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Wrestlemania


goodhelmet

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Going to reply first without reading the thread. Not seen any WWE in a long time before this.

 

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Well, that was a Wrestlemania. Not in terms of pure match quality, which was fairly mediocre, but in terms of a spectacle. The production values were insane - some of the best lighting I have ever seen, beautiful effects, colours, fireworks were insane, creative entrances, the attire, the camera work. Just phenomenal. WWE is the best in the world at that sort of thing on this evidence. Must have cost a small fortune. Stuff like the roaches crawling around the ring during the Wyatt/Orton finish, made no sense but was such a wonderful image and piece of creative film making.

 

It was also fantastic in terms of #WrestlemaniaMoments, urgh. The Hardyz were a huge shock and the first time I'm marked out for anything in years, huge buzz in the crowd as well. The brilliant finisht to the ladder match. Steph falling through a table. Undertaker at the end in that crazy blue light. The Cena proposal. It could all have come accross as corny and manufactured but they just about pulled it all off.

 

The individual matches? Not so great.

 

Shane/AJ was a bizarre choice for a match in the first place - the only conceivable reason is that Shane wanted to have a #ClassicWrestlemaniaMatch and thought AJ could take him there. The whole thing made no sense - JBL hyping AJ as the best wrestler he has seen in years and then you have Shane McMahon chain wrestling him and winning. The match was worked so, so badly. This wasn't Angle/Shane with a worn out wrestler being almost shocked by a sprightly, fearless young man with weapons - it was a grey, balding bloke who wrestles part time going toe to toe and working a regular match without any caveats with someone hyped as the best pure wrestler in the company. Terruble choice for opener - crowd wasn't that hyped for it, got the big spots in too early on the show and was generally pointless.

 

Kevin Owens v Chris Jericho was pretty much nothing. Not enough hatred for the way the feud was structured. Owens still looks like man in his backyard playing at being a wrestler, not authentic in the least or even threatening. Finish was odd. Not a terrible match exactly, but didn't hold my attention.

 

The Raw Womens fatal four way was a huge disappointment. Weird, deflating finishes once again, never got a flow going, didn't tell any sort of decent story and was generally a let down. Better without the elimination stip I reckon. Felt like it needed Sasha/Charlotte desperately fighting it out at the end. Didn't help the crowd was flat during the match itself, which was the same during the whole show.

 

Tag team ladder match was fun, especially with the energy the Hardyz brought. Forgetabble though, and nowhere near the same level as the 2000 and 2001 TLC era matches.

 

Cena/Bella vs Miz/Maryse did its job and was one match worked exactly how it should be - concise, clean, to the point, getting the job done and not overstaying its welcome. No meandering or endless messy finishing sequences. Proposal put a smile on my face, glad the crowd didn't totally shit on it.

 

I had reasonable hopes for Rollins v HHH - Trips has had some reasonable matches with HBK when he focuses on a body part and reins in his tendencies. It started well but quickly deteriorated, becoming exactly what I described above - meandering, fragmented, aimless. No beginning, middle or end, just this mush of things one after the other with no rhyme and reason. Average.]

 

HHHs entrance was masterful though, ridiculous as ever but it still looked totally badass and Steph looked incredible.

 

I must be fucking out of touch - Beth Phoenix in the Hall of Fame? Barely know who she is.

 

Skipped Orton vs Wyatt except for the finish. Seemed a complete afterthought - so much for making Smackdown an equal brand.

 

Lesnar/Goldberg was a blast. There is so little variety in a lot of WWE matches, especially near the top of the card - all the near falls and shocked faces and twenty minute matches with bombs, flying moves etc, no structure, it gets homogenous. So this was incredibly refreshing, basically a massive sprint where everything came off.

 

Goldberg, though...massive payday to return, has two thirty second matches, another six minute match where he takes all of two different bumps and that is the end of the run. Bizarre. Even Hogan did more at his age. Loved Heyman's sleazy grin on the outside when Lesnar was delivering all the suplexes. The only match on the show that kept my attention throghout and didn't have me browsing the internet at the same time.

