Last night saw Wrestlemania 26 an event which I claimed done right could dethrone the mighty Wrestlemania X-7 as the best 'Mania ever. Well lets just say that didn't happen.
The night kicked off with the Unified Tag Title match and it was good for what it was a short opener and I think the right thing was done keeping the belts on Showmiz, the Miz push continues which is a good thing.
Second up was the Legacy triple threat. The signs are not good for Cody he was lumbered with jobber level looking wrestling pants and boots and given his pre-legacy music back I suspect a elevated jobber role for him in a few months time. Randy Orton won the bout which in this writer's opinion was the wrong move. If Dibiase would have won that would have at least made him look competitive against Orton who for some reason has just been booked to bury his Legacy team mates for the past month. Orton won and made Rhodes and Dibiase look like they could be doomed to the mid card for a while yet.
Money In The Bank saw some interesting stunts but there never should have had as many people in the match as they did, but overall they did well, this was the only match of the night that even attempted to elevate young talent and that came in the form of Jack Swagger who won the match but if they would have continued his push from mid last year he could have been winning the championship tonight instead.
Triple H vs Sheamus saw quite a surprise actually it surpassed my expectations as they had a great match, Sheamus was made to look competitive against Triple H (even though on Raw he demolishes everyone) which should be classed as good enough for a night like this. A should make a note here the crowd had been into every match so far including this one.
Mysterio vs Punk was a good little match which lasted about 7 minutes which was unfair on these two as they could have stole the show with a 20 minute stunner but they did very well with the time allocated I can't wait to see what they offer in there inevitable rematch next month. Mysterio won which storyline wise I think was again a mistake as a JBL/Shawn style story could have given this storyline a nice touch.
As stated earlier the crown was really into the event at this point so when Bret vs Vince was shown as the next match people was really looking forward to the first of the big four matches. People could call this as an overstatement but I think this match could have single handedly killed Wrestlemania 26 from the stupid involvement of the Hart family to Harts crappy tire iron shots. The match was not believable and the crown went dead basically up until the sharpshooter when they livened up again. I think this match killed the crown for nearly the rest of the night, Jericho and Edge had to follow this up and had basically zero crowd support at the start which is a shame because the crowd can really make a difference when it comes to creating an exciting environment. Jericho retained in a decent match.
Cena vs Batista was a heavily hyped match and it did well, although not to the standards of there Summerslam scrap a few years back this was a worthy successor and did what needed to be done... giving Cena the title to set up his feuds with Batista, Triple H and Orton! YAY.
Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker. The career vs the streak. This match was a classic, they went incredible fast and hard at the start and switched to a submission hold style for the middle and a lot of near falls near the end. The match was truly the best match of the night and proves WWE will struggle to replace these two when they are gone. The match was so good I don't think I could claim to have a favourite between this and there match at Wrestlemania 25. Michaels lost and so his career is "over" I think he will be back probably to wrestle 2 or 3 matches a year. Michaels has wanted a deal like that for some time and it seems he has it. The Undertaker has probably got to re think his career, he will never top his performance last night and with not many people left to face (Cena is about it) maybe he should just fight once or twice a year to get his streak up to 20 and then hang up his boots.
Wrestlemania then in my opinion was a let down, there should have been more young talent pushed and less of Bret Hart/McMahon at all. There should have been more time for some of the matches.. actually I think the event seemed kind of rushed as many of the participants only got to have their entrances down to about three quarters of the ramp. I never seen that at X-7 which had a longer entrance way. The night was not close to as bad as Wrestlemania 25 but I believe Michaels/Undertaker II saved the night again. McMahon has to pull his finger out and get building stars.
