Your Mania rating

[Everlong]

So out of 10, what would you rate WM?

Probably a 5.5 for me. Nothing really happened to convince me I needed to watch any more WWE any time soon. Almost all the winners were old guys. There weren't a whole lot of really memorable moments.

That being said, we did get Shane's insane leap, a really good women's match, a solid jericho/styles match, and a couple fun moments here and there.

But it just really seems like WWE sunk even deeper into the status quo with this show, and while it wasn't a bad show, it really wasn't an "interesting" one. That basically sums up what seems to be the current state of WWE right now.

[Daz]

Solid 7.

[chuway]

A 7 sounds good to me.

[The Legend]

Probably an 8/8.5 for match quality. Probably a 2/2.5 for booking/creative decisions that baffle the mind. Altogether probably a 5 or a 6.

I mean the first six matches of the night were all great. Very entertaining and engaging. The Andre BR and then the Rock stuff just killed the momentum for me though and was a poor lead into the main event. I mean it wasn't even a good BR and after tonight I never want to see Rock back in WWE again. He's just so fucking tedious at this point.

The main event actually exceeded my expectations, especially with the time they were working in.

But, seriously, I think I would have switched the winner and finish of pretty much every match on the card. A jobber that hasn't won a match in 5 years holding your second most important belt is either a joke or a truly contrived and forced "WrestleMania Moment".

Jericho going over AJ is defensible only if they are going to go best of five and have a killer stipulation match sometime in the next month to cap the feud off.

Mr. Part Time Lesnar going over Ambrose, who needed a "WrestleMania Moment" more than anybody on the card tonight, was totally inexcusable.

Charlotte retaining and continuing her stale reign with the introduction of a new belt and new divisional direction was the one poor decision they could make.

The one match that ABSOLUTELY HAD TO GO THE RIGHT WAY, was HIAC. Shane needed to win somehow. I don't even care how, but you needed to break the status quo in even a small way and this was your shot WWE and you blew it.

The BR was horribly booked and Corbin was a pointless winner, but it's a pointless match.

The fashion in which Reigns went over HHH actually was smart.

[Daz]

One thing that I liked was that the show was totally wrestling. No backstage bullshit filler and no silly musical performances. All the filler was at least wrestlers doing wrestling things inside a wrestling ring.

[Circled Square]

6. Smelled like Vince McMahon too much

[Racing Guy]

I understand that when The Rock returns he's going over in any match or angle. That being said, did they really have to completely embarrass The Wyatt Family? First Rock humiliated them on the mic then 2 men easily disposed of 3 men.

[Messiah]

I understand that when The Rock returns he's going over in any match or angle. That being said, did they really have to completely embarrass The Wyatt Family? First Rock humiliated them on the mic then 2 men easily disposed of 3 men.

I didn't even mind it like I usually would. The Wyatt Family can't go any lower than they already are, I am pretty sure they are a running joke now.

[Messiah]

I'm not really sure what I would rate it. The more I think about it, the more it was a bad PPV, just not in the usual way a PPV is bad.

The main event was flat and nobody looked like they cared much. Other than that, the matches were good, but terrible creative killed it. Jericho going over Styles isn't so bad by itself, but when you combine it with the fact it seemed like all of the newer, refreshing people lost, it was terrible. I don't mind Charlotte winning, but Banks winning would have been a much bigger moment and 'Mania is the time to conclude stuff like Flair's shenanigans. Ryder winning was just stupid, I don't care what anyone says. Horrible decision.

The worst thing about this show was nothing happened that makes me want to tune into Raw tonight. Other than Shane jumping off the cell (in a match that will have no follow-up and happened just to happen because they needed something), this was a show that had nothing memorable. I don't know why they didn't just wait until 'Mania to have Reigns win the title, it feels like forever since a guy won his first World Title at WrestleMania.

[The Legend]

I agree with Messiah. I'm pretty sure that the only thing that will have me looking into RAW at all tonight will be to see which NXT stars debut.

[Everlong]

I think this is the most @The Legend and I have ever agreed about an assessment of a wrestling PPV

[DBSoT]

5/10 For a normal PPV it would have gotten a 7 or higher, but as far as mania goes it just had too many baffling decisions. Nearly every match outcome was booked different than most people predicted, which can be fine if the shock makes sense. However, when those surprises are in there just to be surprises with no basis then they fall flat. I will go over them one by one. I am not including the pre-show.

IC Ladder match - How do you have a guy who competed on Raw or Smackdown a total of 5 times or less over the past year win the second biggest title on the show? This isn't like a new guy debuting and having a surprise win. This is a guy the WWE threw in the trash heap and then left him for dead. At first I thought they did this to further the Shane McMahon storyline about Shane helping guys who had been screwed in the past. If that was the case then Dolph would have made way more sense.

