Classic Rant #1,180 (April 7, 2014): "The Grandest Stage of All"

First, let me acknowledge the life of Mickey Rooney.

He was a one of kind performer, could do anything on the stage and screen, and was our last link to an era where the Hollywood glitz was the real thing.

He was also in my favorite film of all time, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

What a performer, what a winning streak of talent that is preserved in many, many movies forever, so future generations can see how talented this guy was.

That leads me into the perfect segueway for another terrific performer on a different type of stage.

Last night at Wrestlemania, "The Streak" ended.

Anybody who follows professional wrestling knows what I am talking about.

The Undertaker finally lost at Wrestlemania.

This is huge news in the pro wrestling world, because the Deadman never loses.

But he lost last night to burly Brock Lesnar, who will forever have his name etched in WWE history for doing this.

Anyway, my son and I watched Wrestlemania XXX from New Orleans last night, and the WWE, as usual, put on a great show.

It is the first time we watched it live, via the WWE Network, and aside from some early glitches--we found that if we put it on regular HD, rather than widescreen HD, the glitches faded away--the show went on pretty well.

There is a lot of phony pomp and pagentry with this show, but starting off by bringing out three of the four top WWE wrestlers of all time--Hulk Hogan, who was the host--Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Dwayne Johnson, better known as The Rock--was a good beginning to the program.

Bruno Sammartino was missing, but you can't have everything.

Even though the Hulkster stumbled with his introduction--he called the Superdome "the Silverdome" several times before he corrected himself--the meeting of three wrestlers who would be on a "Mount Rushmore" of wrestling if there was one was a good start to the show.

The matches were generally good, the 75,000 who were in attendance seemed to be having a great time, and the home audience was too, based on a small sample size of my son and myself.

Heck, I even took some pictures off the screen which you are seeing as you are reading this.

But the Undertaker lost, and that is all you are going to hear about this entry of Wrestlemania.

The Undertaker's streak is over.

Everything else is secondary.

This took just about everyone by surprise, but the streak had to end sometime, the Undertaker in real life is pretty much beat up after years of pounding, and the new WWE Network had to have something tangible to pin its hat on to gain even more subscribers.

It was "good for business," to catch a phrase.

They now have it.

Another streak ended yesterday.

The Yankees finally hit a home run, in their sixth game. It was about the third or fourth time in their storied history that they went five games at the start of a season without hitting a homer, but not only do they finally have one, but they beat the Blue Jays in doing so.

A minor streak, but a streak at that.

And who else could weave Mickey Rooney, Wrestlemania, and the Yankees together like this?

I guess I am one of the few people who would link them together, but that is what I am here for, isn't it?