Thoughts From The Top Rope 1.28.09: The Road to WrestleMania

Posted by Daniel Wilcox on 01.28.2009

The Road to WrestleMania has begun, and in this week's Thoughts From The Top Rope we take a look at some of the twists and turns that are likely to lead us to WrestleMania 25, including No Way Out, celebrity involvement, the return of Christian, and that Taker/Michaels match everyone is just dying to see.

Before we get started today, I'd first like to apologize for recent absences. I've missed a couple of columns already this year and haven't really been able to dedicate as much time to this gig as I'd like to. That said, my life is now currently much less hectic and it'll be normal service resumed from here on in. And for those of you who care about that sort of thing, The Fink's Payload returns tomorrow. Hopefully.

I'm fresh off my first-ever trip to a TNA live show. TNA more or less managed to fill the Birmingham NIA last week during its tour of the UK and I have to say, I was slightly underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong, it was a good show, but TNA house shows are supposed to be all about their roster doing what they do best and that's wrestling. Well that wasn't really the case. The matches didn't get a lot of time, numerous big names were missing and there were way too many "sports entertainment" comedy spots for my liking. None of the matches surpassed "good" and there was nothing particularly magnificent about the night as a whole. But as I say, it was far from a bad night, and I wouldn't say no to seeing TNA live again in the future.

Onto the main event.


Now that the Royal Rumble is in the books, we are officially on the Road to WrestleMania 25. Randy Orton was absolutely the right choice to win the Rumble on Sunday and while I'm not a huge fan of a face holding the title going into Mania, I very much look forward to Orton going one-on-one with John Cena for the World Heavyweight Championship. Both guys are top class performers and nine times out of ten deliver on the big stage. And while these two have had a few underwhelming matches in the past, one only has to look back to Summerslam of 2007 for an example of how good a match these guys can put on. Thrown in the atmosphere of a WrestleMania and the added desire to perform on the biggest stage in the wrestling world and I think we're just about guaranteed to get one hell of a match out of these two.

Of course, I'm taking it for granted that John Cena will prevail in the Elimination Chamber at No Way Out, but then again, look at the competition. Chris Jericho is already slated to meet Mickey Rourke at WrestleMania (more on that later) and neither Rey Mysterio or Kofi Kingston are likely to be getting a world title any time soon, let alone heading into WrestleMania. There are two more open slots for the Chamber match, but unless JBL and/or Shawn Michaels find their way into the match, there's no way Cena's dropping the title at No Way Out. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the predictability of it all, because the addition of the Elimination Chamber matches to No Way Out has made the pay-per-view worthwhile in my estimation. Last year's card was huge, featuring two Chamber matches and two world championship matches. This year's will have the two Chamber matches, and more than likely, Randy Orton vs. Shane McMahon, Shawn Michaels vs. JBL and maybe the first Hardy vs. Hardy encounter of this new feud. That's a whole lot of incentive to give this show a look, if you ask me.

Speaking of Orton vs. Shane, as comically lame as the closing moments of Raw were, this match has a ton of potential, assuming that it's given some kind of No Holds Barred stipulation. Say what you want about Shane, but when he wrestles he entertains and he's willing to put his body through tremendous turmoil to make his opponent look good. I expect Orton to get put to the test by Shane at the pay-per-view but ultimately leave Shane a broken and bloody mess, only adding to his status as the most badass guy in the company. On the other hand, I do hope that the Orton vs. McMahons thing is wrapped up before Mania, because I don't want a scenario where Vince is in the corner of Cena at Mania. That said, I wouldn't be totally opposed to Stephanie turning on her father and brother and joining The Legacy. I wonder if Triple H would allow his wife to play Orton's whore on TV. It has potential though, no?

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WrestleMania 25 is already shaping up to the biggest ever WWE event in terms of celebrity involvement, what with Mickey Rourke set to meet Chris Jericho and AC/DC apparently providing and performing the official theme song. Say what you want about AC/DC, but 2008's Black Ice sold an absolute ton of copies in 2008 and went number one in something like 29 different countries worldwide. They've sold some 300 million albums in total and even in 2009 are one of the biggest bands in the world. A thousand Limp Bizkit and Saliva clones couldn't add to WrestleMania 25 the star-power that AC/DC will bring. Now, if WWE could only get Motorhead back to play Triple H to the ring once again, we're really taking this thing up notch.

