About three nights ago (Tuesday 5th may.), I sat in a Liverpool pub called the Pilgrim, watching on the big screen as Liverpool progressed through Chelsea to the final of the UEFA Champions League. I can vividly remember every emotion. Leaping to my feet, grabbing my friends around me, and cheering insanely as Steven Gerrard and company made their circuit of the pitch in triumph, in between rousing choruses of "You'll never walk alone." When I got home, a thought occurred to me. When was the last time I reacted this way to a wrestling match" I react this way to football a lot, but wrestling is a different matter.

Of course, that night I was too drunk to write this column, and it was not until the Friday that I remembered it.

It's a scary fact that I can remember precisely the last time I cheered for a wrestling match. Not just the quiet little nod I give when results I like happened, but full blown, hands in the air cheering. It was about a month and a half ago, whilst watching the UK wrestling channel, and I saw a repeat of a Ring of Honor show where the Briscoe's won the tag titles. It was fortunate that I was home alone, as I leapt to my feet, hands in the air, yelling "Yes!" loudly.

You can tell precisely how often I check back-results on the Ring of Honor site, can't you"

Given that in between that show and this column, WrestleMania 21 occurred, doesn't it say something" I loved WrestleMania. It even surprised me a couple of times. I had a huge grin plastered onto my face after the Kurt Angle vs Shawn Michaels match. And yet, I still wasn't cheering.

Of course, being an educated net-smark, I'm supposed to call this "Marking out." I'll do that from now on.

I find it slightly scary that I'm Marking so little over wrestling product these days. Is it a symptom of being a net fan" No. I've been a Smark for far longer than this, and I've still marked over wrestling - Eddie Guerrero's win at No Way Out '04 being a good example - and I've been able to post fine about it afterwards.

Is it the quality of the matches" Again no. I've seen many good matches over the past year or so. I've marked out for very few.

The conclusion I've come to is a saddening one. I believe it's because wrestling has lost its sense of build up.

Take a look at WrestleMania. Last year, the highlights of the card were the two brand-title matches. Kurt Angle vs Eddie Guerrero was a fantastic match, but it was made more so by the storyline rivalry between the two. Right up until the PPV, the pair were at each others throats. It made the match personal. But it also made it a competition over who was the best. That's what we were all interested in. it made for an excellent match, because it captured our interests. Same goes for the Triple Threat. First of all we had the personal rivalry between Triple H and Michaels, but we also had Benoit, with his need to prove himself to be the best.

Fast forward to this years event. Our two main events were JBL vs John Cena and HHH vs Batista.

In both cases, the WWE got it half right.

First of all, JBL-Cena. In this match, the buildup was spot-on. We had JBL and Cena at each others throats, and we had the added interest of the "No Fight" stipulation that kept them from attacking each other. It didn't matter that we knew who was going to win, because the psychology and storyline going into 'Mania was so good. Unfortunately, the match itself was a huge letdown. Since they weren't given enough time, and JBL dominated for most of it - completely going against his character of the past year - it left the majority of fans feeling deflated.

And then there was HHH-Batista. WWE came so close to getting this one right. Really. We were all behind Big Dave going into the event. The breakdown of Evolution over the months leading into 'Mania was handled well. Unfortunately, the storyline ran out of steam before it hit the big stage. Whilst the match itself was decent, by that time, a fair few fans had stopped caring. If the two main events had been the other way around, and given more time, Cena-JBL would have been a far stronger finish to the event.

But what both of these show is that the storylines of wrestling have been sorely misplaced over the past year, especially in WWE. Predictability has seeped in to the writing department, and we've gotten so used to certain cookie-cutter plotlines that at times its actually frustratingly bad to watch. Action in wrestling is all well and good, but even Ring Of Honor's action-oriented product understands the need of a decent storyline to build the matches up.

I don't know about anyone else, but I am longing to see a match that has been built up in such a way, and has just the right kind of action to make me mark out. Right now, I'm looking forward to the I Quit match between JBL and Cena. If the feud doesn't lose steam between now and Judgement day, it should be the kind of match that has me on the edge of my seat.

But given that we're smarks, and that half the time we tend to kill our own fun, here's a little homework. Go to your collection of DVDs or Videos. Put it in the machine, and switch off your analytical mind. Just watch. Imagine you're sitting there in the crowd. Watch Eddie land that frog splash on Brock Lesnar. Watch Triple H tap out cleanly to the cross-face. Watch Alex Shane land that second One Night Stand on Doug Williams. And feel the emotion.

Maybe the fault doesn't just lie with the companies. Maybe we should spend a little more time enjoying, and a little less time criticising.

I await your feedback with bated breath.

by Ben Myatt --- [View Ben Myatt's Column Index]..