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WRESTLEMANIA 36 Post Match Thread


Dolfan in NYC

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Fine show considering the circumstances. 

- Cesaro vs Gulak was fine for a short match. Good finish. 

- Women's tag was good, if a bit long. I've kept my distance from WWE for a while but what's the Bliss story? I know she was wrecked with concussions last year. Is she totally shot? 

- Elias vs Corbin was there. One thing about tonight is they could have been a little more creative with the empty arena setting, maybe had more walk and brawls. 

-  Becky vs Shayna I loved. Do wish it would have gotten more time but not sure they trusted Shayna in a longer match. Loved the Bret Hart finish. 

- I kind of hated Zayn vs Bryan. Not that it wasn't good for the match that was laid out and Bryan looked GREAT but Zayn wrestling like a manager and then getting the flash pin is just whatever. I know that's the character Zayn plays now but I just don't have much use for that. Stiff work though. 

- Ladder match was a blast even though I hate ladder matches now. It should be a war crime that they made these guys do that in front of no fans though. Hated the finish. Actually, a lot of lame finishes tonight.

- Rollins vs Owens was very well-worked. Great dive by Owens. Probably best overall match. 

- Braun vs Goldberg was great for what it was. Shame that Braun got the title two years too late and when he's basically been buried for years. I would have kept the belt on Bill but economics and his availability moving forward probably an issue.

- Boneyard match was...well...it was great but also terrible. What can ya say? Credit to Lucha Underground and Matt Hardy (and Borash) for creating a template for cinematic mini-movies in wrestling. I'm not sure I liked this more than the Su Yung/Havok segment that ended with James Mitchell being murdered a few weeks back tbh. AJ Styles got to main event a Mania, though. That can never be taken away from him. This is definitely something everyone should watch. Was it good? I dunno. It definitely isn't pro wrestling, though. 

 

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48 minutes ago, hammerva said:

If we didn't have the virus and we were all at whatever Saturday WM weekend show you were planning to be at, we would have gotten a regular Styles vs Taker match.  Maybe a no DQ match but that is about it.  Given Taker in the last 3 or 4 years would we really want to see that.  

I was going to poo-poo the Boneyard match until I had this same realization. While it reminded me of some made for Syfy D list action/horror movie, it was better than an actual match would have been.

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They have a network and a studio. I don’t know why they can’t make cheap TV shows with retired stars. I’d like an old school syndicated show where Taker rides from town to town righting wrongs before revealing his Deadman powers when he’s in a jam and then moving on (cue sad Hulk theme.)

Edited by (BP)
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1 minute ago, (BP) said:

They have a network and a studio. I don’t know why they can’t make cheap TV shows with retired stars. I’d like an old school syndicated show where Taker rides from town to town righting wrongs before revealing his Deadman powers when he’s in a jam and then moving on (cue sad Hulk theme.)

We could finally get a filmed version of he and Big Show riding motorcycles through Death Valley.

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16 minutes ago, PetrolCB said:

We could finally get a filmed version of he and Big Show riding motorcycles through Death Valley.

I'd rather see them chasing each other in the old WM ring carts.

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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Given how weird/awful the first 5 minutes of this Night 1 was we really should happy with the results:

1.  You have a video montage that goes from really serious to goofy as fuck and back and forth a couple times.  But hey we got one of the best AC/DC songs in history so I guess it is a push.

2.  Then you have Gronk making me wish death on 90% of the Patriots fans in America.  Luckily they kept "Gronky Kong" as JBL called to a bare minimum 

 

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Thought the show picked up at Bryan/Sami and was better than it had any right to be. Those two were the first ones that didn't seem lost not having a crowd. Other than the intros, they worked to each other and didn't reflexively play to a non-existent audience. Super stiff too, even Sami's chickenshit offense landed hard.

The ladder match was fine from a technical perspective, but doing all that without a live audience to react is pointless.

Rollins/Owens was good too. Similar to Bryan/Sami where they did a good job keeping the focus entirely on each other, and Rollins doing his full messiah gimmick with no crowd as a heel actually worked at that meta level. Only knock was using the mic instead of Owens just yelling viscerally.

Surprised to see Braun actually go over Goldberg that quickly. I've accepted that Braun is just this generation's Big Show, but maybe this can kick off one of those stretches where he gets a real monster push before going back to the midcard. Braun would be one of the few guys who would benefit from an actual break of filming from a character perspective (everyone would benefit from a health perspective) to let this win sink in.

