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Post by chronocross on Apr 4, 2022 15:39:30 GMT -5
I gave it a 6/10, enjoyed the men's tag match, Knoxville vs. Zayn, Lesnar/Reigns and even most of the McAfee/Theory match but I liked night 1 better.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Apr 4, 2022 16:10:30 GMT -5
This probably puts me in the "hates fun" cateogry but I'm f***ing sick and tired of celebrities constantly going over the wrestlers, and wrestling itself being portrayed as something so easy that a random celeb--even an athlete--can do it at a professional level with a few months' training. And yes, that includes you, Pat McAfee. I don't care how good Logan Paul is or could be as a full-timer. Or Bad Bunny. Or Johnny Knoxville. WWF/WWE has used celebrities to incredible effect in the past but this all feels like shameless asskissing. Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper weren't actually beating full-timers. I'll throw my hat into the ring of people that tend to agree with you on this, to an extent. While I thought that Knoxville and Paul's involvement was really enjoyable in isolation, I do think that the level of celebrity involvement is indicative of WWE lacking, or at least feeling like it lacks, its own star power on the roster as currently comprised. Johnny Knoxville and Logan Paul being "draws" for Wrestlemania instead of the established roster is a potential issue, to me. Just like, say, Lawrence Taylor being the "draw" for Wrestlemania 11 was a major issue for WWE in 1995. Johnny Knoxville and Logan Paul won't be around to get people to watch shows other than Wrestlemania, just like Lawrence Taylor wasn't around to do so in 1995. But, in 1995, it felt like it was born out of necessity because the roster truly was that shallow. Now, it feels like WWE is increasingly using celebrity involvement with Wrestlemania as a crutch, rather than actually focusing on building and developing new wrestling stars. I know that's cliché to say, but the inability to build new stars is probably the single most frequent criticism of WWE, and its increasing willingness to just shove non-wrestling celebrities into major in-ring roles on its "premium live events" is only going to exacerbate and make that problem worse. In other words, why build up Ricochet for a feature match at Mania, when you can just stick Rob Gronkowski in a match instead? But that's detrimental to the day-to-day, week-to-week product, because it makes it so that no one other than the guys at the absolute top of the card are ever in storylines that have any consequence. In that way, I have absolutely no issue with a guy like Pat McAfee who is around week-to-week. But I am iffy on the impact featuring celebrities like Bad Bunny and Johnny Knoxville may have with the frequency with which it's starting to occur. And, I agree. Kayfabe is dead, but it makes it a bit difficult to suspend your disbelief when a guy like Logan Paul is portrayed as being able to waltz in and hang in the ring with a 20+ year veteran like Rey Mysterio, with little to no wrestling training at all. TL;DR because this became more longwinded than I intended: I don't think there's any inherent issue with celebrity wrestling involvement, but when it starts to be used too frequently as a crutch to increase interest in shows, it kind of kills interest in the week-to-week product.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Apr 4, 2022 16:23:31 GMT -5
This probably puts me in the "hates fun" cateogry but I'm f***ing sick and tired of celebrities constantly going over the wrestlers, and wrestling itself being portrayed as something so easy that a random celeb--even an athlete--can do it at a professional level with a few months' training. And yes, that includes you, Pat McAfee. I don't care how good Logan Paul is or could be as a full-timer. Or Bad Bunny. Or Johnny Knoxville. WWF/WWE has used celebrities to incredible effect in the past but this all feels like shameless asskissing. Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper weren't actually beating full-timers. Mr T. literally beat Piper in back to back Manias. the first was exactly like how Logan Paul won.... with the actual wrestler winning. Logan Paul didn't pin Rey and Dom, Miz pinned Rey. Johnny Knoxville won with shenanigans and has been putting himself through unspeakably painful things for like 30 years at this point... and again he only won because of the giant mouse trap. Part of the build for the Macafee match was that he IS a trained wrestler, but didn't think he'd ever get a chance to actually wrestle... and settled on being a commentator (as well as his other ventures)
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Post by Tiffany Stratton's Daddy on Apr 4, 2022 16:39:29 GMT -5
I'm giving it a 4.
Mania started out okay with Triple H, Raw Tag Team Titles... and then it hit a lull.
Omos/Lashley was best it could be I had zero interest in Knoxville/Zayn and people popped for it, but the ending was botched and the Jackass characters meant nothing to me (as someone who's never watched the Jackass movies) The women's tag match was forgettable except Sasha Banks FINALLY winning at Mania
Then Edge and Styles had the match of the night. I'm stoked about Edge's partnership with Damian Priest.
The New Day match was quick and under 2 minutes. Why not do that the night before? Why not do that on the kickoff show and give it 10 minutes? Disappointing.
McAfee/Theory was another match I had zero interest in. You can tell a difference between facing Austin Theory and facing Adam Cole... but you ruin it all by Mr. McMahon coming in the ring and kicking McAfee's ass in under 4 minutes. And you make it worse by having Stone Cold come out and McMahon forgetting how to take a Stunner. This is hopefully a memory we can bury, because I don't want to remember that Austin-McMahon stunner as potentially the last one.
