show anticipating something big coming up so, since nothing had really annoyed me (Mae Young and Jillian Hall aside) I was by no means disappointed. Unfortunately, I was just about to be. Next up was the ten Diva tag team match, which gave us the enticing prospect of Vickie Guerrero in action. Yes, I just typed that with a straight face. Never play poker against me! The match was actually okay, clearly intended to be short and allowing each of the women to hit her finisher in a sequence that was actually quite amusing, despite how ludicrously contrived it was. Unfortunately, at the end of all that we were treated to the sight of Vickie giving her “bullfrog splash”, messing it up completely and managing to make a mess of the cover as well. Moreover, what the heck is she doing getting a victory at WRESTLE-EFFING-MANIA?! Vickie is an absolute heat magnet and I think that she does a great job for WWE but at Mania she should be embarrassed and run out of the arena.
Ah well, thankfully there was a proper wrestling match to follow that in the form of Batista versus John Cena. Plenty of boo boys in attendance for Mr Cena, as usual but the main thing is that the crowd were totally engaged by this match, which as a result, was excellent. I wasn’t too enamoured by the decision to have Batista tap out but since he has made Cena his personal you know what for the last couple of months I suppose Cena needed as decisive a victory as possible. Incidentally, this victory made John Cena the most successful submission wrestler in Wrestlemania history, as he became the first man ever to win three Mania matches by submission. This was undoubtedly the best match of the card. At least, until….
The Main Event! The rematch between the Undertaker and Shawn Michaels was the most anticipated match in Wrestlemania history, so they said, and I won’t argue. Did it live up to last year? Absolutely. Was it a better match? Hard to say. The point is that this match was emotionally stronger than last year’s because almost no one wanted either man to lose. Debate had raged over this one but I never wavered in my conviction that The Streak would endure. I tell a lie, that was my call but I was really uncertain for much of the match because the near falls were just too hard to call! However, when the final moments came, with their deliberate evocation of the end of Michaels-Flair two years ago, it became suddenly clear. Like Michaels, Taker didn’t want to retire his noble adversary. Like Flair, Michaels wanted no sympathy and demanded Taker’s best shot. And, with a tombstone and a three-count, it was over. Simply spine-tingling.
And so, is this really the end for Shawn? I can’t say for sure. I’m not naive enough to take a wrestling retirement as gospel but on the other hand, it does seem to me that WWE wanted this to mean something. Would it still matter if Shawn ends up back in the ring in August? That’s for each of us to answer for ourselves. I will say this much, however: those people who keep suggesting Shawn will follow Flair to TNA are, I think, sorely mistaken! I would be very surprised indeed if Shawn ever wrestles again outside of a WWE ring.
So, looking at the show overall, Wrestlemania 26 came in with massive momentum from what was widely agreed to be one of the strongest pay per view builds in recent WWE history. The show itself, however, rarely hit the heights. That said, it was also, with the exception of a bad comedy skit and a terrible finish to the Divas match, never less than solidly entertaining. The show was also wisely structured and built up to a superb finale. Last year, I gave Wrestlemania 25 a grudging 8 out of 10 almost entirely on the strength of the HBK-Taker match. This year, it’s an easy and well-deserved 8.5 out of 10, which I might well kick up to a 9…. purely on the strength of the HBK-Taker match.
Thanks for the memories, Shawn!
Marshall Law 