By Shane McKinkley, Torch specialist

"There's a crooked street in Houston town,
It's a well worn path I've traveled down
Now there's ruin in my name, I wish I never got off the train,
And I wished I'd listened to the words you said...
But I took that silent stare through the guilded door
The desire to have much more, all the glitter and the roar
Now I know just where the sidewalk ends"

-"Fannin Street" by Tom Waits

While writing this I'm trying out Carl Jr.'s new "Kentucky Bourbon Burger." That's what mighty alpha men like me need: Bourbon + Hamburger. Mmmm. Artery-clogging. I'll let you know how it tastes (credit to burgerbusiness.com for pic).

Heck, even watching a video bit of Striker and Grisham hyping fans to buy WrestleMania was a true by-the-numbers affair. Their faces lit up like schoolchildren when they started to talk about the possibility of Mark Henry...climbing the ladder. Oh yeah. Even the big WrestleMania feuds could be surmised in a simple word/phrase.

-- Triple H vs. Orton = The "It's not about business, it's personal" cliche
-- Cena vs. Edge vs. Show = Yawn-inducing love triangle
-- Jericho vs. HOFs = Mickey Rourke + "Legends Of WrestleMania" videogame
-- Undertaker vs. HBK = The really only good reason you're spending $50 on this PPV

WWE superstars come out and talk about how many memorable WrestleMania there has been. It felt like they relied too much on hyping up the PPV as "reliving memories."

Hey guys. You're going to be lumberjacks in this tag team match. We're going to unify the titles. But it's going to be an special on the DVD. So you're not going to be shown at all on television. This will probably be a good reason to check out the WM 25 DVD (along with HBK-Taker).

I wished that they did let fans know that the tag team match already happened, as I was left wondering when it was going to happen until the start of Trips-Orton.

Cole, Lawlerm, and Ross. What a bunch of guh this is. How I hate three person announcing teams. In my opinion Ross was stellar tonight, but Cole was far too happy spewing robotic WWE pre-written lines and Lawler was concerned of playing a clown.

MITB match. Finlay comes out in a Road Warrior outfit (along with Horny with...you guessed it...looking like little Mad Max). Guh? This WrestleMania didn't have that same awe-inspiring appeal as last year's WrestleMania.

Meanwhile the announcing team hype up how much bad luck it is walking under the ladder. They do this about 50 times. In a row.

MITB matches are usually a good bet to start off the PPV, as there are plenty of cute spots. "This is awesome" chants arose in the MITB and HBK-Taker. Benjamin does his "holy s---" move, but I thought most of the love went to Kofi. Mark Henry holding up the ladder, Kofi scrambling up the ladder, falling and getting caught by Henry, and then getting slammed on the ladder...good stuff.

MITB matches are dangerous, but that goes without saying. All of the refs were wearing plastic gloves in case of lacerations and deep cuts.

Looking back, Punk winning was winning the only real option here. Not the best MITB match, but it sure made WM 25 look like a heck of the show. At the start.

You got to give some credit to WWE. Absolutely zero love given to "12 Rounds." No fan reactions out of the movie theater. It would have pissed me off greatly if they had some plants spout off how it was the best damn action movie ever. Probably wise to let that "12 Rounds" die quietly.

Mania comes out with it's own super bowl half-time show with Kid Rock. Fine for what it was, but nothing special. "Get in the pit and try to love some one! Babwithababeeiupjumpthefunkie!" touches me. Makes my insides warm.

The worst match of the night was that "Miss WrestleMania" contest. I keep hearing how it was supposed to be comic filler, but it didn't even fill that role. Sunny, Victoria, and Molly Holly coming back was a waste of air travel. I couldn't tell where these wrestlers were, as they were surrounded by unrecognizable divas.

Lawler tries to cover up this stink by saying repeatedly that Kid Rock was fantastic. I reply with "Guh." Hurry up.

Lawler wonders who is that ugly man in the ring. Meanwhile nearly 50,000 people are chanting "Santino."

