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Jack Likes Wrestlemania: Wrestlemania XIX

March 16, 2015 | Posted by Jack Stevenson
9.2
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Jack Likes Wrestlemania: Wrestlemania XIX  

WRESTLEMANIA XIX

We’re live from Safeco Field in Seattle, which is a super, super cool venue. It’s the first dual branded Wrestlemania, and we’ve got Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler at the Raw desk, Michael Cole and Tazz at the Smackdown one.

MATCH 1- WWE CRUISERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP- MATT HARDY VS. REY MYSTERIO

Rey Mysterio bested Tajiri and Jamie Noble in a Triple Threat match to earn this title shot. Matt fact: “Matt often wonders how they did Wrestlemania without him.” The Sensei of Mattitude was such a terrific character. Shannon Moore certainly agrees, as he has dedicated himself to following the lifestyle of Hardy, and additionally interfering in his matches to help him retain the Cruiserweight Championship. Mysterio was one of the best wrestlers in the world at this point, his lucha moveset is exquisite. They do the splash mountain/huracanrana sequence off the top rope, which I will never tire of seeing! Mysterio is the one doing the huracanranaing, but the resulting cover is thwarted by Moore, who puts Hardy’s foot on the bottom rope. Rey keeps rolling with the 619, but Hardy ducks the West Coast Pop. The challenger improvises with a victory roll, but Matt blocks it mid move with a roll up, and clings onto the ropes to secure the three count! ***. Such a good opener considering it was only five minutes long. Mysterio just pinged around the ring, and an in form Hardy was a great opponent for him, agile enough to keep up with his antics, but possessing enough power to give the match a solid big man/little man structure to underpin it.

MATCH 2- HANDICAP MATCH- THE UNDERTAKER VS. THE BIG SHOW & A-TRAIN

This was scheduled to be a tag team match, with Undertaker being partnered by his protege, the inexperienced Australian behemoth Nathan Jones. Jones really didn’t look ready to be a participant in a Wrestlemania match though, which is alarming considering Mr. T and Lawrence Taylor both looked fine in their outings with zero wrestling experience. The Big Show and A-Train assaulted Jones backstage on Sunday Night Heat to give him an out, turning this into a two on one match. Limp Bizkit serenade the American Bad-Ass to the ring with a performance of Rollin’. Taker seems energised by the prospect of having to go it alone, and really tears into his opponents in an impressive display. A-Train looks quite up for it as well. Nathan Jones turns up, hungry for revenge! Big Show goes to meet him and gets spin kicked! Which looked fairly impressive, to be fair. Back in the ring, Jones continues his rampage with a superkick to A-Train, and Taker follows up with the Tombstone for the pin. **. This was much better than it could have been. There seemed a lot of motivation amongst the competitors, and they pulled off some nice power moves. This was almost ten minutes, it’s a shame they couldn’t have switched length with the opener, that probably would have been better for all involved. Still, this was a decent effort.

MATCH 3- TRIPLE THREAT MATCH FOR THE WWE WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP- VICTORIA VS. TRISH STRATUS VS. JAZZ

Jerry Lawler’s commentary on this is predictably hideous. He squeals with arousal at the slightest hint of Victoria’s arse crack. It’s a particular shame because this is a neat little match, although it’s messy in places and lacks the needless viciousness of X8’s equivalent title bout. It has the flaw a lot of Triple Threats have of generally just doing a series of rotating singles matches, but they sprinkle in a couple of nice sequences involving all three women. Jazz was a really, really capable wrestler, I like her mixture of stretchy submissions and vengeful strikes. Victoria’s strange friend Steven Richards tries to get involved, and gets some Stratusfaction for his troubles! Trish follows up with the Chick Kick to Victoria, and covers to claim the Women’s Championship! ** ¼. A stepdown from X-8 for sure, but it’s still a fun seven minute sprint. WWE’s women’s division from 2002-2007 had proper talent. Another generation wasted. 🙁

MATCH 4- TRIPLE THREAT TAG TEAM MATCH FOR THE WWE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS- TEAM ANGLE VS. CHRIS BENOIT & RHYNO VS. LOS GUERREROS

As you’d expect, this is at the very least technically sound, but it’s quite hard to follow or engage with. It goes less than ten minutes but there’s six different people in the match and they’re all given roughly equal time in the ring, so it essentially devolves into an entertaining but incoherent series of people just flying in and out of proceedings. Eddie Guerrero doesn’t even get the chance to cheat properly! Rhyno tries to whittle down the field with Gores, crunching into Haas and Chavo. Eddie drags him out the ring to stop the slaughter, but it doesn’t save the match for Los Guerreros, as Benjamin pins Chavo to pick up the scraps and retain the title. ** ¾. The action itself was pretty great, it just didn’t feel like it could go anywhere.

