WrestleMania Rewatch

[DakotaNorth]

WrestleMania Rewatch!
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I was an ardent fan of the business from the mid 90's until the 2000's and then after the InVasion, the debacle that was NWATNA, and prioritising drinking over buying tapes from the indies (My sister actually saved them all from when my mum passed and surprised me with them last year which slowly dragged me back into wrestling as I was watching early IWA:MS, NWA:Wildside (forgot how much I loved Gabriel and Azareal), and, of course, Ring of Honor. HOWEVER, it also convinced me to get the WWE Network so I could catch up on the product, watch Survivor Series, and slowly but surely I became obsessed again.

I started watching WrestleMania 2008 (as Mania '07 is the last one I recall watching before I left and (almost) never looked back), but then instead of blitzing through different PPV's and rekindling my interest, I got bogged down with RAW's, ECW's, Smackdown's, booking (and then writing) what has become my 2008 WWE BTB/Diary on this site, and then as WrestleMania crept up I realised, holy shit, I haven't seen any WrestleMania (maybe I've seen one or two matches from events but no full shows) in nearly sixteen years! So that's been my goal - that by THIS COMING WEEKEND - I may not have watched them all, but I will have almost seen them all, and then I can finish the rewatch after this coming weekend (Mania being two nights was a surprise to me, it was bad enough when it went to five hours!).

I won't be going chronological because I'd be done with it by the time I got to mania 7, so I've just taken a random mix of early mid and more recent shows.

Reviews:

#001: WrestleMania 13 (Bret vs Austin; Taker vs Sycho Sid)
#002: WrestleMania 24 (Shawn Michaels vs Ric Flair; Undertaker vs Edge; Orton vs HHH vs Cena)
#003: WrestleMania 34 (Charlotte vs Asuka; Styles vs Nakamura, Lesnar vs Reigns)
#004: WrestleMania 7 (Warrior vs Macho King; Hogan vs Sgt. Slaughter)
#005: WrestleMania 28 (Undertaker vs HHH; CM Punk vs Chris Jericho; Cena vs The Rock)
#006: WrestleMania 20 (Eddie Guerrero vs Kurt Angle; Triple H vs Shawn Michaels vs Chris Benoit)
#007: WrestleMania 26 (Chris Jericho vs. Edge; John Cena vs Batista; The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels)
#008: WrestleMania 37 (Roman Reigns vs. Edge vs. Daniel Bryan; Sasha Banks vs. Bianca Belair)
#009: WrestleMania 9
#010: WrestleMania 32
#011: WrestleMania 14
#012: WrestleMania 3
#013: WrestleMania 11
#014: WrestleMania 23
#015: WrestleMania 5​

 

[DakotaNorth]

WrestleMania 13


There is something to be said for watching some of these storyline travesties out of context. Namely that I can just experience the match for what it is. Although the massive caveat there is that this show is full of poorly booked and poorly wrestled matches, with only two good matches on the card; that being HHH vs Goldust (they fought about twenty times around this period, so I'm glad I'm seeing it in isolation) and OF COURSE Bret Hart vs Stone Cold Steve Austin in one of the most iconic WrestleMania matches of all time. I will give a nod to an acceptable match between Taker and Sycho Sid for the title, but everything else was really poor.

Best Match: Bret Hart vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin ****1/2
Worst Match: Ahmed Johnson & LOD vs. The Nation *
Fun Moment: It was a bad match, but watching Blue Chipper Rocky Maivia is always fun.
Show Rating: 4/10​

 

[DakotaNorth]

WrestleMania 24

The first Mania I watched last year when deciding I'd give wrestling another chance. It certainly wasn't the best show to do it, but it was a middling show without too much bad, and with a lot of good, and two really good matches. Finlay/JBL is fine as an opener, the MITB is really good, Batista/Umaga is boring as shit but it didn't go too long, and between Shawn/Flair and Taker/Edge you have two really good matches, with the former creating one of the best Mania moments with some genuine pathos to "finish" Flair's career. I think this is the start of Taker having good to great matches every Mania for 5 or 6 years, so I can't wait to see more of them.