Not everyone is a fan of celebrity involvement in wrestling. More often than not it just doesn't work, but WWE has recently had a lot of success in this field. Make no mistake about it; the involvement of Donald Trump and Floyd "Money" Mayweather in Mania 23 and 24 respectively would have added a significant number of purchases to the total buyrate. It would've helped that those guys are legitimate celebrities as opposed to some C-listers nobody's ever heard of. That said, the whole Kevin Federline thing was pretty great too, so WWE creative obviously knows how to handle celebrities in wrestling. Mickey Rourke is of course getting a ton of attention lately due to his miraculous comeback performance in The Wrestler, and the Golden Globe wins and Oscar nominations wouldn't have hurt either. Chris Jericho no doubt has the promo skills to make this angle entertaining and the wrestling skills to carry Rourke to a passable match. While Rourke does have a background in amateur wrestling and will have picked up a few basic skills from his work on The Wrestler, he's not a wrestler and he's hardly young either. Trump didn't have to wrestle, and really, neither did Mayweather. By the sounds of it, Rourke will. I hope Rourke trains hard because this feud has a hell of a lot of potential. And while people will complain that Jericho isn't likely to go over, I much prefer Jericho in this scenario than coming up short in Money in the Bank, which is where he'd be otherwise. Big Show got a ton of exposure last year, so this angle won't be bad for Jericho's career in any way.

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But what about the SmackDown side of things? The next couple of months on the blue brand are likely to be dominated by two high profile feuds – Edge vs. the number one contender for the WWE Championship, and Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy. The smart money seems to be going on Triple H to be challenging Edge for the title at WrestleMania, taking into account the fact that Triple H is already feuding with Vickie Guerrero and the fact that it is Triple H we're talking about here. It's interesting that the WWE Championship will also be defended at No Way Out because that means we won't find out who the number one contender is until after No Way Out, which is pretty rare these days. Personally, I don't think things are as clear-cut as some seem to think. The Hardys' angle could quite easily be based around the WWE Championship, leading us to a Triple Threat or even a Four Way at Mania. And let's not discount The Undertaker who generally finds a way to be in or around the title picture at this time of the year. That said, giving us Edge vs. Triple H at Mania is probably the best way to go. It allows the Hardys' feud to have its own spotlight, and it give us a match that is fresh and intriguing. And the winner isn't a given either, as Triple H wouldn't be hurt by a loss, doesn't need the title, and Edge is far and away the biggest heel on SmackDown.

All that of course begs the question, what about Christian? Of course, there's no concrete evidence that Christian has even resigned yet. Everyone was expecting him to show up at the Rumble and it didn't happen. The fact that TNA is putting his merchandise on sale and have finally removed him from their roster page seems to indicate that he has certainly left, but perhaps WWE doesn't plan on redebuting him anytime soon. Let's not forget that Gail Kim signed with WWE back in the summer and we're yet to see anything from her. I can't see Christian being around the title picture come Mania, so I think the very best we can hope for is a spot in the Money in the Bank Ladder match, and if that's the case, it wouldn't shock me to see him win it. Then again, it wouldn't shock me if he didn't show up until after WrestleMania.

SmackDown's other big feud going into Mania is obviously going to be Jeff vs. Matt Hardy. I hope they find a way to hold off the first encounter until Mania, perhaps by putting Jeff in the Chamber and having Matt screw him over yet again. I guess the ideal scenario for these two is a Ladder Match, but neither has a title to put on the line and I can't see WWE either scrapping the Money in the Bank match or having two Ladder matches in one night. They'll undoubtedly feud beyond WrestleMania so we'll have the joys of that match to come later in the year, I'm sure. Interestingly, I've already seen some people shitting all over this feud based on the fact that it's been done before. Come on people, we're talking six years ago here, and they never really had much of a feud. They had about a month-long feud coming off the Invasion angle in 2001, and that was more of a "friendly rivalry" than anything, and then Matt turned on Jeff in 2003, but a feud never materialized as Matt jumped to SmackDown and began rolling with the V1 persona. This feud has legs. It's pretty much already a blood feud, both guys are infinitely better now than they were six years ago, and both are far more popular too. If the matches deliver, as I know they can, we could well be looking at a contender for feud of the year here.

