The first couple of Wrestlemanias were pretty bad. The highlight of the first one is Mean Gene singing the National Anthem. The rest of the matches were… well, they included squashes. More than that, with the advent of home video, they sort of exposed how the biz sort of comes out an lies about pretty verifiable stuff. Here’s the record-setting match between King Kong Bundy and SD Jones. It set the record for shortest match being *NINE SECONDS*:
Now, if you watched that match, you may find yourself starting to count the moment the bell rings… and you make it to nine and the match keeps going. You make it twenty! But, nope. A record was set. It’s in the books and everything.
Wrestlemania 2 was even worse. “Let’s put it in *THREE* venues and we’ll send out the matches to the other two venues on the Jumbotron! Oh, and we should make sure that there’s only one decent match among *ALL* of them!”
Wrestlemania III was the first one to *TRY* to get it right. “Everybody in the same building. No squashes.” Then you check the card and see that there are *THREE* non-finishes on the card. Two disqualifications and a double countout (?!?).
It wasn’t until WRESTLEMANIA *TWELVE* that they *FINALLY* had a card that didn’t have a disqualification or a countout on it. I am, of course, not counting the “Huckster vs. Nacho Man” match… but if you say “well, Jaybird, let’s say you *DO* count that match. What was the first Wrestlemania to not have a single disqualification or countout on it?”
That would be Wrestlemania 2000 (The one between XV and X-7.)
Personally, I take the position that it’s Wrestlemania. This is finally the one that will have finishes. You’re not going to wonder about “no, seriously, who would win?” ever again. This one is the one that puts a period on the end of the sentences allowing Raw on the next night to take a deep breath and give hints about where the next year is going. The point of Wrestlemania is to finally pay off the year and *FINISH* the storylines.
Which is part of why I’m looking forward to this year’s because, seriously, some of these storylines need to be put to bed.
Saturday will have the following:
Gunther versus Jack Swagger, wait, I mean Jey Uso for the Transitional Championship.
The War Raiders will finally lose their titles to The New Day and then wander off.
Rey Mysterio vs. El Grande Americano in what promises to be the match of the night. (They’re having *WAY* too much fun with this storyline. I expect Rey to lose this one allowing for the storyline to continue to Summerslam or so.)
Jade Cargill will defeat Naomi and then start her trek to the belt.
LA Knight will lose the US belt to Jacob Fatu and we’re going to see what Jacob can do with a title for a bit. A monster heel with a belt is always an interesting storyline.
Tiffany Stratton will lose the belt to Charlotte Flair giving Charlotte belt number 15 (and my guess is that Charlotte will, eventually, break Ric’s record and then it’ll be safe for someone to break the men’s record somewhere down the line).
Roman Reigns vs. CM Punk (with Paul Heyman) vs. Seth Rollins will have… oh jeez. I’ve heard that you shouldn’t have heel vs. heel matches unless you’re turning one of them but this is practically heel vs. heel vs. heel. They’re going to have Punk win, I guess, because he’s kind of the closest to a babyface (though maybe someone could argue that Roman is). So put me down for a weak pick for Punk here.
But I’m not watching this show live. I believe that Wrestlemania should take place on a Sunday so we’re going to head over and get wings and watch this one taped prior to watching Wrestlemania Sunday night where:
Iyo Sky vs. Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley will all fight and Rhea will win the belt to open the show.
Liv and Raquel will retain their belts against Bayley and Lyra Valkyria.
AJ Styles will lose to Logan Paul. Goodness, I hate Logan Paul. I hate him so much that I can’t believe how good he is at this. It always devolves into “Man, he’s such a great heel” conversations. Seriously, Logan Paul is lightning in a bottle. If he devoted to wrestling full-time, he’d be a legit hall of famer (rather than a gimmick one). Dang he’s good at this. Man, I hate him.
Bron Breakker vs. Penta vs. Finn Bálor vs. Dominik Mysterio will have Dominik win the belt. Everybody *LOVES* to boo Dominik. They’ll pay extra to boo him as he holds a belt over his head.
Damian Priest vs. Drew McIntyre probably should have Drew win, given that people actually care about Drew, but they’ll probably have Damian win, because maybe he’ll finally catch fire.
In the Randy Orton vs. TBA, they’re going to bring out… I dunno. The Rock. Stone Cold. Kane. Somebody from the 90s. Undertaker, maybe. We’re going to get a two minute squash and feel the nostalgia. It’d be the equivalent of a 1986 Dick the Bruiser having an open call out and, OH MY GOD IS THAT LOU THESZ’S MUSIC, and we can explain to the kiddos that Lou Thesz was the *BEST* wrestler from when we were kids.
