WWE WrestleMania 32 Trip DiaryBy Matthew Martin| April 7, 2016 Wrestling Blogs Previous Page So my biggest criticism of WrestleMania 32 was how so much of the show seemed like it was being booked too much with Raw the next night in mind. Far be it for me to criticize Vince McMahon for actually thinking ahead for a change, but the booking at WrestleMania suffered over and over as too many heels went over just to pay things off at a later date. WrestleMania is supposed to be the event when the payoff happens, not Raw or any other show. But what’s done is done so you’d think, with all the attention paid to Raw, that the show would live up to the hype. Did it? This was my second “Raw After WrestleMania in a row” and while I really enjoyed last year’s show, I thought it disappointed in one critical area: It wasn’t laid out properly. The high point of the show was Brock Lesnar challenging Seth Rollins for the title, getting cheated out of it, going berserk and getting suspended. That happened halfway through the show. The main event was Roman Reigns beating up Big Show and Kane. The crowd crapped all over that ending as it felt like R.A.W. built and built to a dud finish. Had the Roman Reigns stuff been midway in the show and Lesnar’s tirade closed it out, R.A.W. would have lived up the hype. So this year needed to be a more than just a show with big surprises and debuts. It also needed to build to a memorable finish. Did it? For our last show of the weekend I loaded up my Caleb and we climbed the stairs to the very top of the American Airlines Center. And I mean the very top, like “backs against the wall” top. Here’s where I want to mention how stupidly expensive a hotdog and a Dr. Pepper are at the American Airlines Center. It’s been a couple days and I’m still scared to look at my credit card bill after our trip. Anyway, Raw. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Our show begins with promise. Vince comes out and, seemingly reacting to the wishes of the crowd (how’s that for a change of pace), decides to give Shane control of Raw anyway. Sure the whole feud for the past two months was built around avoiding this very thing, but it’s WWE: If you’re not used to nothing making sense by now you need to switch to Golf. There’s no telling whether Shane is going to be around for a few weeks, a few months, or if this was a one-night thing. Hopefully, no matter what, this is at least the beginning of the end for the Authority. It’s run its course and it’s time for new direction. I’d love for the main show to adopt something like NXT has (go figure) with a neutral authority figure that books matches and keeps the peace. We’ll see what’s in store. New Day sang the Lion King theme to a giant Booty-O cereal piece (which was just delightful), then fought the League of Nations again (which was just tiresome). At this point, it’s just been too much New Day vs League of Nations. The crowd was excited for New Day (and is never excited for LON) but it’s just too much of the same match over and over. It’s rare for the post-Mania crowd to do the wave this early in the night, but this time it was deserved. The real story is the post-match shenanigans that saw the Wyatt Family turn babyface and attack the loser jobbers from Europe. I don’t want to say I called a face turn, but I totally called a face turn (or at least, strongly suggested one). After being a dead fish for so many months I have high hopes that this might be the beginning of Wyatt’s rehabilitation. Sasha Banks squashed Summer Rae and began her own rebuilding after being the shoe-in to win the title at Mania only for the heel to inexplicably retain. I still think she’ll be the next champion, by no later than SummerSlam, though selfishly I want to see it happen as soon as possible. Apollo Crews was given a hype video package and a surprising debut, defeating sad sad Tyler Breeze. Some might think this is too soon for Crews; he never really did anything in NXT and seemed to need some work on his promo skills. But honestly it seems like he’ll be a better fit on the main roster. He will be featured every week, doing flashy moves and smiling for the cameras, will slip in and out of some midcard title feuds until the company is ready to get behind him and when they do he’s just good enough at some things, and really good at other things, that he will make it. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a WWE Champion within three years. He’s exactly the kind of performer Vince loves. I haven’t watched the TV version of the show so I don’t know if they screwed around with the crowd audio like they did at WrestleMania, but when Roman Reigns finally came out the boos were deafening. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content He cut his now famous “I’m not a bad guy…I’m not a good guy…I’m the guy” promo that has everyone buzzing about a heel turn. I don’t want to be pessimistic or cynical but I don’t believe he’s turning heel. I think this was a promo very calculated to deal with the Raw After WrestleMania crowd and the initial anger that his title win is going to produce. I think the plan for him is to face a combination of heels and faces on PPV for his title, defeat them all and take the cheers or the boos as they come. They know now they can’t win him over with the hardcore fanbase as a sympathetic underdog so they’re just not going to try…but they’re also not going to change. We had ten years of John Cena getting booed by half the crowd, but he was “the” guy so he kept on winning, despite that. Now we have a champ getting booed by—at best—two-thirds of the crowd, but he’s “the” guy, so he’s going to keep on winning. Stubbornness reigns supreme. So let’s dispel with the idea that Roman is going to be a heel from now on. He may get booed, he may even insult the audience and some babyface superstars but that doesn’t actually make him a heel. A heel, even a dominant heel champion, is bred to lose to the babyface. That’s the whole purpose of a heel. Roman isn’t a heel because not going to lose. Roman is essentially going to be booked like a babyface champ but will simply stop trying to win over the fans that boo him. He’s going to get his Hogan/Cena-esque long title run and put down challenger after challenger, despite being presented as a defacto heel. Honestly it’s the worst of both worlds, if you ask me. Baron Corbin put