Wrestlemania XIX
Heat: RVD/Kane vs. Chief Morely/Lance Storm
This was shunted down to Heat, probably to make room for the important stuff, like the catfight girls. Match was standard Heat fare, though pretty good, and the open roof looks fucking awesome here. Nice to see RVD take the fall after an elbowdrop. Whoever says RVD doesn't job should shut their fuckin' faces right about now. *1/4
Matt Hardy vs. Rey Mysterio
Rey's got the Daredevil thing going here. I thought he was just some lost trick-or-treater. For the amount of time this match got, this was pretty damn good. This is a four hour PPV, and this only gets five minutes. A match with these two is just begging for at least ten. Matt and Rey packed a ton of action in five minutes, and the end result is a sweet little opener. Matt winning took me right by surprise, though.**1/2
Undertaker vs. A-Train/Big Show
Limp Bizkit plays Undertaker to the ring. I thought UT was gonna chokeslam Fred when they met up in the middle of the ring. Notice when the censors bleeped out "track" during the performance? A little trigger happy with the bleeps, there. Another little highlight is four people holding sign that spells "FUCK", just as Big Show gets into the ring the second time. It's on screen for about 2 seconds. Match is, to my shock, quite a bit slower than the last one. UT goes into UFC mode with all the armbars and reversals. Him and Tito Ortiz must have talked backstage. Match drags a bit (wow, really?), then picks up in the end, with Nathan Jones taking out Big Show with a kick that took him probably six hours to set up, while Show stood there looking like a doofus (there's a stretch). UT gets the requisite WM tombstone (which scared me a little, because he almost dropped A-Train) to keep his record intact. This match surprised me in its non-suckiness. Probably because Jones wasn't there, for good reason. Anyone who can't get THIS match's spots down in a WEEK needs a little more training. **
Victoria vs. Trish vs. Jazz
Yay! Steven Richards is at Wrestlemania, and Jeff Hardy and Scott Steiner are not! WOOOOOOO!!!! Trish wears a damn nice outfit here, which I always appreciate. Pretty standard women's stuff, which isn't that bad, actually. Nothing I can recall was significantly blown. Steven does that "goes to hit someone with a chair, but ends up hitting the top rope and smacking himself with the chair" spot, which I'm always a sucker for. Everything clicked fairly well here, though something was missing. **2/3
Team Angle vs. Benoit/Rhyno vs. Los Guerreros
This is Rhyno's, Team Angle's, and Chavo's Wrestlemania debut, and a fairly decent one at that. The match is the kind of thing that's seen on SD before, and it's only 8 minutes, in another match begging for at least 15-20. Otherwise, it was pretty good. It's also good to give Team Angle a good, long title reign, to give credibility to the titles. I'm not saying that the other teams that held it before were not credible. I'm just saying that the titles needed to be stabilized. **1/4
Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho
I was really salivating over this one, because I'm a huge HBK mark, and I like Jericho as well. I didn't care for the Badd Blaster entrance for Michaels, but the pyro for his pose in the ring was awesome. Jericho giving Michaels the finger during the entrance was also classic. This match did not disappoint me whatsoever. A good, slow-paced match with great heat and near-falls. I didn't mind the superhuman comebacks by Michaels because they're timed exactly right to get the maximum fan reaction. Same thing with Hogan Hulking up, or Goldberg just not selling anything in general. If they make the crowd pop, then I'm fine with it. Also, when he got hit, he went right back down, selling the back. Probably the best part of the match was Jericho hitting Sweet Chin Music on HBK, because Jericho did it near perfect, and put more heat on Jericho. I would have rather seen Jericho win it, but HBK winning it wasn't as stupid as some say it is. It did absolutely no harm to Jericho, and gave HBK a little more Wrestlemania credibility, as his record now stands at 4-6 (correct me if I'm wrong). Just a great match. ****1/2
Limp Bizkit performs their pretty good Wrestlemania theme song, and the catfight girls, Torrie, and Stacy get into a (badly done) pillow/cat fight, with Coach getting pantsed as the payoff. They shunted the Raw Tag Title match to Heat and cut time off of the Cruiser and SD! Tag Title matches for THIS! Bite me.
