***Official WWE/wrasslin' Thread***

igotid88

Even though I knew it wasn't. I was hoping against hope that it was CM Punk coming out after that. But instead it was Cena

Ledbetterman10

They have to start the pre-show earlier...like at 3pm or something. There is no reason for WrestleMania to go past midnight. It's ridiculous. Between the pre-show and the real show, that was like 7.5 hours of wrestling. 7.5 hours of ANYTHING is too much. The crowd was near comatose by 10pm....then the obligatory boring HHH match killed them. 

MayDay10

It was too much.  I tried my ass off to watch it, but lost interest and bailed long before midnight.  

Cripes, 5-6 hours of the 'main show'?  

Maybe they can break it up and do it festival style with a show on Saturday and one Sunday with headliners for each?

DewieCox

Worst WrestleMania ever and the worst recent PPV that I’ve watched. Too long with awful pacing to the lineup. Predictable results. 

MayDay10

Wrestlemania was always kind of a predictable 'good guys prevail' show, so I understand the predictability.  When I did watch regularly, it wasnt my most favorite event.  

I think it was extraordinarily poor though.  

igotid88

I liked it. I think there audio issues. And maybe it's me but you can't the cheers too much in the shows anymore. Like the production truck is lowering the volume. It didn't sound like 82,000 people cheering at times. Even though you know they were. Not talking about the 5th hour

eeriepadave

Ledbetterman10 said:

They have to start the pre-show earlier...like at 3pm or something. There is no reason for WrestleMania to go past midnight. It's ridiculous. Between the pre-show and the real show, that was like 7.5 hours of wrestling. 7.5 hours of ANYTHING is too much. The crowd was near comatose by 10pm....then the obligatory boring HHH match killed them. 

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. They just have too many wrestlers now. Start it earlier or split it into two days. Have the hall of fame on Thursday, nxt on Friday and wrestlemania on Saturday and Sunday.

i was out and when I got home only was able to catch the main event which was ok.

hoping bray Wyatt and Sami zayn. return for raw or smack down tonight or tomorrow.

Ledbetterman10

DewieCox said:

Worst WrestleMania ever

Oh come on. Go back and watch any of the first six WrestleManias. WM3 is good, all the others are trash. But none of us want to admit that because of nostalgia, and the fact that we had such limited entertainment options at the time, that to sit through WrestleMania 4 was something worth doing. There is no way that last night's show was as bad as WM4, or many others.

That said, Kofi/Bryan and the main-event were the only matches I liked. But hey, two good matches. That beats any of the first six WrestleManias (again, except for WM3).

It's worth repeating...the LENGTH is too much to bare. It's not a good look for Becky to get her big win and millions of people at once think to themselves "finally it's over!" So I can understand an opinion like "Worst WM ever" because it left a bad taste in your mouth. Even for the two matches I liked, were they worth sitting though 5.5 hours for? Eh...not really. 

DewieCox

Hogan/Savage, Hogan/Warrior, Warrior/Rude are all epic matchups. Some great tag matches with Demolition and Hart Foundation. The fact that you’re going back 30 years to find something speaks to how shitty this one was. Kofi and Bryan should’ve been better. Could’ve added the major shock factor needed if Batista would’ve pinned HHH. 

I know it’s traditionally been very pro-face but they could’ve still added some shock value in other ways.

Ledbetterman10

DewieCox said:

Hogan/Savage, Hogan/Warrior, Warrior/Rude are all epic matchups. Some great tag matches with Demolition and Hart Foundation. The fact that you’re going back 30 years to find something speaks to how shitty this one was. Kofi and Bryan should’ve been better. Could’ve added the major shock factor needed if Batista would’ve pinned HHH. 

I know it’s traditionally been very pro-face but they could’ve still added some shock value in other ways.

Well you said the worst ever. So yeah, I'm going to point out that I think you're wrong by bringing up shittier ones no matter how far back they are. There's many WrestleManias that weren't good (WM9, WM11, WM27 stick out, whichever one ended with Reigns/Undertaker too) I like those three matches you brought up as much as the next guy, but besides Hogan/Warrior, WM6 was boring as hell. But to my point about more entertainment options, despite WM6 being a bore, god knows I watched my VHS of it many times when I was a kid. WM35 (like all recent WrestleManias), I'll never think of it again after watching it live. 

Some things I think they need to improve on with WrestleMania in this new "WWE Network" era.....

