When it’s all said and done, what Wrestlemania 23 will be remembered for is a haircut match. This isn’t any random old haircut match. This was a billionaire’s haircut match. Well, at least one of them was a billionaire.
Donald Trump has been affiliated with wrestling in the past. He hosted Wrestlemania IV and V at his Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, N.J. They were two of the worst Wrestlemania’s ever, but that didn’t stop Vince McMahon from calling Trump’s name some 18 years later. And McMahon needed it.
Wrestlemania is what Vince McMahon and company build to every year. It’s their Super Bowl. It’s always the biggest PPV of the year, and the one in which they pull out all the stops.
This year, the stops was Donald Trump. You might wonder why putting Donald Trump on a wrestling show, and one that he won’t even wrestle on, is important.
The reason it’s important is because people wanted to pay to see who would get their hair cut between Vince and the Donald.
Can you imagine a bald Donald Trump? Everyone wants to see that right? Even though anyone in their right mind would know that Trump would’ve never signed on to a match in which he’d lose his hair, it was built up so well, and it went on to be the main event in the biggest money making event in company history.
Donald Trump is still a big name. Even though his television show, The Apprentice was struggling mightily, he’s a well-known public figure. And to get a well known public figure who isn’t a one-hit wonder (like Kevin Federline) was a major coup for the WWE.
It allowed them to enter the main stream media for a short while. The media picked up on Donald Trump being involved with wrestling and it sparked a little bit of a buzz. The wrestling fans are going to buy Wrestlemania. The goal is to get everyone else to do so.
Donald was put with Bobby Lashley. Vince aligned himself with the Samoan Bulldozer, Umaga. Lashley and Umaga would wrestle and if Lashley lost, Donald would get his head shaved. Of course, if Umaga lost, Vince would.
When I heard about this, I smiled with glee thinking about how fun it would be for Vince McMahon to go crazy while getting his head shaved.
But then it got even better. Who was going to referee this match? None other than that Texas Rattlesnake, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Austin’s new motto is, “Arrive, raise hell, leave” and I couldn’t wait to see him do so.
Even though that was the biggest money match on the card, the two championship matches were ones that made fans legitimately happy.
The first one had been building up for a couple months. Dave Batista as WWE champion wasn’t working out. His matches were horrendous and people were losing faith in him. There was one grudge match that people wanted to see Batista in, and that was with the Undertaker.
The Undertaker had taken sips from the fountain of youth. I’ve never been a big fan of the Undertaker, but he’d been nothing short of spectacular in early 2007.
His Royal Rumble match with Shawn Michaels was great and I expected his match with Batista to be pretty good. How can Batista not be inspired to have a great match with someone who was busting his rear end to make the match special?
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