Lance Storm offered his thoughts on WrestleMani 27. Credit: www.stormwrestling.com Mania XXVII: Prediction Results
April 5, 2011
As mentioned in my earlier commentary I had a 48 percent prediction accuracy rate going into this show, and last years performance was by far my worst yet at only 20%. So let’s see how I did.
Edge vs. Alberto Del Rio: I picked Del Rio to win this match, as did many people and in the end Edge retained the title so I’m off to a horrible start. I did really enjoy it however finding it to be the second best match on the show. Being the Monday morning booker I think this finish was a mistake in that Miz retained as well, and with only two title matches on the show fans didn’t get a single title change on the show. To me WrestleMania should have some significant news coming out of it and with only two titles on the line and neither of them changing hands there wasn’t a lot that was news worthy coming out of this show. I’m 0-1 right out of the gate.
Rey Mysterio vs. Cody Rhodes: I thought Rhodes would pick up the win here and thankfully Cody didn’t let me down. I thought they told a great story with this match and I enjoyed it a lot. Batting 500 now: 1-1
The Corre vs Kane, Show, Santino, Kofi: This match changed slightly from when I made my prediction (Kofi rather than Koslov) but I was still figuring Corre would pick up the win here, and I was wrong. Not much of a match but what can you do with only a couple minutes? At least Heath Slater took an awesome bump for Show’s knock out punch. I’m now 1-2.
C.M. Punk vs. Randy Orton: Another bad prediction for me as I picked Punk and he ate a huge RKO and was pinned by Randy. I thought they told a good story and I was into it and enjoyed it. I think I need to just start picking baby faces across the board; I’d do a lot better. Down to 1-3 and I’m dying a slow painful death.
Jerry Lawler vs. Michael Cole: I wasn’t expecting Savage-Steamboat going in but I did not expect it to be this bad either. Everything before Swagger cut Jerry off was good, as was everything after Lawler made his comeback, but my God Cole’s offense was painful to watch. I hated the reversal of the decision in the match too. To me it made me feel Cole got the last laugh so nothing was settled here. While that can be good, when you combine that with no title changes, not much was settled at Mania making it feel like a non-news worthy event. If not for Taker and HHH a fairly miss able WrestleMania. Since the win was reversed I’m 1-4.
Undertaker vs. HHH: I’ve heard a few people criticize this match for being just big moves and kick outs, but I disagree. For me this match totally worked. They created great drama and emotion and I was completely into this match and with the 18 year build to the story it was made to feel epic. HHH hitting the Tombstone actually made me second guess my prediction, great job by both guys. The facial expressions and body language in this match were pure art. Best match on the show. I picked Taker and he came through for me so I’m up to 2-4.
Trish, Snooki, Morrison vs. Lay Cool & Ziggler: Boy this was short and rushed. Were Layla, Morrison or Ziggler ever even legally in the match? Baby faces picked up the win so I pick up another one: 3-4
The Miz vs. John Cena: I picked Cena, and Miz ended up with his hand raised so I missed another one. I was not a fan of this match. I don’t know this for a fact but I would hazard to guess that both the video packages and the ring entrances were longer than the bell to bell ring time of this match, for sure combined they were. Not a fan of the double screw job finishes in the main event but I guess when you want to end the show with Rock they were kind of stuck. I end up 3-5, not good but slightly better than last year.
As an over all show I was disappointed. I thought the long breaks between matches with Backstage skits, all the video packages, and commercials, the show lost that big event atmosphere. The arena looked and felt so cool but with all the breaks the show ended up feeling more like a big episode of RAW. The backstage stuff never felt like backstage at the event to me they felt like video packages, I’m not sure why. The commercials really annoyed me too; I paid $55 to watch this show and had to put up with commercials for Tough Enough, the next PPV, and worst of all The History of WrestleMania DVD. Perhaps if this stuff was spread out differently I wouldn’t have noticed so much but they felt detached from the event and the breaks between matches felt longer than some of the matches. Can’t give the show a thumbs down mind you, there were 3 matches I really like, and I loved the HHH – Undertaker match, so I thumbs up based solely on those, but all in all the show was below my expectations.
So the final accuracy count I managed a 38% prediction rate, up from last year but still below my all time average. Let the record show:
Mania 22: 63%
Mania 23: 63%
Mania 24: 44%
Mania 25: 50%
Mania 26: 20%
Mania 27: 38%
Average: 46%
Lance Storm
