Blu-ray Review: WWE WRESTLEMANIA 27 - A Resounding Stand Alone Success

By Laurent Kelly / October 11, 2011

(remember we are giving away copies of Wrestlemania 27 on DVD here)Wrestlemania, commonly referred to as the superbowl of sports entertainment has historically been the arena where the big stars are made. It's where nearly seventy thousand excitable fans witnessed The Ultimate Warrior hand Hulk Hogan one of his rare high profile defeats, where Shawn Michaels fulfilled his boyhood dream, where Stone Cold Steve Austin passed out in a pool of his own blood as he refused to submit to Bret Hart's sharpshooter and where John Cena and Batitsta, the two biggest stars in recent WWE history both won their first titles, the former never looking back as he earnt his way into his loyal fans hearts. It is something of a shame then at this year's big event Vince McMahon was forced to heavily rely on his four biggest stars from the Attitude Era (Rock, Austin, Triple H and The Undertaker) in order to help sell valubale buy rates for his Pay Per View. In the past the title matches alone were enough to make fans part with their money but the WWE have become so lazy in creating new stars and so overly protective of their current moneymakers, that The Miz and Alberto Del Rio (champion and challenger in their respective bouts) had no chance of helping the WWE reach the kind of numbers that their boss requires from the biggest show of the year. Still whilst it seemed that Wrestlemania 27 was going to accomplish little from a long term perspective, in the short term one could look forward to a string of excitable undercard bouts, a battle between two iconic legends and wrestling's most electrifying personality Dwayne The Rock Johnson guest hosting a spectacle that in terms of atmosphere currently stands toe to toe with any event on the planet. After an impressive opening video package and the annual God Bless America anthem, this year sung by Keri Hilson, we were treated to an appearance by guest host The Rock who cut the type of long winded, catchphrase laden promo that would be annoying were it being delivered by anyone except for the great man himself. Despite fantastic delivery and brilliant interaction with the crowd however, he basically took ten minutes to tell the packed Atalanta arena that this wrestlemania was going to be the most special one of them all and on a night where time is precious he could really have accomplished this goal in under half the time. Twenty minutes in then and we were finally rewarded with some wrestling. Match 1: Edge defeated Alberto Del Rio via pinfall to defend his World Heavyweight Championship Eight days after this bout Adam Copeland aka Edge would legitemately announce his retirement from professional wrestling after being told by doctors that he could risk long term injury by continuing to compete. It was somewhat satisfying then to see him go out in a fun, fast paced encounter which revolved around Del Rio trying to wear down his opponent's arm for his crossarm submission move and Edge trying to raise the pace of the match in order to wind himself up for the sphere. The crowd seemed to appreciate being gifted a title match as an opener and were vocal throughout especially when the Rated R superstar hit his finishing move for the succesful title defense. Although it's nice to see a legend bow out on top, this match did little to enhance the appeal of rising star Del Rio and marked yet another year where the Royal Rumble winner came up short in their Mania title shot thus continuing to heavily dilute the prestige of the WWE's second most popular event.

rating: 3.5

Match 2: Cody Rhodes defeated Rey Mysterio via pinfal following a headgear shot to the head This was a fine bout where the in ring action succesfully complimented an admitteldy daft stoyline build. A few weeks earlier Rhodes had been struck in the face with Rey's kneebrace during a succesful 619 attempt and ever since had been donning a bizarre looking headgear to mask his ugly scars. Henceforth the match was focused around Rhodes repeatedly going for the kneebrace in order to remind Rey of the pain he had inflicted and Cody's cool, controlled aggresiveness at the start blended well with Rey's almost unparelled ability to play the babyface in peril. It was also a nice touch to witness Rhodes see through some of his opponent's high flying trickery and succesfully counter flash moves into violent counter-attacks. It is always refreshing when heels have done their homework on a babyface's overly familiar repetoire. The finish came when Rey who had temporily stolen Cody's headgear was hit in the head with the contraption by his opponent to seal the victory and thus reminding the pint sized superhero that his injury and indeed their rivarly was no laughing matter.

rating: 3.5

Backstage we had a segment with Snoop Dogg and Teddy Long with superstars auditioning to go on tour with the rapper. It was pretty dire and also quite sad to see both William Regal and Beth Pheonix having their talents wasted in such a segment. Zack Ryder auditioning his version of Rebecca Black's internet sensation single Friday however was very amusing. Match 3: Kane, Big Show, Santino and Kofi Kingston defeated the Corre via pinfall in an 8 person tag match A nothing spot fest thankfully kept short. Depressing to think that this fight made the card whilst a genuinely exiciting United States title clash between Daniel Bryan and Shaemus was relegated to being the dark match.

rating: 0.5

There was a pointless segment with Rock backstage with Eve Torres as he declared that he would have a wrestlemania moment with the next person to walk up behind him. This turned out to be Mae Young and predictable, juvenile comedy ensued. It was followed up however by an awesome staredown/handshake spot with Stone Cold Steve Austin with the two men managing to capture so much intensity through so little effort. Match 4: Randy Orton defeated CM Punk via pinfall with a flying RKO Like the Cody Rhodes/Rey Mysterio scrap this match played excellently on the build up to tell a convincing story inside the squared circle. Orton gained early momentum but was thwarted by Punk's cunning as the straight edge superstar began to work the knee that he had effectively damaged in the weeks leading to the match. Part of Punk's charm as a heel is that he doesn't try to disguise the pleasure he takes in his heinous behaviour and his outbursts of manic laughter and joyous facial expressions during his beatdown made it all the more satisfying to witness Orton's frenzied comeback. There was an excellent piece of psychology infiltrated near the end of the bout where Orton had Punk set up for his dreaded punt to the skull only for his knee to buckle at the last minute with this act mirroring the exact same routine from Raw a week earlier. Watching Orton struggle gave Punk a n overdose of confidence and a dangerous leap of faith from the middle rope landed him in a prime mid-air position for the RKO and the ensuing pinfall. An excellent attention to detail, brilliant selling and a heated crowd made this a rather thrilling spectacle and was in my opinion the match of the night.

rating: 4

There was another horrible backstage segment with The Rock and Pee Wee Herman who was masquearding as John Cena's number one fan before being convinced by The Great One to join Team Bring It. Not even The Rock had the power to make this tolerable. The hall of fame inductees including of course the main attraction Shawn Michaels came out to address the crowd. Match 5: Michael Cole defeated Jerry Lawler via disaqualifciation (after the Raw GM's reverse decision) After weeks of effective taunting all the crowd really wanted to see was a quick, satisfying match with Michael Cole getting his much desired comeuppance. Instead this dragged umercifully much like the Bret Hart/Vince McMahon debacle from a year before. Watching Michael Cole transition between courage and cowardice might be fun to watch but watching him trying to wrestle for any length of time most certainly isn't and the crowd soon tired of this misjudged encounter. The saving grace of course was guest referee Stone Cold Steve Austin who ended up delivering Stone Cold Stunners to Jack Swagger, Josh Matthews and Booker T and managed to wake the crowd from the dreary in ring action. The Texas Rattlesnake is so good in his role that he could make a reading of the yellow pages seem entertaining. Match 6 €“ The Undertaker defeated Triple H via submission €“ Extends the Mania winning Streak to 19-0 In regards to creating an epic atmosphere and forging an intense match environment these two legends brought it on the big night in abundance. There was no real structure in place, just a series of epic spots followed up by epic periods of recovery but it was the emotional intensity in the two rivals balls out bid for glory that helped to make the match a memorable spectacle. The lack of physical storytelling made the bout limited in its scope and the constant kicking out of finishers quickly became repetitive and predictable but what really stood out was the acting masterlcass from both competitors as they brought a human element to the contest and really made you believe in how badly they both wanted to succeed. The shame however is in reflecting on how much crediblity a talented heel midcarder ala Shaemus (after months of suitably dominant build up) could have earnt from playing the Triple H role in this match. Triple H and The Undertaker aren't going to get any more popular but a match of this calibre could have given a valuable rub to the guys who are trying to reach their level.

