A (possible) Wrestlemania 28 liveblog

Saturday April 6th 2013, 9.15pm: So, here's the thing, dear readers frequently checking this un-updated blog. It is the eve before Wrestlemania 29 and I am exactly twelve months behind in WWE watching, because of this life and how it gets in the way of things. However, I have all PPVs between Wrestlemanias 28 and 29 lined up to watch. I've spent the last week rewatching the Elimination Chamber 2012 and some TV between that and 'Mania and I am READY TO GO.

9.20pm: Lilian singing the National Anthem to open the show. Shows you how it's done, Beyonce (this is an example of a reference that is both too soon in that it wasn't relevant in April 2012, and incredibly dated in that I'm actually making it April 2013).

9.27pm: Crowd inexplicably chanting "you, esse". Lots of Hispanics in Miami, of course.

9.33pm: World Heavyweight title with the Royal Rumble winning challenger is opening the show again. I suppose when you stack a card with so many big matches you need to spread them out. Keep the crowd energy high for all of them. Give them all equal chance to shine. Ensure you give the spotlight to as many guys as possible, including your future stars, on the biggest show of the ... oh, they did a nine second title switch angle masquerading as a match. No, no, don't worry. It's fine. Your idea was good too.

9.53pm: Anyway, you definitely need to leave sufficient time for the Kane-Randy Orton issue to finally be settled. Cole: "Orton says he couldn't care less about Kane's identity crisis". Randy Orton - voice of the people. I'm making myself a cup of tea, in the way you all think English people do whenever they have to deal with adversity such having to watch a Kane match.

10.15pm: Just a match with effectively nothing to be interested or excited by. Unlike the tea, which was a total crazy spotfest. The Daniel Bryan fans on the front row start a Daniel Bryan chant because they really want to see a lengthy Kane match.

10.20pm: Annual Comedy Skit actually amused me.

10.31pm: Big Show vs Cody Rhodes next. Hey, you know which match would make complete sense if it finished with one strike in less than twenty seconds?

10.39pm: Rhodes gets far too much time-filling offense here. But to make it all right, Show spears him in the groin whilst jumping off the ropes and then does it eight more times as I rewatch that moment again and again.

11.03pm: Divas tag match caps off what must be the worst first hour of any Wrestlemania ever. Cole hypes Maria Menonous as she came down the aisle by reporting her Dancing With The Stars score from the previous week. Daniel Bryan chant starts up to voice positive thoughts about seeing two wrestlers lightly cuddle a non-wrestler for about four minutes. A Daniel Bryan chant can mean almost anything (except that people want to see Daniel Bryan wrestle a proper match, of course).

11.12pm: OK, Taker vs. HHH in the Cell with guest referee Shawn Michaels is next. So that'll be the next hour of the show at least.

11.16pm: HHH enters from out of Vader's old helmet. This match is described as the end of an era, but no-one has really clarified what is potentially ending. No-one is explicitly saying there's a career-ending stipulation although I guess that's heavily implied.

11.20pm: BONG! Taker enters. JR talks about this match being the path to "everlasting mortality". Not immortality, you'll note. "Are you immortal?" "No, I'm just planning on being mortal for a really long time". Taker still entering. He pulls off his hood to reveal he's had a haircut. JR: "What has happened to the Undertaker?" as I begin to suspect that the commentators will be overhyping everything in this match.

11.22pm: Ah, the perfectly choreographed upwards stare towards the descending cage. I amuse myself by imagining the conversation between the production team and the writing team, focusing on the moment when they casually mentioned they'd need a enormous cage to descend onto the ring IN AN OPEN-ROOFED ARENA. The match then begins, as they do.

11.30pm: Slow methodical start with Taker very much in control. Cole notes that HHH has never lost a match which Shawn has been the guest referee. How many have there been? There was that Iron Man match with the Rock. And then...help me out here? There was that match from Summerslam 1997 between Bret and Taker. I guess he technically didn't lose that one either. I think we're about twenty minutes in.

11.36pm: Trips takes control with a nasty looking spinebuster on the steps and demonstrates he does in fact know how to beat the Undertaker at Wrestlemania - hit him in the skull with a sledgehammer. Jimmy Snuka's kicking himself for not thinking of that one. HBK want Triple H to stop the madness.  HBK asks Taker to give it up but he won't. It's all too much for him. Feels like we're at about the thirty five minute mark.

11.40pm: Taker stops HBK from ending the match by putting him in the Hell's Gate. This backfires because less than a minute later, he could have won the match. They do a brief second ref run-in and bump and then HBK superkicks Taker into a Pedigree. TWO COUNT and Shawn falls back into the corner battling some intense but unspecific moral dilemmas. Nearing an hour now, I'd guess.

