Dolfan Watches Every Wrestlemania On Lockdown

[Dolfan in NYC]

DAY 105

WrestleMania XXXIII (or The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire)

The coronation of Roman Reigns at Mania 32 lasted all of 2 months before he "failed a wellness test" and was suspended for 30 days.  When he came back, he promised a whole new side of Roman Reigns.  This consisted of... *checking my notes*...  not wearing colored contact lenses to the ring.  Which frankly, is an improvement. 

The WWE went through it's current brand split in 2016.  Which led to Dean Ambrose winning his first WWE Championship, and a new world title being created - The WWE Universal Championship. Though NXT's latest call up Finn Balor won the tournament to become the first champion a severe injury in the title match led to a great opportunity.  The fat kid from suburban Montreal got his chance to run with the ball in the summer in one of my absolute favorite angles ever:

And the title stayed on him thanks to help from his newest "best friend" Chris Jericho.  And if you didn't like that storyline... you just made the list.  Then Goldberg came along and fucked everything up.

The women traded the title (well, eventually titles) between the Horsewomen though WWE was starting to Feel The Glow as erstwhile Funkadactyl Naomi was burning it up, along with recent NXT call ups Alexa Bliss... oh, and the final NXT Horsewoman, Bayley.  

Looking back, it actually wasn't that bad a year.  The biggest question though was if that would translate to a good WrestleMania?  *Thought Emoji*

Well, the stage is ginormous, and I hate to think of how long I'm going to have to sprint when HHH comes down for his stupid match. 

And here to start us out is The New Day!   Who really should be wrestling and not hosting.  I forget if one of them was hurt or what, but they are taking their sweet ass time getting to the ring.  I'll also note that Michael Cole and Corey Graves instantly annoy me because when Cole notes that the New Day's outfits are inspired by Final Fantasy, Graves openly scoffs at him. And it's the thing I hate the most about Graves on commentary...  he's clearly in the role of "McMahon's mouthpiece", so it is completely incongruous to have a late-40's guy (who should know what FF is) and a early-30's guy (who definitely knows what FF is), and have the younger one mock the older for this knowledge.  

Shit like that drives me crazy. 

The New Day does their thing.  It's extremely boring to watch it over again and they take up a solid 15 minutes just getting to the ring and talking.  The bottom line, "We are the hosts of WrestleMania. Thank you."  

This doesn't fill me with big anticipation for what's ahead. 

[DJ Hero Morganti]

Even more amusingly, the New Day were dressed as characters from the CURRENT final fantasy MMO, so its not like they were doin a deep cut in the Final Fantasy Lore and coming out as the characters from like Final Fantasy 1.

So the derision and mockery of your fucking sponsor is pretty annoying.

[EVA]

What’s more is I bet you anything it was a paid promotional spot, because FF14 had a new expansion coming out and New Day was specifically dressed as the three new character classes being introduced in that expansion.

So they probably took Square Enix’s money and then shit on the whole thing.

EDIT:  Argh, yes, what Morganti said.

Edited December 16, 2020 by EVA

[Brian Fowler]

I remember so little of that WrestleMania. Um... Hardyz return? The awesome Goldberg/Lesnar sprint. The very end.

I'm honestly not sure off hand what else was on that show. As opposed to the mid 90's when I can likely come close to naming the entire card...

[Spontaneous]

At least this is Shane's best match at Wrestlemania thanks to AJ Styles. I pity Dolfan having to sit through Cena and Nikki-Miz and Maryse,  Rollins-HHH and Orton-Wyatt back to back to back.

[Brian Fowler]

7 minutes ago, Six String Orchestra said:

At least this is Shane's best match at Wrestlemania thanks to AJ Styles. I pity Dolfan having to sit through Cena and Nikki-Miz and Maryse,  Rollins-HHH and Orton-Wyatt back to back to back.

Now I know why I don't remember it: Repression!

[SirSmUgly]

1 hour ago, Brian Fowler said:

I remember so little of that WrestleMania. Um... Hardyz return? The awesome Goldberg/Lesnar sprint. The very end.

I'm honestly not sure off hand what else was on that show. As opposed to the mid 90's when I can likely come close to naming the entire card...

I have never seen this WrestleMania, so when I read that as "The awesome Godfather/Lesnar sprint," I was intrigued as hell. 

I love Goldberg, but significantly less intrigued now. 

[thee Reverend Axl Future]

I would much rather watch the Godfather in anything - the man with a very versatile gimmick - vs. Gooooldberg - a very limited performer AT BEST - but your mileage may vary (and be wrong).

- RAF

[AxB]

How many Goldberg matches were actually good? Is it just the DDP and Raven ones?

[DJ Hero Morganti]

For what it was i think his match vs The Rock was good.

[Brian Fowler]

38 minutes ago, AxB said:

How many Goldberg matches were actually good? Is it just the DDP and Raven ones?

There was a good one with Sting as well.

Edit: To be fair though, I also consider him, hands down, the best squash match worker ever.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Brian Fowler

[AxB]

Better than Sid, or Vader as a squash match wrestler?

[Dolfan in NYC]

(Live look in... (well earlier today...)

HHH rode a spider motorcycle to the ring. Somehow this took 5 fucking minutes.

I am pain

[Brian Fowler]

47 minutes ago, AxB said:

Better than Sid, or Vader as a squash match wrestler?

Yes. It's not just that he killed jobbers, it's the absurd intensity and explosiveness with which he did it.

