I'd put it bottom 5 for sure, maybe bottom 3, but IX and XV were both clearly worse.

I think if you just remove that match and go with what is left, then it's easily the worst one ever. If you give Hart and Austin random matches on the card, then it probably leaves XV as the worst ever.

Which reminds me, I was looking at a list from one of those trash sites where you have to keep clicking the next button, they rated every WM starting at the worst, and XV wasn't even in the bottom 5 before I got frustrated with clicking next.

Must have been an Attitude mark. Or hasn't seen it since the date of the actual show.

I have to finish 25 somehow, just got through eviscerating the main event.

WRESTLEMANIA 22

BIG TIME

Umm.... Ok so we are going with the "Big Time" theme this year. I guess it could have been Heat 2 or something lamer. I found the matches this year enjoyable to watch for the most part, but I am starting to see patterns develop that foreshadow what we are dealing with today. So with no further delay, let's get to the notes.

SHOW THOUGHTS

- Hey everyone, it's the most unknown member of Destiny's Child out to sing America the Beautiful. I miss Rockin Robin.

- I'm guessing this will be one of the last traditional arena Mania's. Even though they announced a 2 mil+ gate, it must sting a little knowing how much revenue they know they are missing. I think as a goof, one year they should just go back to Hartford for a Mania.

- Jim Ross, who had a fantastic night, is announced as returning, so I'm assuming he is back from a bout of Bell's Palsy.

- He tells us in the beginning of the Tag Title match, that this is the first time since WM XV that the titles were up for grabs in a traditional one team against one team match. I would like to take this time to thank Mr. Ross because he saved me some research time, because that was the first thing I was going to look up after the show.

- Eventhough I knew he had zero chance of winning, it was damn fun to see Flair in the MITB match. The whole match was a lot of fun and I liked it a little more than the one last year.

- I need to utilize the search feature on the WWE Network because Shelton Benjamin is just awesome to watch. I need to see more. Right now it's him and CM Punk as the two performers I need to watch since I missed their entire WWE careers.

- Thumbs down for not putting the IC title up for grabs again this year. It appears as though backstage has zero respect for the secondary titles, so why not just retire them. It makes no sense.

- I have a question about 3 things from this show. I'll ask two now and save my third for later on. First question, is here any backstory on why Bret Hart "felt uncomfortable" about coming out when they announced the HoF class at the show?

- Second, did WWE catch any **** for exploiting Eddie Guererro's death the way they seemed to? I mean it's one thing to talk about Benoit wrestling in Eddie's memory, but did I have to watch JBL mock him throughout that match? And after all of that they have JBL go over? That was unsettling.

- As much as I would totally love to never see a hardcore match again, I took a perverse enjoyment out of watch Edge and Mick go at it. I think this was easily Mick's best, and hopefully last Mania match ever.

- The Boogeyman. What the ****?? I never need to watch that guy again in my life. But I guess if we need a comedy match, who better to do the job than Booker T? That was sarcasm in case you missed it.

- Trish vs Mickie James was probably the best WM women's match I've seen. They actually gave them more that 4 minutes to work, and they told a great story. It's looks like the bill to it was really well done too.

- That match brings me to my third question. Did they cut something out of this match? Right before the finish, it looked like Mickie grabbed Trish to do a move and then they cut to an awkward crowd shot, then you heard the audience react to something, then they went to the finish. It was real odd, and I watched it twice to make sure it wasn't a glitch or something.

- If you would have told me to guess who the Undertaker's opponent was on this show, and gave me a group of 10 wrestlers to choose from, it would have probably taken me 12 or 13 guesses befor I chose Mark Henry. He falls into the bottom three opponents of Taker's WM career, along with Giant Gonzalez and Jimmy Snuka.

- The Michaels/ McMahon street fight match is one of those patterns I was talking about earlier. It seems like when they run out of ideas for legacy guys, they just throw Vince in there against him, and run with that. They did it here with Michaels, they did it with Hogan. I know they will do a twist on it with Donald Trump, and they did another twist this year with Shane vs Taker. I ink if Vince was 10 years younger, I would expect a Vince/Jericho match next year, and then a Vince/Cena match after that.

