I haven't actually seen Mania yet, because it's on at midnight in the UK, and i've got to work today when normally i wouldn't, plus i'd been on a massive road trip to a football game yesterday, having gotten home, stupidly drunk at 5.15am that very same morning. I was going to avoid all wrestling related web pages until i'd seen the PPV, so that the Streak/Career match wouldn't be ruined for me.
Sadly some idiot i know, had to whinge about HBK retiring because he lost on Facebook, so that ruined the whole surprise element for me, so i've now read the results (Taker/HBK was the only match i cared about anyway).
So i can't talk about the actual matches but i gotta say there is some truly disappointing booking results this year. Swagger won MiTB, over guys like McIntyre, Kofi or Evan Bourne? HHH beat Sheamus? Orton beat both Rhodes and Dibiase?
I mean, what is this? Shit on the mid-card-A-mania?
Swagger winning the MiTB simply says to me that the booking team want to push him, but they don't want to have to put loads of effort in to it. Lots of people have given up on him and were assuming he'd be gone this time next year (hey, could easily still happen). So now he's been awarded the 'Free Title Reign In The Bank' match, and it would appear that sometime in the next year (although let's face it, he'll probably cash in before Summerslam, since Edge is the only one who's actually waited longer than 3 months to cash in), he'll come out at the end of an awesome match, and ruin the whole thing by winning the title in 5 seconds with a sodding gut-wrench powerbomb, and then we'll hate him more, and the creative team will think they've done their job well.
But in fact we'll hate him as champ purely because this scenario is old and outdated, plus we know he'll end up back in mid-card limbo as soon as he drops the belt. If his run continues the way it has been since he moved to Raw, up until he wins the title, then it'll be an epic fail just like Punk's title reigns.
They gave him the case, had him get shit on for 3 months and then suddenly he's the champ. Where is he now? And yeah, before people say it, he is in the best stable going in the 'E', yes he is awesome on ths mic and has loads of talent...... still stuck in the mid-card though.
Moving on.....
Legacy have spent the better part of 2 years trying to get a decent rub from Randy Orton and establish themselves independently from him. They had a decent fued with DX where they actually made the veterans look vulnerable, and that even though they lost more matches than they won, they still looked credible.
Since the Rumble they've looked like 2 rookies trying to piss off a veteran, and last night were justly put back in their places. Orton beating them both makes them look like shit. So now, not only do they wrestle like it's 1975, not only do they have the weediest physiques out of everyone on the Raw roster (not so much Ted, but definitely Cody needs building up), but now 2 of them can't beat one guy. There's no way in hell these two are going to get over any time soon. They either need to be introduced into a major storyline with a big impact, or totally re-molded and start from scratch, because WWE are making these two into jokes. I never thought i'd see second and third gen wrestlers used so poorly, but everyone who's been part of this Legacy stable except for Orton has been shit on as a result.
And finally we come to HHH v Sheamus. Like i said in the random 'will HHH job to Sheamus' thread, storyline-wise it made more sense for HHH to win, i just wasn't expecting it to actually happen. HHH has been getting beaten on for a month straight by Sheamus, and at the biggest PPV of the year, all stories come full circle, so HHH had to get his revenge over his foe, but considering that Sheamus has been built up so much in such a short time, and obviously they're friends, plus HBK is said to have given Sheamus a big pep talk, suggested to me that Sheamus would get the win, so i'm expecting him to have a rematch with HHH sometime soon, and that's where he'll beat him. Otherwise these last 3 months building Sheamus up was a total waste of time.
Didn't expect Jericho to retain either being the ultimate transitional champion, but if Edge's leg is still giving him trouble then we don't need a repeat of 2007 where 2 newly crowned champions had to relinquish the belt within weeks due to injury, straight after one another.
