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We're now less than a month away from WrestleMania. The card has taken shape, but I can't say the build has been especially good. The focus of the show is on a match that isn't happening. While those of us that follow closely know that The Rock vs Cena isn't happening at Mania, a lot of casual fans believe it is. I've had friends who have not watched wrestling in years tell me they heard The Rock is back and is wrestling at WrestleMania. If WWE is able to get these casual fans to pay the $55 for Mania expecting to see The Rock wrestle, they are going to have a lot of disappointed fans. Of course, that may be a risk that WWE is willing to take. They know they desperately need a big buy rate for Mania this year after last year's domestic buys were under 500,000, this year's Royal Rumble was down 10% from 2010, and of course overall PPV business being way down. So if WWE can for all intents and purposes "trick" viewers into buying WrestleMania this year to see The Rock, they really don't care if they're disappointed because while they'll lose the extra million or so viewers they've gained over the past few weeks since Rock's return, they'll just settle back into the 3.1 weekly rating they've been averaging, but at least have a large buy rate event to show for it.
I'm sure everyone knows the WrestleMania card by now, but here it is again:
Special Guest Host: The Rock
WWE Title Match
John Cena vs. The Miz (c)
World Heavyweight Title Match
Alberto Del Rio vs. Edge (c)
The Streak on the Line
Triple H vs. The Undertaker
CM Punk vs. Randy Orton
John Morrison, Kelly Kelly and Trish Stratus vs. Dolph Ziggler, Layla and Michelle McCool
Wade Barrett, Ezekiel Jackson, Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel vs. Big Show, Kane, Kofi Kingston and Christian
Rey Mysterio vs. Cody Rhodes
Jerry Lawler vs. Michael Cole, Special Referee: Steve Austin
Cole’s trainer Jack Swagger will be in his corner.
WWE United States Champion Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus
Gail Kim will be in Bryan’s corner while The Bellas will be with Sheamus.
* Another undetermined Divas match will also take place. There will be no Money in the Bank this year.
The card is good, not great, and with the exception of The Rock hosting the show, it really lacks the WrestleMania feel we've come to expect. HHH vs The Undertaker may still get there, but at this point I'm not sold on the match, especially after HHH's promo last week. It just reminded me how much I hate HHH as he buried everyone in the locker room for no good reason. HHH may still receive the pop of a top star, but he's winding down his career, nearing retirement (at least if we are to believe what he says). Regardless of his in ring career, we do know that he is taking on more and more responsibility backstage and in the front office. So for him to come out and say there are no challenges in the locker room for him and The Undertaker, what exactly does that say about the future of the company? Regardless of how these guys are currently being utilized, HHH just told the audience that Punk, Miz, Del Rio, Bryan, Morrison, Sheamus, Swagger, McIntyre, Bourne, Barrett, and the list goes on that none of these guys are main event caliber stars. We've come to expect this type of arrogance from HHH during his prime, but if this attitude continues as he transitions to the front office, it is especially disturbing.
The Undertaker cut a similar promo on Smackdown, not going as far to bury other talent, but he did put over how HHH was the greatest champion of the past 15 years. If this match happened 10 years ago..... wait, it did happen 10 years ago at WrestleMania X-Seven. Anyway, assuming it didn't, if this match were happening 10 years ago and these guys wanted to put over each other as the top guys in the company (even though they were greatly overshadowed by Austin and Rock at that time), it would be much more palatable. But in 2011, we have two guys in their 40's saying they are the greatest in the business when HHH hasn't wrestled in nearly a year, and The Undertaker's body is so broken down it's to the point he can barely walk to the ring. I won't give up on this match because when it comes down to it, I think the two are professional enough that they will put on a good show at Mania, but I'm certainly not as excited about this match as the average fan seems to be. We still have to wait and see what role Shawn Michaels will play in the match. He had a video package last week talking about it. Since there already is a guest referee spot in the Cole/Lawler match, you wouldn't think they'd go with that twice in one show, but we'll see. There is really no reason to have a guest ref in the Cole/Lawler match. It would have been much more interesting to have Michaels as the guest ref here seemingly favoring HHH and putting The Undertaker's streak in great jeopardy.
It's funny that of all the matches on the show, Michael Cole vs Jerry Lawler has the best build. It's the only match that has been built up over months rather than weeks. However, I have a feeling the closer we get to WrestleMania, the juice is really going to fade in this match. After a great segment two weeks ago where Lawler challenged Cole and Cole refused and ran away like a coward, Michael Cole accepted the match last week with two conditions. First, he would have his trainer in his corner. His trainer turned out to be Jack Swagger. Why exactly Jack Swagger? Who knows. But just the fact of him being there starts to take away from this match. Swagger has been buried over and over and over on Smackdown for the past six months. He's gone from a World Heavyweight Champion to a lower mid-card act whether it was with his flying eagle or constantly jobbing to Kofi Kingston. So now all of a sudden trying to put him over as a big deal just does not work. Cole did do a good job of playing the cowardly heel taunting Lawler before Swagger eventually stepped in and put Jerry in the ankle lock. If the end result of this is Michael Cole being Jack Swagger's manager, I think that's a great thing, a) I think they should have waited until after WrestleMania, and b) I don't see it actually happening.
