Welcome once again to the Oracle‘s revisit of Wrestlemania. This is part 2 and today marks the 18th and 13th anniversary of Wrestlemania‘s 19 and 24. Wrestlemania 19 is considered one of the last good Wrestlemania‘s and I have to disagree. It’s good but it’s definitely not the last. I would say, the 20th anniversary is the last good one from beginning to end. 19 was good but there was a few matches I could live without. As for 24, I just recently rewatched it and wow, it wasn’t really that good. For now, let’s head down to Wrestlemania 19 live from Safeco Field in the town of my favorite teams, Seahawks and Mariners, Seattle.
So Wrestlemania 19 is known as the Wrestlemania with 4 main events. Rock vs Austin 3, Hogan vs McMahon, Brock Lesnar vs Kurt Angle and Triple H vs Booker T. Right here alone is half the card and all these matches were good. Besides these matches we also had my favorite wrestler, Chris Jericho take on Shawn Michaels in what is also considered one of the best Wrestlemania matches. So before I get into it, let’s recap some stuff. This event sets a new record for the stadium and Limp Bizkit performs the theme song for the event and Undertaker‘s entrance. Now that is out of the way, let’s talk about the matches. This is one of my favorite Wrestlemania‘s due to 3 matches which I’ll talk about in a little bit. First match to kick off the event was Rey Mysterio vs Matt Hardy who I believe doing his best gimmick of his career, Version 1 defending his Cruiserweight Title and successfully retaining after some underhanded tactics. The second match. 2nd match of the card was once again a lackluster Undertaker match that was supposed to be a tag match but turned into a handicap match against NXT and WWE Performance Center coach Matt Bloom aka A-Train teaming up with current AEW wrestler and commentator Paul Wight aka the Big Show in which Undertaker came out on top with a Tombstone Piledriver on A-Train. The next match on the card was a Triple Threat that involved my long time crush and favorite Women’s wrestler Trish Stratus capture the Women’s title from defending champ and future Hall of Famer Victoria and and current Impact Knockout, Jazz. Next up was a Triple Threat for the WWE Tag Titles where the reigning champs, Team Angle (Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin) successfully defended against the late Chris Benoit and current Impact wrestler Rhyno and Los Guerreros (Chavo Guerrero and the late great Hall of Famer and another favorite of mine who is on my Mount Rushmore of wrestling, Eddie Guerrero). The semi-main event saw a classic between Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels and future Hall of Famer and current AEW Demo God, Le Champion, Chris Jericho in which Shawn Michaels prevailed but saw Jericho low blow him after the match. If I could rank this match in the best Wrestlemania matches ever, this would rank around number 3 for me. A wrestling classic that truly showed Shawn didn’t miss a beat and was better than ever. As for Chris, really solidified him as one of the best and started cementing him as the GOAT. Match was a back and forth and for a moment thought Chris would win but in the end, Shawn prevailed and Jericho would cheap shot him afterwards. Have to love the heels in wrestling. Now with the undercard reviewed let’s go to the main events.
The first of 4 main events saw reigning World Heavyweight Champion Triple H successfully defend against number 1 contender, Hall of Famer Booker T in what one could say to the lead up of the match was very controversial. It wasn’t the first time the E, brought something up from someone’s past. If you go back 6 months prior, there’s a moment in WWE history that most fans found tasteless and hated and that was the angle with recently Hall of Fame inductee, the mayor of Knox County in Tennessee, Glen Jacobs aka Kane, involving his past and a dead girlfriend named Katie Vick. I won’t go into detail on that but you can find it on YouTube but anyways, they made Triple H bring up Booker T‘s past about him being a former criminal and stuff that really is pretty tasteless, but that’s WWE for ya. The match however was good but definitely not that great. However the next match was a long time coming and one of my favorite matches on this card and that was Hulk Hogan vs Vince McMahon in a Street Fight which saw an appearance of late Hall of Famer Roddy Piper hit Hogan with a steel pipe. Their was a stipulation in that if Hogan lost, he would have to retire but he didn’t and he would go on to triumph over McMahon in a match where both men were bloodied up good. The next match is another favorite and personally my favorite in the series, especially the lead up to it and that was The Rock vs Stone Cold where the Rock finally defeated his main rival in which we saw both superstars hit each other with their own finishers and Rock having to hit 3 Rock Bottoms to finally pin the Rattlesnake. The lead up to it was definitely entertaining because the Rock came back to the WWE after filming Scorpion King with a new gimmick that is considered his best gimmick, Hollywood Rock. With this gimmick, he would play guitar and run down his opponents and the city he was in, much how current superstar Elias would do. Definitely YouTube this and I guarantee you will laugh. Finally the final match was Brock Lesnar capturing the WWE Title from Hall of Famer Kurt Angle in what was a hard fought match where the aftermath resulted in Angle having to get surgery and Lesnar botching a Shooting Star Press. YouTube it and you’ll see how bad it was. You’ll be wondering how the hell did he not break his neck from it. Despite all that, the match is also considered a great one and definitely is worth watching. And that my friends is Wrestlemania 19 in a nutshell. Let’s go to 24.
Now don’t worry guys, this revisit won’t be long because there isn’t much to rave about. Let’s look at Wrestlemania 24. The notable moments here is Floyd “Money” Mayweather took on The Big Show, the legend, “Nature Boy” Ric Flair was retired and Kane making a Wrestlemania record by having the shortest match on the card when he captured the revived ECW‘s title from Chavo Guerrero. Now that you have the moments, let’s talk about the matches. You had Hall of Fame inductee JBL take on one of my favorites Finlay in a Belfast Brawl match which is pretty much a Street Fight where JBL won. The 4th Money In The Bank match where CM Punk won. An interpromotional match between Raw and Smackdown where we saw Batista representing Smackdown defeating Raw‘s representative, the late Umaga. As I stated above, Kane defeated Chavo. Another Wrestlemania classic and a very emotional one, which saw Shawn Michaels retire Ric Flair. A match where you saw Shawn struggle to end it because of the emotional attachment. More importantly, you really thought for a few moments Flair would win but it wasn’t meant to be and the “Nature Boy” lost. This was storytelling at it’s finest and what’s lacking in today’s wrestling. Next match is a Women’s Tag match where Hall of Famer Beth Phoenix and current NWA Women’s wrestler, Melina defeat former Playboy cover girls, the late Ashley Massarro and Maria Kanellis. Current star Randy Orton successfully defended his title in a Triple Threat that involved Hollywood star John Cena who will star in James Gunn‘s “The Suicide Squad” and Triple H. Orton retained by punting the head of Triple H after Triple H hit his finisher, the Pedigree on John Cena and Orton covered Cena. The attraction match as I stated above, Floyd Mayweather defeating the Big Show in a No Disqualification match and finally the main event, reigning World Heavyweight Champ and Hall of Famer, Edge lose his title to the Undertaker in which Edge tapped to Undertaker‘s new submission hold called the Hell’s Gate which in jujitsu is called a gogoplata. And that my friends sums up Wrestlemania 24. Told you it wasn’t that long.
So with that, I leave you be and once again if you managed to get this far, congratulations but more importantly thank you for taking the time to read. I’m just a fan that loves to talk about wrestling. I am the Shida Army General, the Joshi Prime Minister, your resident Amazon, The Oracle aka The Canary and I’m telling you, #StopAsianHate and #RememberHana and in general #EndHate, and remember One Love and Zero Miedo. Oracle out!
The Musical Hippie 