-Start the pre-show earlier, and make it longer. Consider what everyone will be interested in, and put that on the main show. All the rest can go on the pre-show and the hardcore fans can get to the stadium earlier (or to their TVs earlier) if they want to see them. 

-Enough wasting time. I popped when Hogan came out at the beginning (hey, Hulk rules), but it was already like 7:25 eastern by time he and Bliss left. You can't do that when you have sixteen matches. And don't even get me started on Elias. 

-How delusional is Triple H? How many WrestleMania matches is he going to have in front of a dead-silent crowd before he admits that he's the problem. The match with Batista reminded me of HHH's WM29 match (also at Metlife) against Lesnar. You could hear a pin drop it was so boring. I'm not completely against HHH having "special attraction" matches (because, you know, he's a big deal like the Undertaker), but for the love of God make them shorter. 

eeriepadave

https://www.kayfabenews.com/wrestlemania-35-why-was-it-so-short/?fbclid=IwAR0lLOYt5zpWExaeLELtW3tfNTsxMzHuXp7pHio5uSvD3Ev0KCb1kEkhOus

Ledbetterman10

I love Kayfabe News. Always good for a laugh. 

igotid88

They have soooo many wrestlers. Both male and female battle royals. The 14 matches. 2 if which were 4 way tag matches. A triple threat match. The NXT wrestlers. That's not counting the wrestlers who were left off Wrestlemania. 

MayDay10

igotid88 said:

They have soooo many wrestlers. Both male and female battle royals. The 14 matches. 2 if which were 4 way tag matches. A triple threat match. The NXT wrestlers. That's not counting the wrestlers who were left off Wrestlemania. 

Being a very casual watcher, this is a huge problem for me and a primary barrier to ever drawing me in again.
3-Hour Raws are a death slog.  7 Hour PPV event is a joke.  
Every wrestler seems like a miscellaneous name.  It is like they are going too far toward the thing being a 'real' competitive sport.  Wrestling was always great because there were Faces trying to go about their business making it a competitive sport, while Heels were behind the scenes with plots, cheating, and all sorts of intrigue that would keep everything off the rails.

Now its just these names talking trash to one another and having a "real" match, with little consequence of who wins/loses.  Nobody has gimmicks either, and there are no 'characters'.  

ConorKavanagh

I think there are plenty characters if you watch the shows over an extended period of time. WWE aren't the best at defining the characters necessarily, or playing to their strengths. But the actual workers themselves, the best ones always inhabit their personas, consider every movement.

MayDay10

I mean characters, like over-the-top stuff with costumes and such.... and acting in a relatively 2-D manor.  Undertaker, Macho Man, Stone Cold, Mankind, HHH, Rock, Kurt Angle (evil righteous Olympian), William Regal, Chyna, Dudley Boyz, Kane, Million Dollar Man, Rikishi, Honky Tonk Man, Razor Ramon, 2 Cool, etc.  Its cheesy, but it works.  Who am I to say its not working though, WWE is mega successful/popular though, right?

It just seems like everyone is miscellaneous (to me). When someone turns heel, all they do is get extra cocky, claim unearned honors, tell the crowd to shut up and jab at sports teams.  When it appealed to me more, there was more intrigue and cheating.
  
The "pretend sport" matches between 2 competitors were the most boring to me, and it seems to be where the WWE is honed in on.

eeriepadave

MayDay10 said:

I mean characters, like over-the-top stuff with costumes and such.... and acting in a relatively 2-D manor.  Undertaker, Macho Man, Stone Cold, Mankind, HHH, Rock, Kurt Angle (evil righteous Olympian), William Regal, Chyna, Dudley Boyz, Kane, Million Dollar Man, Rikishi, Honky Tonk Man, Razor Ramon, 2 Cool, etc.  Its cheesy, but it works.  Who am I to say its not working though, WWE is mega successful/popular though, right?

It just seems like everyone is miscellaneous (to me). When someone turns heel, all they do is get extra cocky, claim unearned honors, tell the crowd to shut up and jab at sports teams.  When it appealed to me more, there was more intrigue and cheating.
  
The "pretend sport" matches between 2 competitors were the most boring to me, and it seems to be where the WWE is honed in on.

