WWE WrestleMania 22: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to another edition of Wrestling Inc.'s retro reviews, where we take notable wrestling shows from the past and apply our universally celebrated loved/hated format! Last time, we looked at the 2008 Royal Rumble, headlined by a John Cena victory. This time, we're looking at another show headlined by a John Cena victory, though it happens to be about two years earlier. We're also coming up on the latest edition of WrestleMania, which made the WINC staff want to revisit a previous WrestleMania event — we haven't done a retro review of WrestleMania since we talked about WrestleMania XXX, and we can tell you, the difference in how the crowd reacts to the winners of those two respective main events is, uh ... stark.

Why did we choose WrestleMania 22? There are a few reasons, ranging from weirdly interesting to genuinely notable — the only current WWE star who wrestled in the opening tag team match being Carlito, for example, or Rey Mysterio's world championship victory representing probably the highest-profile win for a luchador ever on American soil — but the main reason is very simple. This weekend, John Cena and CM Punk will main event WrestleMania, and in 2006, John Cena main-evented WrestleMania for the first time — with an anonymous CM Punk, dressed up like a mobster and carrying a fake gun, participating in his entrance for his own unconventional WrestleMania debut.

We'll have plenty to say about that match, as you might expect (and specifically, that entrance) but all you need to know for now is that we're at the height of John Cena's rise to the top of WWE, and the reigning WWE Champion (having recently reclaimed his title from Edge and the very first Money in the Bank briefcase cash-in) now faces top WWE villain Triple H, headlining his third consecutive WrestleMania. Elsewhere on the card, Royal Rumble winner Mysterio faces not only World Heavyweight Champion Kurt Angle, but the fiendish Randy Orton, who's been getting in Mysterio's head by disrespecting the recently deceased Eddie Guerrero (man, this coming November is going to suck), while Shawn Michaels has been engaged in a feud with none other than Mr. McMahon. We'll also get into the legendary hardcore match between Edge and Mick Foley, the Undertaker's casket match with Mark Henry, and a backstage segment preceding The Boogeyman's handicap match against Booker T and Sharmell. Yes, really.

With all that in mind — and with a tip of the cap to Trish Stratus vs. Mickie James, which we have nothing to say about other than "It's great, you should watch it" — here are three things we hated and three things we loved about WWE WrestleMania 22.

People will watch this match and say "hell yeah." I am people.

It's been well known for many years that the match that everyone truly remembers from WrestleMania 22 is the Hardcore match between Edge and Mick Foley, but going back and watching it all these years later, it really is a sight to behold.

To give some context, Foley was the special referee in a match between Edge and John Cena on "WWE Raw" for the WWE Championship, which the "Rated R Superstar" would lose, blaming Foley for the loss and challenging him to a match as WrestleMania. Foley would turn down the offer, instead challenging Edge to a Hardcore match, just so that Edge had no excuses and nowhere to go. A simple story of a grizzled old gunslinger trying not to be fed to the younger, more hungry dog in the fight, and boy was this a fight.

So many iconic spots occur in this absolute war. Edge gaining the upper hand early on, only for his spear attempt to be countered by Foley, who was wearing barbed wire around his waist. Foley taking the classic bumps on the outside, barrelling over the steel steps which are right next to the ring mic so it sounds even more brutal. The thousands (and this time it genuinely looks like thousands) of thumbtacks, which Edge takes like an absolute champ, barbed wire bats, Mr. Socko, both guys bleeding, all building and building up to the ultimate exclamation point of the spear through the flaming table on the outside.

I understand I'm just listing spots, but it's such a well structured match. It's controlled chaos and a wonderfully violent spectacle fitting of a WrestleMania full of huge spots. After all, this is on the same show as the second-ever Money in the Bank Ladder match and a No Holds Barred match between Shawn Michaels and Vince McMahon. Everything adds to the spot that came before it, and concluded at the highest possible moment in the match, leaving you in utter shock as Edge, blood completely covering his right eye, shivers his way over to Foley for the win. It leaves you in a position where you have no choice but to breathe a huge sigh of relief that the match is over, and that both guys seem to be okay.

