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Dolfan Watches Every Wrestlemania On Lockdown


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2 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure Balor is undefeated as the Demon in NXT and WWE. Not sure about his record in the indies or Japan, but I mainly because I don't remember if he was demon'ed up when he lost his final NJPW match and had the Bullet Club turn on him.  

 

Pretty sure Demon Baolr lost to the Fiend. Also the whole Demon Balor thing is a dumb WWE change. Before the painr was just something Balor took up for the occasional big match. It wasn't meat to be a personality/character change.

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31 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Pretty sure Demon Baolr lost to the Fiend. Also the whole Demon Balor thing is a dumb WWE change. Before the painr was just something Balor took up for the occasional big match. It wasn't meat to be a personality/character change.

Well, The Fiend did squash paintless Balor at a SummerSlam, but I'm not sure if Finn ever faced The Fiend as The Demon (King). If he did, it didn't happen on a PPV.

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Oh, damn it.  I knew I'd skipped ahead.  Lemme go back.  

Elias is an odd talent.  He's decent enough in the ring, though he's never really floated my boat.  He's actually got legitimate musical talent - shown by the fact that he made a whole ass album during his injury time off.  And that's the thing... he's always injured. Like it's all but a liability.  You can't build any kind of program around him because he'll be off within 6 weeks.  

So in 2019, they scheduled him for a WrestleMania concert.  

He performs, I'm impressed he can play the piano, drums, and guitar.  Some production work has obviously gone into this so it's not a total loss of a segment... until...

John Cena comes out - now in full Legend Buries New Talent mode!  He's got a throwback jersey on, Babe Ruth's Yankees jersey.  In a nice touch, I'll note the jersey has no name on the back, which is how you can instantly spot a fake Yankees jersey. 

"The name on the back is not more important than the name on the front."  

You know, for a justification from the Yankees, that ranks up there in terms of sheer arrogance.  I think that's why I actually like that reasoning. The sheer haughty New York-ness of that answer is perfect. 

Anyway.... 

Cena FU's Elias after carefully walking the line of homophobic raps his Thuganomics character used to do.  Yeah, he's a millionaire movie star now. He's not about to jeopardize that shit for Vince.  

This was something like 20 minutes of my life I'll never get back.   

End of Day 118. 

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1 hour ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

In a nice touch, I'll note the jersey has no name on the back, which is how you can instantly spot a fake Yankees jersey. 

Actually, real jerseys don't have the name on the back. The fake ones have them.

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DAY 119

"...Except beat me."  

All the ridiculous build up for this match was all for nothing.  It was complete with just those three words. Of course, the build up gave us the "Give me what I want" meme and other wonderful Batista moments.  Because Dave fucking crushes everything.  He's so incredibly good at this, even after beating the ever loving piss out of Ric Flair, after being a melodramatic asshole to Hunter for months, he literally could have turned face with a 60 second promo.  

HHH puts his in-ring career on the line against the deadly scourge of Hollywood Batista here.   And he should be super duper happy because putting his career on the line means... *gasp* this match has epic implications! And, of course, he Hunter's it all up anyway.  

Dave comes out to the ring to a mix of boos and cheers.  I'm sure the people cheering knew this was one of, if not the, last chance to do so. 

Lemmy begins the riff, and I begin to sprint.  (My last one! ?) I should note, there's some PS2 level graphics purporting to be a Mad Max style entrance, because Vince finally saw Fury Road, a mere 4 years after its release.  Dave has a weird look on his face that's somewhere between "Okay?" and "mortified."  Hunter comes out on the back of a dune buggy?  (Doom Buggy?  (No, that's the name of the cars in Disney's Haunted Mansion.  (Though, frankly, they're scarier and more intimidating than what he's coming out on.  (Oh god, how many parenthetical thoughts are you in?  (Leonardo DiCaprio?  Is that you?)))))

Oh, right.  There's an actual match. 

This odd duck of a match is really struggling to tell a story.  Batista tries to put away HHH early, and HHH all but instantly goes to weaponry.  Including a gross spot where he "rips out Batista's nosering."  The problem is, once that spot happens, it's like they forgot to fill in the next 20 minutes and just decided to wing it from there. 

Dave goes on an extended heat segment.  The main issue is Dave hasn't been in a serious match in years at this point, and he's noticeably rusty. The crowd basically has to settle in because it's just going to be a drawn out series of events with no coherent throughline.  And lord, does this get boring at this point.  

