Thursday, September 24, 2009

WWF Wrestlemania 16

I have fond memories of this one, recalling me, Brian, and my two cousins getting the All day WrestleMania package and reliving so many memories and watching so many interviews and skits that day. I have not seen this one since 2000, let's see how it holds up.

1) Godfather/ D Lo Brown v. Big Bossman/ Bull Buchanan- 3
2) Hardcore Battle Royal featuring Tazz, Funaki, Taka Michinoku, Pete Gas, Rodney, Joey Abs, Viscera, Hardcore Holly, Crash, The Headbangers and the APA- 4
3) Al Snow/ Steve Blackman v. T & A- 2
4) Hardy Boyz v. Dudley Boyz v. Edge/ Christian (Triple Ladder Match)- 6
5) Terri v. The Kat (Cat Fight w/ Val Venis as Special Ref)- 0
6) The Radicalz v. Chyna/ Too Cool- 2
7) Kurt Angle v. Chris Jericho v. Chris Benoit (Euro & IC Title 2 Fall match)- 5
8) X-Pac/ Road Dogg v. Rikishi/ Kane- 2
9) HHH v. Big Show v. The Rock v. Mick Foley (4 way Elimination Match)- 3

Nothing gets the kids into a wrestling show like Ice T coming out screaming "Pimp or Die." The heels were a much better unit in our opener, kept it simple, timed their spots well where as Godfather was all over the place, performed moves sloppier than the clean up after one of his hoe's goes down on Ice in the back, but chokes on his meat stick and vomits everywhere. D'Lo stuck to punches for most of his tenure in the ring and looked really stupid performing a top rope hurricanrana. I was pleased to see Bossman get the clean win, even if in the background JR was telling bad XFL jokes. The Hardcore match was damn brutal and fun to watch. The thing about hardcore is you want people to really try to hurt each other, or the pretense of swinging a garbage can is gone, like in 90% of WWE's stuff like this. This one felt more like a Big Japan brawl of '98, you had Crash & Pete get some nasty blood, ridiculous weapons all over the place including glass and dudes running into each other everywhere. I think the 15 minutes was far too long as stalling came into play during last 4 minutes, as well as no one but the Holly's attacking champion Tazz for ending spot. Big Vis took some huge bumps in this one and Tazz was still popular, please exit to the left of your time warp now. Our next tag match opens with the camera shot purely of Trish's large breasts, pushing her top to it's maximum weight capacity. It was hard to focus on the match after a camera shot of her because well, just search a screen shot of what she adorned at this show and you'll see why. As for the work, match rushed through 100 moves in like 1 minute with no one selling anything. Test looked the worst, sailing over the top rope like a Crash Test Dummy, but Blackman wasn't far behind him, with every move he did looking absurdly amateurish and weak. The cheese dude they brought out upped the stupidity factor and this match had nothing to offer anyone.

Triple Ladder match thrilled and spilled and I kind of miss when the Dudleys played the psychotic backwoods rednecks. High spots were paced out accordingly but as with most ladder matches, this felt like a collection of big spots less than a put together match. More so than most of these, this one had numerous spots where guys set up ladders, climbed them, only to take a big move off the top of them, w/o even reaching for titles. Jeff was abusing his body with no regards, but I guess art imitates life? Last 2 bumps were pretty outrageous, especially Matt doing a Circus like front flip through a table just by being pushed. Still this match had high lights galore and all 6 guys put their bodies on the line in an innovative match. The Cat fight was pure garbage, how can a match only 1 min. long have 2 interference spots and a ref distraction? Val was completely wasted here. The face team here is too ridiculous to believe and I can't imagine anyone being into them. Dean was really going out of his way to bump for these 3 morons and I couldn't believe how protected Chyna was here. Eddie seemed in a fog, probably of prescription medication, but who could blame him when his marching orders were to make Chyna look like a "Stone Cold" wannabe? Her hot streak at the end of this wasn't even laughable, I felt like crying. Saturn was barely involved but the first move done to him: The Worm? He was that hurt after one move to lay on the mat a good 15 seconds? Terrible match.

Jericho takes two big risks right off the bat here, Angle is being led by the hand but this is how you learn. The crowd wasn't really feeling it though, and but it moves along, Benoit as normal giving some nice grimaces after taking apunch. There's been like 100 suplexes thrown, which even JR makes mention of. The finishes came out of nowhere, especially Benoit's. Kind of overbooked but I did like Jericho and Kurt's reversal exchange near the end of the match. Lot of stuff came off flat but they all worked hard. This whole match was a punchline for Pete Rose and a Dance off, vomit. "Kishi looks really disinterested like he'd much rather be checking his Live Journal backstage. Dogg shows a couple good heel facials but this was a glorified squash. Our main event was a match of disastrous proportions. It had some high's and lows' but the high's were never that high and the low's were six feet under, and reminds me how much McMahon I've had to stare at in my life. Show goes on a tortoise like hot streak before he's eliminated barely 5 minutes in. Foley and Rock together looked crisp and alive, where Foley and Trips felt boring and tame, just a lot of punch exchanges. Foley completely killing himself on the table spot wasn't a good thing for once and the Game's covering the spot looked like a Sabu fumble except even more pathetic. Him trying to maneuver around the camera man to drop a shitty elbow from a foot up made me rewind several times to bask in it's overall crappiness. From there, long crowd brawl sections that wish they had Stone Cold involved. Back to the ring for a bunch of McMahon interference, I mean at one point, Rock and Trips take a break for a good 3 minutes while Father and Son bring brawling to new lows. You could have written Vince's heel turn in Hieroglyphics in Nefertitti's tomb it was so obvious and the finish here was the same as it would be in 17's much criticized ending: couple of chair shots to Rock's head, completely lacked creativity. Rock and Trips executed a few spots relatively well but the amount of in ring action in this 36 minute turd was astoundingly low. Please avoid this match like you would the Swine Flu, Chinese buffets past 4 pm and any of the "Real Housewives" shows.

XIII= 49%
XIV= 44%
VIII= 43%
II= 43%
XII= 43%
XVII= 43% (reviewed last year)
X= 42%
III= 39%
VII= 34%
V= 34%
XI= 34%
IV= 34%
IX= 33%
I= 32%
VI= 32%
XVI= 30%
XV= 29%

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