MATCH 5- SHAWN MICHAELS VS. CHRIS JERICHO

Chris Jericho once considered Shawn Michaels his hero, but turned against him because of his refusal to let him beat up Stacy Keibler. If only he’d wanted to shit in her food, rather than hit her with a chair!

They start off on the mat, slipping between headlocks and headscissors’ and arm drags. It’s nothing special, but it’s nice and fluid. Lawler whines about it because of course he does. JR: “Do you want them to show their puppies?” Ross has had some super comebacks for Lawler these last couple of years. Jericho steps things up a notch by slapping Shawn in the face! Michaels drags his foe out to the floor, and follows him out with a plancha. A nice dive, but he’ll regret doing it, because Chris snatches at his legs and locks in the Walls of Jericho on the floor! Obviously he can’t get a submission out that, but it drains Michaels’ energy and gives Y2J control back in the ring. He takes advantage of it with some nice moves, vaguely focused on the back. A back suplex! A back breaker! A spine buster! “I’m better than you! I’m better than you!” shouts Jericho as he slaps Michaels around, desperately trying to convince himself more than he is his opponent. Shawn comes back into the match and that leads to another really great stretch of action. Sweet Chin Music by… Y2J?! HBK doesn’t want to let him get away with such thievery and tries to hit the move himself, but Jericho ducks and grabs the Walls! Michaels is agonised, but summons enough to make the ropes. “He tapped out!” pleads Jericho, on the brink of tears. Losing his temper, he charges at Shawn, and pays for his foolhardiness with Sweet Chin Music! Shawn ties him up with a superb rolling prawn hold, and it’s enough for three! What a beautiful move that is. Use it more often, current professional wrestlers with sufficient athletic abilities to do so! Chris and Shawn seem to have a nice moment going on, as they slump into an embrace after a great match… but Jericho spoils it by kicking his one time hero in the groin! ****. Super match! The finishing stretch was perhaps a little too ambitious, they plateaued in terms of cool moves around the time Jericho was stealing Shawn’s finisher, and yet still kept plugging away for minutes afterwards. Otherwise though I liked this a lot, there were some terrific sequences in there, the finishing move itself was great, and both men gave excellent, athletic performances. You really got the sense this match meant an awful lot to Chris.

Sylvain Grenier, the referee who screwed Hulk Hogan at No Way Out in a rehash of the Montreal Incident, enters Vince McMahon’s locker room. Hmmmm.

Limp Bizkit perform the official Wrestlemania theme song. Dreadful, it is. Fred Durst is a crack addict! BUT NOT IN THE WAY YOU THINK! He’s actually addicted to cracking skulls! Which is probably worse, on balance. On and on their performance goes and then happily it stops.

A catfight takes place between Stacy Keibler, Torrie Wilson, and some ladies whose job was to advertise a beer brand whilst sexy. It takes place on a bed on the entrance stage and lasts about two minutes, so it’s not a real match. Jonathan Coachman’s commentary is quite good though, he seems to view the match as a piece of high art, maybe a Shakespeare play or a ballet. “Oh, yes, wonderful spanking!” he exclaims as Torrie beats Stacy on the bottom. Eventually the ladies get tired of his presence and rips his pants off, and that’s apparently how the segment ends!

