Don't stop now, the next two are awesome.

Benoit went away for neck surgery after King of the Ring 2001 and wouldn't make it back until a few months after X8.

If you make it through the rest of the Manias, there's at least one more glaring example of, "Damn, that was amazing." ... "Oh yeah, there's still a championship match to watch, guess I'll sit through that too."

I'm one of the stronger advocates you'll find of the belt basically always going on last, but certainly Hogan-Rock should have been last.

5 hours?! That is a WTF long time to expect people to sit through anything let alone a wrestling show. But if True North says 19 and 20 are worth it, ill get cracking.

Rock vs Hogan WM entrances and first few mins of the match is one of like 20 wrestling YouTube videos I find myself watching once a week.

Great snapshot of how amazing Hogan is capable of being

I'm currently listening to the latest Ric Flair podcast with Bruce Pritchard, and Bruce told a couple interesting stories about Wrestlemania VII. First, before Sgt. Slaughter was in the picture to come back and play the Iraqi sympathizer, Vince's original choice to play that role was Tugboat. And in Vince's grand vision, his name was going to be Shiek Tugboat.

The other story was that it is true that the reason they moved from the Colliseum to the Sports Arena was in fact due to security concerns. He said the FBI told them they would not secure an outdoor show of that size, and even said they had contemplated not having the Super Bowl as well.

Just figured those were a couple interesting things I could pass on

Why not Sheikboat? Give me Sheikboat vs. Steamboat any day of the week.

I prefer the Sheik Master

Make it Sheikboat vs Steakboat and I'm in.

WrestleMania 23
April 1, 2007 - Ford Field, Detroit, MI

- After three years of arena shows, WWE goes back to a stadium here. They haven't gone back to arenas since. And of course, there's some symbolism in going back to Detroit on the 20th anniversary of WrestleMania III. There's nothing here that would indicate that this show will be on par with III, but there are two matches that should be good, at least.

- They actually play the WrestleMania III intro on the TitanTron to kick things off, and Aretha Franklin is back to sing America the Beautiful. Nice touch, although I thought her performance was a lot worse this time around.

Money in the Bank: King Booker, Edge, Finlay, Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Mr. Kennedy, Randy Orton and CM Punk ****
And they start with one of the good ones. Even more turnover from the past two years, as Edge and Matt Hardy were the only returnees. Jeff Hardy and Edge take HOLY **** honours for the night, with Jeff hitting a legdrop off the top of a 20-foot ladder onto Edge, who was lying on a ladder balanced between the apron and the guardrail outside the ring. Edge got stretchered out after that, and incredibly would not return to make the heroic climb up the ladder. Funniest spot of the match saw Hornswoggle trying to get up the ladder to get the case for Finlay, only to get caught and eventually Green Bay Plunged off the ladder, in the best use of midgets since, well, WrestleMania III. Finish saw Punk about to grab the briefcase when Kennedy tossed a ladder at his face, then grabbed the case himself and got the contract, in what would be the peak of his WWE career. He would lose the case to Edge, and then get injured, suspended, and eventually fired within the next fourteen months. Usual great stuff from everyone here.

Kane vs. The Great Khali DUD
Khali was being pushed as a monster heel, the office not having realized he wasn't suited for anything more than comedy fodder, and would actually get a short-lived run with the WHC later in the year. Incredibly boring. I reflexively got up to take a piss break before I remembered I was reviewing this. They had Kane slam Khali and the announcers reacted like it was Hogan slamming Andre (at...WrestleMania III!). Don't oversell it or anything, guys.

- Funny bit with Cryme Tyme and Extreme Expose from ECW having a dance party backstage, which led to Eugene trying his own with Mae Young and Moolah. They would eventually be joined by Slick, Dusty Rhodes, IRS, Jimmy Hart and Ricky Steamboat, among others. It was all a setup for Ron Simmons to come in with a DAMN!, of course.

US title: Chris Benoit (c) vs. MVP **1/2
This was technically fine, but seemed rushed. Just like last year, they had Benoit run through his finishing sequence very early, only to be cut off by MVP, who worked the arm most of the match to hopefully keep Benoit from being able to use the crossface. It worked, but Benoit still retained with the diving headbutt, in what I thought was a mild surprise. MVP would win the title two months later in what would turn out to be Benoit's final PPV match.

