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WRESTLEMANIA 35 POST SHOW DISCUSSION


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I'd suggest someone start a feud with HHH by pointing out his 20 year tradition of finding ways to virtue signal to white supremacists, but that would end up with him wrestling, and no one has ever actually wanted to see that his whole career. 

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Longer thoughts on the show.

- Neese vs Murphy was pretty good tho they have a better match in them. 

- Women's battle royale was fine but the "person coming in that you thought had been eliminated" is such an overused trope now. I was actually really excited for Logan to win as it would have been something fresh and new and the Riott Squad deserve a lot of credit for taking all those beatings to heat up the main event babyfaces these last few weeks. Carmella winning doesn't mean much but it was our second babyface win of the night, so good I guess. 

- Tag match was really good but the booking of Ryder is one of the stranger things of the company. Dude has been basically a jobber who never makes PPV or even Raw or SD for months at a time then randomly wins titles at Wrestlemania on little build. I think him and Hawkins are actually a good team so it's fine but they gotta get the belts on Black and Ricochet soon. 

- Men's battle royale was nothing but it was something for Braun as you assume he gets rehabilitated moving forward after a whole year of really odd booking. 

Pre-show very worthwhile.

- I find it hilarious that Rollins was booked to have a more dominant and definitive win in a much better card placement over Lesnar than Roman Reigns ever got. Continues my theory that Rollins has been booked so much better than Roman has over the years. Coming out of the show, hard to see what's next for the Universal title. I suppose McIntyre can get his win back over Roman or win a contenders four-way or something.

- Styles vs Orton was fine but I don't get Styles winning. Orton feels a little under-utilized, not that he cares. AJ also has definitely lost a step or two so I'm not clamoring for him to have long main event matches anymore. 

- Four-way tag was pretty great. I would have liked the NXT team to have been pushed more during the match. Ricochet had a couple of cool spots but you would have assumed at Mania he'd have been busting out insanity and it never really got there. Another ten minutes and this could have been a classic. 

- McMahon vs Miz was whatever. As Shane stunt brawls go, it was a lesser one but at least no one died. Actually, I'm starting to get really concerned with WWE's emphasis on giant stunt bumps and men and women deciding they need to land on their head more. I watched a lot of wrestling this weekend and the WWE was the only show where I was actually concerned people were gonna get seriously hurt. 

- Women's tag was pretty forgettable but I'm glad the Iconics won. They're not much in the ring, though they are much better as a team than as singles but they have a good gimmick, are fun and seem like good people. Bayley and Sasha need to split up or go away or something. I hate their team name; I hate their promos; I hate that they pout when they don't like their booking; I hate that they both have somehow gotten worse in the ring the longer their careers stagnant. Turn them heel, send one of them to Smackdown. Do something because I can't handle another year of them. 

- Kofi vs Bryan was a masterpiece and probably the best Mania match since the Hunter/UT series (I know people have varied opinions on them). A WWE classic with an amazing story and finish and the best Daniel Bryan match of his comeback and one of the best Mania matches ever. I don't think it's a totally hot take to say that Kofi is a good worker but never really considered to be great, especially in long singles. Bryan made him look like an absolute star in a way that you haven't seen in WWE since, I dunno, Bret's reigns. Just an absolute classic. 

- Joe vs Rey could have easily been scrapped at this point. Nice of Joe to get a big win though as he has a real shot at getting one of the big belts this year. I really don't know why Rey is even in WWE as they're using him as basically midcard fodder. 

-Reigns vs McIntyre a huge letdown. I was expecting a short, violent stiff fight and it's McIntyre doing a long,  boring heat segment, Reigns making a brief comeback and winning to indifference. They've never figured out that matches were Reigns sells heavy only works with a a really captivating heels (Lesnar or Bryan being the best example). Drew may not have it as a top guy. 

- Kill me but I kinda liked Dave vs Hunter. Firstly, I'm glad no one got hurt and second, it was really weird and violent. However, in hindsight, it was just unnecessary. Batista is and was a big star but this was a match no one seemed to care about or want to see and they should have gone full camp like Hogan vs Vince. But, as I said, I kinda enjoyed it. I dunno. 

-  Angle vs Corbin was whatever. Corbin has slightly improved some, I think, but I haven't watched his matches in months. Angle and WWE seem to have a complicated relationship so it was what it was. Assume he gets a more happy send-off tonight. 

- Balor vs Lashley didn't need to be on the show either. 

