Whist jobbing to Heath Slater and Rhino
As expected, despite how annoying it was that Shane was AJ’s opponent, it was match of the night.
Oh boy, that ending. Rough.
1 Like
Mania thoughts:
AJ v Shane very good
Rollins v HHH very good
Tag Team ladder match good - happy with the surprise!
The rest - a bit meh I thought.
Orton v Wyatt was weird and had no flow
Goldberg v Lesnar was exactly as expected
And actually, Taker v Reigns was actually pretty good too.
Crowd was flat most of the night which didn’t help a few matches.
Crowd was exhausted after the tag match.
Takeover clearly had the top few matches (the Tag Title, the Heavyweight Title) but didn’t totally destroy Wrestlemania this year.
Except for the bit where it was less than half as long, of course!
Every other match on both shows was OK to good, but none actually excelled.
Haven’t seen it, was the WM crowd going DELETE crazy for Matt? Hope so.
A few more comments/spoilers/snark:
[spoiler]Is it wrong to say I want one of these shows to be heavily rained upon? Bit of wind to cope with/enjoy though.
Neville © vs Aries
There’s not necessarily anything wrong with leading with a Cruiserweight match to get the crowd going (who had pretty much all arrived more than an hour before the nominal start of the show), but going to ads during it remains disrespectful.
Damn, Aries, don’t break your freakin’ neck. Both of them are doing Angle’s “playing possum” thing though. Nice top-rope frankensteiner.
Crowd slow to get involved and then they go to a relatively cheap finish courtesy of some Judd-ing by Neville.
(No, not a chicken wing, sadly.)
15 minutes and they certainly didn’t steal the show (well, at least I bloody well hope they didn’t, I write before seeing it).
PayDay Battle Royale
Seriously, Harper eliminated by Jinder and Titus? FFS WWE FFS.
Crowd really appreciated some hairy-backed fatty just arrived in NXT cleanly eliminating Zayn…
I’m not hyped for the primary purpose of the match being a celebrity run-in. But hey, I can watch RPW Evolve etc later if I’m interested in wrestling.
Orlando vs Shane-O-Mac
Only Shane could make a simple backwards jump over a table nearly result in a broken neck. Geeez.
Happily most of Shane’s punches look good.
The crowd are willing to credit Shane’s work but when they briefly alternate punches the loyalties are obvious.
Ref bump, and we can go hardcore. Sooooo surprised. The entrance aisle is so long no replacement ref bothers to come down.
Coast2Coast and (attempted) table splash. I don’t even know what the hell Shane just did to convert a Phenomenal Forearm into a spinning DDT. Props. Shane misses a Shooting Star Press and cops the Forearm on the second attempt. Dead, one two three.
Just over twenty minutes. Clever reversals and planned spots, some very hard hits. I was Sports Entertained, even if it is an insulting waste of AJ.
Jericho © vs Owens
Hmmm, I was hoping that when the sun went down the wind would die and stop messing with their amateur mic setup.
At least Corey Graves knows the difference between a Frankensteiner and a hurricanrana.
LOL, one finger on the rope. Troll Owens Troll.
And NEW champion! Enjoy the Fozzy touring, Jericho, you were one of the few good things about RAW (that I didn’t watch).
Bayley © vs Charlotte vs Banks vs Jax
FFS. Champion always comes out last. Why do you hate wrestling/tradition so much?
(Pretty sure I know the answer. Charlotte must be getting one hell of an entrance.)
(Nope, a few fireworks aside. They’re just reminding us of the pecking order.)
Hopefully the bookers saw the TakeOver three-way elimination tag match, and understand how to book a monster in that scenario.
Hmm, they did, a little. But they didn’t have the balls to push Nia past the first elimination.
Twelve minutes, for essentially three mini-matches. Yeah nah.
Hall of Fame
‘YOU SUCK! YOU SUCK! YOU SUCK! YOU SUCK! YOU SUCK!’ — so much love.
Cass/Enzo vs Cesaro/16 stitches vs Club ©
LOL, they’re listening to my complaint. Next match New Day add an extra team after the champs come out: oh wait, it’s not themselves, it’s the HARDYS.
DELIGHTFUL!
Crowd goes full Fark Carlton at this addition to the ladder match.
Matt starts the DELETE chant with a single chop of the air.
Match starts hot, within a minute we have THIS IS AWESOME.
DELETE DELETE DELETE.
I want a ‘fark that owl’ chant. So bad.
Cass does four fantastic big boots in a row.
Jeff is still crazy (he missed the senton a tad, but no damage), and Matt gets to take down the titles.
They never spoke, though Matt did laugh that way.
Maryse & Miz versus The Fakes
LOL, this special guest announcer thinks he’s cool and on the face team’s side. Crowd disagrees.
Miz jumps on the corner ropes at the start to get the crowd cheering for him. He knows who the face team is. He’s working the crowd heavy, and the people in the expensive seats love him as he beats down Cena.
Lawler tries to push the “contrary fans” company line, but JBL is not having any of that. This is bizarre. Lawler is being so obnoxious he’s actually making Maryse the legit face.
MIZ IS AWESOME.
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! they cheer the kicks.
Finally, a tag. Nikki with a brutal BellaHammer. When Cena comes in for the dual finishers… BOOOOOOO.
Wow, as a match post the first tag… that SUCKED.
Oh dear. Cena has the mic.
It’s maybe 1% of the impact of the Savage/Miss Elizabeth reunion, but hey, the crowd doesn’t ■■■■ on it.
Rollins vs The Destroyer
(I note Samoa Joe wasn’t in the PayDay Battle Royale, so surely gets involved here? I hope he comes through the crowd, ‘cause otherwise that’s a bloody long run-in.)
Yeah, not really inspired by these two. But like the crowd I popped huge for Stephanie’s accidental bump through a table, to signify the end was nigh. She dead.
MUSICAL ■■■■ AND POO BREAK TIME.
Bray © vs Orton
Champion out first. I don’t know whether to rage about that or that people still exist that don’t know how to turn on their phone light for his entrance. Thanks to those with a clue, it looked pretty damn good.
That maggot projection was pretty cool. Good on them for not using it in a lesser fashion in the five-and-a-half hours prior to that moment. Funny how the cheap seats got to see it best.
And RKO out of nowhere, not even in a storyline sense. It just… happened.
Poor Bray.
Oldberg © vs BAAAAROCK
2:45 for Oldberg to get to the ring.
Hmm, I wouldn’t say that was much of an ovation for his ring announcement.
First suplex at 7 seconds in. Two more by 16 seconds in.
Lesnar turns his back, turns around, speared at 19 seconds in. Hid well by the director.
Second spear at 30 seconds in. Lesnar rolls out of the ring, something he overtly failed to do in their first match.
At 45 seconds we get the waaaaay over-used spear into the timekeeper’s area. Seriously, stop doing that on every show.
That spear was a bit slow-motion, and Oldberg appeared to accidentally land on/whack his head on the steel structure normally hidden under the padding.
At 90 seconds Lesnar is rolled back in the ring. A few reversals, then a fourth spear at 112 seconds.
Jackhammer at 142 seconds.
Kickout at 145. Uh oh.
YES YES YES YES YES YES the crowd is thinking like me.
At 180 seconds, Brock leapfrogs the incoming spear, with Goldberg eating turnbuckle.
10 seconds later, suplex #4.
There’s a guy dead centre front row doing the official suplex count.
9 seconds later, suplex #5.
8 seconds later, suplex #6.
9 seconds later, suplex #7.
11 seconds later, suplex #8.
16 seconds later, suplex #9.
TEN TEN TEN TEN TEN they implore.
14 seconds later, suplex #TEN.
At 281 seconds in, F5.
At 286 seconds, ONE TWO THREE.
That resembled an actual match 
Bliss © vs Lynch vs Mickie vs Carmella vs Nattie vs Naomi
Ellsworth’s gear is fantastic.
Continuous action. Highlights include Bliss being insulted that Carmella is in the match, Ellsworth copping an exploder suplex, Naomi botching, Nattie botching…
Can’t say it isn’t fun, though.
Naomi flies onto everyone at ringside, and takes care to only bring the champ back in. She cops a “knockout” forearm from Bliss as reward, but seconds later puts on an odd submission hold that looks hard to break but not painful… and with four others in the match to break it up, Bliss taps. Like, really?
I guess being the 4.5 minute cool-down match before the main event is better than being on the pre-show.
Wait, New Day are still hosts? Worth seeing Xavier’s hair again, I guess, as they announce a kayfabe Citrus Bowl attendance record.
Booman Reigns vs Undertaker
Dis gun be good. But not necessarily in a good way.
Jim Ross is special guest commentator.
