Yeah that's him. Thanks for the info

No problem. I saw a "WWF Super Fan" story sometime ago and thought it could be that fella.

This was a lot of fun to read. I especially enjoyed your guys critique of wmxv because I think a lot of fans overrate that wm for the same reasons they exaggerate how good the attitude era actually was.

WRESTLEMANIA XV

Man, was this a pile of suck! After seeing LKJ's post about keeping my expectations low, I didn't know what to expect since this was when the AE was at its best. This show felt like a commercial free Average RAW from this time period.

I just wanted to let you guys know how I go about doing one of these reviews. First I watch the show and take notes. It usually takes me 2 or 3 days to watch depending on how much time I have and how cooperative my family is acting. The I write up my review and post it. After its posted, I like to download the Lapsed Fan show that coincides with the show I just review. I try to listen to the whole thing, which as many of you know can be a 5 hour process, but I always like to at least listen to the Dave Meltzer interview, because I really like the insight he provides for each show. Then I start up the next Mania and repeat my process.

The reason I brought this up was because in the XIV Lapsed Fan, one f the guys mentioned how that show was so good, that he barely had time to keep up with his note writing. He mentioned with the bad shows like IV or IX he had no problems because there would be 10 minute spans where nothing happened. He was so dead on because this show might be have the smallest note section yet.

With that said, it on to the notes.

NOTES

- It appears that WWF went back to it roots here with the concept of trying to shove as many **** matches as they can into a less than three hour show. 10 matches on this card with only 2 that went longer than 10 minutes and 4 that went shorter than 5 minutes.

- I still can't believe that the Hardcore title went from a gimmick used to make Mankind happy to an actual thing that lasted for multiple years. The fact that Billy Gunn was the champ tells you all you need to know about that.

- I was an Owen Hart fan back in the day, but I really don't remember him having so many different tag partners throughout his career. If I am remembering correctly, this is his third time entering Mania as the tag champ, and with his third different partner. Or maybe I should say that he is leaving WM as the tag champ for the third time as champ. Either way, I don't know if that is a good thing or bad thing.

-I thought that by 1999 Toughman competitions were no longer mainstream. Who thought the Brawl for All was a good idea? With that said, there was still something oddly satisfying about seeing Bart Gunn knocked silly.

- Did we really need a match to see who would ref the main event? An even better question is, did we need an arrest angle afterward for a man who was retaliating after being assaulted? So bad. So so bad.

- I once again loved this use of Pete Rose. Celebrities work at WM when they "get it" and Pete certainly got it. If Kane ever retires, or even has a last WM match, I would love to see one more Pete Rose appearance to go with it.

- Triple H actually turned twice in the same show. I guessing Russo had a lot to do with that.

- Someone asked in another thread recently about who the most over women's wrestler of all time was, and I think the answer given was Trish Stratus. I think after watching the past two shows, that answer is Sable.

- Hands down the worst Hell in a Cell match even. The crowd **** all over it.

- IS IT SYMBOLIC? IS IT SYMBLOIC? I will say that I chuckled with how fast Cole went from selling Bossman being lynched to promoting the WM Rage Party.

- As epic as the first Austin/ Rock match should have been, they really went out f there way to over book the hell out of it. Is started with Vince and Shawn before the match started, and it ended with Earl Hebner drinking beer with Austin. Just bad.

AWARDS TIME

Match if the Night

Umm. Let's go with Shane vs XPac only because I have to pick one.

Worst Match of the Night

Because of its standing as the worst ever, I'm going with Undertaker vs Bossman.

MVP

It's hard to pick one, but I'll go with The Rock. He was at his peak with regards to performing in the ring. He did the best he could with the crap he was given.

LVP

Vince McMahon. Between his over booking everything, and he need o be on screen as much as possible here, he ruined it for me.

Sign of the Night

There were two that I really enjoyed so I'll call it a tie. "I Toss Salad" and "Pork is Kosher" both take the title.

RANKINGS

The whole time I was writing this I was debating if this show was worse that WM 2. I think I'm going to say yes only because this just didn't have that WM feel. At least with 2 you could tell they were trying for something big. Here it just felt like they were happy giving you Sunday Night RAW.

VIII
III
XIV
X
VI
V
1
VII
13
XII
IV
XI
IX
2
XV

It's now on to XVI or WM 2000, which ever you prefer.

Every time I see someone pipe in about XV I assume that they're going to like it better than I did, and are going to offer some sort of reason that it was actually kinda good. I just sort of figured that my view on the show wouldn't be the majority, but it does seem to be. Just an awful show with little to like about it.

It's true that Owen Hart was in more tag matches than singles matches at Mania, which is too bad. Not only did the Bret WM X match deliver hard, but Owen was absolutely tremendous against HHH at XIV despite being stuck in a situation where he was getting crapped on by the kliq in terms of booking. Unfortunately XV was his last Mania.

WM 2000 is better than XV, but it sure isn't great.

One other thing I like to do after I watch a WM and do my write up is go back and look at what others have written here to see how my opinion fell in line with others. But after what you told me before hand I snuck a peek and saw that someone had this rated as the worst Mania up to this point.

I honestly thought that given the main event and the time frame of this show, that there was no way this could be close to the worst. I was wrong. I just find it hard to believe that they could put on such a bad show given everything going on in wrestling at this time. It makes me wonder if WWF was truly as good as we remember, or if it was just better than what they had been serving combined with WCW putting on such **** at this time.

So I went back and read the other three reviews from this show and I'm pleased to see that we all seem to be in some agreement. With regards to the point about Cole blowing the ending, he never mentioned Austin by name but did say "New WWF champ", so I guess that is a spoil. But did anyone really think Austin wasn't winning here. Up to this point they still didn't have a Mania end with a heel winning, so I think Austin winning was an almost forgone conclusion. Also Knowing what we now know about commentating, I'm sure he was either reading it or it was being fed to him through his headset

It's been edited out. The live version did indeed have Cole mention Austin by name as the new champ.

WRESTLEMANIA 2000

All Day Long

It only felt like it went all day long. Actually that is a bit unfair because there were quite a few things that I enjoyed about this show. However it did have giant flaws that really made it feel like a Wrestlemania flop. Had this show been an In Your House PPV I think it would have been great, but as a Mania it comes up a bit short. The biggest flaw in my eyes was that there was only 1 one on one match. How is that even possible? Just terrible. Anyway, on to my thoughts.

SHOW THOUGHTS


- I don't know what it is about Arrowhead Pond, but the two Manias there both felt really big to me. Maybe it's because the two the proceeded them were just so lame, or it could be the set up of the building. Whatever it is, it works here


- I can't believe I'm actually typing this, but I enjoyed Ice-T's entrance and rap to kick things off. I also was a big fan of the Godfather and D-Lo as a tag team.

- As far as "battle royals" go, this one wasn't half bad. Yeah it was a bit train wrecky, but it was entertaining. I do think 15 minutes was the perfect amount of time too. Any longer and it would have definitely been too much.

- I never realized how over Tazz actually was as a wrestler in WWF. Every time I watch back one of his matches now, he always gets a great pop. I couldn't find it anywhere, but it looked like he took some glass in the eye at the end of the match.

- I saw something really funny or sad depending on how you look at it. During the WWF Axxess video. They had Michael Cole talking about the play by play booth. He said this is where fans can call the greatest matches in WWF history. Right then they cut to the video that one fan was calling, and there on the screen was a giant HHH on the back of his trunks. I laughed out loud at the irony of that.

- Not even Trish Stratus in all of her loveliness could rescue that tag match from being the ****s. But she looked damn good.

- Could have lived my entire life with never seeing Chester McCheeserton ever again. Who thought this was funny?

- This version of the TLC match really has me looking forward to the one on the next WM. This one was very good too, although it looks like neither E & C or The Hardys have hit their stride yet at this point.

- I always liked the video that played during Val Venis' theme music. The sexual innuendo in it, is just perfect. Unfortunately that and his striped ref towel were the only to good things about that mess

- Even worse is that this was the only singles match on the whole card. Russo was already gone so who came up with that?

- If my math is correct, there were 18 in ring Mania debuts on this show. None were bigger than Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, and Kirk Angel,err.... I mean Kurt Angle.

- Speaking of Benoit, as much as I loved watching him wrestle, knowing what we know now, it's really off putting for me to watch him and I'm looking forward to when he is done.

- As much as I don't like 3 way matches, Angle, Benoit, and Jericho put on an excellent match on this show.

- I completely forgot that Pete Rose made an appearance at this show but I am enjoying his war with Kane just as much now as I did back then.

- What a terrible idea for a main event of Wrestlemania. This was better suited for a B or C level PPV. But I guess anything to get the McMahon family over as much as possible . So sad.


AWARDS TIME


Match of the Night

Angle vs Benoit vs Jericho. I even shocked myself by picking a 3 way match, but it was truly the best match performed by the best wrestlers on the card.


Worst Match of the Night

This was a tough decision, but I'm going with the cat fight between Kat and Terri. It had no place on a WM card.

MVP

Jim Ross. He was really on it that night. Especially his call of the main event. He was really into it and his passion showed through.

