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Wrestlemania XXXI - The Greatest Show Ever


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Kudos to Reigns for letting Lesnar absolutely brutalize him for 20 minutes. That clubbing forearm that knocked Roman off the apron got a legit "holy shit" oUT of me.

Brock is the best. Is he the strongest booked guy in WWE history? Neither Hogan nor Cena were booked as superhuman as Lesnar. I'm enjoying his run of big performances on the biggest stages.

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To hell with anyone complaining about Sting vs Triple H. That shit ruled hard. Sting wrestled like a man half his age, the NWO all took bumps and brawled with DX... Triple H cosplayed as a fucking Terminator!

The original shit took place almost twenty fuckin years ago. Why do majority of wrestling fans have to sit through a costly circle jerk session because the rest of the people wrestling/calling the shots can't let shit die?

Speaking of dying, someone go poke the guys in that IC math with a stick to see if they are still alive. I appreciate them letting Barrett fucking knocking people out.

The divas were fine. That botched DDT spot was weird. Too bad they pushed Paige aside so a woman who doesn't a shit can get the rub of beating the top heel diva and her lackey. Again.

Taker looked better than he has in te last few years. Wyatt's shtick was really exposed I thought. I mean, I've never got the hub hub, but he really extraly looked a short fat man tonight.

And I agree with Raziel on Reigns. Again, put him in there with a guy that's going to kick his ass if he doesn't bring it is a way better choice than a fucking formula driven Orton and a why is he still working tv every week Kane.

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Why did Triple H make his entrance by coming up an elevator with big metal pipe sticking up his arse?

 

Also, if there's one thing years of WWE booking has taught me, it's that true babyfaces are distracted by women lying injured on the ground, and should always abandon the match to make sure said woman is OK.

 

The announcers were putting over Reigns' punches for busting Brock up early, but I'm fairly sure he did it on those eyelets on the side of Roman's chest harness thingy, when he did the bear hug corner charge.

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Didn't watch any of the pregame crap.


IC ladder match: I'd be perfectly happy if I never saw another multi-man ladder match for the rest of my life. It's just completely played out.

 

Orton/Rollins: There was nothing wrong with this match from a technical standpoint. I just didn't care about it at all. The ending sequence was pretty good, though.

 

HHH/Sting: I had a bad feeling about this match when the babyfaces won first two matches. And sure enough, HHH got the pin. At least it was overbooked six ways from Sunday, which is the only way the match would have been watchable.

 

Divas tag: Ummm...the Bellas repeatedly knocking AJ off the apron was pretty cool.

 

Cena/Rusev: I remember people scoffing when I suggested that they were building Rusev up to feed to Cena at Mania. Well, who's laughing now? As for the match itself, it was OK, but the Fast Lane match was much better. Rusev's Rocky IV entrance was off the charts, though.

 

Oh boy, Rock/HHH at WM32! I'm slightly more excited for that than I am for a 2 Girls 1 Cup sequel.

 

Taker/Wyatt: Jesus, this was sad. It was like they were wrestling in a tar pit, they were moving so slow. Taker should never wrestle again. Neither should Bray.

 

Lesnar/Reigns: So they spend all that time building up Lesnar to have it culminate in a chickenshit MITB cash-in? Fucking bullshit. On the plus side, I loved the "this is awesome" chant when Lesnar was beating the hell out of Reigns. It's the only this is awesome chant I've ever liked.

 

I said a while back that Reigns chasing the Authority was my vision of wrestling hell. Adding Lesnar to the equation makes it somewhat more tolerable, but not much. I'm seriously on the verge of canceling my WWE Network subscription. Fuck this company.

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2 things I want to say quickly and then I'll get more into it after dinner or tomorrow

1) In my mind this was the funnest and most enjoyable Mania ever. Top to bottom the worst thing I can say about anything was that the Diva tag was merely good whereas everything else was fun as shit and great.

 

Fun but don't go too crazy man calling it the best or most fun ever.

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Kudos to Reigns for letting Lesnar absolutely brutalize him for 20 minutes. That clubbing forearm that knocked Roman off the apron got a legit "holy shit" oUT of me.

Brock is the best. Is he the strongest booked guy in WWE history? Neither Hogan nor Cena were booked as superhuman as Lesnar. I'm enjoying his run of big performances on the biggest stages.

