Paid Members Weezenal Posted April 5, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted April 5, 2022 That took about 30 minutes off the show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted April 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted April 6, 2022 (edited) Night 2 wasn’t a patch on Night 1. That’s three years in a row now. Whether it’s been an empty building, a mostly full arena or somewhere in between, these two-night Wrestlemanias all go the same way. You finish the first night on a high, ready for more, but then an hour or so into the second night you get the same sense of exhaustion and boredom that you used to get four or five hours into the marathon Manias. It doesn’t seem to matter whether you split it over two nights or not. It’s scientifically impossible to consume this much product over a single weekend, hear Natalya’s music, and not start wishing they’d just cut the fat and do one show, with their very best stuff. Replace that first hour of Night 1 with Knoxville and McAfee’s matches from this show and you’d have an almost perfect offering. But yeah. Knoxville vs. Zayn was a masterpiece that has to be considered a match of the year contender. The dumbest, funnest, silliest match in Wrestlemania history. What a blast. If anything, the more it fell apart the funnier it got. Knoxville spending the majority of the match trying to keep his glasses on. Half the props mis-firing. Party Boy corpsing so much I thought Umaga was going to come back from the dead to attack him. Zayn keeping the whole thing together is one of the greatest performances of his career. And the fucking giant hand! Amazing. I was so gutted when the news came out that both Owens and Zayn were staying in WWE, but fair play. They were the stars of the weekend and I hope they get paid and pushed accordingly. Edited April 6, 2022 by Supremo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted April 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted April 6, 2022 4 hours ago, Supremo said: hear Natalya’s music, and not start wishing they’d just cut the fat Welcome to the last ten years. Despite being a Hart family loyalist, I can’t think of any wrestler revered as much for just hanging around for so long and actually doing so little. When I look back at Natties career and think “what’s been memorable?” all I land on is that time where even though they’d booked her as a loser/has-been for AGES, they made Becky do a clean submission loss to the Sharpshooter on TV because they decided Natalya should get a title match at SummerSlam, and what senseless use it was of someone as good and popular as Lynch. Pissed me off beyond words. Doesnt make a great DVD, does it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheffbag Posted April 6, 2022 Share Posted April 6, 2022 On 4/4/2022 at 10:17 PM, gmoney said: I'd watch an hour of Austin trying to grab Vince's head for a Stunner while he flops about like a greased fish. is that the edited version then? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted April 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted April 6, 2022 8 hours ago, Supremo said: Zayn keeping the whole thing together is one of the greatest performances of his career. Cannot overstate how perfect Sami was for this match. Playing the whole thing straight is what made it rise above typical WWE prop comedy - if it had been ten years ago, we'd have had Santino mugging his way through it all, and it would have been awful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheffbag Posted April 6, 2022 Share Posted April 6, 2022 Just ploughed through it all and got to say despite the 4 way title match thoroughly enjoyed it. Thoughts taken from it Pat McAfee is over like a mother (or rather the White stripes are), looked good in the ring and the beer after the stunner was brilliant. Kudos to Cole as well for his over the top commentary Austin / Owens was everything you wanted and Austin genuinely looked like he was enjoying himself on both nights. Vince should never show his bingo wing arms again. Austin Theory cant beat a commentator who then got pinned by a 77 year old. never warmed to Bianca (especially that entrance) but great match with Becky. Cody / Seth went too long. Crowd sagged a bit during it. Quick win would have established Cody instantly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted April 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted April 6, 2022 Low key, the highlight of the whole weekend was Michael Cole‘s commentary during the Pat McAfee match. No idea how it fell through the cracks, maybe it was because Vince was at ringside rather than shouting down Cole’s ear from Gorilla, but what a revelation! A babyface commentator on a WWE broadcast showing proper support and talking about a competitor with genuine affection! Amazing! Pat and Cole have obviously developed a real friendship these last few months and it was great to hear Cole gushing over him. In a company where the entire broadcast team normally act like emotionless androids endlessly shouting, “FOR THE WIN!”, nobody on the show ever has any friends, and everyone is always in-fighting and bickering, I could’ve cried for how Cole was talking about Pat here. Genuinely lovely. That’s my biggest takeaway from this year’s Wrestlemania. For how much this company feels completely lost in a world of overproduced bollocks, shows like this make you realise it’d only take a handful of tweaks to at least get somewhat back on track. Deliver some happy, feel-good moments, stop focussing so relentless on getting Bully Ray HEAT~! all the time and have people act ever so slightly like real human beings. Surely that’s got to be easier and cheaper than producing another half dozen AR graphic eyesores? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted April 6, 2022 Share Posted April 6, 2022 21 minutes ago, Supremo said: Deliver some happy, feel-good moments, stop focussing so relentless on getting Bully Ray HEAT~! all the time and have people act ever so slightly like real human beings. The weird thing is they do this a fair bit on the Network with their documentaries. Some of the Takeover buildups, or other personal documentaries etc have been fantastic in getting people invested. Yet most of it never gets a chance on TV. Same with the backstage ones they do on events for the WWE 24-7 ones. If you were able to see them in that light all the time, it'd be so much easier to get behind them and give a shit. They're already doing a lot of good stuff. It just rarely makes it to main TV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted April 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted April 6, 2022 45 minutes ago, Supremo said: Low key, the highlight of the whole weekend was Michael Cole‘s commentary during the Pat McAfee match. No idea how it fell through the cracks, maybe it was because Vince was at ringside rather than shouting down Cole’s ear from Gorilla, but what a revelation! A babyface commentator on a WWE broadcast showing proper support and talking about a competitor with genuine affection! Amazing! Pat and Cole have obviously developed a real friendship these last few months and it was great to hear Cole gushing over him. In a company where the entire broadcast team normally act like emotionless androids endlessly shouting, “FOR THE WIN!”, nobody on the show ever has any friends, and everyone is always in-fighting and bickering, I could’ve cried for how Cole was talking about Pat here. Genuinely lovely. Similarly, there were points in the Knoxville match where Cole genuinely seemed to be laughing and having a great time. I'm so used to his phony WWE "THIS IS GREAT!" comedy laugh, that him just being a normal human being and laughing along with his mate did a fair bit to elevate that match for me. Even Pat McAfee, I can see how people would get annoyed by him week-to-week, but on this show he was a breath of fresh air. He didn't sound like a WWE Robot, wasn't phoning it in, but wasn't just rattling off clichés or reading off cue cards either, he seemed genuinely excited by and invested in everything. I guess that's the strength of not being a jobbing broadcaster looking for a big gig, but being a guy already worth millions doing a dream job - they can't really boss him around the way they could a Tom Phillips or a Byron Saxton, he doesn't need the job. The closest comparison in years was Mauro Ranallo before he collapsed into self-parody. Mauro without a massive pile of notes and alliterative nicknames. Jimmy Smith doesn't seem bad either. Not much personality, but a solid lead commentator who never becomes overbearing or annoying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted April 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted April 6, 2022 (edited) In that same vein, my new favourite Wrestlemania streak is Bianca Belair matches always getting a big roar when the bell rings at the start and Bianca struggling to keep it together. She didn’t go as much as last year but you could still see how much it meant to her and how emotional she was. Fantastic. It’s infuriating when you see how interesting and endearing these characters are just below the shiny, overproduced surface, with a big, fuck-off graphic blocking your view. Edited April 6, 2022 by Supremo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheffbag Posted April 6, 2022 Share Posted April 6, 2022 just watched the McAfee match again at lunch and straight from the start Cole's "here we go" is just so different to his usual style. You can even hear a little clapping to 7 nation over the mic at 2;44:33 briefly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gaffer Posted April 6, 2022 Share Posted April 6, 2022 That's why I loved his Naked Mideon line, too. There's a great commentator and by all accounts a great guy in there. I'm sure there's some prevailing online thought that he's a corporate mouthpiece who would sooner do the red carpet at the Oscars or go back to being a war correspondent but that's horseshit. You don't survive as long as he has in his current position unless you love the business and know quite a bit about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted April 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted April 6, 2022 This could’ve been Austin’s version of ‘Taker’s weird gold kegs’ for his match the other night. A WrestleMania moment nobody needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted April 6, 2022 Share Posted April 6, 2022 (edited) 6 hours ago, BomberPat said: Even Pat McAfee, I can see how people would get annoyed by him week-to-week, but on this show he was a breath of fresh air. He didn't sound like a WWE Robot, wasn't phoning it in, but wasn't just rattling off clichés or reading off cue cards either, he seemed genuinely excited by and invested in everything. WWE commentary is just so bad nowadays I have to mentally ignore it whilst watching the show. BUT the only thing I can really remember from the whole weekend is the two commentators said "Seth Freaking Rollins" 100% of the time they mentioned that wrestler during the match. I don't know how you can get THAT bad at something, it was bizarre. Edited April 6, 2022 by Loki Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Lorne Malvo Posted April 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted April 6, 2022 @Loki Seth 'Freakin' Rollins is his actual ring name now. Why, I don't know. https://www.wwe.com/superstars/seth-rollins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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