page_title: WrestleMania 25
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: WrestleMania 25 / Reception
caption_attribution_description: English: Shawn Michaels made a grand entrance. His match with The Undertaker was one of the best matches of the night.
context_page_description: WrestleMania 25 was the 25th annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment. It took place on April 5, 2009, at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. The event featured talent from all three WWE brands: Raw, SmackDown, and ECW. It was the second WrestleMania to be held in Houston, with the first being WrestleMania X-Seven at the Reliant Astrodome, which was held in 2001.
  Eight matches were held on the event's card, which featured a supercard, a scheduling of more than one main bout. The first of these matches saw The Undertaker defeat Shawn Michaels. The second was a Triple Threat match for the World Heavyweight Championship, which saw John Cena defeat the champion, Edge, and the third participant in the match, The Big Show, to win the championship. The final match of the night was a singles match for the WWE Championship that featured the champion, Triple H, defeating Randy Orton to retain the title. Featured matches on the undercard included Jeff Hardy versus Matt Hardy in an Extreme Rules match, Chris Jericho versus the team of Roddy Piper, Ricky Steamboat and Jimmy Snuka, and the annual Money in the Bank ladder match.
context_section_description: WrestleMania 25 received mixed reviews from various sources. Gordon Holmes of Comcast criticized the mini-concert by Kid Rock, stating that "Kid Rock gets ten minutes and The Miz and Morrison don’t? Blasphemy!" [sic] He also criticized the 25-Divas Battle Royal which "was a bit of a mess, we didn't even get proper introductions for returning Divas like Sunny, Molly Holly, and Torrie Wilson." Dale Plummer of Canadian Online Explorer's Slam! Sports stated that "the top of this year's card looked an awful lot like last year's. Just swap out Floyd Mayweather for Shawn Michaels and everyone else was the same." However, he praised the Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels match by rating it a ten out of ten, his highest rated match. The main event received a seven out of ten. Overall, he rated the event 7.5 out of ten. Wade Keller of the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter also criticized Kid Rock's performance, but praised the Undertaker vs. Michaels match. He rated it five out of five, and stated that "the match that deserved to end this show was Taker-Michaels." IGN offered their own review of WrestleMania 25, with IGN TV writer Dan Iverson praising Kofi Kingston, Shawn Michaels, and Ricky Steamboat for their performances, but also criticizing WWE for not showing the Tag Team unification match during the event itself. He finished off the review by stating: "It was just too bad that the potential of the card wasn't lived up to", also giving it an overall rating of seven out of 10. Arash Markazi of Sports Illustrated wrote that Mickey Rourke's appearance "may have been one of the worst executed in WrestleMania history."
  The Randy Orton vs. Triple H main event was generally regarded by critics as a disappointing ending to the show. Holmes of Comcast.net believes that the match "never seemed to click" and Kevin Eck of The Baltimore Sun stated that he was "disappointed that it didn’t feel more special after some great angles on TV." Nick Tywalk of Slam! Wrestling wrote that it was "solid and had its share of drama, but the lack of outside interference or plot twists of any kind failed to spark the same feeling of energy Reliant Stadium had in it a few hours before. It was almost a "That's it?" reaction that first came to mind." Wade Keller gave the match 3.75 out of 5. He called the match "good, both well-plotted and well-executed, appropriate to the storyline and feud", but added that "it just wasn't able to follow the classic two matches earlier."
  The match between The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels was widely acclaimed and received the 2009 Match of the Year award by both Pro Wrestling Illustrated and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
caption: Shawn Michaels, seen entering at WrestleMania 25, would attempt to end The Undertaker's winning streak at the event; the match was acclaimed by critics and is often considered to be one of the greatest matches in WrestleMania history.
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