The Shimmy 04.13.09: Back from the Promised Land Again

Posted by Andy Clark on 04.13.2009

Andy Clark is back from Houston and ready to tell his tale of WrestleMania XXV weekend!

Hello, everybody. So WrestleMania XXV is old news by now, but like the t-shirt says "I WAS THERE" and was in the midst of flying back to Richmond last Monday so I'm hoping that buys me a little bit of time. There were actually quite a few of us 411ers down there, so you've already had the opportunity to read about the experiences of Chris Lansdell, Jeffrey Harris, and Mike Chin, and JP should have the special Hidden Highlights: WrestleMania LIVE column up on the site shortly. It's only fair that I get to throw my story into the lot as well.

We start out journey the Friday before WrestleMania, my father and I rousing at 3:00 AM Eastern time to make our flight to Houston (why it was so early I don't know). After a brief layover in Atlanta (where we proceeded to get back on the same plane) we were off to Texas. Our plane from Atlanta was at least a quarter of the way full with people on their way to Mania: a WrestleMania sweatshirt, some John Cena armbands, a SummerSlam t-shirt, even an ROH hat all marked WrestleMania-bound folks. When we touched down at Houston-Hobby Airport there was a WrestleMania XXV "greeting" on the floor heading out the door, and a selection of WWE kids' merchandise at the giftshop. Let me say that I am extremely happy that we did not decide to rent a car as the streets of Houston are, in a word, insane. I will say that all the cab drivers we met over the weekend were particularly friendly which was a nice surprise. According to our first driver the cabbies were happy to have us there because those that had been in town for the livestock and rodeo show the previous weeks didn't spend a lot on taxi services. We arrived at the Hyatt Regency with all our fellow WWE travel package compatriots well ahead of our 3:00 check in (which made getting up so early even more puzzling). In what had to be a culture shock for the hotel staff they were in the process of checking out a librarians convention so that they could get us our rooms. Throughout the weekend the hotel staff just seemed so amazed at how many of us there were, despite the fact that they actually had the numbers well in advance. We took some time to check out the underground tunnels linking the big downtown businesses and met up with the English couple that would be our traveling companions for the rest of the weekend (shout out to Simon and Amanda!). We had our room at about 2:00 which gave us time to settle in and get some dinner before heading to the George R. Brown Convention Center.

We had tickets to the Ring of Honor Supercard of Honor IV but those tickets also got us in the door at the Booker T Legends of Wrestling Fanfest. Sting had just departed when we got there which was probably for the best as I probably would have spent the $75 to meet him. We didn't drop any money to meet people, but we did enjoy the air conditioning and watched others as they went around to see the likes of Booker T, Sharmell, Diamond Dallas Page, Kimberly, Jimmy Hart, the Nasty Boys, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Samoa Joe, Christy Hemme, Rockin' Robin, Debra, Missy Hyatt, Baby Doll, Daffney, and Chris Nowinski. They also had a nice silent auction set up with some cool stuff but it was all out of my price range, although I did contemplate putting a bid in for either the Mick Foley or Main Event Mafia gift baskets.

The setup for Ring of Honor was pretty nice. We lucked out in that we had end seats on the third row (I hadn't noticed that when I got my tickets because I could have sworn I bought fourth row), although I was pretty impressed with their GA seating. This was the first ROH show I've been to that actually had the pre-show and I enjoyed the nice little warmup matches. We started off with "Sugarfoot" Alex Payne & Andy "Right Leg" Ridge vs. "Dirty" Ernie Osiris & Ninja Brown. This was a fun little match, I can see why Payne has such a cult followings; I'd definitely be up for seeing him get a bigger role on the show. Ridge wasn't too bad either although he wasn't quite as polished as Payne. Of course Payne & Ridge went over, does a team with a ninja on it ever win one of these matches?

