Category: Wrestling PPV Musings

Date: April 6–7, 2024
Venue: Lincoln Financial Field – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Attendance –
Night 1: 72,543
Night 2: 72,755
Combined: 145,298

Yeah, so despite some Network issues and a last minute decision to go watch the new Godzilla X Kong movie this weekend – great popcorn flick, by the way – I was able to watch both nights of Wrestlemania XL and, well, it certainly lived up to the XL part if nothing else.

I actually wanted to hold this off for another week or so before posting

So the show opens with Paul “Triple H” Levesque (who is actually introduced as such – thanks, Paul E!) coming out and welcoming us to a new era in WWE. You can tell that it’s a new era (yes, it is) because there’s a Prime bottle decal in the middle of the ring; something that WWE has never done before. Prime is the energy drink brand of that Logan Paul fellow. I tried some. It’s medicinal, but that’s about it. But more importantly, this is the first Wrestlemania without any involvement from [REDACTED] and that is readily apparently with a lot of the little touches you wouldn’t normally see, like backstage bits with the wrestlers walking to their entrance, unique camera angles, and things of that nature. This is stuff I noticed when watching the last couple PPVs, but seeing it at Wrestlemania really hammered home that a changing of the guard was needed to freshen things up from a production and visual standpoint. I like that personally.

With that in mind, on with the show…

Continue reading “Ramblemania 40 – WWE Wrestlemania XL”

Date: April 1–2, 2023
Venue: SoFi Stadium – Inglewood, California
Attendance:
Night 1: 67,303
Night 2: 67,553
Combined: 134,856

Yes, we’re back on this show again… and you know what that means?

I’ve written about my thoughts regarding this show last year and watching a year later – even taking into account everything that has happened since then – my thoughts more or less remain consistent. So the good majority of this Ramblemania Rewind is going to read like something of a repost, save for minor tenses and things of that nature.

Wrestlemania 39 took place last weekend; two nights of Wrestlemania, with one night easily considered to be one of the best Wrestlemania cards ever put together and the other night… well, you know.

This was the first time that I was actively looking forward to a Wrestlemania. Hell, it was the first time that I was actively invested in a major WWE storyline without all of the usual trappings that would be associated with. I was actually enjoying the ride that they were taking me on for the first time in a long, LONG while. I was actually intrigued by how things were going to turn out. And Wrestlemania turned out to be a tale of two shows. One show living up to the hype and delivering the pay-off to one of the most engaging storylines in years and the other… well, you know the old saying about the more things change…

The funny thing is that at the end of night one, I could safely that I had a good time. I will go so far to say that night one was one of the best Wrestlemania cards put together on PPV and it all came together thanks to all the superstars who made it happen. The way I saw it, Night One went down exactly as it should and everything played out exactly as it needed to. It was a good feeling.

But as the good feeling started to fall away, there was a dark thought came to mind. A thought that was fleeting and yet that fleeting moment was enough to cast doubt on the second night. It was the thought that if Night One is where everything would go right, then Night Two is where everything would come crumbling down.

Sure enough…

Okay, let’s get this over with.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 39 – WWE Wrestlemania 39 (2023)”

Date: April 2–3, 2022
Venue: AT&T Stadium – Arlington, Texas
Attendance
Night 1: 65,719
Night 2: 65,653
Combined: 131,372

A lesson to be learned: just because you call something stupendous doesn’t necessarily make it so.

Yes, I used that opening line in the original Ramblemania post. Yes, it’s still valid.

Anyway, this is Wrestlemania 38. Another two-night affair that I recall taking me several days to get through because it was so damned long. The good news is that I was able to watch this show in two nights, meaning I sat through each night without interruption. Unfortunately, each night of Wrestlemania 38 were witnessed days apart and if I’m going to be honest, that was the only way that I would even consider giving this thing a shot. My main complaint with this show was that it was too damned long – each night was roughly four hours a night and a lot of these shows felt considerably bloated.

What helped this time around was a lot of fast forwarding, skipping through the non-wrestling bits and extraneous commercials. Even with a wonky Network interface, this helped in making these shows more tolerable than usual.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 38 – WWE Wrestlemania 38 (2022)”

Date: April 10–11, 2021
Venue: Raymond James Stadium – Tampa, Florida
Attendance Night 1: 17,946
Attendance Night 2: 18,501
Combined: 40,806

“It’s Like Having Two Days Of Colonoscopies.”
Jim Ross on two nights of Wrestlemania

For some reason, I found that quote from WWE Hall Of Famer, AEW Announcer, and former Dippin’ Dots pitchman Jim Ross funny. And considering I’ve had my share of colonoscopies over the years, that certainly sounds like an apt analogy.

