This blogy-thingy will be mostly stuff that I think is awesome and occasionally the delusions of grandeur and realities of mediocrity that is my life.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
I don’t think last night’s Royal Rumble was a bad pay-per-view. I had fun watching it with my friends and think there was a lot of fun surprises and good wrestling on the show. But I still left the bar where we watched the event disappointed and disliking the show. Why? The finish of the the last 2 matches.
If you’d have asked me before the show what I thought the worst possible endings for both the Royal Rumble and the WWE title match could possibly be I’d have probably said exactly what happened. There aren’t three other guys on the roster I’d rather not see in the final 3 of the Rumble than Sheamus, Ryback and Cena. And there is no one I was rooting harder against winning the match than Cena. I really thought the match until that final threesome was entertaining but it seems hard to appreciate it with that ending.
I feel the same about the WWE Championship match. I thought the bulk of Punk/Rock was very good, but the finish was just stupid and insulting. But I am actually not going to complain about Dwayne getting the belt. I can understand how the company believes it will be good for business. My problem is with the way he won. He should have just beat Punk straight up, hitting an over-confident champion with a Rock Bottom and scoring the pin to end a hard fought contest. The “lights out” attack by the Shield (or Sabu or whomever) was stupid given the match stipulations, just like the idea that the Rock can call a “do-over” after his matches. And to be honest, I am one of the marks that thinks him winning that match with the elbow is a lame/insulting way for Punk’s title reign to end.
The funny thing is, I expected and predicted that both Cena and Rock would win their matches before the show started. But even thinking in that disappointing direction from the beginning, I found myself still really enjoying the show. But now not only do I look back on it with disappointment, I am already dreading another Rock/Cena filled road to Wrestlemania.
“Unlike a lot of people, I’m glad you’re back. I don’t care what your schedule is. I don’t care if you work here 16 days a year, 365 days a year, you can be Santa Claus and have his schedule, you could 1 day a year, I’ll still kick your ass. I don’t care how many movies you film every year, I know how hard that schedule probably is. But every time you come back, whenever you decide to grace us with your presence, I’m gonna kick your ass.
Because this isn’t Candyland, I’m like nobody you’ve ever faced before. You can make fun of the color of my t-shirt and you can talk about pie and you can sing songs and you can rhyme and you can do your tired lame-ass schtick. I just want you to know that come Royal Rumble, and you have about 3 weeks to realize this, I’m gonna kick your ass cause I’m the best in the world. I’m the best thing going today, I’m the best guy you’ve ever stepped foot in the ring with.
And you need to understand, congratulations Rock you just graduated from the kiddie table, but you’ve just bit off more than you can chew. You’re playing little league with your little insults and your rhymes and your millions and millions and your finallys, and I’m in the big leagues and I’m swinging for the fence. You need to understand that your little jabs and your insults it’s all kid games, you can’t leave a mark on the champ’s face. Come Royal Rumble, understand when you step in the ring, your arms are just too short to box with god.”
I’ve been waiting for the promo that ended last night’s show since the 1000th episode of RAW ended. It felt like CM Punk had been waiting for that opportunity even longer than that. If the best we can hope for is Rocky’s promos being half serious and half middle school jokes, that is still so much better than anything feuding with Cena or Ryback has offered Punk and the WWE title in the last 5 months. I hope the promos stay intense and I hope the build to the Rumble is epic.
CM Punk has been WWE Champion for 414 days and will defend that title against “The Ryback” tonight on RAW. I have not watched the WWE in 2 weeks but will tonight as the build for the Royal Rumble is sure to heat up with The Rock also set to appear.
RAW 1000 was…not as good as it could’ve been, not as bad as I expected.
The Good: DX reunion, AJ as RAW GM and a lot of cool cameos.
The Bad: JR for only one match, no Austin and not enough actual wrestling.
The Ugly: Charlie Sheen, Tout and all the other in-show commercials.
The Great: Punk is still the champ and he laid out the Rock.
WRESTLEMANIA 20…man did I love this show as it happened.
But the more time passes the less it becomes a favorite and the more it just seems like a good show and nothing more. An interesting link to this year’s show is that John Cena had his 1st Mania match at WM 20 on the same show that most people thought would be the Rock’s last Mania appearance.
WRESTLEMANIA 19 is a good show but it is also a strange show to look back on.
Here is a card that features Stone Cold, The Rock, Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels and Triple H yet none of them are in the main event. In fact this was the final match-up in the incredible Rock/Austin rivalry and it didn’t get top billing. There are a lot of good moments and matches from this show and it probably ranks pretty highly quality wise in Mania history.
I think WRESTLEMANIA 18 falls squarely in the above average category.
There is stuff to like, stuff to dislike and stuff to wonder how it got on the card in the first place. I think it will always be remembered as the Rock/Hogan Wrestlemania but I don’t think it was just a one match show.
WRESTLEMANIA 17 might be my favorite Mania.
The WWF was dominating the world of pro-wrestling at this point, having just bought ECW and WCW to use as storyline fodder and DVD bonus features. The undercard was great with most matches having some sort of actual feud and not just tossed together like a lot of Manias. The TLC match was a thing now and making stars out of 3 tag-teams and making the tag-titles meaningful. Plus Triple H and the Undertaker teamed up to give Taker his only good Wrestlemania match to this point.
But even with such a big card, the main event stood apart as something special. You had the Rock and Stone Cold putting another chapter on their now storied rivalry but adding new twists. This match would feature them both as hugely over babyfaces, both undeniably the biggest stars in the sport at this time and still in their primes. And on the horizon for them, Rocky’s first shot at being a movie star and Austin’s first heel turn since he became one of the biggest draw in WWE/WWF history. We might never get another Wrestlemania match-up like that main event again.
