Everyone has a guilty pleasure. I have many, but one of them is the hurricane of stupidity that is professional wrestling. In my ongoing attempt to broaden my pool of writing topics and styles, I present a bulletpoint, match-by-match recap of last night's WWE pay-per-view, the 'Showcase of the Immortals' Wrestlemania.
This is written assuming you know a bit about wrestling - I don't explain who people are, the stories or the lingo. It's really just a chance for me to get some thoughts out. Also yes I know it's all fake and no I don't care.
- I'm not embarrassed to tell you I completely lost it at the opening segment. Hogan botching the Superdome name was pretty funny but then GLASS BREAKS and it's all golden. The Rock coming out was just the icing on the cake and the entire thing was really the first time I felt like XXX was the huge anniversary event it was billed as. Legendary.
- Speaking of which, the arena looked INCREDIBLE. The huge screens and the gigantic XXXs with customised visuals being projected on them looked amazing at every stage of the evening, and all the entrances were massively enjoyable spectacles. Good work stage crew.
Daniel Bryan defeated Triple H to earn a spot in the main event
- Dear god I love Triple H's increasingly elaborate He-Man style entrances
- I don't love Daniel Bryan's fur lined boots. In fact, his entire getup here was kind of eh. back to the classic red/burgundy soon please.
- The match was a little slow to start but picked up well and was a bona-fide classic by the end. I think because Triple H has largely competed in no-holds barred matches in recent years I'd forgotten he's actually a really good wrestler. He abandoned his usual big man style here (bar a wicked spinebuster) and instead had a surprisingly intense mat and submission based match with Bryan.
- Bryan kicking out of the Pedigree was a real 'he's arrived' moment for me.
- I'd probably have preferred the post match beatdown to be a little more vicious. As it is it felt almost lazy. I know blading has been banned for years but this really was one occasion I felt blood might have aided the spectacle.
- If you're wondering which match got its time cut to accommodate those long-ass entrances in the opening segment, this was the one.
- Loved The Shield's super dumb masks, and the fact they interrupted the Outlaws's opening spiel. Double-Triple powerbomb was pretty neat.
- But yeah, squash match, not much more to say. The Hounds of Justice deserved better than this.
- I'm not a big fan of WWE putting adverts for their own crap into the middle of shows, but that Slam City vignette was genuinely funny and packed with stars. Listen to the pop everyone gets!
- It seems really odd you'd keep those last three spots a mystery and then just fill them with generic jobbers.
- On the other hand, David Otunga sighting!
- Speaking of which, the two guys they chose to give proper entrances to (Big Show and Sheamus) is a pretty good indication of the way the hierarchy works.
- Big Show rocking the Andre the Giant Memorial singlet there.
- As with all battle royales, the opening minutes were boring and a mess, and it's painfully obvious there were a bunch of guys standing around doing nothing. It's one of the reasons the Royal Rumble is pretty much the only battle royale that's good from beginning to end.
- Once they got down to about half the roster though, there was some great stuff. Loved the crowd bringing back fandangoing, some nice spots from Mysterio and Kofi's insane elimination save (which looks like it could have gone really wrong if he hadn't stuck the landing).
- Cesaro winning was a genuine surprise (since he was allegedly a last minute replacement for Christian) and the way he did it was awesome, slamming Big Show over the top rope in an impressive display of strength and nice tribute to the event's namesake. Great handshake too.
- That trophy is huge and must weigh a ton, yet Cesaro hoisted it like it was nothing at all.
- Not sure Wyatt should have a live band playing him out but the cool lighting and great atmosphere sold me on it.
- Remember when Cena's increasingly awesome entrances were a Wrestlemania staple? I miss that.
- Great match, as expected, with some solid brawlin' and a good underlying story. It was no classic but it was entertaining and unpredictable.
- Cena hammed it up to ridiculous proportions here, but then it's a very broad canvas to work with. Better too much emoting than not enough.
- Bray was great as always, taunting and teasing Cena. His singalong with the crowd was a great, organic moment.
