Cody being the one to unseat Roman now feels very dumb. This is pure FPS in the SummerSlam ‘93 style of Cody being the one to end the streak is still the plan.

In for the mega slow burn, Cody wins by countout at SS, lots of BS in between then the blow off culminating with Cody beating Roman in a rematch at Wrestlemania 40

I enjoyed most of the event, props to Snoop calling an audible and saving the Shane botch, hilarious

havent posted in ages about wrestling but mania so sure i'll drop by and give the lapsed fan view.

I dont really watch wrestling anymore. stopped sometime during the pandemic era cause I got tired of the formula of one person just being unbeatable and none of the feuds actually mattering because outside of Mania season they aren't going to lose. Got roped back in a bit once vince left and heard the bloodline stuff was amazing near the rumble but never was super into it (after catching up on it, it was still a lot of window dressing for "one person is unbeatable and none of the stuff actually matters because they aren't ever in danger of losing"). Really didn't like how they just threw away a lot of the nuance of Jey/Sami being friends because it was time for the match so now they have to hate each other again, cause that was the best part of the storyline to me.

Thought mania was ok but not enough to be worth watching a bunch still. If night 2 was like night 1 I might have been hooked again, but night 2 was a lot of "loldominantwrestlerwinsagain" and that just doesn't interest me. Roman's had it for 940+ days, Gunther 297, and Bianca 366. That's almost an entire year you could not have watched anything and the show is the same as when you left. Kinda of shocked how different n1 and n2 felt. N1 was fun and entertaining - Dom/Rey, Rollins/Paul were both just good times while the tag match and the womens title were really good wrestling. N2 was uninspired and couldn't keep me invested. Reminded me of a lot of the late 10s shows where it felt booked to make you annoyed instead of entertained.

Anyways, hi. Idk next time I'll be around but hope you're all doing well.

Good to see you, Halpert. The board's better when you're around.

I don't see Cody winning at SS either - Roman is retaining, in the very least, until

- the merger with Endeavor officially goes through
- and/or past next WM

He has a legit shot at passing Sammartino's 2nd reign at this point

Not gonna lie, once Roman’s entrance started I was all in on him retaining

Not sure what it is but this title run is something special

The next Saudi show will be Day 1,000 of Roman's Reign.

I'm glad Roman retained.

Could Seth be the one dethroning him?

Meltzer ratings

Night 1
Cena vs. Theory: 2.25
4-way men's tag: 3.75
Paul vs. Rollins: 4.5
Six woman tag: 2.75
Dominik vs. Rey: 4
Flair vs. Ripley: 4.75
McAfee vs. Miz: 1.5
Owens & Zayn vs. The Usos: 5

Night 2
Lesnar vs. Omos: 3
4-way women's tag: 2.5
IC 3-way: 5
Asuka vs. Belair: 3.75
Miz vs. Snoop Dogg: 1
Bálor vs. Edge: 3.75
Reigns vs. Rhodes: 4.5

God. Giving five stars to that IC 3-way. Meltzer gonna Meltzer.

Giving snoop miz 1 star knowing full well it was a consequence of Shane tearing his quad is somehow the most offensive rating on the list

Also neither of those matches were 5 star matches

Meltzer sucks

Flair vs. Rhea more deserving of 5 than anything else.

Agree. Miz -Shane would probably have ended up as a well deserved 1 if it had played out as intended, but Snoop stepping up and pulling out a 'snoops elbow' to cover up was awesome.

Rhea - Charlotte was clearly the match of night 1. Zayn/Owens vs Usos was a good match, but context-wise it really should've had more than a basic title-change and it was nowhere near a 5.

Meltzer just counts up spots and presses a button. He judges wrestling like it’s figure skating. It’s horrendous.

Agree that the Snoop-Miz rating is silly also, Snoop rescued that thing and turned a likely crappy segment into a fun one. However, he didn’t do any corkscrew moonsaults, so Big Dave is not impressed.

I guess I'm in the minority here b/c the IC match got a great rating on CageMatch as well, but I'm not really a fan of those physical chop fests. I guess maybe you could call it hardstyle, not sure.

If you removed chops and superkicks, I wonder what % of the total offense during Wrestlemania weekend would have been eliminated.

I'm all for what you call chopfests, but triple threat matches are inherently a mess, usually devoid of any worthwhile storytelling, that wrestling companies are nonetheless unashamed to trot out constantly (and without even crafting a reasonable kayfabe reason that it's happening). And I actually thought it was pretty clear that Gunther was off his game in this particular match, so even under a weird "triple threat matches are actually good" sensibility, this was nothing remotely special.

Skinny Gunther is still strange for me to see after seeing him for years in the Indys as Fat Walter.

I definitely thought cody Roman was the best match til I found out El Señor Vince was back in the saddle. Now I realize it was completely pointless and Cody will go back to being stardust and they’re going to turn Roman face and this was all for ****ing nothing

Dirtsheets saying Reigns retaining was the call before Vince came back

Looks like they're trying to pull off a Rocky II thing with Cody/Reigns - I don't hate it

FYP

5/7 stars isn't that high praise.

Charlotte Rhea was my favourite match and I think 4.75 is pushing it a little.

I was just reminded of the best match in WWE history according to Meltzer.

Here was what we were all saying live:

Haha, I had to click through to see what the hell match that could even have been, and of course mother****ing Adam Cole was one of the participants. Sure am glad that guy chose wrestling as a profession. This was a quality post: