I picked up the Wrestlemania XXII DVD because I wanted to see if the show held up for me. See, it’s basically become my favorite Wrestlemania by default, since XX now ends with that crappy Undertaker vs. Kane match, and I want to know if it deserves that place in my personal ‘Mania rankings. Also, I wanted to watch some wrestling tonight without ordering WM XXV Part 2.
That said, I didn’t want to sit through the whole four hour affair tonight, so I went with the lower hanging in the set; the 2006 return of Saturday Night’s Main Event. I was pretty hyped up for this when it happened, despite having no nostalgia for the original (I became a fan the year after it was cancelled). So I can see if this show holds up, too. A WMXXII review will follow soon.
Okay, preamble over. Your hosts are a returning J.R. (he’d been fired from Raw and replaced with the two headed monster of Joey Styles and the Coach months earlier), the King, and Tazz. The show opening introductions from the main stars are a nice touch that they abandonded once they stopped trying with these things. JBL’s My Name Is Earl riff is still awesome years later.
They replaced the original P.O.D. theme song with genericer rock! If I was one of the people on Scott Keith’s blog, I would be so butt hurt!
Opening Match, Raw ‘Mania Main Event vs. Smackdown ‘Mania Main Event- WWE Champion John Cena and Triple H vs. World Champion Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio, and Randy Orton
I always found it funny that they promoted Cena and Michaels vs. Batista and Undertaker at No Way Out the following year as the first time the whole “Raw vs. Smackdown Wrestlemania tag match” gimmick had been done, although given this show’s ratings, I guess I can’t blame them for that bit of reivisionist history.
Triple H was still a heel here, and I was sure he was on his way to ending John Cena’s main event run at ‘Mania. It’s also funny that, despite the fact that the fans turned Angle face while he was feuding with Cena, they still chant “You suck!” in time with his music.
The two feuds here are the Hs vs. Cena and Rey, in the middle of his Eddiesloitation fueled push, and Orton, who was destined to win the title before his attitude problems saw him job out to his tag partners. Thankfully, WWE maintained their tough love with him and he’s only main evented two Wrestlemanias since then. Angle’s just there filling in for an injured Batista in what was his last title reign in WWE.
Orton and Cena start back when that was still a match they hadn’t pulled the trigger on (to be fair, they still haven’t run it in to the ground), but Angle quickly gets a blind tag to renew hostilities with Cena. He suplexes him around the ring like he was Jay Lethal. Triple H comes in and also takes some suplexes, including the Germans that are really hard to watch now.
Rey tags in and gets some near offense on Triple H, looking roughly 1000x smoother than he does today. The Hs has had enough of this whole selling for Mysterio thing (to be fair, Mysterio did eliminate him from the Rumble that year) and goes to the eyes. Cena tags in for a match up we haven’t seen in WWE much, and we get our first “Cena sucks!” chant. Rey dominates, but Triple H saves him from a 619 attempt and hits a lariat to take over, which leads us to the break.
We don’t get the uncut show here, which kind of sucks, as we return with Rey bumping for the Hs. Cena refuses a tag, which seems weird, as Triple H wasn’t asking him to do anything heelish, although he apparently did during the commercial. No replay, we just have to take J.R.’s word for it. Triple H gets his Double A spinebuster (vintage J.R.!), but Angle saves.
Triple H goes to the sleeper, but Rey fights out, and we get hot tags to Cena and Orton. Cena wins that exchange and gets the FU, but Triple H breaks up the cover and Pedigrees him. Orton is cool with the assist from the man he’s planning to destroy piece by piece in about three years or so and pins Cena, but Rey won’t let him take it. Hs doesn’t like that and returns to Pedigree Rey. Angle dumps him in response but walks in to an RKO. Orton looks to RKO everyone who wasn’t in Evolution by hitting one on Cena, but Cena reverses to a roll up for three.
Match rating- **/12. Pretty fun tag match, with all of dysfunctional dynamics. Post match, Cena and Triple H gesture at each other. We just kind of ignore that there are people from Smackdown in there.
And hey, here’s Booker T. and Sharmell are in the locker room with Teddy Long. Were the Main Event Mafia preemptively invading WWE? Booker complains about a knee injury in his usual over the top manner to get out of match with the Boogeyman (can you blame him), then does a Keyser Soze job after he leaves the locker room.