Wrestlemania 37 would be the first WWE show since the pandemic shut everything down to host a large number of fans. We’re not quite at full capacity yet since COVID was still a prominent heel and we wouldn’t get filled arenas until that year’s Money In The Bank PPV (although AEW would beat them to the punch with their Double Or Nothing show from Daily’s Place). Still, for what it’s worth, the crowd was .

WWE decided to keep the two-night format that continues to this day, thus making Wrestlemania bigger than ever. Some people would question the decision to do this, but honestly, I thought it was the right move. A one-night Wrestlemania lasting ten hours or so was simply too much of a chore to sit through and since I would end up watching those shows over several nights, the decision to make two nights at three-ish hours a piece makes it much more manageable… so long as they keep it that length and not go overboard… as they are prone to doing.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 37 – WWE Wrestlemania 37 (2021)”

Date: April 4-5, 2020
Venue: WWE Performance Center – Orlando, FL
Attendance: 0

So… 2020 was an interesting year. I lived it. You lived it. We all lived it. No need to go into the details. Because WWE sure as hell wouldn’t and… yeah, let’s not go there.

Anyway, due to prevailing circumstances, Wrestlemania 36 and all subsequent WWE programming for the foreseeable future would move from their originally scheduled locations to the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, where the only audience greeting the talent would be watching from their homes on television. Empty arena matches were a gimmick once upon a time. Hell, promotions holding shows in closed studio settings with no fans was often a sign of troubling times. Never in a million years would I expect WWE to hold such shows in such a format, let alone a Wrestlemania… but here we are.

Even watching these years later, it’s still such a surreal sight. And while the rest of the world was pretty much shut down, the wrestling business would continue onwards, whether it’d be WWE, AEW, or even Impact at times. There’s always the discussion of whether they should or shouldn’t have done so, but what’s done is done… and for the most part, the business survived. And for what it’s worth, this is the first Wrestlemania to be held over two nights; a tradition that would continue to this very day. Mind you, I still would’ve preferred a single, four-hour show, but given the option between a single TEN HOUR show, and two slightly smaller ones… I’ll go with the two-night option.

So here we are… Wrestlemania 36 in an empty Performance Center… what could possibly go right?

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 36 – WWE Wrestlemania 36 (2020)”

WWE Wrestlemania 36
Sunday, April 5th, 2020
Raymond James Stadium
Tampa, FL
Attendance: 283,098

Wrestlemania 36 was the widely-attended event from Tampa. So widely attended that it broke the worldwide record in the history of attendance. And look, I know I said that Wrestlemania X-Seven was the textbook example of a quality Wrestlemania card and I do still consider that the absolute BEST Mania of all time… but goddamn does 36 come close.

In what seems like the opposite of Mania 35 – a show that lasted eleventy-billion hours – Mania 36’s runtime clocked in roughly less than two hours and thirty minutes. Add another two hours for the pre-show where they had their annual battle royales that I don’t care for, but this was a short show with some big matches.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind – WWE Wrestlemania 36 (2020)”

Date: April 7, 2019
Venue: MetLife Stadium – East Rutherford, New Jersey
Attendance: 68,000–70,000

For what it’s worth, this was a rather significant and newsworthy Wrestlemania.

For the first time in its 34 year history, three of WWE’s top female wrestles would headline a Wrestlemania main event. It was here that saw Kofi Kingston become the first black man to be crowned WWE World Heavyweight Champion… some would argue Rock, but Rock’s only part-Black – he’d more accurately be the first person of color to win said title. It was on this show where Kurt Angle and Dave Bautista would have their final wrestling matches… neither of which were high notes to end a career on, but that’s another story entirely. It was on this show…’s pre-show where Curt Hawkins – man who lost more matches than he’s had matches – would team with partner Zack Ryder to win the RAW Tag-Team Titles. The team they beat for those titles? The Revival… as in FUCK THE REVIVAL. Or FTR for short.

A fairly significant show with some fairly significant stuff… and the only takeaway I got from this show is that it was too goddamned long.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 35 – WWE Wrestlemania 35 (2019)”