In the mid 80s, the WWE utilized the help of MTV to make their product cool. It’s not like wrestling hadn’t been popular before, and I’m sure to many, going to wrestling matches was the thing to do in certain cities across America. But with the expansion of cable TV, WWE was able to latch onto certain pop culture phenoms like Cyndi Lauper and Mr. T to expand their fanbase. They called that generation, Rock & Wrestling.

But other than the help of MTV and a couple of actual wrestling records produced with actual wrestlers on the mic, there wasn’t much rock about it. Hulk Hogan could strum the guitar a little bit, but Roddy Piper’s actual skill in playing the bagpipes wasn’t necessarily rock & roll. Some twenty five years later, an actual wrestler defined the rock & wrestling connection. That man is Chris Jericho.

Jericho’s second book, Undisputed: How To Become The World Champion In 1,372 Easy Steps isn’t the same type of wrestling book that his first autobiography was. A Lion’s Tale: Around The World In Spandex was his journey in the crazy world of professional wrestling, from growing up as a huge fan of wrestling to becoming one of the most entertaining and underrated wrestlers of the mid-to-late 90s. Undisputed picks up right where that book left off, with his arrival into WWE as Y2J, aka The Millennium Man.

While the wrestling fan in me absorbed every nook and cranny of the inside world of Jericho’s WWE career, I did feel a little disconnected from the rock & roll part of his career. Jericho is the lead vocalist for his band Fozzy, which started out as the cover band Fozzy Ozbourne. Jericho pretended to be Mongoose McQueen and while the band was a real band, it was more of a fun hobby and artistic expression than second career. I’m not a fan of Fozzy or really a fan of Fozzy’s style of music, and that’s probably why I felt a bit disconnected. It might’ve also been because I wanted to read more about his WWE career. However, the Fozzy portions of the book are very entertaining because Jericho has a true passion for his music career. In fact, while Jericho obviously loves entertaining wrestling fans, you kind of get the idea that he has just as much fun, or maybe even more fun entertaining Fozzy fans.
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WWE did many things right for WrestleMania 26 that they incorrectly at WrestleMania 25. The show was built around the same match – Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker. But for WrestleMania 26, rather than try to sell the title matches as the main event like they did at 25, they decided to put Shawn Micheals vs. The Undertaker on last and let them close it out.

They booked two strong title matches before the main event and overall, this was a very strong show. But there was one thing missing that is very apparent from the second you turn on the show. And it didn’t hurt my live viewing so I didn’t even know about it until I watched it back. What’s missing is Jim Ross.

The announcing was so subdued on this show that I barely noticed it. Sometimes that isn’t a bad thing. You can let the wrestling speak for itself. But at WrestleMania, nothing can be subdued. Everything has to be up another level. And without Jim Ross, the announcing took this show down a level. Live, I thought it was much better than it came across on the DVD. The announcing crew of Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, and Matt Striker were off their game. Striker was stepping over Lawler’s punchlines and Cole was just pushing everything as positive which came off fake. If JR was there announcing, it might’ve made it one of the classic WrestleManias of all time.

For the most part, all the matches made complete and perfect sense. Like what happens at most WrestleManias, many matches were cut short on time. If some of the matches had more time, they could’ve been all-time classics. But, in a four hour show, you can’t have all classics. All the matches have to give the viewer and the audience something a little bit different. And WrestleMania 26 did this very well.

For your die-hard in-ring wrestling fans, Edge and Chris Jericho had a near 4 star quality match. Live, it was definitely 4 stars, but back on DVD it wasn’t as hot. I’m not exactly sure why. The finish, where Jericho won clean with the code-breaker was fine live, but seemed a bit anticlimactic on DVD. Also, after the match, when Edge speared Jericho off the announcer’s table and through the barricade, it was awesome live, and on the DVD, was just a fun stunt.
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Right before WrestleMania 25, I started writing reports of the build-up to the show based on the television shows, Raw and Smackdown starting with the Raw after Royal Rumble. Thus, I remember many things about the planning of this show, such as one of the original goals of the Chris Jericho vs. The Legends match was supposed to feature Mickey Rourke in an in-ring role. I remember the Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy storytelling that left a bitter taste in my mouth when they started to bring real life into the angle, but push it in a tasteless way. I also remember that the main event between Triple H and Randy Orton had a chance to be great, but the build was so up and down, it wasn’t on fire like it should’ve been.

In ten years, people will remember this show for two things. The first thing is the Undertaker and Shawn Michaels match that had the entire building rocking. I’ve been to very few live events where the building was rumbling as loudly as it was, which is a credit to both guys because in large stadiums, the sound goes upward and can be muted a bit. And if they remember a second thing (and they may not), it will be that Stone Cold Steve Austin was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame that same weekend.

