-Ladder match -Women's title match -Shane/Taker -Evil Ringmaster Steph
Things I didn't: -Heavyweight title match -Jericho over Styles -The length/bloat
Notes: -I was cheering for Sami Zayn in the ladder match but then switched to Stardust when he pulled out the polka dot ladder. Happily surprised to see Zack Ryder win, as I put him down with Sin Cara as no chance/filler. -Damien Sandow still got a pop from the crowd. I wish they could figure out what to do with him. -I loved most of the entrances and the ramp was amazing. -They have got to tighten up the length of the show. As it is, four hours is a hell of a commitment. -The realization after thinking "Man, Jericho's looking old" that we're the same age.
I watched most of the show with my five-year-old son, who was SO EXCITED but he had no idea why he was excited. He asked a million questions every match. I truly recommend doing this if you have a chance, it was fun explaining things in kayfabe vernacular. His best comment was that he was cheering for Jericho because "the other guy doesn't even have a cool jacket."
Look, forget everything else and just love WWE Superstar Sasha Banks. She is my only emotional connection to this product right now. She's my new Daniel Bryan. I just want to watch her be happy that she's in this spot.
Preshow matches felt like regular TV matches for the most part.
Ladder match was fun, though I'm personally burnt out on the multi-man schmozzes. Ryder winning was a nice surprise.
Styles-Jericho was one of several cases where a good match was overshadowed by a questionable result.
I try to avoid going this mental route, but New Day really had their balls cut off there. Was worried about Big E when he hit the floor after that spear through the ropes.
Womens' match was probably my favorite of the night. I'm a total fanboy for Sasha and thought she had a great outing. Charlotte's moonsault to the floor was pretty great as well. Though the title should have changed hands, but oh well.
Hey, Ray Gordy got a WrestleMania moment.
Hey, Tatanka. DDP. All right. I'm fine with Baron Corbin winning, though they could have hyped his participation beforehand or something. He was one NXT guy who had the size to make an impact in a battle royal setting, unlike Itami who had a forgettable appearance last year. God bless Bo Dallas.
Main event was...there. HHH busted out some different stuff, particularly the neckbreaker off the table and the flying kneedrop with Roman in the ropes.
For such a huge show, the status quo was barely altered (moreso if Ryder drops the I-C tonight on Raw).
Too long. Too looooooong. I started watching late, as I did with Takeover, about an hour and a half after the show started. I skipped the preshow thankfully, because 7 1/2 hours is just too much. We complain about 3 hours of Raw...
Loved the ladder match, but I love just about everybody who was in it outside of maybe Miz. Elated for Zack. Transitional or not (I feel like maybe they are going to go somewhere with this), it was the biggest moment of his career and you know how much it meant. Match ran smoothly and everybody came out looking good.
You would think the novelty of AJ vs Y2J wouldn't wear off, but here we are. Can we not have another rematch?
There's no way you can make me believe that Michael Cole can name Dragonball characters. This is the same guy who called D-Bry a nerd for years. The entrance was fun, though not the flying unicorns I had hoped for. Rusev is magic. The sad thing is that either team losing doesn't mean anything because we'll just have a rematch tonight or something. The picture Big E posted on Twitter of him sneaking one of Austin's beers outside of the ring redeemed anything though.
Brock vs Dean was a fun fight.
Loved that the women had one of the best matches of the night and the crowd was into it. Love the new title, it looks amazing, and love that they are SUPERSTARS and not divas. Sasha is the one who is going to be the massive star here though, and this seemed like a missed opportunity.
I know it is wrestling and "fake" and all, but it's hard to believe that Shane could go so toe-to-toe with Taker.
Battle royal was good enough, good to see NXT actually excel. Tatanka was random.
My god that main event. The fans mostly hate Roman. People on Twitter (which is always right) said there were heavy boos that were edited down in the broadcast. While this is not a hill they are going to die on, is Vince really THIS stubborn? (Yes.)
I had it on the other tv in the man cave and would switch volume over when The Walking Dead was on commercial. Turned it on to catch the last half of the opener. How the hell did Owen's neck not snap on that ladder? I knew he was fine cuz within 30 seconds, the two refs were trotting back to their spots on the other side of the ring, but, seriously, how?