Our second preshow match featured "The Littlest Lumberjack" Grizzly Redwood & potential WWE Hall of Famer Bushwacker Luke taking on Andrew Dalton & Don Juan. Dalton & Juan were not very good, but Don Juan at least had a certain charisma about him. I forget exactly how Luke's team won but they did and ended the preshow on a positive note.

Now it was on to the good stuff. Well kind of. We opened the main show with the one match that probably could, and after seeing what time we got out of there should have been cut. Rhett Titus, who may very well be one of the most WWE-ready wrestlers on the roster, took on Erick Stevens. There was nothing bad about a match but it was pretty nondescript and it was probably better that they put the match on first, although Alex Payne kind of already took the "first guy out there" pop. Stevens, disappointingly, took the match with a sort of standing suplex (forgive me for not knowing a lot of the official move names).

Our next match was much better but it was not without its own issues. It was a Six Man Tag featuring Chris Hero, Eddie Edwards, & Incognito vs. Kevin Steen, Jay Briscoe, & Magno. This is the match where the top rope broke just minutes into the match which could be a tad problematic when you have two luchadors and a Briscoe in there. For the first few minutes after the rope break things sort of grinded to a halt as everyone figured out what to do. For the most part they spent that time working over Kevin Steen's leg and not letting him make the tag. Finally it looked like everyone just said "Screw it" and went all out, doing dives and springboards off the second rope. Magno even did a huge dive off the of the ringpost which was absolutely insane. The match was a lot of fun and ended when Hero hit Magno with the loaded elbow pad. That was a great effort and I commend those guys for staying with the match.

After a brief break to fix the ring we saw the first of one of our international showcase matches as Roderick Strong took on Katsuhiko Nakajima. The match didn't last that long, maybe about ten minutes, but boy did they pack a lot in that ten minutes. Strong even outchopped Nakajima as his chest looked awful at the end of that match. I was surprised to see Strong pick up the win after the Gibson Driver as I thought for sure Nakajima would get the duke. Great match that would wind up being the second best of the night.

Next up was a bit of a breather and Bobby Dempsey would compete in a Sweet'n'Sour Challenge. Larry Sweeney had said he'd been looking worldwide for someone to wrestle Dempsey, and he apparently stopped when he made it to Uganda. Now look, I know he's just an old black dude in facepaint, but with the mannerisms, the look, and the music Kamala still freaks me out. When the "Ugandan Giant" made his way to the ring Dempsey took off his shirt to reveal and similarly painted belly. When Shane Hagadorn got too rough with Kim Chee both Kamala and Bobby took their turns beating him up. The two star-bellied wrestlers left together instead of having a match.

Next we had a Four-Corner Survival between El Generico, Claudio Castagnoli, Brent Albright, and the NWA World Heavyweight Champion Blue Demon Jr. The real issue here was between Claudio and Albright, while I think Albright and Demon may have a friendly rivalry going on in the NWA. Generico was just there to bring the awesome (and make up for the definitive lack of awesome in his other three opponents). The match was good although the finish was a bit lame with Claudio pinning Albright after a low blow.

Our last match before intermission saw Bryan Danielson take on Alex Kozlov. Danielson was great as always and he's really won me over the past couple of years. Anyone that says Danielson doesn't have any charisma hasn't seen a Danielson make lately. I'd love to see him get a shot in WWE. People seemed to enjoy Kozlov's act a lot more than I did. He wasn't bad by any means, but it just seemed like he was trying too hard to get over instead of just wrestling an interesting match. The match was certainly enjoyable and picked up significantly towards the end, but I wasn't as blown away as a lot of people were. Danielson did manage to get the win with the MMA elbows. And did I mention that at some point during this match the fire alarm started going off? Nobody seemed particularly concerned, either realizing that either some jackass just pulled the alarm or figuring that if we were going to burn to death it may as well be during an "American Dragon" match.

I was disappointed with the lack of "The Final Countdown" during intermission. What's the point of putting Danielson's match on right before intermission if you can't even indulge people during the break? "The Humpty Dance" is apparently a favorite among the ROH faithful though.

