Wrestlemania 32 review.

I know, I said I would be doing the best champions in WWE history next....and I will...but its taking a bit longer than I though (seriously you know how many great candidates their are just for the intercontinental championship? not to mention the WWE title.....)

So while I'm working to get that wrapped up there was this thing called Wrestlemania last night....hopefully you saw it. But if you didnt, dont worry thats what I'm here for with my first ever Wrestlemania review.

Now this isnt going to be a blow by blow review......cause again if your reading this, I assume you saw the show......its just a quick overview of my opinion on each match and a 1 to 5 ranking of how good it was.

So with that said, we start where Wrestlemania did:

Match #1 US Championship match between Kalisto and Ryback.

To be honest, this was a much better match than I expected, and a great telling of the classic "big man vs little man" story. Ryback for his part actually did a great job of playing the physically dominate bully.....much better than he's done in prior encounters. And Kalisto did a great job of making Ryback look even more dominate and making us believe he couldnt beat the big guy.

Dont get me wrong, its likely a match I wont remember in a month, but as a way to start off Mania and get people hyped for the rest of the show, it definitely did its job.

So I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Match #2 10 diva tag team match

Foreshadowing things to come that night, this match actually got a lot of time compared to the usual divas match. And it wasnt a bad match, given the overcrowded nature of a 10 man tag. And personally I did love the part where the divas all got the chance to hit their finishers one after the other. Thats always a big spot the crowd likes......and almost universally reserved for mens multi person tags. Also the way Brie ended the match with the arm whip into the Yes Lock, looked freaking awesome, Im not sure even her husband ever locked the move on like that.

Granted the match wasnt without disappointments.....given that it was hyped up as Lana's in ring debut it would have been nice to see her to a bit more than a single crescent kick.

Overall, this was a good sent off for Brie Bella....and for the Diva's division as a whole given that the division was renamed to the Women's division immediately following this match, and another solid pre show match.

3/5 stars

Match #3 Dudley Boyz vs the Uso's

And here's where things started to go off the rails. Not only was this match all kinds of short (the shortest announced match of the night) the ending made NO SENSE AT ALL.

Ok so the Dudleys are supposed to be the heels, and what theyve done to get the crowd to turn on them is refuse to use tables......so what do they do in this match? They get the freaking tables and give the crowd EXACTLY what they want. This is the literal opposite of what a bad guy should do cause the crowd LOVED it.

Then the supposed good guys turned the tables (no pun intended) on the dudleys and put them through the tables,.....which the crowd didnt seem to like.

So you have a match that ends with the good guys getting booed after the bad guys got one of the biggest cheers of the night.......cause logic.

Really the only saving grace here is that this match was on the preshow and not Mania proper.....but at the same time when you have a legendary team like the dudleys and the storyline and match are so shit you have to bump it to the preshow, you done gone and fucked something up.

1/5 stars

#4 7 Man Ladder match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship.

You know it seems to be a tradition now for Mania to open with a ladder match....and for that match to set an incredibly high bar...and this match seems have kept up that tradition.

Sin Cara's being pushed off the ladder, landing on his feet on the ropes then flipping into the other competitors was an early "spot of the night" candidate. Also loved Stardust attire and tribute to his father. Not to mention the twist on HOW someone went through a ladder this year was nice....having it not being the intention of the guy who did the dive onto the opponent on the ladder was a nice twist.

The only thing holding the match back for me, was the ending. Dont get me wrong, I like Zack Ryder, but really....the Intercontinental title is now on the waste of a guy who primarily wrestles on NXT and wasnt even originally IN the match? (replacing the injured neville) It reeks of shock for shock's sake...and I hope to god WWE actually has something planned for Ryder, because if he just loses the title back to Owens (or Sami Zayn) on raw tonight.....thats really going hamper this matches rating.

However, not knowing if RAW will later bring this grade down, I give it 4/5 stars for now.

#5 AJ Styles vs Chris Jericho.

Honestly I dont have much to say here. AJ and Y2J always have a good match.....but the thing is, there was nothing to make this one stand out from their last 3 encounters, and given that this was the 3rd longest match of the night, it really should have found some moment or way to stand out.

3/5 stars

#6 The New Day vs The League of Nations.

Another booking TRAINWRECK. Ok so first this match was promoted as a 4 on 3 handicap match....until it started and was announced as a 6 man tag.

Which was most likely due to someone realizing that failing to overcome the odds makes for a shitty storyline so they "evened"the odds to make the New Day losing more palatable. Also explains why they didnt put the titles on the line.....which is still an odd booking choice...I mean really WRESTLEMANIA and you cant be bothered to defend your titles?

Now to be fair to the match itself it wasnt that bad, I'd probably give it another 3 out of 5......but the post match bullshit really drags this one down.

Ok so let me get this straight, the 4 members of the The League of Nations can defeat the reigning WWE Tag Team Champions....but cant overcome a trio of 50 year old men, one of who can barely walk, one of whom has a broken neck and one of whom had a broken back?

Jesus...way to job out a faction you were trying to make into a legit threat.....not to mention the New Day by extension having just lost to that faction.

And please dont even get me started on the stunner to woods. I'm just saying WWE could have had a passing of the torch moment with of the hottest acts of the last generation endorsing one of the hottest acts WWE currently has (either by drinking beer or dancing)....and instead they decided to put over a retired Stone Cold Steve Austin and his old DTA (dont trust anybody) gimmick......

2/5

#7 Brock Lesnar vs Dean Ambrose Street Fight

Holy hell can Dean Ambrose take a beating? Like Im pretty sure Ambrose is now officially the "Toughest SOB on the planet". This was an old school hardcore style match that would have fit better in mid 90's ECW than in the current WWE.

And for his part Brock Lesnar did look the part of "The Beast Incarnate" as he rarely used weapons and openly mocked Ambroses attempts to use them....going so far as to letting him get a kendo stick at one point.

Also can I just say, Paul Heyman has the most expressive face in wrestling? the camera wasnt on him much but when it was Heyman's face was selling the moment every single time.

Terrific match  and one of the rare occasions in which both competitors come out looking much better than when they went in

4.5/5

#8 The WWE Womens Championship.

Seriously this may have actually been the greatest womens wrestling match in Wrestlemania history.
On top of that, this is a candidate for best Triple Threat match in Wrestlemania history....and yes that means its about even with the Benoit/HHH/HBK main event of WM20.

 All 3 women in this match were fantastic. Charlotte got a Wrestlemania moment with that beautiful moonsault on to the floor.  Not to mention the spear she hit. Her recoil bit after her spear where she ends on her knees always make it look like her spear hit pretty hard...and given that this time the back of her own head hit the canvas on the recoil.....well lets just say Ive never seen someone hit a spear so hard they almost broke themselves in half.

And Sasha's frogsplash off the top rope on to Charlotte when Charlotte had Becky in the Figure 4 was awesome. And the dive/flip she did through the second rope was amazing. Speaking of Sasha, I'm pretty sure thats the first time EVER a women has gotten a theatrical/live musical entrance at Wrestlemania. Even the botched sunset flip she tried was covered up so well it looked like that might have been the plan all along (hat tip to Becky for helping her cover on that)

And Becky Lynch? the whole sub-story where she kept trying to take out Charlotte's arm...eventually rendering her unable to do a figure 8 (and leading to an amazing chain of submission reversals) was pretty sweet.  And part of me wonders if her dive on to Ric Flair taking him out was payback for that kiss a few months ago and not really an "accident" as the announcers suggested.....and who doesnt love seeing revenge?

My only real gripe with this match comes from my fan boy side....I really really really wanted Sasha Banks to win.  But honestly from a story-line perspective I'm alright with the ending.....having Charlotte beat Becky while Ric held Sasha back would seem to give the Boss a legit grievance for a one on one match with Charlotte...and furthers Charlotte and Ric's bit as a the dirtiest players in the game.

Finally one last thing......its worth noting one of the largest and repeated pops of the night was when WWE showed and mentioned the WOMENS championship. Just saying when a BELT is getting a pop, you KNOW your previous belt sucked and everyone hated the name divas.

The Diva's division is dead.....long live the Women's Division.

4.5/5

#9 Shane McMahon vs the Undertaker Hell in a Cell.

Shane may be the only person who took a bigger ass kicking than Dean Ambrose last night....the difference is in Shanes case, half of it was his own damn fault.

For a match that could have been horrible (as it featured a non wrestler in Shane) this was actually a much better match than expected. This was basically an old school mick foley style Hell in a Cell, in which both combatants just beat the hell out of each other with whatever they could find.....and of course somebody got driven through the "inescapable" cell and fell (or jumped in this case) off the top of the damn thing.

That said, not much actual wrestling in this match....this was more a fight than a wrestling match....and its still not really believable Shane tricked/lured in Taker as often as he did....or that he had a chance of making the deadman tap.

