Personal preference aside, I thought HBK and JBL did the best they could and played their roles to perfection. But yeah, the fued itsself was lackluster and definitely could have benefitted from the extra buildup and bigger stage that would've come with a WrestleMania blowoff.
Plus, if that happened, we never would've been subject to seeing JBL beating Punk for the IC title with no reason, buildup, or follow through, and then randomly losing the title to Rey Mysterio and retiring on the spot. That whole thing was also very strange.
Actually, looking back at that WrestleMania card, it seems like they were really struggling with a lot of it. Obviously the Triple H/Orton buildup was great, but the rest of it was very blah(not the matches themselves, the storylines leading up to it)...the whole Cena/Edge/Big Show thing, with Vickie Guerrero somehow involved, was all very odd. It was like they couldn't decide if they wanted to go with Cena vs. Edge, Cena vs. Big show, or Edge vs. Big Show, so they just threw them all in there together. There was the aforementioned Mysterio/JBL match, then the whole thing with Chris Jericho and all the legends that was supposed to lead to Jericho vs. Mickey Rourke, but that never panned out so he faced Piper/Steamboat/Snuka in a handicap match. You had Santino Marella winning the Miss WrestleMania battle royal, where they brought back every former diva they could and then didn't take the time to give them an introduction before the match. I really don't know what was going on back then...it was like they focused all their time on the Orton/McMahon/Triple H storyline and just hoped everything else would come together.
But back on topic, I remember reading afterwards that JBL was going to have his last match at WrestleMania that year and he personally chose Rey Mysterio to be the guy that retired him - in fact, he came out of retirement just to eventually have that match. In which case, they didn't have a choice to extend or postpone the HBK/JBL storyline. But if that wasn't the case, I think they either build up HBK/JBL to a WrestleMania blowoff, or save it for after WrestleMania. They could've tied his money problems into him coming back after the Undertaker loss and had a blowoff match at SummerSlam or Survivor Series. I think, either way, it would've been a much better fued if they had given it more time. But nothing really seemed to come together for them that year.
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