Working a Hardcore match with Foley in the 2000s was the ultimate cheat code for many stars when it came to their own stock rising. If you could hang with the "Hardcore Legend," you would be set for life. It worked for The Rock in 1999, it worked for Triple H in 2000, and it worked tenfold for Randy Orton in 2004. The same happened for Edge in this match. He was a made man after this night, and after decades of putting his body through literal hell for his fans, Foley finally got the WrestleMania moment he not only wanted, but rightfully deserved. A true classic, watch it now.

Written by Sam Palmer

Say what you will about the actual 2-On-1 Handicap Match between The Boogeyman and Booker T & Sharmell (and believe me, there is plenty that could be said about it), but the backstage segment in the moments just before Booker and Sharmell made their way to the ring was the perfect lead in to everything that followed shortly afterwards.

I have to admit that this backstage segment including Paul Burchill being a pirate, Ted DiBiase doing his thing and finding a way to make Eugene lost a bet so he didn't have to pay up, Gene Snitsky having what we shall call a moment with Mae Young, and Goldust being himself was one of the oddest things that I have ever watched in all of my years watching professional wrestling. Upon first watch, it left me not knowing how to feel, but once I sat with it, I realized just how much I actually enjoyed it for it being such a small part of WrestleMania 22. There was something about it that worked, though, and it was a fun little way to create some last minute interest in the 2-On-1 Handicap Match itself. Booker and Sharmell's reactions were absolutely on point, and were the driving factor in what made the segment so engaging to watch. It was made all the more better by the fact that there was actually a point to the segment, with WWE planting the idea in the mind of the audience that the only way Booker and Sharmell could conquer The Boogeyman is if they embraced theri weird sides using a visual medium to get the message across and have Goldust tell Booker that to give it some extra emphasis.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

The Undertaker's WrestleMania winning streak had only become something that WWE acknowledged a few years earlier, but it was in 2005 when his match with Randy Orton at WrestleMania 21 turned "The Streak" into something that was worth more than some championships for many WWE Superstars.

"The Deadman" would enter 2006 with gold in mind, and had one of the best matches of the year against Kurt Angle one month earlier at No Way Out, and even though he lost, it was going to be interesting to see who his next test was at WrestleMania 22. There were rumors of Sting before he joined TNA Wrestling earlier in the year, and even fellow TNA star Abyss being brought in as WWE's next big monster, but instead, it was Mark Henry who go the honors, and it was, well, meh.

Knowing that this is one of Henry's personal favorite matches, I do feel a little harsh in criticizing it, but on a night full of so many high octane moments, this Casket match completely slows the pace of the night down. No one was ever expecting a five star, technical mat classic that culminates in a grand spot that leads to one man ending up in the casket, but on a rewatch, I was at least expecting something a little better than what we saw in this one.

Casket matches have the same problem as something like an Ambulance match or a Stretcher match, or even a Last Man Standing match in that whenever the action gets going, it comes to a screeching halt in order to try and get their opponent in an ambulance, or in this case a casket. The Undertaker's big dive over the top in the closing stages is a perfect example of this. He is a near seven-foot tall man that not only cleared the top rope with ease, but cleared the casket as well to execute the most exciting moment of the match, only for the struggle of stopping the match, getting Henry up, trying to get him in the casket. I understand the art of selling in a match like this, but come on guys, the match is like 40% trying to shut the lid, you can do so much more!

Of course, the right man won, as having Henry win here would have been literally insane, but there's a reason why, outside of the dive over the top, this isn't one of "The Deadman's" most talked about WrestleMania matches. If anything, this could have been the match that motivated him to truly put all of his effort into every match that followed as every match for "The Streak" that followed this one was considered to be one of the best matches on the shows they were on. It's not the worst match in the world by any stretch of the imagination, it's just slow, and for a night that was as fast paced as WrestleMania 22, slow simply wasn't going to cut it.

