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WrestleMania 33 Week |OT| The Ride Never Ends.

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WWE's twitter put up a brief segment with them following the match. Jeff did a lot of the talking, but when Matt did speak it sounded far more like his normal voice than his crazy Broken Matt accent. That being said he did throw in a 'DELIGHTFUL' so who knows. They're probably playing it safe till they get the all clear from legal.


I think the Broken gimmick is coming. Considering how controlling creative is with any public content the fact that Matt is already dropping glimpses means it's going to happen. But it will likely be gradual so that WWE audiences unfamiliar with the gimmick can get used to it and give the WWE time to offer Anthem a big payment to go away.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Everyone watching looked amazed. And rightfully so.

XZ7Kn3F.gif

Lesnar is GOAT ! The champion we need, not the one we deserve.
 
Average Mania should have cut a few matches so others could go longer.

I love that Bayley retained and Alexa lost :)

Here's the problem with the idea of cutting shit down... you know what would have got cut?

Not Taker/Reigns, not Orton/Wyatt probably not even Ambrose/Corbin or the Andre Battle Royal or the mixed Tag Match for those who hated that one too...

Anything that would have gotten cut would have been from mostly the selection of good stuff on the show.
 
Bloody hell, I'm still drained from the 8 or so hours I gave WWE, i'm running off less of that for sleep (if only because I've been awoken by the continous sounds of next door constructing something). So mania thoughts!

In general that was a solid show, basically what I expected as one of the people not immediately dumping on it, the kind of mania that slots into the same sort of area as 22, not amazing but perfectly serviceable. Was it too long? absolutely, while I did appreciate the fact that most matches actually did get a solid amount of time to work with as a result they just can't keep doing so much wrasslin'.
As an aside did we even have pointless backstage segments this year? If it were up to me Mania could save time leaving the video packages to the pre show only instead of trotting them back out again during the event but oh well.

onto the matches

Neville vs Aries
It was nice that most of the crowd actually seemed to be in for this (Ryback and Kallisto weep for last year). The match was okay, still not as fast as I'd want from a cruiserweight match, especially one that was the borderline show opener if we count the pre show as part of the whole package which at this point we probably should. I'm still yet to really enjoy Aries thus i was happy that Neville retained.

Battle Royale
Absolute dogshit, the participants were incredibly lacking. Big Show ends his mania run with the wettest of farts and damn it he deserved something better after getting into shape, Braun getting dumped out was a swerve to be sure but that doesn't change it being kinda dumb. Zayn was a non factor, most misused man regarding the event this year. Too many jobbers, the match was even won by a jobber throwing out another jobber.
Since i'm a Brit that knows bugger all about whoever that celebrity was I just wish the security lady kept him out of the ring, she was the real hero here.

Ambrose vs Corbin
Poor Ambrose busts his ass all year long (sloppy ringwork aside) and gets a simply solid enough smackdown live level match on the pre show to show for it. I could've gone either way for the winner but this match screamed needing a gimmick or something.

AJ Styles vs Shane McMahon
I'm actually still not sure what the consensus on this match is (I haven't checked out many reactions to this event so far). I thought it was about as good as it could be, Styles had a different kinda big match to make work here, one against the non wrestler and for the most part it worked. Shane did his usual list of spots, not too thrilling but the fact he can still perform the impresses me, some inspired counters as well. Solid stuff for a match that should by all accounts have been a lot worse.

Owens vs Jericho
Straight up, I feel Jericho is a mania underachiever, match with HBK aside he gets great opponents and makes middling matches with them. For the most part this felt like a continuation of my personal criticism, there was decent stuff in here but it occasionally felt plodding with a lack of flow. No strong feelings one way or the other here.

Raw Women's title match
A fun and to the point match where the pinfalls may have seemed a bit sudden for the last two but made sense in context. Nice to see Nia get to hoss things up for a spell, neat usage of a recurring exposed turnbuckle, lovely peacock colours from Charlotte.
A touch rushed and the ending felt a bit sudden but i'm a Bayley mark so I'll take it.

Raw Tag Team Titles Ladder Match
Our obligatory ladder spot fest, so basically good fun to watch at the time. The Hardys pop was huge and their presence elevated the match, Jeff once again killing himself for our entertainment, bless that mad man. Happy to see Cesaro doing something that wasn't a battle royale.

Cena and Nikki Bella vs Miz and Maryse
ehhhhhhh, this match was more a precursor to the moment afterwards which is fine in itself but the match was full on super Cena booking of Miz dominating only to lose in like two moves, that makes two duds for the Miz/Cena combo at mania but this was about the proposal more than anything else which while corny and feeling like a vindication of Miz's storyline argument could remain a classic moment assuming they don't get divorced in the next few years. Guess I still can't tell if Cena is in robo mode with Nikki.

Rollins vs Trips
Dammit all, I like ya trips but I said to my friend before the match "I hope Triple H can just accept the idea of a 15 minute match tops instead of trying to force an epic", oho, of course he tried to force an epic and with a ho-hum rusty Rollins to boot.
Incredibly plain match that felt like it was ticking boxes, Rollins as a face has been pretty bleh and it felt like the audience weren't connecting with him either, a match that simple existed and not much more but hey, Steph did a table bump and Trips did the job at mania once more so....yay?
...WHERE WAS JOEY FUCKIN' SAMOEY?!

Orton vs Wyatt
....a load of piss really, you could tell early on from the amount of signature moves being chucked out that this one was on a shorter timer, it felt rushed, rather incoherent and I can't believe that Orton never used the powers he obtained in his Wyatt time to counter Bray's video worms into a pit of vipers to hit an actual surprise RKO, nope instead we just got Bray looking like a chump transitional champ and he continues his mania losing streak while Orton comes across as pretty non-enthused about what should be a big win.

Lesnar vs Goldberg
Holy balls, they resurrected the crowd and did EXACTLY what they needed to, I'll eat my crow, this was a fun as hell few minutes that used like two whole moves being spammed to the utmost effect possible.

Smackdown Women's Title Match
While you could see they were pressed for time I'm sure that match would have been pretty similar even with a extra five minutes, there was always a ceiling on this match by the nature of its participants and numbers so really it did what it needed to and got us the Naomi mania moment she almost lost, and the glow, all that night time glow.

Reigns vs Taker
Well now, I love ya Taker but I'm glad this is the end, he hasn't had a good showing since WM29 and Reigns can't work miracles.
A sloppy affair of botches and such, I fault Taker more than anything, he was done years ago but they just had to keep trotting him out. Reigns did Reigns stuff, it wasn't particularly interesting. Much like Cena's match this felt more about the end result than the match itself, a broken down Taker hangs up his boots...err gloves and coat and gets a send off for his hard work. Reigns already has all the heat anyway so he was the right guy to send Taker off when I think about it.
Not a good mania match but something of a mania moment I suppose.

So yeah, it was okay, much like the ultimate thrillride represents it was a rollercoaster of highs and lows.
Much stronger than last year at any rate.
 
I really think
Almas
is a guy who will thrive more on the main roster than he ever did on NXT. He just has a star factor about him that a guy like Crews never had.
 
Orton vs Wyatt
....a load of piss really, you could tell early on from the amount of signature moves being chucked out that this one was on a shorter timer, it felt rushed, rather incoherent and I can't believe that Orton never used the powers he obtained in his Wyatt time to counter Bray's video worms into a pit of vipers to hit an actual surprise RKO, nope instead we just got Bray looking like a chump transitional champ and he continues his mania losing streak while Orton comes across as pretty non-enthused about what should be a big win.

I'm glad i'm not the only one who wanted a projection of vipers for the distraction into the RKO... if they needed Orton to win for some for some reason that was the way to do it, it would have made the goofy shit (that frankly was the only good thing about the match) mean something in the end. It would have been an oh shit moment that made the RKO that followed a pop moment instead of a oh that's it moment.

It's fucked up to think that all the months of booking that reinvigorated Wyatt, made him look like a world beater was just so that he could be fed to Orton...

And in the end all the spooky supernatural shit meant fuck all, like Orton driving that staff into the ground and shit on the go home Smackdown.... did fuck nothing.

In the end though I'm glad they overbooked the build because I stopped giving a shit about this feud when Wyatt gained new powers instead of playing a vulnerable character, and then I just gave up entirely on the go home show with Orton going nope I take those powers too and using the same staff Wyatt attacked him with the week earlier...

All that and the finish was jut an RKO... yeah ok
 
I'm glad i'm not the only one who wanted a projection of vipers for the distraction into the RKO... if they needed Orton to win for some for some reason that was the way to do it, it would have made the goofy shit (that frankly was the only good thing about the match) mean something in the end. It would have been an oh shit moment that made the RKO that followed a pop moment instead of a oh that's it moment.

It's fucked up to think that all the months of booking that reinvigorated Wyatt, made him look like a world beater was just so that he could be fed to Orton...

