Wrestlemania XXX Review (or “Nope, That’s Not The Name Of A Porn Film”)

This time last year I sat here and wrote a scathing review of Wrestlemania XXIX.

I don’t often do wrestling reviews, but I was so disillusioned by the poor quality on show that I felt I had to.

Here’s how I summed it up…

As a viewer since 1991, I must admit my interest in the WWE product is at an all time low, and I saw absolutely nothing atWrestleMania 29 to make me feel positive about the weeks and months ahead.

A Great Way To Start The Show

That’s how bad it was.

A lot has happened in the last year though, and since the massive fan backlash at the Royal Rumble, there have been signs of an improving product.

And that leads us to the present and WWE’s latest offering, Wrestlemania XXX (which isn’t a porn film).

WWE Wrestlemania XXX Review

I’ll go through it on a match by match (or segment by segment) basis.

The Hall of Fame Ceremony: Ok, a quick detour first of all to the previous night’s Hall of Fame Ceremony. I can only echo what others have said. In order, in terms of speeches, Lita was incredibly dull, Jake Roberts was just breathtakingly

amazing, Mr T was unintentionally hysterical, Kane’s speech for Paul Bearer was enjoyable, Scott Hall was short, effective and to the point, Carlito was the only amusing bit in an otherwise super-dull Carlos Colon speech, and The Ultimate Warrior was fantastic. I especially loved the way Warrior thanked the people who really helped him in his career rather than the usual suspects. Overall, a great watch.

The Tag Title Fatal Fourway: A decent way to kick things off in the pre-show. The right team won, but it’s a bit odd that Cesaro was the one to take the fall. The split was a sign of things to come,

The Opening Segment: Hogan, Austin and The Rock all in the ring together exchanging barbs to start off with? That’s about as good as it gets. Well, I’d have preferred it if Bret Hart was in there instead of The Rock, giving it the whole “Uh…well…uh…you know…uh….Hogan is a piece of shit” stuff, but hey, you can’t have everything. The Rock doesn’t do much for me, but Austin and his “What” stuff is still gold, and the way they got round Hogan accidentally calling it the Silverdome twice was genius. A great start.

Triple H vs Daniel Bryan: As you would expect, it was a solid match, although Triple H’s entrance was a bit stupid. Stephanie McMahon is a very effective character these days too.

The Shield vs Kane & The New Age Outlaws: Well, it was over with quickly, but then why wouldn’t The Shield make short work of a trio of semi retired older men?

Aaaaaaaaaah!!!!

The Battle Royal: I’m disappointed that were weren’t one or two legends in there, and I don’t really get why they didn’t just announce that the likes of Tyson Kidd and Yoshi Tatsu (can you believe he won the battle royal at Wrestlemania XXVI?!) would be in it in the pre-match graphic, but it was a nice little battle royal. The Kofi Kingston spot was impressive, although he seems to be employed purely for high spots in matches like this. The right man won though in Cesaro, and the sight – and reaction from the crowd – of seeing him slam the Big Show over the top rope was superb.

John Cena vs Bray Wyatt: While I enjoyed it, I feel the match went on just a little bit too long, and I also think the wrong man won. While Wyatt shouldn’t have won cleanly, he still should have emerged the victor. Losing doesn’t do much to help him on the face of it, while Cena losing would have done nothing to his status.

Brock Lesnar vs the Undertaker: Wow. Who the hell saw that one coming? In the pre-determined world of pro-wrestling, very little can shock a viewer as long-term as me. Sure, things can pleasantly surprise me (like the Cesaro victory in the Battle Royal) but not *shock*. This shocked me. And it shocked everyone.

Now sure, all the logic of pro-wrestling said Lesnar should win considering the Undertaker dominated him in the run up to the show, but this is The Undertaker at Wrestlemania. He doesn’t lose. And even though it was quite obvious he was old, run down, not a patch on the guy he was even two years ago and – to be blunt – looked like an old drag queen, and even though he was up against a beast like Brock Lesnar, wrestling logic would not allow anyone to believe the Undertaker wasn’t taking the win.

So I thought that was fantastic – even though the rest of the match was shit – and I loved the crowd reaction. Grown men were crying and some left in disgust, but that’s what wrestling can just so very occasionally do to you. Superb. I would say The Undertaker should now retire, and from listening to what the commentators were saying, I think that might be what happens.

The Divas Match: An absolute mess. To be fair, I’m sure it would be difficult for any male wrestlers to create a good match in similar circumstances, but it still came across as amateur hour. As a fan of Total Divas, my mum wanted to watch this match, but even she could only say “That looked so fake” as all the Divas queued up on the outside for that Bellas plancha spot. The crapness ended when Naomi managed to botch tapping out. *groan*.

Daniel Bryan vs Randy Orton vs Batista: So Daniel Bryan got his happy ending after all. It was a decent match and included a gruesome lookingPowerbomb/RKO spot through a table, and a nice cameo from Triple H & Stephanie, but I

Undertaker lost? This guy can’t believe it either

think most people were still just shocked at Undertaker losing. To give the wrestlers credit, they *almost* had me believing that Batista would win on those two near falls.

Wrestlemania XXX: Final Thoughts

Apart from the Divas, this was a rock solid Wrestlemania for the first time in a long time. Indeed, it’s easily one of the best they’ve ever done.

Without doubt the polar opposite of the abysmal Wrestlemania XXIX.

Storylines were concluded, new superstars were made and there was nostalgia aplenty, but the big story was the Undertaker’s loss.

I just don’t think anyone saw it coming.

Tonight’s Raw should be very interesting.

