Andre's Memorial Battle Royal Discussion

[Push R Truth]

So lets talk about the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.

It's easy to dismiss it as a jobber showcase, but it always felt like a good "Start" to Wrestlemania. It highlights the chaos and absurdity of pro wrestling in general. It honors a true legend of the business. It lets jobbers, midcarders and the "forgotten" higher end talent have some action on the big stage. It has created some legit WrestleMania Moments like Cesaro's epic swing or Shaq.


First last year and now this year? The match is dumped off the Wrestlemania Card. Not even on the pre show but on Smackdown. Out of the half day's worth of WrestleMania Weekend Content this Memorial Match can't even find time for the card. It's not like it's a Royal Rumble that takes 90 minutes, this match is 10-15 minutes tops! What a great way to honor Andre by taking it off the card!

This is a shining example of what I hate about the WWE. There's so much bullshit and filler created to burn time yet real meaningful content gets axed to make way for even more bullshit. Don't worry, I'm sure there will be an hour's worth of Saturday's Recaps on Sunday during Mania's runtime! Can't let a MEMORIAL MATCH get in the way of that shit!






This rant has been brought to you by a poor night's sleep and drinking too much coffee to compensate for it.

[JCBaggee]

No, I agree. Even for the pre-show, it felt like a really great warm-up for the show. Wish they'd have kept it on Sunday, done a woman's battle royale on Saturday. Moving it to Smackdown just feels almost disrespectful; should have just axed it if they didn't want to keep it going.

[Pooh Carlson]

No reason with two days to fill that they couldn't have this on one of the preshows, but they've never actually cared to capitalize on moments from any of them, so who cares anyway.

[Gravedigger's Biscuits]

Yeah I just don't get the purpose anymore.

"This is a great way to get everyone on...SmackDown?"

[ariestheram]

I think when they first announced an Andre the Giant memorial match we all just assumed that it would be used as the launching pad for a big push because of how revered Andre is, and now we have seen that that was not the intention.

Short version: The Andre battle royal has always meant more to the fans than it does to the company.

[Hit Girl]

They should have an Andre The Giant Memorial Drinking Contest instead.

[The Summer of Muskrat XVII]

Mar 29, 2022 11:27:19 GMT -5 Push R Truth said:

So lets talk about the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.

It's easy to dismiss it as a jobber showcase, but it always felt like a good "Start" to Wrestlemania. It highlights the chaos and absurdity of pro wrestling in general. It honors a true legend of the business. It lets jobbers, midcarders and the "forgotten" higher end talent have some action on the big stage. It has created some legit WrestleMania Moments like Cesaro's epic swing or Shaq.


First last year and now this year? The match is dumped off the Wrestlemania Card. Not even on the pre show but on Smackdown. Out of the half day's worth of WrestleMania Weekend Content this Memorial Match can't even find time for the card. It's not like it's a Royal Rumble that takes 90 minutes, this match is 10-15 minutes tops! What a great way to honor Andre by taking it off the card!

This is a shining example of what I hate about the WWE. There's so much bullshit and filler created to burn time yet real meaningful content gets axed to make way for even more bullshit. Don't worry, I'm sure there will be an hour's worth of Saturday's Recaps on Sunday during Mania's runtime! Can't let a MEMORIAL MATCH get in the way of that shit!






This rant has been brought to you by a poor night's sleep and drinking too much coffee to compensate for it.

You wrote 4 paragraphs. You put way more thought into this then WWE does.

[Push R Truth]

Mar 29, 2022 12:45:35 GMT -5 The Summer of Muskrat XVII said:

Mar 29, 2022 11:27:19 GMT -5 Push R Truth said:

.

You wrote 4 paragraphs. You put way more thought into this then WWE does.

I hate that I know you are 100% correct.

[Push R Truth]

Mar 29, 2022 12:21:52 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

They should have an Andre The Giant Memorial Drinking Contest instead.

Stone Cold vs Chris Jericho in a drinking contest could easily main event WrestleMania these days and be the most popular segment by far.

god now I want to see this happen

[Final Countdown Jones]

For the kind of show WWE is, I think the intention for a show like Wrestlemania should be variety. Put on some gimmick matches, do some weird stuff, and that extends to, yeah, sure, a battle royal to get tons of people there at least doing something. A well paced battle royal is fine viewing. It's fun, it's different from the rest of the show, you can put in fun character moments and bits, and maybe crown a scrappy fan favorite the winner to start the show off on the right foot. WWE has totally lost the plot on that, and the fact they put it onto Smackdown where it means nothing and is just A Thing On Smackdown becomes a good hint of how WWE doesn't even really understand why they put things on they just have to keep putting things on.

The shocking thing about modern Wrestlemania is that the guy who put together all those old Wrestlemanias is responsible for these, too. You wouldn't be able to tell, if you were to just look at it from the outside.

[SirLucas]

I predict Finn winning it, and last eliminating Priest. Sore loser Priest attacks Finn after the match and destroys the trophy. This sets up their match for WrestleMania Backlash!

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

You would think with two days of WrestleMania and an established battle royal for both the men and women, they would have one day of Mania's pre-show feature the Andre, and the other Mania pre-show would contain the women's battle royal.

What an easy way to get a hot start for both shows, right? Apparently, not.

[bob]

Mar 29, 2022 12:21:52 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

They should have an Andre The Giant Memorial Drinking Contest instead.

[bob]

I liked it better when it was on Wrestlemania

to me it feels like a great way to open the show and give a lot of the lower card talent who never is on pay per view a chance to shine on the biggest stage of them all

[ThankGodForSidJustice]

I'm guessing for this year they couldn't do a Women's one because they simply don't have enough people for it (although that wouldn't have been an issue if they took two teams out of the four way tag match) and while they definitely have enough people to do a men's one they didn't want to get crap for having a men's "get everyone on the card" battle royal but not one for the women so they just put the Andre on the go home Smackdown again.

[01010010 01101001 01100011]

I kinda think the look at it as putting something "meaningful" on the WM Smackdown without risking the PLE. I mean each day has something major with Saturday having had NXT/HoF/WM N1, Sunday having WM (N2), and Monday having the RAW after WM which is a major hyped show now. This in theory gives them something to "make" this a major Smackdown.

Of course they've done nothing with the Andre or the winners to make you think it matters but it's not about what the fans think, it's about what WWE tells you whether you believe it or not.

[khali]

Yeah, they’ve really done nothing with the battle royal but I still always liked it. I just enjoy battle royals, and it’s a cool event on the Mania card to mix things. Now that it’s on Smackdown, I’ll never see it. There’s already shows going on all weekend, it’s not worth me squeezing it in or watching it later.

[Tiffany Stratton's Daddy]

Obviously it fits better on WrestleMania.

However, they don't have many people they can use for the battle royal and WrestleMania. This battle royal on SmackDown will feature guys competing at Mania. Thanks, Nick.

[Deleted]

They've done their best for it to mean absolutely shits right from the beginning.

[Nosnorb]

If its on free TV, it should be called The Nathan Jones Battle Royale instead.