Caliban

Mysterio beats Kane.

Pendulum are fucking awful.

Benjamin retained in three minutes. WTF.

R-Truth vs Shelton on WWE.com now... 59% of the vote.

I remember that JBL/Austin mini-match... looked like Austin got potatoed.

Punk's promo was pretty damn good on Raw. Not so much the content, which the writers can be blamed for, but the delivery. He showed fire which had up until that point not been seen during his WWE run. Contrast that to Cena and Batista's awful exchange earlier in the show - it may as well have been a sketch on Saturday Night Live, rather than a serious wrestling promo. Also, due to the Smackdown rebound, it came to my attenton that Edge apparently delivered the promo of his career last week. Channelling the best of Foley.

JR was NOT a happy bunny earlier today. Taken from his blog (jrsbarbq.com): And then, a few hours later, it appears J.R. is trying to take a more positive view on things:

My thoughts: Having had a chance to watch again with the benefit of it not being between the hours of midnight and 4am, I have to say that while Wrestlemania wasn't flawless, it was still a damn good show, up there in the top 5 Wrestlemanias for sure. Certainly this was a better and more memorable show than last year. The flyover was a grand way to open the show. The Citrus Bowl looked magnificent in the daylight, even with the drizzle. The opener between Finlay and JBL delivered a nice brawl that met expectations that could quite possibly have been a little high considering it involved the fairly useless JBL. However, Bradshaw and Finlay didn't botch anything and the match came across well. Money In The Bank always has huge expectations and again they were met here. Morrison in particular shone in the match, for example the laddersault from the top rope, and damn near castrating himself later. Matt Hardy returning and taking out MVP was a great moment. Actually this match was just innovative spot after innovative spot, and turned out to be the best MITB match since Wrestlemania 21. Unfortunately the big finish with Jericho and Punk came off a little flat. CM Punk winning was a huge surprise to me. This was the first example of WWE trying to push some new stars at Mania which is what Mania should be all about... Unfortunately as I covered earlier Batista vs Umaga was a bit of a letdown. It suffered from high expectations, it was never going to be on the same level as Batista/Taker from last year. Why Umaga went for a nervehold in the middle of a seven-minute match, I'll never know. This is supposed to be the biggest show of the year. The finish was pretty good though, for what it's worth. Looked like Batista injured himself on that powerbomb. Kane vs Chavo Guerrero amused me, now they have their offical Wrestlemania record time. And Kane deserves a run with that belt. Flair vs HBK was everything that it promised to be. Truly scary moment when the table didn't break correctly for HBK's moonsault off the ropes. Thought HBK and the match were done right there... I'm sure he must've broken his ribs. If not that was the best selling I've ever seen. But the match carried on and to their credit a 59-year-old man and a man with broken ribs assembled a hugely emotional and dramatic contest. I can only remember one flub, when they tried to do a bridge out of a pinfall attempt. Flair's post match standing O is truly one of those moments in wrestling that sends a chill down your spine. It's a shame that those moments don't come along as often as they used to. This was a Wrestlemania moment to savour. Bunnymania - Snoop Dogg was funny. The lights blowing out was shocking, but somehow unsurprising. That's all you got here. WWE Title Match - going on so early didn't really make me think Orton was going to retain, I figured they had made an ass-backward decision to put Show/Mayweather on last, which would have been ridiculous. Happily, I was wrong. This was an exciting triple-threat match. I should mention that I thought Cena's college football band entrance sounded fantastic. Orton winning is such a wise move that I never thought WWE would do it. Mayweather/Show - this definitely surpassed my expectations, as Mayweather showed himself capable of performing admirably as a heel in a wrestling match. Big Show had the crowd in the palm of his hand. Mayweather winning after battering Show with a chair and brass knux takes nothing away from Show. In fact I think this match enhanced Show's status if anything. Another man who gained in defeat was Edge. He gave Undertaker his best Wrestlemania match. I was burned out watching it live, but this match is awesome on second viewing, it's around the level of Undertaker/Angle from No Way Out a couple of years ago. It's the best match on the show and a very worthy main event. So, in order of quality, 2 excellent matches in Flair/HBK and Edge/Taker. 3 good to very good matches in the Triple Threat, Money In The Bank and Mayweather / Show. 1 entertaining brawl, 1 mediocre bout, a terrible womens match (but, erm, the lights went off and Snoop Dogg was there!) and a squash match. Oh, and the Battle Royal pre-show was fun. Yep, this is looking more and more like the 2nd greatest Wrestlemania ever, only behind X-Seven.

