Monday Night RAWWWWWW

Tuesday morning gifted me with a sore throat, a throbbing headache, and a fatigue I haven’t felt in a long while thanks to the lack of sleep after spending hours jumping and screaming until my voice gave out.  Monday, March 11th, my husband and I were four rows back from the ring for Monday Night Raw!  We’ve been to Smackdown, had a blast at the Survivor Series Pay Per View, but this was our first Raw experience.  After buying the tickets, my first priority became what to wear.  For the last two shows we attended, I went on sites and designed my own shirts because the selection for women in the WWE shop is somewhat lacking.  This time, I wanted to go authentic.  The pink Dolph Ziggler shirt that I had ordered my husband for Christmas came in the wrong size, so he gave it to me and I decided to go AJ Lee on the thing.

Not quite AJ, but it’s as close as I can get with my skill set.  It was fun to do and since WWE’s shop doesn’t have the variety that I want in women’s tops, I may choose to go this route again in the future.  I was proud of it and it was nice to be able to represent Ziggler along with my husband, who went with his new blue “Stealing The Show … And Your Girlfriend” tee.  Since we went signless to this event, we wanted to make sure we were still representing.  It paid off:

The night was amazing and jam packed with Superstars, surprises, and plenty of smiles from this girl.  Rather than recap the entire thing, here are some photos from my favorite moments:

The return of Undertaker!!  It was incredible to see the man in person, and I loved the tribute to Paul Bearer with the urn.  Sad and spectacular all at once.  The crowd went absolutely insane.

Brock Lesnar and the New Age Outlaws!  My only complaint here was that Triple H did not make an appearance as well to address Lesnar’s acceptance of his Wrestlemania challenge.

Kane getting a good shot in on CM Punk.  Punk is on my nerves right now, but I am excited to see him go against the streak in April.

Ryback, one of my new favorites, destroying a member of The Shield.  (Sidenote:  I promised not to get excited when Roman Reigns walked down the steps and through the crowd, but I failed and I touched him on the arm as he passed right by me.  He is greasy and angry and smells like Old Spice, in case you were curious)

Daniel Bryan vs. The Show Off, Dolph Ziggler.  Ziggler always puts on a great show!  Bryan has definitely grown on me since growing the beard, changing his chant to NO! and teaming with Kane.

I love the Rhodes Scholars, but I love a good RKO even more!  Poor Cody.

The Miz and Wade Barrett, two of my favorites, along with a human flashlight with fluffy unicorn hair and a big mouth.

Ryback vs. Mark Henry?!??  We got a preview of things to come, and I can’t wait to see these two go at it on Smackdown!  I’m excited to see who will come out on top.

RIP Paul Bearer.  What an awesome tribute.

The Main Event: WRESTLEMANIA 28

April 1, 2012, Wrestlemania 28, the main event live on Pay Per View was finally here!  My husband and I made the purchase and set the show to record just in case, watching 50/50 and anxiously waiting for our clocks to hit 7pm and the show to begin.  It’s been hyped up like crazy, adding more matches and controversy on each Raw and Smackdown throughout the week.  I wish we could have been there, but being able to watch live is definitely the next best thing to it.

The first match of the night was between Daniel Bryan and Sheamus for the World Heavyweight Championship.  Bryan stole that title from The Big Show after he had it for maybe 30 seconds.  As Bryan entered the ring and proceeded to yell YES about 50 times, he paused to give his girlfriend, AJ, a kiss.  As he turned back to face Sheamus, he received a boot to the face, went down, and was counted out.  The match lasted 18 seconds and Sheamus walked away the new Heavyweight Champion.  YES!  YES!  YES!

Up next was Kane and Randy Orton.  For some reason, Kane decided to start a feud with Orton.  Not sure why, possibly out of boredom, maybe he was feeling lonely, but the two have been going at it since Orton returned from his injury.  Kane started out strong, pinning Orton a dozen times to the two count.  Orton eventually began to retaliate and it was looking good for him, but Kane delivered a powerful choke slam from the top rope and the poor Apex Predator was down.

The Big Show versus Cody Rhodes was also hyped up quite a bit in the weeks prior to Wrestlemania and I was really looking forward to it.  Rhodes had been mocking Show, mainly because he has never had a victory at any Wrestlemania.  Rhodes is my favorite heel; he’s amazingly good at being hateful without being obnoxious and making you actually hate him.  The match began with Show throwing Rhodes around the ring like a rag doll; I started to feel bad for Rhodes for taking such a beating.  Rhodes finally got the upper hand after knocking Show to the ground, starting to work on his leg and take the big man out.  Sadly for him it wasn’t enough; Show knocked him out and won the Intercontinental Championship!