The Cutting Edge, hosted by Edge and Lita’s cleavage. I’ve always found it sad that the one woman they ever got over on her own merits without any McMahon sleeze (remember, Trish was his mistress before she became the best female worker ever) was reduced to becoming a skanky ho. Remember when little girls loved her? They ruined her career with this angle. On the other hand, cleavage!
Anyway, Edge was setting up his awesome match with Mick Foley, a match that I remember many in the IWC were not looking forward to at all (you can replace that match with this show in general, really). To be fair, Foley had just laid a massive egg in his match with Carlitoat Taboo Tuesday, his awesome hardcore match with Orton was two years prior, and Edge had yet to become a full fledged main eventer.
This segment certainly sold me on the match, though, as Edge calls out goofy old Foley for a mercy killing and gets the insane hardcore legend instead. Foley has a bag of tacks with him, so Edge decides to set a table on fire to avoid him.
Unfortunately, a security guy has a fire extinguisher on hand (as they always do), so Edge has to go with plan B and get punched in the face a lot before using irony on Foley to send him in to the tacks. That just amuses psycho Mick (he’s not Cactus Jack without leopard print pants, sorry), who chases Edge down the ramp. They have a chair fight, which Mick wins, sending Lita scurrying. That sets up a Foley conchairto to leave Edge lying. That flaming table wound up being a bit of foreshadowing. Really intense segment.
A video package gives us all we need to know about Vince, Shawn, and their feud, which I actually liked in its early days. At least when it was more about Vince resenting the peace Shawn had with his belief in God and his family and wanting to destroy him for it, and not everything else after their ‘Mania match (and before, when Steph was giving Shawn roofies and what not). Oh, and they were editing out ass in video packages in 2006. That’s weird.
Boogeyman happens to Sharmell and Booker, sending Booker sprinting past Teddy Long in a towel, which is a hilarious visual. Things got better for Booker after this insipid feud ended, if only for a year or so.
JBL vs. Austin: Drinking Contest- JBL’s commitment to getting heat is just awe inspiring. He runs down everything he can think of Detroit related, from their mayor to their sports teams to the auto industry. Then he decides to bad mouth America, going so far as to buy the beer in Canada! Austin’s just cashing a check here, but his interaction with JBL is pretty fun. Too bad they never feuded. If the JBL character had been invented in 1998, he and Austin could have had some great brawls, I bet.
Anyway, JBL is such a heel he tries to cheat in a beer drinking contest, but Austin catches him. JBL throws beer in his face and bails, but Chris Benoit (JBL was feuding with him over the U.S. Title) tosses him back and Austin douses him with all of the spare beers, steals his hat, and hits the obligatory Stunner. Benoit thinks this is hilarious. You know, even before he became the most infamous figure in the history of the business, that grin was creepy. This was a pretty fun if fairly pointless segment you will probably never see on another WWE DVD due to Benoit’s involvement.
Candice admires all of the airbrushing they did to her Playboy cover. That leads to…
Trish Stratus and Mickie James vs. Candice Michelle and Victoria
We get a video package to set up the storyline. Mickie is a crazy fan who’s stalking Trish, and eventually starts coming on to her, in case you forgot. This would be when the Diva Powers exploded! Well, that analogy really doesn’t work, unless there was a lot of homo erotic tension between Hogan and Savage that I missed, but whatever. It was the climax of one of WWE’s best executed storylines in years (and one of the best since), because it built for months and could have gone either way, in that Trish could have been the heel very easily. Also, Mickie totally lezzed out!
Very short match here, with every attempt made to hide future Women’s Champion Candice’s lack of ability at this point (her move set was basically the Go Daddy dance and a leg choke). Trish sells like she’s been in an Iron Man match after like three minutes, but makes her own save off a pretty cool double DDT. She dodges a Victoria clothesline with the Ma-Trish, and seriously, why does no one steal that one? That leads to a Stratusfaction on Victoria (who was well on her way to the jobber to the hotter Divas status she’d hold down until retiring) for three.
Post match, Mickie says goodbye to Trish, who wants her to bug off already. A handshake leads to a kiss attempt and a hug. Trish no sells it, so a spurned Mickie hauls off and Chick Kicks her! A Stratusfaction puts an exclamation point on the heel turn. Another excellent segment.
Match Rating- The match was whatever, * or something, but the post match heel turn/beatdown was tremendous, so let’s add another star and a quarter. **1/4 sounds right, but I may have forgot to carry an *. I’ll get back to you.