LVP

Cheesy McCheeserton. Or whatever his name was. It wasn't bad enough to have a small man in a cheese costume, did they really need to make him a creep too. They way he stalked Trish was rather uncomfortable.

Sign of the Night

It was a week year for signs and I'm truly disappointed in the Anaheim crowd, so I will go with "Sign OJ 4 the XFL". Like I said, it was a weak year.

RANKINGS

Eventhough there were plenty of matches and moments I liked, the show overall wasn't all that good. The main event really drug this show down

VIII
III
XIV
X
VI
V
1
VII
13
XII
IV
2000
XI
IX
2
XV

Now it's on to X-Seven. This might be the best one ever, and I remember a lot of it. Mostly I remember the date of the event was April 1 2001. I'll let you know why this is such a significant date when I do that review.

WRESTLEMANIA X-SEVEN

Houston..... We have a problem

So, I finally made it to the best Wrestlemania ever. I stated in the previous review that this day was very memorable for me and if you will indulge me, I would like to interject another personal story here.

This show aired on April 1, 2001. It also happens to be the day that I officially became an owner of a pizzeria for the first time. It was something I was working towards for 10 years when the owner of the local store asked me if I wanted to make some money cutting cheese in the back. In the lead up to taking over, I had lost touch with the product and hadn't watched a thing since the Royal Rumble earlier in the year. I didn't even have plans to watch this until my one friend stopped into the shop that day for a slice and invited me over since they were going to watch the replay which aired right after the live show ended.

Well I accepted and I'm sure you can guess who catered that party. But still on the natural high, I didn't mind one bit bringing a few pizzas and cheesesteaks for the crowd. Unfortunately the show didn't start until 11 PM and since I hadn't been sleeping much in the days leading up to this, I actually fell asleep after the first couple matches and was only awakened for the gimmick battle royal and the main event. The other matches I would eventually watch when I borrowed the VHS tape.

This also marks the last Mania that I would watch all the way up to WM 31. Actually that might not be entirely accurate, because I do have a recollection of watching a PPV a few years after this, but the only thing I remember about it was that they would switch announcers when they would move from RAW performers to Smack Down performers. Although I don't know when that was or even what show it was.

Anyway with all of that said, it was a great show, and I'm glad I finally got around to watching it from start to finish. I think for me what makes it so great is that there are a lot of things in this show that I have derided before, but here they are pulled off wonderfully. I will say that if there is ne small critique I have, it's that there are too many matches, and too many 2-3 minute matches. But other than that, there isn't too much to knock it down for.

SHOW THOUGHTS

- I know I said it last time, but this time it's the truth. This show feels like a Wrestlemania. The big domed arena atmosphere really adds to overall feel of this show. I think this card in The Pond or Rosemont Horizon just isn't as GOAT-y as it is in the Astrodome.

- I assume Lawler was off with heart issues because we get Paul Heyman here. He and JR work great together and normally this would be a dream pairing for me in a Mania, but knowing how he did his ECW workers dirty at this time really puts a sour note on it for me. He even has the audacity to mention that he is the owner of ECW. That's right. ECW was still a thing while he was doing color commentary for WWF. Shady.

- Another great match to kick off a Wrestlemania. Jericho was near his prime and Regal was as good as he always was here. Probably my second favorite opening Mania match only behind Owen/Bret at X.

- I know that McMahon always tries to get as many guys a WM payday as possible, but it's sad to see what he does to do that. He gave a six man tag a whopping 3 minutes. Why even bother at that point? Especially with some of the decisions that I will get to later in the card. Although it's always awesome to see Bull Buchanon/ Recon do his hop to the top rope move. Damn impressive.

- If you have paid attention to my posts here and other places, you know that I'm really not a fan of 3 way matches, or hardcore matches, or matches that go out of the ring and backstage. Well the Hardcore championship match had all three of these, and by God, it was great. Especially the back stage stuff. I loved even minute of it. I really enjoyed how Show just tossed Raven through the window. I'm assuming that was gimmicked room and window, but who knows. The golf cart bit was cool too. Great, great match.

- The Test match was very good. I definitely would have lost money if we would have bet that I would have said or typed that last sentence in my life. Now I'm not an idiot, I know it was around 75% Eddie Guerrero, but still Test did very well in this match.

- Pay no attention to what I said last time about watching Benoit matches. Holy **** this was a great match. Like a lot of the matches on this card. Two great workers at the top of their game here. Excellent. I would have figured with the build up and video package before the match it would have ended in tap out, but the pinball finish worked here.

- I always was and still am a big fan of Ivory. That's all I have to say about that match.

- I was on mega monkey tilt watching this McMahon vs McMahon match. I blame the fans for cheering this crap and is the reason why will still have to deal with Stephanie McMahon on today's RAW. This match got more time than Benoit/ Angle, Jericho/Regal, and the Hardcore match. It's embarrassing.