- With that said, it was a lot of fun to watch, and Jim Ross had what I think the match of his life. If you haven't seen this match before or don't remember Ross' contribution, go back and rewatch it with emphasis on Ross' commentary. It was to notch.

- A very well done triple threat match for the world championship. Angle is so damn good. And I think having Rey go over was good, and the proper way to show Eddie respect.

- Just when I thought we were done with trash matches, here comes the pillows. As I'm watching, they are doing this awesome package building up Cena vs HHH, and it really feels like a professional fight. Then they cut to the ring and I see that ****. It was such a let down, that I was tempted to FF through it.

- This was yet another great main event match, but another pattern reared its head here. How many times can they possibly throw HHH out there in the last match? I'm not doubting his talent, but damn man, let someone else have a chance. Sure, he has lost probably his last 4 Mania matches up this point, and if I had to guess he has an under .500 lifetime record here, but get the hell out of the way. I get it now when you guys post that picture of him with all of the belts.

AWARDS TIME

Match of the Night

I don't know when the last time I had the last match of the night the winner, but I think it narrowly beats out the MITB match for the title. Great match.

Worst Match of the Night

Leaving out the pillow fight because I refuse to recognize that as a match, I'll give that to Taker/Henry. Terrible casket match.

MVP

Jim Ross. He had one of his best nights ever here, and I can mention enough about his call during the Vince/Michaels match.

LVP

Whoever booked that stupid pillow fight match. WTF?


SHOW RANKINGS

This show was a very good one, and it definitely gets us back on the good show train after last year's show. Easily top 10 all time up to this point.

X- SEVEN
VIII
III
XIV
XIX
X
XX
22
VI
VII
X8
V
21
1
13
XII
IV
2000
XI
IX
2
XV


Well that's 22 down and 10 more to go after next Sunday. I'm going to keep on going and I think if I really pushed I could get this done before WM 32, but I don't want to risk burning myself out before that show. Thanks again for reading, and I'll see you at WM 23

Shelton was pretty awesome at times, but unfortunately was worthless on the stick and couldn't get over very well. I was only watching sporadically here, but I vaguely remember him being saddled with some nonsense where he had his momma (presumably not actually his momma) at ringside with him for every match. From what I remember, it may as well have been deliberate sabotage.

Punk, on the other hand, is a lock Hall of Famer just as soon as he and Vince reconcile.

Yes.

Yes.

So I went back and read True North's review, and I think I saw what they cut out. And one other quick note I forgot:

The triple threat match, while good was a bit odd in that when the bell rang to start the match, they started like the match had already been going for 5-6 minutes. It just had an odd feel to it. I'm guessing this had to do with the criminally short amount of time they gave the match. Had to give the stupid pillow match all of that time to set up I guess.

I laughed in jerichos book when he was talking about having a match with benjamin at taboo tuesday, nobody expecting him to get picked, and having to ask what his finisher was and still not knowing wtf it was when he heard tbone suplex. I just kind of always assumed that, well, the wrestlers actually watched various parts of the show/event and at some point in the months leading up to it Jericho would have stumbled on a benjamin match on accident. Turns out it seems they dont.

If I remember right, his conditions for doing the HoF induction were that he would only do the ceremony and not appear at the main show, and that Shawn Michaels not be at the ceremony. Which was pretty ****ty, considering Sherri was going in as well. But the water wasn't entirely under the bridge at that point.

I don't think so, but then I thought it was ok. I took it as a show of respect from about as old-school a heel as you'll find.

Colon surgery. They replaced him with Joey Styles in the interim. ("I'm not good enough to call BACKLASH?!?")

my favorite wrestling podcast just reviewed that wrestlemania. about to listen now

http://fightnetwork.com/news/6551328...dan-lovranski/

edit: i lied this is 23
check it out after you do the next one

They also cut out the gigantic botch at the end that really spoilt the match.

Austin bladed in War Games 1992:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xz7...estlewar_sport

Austin was an absolute pro at blading, but Bret was the best, and they wanted to get it just right as it was crucial to the match. You can get more control over the outcome if somebody does it for you as they can quite literally see what they're doing. There is no way on earth that Austin was squeamish or tried to back out lol.

