WWE WrestleMania 22 Review (Part 2)

WWE WrestleMania 22
April 2, 2006
Rosemont, Illinois

The biggest show of the year features a stacked card with championships and personal bragging rights on the line. John Cena faces his biggest challenge yet as he defends his WWE Championship against Triple H in the main event. Rey Mysterio must tackle both Kurt Angle and Randy Orton to earn his first World Heavyweight Championship and Shawn Michaels looks to put an end to his personal beef with Vince McMahon.

Match 6: WWE Women's Championship - Trish Stratus (c) vs. Mickie James
We don't talk about this feud enough, super underrated feud of this era. I know nobody likes to really look back at the Ruthless Aggression Era for the Divas but you have to talk about these two and their feud leading into WrestleMania. Mickie James' admiration for Trish Stratus slowly turned into a crush on her before she finally kissed her and turned on her before their match here. James did a great job of working on the left leg of Trish throughout the match and finally capping it off by driving her into the ropes off the top rope. James was able to hit Trish with her own Chick Kick to seal the big win. Great match with a great finish that unfortunately felt a little underwhelming due to a poor reaction from both the crowd and the commentators. Regardless, great call to have the heel leave with a championship.
Winner: Mickie James
Rating: ***

Match 7: Casket Match - Mark Henry vs. The Undertaker
First time a Casket Match is ever taking place at a WrestleMania as Mark Henry looks to snap the undefeated streak of The Undertaker. As you would expect, a fairly short match here but certainly one that didn't really need to go any longer than it did. Henry was physical from the start and was handling The Deadman pretty well until Undertaker turned the tides. Once Undertaker was able to hit a Last Ride from the corner, the match was pretty much in the bag. Undertaker was able to hit an impressive Tombstone on Henry and rolled him into the casket right after to win the match and keep his streak alive. Good match for what it was and a remarkable finish that had the crowd on their feet with that Tombstone. They didn't need to go over 20 minutes and drag this out, they went in for a little over 10 minutes and gave us a match that was great for what it was. Not every match has to tear the house down.
Winner: The Undertaker
Rating: **3/4

Match 8: No Holds Barred Match - Shawn Michaels vs. Mr. McMahon
If you've never seen the match between Shawn Michaels and Shane McMahon on Saturday Night's Main Event leading into this, do yourselves a favor and do so! Such an underrated match and a fantastic way to lead into this one. Loved the start to this match that had Mr. McMahon confidently march his way to the ring and pose with his Muscle & Fitness magazine cover before Michaels drilled him over the head with it. Of course, McMahon tried every trick in the bag by bringing out the Spirit Squad and Shane out for help. Michaels was able to easily take them out of the equation along with handcuffing Shane to the bottom rope outside the ring. Hilarious moment came when Michaels shoved Shane's face into the rear side of Vince while Vince was laughing thinking it was Shawn's face. Once Michaels busted McMahon open, it was pretty much a wrap. Michaels landed an elbow from the top of a tall ladder through McMahon on a table. Oh, and McMahon had a trashcan covering him the whole time. Finally, Michaels delivers a hard Sweet Chin Music to wrap up the match. Afterwards, McMahon flips off the camera as he is rolled out in a stretcher. Great match that really shows off how deep Michaels' range is with who he is able to work with in the ring. Their feud would stretch out for a few more months with Michaels eventually reuniting with Triple H later in the summer. However, I really thought that this would be the perfect ending.
Winner: Shawn Michaels
Rating: ***1/2

Match 9: WWE World Heavyweight Championship - Kurt Angle (c) vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton
Rey Mysterio won the 2006 Royal Rumble to score his opportunity for the World Heavyweight Championship while Randy Orton inserted himself into the match with a win over Mysterio at No Way Out a month later. Finally, here we are. Mysterio's career is set to culminate with the biggest match of his life. Unfortunately for him, the spoiled Chicago crowd was more interested in having Kurt Angle retain his gold. Even still, this match was packed with tons of action from the start of the match to the very end. Angle was a suplexing machine as he was tossing the two around like toys while the crowd kept eating it up. Loved the spot of Angle hitting a German suplex on both Orton and Mysterio that had Mysterio flying in the air. Mysterio was later able to escape an Angle Slam and toss Angle out of the ring before hitting a 619 on Orton to secure the incredible win. Had this match gone another five or so minutes, I really think we could have been looking at an all-time classic. Instead, it was just less than ten minutes and things felt so damn rushed. However, the match was still super fun to watch and a great chapter in the epic book of Rey Mysterio. But damn, Angle was such a beast at this time.
Winner: Rey Mysterio
Rating: ***1/4

Match 10: Playboy Pillow Fight Match - Candice Michelle vs. Torrie Wilson
So we need something to bridge the gap between the two biggest matches on the card... and we get this. There is a bed in the middle of the ring as these two start the match off in dresses before losing them down to their bra and panties. Torrie Wilson scores the win by rolling up Candice Michelle. That was bad... really bad. Either way, on to the main event.
Winner: Torrie Wilson
Rating: 1/4*

Match 11: WWE Championship - John Cena (c) vs. Triple H
This is the first singles contest between the two hottest stars in the company and in my opinion, they gave us one of the most underrated main evens in WrestleMania history. Loved the build to this match, Triple H was clamoring over having the easiest challenge of his WrestleMania career with the newer and younger John Cena not backing down from the challenge. By this point, we had seen Cena have to go through guys like JBL, Kurt Angle, Edge and Chris Jericho, but nobody like The Game. Jim Ross was at his best on commentary, doing a fantastic job throughout the match as building the narrative of Cena being outmatched for this and letting the viewers know that him falling to somebody as rugged and experienced as Triple H was a strong possibility. The Chicago crowd was hot for this match as they were booing Cena out of the building and both men in the ring were eating it up and milking it for every drip that they could. With the crowd being so hot, they didn't have to give us flashy spots or anything but instead had a slower paced match that would gradually pick up until Cena nearly fell to a sledgehammer hit after a referee bump. From there, Cena was able to hit an FU before locking Triple H in an STFU. Crowd was on the edge as Cena applied the hold before Triple H had no choice but to tap. If there was any doubt, this showed why Cena was not only the face of the company, but simply the right choice to be the face of the company. He works at his finest with hostile crowds against him and he really knows how to play with the crowd, even here when he was just reaching his peak. I can't believe how overlooked this match gets, every nearfall was convincing and every spot was so nicely calculated. The only reason I don't give this ***** is because I feel like it could have gone a couple minutes longer but then again, this had me itching for the rematch immediately after this. Apparently, a rematch was in the works for next year's WrestleMania before Triple H eventually went down with an injury. Regardless, fantastic match and a perfect one to kick start Cena's WrestleMania main event belt.
Winner: John Cena
Rating: ****3/4

Overall Show Thoughts and Rating:
This was personally one of my favorite WrestleManias ever. It flowed nicely from the very beginning and you get your mix of different styles of wrestling. While this certainly isn't the best WrestleMania in terms of wrestling quality, it's certainly up there as one of the most fun ones ever. There might be a couple bad matches on here but it's nothing that truly takes away from the rest of the card.
Rating: 8.5/10