Next, they are further diluting the match with a special guest referee, with the referee being Stone Cold Steve Austin. I have no idea how they will get to that end point since it makes no sense for Cole to appoint Austin, but I guess we'll see what they do tonight. If they were going to use the guest referee spot here, I would have booked it to be the Anonymous Raw General Manager, with his/her identity finally being revealed at WrestleMania. However, I really have given up hope that WWE ever plans to reveal the Anonymous Raw GM. At this point, I think it has just become a character of its own with no one actually behind the role. It will be one of those things that eventually just fades away and goes down in WWE history as another incredibly annoying, unresolved angle.
The only way I can see Austin fitting into the guest referee spot is if Cole makes some type of blatantly biased person like Vickie Guerrero the guest ref. Then the Anonymous GM can chime in and say he is overruling Cole (of course this wouldn't really make sense since Cole and the GM always seem to be on the same page, but who needs logics...), and the Anonymous GM appoints Austin as the special guest ref. We'll see, but like I said, I think this match would be much better off with just Lawler finally getting his chance to get his hands on Cole rather than having a circus match with trainers and guest refs.
Perhaps the most infuriating program for WrestleMania is The Miz and John Cena. Last week, John Cena cut perhaps the most obnoxious promo of his career on The Miz. He told the world no one takes The Miz seriously while working in his usual potty humor and homophobic jokes. He had a giant, cartoon-+@+ "Doctor's Note" saying The Miz had OCD. Alex Riley stepped in to tell an awful joke of his own, but the problem was, Cena's comedy was so awful, it didn't feel any different. In a spot that absolutely blew my mind, Cena walked over to The Miz, put his arm around him, and told him that Alex Riley was a clown and part of the reason no one took him seriously as champion. How in the blue hell are you going to have Cena put his arm around The Miz like they are best buddies and tell awful jokes about Miz's so called "protege"? It was just terrible. So basically, your WrestleMania main event title match is based around a non-deserving champion that people don't take seriously and a number one contender that is more concerned with his d-list comedy act rather than being concerned about the champion. We all know that Cena is going to win the title at Mania, but they could at least try to build The Miz up as a credible champion leading into the match. I have a very, very, very bad feeling that The Miz is following down the same path as Sheamus and Jack Swagger.
As the promo went on, Cena challenged Alex Riley to a match where if Cena won, Alex Riley would be fired. Yes, ANOTHER firing angle. And for no apparent reason, The Miz was perfectly fine with this stipulation with the only counter stipulation being that if Riley won, Cena would have to tell everyone that The Miz was awesome. Cena buried this stip on the spot basically saying it was stupid and he would have no problem saying those words. And then just to add to the meaninglessness of the match, it was made to be inside of a steel cage for no apparent reason. There's no need to recap the main event other than that Alex Riley lost when Cena escaped the cage. As soon as Cena got out, Miz hit him with a Skull Crushing Finale and was perfectly happy with this outcome despite his protege being fired. I assume this is the last we'll see of Alex Riley for quite some time as he's sent back down to FCW.
Before I get to Cena and The Rock, I quickly want to talk about The Miz and The Rock. Twice now The Miz has cut promos saying how The Rock won't address him because he's scared of him or whatever. No one buys this. The Rock is so far and away above The Miz, The Rock has no reason to acknowledge his presence. They would be so much better off of just having The Miz focus on Cena rather than trying to get involved in the confrontation with The Rock. It just makes The Miz come off as a complete geek trying to fit in with the cool kids, kind of like Hombrelobo does here in the NTWT.
The Rock cut an awesome promo on Cena last week, despite taping it in his home without the benefit of being in front of a live crowd. The Rock was outraged that Cena would address him with a rap and question his love of WWE. The reason The Rock's promos are so great compared to someone like Cena's is because The Rock actually believes what he's saying. He gets into character and believes the feud to be real. On the other hand, Cena comes out and reads whatever script Brian Gerwirtz gives him this week. Can you imagine how painfully bad a 10+ minute taped promo from Cena would have been? Anyway, Cena has promised on Twitter that he will issue the "final knockout" to The Rock tonight. This rap was alright two weeks ago, but I wasn't as blown away by it as some people were as it was just based around adolescent insults. I would expect more of the same tonight. The Rock will not be on tonight's show, neither live or a taped segment. However, it just once again emphasizes a match that isn't happening (Rock vs Cena) is the main focus of WrestleMania which is likely to leave many fans disappointed and takes greatly away from the rest of the card.
Just want to quickly hit on a few other points as this week's preview has gone way long....
Sheamus's career is dead and buried. It was one thing to get buried by HHH last week, but then to be further embarrassed by Evan Bourne is just cruel, cruel punishment. By putting him in a match with Daniel Bryan at Mania goes to show how important they view the United States Championship.
Each week leading to Mania, Randy Orton will face a member of Nexus. If Orton wins, that member is banned from ringside. If the Nexus member wins, they will be in Punk's corner. Orton beat McGuillicutty last week and eventually punted him right back down to FCW along with Alex Riley. McGuillicutty desperately needed to be repackaged, so this may be the best thing for him. Hopefully he comes back up under his real name of Hennig. I wouldn't be surprised to see the same fate for David Otunga tonight.
I don't believe any matches have been announced for tonight, but it's just been posted that Snooki will be appearing at the next week's Raw. It's currently unknown if this will be a one time deal, or something leading up to WrestleMania. I'm not looking forward to her being on the show.