After that, caught bits and pieces until TWD was over, to which why is The Rock running around with a flame thrower? That whole Rock bit...... I loved when the crowd gave him a big ovation for Rock mentioning Bray's "charisma", especially a couple of times.
One of the few good things of the night - check out the ingredient list, all the way to the bottom:
Then, Roman and Charlotte flew out to NY to be on The Today show this morning. Crazy.
Shane's stunt. Holy. Just.......crazy. And, apparently he was up and walking around fine in back after everything was done. Good for him. Wonder if Stardust was after that ladder spot?
WrestleMania 30: They book a terrible main event nobody in the world, including probably at least one of the participants, wants and are finally, literally forced by the fans to scrap it and salvage WrestleMania by inserting the best wrestler in the world, Daniel Bryan, into the main event.
WrestleMania 31: They book a terrible main event nobody in the world, except the family of one of the participants, wants and are finally, literally forced by the fans to salvage WrestleMania by inserting the next best wrestler in the world, Seth Rollins, into the main event.
WrestleMania 32: They book a terrible main event nobody in the world, except the two participants, wants. Against all odds, they somehow have a third best wrestler in the world, freshly signed, in the form of Shinsuke Nakamura and they...have him wrestle two days before WrestleMania and not appear on the card. Also, the fourth and fifth best wrestlers in the world are both in the PPV opener and neither wins. Instead of gaining knowledge from the experience of the last two years of debacles, they somehow regressed. Neat.
Things I liked from WrestleMania weekend!
-Takeover was good. Nakamura arrived fully intact and is awesome and as good as that match was, I've seen even better matches from him, which is kind of amazing and promising. His new theme is perfect.
-Kalisto having a solid gold mask for the Hall of Fame ceremony and his wife having her own mask.
-Hey, Zack Ryder won! Since they couldn't find any time in their five plus hours of weekly TV or their unlimited network time to use the footage they had to build to Owens/Zayn, I'm fine with Zayn not winning, and Zack Ryder winning is so weird and leftfield and they really, truly did mercilessly bury the dude as hard as anyone has ever been buried for the crime of getting over, good for him.
-The women, I guess, had the match of the night, but it felt like one of those default best matches of the night when, like, Steamboat vs. Matt Borne is the best match because what else is? This is not to say that the match wasn't good (it was, it was very good! and also the ladder match was fun), but this will be a show where I can't imagine any single match will be considered a classic or, given the night of terrible, terrible booking decisions, even memorable. Becky Lynch was the MVP of WrestleMania and I'll hear no arguments on that.
-HHH continues his streak and cements his legacy as total, toxic poison as a WrestleMania main eventer. X-8: literal dogshit in the build-up and hilariously upstaged and blown out of existence by Rock/Hogan. 25: a promising build-up destroyed blown out of existence by HHH's own best friend, and compounded by being the worst kind of boring, protracted HHH main event match with a terrible, pointless ending. 32: the match nobody but HHH and Roman wanted or cared about. We'll stop it there and be generous, but WrestleMania 2000 (strong build with a forgettable match and HHH technically never gets comeuppance as the most evil heel ever) and 22 (HHH books himself against a guy he can get face pops over ten years before doing it again vs. Roman) are also duds. I'll take, say, a Hogan/Bundy as having a better build and, given the relative talent levels involved, execution over all of them.
Things I didn't like from WrestleMania weekend!
-Basically everything else, right? Aside from Corbin winning (because why not?), all of the finishes were either flat or (even in the case where I'm for it, like Ryder) booked in ways that felt like making sure nobody went home happy. Jericho over Styles feels like one of those triple secret counterspy let's fool everyone finishes that somebody talked themselves into at the last minute. New Day's entrance felt like a weird, misfire letdown, and why in the world would they lose that match, and why would the trio of Steve Austin/HBK/Mick Foley care about coming out then and why would they beat up all six and a half active wrestlers and just why? Add in Rock and Cena and that's three retired guys, a 99.9% retired guy and a guy who is still injured (and still won't give anybody the rub for injuring him) steamrolling 9.5 active wrestlers in two segments that nobody got anything out of long-term. (Though Michaels was in absolutely tremendous shape, so I don't know if that means anything for him). Shane/Taker was confusing and weird and in the end meant nothing. Dean/Lesnar was, at least to me, massively disappointing and undercut by Shane/Taker and Roman/HHH. They needed 5-10 more minutes and Ambrose not getting to kick out of a single F5 is insane. Small plans for him or what?
