Worst WWE Match Ever - 85 - Jesse Jammes vs. Rockabilly - In Your House 14: Revenge of the Taker

 85.

Jesse Jammes vs. Rockabilly

In Your House 14 - Revenge of the Taker

Talk about a match that feels out of place for its time. By April 1997, the wrestling landscape had changed dramatically. The nWo had debuted in the summer the previous year, introducing a new edgier side to the WWE’s primary competition. WWE took a bit of time to catch up to this, but on the back of the push of Steve Austin, as well as the change in character for Bret Hart, there were signs that the WWE were on its way to its own edgier brand of television. That change didn’t come overnight, and while the seeds had been planted for what would become the Attitude Era, there were still plenty on the card that reflected the mid-90s New Generation of WWF. An era of wrestling that no longer complemented the culture of the late 90s. 

Sometimes it is funny how life precedes itself. Both men in this match had a largely unspectacular career to this point, mostly floundering within the lower card and tag division. Tonight, Billy Gunn debuts his new gimmick as Honky Tonk Man’s protégé, Rockabilly. Honky Tonk Man had been teasing his new protégé for weeks, including offering Billy the chance two weeks earlier. As if the prospect of the Honky Tonk Man’s protege isn’t anticlimactic enough, but the big reveal is … the guy that he approached two weeks earlier. I can’t really recall any time in wrestling where a mystery reveal is just someone that was teased a couple weeks earlier. The rumour is that Honky Tonk Man’s protégé was intended to be Disco Inferno, but due to a no-compete clause in his contract the timeline didn’t work and WWE were left scrambling for a replacement. I can’t think of many things worse than Billy Gunn in this role, but Disco Inferno would have been pretty damn close. 

Jesse Jammes is not having much of a better time himself, as his own gimmick mimicked that of the now departed Jeff Jarrett. 

If I had to describe this match in a word, it would be sad. The match is not good by any means - in fact it is quite terrible - but to have a match with so little heat must be demoralising for the talent. No matter what antics Billy, Jesse Jammes or the Honky Tonk Man tried to pull, there was no getting a reaction out of this crowd here. I think we’ve all been part of a crowd like this. Whether at a wrestling show, or perhaps at a stand up comedy show - when there’s performers on stage that are getting zero reaction and at a certain point I almost start to pity them. 

Between just about every move, Rockabilly takes the time to do a little shuffle to gloat to try and revive the crowd. Nothing happening and instead you just have this guy in an outdated gimmick doing a lame little shuffle to crickets. This is embarrassing. Eventually those shimmies would inevitably come back to bite him when Jammes would roll him up for the win.

In a way, if this were anyone but Billy Gunn, this is a career ender. However WWE were always enamoured with Billy, and would constantly push and re-push him in an attempt to get that winning formula to make him a star, meaning he got more opportunities even after this disaster. In a twist of irony, the lowest point of Rockabilly’s career is against the man that he would later go on to become synonymous with. By the end of 1997, the New Age Outlaws had formed seemingly from nowhere. Their chemistry and personality finally shined as the Attitude Era developed. Instead of playing campy country musicians, they were edgy and brash. In a way, when I find myself feeling sorry for these two for what they must have felt during this night, I remind myself that in less than a year they would go on to become one of the most popular acts in the history of WWE. And in a way, I find that little irony that this match exists between these two a little heartwarming in its own perverse way.

Up Next - After a few matches of just bad matches, no we have bad wrestling that comes under the category of “entertaining shite”. This time featuring attempted murder and vehicular manslaughter.

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Worst WWE Match Ever - 86 - Billie Kay & Carmella vs. Lana & Naomi vs. Liv Morgan & Ruby Riott vs.Dana Brooke & Mandy Rose vs. Natalya & Tamina - Wrestlemania 37 Night 1

 86.

Tag-Team Turmoil

Billie Kay & Carmella vs. Lana & Naomi vs. Liv Morgan & Ruby Riott vs.Dana Brooke & Mandy Rose  vs. Natalya & Tamina

Wrestlemania 37 - Night 1

It’s a sad state of the women’s tag division at the time that this match exists on Wrestlemania. Winner of this match faces for the women’s tag team championships at Night 2 of Wrestlemania - a match that features one properly established team, and three makeshift teams that are set to face the makeshift champions the following night.

I’ll come outright and say that Billie Kay is the biggest disaster of this match and pretty much single handedly brings this otherwise below average yet inoffensive match onto this list. You have to do something quite special to make Lana, fucking Lana, look like Ricky Steamboat in there. There’s a good 30 second section of wrestling which might just be the worst piece of wrestling in Wrestlemania history where Billie first completely screws up on a tilt-a-whirl bump, wildly and embarrassingly flails at thin air while Naomi hits the ropes, and then sells a similarly whiffed kick from Lana. It’s as ugly as anything from the infamous Jackie Gayda tag match. She’s uncoordinated, her timing is all over the place, and she can’t bump for shit. She looked every bit the untrained wrestler that Jackie Gayda was, but without the excuse that she actually was that. She had been wrestling for over 10 years at this point, compared to Gayda’s 3 televised matches, yet she didn’t look like she’d stepped foot in a ring before. 

Carmella assists Billie Kay in eliminating Naomi and Lana ensuring that the pain had to continue a bit longer. At the very least Lana is out, and they’re replaced by the Riott Squad who spend the whole match trying to get something good out of what was around them.

I somewhat enjoyed the IIconics outside the ring, they were funny characters when given the right material. But once they got in the ring the pair of them were bad, both in terms of their wrestling ability and - most obnoxiously - their incessant screeching. That’s on full display here. In an era where women’s wrestling is supposed to be taken more seriously on a show main evented by Bianca Belair and Sasha Banks, having her and Lana in this match feels incredibly out of place. 

Once Billie Kay and Carmella are out, the match improves significantly, although that is a low bar to clear. Mandy and Dana come to the ring - edited from the Network version is Mandy Rose’s Ultimo Dragon-esque trip.That’s not to say the match isn’t without its problems after this point. Dana and Mandy are no special talents, but thanks to Liv’s bumping and the general work of the Riott Squad it is a lot better in the second half. Even the ring announcer gets in on the misery, declaring that the Riott Squad had been eliminated, despite the fact that it was actually Dana and Lana who were out.

The final team out is Natalya and Tamina, who I’m afraid to say are two of my least favourite wrestlers on the roster. I am not a fan of talents that just exist for nearly a decade without changing anything about their character or significantly improving. They don’t do anything offensive, outside of Natalya waiting around for the sharpshooter for entirely too long before deciding to tag in Tamina for the win. The wrong team won, as Natalya and Tamina are old news, whereas at least the Riott Squad were a somewhat interesting team. The following night they’d have a mediocre match with Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler, although inexplicably Tamina got some great reactions on Night 2. I don’t understand it, but good for her at least.

