The Tino Standard

I had to double-check on this one, but what actually happened was that all the refs went "on strike," leaving the WWF to fill in with replacement refs, headed up by Tom Pritchard. They did a shitty job all night at the PPV (including I-C match, where it looked like Chyna won the belt, only to have Pritchard come out and overturn the decision, much to the dismay of the crowd (yes, they were pissed Chyna wasn't the I-C champ)). The situation boiled over in the main event when one ref - Jimmy Corderas - crossed the picket line and officiated the main event. Austin was an 'outside enforcer' who was also pulling double duty with some commentary at ringside. The finish of the match saw the real refs come out to harass Corderas for crossing the picket line, and they even pulled him out of the ring to beat him up when he was in the middle of a potentially match-deciding three-count. With no ref, all hell broke loose in the ring, allowing HHH to cheat and set up a pin. With all the refs fighting on the outside, Austin was forced to offiiciate the match, and he got in the ring just in time to see HHH making a pin attempt. Austin begrudgingly counted the fall and awarded HHH the title. Overbooked? Maybe. But it was a pretty unique idea that played out very well, and it did a good job of taking a show-long angle and giving it a worthwhile payoff in the main event.

THE BOSTON BRAWLER?! IS NOTHING IN THIS WORLD SACRED ANYMORE?

Why send Christian to Smackdown when you could switch the champions and bring Cena to Raw?

As for all those people worried about Kurt returning the job to Shawn in the near future, I don't think that's completely possible. Yeah, Shawn could win a rematch... Hell, he could win every match against Angle from now until eternity, but it really doesn't matter- the first time they met was at Wrestlemania... Angle won... CLEANLY. That's the one people will remember. Has Jericho pinned Shawn Michaels in the last two years? Honestly, I have no idea. Why? Because their one time in the ring I'll always remember is WMXIX. Jericho didn't go over in the big match on the big stage. No amount of "return jobs" after that ever equal the initial encounter.

Sure they said the presentation blew, but they didn't see anything leading up to the presentation. Yeah, the bottom line is that the presentation sucked, but when everything leading up to it (things the AE people didn't see) was FUBAR'd, Angie had no chance.

Where are the Oompa-Loompas?

Here's a thought I haven't seen mentioned yet: Bret Hart had creative control for the final 30 days he was with the WWF. He was also scheduled to work matches past Survivor Series for another month, leading, presumably, to the next PPV. Anybody have a timeline on how that would've played out? Depending on how long he was supposed to keep working after SurSer, that whole "final 30 days" clause might not even have been applicable at SurSer.

What I didn't understand was how they could spend $3900 out of a budgeted $5000 on gadgets. How could they afford everything else, such as the designers, the models and the materials?

What a bullshit finish. I cannot understand how Carolyn completely exposes Alex as a fraud and shows that it's clear he screwed up everything he touched in the project as the PM, yet Trump still fires Angie because the presentation was bad. Um, hello? When EVERY FUCKING THING leading up to the presentation is a disaster, what the hell is she supposed to do?

Threats of 3 and 4 ways get counted as a loss for everyone who didn't win the match. Hence how you have people with extra losses. And more losses for Royal Rumble participants.

Why do they still do that overrun on Raw? The whole point of it was for the ratings dogfight with Nitro, but that's long since passed. They don't have an overrun for Smackdown (network TV restraints), and there really isn't a need for one on Raw anymore either. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. It's another full segment of show we get each week. I'm just curious how it has been able to stay.

This felt like a good PPV to me, but it just seemed to be lacking as a WrestleMania. - Shelton Benjamin's "Stairway to Heaven" was AWESOME. Move of the night. - That set was ugly... Too many different things going on with it.... The Hollywood sign, the movie screen, and the marquee. It just looked disjointed, like they had three ideas, but didn't want to commit to any of them. They had the city skyline for XX in NY... I'd have built a model of the Hollywood hills for this entrance, but that's just me. - I'm probably in the minority on this, but I missed having the backstage skits and running plots throughout the night that you normally have on a PPV, very little interaction between brands outside of the champions skit and the interpromotional matches. - No major surprises, no major turns. Everybody was just kinda... there. - I didn't think the crowd was bad. Was it great? No, but when you are going through the motions for 4 hours, you get burned out. Half the crowd in my house tonight lost interest about 2/3 through the show. By the way, with WM going to Chicago next year (and wow, what a total lack of creativity for THAT logo), you will NOT have to worry about crowd heat. - Hard for me to judge the SmackDown title match because I never watch that show, but jeez, that just seemed flat. THAT is your brand's main event? It especially looked shitty when, in the very next match, Batista got pyro, confetti and the whole nine yards for winning his brand's belt. - Batista-HHH was boring and seemed half-assed. - Angle-HBK was fantastic. I especially loved Angle spazzing out, then just screaming at HBK, feeling like there was nothing else he could do. I kept yelling in my living room "Grapevine the leg! Lock that in and there's no escape. It'll be OVER!" Well, there you go. No way in hell I thought Michaels would do the J-O-B, but I was glad to see he did. Ultimately, I don't think this show actively sucked, but I just felt really underwhelmed. Outside of Angle-HBK and MAYBE the end of Orton-Undertaker (and that is a REACH), the rest of this card just seemed really, really flat and totally laking in drama. I just get the feeling this is one of those cards that few people will still be talking about five or six years down the road. Very forgettable show. EDIT: Completely forgot... I love Stone Cold, but that was one of the weakest WM openings I can ever remember. Saving one final trailer to open the show? Brilliant. Saving THAT trailer to open the show? Blah. Vince as the Godfather still would've ruled all.

