PWInsiderXTRA - WWE News, Wrestling News, WWE

THE CYNICAL VIEW: BUILDING THE MANIA - PART FOUR

Welcome back to the fourth of my previews of Wrestlemania, as we’re on the verge of the big show. This one looks at what we all dread… those moments when the bookers smoke a little too much, when the workers suddenly lose all skill, and when the audiences groan…….
 
24 Crap Wrestlemania Finishes

These few efforts were truly horrible, but didn’t quite make the cut.

Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Dino Bravo (Wrestlemania 6)

Dino Bravo vs. Ronnie Garvin (Wrestlemania 5)

Hillbilly Jim, Little Beaver, and the Hati Kid vs. Lord Littlebrook, Little Tokyo, and King Kong Bundy (Wrestlemania 3)

The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff vs. The Killer Bees (Wrestlemania 3)

Val Venis vs. Road Dogg vs. Ken Shamrock vs. Goldust (Wrestlemania 15)

24. Mickey James vs. Trish Stratus (Wrestlemania 22)

Sad to include this here (I was tempted to have it on the list of BEST MATCHES!), because I really enjoyed the work of both tremendous ladies. However, they did horribly botch the finish, with James going for Trish’s own finisher, and them fluffing it, resulting in them having to improvise and use the Chick kick instead. They did okay in recovering, but the botch was uglier than Mae Young’s underwear drawer. To make it worse though, on the DVD release, WWE have edited the mis-hap so the finish actually makes little to no sense.

23. Paul Orndorff vs. Don Muraco (Wrestlemania 2)

It actually pains me to include this, because I always liked both these talented guys (Orndorff more so however). But it warrants inclusion, because of the Double DQ ending. Not just that it was such a lame finish (designed to protect both guys…sigh), not just at Wrestlemania, but in the OPENING match. Yeah, let’s open the biggest show of the year, with a life-absorbing double DQ. Clever. And shamefully, it followed what wasn’t actually a bad effort by any means.

22. David Sammartino vs. Brutus “the Barber” Beefcake (Wrestlemania 1)

Sadly, it was David, and not Bruno Sammartino, who got to wrestle at the inaugural Wrestlemania. I say sad, because well, David just wasn’t very good. It also wasn’t ideal that Brutus, generally, well sucked. So here we have a rather flat, uninspired, and at times, awful encounter. Never more so than at the end, when Bruno ran in, prompting an uninspired and illogical double DQ ending. I think part of the reason the ending was so disappointing, was that it perhaps indicated that the feud may continue.

This was a mess of a finish. The match was almost equally abhorrent, but the finish was terrible, involving Ted Dibiase, the snake, and Andre clobbering referee Big John Studd. Whilst it was understandable that they would go with something screwy, due to Andre’s massive limitations at this point, what they settled for was pretty ridiculous, and couldn’t fly nowadays. Plus, back then, didn’t wrestlers realise that they have to like… wrestle? Why was everyone so keen to run away/intentionally be DQ’d/go to a count-out. Sportsmanship, a lost art.

At this point in his WWE tenure, Angle was far from Mr Wrestlemania. In fact, he was the reliable guy at the big show, guaranteed to pull a good match out of whatever lousy circumstance he was placed in. Despite being one of the dudes to have carried the company throughout much of 2001 (along with Austin, and Hunter in the first half of the year, replaced by Rocky in the latter), at Mania, he had to step aside for the “real” stars. So he was booked against Kane, in a limp feud. Making the most of it, he actually had a very entertaining match-up. But of course, he was booked to look opportunistic rather than especially competitive, thanks to Kane’s size. So he won with a roll-up, and a foot on the ropes, ugh. Oh yeah, which Kane messed up. It was neither clever nor attractive. So Kurt, the guy who months later, would be one of the key figures in carrying the entire Smackdown show, had to look inferior, to Kane, the guy who would after Mania, be, well not doing much.