- With that said, Shane McMahon is a hell of a performer. My favorite match would come up later in the year at King of the Ring against Angle. His coast to coast on Vince was damn impressive.

- TLC II. Awesome. All 9 performers did great. I'm normally not a fan of spotfests like this or outside interference, but here like almost everything this night works perfectly. Some of my favorite spots were the spear of Hardy when he was hanging on to the belts, Christian falling from the top of the ladder all the way to the floor, and Bubba and Matt Hardy going through the tables from the ladder in the ring. 5 stars for this classic. I will say I found it odd that Edge and Christian won all three of these matches.

- I haven't read the other reviews on here about this show, but I'm guessing the best anyone had to say about the Gimmick Battle Royal was that it was meh. I loved it. Of course I loved the introductions more than the match, and seeing Heenan do one final WM match was great too. I'm guessing The Iron Shiek only won because he wasn't able to take a bump over the top rope. Also it was nice seeing Michael Hayes get a payday. I loved the Freebirds.

- This was easily Undertaker's best Mania match up to this point, but I really never need to hear Limp Bizkit again in my life. I also think we are getting closer to " The Streak" being a thing. JR really put over the fact that he was undefeated at this point.

- I also loved to touch of having Motörhead out there to sing HHH's theme music. A ton better that the DX band did a couple years prior.

- The match was really good and I liked the action that took place in the stands. The ref bump however was a bit ridiculous but it was needed to tell this story. Had Taker even done a catapult before and has he done one since?

- The video package before the main event was exceptional and I'm sorry that I didn't see this when it happened, because it looked awesome. I think the current creative team should watch the RAWs leading up to this match to see how to properly build a main event.

- What a great match this was. I loved everything about it and thought the blood added that extra something that was needed. I also liked how the banter between JR and Heyman came to head here. It was building slowly the whole night and JR telling Heyman to shut up was great.

- I also liked how Heyman had to state he had to use the "Tron" to watch the match since his monitors went out.

- The one bad thing was McMahon's involvement and the heel turn by Austin. Just unnecessary overbooking, but I guess anything to get your face on the screen again. The shareholders should all get together and vote that the McMahons are not allowed to be on TV in an acting capacity ever again.

AWARDS TIME

Match of the Night

While there were plenty of contenders, I think the clear winner was the TLC match. Just great from start to finish.

Worst Match of the Night

Shane vs Vince. **** you, Vince. **** you.

MVP

Jeff Hardy. He put his body on the line multiple times in the TLC match, and it would not have been nearly as good as it was had he not done what he did.

LVP

Anyone with the last name McMahon except for Shane. Just get the hell off of my TV. Please.

Best Prop

I loved the use of the golf carts backstage during the hardcore match. Something tells me though that Raven screwed up when he drove into the fence with it, because it felt like they were setting up something bigger.

Sign of the Night

I'm a fan of signs the bring up obscure wrestlers from the past. This show's sign of the night goes to the guy who made the "Billy Jack Lives" sign. I especially liked the hat that was drawn on the sign.

RANKINGS

This was easily the best show from top to bottom. It didn't have the best match ever, but overall it was the best. I think it was a McMahon vs McMahon match away from being perfect. If I were to put a numerical ranking on all of the shows, XIV would be 8.0, III would be 8.5, VIII would be 9.0 , and this would be 9.5.

X-SEVEN
VIII
III
XIV
X
VI
V
1
VII
13
XII
IV
2000
XI
IX
2
XV

Now we venture back into the unknown for me for the rest of this journey. I am looking forward to watching the Rock/Hogan match again, but that is the only match I have ever seen from this show, so I'm anxious to see how it goes

Lawler had quit the company. He married one of the young divas, she got fired, he got mad and quit. That was shortly before this event. Then she divorced him and he returned.

(I'm only that far in your review so far.)

Appreciate the info. I'm also glad he was with a girl of legal age for once

I think that Shane vs. Vince was tremendous for what it was. It doesn't really age well, but it was a hell of a payoff, as reflected in the crowd reaction.

Anyway, enjoyed the review.

I hear what you are saying with that, I guess my issues with it are what it would lead to eventually, which is what we see every week watching RAW. The McMahon soap opera crap is a big part of the reason why we have the current state of wrestling

I would point more to Austin vs. McMahon being one of the biggest money feuds in history as what had a lasting effect that we see today, namely that they're completely obsessed with having authority vs. wrestler feuds even when they clearly don't have the right mix of personnel to do it effectively.

Soap operas and infighting within the McMahon family are not so much what we see these days.