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One imagines that ECW will only have one match at WrestleMania, and that'll be the ECW Championship bout. Now, ECW has gotten the raw end of the deal when it comes to WrestleMania lately; if we combine the total time for ECW matches at the last two WrestleManias, it comes to less than 7 minutes. But Jack Swagger's star is on the rise, so I'd like to think WWE will give him sufficient time to go out and defend his gold on the big show. The list of potential challengers is ridiculously short, however. Matt Hardy isn't an option any more, so that leaves us with Tommy Dreamer or Finlay, else someone from one of the other brands, as was the case last year. Dreamer/Swagger will probably be saved for the Extreme Rules pay-per-view before Dreamer finally hangs up his boots, so that leaves us with Finlay. Finlay/Swagger could actually be a tremendous match up and I hope that's what they'll go with. Ideally, their first bout will come at No Way Out and a screwy finish will lead us to a Belfast Brawl/Extreme Rules match at WrestleMania. In all honesty, I'll settle for anything better than Boogeyman squashing Swagger for the gold inside a minute.

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And then there are the interpromotional matches. The one everyone wants to see is Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker, a match I've talked about in detail on numerous occasions in the past. Shawn's angle with JBL had thrown the chances of this match happening out the window, it seemed, but now JBL is out of the Elimination Chamber it looks as if JBL/Shawn will take place at No Way Out. The confrontation between Shawn and Taker at the Rumble has re-ignited hopes of this match taking place and unless Michaels and JBL go to Mania for a rematch, it seems as if Michaels/Taker is the route they're taking. And without trying to build it up too much, we could be talking about an instant classic here.

The annual Money in the Bank Ladder match is also set to return at Mania 25, but just thinking about some of the marquee matches that could go down, there's going to be a lot of mid-carders vying for a place in this match. Any six/seven/eight out the following will likely make up this year's match; CM Punk, Mr. Kennedy, MVP, Christian, Shelton Benjamin, Kofi Kingston, Rey Mysterio, Carlito, JBL John Morrison, The Miz, Kane, Umaga, Vladimir Kozlov, Big Show, Evan Bourne. And I could be missing a few. Out of that lot, I'd take Punk, Kennedy, MVP, Benjamin, Kofi, Rey, Kane and Bourne.

Are you ready for BunnyMania III? Me neither, to be honest. Although we could be in luck, as WWE has been less about the T&A lately, perhaps due to the TV-PG thing, so I'm hoping we'll get a traditional women's wrestling match at this year's show. It was rumoured that Trish Stratus could make a return to battle Michelle McCool, which I'd have no issues with, even if Trish/Beth would be much better. Any time we get to see Trish is a blessing and I suppose McCool would get a good rub from beating her.

There's also been talk of a Legend's match to coincide with the release of the new Legends of WrestleMania video game that's coming out in a few months. In theory, it sounds good, but in practice, it could very much be a disaster. Or, it could be both; think Gimmick Battle Royal II! Oh, the potential!

Speaking of Legends, isn't Stone Cold Steve Austin getting inducted into the Hall of Fame the night before WrestleMania? And wasn't it rumoured that Austin would wrestle one last match at this year's Mania? I'm thinking if it does happen, his opponent will be one of those mid-upper card heels who are too big (literally) for the Money in the Bank match, such as Big Show, Umaga or Vladimir Kozlov.

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With all that in mind, I've very little idea as to what to expect as we're still in the early stages of the Road to WrestleMania. If anything, I'm expecting the unexpected. That said, let's predict what we'll be getting at Mania 25!

Likely Card:

World Heavyweight Championship: John Cena vs. Randy Orton
WWE Championship: Edge vs. Triple H
Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker
Chris Jericho vs. Mickey Rourke
Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy
ECW Championship: Jack Swagger vs. Finlay
Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Rey Mysterio vs. MVP vs. CM Punk vs. JBL vs. Mr. Kennedy vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Kane vs. Shelton Benjamin
Diva's Championship: Michelle McCool vs. Trish Stratus
Legend's Battle Royal
Stone Cold' Last Match

I don't think that's a bad card at all, but there are numerous notable absences. I've always been a believer that WWE should go all-out and make WrestleMania a 5-hour show. An extra hour would allow much more of the great young talent to be featured.

Regardless, WrestleMania is WrestleMania, and this year is WrestleMania 25; it's guaranteed to be a winner. So for now, I intend to kick back and enjoy the Road to WrestleMania for what it is – the best time to be a wrestling fan.