rating: 4

Match 7 €“ Trish Stratus, Snooki and John Morrison defeated Laycool and Dolph Ziggler via pinfall in a 6 person integerender tag match This was pretty much a light hearted buffer match to go in between the two main events. Trish showed no signs of ring rust and her early exchanges with Michelle Mcool were impressive whilst John Morrison got his wrestlemania moment when executing a starship pain to the outside on Dolph Ziggler. Sucked to be Ziggler himself however who got zero offense in throughout the entire match.

rating: 2

They aired a tremendous video package showing the evolution of The Miz from reality star to wwe champion which really captured the man's heart and passion for the industry. It was an inspirational, superbly edited and excellently paced tribute that did a brilliant job of making the Miz seem like a big deal. Unfortunately however the ensuing match did not have the same impact. Match 8 €“ The Miz defeated John Cena via pinfall to defend his WWE title Whilst Triple H and The Undertaker did a superb job of making their match seem larger than life, this mediocre tussle between champion and challenger felt like just another Raw main event. It followed the typical Cena routine of having the hero dominated for large portions of the match before making an elaborate comeback and just never had the feel of a wrestlemania main event. The fact that the crowd were only slightly more vocal for this match than the six person tag bout that had gone before it basically exemplifies how uninspiring the action was. To make matters worse a double count out was booked before The Rock came out to make the save and decide that the match would continue under no disqualification rules. Using these new stipulations to his advantage the Guest Host then hit a distracted Cena with his Rock Bottom finisher and watched on as Miz took a pitiful pinful victory.

rating: 2

At this point it was pretty much confirmed that The Miz was merely being used as a spoke in the wheel for the development of the John Cena and The Rock feud, an idea that was solifidifed the next night on Raw when former poster boy The Rock agreed to challenge current poster boy John Cena in the main event of next year's Wrestlemania. Once again it seems, Vince will be content to rely on the past when it comes to the big picture of the future. EXTRAS: Disc 2 features the WWE's most legendary moments feature hosted by John Cena which is a nice trip down memory lane (especially rewatching Chris Jericho's debut) but there is little in the way of analysing what made these moments great nor the superstars themselves talking about what it was like to be involved in these legendary moments. Instead we are forced to listen to John Cena's excessively rehearsed dialogue which is about as squeaky clean as it gets. This disc also features the United States Title Lumberjack match between Shaemus and Daniel Bryan which was inexplicably left off the main card. Disc 3 meanwhile has the entire Hall of Fame ceremony which always adds greatly to the value of owning the wrestlemania dvd's. This year's event is no exception as Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Bullet Bob Armstrong, Abdullah the Butcher, Sunny, and Animal and Paul Ellering from the Road Warriors all graciously acknowledge their inducton whilst telling warm, heartfelt and humurous stories about how they found themselves in the wrestling industry and the journeys they endured throughout their wrestling tenures. The best is of course saved for last though with Triple H inducting his best friend Shawn Michaels. Hunter manages to convey what HBK meant to both himself, the fans and the industry whilst also comically roasting his long time companion about his outrageous fashion sense, his skinny build and his probably regretful decision to pose in the mid-nineties for Playgirl. Shawn himself seemed rather overwhelmed by the occasion but he did a good job of conveying the emotional impact of his incredible career even though it would have been nice to hear a more detailed account about his favourite rivalries, matches and road stories. VERDICT: Overall this PPV was a resounding short term success owing to four very fine matches on an amazingly well produced show and a must watch Hall of Fame ceremony amongst the Extra features. I still don't quite understand the logic behind allocating a half hour time slot to two legends whose time is running out as opposed to giving valuable time to those who need it but this is a problem that has been slowly haunting the company for years. As a stand alone event at least it is most definitely a success and a very entertaining one at that.