- Cena being shocked out of his five moves of doom by Spider-Bray was awesome and (thanks to some clever camera work) a good jump too.
- I understand why Cena was booked to win here, but I still think it's the wrong decision. We've seen him OVERCOME ADVERSITY so many times now the plot holds no appeal, and it reduces Bray into just another monster of the week to be fed to the merchandising machine. I hope this program continues so Bray can eventually get the win back.
- Before we get into the hows and whys, I just want to point out this was a bloody awful match. It was plodding, poorly executed and badly scripted. Why repeat that Hell's Gate into slam spot twice in a row? Boring and shoddy to watch.
- I was pleased Undertake had gone back to the classic coat-and-hat look...until the lights came up. Dear god that was an ugly outfit.
- So...this is how it ends? The greatest constant in WWE history finished on a mid-card match to a part-timer with terrible buildup and a dead crowd. I was genuinely in shock and judging by the hilarious reaction videos it seems most of the people there were too. I get they did it for the swerve, but the end of a 21 year story deserved more fanfare than this.
- I love Brock Lesnar and I'm one of the people who thinks he is absolutely worth his exorbitant limited-dates paycheque. But he's been a made man for more than a decade now and ever since his return he's been pushed as an unstoppable monster. This win does nothing to enhance or detract his credibility. It's pointless.
- On the other hand, we're bound to get some pretty amazing Paul Heyman promos out of it. Like this one for example.
- One nod to reality here - Undertaker apparently has complete creative control over his character by this point and it's pretty unthinkable the match would have been booked this way without his consent. If this is how he wanted to go, that's worth respecting.
- If nothing else, this was an actual surprise, which is incredibly rare these days. Lesnar will also have enough heel heat to last to his dying day.
- It was sad the crowd couldn't even get a decent 'Thank You Taker' chant together.
- With his one remaining reason to keep wrestling now gone, surely this is the end for The Deadman?
- There's cooldown matches', there's 'being sent out to die', and then there's putting this match on immediately after the most shocking event in wrestling for years.
- Part of me is thrilled AJ is still the champion, but a greater part of me worries about creative direction? What is there left for her to do? Unless they bring up all the NXT crew of course.
- Predictable and predictably wonderful. The match was overbooked to hell but then that's pretty much the only way it could have worked, and the resulting mess was a lot of fun.
- Rev Theory look like a utterly awful metal bullshit band. In other words, perfect for Randy Orton.
- Bryan carried this match and the points he was not in it were undoubtedly the worst parts.
- The inevitable Triple H run-in was way smaller-scale than I predicted and ended swiftly and decisively in Bryan's favour.
- Who keeps leaving sledgehammers under the ring?
- LOVED that they bought Scott Armstrong back for two reasons. One, it's a great continuity nod to the earlier part of this story and two, it finally definitely nails down that title win at Night of Champions as a screwjob.
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- The powerbomb/RKO spot throgh the table looked great but took WAY too long to setup, making it clear how much of a spot it was.
- There was a moment I was concerned the injury angle was real, especially since Batista just stood around while the paramedics fussed over Bryan. As even the dumbass commentary team pointed out, he could have simply thrown Bryan or Orton in the ring, covered them and won.
- Batista kicking out of the RKO is probably the only time he'll ever get cheers in this run.
- Loved the spot where Orton jumped over the spear and Batista hit Bryan instead.
- Given that most of the story has had Bryan feuding with Orton, it seems odd that it's Batista who got tapped out. But it makes sense if the next step is a program between the two.
- Whatever happens to Daniel Bryan from here on (and I suspect some bad booking is rapidly heading his way) he's immortal now. Nobody can ever take this moment away from him, and it'll be in video packages from now until the end of time. That's pretty cool.
This was an incredible show, that combined extremely high quality of matches with some very powerful story beats. Arguably the Undertaker/Lesnar match was the only real blunder here, but it was at least a huge shock that got people wildly specualting, and that's a good thing. I'd put this among the best WWE pay-per-view events ever, right up there with the likes of Wrestlemania X-7. It was a brilliant night and a fine show.
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