If I Could Be Serious For A Moment 04.07.09: WrestleMania Weekend Diary

Posted by Chris Lansdell on 04.07.2009

WrestleMania Weekend is over, but you can still see what a full-fledged wrestling gorgefest looks like.

Greetings, humanity! Welcome to another edition of If I Could Be Serious For A Moment, your weekly dose of intelligent wrestling discourse. I have realised since starting this column that it can be very hard to come up with good strong topics to fill a column. I thought I had at least 6 or 7 ideas, only to start writing them and fall short. This is the reason for the last few weeks of mediocre efforts. This week, I think I've got something to make up for it, and it's something about which I am always Serious. But first...

BANNER!

The Biggest Weekend Of Them All

As you may have been able to tell from my WrestleMania Countdown column, I make rather a big deal out of WrestleMania weekend. It's the one weekend of the year where I put aside any semblance of non-geekery and totally veg out with DVDs, games, columns, nostalgia...almost everything I do from Saturday morning to Monday lunchtime is wrestling-related. How bad is it, I hear you ask? Well, just look!

Saturday – Start Me Up

6:37am I am awoken by my cats (Tigger and Vader, guess which one was named by Mrs Lansdell) fighting. Tigger climbed to the top mattress and when Vader tried to follow, Tigger nailed the spinning backpaw. Vader ran to the back and Tigger won via countout. I'm not sure if I should be thrilled or slightly worried that even the cats are into this...

8:04am I give up on trying to get back to sleep, so I start to watch the Smackdown I DVR'd last night. I have mixed feelings...half of it was broadcast from Axxess with Lawler and Grisham, and we got 3 matches and a bunch of clips. Most of the time I'd hate a show that did that, but the stuff they shot at Axxess was interesting and made me want to go even more next time, and at this point they really can't do much more to build Mania.

10:45am Tradition #1 – The Annual SvR WrestleMania precreation. In previous years my group of friends all did their own and we compared results, but this year we did it online for some of it and over here for the rest. Of course the one year we don't have a fluff T&A match for the women and we actually WANT to include it in our precreation is the one year it would require FAR too much work. The way we do this is the winner of a coin toss chooses which person they want to play in the opening match (we chose Misterio-JBL to open), and from there the winner of each match chooses their next wrestler. I lost the coin toss and ended up as JBL.

JBL vs Rey Misterio
Surprisingly fun. Jeff, my buddy, loves playing the defensive counter game as Misterio, and through the course of the match he managed to counter or otherwise avoid 4 Clotheslines from Hell and kick out of a fifth. A ref bump led to Misterio putting JBL through a table with a splash, but when the ref came to all he saw was a clothesline from hell and a pin.

Money in the Bank
Unfortunately the game only handles 6 people in MitB, but on the bright side it meant we didn't have to make Christian. We left Finlay out too. Amazing how quickly your finisher meter fills when swinging ladders. Even with 3 human players (Lansdell Jr joined in for this one) taking on the AI, the match was spot-filled. Mark Henry drained a lot from the case early until Shelton pushed the ladder down, then set it up himself. Punk (ME, of course) wedged the ladder in and did the Shelton run-up-and-tackle, only to get frog-splashed by Kofi a second later. Best spot of the match was the ladder getting wedged in the corner, Kane powerbombing Punk into it and then Henry powerbombing Kane into it. At one point Punk hit 5 consecutive backdrop drivers, one for each opponent, then went after the case. Henry tried to intercede and got superplexed to the outside, and Punk went up again. Benjamin tried to intercede, and got a spinning neckbreaker off the ladder for his troubles. Punk was then able to retrieve for the win.

The Colons vs Miz and Morrison
I chose Carlito because Jeff had done such an awesome job of making Primo LOOK good, however his moveset was boring. I never should have agreed to let Lansdell Jr play on Jeff's team though. We didn't get many highlights in this match, it was basically the two of them illegally double-teaming me and getting the win following a Mizard of Oz/corkscrew moonsault combo.

