I am amazed at how big a train wreck this Wrestlemania is.

I know injuries didn't help, but ... I mean ... that they went Shane/Taker still completely boggles my mind.

SHANE O MAC BABY

No sympathy here. (Speaking strictly from the planning side. Obviously I feel bad for any of the performers that are injured).

They've ****ed themselves. The travel and wrestling schedule is way too intense.

8 guys wrestled at least 175 matches last year. Half are now injured (Rollins/Cesaro/Harper/Neville). Two (Big E/Kofi) are in a tag team, where you're a little more protected as an individual. The other two are Roman and Dean, who have somehow survived this battle of attrition. You can say a lot of the injuries happened on freak accidents, but eventually runner-runner beats are going happen if you tempt fate with the frequency that WWE is.

And I haven't even mentioned the fact that they've sacrificed nearly the entire full-time roster in a failed effort to get Roman over.

Yeah if they hadn't the last 5 years pushing old part-timers and putting all their eggs in Roman's basket they probably could have had another 5 guys that could be in a main event spot right now.

I don't think the schedule alone is to blame for the injuries, I think the current style of wrestling has more to do with it than the schedule. They have at least 2 days off a week, which is about 1 1/2 more than they had in the 80's and earlier. The difference is they aren't flying around doing silly spots every match.

Look at Rollins. He got hurt doing an unnecessary sunset flip/power bomb move against Kane... At a house show.... On the first night of a European trip. And on top of all of that, he continued to wrestle after he injured it.

Sting was hurt taking two buckle bombs from Rollins at Summerslam. I wonder how many of those he took prior to that.

Danial Bryan will never wrestle again because he refused to change his style of wrestling. Did he really need to keep taking flat back bumps from the top rope after doing his missed drop kick? Or throw multiple head butts in succession?

I'm not totally discounting the schedule, I'm simply stating I think the wrestling style has a lot more to do with it. Whether or not that is the wrestlers' fault, management's fault or a combo of both is something only they know.

I totally agree with everything you said.

......and reports of Miz badly injuring his leg tonight. Tbf, Miz isn't exactly a spot monkey.

Just four more injuries in the next 6 days and we can have an Owens vs. Zayn singles match. Maybe Ahmed Johnson has a one-week comeback in him?

Zayn in a ladder match one night after Namakura and then presumably wrestling on Raw is playing with fire for a guy that just got back from injury.

Oh, the current wrestling style certainly has a lot to do with it too. I probably should have added that in my schedule rant.

I don't know whether the style or the schedule has more to do with the frequency of injuries lately, but it's clear something needs to change.

I've always thought the schedule was insane and bad for long time health, a guy as big as Owens putting that much strain on his body 5 days a week has to be doing some damage. On the other hand AJD makes a good point about in ring styles but I don't think guys are any more risky now then they were 15 years ago, all the hardcore stuff was much worse. Chair shots to the head and Shane jumping off **** etc.

The WWE is definitely being more cautious with guys working hurt than they used to be. I saw an interview with Edge where he said if he was in another company he would probably still be working because he wouldn't have known the extent of his injuries. It was in response to Kurt still wrestling in TNA after the WWE wouldn't let him wrestle. Then there's the whole DB thing. WWE deserve a tiny bit of credit for not cashing in on Bryan wanting to wrestle when he wasn't cleared.

I think the major reasons guys were working hurt back in the day were less pay, no guarantees, heavy drug use and more pressure from Vince.

Shane's definitely jumping off HiAC, right?

I don't see it, he can't or at least shouldn't live up to what he's done before so there's no point going down that road.

I see it been really overbooked with a bunch of run ins. Either all the old timers or the Wyatts if they don't get involved in the Brock match.

I don't think the schedule is beneficial to the wrestlers. My point was that with regards to sheer numbers, today's schedule is a lot better than in was in the 80's or even early to mid 90's. I'm not sure when the WWE adopted their current schedule with at least 2 days off a week.

