SIGH…
So look, WrestleMania has come and gone. And once again, WrestleMania has disappointed. I know; hurl your middle fingers at me through your computer. I bath in middle fingers, so it doesn’t affect me; however, the booking of the main roster continues to be the downfall of the main roster.
I missed the pre-show honestly, so I can’t judge those matches. Seven hours is way too damn long. I got stuff to do, like, count my fingers and things. That’s important! I am sad that I missed the cruiserweight match, but I’ll catch that later in the week. I hope next year the cruiserweights aren’t stuck in the pre-show slot again. Seriously, check out 205 Live if you can. Since Triple H took over, it’s been really good stuff.
Lesnar/Reigns existed. Loved their WrestleMania 31 match, but this one I just didn’t care. When your match consists of numerous amounts of suplexes, superman punches, spears, F5’s, and blood (and I usually get excited for blood), there’s only so much excitement on my end for the repetitiveness.
The Fatal 4 Way United States Championship match, Nia Jax vs. Alexa Bliss, The Triple Threat Tag Team match For the Smackdown Live Tag Team titles were fine, but forgettable. There were flips, dives, samoan drops, but sadly Randy Orton didn’t set any of his opponents on fire on Rusev day. I digress.
Triple Threat match for the Intercontinental title was a fun opener. Is Miz turning face now? I totally expected shenanigans, but surprisingly none.
Daniel Bryan/Shane McMahon vs. Kevin Owens/Sami Zayn was fine as well. Great to see Bryan back in the ring. Perhaps he can teach Shane to stop punching air because man he was punching the hell out of that air.
Cesaro/Sheamus vs. Braun Strowman and Nicholas was a fun moment, but was that one moment worth burying the tag team division even deeper? I don’t care that Strowman is being built as a monster. Tag Team wrestling shouldn’t be treated the same as singles wrestling. Cesaro and Sheamus should’ve had the advantage because they’re a strong tag team; who should’ve outsmarted and out staged any singles wrestler. But hey, we got a happy moment.
Taker vs. Cena was what it was. The Undertaker is truly a legend, but hopefully this was his last match. All that build just for a disappointing 3-minute squash match.
Ronda Rousey/Kurt Angle vs. Triple H/Stephanie was just awesome. Overall, I would call this the best match of the show. No, this wasn’t a masterclass of technical wrestling. The atmosphere and the story carried this match to being great. Ronda Rousey looked good and within a year, she’ll be great.
Styles/Nakamura was good, not great. I wasn’t as disappointed as everyone else because I felt the same way about their wrestle kingdom match. I know, I’ll hand you my smark card at the door. However, the Nakamura turn was fantastic. Styles winning was a great call because I was never invested in Nakamura’s character. To me, he was just some crazy dance man with weird expressions. Who is Shinsuke Nakamura? Was a question yet to be answered. I was happy that we didn’t get the Asuka post-match ending. A heel Nakamura is a very interesting dynamic now and I’m curious to see how WWE’s books him from here.
Now Asuka vs. Charlotte
SIGH…
First, these ladies worked hard to produce a great match that could have been excellent with more time as the ending felt abrupt. But for the love of god, the ending really drove me crazy. Look, I understand a lot of people were bored of Asuka’s matches because they were predictable; however, the purpose of Asuka’s streak was to make a STAR out of the wrestler who defeated Asuka.
Charlotte is already a star and she DID NOT/NOR SHOULD NOT have ended Asuka’s streak. This was one of the stupidest booking decisions I’ve seen from this company. The streak ends when Asuka couldn’t even get the women’s title on her first try against an already established star. I really had to count my fingers again because I couldn’t believe after all that built up, this is how the streak ends. With a whimper, not a bang.
I would’ve forgiven this if the post-match was a telling sign that change was going to come for Asuka’s character. Asuka’s emotional state after suffering her first lost could have been a very compelling story. A drastic change for a character who failed on her journey, but instead she hugs, smiles, and awkwardly waits in the ring as John Cena goes to the back for a bathroom break. A great way to kill any sort of interesting angle for her character.
WrestleMania came and gone, but Takeover won this weekend. This was by no means a terrible show. A fun show if you watched, but one you don’t need to go out of your way to see again.
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