WrestlingNerd Presents: WWE WrestleMania 29 Review

What up wrestling fans, I'm the WrestlingNerd bringing you another written review. Today, we take a look at WWE WrestleMania 29. Did it deliver or flop? Let's find out and start the review. 

Pre-show = Nap Time

We open up the review with the pre-show. That 4-person set-up during the commentary was almost a spoof of an NFL pre-show. You got the guy nobody cares about (Scott Stanford), the smart one (Jim Ross), the black guy (Kofi), and the one you really can't understand (Dusty Rhodes). There's a rumor floating around that Kofi did all of this for a turkey sandwich. If you haven't worked in 2-3 months, you need to take what you can get. I think Miz's spray tan was more over than this match. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but I still find the entire development to be sub par. Miz becomes the new IC champion with the Figure Four Leg-lock. Cue the 'Miz botches the Figure-Four' in 3…..2…..1……and there's one of the 500 things people will be raging about tomorrow morning. I really don't care if he uses the move, but at least it looks like he's improving the technique. I have no thoughts on the title change. The belt has meant nothing for months/years and I don't see Miz and/or WWE doing anything different with the championship. The IC will go into a black-hole until it comes time to give the belt to somebody else, and the process will keep repeating itself until creative decides to do something about it. 

Heel turn surprise....Minus the surprise

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for WWE's Fun with Numbers…

Why do I get the feeling I just gave Vince McMahon a new idea? Thanks to Randy's ego, he tags himself in and completely ignores Big Show. Shield ends up using the real superpower of teamwork to win this match. Why…

Show could've saved the match for his team, but he wants to activate his hidden ability: Dick Mode. After the match, Show takes out Orton and Sheamus with the KO punch. So, instead of doing something interesting like turning Orton into a bad guy, you make Show turn instead? If you think about it, did he even turn in the first place? I brought up in my previous articles that Show's turn would only be temporarily, but I just feel a little disappointed that Show was the one to cost his team. I'm not even upset about my theory being wrong since it was just a theory, but was this really the best course of action? It just makes it look predictable. Is that gonna be the theme of tonight's show? If that's the case, run! Run for your life! RUN!

Ryback's WM moment….Sort of

So, the master plan to get Ryback over is to have him attempt Shell Shock and have Henry win with the power of his fat ass? It was almost as if the WWE was being literal with the term 'buried'. I don't understand this move at all. This does nothing for Ryback at the end of the day. While he did get his WM moment by hitting Henry with the Shell Shock after the match, a victory would've done so much more. I guess if they continue the rivalry it would mean something, but I don't really think so. This is definitely one of the more puzzling moves out of the evening. Ryback's new name is Mr. Second Place. No matter how far he does, he's guaranteed to be #2. Team Hell No had a pretty fair match with Dolph Ziggler and Big E. I liked how WWE mocked the 18-second pinfall that occurred with Daniel Bryan last year. The finish comes when Bryan and Kane work together to take out Dolph with a Chokeslam/Flying Goat combination. I would imagine that this match is kept to a low profile based on COULD happen later in the night. That's at least what I would imagine, but let's wait and see how the power of the script has planned for us. King has some stupid lines in this show, but his AJ joke had to take the cake. AJ's family fought for the East during the Civil War? The joke was so bad that it's funny. 

Chris Jericho vs Dancing with the Stars

Fandango and Chris Jericho put together a fair match, but I'm still not overly impressed with this character. I still stand by my original theory that Fandango will be making burritos 6-9 months from now, but I would like to be proven wrong based on what I've said in the past about Fandango. While I liked the match, the ending felt awkward. The Lionsault/Walls of Jericho combination didn't make any sense. I guess Jericho was supposed to sell a knee injury, but it would've made a hell of a lot more sense if they just had Fandango win with rollup and not include the Lionsault. It just seems like overbooking if you ask me. Regardless, Jericho does his job by putting this one-hit wonder over.

They Took R Jrbs!!!

There was some s****y music here by some popular rapper or whatever. Here's some good music for you in the meantime….

You have seriously done something wrong in the world when you take a great composition from the Rocky films and turn it into that. Up to this point of the show, none of the matches have really stood out. I'm not saying all the matches have been bad, but there isn't one match that deserves a replay. Alberto Del Rio and Jack Swagger had an okay match, but I'm a little disappointed here that Del Rio didn't have the Spanish Announcers come out to attack Zeb Coulter or the Statue of Liberty come alive and take out Swagger or Coulter. Plot twist of the year if you find out the statue was controlled by the Ghostbusters. At least by doing this it shows a little more imagination. Speaking of no imagination, Del Rio won the match and that was it. Yeah, so there was no MITB cash in by Dolph. I repeat. NO MITB cash in for tonight's show. I think they wasted an opportunity to do the cash in, but I'm guessing WWE wants to roll with Del Rio/Swagger a bit longer. I personally don't have a problem with this rivalry continuing, but they need to bring more to the table. There's so much potential because of Zeb Coulter's character, but they aren't taking full advantage of it. It almost feels like they are too scared to do something since Zeb can easily offend somebody with his words. As for Dolph, I guess he can pimp out AJ for a bit longer. 

