He's talking about this one which I didn't find on Google. I just watched the ending again to make this picture. I can confirm goosebumps on the pin.

YES! THAT ONE! i havent been able to find it in ages. its just rows and rows and rows of people standing, the giant 21-1, and taker flat on his back. Its so damn good.

BTW this exchange could possibly rank as my all time favorite in the nearly 12.5 years I've posted on 2+2.

I went back and read a couple pages or so of posts during and then after the match. My favorite post was as the reactions bled over into the Dovas match, someone decides to break the combo of WTFs and Taker should retire posts with a critique of how bad the Divas protect each other when doing moves. For some reason that just cracked me up

WRESTLEMANIA 31...or PLAY"

No Tagline

Hmm... There was no tagline for this one which I find kind of odd, and I don't remember if 32 had one. I guess we will see when I watch that one. This was the first Mania I had watched live since X-Seven, and I hadn't been soured to much affect yet on the current product, so I remember being really excited for this show. I also remember it being a good show so I was looking forward to the rewatch. It did not disappoint.

SHOW THOUGHTS

- It's getting more and more depressing watching these singers come out to do America the Beautiful, and I have no idea who they are. This show it's someone called Aloe Black. Whatever. He did a good job.

- The first match was a ladder match for the Intercontinental Title. As far as seven men matchesgo, this one was a very good one. These guys worked their asses off, and it showed. The head butts at the end by Daniel Bryan and Ziggler were a little cringy to watch, but all in all it was a very good opener.

- I had forgotten that J & J security was even a thing until I saw them come out to the ring with Rollins to go up against Orton here.

- This was another really good match, and if you know my feelings on Orton, you know that is saying something. The finishing spot with Orton countering Rollins' Curb Stomp into an RKO for the win was visually pleasing.

- I'd like to mention that even though I don't generally like the outdoor daytime setting for wrestling, it worked here for the first couple matches. It was less than ideal later in the card, but we will get to that.

- Ahh yes! The hot mess of a train wreck that was the Sting/HHH match. It's been talked about before here, but I really feel that when they were planning this match, it looked a whole hell of a lot better in their heads and on paper than it did in execution. They were going for a recreation of the Monday Night War, and while it did that, it just wasn't pretty at all.

- Am I remembering correctly that it wasn't announced until right before the match, that this was no DQ? Also, I definitely underestimated how terrible HHH's entrance was for this match. I know he and Arnold were in the middle of their love fest, but wow, was this bad.

- Piss Break! I mean.... Divas match. As far as Divas matches go for this time, it wasn't that bad of a match. Although I will never not be tilted by Brie Bella screaming "Brie mode!" to get the fans pumped up when she is supposed to be a heel.

- We go from HHH's horrible entrance, to the supreme eliteness of Rusev entering on top of a tank. It has to be in the top 5 entrances in Mania history.

- And with that said, lolcenawins. Good match though. Much better than the train wreck of a chain match they followed up with at Extreme Rules

- Whatis it with WWE thinking we need a 25 minute in ring promo with the Rock every year? How about you make it a reasonable amount of time and send everyone home a few minutes earlier?

- This is where the whole west coast, outdoor stadium setting fails. You can't have Undertaker and Wyatt come out with the sun shining. It completely kills the entire thing. I almost think it would have been better to run a pre taped vignette, and when they came back, have them already in the ring like it was a third hour RAW match.

- Another thing I forgot about this show was how badly this match suffered because Wyatt injured his ankle earlier in the day. If I am remembering correctly, there was talked of scrapping this match because of the severity of the injury.

- Main Event time. They really built this match right, with the exception of the Tug of War on the RAW before the show. This match had that big fight feel that isn't always there for Mania main events. The crowd was into this as well.

- Watching Brock just stalk Roman for the first half of the match was awesome. It also didn't hurt that SuplexCity was born here. I think the thing that made it awesome was that Brock saying that didn't seem planned at all, and a very smart marketing move by WWE to capitalize on it. They still sell personalized Suplex City shirts in every town they go to, regardless if Brock is there or not.

- I know they were going for the whole Rocky IV look in the Rusev/ Cena match, but this match most mimicked that movie, because Reigns went from being booed unmercifully at the beginning of the match, to being cheered towards the end. The same as Rocky fighting in the USSR.

- Does anyone hardway more than Lesnar?

- And that last point brings me to this "What if?". What if they decided to not send Rollins out there to cash in,and had Roman go over instead? How would the crowds reacted during and after the fact? Does nothing change,and we are still where we are? Or would he have become the face that Vince imagined?

- I'm glad they didn't scrap it though, because Rollins coming out and cashing was such an awesome moment. We were speculating that it was going to happen in the show thread here, and it still took me a little to process what was going on. Damn good finale to a good show.

AWARDS TIME

Match of the Night

Far and away, the winner here is the main event. This would have won easily even before Rollins, but he just elevated it to another level.

Worst Match of the Night

As much as I think it's a bit unfair, the Divas tag match takes this honor.

MVP

There were a lot of legit choices, but I'll give it to Lesnar. I just loved the way he stalked Reigns during the match. He plays the monster character better than anyone.

LVP

Jerry Lawler. I'm glad this was his last Mania, because he literally added nothing to this show. Byron Saxton's performance the next night on RAW was more impactful than this.

Fan of the Night

This one is a tie. As much as I was going to give this to the guy who was wearing the Ico Pro shirt, the guy with the " Roman is a Wank Pheasant" sign came in at the last moment and earned himself a mention.

SHOW RANKINGS

As I have stated a few times, this was a really good show. Not top 5 all time good, but a good show.


X-SEVEN
VIII
XXX
III
XIV
XIX
NY/NJ
23
Play/31
X
XX
XXVIII
22
VI
VII
XXVI
X8
V
XXV
XXIV
21
1
13
XII
XXVII
IV
XI
IX
2
XV

One more to go, but wow is it going to be a beast. I can go about this one of two ways. Just bite the bullet and watch it in the next couple days,or drag it out as long as possible. I guess we will find out which path I'll take soon enough. Either way I will get it done before 33, and I will probably post some different rankings I have, and some other stats I think might be interesting.

Correct.

Just watch the Royal Rumble from that year. Think what the RAW after WM would've been. Think of where we are now when they've done less offensive things and he's still consistently and constantly **** on.

Without thinking about it, I'm going to say that this was a top 5 WM moment. It was insane. I've watched from Rollins music hitting until end of match a couple dozen times. I've watched the entire thing quite a few times as well because it is a great match.

This is one of the topics I plan on going in depth on after I finish 32, but off the top of my head, if it's in the top 5, it's number 5 at best. Not that is wasn't a great moment, but there are a few that seem bigger that immediately jump to mind.

Here's my list with thinking about it but just to throw out moments that are better than that:

Andre vs Hogan at III
Hogan vs Warrior at VI
Elizabeth/Savage reuniting at WM VII
HBK's boyhood dream at X
Austin passing out at XIII
Austin shaking Vince's hand at X-Seven
Brock's SSP at XIX
Benoit/Eddie at XX
Vince loses his hair at XXIII
HBK retiring Flair at XXIV
HBK vs Taker at XXV
Rock and Austin shaking hands at XXVII
Cena vs Rock at XXVIII
The surprise beginning of WM XXX w/Hogan, Rock, Austin
Brock breaking the streak at WM XXX
Bryan's incredible WM XXX

All of those except maybe the Hogan/Austin/Rock segment and Cena/Rock I'd put above Seth cashing in. So it would be 13-15th on my list. Inevitably I'm forgetting at least one thing here.

Honorable mentions:
The entirety of WM I being a thing.
The whole of HBK vs Razor at X
The entirety of TLC 2 at X-Seven
Hogan taking out foreigners at 21
Edge spearing Mick Foley through a flaming table @ 22

Disclaimer: I've never seen WM XIV, 2000, or the entirety of WM's 19-24 though I think it's unlikely I don't know the moments. I'm excluding Tyson/Austin/Michaels on purpose.

I started making a list myself when I saw that post about top five the other day, but I got stuck on what a "moment" is. Also the objective biggest moments would be different than my personal favorite moments, which in turn would probably be at least a bit different than my biggest personal markouts (the end of Taker's streak certainly rates #1 on this).

I was having the same issue when making the list. I'd amend the Taker/HBK match to just JR's call of HBK's kick out "I just had an out of body experience". When I was trying to sleep last night, I also thought of Rock vs Hogan's stare down and crowd which I think would qualify.

Was that call by Ross the one where Taker makes that famous "unbelievable" fave? If so, I agree. Also agree whole heartedly on Rock/Hogan

Usually I would be a tad upset about discussing this before I finished 32, but I think we can all agree that there is nothing remotely close to qualifying for this list

I mean Shane jumping off the Cell is on par with some of these being discussed I would say.

Shane jumping off the cell was crazy and exhilarating, but it's hurt by several factors, including the sheer awfulness of the match, the nonsensical angle that underlied the match, the fact that it was a fairly predictable moment, and the fact that it just seemed like a dangerous stunt meant to cover up all of the aforementioned terribleness.

I liked it when it happened, but I don't think that it will hold up as a historical WM moment.

yeah.
I wouldn't give it an honorable mention. It was so predictable that people were calling it online literally < two hours after the match was announced. Then it was just so contrived when it happened. Not to mention that we had to sit through 15 minutes of nothingness to get to it. I may have actually yawned when he jumped fell.

Yeah I think the fact that anyone who had any knowledge of Shane knew he was jumping off of the Cell. I guess I don't need to put that in my write up now

Eh I think that's kind of cynical. I was in the stadium and there was definitely some amazing electricity in the air when it became clear what was going down. And yes I knew it was going to happen when they announced the match, but theory and practice aren't always the same.

I will say something that I liked about it. At least The Undertaker moved. It was implausible that that guy's character would be out cold for two minutes while Shane crawled to the top, said a prayer, and fell. So there's that at least.

I don't doubt that it was a sight to behold inside the arena. And I was on the edge of my seat for it from home, though that was mostly because I was cringing and hoping nothing went wrong with the spot.

I just can't imagine it will go down as an all-time historic WM moment. I certainly don't see it improving its standing with age. It's clearly a poorer version in every way of our first experience in watching someone dive off the cell, when Mick Foley did it in '98.

If we assume moment consists of just a thing that can be captured in a picture and everyone knows whats going on, I think my top 5 are:

Savage/Liz
Rock/Hogan staring at each other
The 21-1 pic from above
Hogan in the process of slamming andre
Bryan with both titles over his head in front of the WMXXX sign and confetti everywhere

WRESTLEMANIA STAR

Or 32

I guess they have officially decided to drop the number from the Wrestlemania title except for when it's a significant number. I'm also assuming they have dropped the tag lines too. We will have to wait and see if this year's has one.

With that said, this is it. The last Mania on the list. I have officially watched and when this post is over, will have ranked and reviewed them. I wonder how many people not involved in the business actually have watched them all in their entirety? 5000? 10000? A number much higher or lower than that? Whatever the number is, I know it's probably at least 100x more now than before the Network was a thing. Anyway enough with my humble bragging, let's get on to this quagmire of a show.

SHOW NOTES

- I knew this show was long, but when I fired it up, the search bar said 4:51:00. Jesus Christ, this is a legit five hours. Kill me now please.

- And for the what feels like 32nd time, I have no idea who is singing America the Beautiful. This year it's some group called Fifth Harmony. What in the everloving **** is Fifth Harmony. They were so bad I had to google them, and found out they are from a show called X Factor. Another fun fact, one of them quit and now Fifth Harmony now has four members. Sounds about right

- Our yearly "This is Wrestlemania" video is voiced by Kelsey Grammer. Good choice, he has a very distinct voice that works here.