Extreme Rules – Jeff Hardy vs Matt Hardy
So I get stuck with Matt. I dodge straight outside, hit a couple of big moves and grab the kendo stick and bust Jeff open early. I figure it's as good a time as any and hit the Twist of Fate but only get 2. Jeff (playing Jeff...) gets control and goes for a table, which Matt gets hurled into a couple of times before he counters a DDT and is able to grab a chair. 3 chairshots later the table is on fire and Jeff is getting FU'd through it. Determined to make up for my loss earlier, I go for another table and then a ladder. While I set up the table Jeff climbs the ladder and dropkicks me. We fight back and forth over both weapons for a while until I get him onto the table, steal his taunt, climb the ladder and moonsault him through it for the win.

Chris Jericho vs Legends
We had to do this as a handicap match, after spending a long-ass time making Piper, Steamboat and Snuka. Jeff wanted to give Steamboat all sorts of ridiculous moves (450 splash...) which prolonged the process even more. As you would expect it wasn't even competitive and Jericho (Jeff) got obliterated in short order.

John Cena vs Big Show vs Edge
We had to turn of DQ's for this one because of the way SvR handles triple threats. You know, one guy hits a chair shot and the match is over with no winner. Lansdell Jr took advantage of this, grabbing weapons whenever he could as Big Show and picking us off whenever Edge and Cena hooked up. We tried to double-team him and that worked for a while until Cena (Jeff) attacked me from behind. That allowed Junior to get the chair, waffle me and chokeslam Edge for the win.

Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels
The one everyone is waiting for turned into something of a comedy match in our sim. Determined to get revenge on me for stealing his taunt, Jeff persuaded Junior to let him be Taker, and told me he was going to Tombstone me through both announce tables before he pinned me. Of course I then resolved to put HIM through both tables. The match ended up going about 25 minutes, with each of us having fully red limb damage indicators, before he finally Tombstoned me through the second table, threw me in the ring...And lost as I made it to my feet and got him into a figure four.

HHH vs Randy Orton
No way our sim of this match was anywhere near as brutal as the Mania one will be. It was fairly vanilla, maybe because after 2 plus hours of playing each other we were starting to get a little bored. HHH (me) retained after about 10 minutes of counters. Very technical, hardly any brutality and nothing memorable. I hope I'm not saying that in my recap Sunday night.

1:52pm After lunch and some random gaming, it was time to hit Facebook's Wrestler app for some related-yet-only-tangentially fun. Really, if you haven't tried this app on Facebook I can't recommend it enough. You start off with a rather lousy assortment of moves but as you win matches (against others with lousy assortments of moves) you gain wrestler bucks which you can use to buy more moves. Once you have your moves all set, you can create your own finisher for your wrestler. You get to choose the accuracy, damage and likelihood of success, but you only have so many points to spread around it. You can then by gear for your wrestler dude to make him look all pimp. You can see mine to the left. You can join stables, get a tag partner, and win titles for your country, your networks and even for all of Facebook. Matches take place by picking which move you want your wrestler to do. Each move has a chance of success based on momentum (which you earn by blocking or successfully hitting moves) and the difficulty of the move. If the move hits, you get to choose another move, but after each move your chances of success go down a little. Moves do varying amounts of damage, but also have varied risks: some will hurt like a bitch if you miss, some are easy to fail. Once you do miss, you choose a move to block. If your opponent tries that move on his turn it fails, you gain a lot of momentum and it's back to you. Simple to play but addictive, especially once you start winning titles. I've been using this app for a long-ass time and I normally have upwards of 25 matches going at a time, so sitting down in front of it is not a short exercise. Oh I should probably mention: you only have a limited time (I believe it's 24 hours) to do a move, or the upper hand switches back to your opponent, along with a chunk of momentum. Wrestling purists may well dislike this little game because the moves are not contextually linked. There is nothing to stop you starting a match with a shooting star press or pinning someone after a footstomp. That said it's very popular and a good way to waste time on Facebook. As if you needed more ways...