MATCH 6- WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP- TRIPLE H VS. BOOKER T

Booker T earned his Wrestlemania title shot in a 20 man battle royal. Triple H decided to play mind games by, uh, saying his five WCW Championships were a joke and slinging racist insults at him. Jerry Lawler gleefully joins in on the night to complete one of the worst commentary performances I’ve ever heard. He’s been unlistenable all evening. Hunter controls much of this match, which is unfortunate because in 2003 he had this weird thing going where he’d wrestle the entire match like he was 50 minutes into an hour long draw with Harley Race. Flair bounces Booker’s knee off the ring steps to put a serious dent in his title challenge, and Hunter debilitates it further with a prolonged Indian death lock which greatly impresses JR. He tries to Irish whip Booker, but his knee is so worn out he just folds to the canvas, which is a cool bit of foreshadowing. There’s another good moment where Booker collides with the referee, but not hard enough to knock him down, and then HHH almost hits him with a clothesline but is able to stop himself. I like it when these long established tropes are messed with a little bit, even if it doesn’t mean anything in the long run. Hunter wants a superplex, but Booker shoves him down to the mat, then flips down onto him with a graceful Harlem Hangover, a most underrated aerial move! Booker bounds off the ropes, but his knee gives way and Hunter capitalises the Pedigree. They then just lie around for a little while before Triple H makes the successful pinfall, a really awkward, lifeless ending. So, the narrative of this feud was- Triple H belittled Booker T at every conceivable opportunity, mocked him for his race and upbringing and all he’d accomplished in his career, then beat him cleanly in the middle of the ring, and sent him back down to the midcard for a couple of years. It’s bold storytelling, I’ll give it that. Bold and hideous. ***. The match itself was quite good, with a nice, simple story of Hunter (and Flair, when he could) tenaciously targeting the knee, which Booker sold consistently well. The pace was too slow and the finish was dreadful though. It was roughly as good as Triple H’s Wrestlemania X8 match with Jericho, but in a more appropriate position on the card.

There’s a weird WWEShop.com promo tacked on here that appears to be from 2005. I have no idea how it made its way onto this broadcast. I’m hoping it’s a Network quirk and not startling evidence that Vince McMahon has acquired time travel.

MATCH 7- STREET FIGHT- HULK HOGAN VS. VINCE MCMAHON

Hulk Hogan would retire from wrestling if he lost this match. The build up to this was centred around a furious debate between Hogan and McMahon as to who was more responsible for the success of Hulkamania. It’s a daft idea for a feud, because it’s an issue that no one outside the two could really care about. Throughout the night there have been this vignettes where the Miller Lite girls and Stacy Keibler and Torrie Wilson angrily debate who deserves more credit for it, and it’s hard not to think… why is this making you so angry? This question is irrelevant to your lives! The sub plot about Hulk leaving for WCW and testifying against Vince in the steroid trials of 1994 would have made a superior basis for their feud for sure. There was also an utterly psychotic angle where Vince made Hogan sign the contract for this match in his own blood, which went a long way to making Hulk look the sympathetic, vulnerable underdog, even though he was fighting an ageing, untrained businessman.

The brawl that begins the match is endearingly shambolic. McMahon throws some really dreadful punches, kicks and clotheslines, but the effort is there. He then demonstrates his Billy Robinson style mat wizardry by grasping on a hammerlock and dropping knees into the prone limb, although he can barely get himself up off the ground! Perhaps realising that he can’t sustain a match like this, Vince takes him to the floor and tries to hit him with a chair, but misses and hits the ring post instead. Hulk takes the chair and bashes McMahon with it. Vince bleeds all over the place! What a trooper! Hulk takes at aim at Vince with another wild chair shot- so wild he misses and wallops Hugo Savinovich in the head instead! Really hard! I still never see that spot coming. It takes the Spanish announce table trope to its logical conclusion. Vince sets a ladder (!) up between the two announce tables, and lies Hulk on the Spanish one. He ascends the ladder and cups his ear like Hogan, with a broad, smug, evil grin etched across his face. Then, he flings himself off the ladder and leg drops the Hulkster through the table! It’s not the kind of fall that would make Jeff Hardy blink twice, but it’s still an incredible, bizarre spot considering who is doing it. Then we get a legit Wrestlemania moment as Vince rolls Hogan back in the ring, finds a lead pipe underneath it, and peers over the ring apron, grinning maniacally with blood just coating his entire face. Shades of the Shining! Unfortunately for him, before he can use the pipe Hogan floors him with a low blow. Both men are down.. and Roddy Piper is here! Of course! Why wouldn’t he be?! He spits on both competitors! The crowd are thrilled to see him, and wait with bated breath as he decides who he’s going to bash with a lead pipe. He chooses Hogan! Booooooooo! The Hot Rod then flees as quickly as he arrived, having made his point. Vince tries to follow up with more pipe shots, but referee Brian Hebner tries to stop him, concerned for Hogan’s welfare. McMahon tosses him out the ring, although Hebner gets tangled up in the ropes at first. Sylvain Grenier is here! Vince shamelessly steals Hogan’s leg drop! And covers! One, two, no! Hogan hulks up! And from there it’s punches for Grenier and punches for Vince and the big boot and not one but two leg drops, and it keeps his foe down for the pin! **** ¼. This is genuinely one of my favourite matches ever. **** ¼ is probably the highest I can give it considering some of its charm derives from really awful moments, but it’s still the absolute pinnacle of the Vince McMahon style of wrestling, style over substance, run ins, blood everywhere, crazy stunts, a deliriously violent farce to make you grin as maniacally as Vince was in the match. As I’ve said before, Vince has this genetic sense of what to do in a wrestling match and each big hook, from the Spanish commentator getting floored to the leap off the ladder to the interference from Piper and Grenier to the Hulk-up spot at the end was timed to absolute perfection, they all felt as shocking and satisfying as they possibly could. It never gets old, this bout. It’s just a good time, a silly, overblown, occasionally baffling good time. If you don’t take wrestling too seriously I really can’t see how you wouldn’t adore it.