Mickie continues to freak out on WWE.com. It’s amazing how she’s absolutely nothing like this anymore.
We get another video package of Mark Henry costing the Undertaker the World Title against Angle and splashing him through a table, leading to Henry and his manager Davari (Sheik Abdul Bashir in TNA today, for new or forgetful fans) calling out the Dead Man. Amazing how Henry never really clicked as a performer until he got Tony Atlas as his manager.
‘Taker’s druids drag a casket out before his entrance. He proceeds to win a slugfest with Henry and destroy Davari with a chokeslam and Tombstone on the casket. End of segment. I don’t know if Henry got his heat back before ‘Mania, but it’s not like anyone bought him as the guy who would end the streak anyway. This wound up leading to Davari bringing the Great Khali in in storyline terms to continue his feud with ‘Taker.
Main Event Street Fight: Shane McMahon vs. Shawn Michaels
This looked to be Shane’s bi-annual match, but he got dragged in to the feud that would not die between his dad and DX and stuck around for months. Shawn gets sick of waiting for Shane to stop his little skippy dance on the ramp and jumps him, beating him down the ramp to ringside. He preps a table, but Shane tosses him in to the post to come back.
Shane retrieves a ladder under the ring and works over Shawn’s back with some backbreakers on the post. He gets Daddy Warbucks to prep another table and set up Shawn on it while he sets up a ladder in the ring. He wants to elbow Shawn through the two tables, but Shawn fights back and ascends the ladder. That eventually leads to the match’s one big spot, Shawn superplexing Shane (and himself) through the table stack. Vince is distraught as the EMTs run in and we head to break. I’m glad we didn’t get to see the stuff they cut this time, actually.
We’re back with Shawn pounding on a dazed Shane. A body slam leads to Shawn climbing the ladder, but a weak Vince kendo stick shot cuts off whatever he had planned (Vince just sort of jabbed him in the back with one hand). That leads to Shane hitting Shane with multiple ladder shots to the back and face for two. So Shane goes to the surfboard to kill some time (or be the first person to get a submission off a surfboard since the Nixon Administration). Shawn fights out, but decides to go after Vince, and walks in to a Floatover DDT from Shane for two. Shane follows up with a chairshot for two, which Vince and one guy in an aisle seat really get a kick out of.
Shane sets up another contrived spot, the Coast 2 Coast (which J.R. actually credits to RVD, calling it Shane’s verision of the Van Terminator). Shawn moves, however, and Vince eats trashcan, presumably because Vince was licking Shawn’s bald spot. Shawn does his finishing sequence, including Sweet Chin Music, but Vince breaks up the pin. Shawn chases Vince again and takes a low blow, and that sets up the Sharpshooter and “ring the fucking damn bell” from Vince and Shane wins via “submission” and hey remember Montreal?
Match Rating- **1/2. This hasn’t aged well due to too many Shane garbage matches recently with Orton and Legacy. Well, that and all of the McMahon/DX garbage matches that year. And it’s a garbage match; at its best it would be good garbage.
Post match, Vince forces Lillian Garcia to make a very unenthused declaration that Shane won by submission, which is a nice touch. And really, this finish fits this feud more than the 1,000,000 other matches they used it in, especially since the feud started with Shawn telling Vince to get over Montreal already. It still harshed my boner for fun for an otherwise good show and acceptable match (I marked out over that table spot pretty hard when this aired).
Final Rating- So, yeah, I still think this is a good show. I don’t remember the IWC caring for it when it aired, and it didn’t do the ratings WWE or NBC wanted, but we got one really good tag match, an okay garbage match diminished by time, a great heel turn, and two excellent segments. I’d call that a win, especially for what became a DVD extra.
As far as the modern SNME goes, they made another go of making the show a big deal that July. While RVD being suspended and forcing a title change on Raw didn’t help ratings, I think it was more that the fans just couldn’t be bothered to care about another WWE show. Superstars seems to be in the same place now. Subsequent SNMEs have just been kind of there, but I thought this one was great at the time, and it’s still a good comeback (well, at least as long as you have nothing of the original show to compare to, and really, I have no interest in the SNME DVD to compare the two).
So, yeah, I’d totally reccomend you watch this DVD extra. I’ll get to the actual four hour show it comes packaged with (including the dark match battle royal) some time soon.
