Tag Bret Hart

Wrestlemania 26

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wrestlemania-26

Overall, Wrestlemania 26 was a solid show that had some nice moments, but does not go down in the top 10 best Wrestlemania’s category.

The highlights:

– The Money in the Bank ladder match is always a blast and I have yet to see one that was not fun to watch. This year’s featured Jack Swagger, Christian, Matt Hardy, and Evan Bourne, among others, with those 4 really standing out. Bourne performed an impressive shooting star press from a ladder on to Christian that got a huge response from the crowd. Jack Swagger eventually won and got a nice reaction from the audience.

– Randy Orton, Ted DiBiase, and Cody Rhodes battled in a triple threat match that officially ended The Legacy trio and was well worked by all three performers. Orton won with an RKO to DiBiase that got the crowd on their feet cheering.

– Rey Mysterio vs. CM Punk was another good match with a satisfying ending of Mysterio getting his revenge on Punk for weeks of torment and securing the pinfall.

– Edge vs. Chris Jericho was another good match with Jericho retaining his World Title. Any time these two went head to head you knew you were in for something good.

– The most memorable moment of the night was the main event which featured a re-match of last year’s show with The Undertaker battling Shawn Michaels with the stipulation that if Michaels lost he would retire. It was not quite the match they put on last year, but it was solid nonetheless with The Undertaker going 18-0 at Wrestlemania and Shawn saying an emotional goodbye to the crowd. It was a real honor to know he had his final match in my home state of Arizona.

Now for the lowlights:

– 10 Diva tag match. The less said the better.

– Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon. The storyline of McMahon trying to screw over Bret for a second time was unnecessary. Bret stumbled a bit when delivering his promo and seemed a little bit confused. This was not a solid match at all and seemed to be ‘over stuffed’ with the Hart family at ringside.

– Big Show and The Miz successfully defended their Tag Team Championship over R-Truth and Morrison. This is unfortunate since Morrison and Truth are excellent performers who were not allowed to shine so they could put over the current Tag Champs in a pointless match.

Overall, not a bad show, but a little uneven in the booking department.

Looking forward to Wrestlemania 27 since I do not remember seeing that show and I look forward to watching the one Wrestlemania that The Miz always brags about headlining in his current promos 🙂

The Montreal Screw Job

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MontrealScrewJob

The Montreal Screw Job is one of the most infamous moments in pro-wrestling history. For that rare wrestling fan who is not familiar with the story (or too young) the basic premise is Bret ‘The Hitman” Hart was getting ready to leave the then-WWF for WCW in November of 1997 and was ‘screwed’ out of his WWE Title and did not know how the match would end.

Hart was the WWF champion at the time and the original plan was for him to lose the title at Survivor Series on November 9th in his home country of Canada. Bret had a certain degree of creative control and felt it did not make sense for him to lose in Canada so he would simply vacate the title the following night on the WWF’s flagship show Monday Night Raw. The owner of the WWF, Vince McMahon, did not like that idea and was concerned he would show up on WCW’s show Monday Nitro with the WWF title.

Long story short, at the Survivor Series they had Shawn Michaels win the title with what was supposedly a surprise to Bret hence the “screw job” moniker. For greater detail please visit this site, Pro Wrestling Wiki.

My main goal in this blog post is to give my opinion on this well known event in professional wrestling, which is…this is the greatest and longest running work/storyline in the history of pro-wrestling. What has captured people’s attention over the years is the fact that this finish was decided at the last moment without Hart’s knowledge therefore, ‘screwing’ him over and causing a huge and supposedly very real reaction from Bret. He was angry, spit on McMahon, punched Vince backstage, and then went to WCW for an unfortunately uneventful run, therefore this was supposed to be a very real moment in wrestling where one of its icons got screwed over and did not know the ending of the match ahead of time.

