I imagine we have some wrestling fans in this forum. People say that it is childish but I think it is great entertainment. Its better than most tv shows out there becuase it is new every week, there are no reruns, the athletes are very athletic and are great actors (despite when people say they aren't), its real (it may be scripted, but the actions and moves are real) and it is great tv.

This Wrestlemania was from Detroit and it was great. Here's a recap of it:

The money in the bank ladder match:
Great match. Jeff Hardy was on top of the big ladder in the ring and Edge was lying on a ladder outside the ring that was held up between the ring apron and the stands. Jeff did a leg drop off the top ladder and through Edge's gut. The ladder Edge was on snapped in half and Edge needed to be taked out on a stretcher. Mr. Kennedy eventually won the match.

The Great Khali vs. Kane:
Not a great match. Khali domminated most of it and won with his two handed chokeslam.

Chris Benoit vs. MVP (Montel Vontavious Porter):
Suprisingly, MVP was dominating most but Benoit eventually won after his diving headbutt.

The Undertaker vs. Batista for the World Heavyweight Championship
This was a terrific match. I was expecting Undertaker to completley destroy but Batista brought his best and was great. He pulled off his spear and Batista bomb, but lost to the Undertaker's Last ride, chokeslam, then finally the tombstone piledriver. Undertaker is now 15-0 at Wrestlemania.

The ECW Originals (Tommy Dreamer, Sabu, The Sandman and Rob Van Dam) vs. The New Breed (Elijah Burke, Marcus Cor Von, Matt Striker and Kevin Thorn)
This was a better match than I expected. Not terrific but not boring either. ECW originals won after a Five-Star From Splash from RVD to Matt Striker.

Battle of the Billionaires (Trump's Lashley vs. McMahon's Umaga-the losing billionaire has to shave their head) with special guest referee Stone Cold Steve Austin.
After Austin was rough with Umaga for not breaking a hold in the corner, Umaga Samoan spiked him. Shane McMahon came in and did a Coast to Coast (jumped from one turnbuckle to another and kicked a trash can in Lashley's face) to Lashley. Stone Cold came back and stunned him, and beat up Shane. Lashley won and Stone Cold stunned Vince while Lashley and Trump shaved his head. Stone Cold then stunned Trump and left.

Melina vs. Ashley Massaro in a lumberjill match for the WWE women's championship
All the divas surrounded the ring and Melina eventually won. Not a great match altogether.

John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels for the WWE Championship
This was a great match. HBK was dominating at the beginning then Cena came back. After they each did they finishing moves a couple of times, Cena got Michael's in the middle of the ring with the STFU and HBK tapped out. Cena won in a great match.

All in all this was a great Wrestlemania.
Any thoughts?

The moves are not real. The "ladder" that snapped in half was probably made of foam.

you could not be more wrong. wrestling is scripted, but the stuff is real. and the ladder was not made of foam. you could tell by the reactions of everybody- including the wrestlers and the referees and the commentators.

lol loser.

I don't think so, saw a clip of it on YouTube before WWE had them removed and holy crap it looked like the guy landed on him wrong and it hurt.

yes

Why did you put this in the "sports" forum?

I thought that WWE is just "entertainment."

It's sports entertainment...

There is precedent for posting wrestling threads in this forum as done by one of the forums mods.

if you don't think that the wrestlers are athletes and what they do isn't a sport, then you haven't seen one match

I think I love the genius that is you and your posts Showstopper.

Showstopper, you crack me up. I still watch wrestling, but you have actually chronicled all of the moves, analyzed it like an actual sporting event.

Big screw up during the broadcast, when they were advertising vengeance Shawn Michaels voice was yelling about revenge for his loss- he hadn't lost yet. Kind of blew the suspense, easily one of his best matches ever and I knew he would lose because they actually let it out during the broadcast. Pretty stupid. I still think his Razor Ramon ladder match is his best ever, but it was close.

I wonder if good old Razor watched it between lines of blow? Somehow I doubt they get PPV at roach motels. Gotta save room for 16 low quality porn channels. Speakinf of that, what is it with shitty motels and porn? No clean towels, but all the porn a man can handle. Does being broke equal I don't want towels, but crave inordinate amounts of porn? I never understood that. Anybody?

Wait...are you telling me I could be the next JR?

No, he's telling you to get a life.

oh-because i think I can take over J.R.'s job

True story...

Well, I'm Jewish so I would rather spend my time watching wrestling PPV's then going to church.

I thought you might be Jewish.

Is that a compliment?

That's what I was thinking.