Up Next - Billy Gunn debuts his new gimmick against the man that would save his career.

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Worst WWE Match Ever - 87 - Armando Elejandro Estrada vs. Braden Walker - ECW, 8th July 2008

 87.

Armando Elejandro Estrada vs. Braden Walker

ECW - 8th July 2008

You only get one chance at a first impression.

Shinsuke Nakamura. Chris Jericho. Kane. These are among the standard bearers of great debuts. The sort of debut where you remember vividly every detail, and watch a star emerge overnight.

Then there’s the other side of the coin.

Sin Cara. The Shockmaster. Tito Ortiz. The debuts that became infamous for their failure. One that derailed future plans and left the talent scrambling to salvage what was left of their career, broken by an ill fated, poorly booked, or badly executed introduction.

Braden Walker is in the latter category.

Braden Walker had maybe a combined 15 minutes of television time on WWE TV across the two weeks he appeared on television. And yet those 15 minutes have been enough to cement his name in infamy. In a segment that has been parodied and mocked for the last 15 years, Braden Walker is introduced backstage as ECW’s newest superstar, debuting with a knock knock joke with all the writing, delivery and comedic timing of a eulogy. He was doomed from the start.

Now if Braden Walker was just some dude, then nobody would have batted an eye about him, and he’d be lost to history only to those brave enough to dig into the archives of WWE ECW. But Braden Walker was the former Chris Harris from TNA. One half of TNA’s greatest tag team, America’s Most Wanted. He was part of one of TNA’s finest and most memorable matches against Triple X in 2004. Even as recently as a year before this match, he and his former tag team partner, James Storm, were having TNA’s match of the year at Sacrifice 2007. At Slammiversary he was briefly pushed into the TNA World Championship picture as part of the King of the Mountain match. It looked like he was set to break out as TNA’s next big homegrown star. So when he was let go and picked up by WWE there was some optimism from a lot of fans, myself included.

But Shock, I hear you say, surely the promo isn’t enough to ruin his career. And that brings us to the match. 

His opponent tonight is Armando Alejandro Estrada, who was fighting for a contract in ECW after his tenure as ECW General Manager ended. Estrada - who was a fun manager character at the start of his WWE run - had inexplicably been changed to a wrestler role that didn’t work for him whatsoever and would ultimately end with his own release in 2008.

In a vacuum, does this match warrant a place on the list? Probably not. This is a plain-ass 4 minute match where nothing interesting whatsoever happens. But therein lies the problem. Braden Walker, out of shape, in his plain black singlet, with his new generic name, standard stock entrance music, with his default entrance where he simply points once, and fresh off one of the most infamously bad opening promos, did absolutely nothing interesting in this match. He is a default create-a-wrestler and this is the tutorial match. Any enthusiasm anyone might have had for Chris Harris in WWE was killed in a single night. 

First of all, at 4 minutes long, this is entirely too long for a debut match against Estrada. Why is he taking meaningful offence from Estrada? Why is he selling for him? Walker could have maybe, maybe survived that horrible opening promo if he was given the opportunity to shine. But he didn’t - he spent most of this 4 minute match selling for Estrada. This debut should be a showcase for him. I referenced Sin Cara earlier - even in his debut match against Primo, at least WWE tried to showcase some of the stuff he could do by pairing him with someone like Primo who could (in theory) complement him. Walker is sitting there in chinlocks and bearhugs from Armando Estrada. He wins off the most basic of babyface moves (a flying cross body) so nothing original there - and even in doing that he nearly landed on Estrada’s head.

Am I saying this to say Braden Walker is blameless? Absolutely not, he is definitely just as much at fault for the mediocre showing as WWE was. Clearly he was not in the best shape, and didn’t look particularly motivated during his debut match. 

However if I didn’t know better, I’d say the entire presentation of Braden Walker was a sabotage, like someone vehemently opposed the signing of Chris Harris and went all out to kill his WWE career dead. In short, this is the most bland presentation of a wrestler you’re ever likely to see, from the music, the promo, the wrestling style, the attire, the look. And if it were anyone else, it wouldn’t even be in consideration for this list. But because it’s Chris Harris and we know he could be at least something, this deserves its place here and its place in wrestling infamy.

Up Next - modern day women’s wrestling is brought back 15 years at the Grandest Stage of Them All.

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Worst WWE Match Ever - 88 - Stephanie McMahon vs. Vince McMahon - No Mercy 2003

 88.

I Quit Match

Stephanie McMahon vs. Vince McMahon

No Mercy 2003

Truthfully, this wasn’t in consideration when I first started drafting my shortlist of matches. It’s not a match I remember hating when I first watched it back in 2003, and it wasn’t something I revisited often, if at all if I’m honest. Then it came up during Vince’s scandal and controversies last summer. It made me feel gross to think about, which led me to a rewatch as I happened to be working my way through my shortlists. Let me tell you - and perhaps this is a symptom of the time - but this is the trashiest shit you are likely to see in wrestling. It’s Jerry Springer car crash style TV in the worst way. That feeling of it being a symptom of the time is reflected in the crowd response, because the crowd is fanatical through the whole match. Vince gets some of the biggest heat you’ll ever hear. Make no mistake, the live attendances ate this storyline up. Therefore, the argument may be that I’m watching this match with 2023 eyes, not 2003 and thus I am harsher on it in retrospect. I’ll leave that to you.

Stephanie was named general manager of SmackDown in 2002, but by the fall of 2003 Vince had become frustrated by her management style and decisions, notably the hiring of Zack Gowen. In turn, Stephanie also became frustrated by Vince's on-screen relationship with Sable. Speaking of, Sable accompanies Vince to the ring, while Linda McMahon accompanies Stephanie - something that will be important later.

The reason for the match and stipulation is because Vince didn’t want to fire Stephanie because that would be him admitting he made a mistake, and also make him a bad father. So instead he’s going to beat the ever loving shit out of his daughter to make her quit instead, like any good father would. At this point it becomes a little uncomfortable to watch Vince gaslighting Stephanie into saying that the beating she’s going to take is her fault.

If Stephanie loses, she’s out as general manager of SmackDown. If Vince loses, he promises to quit as owner of WWE. Before, during and after the match they hype the drama and importance that this would be the end of one of these two in WWE forever - and here we are 20 years later, of course. For Stephanie she can win by pinfall, submission, or making Vince quit, whereas Vince can only win by making Stephanie quit. 