You've got to be joking me. "Miss WrestleMania" is Santino? Wow. Way to drive into the stake into the nearly lifeless women's division. I'm sure we'll all find out that "Santina" was "Santino" all along blah blah blah. Santina winning was a victory for cross-dressers everywhere.

So you've got a cross-dresser who's crowned Miss WrestleMania over the entire women's division, but plus you've got the announcers playing dumb and not knowing who that ugly woman is.

To further it up, Santina strips and shakes what his momma gave him. $55 of guh.

What was the more disturbing sight of the night: Santina shaking his rump or an army of Cena clones ready to take over the world?

People had wondered if WWE have lost their minds. Tonight went a long way into proving those fears to be true.

They never really explained the whole "Flair's gold watch" thing to new fans. That was more important to me than Flair getting busted open. WWE tries to tie "The Wrestler" with WWE HOFs. Doesn't work.

Jericho comes down the ramp, pissed off that he is stuck with this match. Hey look, it's the HOFs, or old guys playing dress up. What the hell?

One of my favorite Ross quips is "Piper looks like he spent all night thinking about this match." Steamboat looks good.

In this era of PG WWE, I got a weird kick of Piper swearing up a storm: "Get the f--- out! Pooh, you mothertrucker! Son of a bad word! You piece of s---!" That's what I remember Piper doing in this match (and yeah, the whole Three Stooges eye poke).

Steamboat vs. Jericho. This is what I wanted to see. Looking back, this should have been the match.

Snuka taps to the Walls of Jericho like how someone leisurely taps to their favorite song on the radio. Guh to the max. Piper takes an enziguiri and he's done. Steamboat made this match watchable.

Rourke vs. Jericho was more than I expected, but it wasn't Mayweather vs. Show.

WWE shows the same tired "Backlash PPV hype." What got my attention was that National Guard "Twister" commercial. Sign me up. Backlash? Meh. You boys in Stamford are supposed to be good in scamming people out of their money.

It's the Hardy Boyz in a extremz rulez match that's extremz but not too extremz but extremz enough to get by. Not "we're going to try to upstage Foley vs. Edge at WM 22" type of extremz but "we're going to involve hitting weirdo paint boy with a vacuum cleaner" type of extremz. And yeah, they're pumping up the whole "Jack the dead dog" angle. Congrats, jerks. Did like Matt's outfit. But not sure why a WM poster was under the ring.

Cole then goes into talking about Matt wouldn't return his own father's phone calls for four days. Matt's so evil. He burned a dog alive and he doesn't want to talk to his father. I guess there just wasn't time to properly build up this storyline, not with three weeks of Jeff doing showcase extremz rulez matches. However, JR made it sound better by focusing on the father watching this match and his emotions. It just seemed like the announcing was more focused when HBK-Taker started. This WrestleMania was marked by a pretty sub-standard two hours.

Cole: "Can this be any more personal?" Guh you, Cole. Guh you to hell. For old WWE fans, this hyperbole was nuts. Don't know why Jeff decided to fly through two tables. Twist of fate with a steel chair. Hello. This match never really started to get going.

JBL makes fans feel good about buying the stinky PPV by blabbing on about New York. The matches before HBK-Taker were marked by not having any sense of story or weight.

Rey "Joker" Mysterio wins. Yay. Feel-good moments that are a waste of time and have little merit. Maybe it was an award for Mysterio for ramming his head into one of those pods at No Way Out.

JBL: "I've got something to say." Funny, I've got something to do. Like moving on with my life and maybe start a new hobby, like learning how to clone myself (Cena), or to replace my skeleton with adamitnum so that I can withstand enormous amounts of punishment (Trips). JBL announces he quits. That's it? Mission accomplished of lowering the bar of people's expectations.

I mean, that's all I can figure out here. JBL and WWE agreed to have JBL go out there, lower the bar of expectations, so that next time they have a really big announcement that will shock the wrestling world, it will be something like JBL professing that he gets his legs waxed or something else trivial.

