Binge Sports: Wrestlemania Recap

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know you’re probably sick of me and my wrestling by now, but with the good response I’ve gotten from the preview article on Saturday and the podcast on Sunday, I figured I’d go for the trifecta. So with that being said, welcome back to Binge Sports and our coverage of the “showcase of the immortals”, Wrestlemania.

First off, let me touch on the Hall of Fame ceremony that happened on Saturday night. Overall, it was a decent show, but it ran really long. There were a few of the speeches that didn’t really interest me, but the ones that were good were really good. By the way, I think The Bushwhackers are still talking. Good lord, that was way too long and terrible. But here’s a few of the highlights.

Alundra Blayze was amazing. She told some great stories and still has a ton of charisma. And yes, she did get to the controversial trashing of the Women’s Championship from twenty years ago. It was nice to see her make light of the situation, and it’s nice to see that it can be put to rest. Certainly one of the best speeches of the night. Her intro from Natalya was pretty solid as well.

Shawn Michaels introduction was pretty solid. Probably his best line was saying that he actually needed a bodyguard because nobody in the back really liked him. I was waiting for the director to move right to a shot of Bret Hart, but it didn’t. Too obvious, I guess. Pretty good stuff as usual from HBK, but then we were on to the man being inducted. “Big Daddy Cool”. “Big Sexy”. Whichever nickname you feel like using today.

Kevin Nash’s speech was pretty solid. This was a guy whose career I’ve been able to watch from start to finish, so hearing some of the stories was pretty cool. And who knew he’s been married for 27 years? Very nice comments about keeping his wife away from the business. All in all, it was a pretty good close to the ceremony.

And, of course, the obligatory picture of The Kliq. Sure, they’re all friends on Saturday night.

Watching Hulk Hogan induct Randy “Macho Man” Savage into the HOF was a very cool thing for me. These were the two guys when I was a kid that really brought me into wrestling. Whether they were friends or enemies (on the show or in real life), there’s no denying that these two will be linked to one another forever. Pretty good speech by the Hulkster.

Call him “The Genius”. Call him “Leapin’ Lanny”. Call him whatever you want, but Lanny Poffo still knows how to work that microphone. As I was hoping and praying for, he went right into character for a little bit and read some poetry he’d written about his brother. While I obviously still wish that they had inducted Savage before he died (just to hear that speech), I suppose we got the next best thing. But none of those moments could even come close to this….

The first ever Warrior Award was given out on Saturday night and it was absolutely amazing. The Ultimate Warrior’s widow, Dana Warrior (yes, that’s her actual name) came out first and talked about the legacy of her late husband, who died just a few days after Wrestlemania last year. That whole situation is still really creepy, but her speech was solid and her offer to run the ramp and shake the ropes if people could raise one million dollars for Connor’s Cure was pretty cool. Especially when she brought up who she wanted her opponent to be, “brother”. Obviously a jab at Hogan, but it came off pretty funny. From there, we were treated to a wonderful speech by Connor’s hero.

Daniel Bryan owned that crowd on Saturday night. Listening to him talk about Connor and all of the fun he had with the wrestlers was truly great, especially the story of Connor punching Triple H in the face. It was just awesome. He laughed. He cried. I laughed. I cried. You wouldn’t think that things could get any better until he introduced Connor’s father, Steve Michalek.

It was easy to see that he was nervous, but listening to this father talk about his son and the legacy he’s left behind was truly inspiring. He used so much wrestling vocabulary to relate to these guys, and the audience as well. He talked about how Connor told him that he was going to be famous one day, and that with this induction, it turned out to be true. From start to finish, the crowd was captivated. Honestly, if you can watch this and not start crying, you probably don’t have a soul. But just when you thought things couldn’t get more emotional than they were already, he brought out Connor’s little brother, Jackson, who only had one thing to say to his brother.

“I love you, Connor.” Oh, I freaking lost it, and I think everybody that was in attendance did as well. There didn’t have to be a ring. There didn’t have to be a match. There didn’t have to be anything else. This was a Wrestlemania moment.

To donate to Connor’s Cure in the fight against pediatric cancer, CLICK HERE.

Before I start tearing up again, let’s get to the action from last night.

The Fatal Four Way tag match went just about how I expected it too. It wasn’t the most fluent match, which is hard with eight guys anyway, but there were some decent spots. As I figured would happen, Tyson Kidd & Cesaro retained the titles, which is the way to go for right now. At some point, as it usually happens, somebody will turn on the other and they’ll split. But for now, they’ve got a good thing going, so we’ll probably see them with the belts for a while.