 

Brock is so money.  Here's hoping he's in the mix again before the Summerslam buildup. 

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Overall, I thought Mania was solid but forgettable.  The most memorable stuff was the angles, not the matches. 

 

The ladder match was good and action packed but nothing that put it over-the-top for me.  I'm glad Bryan won.

 

From what I saw of Rollins/Orton (took a bathroom break after the first match), it looked solid.  I dug the finish and they got me on the RKO false finish.

 

Sting/HHH was horribly disappointing.  Maybe I expected too much out of Sting.  I was left without a desire to see Sting wrestle again.  I do think he should have won.

 

Rusev/Cena was good and they both worked hard.  Rusev in a tank was fucking cool.  Lana throwing in her shoes was cool.  The match was pretty solid.

 

Bray/Taker was slow and not very good, IMO.  Taker can only do so much with Bray, and I did feel that if Taker were fighting someone better, the match would have been better.  Bray does absolutely nothing for me, especially in-ring.  I fail to see how this put over Bray at all.  A lot of people can get over despite a loss but I don't think he did.

 

I didn't see the divas match.

 

The main was stiff as shit and was good, thanks to Brock.  I still wasn't digging Reigns much here.  Out of all the finishes that I went through in my head, I never thought of Seth cashing in during the match.  Made complete sense and protected the shit out of Brock, and to an extent Reigns.  They'll have more time to figure out Reigns now, if they want to go heel with him or not.  I can't imagine he'll end up getting over as a babyface, in the next six months.  However, he'll be champ soon, I think.  This isn't a Lex Luger situation.

 

Ronda Rousey, The Rock, HHH, and Steph were fucking awesome.

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Even by wrestling logic I'm confused by this show. The nWo interfered for Sting, who put over HHH in his first WWE match. The nWo. Interfered on Sting's behalf. Sting.

 

This stood out like a sore thumb. I FULLY UNDERSTAND the story WWE was trying to tell tonight (and leading up to tonight), but I think it was botched by having NWO come out to help Sting. A better solution would have been DDP. DX comes out, HBK comes out, and then through the crowd DDP hits The Diamond Cutter on HHH and runs out to the ring and through the crowd with all of HHH's boys in hot pursuit. From there a Sting win (no hand shake) would have been cool.

 

Overall it was a good show. WAY better than expected. I thought WWE was asking for trouble when I realized Wyatt/Taker was going to be the co-main event of the evening. Aside from the questionable Sting stuff and the goober HHH entrance, WM delivered this year.

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Kudos to Reigns for letting Lesnar absolutely brutalize him for 20 minutes. That clubbing forearm that knocked Roman off the apron got a legit "holy shit" oUT of me.

Brock is the best. Is he the strongest booked guy in WWE history? Neither Hogan nor Cena were booked as superhuman as Lesnar. I'm enjoying his run of big performances on the biggest stages.

That italian guy? Or do you only mean during VKM era?

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Brock is the best. Is he the strongest booked guy in WWE history?

 

Pre-completely immobile Andre maybe? Although even he did the Killer Khan angle...

 

Shit, what if they re-did the Killer Khan angle with Brock and Rusev? The blow-off would have MOTY written all over it...

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That main event was booked perfectly, and Reigns delivered in-ring. 

 

Cena/Rusev might end up MOTY, even if I felt the ending should have been a bit different (I'd have had Cena win by rollup or something creative and flash instead of finisher).  That's a minor quibble though- Rusev should be a made man now.

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To hell with anyone complaining about Sting vs Triple H. That shit ruled hard. Sting wrestled like a man half his age, the NWO all took bumps and brawled with DX... Triple H cosplayed as a fucking Terminator!

The original shit took place almost twenty fuckin years ago. Why do majority of wrestling fans have to sit through a costly circle jerk session because the rest of the people wrestling/calling the shots can't let shit die?

Edited, so I don't feel like a dick: I don't think people mind a little nostalgia call back as much as you think. The crowd seemed pretty happy.

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Brock earned his entire new contract in one night because nothing Reigns will ever do will give him more credibility that that match.

 

Ric Flair chopped Ricky Steamboat at WrestleMania, and Hogan, Hall, and Nash all took bumps on the floor. I'm still trying to process all this shit lol.