In terms of actual commentary for the match, it goes without saying that expectations should be limited. Neither are active wrestlers, with Stephanie in particular having far less experience as an in-ring competitor. Neither are capable of bumping convincingly, which can sometimes work if you have a competent wrestler opposite. But together it is awkward, clunky, the timing is all over the place, and they constantly repeat spots. Because Stephanie can’t bump cleanly like a trained wrestler can, every fall feels ugly and I think that adds to the weirdness surrounding this match.

Even by Vince's standards he’s enormously bloated for this match. It’s uncomfortable to watch to see this massive human being beat the hell out of his real life daughter, with the mother at ringside. Somehow, despite all this, Linda still fails to emote one bit. Richard Blummenthal must have been jumping for joy when some intern probably brought this shit to his attention in the 2010 Connecticut election. There’s shenanigans featuring Sable and Linda which are also awkward because of Linda’s robot expressions. 

Stephanie can win via pinfall, and she gets a couple of near falls off numerous lead pipe shots that the crowd bites on big. Eventually Vince gets Stephanie in a choke using the lead pipe, which leads to Linda throwing in the towel for Stephanie. To say this is not quite Survivor Series 1994 would be an understatement, and I put that blame 100% on Linda whose best acting performance was pretending to be drugged in 2001 because she didn’t have to act differently. 

An interesting tidbit is that this match took place around a week before Triple H and Stephanie’s real life wedding, to the point where HHH, Stephanie and Linda all vehemently disagreed with it taking place in case Stephanie got hurt. Seriously, the more you think about this match, the weirder it becomes. 

To me this is another symptom of the awkward post attitude era time period. As wrestling’s popularity dwindled in the twilight of the attitude era, WWE in the early 2000s continued to try and push the boundaries with more tasteless storylines. Vince vs Stephanie, Eric Bischoff raping Linda McMahon, Vince beating up a one-legged man, Vince threatening to have Undertaker’s wife raped - all off the top of my head all happened within mere months of one another in the summer and fall of 2003. WWE was desperately trying to cling on to what made it successful, and push it further despite the fact that car crash television was on its way out, and in my opinion the correct move would have been to move the other way. 

It makes me happy how far wrestling has come that this will likely never be seen again. For the first time in this list, we’ve come across a match that is not just poor quality, but actually outright unpleasant to watch.

Up Next - what a difference a year makes. From a match of the year contender and a brief world title push in one company in 2007, to this …

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Bishamon Vs Aussie Open - NJPW Sakura Genesis (8/4/23)

It's been a slow start to the year for quality tag team wrestling, but it's exploded in the last week or so.  Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens won the tag titles from The Usos in a glorious main event of Wrestlemania Saturday, ROH put on a spectacular ladder match which Lucha Bros survived as new ROH tag champs, FTR were back on top of the tag division in AEW after they beat The Gunns for the titles on Wednesday, and this weekend we saw one of the better IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Title matches in recent history.  

Timing has never been a strong suit for Aussie Open.  When they were on the come up in late 2017/early 2018, the BritWres boom was just about peaking and starting to drift downwards.  In early 2020, Mark Davis teared his ACL which took him out of action for a year.  When he returned in early 2021, the world of wrestling was deep into the Pandemic era with limited opportunities to tour.  It took until the end of 2022 before Aussie Open could get started for real with New Japan as part of the world tag league where they lost in the finals to, ironically, Hirooki Goto and Yoshi Hashi.  

A few minutes into the match Kyle Fletcher hits a beautiful moonsault to the outside of the ring, but his momentum on landing caused the back of his head to crash into the guardrail and get a nasty cut in the process.  Mark Davis then took control for a long beatdown of Yoshi Hashi while Fletcher got treated on the apron having a bandage applied around his head with blood still seeping through it like Terry Butcher in 1989.  The blood won the sympathy of the crowd and turned Aussie Open into defacto babyfaces with the Ryogoku faithful as they could see how passionate and how hard Aussie Open wanted to fight for these titles.  Bishamon have been a great team over the last few years, but it's not often they come up against challengers as determined, and frankly, as good as this.  This match was stacked full of cool double team moves and a tremendous performance from Fletcher who wrestled like a fire was light under him once he started bleeding.     

After a double lariat from Fletcher and Davis, they hit the coriolis on Goto to win the titles clean as a whistle and become the new tag Champions after around 15 minutes of great action.  These guys get bonus points for being heels that get the job done without help - I was a little worried when the United Empire entrance involved Cobb, Henare, Akira and O'Khan, but they played no factor in the match thankfully.  United Empire > Bullet Club. 

In some respects it may not be such a bad thing that Aussie Open have had to wait so long for this moment.  Kota Ibushi, Will Ospreay and Shingo Takagi all had their first IWGP World Heavyweight title wins soured by being in front of quiet, clap-crowds because it never felt like the big moment it should have been.  At Sakura Genesis New Japan was back to the way it was before the pandemic, and the way the fans rallied before Aussie Open really helped make this moment feel like a huge one for them.    

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List

WWE Worst Match Ever - 89 - Braun Strowman vs. Tyson Fury - Crown Jewel 2019

 89.

Braun Strowman vs. Tyson Fury

Crown Jewel 2019

At some point it was inevitable we’d get to one of these shows. Since expanding their premium live event format into Saudi Arabia, they have been infamous for some of the worst matches of recent years. Our first entry comes from 2019 as one of the most famous boxers in the world takes on Braun Strowman in a match that, at least on paper, sounds interesting and wouldn’t look out of place at a Wrestlemania. After all, WWE has a history of success bringing in stars from the world of boxing into wrestling, most notably with Floyd Mayweather in 2008. There’s a world where this match is a total blast and a true spectacle.

Unfortunately, this is not that world. 

Celebrity matches live and die by the celebrity’s commitment to the cause. Guys like Logan Paul, Floyd Mayweather, and Bad Bunny put a noticeable effort and went all in to put on a show and that reflected on their performances. However we should have known this was going to be a bad one with the most awkward press conference in history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUb0WXirF4A

Tyson Fury gets an obnoxious amount of pyrotechnics during his entrance. It’s like that Kevin Nash gif from WCW. Or someone going OTT on their create-a-wrestler entrance.

