10 Thoughts On the Road To Wrestlemania (The Rock, John Cena, TNA)

Columns, Top Story

1. I caught the last hour or so of Impact last week, mainly to see how the title change went over. I don’t think I can say anything about the show, or the promotion in general, that Blair already didn’t. I’d like to give Blair, Rey Mundo, and anyone else who’s been able to cover that show for more than a couple weeks serious respect. Mainly because trying to write about the damn thing broke me. Twice.

2. I’m really hoping that Edge and Christian wind up having a reunion and run similar to DX’s run a few years back. Well, without all the terrible dick jokes. I’d only except dick jokes of the highest quality from those two! It’s at least more reasonable than expecting Christian to main event ever, so that’s something. I’ll probably have Smackdown vs. Raw to actually get what I’m looking for in that regard.

3. I’m sort of looking forward to seeing Kane and Big Show team up again, if only because it should be fun to watch them toss Slater and Gabriel around before Big Zeke pins one of them with a clothesline. They had their moments as tag champs on Raw years ago when they just squashed dudes.

4. The Sin Cara video package was as great as these things usually are out of WWE. Really made me excited to see the guy debut. I actually think it would be cool if they did it at Wrestlemania, even if I can understand why they won’t. It would help to make it a huge deal at the expense of the match being maybe 45 seconds, going by FLEA’s impeccable math. So, yeah, it’s probably better if he beats Chavo in ten minutes in a few weeks.

5. As much as I enjoyed the Miz’s promo on Cena and the Rock to end the show, and the People’s Elbow to really punctuate it. Great mic work there. There’s nothing they can do between now and ‘Mania to make Miz look like he’s on Cena’s (much less the Rock’s level), but the guy has only been main eventing since December. It is at least a step in the right direction that they’ve gone from acknolwedging that Miz was the third wheel in this feud to having him do something about it. Making the crowd want to see Cena kick his ass, as opposed to accepting that as foregone conclusion before the important stuff happens with the Rock and Cena, would be enough to make this match better than everyone seems to think it will be based on the build up to now.

6. You know, I would have been perfectly happy with JBL as the ref for the Lawler/Cole match. Although really, I’d prefer him to go back to announcing again. As long as he never wrestles again, I’d love to have the guy back in WWE. I always thought he’d make a great manager, too, if that was still a thing that still existed in wrestling. I do always find it amusing that, in the WWE Universe, just grabbing a contract off of someone you’ve assaulted and signing your name is totally legal.

7. It’s kind of a shame that Mick Foley’s playing out the string in TNA, because it would have been fun to have him shoe up to be shoe horned in to ‘Mania this year. I mean, they already have the Rock and Austin making appearances and Triple H and Undertaker having a ten year anniversary match, so he’s all they’re missing for Attitude Era Main Eventer bingo. I do get the feeling that the next time he comes back, it will be to be inducted in the Hall of Fame. He seems like the kind of guy they’d want to headline a ceremony.

8. I finally got around to watching the Shawn Michaels/Diesel No Holds Barred Match from ’96 this weekend. It’s always interesting to watch matches like this, which led to the main event style of the Attitude Era. Mick Foley’s first DVD had a lot of that stuff, and it was really interesting to see how those matches led to the garbagey brawls that were the main events for years. This was a part of that evolution (although you can see it at least as far back as Diesel vs. Bret at Survivor Series). That said, the big take away I got from the match was that nothing is ever going to top the use of Mad Dog Vachon’s leg as far as foreign objects go.

9. The Tough Enough commercials amused me for two reasons. One, I’d totally watch a show where Stone Cold commented on annoying male hair styles. Two, it seriously cracks me up that they brought Hugh Morrus back to yell at people doing push ups. I do seriously have to wonder if Hardcore Holly was not available, or if there’s some kind of list including their names that they went through when choosing trainers.

10. It will be nice to see Trish Stratus wrestle again next week, even if it is against Vickie Guerrero. Although Vickie has more heat than anyone Trish ever wrestled that wasn’t her lesbian stalker, so maybe that will even things out. I am getting very impatient during Divas matches waiting for Awesome Kong to come out and steam roll everyone, though, so it would be nice if they could settle on a goofy name for her and get on that already.