Best Match: Ric Flair vs. Shawn Michaels ***1/2
Worst Match: ECW Title: Chavo Guerrero (c) vs. Kane - DUD
Fun Moment: Money in the Bank was a really fun match and whilst it could certainly have been better, it gave us some good spots.
Show Rating: 4/10​

 

[DakotaNorth]

WrestleMania 34

The production quality here is phenomenal. All three guys for the opener IC Title Match (Balor v Miz vs Seth) looked amazing coming down, and the visual of Balor's against the backdrop of the crowd was out of this world. The match was pretty good followed by one of my favourite WrestleMania matches so far, and definitely the best women's match I've seen in WWE. Ronda/Kurt vs HHH/Steph was better once it got goofy and stopped trying to be a straight tag match, and AJ/Nakamura was really good. Nakamura's entrance always get's me (I used to have that song as my warm-up music before going for a run, so it always gets me psyched up). The shame is that outside of these four, the rest of the show is generic at best and draining elsewhere. Brock/Roman is a shitshow, I do not care about this kid in the crowd even though I'm sure it was super wholesome for those invested in it, and Taker/Cena was a waste.

Best Match: Smackdown Women's Title: Charlotte Flair (c) vs. Asuka (****1/2)
Worst Match: RAW Tag Team Titles: Sheamus & Cesaro (c) vs. Braun & Nicholas (DUD)
Fun Moment: Shinsuke Nakamura's entrance (with Finn Balor's entrance a solid second place)
Show Rating: 6.25/10​

 

[DakotaNorth]

WrestleMania 7

I feel truly vindicated in my decision to not start FROM THE BEGINNING after watching this sprawling mess of a show. It's wild because the opener (Rockers vs Haku/Barbarian w/ Heenan) is solid enough and the crowd is absolutely amped up all night (they help a lot), but so many of the matches are glorified squashes (Dino Bravo vs Kerry Von Erich / Earthquake vs Greg Valentine), downright awful (Blindfold Match between Jake Roberts and Rick Martel) or really bland (Demolition vs Tenryu & Kitao / IC Title: Mr Perfect (c) vs Bossman). It's like they tried to fit far too much onto one show and the end result was a poorly paced and poorly booked overall show.

That being said, this show does have a couple of historic/great matches. Firstly, this is where The Undertaker's streak begins in a quick match over Jimmy Snuka. It also has one of my favourite Randy Savage (post 1990) matches of all time against Ultimate Warrior (possibly Warrior's best ever match), and SOMEHOW the main event for the WWF Title between champion Sgt. Slaughter and the big dog Hulk Hogan was really really good. I hate on Hogan as much as anyone, but when the crowd is red hot, your heely opponent bumps their ass off, and it all works out? It's hard to argue with it. Sadly, I had to watch the show in several viewings as I kept losing interest through the bulky boring middle of the show which brings the overall rating RIGHT down (they had fourteen matches, nine of which I have as one star (*!) or less!! Pretty bad.

Best Match: Ultimate Warrior vs. 'Macho King' Randy Savage (***1/2)
Worst Match: Blindfold Match: Jake 'The Snake' Roberts vs. Rick Martel
Fun Moment: The opener match, I really like The Rockers, and this was a really fun opener.
Show Rating: 2.5/10​

 

[DakotaNorth]

WrestleMania 28

You know you're off to a bad start when a very average six minute women's tag team match is the best match of the opening hour. The Sheamus title win was shocking but not in a good way, I'd rather have Orton/Kane get the shock if you need to save time for Taker/HHH - which is obviously incredible. The HIAC match might be my favourite Mania match of all time (we shall see), it's certainly up there. Shawn added so much to the match, and all three men put on an all time classic. But it completely kills the crowd. For the rest of the show the crowd are so flat, and only get going again when they get the chance too boo cena (although the duelling chants of "Let's go Cena" and "Cena sucks" are really loud).

The rest of the show after HIAC is really solid. I enjoyed Punk/Jericho and the ONCE IN A LIFETIME main event between Rock and Cena is great, it's much better than I expected it to have any right to be. Both men are absolute stars, and I enjoyed it a lot with a really well booked and executed match. Rocky looked gassed by the end, but they go twenty minutes and it never impacts the match so, much respect.