 

I knew it would be Taker's last match as soon as I saw Jim Ross heading down to call it. JR did make me realise how dismally bland the announcing had been on the show, things instantly felt more meaningful and he spoke in a natural cadence with proper vocabulary instead of repeating stock phrases and WWE slogans.

 

Love Reigns - he has so much natural charisma, he feels totally at home going on last at Wrestlemania in a way that someone like Miz or even Edge/Orton never did.

 

Finally a match with a properly partisan crowd as well - even though they were partisan against the de facto top babyface in the company. Such times we live in. The match itself was a plodding mess. Roman definitely needs a new finish, the spear and jumping punch just don't look cool or impactful enough, especially for a man of his size. He should have some spectacular bomb that just wipes people out.

 

The ending was anticlimatic, not helped by the crowd who were basically silent during another match. Taker's retirement scene saved it, almost got a tad emotional when he kissed his wife in the blue fog.

 

So, to recap: cool show in terms of visuals, moments etc, but dear god I wouldn't want to sit through any of those matches again other than Lesnar/Goldberg.

 

I'll be amazed if anyone reads that long ass post :lol:

 

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I finished the show this morning after tapping out during the maggot match. Loved Brock/Goldy. Really wanted to love Reigns/Taker coming into it but Taker just couldn't hang after a few minutes. Overall, I liked the show aside from the two matches that died in the middle. I expected both to do that, though.

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So there's gossip out on the interwebs that the IC title match was punted to the preshow as punishment for Dean showing up drunk to the Hall of Fame on Friday. He certainly had a awkward red carpet interview with Renee where it seemed like he was channeling mid 90s HBK and she was clearly trying to steer the train back on the track, and I suppose that would also explain why he had such a not-giving-a-shit performance in the match.

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I dunno, at worst he was fucked up at a company function and at best he was busting his girlfriend's chops while she was trying to do her job. Either way he came off as dick and I'm sure it didn't do him any favors with management.

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It was the 2nd year in a row he was bombed for the red carpet. Not sure if that was the reason he was "bumped" because then who replaced them last minute? Maybe he knew already he got pre-showed in place of the women's match and just decided to cut loose for the weekend. Either way, quite a fall since the Austin interview.

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Just finished watching - yeah, I stretched my viewing over 2 days and avoided spoilers/reviews.

 

I'm a fairly big Reigns fan, or at least one that generally agrees he's one of the company's most consistently good-to-great performers and that he's had some really excellent bouts with Styles, Sheamus, and others over the past few years that he deserves loads of credit for (I'd take his matches against Wyatt, for example, over any that Ambrose had with Wyatt). I don't mind Reigns positioning as a top talent.

 

...but that match was, after a very strong opening, just not good and its not just Taker's age that made it that way. This needed to be a homerun performance out of Reigns and it wasn't. The botched tombstone reversal was UGLY but that finish was almost equally botched. What exactly was that? Reigns came off the ropes, Taker was out of position (?), they collided, Reigns (wisely improvised and) struck him with a right hand, and then Reigns bounced off the ropes again (twice) before hitting him with a final spear. It was disjointed and just not as fluid as the final spot of The Undertaker's career should be. Again, I think it was Taker not being ready, but the result is the same - a match that started off good, then got derailed, and then never recovered (arguably because, by not doing that Piledriver spot, we essentially saw the Deadman get beaten by nothing but Superman punches and Spears, nothing poetic, nothing symbolic, nothing that nobody hasn't kicked out of before.*

 

At the end of the day, that was probably the worst match Reigns has had on PPV in years. It also happened to be one of the very few that needed to be great to silence his critics. Fair or not, Reigns kind of needed to do a "carry" job here (like, say, Cena did against Khali that time or HBK did against an equally passed-his-sell-by-date Flair) and it didn't happen. Not a woefully bad match (not even close to the worst of the night), but undeniably flawed. If that match is better on rewatch, I'll never know because I don't want to find out.

 

 

* Yeah, I know, there were chairshots too. Good ones even. But chair shots are basically throwaway moments in these sorts of matches.

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