4/5 WWE WrestleMania 25 PPV Reax

Alex Roberts in the U.K. (7.5): Best Match: Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels. Worst Match: Diva Battle Royal. The Money in the Bank opening was fantastic fun and included some brilliant spots. Sure there were some messy botches, but Shelton Benjamin and Kofi Kingston in particular provided enough of a jaw-dropping spectacle to make up for it. I can't say C.M. Punk winning for a second year running does anything for me though, and it was a remarkably anti-climactic finish to the match. Kid Rock's seemingly endless performance was annoying beyond all-belief. Seriously, WWE can find time for that, but not the Tag Titles Unification match? The Diva Battle Royal wasn't bad but the random cluster that was the start of it dragged the whole thing down. Introductions for the returning Divas would have been nice. The Jericho-Legends match may very well be the surprise of the night particularly when it came down to Steamboat and Jericho one-on-one. It was amazingly entertaining and Steamboat clearly still has something left. Jericho winning seems like bad storytelling though and the post-match happenings were too slow and nowhere near rewarding enough to take away from that. For me Hardy vs. Hardy lacked any emotional punch. Perhaps that would be different if I were a regular Smackdown viewer. It was a decent match, though, even if the finish again felt slightly anti-climactic. The IC Title "match" was what it was: an excuse for JBL to quit and seemingly retire again. The two title matches both delivered to different degrees. The World Title match was infinitely better than I expected it to be and say what you like about Cena, he is every inch a big match performer. Match of the night - and of the year - honors have to go to The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels. Phenomenal is just about the only word that sums their match up. WWE put two of their very best in the ring together and it was everything you could want it to be. It was also the only match tonight that had the big emotion and feel of a WrestleMania main event. Exceptional and worth the price of admission by itself. As a whole, WWE proved tonight that even when the creative juices aren't what they were they can still produce some magic on the grand stage. A truly enjoyable show tonight that featured a genuine wrestling master class.

Todd Espinosa of Buffalo, N.Y. (4.0): Best Match: Undertaker-Michaels. Worst Match: Hunter-Orton. I could go on and rant and rave about how phenomenal the Taker-HBK match was, but I'm sure this will be a universal notion. Some people may be surprised by my selection of Hunter -Orton as the worst match but that was the lamest, most anti-climatic WrestleMania main event I can ever remember and I've seen them all live as they happened (including WMI on closed-circuit TV). Lets see here, there was a built-up back-story involving the McMahon family members and the involvement of Legacy AND a hastily added last-minute stipulation where NONE of them came into play or added any sort of real tension to the match. This could've been a match on any B-level PPV and was woefully inadequate as the final match of WM25 and that is why I choose it as the worst match on the card. This is the worst WrestleMania I can remember. For the second year in a row, it felt like an event that was being used as a set-up for the following night's Raw and the next PPV. WrestleMania is The Super Bowl, The Showcase of the Immortals! Even if I'm not crazy about the card on paper, I always watch it and it never lets me down because, IT'S WRESTLEMANIA! This is the first year I can't say that. WrestleMania should be built up months, not weeks, in advance and should be an event of dramatic endings mixed with new beginnings and major surprises. The biggest surprise for me was that Kid Rock was publicly wearing glasses that thick and still kind of pulled it off. This year's WrestleMania just showed how much Vince McMahon doesn't have his finger on the pulse of the public and just how stale his upper-tier has become. The fans want to see younger guys mixed into the upper-tier. It's new, exciting, and fresh. The fans go nuts when they think Christian is about to win MITB but Vince still thinks he's a mid-carder at best. Fans respond to the shenanigans of Miz & Morrison but their match gets banished to a DVD Extra Feature. Thanks, Vince! People can blame the writers all they want but it still all starts at the top and I place the blame squarely on Vince for this one.

We welcome your 0-10 score and comments on this show for a "WWE Raw Reax" feature in the Torch Feedback section of PWTorch.com. Just to add a twist to this feature, include not just your hometown, but also your occupation (mechanic, lawyer, stay-at-home-dad, college student, etc.) so readers get a flavor for what everyone does as "day jobs." To contribute your thoughts on Raw, click here.

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