When you get boxers into wrestling, it must be a struggle for them to untrain themselves to throw a worked punch after learning to do the exact opposite for their entire life. Fury and Braun try some routine wrestling sequences that look awful, before we finally get a sign of things to come when Fury “hits” a shoulder block on Braun. Except it’s done with so little velocity you’d be mistaken for thinking it were Jenna Morasca hitting it. To me, this is almost like that Brock Lesnar vs Dean Ambrose match from Wrestlemania 32, but on a worse scale. In that case, Brock had no interest in doing anything intense or risky because of an upcoming UFC fight. Same here with Fury - you have one of the most legitimately scary motherfuckers in the world and he’s wrestling such a tepid match because an injury to him would be devastating. When Floyd Mayweather wrestled Big Show in 2008, it was a full 18 months before his next boxing match, meaning that he could take a few risks and bumps. The timing of this match is horrendous planning because Fury was just four months away from a highly anticipated heavyweight rematch against Deontay Wilder. An injury to Fury in this environment would have been so catastrophic to Fury and boxing as a whole that it’s a wonder why they even agreed to it in the first place (although I could give you 12 million reasons why). 

However when you watch this match, you realise that the risk of injury is laughably low. 

Braun is in the unenviable role of trying to make Fury’s awful offence look good, while also tuning down his own offence to make it as safe as possible. He also has to account for Fury having no sense of timing or positioning for WWE wrestling. This makes Braun look horrible. Fury wrestles like someone that doesn’t have a great deal of interest in putting on a show, which adds to the perception of this being a quick cash grab. The whole appeal of these two monsters is that they are larger than life ass kicking behemoths. When they have to tone down their offence because they’re petrified of someone getting hurt, it makes the entire spectacle of the match pointless. Instead we get an awkward, mistimed mess. Eventually Fury hits Braun with a right hand, which gives him the win in 9 minutes via count out. After the match, Braun gets his heat back by hitting the running powerslam on Fury, only for Fury to get up immediately and begging Braun to “get back here, pussy!”

In a bizarre twist, this isn’t even the worst match featuring a non-wrestling legitimate fighter on this show, but we’ll get to that later.

I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the actual controversies of these shows, so allow me to get a little personal about it. However if the politics of the show does not interest you, or you’ve heard it all before and don’t want to relive it, then feel free to skip the remainder of the post as the commentary on the match is now finished. This will be the only time on the blog that I’ll reference the controversies of the Saudi shows, so I figured I’d get it out the way now in this first entry.

I’ve always had difficulty with these shows for many reasons, but on a personal level I struggle with it because I am part of a community that is illegal by law in Saudi Arabia. There is no tolerance for people like me. Me and my fiancé would genuinely be at risk of death if we were there, just because of how we were born to be and our beliefs that adults should be allowed to love other adults regardless of gender. Even looking beyond the journalists, the atrocities in Yemen, the misogyny, the worldwide funding of terrorism, and the environmental aspect, there is a very real part of these shows that offends me on a personal level as an individual that hits me hard. People from the forum or know me outside it may be aware that I gave up supporting my local football team of 30 years, Newcastle United, as a direct result of their takeover by the Saudi Public Investment Fund because I couldn’t in good conscience support a team whose future success will be directly attributed to the funding and governance of the Saudi Royal Family. With the way they’ve dipped their funds into just about every walk of life, it is impossible to truly boycott everything. Does that make me a hypocrite because I consume media from WWE and Disney (to name a couple) knowing full well where they get some of their money? Perhaps, but it is also a consequence of the imperfect world we live. The best we can do is our best, whatever you think that is, and to protest in a way that suits you. 

This is all compounded further by one of the men in this match, Tyson Fury, who is a well documented homophobe who has made vile comments towards the LGBT community including likening it to bestiality and paedophilia. It was around 3-4 years before this match took place that he made those comments, and to my knowledge he has never explicitly said that he no longer feels that way. However he did apologise to people he had hurt. Fury is a complicated man, who had a unique upbringing that warped his views on life. By his own admission, he struggled mightily with addiction and mental health issues at the time of those comments, and for that I can sympathise with him. I also recognise that he has done more than most to promote men’s mental health awareness in the UK in recent years. For this I feel he is difficult to evaluate and he is living proof of the grey in people. He’s not a person I would find easy to forgive for his previous comments, and that of course does mean that I went into this match with a less-than-enthusiastic approach even before watching it.

I say all this to say, there are plenty of reasons to hate these shows and what they stand for. The purpose of this blog and future entries is not to shit on the concept of these shows, but the matches that happened to take place on them as it just so happens to be where bad wrestling takes place.

Up Next - As WWE goes through a power struggle off-screen in real life, let’s look back to a time when the McMahons kept their power struggles strictly on-screen.

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Worst WWE Match Ever - 90 - Triple H vs. The Undertaker - Super Show-Down 2018

 90.

Triple H vs. The Undertaker

Super Show-Down 2018

Addiction can come in many forms. It stems from seeking a high that you previously experienced. I bring this up because if you’ve ever listened to anything the Undertaker has had to say since retirement, you know that the last few years of his career are him chasing that last great match. After the CM Punk match in 2013, Undertaker’s match quality plummeted as father time finally caught up with him. Time and time again he would return, have a stinker, and try and try again. Even the tagline for the match has loose addiction connotations:

The Last Time Ever.

Yes, six years after their previous last time End of An Era match we have the actual Last Time Ever match between Triple H and Undertaker. This is definitely the last time they’d feed this addiction of this particular feud. Just one more hit. Until next month anyway. After failing to meet his own lofty expectations with matches against Roman Reigns, and Shane McMahon, Undertaker looked to recapture the magic he once had with Triple H. Despite my own feelings about their Wrestlemania 28 match, there is no doubt that the men involved are immeasurably proud of that accomplishment, and the majority of fans acknowledge it as one of the greatest moments in Wrestlemania history. 

A part of me sympathises with them on a personal level. Particularly with Undertaker, wrestling has, at the time of this match had been in wrestling for over 30 years. As a wrestler, he aged remarkably well, enjoying his peak years well into his 40s. For someone like that, who is clearly passionate for the business, to be faced with his own mortality and a sudden decline must be difficult to handle. Similarly with Triple H, who has also declined, albeit not as sharply as Undertaker.

The story going into this match is that Triple H and Shawn Michaels are upset about losing to Undertaker over the course of four Wrestlemanias. They then decided to make the feud personal by saying that the four matches between 2009 and 2012 led to the Undertaker eventually losing the Streak and becoming the shell of a man we see these days. It sounds like a decent premise for a feud, but the problem was how contrived it was put together. For starters, they didn’t start feuding then announce this match as a consequence. Rather the match was announced at the time that the PPV as a whole was, and then the storyline came afterward. Instead of being an organic storyline, this is nothing more than nostalgia bait for a time when these two were competent wrestlers, and had a storyline that had the fans invested. This was a sequel nobody asked for, for a movie with actors that are washed up and phoning it in for an easy payday. This is the Hocus Pocus 2 of wrestling. 

