Last night was WrestleMania XX, the culmination of 20 years of wrestling, the finale of many of the year’s stories, and most importantly according to the tag-line “Where it all begins again”.The good news; I have newfound respect for the GameCube and the goodness which is MarioKart…what a fun little game…and I realized that Jeff and I are the two most competitive dicks when it comes to each other…neither one of us cared if we came in first, as long as we beat the other one. If it wasn’t so funny, it would be sad.
I also won the WrestleMania pool with an amazing 6-4 upset victories over the cards of Jeff, Erz, Larry, and Josh (who won the stellar “bacon” prize “Exist 2 Inspire”, the Hardy Boyz Auto Biography).
The show could have been amazing, but the tag matches, which looked weak on paper, and the absolute black-hole of all that is good in the world, Brock Lesnar vs Goldberg, sucked everything good out of the evening…even retroactively! It was like “Okay, this PPV is not too bad, there’s been some good (Cena getting the US title even though the match was weak), some bad (the RAW tag match), some great (Foley doing a clean job to Orton out of nowhere), and some amazing (Christian vs Jericho with a heel turn by Trish).”
Then Brock Lesnar and Goldberg got in the ring. Suddenly all of the good from the previous 2 hours vanished, sucked up by the pure evil and awfulness that was Brock/Goldberg. It was slow…it was plodding, and it took them 5 minutes to actually put on a freaking HEADLOCK! It sucked. It was like neither man wanted to give an inch, neither one of them wanted to be in that ring, and neither one of them wanted to lose to the other. The fans were all over Lesnar, chanting “You sold out” (which is ironic considering that it’s Goldberg who won’t sell out for less money to McMahon), and singing “Naa naa naa naa good-bye”. The suck was so bad that it clouded up the entire arena, stopping the people from seeing the goodness that was the Angle/Guerrero match.
The suck continued with the UnderSeller coming out in his new personae of “The American Half-Ass”, his American Bad Ass personae with a cowboy hat and the purple lights…ooooooh. They could have done SO much with this…the crowd WANTED this to be cool…I wanted this to be cool. The match could have sucked to high heaven, but if they had done his intro right, all would be well. Instead he comes out all tanned (because there’s a lot of sun when you’re dead), looking healthier than Kane, and wearing a singlet and leather pants! WHAT THE?!?
This, from my TSN.ca column is how I thought he should have entered;
“That creepy video package starts playing, the blue lights hit the ring, and a lightning bolt hits the TitanTron. The static image of the creepy kids playing is on the screen, and a shilloutte of the old school Undertaker (hat, and ripped short sleeved shirt) appears, small at first, but getting bigger, walking towards the crowd on the screen. Another lighting bolt, and Paul Bearer appears out of smoke below the TitanTron, urn in hand. The figure on the screen continues to walk towards the screen, and then stops. It’s hand reaches out, and the Undertaker’s hand appears through the screen. Next his foot, then he steps through the screen (tissue paper on the front of the screen with front projection, rear projection behind it).”
Instead we get The UnderSeller at the top of the ramp, with the druids carrying torches dripping with fire.
Kane’s entrance saw the entire set (which was made up of tons of video screens depicting the city of New York) change from regular buildings to buildings on fire. It was one of the coolest entrances I’ve ever seen…and way cooler than the Undertaker’s.
I have to say that everyone in the room was into the Triple Threat match with Hunter, Shawn and Chris Benoit. Triple H tapping out in the middle of the ring at the end of the match was just icing on the cake, and it made everything better.
Thanks to Larry for yet another awesome meal (short ribs and rice), and to the rest of the boys for their money. I’ll spend it on a clue for whoever came up with the UnderSeller’s entrance!