We came back from intermission to see D'Lo Brown take on Colt Cabana (who probably has the best new entrance music of all the ROH guys at this point, save for possibly Chris Hero). I read one report that said D'Lo wasn't that over with the crowd in Houston. The person that wrote that is clearly a crackhead as this match had some of the best heat all night, almost laughably so. It really wasn't even that spectacular of a match but between D'Lo and Colt the crowd was just into everything. I think ROH needs to be careful with how they book Cabana now that he's back because now that he's had a bit of a break he's a much fresher character and he could be a nice addition to the top of their card considering they've run through pretty much everybody by now (Tyler Black I'm looking at you). D'Lo got the surprising win with the old "foreign object tucked in the trunks" finish.

Our next match was the Match of the Night, and for a lot of people (not me) the match of the weekend. I was thrilled when I heard that I'd get the chance to see KENTA in person at this show, and against his protégé Davey Richards no less. This match for the GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title was absolutely awesome. Great wrestling, stiff kicks, breathtaking flying, crazy nearfalls, this match had it all. While I thought the "Fuck WrestleMania" chants were a tad unnecessary, I certainly appreciated the sentiment (I much preferred the "This is wrestling" chant). I saw a lot of people treat the botched finish at the end as this supreme dealbreaker or something, but I really didn't think it was a big deal. Twice KENTA went for a Go to Sleep out of a Torture Rack and Davey slipped off and KENTA had to just pick him up and go for a regular GTS. In kayfabe terms I think you could just chalk that up to being exhausted so no real problem there. This was a phenomenal match, and I could definitely tell when my Dad (who was uncomfortable in his seat, tired from a long day, annoyed at how late it was and the speaker we were sitting next to, and didn't know who most of these guys were) was raving about it later. Like I mentioned, this match was not my Match of the Weekend, but I understand why it was for a lot of people.

Jimmy Jacobs, Austin Aries, Tyler Black, and Necro Butcher had the unenviable task of trying to follow that match (and proceed the main event) with their tag team match. While it was good enough I think there were a lot of people in the audience that were ready to get to the main event as the night was getting later. Jacobs & Aries managed to steal the win after coming to blows themselves, but Necro looked pretty good in defeat.

Finally after a full night of wrestling action it was time for our main event: Nigel McGuinness vs. Jerry Lynn for the ROH Title. At this point they had issues with the sound system which was fine with me as I'd had enough of the loud heavy metal music that most of the wrestlers used as their entrance theme blasting in my ear. In recent months I've made my dislike for Nigel's ROH Title reign clear but I've got to give the guy mad props for going through with his match. You could just tell the pain he was in and he managed to put on one hell of a match. For his part Jerry Lynn put together a match that had to be as good as anything he did in his glory days and actually probably had more psychology than a lot of his more well known ECW work. I haven't seen any of Lynn's other ROH matches but I got the impression that this was clearly the best he's looked since joining the promotion. The crowd was split right down the middle for this match, but after Lynn finally put Nigel away with the cradle piledriver the crowd was incredibly respectful to both men. Seeing such a great match and a title change to boot capped off a great night and I'm certainly glad that I added this show to my weekend itinerary. Of the two ROH shows of the weekend, the other of which was a PPV taping, I feel confident that I chose the right one.

I didn't have much time to sleep though as 8:00 the next morning we had tickets to the morning session of WrestleMania Axxess over at the Reliant Center. A word to those of you travelling to Houston: the Hyatt Regency, George R. Brown Convention Center, and Toyota Center are on the other side of town from Reliant Park. That's fourteen metro stops (twenty-eight minutes) or a $16 cab ride. Heading there we went with the metro. Axxess was a lot of fun although the lines for things were a bit long. I would have loved to have made it to the table with CM Punk and Christian but I knew they would be switched out by the time I made it to them. I limited my superstar meet and greets to Hornswoggle who I met at his "house" under the Hell in a Cell covered ring. I also checked out the WWE Memorabilia set up and the Undertaker's WrestleMania Graveyard while I was there. I spent the majority of my time standing in line to call a WrestleMania match with a WWE announcer. When I got in line it was Joey Styles calling matches but midway through my wait he traded out with Gene Okerlund. That's right, I now own a DVD copy of myself calling last year's WrestleMania Triple Threat Match with Mean Gene himself. Gene was cool and we spent a few minutes talking about Richmond's own Hebner family while we waited for the video machine to warm up. While I waited in line there was a good deal of action going on in the WWE ring at the event; Chris Jericho and JBL both came out for Q&A sessions, and I saw Evan Bourne defeat Dolph Ziggler and Vladimir Kozlov beat Ricky Ortiz.

Immediately after our Axxess session ended we headed upstairs to Hall B for the travel package-exclusive "Midday Madness" meet and greet. This is where the immense stupidity began, on both my part and WWE's. Instead of splitting up everyone that ordered a travel packages into different sessions they thought it would be a bright idea to have everybody wait in the same line. Five wrestlers. One room. Two thousand people. It was a long afternoon. When we first got in line the superstars available were Rey Mysterio, Evan Bourne, Mr. Kennedy, Maryse, and The Great Khali. All the while Kennedy seemed to have fun with the crowd (as he walked around the convention center wearing his sunglasses he imparted the wise words of "There's only two people that wear sunglasses indoors: blind people and assholes. And I ain't blind.") He even laughed at some fan's "Mr. Injury…Injury" crack. Unfortunately after the first three hours or so they switched out wrestlers at replaced them with Jeff Hardy, Sunny, Carlito, Primo, and Jack Swagger. A smart man would have probably just said "screw it" at that point and left, but not me. I wanted to meet Jeff Hardy dammit, so I waited another two hours. Thank God I didn't buy ROH PPV tickets because it was 4:30 by the time we got out of there. Now had about an hour to get back to the other side of town, change clothes, eat dinner, and make it to the Hall of Fame induction ceremony in time. Fortunately my Dad didn't mind practically flinging himself in front of a cab to make sure we made it on time. Our cabbie's 85 mph trek across town helped us make it to the hotel right on time. A short time later we were Hall of Fame bound.

I think my favorite part of the whole Hall of Fame ceremony is watching all the wrestlers come into the arena and taking their seats. I love seeing the reaction certain superstars get and seeing who some of the "extra" folks are. This year it was cool to see guys like Diamond Dallas Page, Bryan Danielson, and Bobby Heenan in the crowd. It was also cute to see John Morrison and Melina enter as a couple and even strike a pose for the camera. As for the actual Hall of Fame, it was a bit of a rip off this year. Limiting the amount of time people could speak really killed the spirit of the whole thing as there wasn't a lot of time for good stories or funny anecdotes. Terry Funk was great yelling and future professional wrestlers to get an education first and Cowboy Bill Watts said to hell with the time restraints and just did his own thing. Howard Finkle managed to say his entire eight minute speech in about three as he raced through it all. The best part of the evening for me was Koko B. Ware. People can complain about his induction all they want, but seeing people get so excited, almost as if they were transported back to their days as kids watching Koko, and flapping around in their seats was just priceless. Frankie II trying to eat Koko's speech was pretty funny too, as was him leaving behind a present for Todd Grisham. Vince McMahon's induction of Stone Cold was actually pretty lame as I expected more from such a great speaker other than a bunch of bad jokes. Austin's speech was kind of bittersweet; I was never a big Austin guy but it was still an emotional moment. You could clearly tell that this was his farewell to the wrestling business and it was just sad to be losing yet another one.

I'll also take this time to mention the very smart ice cream man. Cab drivers may not have been that plentiful immediately outside of events last weekend, but there was one opportunistic ice cream man that made sure to be outside of both the Ring of Honor show and the Hall of Fame selling frozen treats to hungry wrestling fans. I didn't see him after WrestleMania but I bet he was there too.

