Thumbs down on the show.
Best Match: Bocek vs. Miller. Was I alone in thinking Bocek took the second round 10-8? He nearly had two submissions and I couldn't give Miller credit for 9 points when he did nothing on offense during that frame. I'm surprised there isn't more controversy regarding that decision.
Worst Match: Fitch vs. Saunders. The first match I've ever seen that doesn't improve upon the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time, even with Rachelle Leah as the ring girl.
Jeff Hamlin
| Thumbs in the Middle Best Match: Taker/Michaels Worst Match: Randy Orton/Dibiase/Rhodes Despite the great build up they've had for the past 2 months or so, Wrestlemania this year seemed like a lackluster payoff. There were some pretty boring matches in the first half of the card, a bad yet oddly entertaining Divas match, a terrible Vince/Bret resolution, capped off with a great Taker/Michaels match. The opening tag match was nothing special and was akin to a match on Raw. The Orton triple threat seemed to go on forever, getting the heat on Orton. It dragged and was boring as a result. The MITB was a fun match but not as crazy as years prior, which perhaps is a good thing in itself. I couldn't give a shit about the Triple H/Sheamus match. I thought Rey and Punk were really fun and would have loved to see the match go longer. For all the time they gave this angle to build up, it certainly didn't pay off with this match. Hopefully the feud continues, but with Rey winning, I don't feel confident. Vince/Bret was horrible. As soon as Vince brought out the Hart family, you could tell what was going to happen. And then it dragged and dragged. Crowd reaction seemed dead and the director of the show must have known it sucked because at the end of the "match" they hardly showed the in-ring celebration more than 3 seconds. Such a lame resolution for the supposed 13 years of build. Jericho and Edge were an okay match, but seemed the crowd really died from the previous match. The Divas match was pretty bad in terms of work rate, but they were energetic/enthusiastic and Vickie Guerrero always entertains me so I enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons. I thought Batista/Cena was a fun match and really woke up the crowd. Taker/Michaels was great. Loved the finish but probably enjoyed last year's match more than this year's overall. Too much shit to give this show a thumbs up so in the middle feels more right. -Jeff Lam Toronto, ONT |
| Thumbs up on the show as a whole. It wasn't the best Mania ever but it was good. Best Match: Undertaker vs. Michaels Worst Match: Orton vs. DiBiase vs. Rhodes Tag title match opener not much of anything. If they were going to treat it like that, why have the match on the show. The Orton match was just plain awful, like they decided to take a handicap match and make a mockery of it. They did a tremendous job of doing Orton no favors and burying Rhodes and DiBiase for good. And what was with Rhodes' outfit? Couldn't he find anything decent to wear? Well, on the bright side, they didn't give him polka-dotted ones. MITB was decent, not great. There were a couple of cool spots, but in general the match was toned down quite a bit. I'm not sure it was because they are trying to be safer in general or because they have the MITB PPV coming up and didn't want to water it down too much. I figured Bourne would do some sick stunts and he did. Swagger winning means the streak of MITB winners cashing and winning a title is coming to an end. HHH vs. Sheamus was another okay match, but predictable finish as you knew there was no way HHH was putting him over especially after giving Sheamus a lot of the match. Mysterio vs. Punk didn't end the way I wanted it to. I thought the Mysterio in the SES angle would have been gold for months but I guess they don't see it that way. Good match, especially the end where Mysterio did the hurancanrana out of the GTS. Please keep these two working together for awhile. Vince vs. Bret was what was to be expected. Bret got his revenge and Vince was humiliated. Jericho vs. Edge was kind of a disappointment. The crowd didn't seem into it and it didn't seem to flow very well. The finish was good and they had some good moves, but I guess I expected an epic out of these two and it just didn't happen for whatever reason. Jericho getting lots of cheers seemed a bit strange. Divas match was usual bathroom break material, only I didn't have to go, so I had to suffer instead. Ugh. Vickie with the worst "frog splash" in history. Batista vs. Cena was meh. I don't care how much merch Cena sells, he needs to turn. The crowds are turning against him again. Dull match with their fair share of blown spots. I wish they could find a way to use Cena without him having to wrestle because he's regressing to rookie level in the ring. Taker vs. Michaels was great, just not to the level of last year. And I don't think there was any way they could live up to it. It's definitely a **** 1/4 match. It was missing something, just can't put my finger on it. Good luck to Shawn on his "retirement". Dan Graulich Shapleigh, ME |