- Donald Trump does a backstage segment with The Boogeyman and tells him to go get him a sandwich. I feel like this could somehow be worked into a political ad today.

World heavyweight title: Batista (c) vs. Undertaker ***3/4
Don't know if they just wanted to have a big match to close out the first half or because they lacked confidence in it. Regardless, it seemed like a big deal at the time because Batista had been built up enough as champion and as Smackdown's top star that it actually seemed not only possible, but plausible that he could end the streak. Champ out first, because of course. Taker gets the super-extended entrance with the druids and torches while Batista stares a hole through him. Batista starts off strong with a heel edge as the crowd is clearly behind Taker. This is such a well-paced match, especially for a big man matchup -- I keep waiting for a resthold, but there aren't any. The only real rest in the match was after Taker pulled out his WRESTLEMANIA NO-HANDS PLANCHA for the second year in a row. Batista countered that moment with an epic powerslam from one announce table through a second. That built up to the closing sequence, a series of very believable near falls, with Batista hitting the Batista bomb but not able to connect on a second, leading to the Tombstone that gave Taker the World title. This match far exceeded my hopes for it, just great big man wrestling.

Sandman, Rob Van Dam, Tommy Dreamer & Sabu vs. Elijah Burke, Matt Striker, Kevin Thorn & Marcus Cor Von *1/2
This is the ECW Originals vs. New Breed feud that lit the world on fire. Sandman does the beer can crush 3 feet away from an 8-year-old, that's nice. Just a short, pointless match made worse by the burned-out crowd. Fans did not care about this even a little until RVD tagged in to finish (and even then not much). They should've made this a hardcore match, which they would in fact do a couple of weeks later on the TV show. That makes no ****ing sense.

Battle of the Billionaires: ECW Champion Bobby Lashley (w/Donald Trump) vs. Umaga (w/Vince McMahon) *
Losing billionaire gets his head shaved. Steve Austin is special ref. The big problem with this is that no one gave a **** about Lashley, so the match itself was nothing until the overbooking kicked in. Trump looked like a complete fish out of water here, I know you have to have him get involved somehow but no one showed him how to throw a punch or anything. They send the crowd home happy with Vince losing his hair and Austin laying out Trump with the worst-sold stunner ever.

Women's title, lumberjill match: Melina (c) vs. Ashley Massaro DUD
Another talentless Diva gets herself on Playboy and gets a WM match. At least it was short.

WWE title: John Cena (c) vs. Shawn Michaels ****1/2
Cena and Shawn are the tag team champions as well here, BTW. Shawn gets the main event thanks to HHH tearing his quad (no, not that quad, the OTHER quad) in January and ruining the planned rematch from the previous year. And boy, did that ever turn out to be a stroke of luck. Cena "drives" a Mustang through the streets of Detroit to Ford Field and through a plate of glass in the arena to make his entrance. And still draws boos. Great storyline for this one, the wily veteran former top guy trying to get back his title many years later against the current top guy. Some nice back-and-forth early, with both guys getting a brief advantage, most notably Shawn with a sweet springboard moonsault to the announce table. The match turns when HBK gets a shot to Cena's knee and goes after it like Ric Flair circa 1987. Cena eventually gets the comeback and Shawn blades, then accidentally superkicks the ref to set up Act 2. It starts with a terrific piledriver to the steps by Shawn, which Cena sells by blading as well, and moving to 7-8 amazing minutes of finishers and finisher reversals, leading to Cena finally trapping Shawn in the STF with no escape. Tremendous, but they would have a near-hourlong match on Raw three weeks later that topped this and was voted MOTY. Go find it, it's probably Cena's best match ever. I read recently that Shawn was legit furious at Cena for not selling the knee all the way to the end, and him refusing Cena's handshake at the end was an unplanned shoot.

Overall: 7.5/10
What looked to be a two-match show going in actually ended up being a three-match show, with Batista/Taker delivering the goods beyond any expectation. As with 22, a little too much crap and not enough lasting impact to put it in the realm of the truly elite, but this was a solid show by any measure. WWE was in a real groove as far as putting together a Mania, that's five good-to-great ones in a row and six of the last seven.

