WRESTLEMANIA XL - 4/6 & 4/7/2024

[odessasteps]

 

[AxB]

Adrenalin
In my soul
Dude Wipes to replace
Your Bog Roll.

Yeah, Mania night One was a pile of shit innit?

[Ziggy]

I was expecting Gunther to lose before Berlin. I would have loved for Gunther to go in to Berlin as IC champ but it was nice to see Sami get that win although I don't expect Sami to get as strong of a run they've been doing a really good job making that title the most meaningful title even over the WHC to me. Most of those titles seem to have more credibility in the last maybe year and a half. Like Gunther was headlining Raws and Smackdowns these past almost 2 years based around that title. Its a testament to he himself not just the booking of the title. I think WWE didn't follow up on that big win Zayn and Owens had last year winning the tag titles. Zayn is such a big Babyface. No one expected them to have a long run but you almost forget they were even Champs last year. If Gable turns heel,  it's going to be insane but they could've easily pit Gable in this spot last night and he would have been a made man.

[AxB]

It is amusing that Sami has been in WWE for over a decade, but didn't get to do the Turnbuckle Brainbuster in WWE until after Takeshita had used it in AEW. Makes it look like he's decided to copy El Generico's Japanese protege for no particular reason.

[Just Dave]

6 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

I don't think the Goldberg thing works longterm.  Can Jade show up and kick ass and squash people for a while?  Sure... but when she's finally met her match whether it's against Bianca or Rhea or whoever,  she's going to be expected to do the 15-20 minute main event style... that's just how it works these days.  That's what the company will want and that's what fans have been conditioned to expect from all of the wrestling they consume.  

The days of Andre The Giant special attractions are over because there will be 10,000 people chanting "YOU CAN'T WRESTLE!"  

Look what happened with Maxxine about a month ago and nobody should EVER give a fuck whether Maxxine can string a couple moves together but apparently they do. 

Ehh. Have her squash people on tv every couple weeks until she’s ready for longer matches. This idea that she HAS to be a great worker is nonsense, especially when you’re dripping with “it factor” the way she is. There’s a mile of difference between her and Maxxine Dupri, who I literally couldn’t pick out of a police lineup full of fitness models.

[The Natural]

https://cdn4.whatculture.com/images/2024/04/a8393bfa80f174e0-600x338.jpg

Feel good moment. Congratulations The Awesome Truth winning the WWE RAW Tag Team Championship.

[colonial]

Watched part of the first night. Had to turn it off halfway through as my daughter and her friends got sick from food poisoning at a neighbor's sleepover -- had to pick her up mid-way through the Usos match.

-- Loved Lynch-Ripley. The sequence leading to the electric chair drop from the outside was impressive. I was expecting a Hart-Austin double turn as the match went on, and Lynch did lean heel during the bout. Time to strap a rocket to Ripley and let her shine on her own. Lynch having portions of her book on her tights cracked me up.

-- The tag team ladder match was fine -- happy for R-Truth having his WM moment -- but the last-minute (I believe) decision to essentially have two separate ladder matches for both sets of belts soured it for me. The Aussies quickly became an afterthought after winning the SD belts. 

-- The lucha tag was an afterthought for the two Eagles players showing up, though I liked their cameo. Still, them showing up out of nowhere grinded the match to a halt.

-- Given the weather and such, I would have given the seconds for both teams, I don't know, matching jogging suits to wear. Never been a fan of wrestlers not scheduled to compete showing up in their spandex outside the ring. It's like, say, LeBron James, sitting on the bench in his uniform with a torn ACL. 

-- The "Battle of the Usos" was what would have happened if we watched the Young Bucks fight on super slo-mo. Not sure what in the world "Yeet" means, but I got Hack Myers flashbacks hearing those chants.

[Godfrey]

Enjoyed the show! Two big matches in Rhea/Lynch and Sami/Gunther delivered and the drama in the main event was palpable even if it went too long. Plus it gave all the oppositional nerds something to grumble about, a wild success!

[The Natural]

9 minutes ago, colonial said:

Watched part of the first night. Had to turn it off halfway through as my daughter and her friends got sick from food poisoning at a neighbor's sleepover -- had to pick her up mid-way through the Usos match.

-- Loved Lynch-Ripley. The sequence leading to the electric chair drop from the outside was impressive. I was expecting a Hart-Austin double turn as the match went on, and Lynch did lean heel during the bout. Time to strap a rocket to Ripley and let her shine on her own. Lynch having portions of her book on her tights cracked me up.

-- The tag team ladder match was fine -- happy for R-Truth having his WM moment -- but the last-minute (I believe) decision to essentially have two separate ladder matches for both sets of belts soured it for me. The Aussies quickly became an afterthought after winning the SD belts. 

-- The lucha tag was an afterthought for the two Eagles players showing up, though I liked their cameo. Still, them showing up out of nowhere grinded the match to a halt.

