It wasn't a very good show. I think I
might have enjoyed it more if Royal Rumble and NXT Takeover hadn't
built up my expectations and made me think WWE could make the right
decisions, but that's not exactly a glowing review for something
anyway. It doesn't help that between every segment we have a shitty
Kid Rock song playing either. So let's get down to a match by match
review including the preshow because I watched all of it. I was drinking the whole time so while I remember my impressions of the matches the details are fuzzy. I mean not that fuzzy, I didn't go that hard.
The Andre The Giant Memorial Battle
Royal
A harbinger of things to come as this
went to long and just kind of dragged on. Everybody was already in
the ring and there just wasn't any hype to build around any wrestler
in the match. There were some neat moments, but they all took too
long to get there. The end with Bray showing up to help Matt Hardy
win was solid. It didn't help this match at all that Lawler and Ross
were on commentary and had no clue what was going on with any of the
people in the match and Saxton had to explain everything to them.
3/10
Cedrick Alexander vs. Mustafa Ali
The best match of the night is on the
preshow, which isn't surprising and I was kind of expecting that to
happen before the show anyway. Great work from both of these guys
with big moves, and a lot of emotion between the two that was kind of
marred by the picture in picture Rousey promo that took over the
sound and made me mad. I really like the idea of Cedrick not wanting
to keep hurting Ali and telling him to stay down before finally
hitting the Lumbar Check. So glad Cedrick is going to be the
cruiserweight champ and hopefully be a big presence on Raw as well as
205 live. He's deserved a spotlight for a long time.
9/10
Women's Battle Royal
This match had a much better through
line of what it was doing and had an interesting start to the match
and kept up a lot of solid grouping up of the women in the match.
Kairi Sane hitting her diving elbow drop and getting eliminated
during a commercial really sucked. A good amount of people including
Bianca Belair and my favorite NXT competitor, Dakota Kai got some
really good moments in the match and looked good before their
eliminations. I liked the ending of Bayley finally outsmarting Sasha
although I'm kind of bummed it didn't work out and Naomi was still in
the match. Good for Naomi though.
4/10
The Miz vs. Finn Balor vs. Seth Rollins
A good match to start the show and a
lot of good stuff from everybody. Really liked the tease of Rollins
doing the powerbomb into the guardrail on Balor before he escaped it.
Miz really kept up with these two and hit some awesome stuff
including the top rope skull crushing finale. Really liked the ending
with Rollins breaking up Balor's pinfall and hitting a bunch of curb
stomps to get the win.
8/10
Asuka vs. Charlotte
This could have been the match of the
night, but the result just really bums me out. I'm going to just talk
about the stuff they did right here and go into the booking
afterword. Between all the wrestling exchanges we get the battle of
Charlotte's chops vs. Asuka's kicks in any striking exchange and they
both hit their respective strikes so well. The suplex off the apron
to the floor was brutal looking. Charlotte doing a moonsault and
getting caught into a triangle choke was perfectly done. Asuka's
flurry of strikes is always really fun to watch. Then Charlotte gets
the figure 8 and Asuka taps. She barely fights the hold and just
gives up.
9/10
So ending Asuka's streak here seems
really dumb to me for a lot of reasons. First of all Charlotte is
already a huge deal so ending the streak doesn't really do anything
for her. She's already the most dominant woman on the roster. Also it
seems particularly dumb to end somebody's undefeated streak before
they become a champion and have a dominant run with the belt. I have
so many ways I would have booked Asuka's streak and this was just so
anti-climatic. Asuka kind of being glad somebody beat her was a
bummer as well.
Bobby Roode vs. Randy Orton vs. Jinder
Mahal vs. Rusev
This match was a very bland choice to
follow up the last awesome match and they didn't do it any favors
after stunning the crowd with Asuka losing her streak by having
Jinder win the US title here.
2/10
Kurt Angle & Ronda Rousey vs. HHH &
Stephanie McMahon
This match was way too long.
Considering only HHH is really capable of wrestling a long match now
this should not have been this. A lot of people really dug the
storyline stuff and Ronda actually getting to fight HHH was pretty
cool. But she is a noted garbage person and I'm not going to lose my
mind because she was able to perform basic moves in a wrestling match
and not shit herself. My favorite part of the match was Stephanie
having no clue how to take a t-bone suplex and just landing on her
feet then face bumping. Ronda should have fucking merced McMahon as
soon as she got into the match and everything should have been build
around not letting that happen.
5/10
The Bludgeon Bros vs. The Usos vs. The
New Day
This match was so short. I kind of
didn't believe it was going to end with the top rope powerbomb
because it was so fast. I'm guessing they lost a bunch of time to
other stuff and it really hurt this match. I thought this would be
way better, but it was what it was. Good wrestling with nowhere near
enough time.
4/10
The Undertaker vs. John Cena
Cool, this match took forever to get to
and then it was a three minute match. Undertaker should have stayed
retired after last year which was a perfect sendoff. I just don't
care about the Undertaker's mystique and that was all this match had
going for it.
1/10
Daniel Bryan & Shane McMahon vs.
Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens
D-Bry got murdered right at the
beginning of the match and they brought out a stretcher for him and
Shane fended off both KO and Zayn for a good amount of time before
they took control of the match. D-Bry comes back from his injury and
hits all his big moves to pop the crowd and get the win. The match
would have been way better without D-Bry's fake stretcher job at the
start and just having Shane be the starting man and get fucking
wrecked before making a super hot tag. Plus Shane's shitty punches
were in full effect here.
4/10
Nia Jax vs. Alexa Bliss
Jax destroying Mickie James before the
match started was so fucking good. Plus she destroyed her real well.
The actual match was really smartly done as well. Jax is way too
strong so Alexa cheats a lot and tries to stay out of range.
Eventually it doesn't work and Jax hit an awesome avalanche samoan
drop to get the win. Really good stuff from both of these women.
7/10
Shinsuke Nakamura vs. AJ Styles
I was kind of prepared for this match
not to be awesome, because WWE had overhyped it and I knew it wasn't
going to be as good as their NJPW match so I didn't rewatch that
before this. That said this was still a good match. They build it
slowly to start and then really start to pick it up. AJ counters the
armbar into a Styles Clash and then it ended. That felt like the
beginning of the crazy run to build to the finish of the match. It's
a modified Clash so it explains why it doesn't end the match, but it
did. The ending was just anti-climatic and really took the wind out
of the sails of the match. Nakamura turning heel with a low blow
after the match didn't really make any sense to me, but I guess it at
least means these guys aren't done and Nakamura might still win the
belt.
6/10
Bran Strowman & Nicholas vs. The
Bar
Deep down I wanted Strowman to grab one
of the NJPW guys as his partner when he went into the crowd, but I
knew that wouldn't happen. I would have loved any indy guy as well. A
tiny kid is a really good choice as well. Braun basically dominates
the tag champs and then we get the real missed opportunity of this
match and that's Braun not having Nicholas get the pin. This wasn't
much of a match and I'm giving it a low score, but it was a lot of
fun.
3/10
Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns
I had some streaming issues during this
match, but with pausing and letting it buffer I got to watch it. It
was really disappointing considering the brutality of their other
matches. Sure this had brawling on the outside and Reigns got busted
open brutally. It took that cut no time to be a real crimson mask,
but it didn't have the same titans clashing feel. The fact that Brock
only does three moves doesn't really help anything and then Brock
just kept hitting F-5s until he won. Everything in WWE for the last
two years has been building toward the moment Reigns gets his rematch
at Wrestlemania and proves he's the better man then he just loses.
Its so fucking weird and makes no sense. And that is a trend WWE
loves to do of swerving Mania results to make them more
unpredictable, but it ignores the fact that it fucks up the
storytelling. Often times they'll just have a rematch on the next
night to make the Raw after Mania feel big and it just makes Mania
feel less special. Despite getting the same score as the last match
it was not fun.
3/10
Overall Thoughts
As is a Wrestlemania tradition, and
really a WWE PPV tradition at this point. The best stuff was at the
beginning of the show and gets me excited. Then there is a really
fucking weird booking decision that bums me out and the rest of the
show just kind of falls apart from there. The wrestling is good, it's
almost always going to be because the wrestlers are all really good.
The storylines going in are usually undeveloped and the booking
choices are usually really bad. The show is too long and just always
drags on with the time being spent in the wrong places. Especially
considering how awesome Takeover was the night before it just makes
Mania look even worse in comparison. So in summary there is good
stuff on this show, but it's not worth watching the whole thing.
Check out the cruiserweight title match, both women's matches, and
the IC match and you'll have a pretty good time.