The worst and saddest thing of all is that, after blowing things so relentlessly and thoroughly last year to the point of essentially erasing that year from canon for a do-over, they damn near got it right around Survivor Series. They got the Reigns title win out of the way. Roman wrecking HHH the first time actually worked and got the fans, even the hostile Philly crowd, off his back. Like, they actually fixed things as well as possible...and then did a huge nosedive into WrestleMania and wrecked it all again by making Roman have to have his moment one more time, turning the crowd back against him, and having HHH have to be the guy to do it (note: if HHH keeps having to be the guy to give the guy his moment every two or three years for the last 12 years, maybe HHH being the guy to give the guy his moment doesn't work?).
So now we get the same scenario we had a few months (Authority in unchecked power, Roman as champ, Ambrose as a loser) only everyone is less over and Roman is somehow a three-time champ the live crowd hates. That's almost impressive. We are doomed to repeat the same failed booking cycles in shorter and shorter intervals forever and by 2017 Roman will be winning and losing the title in different segments on the same show while HHH cuts the same promo on a loop in the background.
Missed opportunities: -Roman not turning heel by attacking The Rock with a flamethrower, which is an actual thing that they could have done. -Shane's kids don't get into the Cell, followed by a Spaceballs cut where suddenly the three kids are the Mean Street Posse in wigs disguised as Shane's kids -Instead of Shane vs. Undertaker, they don't have Shane come in, fresh from being overseas, leading Nakamura, AJ, Gallows and Anderson to set up Nakamura vs. Undertaker, complete with Nakamura getting a full-scale Thriller entrance.
Things I loved: - Zack Ryder's win. As the match was starting, I noted to the lovely Mrs whatever how Zack was thrown in as an injury replacement for Neville. Zack, who was our oldest daughter's favorite wrestler, who had then lost so much and been buried so hard that it actually turned her off to wrestling. (The same way they are doing with the Wyatts and my younger daughter.) Anyhow, she looked up, saw Miz gloating on top of the ladder and said, "This is what I hate about these matches. They sit up there and take forever, then someone else comes up to knock them down." As she said that, Zack shoved Miz off, and her jaw just dropped. "Is that.. did he just... win?"
The only thing funnier than that was realizing later that she thought he had just won the WWE title.
- Sin Cara's Arrancar costume - Owens and Zayn tossing the ladder and hating hating hating each other - Owens screaming and tossing Stardust's ladder - Everything Owens - Styles - Jericho except the ending - New Day's nerd entrance. *They* are the prize in the box of cereal! - Mick Foley - The Women's Championship Match, and the death of the Divas belt. - Baron Corbin!!!
Things I hated: - A lot of the booking decisions. How is this going to work when the champ comes out on Monday to an amazing wave of boos? Why sacrifice New Day, Styles, and the Wyatts? - The overall network performance over the weekend. Lots of lagging, buffering, and jumpbacks makes for a lot of dissatisfaction. - Man that was a long runtime.
"As you may have read in Robert Parker's Wine Newsletter, 'Donaghy Estates tastes like the urine of Satan, after a hefty portion of asparagus.'" Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock
I wasn't going to watch Wrestlemania. Aside from the women's match, there was absolutely nothing on the card that interested me. (Had I thought about what Xavier Woods might do with his hair, that would have interested me and that interest would have been rewarded in full.)
Then I watched NXT Takeover: Dallas and felt inspired again. I didn't like the end of the final match but everything up to that point was just about perfect and the ending wasn't bad if it goes somewhere.
So I caved and downloaded Wrestlemania.
The ladder match... I'm a huge Zack Ryder fan. He was the very first wrestler I set eyes on at the one and only WWE show I've ever attended, before he was even Zack Ryder. I've championed him since his feud with Christian in ECW. So I'm ecstatic that Ryder got his Wrestlemania moment. But as I was watching the match, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of sick fucks get enjoyment out of watching the sort of carnage that was put on display for no other reason than to entertain people. I almost skipped the rest of the match and part of me regrets not doing so, despite the great ending.
