Wrestlemania 27

It’s been nearly a week since Wrestlemania 27 before I started writing a recap, and think that the time delay was necessary, as it took a week to get all of the sensationalism and emotions out of the head and to actually think about the show. By and large, I believe the word to best sum up this Wrestlemania is: disappointing. Not bad, not unwatchable, but disappointing. The potential was there for this to be a great Wrestlemania, with the matches and plot lines going in, and there were certainly a couple of good, solid matches. But by and large, the whole show never clicked. The timing seemed off (as we shall see), there were a lot of gaps in between matches (which made the whole show seem slower), the wrestlers seemed almost lacklustre themselves at times, and most of all, there were a ton of really confusing moments. Moments that made you look at the screen with your head atilt and wonder, “What’s going on? Do /they/ even know?” If Wrestlemania 27 were a sandwich, it didn’t taste too bad, but it left you still hungry.

It didn’t help that this mind-bending started at the beginning of the evening. After the usual detonation of the fireworks, we are introduced to our host for the evening, the Rock. I still have no real idea what his role as host, and the powers invested in him, actually mandate. At any rate, the Great One comes out to get the crowd pumped up, as he is wont to do. And he does a pretty good job, using the usual Rock hyperbole. But then, he kind of... just keeps going. For, like, ten minutes (I didn’t time it, but it seemed to go on for that long). It didn’t help that he kept taking extremely long breaks in between talking, in which I believe he was trying to get a feel for the crowd, but couldn’t pick up anything (the crowd kind of sucked this year). So we had moments of the Rock stopping to drink some water, trying to get the people to chant about the water, and having typed that sentence and seeing how absurd it is, I think you can get the idea that Rock kind of missed the beat. There was also the start of a Fruity Pebbles chant (I can’t believe I just typed that...), and Rock was waiting for it to grow, but it didn’t, and so that just added more time on to the clock. So at the beginning of Wrestlemania, we had the man whose job it was to pump up the crowd not only fail, but confused us as well. And when the Rock is off on the mic, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of us.

At any rate, we get to our opening match for the night...

Edge vs. Alberto Del Rio for the World Heavyweight Championship?

Wait, wait... one of the alleged main events, the main plot line on Smackdown, the match with the winner of the 2011 Royal Rumble... is /opening?/

Yes, this is the start of the weird timing of Wrestlemania 27. The difference, as most know, between an opening match and a main event, is that the role of the opening match is to get the blood pumping and interest growing for the rest of the evening, to get the crowd in the right frame of mind, so that when you do get to the more important matches, the crowd is wide awake. Not to mention that you hold back the main events to ensure that the suspense and interest in the main plotlines compels people to stay focused during the show, and keeps them from getting bored, as you know that the show is only building and that the best is yet to come. Now, counter this with opening with a main event type match: not only is the crowd not warmed up yet, but you’ve shot yourself in the foot for the rest of the show. There is nothing left to build towards, because the climax has gone first. The emotional investment isn’t there. Now the crowd has nothing to look forward to as we plough through the throwaway matches.

Even worse, in an oxymoron way, is that this was a really, really good match. The speed was kept up throughout, the moves were good, and there were several false finishes that kept you guessing. Del Rio was pretty impressive throughout, and though Edge was a little slower than usual, the match didn’t drag, as he’d take enough moves from Del Rio to keep up the momentum, and then pay it back in bursts. The inclusion of Christian and Brodus Clay at ringside really added to the match, as both of them kept coming into play as the match went on, with moments that really mattered to the plot instead of just filler. The ending was a bit abrupt, with Edge kind of hitting the Spear out of nowhere and felt a off with the timing, but it was still a pretty great match. But now, how can you top that? Answer: you can’t, and every match which has to follow that feels slower and less glamorous. It’s not like Wrestlemania hasn’t had this problem before (Rock vs. Hogan obviously overshadowing HHH vs. Jericho at Wrestlemania 18, and more recently, Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker draining the crowd’s energy at Wrestlemania 25), but they’ve never shot off prematurely like this before. All in all, a great match, but an odd decision.

Especially when one considers the following match was prime to open the show: Cody Rhodes vs. Rey Mysterio. The style of these two are speedy, energy inducing, entertaining, and although they have a heated storyline, the show doesn’t hinge on it, and thus it can be dealt with quickly. And indeed, this match is a very good one. I especially like Rey’s attire motif of Captain America. The match had a definite plot behind it as well, as Cody keeps trying to rip Rey’s knee brace off, while Rey tries to take Cody’s mask. It slows down a bit in the middle, but never to the point of boredom. I really loved the ending, with Cody clocking Rey with the knee brace while the ref’s back was turned. It wasn’t just Cody hitting Rey, it was him absolutely decking Rey in an attempt to decimate him, summing up Cody’s anger and simmering hatred. Cody picks up the win, and I’m very happy about this: Cody has come leaps and strides from where he started, and this is a feather in his cap, especially considering last year his claim to fame at Wrestlemania was to get kicked in the head by Orton and get written out for two months.

I should, at this point, mention that the backstage segments this year were very entertaining. They had Snoop Dogg holding tryouts to see who could be his backup (or something like that), with musical appearances by William Regal, Beth Phoenix, Great Khali, and Zack Ryder, who gets clocked with a coconut by Rowdy Roddy Piper for his troubles. Finally, Hornswoggle appears, but we’re reminded that he can’t talk. Hornswoggle looks despondent, before not only talking for the first time, but rapping. The scene loses something when typed, but the timing is very good, and the performances are very funny. Also in the evening, The Rock is shown hitting on Eve, only to run into Stone Cold Steve Austin. They stare each other down while the fanboy in me jumps up and down with glee. The backstage Wrestlemania segments can either be hit or miss, and these were a hit. I think it would have been better to keep the Rock backstage, and build on his wanderings, rather than having him talk for ten minutes at the beginning.

And now, one of the most confusing moments of the night: the eight man tag match. The Corre enters, and we’re told that they had taken out Vladimir Koslov over the weekend at the fan-access show. So the team of Big Show, Kane, and Santino need a replacement, and they find it in Kofi Kingston, who enters to a bright display of fireworks, making the coming match look to be more epic than I thought. So the match starts, Santino starts against Slater, Show is tagged in... and the Corre tries to interfere. About thirty seconds into the match. Whereupon the rest of Show’s team interfere right back, allowing Show to Knockout Punch Slater and win. It took about a minute, tops.

...Why!?

Why would you have a match with this much star-potential only go about a minute in length? Why do the switch with Kofi for Koslov if he wasn’t even in the match? Why have the Corre perpetually waste my time every Friday night for the last few months if you weren’t even going to have a good Wrestlemania match with them? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I can watch Slater get beat up all day, but I was hoping for a little more bang for my buck. What really tees me off, though, is that this last Friday after Wrestlemania, they had a rematch, and it was really, really good. Why couldn’t they have had that five days earlier?

See? It was just a weird Wrestlemania, with huge timing issues, a lack of direction, and nobody seemed to know what was going on, especially not me. I also notice that all of the Smackdown matches went first.

Our next match is Orton vs. Punk. In retrospect, given the way they were marketing this match, they should have made it No Holds Barred, so the two could try and kill one another. Now, this is an example of the timing problems of opening with two very technical, fast paced matches, and then coming to this, because this match is absolutely dead in comparison. The thing is, though, it’s not a terrible match: it’s very mat-based, with little fluff, and although Punk does most of the work, to Orton’s credit, he doesn’t look completely lost. But Orton is not a fast worker, and after the sugar buzz of Edge and Del Rio, this was definitely the crash. Punk keeps trying to be the best evil villain he can be, but even he has a hard time garnering a reaction out of the crowd. Also, Orton keeps switching his leg injury on and off at completely random, which is irritating. The finish isn’t bad, with Punk trying to lift and injured Orton, nearly gets RKO’d for his troubles, and dashes back to the ropes for dear life. Then, getting his nerve back, Punk jumps off the top rope, but gets the RKO in mid air, getting Orton the win. As I said, not a bad match, but a slowdown of what had come before, and effect which gets even worse with our next match...

Michael Cole vs. Jerry Lawler. Now, no one expected this to be a classic wrestling match. Just like whenever someone has a match against Mr. McMahon at Wrestlemania, it’s to watch him get beat up and bleed, with a very one sided piece of match narrative. And in this case, that was more or less the kind of thing we wanted to see: King beat the crap out of Cole. It’s easy enough: just give King a chair and let him wail away, and everyone in the arena would light up, and the doldrums we fell into will clear up. With the kind of heat Cole has built up, just the sight of him getting wailed away on by King would make any one happy. It’s simple in concept, easy to do, and no one could screw it up.

Except they screwed it up.

