WrestleMania 22 Thoughts
Mood:  lazy
It's no secret that this WrestleMania was one that had low expectations. I went to my cousins house to see it and even when it started, we were debating on whether we should order it or not. We finally relented and ordered it in the middle of the MITB match. I saw the beginning on the replay, so I didn't miss anything. Now, on to my review:

Kane/Big Show vs. Carlito/Masters: This was an OK opening match. The crowd was heavily into Carlito, which was cool with me, pun intended. In my prediction I said the champs would retain with Masters being pinned, but once again it was Carlito who was pinned. With Carlito and Masters defeated, there are really no challengers for the tag titles. I see a rematch between the two as early as tonight or even at Backlash.

Money In The Bank: Last years match was the benchmark, and this years match did not surpass it. I found it to be too short and too spotty, in a sense of there was no foundation. Last year, the biggest threat was Kane, in which most of the attacks were to Kane to slow him down. In this one, no one was a real threat to the others. Sure, you can say that everyone was a threat to someone, but it wasn't played out that way. Finlay, Lashley and Hardy (oddly the Smackdown guys) were not seen as credible contenders. I did not see them coming up as winners here. Flair has the whole "last run" idea going with him, so it was really up to Rob Van Dam and Shelton to bring this match as high as it could go, which they did.

One thing I was a bit upset about was the cameramen missed a few of the cool spots like RVD's top rope chair dropkick to Lashley and Shelton's springboard jump from the roped to the ladder. In the end, like I predicted, RVD won the match and will have an opportunity to challenge the WWE Champ to a match within 12 months.

JBL vs. Chris Benoit: This match would have been more stronger if Chris Benoit could have had some mic time to build to this match. All the mic went to JBL, which in itself isn't a bad thing, but it made Benoit an afterthought when he was talking about Stone Cold.

This match was good in ways that the technical aspect was drawn. JBL working with less power moves, and more wearing down Benoit with a slower pace was a good idea. A clean pin would have worked better with JBL in terms of his character with beating a great wrestler like Eddie Guerrero for the WWE title and beating a great wrestler in Chris Benoit for the US title. He would have more ammo to use in his interviews. So far, I'm 3-0.

Mick Foley vs. Edge: At first, I didn't like the way this match came about. I believed that the main event should have been Edge defending his title against Cena. After a few weeks of building this match, I was very interested in it and when the time came, they delivered. It was a good brawl which was paced quite nicely. There were many good memorable spots and the ending was an exclamation point in the match and feud.

Boogeyman vs. Booker T.: Booker deserved better than this. Like I said in my post of his Royal Rumble match, his offense was terrible and this selling of his opponents moves were even worse. Did you see how he was bumping off of Booker T's punches and how he tried to move out of the way of his scissor kick? The less said about this match, the better.

Mickie James vs. Trish Stratus: I had read house show reports saying that these two women have had great matches. Last night, they had another great match. This match had the best build up compared to the other matches.

What was really interesting was that the crowd started to boo Trish and embrace Mickie. I don't know if it was because Mickie was good at playing her character or that people felt that Trish held the title for long enough or it could have been something else, but it did make the match more interesting. Aside from the botched finish, this match was very good.

Undertaker vs. Mark Henry (Casket match): Going into this match, I believe we all knew what the outcome would be. All we wanted to know was if Undertaker could carry Henry to a good match. Undertaker has had many great matches at WrestleManias, but this wasn't one of them, especially compared to last years match with Randy Orton. Undertaker, 14-0; Ron, 7-0.

Shawn Michaels vs. Vince McMahon: Although this match had a long steady buildup, it wasn't a match I was interested in. The match came about when Vince came out on Raw and critiqued Bret Hart's DVD. HBK came out, told Vince to get over it, saying that it was 8 years ago, and somehow Vince took exception.

The way I see it is this: Shawn Michaels, a man who has had great WrestleMania matches from Chris Jericho, HHH and Benoit and Kurt Angle, will now go against Vince McMahon. What a waste. The match was what I expected it to be, a brawl that would have seen Vince gets beaten down and busted open, massive interference and HBK bumping all over the place and pulling out a big stunt to end the match.

Rey Mysterio vs. Kurt Angle vs. Randy Orton: I was so pissed that this match was next. This is the main event. Not the Smackdown main event, the Wrestlemania main event. This match had the potential to be the greatest match of the night if they were given the main event slot which, coupled with the time the Cena/HHH match got, would have done so.

My main gripe besides placement of the match, was the length of the match. I think it didn't even go over 10 minutes. A true waste. Not only that, but Angle defeated both of his opponents in 5 minutes with the Angle Lock.

I was surprised at the response Rey got. This must have been the first time I heard him booed. I was rooting for Angle to win, as were the entire crowd, but Rey would have been a better choice than Orton.

The ending of the match with the celebration with Chavo and Vickie Guerrero should have been the last image of WrestleMania 22 to give it that big time storybook ending. Instead we got Cena holding up the title to a chorus of boos. Yeah, that's special.

Torrie Wilson vs. Candice Michelle: Who cares? I left the room to make me a cup of tea, so I didn't watch this "match" nor did I care who "won."

Triple H vs. John Cena: This match is the main event of the night. What really made this match special was the crowd popping for everything HHH did and booing the hell out of everything Cena did. While it was a good match, without the crown, this match would have been sub-par. I have read reviews of this match saying it was a very good match, a 4-5 star main event. Bullsh*t! What made this match good was the people, plain and simple. If the crown was like any other crowd, this match would have plodded along.

I am glad that Cena won though. He needed this win more than HHH did. I still feel that HHH will get the title back sooner than later, but for what it was, Cena got the big win he needed.

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Out of 11 matches, The 10 I predicted, (the pillow fight is not a match, therefore it does not count) I got 9 right, which is pretty damn good.