Chris Jericho vs AJ Styles - Good match, but mind boggling why Jericho would win here. This is an example of WWE booking long times employees over rising stars. Which is becoming a WM tradition.

LON vs The New Day - I don't really have a problem with the LON winning, but it is a bit odd to have one of the most over face teams in years lose at your biggest event. The real issue was the post match nostalgia-mania that happened. It is fine to have old time wrestlers on the card, but how many times do those retired wrestlers have to beat up current stars.

Brock Lesnar vs Dean Ambrose - I could go either way with this decision. Even though everyone knows Ambrose needed a huge win, it is very difficult to book anyone over Brock. The only real issue is a Part-timer beating a full timer. I think WWE believes that if someone just competes in a match, that is enough to make them legit. It is ass-backward logic, but next time you see a part-timer beat a full timer, think about it.

Charlotte vs Becky Lynch vs Sasha Banks - I just can't figure this one out. This one writes itself. There was only one way that this booking doesn't work and of course WWE chose it. The match was the unveiling of a new title and was suppose to represent change within the division. By having Becky or Sasha win, it would symbolize that change and give a second one of the 3 horse women a big win (first was Charlotte winning the Divas title). It isn't even just Charlotte winning that sucked, but also the way it was done. Ric interfering and preventing Sasha from breaking up the pin is the same story that has been told in so many of Charlotte's matches. I could forgive the Charlotte win if the ending was booked better.

Undertaker vs Shane McMahon - As much as I enjoyed this match for what it was, when it ended I just felt disappointed. I can't fault WWE for booking Taker to win considering there was no outside fuckery. In a straight up match between Taker and Shane, the ending makes sense. The problem I have is this all leads to nothing. Either we get another year of Authority BS or they have to try to write a way for Shane to get control going forward. If the ladder happens, then the match at mania was basically for nothing. The dive off the cell was cool though.

Andre Battle Royal - This is the one booking decision I actually liked. This was the best way to debut Baron Corbin. I will be interested to see if they actually do something with him or if they fail like they did with the other Andre Battle Royal winners. He is a good heel and has been getting better and better each time I see him.

The Rock vs Erick Rowan - Hey its the Rock and he is facing........Erick Rowan? Ignoring the nostalgia-mania stuff, why couldn't The Rock face Bray? At least make the match worth it. A 6 second match between The Rock and Erick Rowan is...well.....you know what I don't care.

Roman Reigns vs HHH - Not much to say here. The match went as expected and the result was exactly as everyone assumed. I did find it funny that WWE tried to end the show as fast as possible after Reigns won. They assumed the crowd was going to boo and they did there best to not show it on screen. To be fair, in a crowd of 100,000+ fans, you are going to have fans of every different wrestler and they will all be vocal. It is impossible to really get that many people to cheer or boo one person. Reigns got an OK pop when he won. Tonight will be a bigger barometer of Reigns' reactions going forward.

[The Legend]

I think this is the most @The Legend and I have ever agreed about an assessment of a wrestling PPV

Well the funny thing is I usually look at wrestling a little bit differently and if a match is good and I'm entertained, the winner doesn't matter so much to me. There's no one guy that I'm a huge mark of currently on WWE's roster and I typically want to see one guy (80% of the time the heel) get his ass kicked more than I want to see a particular guy win.

But why I cared so much this time is it was just so frustrating. We all know WWE likes to book themselves into corners, but they did it so needlessly and recklessly last night over and over that it was comical. It literally felt like they turned each match and feud into a game. Let's see which creative member can book which match into the biggest contrived corner that we have to undo and work our way out of in the coming weeks.

There were four title matches last night, I will guarantee that two of the champions from last night will lose their titles tonight and a third will lose it at the next PPV. My lock for tonight is that Ryder drops the belt back to Owens on RAW. Kalisto and Charlotte will both lose their championship within the next few weeks.

[Hanley!]

I went with a five. It was a very average show. We've seen much better in the past, but I guess we've seen worse too. The wrestling was all good, though there was nothing truly spectacular on the card in terms of matches. A lot of guys didn't even seem to be trying to steal the show. There were matches on there that would have been disappointing on a regular pay per view, let alone Wrestlemania. The poorly received main events, the bad finishes and the length really took away from the show though.


So here were a few of my positives of the show in a little more detail:

- The most positive thing about the show was the women's match. That will be remembered, I think. Three great female wrestlers make their Wrestlemania debut. Sasha Banks gets a real star-making entrance. They steal the show with their match. All this paired with the introduction of a new belt and the company deciding to get rid of the horrible Diva monicker made this seem like the one area of the card where something important was happening.

