Gimmick Some (Wrestlemania) Lovin': Hall of Pain Edition

A Gimmick Love-Fest

Wrestlemania 22 is noteworthy for a lot of reasons.

First is the fact that it's the final Showcase of the Immortals to emanate from anything smaller than a 60,000-seat venue; starting with Wrestlemania XX, McMahon and company paid tribute to their early origins with a tour through some of the first cities to host Wrestlemania (and, of course, the areas which hosted the three-city Wrestlemania 2 debacle).

Beginning with New York City's Madison Square Garden (a go-to for major Wrestlemania anniversaries, a pattern broken by Wrestlemania XXX's Silver Superdome setting), then moving to Los Angeles (where Wrestlemania went Hollywood), and finally Chicago, WWE decided enough with the small venues (and their limited opportunity for ticket sales), returning to Detroit and its brand new Ford Field for the anniversary of their record-breaking Wrestlemania III show at the Pontiac Silverdome.

An emotional win, and a great tribute, but the followup as the spring and summer wear on is dreadful.

Further, the show saw Rey Mysterio capture the World Heavyweight Championship and become the smallest world champion in the history of any major North American wrestling company, defeating Randy Orton and Kurt Angle in a match dedicated to (and, had he not died, rumoured to have originally belonged to) the recently-departed Eddie Guerrero.

However, on the slides of this column, what we care about are the ridiculous, rule-changing, over-the-top spectacle matches, and that's where this card is truly special: of its eleven matches (twelve if the dark match is included in the count), eight meet the criteria for this column.

The show features a battle royal dark match, a Money in the Bank Ladder Match, the hardcore match pictured above, a handicap match, a no holds barred match (and, if you're looking for the distinction between it and the hardcore match, you may be in the wrong place), the triple threat that saw Mysterio cement his championship legacy, a Playboy Pillow Fight (which will never get time here, for lots of reasons), and today's match: the casket match.

Is it any surprise that these two get a singles showcase with no stipulations needed?

In fact, only four contests (three one-on-one matches for singles titles and a traditional two-on-two tag team championship match) were pure wrestling contests on the second-to-last Wrestlemania before the dawn of the PG era. Whether intending to give the show a bigger feel than its setting could provide, or simply to go as crazy as possible for their April spectacular, this show looked to bring the sports entertainment spectacle in spades.