Thursday, March 28, 2024
EditorialRetro WrestleMania Review: 18

Retro WrestleMania Review: 18

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What’s up, folks? This comes in response to more requests that I had gotten to do on this site, and I was asked to maybe do some retro reviews of old PPV’s in the past. Since it’s WrestleMania season and we are about 30 days from the event, I’d figure, why not just review WrestleManias? Because the Ruthless Aggression Era was the era of choice for me to review, I’d figure I would start with WrestleMania 18 and do all of the WrestleManias up until last year before WrestleMania 34. Of course, since I have the WWE Network, I can also review the earlier WrestleManias afterward. So, with that said, here is my review of WrestleMania 18.

 

Rob Van Dam def. William Regal (C) – Intercontinental Championship

You know, Rob Van Dam was one of my favorite guys that got me interested into WWE in the first place, but the more I’ve watched him, the more I’ve come to learn how formulaic he could be at times. Seriously, I think I could telegraph an entire RVD match if I wanted to. Honestly, considering the caliber of guys in this match, I thought this should have been way better than it turned out. You have RVD in his prime and William freaking Regal. I shouldn’t be left saying “It was a match.” However, that’s all this was. They went out there, they had a match, and it wasn’t terrible. However, it felt like a lazy and dull effort. The signature brass knuckles of William didn’t really even figure into the end. All RVD did was kick him out of nowhere and the match was basically over afterward.

I guess this was the appropriate match to begin the card, and they were fortunate to have been in front of an electric Toronto crowd that would have gotten into anything that night, because this, honestly, was a snoozefest. The best way I could describe it is how Regal dropped RVD on that nasty looking Half-Nelson Suplex. Flat. **1/4

Diamond Dallas Page (C) def. Christian – European Championship

For one, I liked the pace of this match much more than the previous one. While RVD and Regal seemed to be going at maybe half-speed at best, this match had a little sense of urgency, especially with DDP dictating the pace of the match. It’s a shame that Christian’s singles run after his split with Edge didn’t amount to anything. The match was sloppy at times and they disconnected on a few spots, but at the same time, I did like the pacing of this much better than the first one. Obviously, with this being for the European Championship, which didn’t amount to anything big in the grand scheme of things, there was little heat for this match, but I didn’t hate it. Passable, I suppose. **1/4

 Hardcore Championship

Goodness, I used to hate these with a red-hot passion. The old 24/7 Hardcore Championship rules just made these matches meaningless, sloppy and cartoonish. I think there were more of these on the card, and I’m not even going to bother reviewing them. This was 4 minutes of bland in-ring action with some meaningless backstage brawling. Thankfully, the Hardcore championship would die later this year. DUD

Kurt Angle def. Kane

Angle had a red-hot 2001 campaign, topped by his summer feud with Stone Cold and the major role he played in The Alliance storyline (even though that ended up being a colossal failure). Which is why it was befuddling to me how he ended up getting saddled with Kane on what was basically the 3rd match of the show. At his peak, he could carry anybody to a great match, but Kane’s style doesn’t really correspond with his well. Kane never really had any great singles matches, and Angle tends to work better with high-flyers and submission specialists. Both men did work hard here and the match did pick up once they started to get into the near-fall sequences. However, everything before that was Angle just constantly knocking Kane down without much resistance.

Angle did do a great job of trying to dictate the pace of the match and was able to push the envelope with a big man in Kane. One specific thing I hated was how Kane pinned Angle when he was literally underneath the ropes. No, I’m being serious. Angle’s head is literally right by the ropes, and Kane thinks to pin him as if he can’t force a rope break. The finish was also kind of sloppy, as they were trying to get Angle close to the ropes for the pinfall, but it looked very awkward. The match would probably be a passable RAW match, but at WrestleMania, especially considering the men involved, this didn’t hit the mark for me. **1/4

 

The Undertaker def. Ric Flair – No Disqualification

I mean, you might as well have made this a regular match. How are you going to call this a No DQ match when Flair and Taker spent 15 or so minutes just punching each other? No, that’s literally they did for the first part of the match. All they did was trade punches. Slow punch after slow punch after slow punch. If they wanted to get to the point, they should have just started from outside, have Ric automatically get the pipe from Undertaker’s vehicle and start from there, because they were doing some lazy brawling to start this off. If you ask me, Undertaker’s heel turn in late 2001 led to some uninspired efforts if you ask me. This match, I suppose from you would expect from two men with a combined age of around 90 around this time, wasn’t horrible, but there was a whole lotta nothing here.

