KELLER'S TAKE KELLER: WrestleMania Rewind features three actual rematches, all flawed by being either lousy or having no finish Mar 10, 2008 - 11:47:55 PM

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By Wade Keller, Torch editor

WWE spent the last week encouraging their staunchest fans to speculate about which WrestleMania matches from the past would be featured on this super-spectacular three-hour expanded edition of the mothership WWE program just a few weeks before WrestleMania.

The first WrestleMania rematch was a rematch of one of the worst combinations of two WWE wrestlers in years. Taker can have a good match with almost anyone these days. Henry is the exception. They're just a bad fit. At least they kept it short. At least it fit the advertising for the show as an actual WM rematch.

Then came Finlay vs. Mr. Kennedy. Not a rematch of any WrestleMania singles match. Based on the logic of them having fought in a Money in the Bank match, WWE opened up dozens of other pseudo-rematches. Heck, if someone was a lumberjack last year and they wrestled, could that be considered a rematch? The match ended almost literally before it started, so this hardly counted either way.

Chris Jericho [artist Grant Gould (c) PWTorch]

Jeff Hardy vs. Chris Jericho wasn't a WrestleMania rematch. Fans spent a week speculating - perhaps betting - on who would face Hardy or who would face Jericho. Time tasted. Thanks to WWE playing fast and loose with their own hype. At least the match was really good.

Then a WrestleMania 1 rematch, with Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff vs. Mike Rotunda & Barry Windham. This was an actual rematch. The second out of the first four matches. Not one we'd particularly want to watch, but for nostalgia it was cool to see them march out. Not having an actual match was wise. Not having an actual finish wasn't. Just deciding not to have the match because Jillian Hall sang beforehand was ludicrous and lazy. All they had to do was have Volkoff lean over to try to help Jillian up and get schoolboyed by Rotunda or Windham. Or any of another dozen safe, comedy-type finishes so at least it wasn't just scratched for no reason.

Triple H vs. Kane was the third actual rematch of the night, and the second that actually took place. It, too, though was lousy. Not much to it with six minutes of lumbering around. These two also accentuate the other's worst traits. They each need an opponent who can create movement around them and take bumps.

Then Melina vs. Maria. Not a WrestleMania rematch, either. Why? Ashley was hurt. Excuses, excuses. It would have been okay had they not cheated three times already.

That wrapped up the first two hours. Two actual WrestleMania rematches. Both were lousy. Four other matches that either weren't rematches or just didn't take place or both.

Something cool will happen in the third hour, though, right? At least one of the great WrestleMania rematches people speculated about all week would take place besides the announced main event of John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels!

Nope. Edge vs. C.M. Punk. They've never had a singles WrestleMania match, either. WWE fell back on the lame Money in the Bank clause. They wrestled four minutes, ending with the distraction finish. Nothing memorable. It diminished Edge's star power to be involved in something so superficial.

Then came the main event. One lesson was learned here, separate from the copout WrestleMania Rematch execution; don't end a three-hour TV show with two babyfaces in a match based on matwork for the first 80 percent. The crowd was predictably dead. This was as predictable as the fact that fans weren't going to cheer for little Floyd Mayweather against "one of our own." (Yeah, he's an asshole, but he's OUR asshole, right?)

Michaels and Cena went out and had a really good first ten minutes of a 35 minute PPV main event. Unfortunately, once they shifted out of first gear after ten minutes of matwork that left the crowd napping, they picked it up for a whole two minutes before a completely unsatisfying Orton interference DQ finish - one of those finishes WWE is so ashamed of they don't even announce what it was.

Tally: Three actual WrestleMania rematches. One lousy finish, the other two were lousy in general.

Thumbs down, WWE. Next time you offer a fun, clever, speculation-encouraging show-theme, don't expect anyone to take you seriously. Goodwill was lost tonight, needlessly. Even Vince McMahon knew to keep his distance from this mess.

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