That crowd sounds awesome, don't think acoustics will be an issue. This is going to be great! Personally, I think the entire WWE are still pissed off about the Benoit situation and want to put on an amazing show.

Here's the set as of last night: Chance of rain tomorrow seems to be going up all the time according to weather.com...

So I watched the live Wrestlemania press conference which just finished on WWE.com. I'm sure there will be highlights on Raw tonight, but I'm really curious to see how they edit this little lot: It went as standard to begin with, Cena was out first followed by Randy Orton and Triple-H. Maria and Candice Michelle then announced a "Playboy Bunny Mania" match at Wrestlemania. No opponents were announced, but apparently Maria and Candice will be part of the match. Rey Mysterio cut a promo largely in Spanish about missing Wrestlemania. Then the really good stuff started. Mike Adamle came out to hype the Show/Mayweather match. The crowd, which had already been rowdy from the start, started giving Adamle the "What" chant. He coped with it fairly well. Adamle intoduced Shane McMahon, who proceeded with the hype. Then finally Mayweather came out with his business manager, but no large entourage this time. The crowd turned on Mayweather who was initally giving the big fake smile, but then began to get frustrated as he couldn't start talking over the boos. He was irritated for sure, and they definitely were not seeking this reaction after talking him up for the best part of five minutes. A large De La Hoya chant broke out. Mayweather from this point dropped the nice guy act and went complete heel, jumping up on the podium, bragging about his girls, money etc and badmouthing the crowd. Mayweather threw some money into the crowd and there was a mad scramble for the money, I definitely heard "watch out for my kids!" in the audio. He continued to antagonize boasting that he was running WWE and Wrestlemania, renaming it "Money Mayweather Entertainment" at one point. The Big Show was introduced as my feed cut out for two minutes. When it resumed Show was posing with Mayweather, his fist is as big as Mayweather's head. Show was of course the clear crowd favourite. My words cannot begin to describe what a detestable cocky prick Mayweather comes across as, and how they will never, ever get him over as a face for Mania. Big Show is onto a winner with this angle.... EDIT: Glad I wasn't imagining the line about the kids, also glad I wasn't the only one watching, lol

) The fans get a bit wet 2) Less pyro 3) More potential slipping on the entranceway 4) A thoroughly memorable show

Cole last night - "This Lashley, is a man!"

He's 13 months away from his own Decade of Destruction. For the love of God, somebody, please push this man! ...Kane has proved that he doesn't really need a promotional push as such to be over. His character has survived Katie Vick, and it looks like the Fake Kane fiasco will be switfy forgetten about too... ...oh, and about Kane being worthless with the mask - I would have agreed with you if you'd said that in 2002. But today it's ahrd to imagine Kane with the mask again. It sounds dodgy putting it this way - but his face is money.

I only got a PIECE of you Flair... JUST A PIECE!!!

I'm starting to find J.R. perversely entertaining. His fuckups are the highlight of the week for me. Last week was listening to him trying to say that ridiculous "fruity, fruity, fruity Skittles" ad. This week - "Six letters - I QUIT!". Oh... and "I love Godsmack".

I concur on taping live PPVs as Sky do cut out a lot of stuff. Of course, you run the risk of Sky showing some of the show with the picture stretched, as has been happening on live PPVs and Raws more and more recently. Not to mention missing half of the WWE vs ECW special.

I can see Sabu winning over Cena, and then a feud developing between Sabu and RVD over the ECW Title. Possibly taking in an ECW Title match between RVD and Sabu at Summerslam.

I remember the March to Wrestlemania X show, that crowd couldn't have been any more than 750.

I personally enjoyed the "Batista" chant towards the end of the match and the look on Cena's face then...

They HAVE to know that the ECW buildup has been utterly dire this year, compared to last years. And there's a lot more riding on it than just a PPV this time. Hmmm. I'm almost starting to think that the McMahons want this to fail. Getting the ECW monkey off their back. They bring it back full time, it fails, and we never hear from Heyman again...

They ran with three touring groups twenty years ago, it should be even easier now. And they can afford it. No question. It's the only way this will work long term.

Well, looking at Foley's bio on ECW.com, it would seem the direction they're going to take would be something to do with his anti-hardcore angle in 1995...

Hmmm. Foley said on his blog a couple of weeks back that he was presenting Vince with an idea that he thought was great. I wonder if this rumoured heel turn is that idea?

I've been excited about WWE's general direction since a couple of weeks after Eddies death. To me, that was the point where they started busting out good shows on a more consistent basis. Things like the reformations of DX and ECW are an added bonus to me. RavishingRickRudo gets the prize for bitterest sounding smark ever. Just stop fucking watching and end your pain!