- It was great to see Styles get a Wrestlemania match. He belongs on this kind of stage. It was nice to see some of the other new talent getting a spot too, and getting a good reaction in it. Everytime Zayn and Owens were in the ring together in the ladder match the crowd heated up. There are some guys who come away from this show with fond memories of their first Wrestlemania.

- In terms of match quality, the ladder match, the women's match, Styles vs Jericho and Ambrose vs Lesnar at a push were all good enough to be worthy of note.

- Shane McMahon's spot from the top of the cell made me feel like a kid again. Very scary, but very exciting spot. The outside portion of that match felt very Attitude Era. Actually got my nostalgia going a bit.

- I thought the entrance ramp and the stage set up in general looked fantastic. That never hurts.


On the flip side here are a few things that I didn't like about the show in detail:

- The young guys always lose. When Rock, Jericho and Brock fuck off on holidays for the summer, WWE are going to be complaining that none of their regular talents are seen as stars, not realising somehow that it's their own damn fault. Ambrose and Styles should definitely have won on this show. Ambrose is going to be dead as a character if they don't let him win a big match soon. Almost winning - but actually losing - in every big match will not help him get over.

- Too many heel victories. Sometimes I think Wrestlemania has too many face victories - sometimes it seems the heel should win but they don't just because it's Wrestlemania. Here though, the opposite occurred and it just turned the show into a downer.

- The length was just too much. A seven hour show should never have been attempted, but ignoring even that, they distributed the time horribly. Rock wasted a half hour doing fuck all in what should have been a ten minute segment. It was awful, particularly so far into the show. Shane McMahon's match lasted a half hour too, and it was all horrible until they left the cage. The whole match was basically a lead up to one spot, couldn't they have given 10 minutes from that half hour to Ambrose and Lesnar?

- They gave us no reason to tune in tonight. Shane told us all that Raw is shit and he was going to fix it. Turns out it's going to stay shit. That's basically the story they're telling us. The Authority are still in power. Reigns is still on top even though nobody cares. Charlotte is still on top of the Divas division, even though it would have been fitting to bring in a new champ with the new championship. There are no good new feuds or angles that seem obvious, and many of their full time roster look like lesser stars now than they did a week ago.

- Corbin winning was just weird. I was rooting for him, but only cos he was the best of a bad lot. If they wanted an NXT guy to win, why not use someone who's ready for main roster success? Someone who the fans would be more familiar with and would immediately embrace? Corbin is maybe sixth or seventh most prepared for that kind of spot of all the guys on NXT. Even if they were set on using him, they could have set it up on television for a few weeks. Other NXT guys might not have needed much of an introduction, but I felt like he did. Still at least it was good to see a young guy win on the show.

- Speaking of lack of storytelling, that was a big problem I had throughout. They just did random moments on this show ... stuff that hadn't been hinted at or built towards on television at all. Ryder's win is a good example of that. If they had told the story of him never having gotten a Wrestlemania moment on television, his win could have been really well received. But they never bothered until Wrestlemania weekend. Why do things like that?

- If nobody cares about your main event, your show is never going to be considered great no matter how good everything else is. This show didn't have that central feud or story that people were really interested and invested in. They did nothing to remedy this on the show itself, but honestly how much could they have done? As John alluded to, they had booked themselves into a corner.

Overall the show just felt lazy. There was plenty of pomp and circumstance as usual, but little forward planning, logic or solid storytelling. Just more of the same. It was quite a slick, professional, yet uninspiring show. So a very average Wrestlemania.

[KaiserGlider]

I think I'll give it a 7.5.

I thought it was a good show. There's a lot of good things and bad things I could say about it, but I had a good time overall and was entertained.

Good: The atmosphere was incredible. That gigantic ass stadium with an electric crowd. The wrestling throughout the night. Ladder match, Jericho/Styles, triple threat, and the Triple H/Roman match that apparently nobody else saw more or less delivered in action. Shane/Taker was ok for most of it, but the end was memorable and told a great story.

Bad: Seemed like all heels won with the exception of Zack Ryder, who is having his moment four years too late. Ambrose/Lesnar was pretty good until the abrupt finish out of nowhere. Charlotte winning was definitely the worst decision of the night, totally missed a great moment with Sasha Banks or even Becky. And I'd never thought I'd say this, but... The Rock.

Typing that last sentence out is making me want to unleash my internet negativity again, but I did enjoy the show and feel like I can't give it anything lower than a 7.

EDIT: oh and New Day coming out in Saiyan armor! That was awesome.