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Archive for March 29th, 2010

The storyline her is simple, yet compelling.

The Undertaker has a 17-0 streak at WresteMania coming into the night; and this is two WMs in a row for ‘Taker and Michaels to face off against each other. Taker is 45 and Michaels is 44, but Michaels put his career on the line if he fails to end ‘Taker’s victory streak at WM.

Classic wrestling storytelling. All in-ring stuff without the contrived storylines. And the in-ring execution was Wii-worthy. Energetic, epic and memorable as to veteran performers offered their all.

With nearly 26 minutes to tell their story, the match had an appropriate WrestleMania epic feel, and although the outcome wasn’t the hoped-for upset, even if it means Michaels is off Raw for a while, this was certainly a worthy match for him to go out on.

For a match 13 years in the making, the long-anticipated Bret vs. Vince match failed to live up to the pre-match hype. Instead of a somewhat competitive display, the “double-screwjob” angle with the entire Hart Family serving as McMahon’s lumberjacks… and immediately turning on Vince… made little sense in its timing.

Worse, however, was the in-ring execution. Now 64, McMahon is no longer able to pull off a convincing in-ring presence. While his match with Hart made storyline and business sense, McMahon simply isn’t up to the job the way he was twelve years ago when he was regularly facing off with Stone Cold Steve Austin.

The entire match had Bret on offense and McMahon barely made a recovery, let alone ever got any offense going enough to put the outcome in doubt and add some drama to the event. As a result, I’d have enjoyed myself more spending that time buying new office furniture.

Hart himself is no spring chicken, either. At 52, he is at an age where he might be in shape enough to take bumps convincingly the way McMahon did twelve years ago when he was 52, but to dominate an opponent like this? Not convincing. The match lacked energy and called to mind the tired, plodding pace of the Verne Gagne-Nick Bockwinkle AWA matches of the mid-1980s.

OK, I’ll get right to the result: Jack Swagger, who vowed to win on Raw last week, actually won just shy of the 15-minute mark. In a field that included Kofi Kingston, Kane, Matt Hardy, Christan, Evan Bourne and IC Title champ Drew MacIntyre, to name a few, Swagger is a bit of a shock as the winner. Most folks were predicting Kingston, and I personally thought Bourne had a decent shot to get the rub.

The match eventually came down to Hardy, Christian and Swagger; in that trio, you can bet your home insurance quotes that I wouldn’t have picked Swagger as the winner, given that he’s such a young guy. Still, WWE does seem to be on a bit of a youth movement and changing of the guards, so this could end up doing for Swagger what the MITB match did for both Edge and C.M. Punk.

Time will tell.

With Randy Orton facing off against both members of Legacy, I was looking forward to this match more than most of the undercard, simply because Orton is in his prime and both Rhodes and DiBiase seem primed to be the next Orton, even if DiBiase is noticeably more polished at this point than Rhodes.

The actual match was more fun that a room full of custom plastic cups! Although it lasted around nine minutes in all, Orton’s in-ring storytelling helped sell the energy and enthusiasm of the younger duo.

Rhodes too a wicked Punt from Orton that may signal a hiatus from TV, and Orton got the win and appears to be headed toward becoming Raw’s top heel, even though this match drew some babyface heat to him. DiBiase lost, but appears ready for the next phase of his career. A lot could be determined about where that will take him in a couple weeks, when Raw holds its annual Draft Lottery event, mixing up the roster.