| Dave, Thumbs In the middle (but heading downwards) Best Match - Taker/HBK worst match - Bret/Vince I wanted to give some brief thoughts on WM26. I watched the event with 3 fairly knowledgeable fans. This was the first PPV I have sat through live in quite sometime. Quickly... Unified Tag Team Match - ShowMiz/Morrison, R-Truth This match has me puzzled and quite frankly I don't know if they could have picked a worse match to kick off the biggest event of the year. Useless match Orton vs. Legacy Triple Threat I like Randy Orton and I'm very much in favor of him being that heelish face, but this match summed up this feud perfectly. Didn't get over and did nothing for Legacy. The best thing to come out of this match was the Orton Pose with the Center Ring Titantron. Money in the Bank Typical spot fest, but with not a ton of original spots. Loved the Evan Bourne shooting star and the Kofi Stilts...but overall, was just there. Will be interesting to see what they do with the All American American moving forward One quick note on the HoF recognition...did anyone else notice the "Diva" vibe that Diana Hart Smith was giving off. Don't get me wrong, I thought she looked really good...but when I saw her walk out there, I really had know idea who it was for a moment. Love hearing Fink by the way. HHH vs. Sheamus Nothing match and to me was just another HHH love fest. Punk vs. Rey My second fave. match of the night, very pissed we only got six minutes or so. I have been one of the last on the Punk bandwagon...but I'm firmly there now and hope they continue on with him. Very entertaining Vince vs. Bret Disappointment!!! I did not expect a 5 star classic, but I also expected more than Vince taking a 10 minute ass kicking with one of the dumbest "swerves" as the backdrop. How dead was the crowd? Other than the Hart attack on Vince, I hated everything about this match. Chris Jericho vs. Edge Not bad, I can't decide if I enjoy Edge as a face or not. I must say, the lack of crowd excitement in my opinion hurt this match as much as any. Good ending and a cool spot with the spear from one announce table to the other through the barricade DIvas Match Exactly what I expected, short enough though. Loved Vickie off the top rope with the little tribute to Eddie. Would love to see less pretty divas and a focus on the few that can go in the ring. Cena vs. Batista Another Super Cena Moment, what else can we expect. A good enough match and I really dig Batista in the roll he is in, was disappointed he lost. The Cena Sucks signs and the soon to be famous group of fans wearing the anti Cena shirts was cool. Cena getting up close and personal with them at the end was also pretty cool. Dude seems to have a good attitude about his tweener status. Taker vs. Shawn A fun, exciting match that told a really good story. I honestly had doubts about them doing anything close to last year...but I was wrong. I had as much fun with this match as I have had with any for a long time. Congrats to the both and thought it was a great way to end the show. I really liked the jumping tombstone finish. Overall, as a whole, this Wrestlemania will not even be in the top 15 for me, but it had some decent moments. Finally, two things really bothered me about this show: - the announcing was horrible in my opinion. Its amazing how poor and over the top announcing can ruin a show. Even Stryker who I like was hard on the ears tonight - leads me to second point, the over use of not only the WWE Universe term, but also the "Wrestlemania Moment" term sounds so scripted that it makes everything feel absolutely forced. Thanks Dave and continued success with the site. Paul Zilm Spokane, WA Thumbs up... Thumbs down if you take Taker/HBK away. Best Match: Taker/HBK ***** 2nd: MitB ***1/2 3rd: HHH/Sheamus ***1/4 Worst Match: Bret/Vince DUD ***** Taker/HBK - Let me start of by saying that Michaels vs The Undertaker was simply amazing. An absolute masterclass in how to deliver on the biggest stage of them all when it matters. There are a lot of great workers around the world but delivering great matches in front of 500 people is a completely different kettle of fish to delivering when it matters in the main event of the biggest show of the year when over a million people have paid primarily to see you wrestle. There is no-one better than Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker at delivering in big matches. The WWE should be seriously worried as they have no-one who looks like they can step into either of these men's shoes in the near future. I guess your mileage will slightly vary on the main event depending on whether you thought Shawn had a chance of winning, but I did. They were intelligent enough to realise that going the same route as last year was never going to work and as a result they worked a totally different match. Post-match was emotional as anything since Eddie's death for me. Brilliant stuff. As much as I am going to miss Shawn work, he has more than earned his retirement. Enjoy it. ***1/2 MitB - Really good Money in the Bank. I could enjoy it as I never felt like the wrestlers were going to kill themselves unlike in TNA. Some really great creativity in the match. Just a shame Swagger looked a mug taking an age to retrieve the case. ***1/4 HHH/Sheamus - I thought these two would have a decent match and they did. After seeing how the crowd reacted to this match and just didn't care about Edge/Jericho and Mysterio/Punk, it's a shame they didn't get longer, as with a bit more brawling and build this could have easily been in the ****+ range. *** Cena/Batista - Decent match with some good heat but I never bought Dave winning the match, despite that probably being the best result for business. **1/2 Punk/Mysterio - Great for what it was but you could tell within the first minute that they weren't getting anything over ten minutes with the pace they were working. Such a disappointment to see Mysterio again not getting a real chance at Mania. **1/2 Jericho/Edge - Disappointed, especially