Hello everyone, and welcome to the latest installment of the No Chance column. It’s been a full week these past seven days what with WrestleMania and a rather full Raw episode, so lets jump right in and start picking everything apart.
Now, WrestleMania has been thoroughly discussed over the past few days, and for the most part I’m going to try and avoid going over topics that have been covered a dozen times already, but lets start at the top shall we?
Edge and Albert:
After having correctly predicted every single match for the past two PPV, my perfect year came to a crashing halt right at the start of WrestleMania, with this match. Even so, I’m not terribly saddened by this win as I think Edge can still get some use out of being champion. As long as both wrestlers decide to move on to new rivalries at this point, then no great loss has happened. The Match itself was solid, though I wish the support teams (Christian and Brodus) hadn’t come out. At least at WrestleMania, I want to see a mach where I don’t have to keep one eye on those standing ringside. Also, right after the match, as the camera was showing crowd reactions, there was a kid in the front that was very clearly wearing a red John Cena shirt and hat. Hope Cena’s color change wasn’t supposed to be too much of a surprise.
Other Smackdown Matches:
Anybody else notice that all the Smackdown matches went first and then all the Raw matches? Just the next step in making sure that Smackdown will always be second to Raw I suppose. However, in conjuncture with the idea that the earlier matches were the stronger of the evening, it seems to me that the Smackdown wrestlers, fought like it was WrestleMania, if we don’t include the tag team debacle of the evening.
Old King/Cole match:
And so my worst fears were proven correct. All the fantastic buildup in the world can’t guarantee a great match, and the Old King/Cole match can be labeled at Exhibit A. While there were some highlights in the match, Cole’s face smashed against the Cole mine, and most anything that Stone Cold did, the downfall of the match was that it quite simply went on too long. What should have been the shortest match of the night, ended up being the third longest, and I can’t begin to say how much of it was unnecessary. To make maters worse, reversing the call at the end of the match not only continued to wreck my predictions card, but also indicated that this feud might not be over yet.
HHH vs. Undertaker:
Man, did it feel good to see Triple H back in the ring again. I’ve always enjoyed watching his matches, but I’m surprised how much I’ve missed him over the past several months. I’m going to go ahead and say that this was my favorite match of the night. Sure, the Orton and Punk match was probably better, but the nostalgia in seeing these two in the ring, fighting each other no less, means that I enjoyed this one the most. Undertaker also looked great, and I couldn’t help but echo the feelings that were going across Triple H’s face when Taker kicked out of the Tombstone.
The Main Event:
Now I know that we are all disappointed with the last match. What I have to say though is that I went from excitement to dread throughout the night as the Main event drew closer. Remember in month three or four of the Nexus invasion where they would interrupt the main event every week? And it got to the point where you didn’t even care about the match because you knew it was just going to get interrupted? Well that’s how this year’s WrestleMania ended. We knew that the Rock was going to do something. And as exciting of an idea as that was, it also meant that the whole match was simply a waiting game until the Rock actually came out. But even then, the whole match still felt somewhat disappointing. I know that WWE storylines are supposed to be ongoing, and they need to get us to tune into Raw the next night, but if there’s anything that qualifies as a season finale in WWE, then WrestleMania is it. And sometimes that ending needs to be there.
If you want more WrestleMania discussions be sure and check out The Rager, by Chris Sanders or The Stomping Ground, by Mike Gojira.
Now onto Raw:
New Wrestlers section:
Evan Bourne made an appearance on Monday, and while I was glad to get a chance to watch him again, I really couldn’t bring myself to get my hopes up. While I would love to see a mid-card run for the guy, it seems that at this point, his job is just to show up once a month and lose to make someone else look good.
Another new face was Sin Cara who finally showed up after what felt like endless promos. In fact, after all of that buildup, I’m a little surprised that he didn’t descend to the ring on a cloud. It looks like he will be a new rival for Sheamus, but where does that leave Daniel Bryan? Without his title anymore, Bryan will need to be careful, or else he may end up being the next Evan Bourne.
Tough Enough:
The Tough Enough contestants came out to the ring for a quick wave to promote their show. The first episode was fairly entertaining and I’ll probably keep watching it. (I’m usually channel flipping, and waiting for Raw to start at that time anyway) However, I couldn’t help but notice that because Raw is shot live, at least one of those contestants, if not more, has already been eliminated, and had to come back to stand in the ring anyway. Bummer for them.
The Main Event:
So a lot of talking happened at the end of Raw this week, (and some completely pointless fighting with the Corre, but lets push past that) and what it all amounted to was that The Rock and John Cena are going to fight next year at WrestleMania XXVIII. My first reaction was one of excitement, I mean who wouldn’t want to see this match? My next reaction was one of betrayal, because I had just paid 55 bucks the night before to watch Cena fight The Rock. I know that it wasn’t officially on the card, but six weeks of teasing suggested that something was going to happen in the ring. Something more than just a single attack at the end of the night.
After a few minutes, all of those feelings settled down into a nice mix of feelings. On one hand, I enjoy extended storylines. Far too often the WWE ignores storylines that have happened only a few months earlier. (Kane has had no repercussions for burring The Undertaker, and we still don’t know how Vince got out of the coma in time to introduce The Rock) Extended call backs, like the one that fueled the current Punk and Orton rivalry, are few and far between.  Now here, WWE is about to set up a storyline that will take an entire year to tell.
However, on the other hand, a year is a long time, especially in the WWE. Take a look back at what has happened in the past year. Miz went from a joke, to WWE champion. Alberto Del Rio, who didn’t even exist this time last year, is now capable of being a number one contender at WrestleMania. In the past year the entire Nexus storyline has happened, including Cena getting both fired and re-hired. How will the following year of storylines be affected if we already know what Cena’s WrestleMania match is going to be? The Rock won’t stay around for the next year, so what does Cena do until next WrestleMania? Twiddle his thumbs? Any other rivalry that he may have in the next year already has an end date attached to it. WWE has written themselves into an interesting position, and while I won’t call it a corner just yet, I do hope that they are aware of the potentials and know what they are doing.
Unrelated side thought of the evening:
So what exactly does one have to do to get a match at WrestleMania? The Rock and Cena already have a match for next year that they got by simply shaking hands. Nobody had to ask the GM or Vince, it was just on the books. Lawler talked about never getting the opportunity to fight at WrestleMania until this year where he issued a WrestleMania Challenge? Is that all it takes? If so, I would just issue a WrestleMania Challenge against Zack Ryder for the next eighteen years until I have my own WrestleMania Streak.
This was No Chance: The Extended edition. For those that saw WrestleMania and/or Raw this week, what did you think about the above topics? How about topics I didn’t touch on? How about topics about anything in the world? Leave those thoughts in the comments below.
