wrestling / Columns

411 Ranks The WrestleManias: #24 – WrestleMania 29

March 4, 2015 | Posted by Larry Csonka

The Rock faced off with John Cena at WrestleMania 28 in what was billed as a once in a lifetime event. But when the show ended up as the most successful event in WrestleMania history, the rematch was set and this time it was for the WWE Title. The Undertaker would move on from HBK and HHH, and face new challenges; CM Punk and the passing of Paul Bearer. Finally the Beast Incarnate Brock Lesnar would make his return to the big stage against Triple H, this is WrestleMania 29….

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* The Shield (Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins) defeated Randy Orton, Sheamus and Big Show @ 10:35 via pin
* Mark Henry defeated Ryback @ 8:03 via pin
* TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Team Hell No (Kane and Daniel Bryan) (c) defeated Dolph Ziggler and Big E Langston (with AJ Lee) @ 6:15 via pin
* Fandango defeated Chris Jericho @ 9:10 via pin
* WORLD TITLE MATCH: Alberto Del Rio (c) (with Ricardo Rodriguez) defeated Jack Swagger (with Zeb Colter) @ 10:30 via submission
* The Undertaker defeated CM Punk (with Paul Heyman) @ 22:07 via pin
* Triple H (with Shawn Michaels) defeated Brock Lesnar (with Paul Heyman) @ 23:58 via pin
* WWE TITLE MATCH: John Cena defeated The Rock (c) @ 24:59 via pin

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Mike Hammerlock
The Best Thing on the Show And Why: Undertaker vs. CM Punk [****½] – It’s the 21 in 21 and 1. Knowing what we know now, this match should have been the one to end the Streak. The beauty of this match is they made you believe Punk was about to pull off the epic victory. Unlike the next year when Brock Lesnar beat Taker and everyone had the confused dog reaction to it, Punk worked his tilt against Undertaker to near perfection. He kept beating the dead man to the punch. If wrestling had ringside judges, Punk would have been way ahead on points. Yet how do you kill what’s already dead? That sort of became the theme of this match. Punk did everything but strip away the Undertaker’s legend. In the end, the legend won. I actually think this match so successfully advanced the mythology of the Streak that it made Lesnar’s win feel weird. The story here was that you CAN’T beat the Undertaker in a wrestling match. Punk hit him with everything. Punk earned the right to beat the Streak inside the ring. It would have felt right if it had ended there. The build was great. The match was great. You could see both guys know how to tell a story in the ring. In hindsight, it’s a shame it didn’t happen there. Yet thanks to the archives on the WWE Network you can go back this match and revisit this contest, which raised the mystique of the Streak to its peak. It really did feel like the Undertaker was less man and more of a voodoo curse after this night.

The Worst Thing on the Show And Why: The Rock (c) vs. John Cena [*½] – Some matches get better with time. Others get worse. This one gets worse. For the record, I’ve always liked the Rock and I thought Cena did the best in-ring work of anyone in the business in 2013. However, this match was the equivalent of missionary position while she scans the TV guide for something to watch. Rock-Cena I delivered. They had a blast with the build to the match and they found ways to mesh their styles during their “Once in a Lifetime” collision. It wasn’t epic, but it was a well-done clash between two of the business’ icons. Rock-Cena II was a rehashed slog to a foregone conclusion. We all knew Cena was going to win. It played into and justified every cynical instinct of hardcore wrestling fans, who have given this match the derisive label of “Twice in a Lifetime.” Maybe it would have come off better if Rock hadn’t gotten injured during the contest, but it devolved into them trading finishers in between punches. Once again, fans were solidly against Cena and for Rock during the build, but Cena didn’t react to the WWE audience. The 80,676 fans at MetLife Stadium rained boos down upon Cena at the end of the event, making it a true feel-bad moment. It was an instantly disposable main event.

