Wrestlemania 25

Wrestlemania 25
 
Here it is… Wrestlemania! The Grandaddy of them all! The Greatest Night in the History of Sports Entertainment or indeed any entertainment! This is when WWE opens all their bag of tricks and shows the entire world what they are made of.
 
Right?
 
Nope, unfortunately this year it was about 'How can we book a show in three weeks and make people care about it?' Answer: You can't. Whereas before, you had a build of a few matches from Royal Rumble… this one you didn't. In fact, even though I watched this PPV before, I had no idea of any match that took place. There was a time when I could have rattled off a Wrestlemania card instantly… this one? Not a chance and remember it only happened less than three months ago?
 
Wrestlemania was main evented by a match up between Triple H and Randy Orton. This was a good match, but some people think it was a bit of a downer due to the outcome, but in my opinion the actual setup of the ending was perfect and was quite a shocker when most people seem to think they know exactly what will happen in wrestling because of wrestling websites. The Triple Threat between John Cena, Edge and Big Show was a fun match highlighted by Cena's amazing strength of carrying both Edge and Show on his back at the same time. Doesn't matter how many times I see that, I'm still amazed. The Money In The Bank Ladder match was a typical spotfest that really feels like every ladder match I've ever seen and though I enjoyed it, it's doubtful I'll remember anything from it.
 
The only two other matches of the eight televised (I'll come to that in a minute) that are of any significance is Legends (Jimmy Snuka, Ricky Steamboat and Roddy Piper) vs. Chris Jericho which saw Jericho 'beat' all three and then Ric Flair only to then be knocked out by Mickey Rourke who was still riding high on his success from The Wrestler. If this had been the Rourke/Jericho match that had been teased for months then it would have been something, instead it was just long and a little dull. Of course the other was The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels in arguably the best match of the night. This match was highlighted by a scary moment when Undertaker botched a move and looked like he would not be able to carry on.
 
The rest of the PPV was a little disappointing with a horrible Diva battle royale, an abysmal Intercontinental match between Rey Mysterio and JBL and an ok match between brothers Jeff and Matt Hardy.
 
Included on the set as always, is the entire Hall of Fame 2009, which saw the induction of The Von Erichs, Terry and Dory Funk Jr, Koko B. Ware, Howard Finkel, Ricky Steamboat and Stone Cold Steve Austin. As always, I do wish some extras or a match of each inductee was included so I could see why they were being inducted as really I'd never rated Koko B. Ware and never ever seen Dory Funk Jr wrestle. The only other extra was the tag team unification match between Miz and Morrisons and The Colons and a video of highlights for all of the previous Wrestlemanias. I only wish that there was a 'Play All' option, rather than having to select each one. If you wonder why I didn't focus on the tag team unification match, is that despite Matt Striker telling me about how 'history making' this match was, the fact I had to wait almost four months to watch it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. More because it's actually a better match than a lot of what was on the actual PPV.
 
Wrestlemania 25 is not a PPV I'll rewatch more than a few times. There are no matches that I'll want to watch again more than a few times and when you consider this is the best the WWE has to offer… it's not as good as it used to be.