WrestleMania in the Rear View: Axxess

In a review I wrote last year of WrestleMania XXX I made the statement that, though it was one of the best iterations of the event WWE had hosted, it would ultimately be looked back on as a show remembered more for its moments than it’s matches. In addition, I said that there had never been a bad WrestleMania build to produce a good WrestleMania event. Because of that, I assumed that WrestleMania 31 would be a disappointment. Instead, it’s a show that came surprisingly close to surpassing the incredible show last year. How did it do it, when few if any saw it coming? By producing great matches and memorable moments.

I’ll repeat myself and double down on how wrong I was: There had never been a WrestleMania that had a bad buildup that ended up being a good show.

That statistic is not only dead because of this one show, it may be dead forever. This show wasn’t an anomaly: It’s proof that WWE has something it can fall back on that it didn’t have in the past. When the writing fails, the show itself can still succeed because of WWE’s secret ingredient:

Wrestlers who can balls-to-the-wall wrestle.

Sure they’ve had great wrestlers in the past, but I don’t think the WWF/E has ever had the collection of talent, top-to-bottom, that they have assembled at this point in time. I say that, knowing that there’s even BETTER talent working “down” at NXT, just waiting for a call up to perform their masterwork in front of tens of thousands more weekly.

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How fitting it was, despite how much the word has been downplayed and made taboo over the years, that WRESTLEMania was saved by the wrestlers.

Six of the best of them (and R-Truth) were on display in the opening match. Each of these six guys deserves a standing ovation for managing to be “good” despite such “bad” writing. Dean Ambrose was thought to be the next Stone Cold when The Shield split up, but almost a year later and he’s become the poster child for WWE’s brand of stupid humor and nonsensical storylines.

Bad News Barrett took a silly gimmick (he gives bad news…that’s it) and managed to get it over, and in the process find fan-interest in him for the first time since the Nexus was thoroughly demolished by SuperCena way back in 2010. He then was told he was getting “too popular” so he would have to stop using all of the things that made him popular in the first place (the podium, the gavel, the catchphrases). Can you imagine, ultra heel Steve Austin in 1997 being told to stop using his catchphrases because they were making him too well-liked?! Sure he’s a heel but that doesn’t mean the crowd has to hate when he’s out there. Whatever happened to “popular heels” like Kurt Angle, Edge, The Rock, etc? Now Barrett is a cardboard cut out with no motivation (because they don’t let him talk) and nothing to get him over with the crowds (because they made a concerted effort to strip him of those things). It’s maddening.

Luke Harper should be the next Kane. He’s a big agile big man who knows how to sell and work with opponents bigger, smaller and of equal stature to him. He’s a phenomenal worker and could have become huge. But after the Wyatt Family…dissolved (? is that the word for what happened? They just sort of stopped being the Wyatt Family) he became another generic heel.

Stardust is just the latest of Cody Rhodes’ many iterations. He’s been the rookie working under Hardcore Holly. He’s been dashing. He’s been the Phantom of the WWE’s Opera. He’s been one half of the Rhodes Scholars and the Dust Brothers. Every gimmick they’ve given him he’s made it work. He’s a superb talent, with a great pedigree, solid on the mic, great looking and safe to work with. What’s. the. problem? I don’t know, but I know Stardust is just there. He cuts great promos that only appear on the company’s YouTube channel, but because they only appear on YouTube basically no one sees them. So he’s just there; not any more or less popular than he was six months ago.

Dolph Ziggler has been one of the best on the roster for almost seven years now. He’s no more closer to breaking out as a true main event player than he was back then. He’s the utility guy. He’s the jobber to the stars. He’s the guy who works with the guy to get that guy ready to feud with the guy. The fans love him but the brain-trust in the back just doesn’t see him the way the ticket buyers do. He’s almost 35 years old, so there’s not much more time for him to be the best seller in the business. His body has been taking some sick bumps for a long time now. It would be nice if he had a nice run at or near the top. Alas.

Daniel Bryan is the most over guy on the roster who works a full-time schedule. Kids and parents love him, the older–more hardcore–demographic loves him. He’s a genuine superstar. But his run last year was not just cut short by injury–that just accelerated the inevitable–it was cut short by a boss who, as with Ziggler, doesn’t see him the way most fans do. That said, he’s the perfect guy under those conditions, to carry the IC belt and bring it back to prominence.

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These six men gave everything they had to put on a curtain-jerker of a match, when any two of them could have won the crowd over with a big ten minute “wrestling” contest. The match was a showcase, but a showcase of what? It showed off how great the talent is, which only–after the fact–highlights how mismanaged they’ve all been.

For what it was, it was a great match. 8/10. It just didn’t have a very good story going in to make it mean anything. It was saved by the performance though.