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
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

Batista v Taker is one if my all time favorite Taker matches, and probably the best Batista match ever. Incredibly fun match that probably should have had a different outcome.

master, have you seen HHH vs. Batista in HiaC? If not, I always try to pimp that out. It's the best Batista match imo. 3-way from WM XXX I'd put over this WM 23 match as well. I'm not a huge fan of Taker but this match is one of my favorite WM matches.

The three way from 30 is not at all contingent on Dave though, whereas the other two are. I have seen the one you mentioned but think that Batista did better overall in the Taker match.

WrestleMania XXIV
March 30, 2008 - Citrus Bowl, Orlando, FL

- We are finally at the place where it all began. Yes, this is the show that inspired the creation of the Official WrestleMania Thread. Let's see what everyone was saying about it back then:

Well, I'm psyched.

- Full disclosure: I've never seen any part of this show, aside from a few highlights of Michaels/Flair. The whole Benoit situation burned me out on wrestling for over a year -- I don't really know anything that happened between then and the 2008 draft lottery. I was thinking about watching it, but passed because Floyd Mayweather is a giant piece of **** and I wasn't watching anything he was involved in. Let's see what we've got.

- This is the first open-air Mania since the ill-fated IX, and the first one ever in a stadium this big. The visuals of the stadium are jaw-dropping, and would only get better as the night wore on. We open with a military flyover and a really well-done rendition of America the Beautiful by John Legend. That one goes into the top five. And then Randy Orton gives him an RKO. (Kidding. Legend Killer, get it? Meh.)

Belfast Brawl: Finlay vs. JBL **1/2
JBL is back from retirement after calling the Smackdown matches at Mania last year. I'm not even going to get into the setup for this one, it's not quite Katie Vick-level bad, but it's in the neighbourhood. As hardcore matches go, this was pretty decent, two guys wailing on each other with the usual plunder to get the crowd warmed up.

Money in the Bank: Shelton Benjamin, Carlito, Chris Jericho, Mr. Kennedy, John Morrison, MVP and CM Punk ***1/2
Morrison and MVP are the only debut entrants this year. We talk about how worthless the secondary titles are now, but all three secondary titles are in this match instead of being defended elsewhere at WrestleMania (IC champion Jericho, US champion MVP and co-tag champion Morrison). What a waste. Shelton once again tries to kill himself, being pushed off a ladder and flipping through another ladder on the outside. That one made me cringe. It also made Carlito look down on Benjamin in shock (or maybe "WTF were you thinking?!?") for a good ten seconds in a funny visual. Jericho recycles his Walls of Jericho on top of the ladder spot from Royal Rumble 2001 on Morrison. MVP looks like he's going to win, when from out of the crowd comes Matt Hardy, back from an injury sustained against MVP, to give him a Twist of Fate from the top of the ladder. In the end, Jericho takes out Punk and appears to have it won, when he tangles himself up in the ladder in a rather contrived spot, allowing Punk to grab the briefcase and finally get his shot at the upper card, which people had been clamouring for forever. It's almost impossible to have a bad MitB match, but I didn't think there was a whole lot of continuity to this one, mostly just doing or setting up spots, and there were a lot of instances where someone got to the case but didn't grab it because they were waiting for something else, to the point where it was stretching believability.

Batista vs. Umaga 1/2*
As good as lest year's match was for Batista, this one was bad in equal measure. Lots of sloppy brawling and resting via nerve pinches. In a seven minute match, no less. Crowd didn't care, and in fact were cheering for Umaga by the end. And the funny part was that Batista won "brand supremacy" for SmackDown, yet both guys switched brands in the June draft.

ECW title: Chavo Guerrero (c) vs. Kane DUD
Kane won a dark battle royal to get the shot here. Chokeslam -> pin in 0:10. The match was shorter than it took me to type that. Certainly demonstrated the importance of the ECW brand, and indeed it wouldn't make it to next year's WrestleMania.