6:30pm Tradition #2 – Watch the previous year's RoH Wrestlemania weekend shows. I changed it up a bit this year because I didn't buy Supercard of Honor III (I have a religious objection to a card with a Bushwhacker on it in 2008), and because I wanted to catch the TV show.

Delirious and McGuinness start us off. Woah, Nigel jerks the curtain? Very mixed reaction for the champ. This is obviously before Delirious' turn as he comes out to a huge pop. Typical Delirious match that progressed from comedy to the more serious stuff. Nigel did his normal awesome job of taking punishment before finding the win with the London Dungeon, which still looks like it kills. Nigel is one of thjose guys who always seemed like he should have had a shot in WWE, I have no idea why he never got that shot.

Next we get the YRR vs Vulture Squad. I never did like the Squad, they seemed thrown together and lost far too often, but they looked good here. YRR looked even better. A nice little high-energy match which, for my money, could have started the show. The double stomp/Jig-n-tonic finish was awesome and reminiscent of the Warrior's Way/Cop Killa that the Rottweilers used. Vulture Squad gets the win but not before putting YRR over with all the early offence they got.

Austin Aries vs Genki Horiguchi is next. Horiguchi looks weird and acts weird. Crowd is hot for this one. Lots of near falls, a ridiculously long roll-up segment (which I don't normally enjoy, but this one was pretty good) and counter-wrestling, but there was no real psychology to it and it felt a bit jumbled. Good match, worth seeing but not as good as it could have been. Austin got the win after applying the Last Chancery, which looks even nastier than the London Dungeon. 3 solid matches in a row, this is shaping up to be a great card.

After a brief pause to further the Aries-Age of the Fall-Sunny storyline, Steenerico are out for their match against Speed Muscle. TNA fans will have seen this team at the World X Cup not too long ago. This should be even better than the last 3 matches. And lo and behold, it was. An exhbition in quick nasty moves and near falls, a little spotty for some people but plenty of lovely head-droppery. One thing that bothered me is that it didn't really feel like a tag match at times, more of a match where 4 men happened to be involved. The referee made no attempt to keep 2 men out of the ring and that devalued the match somewhat in my eyes. Regardless, you can't ignore the sheer visceral joy in watching big move after big move.

Shingo and BxB Hulk hit the ring to take on Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black. Someone is going to need to explain the x in BxB Hulk to me if it's not pronounced. The pacing of this match was definitely a few grades below the last couple, but the storytelling was far better. There did seem to be a lack of chemistry between the two teams but at least they felt like teams. The last 2 or 3 minutes of the match were a lot faster and they seemed to have the chemistry issue worked out. New Hazard picked up the win after a Last Falconry from SHINGO to Black.

Next up, The Briscoes take on Ryo Saito and Dragon Kid. Dragon Kid was always my least favourite of the Dragon Gate visitors, but Saito is pretty special. Now this was far from a typical Briscoes match but it was very enjoyable nonetheless. I think I would have enjoyed it more had it not been after two other good tag matches, too much of a good thing can be overwhelming. The Briscoes get the W ater a J-Driller.

Our main event pits the No Remorse Corps against Erick Stevens, Go Shiozaki and CIMA. You wouldn't expect much from a team of 3 guys thrown together from 3 different companies who had never teamed before, but this was probably the second best match on the card after Steenerico-Speed Muscle. It had stiffness, it had high spots, it had a little ring work and it even had psychology. CIMA, Go and Stevens win it after a Crossfire Bomb on Strong by CIMA.

9:07pm Had an interesting conversation with some random people about unemployed bookers. One guy was adamant that Bill Watts should still be running a company. There's no doubt that Watts had a great mind for the business, but the active word there is "has". Wrestling has moved on so much and I doubt Watts could run a company now. Maybe he could go help Adam Pearce? Of course the conversation turned to Heyman, as most booker conversations do, but the strange thing was that we all agreed he's probably not going to come back in the foreseeable future. Normally with these conversations there's always one smark who thinks the sun shines out of Heyman's nostril and thinks he should rescue TNA or bring RoH to the next level.

