The OtherArena

[JAG]

Really good show, not getting how it's one of the best Manias ever. Maybe top 10.

* Great booking for main event. Lesnar is a league above their roster.

* Rock/Rousey angle was superb, especially if it has a payoff in a year. Steph is a great bitch.

* HHH pinning Sting was hilarious. The Rock thing gives him justification.

* Rest was there, nothing great, nothing terrible

Jagdip

[jdw]

Main event was well laid out. They side stepped a face champ who wasn't that over by giving it to another heel without "beating" Brock. Since Brock is on a limited schedule, this lets them run Rollins vs Reigns, Rollins vs Orton... they have face US & IC champs in Cena and Bryan who could be tossed against Rollins if need be. I'm not predicting a massively long Rollins run unless something clicks, but they have four faces they can hot shot through him on TV and the next few PPV.

Thought the layout of the match itself was strong: Brock the Monster, then giving a good reason for him to go on the defense (the posting) rather than just have Reigns get something flukey. The back and forth down the stretch was good, the fans were reacting to it, and then the Money In The Bank cash in made sense.

On the rest of the card...

Sting-Trip was a terrific spectacle. The wrestling itself wasn't all that, but they really laid it out smart. Everyone looked old, especially the nWo. But it all worked, and this was just about the best use of Shawn Michaels since he retired. Sting getting beat was a HORRID idea... until we saw the angle later in the show, in which case it made no sense to have Trip lose.

The rest of the undercard did nothing for me. I hate 95% of ladder matches, and seeing one so soon after Perro died filled with dumb ass spots wasn't enjoyable. I hate Orton, so that match bored the hell out of me. The show was in the crapped at that point, but Sting-Trip of all things pulled out it. Chick match did nothing for me. Rusev-Cena was a solid enough match, but none of us really cared.

Since we were watching the Duke-Zags game during the undercard, we didn't see the Tag Match and Battle Royal on the pre-game show. We watched after the show, though we saw the highlights after Mania which took away surprise over the finish.

I thought the tag was a clusterfuck with too many folks in the ring just doing a mass of bullshit spots. If you like clusterfucks like that, then you'd love this. I found it tedious. Glad that Claudio won.

The battle royal was pretty awful until it got down to three men, with the exception of the good stuff between Claudio and Big Show. The three men was solid to set up Miz vs Mizdow. Then the Show vs Mizdow stuff was pretty good as they didn't instantly go to the finish and instead teased around a bit. Decent end run to the match, but terrible body which you'd expect from a mass of humanity in the ring.

Then there's the co-main event: Steph & Trip vs The Crowd, Steph & Trip vs Rock and Steph & Trip vs Rock & Rhonda. It was looooooooonnnnnnggggg. They over milked some stuff, especially Rock coming out. But... Steph was the best Steph since the start of her run with Trip. Trip was good working in the back ground, working facials, selling stuff, and letting Steph dominated the spot. Rock started a little slow, it feels like because the crowd took a while to get a sustained, strong *single* chant going rather than kind of farting around with ones. Seemed to cause him to take a while to find his form. But once he got going, and started playing well off Steph, he was back in top form. He was terrific in selling The Slap, in not hitting her, in bailing out of the ring, and in his walk around the ring *passing* Rhonda, then pausing, then looking in the ring, then going back to Rhonda. The video here captures the Rock walking around the ring past Rhonda, and how well he pulls it off:

http://screengrabber.deadspin.com/ronda-rousey-the-rock-team-up-to-crush-triple-h-step-1694451643

When I was it was a looooonnnnngggg angle, there's a clip on Youtube that picks up when Rock is close to the barricade looking at Rhonda, she's looking back... and the clip is 7:20 from that point to the end of the segment. This thing much have been a 20-25 minute segment, like those old Triple H Opens Raw With A Fucking Horrible 20 Minute Mic Segment spot... except this one worked really well. ;) But... yeah... it was looooonnnnnngggg. :)

[jdw]

The Old Star Ratings Bong

[Bob Morris]

Remains to be seen what else they put together for WM32, given that they want tickets to sell fast for one of the largest venues yet.

Taker is probably wrestling his final match then, and they have to do Taker-Cena, because they need the high profile match for Taker. He's already given the rub to Lesnar for breaking the streak, so Cena is a safe opponent, and you can go either way with the booking.