Coming down from heaven is HBK. HBK-Taker are given the task of saving this stinker. Great sequences in this one. It's the "Heaven And Hell" match, and it was a bonafide real-deal classic (credit to fc37.deviantart.com for pic).

Taker squashed a camera man that HBK pulled. To be fair, that camera man had it coming to him. He got in Shawn Michael's way. But that's gonna be a lawsuit. (If you can tell, their cameraman bit reminded me of the "cameraman bit" they did in the first Hell in the Cell.)

'90s HBK, Mr. WrestleMania himself, wants a count out victory. The first time WWE did this "enter ring before countout," people got wrapped up into it. (Cole: "The Streak lives! Good gravy, the streak lives!) When Trips-Orton did it, it was a "meh" feeling going through the crowd.

The best lines go to Jim Ross: "I just had an out-of-body experience!" and "I feel like we've just seen heaven." It's very rare that one would encourage their friends to spend $55 for basically just one match (MITB and Cena-Show-Edge as appetizers), but HBK-Taker was in my mind what WrestleMania should be all about.

WWE rolls out the same video packages that fans have seen ad nauseam. I seem to remember a kick ass video package for Trips-Cena-Orton of last year. I don't pay to see the same content I saw before.

The announcers talk about how well-endowed Show is. "He's got big equipment, ladies and gentlemen. Massive. Huge. Awe-inspiring. People come from other countries and take photos of his crotch."

Apparently for Cena's entrance they stole Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady" deal at the 2000 MTV's Video Music Awards (Em's new album "Relapse" comes out May 19th). Oh, balls. Is it a problem that I can't tell the clones from the real deal? I found some camp appeal in this in that the character of Cena is indeed manufactured and processed (credit to buzzworthy.mtv.com for pic).

The Cena clones do the "can't see me" hand motion. They should have done the "wanking" motion. It was an army of tools doing cheesy motions...Just one of those moments that are gah-awful but you can't get out of your head. And I still hear Cole in my dreams. No...stop spewing canned lines...aieee....

Thankfully Vickie was not even a part in this match. Nice outing by Show, as this match could have been much, much worse. The announcers go into hyperbole once again of how freaking superhuman strong Cena is. Works great for kids. But needless to say I didn't drop my jaw like I did when Brock Lesnar F-5'ed the Big Show at Survivor Series years ago. I would give WWE $20 to have Cena in a backstage skit reading a novel. Any novel. He could be reading the book upside down for all I care. They could show me Cena adjusting the attitude of the entire Raw roster on his shoulders and I would reply with a yawn.

What I liked most about their feud is that they trimmed the fat. They tried to salvage the thing by getting the attention off of Vickie and pumping up Big Show (sadly, Edge was nearly invisible here). By contrast, Trips-Orton was serving upon serving of mutated fungus that kept growing and growing till the thing was a mountain of muck.

If you watched the Hall of Fame special, you heard Austin talking about how crummy his jacket was from the Men's Wearhouse. He's gonna stomp a mudhole in that man's ass. Austin does a beer bath. If you asked me, these three bits were very strong in a row. Nice touch with Jim Ross and Stone Cold.

But then came Trips-Orton. Trips and the McMahons boys meet backstage. Sort of like how two old roman generals would give their blessing to a trusted Lieutenant before he faces an evil foe.

I keep hearing how it was inevitable that people would be burnt out. And you could see it too. At 3:38, a security scuffle (or whatever it was in the crowd) got everybody's head turned rather than in the action in the ring.

But there were many problems in this match. The first strike was the "Vickie Guerrero" rule still kept in place. The whole "keeping the title or destroy Orton" bit Trips played out. I understand that the rule could lead to future storyline developments (with Orton complaining about Trips using the sledgehammer), but I got mighty sick and tired of hearing Cole and Lawler fret over every action. "Trips could get disqualified! Maybe that should be a disqualification!" On and on. Ugh. This whole "don't lose your temper" bit was garbage. Thankfully, the crowd was too busy sleeping to notice.