Next up was AJ Styles vs Chris Jericho. Phenomenal match. Depressing ending. Chris Jericho has become everything he rallied against in his feud with Mickey Rourke. It was on display back in July when he defeated Adrian Neville at Beast in the East. It was on display when he teamed with Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose at Night of Champions. It's on display on his podcast when it's so obvious that he's out of touch with the younger wrestlers. And it was on display at Wrestlemania. There was a time when I probably would have ranked Chris Jericho in my Top 5 all time favorite wrestlers. I never want to see or hear him again. He depresses me.
I almost stopped watching then, but forced myself to keep going so I could see the women's match. New Day's entrance was awesome. They're probably the most entertaining thing in the world today. It's really too bad that they're such big fans of wrestling because they'd be much better served in other environments.
The match was really good. The ending was fucking stupid. I'm glad to see that Austin (who I saw in person at the only WCW show I ever attended, when he had long hair and was TV champion) is still physically capable of giving a stunner even if he can't actually wrestle a match anymore. It's nice to see that Mick Foley can still kind of move a little bit, but I'd hate to see him ten years from now, if he survives that long.
I skipped the Lesnar/Ambrose match. I love Ambrose but I refuse to ever watch any sort of hardcore match again and Brock Lesnar is so boring that he should be known as the modern day Greg Valentine.
So I finally made it to the women's match... and the match was awesome. The new belt is great. The ending... they can go great places from there... but it just fell completely flat with me.
I started watching wrestling in 1981 or 1982 when I was flipping through the dozen or so channels we got on our 13" black and white television. A couple of years later my grandfather took me to my first live show, on Christmas Eve, where I watched Bruiser Brody & Abdullah the Butcher beat the hell out of each other with a trashcan 15' away from me in the stands. I was terrified and it still rates as my favorite holiday memory of all time.
I've went to a WCW show main evented by Sting vs Nikita Koloff. I went to a WWE show where most of the matches sucked but they had the most massive members of the roster altogether to the point where Batista was only the 4th largest guy on the card. I've been to several indie shows, including once driving 400 miles on my birthday to watch AJ Styles vs Shannon Moore only to have Moore pull out due to a family emergency and AJ get injured the night before, resulting in the main event being Billy Gunn vs some local jobber.
I've been watching wrestling for just shy of 35 years and Wrestlemania has cemented that this is no longer the hobby for me. The stories they're telling don't interest me. The destruction they're putting their bodies through makes me ill. And the rare moment a match is good enough that I truly enjoy it doesn't outweigh the negatives. I'm tapping out.
I still enjoy wrestling on some level. However, it's to the point where I actively avoid emotional investment; Daniel Bryan's retirement sealed that for me. There are people I like, but I refuse to get my hopes up about them. I'll stick with NXT, Lucha Underground, and my dumb indie wrestling.
Originally posted by Dr UnlikelyWrestleMania 32: They book a terrible main event nobody in the world, except the two participants, wants.
I don't think Reigns actively wanted or didn't want this match. That would imply that he has any sort of passion for anything, which would translate to television in some way. I don't even think he's happy to be there. I think he's just... there.
Originally posted by Dr UnlikelyWrestleMania 32: They book a terrible main event nobody in the world, except the two participants, wants.
I don't think Reigns actively wanted or didn't want this match. That would imply that he has any sort of passion for anything, which would translate to television in some way. I don't even think he's happy to be there. I think he's just... there.
This is a great point.
Completely unrelated:
Imagine I told you of a world where there was a professional wrestling company that had:
Nakamura Styles Steen Generico Tyler Black Pac Prince Devitt Moxley Samoa Joe Claudio Castagnoli
and none of them were involved in the main event picture? And in stark contrast, HBK, SCSA, The Rock, and Mick Foley are all still relevant and were put over several other young talents? True, some are hurt and some are successful in the "developmental" version of the same company. But they're all under the same umbrella and the guy holding it has no fucking clue about what to do with his wealth of talent.