They're just going back and forth, hitting their stuff and the whole thing is going nowhere.  Like, you know this is an issue when even the plunder and foreign object shots aren't helping.  I think the issue may have been the stipulation.  See if it's just HHH's career on the line, you're going to lose drama because I think the majority of us believe HHH is a lifer and will probably be doing matches well into the 2040's.  If you put Dave's career on the line, it's a little better, since he's Hollywood now, but it'd be expected for him to lose that.  If you put both on the line... well that's a little better.  

Anyway, Ric Flair comes out to distract Batista and blatantly cheat on Hunter's behalf.  It's so egregious, the crowd actually reacts neutrally-negatively to him.  HHH sledgehammers and pedigrees Batista to keep his career going.  

This was clearly supposed to be a big epic reunion and triumph for Hunter, but they oddly missed the mark.  I'm really at a loss as to what could have been done to help out here.  But Dave, from my understanding, very much requested this ending to his in-ring career, and was satisfied with the result.  

So, it's a shame Batista's excellent career ended with a dud, but such is life.  

And since this match and the damned build up and end and everything took about 40 minutes total, I'm cutting this one off here.  Such is life. 

End of Day 119

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DAY 120

It's Kurt Angle's time to call it a career. Not really sure if the reported originally planned match was supposed to be against Cena or not, but Baron Corbin gets the ball here.  I mean, at least they'd built that story up for a long time.  

For what it's worth, Corbin is exceptionally good at getting people to boo him. I have zero idea if he'd ever be good as a babyface, but he almost seems like the Anti-Sami Zayn, where you'll just never know if he can do the role until you see it.  (Then you realize he was better in this role than he ever was before.)  Though, like I've said, I'm higher on Corbin than most... but yeah, this match is the pits. 

Full-speed Angle would have obliterated Corbin.  And I'm guessing that's what the story is, because Angle is barely at half speed. And Baron, for once in his life, is actually faster than someone. 

Just having seen where Angle was before painkillers wrecked him (vs. HBK) to where he is now (getting beaten up by Corbin) is just... depressing I guess is the best way of putting it.  Like this wasn't even Angle putting Corbin over (Corbin End of Days'ed Angle for the pin).  This was just a young guy beating up an old man. At least it was quick.  

After the pinfall, Angle gives this thanks to the crowd. 

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(I'm reposting this in the order of the show) 

Bobby Lashley is one of the guys who should never ever be a face. He excels at being an arrogant dickhead and just becomes incredibly...  and I'm aware of the irony of this statement... white bread.  He's just so boring as "less intense Brock."  

Anyway, he and his mouthpiece Lio Rush have talked themselves from a feud with Finn Balor, to a feud with The Demon.  It's too late and I'm too tired to look it up for sure, but I believe this is the last appearance of the Demon version of Balor in WWE.  Which frankly is fine.  There was a moment in 2017 when Vince was starting to turn to the Demon a little too much and we almost had a Demon vs. Sister Abagail match... and yikes, no.  

The match is a very quick affair, with Balor's Demon entrance lasting nearly as long as the match itself.   Actually, I was thinking, an incredible way to have the Demon come in would be to start him from a top corner of the Titantron and climb down it diagonally like a real life version of Spider-man or something.  I'm not even sure how the logistics of it would work, but christ could that be awesome.  

Anyway, Lashley is all but incidental in this match as the entire crowd is expecting him to get annihilated here.  Which frankly, I was too.  But he actually gets to control the middle 50% of the match, which was weird.  But eventually, things just correct themselves and Balor stomps the shit out of Boring Lashley for the win.  

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure Balor is undefeated as the Demon in NXT and WWE. Not sure about his record in the indies or Japan, but I mainly because I don't remember if he was demon'ed up when he lost his final NJPW match and had the Bullet Club turn on him.  

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Alright, I'm on a roll.  Let me just finish this off.  I'm gathering my thoughts about what follows...

Alexa Bliss calls out R Truth to do a dance off.  This segment 100% should have been cut. Especially with a Joan Jett concert AND a helicopter flyover/entrance segment yet to come.

During my time doing this, I have re-watched the revolution of women's wrestling in the WWE.  From the feature match at Wrestlemania 1 to being completely off the show for years and then only being brought back to be tits and ass. Certain years had shining lights beaming through (Jazz/Trish/Lita being the big thing I'd point to), but other years... yikes.  But, from the ground up, they rebuilt the division. Then through landing an all-time talent, turning an injury into a career-defining moment, and the signing of a major outside talent, the women's division has the main event of a WrestleMania for the first time ever. 

I'm gonna go ahead and tell you, this match is loads better on the second watch.  Mania 35 was a 7 1/2 hour long show and the bell on this match didn't ring until after midnight.  The crowd is clearly excited, but also exhausted.  I guarantee you, there were some people in the crowd looking forlornly at their watches knowing they'd be taking the train back into the city.  And frankly, I was falling asleep the first time I saw it because I had work the next day too.  

I'll say, it's interesting to see the story they're going for is... Everyone hates each other.  Works for me!  The first third of the match is extremely high energy and fast paced.  These are the three best workers in the WWE a this point, so they definitely have the skills to run this route.  It's also fun because Rousey is a natural shit-talker, so it's delightful when she tells Charlotte and/or Becky that she hits "like a bitch."  I think it's the same vein that makes me giddy when I hear a woman say "suck my dick".  

The middle third goes with each of the ladies hitting submission holds on the others.  Charlotte grabbing a quick Figure 8. Becky grabbing a Disarm-her. And Ronda scoring a sweet double-armbar (which, of course, means she gets zero leverage on either arm).  They're really hitting the home run they've been set up for.  

The match only goes off the rails a bit when in the final third, Becky brings in a table. The match has been going great without the need for tables and other foreign objects.  As Ronda says "Tables are for bitches."  Bringing in the table simply disrupts the flow of this match.

Looking at the women, they're clearly exhausted by this point.  That's not really on them though.  There's a lot to be said about getting your reps in, in order to become better at what you do.  In this case, I think these three have worked 20+ minutes, maybe 10 times between all of them?   Anyway, Charlotte charges at both Becky and Ronda like an idiot and gets armdragged through the table, sending her out to the floor for the rest of the match.  

Becky and Ronda square off and the crowd is clearly giving their final burst of energy here because there's a legit shot this is going to be it.  Ronda eventually takes control and is ready to hit Piper's Pit for the finish...  but Becky reverse into a crucifix cradle!   (And one or the other over-rotates badly, because Ronda's shoulders are clearly up when the ref starts counting.)   But the 3 is counted, and we have a new unified Women's Champion.  

Corey Graves takes a moment to shit on the match and its finish, because of course he does.  But, botched finish aside, these three women have put on an outstanding main event match at WrestleMania.  This is the crowning achievement for anyone in North American pro wrestling, and on this night, Charlotte, Ronda, and Becky were more than up to the task. 

-- 

For a 7 hour WrestleMania, this absolutely delivered in spades.   The 2nd half is definitely the worse of the two, but it's saved by the Women's triple threat, and the all time great moment of Kofi Kingston becoming a world champion.  This also has matches that are way more fun than they have any right to be in the Iiconics title victory and the Shane/Miz garbage match.   This was a very good show on the re-watch. And remembering the stories of how bad the traffic and mass transit was getting out of the stadium, I can definitely say I'm glad I enjoyed this from my couch.  (and now from my bike)

Next up... life changes. For everyone. 

End of Day 120. 

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That triple threat should have just been Becky/Ronda, but it was a damn good match with the biggest thing hurting it being at the end of a super long show. This is why I really hope they say fuck it and keep Wrestlemania as a two day show. It just works so much damn better for everyone. 

Edited by Eivion
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7 hours ago, Shartnado said:

Not to be a complete Negative Nellie, but it's plain depressing as hell that Dolfan is about to run out of Wrestlemanias to watch before the pandemic has subsided. What's next on the list, every SummerSlam ever?

Don't worry.  Life isn't going back to normal until the late Summer at least.  Maybe there will be a Takeover of this thread NeXT?   ?

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11 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Don't worry.  Life isn't going back to normal until the late Summer at least.  Maybe there will be a Takeover of this thread NeXT?   ?

I actually began watching every TakeOver when the pandemic began, if you do this you’ll have hella fun, believe me.

