Charlotte (c) vs Sasha Banks vs Becky Lynch – Triple-Threat Match
Grade: A
The show stealer that proved women’s wrestling is back with a vengeance, the Triple Threat for the all-new Women’s Championship was only held back by a screwy finish from it being a true classic. There were a couple of botches, but considering this was the Wrestlemania debut for all three wrestlers, it was a fantastic match-up with talents that will light up the rest of the year and not just in the Women’s division.
The only match with a palpable build beforehand that made real sense, 3/4 of The Four Horsewoman didn’t just ask for your attention, they demanded it. Charlotte’s moonsault from the top rope was inch-perfect and surely one of the best spots of the rope with the outsider, Becky Lynch, proving that she isn’t an also-ran with a ferocious display. The highlight was, of course, the Legit Boss Sasha Banks, already one of the greatest female talents the WWE has ever had. She showed that she isn’t just an indie darling, enrapturing 100,000 people with aplomb.
It would have made much more sense for a red-hot face to win the first Women’s title and really enliven the crowd, but WWE decided to bugger off predictability all night with this being one of many that looked like it would go any other way. The Divas Revolution came full circle in spectacular fashion.
Shane McMahon vs The Undertaker – Hell in a Cell
Grade: B-
“You want change? Here’s some change! *makes fake money fall from the roof* Now watch me shit on your dreams.” – Vince McMahon
Anyone going into Shane McMahon vs. The Undertaker expecting Taker-Michaels III was going to have a bad time with this one. With a combined age of almost 100, two part-timers were never going to put on a classic, though it has to be said that of the two, Taker looked the most gassed throughout. Shane didn’t exactly look like early 2000’s Kurt Angle either, though.
A fairly slow and cumbersome match elevated by Spot of the Year with Shane falling through a table from the top of the cell, this odd rivalry proved to be as okay as anyone could have expected when it came time for the two to actually battle. Shane showed some rustiness, and so too did Taker, but the underdog did himself and his young sons in the crowd proud.
However, if The Authority are still in power by this time next year, there’s every chance that I am going to throw myself off something really tall too.
Not really, I will just whinge about it on Twitter.
Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal (Baron Corbin)
Grade: C-
Weird, weird match. You had one Legend enter the ring unannounced, Tatanka, and then had another, DDP, come out to his own music before failing to highlight that the former was involved until well into the match. The crowd were flat, and they had every right to be following the cell match, with the entrants looking for the most part like someone had gone to Main Event with a JCB and scooped them up.
On a night when the underdogs were routinely told to stay down, it was a welcome surprise to see NXT’s Baron Corbin get the big win his career needed. A debut on the main roster beckons – let’s just hope they utilise him better than they did Tyler Breeze.
Oh, Shaq was there. That was a thing. It made me super tired.
The Rock vs Erick Rowan
Grade: F-
Let’s drop the pretense of journalistic professionalism for a second: absolutely fuck this booking in its face. Feeding a full-time talent to someone who can hardly even qualify as a part-timer is terrible booking, showing once again that Vince simply cannot foster new talent. Erick Rowan obviously isn’t going to challenge for any titles, but his quick loss again shows that the Wyatt Family just cannot buy a win.
Bray Wyatt is, without a doubt, the most underused wrestler on the roster right now. Coming in to Wrestlemania 32, his not having a match rankled many, but after this clusterfuck of a display, they will wish he hadn’t been involved whatsoever.
The Rock came out brandishing a flamethrower in one of the most masturbatory promos ever seen in WWE, congratulating himself and the company on breaking an attendance record – all it was missing was a plug for the Baywatch movie.
Once The Wyatts’ music hit, a burial was imminent and inevitable, but even the most cynical of fans couldn’t haven’t expected it would be that bad. The best opportunity to push Bray to where he deserves to be disappeared as soon as The Rock tore off his pants and defeated Erick Rowan in an embarrassing six seconds.
The humiliation continued when John Cena’s music hit as he helped The Rock to clear the ring of a beleaguered Wyatt Family, once the next best thing in the company but now only a few losses away from being a bearded 3MB. Bray Wyatt deserves better than to be squashed by two middle-aged men in front of 100,000 people.
Triple H (c) vs Roman Reigns
Grade: D
This was it. The Mania main event that WWE wanted to pull of last year, but couldn’t risk because of fan backlash. After slowly building Roman Reigns back up over the course of a year, would they finally rally behind him during his perfunctory WWE World Heavyweight Champion inauguration?
Nope. They booed the water off of his hair throughout the whole thing, no matter how much WWE tried to dampen the boos with some questionable audio tampering.
Triple H has never been the most exciting wrestler to watch, all of his matches seem to follow the same template. Roman Reigns is even worse, having about five moves and a suggestive wrist wank in his arsenal. So when the two locked up, the crowd seemed resigned to watching a main event that had an outcome about as obvious as The Big Show hiding behind a Bonsai tree.
It was dull, predictable, and underwhelming. When the biggest crowd reaction is Stephanie McMahon receiving a spear, you know you aren’t doing something right.
Selling an arm injury throughout the majority of the match, the plucky underdog built like a brick shithouse, Roman Reigns, did an average job because, don’t be shocked when I tell you this, he is an average talent. He can’t do variety, he can’t work a microphone, he just can’t do all the things a top star needs to do. He is only where he is because of his looks. Comparisons to Cena are actually unfair – at least John shows willing to mix things up and can actually captivate a crowd, for good or bad.
The future looks bleak for WWE, at least as far as the IWC is concerned. Casual fans will probably wonder what all the uproar is about, but one thing’s for certain: Raw is going to have to go sawft to have any chance of recovering from one of the most underwhelming Wrestlemanias in history.
OVERALL RATING: C
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