19. El Matador vs. Shawn Michaels (Wrestlemania 8)

The tone of this finish was correct, but in early 90’s WWF style, the execution was not. Michaels was a newcomer to the singles scene, having ditched his partner Marty Jannetty, who was restricting his growth. He was cocky and arrogant, and even at this early stage, having encounters of a good enough quality to ensure people sat up and took notice. Tito (the El Matador) , was sweet and Naive (well, dumb) , and had earned the respect of his admirers through years of effort, although he never won at all. Thus, the outcome of this was super-obvious. In what must have been an attempt to distract from this, they had Tito shoot for a slam, but Shawn countered it, by, um, falling on him, slowly, after grabbing the ropes. Novel, yes, but also bizarre, and not good.

Ahh, the main event of a huge Wrestlemania. The majority of the fans came to see the historic battle between The Rock and Hulk Hogan, but Trips was insistent that this was the main event. Since he’d pulled such a power play, it was then surely only right that Hunter and Jericho go that extra mile, particularly in their finishing stretch? A few surprises maybe? A reward for the fans for sticking with it? Something more than what you’d see every week on Raw?

Nope. The match finished the same way every Triple H match did. And boy, the crowd couldn’t have cared less as they waited for it to come.

Controversial! Well, okay so it was a fantastic match, there’s no dispute there. But come on. Ricky Steamboat came off as the most disgraceful babyface this side of Hulk Hogan. Savage had Steamboat beat, but with the referee having just been clobbered, he was robbed of the pinfall. Understandably peeved, Savage went for the ring bell to finish the job, but instead was thrown from the top rope by man-ape George “the Animal” steel. Savage still fought on, but was caught in a sly small package.

Heroic that Steamboat one.

I probably should have included this abomination on the list of worst matches, because you know, it was completely horrible. Looking back though, it’s horrible in a fascinating, if repulsive way. Painted half black (really!), Piper thought it appropriate that he address the social issues of the world, in a tactful fashion. Erm, yes. He failed miserably. Aside from that, the match was lame, and the finish worse. The two brawled to the back, and this led to a double-count out. Argh! Very, very rarely is that finish anywhere close to ever being appropriate, and never less so than at Wrestlemania. This is the venue during which you have the opportunity to settle the score, to decisively end the feud! Why would a wrestler let themselves be foolishly counted out like this? AHHH! Infuriating, senseless, and a waste of time.

The finish to this encounter was absolutely mind-numbingly awful. I don’t want to repeat myself too much and have a list of bad finishes that’s almost identical to the list of Bad Matches at Wrestlemania. But Christ, how could you not include this one? Following a woeful, but thankfully quite short “battle”, that featured lots of stalking and lumbering, but little wrestling of any description, Gonzalez was disqualified. Why you ask? Because he tried to knock him out with a chloroform soaked rag. Seriously.

Just compare this to the real main event of the show, the other title match (the HHH one of course). There’s a slight difference. Things like build-up, anticipation, excitement. But not here. This was devoid of anything interesting, and arrived as flat as Alice Cooper’s ass. This wasn’t the fault of the performers though, it was down to the combined ego’s of Mr. Helmsley and a certain Hulkster. Given like ten minutes to produce a title match on the biggest show of the year was an insult. But it was still hilarious when Cena sauntered into the crowd to celebrate, and clearly roughly two people were interested.

Hulk Hogan was involved. Enough said.

Whilst trudging through the good and bad of past Mania’s, I was unsure whether I remembered this correctly. IN fact, I was unsure if the entire match was an unholy hallucination of some sort that I’d fabricated whilst unconscious at the dental surgery sometime. You see, I couldn’t remember any wrestling. I could recall only, someone being beaten up in an alley, a car chase, and an extra from a cheap porno being stripped and possibly buggered. I thought perhaps I’d enjoyed a marathon session of Big Trouble in Little China, the French Connection, and well, okay so not the third part….

But it was in fact, the Backlot Brawl these two had at Wrestlemania 12! Whilst some of the fight seemed good at the time, it may have been the simple fact that there were no rules involved. I attempted to rewatch this, but as the finish came when Goldust’s clothes were removed, I thought it was best not to bother.