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DAY 121

WRESTLEMANIA XXXVI (or The Sounds of Silence)

Friday, March 13th.  The news has been getting more and more dire around New York City.  At work, I get into an argument with my manager because he's trying to sell me and my team on the "privilege" we're being given to keep our jobs and work remotely starting Monday.  (My argument was this wasn't a privilege when there's a virus out there that can kill us all.) I rode the subway for the last time in 2020 that day, going home.   

The city was already changing.  

New York City is full.  Alive. Noisy.  I love all of that.  But walking to the train that day, I took a video.  It was 6pm, the peak of rush hour. It was -- empty.  It was --- quiet.  

It was so quiet. 

Even around my apartment there's always the low hum of noise that you'd hear.  Cars passing by.  People yelling out in the street.  Someone playing music.  But the city was going into a lockdown. And things got very, very quiet.  

Days turned into weeks.  The numbers just kept getting worse.  I live two subway stops away from Elmhurst Hospital, which in April was the epicenter of the epicenter.  The city was very sick.  Hundreds of deaths every day.  Thousands of new infections and hospitalizations. 

The silence was deafening. 

At night, I'd have trouble sleeping.  I'm a worrier by nature, and I have two parents in their late 70's who live in Florida. I have friends who work in and around the medical industry. But the silence.... the silence killed me.  You know... the worse thing than that?  The only thing that pierced the silence?  

Ambulance sirens.  

This went on for weeks.

It would be about a month before I ventured out of my apartment for anything more than groceries.  It would be another month after that before I was able to eat at a restaurant again, outside now.   The world had changed. 

For the WWE, the pandemic lockdown hit at the absolute worst time imaginable.  They were about 2-3 weeks away from their biggest show of the year with their biggest audience of the year. Of course, the decision came down.  There would be no WrestleMania in 2020 because having 80,000 people in the same place would be the same as setting off a bomb in every Tampa area hospital.  

But Vince McMahon ended up doing what he always does.  Somehow, someway (which I'm sure will eventually be exposed as a huge bribe), the WWE was deemed essential business, and they re-wrote a ton of stories and taped in marathon secret sessions in the middle of the night, and WrestleMania was presented with no audience on the Network to a nation that could very well have been watching the last big 'sports' event for months or even years.  As Vince is so fond of saying...

The show must go on. 

And so must I.  

 

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I know someone who got a job cleaning office buildings last week. In some of the offices, the Desk Calendars still said March 23rd.

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Stephanie McMahon welcomes us to WrestleMania.  You just know she had to be talked down from saying something like, "Just like after 9/11" or "Just like when my daddy was arrested for steroid distribution"...  

We cut to WrestleMania host Rob Gronkowski.  I 100% guarantee he has no idea what the word 'pandemic' means, nor is he aware that we're in one. 

We begin with the Women's Tag Title defense.  Paige was given the task of managing the team of Asuka & new NXT callup Kairi Sane in her post-retirement career.  The name given to this team was The Kabuki Warriors which basically EVERYONE called racist Vince claptrap until Asuka said that they came up with the name themselves.  They are the women's tag champions and are defending against Alexa Bliss and another recent NXT callup Nikki Cross. 

Truth be told, I never liked Bliss and Cross as a team.  Bliss isn't a particularly likeable face and I honestly expected her to turn on Cross about 40 times in their time together. But here, they're 'best friends' because... I think the story was they both like coffee?  

And yes, the biggest thing you notice instantly is the lack of a crowd.  It's almost like watching someone stream an old video game who's turned off the background music, so these characters come out and mug for the camera and scream for a reaction that will not come.  It took me a few minutes to get used to it, frankly.  

Now the match itself is actually pretty messy, which is basically inexcusable in a pre-taped match.  Nikki and Alexa are both off their timing on a lot of stuff.  Asuka looks visibly frustrated at certain points in the match, and so does Sane.   

Nikki especially looks bad out there.  But Alexa in particular fucks up the end, when Nikki hits The Purge and Alexa crushes Kairi's knees with a Twisted Bliss to claim their second Tag Team Championships. 

Again, we're well into the Uncanny Valley here as Bliss & Cross are celebrating to no one and posing with their belts to no one.  

I'm not against the Women's Tag Belts getting 15 minutes, but Bliss and Cross were just not up to the task.  

