Wrestlemania XXIII

Date: 04/01/2007

Location: Ford Field in Detroit, MI

Announcers: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, JBL, Joey Styles, and Taz 

The Setup 

This show was the big Trump vs. Vince hair match show, wrestled by Lashley and Umaga and refereed by Steve Austin. Cena defended the WWE title against fellow babyface and temporary tag team partner, Shawn Michaels. We had another babyface match with Batista and Undertaker on the Smackdown side for the world title. It’s somewhat interesting that after two years of Cena and Batista being the faces of each brand, respectively, they didn’t have a heel for either to work at the biggest show of the year. 

The Business 

Wrestlenomics has the show doing a whopping 1,250,000 buys, making it the most purchased WWE PPV of all-time. Trump, who was hosting The Apprentice at the time, was a big ratings and public interest draw, but there was a question about how much that would translate into dollars. Well, that question was emphatically answered. There was also the fact that fans knew Vince McMahon would be embarrassed and get his hair cut after mostly playing an asshole on TV for almost a decade. 

Prowrestlinghistory.com has the show doing 74,687 fans and drawing a $5.38 million gate. That’s insane, and also a company record at the time. 

Results/Ratings

-Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Mr. Kennedy def. CM Punk, Edge, Finlay, Jeff Hardy, King Booker (w/ Queen Sharmell), Matt Hardy & Randy Orton in 19:05.  ****

-The Great Khali def. Kane in 5:31. 1/2*

-United States Title Match: Chris Benoit (c) def. Montel Vontavious Porter in 9:19.  **3/4

-World Heavyweight Title Match: The Undertaker def. Batista (c) in 15:47.  ***3/4

-ECW Originals (Rob Van Dam, Sabu, Tommy Dreamer & The Sandman) def. The New Breed (Elijah Burke, Marcus Cor Von, Kevin Thorn & Matt Striker w/ Ariel) in 6:25.  *1/2 

-Hair vs. Hair – “Battle of the Billionaires” (Special Ref: Steve Austin): Bobby Lashley (w/ Donald Trump) def. Umaga (w/w/Vince McMahon & Armando Alejandro Estrada) in 13:04.  ***

-WWE Women’s Title Lumberjill Match: Melina (c) def. Ashley in 3:13.  DUD 

-WWE Title Match (Main Event): John Cena (c) def. Shawn Michaels by submission in 28:20. ****1/4

Snap Bumps

-The big hair match was elevated by the involvement of Vince, Trump, Shane McMahon, and Steve Austin. Umaga and Lashley worked a pretty good match, but Shane’s Van Terminator on Lashley and Austin’s stunner on Umaga may have been the match’s highlights. 

-The Cena and Shawn match had a ton of heat. First, with Shawn attacking Cena’s knee, then Cena bloodying Shawn and attacking the wound. Not exactly your typical babyface match. They had a fantastic reversal sequence near the end, and Shawn was gallant in trying to fight off Cena, but eventually submitted to the STF. I loved this match. 

-Taker and Batista was also awesome. They hit a ton of big moves on their large opponents (each other) and believable nearfalls. You can argue that the title vs. streak should have closed the show, but heaven forbid SmackDown got some shine. 

-Batista always had issues with the music between the notes, meaning his moves or spots generally looked good, but even simple punches made him look rigid and like he moved stiffly. He had some footwork issues here as well. 

-MITB was full of wild spots and dangerous stuff. Finlay was bleeding hard way from the top of the head. My only issue is that they were teasing Finlay winning quite a bit towards the end, and I don’t think anyone in the audience believed that could happen. Still, it was a lot of fun and had some excellent spots. 

-They did a spot in MITB where Jeff Hardy took Edge out by jumping on him from the ring on a ladder set up on the barricade. Edge was helped to the back for the rest of the match, but did win the briefcase from Kennedy a couple of months later. That was supposedly all pre-planned. I think people were turning on Kennedy within the company, and I can’t say I blame them after watching him so far in 2007. 

-MVP and Benoit did a lot of chain and matwork early in their match and seemed to lose the giant crowd. It was ironic watching Benoit work the match like a New Japan junior and get the response he would in a big dome match as a New Japan junior. The match would have been better in front of a different crowd. 

-The ECW match didn’t have a lot of heat since the show had a fraction of the audience of Raw or SmackDown. The Originals got some wild spots in, and Matt Stryker, in particular, took a few bumps, but the only one the crowd seemed to care about was RVD, who was only in the last couple of minutes of the match. 

-At a half star, Kahli vs. Kane was somehow better than expected. 

-The tag line of this Wrestlemania was “all grown up.” Taz saying ECW was all grown up because they were on their first Wrestlemania was borderline sickening. 

-As if the lumberjill match wasn’t demeaning enough, Melina vs. Ashley was probably one of the worst on-paper matches they could do. 

Rating: Thumbs Up 

Every big match on this show delivered, and the big payoff happened when Vince had his head shaved. The timing was also pretty close to perfect, as good matches got time, and everything that looked bad on paper was cut short. I’m not sure where this ranks as an all-time show in the history of Mania, but this was a great show.