MATCH 8- STEVE AUSTIN VS. THE ROCK

The Rock had let his success in Hollywood go right to his head, but was consumed by the knowledge that he’d never been able to beat Steve Austin at Wrestlemania. This is his chance to put that right! The most succinct way of describing this match is probably just “they beat the shit out of each other for nearly 20 minutes.” Austin tries for an early Stunner and the Rock bails to the floor. Stone Cold’s totally fine with that and follows him out there to continue the beating! Rock has more success when he starts to target the Rattlesnake’s knee, smacking it into the ring apron and wrapping it round the ring post. A Sharpshooter continues the pressure, but Austin guts it out and makes the ropes. The Rock dons Austin’s jacket, but almost as if the garment knows it’s being disrespected, the Brahma’s Bull match begins to unravel as he wears it. Stone Cold roars back with a Thesz Press, and then steals the Rock Bottom! One, two, not three! He decides to rely on his trusty Stunner, but Rock blocks it and uses it himself for another close near fall! He wails on his nemesis with right hands, but misses one of them by a mile and falls victim to another Stunner! And still he kicks out at two! Stone Cold tries it again, but the Great One counters with a spinebuster. Rock whips off Austin’s vest and drops the People’s Elbow, but, still, it’s only a two count! Rock Bottom! Two count! Rock Bottom! TWO COUNT! ROCK BOTTOM! That’s enough, that’ll do it. **** ¼. An outstanding brawl, especially considering Austin was hospitalised the previous night with a pretty terrifying sounding health scare. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Austin as vulnerable as the one who just kept getting pummelled with the Rock Bottom at the end and somehow found the strength to keep kicking out. It was an emotional ending to an emotional fight, but there was substance to it as well, as they kept up a remarkable pace all things considered and made every near fall feel like they were hurling bombs rather than just stringing together finishing moves. A marvellous, dramatic, gutsy bout.

MATCH 9- WWE CHAMPIONSHIP- KURT ANGLE VS. BROCK LESNAR

Brock Lesnar won the 2003 Royal Rumble to earn this title shot. He received the opportunity to win the belt even earlier though, on the March 3rd edition of Smackdown. Angle thwarted his challenger by pulling a switcheroo with his brother Eric Angle, allowing him to get a sneaky roll-up for the pin. To try and prevent Kurt from pulling any more tricks, Smackdown GM Stephanie McMahon barred Team Angle from ringside and permitted the title to change hands on a DQ or a count-out. Kurt Angle enters the match with two herniated discs that desperately needed surgery, but he’s soldiering on ill advisedly to headline Wrestlemania. It’s not just Angle in trouble though- Michael Cole has almost lost his voice. It makes him sound all gravelly and authoritative, so maybe he should try it more often!