There’s three stories that came out of the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal. The first one happened about ten seconds in. They’ve officially buried Curtis Axel. They really dropped the ball on this one. Axelmania is so freaking over right now, and they’ve completely embarrassed him in the last seven days. They let a celebrity throw him out of the ring last week, and then he was eliminated from the battle royal by every other superstar within 10 seconds of the match starting. Dreadful. Hopefully, they rectify this on RAW tonight, but I don’t know if Axel can recover from this.

As I predicted, the split between The Miz and Mizdow is now official. Along with Big Show, they were two of the last three in the match. Miz was hoping for some help, but Mizdow had finally had enough and eliminated his boss. It had to happen sometime, so we’ll see when the match between these two officially happens.

I guess I never realized that Big Show had never won a battle royal. Well, you figured he had to get one at some point. Might as well be here. This just gives The Authority something else to brag about on RAW tonight. And there’s plenty more for them to be happy about. I’m okay with this choice. Big Show has always done what’s asked of him, so it’s actually nice to see him get a decent win.

On to the main show.

The ladder match for the Intercontinental Title was pretty solid. It didn’t have as many big spots as maybe we’re used to, but it was still pretty good. In my preview, I said it was one of my two options to open the show, and it was a really good way to get the crowd going. Everybody looked really good in this match, and really helped each other. The picture you see above was one of the spots that almost went bad. They were a lot closer to the ropes than I think they thought they were, but Cody was able to keep his legs in to avoid hitting them, and the spot looked really nice. Ziggler almost got caught in the end as well.

Barrett got some really nice bullhammers in towards the finish. The spot of the match, however, was probably the Ambrose through the ladder on the outside.

As usual, Ambrose had a good overall showing, but the finish went about as I expected it to. Ziggler and Bryan battled at the top of the ladder. I don’t care what you say, the flurry of headbutts was awesome. But in the end, the favorite won.

I think they’re really looking to put the IC title back into play, so putting it on one of the company’s top stars will do that. A program with Bryan and Ziggler or Bryan and Barrett could be really good, so let’s hope they go in that direction. Good match to start.

Randy Orton and Seth Rollins basically came out and said “FOLLOW THAT!” I knew this was going to be a good match, but this was even better than I thought. From start to finish, these guys went all out.

We had some nice false finishes, with Rollins and Orton both kicking out of each other’s finishers (a normal thing for Wrestlemania). I’ve always said that everyone drinks their “Wrestlemania juice” before the show. But this match was really, really good. I know that the storyline is that Rollins is “the future of the WWE”, but it’s actually the truth. This guy can go, and being in the ring with Orton, who still puts on some of the best matches when he feels like it, did nothing but good things for him. But in the end, we were treated to one of the best RKO’s of all freaking time.

If you didn’t see it, spend the ten bucks to watch the replay just for this. Rollins goes for the curb stomp, but Orton lifts, Rollins springboards up, and comes down right into the RKO. It was definitely one of the highlights of the show. The match of the night by far.

HHH v. Sting. If you read the preview, then you know I wasn’t crazy about this match to begin with. But before I get to the match, just let me talk about the entrances. Sting’s was bad, but HHH’s was ten times worse. Come on, man. You’re better than this. I know that the new Terminator flick sponsored the show, but this was absolutely ridiculous. I could go on, but just look at the picture. If I were HHH, the only way I’d have agreed to this is if they let me take one of the robots home. Dreadful.

And then there’s the match itself. Painful. Just plain painful to watch. Sting is 56 and looked every bit of it. I thought HHH might be able to carry him, but this was just not good. And apparently I wasn’t aware that this was a No-DQ match (it wasn’t), but we got run-ins galore anyway. It started with DX.

Okay, sure. Not a bad idea, but it was all leading to this.

The nWo. I know we still see them from time to time, but I still mark out for this. Not sure why they’d be helping Sting, but whatever. We got nWo v. DX. Unfortunately, just like this match, it’s fifteen years too late. But just when you think we couldn’t get anybody else involved….

BAM! Shawn Michaels superkicks Sting to the freaking face. Why the hell not? I’m a Shawn Michaels guy and have never been a Sting guy, so this made me happy.

 

The finish did surprise me. I didn’t think there was any way that HHH would go over, but I’ve been wrong before. With Sting not sticking around, I suppose it’s just another thing for The Authority to brag about. The match was garbage, but the moments afterward (besides the stupid handshake) were pretty cool for nostalgia’s sake.

All of these guys from DX and the nWo in the same ring was awesome. Do you think there was a “we don’t want Waltman, you take him” argument in the back? But honestly, for anyone who watched wrestling in the late 90’s, this was great.

I was really hoping for a little more from the Divas this time around. You had two of the best teaming up against the Bellas, who know how to at least get under your skin. But then AJ spends 3/4 of the match outside on the floor. Paige looked good, but if they want to make something out of this division like they’ve been talking about, we need more than this. Paige and AJ win. Moving on.

