Another Wrestlemania has come and gone.
And a lot of time and effort had gone into this particular show,
seeing as it would be not only the largest show WWE puts on all year,
but possibly the largest ever with it's taking place in the new
stadium for the Dallas Cowboys, seating over 100,000 people in
attendance. As with most shows WWE and Vince McMahon would go all out
with trying to fit every wrestler onto the card and give the fans a
memorable experience.
Arguably they did just that, but in all
the wrong ways.
The general consensus from fans seems
to be that the wrestling for this year's show was good to great, but
a lot of the decisions they had made were puzzling and made no sense
whatsoever. It was bad enough that this particular Wrestlemania
suffered from numerous injuries to top stars, the retirement of
others, and a build for most storylines that made fans palm their
faces, but the ideas they had to end some of their big stories with
just came off as puzzling. From odd placements on the card to
disappointing finishes to things that make you scratch your head
going on from start to finish, nothing really worked from a storyline
perspective, and the one that did was a conclusion the fans had
rejected from the get-go anyway.
To answer the question of “How dumb
can it get?”, allow me to answer that with my own set of answers in
the form of a top ten countdown of the Dumbest Moments from
Wrestlemania 32.
Honorable Mention
NXT Takeover Dallas: Joe's Gonna Kill
the Blood Team
I want to get this out of the way first
since it didn't actually happen at Wrestlemania, but was still a
pretty bad move. What should have been a great Takeover main event
between Samoa Joe and Finn Balor for the NXT championship got bogged
down a little bit thanks to blood stoppage. Early in the fight Joe
had received a cut over his eye and the ref was practically watching
over him like a hawk to make sure he wasn't bleeding too much and
would call a stoppage over what felt like every few minutes. This
killed the mood of the live crowd, and it didn't help either man that
both Sami Zayn vs. Shinsuke Nakamura and Bayley vs. Asuka for the NXT
Women's title were terrific matches before this one happened.
I do want to point out I'm not upset
with this moment because I'm one of those “damn PG rating”
people, but rather it just killed the tone and the pacing of the
match. Even Joe was getting annoyed, almost pushing people away to
try and put SOMETHING into it. And I get why they did it, but trust
me guys, Joe's a tough Samoan. A little blood isn't gonna stop him.
Now, onto the main course...
10. Shaq in the Andre the Giant
Memorial Battle Royale
Ignoring the fact that Baron Corbin won
the match and is now on the Raw roster, which really isn't all that
bad, why did Shaq need to be here? His appearance did nothing except
allow him to toss several wrestlers out of the match and continue a
feud with Big Show that by now a lot of us forgot because his guest
host appearance was almost seven years ago.
Even more annoying (or laughable,
depending on your outlook) was how after Show and Shaq eliminated
themselves from the fight, they broke kayfabe and kinda just...walked
off while being chatty and chummy with one another.
In the long run it's pretty pointless,
but it looks pretty bad for a match that you're trying to get people
to take seriously since it's still a fairly new concept.
9. Zack Ryder Wins the Intercontinental
Championship
There's probably a lot of people
wondering why this moment is even on the list. This moment was VERY
shocking to everyone since it's been over four years since Zack Ryder
held onto a title in the WWE, and in all that time it looked highly
unlikely he'd ever hold gold again. Seeing him win that seven-man
ladder match was probably one of the few surprisingly good moments in
an otherwise oddball show.
But I put it on the list because it set
the tone for the rest of the night; great matches with very odd
decisions on the finish that kind of kills the mood. And it's great
that Zack has a Wrestlemania moment on his hands that can finally top
getting kicked in the balls by Eve (which I had the honor of seeing
live), but considering how out of left field it was with the whole
Owens/Zayn feud being teased and how pointless it became when Miz won
it off him the next night? Was it worth it?
Yes. Yes it was.
8. AJ Styles loses to Chris Jericho
I feel like I should honestly just
clump a good portion of this list into “the finishes were bad”,
but I feel the need to explain WHY those finishes were bad.
In the case of this match, there's
quite a few reasons. For starters here's AJ Styles, the one wrestler
that for years was being built up to become TNA's future but was
never allowed to sit in that position. He spends over twelve years in
that company before moving onto Japan, and at the start of 2016
finally joins the biggest wrestling company in the US. It's his
Wrestlemania debut, continuing and hopefully concluding his feud with
Chris Jericho.
Sure, AJ had been pretty dominant in
this feud already, but considering how much of a part timer Jericho
has become in recent years and how much energy he's put into helping
give other wrestlers credibility like Fandango, Ziggler, the Wyatts
and such, you would think he was going to give that rub to AJ next.