Agree with all of that except for the last sentence. First, there were other considerations that needed to be accounted for other than being squeamish. The biggest being getting ripped or possibly fired by Vince for breaking the no blood policy. But even if that wasn't the issue, there is a GIANT difference between cutting yourself, and letting someone have at your forehead. Bret even acknowledges this when telling the story.

WRESTLEMANIA 23

All Grown Up

This is one of the shows I was waiting for. It has one of those moments I've heard a lot about, but haven't watched yet. Yes, I'm talking about the WM debut of The Great Khali. Umm..... Actually it's the Battle of the Billionaires, but wow was that a pile of suck with Khali and Kane. It's a good thing this show had three very good to great matches on it, because if not it would have easily been one of the worst Manias of all time. But with that said, let go to my notes.

SHOW THOUGHTS

- Ric Flair in the pre show match? Really? From what I have seen just in these shows for X8 until now, they really had little respect for Flair. I don't think I've heard him speak more than a few words total, and here he has been relegated to the pre show. Terrible.

- I have no idea what a Mr. Kennedy is, but dammit, he won a very good MITB match. We also saw the in ring WM debut of CM Punk, and he brought it as well. One other thing is that I again questioned the addition of Finlay in this match, and I was wrong yet again. I also liked the inclusion of Hornswoggle as well. Very creative. I did miss Shelton Benjamin in this though.

- Just a quick aside, when I went to type the word "thought", the iPad only registered the letters "hgh", and my autocorrect tried to change it to HHH. I wonder if this was just a coincidence. Also curious since he missed this show with yet another torn quad, or at least that is what I heard on TLF podcast for 22.

- Holy ****, the Great Khali sucks. How did anyone think he would make a competent wrestler? Did they not learn anything from El Gigante? I almost felt sorry for Kane, but then I remembered how much I haven't liked him since he lost his full mask and red and black body suit.

- I thought I was going to hate the little back stage segment with Eugene and that tag team, but it was actually quite entertaining, and I marked out a little when Steamboat entered the frame.

- Chris Benoit's final WM. I don't want this to sound bad, but I'm kind of relieved it is his last show, because it was becoming increasingly difficult to watch him wrestle knowing what was coming. Especially every time he did a diving head butt from the top rope. This MVP guy looked pretty decent though. I think I remember him from the couple TNA shows I watched, but I can't recall watching him wrestle before this.

- Just when I was about to annoit Undertaker as the most overrated performer ever, he actually had a very good match here with Batista. I honestly can't remember the last time I thought he had a good match. Maybe against Flair, and then before that, I don't know if he had a good one.

- Batista's ring entrance was a bit awkward, with him have to travel a pretty good distance from one end on the stage to the other to do his guns gimmick thing. He did do a very good job in this match though.

- It was nice to hear another call by Joey Styles. I did however take a little umbrage with them trying to pass this ECW off as the original. I'm just glad they gave the Originals the win and didn't try to push that New Breed thing at us. I guess with RVD and Sabu on the team though they wanted to give them the home town thing.

- The Battle of the Billionaires. This really happened. I know Trump has has a relationship with WWF/E for a long time, and has had a friendship with Vince for just as long, I just never in my life thought I would see him hit a clothesline on someone, or actually take a Stunner. Granted, it was probably the worst Stunner ever, but hey he gets an A for effort. I wonder if him losing his hair was ever discussed.

- This match and others before it illustrate the reason why I actually like the Mr. McMahon character, and I hate the current Stephanie McMahon character. First of all Vince was willing to "get his" in the end, and the talent always was on top on the end. With Stephanie, she constantly emasculated the talent and they rarely if ever get their heat back. Also the fact that Vince separates his character Mr McMahon from his actual person when he is on TV. Stephanie is just Stephanie, so she goes from being the heel authority figure who everyone hates, right into the greatest human being ever for her tireless charity work. So basically I want to say I strongly dislike Stephanie McMahon and she needs to never be on my television again.

- So, there was another women's match.

- Ho-hum. Another 4 star+ match from Shawn Michaels. It almost getting tiresome to see him out on classic after classic. WM 22 excluded.