Written by Sam Palmer

Look, I'm sorry. I'm not happy about it, either. I didn't even remember this match was a thing that happened — and I was in the building for the "Raw" episode where Vince made Shawn take a urine sample drug test in the ring for some reason as part of the build (Shawn proceeded to throw the pee on Shane, if you were wondering). Now, after re-watching WrestleMania 22, I think this might be ... the match of the night?

For those who don't recall, this was the centerpiece of the Vince vs. God feud, though not quite its culmination (that would come a couple months later, when Vince and his son Shane would defeat Michaels and his non-corporeal tag team partner, securing a 0-1 WWE record for the Lord Almighty that stands to this day). The storyline kicked off when Michaels refused to be celebrated by McMahon for his role in the infamous Montreal Screwjob during his original WWE run — Bret Hart, tellingly, refused to appear at WrestleMania 22 for his own Hall of Fame induction — but it quickly became about the fact that Michaels, who had been a thoroughly debauched heel back then, had now found religion and become a pious babyface. This infuriated McMahon, who was blatant both in his own irreverent debauchery and in his desire for the inner peace he knew Michaels had found, but he never could. And while I've often found reason to go back and re-watch the Mania 22 backstage segment involving the "McMahon family prayer" (which Vince opened with "God, let's face it, I don't like you and you don't like me") I had never before gone back to examine how the actual match is informed by the irreverent religious storyline.

By which I mean to say, the match is essentially just McMahon's punishment for his sins. It's a bit muddled by the fact that Michaels is doing something similar to what Mick Foley did earlier the same evening (letting his older, crazier persona come out to play) but really, the entire match is just an excuse to let fans watch McMahon get absolutely murdered for 15 minutes. He begs, he whines, he bleeds buckets, he accidentally rubs his ass in his son Shane's face, and it's tremendously satisfying. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Vince is a uniquely terrible person, but my god, no heel in wrestling history has ever gotten his comeuppance like Mr. McMahon. And trust me, I hate saying that. I hate praising him. I don't want to do it. But you have to understand — it's not just that he's good at being hateable. It's that he has zero shame; no pride or dignity whatsoever. That's the real trick to being a great heel: You can be evil and wicked and cruel and all those things, but dignity? When it's time to take the beating you so richly deserve, dignity has to go out the window. And nobody throws dignity out the window like Vince.

The real kicker, though, is the post-match, with a bloody McMahon somehow mustering the will to give Michaels the finger while he's being stretchered out of the arena. Vince will accept that he's a sinner, and he'll take his punishment, but learn? Grow? Repent? No chance in hell. Vince McMahon is a monstrous human being, but as a performer, he deserves his due for how well he played the devil.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

Rey Mysterio's road to WrestleMania 22 was extremely challenging, and at times uncomfortable, but my oh my, the payoff was sweet.

From the Allstate Arena in Chicago, Mysterio sent Kurt Angle flying out of the ring with an arm drag, then set Randy Orton up against the ropes for his signature 619. As expected, Mysterio's feet connected with a swinging kick to Orton's face, resulting in a (slightly oversold) jump backwards from "The Apex Predator." From there, Mysterio leaped off the top rope for a West Coast Pop and pinned Orton for a three-count, while Angle, the defending champion, appeared just a second too late from breaking it up.

With this pinfall, Mysterio claimed the first WWE World Heavyweight Championship of his career. As evidenced by the numerous crowd signs and subsequent arrival of Chavo and Vickie Guerrero, Mysterio wasn't just in it for the gold, though. He also did it for his late friend, Eddie Guerrero.

