Well, it's that time of year again, it's WRESTLEMANIA SEASON! 70,000 fans will pack the Levi's Stadium in California for a star-studied card featuring big title matches, returning legends and bitter rivalries. WWE television of recent months has been home to betrayal, theft, violence, beasts, controversy and the occasional act of magic and it all climaxes this Sunday in the biggest wrestling show of the year!
So why does nobody seem that pumped?
I don't think I'm being that much of a jerk here, I don't think I've seen a single expression of excitement for this year's show whatsoever. I'm sure there are people who are excited, but even if you are you probably still feel like you're not as excited as perhaps you should be. Some people have tried to rationalise it; "Hey, Sting's going to wrestle in the WWE! That's a first!", "We're going to see the Undertaker again for the first time in a year!", "Roman Reigns...uh...they're going to make a new star?" "At least they brought back the ladder match this year!" but it doesn't work.
There's something missing, and it's not necessarily an issue with the card itself, on paper it's a perfectly legitimate Wrestlemania-worthy card. However in wrestling the actual card is half the story at best, the atmosphere and the momentum heading into it is what makes it truly feel big. Take Wrestlemania XXVI for example, go look up the card for that show on Wikipedia right now, it's amazing. On paper it's probably one of the best wrestling cards I've ever seen. But at the time, there was this same sinking feeling that it simply wasn't as big a deal as it should, and most of the show fell flat on the night as well excluding the final hour. Maybe you feel like you're not excited for this year's Wrestlemania because the matches aren't interesting to you or just don't sound that great, but I think it runs deeper than that.
The full story starts with last year's Wrestlemania.
I bloody loved Wrestlemania XXX, it too had some issues with it's own build on television but the popularity of Daniel Bryan was enough to see it through, and it was a great show in itself. It was also a metaphor for what could be perceived as the future direction of the company, unlikely superstar Daniel Bryan took out three top guys to win the WWE Championship, an era was ended and the myth of the Undertaker was put to bed, outsider Cesaro wins the battle royal with an amazing athletic display despite not even announced to be in it, The Shield destroy 3 old talents in a complete squash match and for the first time in years John Cena is nowhere near the main event of Wrestlemania and is instead caught up in a blood feud with an exciting newcomer. The emotional response to the Undertaker situation muddied a lot of fan opinion at the time, but it really was a fantastic show that seemed to spell out an exciting future for the company focused on fresh talent and athleticism.
Then we have Wrestlemania 31, and it's back to business as usual.
Of the six top spots on this show 4 of them are taken by guys who aren't a part of the active roster, 3 of which are incredibly unlikely to appear on Raw the next night (and certainly not the Raw after that). Now, I'm not going to go on some smarky rant about how they "don't deserve it" or how it somehow doesn't make business sense to put these guys in the top spots of the biggest show, but it's still somewhat underwhelming. We're back to this, really?
Not to mention all three of these main events have their individual problematic elements. Sure, there's potential excitement in seeing Roman Reigns breakout and take down the beast, but we're not entirely sure about him yet (we were definitely sure about Daniel Bryan) and there's a genuine danger the crowd is going to be pro-Brock. Undertaker Vs Wyatt sounds interesting and in my opinion it's going to be on them to save this show, but there's still inherent confusion about Taker having another match now that he's basically retired and the streak is gone. Then there's Sting Vs Triple H, a match that is nowhere near as intriguing as WWE seem to think it is anyway (was this a dream match for anyone? Seriously) but is having even more life sucked out of it by focusing the angle on "14 years ago" as opposed to the obvious corruption Triple H is guilty of right now. Why didn't they focus this on Sting sticking up for young talent Triple H is keeping down, which would have been a reflection of Triple H's perceived real life persona and the demise of WCW. Who cares about "14 years ago"? WWE, half your audience today wasn't even alive 14 years ago, WHAT ARE YOU DOING.
Aside from the issues with these matches in itself, they also have consequences for the rest of the show, in that there's a "trickle down" effect. Having Sting and Undertaker in top spots pushes down mainstays John Cena and Randy Orton to the midcard. No problem with that in itself, but having those guys in those spots pushes down everyone else under them as well. This is how you end up with Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler and Dean Ambrose completely lost in a bizarre ladder match which will probably open the show. It's booked as a ladder match but I see it as more of a cage, those guys are trapped in that nonsense. No offense, but three of the most popular guys on the roster involved in some of the biggest main event matches of 2014 shouldn't be in the same Wrestlemania match as Cody Rhodes and R-Truth.
So that's Wrestlemania 31, slamming the brakes on what could have been a new direction for the company to spew out a couple of "one time only" big main event matches in a show that will ultimately be irrelevant the second it goes off the air. I'm not going to act like a lot of this isn't the fault of bad writing, WWE television has been unacceptably dull for the past five weeks. But taking this year's card after last year's Wrestlemania, the evolution of NXT and the rise of so many new talents over the past 18 months, the company is still choosing to chew out the old dogs one more time for a boost. That's causing a strange dissonance that's hanging over this entire show and threatening its credibility, and I don't think any amount of good writing would be enough to overcome that with the direction they've chosen.
I'd say don't expect Wrestlemania 31 to be a terrible show, but I wouldn't expect it to be one that has an impact on you. I'm not especially excited for anything that's going to happen on the show, and I doubt much of long term consequence (aside from a Reigns win, but again that's not exciting to a lot of people) is going to happen because..how can it when none of the top guys are sticking around? Think back to Wrestlemania 29, be honest, how much of it do you actually remember outside of maybe the Punk/Taker match? My presumptuous guess is "probably not much" and Wrestlemania 31 is lining up to be another one of those.
But hey, at least there'll be a ladder match again this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment