WrestlemaniAD – Wrestlings Biggest Weekend… Or Is It?
The weekend every wrestling fan waits all year for is finally here. With one more day of the event ahead of us, did day one live up to the expectations?
The start of every year is always a good time to be a fan of the WWE. You can consider the start a year to be a new season. It starts at the Royal Rumble, and it leads all the way to WrestleMania, which is historic for being professional wrestling’s biggest night (pretty much a weekend now!). This promotion is titled the ‘Road to WrestleMania’. This is where new storylines begin and the hype cycle starts over again.
Now I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed this Road to Mania cycle (short for WrestleMania). It was littered with injuries, on the fly changes, and writing that felt like something ChatGPT conjured up. After a subpar Royal Rumble in Saudi, I had hopes that they would tighten things up by the time Mania came around. Let us go over Night 1 and see what they did right, and where they dropped the ball.
The Matches (Night One)
Matches & Length
LA Knight & The Usos vs. Logan Paul, Austin Theory & IShowSpeed ~7 min
Jacob Fatu vs. Drew McIntyre (Unsanctioned) ~10–12 min
Women’s Tag Team Championship Fatal 4-Way: Paige & Brie Bella vs. Irresistible Forces vs. Charlotte Flair & Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley & Lyra Valkyria ~10–12 min
Women’s Intercontinental Championship: AJ Lee vs. Becky Lynch ~8–10 min
Women’s World Championship: Stephanie Vaquer vs. Liv Morgan 6:50
Seth Rollins vs. Gunther ~15 min
Undisputed WWE Championship: Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton ~25+ min
The Good… and The Bad!
No show comes without the good or the bad, especially when it is live television. Wrestling is no exception to this – nobody should ever expect a perfect show. There will always be moments that could have been executed better or moments that just straight up miss the mark. I’ve listed some pros and cons that came with night one of the show. Now, with full clarity, a lot of this is my opinion and could very well be different for others.
The pros
· Match types
· Match results
· The entrances
The cons
· The Buildup
· Ad-mageddon
· Match Length
The Good
Match Types
Match types are always something to look forward to at wrestling shows. They open more opportunities for exciting spots to really get the crowd going. The first match of the night was a three-versus-three tag match where iShowSpeed had this insane number where he jumped from the top turnbuckle and landed on Logan Paul, putting him through the announce table (a very jarring sentence to type out, I know). The next match was an unsanctioned match between Jacob Fatu and Drew McIntyre where they spent their time beating each other up with different weapons and even utilized the staple weapons like steel chairs and tables. We then had a fatal 4-way tag match for the women’s tag titles. After this, we got our tradition one-versus-one’s for the rest of the night. I do think they could have spread out the match typing’s better throughout the night, giving us more variety as time went on, but overall, I enjoyed seeing the mayhem in the stipulation matches.
Match Results
While this is a positive on the list, I will start by saying I don’t really care who wins or loses in wrestling matches outside of title changes. The first match had the Uso’s and LA Knight winning with the help of iShowSpeed; giving speed his ‘debut’ moment to really get his fans watches invested in what wrestling is all about. We then saw Jacob win, giving him a 2-0 Mania record after his win last year. Seeing Gunther win was not favorable for me, but the story between Seth and a returning Bron Breakker really sold me on whatever they could be doing next.
We got our first title change of the night in the tag matches. Now at first, the decision to have Brie Bella and a returning Paige win the titles confused me – but I can see an angle that they can execute in the future that might make old names go head-to-head again (I see you, Bella twins vs AJ and Paige!). The best decision of the night for me was having Becky Lynch win the Intercontinental back from AJ Lee. Becky is doing great work at the moment and single handedly gives me reason to give Monday Night Raw a weekly view.
While I do not agree with Cody winning again, it was clear throughout the match that Randy is, in fact, injured and would probably not be cleared to hoist the title for long anyways. They get ONE pass here.
The Entrances
One of the coolest parts of Mania is the entrances. The characters that the wrestlers represent really stand out in moments like this and I Think they’re just as important as the matches themselves. In night one, we got amazing entrance looks like Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss, that came out as butterflies who show their characters. Charlotte being a butterfly with more brighter colors, showing her bubbly personality – while Alexa had an outfit that represented a darker butterfly, showcasing her darker rock aesthetic really well.
We saw Jacob Fatu come out with pyro dancers, paying homage to his Samoan culture and showcasing his ‘Samoan Werewolf’ persona. Drew came out in with his long coat and sword, really giving us that Scottish Warrior vibe. Seth Rollins came out in Fallout-like raider gear with smoke coming out of his suit. I guess he burned it all down already?
Cody’s entrance really showcased him as a seasoned veteran – with outfits he’s worn throughout his career displayed as he was coming out from under the stage. I just really wish they gave the same respect to Randy Orton, who is a legend in his own right.
The Bad
Ad-mageddon
There is so much to say here, and I can spend all day talking about this. The ad’s throughout the show were absolutely egregious. It is not an exaggeration when I say there was more ads than match time in this show. This is their premiere WRESTLING event, yet they chose to give match time to movie promotions (Mandalorian and Grogu get a pass for actually being there!). This isn’t even mentioning the amount of time they spent promoting Hulk Hogan. They knew this would not land well with their audience who, even though they respect what he contributed, see him as a polarizing figure and still chose to give us Hulkamania part 20.
Watching WWE is unwatchable in its current state with how many ads are thrown in our face. That’s not even talking about the $30 subscription that Americans have to pay for ESPN. For anyone looking for a better experience, I recommend investing in a VPN and watching through Netflix. With this, you get much less ads (especially during the weekly shows) and you don’t support greedy decisions like TKO forcing different subscriptions on their fanbase.
Match Length
I want to reiterate that this is a wrestling event. With that, you expect wrestling to be the main focus of the show. WrestleMania 42 night one was a four-hour show - there is no reason that ALL of the matches in Night one together totals to 1 hour and 25 minutes. This is completely unacceptable and a slap in the face to the talent. Liv Morgan has been the face of the WWE for the past 6 months, we’ve seen her receive a skin in Fortnite, get her own song AND music video, cover magazines and she got a SEVEN MINUTE MATCH. To put it into context, her match vs Stephanie Vaquer was short than Pat McAfee’s entrance. Decisions like this really show you where the heads of the higher ups are at. Who do they think watches these shows? It’s pathetic to call this a wrestling show when less than half of your run time is actual wrestling. Simply put, it was a glorified four-hour commercial break.
The Buildup
As stated above, the hype for Mania really starts in February during or after the Royal Rumble. For night one, most of the matches had a decent amount of time to build on the stories being told - Barring the two tag matches that is. Becky Lynch and AJ Lee had their first match at Elimination Chamber and had a rivalry heating up way before that. Jacob Fatu and Drew McIntyre began their feud back in January during the European Tour. The issue with the buildup isn’t the buildup but rather the quality of the product over the past couple of months. For example, the women’s ladder match wasn’t finalized until the moment the entrances began. Granted with Nicki Bella being injured there wasn’t time to tell an entirely new story, but it definitely left the match up in the air (We will get to this very soon!). Another major fumble in buildup was the main event. You have an almost 20-year-old story between veterans Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton being handed to you in a silver platter. However, it is completely ruined by the addition of forgettable celebrities that have no relevancy in the current state of the product. Sure, Patt McAfee commentated for a while and Jelly Roll had his first in ring match with Randy... but why are we adding these names to the MAIN EVENT of a wrestling show?
So… what now?
So that was night one of the biggest wrestling night of the year. I think it’s safe to say that subpar is an understatement. The good matches were way too short, leaving us fans wanting more and what’s probably the worst main event in the history of the show was way too drawn out. With night 2 still ahead of us, we can only hope that TKO and WWE make on the fly changes to make the show more pleasant to sit through. With less ads, longer matches, and better talent showcase, they can really turn out a decent product. Maybe then they can save this Mania from possibly going down as one of the worst ever.