Chris Benoit vs. Montel Vontavious Porter

[5.0] "Solid but whelming match. They worked hard and nothing went wrong, told a simple story. Just didn't feel like a Mania match, just felt like a solid TV match."

[6.0] "A solid matchup between the two. Nothing showy just did what it needed to. I was impressed with MVP in this one keeping up with Benoit."

[7.0] "Good technical style matchup. You knew Benoit could do it, but MVP held his own quite well. I enjoyed this."

[6.0] "Something of a coming out party for MVP. After he was put in pretty bad situations where he wasn't truly given a chance to show his work before, this match shows he could go when given the chance. The initial mat work with Benoit is brilliant and so crisp. The storytelling of working on Benoit's arm is told nicely. Benoit is giving MVP so much of the match to make him look good, too. The problem is that MVP has no heat due to his past storylines. No one is invested in him as a heel, so having him take so much of the match doesn't get the crowd going. The contest slows down a bit after halfway, and I found the finish to be REALLY abrupt. I felt like they could have had another 5 minutes easily and then it is over. Not a Wrestlemania classic at all, but maybe a little bit underappreciated."

[4.0] "While the opening of this features some excellent mat work, MVP is never really able to generate much heat or pose as a convincing threat beyond his early arm work. This is mostly not anyone's fault, but rather the short clock given to a title match that deserved more. MVP and Benoit would have better matches in this feud--which is odd when this is the WrestleMania match. Benoit's comeback is relatively short and feels neither clever nor creative, and I just really kind of hate it when a title match with either of these men is "just another match.""

[7.0] "***1/2 (07/10) Wow. The Rabid Wolverine's final Maniac fight would go against one of Pro-Wrestling' s all-time Mic'ers. The sad part about this was that we can assume that Benoit was losing his mind by the night of Mania 23. Only three years prior, we were able to see the peak of Benoit's career and his in-ring talent. Now he was lost in a deteriorating madness, but with a too-well-seasoned nature to put on anything but a match that goes beyond the rate of an average Pro-Wrestler. I can only imagine how much that final flying headbutt affected the Rabid Wolverine's diminishing condition."

[6.0] "Benoit's last Wrestlemania match ended up in a classic way for him - grapple, chain wrestling. Just okay."

[3.0] "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz A horiffically boring, nondescript match with no redeeming qualities, yet not being bad enough to be all-time bad. This is just a boring Smackdown match on the biggest show of the year. *1/2"

[5.0] "In hindsight, this aged terrible due to the incident that happens 3 months later from this match. But ignoring all of it, this was fairly a lackluster match with no excitement"

[6.0] "About what you'd expect given the time they were given, competent but nothing special, wish they had more time to work."

[7.0] "They would have better matches, but this was still a really solid match between both men, they had nice chemistry and the in ring work between them was good too."

[8.0] "8/10: good moves, overall a great match but ending is anti climactic, i have always loved benoit vs mvp."

[5.0] "This match was long and very boring with a dead crowd for MVP, they were not into him at all. Only Benoit got some reaction."

[6.0] "It was alright, a competent match with a good pace and two guys that were over. Benoit did his usual stuff at this point with German Suplexes leading the line, but it worked and the fans loved it. MVP on the other hand was vocal and he tried to work the crowd, providing a decent heel performance."

[6.0] "Solid match and it makes sense that they kept this feud going for a while after this. Solid 2.5 stars."

[8.0] "great match but the commentary. JR like cmon it's right in front of you. this will go down as a cult classic match because of the very obvious problem"

[7.0] "This is a fun match and mvp was really good in this match and I like how he work on the arm but it was a solid match. ***1/2"

[9.0] "The story of this match went right the heck over JR's head, which is unfortunate because if he was on top of his game, it may be remembered as a classic."

[8.0] "Underrated bout on this card in my eyes. The story of a heel MVP taunting and luring Benoit in is a nice story, and he uses every trick in the book to remain one step ahead. Nice chain wrestling on display, and MVP gets one of his better matches here. The crowd isn't into it that much, but they do appreciate what the two men are doing. It's not Benoit's best ever match, and the finish does feel anti-climatic. This was Chris Benoit's last ever WrestleMania match. JBL says on commentary that Benoit will get put into the Hall of Fame someday. That someday will never come though due to the horrific events surrounding Chris Benoit's death in June of 2007."

[5.0] "I think their match on Judgment Day was surprisingly good and this was some of the same. MVP looked solid. Knowing how huge of Japanese wrestling he is, I can imagine he spent all week watching Yoshiaki Fujiwara work the arm, as that's what he did here, to mostly good success. Benoit was on the backfoot for the entirety of the match, only getting the crossface at certain points. The ending ws sudden with Benoit doing his signature moves to close out the match. **3/4"

[7.0] "This was as rugged and aggressive as you can expect from any Benoit match. MVP pulls Benoit's arm over the rope as he's shoved to the outside which causes Benoit to sell like a wounded lion. After some decent arm work from MVP, Benoit shows off his ring savviness by countering an MVP superplex by cradling his legs on impact, Dynamite Kid-style. The crowd was quiet during most of this but came alive for all of Benoit's signature spots, including the flying headbutt which wrapped this up. MVP gets to show off his technical chops and that he can hang with the veterans, even if he did take the loss on this night."

[7.0] "pretty good. Alright mat work between the two. MVP is not that bad and keeps up with Benoit with the technical wrestling. MVP worked over Benoit's arm. The limb work is pretty good with kicks, punches, and submission holds. Benoit hits MVP with some suplexes. Benoit got a good reversal when he countered a superplex by hooking the legs to get a pin attempt. A good sign of Benoit's hurt arm was when he tried to get MVP in a crossface but he couldn't lock it in because of his arm. Benoit hit a triple German suplex before going up top to hit the Diving headbutt for the win."

[8.0] "There was no hype for this match but it's impressive. Great work from both of them, Benoit is strong on the technical side and MVP is a good all-rounder, I really like his performance in this match. Solid fight to the end, no cheap finish or anything, just a solid match worthy of Benoit performances in Wrestlemania. ***3/4"

[6.0] "Very good mat work and MVP's submission holds on Benoit's arm. Match was very short, it ended when it usually starts to gain momentum. Fight looked a bit one-sided, though Benoit was locked in submissions for majority of the time. 5 more dynamic minutes with MVP's submission victory would be the best decision, but we have what we have... JBL talked about entering Chris into Hall of Fame, oh the irony..."