Booker T vs. HHH
HHH has the signature of every tough guy in the business: purple trunks. During the live viewing, I spent most of the match just laughing at them. Match is alright. Nothing really special. The crowd wasn't really into this one. The selling of the knee by Booker was good, though, and the Indian Deathlock was pretty well done, and could be a good secondary finisher by the way JR is creaming himself over HHH's perfect execution. The booking of this match was just garbage, though, with HHH winning. If they used a different storyline to build up to this, I wouldn't have had as much a problem with the result as I did, but with a storyline filled with as many racial undertones as this one did. HHH was belittling Booker in promos everywhere, saying "his people" aren't meant to be champion, and commenting on his nappy hair. This was meant to make Booker seem like an underdog leading into the match, and maximizing the pop he'd get when he beat the monster heel. In that kind of storyline, the underdog is supposed to get the blowoff win over the bigot heel. HHH winning made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Before any of the HHH lovers jump on my back and say "Booker got to beat HHH in a couple of tag matches before Wrestlemania, so HHH winning wouldn't be as bad", I'd like to ask you something: What did those wins mean? That's right. Nothing, in terms of the storyline. Match was good, but the booking nearly killed my enjoyment of it. ***
Vince McMahon vs. Hulk Hogan
Now this is booking I can enjoy. I really liked this match a lot, but definitely not for workrate. The first several minutes drag badly, but when the chairs come into play, the match picks up. Even the Spanish announcers are a factor here, with Hugo getting chaired, and he actually blades. Good man. Probably one of the cooler spots of this year was Vince's legdrop onto Hogan through the Spanish table. A "Holy Shit" chant for McMahon vs. Hogan? Whodathunk? Another classic moment was that SWEET look on Vince's face when he looks up over the apron with the pipe. The camera angle was priceless. Roddy Piper (haggis gut and all) shows up, and I was NOT expecting it at all. It was a pleasant surprise. The three legdrops were another cool part of this matchup, though I heard Vince collapsed in the back after the match from taking a devastating move like that three times. A bloody Vince flipping Hogan off is icing on the cake, while Shane does nothing. As you can tell, I really enjoyed this match. ***1/2
The Rock vs. Stone Cold
Ah, yes. The third chapter in the great Rock vs. Austin Wrestlemania saga. Rock is just a great heel here, while Austin was "just there" for me. I just wasn't feeling Austin around this time, because his character was stale, and he hadn't had an actual match until this one, and no, I'm not counting those "matches" with Bischoff. There's some good brawling and some alright psychology (Rock working on Austin's leg, to counteract the paralyzing kick to the gut before the Stunner). The last sequence, with all the finishers, was pretty cool. This wasn't in WMX7's league, and the WMXV match was just slightly better. ***1/4
Kurt Angle vs. Brock Lesnar
I am so glad this got to main-event. It gives more credibility to the Smackdown Title and the Rumble. Some great wrestling stuff (what do you expect) at the beginning, which the crowd appreciates, though they're probably tired from the other 3 1/2 hours of the show. A sweet spot was when Kurt gave Lesnar a German suplex onto the turnbuckles. That was cool, man. The match is Kurt's usual goodness, and Lesnar showing tremendous effort. The SICK SSP from Lesnar didn't do the match any favors, but Kurt, being the awesome one that he is, moves out of the way, to both make it seem like Lesnar was supposed to miss, and to make sure that Lesnar wouldn't have a worse landing. Now THAT'S ring awareness. A great way to close out the show. I, like many others, cringed when Angle was taking suplex after suplex, and F5 after F5. Watching the match a second time knowing that Kurt (or Brock for that matter) didn't get seriously hurt really increased my enjoyment of it. ****1/2
Verdict: A great event, with several great matches and a few good ones. UT vs. A-Train/Big Show was the worst match on the card, but did nothing to drag it down, though the Catfight did. That, and booking quibbles aside, this event kicked a lot of ass. Thumbs way up.
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