Show MVP And Why: CM Punk – Not only did Punk shine in his attempt to defeat the Streak, he was the guy who inserted some life into the otherwise listless Rock-Cena redux. Punk had dropped the WWE title to Rock at the Royal Rumble PPV and then failed to win it back at Elimination Chamber. On the February 25th Raw he challenged for Cena’s WrestleMania title shot in a clash I named my match of the year for 2013. Punk then won a Fatal Four-Way to get the match against Undertaker. He stole the Undertaker’s urn, beat down the Undertaker with it and mocked the recently deceased Paul Bearer. He was a picture perfect heel. The New York/New Jersey crowd for WrestleMania reacted to very little of what it was presented that night. Yet Undertaker-Punk stood out. That comes down to Punk throwing himself completely into the build and execution of that match. We’ve now heard from Punk’s own lips that he did all that with a monster-sized chip on his shoulder. He had wanted a WrestleMania main event and twice had fallen short to Rock-Cena main events on top of the WTF Cena-Miz main event at WM27. Yet, as Mr. Lydon says, anger is an energy. Punk’s frustration at having been a WrestleMania bridesmaid again, and at having cost himself a good chunk of money by taking a heel turn, led him to his definitive WrestleMania moment. Essentially, Punk stood out so much at WrestleMania 29 it turned him back into a face. He excelled on a night when almost everyone else punched the clock.

Your Thoughts on The Show: I rate WM29 as the worst WrestleMania of the last decade and the second-worst out of the past 15 installments, with only WrestleMania 18 ranking below it. To the WWE’s credit, it’s gotten a lot better in modern times at throwing the industry’s biggest event, so a mediocre WrestleMania stands out as a major disappointment these days. The criticism I gave WM29 at the time still sticks: this was a paint-by-numbers affair. The only semi-surprise was Fandango in his WWE debut beating Chris Jericho and perhaps Miz beating Wade Barrett for the Intercontinental belt on the pre-show. The WWE felt like it was on autopilot during the build to the event and then at the event itself. It’s hard to perform pop psychology on an entire roster of wrestlers, but you get the distinct impression the locker room had begun to wonder why they were trying. WM29 had a stifling, over-controlled feel to it, like anything couldn’t happen. Perhaps that’s why Daniel Bryan took off like a comet in the summer of 2013. He was a boredom antidote. Looking back at the individual matches, none of them were terrible. The Shield vs. Randy Orton, Big Show and Sheamus worked fine as an opener, though it wasn’t up to the standard of previous Shield six-man matches. Mark Henry and Ryback had a workable hossfest. Team Hell No vs. Dolph Ziggler and Big E (still with the Langston) gets a bit underrated, as does Alberto Del Rio’s World Heavyweight Championship defense against Jack Swagger. They weren’t what they could/should have been, but the participants gave an honest effort. The main problem was we were conditioned not to care about that matches. They felt too much like filler. Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar worked well enough, though it was overbooked and plunder-reliant. Overall the event suffered from forced and obvious storytelling. It felt corporate. The E bragged about it being the highest grossing WrestleMania of all time. I guess that’s what you talk about when no one is praising the quality of the product.

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Len Archibald
The Best Thing on the Show And Why: CM Punk vs. The Undertaker, and it is not even close. Poor WrestleMania 29, also known among us as “RematchMania” – a financial powerhouse, was a creative dud and continued WWE’s spiral downward as it became clear to hardcore fans that the promotion had truly lost a sense of what made their premier show the success it was for 28 shows prior. The only thing worth a hill of beans was CM Punk and The Undertaker physically giving the rest of the WWE locker-room the preverbal middle finger and proving that they should have been the final match and main event. Everything from the match layout, the near falls, the character work from all (Paul Heyman included, obviously) and the crowd who was getting to a point of begging for ANYTHING to make WM 29 mean anything clicked. This was the height of CM Punk as a performer – a white-hot, bald, wide-eyed ball of pure evil and pure anarchy and the Undertaker’s last great display of athleticism. I don’t mind that The Undertaker won the match…I just wish it was for the WWE Title, as it made the most sense.

The Worst Thing on the Show And Why: I suppose in hindsight, the worst thing that came out of WM 29 was Fandango’s baffling win over Chris Jericho. It would have been a moment if WWE followed up with it, but they never did and as a result wasted Y2J’s talents. This man went for the WWE Title one year earlier…It was the weirdest choice in an event full of weird choices.

Show MVP And Why: CM Punk, quite simply was the hottest thing in WWE since 2011. If there was a time he should have outright main evented WrestleMania, this was the show to do it. Hindsight has given some fans the notion that if there ever was a time for someone to break the Undertaker’s Streak, this was also the show to do it and Punk was the man to pull it off. I understand WWE’s reasoning for Twice in a Lifetime and I don’t fault them for it – but WrestleMania 29’s main story should have been Punk coming into WrestleMania as champ for nearly 500 days against The Undertaker’s WM Streak. It made the most sense and as a “sell”, it sold itself. On top of that, Punk was the most motivated here throughout the build and during the match performed like a man possessed by some mythological wrestling demon, doing everything he could to prove any naysayers who felt he did not deserve his place in the WWE main event wrong. An angry, driven CM Punk is arguably the absolute best performer on the planet and there was no close competition even when Punk became the last one defeated by The Undertaker exactly who performed at a level that made those who paid their tickets for WrestleMania get their money’s worth.