And in the end all the spooky supernatural shit meant fuck all, like Orton driving that staff into the ground and shit on the go home Smackdown.... did fuck nothing.

In the end though I'm glad they overbooked the build because I started giving a shit about this feud when Wyatt gained new powers instead of playing a vulnerable character, and then I just gave up entirely on the go home show with Orton going nope I take those powers too and using the same staff Wyatt attacked him with the week earlier...

All that and the finish was jut an RKO... yeah ok

It was a shame that after our defending of the feud and appreciation of its actual long term booking that the endgame (well probably not the actual endgame) was a dud like this. Especially because I'm sure they can do better under less constrained circumstances.
The feud never did deliver on any of the supernatural silliness it promised, perhaps the road to backlash will give it what it needed.
 
It was a shame that after our defending of the feud and appreciation of its actual long term booking that the endgame (well probably not the actual endgame) was a dud like this. Especially because I'm sure they can do better under less constrained circumstances.
The feud never did deliver on any of the supernatural silliness it promised, perhaps the road to backlash will give it what it needed.

I'd like to think it's not over... that maybe Orton got the big Mania win as a means of a return of favor for getting his head split open by Lesnar...


This was my favorite feud up until like I said a few weeks ago. I made the argument they shouldn't have split up, because they were so good together and yet look at them apart.

The burning of the compound was fantastic, and offered an opportunity to do something different with Bray, show him really vulnerable (I know he loses a lot but he never is really shown as vulnerable), you could even have him lose this match as part of that vulnerability, causing him to seek something else to grow stronger (what I dunno I'm just spit balling here)

Or they should have just gone all out in that match, gone into the deep end of spooky crazy.It's like they were booking a horror angle and then went oh shit the title is there we better show it respect too let's go with a normal wrestling ending to honour the belt. Just complete nonsense.

Like literally they ended SD with the ground cracking with flames and shit and then nothing came of it, Wyatt wasn't depowered, Orton wasn't powered up, it was like they just went eh let's just say fuck it.


Maybe there's more but man this has been a really long story already, do the big end at Mania.
 
Credit to Shane and everything, but I still think AJ deserved a better match. He was overshadowed by shane's spot fests and was just kind of there to capitalize on Shane's stupidity. In fact, the match ended with putting Shane over and Shane getting respect for his performance.

And he decided to cheat for some reason

Wrestling quality was as bad as expected. Maybe it was the length, but I was pretty bored of Rollins/HHH and Bray/Orton and KO/Y2J

Its a night and day difference betwen what NXT put on.


I also feel Hardys should have been saved for Raw. It just feels so typical to have a nostalgia act completely overshadow the current workers and as much as people like the Hardyz, why not give fan focus to the other faces for the night?

Reigns is also clearly not turning heel and Vince will wait for the smarks to go home, he'll ride out the hate until the casual fans fill up the seats again.


In fact, I assume thats why both Orton and Reigns are staying as top faces. They must sell the most merch and house show seats
 
The Hardy's saved the ladder match. It was have been very boring without them because there were no other guys in it who were nimble enough to scale a ladder for big spots. It would have been tall guys slowly climbing ladders for 20 minutes.
 

GraveRobberX

Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
Where was Rock? I could have still gone another 30 minutes brother!

nope

Busy promoting Fast 8 and Baywatch I'm guessing

You would think Orlando, Universal Studiis, who owns Fast 8, which the Rock is part of, you do some synergy marketing

Still it's not like the show needed more run time
 

kiguel182

Member
I'm really curious what the Hardys will do. I think doing the full Broken thing from the start might be too much but a sort of reintroduction would be great.

If they come as a nostalgia act then fuck that.
 

jmdajr

Member
Busy promoting Fast 8 and Baywatch I'm guessing

You would think Orlando, Universal Studiis, who owns Fast 8, which the Rock is part of, you do some synergy marketing

Still it's not like the show needed more run time
No reason to hog up the spotlight with Taker retiring.

Also kudos to MVP of the night , Stephanie McMahon's pants.
 
regins said on espn that the match felt like a loss for him,

Due to the quality? I would agree with him. That match won't have the impact on his career that it could have had if it was even remotely good. Such a shame, I was actually good with Roman winning this.
 
Here's the problem with the idea of cutting shit down... you know what would have got cut?

Not Taker/Reigns, not Orton/Wyatt probably not even Ambrose/Corbin or the Andre Battle Royal or the mixed Tag Match for those who hated that one too...

Anything that would have gotten cut would have been from mostly the selection of good stuff on the show.