- Cena did awesome here too, but I'm shocked that he didn't fire one knife edge chop back at Michaels. Holy ****, did Michaels chop the crap out of Cena. I felt like he was ribbing him he did it so much. It got so bad that you could hear Lawler cringing every time he did it. I will say I loved every second of it.

- Again I have to call out a WWE audience. I get it, they paid a lot of money to get in, and should be able to cheer or boo whoever they want, but shame on anyone who booed the finish of that match. Those two guys brought the thunder for 30 minutes and just because their guy didn't win they boo and walk out. Shameful.

- Speaking of time, I realized during this show, that Wrestlemanias have a hell of a lot of down time between matches. The show clocked in at around 3 hours 40 minutes. They had 8 matches, and the in ring time was ~ 1 hour 50 minutes. That means that almost 2 hours was other stuff. Now I understand they have to take time to set things up, and there are ring entrances, and other this, but sometimes they really short change matches that need time. It just has been irking me for a while.

- One final thing before I move on. I was looking at the Wikipedia recap of this show, and they had a list of lumberjacks for the dark match. I saw Scotty 2 Hotty on that list, and I was floored. He debuted at WM XIV, and here we are 10 years later and he is still getting a WM paycheck. I know he wasn't on every show and he had some injuries, but man did he make a good living for himself in the WWE.

AWARDS TIME

Match of the Night

I'm giving it to the main event here. Both Cena and Michaels put on an outstanding show. Great match.

Worst Match of the Night

The pile of suck that was Kane vs Khali. Khali really sucks. I only saw him as a comedy character at the very end of his WWE career, is was this only time I've seen him wrestler. I hope he gets better.

MVP

Once again Shawn Michaels. I think I'm going to start calling this The Shawn Michaels Award.

LVP

Just go back to the Worst Match of the Night for that winner.

Referee of the Night

Jack Doan. He executed another great slide when he replaced Mike Chioda. It wasn't as impressive as his slide in XV for the Austin/Rock match, but I felt he deserved something for his effort. I wonder if he practices that or if it comes natural to him.

SHOW RANKINGS

This was a very good show that was unfortunately dragged down by two awful matches. Had those two even been slightly below average this would have been probably in the top 3. But as is it just misses the top 5.


X-SEVEN
VIII
III
XIV
XIX
23
X
XX
22
VI
VII
X8
V
21
1
13
XII
IV
XI
IX
2
XV


I put another one in my rear view mirror. It's on to Mania 24.

This is accurate imo.

The entire purpose of a heel authority figure is that eventually they get their comeuppance. Vince got his head shaved here (countless other vince examples), HHH got beat by Bryan clean, shane got his ass beat by xpac eventually and big johnn took an AA. Hell, an inanimate object eventually got got. The entire point of it is that eventually fans get to see the stuck up/arrogant/bestforbusiness douche get whats coming to them. The angle is entirely pointless otherwise.

Instead, Steph just no sells everything (ko mania being the recent example) and always "wins".

That's not to say it has to be physical of course. Just some point where the good guy gets to win over them.

Heel authority is way beyond played out at this point and only still works in very specific situations like Daniel Bryan's. Current product would be significantly better if it was run by Jack Tunney's exhumed corpse.

Agreed. In the almost 2 years that I have been watching again, Steph has got her comeuppance twice. Vicki Guererro threw her in the mud, and Ronda Rousey from last year's WM. Vince came back one day and ate a Superman punch from Reigns.

I also would never want it to be physical from the male wrestlers, but but verbally it should be happening a lot more than it does.

Also agreed. Another example would be Jim Crockett on the World Championship Wrestling shows. He comes out makes a match, or settles a controversy fairly and that's it. I don't think I've seen him speak for more than 45 seconds at one time

WRESTLEMANIA XXIV

TAGLINE TOO LONG!

The actual tag line was "The Biggest Wrestlemania Under the Sun". I like mine a little better. But seriously we are back outside for only the second time with the other show being the epic Wrestlemania IX. Under no circumstances should it be a good thing to be compared to that show, so my expectations were low. I will say that I was pleased early on because they were able to turn that ****box into a very beautiful looking stadium. So now, let's take a dive into this show.