Wait...what?
What do you mean "thats what I was thinking"?

What do you think was the greatest match of all time, Showstopper? There has to be some historical importance to the Hulk/Giant body slam, but my personal pick would be Mick Foley vs the Undertaker in Hell in a Cell. That match was brutal, and marked the uptick in extreme stunts in the WWE. I swear to god the first time I saw that, I thought Foley was seriously hurt when he fell off the top of the ring. It's not often that Wrestling can fool me, but that match did.

honestly, the mick/taker HIAC match wasn't that great. It was all based around two sick bumps, but it didn't tell much of a story. The Cactus Jack/HHH street fight match at RR00 was miles better. It's very hard to say what the best WWfE match of all time is, but my top ten would look like this(in no particular order)

Bret/Owen WM12
HBK/Taker HIAC1(from Badd Blood 97)
Bret/Austin WM13
Angle/Lesner WM19
Angle/Benoit RR03
Dynamite Kid/Tiger Mask from 82 in MSG
HBK/ Jeff Jarrett IYH1
Benoit/HHH/HBK WM20
Jericho/HBK WM21
Austin/HBK KoTC 97


I can definetly come up with other great matches, but those are just off teh top of my head

You don't think he was hurt?

I started watching wrestling in like 2000, so I didn't grow up watching the classics. Of course I have seen the Foley/Taker match and it was great. It was really one of the moments were you realized that all the matches after this one would be different.

Since 2000, I love most of the extreme matches. The TLC's and the money in the bank matches are my favorites. I also really love the Stone Cold vs. Rock match from the Wrestlemania a couple of years ago (I can't remember which one).

I obviously don't care about being called a loser for posting in this thread, I think I probably have over 200 posts combined in all the Survivor threads in the Tv Forum which is bad enough.

Whether you like wrestling or not it is fun to watch. I haven't been following WWE recently but I was a big fan for a long time especially when guys like The Rock and Stone Cold were in their hey days. The skits and interviews outside of the matches is what made these shows. For example all the Stone Cold arguments with Vince McMahon like when Stone Cold drove down in a beer truck and sprayed Vince with a beer hose was pure genius. Also all the Rock interviews where he made Michael Cole put a Rock shirt over his head were classic. The funniest thing I've ever seen in my life was when Vince made William Regal join the Vince McMahon kiss my a_ss club.

Also, about 7 or 8 years ago I got a chance to go to RAW in San Jose, and it was the most fun at an event I've ever had in my life, way better than any NFL, MLB, or NBA game I've been to. In the last match Stone Cold was wrestling some guy (I forget who it was), and HHH came out apparently making a comeback after a long injury period and kicked the crap out of Stone Cold, finishing the show by giving him the pedigree on the announcer table. Awesome show.

Tickets are way over-priced though which is why I haven't been back for another event.

I agree. I go to many Indians and Cavs games (and a couple of Browns games) every year, but my favorite sporting event is when wrestling comes to town. I also agree that the interviews and the things backstage are why wrestling is so good. It puts the "entertainment" in sports entertaiment.
I also loved when Stone Cold sprayed beer on Vince (and I think the Rock was there also). I also love anything that the Rock said. I went to youtube and i looked up the rock interviews. if you type in "the great one says..." there are like 25 segments, each about 10 minutes, of hilarious Rock interviews and moments.

I don't watch wrestling anymore, but I remember Cactus Jack, dude was crazy.

No lobve for HBK/Razor Ramon?

HBK always seems to have great matches. His last three Wrestlemanina matches (vs. Kurt Angle, vs. Vince-this was a particularly awesome hardcore match, and vs. Cena) have all be fantastic. He is clutch.

FYP

I'm a fan, but its nowhwere near as good as the bret/owen match on repeated viewings. The Bret/owen match is 12 minutes of wrestling perfection which includes one of the most beautiful german suplexes that you will ever see by owen. in general for me though, I prefer to see more technical aspects in my wrestling and was always more of a NWA/WCW fan along with being a massive fan of japanese puro, though I haven't watched much wrestling in the past 18 months.

WWfE matches are generally more gimmick based and over booked. I also have problems with HBK in that his matches are almost always completely planned out ahead of time. He likes to have almost every hold and transition planned out and that just doesn't jive with me. please note that I say this as a big HBK fan

I just watched most of the Summerslam from 2000. It was great. The TLC match with the Hardy's, Edge and Christian, and the Dudley boys was terrific. The hardcore match between Steve Blackman and Shane McMahon was also awesome. Shane fell from about 50 ft off of the monitor. These hardcore matches from a couple of years back set the tone for how awesome they are now. I can't imagine how the money in the bank match would have been if it weren't from this TLC...

meh SS2000 was okay, fully loaded a month earlier was miles better. The top three matches were damn good with a really good benoit/rock match and a great HHH/Jericho last man standing match

Anywhere I can watch it online?