11.53pm: Match finally drags itself to a finish with the decisive pinfall win that Taker wanted. Before that there's more chair shots and sledgehammer shots and kickouts from finishers. In a vacuum, I probably would have thought this was OK - the match is largely uninspired brawling and weapons stuff, dragged out far longer than it should have, but at least they don't fill all that time with a finisher overkill run to the same degree as last year's match (which I also disliked). It doesn't need the Cell at all, but whatever. The problem is that the more the commentators talk in terms of classics and epics and it being one for the ages, the cognitive dissonance becomes too much. The crowd is not better - there's a fucking 'this is awesome' chant for a ref bump and I don't feel like crediting them with hipster irony. Shawn's referee act was distractingly bad - the build for this match demanded these two guys battle it out until one was left standing. If it's brutal, it should look brutal to anyone watching. You don't need someone close-captioning that for you with their hammy acting. I dislike big matches that did very little with massive amounts of resources, and this match stands as the epitome of that. If that's the era that's ending, I welcome it with a hearty Daniel Bryan chant.

Sunday April 7th 2013, 12.20am: Team Johnny vs. Team Teddy for overall control of both shows. I liked this when Dolph was in the ring because Dolph is great and people being great is the sort of thing I like. His bumping makes a bunch of really weak offence (which is in copious supply in this match) look good. The finishing run, when its all been uncluttered and it's basically Miz and Dolph vs. Santino and Ryder makes me wish that's what the match had been because it's quite fun.

12.26am: CM Punk vs. Jericho title match is next.

12.37am: The last minute stipulation that Punk could lose the title on a disqualification really hampers the start of this match. I don't know why they through in all the personal stuff in this feud - it's enough for me that two guys are fighting over the right to call themselves the best wrestler in the world. Instead we have Punk playing a guy who's fighting to control his anger, in a very unconvincing fashion, having to stop himself from getting disqualified on a number of occasions.

12.52am: Turns out it wasn't just the stipulation that was the problem here. There was a couple of great spots (especially that nuts suplex bump to the outside) but the majority of this match just didn't click at all even after the early DQ-teasing stuff, and the crowd response was a pretty overwhelming silence which dragged the energy down even further. This is a shame because the last three minutes showed they really did have a good wrestling match in there. Jericho keeps escaping the Anaconda Vice with some stiff knees to the back of Punk's head until, on the third occasion, Punk shifts around and out of the way of Jericho's flailing legs and he has to give up. Smart story-telling through wrestling is what I want from a Punk vs. Jericho match. Jibes about alcoholic fathers and half-hearted acting - not so much.

1.01am: Last match is Cena vs. Rock. Watching the build-up over the previous month, I thought it was obvious how much better Cena was than Rock at this point despite how it's being billed. His promos were on-point and relevant and hard-hitting. Rock's were all over the place and sounded dated and infantile. This feud would have made more sense to me if they'd really pushed arrogant Hollywood heel Rock rather than trying to recreate his headlining face persona, which does nothing for me in 2013 after eight years away. Sure, people cheered, but I suspect it's more a combination of nostalgia and the in-built unwavering dislike for Cena from a certain segment of the audience.

1.10am: Just to emphasise my point, none of the crowd is cheering for Rock. They are either cheering for or against Cena but I can barely make out a 'Rock' chant.

1.40am: I thought this match was basically fine and there's some nice moments throughout (the roll-through into the Attitude Adjustment, twenty five minutes into the match was incredibly impressive) but much of it felt by-numbers. It ticked all the boxes and didn't have obvious flaws, but that's it. And be under no illusion - the positives that did exist were almost entirely due to Cena. Rock inserted his moves here and there, but his personality is entirely absent from the match. Cena was leading the way. It's his facial expressions that tell the audience what's going on while Rock looks intense and out-of-breath. You'd barely notice the times where Rock is slow to get up for the next spot as Cena filled the space talking at the crowd, the referee, himself. On offence, I like that he neither plays for cheers nor takes any shortcuts - he admirably walks the line between the heel the crowd want him to be and the good-guy company ace that he is booked as. You understand his character and that all he wants to do is win. For the purpose of this assessment, please ignore the attempted finisher theft back-firing at the end. The writers don't understand Cena like I do.

1.47am: Overall a deeply underwhelming and disappointing show. None of the big matches lived up to their hype either because they under-delivered on reasonable expectations or delivered something decent but had unrealistic expectations. If I'm going to mainline WWE PPVs over the next couple of weeks I'm going to need something more. You hear that, already-occurred events?  It's time to step up.