wrestling / Video Reviews
Jack Likes Wrestlemania: Wrestlemania 27
Loading...WRESTLEMANIA 27
We’re at the Georgia Dome for the 27th instalment of Wrestlemania, a building that had already earned its place in wrestling lore for hosting the Goldberg-Hogan World Championship match on WCW Nitro in 1998. We’ve got a rotating cast of announcers for this event- Josh Matthews, Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler call the first four matches, then it’s Matthews, Jim Ross and Booker T for Michael Cole vs. Jerry Lawler, and JR and the King are reunited to handle the final three bouts. The Rock is in the midst of a grand return to WWE and has been appointed the special host of Wrestlemania 27. He opens the show with a little in ring promo in which he runs through his catchphrases and insults John Cena and promises us all that this Wrestlemania is going to be rad as heck.
MATCH 1- WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP- EDGE VS. ALBERTO DEL RIO
This is a good, athletic, competitive opener. Del Rio works the arm over in the early stages, softening it up for his cross arm-breaker finisher. The champ heads to the top rope, but ADR cracks him with his ever cool step up enzuiguri! Big fan of that move, I am. Del Rio’s bodyguard Brodus Clay splatters Edge’s equaliser and best pal Christian on the floor, but in the ring the tide is turning against the aristocrat. Edge is able to try the Spear, but Del Rio sidesteps it, Clay rams him into the ringpost, and he stumbles back into the cross arm-breaker! It seems like Del Rio could fulfil his Wrestlemania destiny, but in the end Edge is able to counter into the Edgeucation, while Christian gets some revenge on Brodus Clay on the floor. Del Rio rolls through to counter it back into the arm-breaker, but Edge breaks free and lands a quick Spear to retain his title. *** ¼. Of course, this turned out to be Edge’s final match as serious neck problems discovered soon after the show forced his retirement. It would have been nice to see him go out in grander fashion, but this was a good opener. Christian and Brodus Clay’s interference was well incorporated, and Edge and Del Rio had some great, smooth sequences and counters.
MATCH 2- REY MYSTERIO VS. CODY RHODES
Oh, cool, it’s hideously deformed Cody Rhodes! This was such a great gimmick, as Cody had been this narcissistic pretty boy until Rey 619ed him and caught him in the face with his knee brace, which convinced Rhodes that his gorgeous visage was all mangled. He got really brooding, and wore a plastic face protector to prevent further damage. It was such a smooth evolution because, really, Cody was still having delusions about the quality of his looks, he’d just flipped from one extreme to the other. He performed the character so well, he’s one of the most underrated wrestlers in WWE history. Anyway, in the match itself Rhodes loses his mask, and Rey capitalises with the 619! He grabs Cody’s mask and puts it on, then uses it to enhance a series of diving headbutts. Rhodes get back in the match and retaliates for the theft of his mask by ripping off Rey’s kneebrace. The lucha legend tries to dive onto him on the floor, but Cody meets him in mid air with a kneebrace shot! Back in the ring, CrossRhodes concludes. *** ½. Scorching little undercard match, as years of working with Chris Jericho and CM Punk had given Rey Mysterio a new lease of life, and Cody meshed with his style terrifically well. There were some great, fluid sequences in this that I wouldn’t be able to do justice just by typing them out, but it was worth mentioning the incorporation of the face mask and knee pads, both of which were done seamlessly. Super fun action.
MATCH 3- THE BIG SHOW, KANE, KOFI KINGSTON & SANTINO MARELLA VS. THE CORRE (Wade Barrett, Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel & Ezekiel Jackson)
This doesn’t go well for the Nexus spin off group. They’re decimated within two minutes, Show knocking out Slater with a big right hand for the victory. Lawler brands the punch ‘The Big Sleep,’ which is a pretty cool name for it actually! A shame it didn’t catch on. A shame that this was the first taste of Wrestlemania for everyone in the Corre. Let’s move on! N/R.
Backstage, The Rock brags to Eve Torres that he can create legendary moments with anyone. To prove it, he pledges to take whoever comes round the corner next and have an unforgettable scene with them. To his dismay, however, the person fate tasks him with dealing with is Mae Young who just wants to fuck him. Having fended off her lascivious advances, Rock next encounters Steve Austin, which is a legitimately brilliant moment and the reason I wanted to recap this bit. They tensely exchange pleasantries before shaking hands.
MATCH 4- RANDY ORTON VS. CM PUNK
Punk’s gameplan is to hack away at Orton’s tender knee/leg as much as possible. He drives the steel steps into the targeted area, and locks in a figure four leg lock around the ringpost! What a great move! An Indian Deathlock puts even more pressure on it. Orton fights back like it’s 2001 with a Thesz Press and an Angle Slam. Back to the injured limb Punk goes though, and it primes Orton for the Anaconda Vice! The Viper bravely makes the ropes, and is rewarded for his persistence by getting his rope assisted DDT he is so fond of. He tries for the punt kick, but his knee gives out as he charges, and Punk thinks he’s got this one in the bag. Not so fast! RKO out of nowhere! But Punk blocks in mid move and scurries from the ring, sending Orton crashing to the mat! Punk has this brilliantly smug, relieved grin on his face as he slumps on the apron- he knows how close he was to receiving the RKO, but he dodged the bullet, and now, surely, the match is his. No it isn’t! He flies at Orton off the top rope but gets met in mid air with a desperation RKO! One, two, three! Orton pulls it out the bag! *** ¾. Super nifty match with a really cool and unusual finishing stretch that was more about mind games than near falls. Punk came up with some entertaining ways of working the leg over, and Orton sold it well enough for the finish to be properly tense. Punk being all smarmy and evil and thinking he’d got one over on Orton only to be suckered into the RKO was such a satisfying way for the match to end. If they’d had a little more time to build drama with the Viper’s injury this would have been a proper classic, but I liked it a lot as long as it was, it felt sharp and to the point.
MATCH 5- JERRY LAWLER VS. MICHAEL COLE
Full disclosure: I am the world’s biggest and possibly only fan of heel Michael Cole. And even I think the gimmick wasn’t that great! Having to listen to the announce team implode into insults and provocation every show got tiresome pretty quickly. But, I think having a heel play by play announcer was at least a worthy experiment, and I thought Cole tried really hard with the role and did some good work with it that’s easier to enjoy out of context. His little ‘Cole Mine’ he’d handle his commentary from was a hilariously stupid, vain structure, with its pictures of Michael Cole and his Twitter address plastered on the front. He sent his own public image up with a pleasing willingness to humiliate himself frequently. Plus, I just like the thought that maybe at some point during his stint as a war correspondent, he had a strange, feverish dream in which he had to wrestle in front of 70,000 people while wearing an unflattering, bright orange singlet, despite not knowing any wrestling holds. Anyway, he’d been belittling his co-commentator Lawler for months and even cost him an unlikely WWE Championship reign in a match against Cole’s favourite wrestler, the Miz. This is the chance for the King to get some revenge. Jack Swagger has been training Cole, and Steve Austin is the special guest referee!
The reality of the situation sets in on Michael Cole just as the match is about to begin, so he hides inside his Cole Mine and pleads for forgiveness from Lawler. Jerry’s response is to reach inside and bang his head against the window pane, giving Cole the chance to pull some zany faces. Jack Swagger decides to take matters into his own hands and, with Austin distracted, mauls Lawler on the floor. He slaps on the Ankle Lock for good measure, and once the King is returned to the ring, Cole has the chance to pounce. He attacks the injured ankle in a largely shambolic fashion, including the puniest Vader Bomb you ever did see. Lawler, being one of the best professional wrestlers there’s ever been, sells all of this like he’s in real, painful trouble. Cole drops the straps! An-Cole Lock! Jerry knows the counter to this though, kicking his nemesis away! He stomps the heck out of him in the corner, prompting Jack Swagger to try and throw in the towel. Steve Austin is not interested. Cole gets angry with the Rattlesnake and even puts his hands on him! Steve just turns him round into a right hand from Lawler. Dropkick! Dropkick from the King! Flying fistdrop gets a two count before Lawler pulls Cole’s shoulder up, which amuses Austin greatly. Jerry still has one last punishment in store for his foe, cinching in the Ankle Lock. Cole taps quickly and often, but Austin pretends not to notice until Jerry gives him the nod to end the beating. **. Nowhere near as bad as ‘untrained journalist vs. largely retired ex wrestler’ sounds, as Lawler knows every single trick in the book and helped make this limited match as satisfying as possible. Post match, Lawler and Austin celebrate in the ring, and Booker T gatecrashes the party with a Spinarooni! He wasn’t invited though, so Stone Cold dishes out a Stunner! And then the notorious Anonymous Raw General Manager has to ruin everything. It declares, via the medium of Josh Matthews, that because of Austin’s shoddy officiating, it has taken matters into its own hands and awarded the bout to Michael Cole via disqualification! Austin and Lawler are outraged and decide to shoot the messenger, poor helpless Josh taking a Stunner for his troubles. Cole and Swagger gloat from the safety of the entrance stage. FUN FACT HERE: To this day, Michael Cole remains undefeated at a Wrestlemania.