SHOW THOUGHTS

- I guess I didn't understand correctly at the last show, because I could have sworn that JBL was retired, but we see him here going up against Finlay. Finlay was escorted to the ring by his son? Hornswoggle. I have no idea what was going on with this storyline but I think he was also Vince's kid or something. What I do know is that JR almost sounded embarrassed by having to even describe this whole thing.

- I was really enjoying this show, then Kim Kardashian showed up on my TV screen. I will save you from reading the 3000 word rant on how the Kardashians are terrible people and contribute nothing positive to society, and how the mother is me of the biggest pieces of **** alive. You are welcome.

- Shelton Benjamin is back! I guess he really isn't going to make in any higher than ladder match spot king. That's a shame because he really seemed to have a lot of talent.

- CM Punk really seemed to rise through the ranks rather quickly going from Cena henchman in WM 22 to winning MITB here at 24. I don't know what he had to complain about.

- In case you didn't get it, that last sentence was sarcasm.

- So why exactly was there a brand supremacy match between RAW and Smackdown? And was there a prize for winning? Unfortunately for all of us, the best part of this match was Batista's entrance. The match was not very good at all.

- I was glad to see WWE wised up with regards to Khali. He went from being Andre the Giant to losing in a battle royal in the dark match.

- Speaking of the battle royal. If they cared so little about ECW that there only match was an 11 second championship match in which the challenger was determined in an untelevised battle royal, why not just shut the whole thing down.

- Why did they come up with such an awkward name for Ric Flair's last match? I get he next loss was his last match, but "Career Threatening Match" just sounds awful.

- It was a great entrance with an awesome firework display, and his robe was incredible, but after watching his in ring work, it was time for him to retire. I'm not saying he had a bad match, but Michaels did probably 80% of the work. Normally Flir would be the one carrying the match.

- The after match stuff with the hug and then Flair saluting the crowd was really emotional and well done.

- Not even Snoop Dogg could make BunnyMania watchable. Did they really think this stuff was entertaining. At least we got to see Maria in action. I'm a big fan of hers.

- I would have expected a trip,e threat match between Cena, Orton and HHH to be a lot better than it was. I will give them props for letting Orton win here. Of course Cena ate the pin, because I'm guessing HHH refused to do yet another job at Mania.

- The spot where Cena picked up both HHH and Orton was really good, I just wish HHH could have held on longer.

- ****ing Floyd Mayweather. I hate him and everything he stands for. I will give him credit though because he can get a lot of people to spend a lot of money watching his boring fights.

- So with that said I understand why WWE would want to bring him in for this match. I do not believe he got anywhere near 20 million for this though. And I wish they could have given him a somewhat believable match though. I just could not suspend my disbelief after the first time Big Show touched him. I don't care how good of a fighter you are, there is no way you should be standing after a man that size gets his hands on you. Just not a good match.

- I do have a question that I don't know if there is an answer to. The fight poster on Wikipedia has all seven performers from the last three matches on it with Floyd and Big Show on top and in the center. The thumbnail of this show on the Network has the same thing except Mayweather wasn't on there. Does anyone know why this is? Is it possible they want to distance themselves from Mayweather? I know HHH still likes to brag about their friendship, so I don't know if that the answer.

- I hate you Kim Kardashian. I hope you get an untreatable case of crabs.

- The main event was a real letdown for me. Undertaker and Edge just did not fit together like I hope they would. Maybe my expectations were too high after the last show with Batista and the run that I know he goes on for the next 3-4 years after this show. But this one wasn't very good. Also clocking in at over 24 minutes didn't help either.

AWARDS TIME

Match of the Night

I guess we will give it to Flair/Michaels. It was a good match on a card with really on three good ones.

Worst Match of the Night

ECW Title match. 11 seconds. Thanks for showing up.

MVP

All six men in the MITB match. They all performed excellently and for once there wasn't a guy who just didn't fit in.


LVP

I can't even type her name again. I hate that whole family

Referee of the Night

I still think I'm going to name this the Jack Doan award, but this year it goes to Little Naitch aka Charles Robinson. His sprint down to the ring from what looked like a half mile away was impressive. It reminded me of Monty Python's Holy Grail, when the horse was approaching for an uncomfortable amount of times but never got closer. That is what it looked like when he was running. It was awesome.