-- Given the weather and such, I would have given the seconds for both teams, I don't know, matching jogging suits to wear. Never been a fan of wrestlers not scheduled to compete showing up in their spandex outside the ring. It's like, say, LeBron James, sitting on the bench in his uniform with a torn ACL. 

-- The "Battle of the Usos" was what would have happened if we watched the Young Bucks fight on super slo-mo. Not sure what in the world "Yeet" means, but I got Hack Myers flashbacks hearing those chants.

I've had food poisoning and it sucks. Hope your daughter and her friends feel better ASAP.

[AxB]

15 minutes ago, colonial said:

Lynch having portions of her book on her tights cracked me up.

Book gimmick? Bloody Leva Bates wannabe.

[Andrew POE!]

34 minutes ago, colonial said:

Watched part of the first night. Had to turn it off halfway through as my daughter and her friends got sick from food poisoning at a neighbor's sleepover -- had to pick her up mid-way through the Usos match.

-- The "Battle of the Usos" was what would have happened if we watched the Young Bucks fight on super slo-mo. Not sure what in the world "Yeet" means, but I got Hack Myers flashbacks hearing those chants.

I don't know which is worse - watching the Usos match or getting food poisoning. Both are pretty miserable experiences.

[Just Dave]

32 minutes ago, Godfrey said:

Enjoyed the show! Two big matches in Rhea/Lynch and Sami/Gunther delivered and the drama in the main event was palpable even if it went too long. Plus it gave all the oppositional nerds something to grumble about, a wild success!

Right. The problem is us being “oppositional nerds” and not the show being dogshit. Gtfoh with that…

[The Natural]

Becky Lynch's gear having excerpts of her autobiography reminded me of Budweiser branding.

Edited April 7 by The Natural

[Godfrey]

10 minutes ago, Just Dave said:

Right. The problem is us being “oppositional nerds” and not the show being dogshit. Gtfoh with that…

The problem is how you express yourself. If I did the same thing to AEW people would get upset, it's cool

[FireThunder]

Show was ok, the middle seemed to drag.

I'd love to see Sami/Gunther run it back.

Edited April 7 by FireThunder

[Niners Fan in CT]

2 hours ago, Just Dave said:

Ehh. Have her squash people on tv every couple weeks until she’s ready for longer matches. This idea that she HAS to be a great worker is nonsense, especially when you’re dripping with “it factor” the way she is. There’s a mile of difference between her and Maxxine Dupri, who I literally couldn’t pick out of a police lineup full of fitness models.

You understand I wasn't comparing Jade to Maxxine?  I was saying that the fans expect everyone to be great workers.  

[The Natural]

Looking forward to see Gunther in the World Heavyweight Championship picture. Drew McIntyre beats Seth Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship tonight in front of fans, headlines Clash at the Castle in Glasgow and drops it to Gunther at Bash in Berlin. Prefer Gunther to win the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship to Cody Rhodes instead.

[Godfrey]

Sami Zayn vs Gunther
I wanted this match to happen but they did not get all of this one, as they say. WWE botched the build a little and undercut Sami, or Gable overachieved in his role and will beat Zayn on Monday. Gunther's style doesn't always lend itself to an open air stadium, the echo of his chops in a closed space is a lot of what makes his matches special. It's still stiff but not as visceral, and with the cold and how huge crowds react to things and this match didn't reach the heights I think it could

Sami wants to stick and move and take advantage of any openings but knows he can't go blow for blow with the big man and will have to break out every trick in the book. Zayn gets with two half-nelson suplexes and Gunther absorbs them, the rope walk DDT gets nothing, and he can't even get him up for the Blue Thunder Bomb. Meanwhile, Gunther goes for max damage, doubling up on big moves to crush the underdog's spirit. After taking all that punishment, Sami finds his moment and breaks out a secret weapon for the big win (a huge WTF moment for me, never thought I'd see it in WWE and as much an indication its a new era as any other). Not as emotional a match as it could have been, could've used a deep Boston crab or bleeding chest to get it over the finish line, still an excellent match and I agree MotN

[The Natural]

Hoping Kevin Owens wins with a Package Piledriver so he and Sami Zayn hold the secondary singles championships on the main roster.

Edited April 7 by The Natural

[Greggulator]

I fell asleep during the main event, so I still have to watch. But from the show:

1) Sami/Gunther was absolutely incredible. Gunther is an all-time great Goliath type. Sami is the best underdog babyface of his era.The opening camera shot of Sami told such an awesome story — Sami’s doubt came because he lost against Roman in front of his wife and entire hometown, Gable is the one who picked him up, KO reminded Sami of exactly how good Sami is. A+ presentation. 

2) Rhea/Becky ruled. The electric chair spot was mind boggling. I really liked Becky’s expressions throughout and Rhea’s reactions in how she could not put Bex away.