Point taken, they'd have to take something out............ I'm not the biggest Orton or Wyatt fan - but they should have had more time in their match. And you know which match I'd sacrifice for it..................... the tag team match. Never been a fan of the Hardy's and to have them back means nothing to me. Nothing like seeing a bunch of has-beens return acting the same as they did in 1999.
 

Ithil

Member
Everyone watching looked amazed. And rightfully so.

XZ7Kn3F.gif

God damn it I wish Brock would use his gifts to their fullest in his matches again, he's such a one of a kind athlete and all he does normally is some Germans and an F5. The rare moments where at near forty he demonstrates what a freak athlete he is are so great, like the time he chased down Seth outside the ring and just flew over the barricade and was on him in seconds. Or when he was doing those awesome flying knees on Strowman. His level of strength and agility combined is really one of a kind.

Alas, he's just there for the big paycheck.
 
Btw doing a quick bit of research but I think Lesnar beating Goldberg was actually the first time literally in Goldberg's TV career that he lost clean in a one on one match...

First time in 20 years!

It's also the first time anyone kicked out of the jackhammer not counting a botch. I thought that didn't get the reaction it should have since everyone kicks out of finishers now.
 

Ithil

Member
They were trying pretty damn hard to get mainstream coverage with this WM. Gronkowski doing a spot in the Battle Royal, Cena's proposal, the Hardys returning, Undertaker retiring, etc.
 
I watched religiously 20-30 years ago. Then I went dark for 15-ish years. In the last handful of years, I've begun watching once or twice per year. Some years I'll just watch WrestleMania; other years, I might check out Royal Rumble or Summerslam.

It's almost unbelievable to me how bad and stale the product seems. I don't understand how it can be so awful. It's sterile and devoid of personality. It's grindingly boring and terribly paced. (I was checking my watch by 9:15pm.) The booking and structure of the shows are just plain fucked. (Putting the Smackdown women between Lesnar-Goldberg and Roman-Taker was bizarre.) And the product somehow continues to make the current and future generations look like dogshit, even when they're technically beating the senior citizens.

How are there still any wrestling fans?

Anyway, see you next March. Heh.
 
regins said on espn that the match felt like a loss for him,
It looked like it did. Towards the end of the match he had that facial expression like "Really? Let's just end this and move on" Sorta like the way Cena had when he put Edge through those tables in which he didn't want to do.
 

Max_Po

Banned
Brock is a freak of goddamn nature. During his entrance, he was bouncing between ropes so fucking fast.

I love Brock but he is not a freak of nature, he is tall and he is on Steroids....

He was busted just a few months ago....

dat jump was awesome... and a great end to the rivary.
 

Zabka

Member
I watched religiously 20-30 years ago. Then I went dark for 15-ish years. In the last handful of years, I've begun watching once or twice per year. Some years I'll just watch WrestleMania; other years, I might check out Royal Rumble or Summerslam.

It's almost unbelievable to me how bad and stale the product seems. I don't understand how it can be so awful. It's sterile and devoid of personality. It's grindingly boring and terribly paced. (I was checking my watch by 9:15pm.) The booking and structure of the shows are just plain fucked. (Putting the Smackdown women between Lesnar-Goldberg and Roman-Taker was bizarre.) And the product somehow continues to make the current and future generations look like dogshit, even when they're technically beating the senior citizens.

How are there still any wrestling fans?

Anyway, see you next March. Heh.

They sometimes put short, low-profile matches in between big matches to act as a "cooler". Whether it actually works or not is debatable.

I love Brock but he is not a freak of nature, he is tall and he is on Steroids....

He was busted just a few months ago....

99.999% of people could inject a truck full of steroids and never come close to Brock's athleticism.
 

ScribbleD

Member
I'm glad i'm not the only one who wanted a projection of vipers for the distraction into the RKO... if they needed Orton to win for some for some reason that was the way to do it, it would have made the goofy shit (that frankly was the only good thing about the match) mean something in the end. It would have been an oh shit moment that made the RKO that followed a pop moment instead of a oh that's it moment.

It's fucked up to think that all the months of booking that reinvigorated Wyatt, made him look like a world beater was just so that he could be fed to Orton...

And in the end all the spooky supernatural shit meant fuck all, like Orton driving that staff into the ground and shit on the go home Smackdown.... did fuck nothing.

In the end though I'm glad they overbooked the build because I started giving a shit about this feud when Wyatt gained new powers instead of playing a vulnerable character, and then I just gave up entirely on the go home show with Orton going nope I take those powers too and using the same staff Wyatt attacked him with the week earlier...

