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Dolfan Watches Every Wrestlemania On Lockdown


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DAY 70

Donald Trump is backstage with a woman who is not his wife.  He orders a black man to get him a sandwich.

The 2007 Hall of Fame class is being honored next. They are The Wild Samoans, The Sheik, Nick Bockwinkel, Mr. Fuji, Jim Ross, “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig, Jerry “The King” Lawler and Dusty Rhodes. I'm shocked Fuji lasted another decade after this because he looked catatonic in his wheelchair.  Conversely, Larry the Axe, is looking damned good.  Eh, I have always been a sucker for blondes. 

It's time for the World Championship vs. The STREAK~. 

JBL is trying to put over that Batista has the first real shot of ending it.   My exact thoughts at the time:  "No he fucking doesn't. Taker may be old as fuck, but they're not giving the streak to Batista.  Ugh, Undertaker is going to be World Champ again and he's getting so old and injury prone and bad.  This is going to suck."

Taker's here by way of winning the '07 Rumble, Batista's here by way of being awesome. Dave is having a quite solid run at the top of the card, but again, I just don't know, despite the positive crowd reaction, how much they bought him as the streak ender.  And that is actually part of the problem with the streak.  Once it really gets going, and gets a life of its own, then as much as you preach that wins and losses don't matter... they very much do. So you're confronted with the question every year... who is worthy of not only being in a match with Undertaker, but is this person worthy of beating the streak. 

@The Man Known as Dan and I once had a conversation on who in the line of matches was worthy of breaking the streak. Now, looking back on this with 2020 eyes... Batista *very much* could have been that guy. But in 2007?  Absolutely not.  Frankly, as I remember in 2007, *my* mindset (and yes, this has changed in the time spent re-watching) was that Taker has come off 4 bad Streak matches in a row, and my biggest concern was this match actually being good.  Well, turns out I didn't have to worry.

Batista, despite being a face going in, is definitely not the crowd favorite for this match. Basically from the opening bell, he's sick of Taker's bullshit and attacks hard.  He's playing subtle heel very well, dominating the last two thirds of the match.  Again, Taker is in a match where he's outpowered and he has to adjust on the fly because Dave's just going to pound him into goo if he doesn't stop him.  Since I've been keeping track, this is FINALLY the Mania match where Old School goes over .500 in attempts and he's now 7 for 13. 

And like I said, Dave's heeling costs him when he goes to the corner and climbs up to give Taker some more punches to the head, only to get Last Ride-d off.  That was a big near fall for Taker, and one the crowd absolutely bought as the finish.  Dave eventually connects with a spear and a Batista Bomb, that also only got two. Crowd actually got worried there too.  Dave has his last Batista Bomb attempt countered into a whip into the corner, which led to him getting scooped and Tombstoned.  No one gets out of that (yet). 

Undertaker is now 15-0.  My fear about him being old and injury prone did come into play though, as he'd tear a muscle two months later and lose the title on a MitB cash in by Edge.  

Match was fun, and really made Batista look great in a losing effort.   

And holy crap with all of the pomp and circumstance and entrances, that's it for this ride. 

End of Day 70. 

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10 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

DAY 70

Donald Trump is backstage with a woman who is not his wife.  He orders a black man to get him a sandwich.

No politics, please. This thread is about WrestleMania, not the RNC. 

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Batista's matches with Undertaker were so great. If Batista could just wrestle 'Taker and HHH, he'd be a top 10 WWE guy of all time. The chemistry he had with those two was so crazy. What's Dave's best match against somebody not Undertaker or Triple H? Were the Mysterio matches any good? The LMS against Cena at the end of the "gimme my spotlight" run before his first retirement?

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I’d choose that Cena match as his best singles performance (against some other than Taker or HHH), but if I can cheat a little I’d add the WM 30 triple threat (a good match with a great finish), and the Evolution/Shield six man as his absolute best.

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On 8/24/2020 at 2:17 PM, NikoBaltimore said:

Boy was that quite a thing to see live.  Even though it was edited out everywhere that clip/gif was instantly everywhere.  And no I wasn't looking for as I didn't need to.  People were just so happy to share it at the time.

But it is sad to see what he called her backstage.  There's many ways to get a point across no matter who you are that's not the way to do it.

To be accurate he called Mickie a "CRASS BITCH!" with full Vince growl voice.  I don't know if that was a condemnation or commendation really.