Shawn Michaels vs. Ric Flair ****
Flair must retire if he loses. Of course Little Naitch is reffing this one, wouldn't have it any other way. Chopfest to start and the WOOOOs are everywhere. They do two riffs on Flair's top rope spot, one where Shawn goes up and gets slammed off, and one when Flair goes up AND HITS A CROSSBODY! FLAIR WINS IT! FLAIR'S THE CHAMPION OF THE W...oh, sorry. Shawn tries the same springboard moonsault as last year, but Flair moves and Shawn breaks the announce table. That looked like it really hurt. But not enough to try ANOTHER moonsault off the top to the outside a couple of minutes later, holy ****. Shawn sold the hell out of his ribs the rest of the way. Finally Shawn grabs control and goes for Sweet Chin Music...but he just can't do it and stops short, which allows Flair to hook in the figure four. Shawn reverses quickly to break, and then a sad spot where they go for a pin attempt that Shawn is supposed to bridge out of, but Flair just can't make his body lift up. A little embarrassing, honestly. Flair gets a chop block and another figure four that takes Shawn a lot more effort to break. But Flair showboats just a little too much, and HBK hits the superkick for two. Flair gets increasingly more desperate, resorting to a low blow, a thumb to the eye, pulling the tights, all the dirty tricks, but it's not enough as Shawn finally puts him out of his misery with a second superkick, "I'm sorry...I love you", and a final Sweet Chin Music. What a poignant finish. It was totally time for Flair to retire, though, he'd lost more than just a step. Too bad he just couldn't stay away and had to embarrass himself in TNA. The emotion of the match and Shawn's stellar work pushed it over the top as far a four-star match for me.

Playboy Bunnymania lumberjill match: Beth Phoenix & Melina vs. Maria & Ashley DUD
Nothing could follow that, so it's good to see they didn't really try. You really appreciate how far the women have come today when you look back on these Manias where you got a high-profile match just for taking your clothes off in Playboy, and the rest of the Divas apparently weren't useful for anything aside from dancing for the crowd. I love Beth, but this was notable for absolutely nothing except a mid-match power failure.

WWE title, triple threat: Randy Orton (c) vs. John Cena vs. Triple H ***1/4
Orton was kind of an afterthought in this match, the story was focused mainly on the returning HHH, who was out for a year after tearing his quad, and Cena, who forfeited the title in October after going off for surgery, but made a surprise return at the Royal Rumble and won it. One of those two guys was widely expected to walk off with the belt. And he was very much a third wheel in this match, as well. So it was quite the surprise to see Orton retain by punting HHH and pinning a just-Pedigreed Cena for the win, after a hot closing sequence where he was largely absent. They set a good pace and kept the crowd into it all the way through. Cena's two STFs on Orton in this match were horrible even by Cena standards, his arms were really only in the general vicinity of Orton's chin. By contrast, HHH's crossface looked legitimately painful as he was really cranking back on it. HHH would of course win the title next month, because everyone knows you don't do big title changes at the biggest show of the year.

No disqualification: Big Show vs. Floyd Mayweather *1/2
I'd forgotten how much mainstream press this got -- the video package shows clips from PTI, Around the Horn, Larry King, Mike & Mike and more. The problem here was that they should've had the easiest story in the world -- big bully vs. plucky little underdog -- but Mayweather is so goddamn unlikeable that it ruins the execution. The match was really strange as a result. I mean, Mayweather took Show down with a rear naked choke and got booed. Funniest part was one of Mayweather's posse yelling, "You can't do that!!" over and over after Big Show does such heinous things as, you know, stepping on him and stuff. Mayweather actually bails on the match -- great underdog move -- but gets dragged back to the ring by Show, and is about to get chokeslammed through the mat when one of the posse comes in with a steel chair. Mayweather grabs the chair and wears Show out with it, then gets a set of brass knuckles and knocks Show out. Let's never speak of this again.

World heavyweight title: Edge (c) vs. Undertaker ****
This one told a really good story, with Edge having studied the Undertaker and staying one step ehad of him throughout the entire match, countering numerous signature Undertaker moves like Old School, the Last Ride, and the tombstone. He just couldn't keep Taker down, though, even after hitting him with everything in his arsenal. It all culminated in a second spear, with Edge finally thinking he'd won, relaxing a bit going into the cover -- and walking straight into the Hell's Gate gogoplata (not called as such yet -- called "that submission move" by the ever-astute Michael Cole, barely a step up from Vince's "whattamaneuver") for the tapout and the title. MVP for the match (and possibly for the whole show) has to go to Charles Robinson, who would've beat Usain Bolt down to ringside to nearly count down Edge following a ref bump and a tombstone.

Overall: 6.5/10
This was well above average in a lot of ways -- certainly visually appealing, technically proficient in the expected spots. But in the end, it was just completely forgettable. There's nothing on this card that I ever need to see again. This gets the lowest grade of any of the "good" WrestleManias.