Originally posted by InVerseI've been watching wrestling for just shy of 35 years and Wrestlemania has cemented that this is no longer the hobby for me. The stories they're telling don't interest me. The destruction they're putting their bodies through makes me ill. And the rare moment a match is good enough that I truly enjoy it doesn't outweigh the negatives. I'm tapping out.
By hobby, you mean RAW. And you ain't wrong. But let me tell you something. And I hope that some of this comes through in my weekly recaps, but hell if I know. But NXT reminds me on a weekly basis why I love professional wrestling. All the highs, all the lows, all the wonderful, larger than life personalities. They're doing it right down there, and I don't just mean at the big specials. I mean every television episode. One of my favorite matches of the last year was, wait for it, Bayley vs. Eva Marie. Yes, *that* Eva Marie. And it was great - look it up. Anybody who feels like wrestling isn't for them anymore because of what they're seeing on RAW should definitely be watching NXT.
There is good wrestling; you just have to look for it in different places. I discovered my area's indie scene sixteen years ago and I've followed it ever since. I've been watching more New Japan lately as well as Lucha Underground and ROH. Even TNA has its moments. NXT is so ridiculously different and BETTER than the main-roster programming that it's bizarre to think that they're the same company.
Weird. I liked Wrestlemania. Was it perfect? No, not by a long shot. But most of the matches entertained me. Main event the least of all. But it was one of those fun situations where you wonder what they hoped to accomplish.
Originally posted by PowerPB13There is good wrestling; you just have to look for it in different places. I discovered my area's indie scene sixteen years ago and I've followed it ever since. I've been watching more New Japan lately as well as Lucha Underground and ROH. Even TNA has its moments. NXT is so ridiculously different and BETTER than the main-roster programming that it's bizarre to think that they're the same company.
I might have made this point before, but I still can't get over the fact that the best wrestler in WWE is not on the main roster and has a gimmick of being a 9-year old.
Originally posted by PowerPB13There is good wrestling; you just have to look for it in different places. I discovered my area's indie scene sixteen years ago and I've followed it ever since. I've been watching more New Japan lately as well as Lucha Underground and ROH. Even TNA has its moments. NXT is so ridiculously different and BETTER than the main-roster programming that it's bizarre to think that they're the same company.
I might have made this point before, but I still can't get over the fact that the best wrestler in WWE is not on the main roster and has a gimmick of being a 9-year old.
Bayley? She dropped the "overwhelmed little girl" gimmick a while ago. Now she's a confident young woman who took on all challengers and rose to the occassion. Oh and she's a happy chick.
Originally posted by thecubsfan Kalisto/Ryback was good for the 10% of the crowd in the building at the time,
Just got back from Dallas and getting into AT&T Stadium was horrendous. I never had this problem with Miami, New Orleans, or Santa Clara. They said "doors open at 3:30pm" in the email but we were still waiting outside until 4:30pm. Got in and the Kalisto/Ryback match just ended. My friend got the Premium seats down on the ground level and they held them up until almost when WM32 started so he had to watch the Divas match (Brie's final match) on a screen while my group was able to watch it at our seats in the 200 level. Security told us they expected at least 90,000 people and can't let us all get in at the same time. They should've opened it up earlier.
Then they do some things with the huge screen that I didn't like. While things were happening, they would switch to crowd reactions. They would have 3 angles of something happening in the ring. They would have things to hype the crowd like a football game (Woooooo, # of Brock Lesnar's suplexes, "Ayyyyye We Want Some New Day" lyrics). I wanted to see what was happening in the ring instead.
I'm sure they put Austin and HBK in there to pop the crowd since they are from Texas but after you see these guys live the past few Wrestlemania's it's no longer that special.
I enjoyed it overall, but I didn't like the finishes. We all waiting to see if anyone would come out after Roman won the belt and he was up the ramp.... then his music stops and everyone just Boo-ed. LOL. Not sure if I'm going to Orlando. The ticket prices are getting higher every year and the way they treat you with new camera policies (no DSLR) and lame staggering of the crowd into the stadium sucks.
Well, countless reloads and starts and stops and I think I missed practically the whole thing as I'm now seeing Mathews and Striker yammering on. Who won?