By Richard Gardner, Torch specialist

The build for this year's WrestleMania has been disappointing. The main title feuds have been hampered by ridiculous storylines, whether it is the painful interaction between John Cena, Edge, The Big Show, and Vickie Guerrero or the ridiculous sight of Triple H rampaging through the Orton household with sledgehammer in hand.

Added to which, the weeks of quality promos that Chris Jericho used to build his feud with the legends of the WWE was offset by the disappointing announcement that he would be facing Jimmy Snuka, Roddy Piper, and Ricky Steamboat in a handicap match. However, this Monday the WWE seemed to get back on track with their hype for the biggest wrestling PPV of the year.

Of course, this silliness in the World Title feud has built to the point where John Cena appears to be turning into a cartoon character with each passing week. But WWE opted for a different approach to build the match between Triple H and Randy Orton than on previous episodes of Raw. A bait and switch main event that was supposed to be Randy Orton and Ted DiBiase against Triple H developed into a 3-on-1 beat down by Legacy.

With Triple H handcuffed to the ropes, Stephanie McMahon rushed from the back to try and persuade Orton to relent. Instead, she was the victim of a brutal DDT. Then, with Triple H being a forced spectator, Orton kissed his unconscious wife. A sledgehammer shot was administered to Triple H for good measure. There were several gaps in logic, such as Triple H lackluster selling of the affects of a sledgehammer, but this angle was infinitely better than Triple H's escapades in Randy Orton's house two weeks earlier.

For weeks, Orton has struggled to gain an advantage in his feud with Triple H. There was the almost comical angle where Orton and DiBiase were chased around an arena by an immobile Triple H, then there was the 3-on-1 Legacy beat down on Smackdown that took forever for the group to get the champion off his feet. Orton and his group have been made to look like fools since the Royal Rumble, outwitted on a weekly basis and the angle last week where Triple H trapped Cody Rhodes in a cage typified this. Yet the WWE did a terrific of re-establishing Orton as a dangerous heel with the hot angle on Monday night.

Another feud that seemingly got back on track on Monday night was Chris Jericho's feud with the WWE Legends. While this feud has produced several memorable promos, it had moved almost into comedic territory in recent weeks. To bring the intensity back to the feud, Jericho beat Ric Flair until he was a bloody mess to open Raw on Monday night. This was also an excellent angle that forced the fans to take Jericho seriously again, in the same way that Orton was portrayed later in the evening.

So, the WrestleMania hype got back on track Monday night. However, later in the week, Vince McMahon was interview in the Hollywood Reporter regarding TNA: "I think some of the things they do on television are reprehensible, but it is a TV-14 rating. That's the only bone I have to pick with them…Their TV ratings are a fraction of ours…My concern with TNA is not in terms of competition…My concern with TNA is that they are TV-14, and we are PG. They have to change with the times…What we try to do in situations like that is use things that you can't find around the house. You will never see us use a baseball bat…You don't find folding metal chairs around the house."

The hypocrisy of Vince McMahon's statements is beyond belief. I personally had no problem with the angles on Monday night, but don't pretend that Ric Flair opening a cut so wide that it took 11 stapes to close is family entertainment. Don't claim that Triple H breaking into Randy Orton's house was in good taste because he used a sledgehammer rather than a baseball bat. TNA has a myriad of problems with their booking, but Vince McMahon is in no position to take the moral high ground.

Vince McMahon has only half-heartedly committed to making his programming family-friendly, but this Monday it appeared that he was willing to completely abandon the philosophy in order to promote his WrestleMania angles. That’s fine, but any pretense these angles are more suitable for younger viewers than TNA's weekly output is highly hypocritical, and undermines what credibility that Vince McMahon has.

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