Tonight at the 25th Anniversary of Wrestlemania 72,744 fans packed Reliant Stadium to see celebrities, rock stars, thundering pyrotechnics and, of course, the culmination of a year’s worth of storylines. The event is part Super Bowl and part season finale, with satisfying resolutions and new cliffhangers occurring over the course of four and a half hours. Last year’s event grossed 23.8 million dollars in pay-per-view revenue, bringing 50 million more dollars in revenue to the home city.
While this year’s spectacular was uneven in quality, Mickey Rourke got into the spirit of the event by stepping into the ring to take his medicine from Chris Jericho; “Stone Cold” Steve Austin made the special appearance his hometown fans came to see; and the most anticipated match of the evening exceeded expectations to become an instant classic that kept fans around the world afraid to leave their seat during a seemingly endless standoff.
The legacy match between The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels was the wrestling equivalent of the New York Mets and Houston Astros sixteen inning affair in Game 7 of the 1986 National League Championship Series. Both men seemed perpetually near victory for twenty minutes in the later stages of the match, with Shawn Michaels surviving several of The Undertaker’s trademark choke slams and The Undertaker surviving several doses of Shawn’s Sweet Chin Music. After trick pins, complicated reversals, jaw dropping stunts and the Hell’s Gate submission hold, The Undertaker caught Shawn Michaels as he flew backwards through the air in a moonsault, drove him head first into the canvas for a Tombstone and won the match. His Wrestlemania winning streak now stands at 17-0.
Mickey Rourke took the ring, but not until after 1980s legends “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka and Ric Flair all failed to stop Chris Jericho. The devastatingly sarcastic villain fans love to hate easily dismantled the Hall of Famers, ages 55 to 66, and then demanded that the Hollywood star of the The Wrestler get in the ring for a hands on demonstration. Rourke, wearing a black cowboy hat with a disheveled suit, slowly approached the ring. The men stared down and without warning Rourke caught Jericho with a blinding left hook to send him down. Finally having found a community that doesn’t shun him for being too weird, Rourke left to thunderous cheers.
Kid Rock held a short concert using elaborate fireworks sequences as percussion instruments; Pussycat Dolls front girl Nicole Sherzinger sang America the Beautiful to open the show; and Evander Holyfield sat at ringside along with Michael Clark Duncan and members of the Houston Texans NFL football team.
After making a brief appearance in full tuxedo as part of the parade of the Hall of Fame Class of 2009, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin exploded through the gates moments later on a four wheeler and blazed up and down the aisle, spinning around the ring. He put the vehicle in park long enough to jump in the ring and guzzle eight beers, then steal Jim Ross’ hat and share a drink with the Hall of Fame play-by-play man. He rocketed back the way he’d come to the deafening sounds of Texas pride.
John Cena emerged from a crowd of dozens of identical foot soldiers to challenge The Big Show and Edge. He eventually lifted both men up onto his shoulders at one time, a weight that far exceeds what Hulk Hogan lifted in his epic body slam of Andre the Giant, to finish them off with the Attitude Adjustment. While the men’s billed combined weight of 735 pounds is suspect only about 100 of those pounds could plausibly be disputed. Cena won the World Heavyweight Championship, leaving Edge and The Big Show’s unfaithful lover Vickie Guerrero in a further bind.
Triple H defended his family’s honor by successfully defending the WWE Title against Randy Orton in the final match of the evening. He did not escape controversy, however, as he cracked Orton with a sledge hammer while the referee was unconscious. The rules of the match specifically stated that Triple H would forfeit the title if he lost by disqualification, leaving Orton with grounds for a rematch.
CM Punk won the Money in the Bank ladder match for the second year in a row, with Shelton Benjamin once again laying his career on the line to perform one of the most dangerous stunts ever attempted in the WWE. Benjamin set up a giant ladder in the aisle, climbed to the top and performed a suicide dive to slam six other wrestlers onto the hard metal ramp.
In other action, Matt Hardy silenced his far-more-successful brother Jeff after delivering the Twist of Fate onto a steel chair in their Extreme Rules match. Santino Marella won the Miss Wrestlemania battle royal dressed in drag, claiming to be an Italian Marella cousin named Santina. He last eliminated his own girlfriend, Beth Phoenix, and Melina to win the tiara, then danced obscenely to the mixed embarrassment and amusement of the fans; and Carlito and Primo Colon became the first ever Unified Tag Team Champions by after a rapid fire tag team match. Their contest got bumped to the abbreviated preshow in a move bound to frustrate fan advocates of a tag team wrestling resurgence.
Come back tomorrow to read my report from ringside at Reliant Stadium. I’ll share my reactions, anecdotes and analysis. Then continue to follow the WWE on BuddyTV in the weeks and months to come as we provide ongoing news, analysis, historical retrospectives, photo series and exclusives from the pro wrestling world.
-Henry Jenkins, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of © 2009 World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)