A special notoriety for the big man Yoko, this one, because it’s the first of two ridiculous finishes that he participated in on the same night! This was the first title defense he made during the evening, before going on to face Bret Hart. Of course, this encounter absolutely sucked. Horribly. SO much so that I placed it Number 12 on my list of crap Mania efforts. Luger’s babyface run was a terribly damp squib by this point, and it was underlined by another cheap finish for the former Narcissist. Guest referee Mr Perfect took offence to being really gently poked by Luger at one point in the bout, and yep, disqualified him. That’s like, tapping your grandmother on the arm to wake her from her afternoon/pre-dinner/post-dinner/pre-bedtime nap, and her shooting you in the nuts. A slight overreaction? Perfect was one of the great in-ring competitors in recent years, but instead of slugging the big Goon, DQ’d him and wandered to the back.

Rey Mysterio, the worst booked WWE Champion, perhaps in history, here won the belt at the biggest show of the year. In just NINE minutes. And he did so, by opportunistically pinning the third man. That is to say, Randy Orton, the guy who wasn’t champion. Outrageous stuff. But appropriately bad because how else would you start Rey’s abysmal World title run? The finish itself would have been fine, had it occurred at least five-ten minutes later, not made all the competitors look like fools, and saw the actual champion pinned. Instead this is almost a perfect example of how not to book a big triple threat match with a title switch.

Earns itself a special mention because Savage, one of the top babyfaces of all time, won, in MSG, by running away from the god-awful Crush. Well, pretty much. Supposedly this was a Falls Count Anywhere match. Except the rules stated that you had to pin your opponent, then had sixty seconds to return to the ring, with them failing to do so giving you the win. Confusing and retarded? You bet. It also wasn’t a Falls Count anywhere, as the rules ensured that it was a Falls Count anywhere, except in the actual ring match. How dumb is that. Watching it back, it’s thus impossible for them to achieve suspense while in the ring, because they can’t win.

This is like one of those “Mystery” tasks in the Crystal maze.

Anyways, Savage eventually won this bizarre encounter, after pinning him somewhere around MSG, and tying him to some furniture or something.

This was abominable because the finish saw The Big Bloat earn himself an intentional DQ loss (all part of a wretched McMahon plot you see), by Chokeslamming poor Mick onto two steel chairs. Justified you would think? Well yes, but moments before Show had already smashed Mick with a chair, to no punishment whatsoever.

Okay, so in concept, there was really nothing wrong with this finish, it was fine. Brock Lesnar was the unstoppable babyface monster. He’d only ever been pinned by Big Show and Angle in nefarious circumstances. He’d never submitted. And no-one had kicked out of his baddass F5 finisher. Angle meanwhile, was on his way out to be treated for neck injuries. He’d been the one guy people were itching to see Brock take on, thanks to their backgrounds and status, and having just defeated Chris Benoit, in a classic at the Rumble, he was confirmed as the top submission expert in the WWE. It looked perfect written across Vince’s sheet of used loo-roll. The idea was, Brock would kick out of Angle’s biggest moves, including the Angle Slam. He’d be able to escape the Ankle Lock. Kurt would kick out of the F5. But Brock had a trick up his sleeve, hidden amidst those massive arms. He had a Shooting Star Press in his arsenal. That would be the difference maker that set him apart. See? Conceptually groovy. And all would have turned out fine, had Brock performed the move accurately. Instead, he jumped off the top rope and landed on his own face, as if someone had decided to test their Origami skills during his flight. In his defence, his face is rather large though, and perhaps tricky to avoid.

So they finished the match with another F5. I know, I’m being harsh. Brock was knackered after a long match and should have took that into account when attempting such a dangerous move, and they did recover well… but still… a very Disappointing finish.

Did a single person who watched Wrestlemania 16, come away satisfied, when Triple H, the heel, walked away, successfully defending his belt? No, I didn’t think so. But that’s not my problem with this. My problem was not that The Rock, the hero, was defeated yes, and Hunter, the heel, was successful, yes. Perhaps it was inappropriate. Or perhaps it was innovative. Either way, Vince McMahon stole all the heat, because he was the deciding factor in the finish, not, you know the wrestlers. Vince’s chairshot stole the win. And what did the show end on? Yep, the McMahon’s in the ring. Ugh.

