Wrestlemania 29 Thoughts

[tim]

You know those assholes who get pissy when things happen logically and they're not swerved?

 

I think I'm with them this once, because logic was pretty damn painful tonight.

yeah. more than anything to do with the fact that everything that happened was painfully boring and no prospects coming out of mania are the least bit interesting.

[Tim Evans]

HHH's Davey Richards tribute act was something else.

 

Good show overall thanks to Punk/Taker and the Shield match. Disappointed at no Bellas as that was one of the matches I was looking forward too. Besides the Taker match, this felt like a 4 hour Raw.

[Childs]

They worked hard to have a great match and yet, it didn't feel special in the way the much-talked-about Cena turn would have. I don't think these guys have a great match in them, honestly. Overall, a middle-of-the-road Mania. First hour was enjoyable. Cena-Taker was an easy MOTN. And the last hour plus didn't quite pop.

[anarchistxx]

An underwhelming main event for an underwhelming show. They were treating the Rockbottom like a transition move, no wonder nobody popped for the nearfalls until everyone had hit their finisher at least three times. Shows how they have gone overkill in the big matches. The first half of the match was typically poor anyway, no real build or interesting work, just a sense of them killing time for fifteen minutes with a dead crowd. It only got halfway decent after the spot that recalled the match last year, and even then it was just a by-the-numbers my move your move main event.

 

Cena winning was the most predictable outcome. Probably the most logical too, but still, when the entire fanbase is calling the finish to your major show a year in advance it isn't really a good thing. I was waiting for Cena to hurl him off the stage at the end or something, it would have worked great when it went silent after the fireworks stopped.

 

It was a boring show when taking in isolation. But what is perhaps worse is that there was literally nothing to get you to tune in tomorrow night. You just know the next few months are going to be taken up with tedious, predictable feuds that drag on for PPV after PPV with matches being repeated time and time again. I think now is the time for them to become decisive and decide on a long term direction - have some more complex feuds, pick guys to push and actually go with them, instead of pushing them to the moon for three months and then jobbing them out time and time again to 'test' them like happened with Cesaro, Ziggler and pretty much every other guy they have got behind in the last few years.

 

In summary, I should have finished watching Game Of Thrones Season 2 instead.

[rzombie1988]

I reviewed Wrestlemania 29 with pics and gifs here:

http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/ww...29-results.html

 

Overall thoughts: The show was good as a whole with no real bad matches. Nothing too phenomenal though. Punk/Taker was easily the match of the night though I never felt CM Punk would win. I enjoyed Brock beating the crap out of Triple H. Fandango was fine and the WHC match was okay. I'm glad to see the Shield win and I liked their match. Overall, it was a good Wrestlemania.

 

Some shots from the show:

[rzombie1988]

Double post, sorry.

[flyonthewall2983]

The hands reaching up to Taker was an awesome effect.

[Matt D]

Can we close this note before Johnny gets home from the bar or whatever? Let's all just move on before he ruins our night more?

[Dylan Waco]

Was in the middle of getting horrible news on phone during Cena v. Rock finish, but I was still semi-paying attention. Felt like really over the top version of WWE Clash of The Titans match and the spot calling was unreal. Literally felt like I saw almost every single spot in the match called.

 

This was not a bad show really, but I can't call it good. I don't leave excited or interested in the WWE product and that's a bad thing. Like WM 27, I feel like the show could have been a lot better if the match order was different.

[flyonthewall2983]

The video packages were annoying but better than constant backstage segments. This was a much better show than I thought it'd be.

[goodhelmet]

Can we close this note before Johnny gets home from the bar or whatever? Let's all just move on before he ruins our night more?

Why would he ruin your night? The show went too long thanks to the Trips-Brock match but overall, a pretty entertaining show.

 

The Shield match was a great opener.

Mark Henry match kinda blew but Henry won

Fun tag title match

Jericho walking Fandango through a match

Del Rio vs. Swagger - I didn't watch

Punk vs. Taker would be the one match featured on one of my MOTY sets.

HHH-Brock blew

Rock-Cena was fine but predictable.

 

Without the HHH snoozefest, this would have been a much better PPV.

[NintendoLogic]

I was out of town this weekend and didn't make it home in time for Mania. From what I'm hearing, I didn't miss much. No real memorable moments, and only Punk-Taker sounds like it was worth going out of my way to see.

[Marty]

The hands reaching up to Taker was an awesome effect.

I liked that too. Between that, Punk's Living Colour entrance and the match itself, it felt like the only thing one should go out of their way to see. Everything else was just good or there.

[artDDP]

I was enjoying this card up until the Triple H-Lesnar match damn near put me to sleep. Cena-Rock was similarly dull and the finish was terribly anti-climatic. I agree with those saying that there is no compelling reason to tune in tomorrow night.

