Hello blog fans. Thanks for dropping by. I hope you like wrestling because that’s where this post is at.
It was Wrestlemania week and WWE went all out with their programming on the Network. On Monday, there was an episode of WWE 24 documenting the last day of Daniel Bryan’s career before he officially retired. It was a sad day but I love these glimpses of what goes on behind the scenes. It humanizes the “Superstars”.
Later in the week there was an episode of Ride Along focusing on Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns in one car and Paige and Alicia Fox in another. It’s behind the scenes, but in a more slice-of-life kind of way. WWE 24 focuses on big days in various wrestlers’ lives. Ride Along gives you an idea of how all those long drives from venue to venue are for these guys and gals. Catherine Zeta Jones! She ducks beneath the laser!
On Thursday there was a new installment of the Stone Cold Podcast where Steve interviewed Mick Foley live at Wrestlemania Access. The Stone Cold Podcasts have been hit or miss lately and this one was mostly a miss. I regularly listen to Austin’s audio podcast so I’d already heard most of what they discussed. I don’t blame Austin for aiming at a more general audience, it just wasn’t as fascinating as some of his previous Network shows.
Friday night was NXT Takeover Dallas and wow! What a show that was! The crowd was hot and invested in every match. The card was lean and focused. Sami Zayn and Shinsuke Nakamura had an awesome match that’s sure to be a match of the year candidate. Bayley vs. Asuka was stellar. The women of NXT have really raised the bar. The main event of Finn Balor vs. Samoa Joe was solid but didn’t quite the reach the height of the previous two matches. Joe got busted open early and while it broke the flow, I thought it added a little something to the match.
Saturday night was the Hall of Fame induction ceremony and it was…okay. I wasn’t invested in any of the inductees and I’m sorry but I just don’t see how Godfather and Big Boss Man deserved the honor. Stan Hansen and Vader rambled on way too long. Ric Flair seemed to forget who he was supposed to be inducting more than once. The Freebirds were the most entertaining, but really the “concert” was indulgent and embarrassing. The biggest moment of the night of course was when Sting officially announced his retirement. And the less said about the Warrior Award the better. At least Connor was a wrestling fan.
That leads us to Wrestlemania itself. As lean and focused as NXT Takeover Dallas was, that’s how long and disorganized Wrestlemania was. Including the pre-show, Wrestlemania was close to seven hours long. One of my big gripes is that they show all these video packages during the pre-show to hype the matches and then show THE EXACT SAME PACKAGES during the show to hype the matches again. Show them during the pre-show or during the show itself, but for the love of the creator, not both.They would have shaved off a half hour or more easy.
Ryback vs. Kallisto was a decent match. I was glad they chose to keep the US championship on Kallisto since they haven’t really given him a chance to get over with the crowd yet.
I actually dozed off during the pre-show right before the last official “Divas” match. Later during the pre-show, Lita came out to announce that going forward the Divas Division was getting rebranded to go back to being the Women’s Division. It’s a long time coming. The women have made such great strides and are putting on great matches. It’s like they forgot what the word diva actually means. Anyway, I woke up after the match had ended but I was able to go back with my DVR to watch it (and skip all the useless filler that came afterwards in the process). It was alright but nothing special in this case. Brie got a win for her final match (she’s rumored to be retiring tonight).
The Usos vs. the Dudleys was alright. It was a good tag match but the story behind it wasn’t very gripping.
The pre-show ended and we were on to Wrestlemania iteself. The Intercontinental ladder match was one of the best booked ladder matches I can remember watching. There were plenty of great action spots but more importantly, there were NO eye-rollingly slow climbs up the ladder and nobody was left looking stupid while waiting for an opponent to stop them from winning the match. Sin Cara was fantastic when he fell from the ladder onto the top rope to springboard onto other wrestlers on the floor. Stardust and Kevin Owens took the craziest bumps of the match (I was genuinely worried about their well-being). Sami Zayn was incredibly over with the crowd and it looked like he was going to win and then he didn’t. Zack Ryder was the last person I thought would win and yet he did. It was a swerve for the sake of being a swerve.
Chris Jericho and AJ Styles had a really good match. It’s the fourth time they’ve faced off since January so the feud was getting a little old, but they saved their best for last (I hope they move on to other opponents). I was surprised that Jericho got the win since Styles is so new to WWE, but as someone online pointed out. If they want Jericho to remain relevant when he comes back, he has to win when it counts sometimes.
I love New Day. They had one of the more elaborate entrances coming out of a giant cereal box dressed up as characters from Dragonball Z. I’m sure it was Xavier Woods’ idea. I’m just surprised Kofi and Big E went along with it. They’ve never struck me as anime fans. The match with League of Nations was…okay. I was disappointed to see the League win, but it was clearly to set up the next segment where Shawn Michaels, Mankind and Steve Austin interrupted to take them out. New Day came back in to dance with them. Even Stone Cold danced…for about two seconds before he gave a Stunner to Woods. It was a nice way to include the stars from the past on the show though it didn’t do any favors to the League or New Day.
I thought the Brock Lesnar-Dean Ambrose match was pretty good. Ambrose was at least made to look like he had a chance of winning instead of the total squash it could have been. The online consensus for the match wasn’t as positive.
The triple threat match between Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks and Charlotte was the best match of the night. These women are just phenomenal. I was pulling for Becky even though she was the least likely to win. Sasha is the most over so she had a better chance, but as soon as they announced the new belt I could tell they were going to have Charlotte win. They just weren’t going to have anyone else be the FIRST Women’s Champion.
Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon was just jaw-dropping. I can’t believe some of the things they did in that match. I was yelling “NO!” at the TV when Shane climbed the cage. I didn’t want to see him kill himself by jumping off. Thank goodness he came out okay (I’m taking for granted that the stretcher job at the end was mostly for show). As well-told as the story in this match was, I think the women’s match was better because they were able to put on a great match without any crazy (and while entertaining, wholly unnecessary) stunts.
I enjoy battle royals so I was a part of the target audience for the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. I was afraid they were going to go the safe route and have Mark Henry in what will be his last match at Wrestlemania (he’s said it would be), so I was really surprised that Baron Corbin won. He didn’t look out of place doing so, but really…last year, Hideo Itami had to win a match to qualify to be in the battle royal and was quickly eliminated. Corbin LOST his match at Takeover and yet he was given the spot at Wrestlemania. It just seemed weird. Even though he’s supposed to be a bad guy, the fans cheered his win since NXT is so over with everybody.
The show was supposed to end at eleven and at a 10:45 there was the main event left to go. That’s when the Rock came out for his segment. And as entertaining as the Rock CAN be…that segment was awful. I don’t care anymore about the Wyatt Family but they didn’t deserve to be buried like that. Oh and John Cena’s back.
The main event introductions started past eleven and it was a quarter to midnight before the match ended with very little fanfare. WWE are determined to have Roman Reigns be their face champion and the fans on the whole just aren’t behind him. Triple H was supposed to be the bad guy and he got cheered more then Roman did. It was a by-the-numbers match that did neither participant any real favours. I’ll be curious to see the direction they take with Roman tonight on Raw. Yes, after all that wrestling over the weekend, I’ll be tuning in for more tonight. The Raw after Wrestlemania sometimes ends up being wilder than Wrestlemania itself.
And that’s it for this week. Have a good seven and we’ll do this all again (with less wrestling talk) next Monday. Carja V.