- I liked the main event. Great entrances, pretty good atmosphere and it felt important. Like, the match felt tense and edgy and it was really stiff. The women deciding that they need to potato each other to get their matches over is a trend that should die out, though. As I said, I don't buy the finish was a botch for a ton of reasons but I think the issue is we see this as the culmination of a story and they see it as the beginning of a story, which kind of explains the issues with Mania over the last few years. 

I didn't mind the three-way but in hindsight a singles match between Ronda and Becky that was booked like Lesnar and Goldberg would have been much more effective. The match eschewing WWE three-way tropes was weird, too. Usually we get barricade spots, tables, finisher spamming etc. For better or worse, this was a much different kind of match. 

 

So yeah...good show. As far as the length, I mean...I don't think it needs to be cut down to 3 hours or anything but they need to shave about an hour off. A four hour - four and a half hour main card is fine for this spot.

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2 minutes ago, muhammedboehm said:

Wait what?

Sasha/Bayley and Revival did a WWE Now panel with Cathy Kelly about tag team wrestling

At the begining - Cathy said that the Usos were originally supposed to be there too

So I am slightly joking about them blowing it off - but still, they were originally scheduled on it, didn't appear and didn't lose their titles

 

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I thought the same thing too and was wondering how in the hell were they going to land the helicopter in the stadium.

Then when it was landing outside the stadium, I thought we were going to get a ridiculously long entrance like Goldberg had at the Tokyo Dome show he did.

Something else that surprised me or bugged me was the amount of champions that came out first. I'm not a huge fan of that.

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7 minutes ago, Playa Shunna Ver 3.0 said:

Yeah, that was my thought, but as we can see in the photo above WWE really missed the mark by not having a guy in overalls present.  

Where the hell was Hillbilly Jim when you needed him?

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It’s amazing that in July of last year, I was at a panel with Becky and Ryder/Hawkins at ComicCon where Ryder/Hawkins said “We should team up again. We can become two-time tag team champions!” and Becky said “I think Ronda came to the WWE to wrestle me. What do you guys think about that? The armbar vs the Dis-arm-her at Wrestlemania!” and they were both laughed off as jokes. And yet, here we are.

Life is funny and wonderful, sometimes.

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I'm glad somebody brought up Starrcade 97 in reference to the main event cause that's the first thing I thought about after the finish. I don't think it's a matter of whether it was a botch or not, I think that for all of that build up to end in a screwy flash pin instead of a decisive tap out is pretty goddam lame. I guess it depends on how they follow up but that was huge misstep in my book.

Show was great if Bryan/Kofi was your main event, although Joe/Rey and Roman/Drew weren't bad either. Loved Kofi's win (I teared up) and even though I'm not their biggest fan it was nice to see the IIconics hae their moment too. Liked that Finn threw in some new mannerisms and moves as the Demon to set it apart but I'd be lying if I wasn't hoping they'd cut that match for time and had it main event Raw tonight. HHH/Batista didn't really have a place on this show but if Big Dave is retiring then why not.

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So, Meltzer reporting that the finish went as planned except for Rousey's shoulders coming up during the pin. So, basically...either Rousey shouldn't have been squirming so much OR the ref should have restarted the count when her shoulders went back down. 

I'm still pretty skeptical that this wasn't planned to set up a rematch and with Heyman involved and the history of worked shoots with Lesnar finishes this just seems like it fits in with what they're trying to do. I think, considering the build, they wanted to come out of this match with some controversy. 

Anyway, it's not the disaster people are saying it is and I wish wrestling had more finishes that weren't totally reliant on finishing moves. 

Will be interesting to see the next step of the women's division if Rousey is actually taking time off. I know people are weirdly sour on her now but will there be the same level of juice for Lynch against Nia Jax or Ember Moon or whomever?

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3 minutes ago, Hagan said:

So, Meltzer reporting that the finish went as planned except for Rousey's shoulders coming up during the pin. So, basically...either Rousey shouldn't have been squirming so much OR the ref should have restarted the count when her shoulders went back down. 

I'm still pretty skeptical that this wasn't planned to set up a rematch and with Heyman involved and the history of worked shoots with Lesnar finishes this just seems like it fits in with what they're trying to do. I think, considering the build, they wanted to come out of this match with some controversy. 

Anyway, it's not the disaster people are saying it is and I wish wrestling had more finishes that weren't totally reliant on finishing moves. 

Will be interesting to see the next step of the women's division if Rousey is actually taking time off. I know people are weirdly sour on her now but will there be the same level of juice for Lynch against Nia Jax or Ember Moon or whomever?

One of the many things I love about Bret Hart was his flash pins usually working for him on Piper/Bam Bam Bigelow/Diesel than against countered by Bulldog/Owen.

Edited by The Natural
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