2010 Pro Wrestling Thread

They had the Taker jump over the rope moment, but HBK countered it when he rolled back into the ring just before Taker made his leap.

Last year's match was a 9.5-9.9. This year was a 10, no doubt about it.

 

Yeah, I did like that. It showed pretty early that they weren't going to do the exact same match. And HBK's moonsault later on served as the "Holy shit!" moment of the match that Taker's dive was last year.

 

If Undertaker's knee wasn't legitimately hurt, that was one of the great selling jobs in wrestling history. He was hobbling around way, way too much for it to just be part of telling the story of the match, and he seemed legitimately pissed that it was acting up on him at times.

I was surprised that they actually had the balls to go out and try to play it straight and top last year's match. Unlike a lot of you, I didn't think it surpassed last year's, but that would've been just about impossible to do. Undertaker spent so much of the match favoring his leg that it made a lot of his offense less convincing, although that final tombstone was nasty.

 

The tombstone on the outside was pretty bad, too. I hated when the trainer came out to check to see if HBK was bleeding or hurt, but loved it when Taker tossed him aside.

 

I was about 50-50 on Wrestlemania. HBK-Taker was awesome and sets up what should be a touching Raw tonight with Michaels' farewell. Swagger winning MITB was a swerve I didn't see coming (and that I love with him being an OU guy), but I wonder if he'll be the first winner to lose when he cashes in. Edge-Jericho was great. (Did Undertake ever get his rematch againt Jericho?) I wasn't huge on McMahon-Hart, but it at least sets up a possible angle that could get the Hart Dynasty a push if they have McMahon seek his revenge against them.

Outside of that, though, Punk-Mysterio should've been better. Sheamus-Triple H was OK but not a Wrestlemania-level match; and Orton-DiBiase-Rhodes was disappointing. I could've skipped the tag title and Divas match.

Call it overbooking, but I call it plain bad booking. They could've done better matches that would've been interesting in place of some of those and the card would've been much better. Of course, when you're topping it with Taker-HBK and it goes off like it did, the rest of the card can suffer a little and you still have a great PPV.

 

How was MITB? Big spots?

I had a lady friend over and was watching Life on Discovery, so I missed everything. It sucks because I try to catch WM every year, regardless of how little I watch wrestling anymore.

 

Tag team title was about as perfunctory and simple as you'd expect from a match with pretty mediocre build-up. I love Miz and was glad to see him win.

MITB was a little crowded, and nothing particularly special happened, but that's relatively speaking because it's such an awesome match no matter what. You know what you are getting going in (lots of guys getting knocked off ladders, Evan Bourne doing the one good thing he does from even higher than normal, etc.) and it doesn't disappoint. But Jack Swagger winning? Where the heck did that come from? He was on my list of "no chance of winning" going into the match. And sheesh, dude, take a little longer getting the briefcase down.

I didn't like Bret Hart when he was in his prime, I don't like seeing old guys come back for slow, boring matches, I don't like seeing McMahon get in the ring, and they couldn't have made the "Hart family double-cross" come across more awkwardly if they tried.

Please, please let HHH winning mean Sheamus is going away, or at least going far down the card, for a long time.

Jericho won? Really? I'm glad, but that's almost as surprising to me as Swagger. Awesome, imo.

Divas - Don't care in general, and I doubly don't care when they keep thinking that the screechy woman makes some sort of interesting character. I don't hate her in the sense of wanting to see her get her comeuppance. I just make sure to time my bathroom breaks for when that kind of person is onscreen. Plus, I think they completely abandoned tag rules for most of that match.

Cena won. Big shock. Still liked it though, because I'm shameless in my easily manipulated fandom of his.

Undertaker and Michaels provided quite a few awesome moments. The end when Michaels did the throat-cross gesture was pretty cool, and if that's not a real retirement then good for them for being so convincing.

Orton v. Legacy had to happen and it had to happen the way it happened. But still, be a little more obvious, guys.

Punk v. Mysterio. Blech, didn't care. Kinda thought Punk might win and own Mysterio for awhile.


Plus, maybe I'm just expecting too much from the first time I watched a full Wrestlemania, but tighten it up guys. Swagger took forever to get the briefcase down. Jericho looked like he barely touched Edge with the belt. A couple guys tried to make their moves look even bigger than normal and just looked like they whiffed (One of Cena's attitude adjusters, HHH's pedigree).

 

There was some shaky camera work, too. During MITB they went to the "Phoenix Open Drunk Cam" where it was either a camera guy climbing onto the ring apron or just not ready for a shot. Either way, it was two or three seconds of a ring rope, somebody's shirt and the floor.
During HBK-Taker, they had another glitch where people were shuffling around to get out of the way right before HBK's moonsault. Someone stepped in front of the cameraman and they damn near missed the shot. You could actually hear someone yell "Move!"

 

That was hilarious. It happened quickly, but I think I saw someone's hand come up to grab the guy and pull him out of the way.

 

That was what I liked about the finish. Just the sheer rage from Undertaker after Shawn slapped him. Plus, you don't see the much more dangerous jumping piledriver anymore. It made for little doubt about whether HBK was kicking out of this one.

 

If this was indeed Shawn's last match I think it was one hell of a match to go out with. We had classic HBK with the moonsault, he hit a couple of finishers and damn near won the thing. And then he slaps Taker, another classic HBK moment, refusing to give up.
And like you said Batman, the driving piledriver left little doubt. Good to see it wasn't some lame attempt at it. Just a solid match all the way around. Matches are like that are why I watch wrestling.

 

Big fan of Swagger's, and I'm glad they're finally giving him a push. I just hope it doesn't end with him being the first to cash in and lose.

That whole family double-cross thing was dumb, but it was clear they weren't going to do anything to cost Bret that match. And it was freaking awesome to see McMahon get an ass whippin' that was 13 years in the making.

We all know that ain't happenin', thanks to Vince's love for big men.

I was hoping Edge would win, but this hopefully keeps that feud going for a while. Those two tell an excellent story when working together, and it showed last night.

Only thing I liked was Vickie's tributes to Eddie. Nobody tagged out of the match, but seeing Vickie point to the sky and do the Eddie shake was pretty great.

I've said all along that if they're going to keep the "spinner" belt, it needs to be on Cena. And his reversal of the Batista bomb to end the match with the STF was just awesome.

The one where Cena threw Batista looked gruesome. I forget how far into the match it was, but I jumped outta my seat when he did that.