You already know what I want to say to this, don't you?

yeah I was gonna ask that

Thats one of my favorites also Foley/Orton from backlash was one of Foleys better outings and certainly a better build up than most matches in the last half decade.

A key one missing from your list of the top of my head would be HBK/Hart Iron Man match

I recently read Foley's third autobiography (the Hardcore Diaries), which happened to be an amazing book. By far my favorite wrestler's autobiography. The book consists of Mick Foley writing in his diary for 6 weeks from april until June 11 when he took part of ECW's one night stand. However, throughout the book, he recollects on many of his memories over his life.

He happened to be extremely proud of his match with Orton. He thinks it really helped Orton become a main eventer, which was his goal. That is one of his prouder moments of the decade.

i have a hard time including it because of some of the bullshit that shawn pulled during the match. Shawn refused to do any decent amount of selling for bret and when bret realized this, he returned in kind. it was very unprofessional on both parts

no rock or hogan . HBK 5 times.

because Hogan can't wrestle his way out of a paper bag and rock generally needed to be carried to a 4+ star match

if it is on the quality of the wrestle what about randy savage or ric flare

As with pretty much every program Foley's involved with the story was so well developed from start to finish. Such a shame that they wasted Orton big time after that.

Hogan was all gimick no substance although rumour has it that he was had a 4star match in Japan with Inoki. The Rock was much better in the ring than people give him credit for but he again relied more on his connection with the crowd than actual in ring performce but did have some solid outings.

we're talking about how things have been in the fed, flair's best years were in the NWA and his best WWF match was never recorded by the WWF and is a very hard to find underground tape(his 1 hr match with bret). Savage for me is very meh, he is a guy who would also plan out every big match to the exact move. While HBK did that too, the top matches that I listed have a lot more to do with the opposing guy and for me, the way Savage planned out the WM3 match against Steamboat worked against steamboat's best working style. I've seen that match a lot of times now, and it really hasn't held up over the years and the more I've watched it, while technically perfect, there isn't much soul to it

Savage/Steamboat from Mania 3 is almost a must on any best of list.
Flair...off the top of my head I can't really think of many classics he's had in WWE now or in his early 90's run. Him vs HHH from raw a few years back was good and some stuff he's done with Edge.

I'm not a huge Flair fan but his feud with Steamboat was classic and his I quit match with Terry FUnk is actually one of my favorites.

Edit: I've heard the 60min between Flair and Hart was great but I haven't been able to find it.

I watched WWE back in the day (early 2000's) then I stopped and I started to watch again the week before Eddie Guerrero died (November 2005). Edge was there when I began to watch and he was one of the few that were still around now. He is one of my favorites. He is one of the best bad guys in the WWE history. You love to hate him. I think many of his matches were great (of course his hardcore match with Foley at Wrestlemania, and his hardcore match with Foley against Funk and Dreamer were both amazing).

This is funny to me, because the match at the top - Bret/Owen WM12 Never happened. Owen was in a six man tag that night, and Bret did the Iron man match with Michaels that irishguy was mentioning.

Also about Flair having no classic matches with WWF in the 90s.. I just wanted to say the Rumble he won the championship in, and the following Wrestlemania (VIII) when he dropped the title to Savage are two of my favorite matches of all time.

Bret/Owen was WM10? Was it not? I;m to lazy to look but we all know what he was refering to. I agree with the Flair rumble match being a great but was refering to singles matches as for Flair/Savage VIII I actually watched it again recently (I've got a large wrestling collection) and would still not put it on a best of list but thats just me and as I said I've never been a huge Flair fan.

I meant WM10, don't be a nit.

The savage match was okay, it was more of a decent match because of Flair's insane gig job at a time where Vince had banned blading. I wouldn't rank it anywhere near flair's top 20 though and would easily throw his match w/Triple H as a better match





i am a flair fan and I don't rank this match all that high. Its about on par with the inoki match that he had a couple of years later where the aura of it is more due to who his opponent is rather then it being a 4*+ match. For me this is again due to how Savage wrestled where he'd program everything out. If anyone ever goes over Savage's matches over his career they are generally techinically sound, but lack a certain soul that many of the best matches in history have. He generally has emotionless matches