I'm guessing they'll hope Trip/Steph vs. Rock/Ronda will be strong enough as well.

If WWE Creative were smart, they'd save Rollins/Reigns until WM32, but I have my doubts if they can pull it off well. But if they are serious about building Reigns, they better start acting serious instead of trying to make him Rock V2.0.

[Bob Morris]

I will say that the speeches from the HOF show the night before were some of the best ever. Moving the show to the Network just allowed everyone to talk for as long as they wanted.

* Poffo reading poetry to pay tribute to Randy Savage was terrific.

* Larry Z seemed like he wanted to wing it and got caught up in the moment.

* Madusa was terrific, especially her last bit when she had fun joking about the women's title angle. Also, you could tell she doesn't like Vince Russo. :)

* Bushwhackers were the best for backstage stories. The story Butch told about the 1990 Royal Rumble was awesome.

* Not a dry eye in the house when Daniel Bryan talked about Connor.

* It was fun to see Kevin Nash joke about his early WCW days, and even funnier when they pulled out the photo of him as Oz with the "dunce cap" when he asked for one.

[JAG]

Reigns will need at least one more strong heel run before he can be a big babyface. Not convinced he can ever be the babyface.

They'll bust out everything they can for next year to beat the mythical 93,000 number. Would be hilarious if one of things they have to do is have Hogan's retirement match.

Jagdip

[jdw]

Totally agree they will bust everything out for Jerry World, and they will draw a ton whether it's worked or not.

If they can hold off, we'll see Rock & Rhonda vs Trip & Steph. It's a long build, but since the face side is pretty active with their real careers, they'll back burner it. However, there has been a lot of talk about Rock vs Lesner for Mania 32 as the big draw to pop the place.

It's hard to think that they're going to do Rock & Rhonda vs Trip & Steph at Summer Slam, since Rhonda is headlining UFC 190 on Aug 1. UFC 200 looks like May-Jun 2016. You'd also think that they might want her to headline (or at least be in the double main event). That would put Mania at a tough point in training, and leave little margin in "don't get injured", especially when UFC can't afford to screw up UFC 200 mains.

Take obviously will be a pushed match, and perhaps finally his retirement.

Depending on whether they're up or down in their relationship with Austin, they'll likely try to push again for him to do something in the ring. Perhaps why they're "down" right now is that he keeps saying now.

If it's the biggest drawing crowd of all-time, you know Hogan will want to be on the card. ;)

[RL]

I'm not a UFC viewer (or an MMA fan), so I have to admit that Rousey failed to make a real impression on me. I believe people when they tell me she's a legit badass, but I didn't really see much of that. She could have been any pissed-off millennial -- perhaps Rock's personal assistant or something.

Damn, that was a long segment.

~rl

[jdw]

:)

I agree that it was looooooonnnnnnnggggg in a throwback to the 1999-2002 period, right down to Trip being in the ring for a long segment. I completely agree that if it was something that didn't work for the viewer, it would be unending.

I hate Trip, and usually don't care for Steph in the post-Triangle Angle (SummerSlam 2000) period. But this to me was a throwback for her to that Jan-Aug 2000 period when she was at her best. Plus... she did most of the talking while Trip didn't. ;)

[JAG]

Dave put down the bong. From this week's WON:

a WrestleMania show that was excellent live and, while not quite as good, was still a strong show watching on television. Live I thought it was one of the better live wrestling shows I’d been to. Rewatching, it was a very good show, with no bad matches, several excellent matches and a great angle involving The Rock & Rousey vs. HHH & Stephanie McMahon, that should in some form lead to a main event match next year at WrestleMania at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX. But it was not the best WrestleMania of all-time.

Jagdip

[jdw]

Jag... you've seen how Dave tends to overrate things live:

Dave: "I thought [Match X at King of Indies] was _____ stars."

jdw: "Put the bong down."

I seem to recall that got a "big ass laugh" out of you. :)

One of the very few matches that Dave rated higher on TV was the When Worlds Collide match. We expected a far longer match in the arena, and WCW stupidity forced them to self-edit it down and kind of rush through what they wanted to do. Live he thought it was ****1/2, with the pop to the second fall one of the more amazing things he'd ever seen. Then he got home and perhaps watching Cruise & Tenay call the thing ( ;) ) caused him to go up another half star.