Actually, when Austin was announced with the other Hall of Famers and then drove his four wheeler towards the ring and drank beer, it was the second loudest pop in the building. Both of those moments dwarfed the main event. By the time Triple H walked out for his match with Randy Orton, the fans were sitting on their hands. That’s not exactly the way you want your main event to be presented.

The Money In The Bank match was really good live, but it doesn’t come across as well on DVD. It was awe-inspiring to see guys gracefully fly in the air in person, but the actual up-close camera work hurts the visual. There was uncertainty as to who was going to win the actual match and receive a future title shot, but the crowd was clearly behind Christian. Instead, CM Punk won the match and all of a sudden, the wonder was if he’d cash in his title shot if Edge won his title match.
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If anyone asked me my worries about the new WWE WrestleMania DVD before I had actually watched it, I would’ve said that since it was produced by them and they get to tell their own story, it would be filled with errors and lies that became WWE truths over the years. And I would’ve been right. But I would’ve been incorrect about what parts of the DVD were good, and which parts of the DVD that simply came across as unimportant.

The story starts from before the original WrestleMania, when Vince McMahon decided to go national with his dad’s once territorial product. It’s very similar to the story they’ve told of going national on other DVDs, with very little insight, other than Vince saying that his father wouldn’t have liked him going national.

Guys like Jerry Lawler, Vince himself, Howard Finkel, and Mean Gene Okerlund are there to talk about some of the earlier WrestleManias, but the story loses all credibility immediately when Okerlund tells that old myth that before Vince McMahon took wrestling national, shows were in old armories and not in arenas. Also, Jerry Lawler talks glowingly about the early days of WrestleMania, when it was well known that he was anti-WWF in those days and tried to keep his Memphis region going for as long as possible. Lawler, specifically, just looks like he’s picking up a pay check because you don’t believe a word he’s saying. Finkel, McMahon, and Okerlund were there, so at the very least, what they say has some validity. Jerry Brisco, who you’d expect to lie, did say that closed circuit TV was a new thing when Vince was doing it, even though boxing had been doing it for years.

The story starts to go in order from the first WrestleMania. But somewhere along the way, they just decided to not really tell the story in the order of the shows. I’m not sure if they didn’t have the time or if it wasn’t all that exciting, but some of the biggest WrestleManias ever, including X7 were barely more than an afterthought, while some bad WrestleManias like XI were given more time because of the celebrity involved. The Hulk Hogan WrestleManias were shown as much bigger than the Steve Austin and Rock lead Manias and some of it made sense. If not for Hogan and Vince, WrestleMania and WWF would’ve never taken off. But it’s sort of alarming at how Austin and Rock are made to look like lesser stars than Hogan. Maybe Vince just remembers some of those shows more memorably.

They show WrestleMania 2, which was live in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York as a failure, but WrestleMania III is shown in a bright light. There’s a lot of time invested on that show, which is still remembered as one of the biggest shows they’ve ever done. The Hulk Hogan/Andre The Giant main event story was told well, with Andre looking like the biggest attraction and most respected wrestler ever. Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan both said that Hogan was so nervous before the match because they didn’t know how well Andre would cooperate. Surprising to me, they also gave a lot of time to Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage, which was the actual match that stole the show.
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John Cena is the most charismatic wrestler in WWE. He performs in front of tens of thousands of fans every week wrestling in the ring, talking on the microphone, and sometimes doing horrendous skits written by WWE writers whose sense of comedy is geared towards making five-year-olds laugh.

Thus, if anyone could follow in The Rock’s footsteps into Hollywood, it would probably be John Cena. However, there’s a difference between Cena and Rock. The Rock tried to stay in wrestling while working a light Hollywood schedule, but once Rock started to get bigger parts and Hollywood people gave him the good advice that he should get far away from WWE so that whenever something bad happened to the company his name wouldn’t linked, his appearances became few and far between. Now? He may make one appearance for the company a year. It’s still in his blood, but business-wise, it was the right move to completely leave them behind.

Cena is different. Cena doesn’t want to leave wrestling. He actually has used Rock’s decision as a way to show how much he still loves wrestling. He could try his hand at Hollywood full time and make a go of it, but he’d rather continue doing what he’s doing. I’m sure that makes Vince McMahon happy.

But part of what made Rock’s transition work so well is that he put all of his effort into acting. Cena won’t do that, and that’s probably the reason he’ll never be a big movie star. He’s has a pretty good look, a good name, and realistically comes across as a possible action star, but his acting skills haven’t improved much since his first movie, The Marine, which came out a couple of years ago. And the fact of the matter is (I’m channeling my inner WWE cliche phrasing here), it won’t unless he gives up more time in the ring for being in front of the camera.

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IBF super bantamweight champion, Steve Molitor (33-1), made it four wins from four in the UK after successfully defending his title with a majority decision over Jason “2 Smooth” Booth (35-6). The three judges scored the fight 116-112, 116-113 and 114-114. I gave it to Moitor by 2 points.
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