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Jack Likes Wrestlemania: Wrestlemania 29

March 28, 2015 | Posted by Jack Stevenson
6.3
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Jack Likes Wrestlemania: Wrestlemania 29  

WRESTLEMANIA 29

MATCH 1- RANDY ORTON, THE BIG SHOW & SHEAMUS VS. THE SHIELD

The Shield are ace and isolate Big Show and latterly Sheamus with their laser like focus and all out attacking style. They try for the Triple Powerbomb on the Celtic Warrior, but Big Show breaks it up by barrelling them over mid move. As a reward for saving the match for his team, he feels he deserves the hot tag, but Randy Orton tags himself in instead. Initially this seems a good move, as the Viper is a house of fire and catches Rollins in mid air with a terrific RKO! With Sheamus slumped on the outside and Show sulking on the ring apron though, the numbers game proves too much for him, as Reigns flies in out of nowhere to Spear him and secure victory for the Shield ***. I miss the Shield so much. This wasn’t among their absolute premium work, but the fluidity and aggression in their teamwork was still a joy to behold. This was a well worked opener, the pace was good, the finishing stretch was exciting, but they restrained themselves to save the energy of the crowd for the rest of the show. A fine opener! Post match, Big Show delivers carcinogenic right hands to Sheamus and Orton out of frustration!

MATCH 2- RYBACK VS. MARK HENRY

Ryback is keen to show off his power against the ‘World’s Strongest Man,’ but he can’t get him up for a suplex early on. Henry wears him down with a bearhug as the crowd start to turn against the match, but I’m quite enjoying it considering so much of it has been spent in that most boring of submissions. Ryback does eventually fight free, lands the Meathook Clothesline and tries for Shellshock. Henry uses the ropes to help him shift his weight though, and crashes down on top for the three count. Post match, Mark is reluctant to let the referee tend to Ryback- “let him suffer!” he exclaims. A frustrated Big Guy gets some revenge by hitting the Shellshock, although it’s too little, too late. That’s a bit odd. Heel Mark Henry wins clean but Ryback attacks him post match. It wasn’t presented as a change in alignment or anything. The match wasn’t at all bad though! * ¾. The bearhug did grow a bit wearisome but there were some impressive fragments of raw power on display.

MATCH 3- WWE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS- TEAM HELL NO VS. DOLPH ZIGGLER & BIG E. LANGSTON

In a nod to the previous year’s ludicrous display, Dolph Ziggler gets a good luck kiss from his lady friend AJ Lee, then turns round into a missile kick from Bryan! This time, it’s not enough to get the three count, but it gives Team Hell No all the momentum, and Bryan follows up with a wicked suicide dive! Langston and Kane do some OK power wrestling. Ziggler tries to use his Money in the Bank briefcase on the Big Red Monster, but the plan backfires, and Kane drops him with a choke-slam. Bryan follows up with the Diving Headbutt to retain the titles. **. Just a loosely organised exchange of moves, no real tag structure or anything. It was entertaining enough.

MATCH 4- CHRIS JERICHO VS. FANDANGO

Jericho doesn’t seem too troubled by the threat this rookie man diva poses, but Fandango will occasionally show glimpses of impressive athleticism that give Y2J something to think about. He crashes into Jericho with his graceful flying leg drop, but Jericho kicks right out! Maybe he should have gone back to the drawing board for a finisher that will finish matches. Another attempt at it misses by a mile, and Y2J tries to capitalise with the Lionsault. He overshoots Fandango in a weird moment, so tries to improvise with the Walls of Jericho, but in missing the first move he tweaked his knee, and it keeps giving out as he tries to lock the submission hold in. Fandango takes advantage with an inside cradle to secure the three count! ** ¾. A neat and nimble singles match. The finishing stretch was a bit odd, as Fandango’s finishing move was made to look completely ineffective, and the Lionsault/Walls of Jericho/Inside Cradle sequence was messy. But they wrestled the rest of the match smartly, Fandango got just enough offense in to seem credible without embarrassing the respected Y2J, and he won in a way that was somehow both fluky and decisive. Nothing remarkable has appeared on this undercard so far, but it’s absolutely breezing by.

Sean Puff P. Diddy Daddy Combs rattles through one of the more tolerable mini concerts there’s been at a Wrestlemania.