MATCH 6- NO HOLDS BARRED- THE UNDERTAKER VS. TRIPLE H
It’s quite a sizeable brawl right from the get go, with Triple H driving Undertaker right through the Cole Mine! Hunter goes for the Pedigree on the announce team, but ‘Taker counters with a back body drop and ‘The Game’ takes a spectacular, painful looking fall right onto the floor! HHH is incapacitated outside the ring, and that means it’s time for the Wrestlemania plancha! Tremendous. Taker sets the steel steps up ready for some kind of move on them, but we don’t get to see what it is, as Hunter fights him off. The Deadman charges at his foe, but Hunter scoops him up and spinebusters him off the steel steps and through the Spanish Announce Table! Wow! Amazing spot. You have no idea where it’s going as you watch it unfold and the end result is suitably huge and dramatic. The start to this match has been brilliant, in its first ten minutes it has provided more jaw dropping moments than most PPV main events manage in their entire run time. The wrestlers pay the price for the intensity so far though, as the match slows noticeably once they return to the ring. Interestingly, they don’t try and recuperate with rest holds or anything like that, they go straight into exchanging finishers and just take their time between hitting each move. It’s the worst bit of the match, but it’s stilll darn entertaining. We see the ten punches/Last Ride counter, but Hunter slips out the back door. The Phenom relies on a chair instead, cracking it across Hunter’s back. Another shot is blocked, and Triple H gets the Pedigree! One, two, but not three! Superplex is countered into a Last Ride! One, two, kickout! Tombstone! One, two, not three!!! I think it’s roughly at this point that the crowd seriously start to accept this match as a worthy successor to Taker-Shawn and allow themselves to become completely immersed in it. Taker tries for another Tombstone, but HHH wriggles free of his grasp and DDTs him on the chair, giving them some more time to lie down. Back to their feet, Triple H hits the Pedigree! Still not enough for three! Hunter’s getting mad now- he seizes the chair and just rains down blows on the Deadman! “Stay down!” he snarls! Chair shot to the head! That earned them a fine for breaking WWE’s stringent policy surrounding head shots, and probably wasn’t worth it, all the chair shots to the body were plenty dramatic enough. Still Taker moves, perhaps because he’s a fucking zombie. Hunter retreats to the corner and rests his head on the turnbuckles, he seems physically and emotionally drained. The Deadman paws desperately at his throat but Triple H will show no mercy. He steals the Tombstone! Triple H uses the Tombstone! Taker’s down! ONE, TWO, THR-NOOOOO! TAKER KICKS OUT!!! I guarantee you, if I’d been watching that live, I’d have been convinced the Streak was over. That’s the best near fall in these streak matches since Orton’s RKO back at Wrestlemania 21. Only one thing for it now. It’s (sledge) hammer time! But before Hunter can use it, he’s trapped in Hell’s Gate! Oh my does Hunter fight this. His whole body is straining to escape. He desperately grasps at his sledgehammer but doesn’t have the strength left to use it. With one last burst of hope he tries for a powerbomb but he just can’t make any progress. Eventually, with barely any life left in him, he has to tap. **** ½. Minority opinion I’m fairly sure, but I think this is better than either of the Taker-Michaels Wrestlemania bouts, albeit only marginally. More so than either of its immediate predecessors, this Taker-HHH match understands that what people want from Streak matches is near falls, big, booming, dramatic near falls that 70,000 can collectively lose their minds over. So, while Taker and Michaels at Wrestlemania 25 and 26 were spending the first ten minutes of their matches doing bits of tentative leg work that were irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, this match skips all of that, tosses out a few spectacular table spots by way of groundwork, and then it’s on with the finishers and the kicking out of finishers at the last possible moment. It’s an incredibly bold way of structuring a match and works far better than it has any right to- its credibility does start to get a little bit strained in the middle when they’re literally just hitting finishers and selling them like they’ve been in an hour long war, but it’s still entertaining. Every ounce of this match is entertaining. It’s fucking powerful as well. Has Undertaker ever looked more poignantly vulnerable than when he’s convulsing on the mat having sustained all those Pedigrees and chairshots, and he’s desperately trying to choke Hunter but the Game is just scorning him because there’s no power left in his hands? It’s properly sad. I don’t see how anyone could be cheering for Triple H after that. Post match, Undertaker is just completely out of it, he’s exhausted everything in his body. He can barely move. The doctors have to carry him out on a stretcher cart with the announcers in ominous silence. Fuck. What an incredible ‘Mania spectacle.
MATCH 7- INTERGENDER SIX PERSON TAG MATCH- JOHN MORRISON, TRISH STRATUS & SNOOKI VS. DOLPH ZIGGLER, MICHELLE MCCOOL & LAYLA
Well, this is something a little different. Stratus and McCool start the match with a bitchin’ sequence. Morrison takes out Ziggler on the floor, and now it’s Snooki’s time to shine! She crashes into McCool with a handspring elbow, then backflips over her prone body, and then just sort of flops on top of her to secure the pin. * ½. Trish and McCool got to have a fun exchange, and Snooki’s involvement wasn’t irredeemable. That is about all you could possibly hope for from this match!
MATCH 8- WWE CHAMPIONSHIP- THE MIZ VS. JOHN CENA
God, this match is strange. The opening couple of minutes of the match are just a lifeless exchange of moves in front of a crowd who can’t quite accept that what they are seeing is a Wrestlemania main event. Then, Cena tries for a flying shoulder tackle, misses, and lands in a heap on the canvas, looking all dazed. At this point we’re told that Cena must be suffering some kind of head injury that’s throwing him off, which is difficult to accept because Miz really hasn’t done anything out of the ordinary. Some of his offense has targeted the head, but no more than in any other wrestling match. It feels completely random, a desperate attempt to manufacture drama. To make matters worse, we switch straight from this low key beginning right into the near fall segment of the match with no transition or anything, which is jarring. Miz removes a turnbuckle pad, and when Cena schoolboys him Mike Chioda is too distracted by replacing it to make the count. Chioda’s poor performance continues when he misses Alex Riley bouncing Cena’s head into the still exposed steel! Miz capitalises with a Skull Crushing Finale but it’s only good enough for two. Now Chioda is knocked out, and so even though Cena is able to come back with the Attitude Adjustment, it’s all for nought. Get it together, Mike. Riley bashes Cena in the head with a briefcase, and Miz makes the cover and the referee begins to stir. One…two… not three! Cena roars back by nailing Riley with the case, and dropping Miz with another AA. It gets a two count, but Miz kicks out! The champion tries to recover on the floor, but Cena stalks him out and clotheslines him through the guardrail and onto the arena floor. That leaves them both laid out, and Chioda counts them both out! Wrestlemania 27’s main event has ended in a double count out! Except, of course, it hasn’t, as the Rock shows up and insists the match restarts with no disqualifications and no count-outs. The Great One takes advantage of the new rules to Rock Bottom Cena in the middle of the ring! Miz drapes an arm across, and becomes the first proper bad guy to win in the main event of Wrestlemania since Triple H in 2000. Not that you’d know it though, as Rock takes him out as well and drops the People’s Elbow so we fade to black with a smile on our faces! * ½. This was quite insulting as a Wrestlemania main event. As a Raw main event it still would have appeared half hearted, but at least with the stretch of near falls and the angle with the Rock at the end it might have made for a satisfying conclusion to the show. But the Wrestlemania main event is meant to be the biggest WWE match of the year, and this wasn’t even in the same stratosphere. It was sloppily constructed with no attempt made to bridge between the opening stages and the near falls, and ended so indecisively that victory in the main event on the Grandest Stage of Them All was probably on balance a bad thing for Miz’s career. The crowd didn’t buy into it until the final five minutes, and probably shouldn’t have bothered even then, as it was really just a big, drawn out angle to hype Rock-Cena at Wrestlemania 28. Again, that’s the sort of thing you do on Raw. Doing it in front of 71,000 people and millions more watching on PPV who have all paid exorbitant prices for the privilege was an idea so bad as to be shameful. One of the worst Wrestlemania main events.
