Irrelevant But Awesome

Joel:  I really enjoy this WrestleMania, but I’ll admit I have a soft spot for this one because it’s the event that brought me back to watching wrestling on a consistent basis. Rewatching it though, I can easily see why others might not be so high on this show as I am. The Diva’s match is a big problem, and I think this may have been the weakest Money in the Bank match to date. I don’t think the World Heavyweight Championship match was terrible, but I think both Chris Jericho and Edge are capable of having a better match than the one they have here. And I know we have to address the Bret Hart issue. Let me say, hearing that Bret Hart was back in a WWE ring, that’s what got me to watch more than anything else. Seeing him face off with McMahon to address a story that started over a decade earlier, that’s what I was really looking forward to. And I’m glad it happened, and when it was live I think I enjoyed the fact that I was watching the match, more that actually enjoying the ...

Joel:  I forget sometimes, when it’s been awhile since I’ve seen it, just how good that Bret Hart and Stone Cold match really is. I think that the hype surrounding that match is making me remember it as a better match than it actually way. But then, when I watch it again, It blows me away every time. This match is near wrestling perfection. Everything about it just clicks into place. The double turn is something that should be close to impossible to effectively pull off, yet these two guys do it is a way that is so smooth and natural, the entire thing feels like a seamless part of the match and the storyline. This is, without a question the best WrestleMania match that we’ve seen so far in this series. Unfortunately, that match pretty much had to carry the entire rest of the card. No other match stands out in any positive way. At best we get moments like seeing Rocky Maivia and knowing that guys going to be a big star in a few years, but as far as his actual performance at W...

Joel:   So much of this WrestleMania is all about the one match it’s hard to separate the two. In many ways a review of the Iron Man main event match is a review of WrestleMania XII itself. Fortunately, if there’s going to be a pair of wrestlers that put on an hour long main event these are the two. It’s hard to compare this match to other matches because part of the marvel of a 60 minute iron man match is the sheer fact that it’s happening. I will say that even with this clearly being the best possible choice for who you’re putting in your hour long iron man match, it still felt like a very long match. Minute twenty feels like a dark point in this match knowing that there were still forty minutes to go. But still, you have to give this one match of the night. I’ve heard this match described as a four star forty minute match followed by a five star twenty minute match that was put on by the same guys, which is a really accurate way to look at it I feel. I would like to see m...

Joel:  For most of the WrestleManias so far the first match has been somewhere between “not bad” and “pretty good.” The kind of matches that are interesting when it’s the first match of the evening, but would be harder to swallow if it was further down on the card and you were starting to get tired of watching. None of them have come close to being a Match of the Night before now. WrestleMania X starts off with Owen Hart vs. Bret Hart, which is easily the best opening match up to this point, and one of the biggest highlights of WrestleMania so far. It did go on a little long (it was the longest match on the card that night) but still, if there’s a match on the card that’s going to break twenty minutes, this should be the one to do it. The other big match worth mentioning was the ladder match between Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon. Honestly in my memory of WrestleMania X, this was the main event and for the main title rather than the IC title. And watching it again, I can s...

Joel:  I’m not going to dance around the fact. WrestleMania IX is pretty much the worst WrestleMania of them all. Most people are eager to credit that to the whole “toga party” theme that ran throughout the show. Don’t get me wrong, that was a bad idea top to bottom. Every single aspect of the whole theme was a dud from changing people’s names to give them more “ancient roman” sounding names to the “hilarious” moment of Bobby Heenan struggling during his entrance. Pretty much everything falls flat. But if that were the main problem of WrestleMania IX, then I could look past that. Themed WrestleManias are dumb and they’ve never tried to lean into a theme as much as they did this one so maybe they learned the lesson. No the problem here is how badly almost every match is booked on this card. Seriously, Doink the Clown has an eight and a half minute match on this card! Razor Ramon’s match was less than half that time. Undertaker has the worst match of his streak on this card...