No, but we do see the apparent lack of effort to get talents over in the ring. At least the result of the Austin vs McMahon feud was that Austin became one of if not the biggest star in the history of the industry. Today the only result is Stephanie immaculate get every man she comes across. That I blame more on the soap opera crap from this time period.

Re: WM 2000 main event

It actually wasn't to put the mcmahons over at all. The story is actually a really kind thing done by HHH/Rock/Vince.

The main event was supposed to be Rock vs HHH for the title in a one on one match, as it had been boiling to that for a while. Biggest face vs top heel at the time. The previous HHH feud was the one that retired Foley (Foley said he viewed it as his job to get HHH as much heat as possible for his mania match with Rock). Before the final match of the feud (HiaC at No Way Out the month before), Foley declared it was his life long dream to main event wrestlemania and he would put his career on the line to have a chance to do so. He did this knowing No Way Out was his retirement match in an effort to get maximum HHH heat for stopping him from doing so.

The year before was the Austin/Rock WM where Foley was the champ for much of the time from the Dec PPV on. The WM plan was to have Foley vs Rock vs Austin, but it was decided pretty late in the process (the night of the Feb PPV, after the event) that "WM main events were supposed to be one on one" - a thought voiced heavily by HBK. Funnily enough HBK was arguing for Foley/Austin, convinced Vince of the importance of 1 on 1, and then Vince went with Rock Austin. That why the Feb PPV ended in a last man standing match with a double count out. It was meant to set up Foley and Rock having an argument to fight Austin at WM. Sadly all that stuff I just mentioned happened later that night and Foley dropped the title the next night.

So fast forward back to WM 2000 and Foley retired after the Feb PPV. He went and did some other things for a couple weeks when his phone rang. It was there he was told that the new WM plan was for it to be a fatal four way between HHH/Rock/Show and .... Him. His first thought was "I just retired ..." but they told him they wanted him to main event a wrestlemania. His second thought was "I just spent a month talking about how this retirement match was legit and I wouldn't do what those other people do and come back in a few weeks". He was told the fans won't give a ****, they love him and want to see him main event WM. His final thought was "HHH/Rock have worked their ass off this year and deserve to main event WM, aren't they upset at this?" and was told "no. It was their idea. They figured they can just have their big 1 on 1 match next month".

And that's how the main event of WM 2000 came to be. It was Rock/HHH/Vince thanking Foley for everything and giving him a WM main event send off. Which I think is pretty awesome.

Side note: The idea worked out well, as the buy rate at the next PPV for Rock/HHH was super high compared to usual iirc.

WrestleMania 22
April 2, 2006 - Allstate Arena, Rosemont, IL

- Twenty years after playing host to what probably ended up being the best part of WrestleMania 2 (and soon to be the only one of those three arenas still standing), we return to the old Rosemont Horizon, home to one of WWE's most reliably good crowds. And a good thing, too, because this was the first Mania where I not only had never seen it but legitimately couldn't remember a single match on the card (aside from the Women's title match), and upon looking at it, I could understand why I didn't care much about missing it the first time around.

- America the Beautiful is done by the Destiny's Child member that wasn't Beyonce or Kelly Rowland. A fantastic video package followed that illustrated the history of WM and ran down the top matches. JR kicks things off from the announce table before throwing to Tazz and Michael Cole, who he calls "sensational". I'll assume he hit the bar beforehand.

World tag team titles: Big Show & Kane (c) vs. Carlito & Chris Masters *1/2
I had thought the Spirit Squad had won the belts by this point, but a quick Google search tells me they became champions the next night. I hate when they do that, it does a lot more credibility-wise to have a title change at the biggest show of the year. Anyway, this was essentially a squash by the champs with finishers by the challengers thrown in. Nothing terrible. Crowd was into it pretty much from the start, always a good sign.

Money in the Bank: Shelton Benjamin, Finlay, Ric Flair, Matt Hardy, Bobby Lashley and Rob Van Dam ***1/2
Don't know what to say about this one. It was good, but clearly inferior to last year's match. That was probably due to a completely different cast of characters, with guys you'd never expect to see in a match like this. Still, solid work all around. I was especially impressed by Flair taking a suplex off the ladder, he certainly didn't need to be doing spots like that at 57. RVD's briefcase win, of course, led to one of the all-time great crowds for his cash-in against Cena at One Night Stand.

US title: Chris Benoit (c) vs. JBL **
This match went mostly at JBL's pace out of necessity, and seemed to exist solely for the purpose of getting all the signature spots in, because there was zero flow to it whatsoever. The result was a pretty mediocre effort. JBL did manage to get some good cheap heat by mocking the recently deceased Eddie Guerrero, as a good heel should, and got the crowd solidly in Benoit's corner after a lukewarm start. I totally missed that last year was Eddie's last Mania in my review.

