POLL: Enthusiasm for Mania

[The Chief]

Wyatt vs Undertaker will be my Divas piss/smoke/food break match. Sting vs HHH will at least have the curiosity factor. Everything else can fuck off.

 

I'd like the crowd to be interesting so I could at least get some entertainment out of the show, but they're outside, it's not gonna translate. Raw the next night will be a different story.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Where's "Very enthused because it's Mania and friends and family will be with me as we have a good time enjoying a show and each other's company while eating lots of pizza and wings and drinking beers" ?

[goodhelmet]

You can do that stuff without Mania. In fact, it would probably be better for friends and family if they didn't have to sit through shitty wrestling.

[Matt D]

There should be a vote option that just says "Johnny"

[goodhelmet]

No need. He can't just admit he is excited because he actually supports their booking so he comes up with sad strawmen to compensate.

[Badlittlekitten]

I tuned out completely a couple of weeks back which is mad for mania season. I'll stream Mania the next day and likely forward through most of it.

[Matt D]

No need. He can't just admit he is excited because he actually supports their booking so he comes up with sad strawmen to compensate.

Literal ones to prop up and drink beer with?

[Parties]

This is like asking hardcore football fans if they plan to watch a bad Super Bowl. It's the one show per year that I can get a bunch of people to come over and watch, or watch together elsewhere. Fun even during bad Manias. Last year was the first in a while where my casual viewer friends liked the show, because they perceived Bryan beating HHH to be a big deal and liked that the same guy then won the title in the main event. I expect this year's show to be badly booked, and that everyone on the show will be working hard to overcompensate for lousy writing, exhausting themselves in the process. That ladder match is genuinely worrisome given who's involved.

[goodhelmet]

Only 2 of the 6 choices involve not watching it. Last year, with the Bryan storyline going in, I was very enthused. The year before, somewhat enthused. This year, not enthused. I still watched every one of them.

[conker8]

I tried the free february Network and I was on the fence to keep it for Wrestlemania but the RAW following Fast Lane has killed any enthusiasm to watch Wrestlemania.

As an European, I don't want to be awake for a shitty night. I might watch it later for Rusev/Cena. It would be the second time (WM 27) that I don't watch WM live since I have Internet.

[Coffey]

I'm a wrestling fan. Wrestlemania is the biggest show of the year, from the biggest promotion on the planet and I've followed their product for years, so yeah, I'll be watching. Plus, I already have the WWE Network anyway, so why would I not watch it?

 

Am I happy with how everything has turned out? No, not really...but am I ever? There will always be something to complain about and I usually do.

 

I don't really care who wins/loses each match, I'm just hoping for some memorable moments, some good matches & a hot crowd. I think I'll get all of that. I look forward to watching this with my girlfriend, my best friend & his wife, while eating nachos & pizza and shooting the shit. We're making a day out of it. It should be a lot of fun. If the show is subpar, we'll have fun by making fun of it. If the show is great, hey, bonus.

 

One of the highlights for Wrestlemania each year to me, is seeing who gets new gear or big, elaborate entrances. That's a lot of fun to me.

 

I am also really excited for the post-Wrestlemania RAW as that crowd is notoriously hot & that's usually when WWE does something big to kickoff the next "season" of WWE television.

 

Sting Vs. HHH and The Undertaker Vs. Bray Wyatt will both be spectacles. I don't think either will be a good wrestling match but I expect to see a lot of bells & whistles to cover up for that.

 

The André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal will, most likely, be a jobber show... but Battle Royales are always fun.

 

The Intercontinental multiman clusterfuck, I'm sure, is going to have some sick ass spots that make me shake my head but I'll be entertained none the less. Let's hope I don't have to cringe too many times at bad bumps off of ladders.

 

Rusev Vs. John Cena is the match that I'm most anticipating and I don't care if Cena wins or Rusev wins. If Cena wins, cool, try to add some prestige to the U.S. title & fade him out of the main event scene. If Rusev wins, cool, he'll be a top dawg heel with a lot of momentum.

 

Randy Orton Vs. Seth Rollins is probably the match that I anticipate the least, outside of random Divas match or Tag Team match. I'm just not real high on the Orton train, but I do like Rollins. If Rollins loses, he could cash-in later too, which is something.

 

Brock Lesnar Vs. Roman Reigns, I'm more interested in the crowd reaction than anything else. Maybe WWE will have Roman turn heel, or Heyman turn on Brock or both or whatever. Maybe Roman just wins clean and gets booed. It'll be interesting no matter what, just because I have no idea which direction they're actually going to go.

 

At the end of the day, one of my hobbies is posting on various internet wrestling message forums. If I don't watch Wrestlemania, I'll be like the only guy not knowing what is going on & then I would be trying to avoid spoilers, or not being able to partake in conversation post show and, eh, I wanna watch it. A lot of the fun of pro-wrestling to me is the surprises & living in the moment that comes about from watching live shows. If I read about it afterward, there's no shock or surprise. I already know what's going to happen.

