There was a lot of other stuff going on Sunday
This past Sunday was truly a day to behold. At the top of the proverbial food chain was Wrestlemania XXV, the event that could outshine all of the other shows that day even if it was shitty. The 25th anniversary of Wrestlemania won’t rank in the top five Mania shows ever, but was a good show overall with a great and at times intriguing crowd. The say saw MMA both in Japan and the U.S. as well as several big wrestling shows including TNA making another Sumo Hall appearance with Kurt Angle’s IWGP title challenge (unsuccessful) and Sabin & Shelley’s defense of the IWGP junior tag titles (successful). DREAM held their eighth show with several hair-raising results and WEC 41 saw Miguel Torres shine in a way rarely seen. There will be several more instances of this kind of variety of shows all taking place on the same day, but with Wrestlemania being at the forefront of such a day, it does stand out from the rest.
P.C. Says: Wrestlemania came out the best on this day
There is no doubting that Vince is still at the top of the mountain. Another fantastic wide shot of a packed stadium for Mania is all the proof you should need for that, but the fact that the aura that is Wrestlemania still means something by helping to transform the most mediocre looking card in years into something that did feel special and still had that over-the-top pageantry that we know Wrestlemania to be.
The card itself wasn’t too bad with Money in the Bank providing what it always does: incredibly dangerous and cool looking spots mixed with a lot of ladders being used as weapons. Hornswoggle’s frog splash off of Mark Henry and Shelton’s near disaster outside the ring off of the big ladder were the spots of the match. Kofi Kingston and Shelton were the best performers in the match, but Cage and Punk weren’t too far behind. My main beef with the match is that Cage winning after repositioning the ladder while on the ropes was the better finish, plus Cage was my pick going in, so there’s that as well. They took the easy way out with Mysterio/JBL as the idea of JBL pounding Mysterio for 10 or 15 minutes wasn’t the worst I’ve heard for a JBL match, but this—mixed with Mysterio’s transformation into a mini Heath Ledger—was the way to give Rey the Wrestlemania moment he only got with his title win in ’06, a match and moment that had its own taint to it. Taker/Michaels was good, but match of the year talk has to stop right here and now. This match did everything right for the first ten minutes or so, but when both decided to go high risk is when it started to crumble as several noticeable fuck-ups took it down a peg. Overall though it was the showstealer, something Vince was probably banking on. Cena gets the big Wrestlemania into for the fourth year in a row as his evil army of clones was quite the visual and then gets the title in what was the better decision as Show winning would’ve been a letdown despite how effective he was booked to look in the build to this fight. I’m a bit pissed the tag title unification got shafted, but it doesn’t surprise me considering this promotion’s position on tag wrestling these days. It’s just sad since these two teams were getting into a nice groove over the past month in the ring, so I figured they had earned it. Overall the show turned out to be inoffensive, but wasn’t in the top five of all time, which in case you’re wondering for me goes (in order) X-7, X, XX, VIII, III.
New Japan had the other big wrestling show of the day with their second trip to Sumo Hall headlined by Hiroshi Tanahashi successfully defending his IWGP title against Kurt Angle allowing many to breath a sigh of relief. This looks to be the likely best show of this wild Sunday as the matches that didn’t need to be given a lot of time weren’t, Nagata/Iizuka were given the most time to vent their hatred, and every other important match was given around an equal amount of time with that being around the fifteen minute. As far as Tanahashi/Angle goes, giving it 15:11 was the smart call as that is a few minutes short of the time Angle works best in for singles matches these days, but it also necessitated a quicker pace so as to get everything in, something that guaranteed entertainment over quality, but left the quality department open participants considered. Sabin & Shelley successfully defending their belts all but guarantees that both IWGP tag titles will be defended on a TNA PPV, something I will give Russo and Jarrett credit for. Having Goto win the New Japan Cup was New Japan booking themselves into a corner, especially with Tanahashi/Iizuka now looking like a decent choice for a future Sumo Hall main-event considering Iizuka’s streak of not getting pinned (yeah he’s gotten DQ’d a bunch of times, but people won’t care or remember about that during the build) and the fact that he has really grown into that heel role as of late.
WEC enjoyed another solid event with their WEC 41 show Sunday night. The show was headlined by Miguel Torres successfully defending his Bantamweight title going the distance against Takeya Mizugaki in a fight that Torres did not dominate and in fact received a test going the distance for the first time in around four year and in only the seventh fight of his career to go to decision. Joseph Benavidez became real on this night with a decision win over Jeff Curran giving the 10-0 Benavidez the biggest win of his brief career and with that being his second win in as many fights in WEC, a guaranteed extended stay.
