More WrestleMania Fallout: The Main Event

Again, I thought that the main event was a fine wrestling match. Others thought it was boring, but I liked the pacing, I liked how they stuck to the overarching story of Triple H wanting to waylay Orton but not being able to do it without risking his title. I do admit that I watched the match without any of the context of Triple H's career in my mind, mainly because I didn't want to give myself indigestion over how much I hate the fucker and all he's done to push himself as the Ubermensch of the WWE, despite not having a tenth of the dramatic charisma of guys like Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Undertaker and Randy Savage, LET ALONE the megadraws like Hulk Hogan, The Rock and Steve Austin, guys that Trips thinks he compares to.

I said earlier this morning/last night that I thought that there was no special aura around the event, and that I struggled to put my finger as to exactly why I didn't feel that. I chalked it up to being a "smart" fan or to growing up, but in the same breath said that I shed a tear over Flair's retirement moment from last year when I watched it yesterday morning. It's not like I wasn't a smark yesterday morning and just switched to being one that night. But then, I went over to the Figure Four Online/Wrestling Observer site and read this feeback from Zack Baker:

HHH vs. Orton. I think the problem in this match is that the crowd had just honored Steve Austin, who made his career doing many of the kinds of things to the McMahon family that Orton is doing now. To cheer Austin is in many ways to hate Vince and authority in general. Austin celebrates in the ring and the crowd is hot, and then that same crowd is supposed to cheer HHH, McMahon's son in law, in his quest to honor the family name?

There was never really a point in the match where you thought Orton would win. Plus, HHH just isn't that sympathetic as a babyface, and I don't think he has ever reached a top level on that side, the way Austin, Hogan, Hart or Rock have. He's a natural heel, and the two times he's ended WM as a babyface champion, the crowd has been subdued.

He hit the nail on the head, and he made me realize why it didn't feel like WrestleMania. Triple H went into this match as the face, right? Yet, why is he the one who needed to cheat to win? I mean, the whole fabric of this feud is that Randy Orton needed to have his backup, be it Priceless or lawyers or Vickie Guerrero putting in stips that favored him, to win. Outside of getting the sledgehammer that he never got to use... what heelish things did he do? Where was Priceless when the ref was knocked out?

Why is it that Triple H acts like a heel when he's supposed to be a face, and is booked like a classic face when he's supposed to be heel? It's mind-boggling (or mind-bottling if you're Chaz Michaels from Blades of Glory).

My opinion on the match itself, sans context, hasn't changed. However, I think I finally found out why it didn't feel like WrestleMania to me. There's nothing wrong with me as a wrestling fan. There's something wrong with Triple H being pushed as the second coming of Hulk Hogan. I've tried to swallow it, but I guess I just can't.