The Boneyard match was exactly what it needed to be. If you didn't want to see BikerTaker and AJ wrestling a LU/Broken style match with video game sound effects, I don't know if I can trust your taste in pro wrestling. First time in about 7 years I haven't felt sorry for Taker out there.

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50 minutes ago, Hagan said:

I'm not sure I liked this more than the Su Yung/Havok segment that ended with James Mitchell being murdered a few weeks back tbh.

You get a like for this alone

So as a lover of the goofy I am going to find the Boneyard Match and will report back.

Edited by Curt McGirt
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This was the second show I've watched with no crowd and I thought it was Decent under the circumstances. I with Bryan and Zayn had more time and the Women's tag match was good. Everyone seemed to really work hard, I didn't I fell asleep at the Rollins vs Owen's match though, it was really good what I did see of that.

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Just finished the show. Didn't catch the pre-show matches and i skipped Corbin/Elias & the ladder match.

Kabuki Warriors vs. BlissCross was good and probably the best match for the women's tag titles so far in their still short life. The lack of audience made this a sad affair though seeing how much work everyone involved put into it.

Becky/Shayna was really good. Loved how much of a fight it was and that Becky had to flash pin to win.

Sami/Bryan was fun. I actually think their match might have been the most affected by the lack of crowd as so much of what they did seemed like it was for an actual live crowd.

Owens/Rollins was semi-background noise for me at times, but I like most of what I saw. Its a shame the payoff for this feud came at a time like this.

Braun/Goldberg was fine. Bomb dropping sprints like Goldberg matches need an audience to really come across well, and this wasn't really built to anything special with it being a quick finisher spam with one move from each guy before ending it. I feel sorry for Braun that his first title reign starts int he middle of a pandemic with no live audiences instead of when he was super over 2-3 years ago.

I didn't think it was amazing, but the Boneyard match was so much damn better than anything we could have gotten from Taker at a live show and from the last 6-7 years. This needs to be exactly how Taker is used from now on, just movie matches. 

The lack of crowd hurt several matches for me, but this was honestly a fun show. Most everyone seemed to really put their heart into it and busted out generally solid-good performances to make up for the lack of a live audience. I still wish they waited months to do this later when the situation was better, but the effort doesn't go unappreciated. Hopefully the second half can deliver as well.

Edited by Eivion
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1 hour ago, Matt D said:

Yeah, even @EricR liked the Rollins/Owens match, but I watch so little wrestling in 2020 that I'm not watching a Rollins match. I am not a beggar. I am a chooser. 

I don't think it's something you need to go back and see. But considering I often skip or zone out of Rollins matches, I really did like him here. Until he got to his end of match groaning. The groan selling was really bad. 

I thought Night 1 was really good, great at times, and kept me entertained top to bottom. Gulak/Cesaro was still probably my MOTN, even though it was under 5 minutes. I really loved it. But Bryan/Zayn and that out of nowhere actually good and actually entertaining Taker/Styles match put this show over the top for me. Not sure how they really do Reigns/Goldberg now and I'd still like to see that match, 

https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2020/04/wrestlemania-36-night-1-live-blog.html

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Okay, where they fucked up was when Taker reappeared, he should have been dressed as 1992 Undertaker with the purple gloves, a hairpiece, the hat, and the disembodied voice of Paul Bearer going "YES, YES!" to beat up AJ, then when the cut happens he reappears as Bikertaker. 

Otherwise that was fine cheese. French, almost. 

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9 minutes ago, Overly Critical Man said:

This is likely because Bryan and Sami have both wrestled on cards with even less people than were there for Mania.

That first Smackdown with No crowd, Bryan seemed the most at home. Not just because of less crowd experience but just his ability to adapt, he's wrestled in Europe in front of the same fans every night, and Japan and Mexico. Most the other guys feel like they instinctively do things as if they are working for the audience in the crowd, it's no necessarily a bad thing because you can understand why. 

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A little bit dragged here and there (and I confess, there was no way in hell I was watching all of Rollins match. Fuck no.) but nothing was really actively bad, and the Boneyard Match was fucking awesome.

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1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

Okay, where they fucked up was when Taker reappeared, he should have been dressed as 1992 Undertaker with the purple gloves, a hairpiece, the hat, and the disembodied voice of Paul Bearer going "YES, YES!" to beat up AJ, then when the cut happens he reappears as Bikertaker. 

Otherwise that was fine cheese. French, almost. 

Philistine. 1992 Taker had grey gloves. It wasn't until he came back at SummerSlam '94 that purple era Taker started.

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