It is now hours before WWE kicks off their WrestleMania festivities, and be sure to stay logged onto inside pulse for up-to-the-minute coverage and commentary, including the all-encompassing WrestleMania Roundtable.
Here is a mere snippet of what you can expect to see in the Roundtable from the inside pulse staff:
Jed Shaffer on Piper’s Pit – A psychopathic, drug-addicted habitual hypocrite interviewing an alcoholic, sociopathic, wife beating cretin … Props to Jed for what I consider to be the quote of the day.
With all of that said, here is the real reason why I woke up early this morning to write a column. I always enter WrestleMania weekend with the type of anticipation that is normally reserved for children before they go to sleep on Christmas Eve and baseball fans as they enter their home stadiums on opening day. While Christmas mornings have been kind to me over the years, I can’t really say the same for my New York Mets.
Whatever the case may be, I just wanted to chime in today to offer up my own take on five forgotten reasons to tune it as Vince McMahon and Company storm into Hollywood this weekend:
Chris Biscuiti presents … Five Forgotten Things to Look Forward to at WrestleMania
05. Crowd Signs. The best part about any WWE live event is being able to express yourself as a fan. At last year’s WrestleMania, we did our best in New York City to chant and cheer and scream, and I distinctly remember the thousands of people packing into Madison Square Garden with the same dream: that their rolled up rubber-banded signs would be revealed at the right time for the cameras to catch glances.
04. Howard Finkel saying “Welcome to WrestleManiaaaaa!” He may not be the warrior he once proclaimed to be, but Howard Finkel’s booming voice will forever be synonymous with the grandeur that is WrestleMania. I hope Fink gets dusted off one more time here, for I just don’t feel in my heart of hearts that Lillian Garcia or Tony Schimmel could do the trick.
03. Anything with William Regal backstage. Even if the real man’s man doesn’t get a match this year, you have to admit that he deserves some minutes of backstage airtime. Beginning with his stint as Commissioner, Regal has become one of the funniest wrestlers in the industry, and his facial expressions are right up there with Vince’s these days.
02. The Russian National Anthem. Lost in the uber-hype surrounding Hulk Hogan’s induction into the WWE Hall of Fame and Rowdy Roddy Piper’s interview with Stone Cold Steve Austin is the induction of Nikolai Volkoff into WWE’s wrestling elite. I remember absolutely despising Volkoff as a kid who watched wrestling on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and I always loathed his rendition of the Russian National Anthem. Why? Because I was supposed to. It would be a nice little touch of Volkoff could take the stage and blow our ears off once more, if for no other reason than so we can forget the angle where Nikolai was forced to become the Million Dollar Man’s servant.
01. The Opening Promo. Pre-production is still the area where WWE outshines all other competitors. WCW could never match the intensity and vision behind these vignettes that set the stage for the big pay-per-views, and NWA – for all its scratching and clawing – just can’t match up in this department. Who can forget the insertion of black and white army footage during the Austin-McMahon era, or Classy Freddie Blassie’s appearances on virtually every PPV opener up until his death? Unfortunately, these promos sometimes outdo the actual matches they promote.
Well, here’s to WrestleMania … Peace.
Chris Biscuiti writes exclusively for Inside Pulse.