 

The Punk-Undertaker match was my MOTN. It was nice to see Taker give Punk as much as he did and the match was a lot of fun to watch. I'm not terribly enamored with Punk but I will say that I like his heel character a lot because it is so different from the usual, cookie-cutter, chickenshit heel WWE usually gives us.

 

All I could think between last night's HOF and seeing him tonight was that Bob Backlund seems REALLY THRILLED to be a part of all this.

 

I really enjoyed the Sheild match. I like that they seem to have a bit of energy to their matches. Most of the rest of the roster seems to work the same plodding spot-rest-rest-spot style that bores me to tears.

[Matt D]

To be fair I did miss the opener, but that show was dreadful. I mean, it might have been fine for something else, but it was a terrible Mania. A few fun six minute sprints. Rock vs Cena felt like weird performance art to me, not a wrestling match. I don't see how that was even close to good. It was like the last five minutes of a normal WWE main event match but for 25 minutes. I didn't find Escalating Reversals to be a particularly sound narrative.

 

As for the rest, I like the entrances. I like the backstage BS where Mean Gene shows up in some goofy situation. I like guys getting to talk backstage at Mania to prep for a match over really well produced video packages. It makes things feel special. We see video packages all the time. I like the spectacle of it and I didn't get any of that here. And of what I got instead, none of it felt particularly worth it.

 

Even then, if this thing existed in a vacuum it'd be okay. But the idea that they're going to continue from it tomorrow? With a bunch of rematches and a few shifts here or there due to the part timers?

 

Ouch

 

Edit: To also be fair, part of the problem wasn't the show but the card. Someone just asked me what single result I'd change in order to improve things, and with the way they laid it out and built it up, there's not a hell of a lot to be done there. That said, the show only partially helped and in some ways very much hurt.

[Ricky Jackson]

I missed the first three matches and only half-watched Jericho/Fandango. Taker/Punk was really good. It seems I liked HHH/Lesnar more than anybody else around here but it was hurt by the dead crowd. Rock/Cena was better than last year but the finish was as predictable as they come. Considering how underwhelming the last year or so of WWE has been, this is about as good as one would expect Mania to be. The last 4 or 5 Mania's all feel the same to me anyway.

[Kevin Ridge]

Two quick points:

 

1. I finally got to see wrestlemania live in person.

 

2. Zzzzzzz.......

[flyonthewall2983]

Was it cold at all inside the stadium?

[Kevin Ridge]

Was it cold at all inside the stadium?

I thought weather was great. Rained briefly during pre show match. Didn't hear anyone complaining about temps. There should be no complaints accepted on dead crowd due to weather.

[Kevin Ridge]

Hopefully I'll add more thoughts when I get home. Haven't gone through this whole thread as on phone. Anyways I thought show lacked special feeling that I would expect a mania to have. I enjoyed night of champions in Boston more than this. What happened to backstage interviews? Now we get recycled videos. Major gripe from me was during tag title match they put on these very bright lights on stage over ring for rest of show. These were almost blinding and very distracting. I had trouble looking at ring. Spent about half of remaining show looking at video screens instead. And I was not in nose bleed section either.

[Cox]

That's strange - I was freezing most of the night. Then again, I was in the next to last row of the upper deck, which may explain why I was cold. Honestly, it hurt to clap at points.

 

As far as the show, I thought it was a show. Nothing stood out as particularly good or particularly bad. I think I'd have preferred to have watched this from home, both because my seats were so far away (but ironically, despite being behind the cage, there were no obstructed views and I could see the ring fine, it was just really far - even stranger because I was actually behind the stage) and because I'd have preferred to stay out of the cold. But still, it's Wrestlemania and it's 30 miles from where I live, so I have no regrets on going. But as a show, it felt a little underwhelming.

[Kevin Ridge]

Understandable. I was in lower bowel so much different for temps. Audio is something thing that stood out to me. I know these big shows don't translate well on tv. I couldn't hear anything from ring outside the heavyweights bumping and chair shots.

[flyonthewall2983]

It should be noted that if people thought the crowd was dead on TV, about how the response doesn't come off as well because it is outdoors. Someone on Twitter said the crowd was pretty up during the Lesnar/HHH match.

[Tim Evans]

One thing I really liked on this show was the pre and post show with JR, Dusty, Kofi Kingston and Scott Stanford. Best thing Kofi's ever done and it's always good to hear Dusty commentary.

[goodhelmet]

Last year at Mania, when I read that people were commenting on the dead crowd (especially for Punk-Jericho) I never felt like the match was dead live. What you really hear live are pockets of sections coming alive. When it eventually reaches the rest of the crowd, the original pocket dies and a new section carries the noise. For HHH-Lesnar, I didn't hear pockets on TV at all. I wonder if that is how Punk-Jericho came across.