All that and the finish was jut an RKO... yeah ok

What I was expecting was for Bray to be set up for a Sister Abigail and then the projection would change to fire causing him to freak out momentarily so Randy could reverse into an RKO.

What happened was...kind of nothing.
 

Auraela

Banned
Really hope finn doesnt vs lesnar that isnt a feud i wanna see. I also find thr demon king gimmick is on the wrong peson. Balor looks too small to be sold as a gimmick like that.
 
Really hope finn doesnt vs lesnar that isnt a feud i wanna see. I also find thr demon king gimmick is on the wrong peson. Balor looks too small to be sold as a gimmick like that.
That's my prediction for the Summerslam match for the Universal Championship. Balor is gonna be huge in the WWE because of the merch sales and the Demon King thing. He's gonna take the belt off Brock. This will be the 'small dude vs big dude' match people wanted from Bryan vs Brock.
 
Yeah the big thing is he's allowed to use Delete!

If he's already doing that and throwing in other buzzwords he'll be golden

We'll see tomorrow what they're planning on doing with them. I'm curious about a lot of their TNA shtick because it's heavily based on referencing their WWE past. Vanguard 1 = V1 etc. Who knows if WWE will even want to indulge in that stuff (I assume so after the sad Wyatt attempt) but they will absolutely have some workarounds

What I would love hardcore is if they went insane to tie the Broken stuff back into the WWE lore. Like draw all of the connections as though seeds had been planted 10+ years ago

Otherwise worst case scenario is they're The Hardys doing the Broken stuff solely for the fans, which really isn't all that bad. I think a lot of what makes the gimmick fun is the constant stream of ideas and freedom to do what they want. Which isn't exactly modern WWE style, but if New Day can go off book and say whatever I imagine they'll give the Hardys a similar amount of freedom
 
How I saw the night:

BEST:
  • Bray v Orton - Didn't love the finish and technically this was not an amazing match but the awful snake in the Randy Orton entrance and the borderline mid 90s NIN music video projected onto the mat during the match were incredible

GREAT:
  • Austin v Neville - Great way to start the night
  • Jericho v Owens - I remember really liking this match but now I'm having a hard time recalling what happened in it
  • Ladder Match - I was never a huge fan of the Hardy's but it was nice seeing them. Maybe one of the most dangerous looking ladder matches I've seen in a long time. Would've like Cesaro and Sheamus to take the belts though
  • HHH v Seth - Everything except HHH's face hasn't aged a day. He can still put on a great match. The fucking animated gif in HHH's entrance was great though the entrance was kind of disappointing. Also, gotta respect Steph crashing through a table like a champ
  • Sasha v Nia v Bayley v Charlotte - Fun match. Also it made good on the Bayley/Charlotte rivalry with Bayley getting a clean win on her. Sasha's entrance was super weird. It was like "okay, we'll let you have a special entrance.... but we don't want to spend a lot of money"

BETTER THAN EXPECTED:
  • AJ v Shane - Not an amazing match but was better than expected
  • Goldberg v Lesnar - Not a fan of the finish but this match was far better than I expected
  • Mixed Tag - Quite possibly the lamest and most predictable finish I've seen in forever but as a whole this match was much better than I expected. Maryse was kind of an X factor for me as I dipped out of wrestling back when she wrestled on a regular basis

DID WHAT WAS EXPECTED:
  • Smackdown Women - Not a terrible match but I feel like putting it second to last was WWE sending it out to die
  • Battle Royal - It sure was a battle royal

DISAPPOINTING:
  • Bray v Orton finish - The finish was just super lackluster
  • Goldberg v Lesnar finish - Building him up just to have him lose at Mania just seems so strange

WORST:
  • Ambrose v Corbin - Corbin's or "The Lone Wolf" is the worst so no surprise that this match was terrible
  • Taker v Roman - This somehow managed to be worse than Lesnar v Taker at WM30
  • FF14 being Michael Cole's favorite game
 

Cagey

Banned
That's my prediction for the Summerslam match for the Universal Championship. Balor is gonna be huge in the WWE because of the merch sales and the Demon King thing. He's gonna take the belt off Brock. This will be the 'small dude vs big dude' match people wanted from Bryan vs Brock.
Despite the height, Bryan makes Finn look small.

And Finn is a cartoon cruiserweight character.

Anything besides Lesnar unhinging his jaw and eating him ehole would disappoint.
 
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