The Week In Wrestlemania 3.18.02

Daniels returns from his big Spring Break in Panama City Beach, FL, where the yaks have big breasts, and they wear no clothes. What’s up everyone? I’m only one day removed from my big trip, and after sleeping for 15 hours last night, I’m ready to tackle this column. Only problem with it I didn’t watch any damn wrestling this week. I was too busy staring at yaks who make Stacy Keibler look doggish to care. Do ugly people go on Spring Break? If you’re ugly, and you were down in Flordia this week let me know. Hell, if you were just down in Panama City Beach this week, let me know what you thought. Actually, if you just went down there this summer, I’d like to hear about it. Stupid Spring Break experiences and the like would be welcome as well, just to see if everyone else has as good a time as me… at La Vela, Spinnaker, or wherever you may have gone.

I’d also like to say how much Foam Parties rock. Foam Parties = put a bunch of kids in a room, and fill the room with soap suds up to the chest. It turns into one big wet T-shirt contest… and it ownz more than anything else. Besides straight up wet T-shirt contests, of which my only regret is I only had a disposable camera.

So, since I didn’t watch wrestling last week, I’m going to give some thoughts on ‘Mania, because that’s all that really mattered this week, right?

Let’s start the column with the top ten quotes overheard at Spring Break this year. Why? Because it’s my column and, according to site statistics, top ten lists own all the rest of us. These are the Top Ten Quotes Overheard on Spring Break by me:

10. “Come on, Bite my nipple.” – Drunk dude, holding a scorpion sized cockroach in his hand, and letting it crawl on his chest.

9. “Dude, throw that shit on some chick” – another drunk dude, talking about the same scorpion sized cockroach.

8. “God, my mouth tastes like cock.”

7. “I’ve had six beers and I haven’t even started drinking yet.” My roommate, god bless him.

6. “Stop Breathing, you’re f**king up your titties.” Drunk dude, while making a sand sculpture on top of some yak.

5. “I’m buying three damn shots. If you yaks don’t help me drink them, I’m drinking all of them.” Baker, who works in video games, before spending the following morning puking.

4. “Where you from?” “Shit, I don’t even know.”

3. “You’re some sort of traitor!” “Yeah, like that Benjamin Franklin guy!”

2. “Nothing’s more refreshing then waking up in the morning and not remembering what day it is.” Some yak, overheard breakfast.

1. “Hell, I usually don’t know what day it is until I take my birth control pills.” Different yak, same conversation. I looked for her later.

Honorable mention also goes to Baker from video games, when three girls were complaining about standing in line to the bouncer. “I’m a yak do shit for me.”

Spring Break is an experience and a half, if you have yet to go, you have to go. It’s something everyone should do at least once in their life, even if they’re not in college. Just don’t go to Daytona because it’s been ruined and no one goes there anymore. Go to Panama City, where there’s MTV sponsored Club La Vela or Cancun, which is in Mexico and, therefore, has no rules. Hawaii is fun too, but it’s about a grand just to get there. Panama City, you can fly round trip for about 250, and get a decent room for about a grand, divided by four to six people, for a week. If you happen to be 25, they don’t even want a damage deposit. Not that I’m quite there yet.

If you do go to Panama City, I recommend against the Boardwalk Beach Resort, unless you decide to get in around midnight, and want to check out around the same time. We got there an hour before check-in, and ended up waiting in the check-in line for two and a half hours. Why? Because they have four hotels on the beach, and ONE line to check in all four of them. What makes this even better? Ten computers were there to check in 5000ish people. At six in the morning the following Friday, there were two computers open. And they ran out of damage deposit return cash. Way to run an establishment. There’s plenty of places on the beach where you won’t have to shoot yourself in the head standing in line. Or, feel free to go there, just don’t arrive until two in the morning or so.

Also, if you’re an aspiring airplane terrorist make sure you’re not any fifth person in line. This is apparantly the only “new” security measure that has been added. At the boarding gate, they take every fifth person, and search their carry-on. If you have a bomb in your carry-on, just don’t be the fifth person in line and you’ll be fine. Other than that, the only difference in the airport security I noticed was the the Army dude with the M-16 next to the metal dectector. I don’t know if that made me feel safer or not. Of course, I hate flying to begin with but whatever.

So, that crazy Wrestlemania thing happened this weekend.

The one thing I will say, right off the top, is I did NOT understand the ordering of the matches. RVD/Regal went off first. I understand it was probably something to wake the crowd up but the crowd was going to need a whole lot more waking up midway through the show especially when you take a three hour show and cram it into four hours. This show could have been trimmed to three hours easily.

Secondly, off the top. This was a great show for wrestling content. Six or so of the matches were really good and three out of four of the “main event” matches delivered big. Note to Morse: this is my contribution to the Post Roundtable.

