The Miz and The Big Show over R-Truth and John Morrison to retain the Unified Tag Team Championship
Decent match to start the show off with but ended way too abruptly. We all lamented the fact that WWE's tag team division pretty much consists of random pairings of wrestlers anymore, as the commentators hyped up Miz and Show's "experience advantage" over Truth and Morrison (meaning that the champs teamed for two months compared to the challengers' one month). I will admit, Truth and Morrison do make a good makeshift team and can get the crowd into them but before we knew it, Big Show donkey-punched someone for the victory.
Randy Orton defeated Ted DiBiase (not the Million Dollar Man, but his son) and Cody Rhodes
I hated this match, mostly due to my dislike for Orton and my disinterest in the other two competitors. The story is that Legacy is broken up but all three men have so little charisma that having all three of them facing each other in the same match turned the ring into a swirling vortex of suck. The match followed standard formula: DiBiase and Rhodes beat up Orton only to turn on each other and have Orton capitalize for the victory. When one of my friends wondered why they didn't just give DiBiase his dad's awesome Million Dollar Man theme music, I remarked that it'd make the crowd go "Oh sweet, it's Ted DiBiase! Aw shit, it's Ted DiBiase."
Then we get an annoying backstage segment where Vickie Guerrero talks (ugh) and Jillian Hall sings (double ugh). Santino Marella attempts to save the segment by snapping into a Slim Jim, causing Jillian to turn into Mae Young in Jillian's strapless dress (quadruple ugh). Santino snaps into it again and Mae Young turns into Mean Gene Okerlund...still in Jillian's dress. I think Mae Young might've turned me gay as Mean Gene looked WAYYYYYYY better in comparison. Santino snaps into it again and we get Melina (I'll take it) and a merciful end to this segment. This was a rare case where Santino Marella couldn't make things better just by appearing.
Jack Swagger wins the Money In The Bank Ladder Match
Even though Money In The Bank is just an excuse to do as much messed-up shit off of ladders as possible (especially now that they bumped it up to 10 participants compared to 6 and 8 in previous years), it's still a highlight of the night...because people do messed-up shit off of ladders. I probably would've rather had Christian win...or Dolph Ziggler...or Evan Bourne, but I can deal with Jack Swagger winning. Especially since he looks like the offspring of Biff Tannen and a gorilla.
Triple H beat Sheamus
If there's was a match that was as much of a foregone conclusion as the Orton/DiBiase/Rhodes match, this was it. And if there's anyone else that I dislike as much as Randy Orton, it's Triple H. I could've understood if this was for a World title but Triple H beating Sheamus pretty easily really does nothing. Yay, Triple H won...again. I really don't want to write Sheamus off as I think he could be awesome with the right booking, but it's kinda hard not to after last night.
Rey Mysterio defeated CM Punk
Honestly, this was the match I was looking forward to most and it didn't disappoint. CM Punk continues to look homeless but busted out new GI Joe-themed trunks. And speaking of "busting out", Serena (one of his Straight Edge followers) continues to be super-hot for a bald chick. Continuing his theme of wearing comic book character-themed outfits, Mysterio's outfit this year was supposed to be something from Avatar. I say "supposed to be" because I didn't notice until people said it online after the show. Shows how much I give a crap about Avatar. Anyway, awesome match.
Bret Hart beat Vince McMahon in a No Holds Barred Match
Despite neither man being able to go in the ring anymore (Bret due to injury and old age and Vince due to not being a trained wrestler), I still expected this match to be awesome. But it dragged...and dragged...and dragged. The thing about this match was that Vince bought out members of the Hart Family (including Natalya Neidhart *drool*) to act as Lumberjacks but Bret screwed Vince as it was a double-cross with the Hart Family taking Vince's money and still being on Bret's side. Then Bret beat up Vince for like 10 minutes that felt like a half-hour. And that was it. They really should've done something else for something as major as Bret squaring off against Vince.
Chris Jericho retained the World Heavyweight Championship against Edge
I just mistyped "Chris Jericho" as "Christ Jericho", that's how awesome he is. But even so, I still expected Edge to come out on top and leave with the belt. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Jericho won, it just caught me off guard. Of course, Edge got the last word as he Speared Jericho off the commentary tables and through a ring barricade in brutal fashion. From the looks of it, I'm wondering if Edge is going to "go crazy" again, which I'll approve as I'm not feeling Edge as a babyface. He plays the asshole role so well that I can't get behind him as a good guy. Also, my friends and I got WAY too much enjoyment out of the ring announcer's voice cracking like he was going through puberty when he announced Edge.