Wasn’t a monstrous boo to “welcome” Reigns. It’ll come…
Over a minute from first bell tolling to Undertaking appearing. It takes him another three-and-a-half minutes to get into the ring and take off his hat — WHICH IS AGAIN TOO SMALL, leaving a welt on his forehead.
Match was pretty unremarkable. Taker was mobile early. Then it got slow, and the crowd was mild. Undertaker botches the finish by not turning to face the rebound spear, but Roman wasn’t phased and covered for him.
Ten minutes at the end to formally say goodbye to Taker. Mind you, I remember when Cena left his gear in the ring too. He came back.
Overall: surprisingly little padding, over-the-top entrances, and non-wrestling/celebrities on the main show. Someone’s getting fired.
[/spoiler]
What
TRIPLE WHAT?!
That was one of the worst WWE matches I’ve ever seen, and it also happened to be the main even of Wrestle-freakin-mania!
C’mon Riolio, it was no Hogan/Andre…
I’ll give it a 6/10. It certainly wasn’t a bad one like say 27 or 9 but it wasn’t at 17 or 30 levels of awesome
Each to their own.
I really enjoyed H v Seth.
Taker v Reigns - I’ll clarify. I thought it was as good as it was ever going to be. I certainly didn’t have any interest in seeing this match, and would have preferred Cena v Taker. The whole “it’s my yard” angle just didn’t have any buzz for me.
That said, I enjoyed Reigns bumping his ■■■■ off early, and there were some cool spots outside the ring - but the last third of the match, and the finish was kind of flat. Was it 6 spears and 9 superman punches? Way to make the new “big dog in the yard” look strong. He can’t put an aging, overweight dead man away?
Anyhow. It’s all subjective. That’s what makes it fun.
But Takeover was still a better show. And I’d wager Raw tonight will be better too.
A hearty meh. They should’ve retired Vince at the same time as retiring Taker - he is beyond senile at this point. I do not know how it is possible for Vince to run a 5hr and 10min Mania and still some of the matches felt like they had their time cut, or weren’t allocated enough time in the first place.
■■■■ Vince & Kevin Dunn for making Alexa, Bayley and Bray come out first - the Champ enters last, this shouldn’t be that hard.
Neville-Aries - Only 3 WWE shows I watch regularly, NXT, SmackDown and 205 Live. Shame this wasn’t on the PPV, but given how Vince has always felt about cruiserweights, this is probably as good as it gets until he is in a home. Match was good and I’m fine with the result as Neville has been great in his role and Aries will get the belt eventually.
Andre - Meh. They substitute Big Show-Shaq getting mainstream attention to Gronk-Mojo, which sucks for Show but Gronk is more relevant in 2017, so WWE probably comes out ahead. Given winning these has meant nothing for anyone, I’m OK with completely tossing this away. Sad to see Braun, Alpha, Zayn and Harper in here though, they deserved much better - hopefully the clearing out of AARP members means there might be more spots for current era guys next year.
Ambrose/Corbin - Match was OK, but Corbin needed the ■■■■■■ win, so of course he lost. Typical Vince, if they’re not your new SuperCenas, you can’t attempt to make new stars at Mania. Besides everybody knows the audience numbers are at their highest during the year, not at Mania, right?
AJ/Shane - Match of the night…of the ones I didn’t sleep through. Shane got me with the shooting star - that was nuts. I do have serious issues with the guy who carried your belt for half a year having so much trouble against an almost 50 non-wrestler though - I know, he’s a McMahon and therefore almost indestructible. Terribly bemusing hearing JBL tell the world that you don’t want to “throw hands” with Shane - who are they kidding, Shane throws the worst punches I’ve ever seen in wrestling. As a SmackDown viewer, the scary thing is AJ is apparently headed to RAW with the trade-off being ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ Reigns.
Jericho/Owens - Vince is just trolling now with both AJ & Owens going from champs to curtain jerkers. Only Jericho could pull off a light-up scarf. The hell does one do with a 30ft inflatable List of Jericho after Mania? Good match but perhaps could’ve been longer. Loved the one finger rope break and essentially Owens is again carrying the brand given Lesnar (assuming he doesn’t immediately drop the belt) will go farm corn until August.
Nia puts me to sleep for 2 hours and I wake up to see Steph going through a table. Joy. Will watch the Hardys later, but it doesn’t sound like I remotely missed anything from the other matches. For a supposedly more professional set-up, Anthem looks even more second-rate than Dixie by losing McIntyre and the Hardys within weeks of taking over.