Nope.
While the match was great the finish
was a bit odd. As AJ gets ready to dive Jericho shoves the ref off of
him and immediately hits AJ with another Codebreaker, getting the
win. The problem with this is how Jericho doesn't need to rub,
especially when the very next night AJ won contendership to the WWE
title. There really was no reason for the finish to go like this.
Even worse is when you think about it,
Jericho said a few Wrestlemanias back how he was sick of the Legends
always coming in and taking precedence over him and the other
full-time wrestlers. In some way Jericho has turned into what he
hates most.
If the ending were better done, maybe I
could see Jericho winning, but with AJ moving forward it really does
nothing for either guy.
7. Most of the Hell in a Cell match
The match was pretty clunky from the
get-go when you have Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon inside the Cell
with Undertaker's legacy on the line, as well as Shane wanting
ownership of Raw. And while Taker and Shane tried with breaking out
their moves on top of the steel steps to Shane hitting his Coast to
Coast dropkick, the majority of the match just kind of went at a slow
pace.
The saving grace was, of course, the
ending, with Shane O'Mac climbing to the top of the cage to hit an
elbow drop onto Taker...only to fail. This cost Shane the match and
gave Undertaker another win after his undefeated streak has already
been broken. And in fairness I think that's all the match was built
up for, but in getting to that spot there was a lot to sift through
just to get to it.
On another note, though, how long has
it been since anyone has climbed the cage for something that insane?
6. The League of Nations Win...And Lose
So for most of this feud with the much
more over New Day, League of Nations were getting their butts kicked.
In fact ever since Sheamus lost the WWE title (which was the whole
point of the League, really, something to have Roman Reigns fight
through in order to get to Sheamus) the group really does come off as
nothing more than a big joke of a stable. And there's already one in
the form of the Social Outcasts, and yet somehow people seem to take
them with more credibility!
But the way they try to end this, after
New Day has such a grand entrance? Get New Day to lose. Yup, the
finish to this whole thing was for the League of Nations to taunt the
New Day, get cocky about how no three man team could stop the
League...and then you cue Shawn Michaels, Mick Foley, and Steve
Austin all coming out and whooping their butts.
The issue isn't that the segment
'buries' League of Nation (who already had little credibility as a
unit) or New Day, it's just...there was no need for the League to
win. If they really wanted to have those three legends come back so
badly, they could have just combined that with another segment and
had themselves a good old beat down.
But nah, let's have our tag champions
lose just to make the League look silly. At least New Day got their
win back the next night, but geez...
5. The Finish To The Women's Title
Match
Let me start off by saying this was one
of the best matches of the night. Bar none, the women nearly stole
the show this weekend between this, Asuka vs. Bayley, and hell I'll
give the ten-woman match on the pre-show some credit, they did better
than most people would expect of them. Even Eva Marie. Heck when
Charlotte went for that moonsault onto the floor to Sasha and Becky
my first thought was just how far we've come from the dark days of
the mid-00's where Ashley Massaro was their pet project to focus the
women's division on and yet couldn't go higher than the middle
turnbuckles to hit her elbow drop. The women were given more time,
allowed to do more, and they made the most out of what they could.
And while I agree that Sasha should have been the choice to win with
how she came out with her cousin Snoop Dogg, they built up Eddie
Guerrero vs. Brock at No Way Out 2004 as her inspiring moment and she
even came out in tights inspired by Eddie's, I guess it was just as
good to have Charlotte walk in the Divas champion and walk out the
Women's champion.
But that ending...
When Ric Flair grabs Sasha while
Charlotte makes the pin, I don't think anyone was happy with it. This
was a night for Charlotte to win on her own merits and for Ric to
keep off the other girls, but that just soured the mood to an
otherwise great match. Even more annoying is how, by the looks of
things, instead of booking Sasha vs. Charlotte which should be the
obvious continuation, they decide to lean towards Natalya as the next
contender for Charlotte to face despite acknowledging that YEAH,
Nattie kinda lost to Charlotte multiple times already.
This was more or less THE match on the
card that didn't need a screwy finish, yet they went and managed to
bungle that up.
4. The Time Budgetting
One of the things WWE can't seem to do
very well is budget it's time. For example, you wouldn't think with
three hours on Monday nights that Raw needs an overrun, but they
manage to do it somehow. There was an instance at Summerslam 2010
where John Cena ended the match against Nexus in quick fashion
because it was almost the end of their time on PPV and didn't want to
end with fans being upset they didn't get to see the ending.
