by Rick Scaia
Exclusive to OnlineOnslaught.com

Hogan joined fellow nWo-mate Scott Hall in losing his match, but not before completely polarizing the SkyDome crowd.  Ostensibly the heel coming in, Hogan was the massive fan favorite over the Rock throughout the contest, and received giant pops for his signature moves.  After the match, Hogan was confronted and attacked by the nWo; with the help of the Rock, Hogan cleared them out of the ring, and then granted the crowd a classic Hulk-a-mania Era posedown.

The emergence of Hogan as the night's most entertaining performer wasn't the only surprise of the PPV, as Ric Flair and the Undertaker also provided impressive in-ring efforts to craft another of the night's highlights.  Triple H's main event WWF Title win over Chris Jericho seemed almost a footnote on a show that definitely reached its crescendo about three-quarters of the way through.

Here are segment-by-segment results of the just-completed WrestleMania X-8 pay-per-view:

-  Saliva opened the show with a live performance of one of the WrestleMania "theme songs."  The forgettable number was followed by a solid video package highlighting the history and legacy of WrestleMania (with a ton of voice-overs from current superstars).

-  In the opener, Rob Van Dam cleanly defeated William Regal to win the InterContinental Title.  Regal went for the brass knucks early, but Van Dam kicked them out of his hand.  Still, even without his usual crutch, Regal went on to dominate the majority of the contest, with Van Dam taking a handful of killer "folded-up-like-an-accordian" bumps along the way.  Regal's inability to put Van Dam away led to him going back to the brass knucks (and then to an alternate pair of knucks when the ref caught him with the first one), but again, he was foiled by Van Dam, who kicked him to the mat, then followed up with a Five Star Frog Splash for the win.  A bit shorter than I might have expected, but as solid as you could want out of your opener:  good action, and a finish that gave the crowd what they wanted.

-  The card's most-hastily-booked match saw Diamond Dallas Page retain the European Title with a pinfall win over Christian (clean win via the Diamond Cutter).  Nothing bad here, but nothing special, either.  On a RAW or SmackDown!, it might have been a mild highlight, but it was out of place on a WM PPV; hell, I've practically already forgotten that I ever saw it at all.

-  A show-spanning Hardcore Title story arc got started in the ring, as Maven defended against Goldust.  The 24/7 Rule played a big part as -- after Maven and Goldust did about 5 minutes of tepid brawling -- Spike Dudley brought his own official into the fray and pinned Maven to win the title.  Crash Holly followed suit, and the brawl went backstage; after a few video packages, we picked up the action again to see the Hurricane join the fun by pinning Spike (Al Snow also briefly appeared here) to win the title.  About half an hour later, Molly sneak-attacked the Hurricane, and won the title for herself.  Then another half-hour later, Christian took the strap after slamming a door into Molly's face.  As he tried to escape the building, Maven struck from behind.  He pinned Christian to regain the title, and then rode off in Christian's taxi.  Not too offensive as comic relief and as a way to sneak a few breaks into the show; but also nothing that we haven't already seen before, either. 

-  Drowning Pool performed the other WM theme song to a mostly apathetic crowd...  there's gotta be a joke in there about not caring about anyone (or anything) affiliated with Drowning Pool, but I'm too tired to try to figure it out just now. 

-  Kurt Angle used the ropes for leverage, and managed to score a pinfall win over Kane.  There's nothing here that we'll reminisce about fondly when getting ready for future Manias, but this was a decent little affair that underscored just how good Angle is and how under-rated a big man Kane is.  Kane made the smaller Angle's offense look damned good, and Angle hit a few cool highspots (including the always-popular walk-up-the-ropes-into-a-suplex move that we've seen a few times). The finish, unfortunately, looked like it got a little screwy, as there was a lot of fumbling around after Angle tried to lock in a pinning combination after a victory roll-type move.

-  A surprising highlight of the show was the Undertaker's win over Ric Flair.  Contrary to how you might have thought the match would get started, this one kicked off with Flair solidly in control.  But his thirst for vengeance could only carry him for a few minutes before Taker and his size/strength advantage gained momentum.  Before too long, Flair was wearing a crimson mask and on the receiving end of an extended Undertaker beat-down.  There's no denying the signs of age (for instance, two attempts were needed for Flair to hit the patented Flair Flip in the turnbuckle), but this one still had all the action and drama you could hope for.  Arn Anderson even got involved late in the match (mostly to get his ass kicked).  Taker won the match after beating off the interference and planting Flair with a Tombstone Piledriver.  Really good and entertaining, and that's without any "but it was more a Sports Entertainment Segment than a wrestling match" qualifiers, too...