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Elias.  Again... such a weird talent.  Should be incredibly over, but then the bell rings.   (And follow that with the usual injury.)  So while it will be nice to hear a crowd once again respond to his Call "WWE stands for ..."  It will mean we have to sit through one of his matches.  His opponent tonight...  ooh, and it's been a while since I've gotten to bust out this gimmick:

His Royal Highness, Baron, of House Corbin.  First of his name. Ender of Angles. Provider of the End of Days. Master of Running Around Ringposts. Long may he reign.  

Corbin, being a former NFL player, apparently ran afoul of Rob Gronkowski and somehow got booked into a match by Gronk? I wonder if the plan was to make Gronkowski a host/authority figure/occasional wrestler before he told WWE to fuck itself and won a(nother) Super Bowl.  

Anyway, this was fine for what it was.  Two guys who are not exactly the greatest workers in the world doing a decent enough match.  This very much falls into "this could have been on any Smackdown" territory. But I'm sure this got put on here because Vince needed filler since he wasn't going to be able to do the Battle Royale. 

And much like "any Smackdown" match, Elias wins with a roll-up (with a handful of Corbin's pants).  Corbin's shocked, Elias acts like a cheeky monkey. 

I roll my eyes as Gronk and his sidekick Mojo Jojo (no... that actually would have been great) -- it's actually Mojo Rawley, celebrate. 

That's it this day.  Up next.... Love Bites!  

End of Day 121. 

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FWIW, Bàlor/Devitt was painted up for his loss to Taguchi on his way out of New Japan.

I haven't gone back to revisit anything from last year, but overall I remember the two shows being much better than expected, and working significantly better than the empty PC weekly tv shows did, but I have no idea how it will hold up without the lowered expectations.

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DAY 122

You could definitely hear a change in the crowd building regarding Becky "The Man" Lynch in early 2020.  She'd been playing a Stone Cold Steve Austin knock-off for over a year and it was growing... tiresome. And I think there's something to be said about a woman needing to identify as a "Man" to build herself up.  Gender inequities aside though, the character had basically run through everyone on the roster, including the now (semi-?) retired Ronda Rousey.  So, things needed to freshen up a bit.  

Enter Ronda's old 4 Horsewomen of MMA partner, Shayna Baszler.  In many ways, Shayna was Ronda's equal, or better.  Just as good a promo, just as good at executing in ring, and frankly, more experience made her a better storyteller in the ring.  So after having crushed a large portion of the NXT Women's roster, it was time for her to move up and she did so when she attacked The Man. In doing so, she showed that she was dangerous, she was going straight to the top, she was coming for the Raw Women's Championship.  

Then she bit Becky on the neck.  

Ugh.  Vince is so determined to make everything less special that HHH makes in NXT... god damn it.  

Alright, well, a worldwide pandemic apparently didn't cause the Becky Lynch Memorial Semi to be cancelled.  So she drives in through THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE IN ALL OF FLORIDA, the PC parking lot.  I'll note, I was getting major "Apollo Creed in Rocky IV" vibes from this entrance.  And that's kind of what I was expecting from this match.  

In fact, that's kind of what we did get from this.  Shayna dominates roughly everything in the match.... until the final 3 seconds.  Becky clearly underestimated her and was overconfident and that should have led to Shayna putting her to sleep. But in roughly her only offense of the match, they blatantly rip off the spot from Baszler-Sane at a Takeover from a year before, and Becky flips over in a Kirifuda Clutch to pin Shayna's shoulders and retain the women's title.  

Looking back, this booking decision is even MORE baffling now.  Money in the Bank was after this, and it was revealed after that PPV that the winner, Asuka, was also winning the Raw Women's title as Becky was pregnant.  Mazel to Becky, but honestly, if she and her partner were seriously trying, she should have dropped the title here and made Baszler a star.  

I'm sure this is something that was justified as "she hasn't paid her dues" or some bullshit, but good lord, this was titanically stupid then.  On the re-watch, this was a squash that had a fluke finish and made no one look good.  I'll go out on a limb and say, if things had been 'Normal', Lynch would've been booed heavily at the Raw After WrestleMania(TM). 

 

 

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Were WWE aware of Becky & Seth trying for a kid? If not then that explains why they had Becky retain. Also Shayna's build even before that was just not good. They had her dominate the roster quickly to the point of ridiculousness, and she was not super over. Shayna is every bit as good as Ronda in the ring and far better on the mic, but she lacks even half the charisma Ronda has.

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