Reading the match reports though - why the hell was Samoa Joe called up in January and inserted into the Rollins feud, if he wasn’t going to factor into the Mania match? Undoubtedly Rollins’s win won’t mean/change anything like the 5 or so other Authority H vs. screwed over babyface we’ve seen at Mania now. Get H off the ■■■■■■ card, try something other than repeating the same ■■■■■■ storyline for the past 3-4 years.
So let me get this straight - Cena verbally eviscerates Miz on SmackDown and then takes a dump on him at Mania as well, when both he and Nikki are ■■■■■■■ off again - Nikki’s having trouble with the neck again, so it isn’t inconceivable that could be it for her. Way to waste yet another asset by feeding them to Cena, Vince. Am I reading this correctly? Cena’s spiel was he told Nikki he was going to marry her whilst she was under the influence of anaethesia, when she had her neck surgery 15-18 months ago, but then makes her wait until now before proposing? And this doesn’t make him an über tool why exactly? Is a proposal better when people are booing you? Nice of someone to change Cena’s match to this rather than the original Cena-Taker as that would’ve been totes awkward.
Bray-Orton. What The Actual. ■■■■. The only match of the top part of the card I was looking forward to, so of course this was a cluster****. Both Orton & Bray can go, so why undercut them like this? The biggest viewership of the year is the Rumble and Mania, so naturally that promising young newcomer Randy Orton got the rub both times. The projection gimmick was cool, but when your champ is more interested in mindf’ing than beating down the person that violated his most important possession, you’ve got an idiot in charge of the booking. Realistically Vince needs to start hurting in his hip pocket as it is the only thing that will change him.
Goldberg-Brock. Eh. Goldberg managed to complete the match without Brock almost killing him like he did to Taker so that is a good thing, Was never a Goldberg fan, and guys shouldn’t be coming back if they can’t wrestle at least 10mins. Last time nobody got the rub from defeating Brock, hopefully this time either Braun or Joe get the rub as I’m not sure Finn can believably beat Brock.
SmackDown Womens Match - Alexa got on the main card, only positive that could be said of this. They had zero time, stop wasting time with ■■■■ rappers, looking at the match times, of course Trips gave himself 25mins.
Taker-Roman. Sad, really sad. I blame both Vince and Mark for this - it should’ve never have gotten to this stage. Taker should’ve retired either after the End of the Era match or post the Punk match after Bearer had died, that was also his last decent match. If they wanted him to pass the torch, it should’ve been to Bray as the next spooky character, not Reigns who was already the intended recipient of Taker losing to Brock. Instead of protecting Taker and giving more time to the SmackDown women, or RAW women, or Orton-Bray, they made Taker wrestle a good 10 minutes longer than he was capable of and it really showed. Just sad that unlike Shawn, Taker didn’t retire whilst he could still go. Also sad that the Sting match never happened due to Vince’s stubbornness.
2 Likes
Yeah, what Dunlop said, pretty much 100%.
RAW is SMARKAMANIA had a huge “FARK THAT OWL” chant.
I can die happy.
(been a lot of profanity chants let go tonight already)
Opening promo was great, ruined by commentators trying to act like it wasn’t what it was. If they want him to be the smark’s heel, own it. They keep undercutting themselves.
DAMNIT, Revival are on RAW not Smackdown.
Credit to Y2J for acknowledging BEACHBALLMANIA. He’s a pro.
LOL, Sheamus botches climbing the ropes, expects to be mocked so immediately apologises to the crowd, and they’re so distracted by themselves they don’t notice either action. Farkin’ smarks.
Loved the YOU SUCK chants. Angle was clearly lapping it up as well.
Good.
Not a single sighting of any tag team on SDL after Mania. They get everything so right except for tag teams.
1 Like
Shinsuke and Tye i need a towel.
Luke Harper should have been added to the WWE championship match in a triple threat. IMO
Would have made it even more interesting. But I was certain he would come out and interfere… but no.
Interesting they decided to save Finn Balor for after-mania-Raw, and not add him as a late entrant to a match at Wrestlemania. Although there wasn’t many places to add him as all the men’s matches were feud one on ones.
I think Wrestlmania was average because of a lack of quality wrestlers who either wrestling inthe Andre the giant match, on the Pre-show or didn’t have a match. Ie. Samoa Joe, Sami Zayn, Braun Strowman, Dean Ambrose, Luke Harper. Dolph Ziggler, Neville.