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21 minutes ago, Jimmy Trump said:

To be accurate he called Mickie a "CRASS BITCH!" with full Vince growl voice.  I don't know if that was a condemnation or commendation really.

This is the term I read was used at the time. I guess it is semantics which deragatory term is actually worse, but to my knowledge ( which could be wrong) Vince did not call her "a fucking whore" , which would be beyond the pale, if it were the case!

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9 hours ago, EVA said:

I really wish I remembered what was up with this weird-ass post-WM booking.

45 21.04.2006 World Wrestling Entertainment Five On Three Handicap: Edge, John Cena & Triple H vs. The Spirit Squad (Johnny, Kenny, Mikey, Mitch & Nicky) - No Contest (11:52)
WWE Monday Night RAW #674 - TV-Show @ Wembley Arena in London, England, UK
46 17.04.2006 World Wrestling Entertainment Two On One Handicap: Edge & John Cena defeat Triple H (4:52)
WWE Monday Night RAW #673 - TV-Show @ Savvis Center in St. Louis, Missouri, USA
47 10.04.2006 World Wrestling Entertainment Two On One Handicap: John Cena & Triple H defeat Edge (7:49)
WWE Monday Night RAW #672 - TV-Show @ Bradley Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
48 03.04.2006 World Wrestling Entertainment Two On One Handicap: Edge & Triple H defeat John Cena (5:03)
WWE Monday Night RAW #671 - TV-Show @ Allstate Arena in Chicago, Illinois, USA


Whatever it was, congrats to them for coming up with a story and sticking with it for four fucking weeks.  Would be quite an accomplishment by today’s standards.

They were building to a Triple Threat with Edge, Cena, and H on the next PPV.

I don't remember the Spirit Squad match at all, though.

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Vince calling someone else "crass" is fucking hilarious. This dude was out here floating incest angles with his daughter and having dudes put their face in his bare ass for angles on multiple weeks. Obviously, Mickie wanted to keep her job, but in the alternate universe where she didn't give a fuck, well, I would have loved to travel there and hear her response. 

Edited by Smelly McUgly
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To answer a statement from like nine pages ago, Jericho was also in the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot and appears to have made a useful friend in Kevin Smith. I'm sure they will work together again soon.

Jericho might also be on the list of "best tv match worker of all time." Dude's been at it a while. 

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DAY 71

Vince cuts a promo on his baby granddaughter.  She's now in High School. 

The rebirth of ECW was... a mixed bag.  When one hand you got a look at some super promising guys like CM Punk.  Other times you got this:

MxT4.gif

But the first months of the ECW reboot was headlined by a feud between the ECW alumni who were brought back and a bunch of new guys who... well I guess some sucked less than others?  Well, we have an eight-man tag match here pitting The Sandman, Sabu, Tommy Dreamer, and RVD facing the New Breed, who are Marcus Cor Von (TNA's Monty Brown), Kevin Thorne (a vampire), Matt Striker (a former high school teacher), and Elijah Burke (generic super athletic dude).  For those who are fans of TNA (LOL) Thorne's valet Ariel is also LAX's manager Salinas. 

The ECW originals come in through the crowd, and frankly the one guy who appears to actually enjoy this experience is Dreamer.  Sabu's too busy getting his turban pulled on. RVD is too busy listening for his own name so he can point to himself. And Sandman is drunk. 

The biggest mistake of this match is while it's clearly a nostalgia match for the the new guys to put over the old guys.... it's literally the exact opposite of what they should be doing. Yes, the New Breed are heels, but aside from RVD, in 2007, the old guys are utterly disposable. The whole point to building a new brand is eventually, you're going to need to have new people on that brand.  Plus, it's an *ECW* match, and they just do a straight wrestling match.  How do you do an *EXTREME CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING* tribute match that's not just a crazy brawl?  

Anyway, I'm annoyed by this match for the above reasons, though it was fine for whatever it was.  The Originals pick up the win and get a feel good moment. 

Our next match however, is anything but.  ? 

 

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I still maintain the Zombie bit was legitimately funny.

Imagine the Indy run that guy would’ve had if that segment had aired in 2019!  Would’ve had the best selling shirt on PWTees within the week.

Edited by EVA
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10 hours ago, just drew said:

To answer a statement from like nine pages ago, Jericho was also in the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot and appears to have made a useful friend in Kevin Smith. I'm sure they will work together again soon.