[tim]

The "meta" aspects of WWE interest me so much more than WWE right now. I'm excited for Mania to see how the crowd eviscerate the main event, to see what kind of fallout we get, to see how the company handles it the night after and to hear commentary about how they can turn the push around and make it work, to see how it pans out the month leading into the next PPV, etc. As for the aspect of watching a wrestling show to enjoy it and anticipate the matches, yeah, hardly at all.

[JerryvonKramer]

Austin and Wade were saying that the HHH promo on Sting at Fast Lane was the best of his career. Does anyone agree with that? I quite liked the segment.

 

I put "low" because for modern WWE that's the highest I can get, but it's at the top end of "low".

[van_Fair]

I tried the free february Network and I was on the fence to keep it for Wrestlemania but the RAW following Fast Lane has killed any enthusiasm to watch Wrestlemania.

As an European, I don't want to be awake for a shitty night. I might watch it later for Rusev/Cena. It would be the second time (WM 27) that I don't watch WM live since I have Internet.

 

Yeah that sums up my point of view too. Staying up through the whole night to watch a show I have no enthusiasm about. Not gonna happen. I will read the reports after I wake up and listen to the reaction show and then look up anything that seems interesting.

[Downend2005]

I won't be watching. Maybe I'll watch a match or two on the network afterwards, but the booking from January to present has completely killed my interest. This is most probably the least interested I've been in WWE.

[El Boricua]

Right now put me down as not watching, I'm not really interested in what they're putting out for this one. If anything good actually happens I can catch it later. As someone once told me, "I came here to have fun, not torture myself".

[Parties]

The build to the show has been unusually bad this year, but I went back to look at the cards for old Manias to compare 31 to recent years. I expect this show to be better than 27 (2011) and 28 (2012). Esp. in hindsight, those were bad shows built around HHH, over-the-hill Taker, Miz, and Cena trying to carry Rock to a good match twice (if you include 29). Your main event was a mediocre Cena-Rock match for essentially three years in a row. Those shows had Cole vs. Lawler, Bryan losing the world title in 18 seconds, the squandering of Punk and Del Rio, the phasing out of Jim Ross, Team Johnny vs. Team Teddy, and a women's division fronted by Maria Menounos. For as much as we all gripe, the booking and roster were worse as recently as three years ago.

[Grimmas]

I'll let this poll run through RAW and post a new one after RAW for the next couple of weeks. I'll be curious if we see any trends change.

Don't watch TV, so my vote will be the same. Show looks stinky, but will still watch.

[Al]

None. The last few PPVs left me bored by the end. I'm a lapsed subscriber at this point so I don't feel like investing another $9.99 straight away.

[S.L.L.]

This is like asking hardcore football fans if they plan to watch a bad Super Bowl. It's the one show per year that I can get a bunch of people to come over and watch, or watch together elsewhere. Fun even during bad Manias.

This, but...this year's Rumble match was the closest I came to seeing something in wrestling so bad that even watching it while partying with a group of friends couldn't make it fun for me.

 

That said, I'm not sure Mania can top that. After the shit they pulled at the Rumble (and to a lesser degree, Fast Lane), all of WWE's cards are on the table with regards to their intentions towards their audience. They are only pretending on the most microscopically superficial level that they care about entertaining people, so why should anyone but the most deeply in denial go into this show expecting that they are going to be entertained by a quality WrestleMania?

 

So, freed of such an expectation, I'm instead expecting to hang out with my friends, eat, get drunk, and have fun pointing and laughing at the Great American Bash '91 of WrestleManias. And hey, if there's even a margin of competence on the show, they've set the bar so low at this point, we'll probably be blown away by it.

 

Honestly, I think I'm kinda done yelling at WWE's stupidity. I'd much rather laugh at it.

[kayfabe1984]

I'm going to watch Mania just because it's WrestleMania and my wife and I have already planned a weekend around watching Mania & the HOF but the build has been completely flat and I'm not excited about it at all.

 

Is it sad that I'm more excited for indy tournaments like King of Trios and King of the Deathmatch than I am for WrestleMania?

[pantherwagner]

I voted "Low enthusiasm - This card looks like shit, still going to watch" but the real option is "Low enthusiasm - This card looks like shit, will probably only watch the top matches and leave the rest as background noise"

[Seej]

Option two. I'm genuinely intrigued by Brock vs Reigns, and pretty enthusiastic about Cena/ Rusev, and the IC title mini-battle royal.

[fishbaugh]

My friends from Montana are flying down and then we are road tripping up to the Bay Area, so I'm pumped for that. I'm pumped to go to a PPV with them for the first time since No Way Out 2009. I'm excited to be at a Wrestlemania, period. But I'm not excited to be at THIS Wrestlemania, if that makes any sense. None of the matches are interesting, and after being in the crowd for last year's Royal Rumble, any charm that being part of a hostile crowd holds is gone. This will be my first time seeing Sting, so that's something? Though that is kind of like seeing Jerry Rice play...for the Seahawks. I'm trying not to get too negative, but between the price of the tickets and the amount of time I'll be spending getting there, I was hoping for at least 1 match I am interested in.

[ohtani's jacket]

At work/don't care. I'll probably watch any pimped/eventful stuff at a later date.