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
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

WRESTLEMANIA XIX

Dare to Dream

Well that was certainly a terrible tag line to go along with this show. But fortunately there wasn't much more that was terrible about it. I was surprised at the quality of matches throughout. There was nothing mind blowing, but at the same time nothing was the ****s either. Match wise that is. The extra curricular stuff I could have done without, but I guess that's VKM's style. Anyway, on to my thoughts.

SHOW NOTES

- Can someone please tell me that I will never see Limp Biscut again. They were 3 years past being relevant, and when they were relevant they still sucked. I guess they should give the Undertaker a percentage of their revenue after 2000 because I think that was all that was keeping them going.

- Eventhough it was only about 5 minutes, I really enjoyed the opening Cruiserweight championship match. I always enjoyed watching Mysterious work, even though his 619 move is pretty ridiculous.

- I realized something while watching this show. I was lapsed for so long during this time period, that there will people wrestlers showing up on these shows that I have absolutely no information about. Nathan Jones who didn't wrestle is one of those people. There are a couple others that pop up here, but I am curious when that number drops to 0.

- Did they really need to give the Undertaker two giant men to beat to keep the streak going? They had what should have been a gold mine in Big Show, but they decide to feed him to Taker here along with Albert. Horrible.

- So there was another women's match on this show. I hope this isn't the start of "piss break" women's matches. If so its going to be a long ride to WM 32.

- So they followed up the Women's Championship triple threat with a Tag Team Championship triple threat. Have they just thrown in the towel already? At least it was a very good match.

- Hass and Benjamin aware two more wrestlers I know absolutely nothing about, but the little bit I saw in the tag match has inspired me to search out some more matches. Both guys look like they can work very well in the ring.

- Great match between Jericho and Michaels. I especially liked how Jericho remained the heel at the end. It was very good storytelling from start to finish.

- Say what you want about current day Booker T, and I say plenty, he was a very good wrestler back in the day. Personally I liked his work in Harlem Heat better than a singles wrestler, but he was good either way.

- Flair's performance really helped out the match between HHH and Booker. It still amazes me that current day WWE doesn't utilize managers that much anymore.

- 20 minutes? Really? McMahon and Hogan got 20 minutes? To be fair though, it was ok as a street fight, but it went a bit long. I do wonder if Hugo Savinovich bladed to got busted open via the hard way. Either way it was a good looking spot. Usually you can see when spots like that are being set up, but that one was done really well.

- Out of the three Rock/Austin Mania matches, this one was by far the worst. Not that it was bad, but for the second straight WM in a row, Austin just didn't look like he wanted to be there.

- I'm sure technically I'm wrong, but I am designating this show as the start of the "Finisher Kick Out" era in WWE. I didn't notice it in the matches prior to the last two, but there were 6 kick outs in the last two matches. Not only that, but the last match had two submission attempts that went without a tap.I think this due in part to the fact that somewhere along the way people thought the only way to have a great match was to have a lot of false finishes. And unfortunately audiences have been conditioned to believe unless it's a distraction, we will only see a pin fall after a wrestler's established finishing move.

- During this show I saw somethings that was rather curious. After one of the matches they had a commercial for the WWE shop. If you looked closely, you could see that they were selling merchandise from WM 21. I'm sure there is some reasonable explanation for this, I just found it a bit odd.

- The Angle/Lesnar match is one that I would have gladly paid for to see in a MMA setting, or even an amateur wrestling setting. Here as the main event, it was very entertaining as well.

- I will also take an unpopular opinion and say that i was glad to have Tazz on color commentary for this match as opposed to Lawler. Yeah, I know he gets a bit carried away at times, but in this match it was nice to have someone who knew what the hell they were talking about with regards to the amateur wrestling holds and moves. I think Lawler would have just botched this entire thing.

- I know that it was probably enhanced a bit by Lesnar's selling, but after the match was over, he had a look on his face like he was going to collapse and need to be rushed to the hospital after he made it to the back. That shooting star press was not a good idea in hindsight.
AWARDS TIME

Match of the Night

I'm going with Jericho and Michaels here. It was a tough decision between this and Angle/Lesnar, but I think the return of Michaels to in ring WM action puts it over the top. Very good.