- We kick off wrestling's version of War and Peace with a ladder match for the IC title. Last year's was good so I guess they decided to go to the well again.

- Good choice because this one was just as good, if not better. Everyone gave it everything they had. It amazes me that more people don't get seriously injured during these 7 and 8 man ladder matches.

- I'm sure a big part of it is because he isn't on TV all that much, but every time Zack Ryder is on TV, he is way over. I would imagine that would dissipate if he were on TV more and elevated. Either way, it was really good to see him get his moment here. Woo. Woo. Woo.

- Was there a more head scratching decision on this show than having Jericho beat Styles. Usually I can come up with a reason how a decision could be good, or even just make sense. This one lacks any logic whatsoever. Decent match though.

- The third match was New Day vs League of Nations. As much as I like the four guys in the LoN, this was the least inspired faction I had seen in a long time. They made The Union look almost good in comparison.

- And since they can't make many of today's wrestlers stars, they have to go back to the same three or four Attitude Era guys to deliver that extra punch. Unfortunately they didn't do it here. Michaels, Foley,and Austin just seemed to go through the motions in order to get that payday.

- I will admit I found it amusing watching Austin dance and then stun Woods.

- Speaking of listless and uninspired, its Brock Lesnar. I know that for some here it's sacrilege to talk bad about Lesnar, but he is the last person on this roster who should ever mail it in. He makes an obscene amount of money for what amounts to a total of 10-15 appearances a year for the WWE. There is no reason whatsoever he should ever not give it 100%. Yeah it was a bad matchup with a bad concept, but there are plenty of wrestlers who had much less to work with give a full effort. Shame on Lesnar.

- Oh and the match sucked too, but Lesnar shooting the fire extinguisher after he left the ring was really amusing.

- Another really good HoF class this year. Even the celebrity inductee was top notch. I will bitch about the Warrior award though. If they are just going to give it to another celebrity this year, then they should just stop giving it out. Giving it to celebs wasn't what he had in mind when he brought up the idea during his induction speech. If they feel they need another celebrity on the show, then just call the award something else and take Warrior's name off.

- The women's triple threat was the only other match on this card that approached good. Charlotte and Becky are both superb workers, and Sasha was there too. I know I get grief when I rail on Sasha, but she really isn't in Becky or Charlotte's league. With that said, she did a decent job too. k

- Loved the ending with all of the submission attempts and then Charlotte locking the figure eight in on Becky. Rich almost botched the ending by tripping before he could get a hold of Sasha, but they recovered in time.

- So this whole Undertaker vs Shane match in the Hell in a Cell really happened, huh? It wasn't just some horrible fever dream I had? Too bad. This match sucked to high heaven. I completely understand that they were handcuffed because of the tons of injuries they had, but was it really a good idea to have a 50 year old who has been having a rough go of it lately in the ring go up against a 40 something who hadn't been in the ring in 8-9 years, and when he was, he wasn't anything close to a full timer? Oh and let's put a steel structure around the ring for them to work with. That will really elevate this steaming turd pile.

- I know we just discussed it, but I would like to restate my position on why Shane falling from the top of the cell really isn't a top 10 moment for me. First and most importantly, it was the most predictable thing going into this show. Isolated stated earlier that people were saying he was going to do this two hours after the match was announced. I'm pretty sure we were saying it in the RAW thread almost instantly after Vince announce it. Secondly, it really happen organically during the match. There was no reason for Shane to use bolt cutters to open up the cell, so even being outside of it was just very hokey looking.

I'm not saying that it wasn't impressive, or that I wish I never saw it. I'm simply saying that it isn't in the top 10 of Mania moments. Of course that won't change the fact that we will see it repeated on WWE TV a million times in the future.

- I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for a good battle royal. This was not a good battle royal. It wasn't bad at all, just not really good. I hate the choreographed moments where everyone leaves the ring so Shaw and Big Show can go one on one. Who the hell cares about that? Tatanka was a nice touch, and having this be Baron Corbin's debut was good to. I know I said this after Big Show's win too, but I would have Corbin win it again this year, and maybe even the year after. Therefore you could really make his getting eliminated down the road a big moment for another newcomer.