With Saturday wrapped up that left only one thing on the horizon: WrestleMania Sunday. After a hearty brunch we headed back to Axxess right before Mania and I took care of some of stuff I didn't do the day before. I picked up my DVD from the day before, got my WrestleMania event t-shirt, got my photo taken with the World Heavyweight Championship, and even got a "U Can't See Me" henna tattoo to show my support for the big day (mock me if you must, but at least it wasn't the girly Jeff Hardy tattoo). Mr. Kennedy dropped by for a Q&A and I even got to see Vladimir Kozlov wrestle for a second time as he took on Festus. I heard that Dolph Ziggler and Sim Snuka wrestled at the end of that session but I bolted about an hour early to head across the street and get in line for WrestleMania.

An interesting tidbit though: my Dad decided not to head into Axxess but just recuperate for the long hours of standing the day before and sit just outside the doors. While he was there he managed to overhear some conversations between WWE officials, Reliant Park officials, and people representing the New Orleans Superdome. The Superdome officials were there to check everything out and apparently they are involved in the bidding process for WrestleMania in 2013. It had been assumed all weekend that WrestleMania would be in Indianapolis in 2011, so now let speculation begin that Mania is heading to Nawlins in the next few years. Apparently the Superdome guys were rather critical about how Houston handled the festivities, so I may have to make my way to New Orleans to compare and contrast.

Anyhow, fortunately I had timed it just right making it to the line and I made it inside with plenty of time. This was my third WrestleMania but the first in such a big venue. After having amazing seats in New York and Chicago I was a bit less than pleased with our seats here. I had a great view of the stage and the ramp, but a mediocre view of the ring. We were close to the floor, barely elevated in fact, and had I wanted floor seats I would have bought floor seats. Still, once everyone figured out the stand/sit timetable visibility wasn't too bad.

As for the show, as you all know by now we opened with the Unified Tag Team Title Match. I was surprised to see it moved off the main card considering they had included it in the program and on the t-shirt, but considering they ran right up to wire on the PPV I guess it was the right move. The match itself was really good, a tad better than their rematch on Monday night. Had the match remained on the PPV I would have been surprised to see Carlito & Primo go over, but since it was the first match of the night you could sort of see it coming. It's kind of cool that I have the Colons autograph from the weekend they became Unified Tag Champs. Sorry you suckers at home missed a fun match.

It was funny to watch Michael Cole play to the boos as he came out. Nicole Sherzinger didn't do a bad job with "American the Beautiful" although I would have liked a more noteworthy performer for the 25th WrestleMania. Money in the Bank was a great way to kick off the PPV portion of the show as all eight men busted their asses. Christian was clearly the crowd favorite in the match although I really don't think there was anyone that the crowd completely hated. Shelton Benjamin once again performed some awesome stunts and I'm sad to see his sacrifice not pay off. Kofi Kingston did some pretty nice stuff too, so props for that. Punk winning for the second year in a row really caught everybody by surprise, and even though people were initially mad that Christian didn't win it at the end they still gave Punk a nice reception. As the night wore on I think a lot of fans were expecting to see him cash it in.

I knew the minute Kid Rock started performing that all I'd read online was how much of a travesty it was that the tag titles got bumped but we got to see Kid Rock's performance. Since I actually got to see the Unified Tag Title Match I don't have to take that stance and can instead say that I enjoyed the Kid Rock performance. I will say that five songs was a little bit much though. "Cowboy" and "So Hott" worked as WrestleMania themes, and I guess "Bawitdaba" was a good way to intro, but that probably should have been it. "Rock and Roll Jesus" definitely didn't fit, and while I like "All Summer Long" and it got the best reception from the crowd that didn't really fit either. While trimming a song or two wouldn't have been enough to get the tag titles on the main show it would have given enough time for individual introductions for the Divas. I guess they figured it would be easier to sneak "Santina" into the mix if they all entered en masse, but it didn't take people too long to figure it out anyhow. I was disappointed when I watched the tape back to see that they didn't even really talk about the old Divas there either. Santino was definitely over with the crowd but he was really the only one that could have saved that match.

The Handicap Match was a lot of fun. I think we all knew that Snuka would be the weak spot in the match, so fortunately they got him out of their early. Piper was fired up and I actually would have liked to have seen more of him in the match. Of course the real story of the match (and the next night on Raw) was Ricky Steamboat. While he may not be the Dragon of old, Steamboat could still go at a perfectly acceptable level. The crowd bought on a few of their nearfalls at the end. In the end I suppose the right guy went over although I wouldn't be complaining if Steamboat had help onto that small package. People having been ripping on the Rourke segment, but I think it needed to happen. Rourke did take too long getting in the ring, but overall I though the segment came off well. It was cool to see him get ushered right by us when they brought him out before the match.

The Extreme Rules Match was good, but not great. There were some nice spots and Matt Hardy seems to be getting his heel act over (the new look definitely helps) but it still seems like there was something missing. I will say that the big table spot was one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. Why in the world would Jeff try and jump through a table to get to his brother? Who's getting the losing end of that deal again? The finish was brutal though as that Twist of Fate through the chair looked great. For next year's show they really need to play up the fact that Jeff Hardy has never won at WrestleMania.

The Intercontinental Title Match was one of those things that I called but didn't have the good sense to write down so there's no reason for anyone to believe me. They set it up perfectly with JBL promising to deliver the "most dominant victory in WrestleMania history." While it was no Kane over Chavo it was still quick enough for JBL to realistically fulfill his promise even if it wasn't quite the way he intended. There is also some nice symmetry here with Rey Mysterio ending JBL's career yet again, and if you remember back to his last retirement JBL actually lost the United States Title to Bobby Lashley in a similar fashion. There was an attempt to see "Na Na Na Na" but it's hard to get 72,000 people organized.

Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels. Over the past week there has been much written about this match. All I can say is that this is unquestionably, undoubtedly, without fail, no ifs, ands, or buts, THE Match of the Weekend. I said earlier that I understood some people liking it KENTA-Richards better, but for my money this is your Match of the Weekend, and very likely your Match of the Year. I'm not sure I'm going to go with "The Greatest Match in WrestleMania History" as some have said, but it's certainly up there. The match made the front page of the Houston Chronicle for crying out loud, with a story that essentially said "Who cares if it's fake, that was awesome." One of the coolest experiences I'd ever had at a wrestling show prior to this was being involved in the ongoing crowd battle at WrestleMania 22 during the Triple H-John Cena match. I think this crowd battle might have been more intense. Heading into this match I really didn't know who to cheer for. I like Shawn Michaels better, but I don't want to see the streak end. Then again if anyone were going to end the streak I'd like it to be Michaels. In the interest of making things more interesting I decided to go with Taker. I rationalized it as being Shawn's payback for being such a dick to Cena two years ago and for retiring Flair last year. Plus I figured I may as well be a front runner; I probably stood a better chance at being happy at the end of the match if I supported Taker. The match was just incredible and really helped build enough good will that I wasn't entirely pissed after the main event. The sad thing is that this match doesn't translate nearly as well on TV, which should say more about how insane the live experience was over the quality of the match. Tremendous stuff.

One match that I think has really gotten the short end of the stick is the World Heavyweight Title Triple Threat Match. I realize that being a Cena fan probably clouds my judgment a bit here, but even still I think this was a surprisingly good match that has been largely overlooked. Cena's entrance was great though, more so because of "Basic Thuganomics" than for the army of Cenas. I really enjoyed this match and the crowd was surprisingly into it. I thought for sure everyone would be dead following the Taker-HBK match but they had enough energy to get into this. Edge was definitely the crowd favorite, but Cena and even Big Show had their fair share of supporters. One of the things that keeps getting misrepresented about this match is the finish. Cena doesn't just FU (Attitude Adjust?) Big Show and Edge, he actually FU's Edge onto Big Show. A small detail but one I find to be slightly more interesting.

