So that’s it, the Road to Wrestlemania is finally over. This report covers the week leading up to Wrestlemania and the event itself, so let’s see who managed to pull into the lead and who fell at the last hurdle…

Weekly Top Ten:

1st Place: The Miz (10/10)

There was little doubt, despite a couple of People’s Elbows, that the Miz would end up coming out on top. Besides Chris Jericho, the Miz might be the best ambassador for the WWE and what with his reality show background he has a good story for all his interviewers to talk about as well. Having the Miz as champion is all around good for the WWE as he is good with PR and placates the fans that hate Cena being champion. With the company solidly behind him the only question now is; what’s next for the Chick Magnet?

2nd Place: C.M. Punk (9/10)

A great hometown promo on Raw and a hard fought losing effort at Wrestlemania gets Punk in line just behind the WWE champion. No one would have believed that Punk would end up getting the win over Orton, but I’m still surprised that the WWE chose to completely bury the new Nexus, along with the Corre, it just seems to make the whole year meaningless. Or you could say that this is the resolution to what began last year, but it’s been so diluted and changed that the whole thing looks more like a rushed mess than a cohesive plan, which it was but with good writing you should be able to make the audience think that it was all a meticulously executed plan rather than a shambles. Ah well, at least Punk is still on top, or at least near the top anyway.

3rd Place: Michael Cole (8/10)

This is a difficult one as I really don’t think Cole should be this high on the chart after getting his ass inevitably handed to him at ‘Mania. Still technically he won the match, robbing Lawler of his victory and earning himself a mark in the ‘Win column’ at Wrestlemania. Being one of only three heels to do this at the event he has to outrank a couple of other heels who clearly wrestled the better matches at the event. Still hopefully this outing has all but spelt the end for the announcing career of Michael Cole, I won’t get my hopes up all that high though as the WWE seem to be bent on shoving him down our throats as much, and for as long, as possible. Damn it.

4th Place: Alberto Del Rio (7/10)

His name, his name is Alberto Del Rio! But you, you already know that. You’ll also probably know that he lost out to Edge at Wrestlemania in their World Title match, joining one of the few men to have not won the big one after winning at the Royal Rumble. Still Del Rio is at the top of his game after only just entering the company and I can see him being in the main event picture for some time to come. I’m hoping that they won’t bury him now like Sheamus or JBL after he lost the title to Cena at Mania’ all those years ago. Del Rio is a solid heel on Smackdown and needs to be kept in the limelight.

5th Place: Cody Rhodes (6/10)

I’ve heard of suspension of disbelief but this is ridiculous! I’m glad that Rhodes beat Mysterio on the Grandest Stage of them all but that whole portion of the match where his mask was off was annoying in how obvious it was that absolutely nothing was wrong with his face. Fair enough to act like you need to cover up your face, but when it is clearly all bollocks it is annoying. I would have rather that they had played up the idea that Rhodes had been faking to use the mask as an advantage, sure it would have negated the whole reason for the match, but at least it would have made sense to what was happening in the ring, rather than it just being a blatant lie.

6th Place: Mr Anderson (5/10)

So the Asshole has gone back to being an actual asshole and instead of Hulk Hogan working with him as you would expect being that he’s a bad guy, but no, for some reason the heel decides the heel is being too heel and hands him to a bunch of heels. Fuck TNA! This is why they were barred from the report, because they just don’t care about story or character building, only ‘controversy creates cash’,. but you can’t have controversy when everything you do is controversial! A shocking moment is at its best when it comes in the middle of normality. Let your audience fall into a false sense of security, let them even complain that everything is the same-old same-old, then lower the boom and hit them with a big shock. Don’t just do things that make no sense because it makes no sense, that makes no sense!

7th Place: Bully Ray (4/10)

It’s interesting that Bubba Ray Dudley is actually finally getting a proper singles push now that he is shot of Devon. It kind of adds validity to his heel persona’s claims, which somehow for me cheapens them, but maybe I am just being bias against a company that does things without thinking and then doesn’t even really cover for them afterwards. I think I’ve just never been a fan of the big butter ball heel and unless Bubba does something awe inspiring I’m not going to be impressed any time soon.

8th Place: Abyss (3/10)

The Monster is back and he’s bad, with him, Bubba, Terry, Fat-Hardy and Murphy, Gunner is Immortal’s slightest member, and yet people still harp on about Vince’s ‘big man’ obsession. The way TNA have played this whole thing has been terrible, they had so much to work with and they really did turn it all into crap. Does anyone really know what they are doing? I mean both as fans, and in the company, and the wrestlers themselves. Everything just seems so confused and rushed. It does my head in.

