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The Wrestling Sandwich 04.08.12: Post Wrestlemania One Week Takeover!

April 8, 2012 | Posted by David McGregor

Welcome to the Wrestling Sandwich, I am your host David McGregor. Scott is off this week so I am returning (I used to do the instant analysis for Smackdown) to the wrestling section for one week only, or until the games section throws me out as I do the 8 Ball over in the land of Mario and Metroid. I haven’t had a dedicated column to voice my opinion on wrestling, as the Instant Analysis was more focused on SD.

Therefore this week I am getting free reign to talk about whatever I want, so I am going to mix some news with just whatever was going through my mind at the time of writing. Anyway, let’s begin

Wrestlemania is officially in the books!

Another Wrestlemania is over and just like everyone else I am going to give you my impressions of the show, and yes I am well aware this is old news. But I thought that seen as this is the bread part of the article, therefore what keeps the sandwich together, it made sense for Wrestlemania to be here.

Sheamus defeated Daniel Bryan – World Heavyweight Title Match

Well this wasn’t much of a match at all, and I did feel a tad cheated when it finished so fast. But unlike a lot of people I didn’t care all that much, the match wasn’t built well at all so I couldn’t give a toss that it ended quickly. The only issue I have with it is that it may bring about a sort of backlash against Sheamus, who was getting a decent reaction from the crowd but after that 18 second defeat of Bryan the Miami audience turned very sour. I only hope this was a smark crowd that is in the minority, as Sheamus has been doing great and I don’t want another stop and start push for the World Champion.
Rating – DUD

Kane defeated Randy Orton

Seriously what has happened to Randy Orton? He is one of the biggest stars the WWE has yet he is losing to guys like Kane! I like Orton, even though he is dull as a box of rocks when he is in the ring with garbage like Kane, but the guy has lost a lot of his momentum since his last injury. I think the WWE has realized that Orton is very injury prone, maybe they are too afraid to put him in a marquee match for fear he won’t be physically fit for the match. Still this match sucked, even more than Bryan/Sheamus.
Rating – 3 out of 10

Big Show defeated Cody Rhodes – Intercontinental Title Match

Now this one really annoyed me. I am a big Rhodes fan and think he is WWE Championship material, so there is no need for him to be losing to a lump the size of Big Show. Show didn’t need to win this one and had this been Triple H in Show’s place the IWC would have had a fit over Hunter holding talent back yet again. But no, because it’s Big Show it is somehow acceptable for a young guy like Rhodes to be pretty decisively beaten on the biggest stage of the year. I hate when the WWE do crap like this, Big Show is an over the hill worker at best who need to retire. Why then is he beating future stars of the company?
Rating – 4 out of 10

Kelly Kelly and Maria Menounos defeated Beth Phoenix and Eve

This wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, maybe that’s how low the expectations of the Diva’s division has lowered. I still have no idea who Maria Menounos is though, that isn’t being said in a nasty way it’s just outside of the US no one will know who she is.
Rating – 4 out of 10

The Undertaker defeated Triple H – Hell in a Cell Match

Wow, this match was storytelling on a whole other level from what I think I’ve ever seen. The match was one of the most emotionally draining matches I’ve seen since HBK/Flair at WM24, it was just brilliant. Don’t get me wrong the match was great too and there were times I thought the streak was actually over, such as the Sweet Chin Music into the Pedigree, but for a story that basically ended like 15 years of story it will almost definitely overshadow the match. My only issue is that the ending was so perfect that I don’t think Triple H or Undertaker will be able to top it for their retirement match.
Rating – 9.9 out of 10 (I think HBK/Taker 1 was just a tiny bit better)

Team Johnny defeated Team Teddy

This was pretty much pointless and only here to get 12 guys a payday. Good to see Team Johnny win this one though.
Rating – 3 out of 10

CM Punk defeated Chris Jericho – WWE Title Match

I think there was way too much pressure on these guys to go out there and put on a technical classic, and it just did not live up to the hype. I hated the fact they put the DQ stipulation in, I mean that is usually a deathblow to any match, but they managed to do quite well with it. As I said it wasn’t a classic match but it was good enough, I think we just hyped it up a tad much.
Rating – 7.5 out of 10

The Rock v John Cena

Well it didn’t have that Hogan/Rock feel but then again I think that match is highly overrated. For a true dream match it did seem to lack something, I don’t really know what but it did seem like something was missing to make this the spectacle we had been promised. I think it may have been the annoying musical performances or maybe the lacklustre build, but it just felt off. I think Cena losing was the absolute right decision and makes his character a lot more interesting, as had he won it would just be another win for superman. But having him lose 100% clean made him somewhat interesting.
Rating – 7 out of 10

Overall Show – The main matches delivered but the rest was pretty awful, I mean they could have at least made the undercard a bit more interesting. It wasn’t Wrestlemania 13, in that only one match was great, but it definitely wasn’t the caliber of Wrestlemania 17,19 or 21.
Rating – 7 out of 10

Brock is Back!

The former UFC star is now back in the WWE, and I think everyone and their mother knew it was going to happen. But, I was still extremely excited and even a tad shocked when Lesnar came back to F5 the WWE’s top guy in John Cena. What is genuinely surprising about this is that Brock is back on a more consistent basis than we had previously expected, by all accounts he is making 2-3 appearances a month. Now to compare that to the likes of Rock, Austin and even Triple H and Undertaker, Brock is appearing on a pretty regular basis.

With Brock back regularly it brings up the question of who should he face in the ring? Obviously the first feud he will have will be with Cena, but wasting a Brock/Cena match at Extreme Rules or Over the Limit would be pretty pointless. My guess is Cena and Lesnar will face each other at Summerslam, but like Rock did he will have a warm up match at a smaller PPV. So who do I want Brock to face most now that he is back? Well seen as I’m one of those cheap bastards that do lists to get hits why not do the same thing here!

Top 5 People Brock Lesnar Should Face

Mark Henry – Hear me out here, I love Mark Henry’s gimmick and think he has improved tenfold since the days of Sexual Chocolate, so who better than Lesnar to throw Henry about the ring like he did Big Show back in 2002. I know they already fought back in 2002, but Henry could come back for revenge for that pretty decisive defeat.

Triple H – They never really had any altercations when they were in the WWE, so this could be billed as a “dream match”. Although it is debatable that Hunter will still be wrestling long enough for this match to happen, but it would definitely sell PPV’s so why the hell not?

Randy Orton – This would be one of those matches that would be more spectacle than anything else, although Orton has lost some of that aura that made him special. This could be Lesnar’s warm up match for Cena, who better to beat in preparation to Cena than the 2nd biggest guy in the company.

CM Punk – A guy who left the WWE high and dry in Lesnar versus the man who lives and breathes wrestling in CM Punk, this could basically write itself. Although I would prefer it for one of them to be heel as this would need to get nasty, not Jericho/Punk playground nasty but proper calling one and other out for their short comings. Cena isn’t good enough on the mic to tear Lesnar a new one for leaving, but Punk definitely is.

Undertaker – I am constantly hearing how these two have “legit heat” between each other, what a crock! I hate when the IWC let their imagination go wild over little things like the brief moment they had at UFC, if anything that was an invitation to come to Wrestlemania. But bullshit backstage heat reports aside, this would be a fantastic match. Lesnar is the one of the few guys to decisively beat Undertaker and would be the only guy on the roster the audience would believe could end the streak, bar Cena.

Why I am a Wrestling Fan – End of an Era 1999

Seen as we just witnessed the end of an era in Undertaker v Triple H I thought I would include the last match billed “The End of an Era”.

This is one of my absolute favorite matches of all time, it was built spectacularly and even though it was far from the end of any era it was a really fun match. I remember being quite young at the time and being quite a big Vince McMahon fan so the idea of him having to leave the WWF was horrendous to me, this was before I was aware that wrestling was entirely fake.

So seen as this is the cheese part of the sandwich I thought I may as well talk about when I believed that wrestling was real. We all at one point thought these guys actually hated each other, and for a lot of us it is the time when we were at the peak of emotional involvement. I mean now I can pretty much tell when a match is going to end or I can guess who is going to win, but back then it is completely open. I think a lot of the problems with the IWC these today is that we forget how exciting it was being a kid watching pro wrestling, now we all seem way too hard on a medium of entertainment which brought us so much joy.

This is the point at which wrestling to me was still really special, and also because to me Vince was the coolest person alive. I way too young to be anti establishment, so Steve Austin beating Vince meant nothing to me. However seeing McMahon with the big cars and all the power was the coolest thing I had ever seen, mind you this was before I really knew who or what the hell Ric Flair was. Now some may complain that I am not old enough to be writing about wrestling if I was a kid in 1999, but it doesn’t matter if you are 20 or 60 if you love professional wrestling then why the hell can’t you write about it.

If anyone does get to this point without skipping to the better parts of the column then by all means put the match that made you a pro wrestling fan down below, I don’t care if it was from 1950 or 2012.

The News of the Week

Gus Ramsey of ESPN posted the following on his twitter today….

“accidentally deleted my earlier tweet. Rock and Brock each sign 1-year deals. WM28 did 1.9M buys. WWE was targeting 1.5M”

Well as much as this PPV was hyped, and definitely had buyable matches, I doubt it will be getting as high as 1.9 Million buys. That is a humongous number that the WWE couldn’t even do in a peak year never mind now. And the current record holder for the WWE, Wrestlemania 23 at 1.3 million, was way more hyped and much more people were talking about the Hair v Hair match between Vince and Donald Trump. It would be great if it was true but I am not getting my hopes up, although I won’t be surprised if it is more than 23.

Brock Lesnar signed a one-year contract with WWE over the weekend, and it’s rumored to be one of the most lucrative contracts in the history of the company.

After seeing Lesnar’s drawing ability in the UFC, WWE is rumored to have guaranteed him $5 million to work a limited schedule. He is contracted to appear twice a month for the next year

That is a massive contract, and apparently only second to John Cena. I can see why some people aren’t happy that Brock is back, but at the same time Lesnar will make ten times that for WWE over the space of the year. I mean his Wrestlemania match alone at 29 will make the company millions. Although didn’t Donald Trump get paid $5 million for one nights work at Wrestlemania 23? Obviously what Lesnar needs is Trump as his agent. Joking aside $5 million is only the downside so Lesnar could be looking at a very large income this year, here’s hoping enough to stay with the company a bit longer.

