Category: Wrestling PPV Musings

Date: April 2nd, 2017
Venue: Camping World Stadium – Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 64,900

I forgot about the roller coaster set that they had for this show… to sort of live up to that “Ultimate Thrill Ride” tagline that was used to promote this – the thirty-third edition of the Showcase Of The Immortals, the Show Of Shows, the Grandest Stage of them all… I still maintain that they need to bring back the ring carts. I always thought those brought in a nice bit of class to the proceedings and hey, I’m a sucker for them ring carts.

Sadly, I’m not quite sure ring carts could have saved this show… but does it really need saving? I don’t know about that, but it could’ve used more ring carts. They had money, they can afford them… cheap bastards.

Anyway, on with the show…

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 33 – WWE Wrestlemania Sun (2017)”

Date: April 3, 2016
Venue: AT&T Stadium – Arlington, Texas
Attendance: 80,709

So… here we are again… again.

This show.

This. Fucking Show.

I remember absolutely hating this show back in the day. So much so that I held off writing the Ramblemania post for a whole year. By that point, I mostly forgotten about the show save for the major bits and I had to rewatch it again… and all of a sudden, I remember why I held off watching the show… but I got my notes down at least… and then in rewatching this show, I sort of realized that I’m misremembering things slightly.

Wrestlemania 34 was the show that was on my permanent shitlist and don’t you folks worry, we’ll get to that shitshow soon enough. Wrestlemania 32, on the other hand, was the show that I recall being way too fucking long and being a total blank afterwards, saving for the fact that it was another attempt at the coronation of Roman Reigns and on top of that, it’s headlined by McSon-In-Law himself! Oh joy!

Yeah, so this is going to be fun…

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 32 – WWE Wrestlemania Star (32) (2016)”

Date: April 6th, 2014
Venue: Superdome (or is it Silverdome?) – New Orleans
Attendance: 60,000-65,000 (need further verification for actual figure)

First off, looking back in hindsight, bold choice in going with the roman numeral 30 on your Wrestlemania 30 logo. I don’t think we need to imagine all the NC-17 related jokes that you can come up with regarding that title alone. (NC-17 referring to the motion picture rating for adult content, not the handle of a now-defunct Youtube personality who fell off the face of the Earth.)

Anyway, Wrestlemania XXX is one of those interesting beasts that’s interesting to look at because it’s interesting in hindsight. It was under a much different regime of WWE compared to today’s WWE – well, for a variety of reasons, but we’ll focus on the creative side alone. Anyway, the company was dead set on bringing back former WWE superstar turned proper actor Dave Batista back to win the Royal Rumble and challenge reigning WWE champion Randy Orton in the main event of Wrestlemania. For a milestone Mania, we needed a milestone main event and that… well, in hindsight, not quite that big of a deal, if I’m being honest.

Had things gone according to plan, that’s how it would’ve gone down. Unfortunately, the WWE Universe had other ideas. ‘Cuz there was this fella named Daniel Bryan that people took a liking to and the result was a YES movement that not only took over WWE events, but other sports as well. It got to the point where the crowd was reaching almost riotous levels and WWE pretty much had no choice but to pivot as a result. Hmm, doesn’t that sound familiar…

Anyway, let’s revisit this show and see how well it’s held up.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 30 – WWE Wrestlemania XXX (2014)”

Date: April 7th, 2013
Venue: MetLife Stadium – East Rutherford, New Jersey
Attendance: 74,300

When I wrote the original Ramblemania post for this show a couple days after its conclusion, the first word I wrote – and pretty much the word I used to describe Wrestlemania 29 as a whole – was “underwhelming.” And of all the shows that I would expect to label as underwhelming, this was not it.

Wrestlemania 29 has a number of marquee matches going for it. It featured The Rock defending his WWE Championship (that he won from CM Punk at the Royal Rumble – a decision that proved to be somewhat controversial) against John Cena in what is jokingly billed as “Twice In A Lifetime.” It also featured CM Punk attempting to snap the Undertaker’s long-running Wrestlemania win streak (spoiler: he fails), and short-haired HHH attempting to get his win back from Brock Lesnar after the pasting he got at Summerslam the year prior, promising to retire if he didn’t get the job done… even though he was kinda, sorta retired by this point by virtue of the fact that he cut his hair to be more presentable in the office… or something.

So I thought this show was underwhelming when I first watched it back in 2013… but that was eleven years ago. What’s the verdict on this show now? Is it a better show than I gave it credit? Does it even hold up?

Well… only one way to find out, I guess…

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 29 – WWE Wrestlemania NY/NJ (2013)”

Date: April 1st, 2012
Venue: Sun-Life Stadium, Miami, Florida
Attendance: 78,363

ROCK VS. CENA – ONCE IN A LIFE-BWAH! HA! HA! HA! HA! YEAH, GOOD ONE, P—…

Fuck me, I can’t even use that joke, either, can I?

Yeah, so long story short. Wrestlemania 28 is a better show than Wrestlemania 27, but not one that I would call an all-time classic or one of the better Manias, even. And hey, Rock beating Cena to kick off what would eventually be dubbed “John Cena’s Worst Year Ever” or something… yeah, let’s get into it.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 28 – WWE Wrestlemania XXVIII (2012)”

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 27 – WWE Wrestlemania XXVII (2011)”

Date: March 28th, 2010
Venue: State Farm Stadium – Glensdale, AZ
Attendance: 72,219

This was the show where Shawn Michaels had his last match, the show where Bret Hart had his first match in WWE since 1997, and this was also the show where… well, that’s all I remember from this show. I recall this being a good B-level show and honestly, I’d say that opinion holds up… but yeah, let’s get into it.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 26 – WWE Wrestlemania XXVI (2010)”

Date: April 5, 2009
Venue: Reliant Stadium – Houston, TX
Attendance: 72,744

The 25th iteration of Wrestlemania… often called the 25th anniversary of the Wrestlemania… which means there’s a Wrestlemania Zero that took place in 1984 that nobody knows about.

It probably goes without saying, but Shawn Michaels and Undertaker truly stole the show here and even in their advanced ages, they still managed to produce a truly fucking awesome match that holds up rather well years later. See, I’m not always fed up with old guys hogging the spotlight and stealing the show – only old guys who can’t go and have no reason to do so (hello, Terry). And if the show ended there, it would have been fine… but then you have the two World title matches. Surprisingly, Cena was in the better match, whereas HHH/Orton, not surprisingly, stunk up the joint. Seriously, leave it to Triple H to kill any good will left in the show on the final match of the evening. In either case, a massive let down in regards to the championship bouts.

The whole show in general is rather… meh. Better than I had originally thought of it, but still well below standards. Jericho vs. the Old Timers was surprisingly watchable thanks to Ricky Steamboat, who could still go at the time (don’t get any ideas), but Money In The Bank was above-average at best and botchworthy at worst, the Divas Battle Royal was an affair best forgotten (and you wonder why Trish Stratus and Lita opted not to participate), and the rest of it didn’t really stick out in my mind. In fact, the only other thing that really made this show special was Stone Cold Steve Austin’s last hurrah where he just saluted the crowd and drank beer… that, to me, was more exciting and entertaining (not to mention a fitting closure to a great career) was better than anything the McSon-In-Law could crap out of his anus on this “meh” show.

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 25 – WWE Wrestlemania 25 (2009)”

March 30, 2008
Camping World Stadium – Orlando, FL
Attendance: 74,635

Apparently, this is the biggest Wrestlemania under the sun… I’m sure that’ll be the case until Mania hits Saudi Arabia and then we can call THAT… never mind.

Anyway, Wrestlemania 24… a show that I don’t recall all that much other than it was where Ric Flair had his last match… in WWE… and quite frankly, in hindsight, we kinda wished that it was his last match if his post-WWE career was anything to go by. Besides that, however… yeah, this was one of those shows where I was completely blanking out and I could at least recall something in the main event scene, but not this time…

But enough about that. How was the actual show?

Well…

Continue reading “Ramblemania Rewind 24 – WWE Wrestlemania 24 (2008)”