Your Thoughts on The Show: I really wanted to like WrestleMania 29. Honestly, when the event ended, I didn’t think it was offensive. That’s when I realized that WrestleMania should not get a pass for not being offensive. It is WRESTLE. MANIA. There was too much wrong going on and was perhaps the height of WWE doing what it wanted to do just to make money than to create a memorable event for its fans. Almost nothing on the card made any sense in hindsight; Brock Lesnar should have demolished The Rock to continue his dominance after breaking Triple H in 2012; Daniel Bryan was gaining in popularity enough that taking on John Cena would not have been a stretch; Dolph Ziggler should have cashed in Money in the Bank here; Why did Ryback lose to Mark Henry when he was one of the hottest faces a mere six months prior? Why was Fandango even there, much less beating Chris Jericho? Even if WWE wanted to end CM Punk’s WWE Title reign, this was the event to push Punk/Triple H, and John Cena could have gone up against The Undertaker; the last major dream match of the PG Era. That match would have created something that WrestleMania 29 lacked in spades – drama and unpredictability. Ugh.

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Kevin Pantoja
The Best Thing on the Show And Why: CM Punk vs. The Undertaker [****1/2] – Yes, I enjoyed CM Punk vs. The Undertaker more than Triple H vs. The Undertaker from the previous year. Sue me. Punk was incredible during 2012 and had to drop the belt to the Rock. I would have had Rock/Cena/Punk main event so we could preserve “Once in a Lifetime”, give Punk his WrestleMania main event, have the buyrate that Rock brings in, and Cena can overcome his two biggest obstacles. But enough fantasy booking. CM Punk went out and stole the show with Undertaker. After Undertaker had four straight huge Mania matches against Shawn Michaels and Triple H, Punk had a lot of live up to and bested the HHH matches in my mind. He stole some of Taker’s mannerisms, looked like he belonged with him

The Worst Thing on the Show And Why: Mark Henry vs. Ryback [*1/4] – More fantasy booking from me now. Ryback was incredibly hot at the tail end of 2012. He should have won the Royal Rumble and Big Show never should have lost the World Title to Alberto Del Rio. Ryback would go for the World Title, Shellshock Show, win the title and have his WrestleMania moment. Anyway, what we got instead of that was a feud between him and Mark Henry, who was already far removed from his great Hall of Pain run. These two went out and had a boring match with an awful finish. Ryback goes for the Shellshock but fails and Henry pins him. Then he hits the Shellshock post match. So what was the point in him failing in the finish? Just all around “STOOPID”, to quote Ryback.

Show MVP And Why: CM Punk – This was an obvious choice. I’ve already stated that CM Punk went in and proved that he belonged in the ring with Undertaker. He should have been in the main event, but instead made sure that he had the best match on a lackluster card. Punk was phenomenal. He did the little things to make his match even better, like stealing Undertaker’s taunts, moves and colors for his attire. Punk got the big live performance entrance and was the star of the night. He said on Colt Cabana’s podcast that he wrestled that match with a chip on his shoulder, and it showed.

Your Thoughts on The Show: In all my years of being a wrestling fan, there is only one WrestleMania that I had the money to order and made the choice not to purchase. That was this show. I had zero interest in “Twice in a Lifetime” and rightfully so as the match was less than it was the first time around, especially considering the painfully obvious outcome. Triple H and Brock Lesnar wrestled a match that nobody cared about. Triple H going over was also a terrible move. Chris Jericho put over Fandango at WrestlefuckingMania and it went nowhere because Fandango sucks. Ryback and Henry had a shit match as stated already. Besides the awesome that was Punk/Undertaker, the only other things worth a look was the Shield opener and Team Hell No’s fun Tag Title defense. A lesser WrestleMania and I don’t regret not buying it one bit.

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What will #23 be? Come on back tomorrow to find out…

The List So Far…
30. WrestleMania 9
29. WrestleMania 2
28. WrestleMania 11
27. WrestleMania 4
26. WrestleMania 15
25. WrestleMania 27
24. WrestleMania 29