There are currently no plans to bring Heyman in with Lesnar. The reason is that Heyman is busy with a number of ongoing projects through his Looking For Larry agency in New York City.

There are people within WWE (and TNA) who have reached out to Heyman in recent years, but both sides could never reach an agreement. Right now WWE is working under the assumption that Heyman will not be back.

This is a shame as Heyman could be great for Lesnar, as he is far from Ric Flair on the microphone. Also it is always nice to have Heyman in on WWE DVD’s and the Legends of Wrestling Roundtable shows, which are a personal favorite of mine. Also now that the format for writing the weekly shows has changed, in that the lead writer doesn’t travel to the show each week, I think Heyman could do a great job over on Smackdown. McMahon should just suck it up hire him as a writer and on air talent; I mean Smackdown is desperate for a bit of direction!

The recent Twitter rant by Epico and Rosa Mendes about being left off WrestleMania and TV this week is the first of WWE’s new plan to feature more storylines and angles on Twitter. The company wants to start more storylines via the social media site, and more are expected going forward.

This doesn’t exact fill me with excitement, maybe I am the only person online that doesn’t have a twitter account but I think it is just another way for people to spout mindless crap to their friends. So why it is having such an impact on Raw is really beyond me, I mean is anyone really caring that Rock is trending worldwide? I don’t see how it makes the WWE any money or gains any new fans either.

I mean I understand why they have a presence on Twitter and Facebook, but to the extent that it overtakes important points in your show is a bit idiotic. I mean Rock v Cena was one of the biggest matches of all time, yet 90% of what the Rock said was always “trending worldwide”. Who the hell cares? I just hope this is another one of Vince’s monthly obsessions that will go away before we know it, like Drew McIntyre.

The Road to Wrestlemania 29 Begins

Seen as this week there were rumors of what the WWE wants to do for next year’s Wrestlemania has already started I thought I would put my thoughts in. The WWE are apparently going with this…

The following are rumored as the top matches for next year’s WrestleMania 29 PPV. Remember, these are just rumored matches…

* WWE Title Match: The Rock vs. Brock Lesnar
* Steve Austin vs. CM Punk
* The Undertaker vs. John Cena

I mean those seem like decent matches, but seen as I am going to be there live I would do things a little differently.

The Matches I Want to See at Wrestlemania 29

Triple H v Miz

I am fully aware that Miz has just about hit rock bottom, no pun intended, but I think he should be rebuilt and pushed into a feud with Triple H. Hunter is pretty much the best guy to get someone over, and Miz is the most likely to be able to annoy him into returning to the ring. It would mean that Triple H wouldn’t retire until WM30, as a Miz match isn’t the biggest of matches to retire on, but this could do wonder for Miz.

Randy Orton v Cody Rhodes – World Heavyweight Championship

I honestly thought this is what they were going to do this year, as both Orton and Rhodes were floundering for quite a while prior to Wrestlemania. This could be a 2013 version of Triple H/Orton feud from 2004, only this time the underdog would actually win and come out looking better. Rhode is on the cusp of becoming a legitimate main eventer and I think a win over someone like Orton could cement his status. Also these two seem perfectly matched for each other, and I think they could put on a great match.

Undertaker v Brock Lesnar

I would leave Taker/Cena just one more year as we know both men are going to stay with the WWE for life. But Lesnar may not be here come 8th April 2013, so I say capitalize on this very golden opportunity. Also Lesnar is one of the very few people who the audience would believe could end the streak, and could put on a great match much like their brutal Hell in a Cell mach from 2002.

CM Punk v The Rock – WWE Championship

If the Roc really is going to go after the WWE title then why not have him go after it at Wrestlemania. It wouldn’t be as big as Rock/Cena, but I think this could be a much better match. Even have Rock become heel at some point throughout 2012 and we could be in for some of the best TV and promos we have seen for some time.

John Cena v Stone Cold Steve Austin

People may want to see Punk/Austin more but I think this would be the much bigger match. I mean Punk is popular, but that popularity has been diminishing since he returned after about 2 weeks off after Money in the Bank 2011. Who is to say that Punk will still be as well liked as he is come 2013. But Cena is always going to get a reaction from the WWE audience, and while he may be hated and loved at the same time he is as over as you get.

I say Rock/Cena 2 at some point in 2012, Cena wins this one and Austin returns to stunner the life out of him. Also Austin is adored by the audience, more so than Rock, so Cena would be the definitive heel that Punk wouldn’t. And if Punk/Austin finally does happen it can happen at WM30.

That is it for this week, I hope you enjoyed my week on the Wrestling Sandwich. I am David McGregor and I am shamlessly promoting my stuff below. Anyway, I don’t if Scott Rutherford will be back next week but here’s hoping he is as I’m all out of ideas. Thanks for reading.

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