I mock, but gently, because I expect to say “It’s nice to see the Undertaker again.”
And, last but not least, John Cena will count the lights for Cody Rhodes in the Main Event, putting an amazing capstone on an amazing career. Thanks, John. I enjoyed booing you.
It’ll be a good one. Not a *GREAT* one… but a good one. You can watch it on Peacock.
(Oh, and most of my predictions are always wrong so fully expect someone else to win for each one of those above.)
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is Wrestlemania 41 promotional art.)
Wow, Was TOTALLY wrong about Stratton vs Flair.
Wasn’t the crispest match… but a good one.Report
It’s the World Entrance Federation!Report
Glad Drew won.
It’s been a while that he came out on top in a feud.Report
Okay.
The review. It was a pretty good meal with a decent dessert and the worst after-dinner mint I could possibly imagine.
Jey’s win was fine and all and I guess I want to see what he’ll do with it but I compared him to Jack Swagger deliberately. I agree with what the heel Gunther said months ago: Jey is a fine tag team wrestler.
New Day went from “not needing a belt” to “needing a belt”. Pity that the War Raiders are so very bland. I’ve already forgotten them.
The El Grande Americano match was fun. The announcing put it over the top. I’ll enjoy seeing what’s done with this over the next few months and I’m certain I’ll be sick of it right around Summerslam when we can drop it and move on to something else.
Jade Cargill is better than I remembered her being. Good for her. She put on a quality match.
LA Knight is a lot of fun but… yeah, he had a good run. I want to see what they do with Jacob.
I can’t believe that Charlotte lost! I can’t believe that Tiffany won! Pity that the match stunk.
Reigns vs. Punk vs. Rollins struck me like this: Remember when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out? It was 25 chapters of nothing and then a flurry of activity to set up the last book. The match was 25 minutes of nothing (fun nothing, mind!) and then a flurry of activity to attempt to turn Heyman, I guess. I thought that Heyman was unturnable and I guess I still think he is but I’m willing to see how wrong I would be about that in the next month or so.
Iyo Sky vs. Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley was, like, *REALLY GOOD*. I was shocked! And I was shocked that Rhea didn’t win! Really good match, though.
Man, I hate Logan Paul. And now he’s going to disappear and we’re going to see AJ Styles vs. Carrion Cross. And I’m going to watch them fight and think about how much I hate Logan Paul.
Bron Breakker vs. Penta vs. Finn Bálor vs. Dominik Mysterio was a treat. That’s always the best kind of match for a weak heel to win… and they had Dominik win the best possible way: Stabbing Finn in the back and, tomorrow, he’s going to ask Finn “what’s the big deal? Judgment Day won a belt!” Maybe they’ll somehow manage to put the lid back on the pot and keep it simmering for another month or so.
I’m glad Drew won. He was approaching Kane levels of “win on TV, lose at the PPV”.
Orton vs. Joe Hendry was a comedy match. They had to throw something together in the last few weeks and that was what was thrown together. It’s a pity that they had to make TNA look like a buncha tools but Joe Hendry was charismatic enough to win me over.
As the Cena/Rhodes match was going on, I said that, as a technical match, the match was a C- but, as a psychology bout, it was an A-. We got to watch a 1980’s match between… I dunno. Dusty Rhodes vs. Roddy Piper. Cena was doing *EVERYTHING* to keep getting boos and Cody was doing everything to keep getting cheers. And then they brought out Travis Scott and I went from “this is very interesting” to “this is crap, what the heck, what are they thinking?”
All in all, if it were any other PPV, I’d say it was a good one with a skunk as a last match, but it was Wrestlemania so I merely have a very bad taste in my mouth.Report
The Travis Scott thing is going to be fun looking back on. It is sort of the Apex of the entertainment people that run TKO thinking way more of an outside star than the core audience for the product see a star. I get he is big in music and sired two subplots with Kylie Jenner for the never-ending Kardashian show, but this will be looked back on as “who is that and why is he here” by just about everyone. Even understanding that they figured out they couldn’t go with the original plan and have the Rock out there cause he was going to get bad heat and the faithful might riot over yet another Dwayne insertion into a Cody storyline, but still, it made a C moment flirting with a B into a D in my humble but accurate opinion.Report