Even going as far back as Wrestlemania 28, these men were on the tail end of their career. Shawn Michaels was retired, Triple H and Undertaker were once-a-year wrestlers, and Kane - well Kane was still around. Now it’s 6 years later, Undertaker and Triple H are still once-a-year wrestlers but each are noticeably slower and their match quality fell off a cliff. Shawn Michaels was retired but now bald (more on this later). Kane (more on this dude later) is essentially retired, now a mayor. 

Had this match been a short house-show style 12 minute match nobody would have negatively cared one bit about this match. It would have been fun, inoffensive nostalgia bait that left the fans happy. I would liken it to the ultimate nostalgia bait match, Stone Cold vs Kevin Owens from Wrestlemania 38. That match was 12 minutes long, well paced, hit their spots, and sent the fans home happy. If this match was in that vein, it wouldn’t even be considered for this list. 

Instead, these guys just couldn’t help themselves. They were chasing the dragon of that 2012 match and story. They had to make it epic. They had to try and make it a poignant, deep storyline. They had to bring back Shawn Michaels for his hammy over-acting. They had to go for 30 minutes. They even brought Kane in to try and one-up the epic. Undertaker was chasing that one last classic epic, and Triple H was more than willing to go along. 

The Australian crowd, as you’d expect, are extremely enthusiastic for this with “This is Awesome” and “You Still Got It” chants throughout. And to start with, what we have is a meandering but ultimately inoffensive encounter. It’s clear that both still have some juice, and the first few minutes were reasonably enjoyable. Unfortunately, the match keeps going, and as they do they start slowing down. They’re out of position for spots; the timing is all off; they can’t lift each other over (one very noticeable botch comes when both are in the crowd and Undertaker can’t manage a back body drop). As the match goes on, it’s just sad to watch them deteriorate before our eyes. The crowd dies a horrible death as the match progresses - some are still willing to try and get some chants going, but they lost all enthusiasm in the second half of the match. 

Since it’s topical to these wrestlers, I’ll take an aside to talk about the funniest Undertaker trope in his twilight wrestling years. Since Wrestlemania 27 he always teases the dive to the outside, only for him to be cut off. Which, given how he nearly killed himself on that Wrestlemania 27 dive, I don’t blame him one bit for not doing it again.

My review makes this sound incredibly negative about Undertaker and Triple H. But they arguably weren’t the biggest frauds in this match. That award goes to Kane. Kane gets the easiest payday of his life. A free holiday to Australia to stand around in his mask doing absolutely nothing, probably thinking of mayor stuff. Undertaker might as well have brought Bam Neely to be his backup for all the good Kane did. Let’s compare Kane to what Shawn Michaels was doing on the outside. Shawn was causing distractions, chaos, setting up tables, throwing Undertaker into the ring post, handing Triple H weapons. HBK essentially made this a handicap match at times. What does Kane do to respond? Anything between nothing and slowly chasing Shawn Michaels around. One hilarious moment comes as Michaels sets up a table on the outside. Kane, looking to protect his brother, awkwardly chases Michaels and Triple H around the table before retreating. Speaking of said table, Kane takes a Sweet Chin Music and then a very weak elbow drop through the table. That puts Kane out of commission for a good 15 minutes of this match. In the only moment he does anything, he pulls the referee out of the ring to deny a pinfall, before Grandpa Joe’ing his way back into his comatose state for the rest of the match.

If you know anything about me, it’s that I was never particularly fond of the Hell in a Cell match at Wrestlemania 28 - but not through any fault of Triple H or Undertaker themselves. That match is brought down immeasurably by the C tier horror movie acting of Shawn Michaels. I bring this up, not to once again regurgitate my hatred of that match, but because this match, once again, has Shawn Michaels’ over-acting concerned face after they start hitting finishers on one another.

Now time to talk about the most memorable moment of this match, and the only thing anyone talked about afterwards. Shawn had been wearing his cowboy hat all match. Even when taking a bump, the cowboy hat stayed on, desperately clinging on for dear life. That is until near the end, when Undertaker tosses HBK over the top rope, and the cowboy hat decides it has seen enough and flies away, revealing for the first time the horror. Millions of people see their childhood fly away with that cowboy hat, as the world is introduced to bald Shawn Michaels. Poor guy was desperate to keep that hidden. 

The match concludes with a lot of shenanigans, an awkwardly pieced finishing sequence, a standoff between a guy with a steel chair and a guy with a sledgehammer, and ultimately Undertaker loses because he brought the worst bodyguard in the world while Triple H had the smart idea to bring the best wrestler in the match to back him up.  In the end this match could have been a lot higher, had it not been overshadowed the following month.

Up next - We’ve seen a match in Japan, one in Australia. Now time for the lowest hanging fruit as we head to our first (and surely not last) match from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

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Worst WWE Match Ever - 91 - Clowns R Us vs. The Royal Family - Survivor Series 1994

 91.

Traditional Survivor Series Match

Jerry Lawler, Cheesy, Queasy & Sleasy vs. Doink the Clown, Dink, Pink & Wink

Survivor Series 1994

Okay, maybe this is low hanging fruit. After all, what sort of expectations should you reasonably have for a match like this? Despite Jerry Lawler being a fantastic worker in his own right, his teammates and opponents don’t leave much room for hope here in terms of quality. It comes as no surprise that this match lives and dies depending on whether the comedy hits. Comedy, like music, and wrestling as a whole is subjective.. For example, I loved the match between Sami Zayn and Johnny Knoxville, because I grew up watching Jackass and it hit every note it needed to for me. But I could totally understand if someone didn’t enjoy it. I enjoyed the hell out of Wee-LC because it was a combination of hilarious moments with some terrific spots in it. The issue with this entry is the comedy doesn’t work for me. At over 15 minutes in length this makes for a fairly painful experience. 

The rules are that the little people can only wrestle the little people. In the back of my mind I had the faintest hope that maybe the Doink versus Lawler parts could be entertaining. However, I was quickly reminded that this was not Matt Borne’s Doink. 

I’ll give Lawler props for what is a very selfless performance considering how much of an idiot he has to make himself look. The story of the match is that there’s a bunch of shenanigans involving the little people that usually end up with Lawler being embarrassed. In response, Lawler tries to imitate the same strategy on Doink, and inevitably fails. Highlights include all of the clowns and the Royal Family running over Lawler one after the other; and Lawler climbing on the shoulders of one of his teammates, only for that teammate to collapse. Doink is the first man eliminated. However due to the nature of the rules, Lawler is essentially eliminated too because he can’t wrestle any of the little people. That doesn’t stop Lawler from being a presence in the match, as he interferes constantly to keep the momentum on his side and eliminate the rest of Clowns R Us. 