Hardcore match: Edge vs. Mick Foley ****1/4
Storyline here was that Foley was guest ref for the match where Edge dropped the WWE title to Cena, and Edge wanted revenge. Foley accepted, but on his terms: not a regular match, but a hardcore match. And he made the transformation back into the Hardcore Legend during the build to boot. Appropriately, Joey Styles replaced JR on commentary, because we basically went in a time warp back to November to Remember. Barbed wire, a barbed wire bat, a barbed wire Mr. Socko, Edge getting backdropped onto thumbtacks (with no shirt!), Foley getting speared off the apron through a flaming table in the pièce de resistance (yes, you read that right)...holy crap, this was fun. And, unlike ECW most of the time, the spots actually flowed together into a really good match. Edge looked in literal shock at the conclusion of this one. Foley walked off like he won, with a huge smile on his face as the crowd chanted for him. Easily the bloodiest match in Mania history, will never be topped even if they could do a match like this today.

Handicap match: Boogeyman vs. Booker T & Sharmell -*
WHO BOOKED THIS CRAP?!?

Women's title: Trish Stratus (c) vs. Mickie James ***1/4
Beautifully booked, with Trish getting well-deserved payback taking Mickie to the woodshed from the opening bell, until a poorly timed kick hit the ringpost and allowed Mickie to target Trish's knee with some awesome wrestling. Only problem with this was Mickie's deranged stalker gimmick (combined with her terrific ringwork) getting her so over that the crowd went full Toronto on them. That and the blown finish. Even still, prior to the arrival of NXT, I thought this was the best women's match in WWE history, second-best at worst. And, since the copy I have was taped from the actual PPV broadcast, the best moment wasn't cut out:



Casket match: Undertaker vs. Mark Henry *1/2
This was the year they really started putting the streak over as a big thing. So, of course, the outcome of this was in even less doubt that it would've been otherwise. A pretty nothing match highlighted by Taker busting out his phenomenal no-hands plancha (OVER the casket, no less), leading to the finish. Taker gets a full star just for that move.

No holds barred: Shawn Michaels vs. Vince McMahon **3/4
This was another Vince McMahon special at Wrestlemania, where he takes an absolute ****kicking in between various run-ins. Wouldn't be the last, either. Certainly entertaining, although it did veer into "WILL SOMEBODY STOP THE DAMN MATCH!" territory by the end. Shawn's elbowdrop off the gigantic ladder was an amazing visual, right up there with any of the TLC spots. Gotta love Vince flipping the bird from the stretcher, too. This feud would only get more ridiculous, continuing with Vince and Shane vs. Shawn and "God", and eventually would unleash DX 4.0 upon us all.

World heavyweight title, triple threat: Kurt Angle (c) vs. Randy Orton vs. Rey Mysterio ***
Nine minutes? Really? I mean, it was really good for what they got, but...nine minutes?? It was basically finishers from the word go. As well as the women's title match was booked, that's how poorly this was booked. Crowd was not even remotely invested in Rey's underdog win, the pinfall got a good pop but they were booing his comebacks and cheering for Angle all the way through. The work was so good, particularly by Angle, that it's probably match of the night if it gets twenty minutes. I got a chuckle out of the "Suplex City" reference to Angle by Tazz, 9 years before it became a thing.

- In a sign of things to come, crowd gets a "Cena sucks" chant going while JR and King hype the main event while the ring is set up for the pillow fight. JR even goes so far as to say HHH will probably be the crowd favourite.

Playboy pillow fight: Torrie Wilson vs. Candice Michelle DUD
Space filler. JR was certainly right, this was not Gotch and Hackenschmidt. The worst part is that this almost went as long as the last match.

WWE title: John Cena (c) vs. Triple H ***1/2
Most notable, of course, for CM Punk's WrestleMania debut as one of Cena's gangsters during the entrance. HHH gets the Apollo Creed introduction as Lilian runs through his lengthy list of nicknames. Crowd lives up to JR's prediction with a "**** you Cena" chant and the BOOO-YAYYY routine on an early exchange, followed by a "Triple H" chant and then a "You can't wrestle" chant. And then a "Let's go Cena/**** YOU CENA" chant. A very HHH-like (read: methodical) pace early as the crowd entertains themselves by booing the ever-loving **** out of John Cena. It does pick up in the final 7-8 minutes with Cena on offence, and builds to a dramatic finish as Cena kicks out of a sledgehammer shot, HHH kicks out of the FU (probably the first time that's ever happened), then Cena reverses the Pedigree to the STFU and...HHH taps?? Wow. Was not expecting that. Neither were many in the crowd. Good match but so bizarre with the crowd reaction. They actually did the arm-drops-thrice routine with HHH in the STFU, never seen that with a heel before.