MATCH 5- WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP- ALBERTO DEL RIO VS. JACK SWAGGER

Swagger and Colter had been doing a Glenn Beck parody thing and saying xenophobic stuff about Del Rio, so unsurprisingly the champ goes right on the attack from the bell, knocking Swagger to the outside. That’s about the most fire we see in this match though, which turns out to be weirdly lifeless. Del Rio does impress with a German suplex right out of his opponent’s playbook! Swagger locks in the Ankle Lock, Del Rio switches it into the Cross Arm-Breaker, but the Real American counters it back into his signature hold! Del Rio escapes and lands an enzuiguri, then targets Colter on the floor. Swagger takes advantage to counter attack from behind, but back in the ring ADR re-applies the Cross Arm-Breaker, and Swagger is forced to submit. ** ¾. Technically this was fine and the submission counters were rather swish, but it felt like it was being wrestled in a vacuum, the crowd were dead and it didn’t seem to be going anywhere until the finish. A nice Smackdown match, but a major letdown at Wrestlemania with the World Championship on the line.

MATCH 6- THE UNDERTAKER VS. CM PUNK

In today’s edition of ‘Jack’s incoherent opinions on professional wrestling storylines,’ I thought Randy Orton mocking Eddie Guerrero’s death in the run up to Wrestlemania 22 was crass and stupid and offensive, but found Punk and Heyman’s cruel taunting of Undertaker over the passing of Paul Bearer to be wildly entertaining television. I think part of that was to do with the way the angle was booked, with Punk being just cartoonishly vile in stealing Taker’s urn and playing catch with and using it to attack Kane and then having Heyman dress up as Bearer, while Orton just kind of made these smug insults. As well as that, with Bearer having been off TV for several years his passing perhaps felt a little less raw than Eddie’s did. None of this remotely justifies how tasteless the angle was, but it does give this match an edge it would otherwise sorely lack. The entrances here are completely awesome- Punk enters the ring while Living Colour deliver a scorching live performance of ‘Cult of Personality,’ and ‘Taker summons bodies from the grave to claw at his legs as he strides down to the ring!

The early stages of this one have a real sense of purpose about them, which is good to see after a few Streak matches that were all about the near falls. One of the reasons Punk had been trying to offend the Undertaker in the lead up to the match was that a countout or DQ loss for the Deadman would still end the streak, and while nobody really believes that’s how it’s going to happen, it adds a little bit of tension that could be paid off somewhere down the line, with Taker coming within inches of losing via one of those cheap methods. I think it’s a better story to tell than the knee work that Shawn-Undertaker, Punk being as inflammatory as possible is much more entertaining than Michaels’ surprisingly limited arsenal of knee based offense. Punk tries to rip off Old School… and is successful! What a cad! Taker tries for his plancha, but Paul Heyman takes this opportunity to demonstrate his worth at ringside, leaping onto the ring apron to deny the Deadman. ‘Taker tries to throttle him, but Punk saves his manager with a springboard clothesline. Undertaker hoists Punk up for a Last Ride through the Spanish Announce table, but the Best in the World drops out the backdoor and knocks the Deadman onto the table himself with a missile kick. Jaw-dropping Macho Elbow onto, but not through, the table! In the ring, Punk applies the Anaconda Vice, but Deadman does the zombie sit-up in the hold and we get the image of the smug, superior ‘Best in the World’ completely losing his composure while Undertaker gives him the most evil look I’ve ever seen! What a moment! Punk tries the Go 2 Sleep but connects with the abdomen instead of the head, allowing the Phenom to bounce straight back with the Tombstone! One, two, not three! Taker tries for the Last Ride, but with the referee down Punk bounces the urn into his back, sending him slumping to the canvas. Ah man, now Punk steals the throat slitting taunt! He performs them all with such exaggerated, gleeful mockery, it’s so delightfully loathsome that it’s barely surprising a substantial portion of the crowd are actually cheering for him. Punk just can’t get the Go 2 Sleep though, as Undertaker reverses into a second Tombstone, and that’s enough for the three count. **** ½. Magnificent match that a lot of people seem to like, yet still gets underrated in the streak canon. I liked this just as much as any of the Taker/Michaels-Taker/HHH matches. It was refreshing to have a match that showed a little bit more restraint with the near falls, and focused on the simmering tension Punk was generating with his behaviour, leading to that wonderful moment of Taker zombieing out of the Anaconda Vice and triggering a ferocious finishing stretch. It was a virtuoso display from Punk, one of the best of his career. It lacked that moment where you really thought the Streak was going to end that most of Taker’s other latter day Mania encounters have- the moment where Punk countered the Last Ride with the urn shot came close, but he didn’t really hit hard enough for it to be thoroughly convincing. Still, aside from that this was completely ace, wonderfully paced, brilliant performances from both guys, just such a rewarding match.

MATCH 7- NO HOLDS BARRED- TRIPLE H VS. BROCK LESNAR

If Triple H loses, his career is over! Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, Triple H, they’re all falling like dominoes. Bad news for all you Randy Orton fans!

