Wrestlemania 39

[CavemanLynn]

"Losing the belts" and "the end of the Bloodline" are two different things though. Would they break apart, or reunite stronger than before to take back what they think is theirs from the three men who took them down?

To me, a Backlash rematch where champion Cody has to face Roman again, but this time Roman's had a month to stew and boil and plot and rage - THAT's got stakes and story lines and isn't a foregone conclusion at all.

[Hannibal Scorch]

59 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

Other than the result of the main event, I really don’t see how anyone could object to the quality of both nights. The match quality was great, everything felt massive and it was high drama throughout. Until we see what comes next, I don’t see what there is to object to. Maybe we will look back and think of this as a monumental mistake, but we’re not there yet. They’ve yet to put a foot wrong with Reigns and The Bloodline, I think they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt.

I suggest you read some comments in this thread. But i need to ask, how old are you? As I am about to turn 40 my peak of watching live shows was from the 90's to the mid 10's. And I wonder if that has something to do with it.  

[Nick James]

This is fucking heartbreaking. 

 

 

[Supremo]

Every two-night Wrestlemania has seen a drop of quality between Night 1 and Night 2, but even by their previous standards? Woof. It was like a different universe. Like each night was written and produced by someone else. I wouldn’t be at all surprise if the sale went through Sunday morning and a certain moustacio’d sex pest wrestled back control before they went live. The difference was that jarring.

Started off fun enough. Brock vs. Omos was perfect opener fodder. I expected to only enjoy it ironically, but this was easily the best thing Omos has ever done. He bumped great for Brock’s ridiculous feats of strength. God bless Cena and Brock alike, making absolute bank to do basic house show matches, going out first to get the best reaction, showered and packed up early enough to beat the traffic and get the first flight out of there. Pro-wrestling industry? Completed it, mate.

The best thing I can say about the Women’s Showcase was that it was better than I expected. Still a mostly nothing match though. Not a patch on Night 1’s showcase. Ronda’s fall from grace will be studied in decades to come. Remember when she was the star of Wrestlemania 34? Five years later, she’s this. I wonder how many years it’ll be until she’s a dancing comedy character. Or unemployed.

Triple Threat Intercontinental Title match was the absolute tits. Phenomenal stuff. Best WWE match of the weekend and a genuine match of the year contender. The ultimate big meaty men slapping meat. Somewhere, Big E’s head was exploding. Also; Titus O’Neil calling matches like someone’s nan, who’s never seen professional wrestling before, losing his fucking mind, is a thing of beauty. Early contender for commentator of the year. By the time this match ended, I was convinced we were looking at a future World Champion in Gunther. The main event finish suggested otherwise though. Can I interest you in another six Roman vs. Brock matches in Saudi?!

Bianca vs. Asuka couldn’t live up to Charlotte vs. Rhea for the simple fact that neither women was willing to paralyse themselves or suffer a concussion to steal the show, but this still ruled. Bianca remains the greatest product of their developmental system. Someone who just tried pro-wrestling on a whim, and became one of their best big match performers in decades. Bianca vs. Rhea in 2023 is a genuine dream match. I’m more convinced than ever that we’re only a year or two away from Montez and Bianca closing Wrestlemania holding their respective World Titles. May as well shag in the middle of the ring as the show goes off the air. Love them.

Show fell off a cliff at this point. Even in concept bringing in Shane McMahon was a terrible idea, but watching him crumble in execution was as sad as it was hilarious. I thought KSI going through the table was the funniest thing we’d see all weekend, but then here comes the monaaaaay! Miz continuing to run the ropes when it was obvious Shane was done? Fucking Snoop Doggy Dogg taking control, showing better business sense than 99% of the roster, and calling a whole match in the ring to save the segment? Maddest fever dream in Wrestlemania history. How embarrassing for Shane, though. I wonder if they’ll cut this entire segment from the Network. Can totally imagine Vince blanking him backstage after this. I doubt he’s going to get any Happy Birthday tweet this year.

Edge vs. Finn continued the weird sense that Vince had suddenly plugged his headset in and had taken over the whole show. His fingerprints were all over this. Not using the Brood’s music, not being able to get Christian or Gangrel, so just putting, “BROOD EDGE,” on the Titan Tron, like he was some WWE2K DLC like MINISTRY UNDERTAKER or JOHN CENA ‘03 was them at their worst tell-don’t-show. Talk about treating your audience like idiots. As if the entrance through a ring of fire wouldn’t clue people in!

Both Edge and Fin looked like absolute whoppers in their entrance gear, too. I know there’s a fine line when it comes to the campy pageantry of Wrestlemania gear, but for a match sold on violence and bad blood? Edge as the sparkly gimp and Finn dancing in slow motion with his smoke bombs was cringe as fuck. Like sobering up at Glastonbury at 4am, only the knobheads remaining, and realising it’s time to call it a night.

It was nice to see a return of the normal, grey cell. Hilarious that they made up for it with coloured weapons though. Again, you could totally imagine Vince calling an audible during rehearsals. Not that any of it mattered though because the whole thing fell apart once Finn started bleeding and everything became frozen in time. What a disaster. HELL IN A CELL, unless someone bleeds. CALM IN A CELL. MODERATE VIOLENCE IN A CELL. Somewhere, Moxley was shaking his head in disgust. Fair play to Finn if the reports of him getting stapled and glued up on live TV are true, but this shit killed their momentum dead and they never got it back. They should have sent Snoop out there to save annother segment. Maybe he could’ve done a dive off the Cell or something. But yeah. Painfully average and another in a long line of disappointing Edge matches since returning. Sometimes, you need to just leave the memories alone.

God knows what happened at this point in the show, but randomly airing Seth Rollins’ entrance in full from the previous night?Things were clearly off the rails.

And then what can even be said about that main event finish. Fucking hell. Even for a company who always drops a bollock, this was the biggest drop of the biggest bollock of all time. This was it. They’d done it. They’d found their man. They just need to stick the landing. And then they bottled it. Unbelievable. Until those last three seconds this was some of the best bit of business in forever. I was fully invested. That earth shattering “WHOOOOOOAAAAOOH!” for Cody entrance. The jacket. The pyro. Cody hugging his daughter and giving Brodie Junior his belt? I was filling up already. And then they had a fantastic match, the crowd were going apeshit…and then suddenly we all Quantum Leaped back into reality after six months of thinking they knew what they were doing. WWE was WWE again and you were left with that similar sense of crushing disappointment and bewilderment as to why you ever invest in these idiots.

They didn’t go with Drew in Cardiff for this. They didn’t go with Sami in Montreal for this. Jesus Christ. I can’t get over it. What an error. They had years of top babyfaces failing to connect, and then when two or three come along at once? Perfect storm after perfect storm? They completely shat the bed over and over again. They don’t deserve top babyfaces, just like ITV doesn’t deserve pro-wrestling.

I’d love to know what the justification was. Do they think the sale will go through better with Roman, their biggest star, on top? Has some naively believed The Rock when he teased coming back in yesterday’s video? And if not, who the fuck is left to dethrone him? They had so much goodwill going into this show and they fumbled it worse than Shane going for that leapfrog.

And what does this say to guys considering jumping ship from AEW? Fuck that. Imagine being Ricky Starks or MJF watching this. Block Regal’s number, lads. I bet Miro has already called Tony about coming back this week. Andrade already picking which stairwell to do vignettes about contracts. Any chance of FTR losing on Wednesday is also over. As if! They absolutely fucked it. All they had to do was tap it in and they somehow managed to sky it. Tony Khan’s major announcement on Wednesday should just be him saying, “suffering succotash,” before maniacally laughing as Dynamite goes off the air.

The ultimate irony is that they sold this whole storyline on, “finishing the story,” yet these morons have no idea how to finish a story. Hunter can also get fucked with his weird excuse at the press conference about, “the story continuing,” on Raw and this only being the close of a chapter. You aired Raw the night after Wrestlemania 14 and Stone Cold still won. You aired Raw after Wrestlemania 21 and Cena and Batista still won. This feels like it’s on that level. A generational moment that they missed out on. If every single chapter ends with protagonist after protagonist looking like an idiot, making you question why you even care enough to continue, maybe, just maybe, you’re shit at writing stories?

Still, we’ll always have Night 1. Remember feeling happy and satisfied as the credits came up? Good times.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Supremo

[mim731]

8 minutes ago, Supremo said:

And what does this say to guys considering jumping ship from AEW? Fuck that. Imagine being Ricky Starks or MJF watching this. Block Regal’s number, lads. I bet Miro has already called Tony about coming back this week. Any chance of FTR losing on Wednesday is over. They absolutely fucked it. All they had to do was tap it in and they somehow managed to sky it. Tony Khan’s major announcement on Wednesday should just be him saying, “suffering succotash,” before maniacally laughing as Dynamite goes off the air.

I still think Cody is getting the belt, but they were trying to be less predictable, for reasons that defy all common sense.

I have a horrible feeling they thought they could get a double dip out of Cody/Roman and they'll either try and pop a rating by doing the rematch on RAW (maybe for the post-sale optics) or it'll be so they garner interest for Backlash.

For a company so obsessed with "WrestleMania Moments" it's insane that they turned down a surefire one, unless it turns out they have a grand plan, which seems unlikely based on historical evidence. 

[Supremo]

Raw should be fun.

”What do you guys wanna talk about?”

“Fuck all, Cody. You’re a failure like the rest of them.”

[SuperBacon]

A mate has just calculated when Roman hits 1000 days. May 27th. In Jeddah. You can't say they don't know how to long term book. 😆

[Hannibal Scorch]

1 minute ago, SuperBacon said:

A mate has just calculated when Roman hits 1000 days. May 27th. In Jeddah. You can't say they don't know how to long term book. 😆

Mansoor is beating Roman for the titles?

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

The Raw crowd will tell you whether Roman winning was right or not. Looking at the crowd reaction on the 3 count it may not be what HHH wants it to be. If/when it turns nasty they will claim it's the night after Mania crowd been "Wacky" and move on like Hunter has just written an Academy Award winning storyline instead of the reality which he has written Police Academy 7 Mission To Moscow. 

[FUM]

Stopping a Hell in a Cell match to clean up some blood is pretty laughable by the way. I know you’ve got a sale to complete and want to present that you care about the talent but it’s literally a Hell in a Cell match - no buyer is pulling out because someone accidentally got busted open let alone one that runs UFC. Check he’s okay to carry on then get on with the match.

I can’t say much more than myself or anyone else has already said on the Cody situation. Drew, Sami, Cody - none of them will ever be as hot again. I guess it’s on to hoping Jey’s reactions are huge when he eventually turns because they’ve blown lightning in a bottle two big events in a row.

[kieranjennings]

Night one was fantastic with every match hitting it's straps bar the women's 6 man which was a bit sloppy and slow at times. Far too many false finishes that feel rushed in some of the matches (big move, immediate cover, kick out - rather than delaying a few moments to allow more suspense and realism for the kick out) but that may just be something that bugs me.

Night Two was less special but probably had less of an emotional build as both the Mysterios and Zayn/KO matches were on night one.  Again though, apart from the multi women's match everyone had their working boots on. Cody losing was a shock but going in I did wonder going in if they could risk taking all the title off the Bloodline and Zayn/KO HAD to win their match. There is still a story there for Cody Rhodes and longer term that might be better for him rather than giving him the belt now with no real challengers set to establish him. Building Solo so here is there to carry on the story when Reigns eventually loses could be the next chapter.

The dynamic between Rhodes and Reigns changes now because Cody took him to the limit. Rhodes for me also established himself in that performance as a Main Event talent which I'm not sure he had done before (despite the big arrival and Rumble win) so he doesn't come out of the loss looking like a chump which was key. He was robbed so now he has a bigger drive for revenge and he had Reigns beaten. 

[Supremo]

Having now seen the cut, I don’t think they stopped the match due to blood. They stopped it because Finn’s brain was about to fall out. Spoilers for how fucking grim it is! Jesus!

Spoiler

 

[FUM]

1 minute ago, Supremo said:

Having now seen the cut, I don’t think they stopped the match due to blood. They stopped it because Finn’s brain was about to fall out. Spoilers for how fucking grim it is! Jesus!

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Jeez! I take back what I said - fair enough!

[Statto]

4 hours ago, theringmaster said:

Does anyone have a link to pre-order the 1000 day champ tshirt?

In all seriousness, I loved the "Wrestlemania Champions" t-shirts that were worn at that press conferences & that Sami wore for his run-in.

#RealSportsPresentation

The mad thing is though, if Cody had won and they'd done the real sports thing and opened boxes of champions tees and started selling them, they'd surely have sold as many as they could print. If they'd got 10,000 made they'd probably still have 65,000 people queuing at the stadium waiting for them to get more done. "3 more days? No bother, I'll wait." 

[RedRooster]

1 hour ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

I suggest you read some comments in this thread. But i need to ask, how old are you? As I am about to turn 40 my peak of watching live shows was from the 90's to the mid 10's. And I wonder if that has something to do with it.  

I've read comments in this thread, and the common complaint - which I referred to - was that Cody didn't win. For me, one result doesn't destroy a show - not this result, at least. And I certainly don't think it destroys Cody. I've seen a lot of people refer to how WWE has a shaky history with situations like this - but that was Vince McMahon-booked WWE. We don't really have much to judge Triple H on just yet. 

I started watching in late 2002, but I don't think that has any relevance on whether or not this was a good Wrestlemania. Night one was close to perfect. Night two wasn't as good, but we had a solid opener, an absolutely brilliant triple threat - my favourite match of both nights. The women's title match was good, there was a fun moment with Snoop Dogg pinning Miz (and a surprise, albeit ill-fated, Shane McMahon appearance), the main event was fantastic - whether you're a fan of the result or not, I think that's easy to recognise. If you look at what we got over both nights, I think it was a win all round. I thought this was a tremendous Wrestlemania. If you didn't like it, that's a shame - but for me, it's an all-timer.