Now that’s how you do an entrance. Rusev came in on a freaking tank. Good stuff there.

This match was about as good as it could be. A lot of back and forth between the two. We saw Cena’s usual stuff, but he did add on the back springboard kinda stunner (that’s what I’m calling it), which actually looked decent. I don’t think it’s something he’s going to do every week, but it worked here. Super Cena finally broke out of the Accolade, which led to our finish.

Lana jumps up to distract, gets hit by Rusev (who’s then distracted himself), Cena finishes it and begins a U.S. title reign. I’m sure there are some who say that Cena didn’t need this one, but Rusev didn’t come out of this looking weak. He already beat Cena once. He’ll just blame this on Lana and go back after Cena, which will ultimately lead to a match at Extreme Rules, which could be decent if done right.

Give me anything involving Stephanie and I’m good to go. No, seriously. So when she comes out to announce the attendance of 76,976 people (you couldn’t sell 24 more tickets), I’m okay with just that. But then she goes into how it’s all about….ME! She’s so good at what she does. But then she gets rudely interrupted.

Oh, joy. It’s Dwayne. I’m seriously done with this guy.

But I suppose that once again for nostalgia’s sake, we’ve got The Rock and Triple H at Wrestlemania. Perhaps a hint for things to come next year? But then my girl Stephanie puts him in his place.

She’s so freaking hot. So Rock leaves, but who’s sitting ringside?

It’s Ronda Rousey. For those who don’t know, she’s in UFC and the ultimate badass chick. So she gets in and Stephanie continues her brilliance saying that they’re friends and this and that until we get the inevitable brawl.

There really wasn’t a point to this entire segment, but it was entertaining enough for me. Like I said, I’ll take as much of Stephanie as I can get.

Boring!

Boring!

Bray Wyatt really took care of The Undertaker last night. While ‘Taker certainly looked to be in better shape than he was last year, he’s just not able to go like we all want him to. It’s a shame that this match didn’t happen a year ago when it could have done something for Bray. Instead, we got only one cool moment out of this match.

Bray Wyatt made this entire match and moment possible. His facial expressions and body language sold everything. But as I expected, what shouldn’t have happened….happened.

Undertaker wins. 22-1. YAY! (It’s hard to type sarcastically). Where does Bray Wyatt go from here? All they can maybe do is have him destroy The Undertaker tonight on RAW if he’s there. Then he can go away for another year and waste our time next Wrestlemania as well. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing but the utmost respect for The Undertaker. He’s an icon. But the streak is over. What’s next? Undertaker v. Sting. Who in the hell wants to see that now? Especially with the performances we got from them last night. It’s a shame that Bray’s brilliance went to waste last night.

And here we go with the finish.

And it starts just like I thought it would. This is one of multiple suplexes that led to the line of the night: “SUPLEX CITY BITCH!”

I knew this match was going to be physical, but damn. Seriously, that clothesline on the apron was sick. These guys were hitting each other HARD.

One of quite a few F-5’s of the night. As I said, these guys really got into it. It was quite a pleasant surprise. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from these two. I certainly never expected a technical match, but it wasn’t bad. Well, except for some of this.

Reigns didn’t come off looking that horrible, minus that Superman punch. That thing is just atrocious. But he came off that he could actually hurt Brock Lesnar, something that’s been hard to accomplish in the past year.

And we had blood. And plenty of it. It didn’t look to be planned that way, as Brock got opened up “the hard way” on a few different occasions, but it certainly added to the overall brutality that they were trying to get across.

As we get toward the close of the match, Brock hits another F-5 but can’t quite make the cover. Both men are exhausted, creating the perfect opportunity for what I was hoping would happen.

Seth Rollins cashes in the MITB briefcase and we’ve now got a triple threat for the title, setting up a great scenario, which was done to perfection. After a great sequence of curb stomps, F-5’s, and spears, the end result is awesome.

Seth Rollins walks out of Wrestlemania as the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion. He comes off as the ultimate heel making the most of his opportunity. Lesnar looks strong because he pummeled Reigns from pillar to post and didn’t even get pinned to lose his title. Reigns got pinned, but took everything Lesnar threw at him and kept on coming. He just got caught in a bad situation. Everybody comes out of this just fine. And finally, we get the big cash-in at Wrestlemania. And we kind of got the double turn we thought might happen. Reigns basically got booed out of the stadium. Lesnar got possibly the biggest pop of the night. And now Lesnar has to chase the title while dealing with The Authority. Hell yeah. There’s a ton of ways that they can continue this.

Overall, I thought it was a good show. Not a great show, but better than what they’ve been doing, so I’ll take it. What was your favorite match? Did you like the finish? Let me know below or follow me on Twitter @BingeSports and/or @THElukenorris. I’ll be back later this week with more Binge Sports as I preview the Final Four. Until next time.