WWE WrestleMania 26 special
August 7, 2010
Aired on NBC in Saturday night prime time
Report by James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

Facial expressions. If there was one takeaway from a brilliant one-hour presentation on WWE's highlight event of the year, it was the art of using facial expressions to tell a story in the ring.

Shawn Michaels perfected the art. The Undertaker used his facial expressions to take the audience on an emotional roller-coaster in the final moments of Michaels's career, just as Michaels did in the final moments of Ric Flair's WWE career at WrestleMania 24.

The art is lost on many wrestlers, promoters, and production team members. It's not about the moves, but how the wrestlers sell the moves. It's not about highspots, but what the highspots mean to the wrestler performing the move. During tonight's WWE special, WWE made time stand still to "sell the moment" of Undertaker and Michaels's memorable final encounter at WrestleMania.

For better or worse, WWE's TV product has developed into a continuous mini-movie. Two hours on Mondays and Fridays. Three hours once-a-month on Sundays. Wrestlers who get over and stay over understand how to advance the stories using body language and facial expressions. Watching Michaels and Taker once again was a reminder of how they took the theatrical art form to another level that WWE will have a hard time replacing.

Michaels vs. Taker was a big-time match, with WWE focusing on the big-time stage of WrestleMania throughout the broadcast. It was a reminder of the high point of the wrestling season and a great infomercial aimed at casual, former, or non-fans to sell the idea of emotionally investing in a product that hits so many peaks and valleys on the emotional scale. Michaels vs. Taker was WWE's ideal showcase for the company.

***

Some other notes from the broadcast: NBC grabbed national advertisers including Verizon (electronics) and Subway (food) appealing to the "typical wrestling viewer." There were also plenty of spots for NBC programs to fill slots not sold to advertisers, plus a reminder that the NFL is back.

The following is a recap of each segment during the special as WWE built the story of Michaels vs. Taker culminating in an epic segment of television at the end of "Act III."

Segment One - WWE started the show with another classic Taker-Michaels video package setting the stage for how they arrived at WrestleMania 26 with Michaels putting his career on the line and Undertaker putting his Streak on the line again. Again, this was about Michaels using facial expressions and body language to sell the story before the match at WrestleMania 26.

Segment Two - WWE introduced "WrestleMania Week" and used comments from fans to try to "sell" WWE to a casual or mainstream audience watching the special on broadcast TV.

Segment Three - WWE changed the camera filter to a "real-time" presentation of the beginning of Michaels vs. Taker. The previous two segments presented the build-up to Taker-Michaels like a movie, building to the climax of the story. Part one of the match aired here.

Segment Four - WWE continued the "real-time" presentation of Taker vs. Michaels, building to the climax of Act II where Michaels landed the memorable moonsault on Taker through the ringside announce table.

Segment Five - This was an epic 10-15 minutes of television. They went back to the movie-style presentation recapping Acts I and II thus far. WWE made time stand still as they presented the end of the match starting with Michaels kicking out of a Tombstone Piledriver. This was followed by the slow-motion shots of Michaels slowly climbing up to Taker, who showed pity and told Michaels to "stay down," then Michaels giving the throat slash and slapping Taker across the face. Taker, enraged, hit the Super Tombstone for the pin and the win. The end of a career - Taker with respect for Michaels. WWE told a great story capturing this change of emotions using the facial expressions of both men in the moment.

After showing the end of Michaels's final WWE match, they showed clips of Michaels's farewell speech on Raw the next night, while mixing in clips from Michaels's career dating back to the 1980s. It was the same video the audience has seen before, but in a broader context putting the entire story together of Michaels's send-off.

Segment Six - The NBC special ended with a run-through of the other matches on the WrestleMania 26 card, with pauses for Hart-McMahon, Edge-Jericho, and Cena-Batista before re-visiting Michaels and Taker a final time. The show closed with a sign in the crowd looking ahead to WrestleMania 27 in Atlanta next year.

We suggest these recent related articles...

PARKS'S WWE SMACKDOWN REPORT 10/8: Ongoing "virtual time" coverage of Thursday show, including Roman Reigns & Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt & Braun Strowman

METZGER'S ROH TV REPORT 10/4 & 10/7: IWGP World champ Okada vs. Roderick Strong main event, plus Briscoes vs. Time Splitters, more from "Field of Honor," Overall Reax

MCMAHON'S TNA IMPACT REPORT 10/7: TNA Title Series kicks off, Bound for Glory fall-out, more; Overall Reax