Vickie Guerrero, Michelle McCool, Layla, Maryse and Alicia Fox over Beth Phoenix, Gail Kim, Mickie James, Eve Torres and Kelly Kelly
Oh my god this match was horrible! Well, it was going alright until they decided that Vickie Guerrero should do a Frog Splash onto Kelly Kelly, which looked stupid. Hey, I don't expect her to be able to land a good looking one, so why should she even bother trying. And then when she pinned Kelly afterwards, her shoulders weren't down so the ref had to stop the pin, then they awkwardly tried to redo the pin but the damage was already done. Everyone thinks that Vickie Guerrero is such a good heel because she gets booed, but she gets booed because NO ONE WANTS TO SEE OR LISTEN TO HER! And I'm not even going to get into the whole "You probably think she's fat and ugly" thing. Well, compared to the models and living twigs that the WWE thinks can mold into wrestlers, yeah she kinda is. But I can deal with all that if she weren't so damn annoying. It's so bad that she's making me hate Eddie Guerrero, which I DON'T want to do!
John Cena defeated Batista to win the WWE Heavyweight Championship
I wasn't really expecting much from this match due to both men's limited skills but it still was pretty decent. And I'm actually starting to like Batista more since his character has become more of a douchebag. Looking back, I don't remember much worth talking about about this match, I just remember not hating it, which is a good thing. After the match, Cena reminded me why I like him so damn much:
That's right, Cena celebrated his win by posing with the haters! I know he's done this once or twice before but actually seeing it for myself was awesome. Oh yeah, Cena got a pretty good special entrance this year as marines did a swank rifle-twirling routine before he came out to the ring. Yeah, I don't know what it's called but it was pretty cool, especially since the rifles had bayonets on them, making me wonder how they didn't slice their own hands off.
The Undertaker beat Shawn Michaels in a Streak vs Career Match. As per stipulations, Shawn Michaels must retire.
Since I still haven't seen their match from last year's Wrestlemania (which is odd because usually I'll buy the DVD of the show, last year's was the first time I didn't), I really wanted to see what they'd do this year since everyone praised the previous match so much. And it didn't disappoint. We got some gnarly moments as Taker gave HBK a Tombstone Piledriver on the floor, HBK hitting a moonsault off the top rope onto the commentary table landing right across Taker's legs, Taker lifting his knees up during an HBK elbow drop and finally Taker finishing HBK off with a leaping Tombstone that I'm still surprised didn't paralyze him. I kinda figured that HBK would lose as I doubt the WWE will ever break Undertaker's undefeated Wrestlemania streak (and I can't think of anyone that can right now, except maybe John Cena) and retirements don't mean crap in the world of wrestling. On the one hand, I don't want Shawn to retire but on the other hand, I do just to make him stick to his word. Look at Ric Flair, he lost to Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 23 and had to retire and now he's in TNA (granted he's only wrestled one match there but still). Hell, it's a running joke that Terry Funk retires as often as he gets out of bed. But yeah, I'll probably be watching Raw tonight to see what'll happen to HBK now.
And that was it. I wouldn't say it'll go down in Wrestlemania history as one of the greatest but it was definitely fun to watch. Really the only matches that I'd go back and watch again were Undertaker vs Michaels, Jericho vs Edge and Mysterio vs Punk with Batista vs Cena and the Money In The Bank Match also being entertaining. Everything else was kinda "meh" or just plain sucked. I'm still disappointed that Bret vs Vince wasn't done better than it was, even if it did give me an opportunity to ogle Natalya Neidhart.
Anyway, with our Saturday gaming session having fell through, that gave me some time to catch up on a few things as I pretty much sat in my room watching crappy movies. But before I go into that, I want to talk about The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss. I just finished the book this morning after a friend at work lent it to me a few weeks ago and now that I'm done, I'm a bit torn on what to think. Don't get me wrong, it's a great book and I'd recommend it to anybody. Basically, it's an autobiographical account as to how Neil Strauss entered the Pickup Artist community and befriended the likes of Mystery (from VH1's reality show The Pickup Artist, you know, the one I tried to get on and whined about in my Valentine's Day post). At first, it was just to break out of his shell and be able to meet women but he ended up turning into Style and becoming one of the greatest PUA's himself. But the deeper he got into the seduction community, the more he witnessed it falling apart around him as he was the only one level-headed enough to notice. It's an enthralling read but what I'm torn on is how this is supposed to affect me. I don't make my inability to get girls attracted to me a secret at all so of course this sort of thing would apply to me. But the more I read it, the more it revealed that Mystery, a man who I assumed had his shit together, has even more problems than I do despite the fact that he has seduction down to a science. Here's a man that got his own TV show due to getting just about any woman he wanted to have sex with him and the book details him battling severe depression and undergoing therapy while doing so. And I wanted to go on that TV show to have him teach me. What I'm torn about is that I know I need something to break me out of my shell, but is this it? I really doubt I could do this sort of thing myself (or even want to) which is why I wanted on the show so bad, I'd be forced to do it or else undergo humiliation via worldwide exposure on VH1. As I read the tactics, I kept thinking "This seems kinda wrong. Do girls actually fall for this? And if they do, would I want the kind of girl that would fall for this?" but that isn't the point...yet it kinda is. I don't know. Let me just wrap this up by saying that I still don't know what I'm supposed to do on this front, but I gotta figure it out soon. I hate being so behind everyone else and having so much trouble with things that most people take for granted. Anyway, read the book, regardless of if you're interested in picking up girls or not. It's still quite entertaining.
Speaking of entertaining, I watched a lot of shitty movies this weekend...wait, that doesn't sound right. But yeah, I spent most of this weekend going through my backlog of movies I got over the past few weeks.
First off was End Game, a straight-to-video "suspense" "thriller" starring pro wrestler Kurt Angle and Survivor winner Jenna Morasca (who also tried her hand at wrestling and helped turn in one of the worst matches of all time). Notice how I put "suspense" and "thriller" in quotes? Because this movie obviously wants to be that type of movie but it sucks so badly that I can't even enjoy it on a so-good-its-bad level. I'm not going to go too depth into the movie because I'm debating doing a full-fledged review of it but I will say this: the movie starts with Kurt Angle BUTT-FUCKING A WOMAN TO DEATH! Ok, he suffocates her during sex but still, that's not something I want to see from My Olympic Hero. This movie is just so bad. The acting sucks (Kurt Angle is actually the best actor in the movie but that's not saying a whole lot as he's super-bland here compared to his wrestling promos), the script writer must've had ADD because there's tons of plot points that either show up when they're convenient to the story or they pop up once and are never heard from again, everything is filmed with digital in a way that makes everything look like a shoddy TV set even if it's a pre-existing location. All in all, End Game is like taking film noir, turning it into a super-awkward middle school play out of it and peppering in a bunch of unnecessary crap for no reason. It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen...and that should be saying A LOT.
After that was Blood & Bone, a straight-to-video brawling flick starring Michael Jai White (Black Dynamite) that reminded me a lot of the kind of fighting movies you'd pick up from the rental store in the '90s starring Jean Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal. If you just want waste some time by watching people get their asses kicked, Blood & Bone is perfect. There's plenty of cameos from MMA fighters like Kimbo Slice, Bob Sapp and Gina Carano *drool*, ironically enough the few MMA fighters I give a crap about. Throw in Quentin "Rampage" Jackson and Bas Rutten and you'd possibly have the greatest movie ever. Anyway, there was a super random moment right at the beginning when one of the fighters was none other than former karate star and professional wrestler Earnest "The Cat" Miller, only he was wearing a wig with hair rollers in it and called himself "Mommie Dearest". Not only that but the ring announcer (who would become Michael Jai White's sidekick in the movie) was none other than the guy who played Rufio from Hook! So in the span of like 30 seconds, I thought "Holy shit, it's The Cat. Wait a minute, is that...yes, it's fucking RU-FI-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO(hey)! Wait a minute, did Rufio just call Earnest "The Cat" Miller "The Ferocious Faggot"?" So yeah, that totally happened.
The next day, I watched Slammed!, a movie designed to cash in on the wrestling craze of the late '90s-early '00s. Oddly enough, the movie was pretty much a reunion for washed-up TV actors. You had the oldest kid from Home Improvement and Jimmy Olsen from Lois and Clark as the leads and Cody from Step By Step as a wrestler that they looked up to. Plus there was the super-hot chick with the short hair from VIP, J. Peterman from Seinfeld, Donna's dad from That 70's Show and the chick with the Southern accent from Empty Nest. All in all, it was a pretty dumb movie but my pain tolerance for crappy movies is pretty high, so I wasn't super-offended or anything. I've seen worse straight-to-video movies regarding wrestling (Backyard Dogz) and after watching End Game, this looked like freakin' Titanic. Plus there were boobs in it. Quite a bit of boobs, actually.
Finally, yesterday I watched Dragonball: Evolution, a movie which seemingly everyone hates. I don't know if it was the fact that I was reading The Game while watching most of it but I didn't really hate it as much as I thought it I would. I think most of that was due to the fact that I honestly don't give a shit about Dragonball or Dragonball Z or GT or WTF so none of my nerd rage kicked in. And honestly, a good 143% of the hate directed at this movie stemmed from nerd rage, mostly because only nerds would watch this. But a while back, I watched a review video from That Guy With The Glasses and literally all of their complaints came from inconsistencies between the movie and the source material. Normally I'd agree but in this case, I'm reminded of the Cracked.com article about why Video Game Movies Suck, namely the "Test Audiences Don't Care About Your Nerd Shit" part. With that out of the way, I also thought that if I were 10 or 12 years old, I'd probably love this movie. Sure, the Star Wars prequels sucked but that's because George Lucas wanted to get a new generation of kids to like Star Wars much like the previous generation of kids loved the original movies. And that's why I don't think Dragonball Evolution was that bad. Much like the prequels, if it was its own movie intended for kids and not made for a subset of lonely nerds who were going to hate it anyways, it would be decent. There's fireballs, cute chicks and Chow Yun-Fat. That automatically makes it cool in my book. Plus, after seeing how popular Twilight and Edward got, Goku's hair looks a lot less ri-goddamn-diculous in comparison.
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