Wrestlemania 21 is only a few days away. From now until April 3, 2005, I will be posting reviews of every Wrestlemania prior, one through twenty. This review was originally posted at Epinions.com.

When you think of Wrestlemania X-8 in five years, you will remember one match, and only one match. You’ll be surprised to see that Edge had a match with Booker T which started because Edge swiped a commercial deal that Booker T thought he should’ve received. You’ll forget that there was Diamond Dallas Page’s one and only Wrestlemania match. And you’ll probably forget Chris Jericho was the first undisputed champion.

The match you will remember however is the one that pitted Hollywood Hulk Hogan vs. The Rock. Hogan had just come back to the WWF with his NWO cronies Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. McMahon overpaid them to come shake up the foundation of the WWF. He wanted them to “poison” his own creation as he was afraid that Ric Flair was ruining his promotion. That was the storyline. The real story was that McMahon, as always, wanted to bring in some surprises right before Wrestlemania, to make Mania the most talked about show of the year. However, what he should’ve known is that the NWO was so “five years ago” and that it wouldn’t work today unless it was brought back as a new idea. Hogan was accepted back by the fans, but Nash and Hall weren’t seen as anything more than just big old regular guys. And for what McMahon as paying them, it simply wasn’t working out. However, Hogan is a great manipulator and he positioned himself with a match against The Rock, who already had a great buzz on him as he was finishing up The Scorpion King. The initial build-up was excellent. Rock challenged Hogan and the audience was split on who they were cheering for. It was excellent television. The angle that happened afterward wasn’t as particularly memorable as they did one of those that disbands belief as they tried to sell that Rock was in the ambulance and Hogan, Nash and Hall were ramming the ambulance with a semi. When Rock returned several weeks later without a scratch, it showed the angle wasn’t taken very seriously.

However, the match, while not a great, or even good technical wrestling match, had the crowd mesmerized. It was two great showman in the ring, doing what they do best. That is manipulate the crowd. Hogan, knowing he had at least half of the crowd in his corner, did his best to try and take the rest of them even though he was the heel. Rock played the sympathetic babyface who felt the crowd turning and did a few things that a bad guy would do. Who cares who won the match? It was the ability by each guy to play to the crowd and make them either cheer louder, or boo louder based on their every move that was fantastic. In the end, The Rock won the match, but Hogan gained another year of shelf life. He turned face at the end, and thus Hulkamania was reborn, at least as far as the audience was concerned. Hogan can’t pop a rating or even mean all that much as far as a Pay Per View buy rate is concerned (and that will be tested this weekend), but he can still pop a crowd.

Oh No, Not The Vaunted Comeback!

The best match of the night was Chris Jericho defending his Undisputed Championship vs. HHH. The match wasn’t a 5-star classic by any means, but it was a solid match that had psychology and a meaning. Too bad they wasted two months making it Stephanie McMahon Helmsley vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Chris Jericho as champion should’ve been angled as someone who would stoop to every level to maintain his championship. However, they used him as Stephanie’s second fiddle and ruined what could’ve been a very good Wrestlemania main event. The finish was done well, and HHH took the gold.

The problem was that the match was so anti-climatic because the fans were spent after the Hogan vs. Rock match. The Hogan vs. Rock match should’ve went on last as the fans would’ve been into the more solid Jericho vs. HHH match had it not been right after Rock vs. Hogan.

The second best match of the night was probably Kurt Angle’s match with Kane. The story behind this match was that they held Kurt Angle back in case Scott Hall sabotaged his match against Steve Austin by doing Scott Hall like things, such as getting fired. However, when Scott Hall abided by all the rules and was a decent citizen, they had to go with Angle in a hurried match with Kane. Kane is one of the better big guys in the ring, only because he’s fairly athletic, and Angle, being the best guy going, pulled off a decent match and won. Looking back, I wished that Hall would’ve been fired because Austin vs. Angle at Wrestlemania, would’ve made this show much better.

Speaking of the Stone Cold match with Scott Hall; this was one of those “straws that broke the camel’s back” as originally Hall was supposed to go over in the match, but Austin balked and they changed the finish. Austin wasn’t all that happy anyway as he no showed the next Raw show because of being burnt out. Maybe they should’ve put Hall over, or maybe they shouldn’t have even considered it, probably putting more pressure on Austin, and it could’ve had something to do with him feeling disrespected and quitting. I couldn’t imagine Scott Hall going over Steve Austin unless this was 1985 in the AWA.

Another of the “big” matches was “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair vs. The Undertaker. The entire build up consisted of The Undertaker as the heel, beating up Flair, who was the face part owner of the company. Sort of a reverse of when Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince McMahon were having their program in the late nineties. However, The Undertaker simply wouldn’t sell for the greatest champion of our day and it was a mess. The match consisted of The Undertaker beating up Flair, while Flair would once in a while get a nice comeback, and then the Taker would kill him again. In this type of match, Flair needed to win based on the story. You had this ex-champion who is a living legend fighting for his life against this huge heel with a reputation for not losing. And nope, The Undertaker couldn’t do the job for the living legend. The match went way too long and Flair jobbed out.

The opener consisted of Rob Van Dam in a match for the Intercontinental Championship beating William Regal in a mix mash of styles that simply didn’t work at all. RVD hit the 5-star Frog Splash to win the belt, so the fans at least got off to a happy start. However, the rest of the show wasn’t as happy. The tag team Fatal Four Way was disappointing as the WWF was building up Chuck and Billy at the time, only they’re the worst workers of a group including the Hardys, the Dudleys, and APA. When you’re worse than APA, you’re worse than bad. The Woman’s title match was decent, but got really sloppy at times and Jazz pinned Lita to retain her belt in a three-way match that also had the lovely Trish Stratus.

Overall, the PPV was not one of Wrestlemania’s best. But as sometimes happens, even though the show has been called The Granddaddy of Them All, it can be pretty average.

Results
RVD defeated William Regal to win the Intercontinental title
DDP defeated Christian to keep his European title
Spike Dudley defeated Maven to win the Hardcore title, even though Golddust was fighting Maven. The title eventually went back to Maven at the end of the night
Kurt Angle defeated Kane
Undertaker defeated Ric Flair
Edge defeated Booker T
Stone Cold Steve Austin defeated Scott Hall
Billy and Chucky defeated The Hardys, The Dudleys, and APA to keep their Tag Team titles
The Rock defeated Hollywood Hulk Hogan
Jazz defeated Lita and Trish Stratus to keep her Women’s title
Triple H defeated Chris Jericho to win the Undisputed Championship

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