Overall: 6.75/10
Solid show, but somewhat below the top tier. The highs weren't high enough or frequent enough to compare with the best shows, and there were too many matches that were mediocre or worse. But there were definitely enough good moments to put it in the above-average grouping. Crowd was fantastic, they might have been the MVP of the entire night. Well, aside from the two guys who went through a flaming table, that is.

Ratings so far:
X-7 - 10.0
III - 9.5
XIX - 8.75
XX - 8.75
X - 8.5
XIV - 8.0
21 - 7.25
VIII - 7.0
22 - 6.75
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

Please clap.

I just never have anything to add on these writeups for Manias that I haven't yet seen. Obviously the answer is that I should watch them at some point.

As far as my commenting, I haven't seen it either, and I plan on watching and reviewing in the near future so I don't want someone else's opinion to persuade mine. I do feel your frustration with regards to not getting any feedback. I didn't get any for my XVI review, although in fairness to everyone, I did hit the submit button almost at the same time the Daniel Bryan news broke last Monday.

I'll add something. You are spot on in your women's title review. I wonder how that match plays out if Mickie is a true heel instead of a well loved heel. Her being the crowd favorite here is ****ing weird considering how the storyline went (though I'm being a total hypocrite because I loved the Mickie character, but I've been a heel mark since I was 7 cheering for Dibiase, so what do I know)

rewatched WM30 today .... Bork looks 20 lbs leaner back then.

What a great card. The crowd reaction when the streak ends is legendary.

WRESTLEMANIA X8

The One and Only

So, I finally go through this one, for some reason this seemed like a much longer slog than the previous one even though they were both roughly the same length of time. That is not to say it was a bad show, because it certainly wasn't. It was actually a decent show that could have been better with 45 minutes or so shaved off. I guess this was one of the by products of the early merger times. I can also see why with the exception of True North, why everyone bailed on this project, because if they next couple feel similar to this one, I'm going to find it hard myself to keep going, but dammit I'll do my best.

SHOW NOTES

- I see we get Jerry Lawler back in the color chair this year, and he appears to be in his pervy pedophile prime here. Grrrrrrrreat! JR of course does another stellar job on play by play, so at least there's that.

- Mr. Perfect and Lance Storm in the pre show match? Really? They couldn't stick that ridiculous Hardcore championship match there and move the 6 man match to the main show? Terrible decision, but I guess that is WWE for you.

- I will say that the opening match again was a very good choice to kick things off. RVD and William Regal put on an excellent match, and I really enjoyed their work. I know this isn't the unpopular opinion thread, but I think Regal is one of the top 20 workers overall in the WM era. You are almost guaranteed a 3 star match whenever he steps in the ring regardless of the opponent.

- Saliva and Drowning Pool are the two bands they got for this show? Who picks the bands? Enough with the live bands playing at wrestling shows. If you want to put on a small concert for the fans do it before or after the show. Nobody wants to watch that during the wrestling show. Did we really need them to play while showing us the story of a match?

- Was Benoit hurt during this time? His absence here was noticeable and I'm assuming with some of the performers that made the card, and it being in Canada, that an injury seems like the most obvious reason for him not being there.

- I see the European and Hardcore championships are still a thing here. Great! I'm hoping with the upcoming brand split, that these two belts are retired before the next WM. Especially the Hardcore. Man was that ongoing saga annoying during the show. We get it! It's a 24/7 championship. Even kayfabe wise, why would someone want this belt? It makes no sense. As a plot device on RAW it works, but on a PPV its just a time waster.

- Angle and Kane had a really good match on this show. I know everyone is copletely tired of Kane today, but back in the day, full mask, red and black bodysui, non talking Kane was the ****, and I hope his past couple years doesn't taint that legacy. At this point instead of being Demon/Coroorate Kane, they should just go full comedy and have him do a Foley type gimmick with Issac Yankem and Fake Diesel as characters he uses too.

- Eventhough it wasn't actually mentioned by name I think between JR bringing it up again, and Taker actually acknowledging his 10th win in a row at Mania, we can officially say The Streak has begun. I really enjoyed this match and once again Flair shows why he is just that much better than everyone else that has ever wrestled. He could have an excellent match with anyone.

- I also loved AA's involvement in this match, and watching him perform his spine buster one more time was great. If there was an award given to the wrestlers who perform regular moves the best, AA would easily win the spine buster award. There might be a thread in the making with that last statement.