Brock spends much of the match suplexing the heck out of Triple H, but it’s not as fun as it sounds, even when he ensures the Spanish announce table receives its customary obliteration. The crowd are so quiet. Shawn Michaels is in Triple H’s corner and Lesnar will periodically pause to beat him up. Hunter tries to use his sledgehammer, but Brock intercepts him before he can and lands the F-5. He cinches in the Kimura, and with his career flashing before his eyes, ‘The Game’ has to take a page from its Dirtiest Player, and bash Brock Lesnar in the groin! That gives him the opening to lock in a Kimura of his own, and when Paul Heyman tries to break it up, Michaels garners a measure of revenge by laying him out with Sweet Chin Music! The steel steps have become stranded in the ring, so Lesnar dumps HHH onto them to break the hold, but it only buys him a few seconds before the Cerebral Assassin has it back on! Again the Beast tries to slam his way free, but Hunter counters with a DDT. He gingerly pedigrees Lesnar on the steel steps, and covers to keep his career kicking a little while longer! ** ¾. This was Del Rio-Swagger writ large- larger humans, larger moves, larger match time, larger vacuum of interest from the crowd, larger levels of disappointment. The finishing sequence with the Kimura was magnificent though, there was real tension, the first time Hunter reapplied it you marvelled at his tenacity, and then when Brock broke it a second time you were waiting with bated breath to see if HHH could lock it in a third time, and if it could get the win. If they flipped the face/heels role that would be perhaps even more amazing, some psycho monster villain just refusing to let go of the hold, and every time our heroic underdog thinks they’re free, they end up ensnared in the vice like grip again. Nothing else in the match really worked though- this wasn’t the right crowd to appreciate the uniquely vicious repetition in Lesnar’s suplexes, and the use of Shawn Michaels was really odd, it was like he was Hunter’s overgrown infant son or something. I don’t think these guys had wild chemistry with one another.

MATCH 8- WWE CHAMPIONSHIP- THE ROCK VS. JOHN CENA

Twice in a lifetime, as the joke goes! The Rock won the WWE Championship from CM Punk at the Royal Rumble, while Cena won the Rumble match itself, putting them on a collision course for a rematch.

They start in a way that can only be described as ‘meh’ and build to some near falls that best fit the description ‘blah.’ The opening stages are very very slow indeed. Rock slaps on a sleeper eaely and it slows the pace down to a frustrating speed, although considering all the muscles in his body simultaneously detached themselves in this match, you can’t really blame him. Most of the near falls, meanwhile, are just variations on the Attitude Adjustment and the Rock Bottom, with no real thought put into them or proper transitions or anything. In fact, most of the counters of these moves are done in the exact same way- Cena will wriggle free of the Rock Bottom, try for the AA, Rock will land on his feet, lather, rinse, repeat. It gets a bit mind numbing quite quickly. There are a couple of nice moments though. Cena busts out a Crossface, and while it’s not especially well executed it’s at least an attempt at something different, and confuses Michael Cole who remains convinced it must be an STF. The challenger tries to borrow the People’s Elbow, which proved to be his downfall last year, but when Rock pops up expecting to take advantage of this brazen idiocy, Cena just smirks at him and is all “you can’t see me!” before landing the Attitude Adjustment! In fairness, that was legitimately pretty cool. It’s only good enough for a two count though! Rock Bottom from Cena! And still only two! More finishers are reversed, then Cena hits another AA, and that’ll do it, the erstwhile ‘champ’ wins back his the biggest prize in WWE! ***. Not a very fun *** to give, but there was little that was mechanically wrong with the match, Rock soldiered on gamely through his injuries, and a smattering of the near falls were genuinely good. This felt like a really unnecessary rematch though, they didn’t have anything new to say besides ‘John Cena has won!’ and settled for just spamming finisher reversals as long as they could get away with. I wrote after the Wrestlemania 28 match that I had no particular desire to see them fight again, and I feel justified having watched this. It’s good in a depressingly ambitionless way.

6.3
The final score: review Average
The 411
This show is a bit too Wrestlemania 25-y for my liking. I mean, it's better than that show- the undercard is good fun, the Undertaker match is just as good, and the final two matches are an improvement. But it does follow the same frustrating pattern that 'Mania's much hyped 25th anniversary did, with a show stealing Streak match in the middle, nothing much of note happening before it, and the subsequent bouts unable to grab the crowd in the same way the Deadman and his dance partner could. I think Undertaker-Punk is a tremendous, tremendous match, a real must see, while Lesnar/HHH and Rock/Cena might have some value for diehard fans of any of the competitors. But it's an underwhelming show on the whole, especially during the final hour or so.
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WrestleMania 29, Jack Stevenson