From a storyline perspective this show left a whole lot to be desired. Things that happened made no sense at all mostly around Rock/Hogan.

Also, there were a LOT of blown spots tonight. Some understandable (Maven), some unforgivable (Kane/Angle) chalk them up to nerves, I guess.

Anway a match by match look:

William Regal vs RVD – I didn’t quite understand this as the first match on the card, but I guess it was designed to wake people up as I said a while ago. Hopefully, this will be the LAST match between these two primarily because Regal can not work a good match with Van Dam their paces and movesets are way too different to jibe into a smooth match. RVD won the match cleanly with a five-star. Where do they go from here? The reason there’s not much a problem with the IC belt going first is because the IC belt doesn’t mean a goddam thing anymore. It’s been the topic of quite a few very forgettable feuds. Disagree with me? Name one top-ish storyline where the IC belt has been the focus in the last two years I’m waiting right, as I was saying. Rock and Austin used to feud over the IC Title. Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon had their Ladder Match at ‘Mania X for the IC title. Give RVD a big long run with this belt, and have a bunch of mid-card heels chase him for it. Start with Christian, he’s got nothing to do. Bring Mark Henry in for it. Use Val whatever, just use it. The key is to keep it on him for at LEAST six months, not even with fluke reigns.

DDP vs Christian: The thrown together match of the night to fill time on a four hour show. DDP helped Christian get his “winning edge” back, so Christian turned on him because Page wasn’t needed anymore. Former WCW champion working second on the show, and they wondered why the Invasion had problems. Page kept the belt from Christian, who later went on to win the Hardcore title for a half hour or so. Where do the go from here?: Throwing tantrums is what got Jericho over. It can work for Christian, too but he needs to start cutting funny promos and stuff. RVD would be a good next feud for him just to give him legitimacy. Not legitimacy in winnign the IC title, but in putting on a good match or two then bounce him into something he can win.

Goldust vs Maven: In this Hardcore title match, Maven lost the belt to Spike Dudley. The match didn’t go on for very long, and it saw Maven badly missing a Van Maven-ator. The match became a running gag for the night, and Hurricane, Molly, and Christian all also won the belt before Maven eventually won it back and escaped in a limo. Where do the go from here?: Who cares, it’s the hardcore title. RVD gave it some legitimacy by holding it for an extended period of time now they’re working on getting rid of all that nonsense.

Kurt Angle vs Kane: Another thrown together match. These guys put on a really decent show until the end, where one of them screws up the rollup which was supposed to end the match. Where do the go from here?: No idea both guys really aren’t involved in anything and were thrown together so they’d both have something to do tonight.

Ric Flair vs Undertaker: Both guys came to work for Mania and both of them stepped it up a notch. How far stepping it up is considered for a fifty year old man is left as an exercise for the reader. In all honesty, these guys put on a great show, considering Taker isn’t known for greatness in his matches. Arn had a big spot in the match, which was giving Taker Ye Olde Spine-booster for a near fall. All three guys were busted open by the end of the match, and Flair was gushing. Where do the go from here?: Who knows. The stuff on Monday was ridiculous with Vince asking the wife who he kept drugged for six months while he was cheating on her with Trish to give him full control of the company. The board giving full control to the same man, mind you all, who admitted on camera to wanting to flush the company down the toilet with the nWo and how Linda was even there in the first place is beyond me, considering, in storylines, she owns nothing in the company. Besides, they took control from Flair because he was in a Match with the Undertaker. Uhm Vince has wrestled both Austin AND HIS SON in cage matches and brawls, respectively. Regardless, the board had the disclaimer that the decision would be reviewed after ‘Mania which is, conveniently, tomorrow. As for ‘Taker I have no idea. Flair will probably be getting his share back, I would assume.

Booker T vs Edge: Big sign in the crowd says it all “You are fighting over Shampoo” Yep. Shit like that happens when you throw together your biggest PPV of the year in three weeks. This match was quite boring and the fact Edge won made it even worse. Edge is over in Canada, guys. In the US we STILL don’t care about him. Where do the go from here?: Who knows. They obviously don’t give a damn about Booker T, even though he works at getting himself progressively more over with all his mic time. Unfortunately, they don’t let him win any matches. Edge is their current Billy Gunn the guy who they want over at all costs.