Finally, it was time for Hell In A Cell; Triple H versus The Undertaker, the end of an era.  I was worried about this match because there’s no good outcome.  If Triple H wins, we’ll continue to see him in the ring which is great, but it means the Undertaker ends his career with a 19-1 streak at Wrestlemania instead of 20-0.  If Undertaker wins, his streak finishes strong, but he also finishes Triple H.  This match spanned nearly an hour and was as brutal as you can imagine; both men were bloody and the Undertaker’s back was badly bruised from a severe beating with a metal chair.  Shawn Michaels, the guest referee, looked as if he was about to cry near the end of the match, watching his friend suffer as both competitors struggled to finish the other one.  My heart jumped at least half a dozen times when it looked like one would be counted out, only to see them roll their shoulder up just in time.  It was honestly hard to watch at some points.  Undertaker managed to find the will and energy to finish Triple H, stretching his streak to 20-0 and was able to walk out of the ring this time around, unlike last year when he couldn’t stand.  Triple H, however, couldn’t get up.  Michaels and Undertaker stood on either side of him, lifted him up, and all three walked out of the arena together.  It was an amazing end.

At some point there was a Diva’s match.  Beth Phoenix and Eve versus Kelly Kelly and a freaking talk show host, Maria Menounos.  It was idiotic and insulting to someone like Phoenix, who is built the way a wrestler should be, to have to go up against these two little twigs.  She was also the only competitor in that match that didn’t do some lame booty shake as one of her moves.  It’s not a stripping competition people, come on now.  The match ended with something that would never happen in the real world; teeny Maria pinning Phoenix.  Really?  REALLY?

Anyway, back to the real events:  Team Johnny versus Team Teddy was up next, the winning team would determine the new general manager for both Raw and Smackdown.  Team Johnny consisted of my favorite, Mark Henry, and 5 other guys I can’t stand, including Dolph Ziggler and the shaved gorilla Jack Swagger.  I was pulling for Team Teddy and their captain, Santino.  The tag team match had competitors quickly entering and leaving the ring, very high energy.  Finally, Team Teddy knocked most of Team Johnny to the ground outside of the ring and Zack Ryder of Team Teddy was close to victory but stopped to do his Woo Woo Woo with hoeski, Eve.  The Miz took advantage of the distraction and won the match for Team Johnny.  It was a let down for sure, but my husband says it makes business sense.  I still don’t like it.

The match I probably cared the least about, other than the divas, was next; CM Punk against Chris Jericho and his lite brite jacket.  Jericho had been attacking Punk’s family for weeks, saying his sister is a drug addict and his father a drunk, that Punk is a bastard because he was conceived out of wedlock.  It was a set of arguments you would expect from a group of 5th graders out on the playground.  A rule was set that if CM Punk was disqualified, he would lose his title to Jericho, so naturally the taunts got worse.  Jericho started out dominant, but Punk gained the upper hand and Jericho was forced to tap out.  I was glad he won only because Jericho annoys the hell out of me.

Then this happened:

Finally, The Rock has come back to Wrestlemania!  The once in a lifetime match between two of the most charismatic men in the business.  After their tag team match against The Miz and R-Truth, the tension has been rising and the feud between these two Superstars has been heating up.  Cena mocked The Rock for leaving the WWE to become a movie star, Rock called Cena a bowl of fruity pebbles, which resulted in him ended up on a box of cereal.  The Rock won the war of words many times over but the feud continued strong in preparation for Wrestlemania.  The match was very 50/50; one would gain the upper hand but the other would soon turn it around.  This was the match that Cena said he couldn’t lose, as once it’s over, he’ll still be here and he’ll lost credibility with a loss.  The Rock also couldn’t lose; how can he come back and say things haven’t changed and then choke at Wrestlemania?  There was so much riding on each of their shoulders, both determined to pull a victory out and show the world that all their words have been truthful.  Unfortunately for Cena, he was wrestling The Rock.  When The Rock wants something, it’s his, and this match was his with an amazing victory to end the night.

This was actually my first Wrestlemania and I loved it.  I’m planning to get there next year, somehow, because I want to be a part of the excitement first hand.  We’ll be saving this on our DVR for quite a while.  On a sidenote, the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards aired on March 31st and at the end, Santino referees a match between The Big Show and The Miz.  Check it out if you get a chance.