Some #WrestleMania Thoughts by @Rick_City

First of all, I highly recommend starting watching WrestleMania an hour into the show so you can skip over all of the miscellaneous stuff.

Here are some things I wrote during the show:

Shane versus AJ was much better than it deserved to be. Honestly though, AJ Styles is a former WWE Champion who recently defeated John Cena. He should have destroyed Shane. Instead, Shane McMahon looked like he was on the same level for most of the match. It made for a better match, but it made less sense logically. Ref bumps where the referee takes three hours to recover are so dumb. It's adorable how Shane McMahon's kids are always so excited to see him lose at WrestleMania. 

Jericho/Owens was fine. It was what I expected from it, so that's good. There have been two matches so far and there have been two "this is awesome" chants. Please stop. 

I was pretty shocked the see the Hardyz come out for the tag match, even though I heard some rumours. I wasn't shocked that they returned with their WWE gimmick, not the "broken" gimmick. No offense to TNA, but no one really knows what TNA Impact is. I know the internet went nuts for the Broken Hardys, but I haven't seen TNA/Impact Wrestling in many, many years. Outside of a few clips I've seen on YouTube, I have no idea what the Broken gimmick truly is. Maybe the live crowd at WrestleMania would have reacted positively to the Broken Hardys, but at least half of the people watching at home would have no idea what was going on if the Hardyz came back acting weird. If they want to change gimmicks in WWE, then go for it, but it made sense to have them come back to the gimmick that WWE fans know. The ladder match itself was fine.

I feel like the Raw Women's Title match had its time cut minutes before the women went out there. It seemed rushed and should have been much better. The fact that Charlotte didn't cleanly get the turnbuckle cover off hurt as well, since the exposed turnbuckle played such a big part in the match. It was good to see Bayley retain though. I'm shocked Sasha didn't turn on her after the match.

Cena/Nikki vs Miz/Maryse was fine for what it was. STOP CHEERING FOR THE MIZ! HE'S HE ONLY REAL HEEL WE HAVE! DON'T RUIN HIM! Jerry Lawler should never do commentary again. Weren't Nikki and Maryse the legal competitors when the match ended? Then why did they play Cena's music when Nikki won the match? Also, the proposal was 1980s level cheesy. 

Next, Seth Rollins faced off against someone's dad going through a midlife crisis. It was long, and not in a good way. It felt long. I get what they were trying to do, but it didn't really work for me. Stephanie McMahon is an incredible manager though. Little things like telling HHH that "he's getting chairs!" is excellent. It's so weird that they didn't mention Seth Rollins' knee injury a million times. In a shocking turn of events, it was Stephanie, not Shane, who was the McMahon to take a cool big bump tonight. The match was entertaining at points, but it did feel long, as I said.

At least Bray Wyatt got to enter at night. A few years ago when him and the Undertaker did their entrances in daylight, it looked weird. Rollins turning the ramp into fire during his entrance in the last match suddenly a lot less impact when it basically looked the same when Orton entered (minus the snake). It feels like they wanted this storyline to be something huge and epic but it wasn't. OH GOOD VIDEO PROJECTIONS. The fact that they acted like a video totally spooked Orton was ridiculous. Would Orton even be able to see what the video was? I hate this feud. 70,000 people were not "in shock." They were embarrassed. Of course Orton won. Terrible decision. Who was the heel here? Who was the face? 

Moving on... 

Not very many "GOLDBERG" chants, but maybe the crowd was just getting tired. I was. And then get got booed when he was announced. Comeback over, I guess. But, after the spears, he was cheered again. Good booking. This match, much like Goldberg's return was booked perfectly. I would have liked to see Goldberg kick out of the first F5, since Lesnar kicked out of the Jackhammer, but otherwise it was great stuff. And I hate "spam all the suplexes" Lesnar, but it was perfect tonight. Goldberg's return was a million times better than it deserved to be.

The fact that the Smackdown Women's Title match was booked to follow Goldberg/Lesnar was cruel, but at least it wasn't on the preshow. At least the Universal Title match woke up the crowd after Orton/Wyatt killed it. Why did all of the women just watch as Naomi danced around during her intro? I feel like Becky Lynch's hair is culturally insensitive. I hate Elsworth so much. Am I supposed to? The double sharpshooter was cool. Naomi winning was a good call. She's over. 

Great to see JR back. If they were going to have both JR and the King back, they should have put them together. JBL is awful these days. I can see the "guest announcers" being there to give the permanent announce team a break on such a long show, though. Roman Reigns is the perfect smug asshole. Even without the "chosen one" boos, based on his character, he should be booed. He's a cocky jerk. I love him. Stop trying to make him "the top face" and just let him be "the top guy." The show was five hours long and I swear four hours of it were the Undertaker walking down the ramp for the match. This match was booked perfectly too. It truly felt like a "passing of the torch" moment. If Undertaker's career is over, and it most certainly feels like it is, this was a good storyline way to go. 

Overall, despite sounding grumpy during this post, I quite liked this WrestleMania. Outside of Orton/Wyatt, every match was entertaining in its own way. Good stuff.