The interference from Arn Anderson and the near fall was good at least, and I’d guess iI would rate Flair’s bladejob a 7 out of 10 here. But when you combine the 2002-2008 version of Ric Flair with an Undertaker who isn’t going to go out there and bust his ass, you’re going to get an uninspiring performance. Taker didn’t even bother putting his head in between Ric’s legs for the Tombstone. It would have honestly been a much better match had they cut the first 60 percent of it out. Some people enjoyed it more than others, but I wasn’t a fan of the plodding pace. If you want to see what it would be like if two senior citizens in a retirement home were fighting for the last bowl of creamed spinach, this is for you. **3/4

Edge def. Booker T

Ah, so this was the legendary battle over the shampoo commercial endorsements correct? There really wasn’t much to this match, as it was pretty much a 7-minute sprint. I appreciate them getting right to the chase and not wasting any time with filler or any needless activity that didn’t add to the match. Sometimes, less is better. That said, there wasn’t anything that you couldn’t catch on an episode of RAW back then. It wasn’t horrible, per say, and the little reversal sequence to end the match was neat, but this was just a cool-down match from the supposed semi-main event of Undertaker and Flair. There was also the botched top rope hurricanrana that nearly had Booker T land on his neck. It’s like they were envisioning how the spot was going to go down before they actually did it and botched it. This was about as good as a match over shampoo was going to get. **

Stone Cold Steve Austin def. Scott Hall

Some quick trivia before I get into this one. Apparently, the plan for this WrestleMania was to have the 3 members of the nWo (Nash, Hogan, and Hall) take on The Rock, Stone Cold and Undertaker in separate singles matches at WrestleMania, but apparently, unreliability with Hall and the, you guessed it, quad injury for Kevin Nash had WWE change plans and we got Taker/Flair instead. Hall ended up going through with this match even though there was a lot of doubt from WWE’s higher-ups that he could make it to the show. Glad to see he was able too.

Unfortunately, just like much of the rest of the undercard, this was a pretty nothing match. It was actually more of a segment I’d see on RAW then it was an actual match. All brawls involving Stone Cold is at least serviceable, and this was by no means horrible. For a match that was under 10 minutes, there were far too many shenanigans here for me. That said, Hall certainly earned his paycheck for the evening with his selling of Austin’s final stunner. One issue that I had here was Kevin Nash. He comes out here in Hall’s corner. He takes out not one, but two referees to ensure Hall’s victory. Now, when a legion of about 5 referees comes out and just asks him to leave, he’s just like, “Okay.” Why didn’t he just stay and continue to attack all of them and just drag the 1st he attacked to make the pin until he got it? Whatever. We got a great WrestleMania stunner and Hall made it to the ring in one piece, so I suppose that’s a victory in any context. The match, however, just existed. **1/4

Billy (C) and Chuck (C) def. The Hardy Boyz, The Dudley Boyz and APA – WWF Tag Team Championship Fatal Four Way Elimination Match

Okay, let’s all agree that The Hardy Boyz and The Dudley Boyz should never be in a WrestleMania that doesn’t involve tables, ladders, and chairs. There was WAAAAAAYYYY too much going on here and some of the time that this match got should have been given to some of the undercard matches. The elimination-style especially hurt, because the APA was essentially useless here. I don’t know what the beef was at this time, but just like WWE’s fetish for having multi-man ladder matches for the IC Title at WrestleMania, WWE also used to have a hard-on for multi-tag team turmoil matches at WrestleMania. I didn’t like this one. The teams went out there and did their stuff, but the finish was anticlimactic, the crowd couldn’t be bothered with it, and the only thing that saved it was Jeff Hardy getting a handful of Kiebler’s treasure. *3/4

The Rock def. “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan

Probably the hardest match to grade in the history of WWE. I’m normally not a fan of giving matches an artificial boost simply because the crowd received it well, but there are exceptions to every rule, and this match was it. I’m sorry, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a WrestleMania match with the atmosphere as electric as this one. I swear, when Hulk kicked out of the Rock Bottom, I literally felt like I was at WrestleMania just because of the energy that was radiating from the arena. It was absolutely incredible. The match? Well, let’s get into it a little deeper. Structurally, it was fine, but it wasn’t anything special once you get past all the theatrics and Hulk waving around his belt as if he was going to start stripping. It was pretty much Hulk doing all of his stuff and then The Rock doing all of his stuff before they got to the finisher kick out sequences.

