So I figured I'd talk about WrestleMania on here in case anyone is looking around and wondering about this year's show. First off, this is definitely an odd and unique experience, some of which was good/great and a lot of it was weird and disappointing. The biggest takeaway is that two-night WrestleMania's are genius and getting out of the show in three hours was a breath of fresh air. Quick overview is Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins stole the show on night one and Undertaker had the best match of his career in probably a decade, thanks to some crafty camera work and a totally different setting. Meanwhile, Bill Goldberg's reign of terror is over and Braun Strowman finally wins the big one. While there were definitely parts of the show that dragged on a bit -- especially early in the show.
Night starts off with a women's tag team championship match between champion Kabuki Warriors and challengers Alexa Bliss/Nikki Cross. Kabuki Warriors are among the most annoying acts in WWE with their incessant yelling, chanting and grunting and this only gets worse when there's no crowd noise to drown them out. Thankfully, Bliss and Cross take the belts and should get a good run with them as an act that can talk and should enhance the profile of the championships.
Up next Elias beats King Corbin in the most non-descript of Wrestlemania undercard fodder types of matches. WWE and the circumstances gave us no reason to care about this match and while I like Elias' character, neither of these is good enough in the ring to just show up and captivate the audience with no backstory. Again at least Elias got a victory.
We finally get to an interesting match with a decent backstory in Becky Lynch vs Shayna Baszler, but the first two matches were boring enough to distract me and make me tune out of the early portions of this pretty physical and unique women's matches. It was a letdown though that Lynch retained the belt and won at WrestleMania with another questionable rollup instead of a decisive victory.
Things finally start to heat up with Sami Zayn retaining the IC championship vs Daniel Bryan in a really fun and fast paced match that had lots going on with outside interference from Shinsuke and Cesaro along with Drew Gulak. This match probably won't end up on either Sami or Bryan's career highlight reel, but it was still a strong showing that amped up the feeling for the best portions of Mania.
John Morrison, Jimmy Uso and Kofi Kingston then battle for the SD tag championships in a singles triple threat match since Miz was sick for the Mania tapings and had to miss the show. Not surprising considering who was involved, but this match was filled with lots of great action. Also, not surprising the match ends with all three grabbing the belts in order to set up a re-match after Miz gets healthy.
Match of the night goes to Owens and Rollins, who managed to use the empty arena and no fans to their advantage with an intense personal back and forth and great storytelling. Also, Owens jumping off the WrestleMania sign is surely a Mania moment that will be remembered for all the right reasons. This one managed to enhance both characters even Rollins in defeat.
Strowman beat Goldberg and that is the only thing that needs to or can be said about this one.
They close the show with Styles vs Undertaker in what basically amounted to a Buried Alive match in a dressed up cemetary setting and had interference from Gallows, Anderson and some druid characters. This match wasn't a masterpiece, it was basically an omage to an 80's biker bar movie like Roadhouse and saw Taker return more to his ABA Taker character than the Deadman until they went supernatural at the end. It looked like Styles was going to win with Taker in the grave, but he magically appeared behind Styles and eventually won in what was a good match.
Hopefully, AJ can get some sort of repackaging (a face turn) and this is the end of the terrible OC run. Also, I would have preferred this match be in the middle of the card to break up all the empty arena matches that the card had.