9:32pm What do you mean you're watching something on the HD box? But RoH is on, and it's Mania weekend! Now you listen here woman, you best know your role and give me my remote....yes dear. OK dear. Good night. I'm sure the couch will be fine.

Sunday – The Run-In

10:32am Tradition #3 – Random Old TNA PPV. This year I accidentally chose Victory Road 04.

The first match is the 20-man X-Division Cluster...I mean, Gauntlet for the X-Cup. It's funny how something that is less than 5 years old can bring on nostalgia, but seeing D-Ray 3000, Matt Bentley, Mikey Batts, Jerrelle Clark and the ever-awesome and ridiculously underrated Sonny Siaki did exactly that. The match also served to remind me that early TNA was really just RoH with foreigners and old guys mixed in. Oh, and Monty Brown and Abyss. If matches came with health warnings, this one would have said "Warning: May contain spots", and never would a truer word have been uttered. Hector Garza gets the win over Kazarian.

Ah yes, the ridiculous Director of Authority nonsense, what with it being an election year. Rhodes vs Russo. They talk about Rhodes carrying one state and Russo carrying another, and get in a barb about a web server breakdown in Stamford CT.

We go from one cluster to another as it's 8-man tag action: The Naturals, Kid Kash and Dallas (aka Lance Rock/Lance Hoyt) vs Ron "The Truth" Killings, Johnny B. Marc Mero Badd, Empire Simon Diamond Saint Pat Kenney and Erik I suck too much to have another name Watts. These guys have nothing in common as far as I can see and it appears to be a way to get all 8 on the PPV. Johnny B Badd, who had been out of wrestling for 3 years and wasn't young at this point, looked pretty smooth. Watts sucked less than I remembered. We got to see Dallas miss a moonsault, Badd hit a top rope rana, and Killings finish with the Pedigree. No, seriously. There was no reason for this match other than to get some faces on the PPV.

Oh good, midget wrestlers. Mascarita Sagrada and Piratita Morgan. This must be another of Russo's fetishes because they used them in WWE briefly too. Did they ever get over? The ref for this one is current WWE ref Mike Posey. Sagrada's offence looks totally unbelievable (as in nobody should believe it's effective), and they work one spot where Morgan drops on him and they act like he's dead, despite the fact he is clearly breathing heavily. Sagrada wins, in case you care.

Scott Hall cuts him a little in-ring promo, complete with "Hey yo". I always used to love this guy, and it's a real tragedy that his personal demons ruined what could otherwise have been a tremendous late career. He also claims to have invented the ladder match. Yeah, not so much their Scotty boy.

Tag title contest up next, 3 Live Kru vs Roode and Young representing Team Canada. Interesting that only one of the competitors in this match is no longer with TNA. Good to see Scott D'Amore and non-goofy Eric Young as well. For a match containing BG James this wasn't half bad, but lousy camerawork made it hard to follow the action. # Live Crus picked up the win following a facebuster.

We move to Piper's Pit and the 11,472nd recreation of Piper-Snuka. This one gets a little twist with Piper asking Snuka to hit him, and gets silly from there. Look, I get it that the Snuka-Piper thing was huge but it really needs to be let go. It's second only to the Screwjob in the most redone angles. Be creative, dammit!

Trinity gets to wrestle next. We don't know who her opponent is, but Trinity seems to think there isn't one. Out of the crowd comes Jacqueline! So underused. One of the greatest technical women to ever wrestle, and she hardly ever got any recognition for it. After being choked with her own hair (well, it's hers in that she bought it), Jacqueline is able to fight back very briefly before jobbing to a hot shot by Johnny Swinger and a nice moonsault from Trinity. WWE let both of these ladies go, for some reason.

Next up, Monster's Ball. It wasn't as violent or as good as some of the later editions of the match, but it put over Monty Brown and had some sick bumps in it, which is enough for me. Funny to see Abyss is almost the same now as he was then, despite the changes he went through in between. The bag of tacks is still a staple (oh that was terrible...) of his offence and he still buckles in the face of a bully, like we saw this week with Dr Stevie. Brown/Cor Von is one of the classiest guys in pro wrestling, taking time off to look after his brother's family when it looked like his star was rising in WWE. Along with Sonny Siaki, both men deserve better than they got in pro wrestling, with the difference being that Brown can still get it.