Plus it makes no sense for why a Vickie Guerrero rule would be kept in place when Vince and Shane McMahon are swaggering backstage.

Anyone else notice Lillian and a cable guy scurrying out of the camera?

Orton's got so many expressions, it's uncanny. Trips and Orton are doing their thing. Fine. But then comes the whole downfall of the match. Basically Trips uses the sledgehammer, hides the evidence (because he doesn't want to get caught), punches Orton savagely, and then lands his finisher.

The problem I had with it is that, for all intents and purposes, Triple H is still pumped up as a face. Jim Ross keeps talking about how no man besides Triple H can withstand that type of punishment, blah blah blah. But let's face it. If a heel did the same tactics Trips did at the end of the match, the announcers would typically be pulling their hair out. I can imagine a heel Jeff Jarrett doing the exact same thing and Tenay talking about how Jarrett's a scumbag and that this whole thing sucks.

What a champion. Cheats to win. I wouldn't have a problem with it if they called it liked it was. What happened here is that they employed the "double standard," which drives me nuts. When Trips committed his heelish actions, Cole talked about how Orton deserved it for his sins. That's cheating the fans. Call it like it is. He's got no honor. He took the low route. That's perfectly fine. That's understandable. Nobody's squeaky clean. Instead they spun it like Triple H was indeed noble for his heinous actions.

It's like when HBK got frustrated in his "Mind Games" match with Mankind and shoved down the ref (not planned). It was a blatant chickens--t move done by a face that was sure to cause some viewers to dislike HBK. But because HBK was Vince's meal ticket at the time, Vince (who was announcing) try to covered it up (along with Jim Ross) talking about how the mind games got to Shawn blah blah blah don't blame Shawn blah blah blah is it really such a bad move blah blah blah.

It's a double standard. I'm sure we'll hear WWE's "explanation" for it by saying that Trips will do anything to win, but they can't really hide the fact that using a sledgehammer, savagely punching a man's head in, and then landing your finisher on a already beaten man makes it kind of hard to cheer for ya.

I'm sure Raw will show Orton showing a video replay of the thing, whining about it, and the whole crappy Trips-Orton amusement park ride that makes people throw up because the wood is rotten and the thing is falling apart...will start up again. So that's the second thing that was wrong with this match.

Thirdly, I don't know if Orton's the next man or not. But when that three count hit, you could see the look of disgusted faces when Trips won. It's just more WWE garbage, through and through. It felt more like a dirty end to a rotten feud that can be lengthened by more stupid Orton whining. Orton winning at WM 25 could have been a defining moment, the new future. But for whatever reason Trips is still the man in charge. That's fine and dandy, but it's well past old.

Trips vs. Orton doesn't look to be over yet, but it's already over for me. The problem is that WWE keeps trying to funnel the reaction into one certain thing. There's no intangible redeeming qualities in either Trips or Orton. We would like to cheer Orton, but WWE keeps having Orton play the sniveling coward. We would like to cheer Trips, but we get too much SuperTrips crud.

Perhaps they are doing this to mainly appeal to kids, because of backstage news, or because they have their head up their collective asses. I'm not going to pretend that they're all ignorant dummies. They are experienced, smart individuals. But the route WWE is taking...for the most part, there is some cause for concern. The Trips vs. Orton feud, by all accounts, so far is a disappointment. There have been some highlights, but in the end it's been one miserable affair.

WrestleMania has come and went, but the more perturbing picture is the direction WWE will take in 2009. This will probably be the picture at Backlash. It's strangely comforting (credit to 2.bp.blogspot.com for pic).

And that Kentucky Bourbon Burger wasn't very good. Oh well. Maybe next time they'll come up with a better burger. Looks like the only option is to remain with the same old crud.

ABSURDMANIA 25 VERDICT: In The Middle Of Absurdity

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com.

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