 Really this match seemed to be placed to serve as a cool down between the Womens and WWE title match....so no one was expecting it to be a show stealer...but for what it was, it delievered in spades.

3.5/5

#10 The Andre battle royal
Not sure how I feel about this one. Problem is most of the guys in the match are irrelevant in the WWE, and while seeing Shaq and DDP (and Tatanka even if he didnt get his own enterence) was cool....no body thought they were going to win.

And as far as Baron Corbin winning....on the one hand that seems like his big break.....on the other hand look what happened to Cesaro and Big Show after winning this match (nothing), so I dont have my hopes up and I assume Corbin will be in NXT again for the forseeable future.

2/5

#11 The Rock

Ugh Ugh Ugh Ugh Ugh. This whole god damn bit highlighted EVERYTHING wrong with WWE.

So up till now WWE had basically been rolling from match to match (at least since the dudleys on the pre show) and suddenly all that momentum comes to a screeching halt. First for no reason other than "hot women" WWE brings out the Dallas Cheerleaders...followed by the Rock. Rock actually takes longer to get to the damn ring than some of the matches lasted. And on the way there he lit some letters in the shape of his name on fire. Because reasons.

After FINALLY getting to the ring, the Rock did his usual bit then made the giant announcement that he'd been hyping up on on social media all day, and that WWE had been hyping him to announce as well..... and his announcement was WWE had just set a new indoor attendance record....something the commentators had been saying since the fucking preshow nearly 6 hours before. Are. You. FUCKING. KIDDDING?

Then the Wyatt family music hit....and the Wyatt Family (sans the injured Luke Harper) confronted the Rock.

Now this looked like it might be Bray's wrestlemania moment, destroying the rock especially when Rock challenged him to a match......

Except we didnt get Rock vs Bray (Which for the record is a match id have loved to see) we got Rock vs Erick Rowan.....and it lasted 6 seconds. The entire match was a Rock Bottom and a 3 count.

Thats right, some genius in booking decided the best way to help out the newly weakened Wyatt Family (again the injury to Luke Harper) whove they been trying for a year now to get over a unstoppable faction was to job one of them out to a retired wrestler turned movie star in 6 second.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

But it did look like the Wyatts were at least going to beat Rock's ass after the match......until John Cena's music hit.

Now it took Cena more than a minute to reach the ring......a minute in which the Wyatts just stood there and waited for him.....instead of say, mauling the rock (as theyve done previously in similar situations).

Oh and as soon as Cena hit the ring....he and the Rock took out all 3 Wyatt's....including Rock giving a Rock Bottom to Braun Stroman....who so far had only been taken off his feet by the combined strength of the Undertaker and Kane.   But hey, why not job out both Wyatt's equally?

incidentally it should be noted that according to reports, Cena's NOT actually cleared to return to the ring just yet....this was a one off appearance.

meaning that, WWE jobbed out one of their hottest acts to a retired guy and a dude from the injured list.......again for absolutely no ones gain

0.5/5 (only for the verbal back and forth between wyatt and rock otherwise it would be 0/5)

#12 Roman Reigns vs HHH

Quite possibly the least anticipated main event in WWE history. I guess after 2 years of being forced to give the fans they main event THEY wanted to see, WWE figured it was about time for the fans to be forced to see the main event WWE wanted to give them.

And this match started on the wrong foot, with the WWE fans cheering the bad guy, HHH and booing the hell out of good guy challenger Roman Reigns. I suppose in theory this match was brutal, with spears though the guardrails, bouncing people off the announcer table, fights on the outside ect. but the problem was no one gave a fuck in part because literally everyone knew how the match would end.....and most of the people didnt want that ending.

The Spear on Stephanie McMahon did get a rise out of the crowd though,,,,,,for all of 6 seconds and then they went back to sleep.

Also this match really did Roman Reigns no favors....I know they had the counter on Brock Lesnars suplexes but we totally could have used one on Reigns superman punches....Im pretty sure he hit like 5.....and that they made up about 75% of all the moves he actually hit.

But hey at least WWE finally forced the fans to see the scene WWE had wanted them to see at last years wrestlemania.... Roman Reigns holding up the WWE championship at the main event....even if it was to a massive chorus of boos.

So that counts for something right?

2/5.


So yea to sum up.....except for the main event, and the time WWE felt the need to bring in attitude era stars for no reason this was actually a pretty good wrestlemania. And if you happened to go to bed after the Shane/Undertake match.....you could be forgiven for thinking it was one of the best wrestlemania's and not simply the average show the last hour plus turned it into.

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