By Shane McKinley, Torch specialist

"The more I stay in here
The more it's not so clear
The more I stay in here
The more I disappear
As far as I have gone
I knew what side I'm on
But now I'm not so sure
The line begins to blur"
-"The Line Begins To Blur" by Nine Inch Nails

-Mo' Truth vs. ShoMiz was a short, nice teaser, but Mo' Truth did look like chumps here. Sure, WWE, ShoMiz is awesome, but a fan looking across the WWE landscape goes, "Wow, WWE just doesn't like tag team wrestling." The story of the match was that Big Show once again "saved" Miz from defeat. The match reminded me of an '80s match, where cool dorks (think "The Rockers") faced off against two big beer-drinkers. But even back then, the beer-drinkers would have gotten more time.

Booking question #1: Sure, ShoMiz look dominant, but then again, apparently they are the only tag team WWE has.

-WWE talked about the WrestleMania weekend, filled with wholesome, morally-clean events like wrestlers golfing, wrestlers reading, and wrestling creating art. What is this crap? I miss the old "Wild West" days.

-Cody Rhodes came out dressed like his Daddy with cute brown trunks and adorable white boots. I believe that Ted DiBiase, with his insane growling, is possessed by a demon. Legacy explodes. Ho-hum. The thought "WWE is sure getting rid of the junk early" went through my
mind when the triple threat Legacy match was announced.

-Luckily, the crowd was into Randy Orton beating up these moody male models, even cheering when Cody got the evil Orton punt. It still would be a hard sell for face Ted DiBiase to go against heel Randy Orton (it's what we wanted in the first place, but no, WWE had to drag the grandson of a plumber along). The match was fine for what it was. I'm fine with the booking on this one, as neither Ted nor Cody are over enough to justify getting a WrestleMania victory over Randy Orton. Let's protect our psychotic main eventer somewhat.

-"So, Gene Okerlund, we're going to have you wear a dress." To Gene's credit, he probably didn't even blink. He's been in WWE long enough to know he would wind up wearing a dress, getting pinned by a leprechaun, or a combination of both.

-Man, Jack Swagger sure did look like Kurt Angle out there in his get-up, didn't he? The Money in the Bank match started off ugly, but picked up with some nice spots involving Matt Hardy, Christian, Kofi, and Evan Bourne. (His Shooting Star Press was a great shot and will be on the WrestleMania highlight reels.)

Was it because Kofi botched his big push that Jack Swagger got the nod to win MITB? Hey, I'm ready to start up again my man-crush for the Swag. But his victory was out of the blue. Swag was being buried on Raw. Hopefully this means a serious program for him, because I feel he can deliver. Hindsight is 20/20, but I think the right man won.

-Speaking about delivering, consider me convinced of Sheamus's ability. His match with Triple H is what I was hammering home about: before WrestleMania, we had yet to see a Sheamus match for us to hang our hats on when we had to "justify" his big push. Now we have it.

-Word is backstage that Triple H was bummed that he couldn't parachute in for his big entrance. The interest of this match was seeing if Triple H was going to lose to Sheamus, but that wasn't going to happen as WWE protected Randy Orton and Triple H. They're not quite ready to give WrestleMania victories to new stars, which did disappoint some viewers.

-Attention: for my birthday, I would like to have one of those Straight Edge Society leather jackets. Come on, WWE. Get on it.

-WWE seems oblivious that the three-man announce team just makes the PPV experience less enjoyable. Michael Cole was great in the last two matches (I know, I know), but I'm thinking that I'm going to start giving Matt Striker money not to go on his "well move x directly affects injured body part x and that can lead to blah blah blah." Combine this with his less-that-convincing pre-written lines, and Matt Striker was a bad fit. Although I do give him love for his "John Cena was just compressed" line. Striker tries too hard, Cole stops talking in cliches only when it matters, and Jerry Lawler, when not giving jokes, talks about how he goes out to lunch with other wrestlers.

-G.I. Joe Punk squared off against Avatar Rey Mysterio. I didn't mind Rey's outfit, as Avatar is world-wide known. There were some sick set-ups in this match, but it was a bit too short. Even with Rey winning, I still believe that a Mysterio-Punk program is in the works, considering the success of the buildup.

-Now to the dud of WrestleMania 26. Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon. Ideally we were expecting a PG Vince vs. Hogan type of affair. Problem with this match is that you have a wrestling match with two guys who can't really wrestle anymore. So what do you do? You add in some outside help.

The outside help in this case was the Hart Family. Bret says he double-tricked McMahon. Fine. Dandy. But why, oh why, did this match never seem to end? It was ten minutes of Vince McMahon eating crowbar and chair shots. So much so that people actually felt sorry for Vince McMahon. The Bret-Vince match only appealed to those who love elder abuse.

Sure, Bret vs. Vince enticed people to buy WrestleMania, but the match was a dud. It became a tire fire for the amount of time it was given. Due to the limitations, the match was doomed from the start. But we weren't expecting a match. And we weren't asking for grandpa getting mugged, either.

-There's nothing like that wrestling lull where you find yourself falling asleep. Raise your hands if you felt a bit sleepy for the first parts of Jericho vs. Edge. Not a whole lot to this one. It is odd that crazy, insane madman Edge who's tearing out his hair and grinding his teeth is cast as a babyface. They'll probably have a re-match at Extreme Rules, but first they have to answer what the fans are thinking: "Well, Edge couldn't get the job done the first time, so why should I believe that he could win with another re-match?"

-It's a shame that not even Beth Phoenix could get proper Mania love. Nope, the whole focus of the entire women's division rested on Vickie Guerrero. I have a crush on the old gal, but I cannot dine on "Excuse Me!" alone. She even botched the pin. But hey, WWE needed a "come down" match here. And it sure was a downer.

-Entrance of the night went to John Cena's military arrangement. I felt that Batista vs. Cena could have gone longer. Crowd was into it, and these two meatheads didn't have that unnecessary slow, plodding action that these two are known for. I could feel that Cena was happy with his match.

Best sign of the night: Batista likes fishsticks. Hee hee.

-WWE hyped up the Extreme Rules PPV. Considering how PG WWE is now, and also taking into account the lack of "extremeness" that took place the last time, I can imagine a lot of people going, "No thanks. I'll check back with WWE when Rock comes around."

-Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker wasn't "the ride" that their last match was known for, but man, it was superb. I was hoping Jim Ross would have come down and punched Striker in the nose and manned the helm, but alas. No gaga in the finish.

-Michaels gets a lot of respect from fans because at his age and stature, he doesn't have to be doing moonsaults onto tables, but he does them anyway. And yeah, I'm a bit bummed out that HBK is taking a vacation...end-time unknown. I have heard snickers of HBK winding up in TNA. Are you kidding me? That would be one sad sight. Here's hoping Raw tonight has a nice "HBK sendoff."

-Now that the dust has settled in the distance, the ravenous TNA wolves look to strike with bits of bisexual wrestlers doing sexual gestures. What will WWE do to answer? Do they even need to answer? Probably not. WWE doesn't need to sweat a product that can't even do a 1.0 on Monday nights. But to a lot of people, WrestleMania 26 was the same story they've seen already played out. It will be interesting to see what the future for the WWE landscape looks like on Raw tonight. Maybe even the prospect of Jack Swagger actually looking credible. One can hope.

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com

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