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I was pleasantly surprised about this show, though it was really bloated with lots of timewaster stuff (some of which I wonder about being an audible due to Bray's rumored injury).  They could have easily trimmed down that dire musical performance and some of the entrances to put the tag title match on the main show.  I guess An Uso really was injured and him getting pulled mid-match was a work?  Anyways, I'm glad BRC get the titles for a while longer.

 

The ladder match was great but seemed kinda short.  Any word if Ambrose was legit hurt on that ladder spot towards the end?

 
Orton is probably my least favorite wrestler in the WWE right now and I cringe at the thought of him in a world title program, but that was a solid match.  The finishing sequence was great.
 
A friend of mine tweeted that the Sting/HHH match was like a little kid smashing all his wrestling figures together while making explosion noises, and that's the best description I can think of for it.  The whole match towed a fine line between being pure wrestlecrap (especially HHH's entrance which was just a giant commercial for that new Terminator film, the cost of getting Arnold in the HOF maybe?) and just so quintessentially "pro wrestling".  I think the most shocking moment of the match was the NWO actually taking something resembling physical bumps.
 
The Divas match was what it was, I was kind of surprised it ended with no drama.
 
Cena/Russev was solid but didn't blow me away.  Holy fuck was the crowd ever beind Russev though.  Speaking of which, Russev continues to get better and I really hope they don't do something stupid with he and Lana
 
Bray/Taker was better than it had any right to be.  I couldn't stop thinking of "Thriller" during his entrance (which would have come off 100x better in the dark). Taker looked a lot better than he did last year and Bray pulled out a lot of good stuff.  I was actually thinking he might win at some point.  The only question is where Bray goes from here.
 
I can't believe that the WWe can be booked like such utter crap 90% of the time yet still pull out a main event match booked like that.  I've never had the ire for Reigns a lot of people have, to me he's always been decent, just pushed way too far beyond his means.  Tonight he really did the best he could and hung in there with Brock.  Granted a majority of the match was Brock being awesome, but Reigns held his own and hope the unending negativity towards him drops a little.  At first I was wondering what the hell Rollins was thinking coming in before the match was over, but it ended beautifully.
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Kudos to Reigns for letting Lesnar absolutely brutalize him for 20 minutes. That clubbing forearm that knocked Roman off the apron got a legit "holy shit" oUT of me.

Brock is the best. Is he the strongest booked guy in WWE history? Neither Hogan nor Cena were booked as superhuman as Lesnar. I'm enjoying his run of big performances on the biggest stages.

That italian guy? Or do you only mean during VKM era?

I'm talking since Vince took over. Andre is a good counterpoint but even he sold for the snake.

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Okay so:

 

- Don't work on Wrestlemania if you like wrestling. Don't say "oh I'll just watch it while I'm working", because shit then hits the fan and you can't. I only got to see the main in full. Fuck. Mania was terrible too the last few years, so I figured I was safe.

 

- Battle Royale - Total disaster which seemed to spit in the face of everything we all wanted to happen.

 

- Opener - Looked good but missed most of it due to work.

 

- Rollins/Orton - Caught none of it minus the finish.

 

- HHH/Sting - Loved HHH's entrance, hated Sting's. Still not getting what Sting's was supposed to be.The match looked to be good. The NWO vs DX stuff was smoke and mirrors WWE Royal Rumble spots that were fun but not the most sensical. I knew something was up when Sting went through most his moves a few minutes in. They woulda made big bucks off of a DX/NWO feud years ago when they had all of these guys signed, but as we can see, Vince still hasn't let the WCW thing go.

 

- Diva's - Missed most of it.

 

- Cena/Rusev - Good match, good entrance for Rusev but the wrong man won. Undefeated Rusev vs Made in the USA everyday man Brock Lesnar in a hoss battle would have been money for next year's main. Cena didn't have to win here.

 

- Rock's segment - Missed most of it. Rhonda looked hotter than ever before and she gets wrestling better than most of the roster.

 

- Taker/Bray - Missed 60% of it, but the rest of it looked good.

 

- Main Event - They did a really good job with it and Brock deserves all of that paycheck and more. Roman's timing was spot on but he is still limited in what he can do. The ending a good neutral ending. Brock didn't lose, Roman didn't win. I can live with it, but I would have liked to have seen a real end.

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