There’s a reason why WWE emphasizes sports entertainment and not so much wrestling. Sometimes a match doesn’t need to be good to be good. If the entertainment value is high, and this one was off the charts, who cares if the match was average. Put it this way. If Maven and Goldust went out there and did the exact same match as Hogan and Rock, they wouldn’t receive nearly the same reaction. Matter fact, they may not get any. However, The Rock and Hogan are two guys that are able to make something out of nothing work. The match was on par with the rest of the night aesthetically speaking, but if you want the definition of a WrestleMania moment, check out the epic pre-match staredown between the two. If I’m being honest, the match was hovering around the **1/2 range, but because I’m going to do this on a curve, it gets the benefit of the doubt for me. ***1/2

Jazz (C) def. Lita and Trish Stratus – WWF Women’s Championship

Goodness gracious, the women were THIS bad? Now don’t get me wrong, I know wrestling wasn’t exactly emphasized with the women’s division back in the day and they were more eye candy than anything. I wasn’t expecting Charlotte/Sasha/Becky here, but my goodness was this a mess. I would expect a match featuring two of the greatest women of all time in Lita and Trish to at least do something serviceable, but everybody was off the ball here.

There was absolutely no flow to this match, there were no transitions to certain spots, and the execution was absolutely sloppy. It’s like they just immediately went from Point A to Point C without having to go through Point B first. I understand being the cool-off match to Rock and Hogan is every superstar’s worst nightmare, and if you’re not given substantial time, the crowd won’t care, but these 3 managed to take a white, Mercury-level hot crowd and turn it into a graveyard. I’m not even sure this would pass a good RAW match in 2018. Just bad all around here. 1/4*

Triple H def. Chris Jericho (C) – Undisputed Championship

Let’s be honest here. This was as if Triple H was originally supposed to face Stephanie and she got injured at the last minute and now Chris Jericho is taking her place. Y2J was a complete afterthought here and the focus of the entire match was Stephanie’s shenanigans and Triple H having to overcome it. I never was a fan of Triple H’s main event style of wrestling. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it flops, and this was, well, a flop. The Rock is a much better compliment to Jericho’s style because Triple H’s slow, methodical pacing does not correspond with Y2J well, at all. Jericho really didn’t do himself any favors here either.

Throughout the entire match, we just had Jericho work over Triple H’s leg in the most basic way possible. Nothing was creative, everything was basically telegraphed, and the finish was predictable. Like, what was Chris planning to accomplish there? Also, how did Earl Hebner not hear the sound of Jericho smashing a steel chair right in Triple H’s skull when he was literally right behind the action? Do distractions mean that you are all of a sudden hard of hearing? WWE was intent on shoving Triple H down our throats after he returned from his injury, but this would be the first of many oversaturated Triple H main event matches that had absolute nonsense sprinkled in here and there. I’m sure both men, even with Triple H’s ego, would agree that The Rock and Hogan should have gone on last, because the crowd didn’t really care for the match and the Undisputed Champion that beat The Rock and Stone Cold on the same night was basically the third wheel to the main event featuring two McMahons. I’ve seen worse WrestleMania main events, but there isn’t a lot more underwhelming ones than this one right here. **1/2

 

Conclusion: 

Should have just called this one WrestleMania 18 ft. The Rock and Hulk Hogan.

Wow, I didn’t remember this WrestleMania being this underwhelming. No four-star matches and the highest rated one was artificially boosted because the crowd actually liked it. Everything else is either knocking on the door of *** or was just perfectly average. To put it in layman’s terms, WrestleMania 18 would probably make a very good Monday Night RAW. The Canadians (Jericho, Edge, Christian, Trish) were all afterthoughts, most of the undercard, while perfectly fine, didn’t really have any sense of urgency and the main event matches (HHH/Jericho, Taker/Flair, SC/Hall) were extremely underwhelming. If there is anything I’d go back and watch over again, it’d be Rock/Hogan, but that’s it. And it’s not even because the match was great. Overall, this is on the lower spectrum of WrestleManias if you ask me. Thumbs in the middle, leaning down for WrestleMania 18. Until next time.

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