How to fix wrestling...

So I'm sitting here at work bored (long story short, the TV station I work for is airing the Olympics in practically round the clock coverage, which means most employees get this week off and our programming is pre-empted save for a one hour show between 6-7pm) and thought I'd toss in a DVD of Wrestlemania X7 to pass some of the time, specifically the main event between without question the top two modern era performers, The Rock and Stone Cold. While I've seen the match before once or twice, not to mention the live airing of it back in 2001, I've never fully absorbed the match or the atmosphere like I did today.

And damned if that wasn't one of the most entertaining matches I've ever watched. The entire night the company was working in rarified air with very few misfires on the entire lineup, the one match I refuse to sit through being that joke of a women's title match (Chyna v. Ivory for anyone interested). Everything else on the show is at least watchable, with the TLC match and main event simply in a class by itself. Anyone who laments over the state of today's wrestling should immediately throw on this PPV, you'll feel a whole lot better. The passing of time has given a bit of new perspective to the show, it's considered by many to be the pinnacle of the Attitude Era of the WWF(E) and/or one of the greatest single wrestling events of all time.

Rock and Stone Cold may not have been the greatest in terms of straight-up workrate (though Austin's earlier days he could hang with the best in pure wrestling ability), but as better people than I have said time and time again, they were simply the two biggest names in the modern wrestling boom period. Their first WM match (XV) was pretty good, and their last one (XIX) was more of a self-parody to be perfectly honest given Austin's state of health, but the X7 match is simply unbeatable. Unlike the way Steamboat-Savage is revered as the very best in the 1980's wrestling boom for the WWF, or the Flair-Steamboat series for the NWA in the 80's, Rock-Austin from Mania X7 will probably split popular opinion with one or two other matches, most likely Bret-Austin from Mania 13.

What puts this match over the top for me is the overall atmosphere, the big show feeling you get from simply the surroundings and the look of the arena. The three-storey 'tron, the stadium full of people with the cool blue lighting, it all combines to make for an unforgettable match. While Austin-Bret is technically superior for the wrestling, and historically could be more important since it led to Austin's scorching hot face run, WM13 was a total flop in nearly every match but that one. And frankly, it had less of that 'big feeling' of any other Wrestlemanias I've ever seen. Small arena, terrible card, and the crowd didn't really add much (Want to prove me wrong, Chicago? WM22's just over a month away. Surprise me.) to the show either.

Something else that really stood out to me in the X7 match was the announcing. Paul Heyman and JR didn't get nearly as much credit for their duration as the main announce team in 2001. It was before JR became a total self-parody, and Heyman added a sense of legitimacy and history that I haven't seen since, at least until Joey Styles came aboard this past fall (but that's a story for another time). Heyman somehow managed to play the heel announcer role while at the same time calling what he saw down the middle. I'm glad to see he's tearing it up as the OVW booker, but a big part of me wishes he'd come back up to the main show as the Raw GM if Bischoff is truly gone.

The bottom line to this post is simple. If the WWE really wanted to fix its problems with the current product, they could learn a lot by going back into their archives to check out this show. I fear it's a bit late for WM22 since they're stuck on auto-pilot with one of the first "top five match" cards I've ever seen for a Mania (rumored to be HHH-Cena, Angle-Orton, Taker-Henry, Vince-Shawn, and Edge-Foley which is the only of the five I have any interest at all in... IF I get the show at all), but as always I'll hold out hope that the E will right its course and sometime in the near future come back to being that "can't miss television" it once had.

It's pretty simple as I see it:

-easy, clear-cut storylines for EVERBODY, not just the top 4 guys on each brand.

-matches people actually want to see, not so-called dream matches that won't help either guy or involve 60 year old men.

-bring back meaning to the belts. Whether it means ditch some of them, combine them, have them transfer back and forth between shows, just stop using them as nothing more than a prop.

-if you use legends, USE THEM PROPERLY. Don't bring them back for the sole purpose of being humiliated (Hacksaw, two weeks ago), a punchline (Hawksaw, Royal Rumble) or to humiliate a current member of the roster (Rob Conway, WWE Homecoming). If they don't have a legitimate reason to be there (HoF is a GREAT way to use them), STOP INVITING THEM.

-No more Undertaker. I can't stress this enough. Give him a desk job. PR work. Road agent. Anything at all to get him off my screen and out of the ring, because every time I even hear the name it ruins the show for me. He's somehow evolved to the previously unheard of level beyond self-parody, all the way to "walking enjoyment euthenasia". He ruins any career he comes into contact with these days, he drags down every match he's in, and he hasn't been entertaining to me since his heel run in 2002 which in itself was a last gasp. No, that's not entirely true. His Summerslam 2004 match with JBL led to a great deal of entertainment for me... when the entire arena became more focused on doing the WAVE than the match going on in the ring. THAT was entertaining. I don't want to see him do the zombie situp. I don't want to see him do Old School. I don't want to see him shoot lightning bolts out of his hands. I just don't want to see him.

Well, wasn't expecting quite a rant when I started doing this. Not bad for a DVD that'll turn 5 years old soon.