Before our main event we had one last beer bath with Stone Cold Steve Austin. Like I said, I was never an Austin guy (always liked The Rock much more) but it was cool to see him toast the fans one last time. It was especially cool to see JR get one more beer.

Then we had our "main event." Folks at home consider yourselves lucky, this match actually comes across better on TV. It wasn't that the crowd was burnt out either because even after Taker-Michaels they were reasonably up for the Triple Threat Match and they came unglued for Austin. There was a feeling of support for these guys there, there just wasn't anything to really cheer about. The crowd would have gotten into things had they been given something, but nothing ever came. While Orton losing came off pretty bad, I even think they could have made that work if there were a hot finish. Hell, forget hot finish, it would have worked if there was a good finish. Triple H punting Orton was a nice start. Beating the hell out of him while he was down and picking him up and Pedigreeing him wasn't the way to follow that up. Dave Melzter actually explained this one the best: the final angle on Raw had six guys, not two. I wanted to see Legacy, I wanted to see the McMahons. I wanted SOMETHING that wasn't just paint by the numbers. Even if Orton had won the title after a lousy match it would have given the match some sort of historical relevance. Chris Jericho vs. Triple H at WrestleMania X8 is one of the most forgettable main events in Mania history, but there is relevance in the fact that Triple H won the title. JBL vs. John Cena at WrestleMania 21 was one of the worst title matches in Mania history but it holds a place in history for having a title change. While there were more Triple H fans than Orton fans in the building I think the crowd would have been receptive enough of an Orton win that they wouldn't have left pissed. At least not as pissed as many of them did. They even could have done the Batista return afterwards if they wanted to pop the crowd.

All in all it was a really good show live with the main event being the only downer. How weird is it when the last match on the show is the worst thing of the whole night? Live even the Divas match got over better. For me at least Taker-Michaels built up enough good will for me that the main event wasn't a total bummer, plus the rest of the show had plenty of good on it as well. This won't go down as an all time great Mania, but it did have some great moments and that's what it's all about.

After the show we tried desperately to find a cab (70,000 people all trying to cram onto a tiny metro pickup is a bad idea) and after about an hour and a half we finally got a ride back to the hotel. Of course you wouldn't expect the hotel to keep their restaurant open for the thousand of wrestling fans that had been occupying their lobby for two nights coming back from their big event, that would just make too much sense. So back at the Hytatt there were plenty of excited, hungry wrestling fans filling their empty stomachs with alcohol instead of food. Nice going, hotel people. Back at the hotel there was one last opportunity for a meet and greet. The Honky Tonk Man apparently buried the hatchet with Greg Valentine at the last minute as they had rented a hotel room and were handing out fliers to come up and get your picture taken. I guess Vince didn't pay enough for the weekend. Needless to say I declined.

Well one surprisingly easy trip home later and my WrestleMania weekend was complete. I don't know when I'll get a chance to go back but even after some of the less than fun experiences on this trip I'm already eagerly anticipating the next time I am WrestleMania bound.

The Shimmy Likes it Raw!

What's on tap for tonight's show?

It's the 2009 WWE Draft! You know, even though it makes more sense for them to have it right after WrestleMania, I'm going to miss having it in the summer. If I had to guess we'll see Triple H become a full time member of the Raw roster and John Cena will move to SmackDown. I wouldn't be surprised to see Cena still hang out on Raw though because moving him to SmackDown doesn't really fit the "abandon ship" mentality they supposedly have thanks to the S.S. My Network TV going down (gee, who could have seen that coming).

Well that does it for this week's column. See you all again next week. Until then, don't die. Clark…out.