Admittedly, my pro wrestling fandom began long after the November 2005 death of Eddie, but the tributes that continue to roll out have genuinely warmed my heart. They've also proven him to be both a beloved and great in-ring performer.

As the old age goes, out of the darkness comes a light, and in this case, there's no doubt that Rey Mysterio served as the light for the friends, family, and fans of Eddie, who were likely still coping with his untimely death. And for that, I'm willing to forgive the less-than-ten-minute match time that preceded Mysterio's crowning moment (that also admittedly made me tear up in re-watching).

Written by Ella Jay

Here's the thing about the main event of WrestleMania 22: It's mostly boring. It's Triple H and John Cena in 2006, and it plays out about the way you'd expect a Triple H vs. John Cena match to play out in 2006. The only interesting thing from the match itself is the reaction of the crowd, and to talk about that, it's much more informative to focus not on the match, but on the entrances.

Triple H comes out first to what I believe is the debut of the "King of Kings" entrance song, as well as his first WrestleMania appearance wearing a crown and sitting on a throne. At this point, it's explicitly Conan the Barbarian cosplay; later it will become a whole other different thing that's very clearly about his own self-aggrandizement, but here he really is just letting his inner fanboy loose, and the Chicago crowd is pretty into it. Ironically, it probably helps that he's a well-established heel; at the time Chicago was known for being a smark town that had a tendency toward contrarianism — they had already cheered the heel Mickie James and booed the babyface Trish Stratus earlier in the evening, for example. But honestly, you could have replaced Triple H with pretty much any wrestler in the company and gotten the same result, because Chicago wasn't excited to cheer Triple H so much as they were deliriously excited to boo John Cena.

Cena's Chicago mobster entrance is peak wrestling cringe — less because of the actual content of the entrance (though to be clear, also because of that) and more because of what it said about Cena's relationship with the fans. When 2025 Heel Cena goes off on the WWE audience for treating him badly, this is the kind of thing he means; a lot of wrestling fans at the time hated Cena, especially because he'd been champion for all but 21 days of the previous calendar year. The smark Chicago fanbase, in particular, hated seeing Cena get artificially pushed ahead of wrestlers who they felt had done more to organically earn the top spot. WWE was obviously aware of this and was desperate to mitigate the negativity, because if they weren't, they would never have sent Cena out there with a trenchcoat and a tommy gun, heralded by a cartoonish crowd of gangsters pouring out of an old car — one of whom was famously CM Punk in his unofficial WrestleMania debut.

The entire thing smacks of desperation, and that's if you're just watching the clip on YouTube. If you go to Peacock, you'll see Cena's entrance immediately preceded by a grainy black-and-white video that explicitly attempts to link Cena to Depression-era Chicago mobsters, portrayed as anti-authority freedom fighters who didn't care "if you loved them or you hated them." Vince's plea for the crowd to not boo Cena couldn't have been more ham-fisted and transparent if he'd sent Cena out in an actual Chicago Bears uniform, and it also (hilariously) falls on deaf ears, as Chicago mercilessly boos Cena and his tommy gun out of the building anyway and proceeds to invent the "yay"/"boo" chant ("yay" for Triple H, "boo" for Cena) that alternates back and forth during punch exchanges to this day.

There's some not inconsiderable irony here in the presence of Cena and Punk, both (sort of) main-eventing WrestleMania for the first time almost 20 years before they'll main event their respective nights this weekend. But there's even more irony in the fact that, while the "CM" part of Punk's name has often been referenced as meaning "Chicago Made," it was actually John Cena who Chicago made at WrestleMania 22. This was the night Cena came fully into form — the superhero babyface WWE Champion being booed relentlessly while the company spins the crowd reaction harder and faster than the logo on his custom title belt and who, of course, always wins. All Punk can do is exist in Cena's shadow, survive, and try to stand out as part of his story. And it's telling that even today, as he prepares to retire, Cena is still above Punk on the WrestleMania card.

Written by Miles Schneiderman