From Biloxi, MS

Kane v. Elijah Burke

Both men will compete in the 24-man battle royal at WrestleMania. Kane struck down Burke early leading Burke to take a powder. Kane took it to Burke on the floor and worked a rest hold back in the ring. Burke powered out and got some token offense in before running into a chokeslam while going for the Elijah Express. That ended the glorified squash. Why couldn’t they have used someone other than Burke for Kane to squash, certainly there are less talented wrestlers on the roster than him. By the way, Kane will be making his tenth Mania appearance in eleven years and this is at least the second lowest, and arguably the lowest, he has ever been on the card.

Kane d. Burke, Pin, 3:25, squash.

Backstage, Armando Alejandro Estrada confirmed the participation of all four monster mash battle royal alums in the WrestleMania battle royal. While Estrada was speaking to Chavo Guerrero, Colin Delaney walked in and was going to ask for a contract. Chavo put Colin down, calling him an embarrassment to ECW and a joke, leading to a non-title match between the two tonight. A win earns Delaney a contract. As a topical aside, having JBL destroy Colin after they had slowly been giving him in-ring credibility was foolish. It hurt Colin and didn’t really help JBL. Even if it did, it’s not as if anyone is buying WrestleMania to see JBL’s match anyway, so why bury a guy and disrupt a long-term storyline for no reason?

Kofi Kingston v. James Curtis

Again? Tazz compared Kofi with Floyd Mayweather in that they’re both undefeated. Kofi caught Curtis with a drop toe hold, Indian deathlock and then went into another resthold. Back standing, Curtis actually caught with a knee and got a brief heat segment. Curtis then went into a resthold further prolonging this very dull match. Kofi came back with a Russian leg sweep, double legdrop and a sloppy Jamaican buzzsaw to win. Though the crowd gave him a tepid response, Kingston remains total bore to me as he’s nowhere near the worker to pull off this gimmick. At the least, he needs to cut the rest holds completely out of his squash matches, for sure.

Kofi d. Curtis, Pin, 3;44, squash.

CM Punk, Jesse & Festus v. Shelton Benjamin, The Miz & John Morrison

There’s a tag title match between the two regular tag teams on Smackdown this week. Festus cleaned house immediately after the bell rang. He tagged out and slammed Jesse onto Morrison for a two count. Jesse hit an arm drag, drop toe hold and dropkick quickly for another near fall. The crowd started a loud CM Punk chant. He tagged in and hit a plancha onto both heels on the floor. Benjamin then took one heck of a bump for Festsus as he essentially propelled himself from the ring to the floor with a moonsault. The match went to a commercial break after a hot start. Returning from the break, the faces had Miz in trouble picking up a couple of near falls. Shelton finally hit Punk from behind to give the heels the edge for the first time at the eight minute mark. Benjamin hit an exploder suplex after tagging in before yielding to Morrison. Punk caught him with a quick sunset flip for two, but Morrison restored control with a shining wizard. Punk rallied with an enzuigiri to get the hot tag to Festus. If nothing else, Festus is excellent at this role. After the usual six men in the ring stuff (not a DQ unlike last night), Festus hit his version of a flapjack to pin Mizanin. The most interesting aspect of this match was just how crazy the crowd was for CM Punk. Repeatedly, they chanted for him at moments in the match where you would not even expect a babyface to get a chant.

Punk, Jesse & Festus(x) d. Benjamin, Miz (o) & Morrison, Pin, 11:47, **½.

They replayed the senseless final segment on Raw (about which more later) and ran down the rest of the WrestleMania card.

Eddie Graham was announced as the newest member of the Hall of Fame, well-deserved of course. Vince McMahon mentioned that the Graham Bros. were his favorite tag team which he has always claimed. This was a tremendous piece with tons of great vintage footage. Dusty Rhodes will induct Graham, so sadly here’s Hulk Hogan proving to be a liar again (he claimed in an interview that he would be inducting Graham).

They had footage of the Big Show at home with his wife (he called her bigger than Mayweather, an interesting compliment) and dogs. It also featured Show training both boxing and wrestling, as well. This piece was a success as he finally came across a full-fledged babyface.

Chavo Guerrero v. Colin Delaney

Colin got a nice pop as he returned to his little pre-match chats with JBL. He said that he’s more beat up than ever, but it’s all worth it if he gets a WWE contract. Right at the bell, Chavo attacked Colin with a knee and forearms. Colin then snuck in a hip toss and a dropkick to send Chavo out to the floor. Chavo reasserted himself back inside and worked an arm bar and a choke. He then missed a charge in the corner but Colin missed a dropkick and Chavo came with the three amigos. Chavo took his time going up top and proceeded to miss the frog splash and Colin rolled over for a two count. Chavo once again took the edge and won with the Gory bomb (akin to the widow’s peak).

Guerrero d. Delaney, Pin, 4:32, *¼.

Final Analysis: On the October 3, 1987 edition of Saturday’s Night Main Event, Hulk Hogan, the most popular wrestler ever known to man, wrestled low-midcard veteran Sika. Formerly a prominent member of the promotion as one half of the Wild Samoans tag team in the early 1980s, the now 42-year old Sika had spent the bulk of 1987 working low on the card either tagging with Kamala or working jobbers like SD Jones or Jerry Allen. He was barely a blip on the radar of most fans so he was a surprising opponent for Hogan anywhere let alone on an NBC broadcast. Furthermore, the two ended up having a very competitive match (a bad one, of course) with Hogan selling for prolonged periods of time. Yes, the WWF saw fit to make sure Hulk Hogan made this lowcard guy who would retire in a matter of months look somewhat good in defeat. The idea is simple: Hogan wins in the end, so of course he benefits particularly given his ability to make even an ordinary comeback seem special. At the same time, you give the heel some rub by having him prove he can hang with Hulk Hogan.

Flash forward to last night where the company’s top babyface and top heel are wrestling a whopping seventeen guys. Firstly, in an era where realistic angles and feuds are doing the best at the box office (see the best of UFC, boxing or last year’s Mania), such an idea is absurd on its face. I cannot fathom a way that segment could have worked using that idea as the premise. It’s likewise nearly impossible for me to fathom how to execute it worse than WWE did last night. WWE essentially buried fifteen wrestlers last night (JBL and Umaga were sort of spared) by having their two top stars go through them with an absurd amount of ease. Some of the buried have actually shown promise and gotten over (note the use of the past tense), most notably Cade & Murdoch. Others like DH Smith and Paul Burchill never had a chance to even get out of the blocks. Why any fan would care in the slightest about any of these guys anytime in the near future is beyond me as it is obvious WWE doesn’t value them at all either. The argument that the segment built up the show’s main draws holds no weight as never in wrestling history has such drastic measures been needed to do so. You can look at the Hulk Hogan example, or frankly any other recent example to see this. In an era where WWE mismanages and under-funds developmental and no other companies remain to produce drawing cards, protecting the mid and lower card wrestlers ought be a higher priority than in years past as that’s the only place left for new main eventers to come out of. Of course, the opposite has taken place. This of course has a direct bearing on ECW where the whole roster falls into this category. Though no ‘extremists’ competed in last night’s main event, were any of them Raw talent, including the more pushed guys like Punk and Chavo you can bet they would have been just another piece of meat fed to the big stars. One more thing: is Triple H supposed to be a face or a heel? Perhaps a better question: does anyone even care?

Note: Thanks to Graham Cawthon’s excellent and indispensable website for some of the research used here (http://www.angelfire.com/wrestling/cawthon777/wweindex.htm).

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