3) The Rey/Andrade vs. Escobar/Dom stuff was silly fun. They shoehorned a lot into the set up of the match, which doesn’t do anyone any favors. But a good match with the awesome catapult. Kelce’s involvement was definitive Philadelphia. He’s essentially a Messiah type figure here. Beloved by all. I don’t watch football much but he could spit in my mouth as my child watched and I would thank him for the honor of it occurred. We love him that much.

3) Every WM needs a nonsense and chaotic car wreck match. Glad we got this and can move on.

4) Jimmy/Jey was there. Disappointing because they had an epic build for it. Going for a match so dependent on in-ring acting at a football venue was a really bad decision. A quick brawl like how brothers fight would have been ideal. But I don’t hate it like everyone else. Just forgettable.

[Curt McGirt]

The image of Sami showing the Takeshita/Ospreay match to HHH and co. and saying "See, look, it wouldn't kill him if I screwed it up!" is humorous. 

[Octopus]

Saying everything I said, I’m still very excited for night two. WrestleMania is a special thing and I’m happy it’s on Peacock ! 

[Craig H]

I thought it was a good show for the most part. The worst match was Jimmy vs Jey, but I expected that. For whatever reason, WWE has never been able to pull off tag team partners having a good match against each other. We talked a bit about it in Discord, but it’s that stupid WWE style where it’s very homogenized and there’s no juice so you can’t do a blood feud. A good example is when Joe feuded with AJ Styles. After everything Joe did to AJ and his family, you’d expect those two or at least AJ to start that match looking to kill Joe and instead it starts with a respectful lock up. It’s more of an indictment of WWE’s road agents where every match is laid out the same. I took a really long break from WWE because it stunk. While the storylines have gotten better, the matches are still the same. Unless you’re exceptional and stand out as a personality, the match is just going to suffer.

But sometimes that WWE style works, like with Rhea vs Becky and Sami vs Gunther. Those were excellent matches and the production for each was great.

The production differences were also noticeable. It looks so improved from the Kevin Dunn days. The one bad thing was production making more and more errors as the night went on. The main event had a lot of production mistakes. Filming stuff was better, but they cut away from stuff just as it was about to happen so many times. My 13 year old daughter decided to watch most of the show with me and was into the main event. As she watched the main event, she goes, “why do they keep not showing things happening?!” She said that when Roman was about to suplex Cody off the ramp. That was maybe the third or fourth move in a row from Cody and Roman that they cut away from.

The other bad part of the production was the announcing. My god. Pat was horrible. My daughter was like, “who is this guy talking? He’s so annoying and he doesn’t shut up.” I normally like Pat, but he was fucking awful. It made me think, oh, so this is how people felt about Mauro’s announcing.

But everything did what it was supposed to do in the main event. The main event was the most active smoke and mirrors match ever to make it look like the Rock was very active and to ensure no one, especially the three with matches tonight, got hurt. The Rock was still stiff as a board. There is no fucking way he could work a good singles match. Him being so inflexible for the Pedigree was pretty funny. Dude doesn’t need that much muscle. 

But hey, all he needs to do tonight is hopefully eat a Stone Cold Stunner. 

Oh yeah, the crowd stuff, this is one of those things that varies from house to house. I had to switch my audio presets 4 times to find one that sounded good. Normal stereo was really bad. The sports, movie, and game modes for my tv and speakers didn’t sound much better. In all of those the announcers were so loud and you couldn’t hear the crowd at all. I finally chose this mode called “Direct” on my speaker setup and everything sounded better. The announcers weren’t as loud and the crowd and ring sounded better. The negatives though were that the sound from the crowd just seemed to go up in the air. I believe they were pretty hot, it’s just not wired for sound that well and it’s so wide open in there. I could also hear a lot of the moves being called in the ring, but hey, at least it turned down how loud Pat was. WWE need to hire someone from the NFL when they do these stadium shows. AEW too. Get someone with experience for getting crowd noise to come through on tv.

[Gorman]

I loved Rey and Andrade's chicken-fight dive to the floor. Gotta love seeing a move that you've never seen before.

Did you notice that Michael Cole called Corey Graves the "heir apparent"? That tells me they must like Corey's work on Smackdown and are considering him to be the future top play-by-play announcer. Good for him! That would be the highest level a former wrestler has achieved as a play-by-play announcer since Gorilla Monsoon.

[The Natural]

7 minutes ago, Gorman said:

I loved Rey and Andrade's chicken-fight dive to the floor. Gotta love seeing a move that you've never seen before.

Did you notice that Michael Cole called Corey Graves the "heir apparent"? That tells me they must like Corey's work on Smackdown and are considering him to be the future top play-by-play announcer. Good for him! That would be the highest level a former wrestler has achieved as a play-by-play announcer since Gorilla Monsoon.

I noticed but forgot to mention. Thank you for.