as they got a reasonable amount of time. Edge just doesn't work as a babyface and Jericho's offence just isn't bought by the crowd as effective. Only jobbers tap to the Walls and the Codebreaker is kicked out of all the time. It's hard for the match to generate any real heat with a combination of these two factors. I have no idea why the postmatch stuff wasn't a part of the match. Everything else was under ** for me with a DUD for Bret/Vince. No-one cared about the Harts double-cross and this dragged badly. An insult to Punk/Mysterio what they did with the time they were allocated in this match. All in all the card didn't deliver at all. MitB and HHH/Sheamus being the 2nd and 3rd best matches on the show are testament to that. Something needs to be done about the commentary team. Not getting JR on board was a huge blunder. Sign him on a PPV-only deal for the next couple of years and start looking for the next Play-by-Play guy to eventually replace him. The commentary took at least a 1/4* off every match, especially during Jericho/Edge: Jericho needs all the help he can get getting people to buy his nearfalls. Also the crowd were dire from HHH/Sheamus to Cena/Batista. You could tell the event was heavily papered. T.M. Daines
Steve Viglio Thumbs up! Very solid 'Mania PPV - I'll have to watch it again to see exactly how good it was. It's tough to judge with 15 people watching together and talking during the show. Best Match: HBK vs. Taker - Color me surprised. Given the condition both guys are in I didn't think there was any way they'd live up to last year's match, but they managed to do it. Again, I'll have to watch it a second time, but my initial reaction is that it may have even topped last year's match! Worst Match: Bret vs. Vince - Now I wasn't expecting much from this, but it wasn't even really a match. Vince showed no offense and it was just 10 minutes of people beating him up. Kinda pointless. Both title matches were quite good, particularly Edge vs. Jericho. I was pretty shocked Jericho retained, almost cleanly no less. I was sad to see Batista lose since his heel champ character is sooooo much more entertaining than his face persona. At first I was disappointed that neither title match got the main event slot since one of the two champs should really always be in the main event. But since HBK-Taker was so good I'm ok with this. Punk vs. Rey was a bit disappointing just because they weren't given enough time - they should've had at least 12 or 13 minutes to work with. MITB was ok but I think the concept has played itself out. Ten wrestlers is simply too many for a ladder match, for one thing. There were a few innovative spots, but I find that almost none of the MITB matches really stand out from the others anymore. Anyway, WWE once again put on a very entertaining WrestleMania card, and for the first time in many years the matchups didn't feel stale. -Justin Ballard Boston, MA Hey guys, Thumbs up, especially for the last 2 matches. Best match: hbk-taker Worst match: divas Good show overall, although I felt like they rushed everything a little bit. Legacy triple threat was surprisingly good; MITB was ok, nothing special except for Evan bourne's shooting star off the ladder. He may be the most athlete guy in WWE, really should give the guy a push. Swagger winning was a big surprise. Hart- mcmahon was weird, really can't say much about it. It was what it was, you really couldn't expect much more than that. Edge-Jericho was very good, third best match on show. Loved the spear into code breaker spot. Surprised Jericho won. Batista-Cena was great, awesome nearfalls, crowd goes nuts for anything Cena does. His best match in a while, and Batista is underrated as a wrestler, he's improved a ton over his career. Undertaker and HBK...what can you say. Just amazing, thought it was better than last year; great all-time spot in shawn's moonsault on undertaker. Randy Zeidan Thumbs up. Best - Michaels-Undertaker. Worst - Diva tag. My expectations were very high, probably too high, but I very much enjoyed this. My only complaint would be that a few of the matches could have used an extra few minutes. Really good show. Jim LeMond Evansville, IN Hey Dave. Here it goes. Ahem. UFC 111: Thumbs up Best Fight: GSP vs. Hardy Worst Fight: Fitch vs. Saunders Caught the main card here in Mexico, with a bit of delay because of the daylight savings time difference. Even begginers could tell the first decision was wrong. Sure, Bocek was busted wide open, but he's clearly the one who dominated the match and deserved to win, at least on divided decision. Good match in general, though. Fitch vs. Saunders was a bore and a bad choice to get most of my friends into MMA. Pellegrino did a good job, waited for his chance and seized it perfectly, one can only feel bad for Camoes who started the fight pretty well himself. Frank Mir versus Shane Carwin was nothing but the proof that Carwin is the guy to beat Lesnar. On a personal note, I respect Mir for what he's done and all, but it was a relief to see him get a lesson in humility. He was totally overpowered in this match. I also think Dana might've wanted him to win, though...can you imagine the sales of a Mir vs. Lesnar 3? GSP vs. Hardy was the best fight in my opinion, Hardy wound up looking well against the most dominant champion in the UFC right now, even though no-one really thought he had a chance. His next match will let us know if he's on his way up. Wrestlemania 26: Thumbs in the middle to up. Best match: Taker vs. HBK II Worst match: Divas match Opener was little more than a weekly Raw match (yup, not even Smackdown). The opportunity was there to give Morrison and Killings one well-sold push, but apparently The Miz's one will carry on longer. If you think about it and the fact that the one he might end up putting over is Danielson, it makes it less uncomfortable. The Legacy thriple threat was alright. Not the time for Orton to be a face though, and that's what he wound up looking like. Way to bury Rhodes and DiBiase, by the way. A match between these two ("mano a mano" like we say in lucha libre) might be interesting and could be useful to see who deserves the definitive push. Money in the Bank was pretty good, better than Punk's previous wins. Didn't expect Swagger to win, don't really imagine when or how he'll cash it. Might we see another breifcase steal like what happened with Kennedy and Edge? A couple of cool spots, specially liked when Swagger was under the ladder and getting hit on both sides. Good performance by Bourne and Shelton, who apparently will never go to the main event spot. Hunter versus Sheamus was a good chance for Trips to give Sheamus the staff as a future star for the company. They share quite some characteristics. Instead, we got a bore of a match where he did nothing but bury him further. Hard to see him as a main contender as of right now. Rey versus Punk should've got more time. It was really entertaining and Punk is one of the few guys who can still get a good match out of Rey, it did remind me of a lucha libre match where all of Rey's abilities are showcased. I expect this feud to carry on longer and give us better matches. CM Punk is hands down the best heel the company has right now. Hopefully he gets angles where he can re-live his ROH glory days, wrestling-wise. Bret versus Vince was not what I expected. Sure, a total squash was what everyone was waiting for, but for the fist time when it comes to Bret Hart, I felt disappointed in the execution. Too much build-up and didn't deliver. At least it's over, I hope. Jericho versus Edge was great. Both men performed their characters to perfection and did a good job of selling the whole spear angle. I was shocked to see it was not used in the actual match at all. I actually thought Y2J, who is the worthiest champion there can be, would drop the title to Edge, but thankfully this feud will be longer than expected. Also, my inner self wanted this to be a heel vs. heel feud, but the pops for Edge are too face-like. Not sure if the "rated-R" thing should go on, then. Divas match was a snack-preparing match. Couple of nasty botches. Vickie gets the biggest heel reactions by far, though. Cena vs. Dave, I wasn't much of a fan of. Maybe it was my TV signal, but it looked slow as hell most of the time. John's final counter was almost a slow-mo moment. Too bad the titles aren't as long as they were before. It takes a bit of feeling off the changes. Cena winning at Mania is becoming usual, but at least they did try to give a compelling match. The pose with the haters at the end...a heel turn? CMLL did it with Mistico here, it might work with Cena getting tired of the fanboy hating. Shawn versus Taker was better than last year, and that is something. Taker is a legend but can hardly give worthy matches anymore. Thankfully Shawn can pretty much wrestle a broom and make it look good. My inner HBK mark really wanted to see him win with that second superkick. The end was solid, the jumping tombstone is an image that will be a classic from now on. It's hard to think Shawn will retire, I thought he deserved one more title reign myself, but if it happens to be the case, and screwjobs and whatnot aside, he is definitely one of the best workers the industry has seen. Hall of Fame Class of 2011 has his name written all over it. J.J. Villarreal Queretaro, Queretaro, Mexico.
|
| Thumbs in the middle Best: Taker/Shawn Worst: 10 Women's Tag Match Was cruising along for a big thumbs down show until the final 2 matches. The Cena/Batista match wasn't great by any means, but finally the crowd woke up. Taker/Shawn wasn't to the level of last year's match IMO, but was better than anything on this show. Crowd wasn't as into the match as last year's crowd for sure. This was one of if not the absolute worst crowd in WM history IMO. Some of matches weren't bad, but the crowd didn't care about them at all (eg. Edge/Jericho) and they really suffered as a result. Was surprised at the clean pin in the Edge/Jericho match. Wasn't sure which way they were going to go, but didn't think clean pin by Jericho was going to happen. Wasn't a fan of giving away that the Hart family was with Bret before the match as to me that seemed like backwards thinking. Really hurt the heat in the match - especially with Vince not even getting in 1 offensive move. Was really disappointed at how little time CM Punk and Rey got. Gotto admit was hoping Rey would win so that could see how they would work the storyline with those 2 in the coming weeks. With the result of the clean pin, I have a lot less interest in seeing these 2 continuing. Some of my favourite spots of the show were: Seeing Cena pose with the guys with the "I Hate Cena" shirts after the match and the huge grin/smile on his face while doing it was awesome; and When Taker gave Michaels "The Last Ride" powerbomb, seeing the fan in the front row hold up his "2" jersey prior to the pin. I was laughing at that shot. Considering how good the build for Mania was this year, was a really disappointing show. Rishi Malhotra Toronto |
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