Somebody earlier in this discussion, mention there were 8 wrestlers that worked more than 175 matches. In the 80's and 90's almost of not the entire roster worked that much. The difference is that they weren't hurling their bodies around at the same pace they do now. That isn't to say they didn't get hurt back then, I just think the injuries they sustained weren't as severe as the ones we hear about today.

Let's take a look at another injured wrestler, Neville. Now his injury is one I would classify as freakish. We could debate whether or not doing a baseball slide on canvas with wrestling boots is a good idea, but that's not what I want to discuss. I just want to look at his Red Arrow. It's a beautiful maneuver and helps to get him over, but is it really necessary. It's basically a fancy splash from the top rope. Why not just do a regular splash the majority of the time and only break out the Red Arrow for special occasions? Kayfabe speaking it doesn't add any force to the move, so why add the extra risk? And you can go up and down the roster and point things like that out.

As for chair shots to the head and Shane doing his stuntman spots. Well chair shots or concussions in general are a lot easier to work through than a torn ACL or rotator cuff. Shane was in a group of his own, because he wasn't a full time guy, so he could take those risks because he didn't have to go on the road and work the next day.

Yes. The first part of the sentence answers the first. Without the really flashy stuff it's hard to imagine Neville getting any crowd reaction. He's certainly not a talker, and he's small.

I don't know of wrestlers really ever getting hurt doing their signature moves given how practiced they are at them. I doubt the Red Arrow really adds much risk at all now that he's gotten in so many reps at it.

Fair enough. But my point using Neville was that he and a lot of others take many more risks than necessary and that isn't helping to cut down on injuries.

Maybe using his finishing move wasn't the best example for my point, but I will argue that a slip when launching into Red Arrow can potentially be a lot more catastrophic than something a bit simpler.

Is it really better now? I remember going to shows where they would tape multiple episodes of 1 hour Raws on the same night.

Were there more house shows then?

Kevin Nash always says that one of the selling points of going to WCW was the guaranteed money for 150 dates over the non guaranteed money over 300 dates. Now those numbers could be exaggerated, but the pint still stands.

Today they have ~75 men and women on the active roster. Take out the part timers like Rock and Sting and what not and the number drops down to ~65. Their current schedule is usually RAW and Superstars on Monday, Smackdown and Main Event on Tuesday. Off Wednesday and Thursday. Two house shows on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Obviously things change with PPVs and European trips, but that is the average.

Back in the mid 80's there were on average about 10 less active wrestlers, and they did house shows 6 or 7 days a week, and they usually ran 3 a day so everyone was working almost everyday.

Coast to coast from one side of the cell to the other imo

I'd like to think that the WWE has learned their lesson and are trying to build other main eventers. Seth is almost certainly going to get a huge push when he comes back and they seem to realize that Dean is really over. The main roster just got Zayn, and are adding Balor after WM, so they have two new people who can immediately be put into the upper mid card considering they both have issues with Owens (then again, who doesn't have an issue with Owens).

The tag team division needs a spark, but the Balor Club and whoever they bring up from NXT (I believe one team is coming up from NXT, but I can never remember if it's Dash/Dawson or Gable/Jordan or Enzo/Cass).

I'd be pretty surprised if Enzo and Cass aren't at the Raw after WM.

They've been there awhile, and unless you're going to give them a title reign out of nowhere (which would not make sense for several reasons), their time to enter the main roster is due.

They're essentially in the same position Tyler Breeze was in 6 months or so ago.

Dash/Dawson and Jordan/Gable have plenty more to do in NXT.

Owens is really the only NXT graduate they haven't treated like complete **** on the main roster and he was only even there for a minute. Can't say I have high hopes for what Vince has in store for the rest of them.

Rollins? Wyatts?

Right after I wrote that I thought someone was gonna hit me with the divas. But yeah, those are probably the last relevant male talents. I'm forgetting anyone from before NXT debuted on the Network probably, but that's still a good 3 years or so of elevating guys mostly to job to the current roster.

To be fair, it's not that they've ****ed up the NXT call ups exclusively. They've ****ed up essentially the entire roster.