 

Stuart’s Week in Entertainment – March 26th – April 1st (Wrestlemania XXVIII, The Voice and The Decline of Modern Family)

Today’s article is going to focus exclusively on TV because that’s all I have to report on. But be warned…there are spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn’t watched Wrestlemania yet…

TV – Wrestlemania

So last night it was Wrestlemania XXVIII, the biggest wrestling event of the year. And that means one thing – I’m writing this while completely knackered having only had two hours sleep last night.

But how was the show itself? Any good?

I would say so. The matches ranged from merely ‘alright’ (such as the Cody Rhodes vs Big Show bout) to ‘very good’ (Jericho vs Punk which started slow but finished with a very slick and engaging sequence) to ‘awesome’ (unsurprisingly,

These three men put on one helluva show

that accolade goes to the Undertaker vs Triple H bout).

Even the women’s match was surprisingly good, not least because that poor old Greek women/celebrity guest looked like she was in severe pain, what-with all the genuine injuries she had going into the event.

Not that it was bad, but I must say that I was disappointed by Cena vs The Rock. Maybe it’s because it was nearing 4am and I was struggling to stay awake, but I didn’t think the match lived up to the hype. When the match started off in exactly the same way as Hogan vs the Warrior from WMVI and Hogan vs Rock from WM18 I knew exactly how the general sequence of the match would go. Having said that, I was surprised to see Cena lose. It didn’t make sense to me that the Rock – who won’t be hanging around as a regular member of the WWE roster – would beat the man who the company rely upon. But maybe Cena losing opens up the potential for some different storylines for him in the future, rather than just settling back in to feuding with the likes of Alberto del Rio and Mark Henry ad infinitum.

The other thing that initially stunned me as well was the brevity of the Daniel Bryan vs Sheamus match. I felt Bryan should win this one to continue his grating Honky Tonk Man-esque title reign, but maybe the suddenness of the loss – as well as the way you know he’ll blame AJ – allows for some more development. One thing’s for sure though – they need to keep going with Bryan’s character because it is winning over the crowd brilliantly.

And then there’s the Paddy Power-sponsored, Coupon Buster match. I had three different accumulator bets on for the show last night (and as an aside, isn’t it great that you can bet on pre-determined ‘sport’), one of which could have won me £645 off a £12 stake. I accepted when making the bets that the World Title matches could have gone either way and there was an outside chance that The Rock might beat Cena, but I – and I’m sure many others – had it as a stick-on for Randy Orton to beat Kane.

But he didn’t. And with that loss went hundreds – if not thousands – of betting slips across the country.

Paddy Power will be laughing all the way to the bank today,

To go back to it though, I have to extol the virtues of the Hell in the Cell match between the Undertaker and Triple H. For me, wrestling can be superb when the wrestlers involved tell a story. People of a certain vintage will remember classic matches like Randy Savage vs the Ultimate Warrior not for the moves the guys did in the ring but rather with how they sold the storyline they were going for. It’s the very same reason why the film Warrior is so much better than anything you’ll ever see in UFC.

Last night both men – as well as special guest referee Shawn Michaels – told their story – that of Triple H trying to end The Undertaker’s winning streak having come so close the year before – with aplomb. There were no fancy moves, no dangerous high-spots involving either men bring thrown off the cage or anything of the sort. Instead it was a brutal match that was all about how one man wanted to beat the other. It was gripping – so much so that just once or twice the logic centres in your brain switched off and you believed that the Undertaker might actually lose – it was well paced and it was executed to perfection.

And what’s saddest of all is that there are no other wrestlers in WWE today who would be capable of pulling out that same level of performance tonight, tomorrow or six months down the line.

The Voice

Moving on from Wrestlemania, and I’d like to briefly discuss The Voice. I didn’t catch it the first week it was on, but having read about it I gave it a shot and was pleasantly surprised. There didn’t seem to be any Cowell-esque sob stories and the format was different, which I thought was key. Also, it’s good to see judges who are actually qualified to judge.

It’s all very BBC though isn’t it.

Modern Family

To finish today’s article, I feel I must express my disappointment at the sharp dip in quality of recent episodes of the once hilarious sitcom Modern Family. A sure sign that a show isn’t what it once was is when I’m not fussed about new episodes the day after they are on in the States, and I’ve barely seen any of the episodes transmitted this year.

Last week though I watched two in succession; one where Phil finds out Haley has lost her virginity and another where Claire drunkenly offers to carry Cam’s baby.

Neither were even remotely funny.

The biggest problem with Modern Family is usually Luke – a poorly written, poorly acted and fundamentally unfunny character who has begun to receive an increasingly large amount of screen time. The scene in one of the episodes where

Julie Bowen off Modern Family - needs to wear more clothes and have a good meal. Jeeeeeeeesus.

he and Manny drive a car to impress a girl was the worst thing the show has ever done; not even remotely believable or humorous.

But the other problem creeping in to the show – and threatening to ruin it – is that now ALL the characters are becoming stale parodies of what they once were. We get it; Manny is an old man trapped in a child’s body, but there’s a limit to how many ways you can make that character trait – which is all Manny really is – find new ground. Similarly we now know that Claire (played by the increasingly thin and sinewy looking Julie Bowen – a woman who would be considered as looking like the poster-girl for anorexia were it not for her boob job) is up-tight and competitive, Phil is naive and goofy, Cam is flamboyant, Jay despairs of Gloria’s loudness and so on and so forth.

It’s looking increasingly like the show is going to go stale, and that’s a pity because a couple of years ago it was probably the funniest show to come out of the States.

If anything changes I’ll let you know.