Worst Match of the Night

Like I stated earlier, there was nothing match wise that I thought was bad, so I'll go with Taker vs Big Show and A-Train. It was really not all that good, and the booking decision was just horrendous.

MVP

Again this was another tough decision, but I'm going with Kurt Angle. I really liked his work in the main event, and he helped what looked like a still slightly inexperienced Brock Lesnar. I thought about Jericho, but I went with Angle.

LVP

5 way tie between everyone involved in that stupid cat fight. It's becoming increasingly sad to watch WWE try and hang on to the last vestiges of the Attitude Era. It's over and it's been over for a couple years at this point. Just move on, it's really sad. It's kind of like what it was like watching Andrew Dice Clay try and keep his stand up gimmick going after it was done.

Sign of the Night

I thought this was going to be a fun new thing to add to my write ups, but not only were the signs creatively disappointing for this show, but it's becoming even more evident that the audience is now more interested in getting themselves over than enjoying the matches. There was one guy who was prominently displayed whose last name I'm guess was Kell, because he kept inserting it into different catchphrases. It was irritating, and I hope that guy is currently suffering from the worst case of crabs ever.

SHOW RANKINGS

I really enjoyed this show, and it's quality of matches from beginning to end make it one of the better ones up to this point. I think it's lack of a 4 1/2 or 5 star match keep it from the elite, but it's still near top 5.

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

And now it's on to the 20th anniversary of Wrestlemania. I fired it up real quick and saw it clocked in at 4 hours 30 minutes. Yikes! Hopefully I can get it watched and have a write up for it. Until next time, thanks for reading.

After doing some research and listening to the beginning of The Lapsed Fan's review of XIX, I would like to revise my assessment of Austin's performance. I knew this was his last match, but I had no idea the extent of what he was going through physically and emotionally leading up to this match. His performance now makes a lot more sense than it did while watching it.

I haven't seen XIX aside from Jericho-Michaels (which was good, though nothing I regard as very memorable), but I did enjoy the writeup FWIW.

Nice write up aj

Shelton Benjamin is awesome

I finally finished listening to the Lapsed Fan's review of WM XIX, and in addition to the Rock/Austin match, my view of the Booker T/HHH match has changed too. I guess that is the inherent problem of watching these WMs that I really no nothing about. I lose the context, and the WWE makes me see things the way they want. This was true about that match.

TLF informed me of how blatantly racist the buildup to this match was. It was actually fairly gross, and since I watched it a second time, it really made me feel uneasy. How do you rundown a man like that for weeks, and then not have him go over in the end? I guess what everyone says about HHH is true. And what the hell was with Lawler's commentary? I really wasn't paying attention the first time, but Christ, he should have just used the n word a couple times and dropped the charade. It was awful all around.

the plan was for booker to win
then they signed goldberg and thought hhh would be a better feud and changed
lols were had by all, uncomfortably

Funny how that exact thing happened when they found out they wanted HHH to face Rock at WM 32 so HHH goes over Sting only for Rock to not be able to wrestle. I guess HHH is just lucky.

everyone else seems to be more mad at that hhh sting match than i am. it was a comedy match for nostalgia purposes where a bunch of people over the age of 45 and 50 came out and helped people they hated when they wrestled. none of it made any sense except to make people say HEY LOOK AT ALL THESE PEOPLE IN THE RING AT ONCE ISNT THAT NICE. then hhh was still on tv and sting disappeared for months again.

im perfectly fine with the person thats actually around picking up the win, especially in a comedy match.

idc one way or the other since I couldn't care less about Sting or HHH. Though, I do find it hilarious.

It was never advertised as a comedy match. It was given a serious build. They suddenly turned it into a comedy match for whatever reason, but it doesn't feel like that was the initial intention.

(this of course would have been different if they planned on sting being around for a year or two wrestling a fair amount)

edit: above is to iso


lkj, that's fair
it did have a serious build

Accidental comedy match perhaps. They had Sting be "Black Scorpion Sting" once in a promo when such a thing didn't exist, and in fact the Black Scorpion was Ric Flair, his greatest rival. Naturally his other great rivals the NWO helped him in the match. And halfway into the build suddenly the reasoning all changed and it was about WCW, a company that had been gone for over a decade. True horror, partially masked by Sting being so old and "OMG STING IN WWE!!!"