But then there's having your biggest
show of the year go on for MUCH longer than you needed it to. This
year's Wrestlemania may have taken over the record for the longest
Wrestlemania ever, clocking in at just over four and a half hours of
programming. But by the time the main event finally rolled out,
people were already near falling asleep at home, and I'm sure the
attending fans were annoyed as well since they had been there just
after 5 PM EST, and in total sat for more than six hours worth of
show when you include the pre-show matches. It was bad enough it felt
like Usos vs. Dudleys were cut from the main show given how much they
had built that feud up, but then you have the League of Nations
post-match beatdown, and then that segment with the Rock and certain
matches going on for too long when they didn't NEED to be so long
just because they're big matches...
I can get trying to cram everyone, part
time and full time, onto the Wrestlemania card, but their time could
have been spent much better. Case in point...
3. The Rock's segment
This was probably the one segment they
spent too much time on.
You didn't need the Dallas cheerleaders
dancing to AC/DC, you didn't need the Rock coming out to use a
FLAMETHROWER just to torch his own name...honestly, did you really
need the Rock? At all?
I get he was advertised for weeks going
into this show, but why? Just so he could announce the attendance for
this show and have a six second match with the Wyatts? Just to have
Cena come out to show he's either ready to get back into the ring or
just give him something to do at Wrestlemania while rubbing elbows
with Rock?
By the time it was five minutes to
eleven EST I was wondering what they were doing with the main event,
making it like a two minute squash or something. Then word over
Twitter was that WWE informed their cable and satellite providers
that they were going to do the overrun. Which again this whole
segment could have been scrapped for, or even combine it with that
segment earlier where the League of Nations got beat up by Michaels,
Austin, and Foley. If they REALLY needed this though I will say The
Rock's long walk and introduction was unnecessary. It could have been
scrapped.
2. Dean Ambrose vs. Brock Lesnar
What a disappointment.
With all the build they put into this
match, after having Dean come so close to beating Triple H at
Roadblock, you would think they would make this match something more
than it was. Give it about fifteen minutes, have the chainsaw and the
barbwire bat come into play, make it a massacre for Dean to fight
back from...and they do none of that.
What should have been a moment that
puts Dean right into the main event scene seems to be turning into a
similar problem they had with Undertaker once the streak had become a
major hype machine for Wrestlemania; they don't know who should be
the guy to beat Brock Lesnar. Seems last year the plan was originally
for Roman to beat Lesnar, but we already know how well that went.
Since then it looks like WWE is protecting Brock for the right guy at
the right time. This was the right guy and the right time, especially
when their handpicked babyface just was NOT getting over.
Add to that this was only the fourth
fight on the main card, which was an odd spot for this match having
so much build to it. It should have been given a higher spot, but I
guess it wasn't that important compared to The Rock's Flamethrower
Spectacular.
1. Reigns vs. Triple H
It was bad enough everyone knew this
was the WWE title match for Wrestlemania after the Royal Rumble. It
was bad enough the fans didn't want it and they still did everything
they could to salvage Reigns. It was even worse when you knew this
was going to main event the show, and it just was not what it should
have been.
They had multiple opportunities to
change it. You could have had Dean win at Fastlane, or Dean win at
Roadblock, heck Brock winning at Fastlane would have been just as
okay. But Vince and company were SO INTENT on making Roman their
newest babyface they just HAD to overlook everything, spend the night
muting fan mics to keep the boos from being heard on television sets
around the globe (which didn't help since they were still pretty
loud) all so they could continue to mold Roman into this new John
Cena that the fans were tired of after so long.
And this is mostly just the build up.
Speaking of tired, it didn't help that
by the time this match finally started it was well past the normal
end time for a WWE PPV and the fans had sat through so much already.
It also didn't help that this match had basically become a near
carbon copy of Orton vs. Triple H from Wrestlemania 25 where you're
expecting this big mess of a match that deserves so much hatred from
both men coming to the surface, only for it to be a long and
'methodical' match because that's how Triple H rolls.
Even more annoying? They had a chance
to change it, apparently. There were flyers all over Axxess that
weekend that advertised the match as being a No Holds Barred match,
which would have worked for all the build up these two had put into
the match. Instead we were left with a long match that went on longer
than it needed to be and did nothing for Roman as the new face of
WWE.
For a show that had spectacular
wrestling with stange booking decisions it only makes sense that the
one match that ends the way WWE wanted it to is the one nobody wanted
to buy for this show. One can only wonder what direction they're
going in now with Reigns, but so far the signs aren't looking too
good.