I think it makes it worse in that you can hear Vince pissing himself laughing all the way through. You just know this was his idea and he thought this was the funniest shit he’s ever seen. 

Just a short (no pun intended) review today because there’s not a lot to say about this. If you find it a harmless, fun comedy, then you may not agree with my ranking. But because this comedy style does little for me, all I got was a long winded unfunny match. And a match like this without the comedy is tedious. After the match Lawler takes all the credit (which in fairness, he deserved as he was clearly the reason his team won), which leads to the other 7 people in the match ganging up on him and humiliating him. 

Up next - "do you come from land Down Under?"

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Wrestlemania 39 Night 2 Review - 2/4/23

What a weekend of professional wrestling.

Brock Lesnar Vs Omos

The freak show match delivered.  Brock put on a great 5 minute sell job as Omos worked over his back to hold off the inevitable Brock win.  I enjoyed the back giving up on the first F5 attempt to make the eventual F5 come off as a bigger feat of strength, and only doing it once helped it feel more of a special spot.  An improvement on both men's last Wrestlemania matches, and a better opener than Cena/Theory the night before, and you can't ask for much more than that out of Brock Lesnar Vs Omos.  

Ronda Rousey and Shayna Vs Natalya and Shotzi Vs Liv and Raquel Vs Chelsea and Sonya

On paper this looked to be the weakest match across both nights of Wrestlemania and that's exactly how it ended up.  Not only are there no real stakes here, but the winner felt predictable and the work was never gonna live up to the wild action the men's 4 way tag put on the night earlier.  Liv and Raquel felt like the team with fun chemistry which they'd be better served pushing as babyface tag champions down the line, and Chelsea's act is mildly entertaining, but that's about the limit of the nice things I can say about this match.  Ronda winning after doing pretty much nothing all match felt completely undeserved, but hey WWE are merging with UFC so I get it.  

Gunther Vs Sheamus Vs Drew McIntyre 

I didn't watch the 2000s indies in real time, so that emotional 'you made it' pride that other fans had when Daniel Bryan, Kevin Owens or Sami Zayn made Wrestlemania main events doesn't connect as stronger with me as it does with others.  I definitely have that pride with Gunther who over the last decade I've seen go from wXw to the UK indies, to the US indies to NXT UK and now WWE main roster and get over everywhere and put on phenomenal matches where he's giving guys their career best bouts.  I'm thrilled that his career has come this far and the trajectory is still firmly upwards.  

I love how after 14 years in this company, Sheamus still has targets to strive for that the crowd are invested in.  His chase for the Intercontinental Championship to complete the set has been a great mid-card story that fell into WWE's laps last year and I hope he keeps chasing it for years to come.  It'll feel like a great 'golden watch' moment when he does win it.  

I like Drew McIntyre too. 

A few years ago NXT Takeovers were the safest bet in WWE because they always delivered.  Gunther matches now have that honour because they never miss.  This match was incredible, all three guys beat the shit out of each other in a weekend stealing match that's been a pretty stacked weekend to steal.  We were all Cole, Graves and Titus getting giddy over the brutal action.  Apart from that Gunther splash out of nowhere to break up Sheamus and Drew fighting for a few minutes, this didn't feel like the typical WWE triple threat where two guys fight and one waits on the outside for his spot to return.  Tremendous nearfalls in this one, crucially with Sheamus coming close to winning the title as that's where the fan interest was.  Awesome, awesome, awesome match.  

If I had the book, I'd be calling up Ilja Dragunov to win this title from Gunther to put those career rivals back together.  

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List

Bianca Belair Vs Asuka

I felt a bit bad for these two following the triple threat, but I had no reason to be because they also knocked it out the park.  Asuka's look is possibly the best facepaint work in wrestling history.  Bianca really comes off like the female John Cena with her entrance, that was adorable with the dancing kids.  We know from her NXT days that Bianca can be a great heel and that would be a way to breath fresh life into this long title run, but I'm hoping they stick the course as she's a great fan favourite, the type of female ace Bayley could have been on the main roster.  Anyway back to the match, Mrs. Wrestlemania does it again, and this one really played into the unpredictability in the result.  Bianca's been champion for so long now that it was probably time to put the title on someone else and tell a different story for a bit, but at the same time it's clear to see who the company is higher on between her and Asuka, so I was biting on pretty much everything in that fantastic closing stretch after the mist-miss.  That whole sequence played into the back and forth struggle for control the two of them showcased all match.  Rather like the Sasha match 2 years earlier, they made a point to have spots designed to put over Bianca's strength.  They weren't quite as memorable as the walking up the stairs gorilla press on Sasha, but powerbomb on the outside, the superplex back into the ring and the deadlift KOD at the end were all top notch spots.  I thought last year was a down year for womens wrestling in the states with only two womens matches making my top 25 list for the year, but WWE's offerings this weekend were fantastic and I'm sure they'll be better represented in my list this year.

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List

Edge Vs Finn Balor 

The early brownie points this match gained for Edge's Slayer introduction and the surprise return of the original cell design were quickly lost by Balor's goofy smoke grenade entrance and the purple painted weapons as if he's Harchester United's biggest fan.  We get it, you like the colour purple.  This was a fine plunder match which tbf the weekend was light on so it offered up something different.  I enjoyed the New Day/Usos spot where Balor got trapped in the corner with the kendo sticks, although that doesn't work quite as well in a singles match as it does a tag setting where it leads to a numbers advantage.  Despite Edge's bug eyed facials, I never got a sense of hatred in this one, moreso just your standard WWE feud blow off match.  Hellacious ladder throw by Edge, that was both the highlight and lowlight of the match.  In the moment the blood stoppage was really lame and stopped all the momentum it had, however seeing the sheer size of Finn's gash I understand why the match had to be halted for him to get numbing agent and staples to continue.  Convenient step built into the cell aside, the coup de grace through the table miss was a good spot.  I think I'd rather have Edge win straight away with the spear follow up on that one.  The match wasn't as bad as I was dreading, but I think I enjoyed just about every match other than the 4 way tag more than this one.