A 3 hour PPV needs two discs? Anyway, first match on disc 2 is the X-Division title match between AJ Styles and Petey Williams. It is CRAZY how over AJ was 5 years ago, and even crazier to think he's only had one world title run since then. One thing I've noticed throughout this show is that the mic levels are all wrong. The crowd mic is much higher than Don and Mike's, which is not something about which I am complaining but presumably is not what they were going for. The match was good not great, a lot of spont monkey-ism (typical of early AJ) and one of the sickest Destroyers you're ever likely to see, but not a classic like some later X-Division title matches from the same era. I was expecting a classic from this and I didn't get one.

I must admit I was curious as to how a Last Team Standing match would work...do both guys need to be knocked down to win? Another interesting observation: James Storm and Bobby Roode are still at the top of the tag division 5 years later, after failed singles runs. Ah, it's Texas Death rules. It's a shame what happened to Chris Harris, I always thought he was the more talented of that team. Storm gets eliminated early and it appears it's also elimination rules. The stipulation really hurt what could have been a great match, the two teams had great chemistry and the match started well but died after the first elimination. They'd have an absolute barn-burner at the next show, which I probably should have watched instead.

Jeff vs Jeff, Hardy vs Jarrett is next. A very very good ladder match that was marred somewhat by the finish. Watching Hardy pull out some unique spots was nice, especially with Jarrett holding his own. Jarrett is just as unjustly maligned as Triple H. Sure they monopolised their show's titles, but they had the ability to back up their talk and succeeded in making fans hate them.

2:57pm Time to catch up on all the other stuff that's been happening in the wrestling world this weekend. Normally I don't read every single column on the site (shocking, I know) but Mania Week is the exception as I want to get as many perspectives on the show and to keep up with the RoH shows and anything else happening.

Sounds like RoH put off a couple of good shows, but I'm torn on Jerry Lynn unseating Nigel. I know Nigel had to drop, but everyone and his dog figured Tyler Black was next in line for the title, but that in and of itself doesn't make Lynn a bad choice. Indeed, I'm not convinced he was a bad choice, but then again I'm not exactly dancing in the aisles. He certainly has more name value than almost anyone else on the RoH roster, but he is, to paraphrase Chris Rock, damn near 50. Then again, he wrestles like he's 35. If Lynn is a stopgap measure, then the principle of the RoH title not being a hot potato could well be compromised. We're stuck with Lynn through the summer I reckon, and who we get after that is anyone's guess. From the same show we had D'Lo Brown using brass knuckles (in RoH???), KENTA and Davey Richards surprising no one with a great match, Roderick Strong going over Nakajima and surprising EVERYONE and Kamala joining forces with Bobby Dempsey. RoH fans are going to have to get used to the new style because it seems to be here to stay.

TNA was back in Japan to a lesser degree, with Kurt Angle losing to Hiroshi Tanahashi in an IWGP title match, while the Motor City Machine Guns retained their Jr Tag Titles. The Angle result doesn't surprise me at all, he was only really there to put on a showcase and it sounds like he did just that. What I find amusing is that Tanahashi comes to the US, appears on Impact and is stuck in the X-Division. Angle goes to Japan and he faces the very same Tanahashi for the company's main title. Just goes to show where the real judges of talent are. It's good to see the Guns getting a title run in Japan, where talent in the ring and respect for the business are more important than what you can do on the mic. If Shelley and Sabin can get their ego issues sorted out, maybe TNA will give them the same recognition. Like the Angle match, I didn't expect a title change here, but from what I hear it was pretty break-neck.