9th Place: Dolph Ziggler (2/10)

His Wrestlemania moment may have come in a losing effort in a sham match designed to entice the media to the event when a month ago he was challenging for the World Title, but at least Ziggler was actually at ‘Mania. The Platinum Playboy may have taken a loss at the Showcase of the Immortals, but it was not him who took the pin and hopefully the company have something better for him this year.

10th Place: Sheamus (1/10)

The Celtic Warrior comes in last place after having his match bumped from the Wrestlemania card after being arbitrarily created in the first place. At least Sheamus got the US title out of it and didn’t get buried like the new IC champion, Wade Barrett, did in his match.

Overall Top Ten:

1st Place: C.M. Punk (97/130)

2nd Place: The Miz (96/130)

3rd Place: Alberto Del Rio (79/130)

4th Place: Michael Cole (38/130)

5th Place: Wade Barrett (37/130)

6th Place: Dolph Ziggler (34/130)

7th Place: Jeff Jarrett (34/130)

8th Place: Jack Swagger (28/130)

9th Place: Bully Ray (20/130)

10th Place: Sheamus (19/130)

Weekly Filler:

The Face-Off: World Championship Match First

This is a trend that is creeping into the WWE and I’m not sure why. Having a World Championship match at the start of the event does little to help crowd excitement. Surely the first match is a warm up match and warming up with what should be a main event makes no sense. Why not have that Corre vs. the Randoms (that’s what I’m going to refer to it as from now on) up first as it was a fast paced match that was over quickly. Matches should go in ascending order of importance, so least important match first, now this doesn’t mean worst match first, only the matches that the audience is the least invested in. Imagine if you were having problems ordering the PPV and it took you twenty minutes to get the damn event to work. Missing that Corre-Randoms match wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but imagine missing the match for the World Title! It just doesn’t make good sense, only at gimmicky events like Elimination Chamber or Money in the Bank could you perhaps get away with it because both matches together would be stale and one match can sometimes effect the other, but not at Wrestlemania!

Face the Facts: Miz vs. Cena vs. Rock Rivalry

Looking back on this feud I think it really worked. All three delivered some solid promos, there was a lot of media attention, and most importantly everything played out well with Super Cena being screwed over and the Miz not looking so weak in the end. Sure it was a non-active wrestler that ended up coming out looking the best at the end of the day but lets face it everyone complains that things were better in the attitude era, so why not play up to that? Also since the Miz beat down Cena constantly in the weeks leading up to Wrestlemania and did then eventually win their match, you’ve got to say that the Miz certainly came out of things looking better than Cena at least. Just think about this in comparison to the outcome of their first feud where the Miz managed to tap away at Cena before being completely buried in their actual match, and the difference is believable, that’s good build. In fact it’s the opposite of Cena’s feuds with Angle where his dominance the second time they faced off was completely unwarranted and truly started the whole Super-Cena era. Perhaps now is the era of the Super-Chick Magnet, and I hope all the little kids and teenage girls hate it as much as many of us have hated the reign of the Cenation.

On the Rise: Cody Rhodes Beating Rey Mysterio

Mask issues aside, although I will also mention that Rhodes vowing to unmask Mysterio seems to have been conveniently swept under the rug to let him win the match, this was a great victory for the young superstar. Mysterio is famous for burying new talent after a great build and so it was a pleasant surprise to see that he was actually gracious enough to take the loss on the Grandest Stage of them All. I do have to wonder though where Rhodes will go from here, his new gimmick to me is weaker than his old gimmick so will they keep him as “disfigured” or move onto something new? As I said before I personally would have liked it to come out that Rhodes was actually playing up his injury to be able to use his face mask and he was really just looking to get one over on Mysterio after he cost him some time off. It would be easy to do, just come out and say that Mysterio did break his nose but that his surgery was a complete success, but he knew that it would be better for him if Mysterio thought he was disfigured because his guilt would cause him to lose. Then mock him and the audience for fooling for it and then go right back to the dashing gimmick, but perhaps with the face mask still in play sometimes.

Flat-Footed: The Corre vs. The Randoms

I take issue with this simply because it was a pointless match, apparently just to get the Corre into the event and then have them lose really easily, heavily burying the group, which makes no sense. Why didn’t they have a four-way tag title match, since the Corre is supposed to be equals, that would have been quite a cool match, with lots of possible outcomes. I think the general point beyond burying a group you’ve spent enough time building up is that there were three champions in that match and no titles on the line, not to mention that the champions were on the losing end, way to build up the importance of your belts WWE!

That’s all from the report for this season. I’ll be back next week for the start of a new season, without TNA, which will not come as a shock to anyone. What might come as a shock is that this is the 100th report I’ve written, so the heel chart has been rolling on in some form for 100 weeks in a row! Thanks to everyone who reads and comments on my pointless ramblings, believe me when I say that I will never run out of things to say on the subject of Wrestling, for now this is James Wright signing off.

Source: wrestlingtruth.com