WrestleMania XXVIII results and fallout, the return of Brock Lesnar and the death of a former WWWF star who spent four decades in the wrestling business are three of the news headlines this week In This Corner.
WWE announced a Sun Life Stadium record live attendance of 78,363 and a company record gate of 8.9 million dollars for this year's Mania extravaganza. Somebody from the media also was reported to have said the pay-per-view buy rate was expected to approach an incredible 1.9 million. It is too early to really have a handle on the ppv numbers, and the stadium attendance could easily be fudged a bit, but suffice it to say that things went pretty well down in Miami last weekend.
The WWE production crew deserves a tremendous amount of credit for the absolutely incredible aura that has been created for the spectacle. The camera work, lighting, video packages, pyro and overall production values were second to none. Despite having to be physically and mentally exhausted from the myriad demands on their time and energy leading up to the big event, the wrestlers also came through in terms of performance, timing and execution.
The three-way tag team title match was relegated to the pre-show and saw Primo and Epico retain the belts over the USOs and the tandem of Justin Gabriel and Tyson Kidd. Lilian Garcia then did a rousing rendition of America the Beautiful to officially kick off WrestleMania.
After only eighteen seconds, the pasty-skinned Irishman Sheamus pinned Daniel Bryan following the Brogue Kick to win the world heavyweight championship. Not too many people were happy with the brevity of the bout. Many fans were hoping Bryan would have a lot longer to showcase his considerable wrestling talents on the biggest stage of the year.
Kane defeated Randy Orton cleanly with a chokeslam in the night's biggest surprise finish. Have to keep things from getting too predictable and nobody was picking Kane, so Vince obviously did. Could the finish have had anything to do with the removal of Orton from the making of Marine 3? That is way inside and has to do with Orton's real life issues from several years back.
Big Show dispatched Cody Rhodes with a big punch to capture the Intercontinental title. Maria Menounos worked a diva tag match despite injured ribs from her dancing escapades and pinned Beth Phoenix in a tag match with Kelly Kelly backing Maria and Eve Torres working with Phoenix. A slimmed down version of Jim Ross came out to do the announcing duties for the Triple H-Undertaker Hell In A Cell bout.
The duo really tore things up and lived up to the hype in a contest billed as an End of An Era. Shawn Michaels played the role of impartial referee, equally concerned about the welfare of two enormously respected veterans who refused to quit despite the punishment meter going off the charts with brutal chairshots, the use of a sledgehammer, a couple of Hell's Gate submission attempts and the eventual tombstone piledriver that resulted in Taker's streak going to 20 and 0 at WM.
Team Johnny took the measure of Team Teddy in a historic 12-man tag match when Zack Ryder got a little overconfident and allowed the Miz to take advantage and score the pinfall on him that gave Mr. Lauranaitis control of Raw and Smackdown.
C.M. Punk and Chris Jericho was a match for the WWE title that had been built over a personal grudge, but started somewhat slowly before eventually bringing the crowd back to a frenzy with several near falls, clever counter maneuvers and submission attempts before Punk finally forced Y2J to tap to the Anaconda Vice. It was really some of the best wrestling of the night late in their match.
The Rock came out to quite the hometown ovation and put on a bit of a short wrestling clinic in the early stages of his main event bout with John Cena. They went about 30 minutes, which was pretty ambitious considering how long it has been since Rock wrestled. Rock scored the pinfall after a Rock-bottom and his victory set off the fireworks culminating another wildly successful WrestleMania.
The very next night at Raw, Cena was calling out the Rock at the end of the show to shake his hand and congratulate him on his victory, but out came Brock Lesnar to the delight of the fans packing the arena in Miami. Cena extended his hand to shake Lesnar's, but Lesnar grabbed Cena and hoisted him up onto his shoulders and unceremoniously dumped Cena as the crowd roared its approval and the WWE symbol appeared on the screen to end the show.
Chief Jay Strongbow
Joe Scarpa, better known to wrestling fans as Chief Jay Strongbow, passed away this past Tuesday at the age of 83. The Chief had a long and storied grappling career that spanned several decades and he worked for WWE as a road agent after his active wrestling days had come to an end. His career was successful enough to have merited an obituary in the New York Times and that was likely due to his many bouts at Madison Square Garden over the years where he was often the number two babyface on the card during the championship years of Bruno Sammartino and Pedro Morales.
We will take a more extensive look at the career of Strongbow here next week.
(Shamokin's Bill Gilger "arranges" the interview each week with The Insider)