on a match that I’m told played pretty well on TV. That’s good because it was death warmed over with the live crowd. No one cared so the crowd sort of went into business for itself. There was this beachball that was tossed around one side of the arena that captured most of the attention. Occasionally it would get taken away and the crowd would boo. Then it’d get brought back and everyone would cheer. Then someone would act like he was going to throw it but would instead take it away (prompting a “you sold out” chant). If you hear any of that during the TV match, I promise you: No one was chanting anything at the match or at either Corbin or Dolph Ziggler. Dolph’s a good first feud for Corbin as he will make the NXT call-up look like a million bucks when really his moveset is very limited. Still the future is bright for Corbin. He’s the opposite of Crews in that he’s got a great character but isn’t great in the ring. He’s also big so you know Vince loves him. He’ll be fine. There were rumors over the weekend that Maryse would be returning to help Miz win the title so I wasn’t surprised when she came through the crowd to do just that. I’m hopeful that this is not the end of Zack Ryder and that we actually see him become a regular player on Raw. He’s got charisma and a connection with the audience. You can’t just make that happen (cough…Reigns…cough); there’s no reason not to use it. Charlotte never should have retained the championship at WrestleMania. That was clear on Sunday and it was clear on Monday. Whoever had the idea to let Charlotte cut a babyface “we did this; thank you WWE Universe” promo should be fired. She’s a heel. Her character cheated (via an assist from her father) to win just last night over two extremely popular women. You can’t expect her to cut a passionate “we did it” promo, even if it was designed to lead into a heelish “but really I did it” finish. The crowd crapped all over it because they were expecting Bayley to debut. So…we chanted for Bayley. We sang for Bayley. We waited for Bayley. Apparently Cole informed the TV audience that Bayley wasn’t there, but we didn’t know that. So instead we got Natalya, who we just saw Charlotte beat a month ago. Sigh. At this point the crowd was frustrated. The hot start to the show had cooled down and now we were getting another in the seemingly never-ending Dudley Boyz vs Usos feud. Thankfully it was short and sweet and ended in such a way that it felt like the end of the story. They cut to a commercial break after the match but everyone started noticing that Bubba Ray and Devon were still hanging out around the ring. A buzz filled the stadium as people started shifting in their seats and grabbing their phones. I could feel it too so I grabbed mine. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content All the disappointment in the middle hour just melted away. Enzo cut his best promo in months. He’s still running through his “my name is…” spiel a little too fast; he needs to slow that down for the newbies to keep up, but his verbal smackdown of Bubba Ray and Devon was thermonuclear. You couldn’t have written or performed a better debut, and the fact that 13,000 people in attendance were right there with him every step of the way made it all the sweeter. I’ve been waiting for this moment since August. Finally it’s here. Now give me New Day vs Enzo and Cass. That lead us right into the main event and the wonderful return of Cesaro. Right now Cesaro is my favorite active wrestler and he showed everyone why once again tonight. He was absolutely on fire in this match, showing off his strength, his speed and his unmistakable charisma. It’s legit laughable when Vince McMahon says (as he did on the Stone Cold podcast last year) that Cesaro doesn’t “connect” with audiences the way he should. This main event was sixteen minutes of Cesaro showing just how well he connects with the audience. The story of the match though, was the surprise winner. Everyone expected Jericho to win. And had he, it would have been another safe feud for Reigns to work to try and get him over in the ho hum boring way. Instead we get AJ Styles avenging his WrestleMania loss and winning a match with bigger stakes than he faced on Sunday. Now he’s the number one contender to the WWE title just three months after debuting with the company. Let’s be real, you can fantasy book a Bullet Club invasion, a title win, a Finn Balor debut and a fight between the two Bullet Club leaders over the WWE Title all you want, but the fact is Reigns is “the” guy and he’s not giving up the title any time soon. Don’t get your hopes up. Don’t do that to yourself. It’s going to be a great match because AJ will see to it that it is, and when it’s over Reigns will continue being “the” guy. Caleb and I actually ran down stairs to the floor of the arena to watch the end of the main event up close and amazingly no security stopped us or sent us back to our seats. After jumping multiple fences on Sunday I was feeling totally in the zone. As soon as AJ won we hightailed it out of the arena and to the first taxi we could see. Within ten minutes we were back at the hotel, in bed and ready to arise to begin our five hour journey home. 8/10 – R.A.W. this year had a strong opening and a hot finish but the middle dragged; a problem with Raw every week since the show expanded to three hours. The highs were very high though and the lows weren’t that bad. A good show overall. ~~~ I don’t plan on going to WrestleMania 33 next year. I wouldn’t have gone this year if it hadn’t been so close to where I live. With the whole trip behind me I can look back on it and say, even though it was a lot of money spent, I’m still glad I went. If you’re a wrestling fan you need to find a way to go, even if you can only go once. I’m glad this year I got to take my children and give them memories they will never forget. I may be jaded and cynical but I can see the power WWE has on people. I saw it in Jack’s face as he watched Shane climb to the top of the Hell in a Cell. I saw it on Caleb’s face as he roared with laughter at New Day talking about “booty.” I saw it on my own face (metaphorically speaking) as I witnessed Nakamura and Zayn put on the match of the year. WrestleMania itself may have been a disappointment compared to past shows, but “WrestleMania” the four-day experience is something I’ll never forget.