Best Match: Hell in a Cell: The Undertaker vs Triple H *****
Worst Match: Team Johnny vs Team Teddy 1/2*
Fun Moment: Cena/Rock is the kind of main event this show is built for, and this stands as one of the biggest main events of all time, with a really good match to back it up.
Show Rating: 7.25/10​

 

[DakotaNorth]

WrestleMania 20

This show is weird because at the time I was delighted with the ending of this show but now 20 years later it's a much different emotion watching Eddie and Benoit celebrate with the belts. Their matches on this show are outstanding, it felt like the perfect crowning moment of all the nonsense of the InVasion and Brand Warfare etc and moved past it (obviously it hadn't, this was merely a sojourn of technical celebration , not a shift in direction). There are a lot of matches that seem to just exist without a lot of build or any real payoff involved (both 4 way tag matches, the playboy gown match, and of course Goldberg/Lesnar) and some matches that I thought should have been a LOT better (Molly v Victoria, but they werent given a lot of time and they only did the Hair gimmick to actually get onto Mania in the first place; but also Jericho v Christian for me was a let down). Overall it is a good show with a bit of a bland middle, but the last hour is very strong (yes, even Kane/Taker, which didn't bother me one bit). Oh and the handicap match was better than expected, but it also wasn't amazing or anything as the hot tags didn't really work for me and it went on a bit too long.

Best Match: World Heavyweight Title: Triple H (c) vs. Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Benoit
Worst Match: Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar
Fun Moment: RVD pop for the frogplash. Never gets old.
Show Rating: 6.5/10​

 

[DakotaNorth]

WrestleMania 26

Mania 26 is a real problem for me. It has a perfectly acceptable, albeit somewhat bland, MITB match (with an equally bland winner). It has a HHH/Sheamus match that is better than you'd expect. Chris Jericho and Edge put on a really good match for the World Heavyweight Title. The Undertaker is in his Mania pomp and putting on a classic with Shawn Michaels. AND you get TWENTY MINUTES of Bret Hart kicking Vince McMahon's ass. But, you have to put up with twenty minutes of Vince McMahon selling being beaten down, and it killed me off mid show. I made several excuses to leave the room and every time I came back it was still going, Vince getting flogged well beyond enjoyment. Punk/Mysterio doesn't deliver like it should, Cena/Batista is a let down (ish), and the end of The Legacy didn't do a whole lot for Cody or Ted in the short term. They got treated like stooges and they got beaten like stooges.

HOWEVER. The main event is absolutely incredible, Jericho and Edge are really really good, and HHH seems to get perfectly acceptable matches against almost anyone by this point. So I can't hate it as much as this show probably deserves, thanks to its few saving graces being so far above the bar the rest of this show sets. It ends up somewhere just above absolutely average.

Best Match: The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels
Worst Match: Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon
Fun Moment: Shawn refusing to quit in a spot they'd recreate two years later with Taker/HHH.
Show Rating: 6/10
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[DakotaNorth]

WrestleMania 37

Both openers on both nights really do a terrible job of setting expectations for the two night show (When did they go to two nights? I remember the nearly five hour WrestleMania XX felt like too much, nevermind two nights of it!). Orton/Fiend is genuinely laughable, Lashley/McIntyre was super dull, and all the women's tag team action on both nights was really poor. Thankfully, Asuka/Rhea was good, and Bianca Belair/Sasha Banks was great, because the rest - not so much.

I really liked the AJ/Omos match. Not sure how they booked that angle outside of a one off match, because there's surely only so much you can do with that dynamic, but I thought it was really well booked to protect Omos. Cesaro/Rollins, Owens/Zayn and Sheamus/Riddle were all good fun, and I really really enjoyed the main main event of Roman/Edge/Bryan. Perhaps I'm shielded somewhat as I haven't had to experience any of the Roman Reigns era (babyface/heel/whatever), so he's just a big guy that throws superman punches and hits spears, and I'm all good with that. The match with Brock didn't work because it was terribly booked, but with two great workers in Edge and Daniel Bryan alongside him, this worked out a treat.

Of fourteen matches, half were good or better, but five were really bland. This seems to be a WrestleMania staple and it's a shame when large portions of your show are dedicated to segments or matches that would be better suited on TV. If you must go two nights 8-10 hours at least ensure that nobody drops below the minimum standard. Also, I've seen some people praise the Nigerian Drum Fight, and if anyone knows what those peeps are smoking, please hook me up.

Best Match: WWE Universal Title: Roman Reigns (c) vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Edge
Worst Match: Nigerian Drum Fight: Big E vs. Apollo Crews
Fun Moment: Banks/Belair blew me away. It wasn't at the level of some of the other high profile women's matches of the modern era, but it's meaning and significance really added a lot to the match. One day I may even be okay with someone swinging their long hair as a gimmick.

Show Rating: 7.5/10​