The staff round table picks are all over the place. Everyone has Taker winning, but he's the only unanimous choice. The battle royal has several different picks, Cena is a majority pick but there are a few Edge and even a Big Show in there. For the record, my picks are JBL to retain, Santino, CM Punk (more a hope than a logical pick), Mizorrison, Legends, Matt, Taker, Cena, HHH. I know most people expect Taker-HBL to win MotN and it wouldn't shock me, but I think the Hardy match and HHH-Orton can be sleeper picks here too.

6:30pm I was in two minds as to whether or not I should watch the Hall of Fame ceremony, seeing as how I'd already read the report and The Score was showing it a day late. Bastards. I laughed when Flair and Michaels did the "check your watches" thing. Certainly seems like a bigger arena this year, and they probably could have sold it out twice given the Texas heroes they are inducting. Flair's speech really put Steamboat over, which was surely needed because even the fans of today who saw him against Flair and Savage don't know what he could do when NOT facing established ring generals. You'd expect Steamboat to get teared up but it seemed like Flair was too. Steamboat himself made some great comments: saying it was more about the match than the record, about respect for the veterans and about younger wrestlers asking for his opinion on matches and actually wanting to hear it. I didn't realise he had his last match with Austin though. I could have done without his pimping of the Jericho match, to me the HoF should be 100% kayfabe free, but then again Misterio was there in his mask.

The montage of the "B" inductees was nice, but I still say at least one of them could have been on the main show. It seemed like the Fink was hilarious in his speech. Koko's induction still mystifies me, and if it wasn't affirmative action then I'm dying to know what it was. The von Erichs, the Funks and The Fink were all long overdue.

I gotta say, McMahon's speech for Austin was disappointing. He basically just listed off everything that Austin had done to him personally and didn't say anything about what he did in the ring or why he mattered. OK so he called him the greatest superstar of all time, and it's arguably true, but Vince did as much to put himself over as he did put Austin over. Austin himself was very different, talking about how the fans always stuck with him even after he took his ball and went home (and he made sure to get a little dig in about that). To be honest it sounded at times like he was begging the fans to stay with him even though he was as good as saying he was done with wrestling altogether. He got the "one more match" chant and dismissed it and said he hoped the fans supported him as he moved into the film industry. There was also a moment at the end that has already elicited a fair amount of bitching: Austin handing a beer to Cena and then Cena being shown downing it. It was interpreted, probably correctly, as the attempted passing of the torch to Cena, and of course the Cena haters are already whining about that. Get over it people: Cena is here to stay and is nowhere near as boring or as bad as you make him out to be.

7:32pm Time to order the pizza! The gang are all eating before they get here (BOO!) so it's just for the family. That's OK, I have chips and adult beverages to see me through the night. As an aside, the cats have been fighting all weekend. Between sleeping and eating, of course.

8:02pm I'd been holding off on this since it wasn't confirmed, but the tag title unification match is officially off the card and is now a DVD-only exclusive. OK so one of the best-built feuds on the show, with possibly the most promise of being a strong match, and they cut it? Something must be running longer than expected, and although the smark money will be on HHH, I reckon the Legends match is going to take more of the time.

8:30pm The gang's all here, and it's WRESTLEMANIA BABY!!

1:03am The recap is done, the gang has left, Slimmer has my thoughts on the show for Instant Access, and there's nothing left to do but...wallow in my disappointment. The drawback to getting so pumped for Mania is that if it's not good, it hurts even more. Aside from the obvious greatness of Taker-HBK, there was nothing on this card that struck me as great. MitB was good, the Hardy-Hardy match and the Triple Threat were decent, but that's it. I stand by my analogy from the Instant Access: if this show had been a run-of-the-mill PPV, it would have been good. If it had been SummerSlam, it would have been OK. The thing is, this was WrestleMania. It's the main event of the year, the one that even non-fans watch from time to time. If you're going to ask me for $15 more to watch WrestleMania, then you had better deliver more. Sorry WWE, you just didn't.

I had every intention of bringing back JokerCat this week, but 14 hours of watching wrestling and another 5 or 6 of writing about it just sapped my ability to sift through news and be creative. He'll be back, honest. Until next week, Stay Cool, Rock Hard.

Lansdellicious – Out.