DREAM’s eighth show was one that I figured should’ve been in Saitama since it had much more star power than the featherweight grand prix (no offence of the featherweights). That being said, the card was a mixed batch with Katsuhiko Nagata, brother of Yuji Nagata, giving the brave performance of the day forcing doctors to stop his bout with Vitor Ribeiro due to blood loss after Nagata took some nice punishment for most of the seven and a half minute fight. As in most of DREAM’s tournaments, there were plenty of fights that went to decision, but the two most shocking decisions came in non-tourney fights. First, leading off the show itself was on and off pro wrestler Katsuyori Shibata upsetting Ikuhisa Minowa who has gone completely off the charts with erratic performances in the last two years. The second shocking decision saw Murilo “Ninja†Rua lose his return fight in Japan to Riki Fukuda, a DEEP veteran making the most of his first taste of the big time. The other noteworthy things worth mentioning was quick finishes killing the two fights likely to be the best on the card: Monson/Kharitonov & Aoki/Sakurai. With Monson on the warpath in the Indy’s as of late, his 102 second win over Kharitonov being his third win in two weeks (that’s right) and sixth straight since losing to Josh Barnett in WVR last summer. Is he a potential Fedor opponent, being American and all? No, simply from a marketing standpoint at this moment. However, he’s in the conversation since heavyweight opponents from America that aren’t in UFC or out of Affliction’s reach is becoming thinner and thinner. Hayato “Mach†Sakurai added one to the highlight reel and probably gave his career its defining moment by going absolutely crazy on Shinya Aoki gaining a ref stoppage after 27 seconds of knees and strikes after getting Aoki to the ground right away. Usually the ground is Aoki’s specialty being a submission whiz kid and all, but Sakurai was not to be denied and Aoki once again has momentum cut off at the knees.
To end this day, I’m heading back to pro wrestling as All-Japan began their annual Champions Carnival tournament with a Korakuen Hall show that did feature quite the lineup. Keiji Muto got his win back against Yoshihiro Takayama just weeks after Takayama won the Triple Crown from Muta in a long singles match for these two, but if Muto still has some of his 2008 motivation in the tank, it couldn’t have been too bad. Satoshi Kojima upended Suwama and Taiyo Kea beat his tag partner Minoru Suzuki with their regular finishing moves (Lariat and TKO34th respectively). The other noteworthy result was Kaz Hayashi getting an early win over Joe Doering in what some would call an upset considering how All Japan has been subtly pushing Doering starting at the end of 2007 and the fact that juniors don’t beat heavyweights in singles matches too often no matter the circumstances. Overall, a decent start to a wildcard of a tournament.
The Reality is…there will be more important days featuring promotion after promotion running shows (MMA or wrestling) on the same day. The stakes will be higher within the shows and the matches will be bigger. And with Wrestlemania only being a worthy effort this year instead of something bigger or more historically relevant, this show and this day incidentally will only be a footnote in the history books thanks to the fact that Mania took place during the day. Sticking with Mania—despite New Japan likely having the better overall show—I would like to make clear that Austin was the moment of the day for me. I’m not always a fan of nostalgia, but with a 25th anniversary show, nostalgia gets a carte blanche pass in my book. And with Austin being the biggest moneymaker in recent wrestling history, and helped to make Wrestlemania what it is both in name and importance, having the focus of set nostalgia be him is just fine by me; it wasn’t any kind of time portal experience or anything like that. But to see Austin being Austin not as someone embarrassing himself by hanging on, tainting his legacy little by little, was nice because it was after a multi-year absence of his presence on T.V. that made it ok this time. It was Wrestlemania, he’s Austin, he just got inducted into the hall of fame the night before so it isn’t taking up show time like Hogan’s appearance in a segment with Muhammad Hassan at 21, and it was just plain fun without trying to be anything else. I’ve got no problem with that and since Austin’s opinion on his last match—it should be good and not just for the sake of entering a ring one more time—has been known prior to Mania, I’m glad he actually did something besides standing there with the other inductees. Something would’ve seemed missing had he not done something.
PLUGS
Since they put on the big show check out all the doings in The E on WWE.com.
All World Extreme Cagefighting info and news.
The wikipedia page for DREAM.
This week’s “FUCK YOU!†goes to:
MICKEY ROURKE’S WRESTLEMANIA APPEARANCE
While Austin not getting into the ring this year is something I not only accept, but also admire in a way, Mickey Rourke appearing at Mania, but not wrestling is something I can’t. The main problem was that having Rourke announced for Mania any earlier than the Oscars might hurt his chances. But after he didn’t win, why not make the match happen by any means Vince? This year’s Mania had no mainsteam substance of any kind and with Austin opting out of a potential match, that drawing card was out the window. This might be something people will chalk up as an oversight and not much else, but I think it calls Vince’s negotiating abilities and/or his motivation for this year’s show. In everything—the build, the card, etc.—there seemed to be something lacking, it might have just been a feeling, but it was there up until Sunday. I’m not going to go into a long rant about this because I understand the public at large will get more out of a quickie appearance where him and Flair get to be in the ring together and he got to nail Jericho like everyone wanted to see, but I do believe it would’ve been a Wrestlemania moment and trippy as hell to see Jericho and Randy “The Ram†Robinson (Rourke’s character in “The Wrestler†for those who don’t know) have a singles match at the biggest show of the year.