 

That's absolutely terrifying.

 

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i'm with @EVA. the Zombie was awesome. a perfect read on playing to the smarks ("oh, i heard that SciFi is going to make them introduce aliens") and introducing something different. Him cutting a promo that was just grunts is FUCKING FANTASTIC! the pop that Sandman gets is the best one he'll get during his run. and the dust pouring off Zombie when he gets caned is the icing on the cake.

for my money, the Zombie is among the best one-time appearance characters ever.

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2 hours ago, For Great Justice said:

Cor Von could have and should have been huge.  Hate that personal matters pulled him away from wrestling.

Burke was more than generic IMO. He had a spark, but it never seemed to click for him.

I liked this match.

Elijah Burke was just a guy who was in good shape and did some moves. The Pope D'Angelo Dinero was a charismatic and capable performer with a well rounded character.

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52 minutes ago, twiztor said:

i'm with @EVA. the Zombie was awesome. a perfect read on playing to the smarks ("oh, i heard that SciFi is going to make them introduce aliens") and introducing something different. Him cutting a promo that was just grunts is FUCKING FANTASTIC! the pop that Sandman gets is the best one he'll get during his run. and the dust pouring off Zombie when he gets caned is the icing on the cake.

for my money, the Zombie is among the best one-time appearance characters ever.

I LOVED the Zombie.

2 hours ago, For Great Justice said:

Cor Von could have and should have been huge.  Hate that personal matters pulled him away from wrestling.

Burke was more than generic IMO. He had a spark, but it never seemed to click for him.

I liked this match.

I always remember how Burke was just the mouthpiece/lackey for a newly-signed and hyped Sylvester Terkay and then Terkay disappeared and WWE put their efforts into Burke instead.  Googling it, apparently Terkay was around for 7 months but I remember almost none of that.

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14 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

How do you do an *EXTREME CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING* tribute match that's not just a crazy brawl?  

The most infuriating part of this is that two nights later, they re-did this match on WWECW on SyFy, but the free TV match was an incredibly fun "Extreme Rules" match that was so much better and put over the New Breed, with a hell of an exclamation point finish that had Elijah putting Sabu through a table for the pin. 

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2 hours ago, Death From Above said:

I basically missed all of MVP's initial run. In my brief attempt to watch WWE in 2020 I thought he was quite impressive. Great talker and seemed really put together in the ring.

Wrestling wise he has never done much for me, but character wise MVP was always pretty nice. The whole arrogant as fuck high paid signee who was doing nothing for a while until his match with Kane was a neat story. I loved how JBL hated him on commentary until he treated him to dinner once. His feud with Matt Hardy was pretty fun. 

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15 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

The ECW originals come in through the crowd, and frankly the one guy who appears to actually enjoy this experience is Dreamer.  Sabu's too busy getting his turban pulled on. RVD is too busy listening for his own name so he can point to himself. And Sandman is drunk. 

So Sandman probably enjoyed it too.

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37 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Wrestling wise he has never done much for me, but character wise MVP was always pretty nice. The whole arrogant as fuck high paid signee who was doing nothing for a while until his match with Kane was a neat story. I loved how JBL hated him on commentary until he treated him to dinner once. His feud with Matt Hardy was pretty fun. 

As far as I remember the story was, that they came up with the gimmick and more or less pulled a random black guy up from development to fill the role. When MVP had his first matches on the main roster they found at that he was actually quite decent in the ring. Kane was not as bad as he became later, but it still needed a good in right talent to get a good match out of him, which MVP managed to do more than once. To be honest I don't know how correct that story (or memory) is, as looking at his in-ring results, he was using the MVP name for half a year in Deep South before showing up on Smackdown.

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23 hours ago, Jiji said:

Batista's matches with Undertaker were so great. If Batista could just wrestle 'Taker and HHH, he'd be a top 10 WWE guy of all time. The chemistry he had with those two was so crazy. What's Dave's best match against somebody not Undertaker or Triple H? Were the Mysterio matches any good? The LMS against Cena at the end of the "gimme my spotlight" run before his first retirement?

I don't know if this is the best answer but around this time He and MVP had some fun smackdown matches with MVP hitting some stiff mafia kicks (one time he went over turn buckles out of the ring and the other time over the guard rail)

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