The issues WWE had going into this year's Wrestlemania were widely discussed, injuries have torn the roster apart while the guy they've invested most of the last year into just isn't clicking and wasn't nearly ready to carry this show. As bizarre as the finalised card was on paper WWE actually did do a decent job of putting together a show with a lot of interesting variables, even if the main selling point for this year seemed to be "morbid curiosity" at least the show didn't sound BORING. There's been a whole lot of bad Wrestlemanias, most of them are merely average to below average wrestling shows that's simply fail to live up to the spectacle, but I didn't imagine there would ever be a Wrestlemania would be make me as uncomfortable and angry as Wrestlemania 32 did.
I don't even know where to start; going in chronological order would cause me to praise the handful of good matches that were in the first half of the show, but that would only distract from the presentation and creative decisions that plagued the entire thing and made it rotten at its core. I will say the show got off to a fitting start with the three matches on the preshow severely hurt by forcing the guys to perform in a half empty arena due to problems with the ticket machines.
Taking the show as a whole; the fan favourites lost every single match which climaxed with having the guy noone likes win the WWE Championship to a collection of boos and indifference. The entire night was bursting with weird finishes, unbelievably lazy cameos and people being put over for the wrong reasons, mostly that reason was to set up a quick pop as some legend hit the ring for no reason. Most of the card failed to live up to its expectations; Brock Vs Ambrose completely failed to make Ambrose look like a star, Shane Vs Taker didn't bring any of the change that all the build for the match promised and Roman Vs Triple H failed to be even ironically interesting or hilarious.
Let's get the good out of the way, most of which was in the first half which isn't half as important as the main events because that's what everyone remembers. The ladder match was great, but the main purpose of putting a goofy ladder match in the opening spot is to set up momentum for the show that was quickly squandered. AJ Styles Vs Chris Jericho was arguably the best match they've had so far, they're now tied at 2-2 so I assume they're having one more gimmick match at Extreme Rules as a decider but it was still weird to see Styles lose his Wrestlemania debut in the second match.
A know a lot of people loved the women's match, and I'm willing to nod along and say it was pretty good even if triple threats don't do much for me. I loved the presentation of the match with all the main event-esque entrances, I love the new championship belt, but I'm so tired of how swallow the DIVAS REVOLUTION™ is. Instead of taking three of the best women and throwing them in the ring to do a collection of moves on each other for 15 minutes so you can pat them on the head for how great "WOMEN'S WRESTLING" is why don't you promote them as real stars in angles that are as interesting as the male storylines? Also, considering the entire point of the match was to highlight WOMEN'S WRESTING on the grandest stage I can't imagine a less appropriate time for a screwjob finish.
Baron Corbin winning the battle royal is about as interesting a choice as you can get for a filler match to buff between the two main events where noone knows who's even in it and the winner doesn't matter...which is not at all. There are certainly worst debuts to be made than winning at Wrestlemania but if you don't already know who he is then he's just some dude who threw Kane over the top rope from behind.
That's as far as the highlights go for me, and all of them come attached with an asterisk, I guess I could mention the New Day entrance as well which might have been the best thing on the entire show, but then they made it into the ring and lost a boring match for bad reasons. Seriously, New Day are arguably the most popular guys in the entire company right now and they lost to the worst heel faction imaginable to set up the brilliantly creative idea of having three random legends come down to the ring to beat up the guys they couldn't for literally no reason. Of course a lot of people liked this, I kind of liked this, you can't not pop for Steve Austin coming down the ramp in front of 100,000 people to pound some dudes, but the way it was executed came off like the creative made it up on the spot during the match.
Decisions like that would go on to repeat throughout the night; the way Dean Ambrose lost was initially underwhelming but it becomes infuriating when you realise the reason he couldn't look *too* tough was because they didn't want to take the thunder out of Shane McMahon's bump who was the REAL star tonight. The Wyatts couldn't fight Brock either on this night to make the matches more distinct because they were too busy getting punked out by the Rock, and then they couldn't get any licks on him either because that was setting up a Cena appearance. Even THAT'S annoying because you realise there was the possibility of having a Rock and Austin teamup or even a Rock/Austin/Cena teamup, which would have been a hell of a visual and made the Wyatts look less like clowns. Instead we needed two of these segments on one night to stretch out the nostalgia pops at the expense of two of the most interesting acts in the company, neither of which made any sense whatsoever.
Do you see what I mean about this show? I totally understand how someone could have liked this show, there was a lot happening on it, but when you sit down and think about it for two seconds it all becomes disorientating. Even just shuffling around the elements they already had in place inside your brain a vision of a better show begins to emerge. The execution of this entire night, even when it was occasionally good, was flat out baffling.