- Batista Vs HHH I just can't get it out of my head that there's no way in hell Triple H would job in the main event two years in a row, especially with the way this feud has gone. Typical Triple H feuds where he loses the belt have some situations where he gets the upper hand in the buildup. I could see Batista winning a rematch at Backlash in a total letdown. This just has Goldberg in Summer '03 written all over it. - JBL Vs Cena I don't watch Smackdown, so I know little about this feud. For shits and giggles, I'll pick Cena because he was fun to cheer for when I was at Survivor Series last fall. - Benoit Vs HHH Vs HBK I picked Benoit, but only because I was thinking "They CAN'T be stupid enough to job him here, can they?" - Eddie Vs Angle Eddie, only because he'd won the belt the month before and there was no real reason to take it off him at that point. - Brock Vs Angle Just rewatched this match today and I enjoyed it. I picked Lesnar because of Angle's injury. It was a miracle he even wrestled that match. - Booker Vs HHH I had been saying Booker T. for the entire time during the buildup until the homestretch. I don't remember exactly what happened, but about two weeks before the show, something happened on Raw that set off warning signs. The final Raw before WM where Triple H muttered something like "Nobody told Booker T he wasn't in my league" as he limped out of the arena with Flair all but sealed that H was retaining. - HHH Vs Jericho HHH. Like there was a chance in hell he was jobbing against Jericho. - Rock Vs Austin Austin, but I had no clue about the heel turn. I figured he was the defacto choice as champ with Rock leaving for the Scorpion King. - Foley Vs Show Vs Rock Vs HHH Rock. Foley had gotten beaten twice on PPV and Show was a joke. HHH? Well, I was with the majority in saying "He can't win... Heels don't win the main event of WrestleMania." Oops. I think this was the first sign of any backstage stroke for Triple H. Heels WAY more over than him all had to do the J-O-B in the WM main event, but he got to retain. Up to that point, I don't think anybody had a problem with him... When Triple H first got the belt the previous fall, it seemed a little forced, but over time, he got over as a world champ, especially with the Foley feud. When he didn't job at WM, I think a lot of people resented that, and it's been all down hill in the court of public opinion for HHH ever since.

Whatever in the hell that trainwreck was that they played on Monday night, make it go away. Just awful, especially for such a big show. There was nothing wrong with the stock music they were using before.

Yeah, that Vince McMahon is a real buffoon. I mean, that dumb bastard is only worth $700 million. Seriously, what a putz.

..... BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA Oh, I'm sorry. You were serious.

Once when I was in junior high, I had a kid in an AOL chat room threaten me by saying that he'd send the Hawaiian mafia after me. Almost 10 years later, and I've still yet to see any guys named Guido or Tony wearing floral shirts showing up to kick my ass.

It was Godsmack's "Touche". Yeah, that's the one. I knew it was one of those two acoustic songs they pushed on the radio last year, but I wasn't sure which.

I don't know that song is that they've been using during the match rundowns the last few weeks, but I like it. Goes well, especially with the match screen graphics. While 'Step Up' started being used the week before the show, I think they also used Godsmack's 'Running Blind' on the show itself for the first part of the show-ending highlight reel. By the way, I haven't seen anything with the Trust Company song being used... How's that the 'unofficial theme'?

I see where you're coming from, and I don't think you have much to worry about. It's not like he's coming in to burn up the midcard and go over a bunch of guys. I mean, this is Marty Jannetty. Yeah, he knows how to work a quality match, and he's a fun novelty for longtime fans, but just a month or two ago, this guy was working matches at Laura's Roller Skating Emporium in Painesville, Ohio (and no, I'm not making that up).

See, he's over like Rover because of name recognition, not a win-loss record. If people cared THAT much about who's going over who and wins/losses, then guys like Jericho wouldn't be over at all.

That's <beep>ing awesome, <beep>ass mother<beep>er.

There are a lot of good ideas getting thrown around on here. You guys are doing a better job of getting me excited for this match than WWE is. Anyway, I was intially inclined to pull for Jericho. Do you realize he hasn't won at WM since pulling curtain-jerking duty at 17?

"It's all over but the shouting!"