-  Steve Austin took out his frustration of having to work earlier on a PPV than he has at any time in recent memory by making relatively short work of Scott Hall.  Austin got out of the chute fast, even getting in a few licks on Kevin Nash (who joined Hall at ringside) during a wild match-opening brawl.  Things were more back-and-forth once they settled down in the ring, but Nash's presence meant that Hall was always able to rally, no matter how much momentum Austin gained.  Finally, after Nash squashed two refs and broke up pinning combinations by Austin, he was ejected from ringside by a phalanx of back-up officials.  Once Nash was gone, Hall immediately tasted two Stone Cold Stunners and was pinned.  Maybe too formulaic to stand out as much of a "good" match, but I think it did what it had to, and probably ranked as "satisfying" to the majority of the audience.

-  Edge defeated Booker T in the "I Can't Believe This is About Shampoo" Match.  Edge was an even heavier-than-usual fan favorite, wrestling in front of his hometown crowd, but Booker also enjoyed some cheers, especially for the Spin-a-roonie.  Edge got the clean win after his leaping DDT, but much like the match featuring his former tag partner, this one seemed more like a RAW-caliber match than anything.  No doubt the effort was there, but without giving the fans any real reason to care, the sizzle was missing.

-  Billy and Chuck held on to the WWF Tag Team Titles, out-lasting the Hardys, the Dudleys, and the APA.  The Dudleys came out first as Saliva performed their new entrance theme live on the stage.  And then the Duds scored the first elimination of the match, taking out the APA with a 3-D.  We then entered the best portion of the match, as the Duds squared off with the Hardys for an extended series (which also scored the only significant fan reaction of the match when Stacey Keibler figured she'd use her ass to distract Jeff Hardy from the business at hand; funny, it didn't work...).  Instead, the Hardys eventually managed to hit the Twist of Fate/Swanton Bomb combo on Bubba to eliminate the Dudleys.  The Hardys eventually looked to be zeroing in on a title victory, as Chuck was set up to receive a Swanton Bomb, but out of nowhere, Billy hit the Fame-Asser to retain the straps.  It's hard to be upset when the Duds and Hardys get a chance to do their thing against each other, and I think they went with the right finish (Billy and Chuck retaining), so no real complaints from me on this one.

-  For the second time in WrestleMania's history, Hulk Hogan walked into SkyDome with a miniscule repertoire of actual wrestling holds and somehow walked out as a participant in the night's most dramatic and entertaining affair.  And also for the second time, Hogan walked out of SkyDome as a loser, dropping the decision against the Rock.  From the get-go, there was definitely a mixed reaction to Hogan and Rock, with both men receiving cheers.  But as time went on, the fans wound up solidly behind Hogan, and the Rock was roundly booed at times (a "Rocky Sucks" chant was also heard!).  Every little thing Hogan did drew a massive pop, even if it was delivering a shitty clothesline or taking the worst DDT bump in recent memory.  But the things that would have gotten Hogan drawn and quartered by the smarks two years ago went completely ignored, as the Toronto crowd decided, en masse, that it was absolutely OK to enjoy Hulk Hogan as kitsch.  I swear to you, I myself have NEVER (not even in my markish grade school Hulk-a-maniac days) enjoyed a Hulk Up/Big Boot/Legdrop o' Doom more than I did tonight, and by the sounds of things, 70,000 other fans felt about the same way.  Alas, the Legdrop was insufficient to keep the Rock down, and the younger star eventually scored with back-to-back Rock Bottoms (and a People's Elbow) to secure the win.  After the match, a humbled Hogan actually shook hands and made peace with the Rock; and that's when things took a turn for the surprising, as Kevin Nash and Scott Hall (who Hogan had requested stay in the back during the match) hit the ring and punked Hogan out.  The Rock made the save, and after he and Hogan cleared the ring, Rock also insisted that Hogan do an old school posedown in the ring.  Hogan complied and the fans went nuts; all that was missing was "Real American."  Pure magic for anyone who's been a fan for 15 years or more, though I'm sure that admitting to just how much I enjoyed the hell out of this match will only serve to further damage my credibility with workrate freaks and Disciples of Benoit and the types who can only rate a match based on the number of Inverted Flying Space Tiger Drops per minute of bell-to-bell time...  but just to save my credibility a bit, let me also say that this was the type of thing that'll be nearly impossible to re-create, and that the Fed will have to be VERY careful in how they follow up on booking Hogan, lest they risk over-exposing Hogan and remind us just why it is we sorta gave up on the guy 10 years ago.

-  Jazz came out on top over Trish Stratus and Lita, retaining her Women's Title in the process.  Short contest that I'm sure was designed mostly just to rest the crowd between the two main events...  finish came when Jazz tossed Trish from the ring and then hit a top rope fisherman's buster (admittedly a really cool finish) to score the win.  I'm running out of different ways to say that this really seemed more like a free TV match than a PPV match, so I'll tag out now and let YOU figure out some way to do it.

-  Triple H won the WWF Title from Chris Jericho in the night's main event.  HHH was played to the ring by Drowning Pool (doing a version of HHH's existing theme song), so both bands got to play twice on the PPV.  Jericho wasted little time once the match was on, and went right after HHH's injured left leg.  Jericho used ample ring-post-assisted offense to further damage HHH's quad muscle, and the ever-helpful Stephanie McMahon was there to put her two cents worth in, too.  But the duo couldn't keep HHH down.  Eventually, Steph's interference back-fired, leaving her alone in the ring with HHH.  And sure enough, she finally got that Pedigree that they've been teasing for the past month.  Once Steph's carcass was rolled out of the ring, it wasn't much longer before Jericho got a Pedigree of his own.  A three count later, and a new champ was crowned.  I think the match came up a little shy of 20 minutes, which was shorter than I figured they'd go, but it was really good, with HHH's bad leg providing the anchor for the psychology, and then with a few highspots (including a table-to-table backdrop that looked pretty cool) tossed in.  Still, there's no denying the crowd was totally spent after the Hogan/Rock match, and these guys never really managed to rope the fans in, other than big pops for the Pedigree on Steph and for the finish.  A well-put-together and enjoyable match, but one that did not benefit from its placement on the show...

Well, the statement was made last week that the promise of Rock/Hogan was more than enough to sell the entire show...  and while I still reject that premise, I find it hard to deny that Rock and Hogan went a long way to MAKING the entire show.  For twenty-five or thirty minutes, this was as special and memorable a WrestleMania as any I can recall.  The impact of that match and the enjoyment I got from both the contest and from watching the incredible reactions to Hogan make it hard for me to pass judgment on the show as a whole without having that opinion massively colored by that one segment.

Beyond Hogan/Rock, I was really pleasantly surprised by how entertaining Flair/Undertaker was...  say what you will about the man, but Taker just turned in his second consecutive very good WM match, and this time, he didn't have the benefit of working with an in-his-prime HHH, either.  

The only other match of the night that really stood out for me was the Jericho/HHH main event.  But as I said, it didn't have the sort of crowd participation that you need to create that big time atmosphere.  I'm all for giving added importance to the WWF Title by putting that match on last, but in this case, there's no doubt in my mind that the card as a whole would have benefited from flip-flopping the title match with Hogan/Rock.  The fans would not have been as spent, and thus would have gotten more involved in the Jericho/HHH match... and on top of that, closing the show with Hogan's posedown with the Rock would have been a much bigger, more satisfying finish.

Jericho/HHH got second rate treatment for much of the build-up to WM, as the feud degenerated into the realm of the absurd (penis jokes and dog-napping?)...  so why push it hard as the night's main event, when you had something else in the wings more qualified to take that spot?

As I said above, the whole Hogan thing is making it tough to make an overall call on this show...  with a bit of perspective, it's very possible that I'll be lumping this one in with WrestleMania 13, which featured an absolutely incredible Austin/Hart match that is still considered one of WM's biggest highlights ever but had nothing else remotely worthy of praise (but which people still mostly remember fondly because of that one big moment).  Or maybe the generally solid undercard will "age well," and bolstered by the top trio of matches to establish this as one of the Good Ones.

Or maybe, if you really gotta have someone tell you what to think about WMX-8, you can just come back tomorrow, when I'm sure Scott Keith will take a firm stand in his PPV Rant.

Till then...

E-MAIL RICK SCAIA
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Rick Scaia is a wrestling fan from Dayton, OH.  He's been doing this since 1995, but enjoyed it best when the suckers from SportsLine were actually PAYING him to be a fan.

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