- Oh good, as if this show isn't long enough, we get yet another in ring segment with The Rock. This thing went 27 minutes. 27 minutes? Seriously? Maybe before he goes out there you trim it down by 10-12 minutes? Just an idea.

- Is there anything more American than The Rock holding a flamethrower at Wrestlemania? The only way I could think to make this more patriotic would be to have him eating a Big Mac on the back of a pick up truck with a bald eagle flying overhead while shooting the flamethrower.

- We finally made it to the main event. I never thought it would come. I don't know if it was because I had just tuned it out when I watched live, but I thought this was going to be a much better match than it was. This thing just seemed like it belonged as a main event on RAW. The action was dull, the commentators seemed burned out, and even the crowd seemed to tire of booing Reigns halfway through. This thing couldn't end soon enough.

AWARDS TIME

Match of the Night

If there was even a show that didn't deserve awards, this was it, but I guess I'll give this one to the IC ladder match narrowly beating the Women's triple threat match.

Worst Match of the Night

I could go so many ways here, but I think I'll give it to HHH vs Reigns. Thanks for the effort, Haitch.

MVP

I'll go to the Women's match and give this to Charlotte. She is far and away the best female wrestler, and one of the few performers who can actually get boos as a heel

LVP

Brock Lesnar. Shame on you Lesnar. If you are going to collect a sizable paycheck, how about a little effort in return.

Sign of the Night

This one was on in the first shot of the announce team. It said "R-Truth Thinks This Is Summer Slam". I am admittedly a mark for the R-Truth is dumb gimmick. My favorite idea for this would be on the RAW after the Rumble, have two lower card guys start a match, and two minutes in put the countdown clock on the screen and when it hits zero, Truth's music plays and he comes down and throws both guys over the top rope. I don't know why that tickles me so much.

SHOW RANKINGS

WOW! This show was bad. Like bottom three bad. It was like watching Wrestlemania XI, and then when it was over, watching it again. Yes this show was almost exactly twice as long as XI. I won't say it's the worst ever, because I don't think it will be possible to out do XV. Im guessing it would take Scott Norton and Buff Bagwell coming back to do a big match followed up with a Sasha Banks/Eva Marie 60 minute Iron Man Match. XV was the worst ever.


X-SEVEN
VIII
XXX
III
XIV
XIX
NY/NJ
23
Play/31
X
XX
XXVIII
22
VI
VII
XXVI
X8
V
XXV
XXIV
21
1
13
XII
XXVII
IV
XI
IX
Star/32
2
XV

Well, that's it! I'm done. At least now I can just take notes during the upcoming Manias and then just do the write ups afterwards. The big question is, what do I do now? I'm going to post some other rankings and stats that I have been compiling during this, but after that, what do I watch next? I'm think of either watching the old school World Championship Wrestling shows in order, or start at the beginning with ECW TV. I won't be doing write ups, this is just for me personally. If anyone has other ideas, I would like to hear them. I just want to finish here by saying thank you for indulging me during this, and actually reading these write ups. I really appreciate it.

I applaud you for getting through WM 32 this soon after 31. 32 is so so bad.

ECW if you're going to watch with original music. Worth it just to get to late-95 through beginning of 2000.

edit: I said two hours after because I was giving time for the show to be over in the thread

32 felt like it was 20 hours long when I watched live, even the AJ match sucked.

Most disappointing match for me would certainly be Lesnar/Ambrose tho.

Props for getting through all of those. You did what many of us failed to do before.

Nice work getting through them all. I haven't watched them in their entirety and there's no chance I could ever do it so props. Pretty sure I've done every Royal Rumble but I'm guessing most would have.

Scott Norton is a 2x former IWGP champ.... THAT'S THE SAME TITLE BROCK LESNAR WON!

Wrestle Kingdoms. Sign up to NJPW World for a month and binge. Iso is right about ECW and it's lack of original music being a big let down on the network.