What a difference a year makes, Wrestlemania this year from Phoenix clearly had a lot of forward planning to it. This time last year the show was already starting to build and matches were becoming clear. Undertaker vs Shawn, Bret vs Vince, Cena vs Batista and Edge vs Jericho were all virtual locks by the end of 2009.
As a result of that the WWE were able to book strong and clear programmes and as the weeks rolled by they added Punk vs Mysterio, the breakup of Legacy, Triple H vs Sheamus and Money in the Bank. The build up of arguably the top three matches which were Shawn-Taker, Cena-Batista and Bret-Vince were all excellent and it still surprises me that that the show had less than 500,000 buys. Don't get me wrong it still comfortably beat the combined total of TNA's last 20 PPV's.
This year there seems to be no real idea of where the WWE are going for Wrestlemania at Atlanta. The fun and games with Undertaker having a wildly overhyped confrontation with Brock at UFC 121 might have got a lot of press but leads absolutely nowhere. I'm sure Brock would love the opportunity to earn approx $2 million for basically very little work. However lets not kid ourselves there is no chance that UFC President Dana White would ever allow Brock to appear on the WWE's biggest show of the year when he is still under an exclusive UFC contract. So with Undertaker vs Brock out of the question, the early front runners for Wrestlemania XXVII are Undertaker (if he can make the show due to his injuries) vs Wade Barrett or even less appealing Kane. Also at this stage John Cena vs Randy Orton because that's one match that we haven't seen enough of.
It is over four months away and there is plenty of time for new feuds to be built. However I feel that it is very telling that there seems to be no clear direction as to what the future holds or that there is no major programmes that can grab hold of my interest for an extended period of time. I am finding the WWE fairly hard work to get excited about and as a result I would not have any interest in purchasing a WWE PPV as I would not consider it value for money. Wrestlemania 26 was a show that I was happy to order and overall I felt that although it wasn't a classic show it did provide enough entertainment. I certainly do not have the same confidence about next years big show.
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