Only person i can kinda think of now in wwe like that is Finn Balor when he brings out his "Demon" character

eeriepadave

Gary Carter

WM was way too long, but that's gonna be a problem when you have a roster size that big. The main problem was too many filler matches that just killed the vibe and putting the smackdown title on charlotte for no reason at all, let alone in the main event. Vince should have put the us title match and ic title on the pre show if those matches weren't going to be long  and smackdown tag title match on the preshow. Also the opening segment with Hogan dragged on too long. 5 minutes of Hogan with bliss would have been fine. Take all that into account and WM ends at 11:30pm with a very lackluster main event. If Vince wanted to protect Rousey by not making her tap, then make the main event a last man standing match or steel cage or even a tlc match and give a wow/cool factor. I'm happy Becky won, but that main event wasn't something I'll remember. 

ConorKavanagh

I think the main event being a gimmick match isn't a good move. They have steered clear of that for the most part. I know they've had no disqualification matches some years, where the story dictated it (or to protect The Undertaker). But really the only gimmick match that I can think of is the main event of WrestleMania II. If the matches were all good enough, we'd be clamouring for WrestleMania to be twice the length that it is. But the matches aren't allowed to be as good as they can be, I'd bet. There's all sorts of things that come into play with these shows, i.e certain spots are only allowed to be done once in the night. I don't know what the answer, because they want everyone on the show. Still, this was a year where they didn't have quite everyone and they still ran way long. The last really great one for me was XXX. New Orléans.

Ledbetterman10

ConorKavanagh said:

I think the main event being a gimmick match isn't a good move. They have steered clear of that for the most part. I know they've had no disqualification matches some years, where the story dictated it (or to protect The Undertaker). But really the only gimmick match that I can think of is the main event of WrestleMania II. If the matches were all good enough, we'd be clamouring for WrestleMania to be twice the length that it is. But the matches aren't allowed to be as good as they can be, I'd bet. There's all sorts of things that come into play with these shows, i.e certain spots are only allowed to be done once in the night. I don't know what the answer, because they want everyone on the show. Still, this was a year where they didn't have quite everyone and they still ran way long. The last really great one for me was XXX. New Orléans.

If a triple-threat is a gimmick match, then you left out Shawn/HHH/Benoit at WM20 and Batista/Orton/Bryan at WM30. Also the four-way between Rock/HHH/Foley/Big Show from WM16. Bret/Shawn at WM12 as well if you consider an ironman match a gimmick match. 

ConorKavanagh

I don't consider any of those matches to be a gimmick match. I know that any match where more than 2 people are involved has no disqualifications, but it is not always heavily promoted as such. I just don't see WWE doing a Last Man Standing or Falls Coun Anywhere main.

Ledbetterman10

ConorKavanagh said:

I don't consider any of those matches to be a gimmick match. I know that any match where more than 2 people are involved has no disqualifications, but it is not always heavily promoted as such. I just don't see WWE doing a Last Man Standing or Falls Coun Anywhere main.

I thought you were considering this year's main-event  a gimmick match because it was a three-way. 

igotid88

Sasha Banks seems upset

ConorKavanagh

Ledbetterman10 said:

I thought you were considering this year's main-event  a gimmick match because it was a three-way. 

No, I consider a gimmick match to be something that has a named stipulation. But I wouldn't even consider an iron man match a gimmick either.

igotid88

Any idea who the biggest acquisition of Smackdown will be? 

eeriepadave

igotid88 said:

Any idea who the biggest acquisition of Smackdown will be? 

Gotta be Roman reigns.  With smackdown moving to fox later they need a “top dawg” to draw ratings.

igotid88

Luke Harper requested and granted his release

igotid88

eeriepadave said:

igotid88 said:

Any idea who the biggest acquisition of Smackdown will be? 

Gotta be Roman reigns.  With smackdown moving to fox later they need a “top dawg” to draw ratings.

He couldn't draw ratings on RAW. Could be Ronda or Brock. I don't think Brock. But they're going to need a name. Especially with AJ going to RAW

eeriepadave

igotid88 said:

eeriepadave said:

igotid88 said:

Any idea who the biggest acquisition of Smackdown will be? 

Gotta be Roman reigns.  With smackdown moving to fox later they need a “top dawg” to draw ratings.

He couldn't draw ratings on RAW. Could be Ronda or Brock. I don't think Brock. But they're going to need a name. Especially with AJ going to RAW

Not gonna be Ronda, she's leaving/taking a break for awhile.

Luke Harper is also leaving. I liked him.