The Miz Vs Shane McMahon and Snoop Dogg

This was the best comedy segment WWE has ever produced, and it happened by complete accident.  Shane McMahon's surprise return completely works given his recent history with Miz at Wrestlemania but Shane blowing out his knee took a toilet break segment to goat tier in split seconds.  Snoop Dogg asking Shane 'you alright cuz?' as he laid their like his father at Royal Rumble 2005 had me howling.  Quick thinker Snoop then punched Miz in the face a couple of times and then delivered a people's elbow to get a win over Miz.  What brilliant improvising from Snoop to save this segment from being a car crash - I can still vividly rememeber 4 veteran professional wrestlers being unable to work a match on the fly at Elimination Chamber 2015 when Mark Henry's pod malfunctioned, and here's Snoop calm as anything completing saving the day when the unthinkable has happened.  What an entertainer.  Much better than the Pat McAfee segment the night before.  We will never forget where we were when Shane McMahon tried to yet again win his fathers love and failed in the most hilarious, poetic way possible.  

Roman Reigns Vs Cody Rhodes

A match that feels totally overshadowed by the result.  I'll do my best to break down both elements.  Firstly the quality of the match which I thought was excellent.  This has obviously been a long reign with a wide variety of challengers, but I thought this was the best match Roman's had in the last 2 1/2 years.  Heel Roman Reigns clearly has a formula to his matches - early domination, babyface comeback, insecurities seep in, initial bloodline interference, babyface survives, 2nd wave of bloodline interference, spear and Roman wins.  It's a plug in a play formula that always produces a good main event to close out the show, and there's nothing wrong with that.  To use this years Hollywood tag-line for a minute, so many movie franchises have a plug in a play formula from James Bond to Scream to MCU money grabbers and it works for them.  The key is executing that formula well and Roman, Cody and Heyman all performed their roles superbly well.  Roman's aura and body language in-between the moves is unrivalled, no-one has a better presence than he does in the industry right now, Cody had everyone in the building believing in his dream and he nailed all his hope spots, and Heyman was perfect as a went through a rollercoaster of emotions throughout the contest.  What put this match over the top as the best heel Roman title match yet was the feeling of this being the end (even though it wasn't).  Solo being thrown out early meant we knew The Usos would then come out, but then having Kevin and Sami come out to make the save was a great moment that fit the story and finally meant a Roman challenger was finishing a match on a level playing field.  This was the way everyone hoped and expected the historic title reign to end to put a cap on a fantastic weekend of wrestling.  

And then we all got worked because Solo came back out, stabbed his thumb into Cody's throat and cost him the match.  Rather like Wrestlemania 17, an all timer event ends with a flat finish for the fans to digest.  At the time I hated the finish and felt like they'd made a mistake because they'd never have a hotter moment to make the switch and it felt like the time to move onto a different story after nearly 3 years of this.  After 2 days to mull it over, I've come around to at least understanding the decision and feeling like it wasn't a mistake.  Here's the reasons why:

1) Cody isn't the right choice to end the reign, especially at this point in time.  He has hardly been involved in this story as half his mania build up was overshadowed with Sami Zayn's story with The Bloodline.  Not only that, but his chase has been too quick and without struggle kayfabe wise (injury aside but they couldn't script for that).  He shows back up after years away and beats Seth 3-0 over their feud, then wins the Rumble at #30, cuts a couple of promos about his dad and then he's supposed to win the title from Roman.  I'm not sure that's a good enough build up on his side of things to be the one that ends this historic run.  Cody already feels like a top star on this roster so he doesn't need the title to 'make him', and I feel like there are more interesting directions he can go in first before becoming world champion and realising his dream.  Namely a feud with Brock which was the only interesting thing to come out of Raw on Monday.  Finish the story? It's too soon for that.  If, and it's a big if, Jey Uso is the one to end Roman's run, then that's a more fitting end to this 3 year story because it all started with Jey and his emotional torment has been the throughline across it all.  If the Bloodline slowly dissolve over 2023, that's a believable way for Roman to struggle more in his title matches and eventually lose.

2) They've come this far, they might as well reach 1,000 days as we'll never see anything like this again.  I'm sure there's an event being held on that 1,000th day so they can market the hell out of that

3) Should you end such a historic reign within the same 24 hour period the company is going to announce the even more historic news that they're selling to Endevour?  Cody Rhodes would have been demoted to 2nd biggest story of the weekend had he won on Sunday night, so maybe they want to hold off until they can milk a title win for the maximum publicity.  

4) I really have to push back on this idea that WWE are fumbling their booking because they keep having Roman win.  Not only is it a continuation of them finally pushing Roman right, which previously was a big criticism people had of WWE booking Roman's babyface runs wrong, but this feud keeps getting better and better.  If WWE didn't 'fumble' Drew McIntyre in Cardiff, we wouldn't have gotten the great Logan Paul match in Saudi Arabia and we wouldn't have gotten the Sami stuff from Wargames to Royal Rumble which felt like WWE's biggest angle in a generation.  If WWE didn't 'fumble' Sami Zayn in Montreal, you wouldn't have the amazing scenes on Saturday when Sami and Kevin won the title in the main event of Wrestlemania Saturday, and we wouldn't have gotten Roman Vs Cody which is on of the best main events in mania history.  Over the last 7 months this run has really peaked for Roman with great matches and hot angles, and while I'll accept some of that has to be down to it's mania season and fans are excited because the end might be in sight, there's enough proof there that WWE know how to build up new challengers for Roman to keep things interesting, and that those that fall to Roman are still in good shape to deliver elsewhere on the card (which Drew, Logan, Owens, Sami and Cody all are)

As I say at the moment it's still hard to separate this match and the booking decision along with it, but I hope as time goes on we'll be able to look back at this match fondly as one of the best in Roman's run and one of the better mania main events of all time. 

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List  

Wrestlemania 39 Night 1 Review - 1/4/23

I'm fired up after a great Wrestlemania Saturday show so here's my first ever full show review for the blog:

Austin Theory Vs John Cena 

Consider me worked in the very first match as I thought there was no way John Cena was going to lose when he came out with all the Make a Wish kids.  This felt like a decent way to open up the show in the moment, but actually on reflection it was probably the weakest (proper) match of night and ended with the heel picking up a cheap victory so it won't live long in the memory.  Both guys played their roles well in a basic match where Theory biting Cena a couple times was the lone highlight for me.  

Braun Strowman and Ricochet Vs Viking Raiders Vs Alpha Academy Vs Street Profits

What a wild, crazy, spotty, get your shit in multi-man tag that totally overdelivered.  Everyone got their moment to shine in this one with Viking Raiders crushing fools, Chad Gable performing a sensational chaos theory on Strowman, everyone going and failing top rope dives until Braun hit his and then Ricochet getting more height on a shooting star press than I've ever seen before.  On a normal Wrestlemania, this would be your token tag title match where you cram a bunch of teams onto the card but there's no story - I'm too tired to check every Wrestlemania card but this is probably better than 80% of tag title matches in mania history.   About as good of a tag team sprint as you'll see all year and I loved every second of this.

