GreatOneIV and Sam Knight are total imbeciles. It's unbelievable.
-----------
I WATCHED IT! Not as many words, but just as little care for paragraph spacing!
~
Shawn Michaels v The Undertaker (WrestleMania 3/28/10)
First thing's first - Matt Striker sucks and has no place in a commentary booth. NOW, the story to this is sort of the same as the previous years, but Michaels' career is on the line so that obviously adds a bigger sense of drama. The thing is, I don't think they express drama in this anywhere near as good the XXV match. That said, this is the third I've watch this (and the second in the span of about 9 days), and I've probably "got it" more now than on either previous watch. But I still don't think this is great. This match has an extremely good reputation, and is called the best match ever by some people. So when someone doesn't think it's great, it kind of looks like they don't like it. I do like it, and it's a good match, but I don't see much more than that. The opening I like a lot. They've both had their big Mania match already, and this time Shawn's career is on the line, so he's going to mock Taker's cut-throat and when Taker gets mad, Shawn'll get on him and attack. Still, Taker's the bigger, badder ('badder' isn't a word but IDC fuck off) guy. So Shawn moves to the leg which Taker crippled himself after the Old School Rope...Thingy, and he does a pretty good job, but it doesn't captivate me. But I will say this - after 25 years Michaels FINALLY learnt how to put on the figure-four. Goddamn, Shawn, put their crossed leg over their straight one. Anyway, what draws me into all of the leg stuff is Taker's selling (surprise); even after Shawn had stopped the leg work, Taker was trying to get feeling back into it and wobbling around and falling over after big moves. I liked him sort of sacrificing his own leg to avoid the elbow drop as well. Then he goes for another potentially ridiculous dive until Shawn runs in and sweeps the leg, which was cool. I said this match sort of lacked the execution of drama that XXV had, and the tombstone to the floor (which was pretty cool), sort of gives off that vibe. In 2009 Taker's dive felt like a game-changer, Michaels' initial tombstone kick-out felt like a game-changer. This didn't really have that same feeling. I can't explain why. Again - there's nothing wrong with it and it's 'good', but I don't feel 'great'. I still dug it. What I didn't dig was that weird Last Ride counter. The commentators were deciding whether it was Taker's leg blowing out or Michaels countering it, but IDK, looked awkward and it shouldn't take me five watches to get what it is. Probably not as shitty as the XXV DDT, I'll admit. Now - the moonsault. I still don't feel about his moonsault what I felt about the biggest stuff at WM XXV, but it's definitely the biggest spot of the match. I hate set-ups where there's a superkick and the opponent conveniently lands on a certain area, but I can get past it. The moonsault itself was pretty great and whether he aimed for the knee or not is irrelevant - he landed on that motherfucking knee. And what else I really liked is, when he got Taker in the ring, he didn't bother to continue to work on it, he went straight for the superkick instead. I said Taker's dive starts part 2 of the XXV match, and Michaels' moonsault sort of starts part 2 of this match. Only part 2 here is much shorter. After Taker kicks of the superkick, Michaels kicks out of a tombstone and Taker goes to the cut-throat signal to finish. But he stops and Shawn grabs Taker's clothes to pull himself up. I said yesterday (or whenever) that I didn't find Shawn's acting as hammy as usual, and I kind of jinxed myself. I mean it wasn't THAT bad at all, but I didn't really like it that much either. The jumping tombstone was cool but it wasn't a mind-blowing thing for me like it is a lot of people. SO.......yeah. This is a good match, I've always thought it was a good match, but it has an "All Time Classic" following that I don't even come close to agreeing with. I don't think XXV is a classic either, but that one I'd actually say is great; this on is not a great match. There isn't anything specifically wrong with it, but it doesn't do "HOLY SHIT THIS IS MOTHERFUCKING AWWWWWESOME!!!!!!" for me. I don't think I'll ever see it.