They start off on the mat, the only match to do so in a meaningful manner on this show apart from Michaels-Jericho. And I think Michaels-Jericho’s mat work was marginally better, which is surprising considering these guys’ amateur pedigree. They show a little bit more variety in their holds, but they aren’t as quick and seamless, so it feels a bit flat. Lesnar starts to show flashes of his power, and when Angle drops him with a nice German suplex, he just roars right back up with a clothesline! A press slam continues his momentum. Even the most powerful aren’t going to like being German suplexed into the turnbuckles though, so Kurt’s probably quite wise to do exactly that! The Olympic Gold Medallist follows up with a few more suplex variations, and then clamps on a rear naked choke like hold. It slows things down to a crawl and means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Lesnar powers out of it by bouncing Angle off the turnbuckles, and from there things improve with more cool suplexes! Brock crashes Kurt into the canvas with a pair of belly to bellies, so Angle retaliates with four Germans! He tries for the Ankle Lock but Lesnar is still sprightly enough to dodge it, so he dumps him with a mega rad release German suplex! Angle Slam gets two! Another Angle Slam is countered into a cradle and then through into the F-5! Still only two though! Brock tries to pick Kurt up but gets snagged in the Ankle Lock! Can Brock survive? Yes. Yes he can, despite Angle grapevining the legs. Angle Slam is countered into another F-5! Lesnar tries to finish with a spectacular Shooting Star Press, but, eek, he under rotates and lands right on the top of his head! Angle improvises and drapes his arm across him for a two count. Now the idea that both guys could cripple themselves seems a genuine peril, so Lesnar mercifully hits a third F-5 and wraps up the bout. The two embrace out of respect post match, no sneaky punt by Angle or anything. *** ½. So. I know he was wrestling with a truly ridiculous injury that should have kept him well away from the ring, so it seems unfair to criticise him too much, but this match really sums up what I don’t like about the Angle match structure. I don’t find the amateur-ish stuff he starts the match with all that interesting, and I don’t like the way so many of his matches finish with just a series of barely connected finisher kick-outs. Essentially, the Angle Slam is a finisher in name only, since in all his big matches it’s always just a device for a kick out at 2.99999. The Ankle Lock being enhanced with the grapevine happens so often it doesn’t really feel so special. Most jarrringly, the transitions between them are often near non-existent, so it feels like he’s just cutting and pasting finishers together. The Rock and Steve Austin’s match was heavy on the kick outs as well, but, I don’t know, I always find it more tolerable when they do it. I’m not sure why. It just feels more dramatic,somehow. I guess there must be a reason. Anyway, yeah, I didn’t like the beginning and I didn’t like the middle with that boring, badly timed rear naked choke, and I didn’t like the finishing stretch, but the thing with Kurt is that he’s such a naturally outstanding athlete and clearly cares about his craft so intensely that there are still tons of individual little moments to enjoy. He does the little things so well, he’s got a highly underrated clothesline on him and his suplexes are frequently astonishing. Brock brought his A-Game of course, and contributed some remarkable feats of power. This felt like a proper, competitive, shooty tussle at times, and I always like that in a match. Lesnar’s botched Shooting Star is one of the most iconic failures in wrestling history as well, and considering he was quite dazed having missed it, Kurt did very well to hold his hand through that final F-5. It’s a match that’s less than the sums of its parts- lots of quality moments let down by an iffy match structure. Still, it’s an appropriately dramatic conclusion to the show, and a worthy effort all things considered.

9.2
The final score: review Amazing
The 411
For me, this show edges out Wrestlemania X-Seven for the title of "best Wrestlemania that can't boast Savage vs. Steamboat and Hogan slamming Andre." Whereas X-Seven's edge has been dulled by years of people proclaiming it "the greatest PPV of all time" when it probably isn't, XIX still feels fresh and compulsive. Objectively, it probably boasts the better wrestling as well: Michaels-Jericho is a total peach, Austin-Rock is a shade weaker than their main event in 2001 but remains a remarkable, rousing fight, Hogan-McMahon is an absolute blast, and a lot of people dig Lesnar-Angle as a main event a lot more than I do as well. In fact, there are honestly no bad matches- Triple H vs. Booker is tasteless but technically sound, and the weakest bout, Undertaker vs. Big Show & A-Train with a Nathan Jones cameo, is 20 times better than it should be. Even X-Seven had Chyna-Ivory! The Miller Lite Catfight and the Limp Bizkit songs are a bit of a drag, but that's pretty much it in terms of criticisms. Having gone through a four year spell which featured three really poor Wrestlemanias (and, OK, one of the best in 2001), XIX would mark the first in a string of terrific efforts on the Grandest Stage of Them All from WWE; by this point the formula was perfect, and the hits kept coming.
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Wrestlemania 19, Jack Stevenson