CM Punk vs Undertaker

At least we got one musical performance that was actually good this evening. Punk comes out and watches the Undertaker walk….

I think I could've watched an entire Dragonball Z arc in the amount of time it took for Taker to get to the ring. This was definitely the best match of the night. Punk and Taker did put together a fair rivalry in the amount of time they were given, but I know more could have been done. While this isn't anything compared to previous Taker matches with Shawn Michaels or Triple H, this was at least entertaining to watch. Taker and Punk went out there and tried to put on a fun show. So far, this has been the only thing worth watching this evening. Damn, I think that announce table is move over in the WWE than Zack Ryder. Go Spanish Announce table!!! I got it! Taker vs Spanish Announce Table. The streak finally ends. After a back and forth contest, Taker finally puts Punk down for the count. The streak continues and that was that. It really wasn't a surprise the streak wouldn't end. It would make for a big turn of events if Punk did end the streak, but that isn't what they wanted to do here. I didn't really care if the streak ended or kept going tonight. I was just looking to be entertained by these two and I got what I wanted. Again, more could've been done with this rivalry, but this was still fun to watch. By the way, what was up with Taker's entrance with the hands coming out the ground? Are those the souls of his past WM victims or is it the zombie apocalypse? I seriously want to know the answer to this question. 

Welcome to SummerSlam

It wasn't quite like their SS match, but it did feel like something we saw last year. I think the other thing that worked against this match was card placement. It did get overshadowed by Punk/Taker. It was better than their SS match, but I don't think it was quite as good. Again, something just seems to be off with in-ring chemistry between Brock and Trips. They can hype up the match amazingly, but the actual match is only 'okay' at the end of the day. This is one of those matches that people will enjoy more than myself. Certainly nothing wrong if you liked it. HBK's only purpose of this match was to prevent Paul Heyman from screwing over Trips. Either that or he was only in town for the free food. Trips gets his revenge and keeps his job. I thought it was hilarious Brock got out the hold only to get back in the hold seconds later. I guess he needed a breather. I do wonder who Brock's new opponent will be. What do you think?

Twice in a Lifetime

The match ends in three-seconds. After the show, John Cena reveals himself to be Superman and proceeds to fly around the arena….

This was much weaker than their match a year ago. It really feels like WWE is milking this for all that they can. Even the audience was silent for a good chunk of this match. They did give reactions for things as they happened, but you can tell they were just hoping for a turn of events or something to get them jazzed up. Well, it doesn't happen and Cena wins cleanly. After the match, Rock and Cena hug it out and even do a salute as the show ends with Cena celebrating his victory. So, Cena won and everybody pats each other on the back? Where have I read that before? Oh, maybe I read it in one of my own articles? Oh God, I hate when I'm right about these things sometimes. The ending was pretty much sums up the whole show. WWE played it safe and went with the most cliche ending they could think of. Well, I guess it isn't all bad. At least Rock finally confessed his love towards Mr. Breakfast Cereal….

Overall Impression: 

I want to state for the record that I'm not angry with this PPV. I'm what you would call very disappointed with the end result. I felt going into this show that this WM was gonna be very predictable and play it safe. I know the build going into this PPV wasn't gonna make this one of the best WMs, but WWE still had the elements to make this thing stand out. No plot twist or heel turns of any kinds. There are no surprises or those iconic WM moments. Simply put, WWE didn't want to do anything risk-taking with this event since they wanted to play it safe. That's might be the main problem with this event. This show felt as if WWE was milking everything they could get out of Rock/Cena 2. I'm sure at the end of the day that WWE is gonna do fine financially with this event, but there is so many things missing from this WM that you get with others. Where are the WM moments? You know, like Hulk Hogan slamming Andre on the mat or Eddie Guerrero stealing his way towards a title defense? This is supposed to be WM and not you average PPV. I hate coming out here and being this negative on the show since I don't like going out on a bitter note, but I cannot fully support this show. If I had to give WWE WrestleMania 29 a score between 1-10 and 5 considered average, I would give it about a 4 out of 10. This one falls in the slightly below average territory for me. I would normally give a show like this an average score, but I had to take off points since you expect more out of WM. This isn't a PPV I deem worthy of the asking price and this is also a PPV you should only watch if you are really curious. It's an okay show, but not worthy of being regarded as a classic. Well, I think it's that time for me to wrap this up. WM was what I expected to be and I'm still disappointed by the end result. Hopefully, we can see WWE get back on the right track tomorrow night. We can only hope. That does it for the review and I hope you enjoyed this. If you enjoyed any of my nonsense, check out some of my other articles. If you hate my articles, go eat a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. Actually, that sounds pretty good right about now. See you guys and girls in the next one. 

WrestlingNerd's Official Score of WWE WrestleMania 29: 4 out of 10