I don't think there's ever been a Wrestlemania where I hated the last two hours as much as this one, the show pretty much died for me as soon the Divas match ended. Undertaker Vs Shane was embarrassing, Undertaker is my favourite wrestler ever and I'm a huge apologist even for a lot of his not great matches, but this was pitiful. The crowd were pumped for both Shane and Taker as they came out, but they quickly died when the old guys actually started fighting each other. Both looked old, both looked tired, Shane breaking out and kicking out of holds and moves that Undertaker has beaten Hall of Famers with in the past was infuriating. The whole match existed so Shane could jump off the Cell, and no, I was not entertained by him jumping off the Cell.
I felt doubt when he was climbing the thing, I felt sick when he was actually on top of the thing, and I felt gross when he actually jumped. This is not entertainment, if you consider wrestling to be an artform then this was its equivalent of the Jackass guys drinking horse jizz. The whole beauty of a performance art which arts as a celebration of violence and the emotions and drama that can come from fighting is nobody actually gets fucking hurt. Sitting there wondering if a guy has genuinely just ruined his life with his children watching the front row makes me feel like I am watching the lowest form of entertainment on the planet.
When you step back and think about it, what was the point? To get Shane over? That's all it achieved! I don't watch wrestling for stunts so I can't even appreciate it on that level. A 46 year old man jumped off the Cell for its own sake in a way that has zero long term (or even short term!) benefit for the company. Then you realise Shane lost, and none of the stipulations for this match mattered, the entire point of this seemed to be we were supposed to be excited about a NEW ERA in WWE. Now we've seen behind the curtain, that was never on the table, and now you realise that WWE literally unironically presented Shane McMahon Vs The Undertaker as an actual main event match ON ITS OWN MERITS for Wrestlemania in 2016.
Seriously if you've ever gone on the internet and ranted about old guys filling the Wrestlemania spots, but you defend THAT match because someone did a dangerous stunt you are the worst kind of fan.
Then we come to Triple H Vs Roman Reigns, after all the head scratching finishes and booking on the show this is the ONE match that could have actually used some nonsense to breathe some life into it...so of course WWE have Roman win in the cleanest simplest way imaginable. I thought this match would at least be entertaining to watch due to an obviously anti-Roman crowd, but the show went so long and the match was so bland they couldn't even be bothered to boo for a while. There were token reactions whenever there was a change of offense but other than that noone cared. When Cena wrestled HHH in the main event of Wrestlemania 22 in Chicago at least the crowd passionately hated him throughout, the only reaction Roman achieved was some buzz for spearing a woman, and even then all that did was make the Bayley and Nakamura chants louder. People were talking about Roman turning heel which was a bad idea, but still WWE came up with nothing.
Ultimately, as important as the undercard is for setting the pace, a Wrestlemania can only truly be judged on its main events. This year, one of them was decent but completely underwhelming in a way that actively damaged one of the participants in it, one of them was painfully boring, and the other was also boring but also made me feel like a terrible person for watching it at the end. Other than that, highlights consisted of legends lazily and uncreatively hitting the ring for no reason other than to get cheap pops at the expense of the handful of the remaining other non-injured talent that people care about.
At Wrestlemania 30 the Shield, Cesaro and Daniel Bryan were all put over aging talent while Brock Lesnar broke the streak seemingly ending an era, even though a lot of it fell apart afterwards it felt like a genuine STATEMENT about the future of the company. At Wrestlemania 31 last year, at least we had the arrival of Rollins and three main event matches featuring young talent. They brought out the Rock to work with Ronda Rousey, which at least made the company look somewhat culturally relevant, and the shameless random nostalgia of the Sting Vs Triple H match was locked inside its own bubble and didn't hurt the rest of the show.
What does this year's Wrestlemania say about the state of the WWE and their future? That they're creatively bankrupt? They're reliant on guys who aren't going to wrestle again to make the biggest show of the year the biggest show of the year because they have no faith in their active roster? That WWE are so out of touch with their audience that the reaction to Reigns in the main event is surprising to them? Or wait, maybe it wasn't, because they piped in fake cheers when he won so maybe they were completely prepared but did it anyway.
I was expecting this show to be weird but I didn't expect in a million years it would be this bad. I was mostly optimistic going in because the show looked like it would be fun to talk about either way, but it's not fun to talk about, even after sleeping on it I just feel tired and bad after sitting through six and a half hours of this tripe. I even hated the set and the aesthetic of the arena! I understand why some people are going to be apologists for this show, I get how you could enjoy some of these matches and segments in isolation from critical thought, but even if you did like this show you have to admit that as far as the outlook for the company's future goes coming off this things are looking bleak right now.
So good job WWE, you piled 100,000 people into one building for your biggest spectacle of the year which turned out to be little more than a shrug followed by a bowel movement.
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