Things start off well enough, with Cole trying to worm out of the match from inside his box, extending his hand outside of one of the air holes to King, only to have Lawler take the hand, yank back, and embed Cole’s face in the wall. It was a brilliant moment, and the crowd really woke up, even more so when King broke into the box and beat Cole against the wall even more. But then they got back to the ring, Swagger interfered, knocking down King, and Cole tried to get some offence in. I’m guessing what they were trying to do was make it close, and make it appear that maybe King might get beaten, or that Cole had a chance, or something. But not only was that not what the audience wanted to see, Cole is extraordinarily bad at delivering an offence. His moves were slow, and he kept using the same move (kicking the leg) over and over again. If this were short, it would be no bad thing, but it just dragged on an on, and killed the momentum which King had started with, and, more importantly, put the audience back to sleep. King does eventually get back on top, with Swagger trying to throw in the towel on Cole’s behalf, only to have special gust referee Stone Cold wipe his head with it. Kudos to Stone Cold: his total involvement in this thing is minimal, but it’s still ridiculously entertaining. The man just dead-pans so well. Lawler gets Cole in the Ankle Lock, with Cole pleading to quit, while Stone Cold asks, with that dead-pan face, “So do you give up, or what?” It should have been a good ending, but things leading up to it had been so slow and monotonous that it was more of a mercy killing than a satisfying ending. It was the easiest thing to deliver, and yet somehow it wasn’t realized.

Again, the Wrestlemania 27 Weird Curse strikes again. Austin has his usual beer-scapades, with Lawler politely declining to drink (I was not aware that he doesn’t drink alcohol in real life. Learn something new every day), and for some reason, Booker T gets excited, leaves the announce table, and does the Spinnerooni in the ring. And then gets a Stone Cold Stunner for his troubles. I’m pretty sure Austin did that just for fun (he’s laughing after, and I think I saw him mouth “I had to, man,”), but it’s just... weird. It was weird that Booker came into the ring, it was weird that he got Stunned, and things just got weirder. Because the Evil Raw Laptop declares that because Stone Cold had not allowed Swagger to throw in the towel, the decision is now reversed, and Cole wins. Why?! Why reverse the decision? Cole can be cocky and annoying on his own, without a win under his belt, and this only furthers the disappointment of those who wanted to see him get beaten up. Also, this whole post match segment is awkwardly long, time which I think could have been dedicated to a longer tag match earlier. Who’s booking this thing?!

So I’m sitting there in front of my TV, and I’m pretty upset. Things have gone from bad to worse, I have absolutely no idea what’s going on, and apparently, neither does anyone involved in this thing. I wonder if anything at all can salvage this evening, if we can have that one Wrestlemania moment that makes the whole evening seem worthwhile.

And then we get Triple H’s entrance.

That’ll do.

You know things are on the right track when “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Metallica starts playing. You know things are even better when the centurions come out with their shields forming a wall. You know things are really, really awesome when they part, and Triple H is standing there in a metal skull helmet, looking a barbarian warrior ready to kill. Not only does this top his Wrestlemania 22 entrance by far, it sets the emotional level for the match to come: this is going to be a battle of gods, each superpowered beyond belief, looking to destroy one another. This mindset plays into the match as well: whereas Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker was them trying to see who could outwrestle one another, this match is going to be about heavy hitting and hard fighting, and the entrance really helps gear you up for that. By comparision, Taker’s entrance is nothing special (essentially, his standard entrance), but you’ve found yourself pumped up and ready to see this play out.

The match starts with a bang, the two going outside the ring early. They run into danger of doing too much, too soon, and might have used some of their best stuff too early, but given the desperate need to entertain the crowd, I don’t think this is a bad thing. We get Undertaker smashed through Cole’s box, Undertaker doing the suicide dive onto Triple H, Triple H giving Taker the Spinebuster through the Spanish announce table. I think that these spots are worthy of a match this magnitude, given the story of the two trying to destroy one another. Things get a bit slower after that, but they managed to capture the audience’s interest. A chair is introduced into the match, and they play with that for a little bit, trading shots, until Taker takes a chair shot to the head. I think that takes a great deal out of him, because after that, he slows right down, and most of the match is then done by Triple H. But, to Triple H’s credit, he keeps the thing going, and does his best to make Undertaker look good in spite of the match now being more or less one sided. He hits the Pedigree three times, each with a kick out, and Triple H’s facial expressions becoming more and more exasperated, effectively pantomiming “I can’t kill this man.” Then, in my favourite moment of the night, he Tombstones the Undertaker, mimicking the chest cross pin, only to have Undertaker kick out again. It’s a pity that Undertaker took that headshot, because I feel he really could have done more here had he been 100%. Finally, Triple H decides to stop messing around, and goes for his sledgehammer (that’s how I solve all my problems, too). But before he can clobber Undertaker, the Deadman, very slowly, grabs Triple H to put him in the Hell’s Gate hold. Triple H struggles for a few minutes, and I’m a bit torn on this: I like the effect of Triple H trying desperately to kick out, keeping people guessing whether or not he will tap out, as well as the imagery of his strength slowly dying. On the other hand, given that Hell’s Gate is supposed to be the equal of instant death, I think holding out this long hurts the move’s credibility. I have to confess, the drama fan of me loved when Triple H finally manages to grab the sledge hammer, raises it to strike, but it drops from his near lifeless hand, and he finally taps out.

