I love wrestling. I genuinely do. It’s wild, it’s crazy and it’s full of larger than life characters. It also has some of the most impressive athletes in the world. If anyone ever makes the statement that Wrestlers aren’t athletes then just stop reading this article right now. I understand the constant comments of “Oh they use fake/weaker weapons” and “Everything is staged” and “Half of the solid talent isn’t even being used by the company!”…Actually, that last one is one I agree with wholeheartedly but anyway I wanted to get into why I loved this past weekend’s Wrestlemania.
As previously mentioned, one of my favorite aspects of Wrestling is the characters themselves. I say characters because that’s ultimately what they are. They’re performers as well as athletes. It’s a great show to watch when you have someone that can portray an actual story while still in the ring. That means that yes, they’re performing these wild and crazy stunts all while making sure their character is understood. Now, I loved that Drew McIntyre finally won.(A match which WiseSage called 90% percent correctly because Brock Lesnar is such a hack that you can see his entire moveset in under 15 seconds.) I loved seeing Edge, he looked as good as ever and he even made Randy Orton have a good match…which is not an easy feat. But the first two matches I wanted to talk about were actually a bit different.
So first off, we had the Boneyard match between AJ Styles and The Undertaker. Typically I hate matches like this because it doesn’t allow for the wrestlers to actually, well, wrestle. AJ is a high-flyer that does a lot inside the ring so I initially hated the idea of him being involved in a match like this but of course, whenever you put 2 of the greatest of all time on the same screen, you have a chance for magic to happen. The Bonyard match basically became a celebration of The Undertaker and was mainly a match that was discussing if The Undertaker was too old to do this anymore. Well naturally, he may not be as fast as he was when he was younger but he absolutely still has it in him. I’m not sure when he’s gonna be done or how many more matches he has in him but I know that this one was a great one to watch for someone who has followed his career most of my life.
Next up was the Firefly Fun House match between Bray Wyatt/The Fiend vs. John Cena. I will readily admit that this match would not have been as good for newcomers or really anyone who hasn’t watched a lot of older wrestling because the basic crux of the match was that Bray was taking John through the history of the company to basically tell him that he was a fraud and that he wasn’t the great superstar that he claimed to be. This involved both Bray and John going through multiple wardrobe changes and giving some truly incredible performances. Honestly my only complaint was that it wasn’t really much of a match and was more of a segment. That’s not necessarily a bad thing due to how much Bray plays with the horror aspect of his character but I personally would’ve enjoyed seeing it continue into an actual match at the end.
While both of those were great, they were out of the ring most of the time and were more thematic matches. What about the traditional ones? Well they were a bit different and all of the shows have been the last few weeks due the fact that there haven’t been any fans present. I’ve gotta be honest, this made everything way better for me as viewer. I know that there have been some great fan interactions before and I know it’s part of what some of the wrestlers use to help them out but I honestly enjoyed how we could hear basically every single word they were saying in the rings. This was exceptionally shown during the Women’s Fatal 5 Way for the Smackdown championship. Bayley as a heel in the last few months has been a lot more vocal during her matches and it has been great to see her really come into her own as a heel. Hearing one of the announcers say “Oh, That was close.” and then you hear Bayley just immediately respond with “No, it wasn’t.” Was just the kind of thing that I loved about this evening. Plus the rest of the match was actually fantastic…except for my girl, Naomi wasn’t in it enough but you know, it happens.
This brings me to what was clearly the best match of the entire weekend and that’s Kevin Owens vs. Seth Rollins. Both of these guys are known for running their mouths in and out of the ring and this is where the ability to hear everything they were saying made it more interesting. They made it out like it was Luthor vs. Superman, Wolverine vs. Sabretooth, Scott Lobdell vs. Dialogue or any other classical comic book match up. Of course, like all good wrestling matches, the storyline and the dialogue is only half of the entertainment. Seth and Kevin are both incredible fighters and they are able to put on a great show no matter what the circumstances. Whether it was The Sling blade from Seth, the frog splash from Kevin or that phenomenal Death Drop finale. This match was made me love this Wrestlemania.
