I haven’t followed wrestling in years. Actually before I was a coaster dork, I was a wrestling dork – even doing a bit of work on the western PA indy scene in the mid 90′s.

The last few months I’ve found myself stopping on WWE Raw for bits and pieces on Monday evenings for lack of better programming on TV…plus my son is just at that age where it all seems cool, so it’s funny to watch parts of it with him.

So over the past few weeks, we kind of got into the storylines leading into Wrestlemania and since we got dicked out of partying on a boat this weekend and had nothing better to do on a Sunday night, we decided to buy our first WWE PPV in over a decade and blow a Sunday night with pizza and Wrestlemania.

Turned out to be a pretty decent time. Some fun matches. The Undertaker/Shawn Michaels match stole the show – and who didn’t expect it to?

One thing I found interesting is how tolerant the crowd has become of blatant mistakes since I last watched regularly. Not sure if it’s slowly been accepted since the sport became ‘sports entertainment’ or since the spots have gotten so big and outrageous..or both. Probably a combo of the two.

The only “You Fucked Up!” chant of the night (and it was short and weak) was during the Money In The Bank match when Sheldon Benjamin tried to sunset flip MVP off of the ladder and (in my professional opinion) MVP pussied out of the move and both men fell awkwardly straight down. That was no fuck-up, kids. Looked to me like MVP got cold feet. Benjamin made him pay moments later when he powerbombed MVP out of the ring and onto the floor, so that was fun.

All in all a good show that built up nicely to the Michaels/Taker match, then sunk a little for the triple threat match and fizzled at the end with the Triple H/Orton match. I know it doesn’t fit the current storylines or direction, but if they had just let the Undertaker and HBK headline, the show would have built to a nice climax and really been a good show.

Was a little disappointed in the Hardy’s match – that should’ve been more than just one high spot after another with no flow. Just didn’t quite click. Also after reading a few reviews, I’m not sure how many people ‘got’ that HBK was coming down from Heaven and the light and the Taker came up from Hell and the darkness. Kinda fun symbolism given the storyline leading up to the match and I think it may have been lost on more than a few people. It was a great match though. What can I say? For 30 minutes I was a total mark again…and it felt good.

Say what you want about pro wrestling and the WWE, but the guys they have doing video work and putting together the promos and such are some of the best….they always have been. Hell, I’d say those little video vignettes that condense a few moths of sotry into a slick little 5 minute package sold us on checking out the PPV as much as anything. They do some slick editing work and make pro wrestling storylines as compelling and entertaining as anything.

Good show that was a little out of order in match sequence and ran probably 30 minutes too long. I’m glad we decided to watch it.