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.