I really liked the story telling in this match. It slowed down half way through, given the Undertaker’s apparent injury to the head, but it started strong, Triple H did a good job of carrying things, and it was altogether enjoyable.

And thus, having had a good thing, we go to the Snooki match. Now, in spite of people’s incessant whining about this whole deal (including myself), it really wasn’t as big a debacle as predicted. Most of the work is done by Trish against Michelle, with Snooki only coming in at the end to get the obligatory celebrity pin. And to her credit, here flipping moves are pretty decent, and it’s not like she just slapped Michelle or made her look totally terrible. The match was over in a trice, didn’t hurt, and I’ll live.

Which brings us to the main event, and with it, the biggest head scratchers, mis-timing, and Wrestlemania 27 Weird Cure victims: The Miz vs. John Cena for the WWE Title. I have to say, I really liked the Miz’s pre-entrance video of him huddled over a bunch of television monitors watching old clips of his debut and early years, and of him being booed and mocked. The thing that makes Miz an interesting character is that strange, manic intensity and chip on the shoulder that he holds against the world, so that even though he’s essentially just a cocky jerk, he’s got this brooding, insane side to him that drives him and makes him compelling. Cena’s entrance, with the choir, is pretty decent, though not among his best.

Of course, the timing issues of the rest of the night have killed the crowd at this point: they are dead throughout this match, drained from Undertaker and Triple H. Moreover, Cena himself looks lacklustre. The thing Cena usually does best in his matches is using his sense of timing and crowd awareness to get a reaction, but he seems almost disinterested in this, kind of just hanging around while Miz executes moves. This, in turn, makes the Miz look bad, because although he’s beating Cena, there’s no drama to it. I pretty much can’t recall any specific moment from the match that stood out as interesting, and it’s only been a week since the event. And then there’s the ending, which, true to form, caps off a perfectly confusing evening. Cena throws Miz outside the ring, the tumble over the barricades, they lay there on the concrete... and they’re both counted out. Yes, the final match of the biggest show of the year ends on a count out. Or, at least, it would, but that wasn’t nearly confusing enough. No, as this in the most confusing Wrestlemania ever, the oddness must be cranked up even more! Rock shows up, and, rightfully so, says the show must not end in such a fashion, and has the match restarted once both men are back in the ring. And then, two seconds after the bell rings, Rock Rock Bottoms Cena, puts Miz over him, and gives Miz the win. To which one might ask: What was the point of ending the match, restarting it, and then ending it two seconds after? Why wouldn’t you have had Rock interfere while the match proper was going on, instead of the count out thing? Why is the Miz portrayed as a bitch in all of this? Why have the count out at all?! WHAT IS GOING ON?!!

Wrestlemania 27. Altogether, the show suffered from a savage case of mistiming, bad booking, odd moments, confused storylines, and an ending which made the audience go home angry. The highlights were the Edge/Del Rio match (even if it did open), Triple H and Undertaker, and Cody’s first Wrestlemania win. The sad part is, the show probably could have been saved if they had simply put the matches in a different order: if you were to open with Rey/Cody (fast paced, eye opener), go to the Eight Man Tag (filler so people can go get snacks), then have Orton/Punk (emotional investment match), then Snooki/Trish/Morrison (more snacks), then the Cena/Miz match (given the way it ended, there’s no way it should have capped off the show), then Cole/Lawler (as a cool-down from the title match), then Undertaker/Triple H (which is only not last here because of the rather slow ending), then end the show with, ironically, the opening match of Edge and Del Rio (to cap the evening off with a fast paced, fun match). There, I’ve just saved this Wrestlemania. You wouldn’t have to change any of the outcomes, just put them in a different order, and it’s that much better.

Hire me for Wrestlemania 28, Vince.