I don't understand, those three words are pretty much my answer to any question I could possibly hear about WrestleMania. I've long seen myself as the last defender of the WWE, but there was almost nothing they did last night that was defensible. I start with this, the WWE owns and runs NXT, how can the WWE 24 hours after running and booking a nearly perfectly booked Takeover event can the WWE turn the corner and present that show as WrestleMania (supposedly the biggest wrestling show of the year)? I don't understand.
Looking at each match individually, I'll tackle my lack of understanding.
The Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal - I don't understand the Woken Matt Hardy gimmick, never have, it's campy, ridiculous and impossible to take seriously. It's bad comic relief masquerading as something you should almost try to take seriously (especially when Hardy begins building a stable and wins a match at Mania). There were so many better options for this match, but whatever.
The CW title match was about what I expected, solid, fast paced, good flurries of action, I would have had Ali win, but I can understand that. It's almost the last match I could understand.
Women's Battle Royal - I want to be perfectly clear about this, it's not about Naomi. I think Naomi is probably Top 5 in WWE in the ring and as a character in the Women's Division when she's given something solid to work with. That being said, she's rarely given something to work with, which makes wins like this come out of the blue when they could be solid storytelling moments. Worst of all, it winds up making Naomi seem like a token minority getting these wins, when she deserves so much better than that.
The IC title match had good action, they executed some nice high spots, and served as a fantastic opening match. I don't understand the ending and how WWE thinks Rollins having the belt moving forward serves anyone any good. Yes, it made Rollins a grand slam champion, but now what?
The more I think about it, the more Charlotte vs Asuka was the perfect match on this imperfect card. It was a swerve, but added a bit of reality to the show. How often in sports do you see broadcasters and talking heads paint a picture about a championship game before it happens only for it to get spoiled by the other team winning. That's what I got out of this and it felt fine. The biggest reason I was OK with it was that looking ahead I only saw one of two women breaking Asuka's streak: Charlotte or Ronda, Charlotte got it out of the way and now they've got a chance to tell a story of her climbing back up the mountain and this time toppling Charlotte, maybe as soon as this summer.
I was annoyed after the first two matches on the main card, little did I know the train had yet to really come off the tracks and the beginning of Mania would be the best parts.
The US title was a mess, Rusev is probably the most over guy on SD, past Styles and Nakamura, yet he's a throw away that barely makes the Mania card. Then he's just used to be jobbed out to the terrible Mahal, it would have been better for him to be the Andre winner, rather than to have no impact on a match at all. That was pathetic.
Angle and Rousey vs Steph and HHH - I'm sorry, but this match was dreadful. The concept was fine and the payoff was exactly what it should have been, but it took a needlessly winding path to get there. They made Steph look way too good against Ronda, hell they then let Ronda get in the ring with HHH and Ronda dominated HHH far more than she did Stephanie. If they cut this match in half and only had the start and the end it would have been fine, but the Steph and HHH ego trip had to get involved and drag this thing all the way to hell.
The SD tag match was solid, albeit totally predictable. It was nice to see the Bludgeon Brothers get a chance to shine and look totally dominant in this setting, but I cared so little about this match that it wasn't very redeeming.
The John Cena/Undertaker thing has been a total trainwreck. First of all Elias should have never been there, he was a waste and giving that time to Cena & Taker would have been better. Most importantly, you have John Cena, the man who later this year will be breaking Ric Flair's record for most world championship reigns in wrestling history, and he can't even kick out of one Undertaker finisher? These are the same Undertaker finishers that HHH, HBK, Reigns and Lesnar had made it look routine to kick out of in recent WrestleManias. Cena losing was fine, even a good decision, but to turn him into a lousy jobber sucked.
McMahon/Bryan vs Owens/Zayn - How, just how? I have no words for all the things that were wrong with this match. I'm sure this leads to Owens and Zayn moving to RAW, but that was just a sad way to go with this story.
Nia Jax beating Alexa Bliss was a good feel good moment on a show that was pretty lacking in feel good moments. Now, I'm just not sure what they do with a face Nia Jax as champion. There's not many heels on the RAW brand that it makes sense to see going forward.
Shinsuke vs AJ - The WWE wrote Nakamura's epitaph last night. There's no coming back for him from winning the Rumble, but losing the title. His mic work isn't strong enough, especially to play a heel that can never explain his actions adequately. The best place for him at this point was as a strong, badass working champion that arrogant faces think they can step to and take down, only to fail.
Strowman vs The Bar - I'm not so worried about The Bar's credability or any of the tag teams' cred either, that was lost a long time ago. I actually loved this moment, however, when the show was already almost a half hour over booked before this started, they should have done a better job of just picking someone close to the ring and getting it over with.
Lesnar vs Reigns - Why? Why? Why? Why won't the dreadfully boring Brock Lesnar era come to an end? The booking of this match sucked. The storytelling didn't exist. And the result set the show back another year.
The entire show was filled with throwing swerves that didn't matter or didn't make sense, it was a mess from top to bottom and seemed like a big screw you to everyone that managed to devote 7 hours of their life to this show that was the product they put out.
For the first time in my life, watching WrestleMania actually made me less excited to watch RAW the next night.