Mr. Hearst Helmsley hasn’t had much luck when it comes to the finishes of his matches at Wrestlemania, has he? In fact, until 2004, they almost universally sucked! This one was pretty unique because they managed to completely confound everyone that was watching. Following their unexpectedly decent struggle, Chyna came to the ring. At this point, she was a heel, recently aligned with Kane in the Corporation of Vince McMahon. But towards the end of the encounter, she nailed Kane with a chair, leading to him turning his back on Hunter, who then proceeded to drill him with the implement himself. Nice. Except, who won? I don’t recall an announcement of any sort. I would have assumed that Trips was DQ’d, as he’d enjoyed interference on his behalf. This is backed up by WWE’s listing of Kane being the winner, in their history books. However, many sources have listed HHH has the actual winner, which I presume is a result of Kane’s second interfering, even though she turned against him. Meanwhile, Wade Keller, of the Torch, in his report, claimed that Hunter won by pinfall!

When people can actually argue over what the finish that occurred actually was, you know it must have sucked. I blame the referee, Teddy Long, who as we know, was a horrible official.

No, it wasn’t the Ultimate Warrior returning that scuppered this one. It was the fact that the heels, Sid, and Papa Shango (making a run in), completely and utterly f****d the finish up. It’s a thing of utter amazement. Hogan hits his formula finish, after a terrible, formula encounter. The plan called for Shango to break-up the pinfall and lead to the disqualification. Then the villains would beat down the Hulkster until Warrior returned to make the save. Simple? Not when Shango isn’t there, when you know, he should be. Thus we had the baffling sight of Sid being the only person in like, forever, to kick out of the Legdrop! Sid? Amazing stuff, that could have been avoided, if they just had a bloody pinfall end the match!

3.Booker T vs. Triple H (Wrestlemania 19)

Booker T. The criminal turned babyface underdog. He simply had to win this in order to earn the redemption he sought. But he didn’t. Instead the guy who Triple H saw fit to laugh at, at the “Idea of you as World Champion” wasn’t able to get the job done. Not only that, but after hitting the Pedigree, Hunter lay there for TWENTY SECONDS before covering the Book. That’s how you elevate someone.

Great match. Shat finish.

Back then, quality action on PPV was such a luxury in McMahon land. Between the Hogan’s, and the Bundy’s, and the Andre’s, and the Uncle Elmer’s… those who were seeking actual wrestling found little of worth. But at the second Wrestlemania, there was a faint glimmer of hope. That hope lay in the medicine cabinets of the British Bulldogs, then perhaps the most talented tandem on the globe.

Of course, the best moments came from Valentine’s interactions with Dynamite, an assortment of intense, stiff moments that were vastly ahead of their time, certainly in the good ol’ WWF. But as a whole, the match at no point let up, exploding at a surprisingly furious, frenetic pace. Beefcake’s participation was kept rather limited, and this match emerged as a near-perfect example of how to pop the crowd, and instigate the impression that a title change is the beginning of a new era. Rotten finish though. Dynamite runs Valentine across the ring, and into Davey’s head, and gets the win? During the beat down? Ugh. It was like Dynamite just decided, “ahh screw the last three minutes of this…”.

1.Bret Hart vs. Yokosuka (Wrestlemania 10)

At Madison Square Garden, in the main event of the anniversary of Wrestlemania, the TENTH no less, in front of a wrestling audience who had already witnessed a technical tour de force between Bret and Owen Hart, Bret claimed the World title, from the unstoppable Juggernaut, Yokozuna. And he did so, when yep, Yoko fell off the second rope and was pinned. Yoko was pinned after he fell down. HE FELL OVER!

Is there any further explanation needed?

Thank for reading this gibbering rant. It probably made less sense than usual. I hope it was at least as entertaining as a DX knob joke, and more thought-provoking than Monty Sopp’s tights. If you have any comments/questions/queries/or anything to say, get in touch at bazilalfonso@hotmail.com, whether you agree/disagree/hate me, or whatever if may be, I welcome all correspondence. I have also finally got on My Space! So slabber to me at www.myspace.com/michaelwrestlingetc