Ok all, watched the big event last night and my thoughts are as follows.
Morrison/R-Truth vs. Showmiz
Decent enough match to open with I thought, so decent work from both teams to warm up the crowd. Not amazing and could have done with maybe 2-3 minutes more, but it did its job and the right team won. Decent start.
Orton vs. Rhodes vs. DiBiase
Again, this was pretty good watch, if somewhat predictable. But nobody made to look weak and it was a good watch for the most part, right man won again. Orton also looked like a total badass, will be very interested to see where they go with him and his character from here.
MITB
As usual this was all good fun, a couple of painful looking botches along the way though. Evan Bourne stole the show here though, without him it would not have been nearly as good. His shooting star press off the ladder and him getting hip tossed off the top of the ladder by Matt Hardy were two really amazing spots. Kofi Kingston being billed from “Ghana” was something I hadn’t noticed before; interesting that he still has the Jamaican Accent and reggae type music. I thought Swagger was a good choice of winner here, and he seemed to get a lot of good heat. However, for me there were just too many people in the ring for this one. Shelton, MVP, Ziggler and McIntyre just seemed to be along for the ride, and it was pretty clear that Matt Hardy and Christian were just put in there to cover the fact that a load of the other guys ring styles weren’t suited for this type of match. Still, a good watch, but probably my least favourite of all the MITB matches so far.
HHH vs. Sheamus
More good heat for Sheamus here, and he got in loads of offence. Thought the match as a whole was quite well paced and there were a lot of proper wrestling power moves on display from both guys and the crowd seemed to be pretty into it. I wasn’t particularly sold on the ending but overall I thought that this match was good, enjoyed it more than I thought I would and have no complaints about HHH walking out the winner. Both guys were made to look good here and came out looking strong.
Punk vs. Rey
Really enjoyed Punk’s promo at the beginning of this one, he’s such a gun. The match itself was good as expected really. Some great spots and it was fun to watch. Great heat for the Straight Edge Society when they prevented Rey going for the 619, crowd went nuts. Would have preferred it if Punk had won this myself, but not a big deal. Another match that was solid and good without being great.
Bret vs. Vince
The night before I watched the Bret/Shawn iron man match and the Bret/Austin submission match, so I was quite nervous about how this would go, but as it turns out I thought it was quite cleverly done. The involvement of the Hart family was a clever way of taking the focus away from Bret’s in ring ability and Vince actually took quite a few hard bumps. I thought the match itself overran a bit and went on too long for mine, but this was always going to be about the moment rather than the match itself, and the moment did not disappoint. The Sharpshooter on Vince was fantastic and the crowd lapped it up. Just what everyone wanted to see, good stuff. Also enjoyed seeing an “Owen for HOF 2011” sign in the crowd, though I think it was taken down.
Jericho vs. Edge
Think this match suffered somewhat due to both face and heel being from Canada, both of them seemed to get a very mixed reaction, particularly Edge, and the crowd just didn’t really seem to get into it until towards near the end. The match itself was ok, but again not outstanding, for a Wrestlemania match between two guys of this standard I kind of expected a bit more of a show. That said, there were some really cool moments, Jericho going for a spear and Edge booting him in the head and then Jericho countering the spear into a codebreaker later on both got a great pop from the crowd. I really liked the finish too, Jericho was made to look really strong and I think him picking up the win was the right result, much as I like Edge I don’t think another World Title run at this stage would be a great move, and also it wasn’t typical or predictable. Not sure why the awesome spear off the announce table at the end couldn’t have been part of the match though. Again, good but expected it to be just a little bit better given who was in the match.
Divas
Stupid but amusing, and Vickie’s tribute to Eddie via her attempt at a Frog Splash was one of the more peculiar things I’ve seen.
Cena vs. Batista
Good crowd reaction for both guys here. Massive LOL from me at the “Batista likes Fish Sticks” sign; which appeared in the crowd and could be seen there for most of the match. I thought that the crowd were hot for this, mixed reaction for both guys again, but it was a strong reaction from all parts of the arena. This one for me actually really felt like a Wrestlemania match, really did feel like the two top guys of the company squaring off, quite the spectacle I thought. Match probably brought out the best in both guys I think, Batista’s face after Cena kicked out of the Batista bomb was hilarious, and Batista kicking out of the Attitude Adjuster was great. I thought that it could have done with being a few minutes longer maybe, but really this delivered what I expected of it, good stuff again. Also really enjoyed the bit after the match where Cena went over to celebrate with a load of guys wearing “we hate Cena” T-Shirts, WAG.
HBK vs. the Undertaker
Ok, so the big one. It struck me at the beginning of the match how HBK’s entrance really is synonymous with Wrestlemania, and how he is in general. I noticed on his way to the ring he pointed to the crowd and you could clearly see him say “thank you” or “I love you” which immediately resigned me to the fact that this was probably going to be his last hurrah. I thought the match started really well and was incredibly fast paced. As you would probably expect this was the match of the night. The insane moonsault onto the announce table from the top rope was amazing, and both guys really put on a good show. For me this time around was not as good as last year’s, but it wasn’t a million miles away. Last year I really got the feeling that HBK pushed Taker to his limits and was within a hairs breadth of beating him, though he gave him a good run this time around, I didn’t quite get that same feeling. The ending was great though, HBK in a nutshell, and Jesus H Christ what a tombstone to end it, Taker looked like he was trying to break HBK’s neck. Glad it was put on as the Main Event, despite not being as good as last year’s match for mine, the moment at the end was a genuine Wrestlemania Moment. The handshake was fantastic and Shawn’s goodbye to the crowd was emotional and moving, WAG, the best part of the entire show, will stay with me for a long time.
Overall
On balance I would say that this was a pretty decent show, not a bad match on the card, and even the Divas match had its merit. I think the card may have suffered somewhat from having too many singles matches, the structure to Edge/Jericho, Cena/Batista and HHH/Sheamus all being a bit samey for mine. But that’s me nitpicking a bit. Taker and HBK probably suffered somewhat due to it being done last year, and this time round it was never going to live up to expectations in terms of the match itself, but the moment at the end went a long way to making up for it, real mark out stuff. The event was not quite as good as I had hoped, perhaps just lacking something really dynamic in the midcard to boost it, but overall it was good and very watchable.
7/10.