Had a fantastic night watching it in a club in Hull, about 40-50 turned out (not bad IMO for that time on a Monday morning), superb atmosphere in there.
Here's my brief take on the show:
Edge v Del Rio: Great opening match, though IMO it's stupid having a heavyweight title match as the opener (and possibly devalues the title in some peoples' eyes?). Thought both guys did some good stuff, disappointed with ADR losing, although it was probably too early for him to win it anyway. What concerns me though with the clean defeat is that they have maybe already lost confidence (got bored) in him, which would be terrible if the case.
Rhodes v Mysterio: solid match, inventive work with the mask angle, and a sign that Rhodes does still have potential as a heel.
Went for a pee during the comedy stuff with Snoop Dogg so didn't really see much of it.
8 man tag match - waste of time, didn't see the point in it tbh.
Lawler v Cole - as a wrestling match I thought it was horrible tbh. Neither man's fault really, but if they were to have another match I think because of Cole's lack of experience they will need a lot of help (e.g. maybe making it a tag-team match to bring in a couple of good workers to mask Cole), to avoid the 'boring' chants that were circulating last night.
HHH v Taker: A stunning match IMO. Had some serious doubts about this one because of a) Taker's (alleged) declining physical condition due to all the injuries, and b) because IMO HHH is nowhere near the wrestler that HBK was. However, full marks to both guys for pulling of an outstanding battle which so many guys could learn from. The timing and psychology were incredible (e.g. the tombstone near-full by HHH, the desperate attempt to grab the sledgehammer whilst trapped in Hell's Gate, etc). An oustanding piece of work by both legends.
6 person tag: same as 8 man, can't remember much about it tbh
Cena v Miz: Poor really. As people have said on UKFF it was no better then Raw matches that there guys have, + IMO it was a dumb mistake putting this on last. Everyone knew that Taker v HHH would steal the show, so putting these two on at the end was repeating previous mistakes like WM18 where HHH and Y2J had to try and keep a crowd interested who had been burned out from the spectacle of Hogan v Rock. Therefore I felt sorry for Cena and Miz cos really they didn't stand a chance of having a memorable match.
Overall though I feel it was a great WM and I'm glad I watched it live.
However, here's something which really saddened me last night: WM27 confirmed to me what most people probably already knew - the WWE has little to no interest in all the belts (sorry, "championships"
) except the two heavyweight titles, e.g. the US title match been (apparantly) relegated to a dark match, no tag-team title match, no Intercontinental match, hell, not even a Divas title match ffs.
IMO WWE are making a grave error by putting no effort into all these belts. The 'secondary' titles could be such great attractions (e.g. like the Intercontinental title was years ago, and the tag-titles when contested between the Dudleys, E&C, the Hardy Boyz etc), and add so much entertainment and depth to the product, but they're clearly just not interested in them anymore. Shame.
Still, once again, I personally felt at 4am last night like I had been thoroughly entertained for 4 hours, so in that sense WWE is still the best at what they do, so fair play to them.