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Speaking of horrible stories, let’s not recap the inane booking behind Randy Orton vs Seth Rollins. It was almost as if WWE out-thought themselves. They had the easiest match in the world to book. It wrote itself. When the opening card was played and Randy Orton made his return at Fast Lane, you would have thought the glass broke and Steve Austin was sauntering down the isle. The crowd went bananas for Orton.

It was all downhill from there.

First (okay, we’ll recap it a little) there was the “Orton rejoins the Authority” angle. Which was dumb because everyone knew those two were destined to go at it at Mania. So either Orton was sincere and had really turned back to a heel (which would have been moronic and unnecessary), or he was pretending so as to get close to Rollins and hurt him. But that’s also moronic and unnecessary. It’s moronic because everyone could see right through it, except for the handful of people the story needed to be fooled by Orton (Seth and the Authority). It was unnecessary because since when do you need to concoct a big story to get close enough to attack someone? This is WWE; has Randy never seen an episode of Raw from 1999? Just run down the ramp and attack him! Then, when he finally did get his hands on him, he laid down a beatdown so severe it took away all need for the fans to pay to see the match.

Stupid stupid writing. But it was saved because the match was very good and had one of the most impressive match finishes ever. 8/10. Bad story, saved by the performance.

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I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bigger disparity between the quality of a match live and in person, and the quality of a match on TV. Live at Levi’s Stadium, Sting vs Triple H was one of THE highlights of the show. It had everything: (1) A legend vs legend stand off at the beginning, (2) a vet that many doubted could work the match going all out with dropkicks, top rope splashes and guardrail bumps, (3) shocking run-ins that made the match feel timeless and epic, and (4) a big handshake after the finish to put a nice big bow on the whole package. The crowd adored it; we ate up every second of it.

If you’re wondering why there’s no pictures or video of the nWo or DX, it’s because I was too busy giggling like a little kid to grab my phone

Watching it on TV, the match absolutely sucked.

And the one and only culprit to blame was the commentary. The absolutely killed the match. They butchered it. They treated Sting like a joke, mocking what may be his only WrestleMania appearance. In person, the DX and nWo run-ins didn’t make sense (especially that nWo would help Sting) but no one cared because everyone was having fun. It’s okay every now and then for wrestling to be fun AND not make sense. But when commentary is as bad as it was in this match, it sucks all the fun out of the match, and then’s just nine guys with a combined age of 500 flopping around the ring in slow-motion. Instead of showing excitement for the match, they spent their time trying to cut half of it down, making the whole affair a waste of time. I can’t begin to think what the Rock vs Hogan match at WrestleMania X8 would have been like if the three headed team of idiots had called that one.

Watching it live I would rate it a 9/10. Watching it on TV I would give it a 3/10. Put together and the match gets a 5/10 from me. What a shame that a match with such potential was butchered by inept commentary; the blame for which lies at the feet of the petty boss yelling into their headsets, who refused to put over a WCW talent who had spurned their many requests and desires to have him join their promotion, and who refuses to let a ratings war (that he won, by the way) from almost 20 years ago die.

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As per the norm, the Divas match got short-changed. Though thankfully, on a card that had no matches cross the 20-minute mark, there were no silly 5-second rollups or instant-finishers. Still, the Divas had six minutes for a tag match, when most in the crowd would have preferred a title match. We got what we got and it was just as good on TV as it was live.

7/10. As with so many other matches on the show, there was not much to sink your teeth into story-wise but the performance saved it; the Divas went all out and gave the fans a good WrestleMania match.

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I admit the sun was RIGHT in my vision (as the videos show) so that probably hampered my enjoyment of this one a bit. But still, watching it live, the Cena vs Rusev match seemed better than their Fast Lane contest, perhaps because of the spectacle or the definitive finish. It still wasn’t a great match, but it was very good. The fear with working with Cena is that, even though he’s working a mid-card feud, he is still the unquestioned top-dog in the company. There’s no where to go but down after working with him, unless it’s the world title. You either beat him and win (or head toward winning) the top championship, or you lose and fall down the card for your next feud. It’s all risk all reward, and since Rusev isn’t going to be a main-event title challenger in 2015 (or at least it’s highly unlikely) he had no chance of coming out of the Cena feud looking good. He lost, and will likely lose again at Extreme Rules, and then what? It’s the same thing that happened to Bray Wyatt. It took an entire year to book him so that he seemed like a halfway credible challenger to the Undertaker. Rusev may need similar rehabilitation after Cena is done with him.

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Still, I can’t tell you how cool it was to see Rusev come out in a tank. A freaking TANK! And despite how wonderful Lana is as a character, Rusev really doesn’t need her; he’s a really good talker who understands the rare wrestling art of subtlety. The crowd was into Rusev, somewhat because it’s simply “a thing” to boo Cena, but also because they respect how good he’s been since getting called up to the main roster last year. This was one of the only stories that didn’t suck in the build-up to the show, although that’s a mixed opinion. I personally understand the deep-rooted history of jingo-based “America! We rule!” stories, so I was cool with it. The finish was inevitable, but well earned (even if the end result may be a damaged Rusev going forward).

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8/10. The performance measured up to the quality of the story.

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How well you think the Undertaker vs Bray Wyatt feud worked depends a lot on how well you think Bray Wyatt did in carrying the feud single-handedly. Personally I think he did a great job doing a near-impossible task. He had no one to interact with, not across the ring from him in promo-battles, not in tag matches, not in sudden run-in brawls around the ring. Nothing. It was just him and an empty pine box. Credit to Bray Wyatt and the WWE production team for literally making something out of nothing.

Bray was hampered by a sprained ankle on the morning of the show, and Undertaker of course is 50 years old, having had multiples surgeries (including a hip replacement) and a concussion last year that killed what ended up becoming the most infamous match of his career right at the outset. There were a lot of factors working against the match, but Undertaker looked great, Wyatt’s ankle held up, and the fans got to witness the Phenom’s magic for what will probably be one of the last times. It wasn’t a great match, but grading it on a curve it was better than it should have been.

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7/10. Great effort by all involved. Despite the sunlight killing the mystique of both men’s entrances, they worked hard to great a great atmosphere, and it was. Here’s hoping next year Bray finally wins one of these high profile matches.

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There’s not much more to be said about the main event that hasn’t already been written. Everything about it worked. It was not a great “wrestling” match, ala Angle vs Lesnar. It wasn’t an evenly-matched fight, ala Austin vs Rock. But that’s okay because it wasn’t booked that way. It was booked to be Lesnar taking it to the challenger, and that challenger having a combination of youthful zeal and straight-moxie, refusing to just take the pin and admit defeat. That was the opening act, and it was glorious for the crowd of 70,000 rabid Lesnar fans.

The main event: no one was sitting

The other 6,000 Reigns fans had to wait for act two. Act two started with Lesnar ramming his head into the turnbuckle and bleeding profusely. That led to Reigns being shocked to discover he might have an outside chance of actually winning. Three superman punches and two spears later and it looked like the challenger might actually pull of the upset of the century. Again, this was phenomenal booking, as it put Lesnar over as unstoppable by definition and put Reigns over as someone who technically didn’t have a chance, but still could have pulled it off because a few lucky breaks went his way.

Then act three happened. Right as Lesnar hit his fourth (!) F5, he and Reigns both hit the mat. The challenger was spent, the champion exhausted. And then the jackal pounced. Rollins’ cash-in switched the allegiance of almost all the Lesnar fans over to Team Seth. He won the title, as Heyman would mention the next night, with a pin on the challenger: giving Reigns sympathy, giving Rollins good heat, and giving Lesnar an out as a still-unpinned, unconquered beast incarnate.

You can’t see him, but the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion is down there, basking in the glory of his moment

Everyone came out looking good. Everyone ended the night a thousand times better than they looked coming in.

Let’s not forget that the story building up to this match concluded with Reigns and Lesnar playing tug of war with the WWE Championship. Before that the champ and challenger had only one face-to-face encounter, on the snowed-in Raw, the night after the Royal Rumble. The challenger was diminished week after week, and the champion offered no motivation or reason to see him win or lose. It wasn’t until he went on ESPN and announced he was re-signing with WWE, that the fans finally had something to work with. Unfortunately it was to treat Lesnar as a hero for sticking with the fans, and thus Reigns was forced to play the role of villain trying to deprive the hero of his championship.

That wasn’t the story WWE wanted to tell. And because of that they changed their plans and went with Seth Rollins in one of the most memorable and shocking finishes in WrestleMania history.

The story was trash, but it was saved by three incredible performances. 10/10. I can’t imagine doing this match any different, or changing anything that they did. I might have changed a LOT in the build up, and that would have changed how to book the match, but going in with what crap they had to work with, WWE crafted the perfect story with this 16-minute affair. Hats off to all parties.

It took the show to be over before the lighting and stage could be fully appreciated

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For the most part this was a WrestleMania that had chance of living up to the standard set the year prior. WrestleMania XXX capped off one of the better storylines in WWE history: Daniel Bryan’s journey–both real and kayfabe–to the top of the ladder. Other great stories that year were the Wyatt’s quest to end the legacy of John Cena, and Brock Lesnar’s mission to conquer the Undertaker’s streak. All of those stories had memorable moments and big matches to compliment them.

This year the stories were a disappointment almost across the board, but the company put the fate of the show in the hands of their wrestlers. They needed the talent to overcome the weakness of the writing and boy did they: They all stepped up and wrestled their way into a great WrestleMania; one for the ages.

9/10 being there live; 8/10 watching it on TV.

Every match was enhanced being there live, and none of them had the chance to be diminished by inept commentary.

See page #6 for my Raw experience…

WWE WrestleMania 31 Trip Diary

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