I love Sid. Vader is a top five all-time worker in my opinion. But neither of them have a squash even close to the pure glee I get from watching Goldberg/La Parka.

[J.H.]

Do we need to opemn the can of worms of "best Squash Match Wrestler"? Because my vote goes to Magnum TA. His TBS squashes got the Belly to Belly Suplex over as absolute death!

James

[SirSmUgly]

I'd actually pick Yokozuna or Kevin Sullivan as best singles squash match worker over Goldberg, but Goldberg is clearly S-tier at it, so I absolutely understand why someone would choose him as the answer to the question of best squash match worker.

I most definitely enjoy multiple of Charles Wright's gimmicks, but I don't really remember any one match of his, so when I misread that line, I just had a couple of seconds with two thoughts: 1) Why the fuck was Lesnar wrestling Godfather on a WM, and 2) this might be his one memorable match of his whole career, I need to see this.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Smelly McUgly

[Dolfan in NYC]

Here comes the money...  

You know, changing songs as time passes is often times a very bad thing (cf. Lee, Keith), but sometimes... well, I'll just say a 50 year old man coming out saying he's a boy toy -- doesn't work.  "Here comes the new kid on the block",  yeah, not anymore Shane.  He's here with his 3 kids and dancing his way to the ring before dropping them off with his wife and I'm assuming the rest of the family. Notable is that last year, the future Small Business Administration Secretary was in the crowd, this year, she was probably too busy rewriting regulations regarding independent contractors.  Assuming she actually showed up for the job.  

Speaking of showing up to job... here's AJ Styles. 

I should note, this crowd is clearly feeling its oats.  Shane is supposed to be the absolute face in this story.  But cheering for the boss is a storyline that only the WWE can try to pitch in 2017.  So yeah, they're clearly on AJ's side, because Shane is, and will always be, the rich kid you hated growing up who became boss because of nepotism. 

As I'm riding, the thought that hit me was the match is pretty much the old RSPW metaphor.  Ric Flair at his absolute peak '87-'90 (arguably) could carry a broomstick to a 3* match.  So, AJ is being asked to work with a reckless worker, a terrible seller, and the son of the boss.  He has to make him look competent, dangerous, and most of all, a legitimate threat.  Now, the crowd is not buying that Shane is any kind of threat to AJ Styles, at all.  But that's not to say I didn't hear some anxious noises when Shane went on offense.

Shane is, for his part, actually trying it seems.  He does have a neat idea for a counter to a flying forearm into a triangle choke, that were he anyone else on the roster, would have looked really great. He does take a vicious looking one-armed Styles Clash.  Plus he hits the Van Shane-inator after endlessly setting up the spot while the ref is down. 

End comes as Shane goes to the top and busts out a Shooting Star Press(!) that lands him face first on the mat because AJ is NOT about to take that spot.  Phenomenal Forearm sends Shane back to Greenwich.  

AJ basically pulled it off. He carried the broomstick to a very fun little match.  The crowd reactions were entirely wrong because no one wants to cheer for their boss, but otherwise, it was much better than I remember.  Especially because the first time I watched, I was certain Shane was winning.  

Next up:  "We good?"  "No."    

End of Day 105.

[NikoBaltimore]

1 hour ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Notable is that last year, the future Small Business Administration Secretary was in the crowd, this year, she was probably too busy rewriting regulations regarding independent contractors.  Assuming she actually showed up for the job.  

Just wanted to highlight this and applaud you.  I will also say that I wanted to hate this match so much yet AJ was so damn good at making this a fun match that I couldn't help but like it.  I felt dirty at the time afterward but I liked it nonetheless.

Also, going back to New Day that got one helluva reaction among my group of friends.  It also helped that they were looking forward to that game coming out and could tell what they were supposed to be.  There was also a behind-the-scenes thing that we saw somewhere where they were talking with people from Square Enix.  I want to say it's on the network but it's been awhile since we saw it.

[Shartnado]

15 hours ago, AxB said:

How many Goldberg matches were actually good? Is it just the DDP and Raven ones?

Match(es) with Perry Saturn definitely weren't actively bad. You'd have to think the match he actually DID have with Jericho in the WWF had to be at least pretty good, right? I'm not sure if I ever actually saw it, though.

[Curt McGirt]

The match with Regal? I don't remember personally. 

[Dolfan in NYC]

42 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

The match with Regal? I don't remember personally. 

As I recall, Goldberg doesn't either, which is why Regal got fired shortly after that match. 

[Curt McGirt]

Read up on it and Goldberg said Regal was shooting, Regal said they were told to have a competitive six minute match. What it looks like to me is that Goldberg got stiffed in a couple places, looked bad toward the end, complained to the higher ups and got Regal fired. Otherwise it's a fine match and Goldberg actually looks good on the mat for most of it! He had to not like one of those kicks, the headbutt, or the eyepokes though. 

[Spontaneous]

Jericho-Goldberg was ok from what I remember. I thought it was better than the Flair-Michaels match on the same show.

[SirSmUgly]

I agree that the Regal match was actually good because of the struggle there. It was stiff and made perfect sense - Regal's a wily veteran, so of course he'd last for a couple minutes longer just based on trickery alone. People talked about that match like Goldberg looked confused or bad during it, as in it was consensus for a bit there, but I never trucked with it.

EDIT: I do think Regal probably took a bit too much of that match, though. 

Edited December 17, 2020 by Smelly McUgly

[mattdangerously]

Goldberg vs Mongo on the first Thunder is pretty good for a short match.