SHOW RANKINGS

This show was a case of all sizzle and very little steak. I loved the look and the pyrotechnics and the ring entrances, but the actual wrestling wasn't all that great. I think it goes somewhere in the middle, maybe just shy of top half.

X-SEVEN
VIII
III
XIV
XIX
23
X
XX
22
VI
VII
X8
V
XXIV
21
1
13
XII
IV
XI
IX
2
XV

24 down and 7 more to go. I think I'm going to take a little break from these because I don't want to burn out during Mania week. I will try and start up again next week or the week after and hopefully I can finish all of them before summer, but who knows. Thanks again.

AJ

Haha your "referee of the night" award feels like it's always based on who had the best sprinting-into-the-ring spot.

Having brand vs. brand for brand superiority was always an ill-conceived idea. There's no way to manufacture feelings of loyalty that parallel what people felt about WWF and WCW when everyone knows that both brands are just part of the same company, and it was foolish to try to pit them against each other.

It wasn't Jack Doan's sprinting ability that made him the two time winner of this prestigious award. He was his Rickey Henderson like head first slides into the ring that won them.

I know you have said you haven't seen some of these shows, so if you haven't seen this one, I highly recommend eith trying to YouTube Robinson's sprint or watch the Edge/Taker match on the network. It is truely something to behold.

Gotta get these cranked out to stay ahead of AJD, even though we're coming up on a real bad stretch...

WrestleMania XXV
April 5, 2009 - Reliant Stadium, Houston, TX

- Why yes, that IS the only match that matters.

- And we continue WWE's proud tradition of having no idea how to do simple math, as this is billed as the 25th Anniversary of WrestleMania, 24 years after the first. Well, it is the 25th anniversary of something, let's see what that is:

Blockbuster card, to be sure.

- Nice touch bringing the Fink in to welcome the crowd off the top. Nicole Scherzinger of Pussycat Dolls (who?) does an overwrought rendition of America the Beautiful.

Money in the Bank: Shelton Benjamin, Christian, Finlay, Mark Henry, Kane, Kofi Kingston, MVP and CM Punk ***1/2
Can you feel the electricity from that lineup? Really only two legit contenders for the briefcase, Punk and MVP, with the rest disqualified based on either overness or ability to climb the ladder. Although the crowd was pretty solidly behind Christian, newly returned from TNA. This is Shelton's swan song, and he delivers with a Jeff Hardy-esque swanton off a superladder to take out everyone on the outside. Kofi basically auditions as his replacement with a bunch of crazy ****. As always, you can't have a bad MitB match, but this one was a bit weaker than normal with a bunch of contrived ladder setups (although they led to some impressive visuals) and a couple of seriously blown spots. Punk wins for the second straight year, as expected.

- Fast forward through the Kid Rock performance. Looooong fast forward.

Miss WrestleMania battle royal
No introductions here, as they all came out during Kid Rock. Josh Mathews can't even get through the rules before the first elimination. And it's all a setup for a stupid crossdressing Santino gag. No rating for battle royals, but this is solidly in the bottom 10 of all WrestleMania matches.

Handicap elimination match: Chris Jericho vs. Roddy Piper, Ricky Steamboat and Jimmy Snuka **
This was supposed to be Jericho vs. Mickey Rourke in a cross-promotion with the movie The Wrestler, but that fell through, so we got this instead. Jericho, bless his heart, did all he could with this angle, but he deserved a lot better considering what he did in 2008. The real story was Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat turning the clock back, maybe not to 1987, but certainly to around 1995 or so, he looked better than anyone has a right to at 56, and better than a lot of guys 20-30 years younger than him. The crowd was super into his segments, and so was I, the near-falls were so well executed. Jericho obviously deserves a lot of the credit as well for making Steamboat look so good. They should've done just Jericho vs. Steamboat (and in fact, they did just that at Backlash, in what may have been the match of the night), the other two guys didn't look like they belonged in the same arena.