Then the "Biggest WrestleMania Match of all-time" ... I'm about 80% sure it got cut short because of Roman's injury, which hopefully he's okay. That was a letdown with all the hype towards the match. It needed to be Angle/Lesnar level from WrestleMania 19, but nineteen years later, they couldn't live up to it. This may have been the weaker match of the Reigns/Lesnar Mania trilogy. It really needed a minimum 20 minutes, and it went 12.
Night 1, yet again, was better than Night 2 of Mania. The lull between the Raw Tag Titles and Edge/Styles, then to the main event, was just too long. They overloaded Night 1 and either of the women's matches or Rhodes/Rollins would've been best suited on Night 2. I would've been ok flipping Knoxville/Zayn and Rollins/Rhodes. That would've helped Night 2 to have that pop. Otherwise, Night 2 was mostly forgettable.
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khali
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,649
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Post by khali on Apr 4, 2022 18:02:40 GMT -5
I think what these two night Manias have shown is that they can make a killer one night Mania . . . but there’s not quite enough worthwhile stuff for two. This night looked weaker on paper, and it was in execution. Yeah, there was still fun stuff. But a lot of it was minor or not as good as the first night. This is still better than one seven hour show, but they need a better balance between two nights.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 4, 2022 18:32:01 GMT -5
I gave it a 5. The opener was hot and I had tons of fun with the Sami Zayn match. AJ vs. Edge was fine, and the other tag matches were just kinda there. The Austin and McMahon stuff was great for nostalgia, but I came out of this WM weekend thinking that Steve Austin is far and away the biggest star WWE has. As he's in his mid-50s and can't wrestle anymore, that doesn't make me want to watch the weekly shows and invest in future talent. Neither does calling Austin Theory a future Universal champ only for him to get beaten by a commentator (and I hate Theory, but don't throw those lines away on guys who are getting beat by non-wrestlers) Interesting point, since this WM did feel like a bit of critical mass when it came to celebrity involvement and highlighting people who aren't around super regularly. It seemed to result in a WM that was better than the last few, which sounds nice, but didn't serve as a big "get hype for WWE moving forward!" rallying cry, since so many of the winners won't be around now or just won't be wrestling. Then again, I'm sure that pretty much suits WWE fine; they know the celebrities will get eyes on WM, and that's what they want to make Peacock happy with, so more of the same on that front won't be too shocking moving forward.
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Post by polarbearpete on Apr 5, 2022 7:06:45 GMT -5
This probably puts me in the "hates fun" cateogry but I'm f***ing sick and tired of celebrities constantly going over the wrestlers, and wrestling itself being portrayed as something so easy that a random celeb--even an athlete--can do it at a professional level with a few months' training. And yes, that includes you, Pat McAfee. I don't care how good Logan Paul is or could be as a full-timer. Or Bad Bunny. Or Johnny Knoxville. WWF/WWE has used celebrities to incredible effect in the past but this all feels like shameless asskissing. Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper weren't actually beating full-timers. I'll throw my hat into the ring of people that tend to agree with you on this, to an extent. While I thought that Knoxville and Paul's involvement was really enjoyable in isolation, I do think that the level of celebrity involvement is indicative of WWE lacking, or at least feeling like it lacks, its own star power on the roster as currently comprised. Johnny Knoxville and Logan Paul being "draws" for Wrestlemania instead of the established roster is a potential issue, to me. Just like, say, Lawrence Taylor being the "draw" for Wrestlemania 11 was a major issue for WWE in 1995. Johnny Knoxville and Logan Paul won't be around to get people to watch shows other than Wrestlemania, just like Lawrence Taylor wasn't around to do so in 1995. But, in 1995, it felt like it was born out of necessity because the roster truly was that shallow. Now, it feels like WWE is increasingly using celebrity involvement with Wrestlemania as a crutch, rather than actually focusing on building and developing new wrestling stars. I know that's cliché to say, but the inability to build new stars is probably the single most frequent criticism of WWE, and its increasing willingness to just shove non-wrestling celebrities into major in-ring roles on its "premium live events" is only going to exacerbate and make that problem worse. In other words, why build up Ricochet for a feature match at Mania, when you can just stick Rob Gronkowski in a match instead? But that's detrimental to the day-to-day, week-to-week product, because it makes it so that no one other than the guys at the absolute top of the card are ever in storylines that have any consequence. In that way, I have absolutely no issue with a guy like Pat McAfee who is around week-to-week. But I am iffy on the impact featuring celebrities like Bad Bunny and Johnny Knoxville may have with the frequency with which it's starting to occur. And, I agree. Kayfabe is dead, but it makes it a bit difficult to suspend your disbelief when a guy like Logan Paul is portrayed as being able to waltz in and hang in the ring with a 20+ year veteran like Rey Mysterio, with little to no wrestling training at all. TL;DR because this became more longwinded than I intended: I don't think there's any inherent issue with celebrity wrestling involvement, but when it starts to be used too frequently as a crutch to increase interest in shows, it kind of kills interest in the week-to-week product. Lawrence Taylor main evented Wrestlemania. The celebrities this year were used in midcard feuds that padded out the shows, they weren’t really “relying” on the celebrities as draws this year, but used them as a way to add some outside involvement while also making the cards more diverse.
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