Austin vs Hall: Two options here either Austin has the booking staff really whipped, or they’re all afraid to make the Stone Cold character look even remotely bad. Not only did Austin have to win this match, but he had to win it THREE DAMN TIMES. First, by giving hall a Stunner and pinning him and letting Nash make the save. Then by Stunning Hall AND Nash. Austin pins Hall a second time with no referee. Then, to make matters even worse, he Stuns Hall TWICE more for a third pinfall. This is not going to help the legitimacy of the nWo any, by having Austin beat one of them THREE times in one match. One hard fought victory was OK, but come on guys it’s tough to have the bad guys look threatening when the good guys walk all over them. The damage to the nWo was not yet complete for the nigth though. Where do the go from here?: Another who cares. Obviously, either Austin or the booking crew aren’t willing to let the Austin character look bad for the sake of the feud. Austin walks all over the nWo, so they’re not going to be any effective. Even if they move into a feud with Nash, somehow I’ll be Nash is going to just be the next person to look like a pussy against Steve-o. Or, even worse, they’ll move the Outsiders into the tag scene, where they can REALLY have no impact. Unless they squash Billy and Chuck in four seconds and then go on a tear through the federation but I don’t see it. For some reason or another, the two of them will continue to be Austin’s bitches.

Tag Title Match. Mass chaos match. But: “YOOOOUUUUUUUU LOOOOOOOOOOOK SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good to me.” Billy and Chuck won, and that’s all that goddam matters. Where do the go from here?: Again, who cares. Do the tag belts even exist anymore?

Rock vs Hogan: As a match, this lived up to what I expected. Hogan was up a notch in the same way Ric Flair was and the Rock worked well despite being overwhelmingly booed for the first time in years. Midway through the match, Rock began working as the heel. Hogan hulked up, and I’ll wager half a paycheck they decided on doing it halfway through the match. I don’t think anyone in the back expected the crowd to side the way they did, especially listening to both JR and King completely ignoring the fact the crowd was chanting for Hogan and actively booing and chanting “Rocky Sucks” at the Rock. The finish of this match actually ruined the rest of the PPV for the in-house crowd, I think, and for a lot of people at home. They WANTED Hogan to win, and expected it. When he didn’t, the crowd noticably deflated, and weren’t into the rest of the show. JR can talk as much as he wanted about how the crowd was behind the Rock’s win but they weren’t at all. It was made even worse by the trainwreck which came after the match, which had the Outsiders Turning on Hogan. No good reason here they were mad because Hogan shook the Rock’s hand post match. It was a turn, and Rock made the save on Hogan. Then they posed together in the ring and Rock was STILL getting boos. I think people were even waiting for Real American, but Hulk had to pose to either no music or Rock’s music. And no mention of the tiny fact that HOGAN TRIED TO KILL ROCKY NOT THREE WEEKS AGO!!!!!! Where do the go from here?: I don’t even think THEY know. This match could not have possibly gone the way they planned it. The turn didn’t make any sense at all regardless of what they wanted to do with it. Why are they breaking up the nWo after four weeks? What does it accomplish? Nothing that I can see. Besides, if they wanted to make Hogan a face, couldn’t they have done that by simply having HIM do the turning? The end of that match saw Rock as a heel and Hogan as a face. I don’t think Rock was ready for it either. All I can think of is they’re trying some master plan to get the fans to boo Hogan, and by doing that, they’re going to build him as a face for month before some Master Plan goes down at Backlash. Even so it’s a lot harder to make Hogan a heel in the WWF than it was in WCW. In WCW, you were working with a guy none of the fans liked, or wanted there. In the WWF, you’re workign with people like me who grew up worshipping the man. It’s an entirely different battle.

Women’s Title Match. Honestly who in the hell cares? And if they did why not put it on Lita, who is probably the most over wrestling yak ever?

Jericho vs HHH: I thought Motorhead’s version of H’s song was bad, but they got nothing on the shit that is the Drowning Pool theme. Anyway, H won this match which was not any sort of surprise. The crowd, as I said, seemed very dead for this match, and I think if I can get some info from either of the 411 guys who went, I bet they would confirm it. Even the Pedigree on Steph, which people have been waiting MONTHS for, barely got a reaction. They killed the crowd when Hogan beat Rock hands down. Where do the go from here?: My guess is Jericho/HHH continues. There aren’t too many top card heels to feud H was H WAS the top card heel. Jericho has nothing else to do. Either that, or they resusitate the older HHH/Angle issues. And there’s always the Undertaker.

In my opinion, it was a three/five star show. Nothing special happened to give it that “Wrestlemania” feel. The only thing close was the Rock/Hogan stuff and, in the bigger picture, it didn’t make any sense. There’s no reason to turn the nWo on themselves already.

I said back when they were getting ready to start the nWo feud that I didn’t hold many hopes of them not screwing it up and, if they’re planning on splitting them up already, they seem to be well on their way to doing that. Christ, I thought toward the end of Rock/Hogan that ROCK might even be making the big turn to the nWo but not to be. They didn’t use Michaels, who would have added something to the show. Nothing shocking happened which is why when my girlfriend asks me “why do you bother with PPVs?” I’m starting to have less of an answer.

See where they go come Raw but like I said it seems like THEY don’t even know what direction they want to go in but they seem to be pretty sure it involves Steph.

End Transmission