Extreme rules: Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy ***1/2
Matt turned on Jeff at Royal Rumble during Jeff's WWE title defence against Edge to set this up for reasons never adequately explained to me. This was well done, although I don't know that anyone really wanted to see these two fight each other. Nice psychology as these two knew each other so well that they usually knew what was coming, setting up some nice counter moves. And, of course, two guys wailing on each other with the plunder is always fun. Matt finally outsmarting Jeff by avoiding the super legdrop off a huge ladder, followed by a Twist of Fate onto a chair, was a really good closing sequence.

IC title: JBL (c) vs. Rey Mysterio DUD
Rey comes out dressed as The Joker from The Dark Knight. Entrances were about 20x longer than the match -- 619 -> West Coast Pop -> new champion in 21 seconds. JBL retired for good after this.

Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels *****
And now, the reason we're all here. I really don't have much of a review, just a few scattered thoughts, as this was nearly a religious experience I'm still coming down from. They go heavy on the symbolism right off the bat, with Shawn (all in white) descending from the rafters for his entrance, and Taker (all in black) ascending from underneath the stage for his. The first half was so good, they could've finished it with a tombstone after the first act and I would've given it ****+ without even thinking about it. I've watched the spot where Taker does his WRESTLEMANIA NO-HANDS PLANCHA a hundred times and I still have no idea how he isn't a quadriplegic right now. Shawn begging the ref to count to ten to give Taker extra time to recover, and then his despair when Taker got back in at 9, was such a great sequence. The last ten minutes of this match will be held up decades from now as the greatest finishing sequence there's ever been. Chokeslam? Two. Sweet chin music? Two. Last Ride? Two. Top rope elbow? Misses. Tombstone?



TWO, BITCH.

I'm honestly torn between this and Bret/Austin for GOAT, although I'm sure that will change next time I watch the submission match.

World heavyweight title, triple threat: Edge (c) vs. John Cena vs. Big Show **3/4
Whoever put this card together should have been fired. I'm exhausted seven years later watching at home, imagine how the crowd must have felt. The big question I have about this match is, why on earth do you need Big Show here? First, triple threats at WrestleMania are a bad idea, and second, Edge vs. Cena is a still a reasonably fresh matchup. And third...THE BIG SHOW?!? This was fine, but I'm still speechless from Shawn/Taker and, honestly, I've pretty much forgotten it already.

WWE title: Triple H (c) vs. Randy Orton *1/2
This is a solid candidate for dumbest booking decision of all time. Orton won the Royal Rumble and then proceeded to mow down the entire McMahon family as an FU to HHH for the whole Evolution thing. Punts to Vince and Shane. An RKO to Stephanie. He even DDTed Steph and then kissed her while a handcuffed HHH watched. To say that this was a blood feud was to sell this short, it was as raw and as heated a build as there's ever been, regardless of what you thought of the principals. So, what to do for the big blowoff? Falls count anywhere? Street fight? Hell in a Cell? Of course not! No, if you're WWE, you make the blowoff a regular match where HHH loses the title if he gets disqualified, killing all of the emotion there should have been for this match. And boy, did it suck. I mean, it didn't help that they also fell into the Rock-Hogan trap from X8, where there was a match guaranteed to be so blowaway big that it would overshadow the rest of the card and should have gone last. But the fans were primed for a huge bloody brawl after that build, and they got basically the exact opposite. This would've made for a decent Raw main event, but for this stage, for what it should have been, it was a colossal letdown.

Overall: 6/10
Let's be perfectly clear, this is a one-match show. There was some decent effort elsewhere, but no one will ever remember this for anything more than Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker. Comparing it to other one-match shows, it's certainly better than XIII, but the note the show closed on really hurt it when comparing it to VII. I make it a draw.

Ratings so far:
X-7 - 10.0
III - 9.5
XIX - 8.75
XX - 8.75
X - 8.5
XIV - 8.0
23 - 7.5
21 - 7.25
VIII - 7.0
XXIV - 7.0
22 - 6.75
XXIV - 6.5
XXV - 6.0
VII - 6.0
X8 - 5.5
VI - 5.25
V - 5.0
2000 - 5.0
XII - 4.75
I - 4.5
13 - 4.5
XI - 4.0
2 - 3.5
IV - 3.0
IX - 2.5
XV - 2.0