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List

Logan Paul Vs Seth Rollins

Bit of a low man here on this as I thought this was more good than great and I think that has to do with my issues with Seth Rollins.  Logan Paul nails his character, he's the douchey, cocky heel who's taken to wrestling like a duck to water.  To get the maximum out of that it's best to partner him up against a likeable babyface.  I say this every PPV, but Seth Rollins is the most unlikeable babyface in the world, his character work is awful, I never want to see him win and therefore I didn't have a horse to root for in this one.  It's just two douches doing big spots to each other.  That being said, there were some great big spots in this one.  We're well acquainted with Chekhov's table in pro-wrestling - if someone sets up a table, the match can't end until the table has been broken.  Well now we've got Chekhov's Prime bottle mascot because it was obvious when that blue dude stayed at ringside that he was going to be an ally of Logan's and interfere.  The switcharoo table spot with KSI came off brilliantly.      

Damage Control Vs Becky Lynch, Lita and Trish Stratus 

This was pretty painful when Lita was in the match moving around like a 60 year old Keiji Muto, but wasn't too bad when she was just on the apron and let Becky do the heavy lifting.  Let's split the different and say this was an average match which isn't bad going considering it was the match the fans cared the least for going into the show.  They built to a Trish hot tag that worked out well enough, and the super Stratisfaction on the outside of the ring was a neat spot.  They made sure to give Io her moment to shine with the big moonsault out of the ring onto everyone which was cool.  I don't care too much about the booking of Damage Control, but in terms of in-ring output they almost always disappoint.  Bayley, Io and Dakota are all excellent wrestlers as individuals, but collectively it's not worked out for them as a unit.  Somehow the tag titles need to come off Becky and Lita, and I'm guessing whoever wins Sunday's 4 way tag will challenge in the near-future.   

Rey Mysterio Vs Dominik Mysterio 

This was nearly everything I want out of a Wrestlemania personal feud - I have to stop short of calling this perfect because of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch advertisements during the match.  There were a lot of other matches on the show which would have been more preferable to whore out for money, this cheapened what has been a very well built story and a key moment in Dominik's career.  

That gripe aside, this match was a lot of fun.  The entrances were worthy of Wrestlemania and stole the show in the entrance stakes.  Dominik's character work was great and he soaked up a tonne of heat from the crowd cutting off Rey's attacks and disrespecting his mom and sister in the front row.  I feared they might lean too much into melodrama in this match, but they didn't reach that point for me.  Interferences from Judgement Day, LWO and Bad Bunny didn't take away from the match and ensured this feud will continue, which is the right decision.  Dominik has obvious shortcomings as a wrestler, ones that wouldn't be as pounced on if his last name wasn't Mysterio, but with good booking and safe guiding hands in the ring he can, and is, an entertaining, over act on the show.     

Charlotte Flair Vs Rhea Ripley

I had massive reservations about this match purely on crowd investment.  I knew they had the chemistry in them to have a great match because they've walked up to that line before and had the best match across both nights of Wrestlemania 36, but this was essentially heel vs heel going into the match.  Rhea's matured a whole lot in those 3 years and is a totally different character, but is still chasing that first title win and can still play off that reliable story that she's the young-gun going up against the established veteran.  

Those reservations never really came into play because A) Rhea had good support from the WWE Universe in attendance so she came off as a de-facto babyface and B) They beat the shit out of each other to the point where you couldn't help but get into the match.  Sasha/Mercedes has the reputation of her matches having that chaotic energy to them where execution can fall on the messy side of things but it adds so much to the match.  I think Charlotte's underrated in that regard too, because she has a bunch of great matches in her career, and the tippy-top ones are those matches that feel like she's going off the rails and someone's in danger of getting hurt or busted open.   When Charlotte took that german suplex right on her face and presumably breaking some part of her nose, I yelped, and the match went to another level.  The slow-mo replays of that german were so-so good.  If the forum was still alive I'd make it my signature gif immediately.  I was jumping out of my seat at 4am in the morning at them trading vicious forearms at each other in ways that felt so real amongst a sea of modern Japanese wrestlers doing that spot in a soulless manner.  The super-Riptide to end things was a chefs kiss way to end this war and crown a new champion.  These two went out there to steal the show, and they definitely put on an excellent match that can stand up there with the best womens matches in mania history.   

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List

The Miz Vs Pat McAfee 

I would have rather watched The Blue Prime Bottle and The Cinnamon Crunch Toast Emoji wrestle each other than endure this.  5 minutes that felt like a lifetime.  Death to the idea that you need 'cool off' matches on PPVs.  

The Usos Vs Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens 

Can we please drop that criticism that Sami Zayn should have won the world title in Montreal because all he was gonna get was a consolation tag title win and who cares about the tag titles.

80,000 fans in the area seemed to care about the tag titles.  Sami and Kevin in a state close to their hearts as seen on their ring gear seemed to care about them too.  

We can draw a line under Elimination Chamber now - it was the right call to have Sami lose.  Many underdog wrestlers have won the world title in memorable moments for WWE - Mick Foley, Eddie Guerrero, Daniel Bryan, Kofi Kingston to name a few.  Sami and Kevin broke new ground in nearly 4 decades of Wrestlemania by winning the tag titles in the main event, while closing out a year long storyline in Sami's relationship with Jey Uso.  

The match itself broke the convention tag team rules and we jumped seamlessly from Sami face in peril segments to thrilling Reseda style tag action with Usos serving up superkick after superkick, to WWE style mid-match promos.  It was a beautiful tapestry of the careers of these two teams and the magic they're created in this storyline.  There were big nearfalls when Zayn kicked out of the 1D (which has never happened before) and when Owens survived the double splash that has served The Usos so well in many a tag title match.  This is why you protect your finishers so that they get the biggest impact when people kick out of them in big, career defining matches.      

Sami hit three helluva kicks on Jey to win the match and the scenes from the crowd were fantastic as 80,000 fans jumped off their seats in celebration.  It's the best end to a Wrestlemania since Seth Rollins' heist of the century back in 2015.  Especially in the wake of Supercard of Honor which was a great in-ring show but heavy on the heat with some ballsy booking decisions, it was such a joy to see the big babyface title win and the pay off to a year long story.   

For 'Wrestlemania Goes Hollywood' you really couldn't have scripted this show much better.  

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List

It's hard to compare 2 day manias to 1 day manias, but this feels like one of the best modern mania shows in a long time.  I personally think it's the best one since mania 30.  I can't wait for Sunday.