- 6 minutes for Edge and Booker T is nowhere near enough time. This is where I think having all of those stupid Hardcore segments really hurt. You could have given those 5 minutes or whatever to this match and it could have been much better. As it was, it really only served to give the crowd a chance to see their hometown guy get a win.

- Austin vs Hall, or as I like to call it, Burned Out vs Burned Out. You could almost see the look of disinterest on Austin's face during this match, and I think had this match happened 4 years earlier it could have been really good, but now you can see these two, or three if you count Nash are just interested in getting their payoff checks. I will say that this match did have the best moment in it, but more on that later.

- Here is something else I noticed. Austin was a complete phony with regards to his beer drinks celebration at the end of this match. He was thrown approximately 12 beers to celebrate with, and with the exception of the one that he missed catching, he opened all of them. He was doing 2 at a time, but he would just completely dump one of the beers out, and the second one would barely go in his mouth. I would say only 2 of the 12 beers were actually consumed by Austin during that celebration. Phony!

- And we yet another gimmicked Tag Team title match. This time it was a four corners elimination match, and to their credit we didn't get the always lame double count out or DQ in the beginning. And it did feature Stacy Kiebler, so I guess it was a better than usual match. Also, Lawler is just a straight up deviant, and I'm glad we don't have to endure that anymore.

- I usually hate the audiences that go to wrestling shows, but holy **** they were on fire for Rock vs Hogan. It made that match 10X better that it should have been. If there was ever an appropriate place for a " This is Awesome!" chant, it was here at the start of the match. The action was ok, but that crowd was probably the loudest I have ever heard for a match from start to finish. There have been louder single pops, but for the length of the match, I think it was #1.

- Yes, I have been on the anti Hogan/Bollea train for a long time, but I have to admit, I had a huge smile on my face watching him do his thing with the crowd after the match. And that was even after I knew it was coming. Great moment.

- There was a Women's Championship match.

- I think the epic flaw in this card was the positioning of the last three matches. Well actually I mean that they should have flipped the last match and the Rock/Hogan match. The crowd had absolutely no energy left after the Rock/Hogan match, and were unsurprisingly quiet during the whole main event. With exception of the pinball the crowd actually popped louder for Maven's roll up pin on Christian than they did for anything in this match. I wonder if they didn't realize how much Hogan would be over with the Toronto crowd, or if they knew, but still felt obligated to put the World title match on last regardless.


AWARDS TIME

Match of the Night

The easy winner here is Rock vs Hogan. I would say that with the help of the crowd, this match catapults into the top 10 WM matches of all time up to this point. I loved it from start to finish, and then even after the finish it got better.

Worst Match of the Night

Although there were a couple of contenders, I'm giving this to Austin vs Hall only because of what it could have or should have been. It was just a substandard effort given by two of the better talents. Very disappointing.

MVP

The Rock. He was the better worker in the best match of the night. He also played his part perfectly after the match and let Hogan have his moment with the crowd. I don't know that if the roles were reversed, Hogan would have done the same for him. I now feel better for getting one dig in on Hogan.

LVP

I don't know his name, and I don't even know if I have the right band, but the lead singer for Drowning Day sucked. He was horrible, and I'm glad that will never have to hear anything he annoyingly screeches again. Piss poor.

Move of the Night

This award goes to a surprising winner. Referee Jack Doan. His slide into the ring to count a pin during the Austin Hall match was a thing of beauty. I popped big time when he came into the view of the camera and without hesitation was in perfect position to count the near fall. Even John Cena should look in awe at that head first slide. Perfection.

Sign of the Night

This was also an easy victory. The sign that read " ENOUGH WITH THE WHAT CHANT" takes this home in a walk. The What? chant is Austin's worst contribution to the wrestling business, and I wish WWE would institute a policy where they stop the show when anyone does this. It's terrible and I wish throat polyps on anyone who chants this, especially at the HoF ceremony.


SHOW RANKINGS

This show was decent. It was great or terrible even though it had multiple moments of both, but I do think the great moments slightly outweighed the terrible ones. Ultimately the length of the show at almost 4 hours holds this down from being much better. Therefore I think it's slightly higher than in the middle. I also did a little shuffling of previous shows.


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

And now it's on to XIX. I'll be honest, if all of these shows are 4 hours, it's going to be tough to keep up my current pace, but dammit I'll give it everything I have. This is one that I don't think I've seen anything from, but I think this is the show with Lesnar vs Angle. I only know that because Lesnar talked about it on his podcast with Austin

This is probably a popular opinion.

You got this all wrong. Hogan worked the crowd and the match so much better. Rock even admitted to getting outworked in this match.

They're 4 hours with the exception of XX, which is 5 hours.