The Opinion Banner

“Whining @ WrestleMania”

You see it happening, I do too. You watch Raw/Smackdown and see the matches develop. You go on Twitter and read peoples complaints. With all the negative starting to surround it, it’s hard not to pay attention to it. With the road to WrestleMania on its way and things slowly starting to fall into place, more and more it seems that wrestling fans are unhappy with the way WrestleMania is “looking” on paper. So much whining! Obviously not everyone is being negative about the booking so far and we all know it’s hard not to be sometimes due to the way WWE has been lately. I for one am starting to get excited for WrestleMania, even though we’ll be seeing a match that’s happened twice already and another match that was booted off last year’s Mania. In this write up I basically just want to go over the matches that have been booked already, or might be booked, and find the positives that could possibly come out of them. Obviously we can’t book WrestleMania, so we might as well enjoy the show that’s going to be put on for us.

The Rock vs. John Cena – I’m honestly not sure how WWE plans to book the finish of this one. I have no doubt in my mind that The Rock doesn’t mind doing the job, and either would Cena. If this plans to continue all the way until next year’s WrestleMania, I would easily give the first win to John Cena. Not just your typical win, I would have Cena “embrace the hate” and do whatever he had to do to beat The Rock. If John Cena beat The Rock in a controversial way, perhaps using a chair or something that would otherwise result in DQ, this would not only help turn Cena even more heel after this, but also have him teeter even more in the middle after explaining that he did it for the WWE and the fans. If they made it sound like Cena did whatever he had to do to keep the victory for the WWE performers who are there every night, and the fans who appreciate it, it would cause even more controversy around the feud itself. In my opinion of Cena loses this match, it was seriously just WWE reaching into our pockets and saying, “There’s The Rock for ya! He won! Did you fans get what you wanted?” I don’t need to see The Rock win in order to enjoy WrestleMania. This match will be a great match no matter how much you hate Cena, or perhaps even The Rock. These two can both work a great match, but what’s more important is the importance behind it.

CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho – This seems to be the match that most everybody is excited about. I’ve yet to hear one complaint about these two squaring off together, which is quite refreshing. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that these two will probably steal the show with their technical ability. This match could easily go an hour without getting boring to both the live crowd and audience at home and personally I hope it does. The WWE Title could actually start to mean something again with this feud, as to me the last year or so it’s been really nothing but a shiny object someone’s usually bitching about that’s being passed back and forth. I obviously would love to see Chris Jericho be WWE champ again but in reality I don’t think that would help the business. What will help is having someone retain the WWE title for a respectable amount of time making it seem almost impossible to remove it from them. To be that’s the biggest positive possible coming out of WrestleMania. If the WWE title can regain some of its prestige, I’ll be able to say it’s one of the most successful Manias yet. For the better of the business, hopefully CM Punk retains and keeps that puppy for a while.

Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus – It really doesn’t get much better than two young, hungry, skilled performers going at it for the World Heavyweight Title at WrestleMania. Although these two have extremely different styles, I’ve always been a huge fan of mixing a powerhouse vs. a technician. The reason I like that so much is it seems to add way more depth to the match. Now some are laughing because these two last year ended up being removed from the WrestleMania card, but if you look at how far these two have come in the last year, there’s a really good reason for that. These two deserve to be on the Mania card after the year they’ve had. I have a feeling these two will come out of WrestleMania even bigger stars. My only issue is this…I hope the match is built up properly before Mania. I could easily see these two growing to hate each other in the storylines, which would make the match that much more interesting.

The Undertaker vs. HHH (3) – The match that seems to be causing most of the controversy due to it being a repeat of last year and the third time they’ve battled at Mania. In my opinion they’ve actually done a good job of explaining why the match is happening again (Undertaker not leaving the ring on his own last year, even though he won) and have added a bit of interest with the Hell In A Cell stipulation, and perhaps Shawn Michaels being a ref or involved somehow. At first I really didn’t want to see this again, but looking at the current roster I don’t know what else they’d do with The Undertaker. A lot of people have suggested that The Undertaker would have been better off facing a younger talent but I have to disagree. The Undertaker has been built up as basically unstoppable and it would seem extremely unrealistic to me if someone like Ted DiBiase or Dolph Ziggler went up against Taker to try and end the streak. Although we’ve clearly seen HHH say on video that Undertaker should never lose the streak, at least HHH has been built up enough to be a viable contender. HHH is known for basically squashing anyone, so hey, why not Undertaker. But the major point is let’s look at what these two can do in the ring together. Two of the best veterans in the business, we know what they’re capable of. We know they can beat the living hell out of each other and still keep going. They know how to tell a story in the ring and could easily have this match last an hour as well. Being in a Hell In A Cell, I expect these two veterans to literally be stretchered out at the end of the match. Obviously I still see The Undertaker winning and keeping his streak, but at least I know it will be a blockbuster of a match and not a mess.

Lots of reasons to stay positive for this year’s WrestleMania. Obviously some have different reasons than others to be excited for it, and some will just choose to continue to complain about it. We obviously will always have our opinions and wish things could be the way we see them, but rarely does that happen. I will still have my “wishes” and “wants” for WrestleMania, but when it comes down to it the WWE is going to book what they want, and we will simply have to sit back and try to enjoy the big show. Let me know your main negatives and positives about WrestleMania, because I know I’ve missed a lot.

James Bones
@violentshadows
violentshadows@hotmail.com