I have one big reason for why this entire match was pre-planned and Bret Hart was fully aware of the ending before hand:

To this day we hear from Bret how Vince McMahon was a father figure to him, how Vince realized he could not afford to pay Bret any longer, and how he told Bret to go make your money in WCW and come back. Bret had creative control and a great relationship with his boss. Getting ‘screwed’ over did two things for both men. In regards to Bret it allowed him to leave for the rival promotion without looking like a turncoat to the fans. Second, it launched the evil Mr. McMahon character which helped to draw an incredible amount of money for the WWE during the Attitude Era. Sometimes things just happen organically in wrestling, like The Rock coming in as a blue-chip baby face with the fans hating him instantly and him using that to become the most successful wrestler in history. Most of the time in pro-wrestling things are well scripted out in advance and the way this incident worked out could not have been better for the WWE and Bret has always seemed like a class act to me and I feel would be the type to do whatever needed to be done to help his soon to be former employer be successful.

The other thing is the fact that at the time it was figured Bret would return to the WWE at some point and they had a built in storyline which could have been the biggest draw in the history of professional wrestling. It did not happen due to injuries, the unfortunate death of Bret’s brother Owen, and The Hitman’s stroke/bike accident. It would have been amazing to have that kind of built in heat if he returned to the WWE and started immediately in a feud with his boss. It would have been reminiscent of the Stone Cold/McMahon feud, but could have went in a lot of different directions that would have made the rivalry stand out and make a ton of money for all parties involved.

Everyone involved in The Montreal Screw Job treats it as a real and unscripted incident, but I have a feeling that at some point one of the parties involved will finally admit it was all a work. A great one, but a work none-the-less.

 

NXT Takeover

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NXT

NXT Takeover was aired last Thursday, May 29, on the WWE Network and it is the perfect example of why the Network is worth more than the $9.99 a month charge.

For those who are not familiar with WWE’s NXT brand it is essentially their developmental league that has gained significant popularity in the past few months with the weekly shows being aired on the WWE Network and the amazing wealth of young talent on the roster.

They air a 1 hour program every Thursday and are looking to air 2 hour specials exclusively on the Network about 4 times a year.

NXT Takeover was one of the most entertaining 2 hours of wrestling aired this year. It is exciting to see the new crop of talent who busts their asses week in and week out with the hopes of getting to the main roster of the WWE get greater exposure and start to create reputations for themselves before the casual fans even know their names. It is to the point where some of the best matches in wrestling are coming out of NXT.

The matches for Takeover were as follows:

Adam Rose defeated Camacho – There was not a ton of ‘wrestling’ in this match, but the character of Adam Rose is very over and he still manages to put on a fun match even if their is not a ton going on. He is moving to the main WWE roster and hopefully, we can get to see some longer matches from him since he is a very talented performer and is quickly becoming one of my favorite wrestlers today.

The Ascension over El Local and Kalisto – I really enjoy The Ascension. They are one of those big power teams in the fashion of The Road Warriors and Demolition. I cannot help but think they will be on the main shows soon. Kalisto is an excellent Lucha Libre-style wrestler and El Local is as well, but man, he needs to lay off the cheeseburgers. He is a pretty good wrestler, but I cannot help but think he would be much better sans the spare tire.

Tyler Breeze beats Sami Zayne – Perfect example of how good NXT is. Both wrestlers have great characters with Breeze being the classic vain/pretty boy heel and Zayne being the underachieving face (good guy) that you love to root for. They are both terrific athletes and put on one hell of a match.

Charlotte over Natalya for the vacant NXT Women’s Championship – Great match! I absolutely love when the women in the WWE are actual athletes and can put on great matches. The Diva’s division has improved with Paige jumping from NXT, but overall, it is still just a large group of reality show participants who cannot work a match.  Charlotte and Natalya showed there are some great women’s wrestlers out there and the female division is improving greatly. Hopefully, this great of a match will continue this trend and show the WWE that having good female wrestlers is the best way to go.

The main event was Adrian Neville over Tyson Kidd and damn, it was a hell of match. Both of them are great performers and amazing athletes. They worked this match to perfection and it was exciting from beginning to end and told a great story.

This is a show you need to watch. It will be available on the WWE Network for a while and is more than worth $9.99 a month with a 6 month commitment (shameless plug)!