2019 Pro Wrestling thread

Reports saying that the main event finish was botched:

Report: WrestleMania 35 Finish Was Botched, Didn't Go According To Plan - Wrestlezone

 

So was the exodus of fans. Word is, thousands were left stranded as transit shut down before many could get back to the city and Uber/ taxi jacked prices.

 

I don’t feel like looking it up, but I think he missed a couple early on.

 

Nah, that’s what they want you to think. They’ll turn this into a screw job to show Rousey that was wrestling isn’t fake.

 

I dont think Rousey was a botch.

Charlotte’s table spot was. They gotta get gimmicked tables for the ladies. Same thing happened with Charlotte and Sasha in the cell, the thing didnt break.

 

Despite having only a couple matches to truly get emotionally invested in with a decent storyline, Wrestlemania was pretty good. Better than most.

Thoughts:

- Matches were paced out and placed decent for the most part. Sucks for Balor to be in the spot before the main event.

- Smart to have Lesnar-Rollins at the start, smarter to have it be short ... no chance for a restless crowd to shit on Lesnar. Not smart to have Seth resort to low blows again ... that's how Daniel Bryan won and turned heel, remember?

- Only picks I got wrong in the pool I was in: Shane (had Miz), Styles (had Orton), and Carmella (had Asuka thinking they would try to build her back up somehow after the title loss; should've known they'd play the local angle again).

- Correctly picked the rest ... yes, I picked the IIconics.

- Scaffolding 25 feet in the air only had railings on 3 of the sides? ... yeah, you knew what was going to happen there. Hopefully Miz's strong showing leads to something more worthwhile. Renewed feud with Bryan with roles reversed?

- Glad there was essentially no outside interference in Kofi-Bryan match.

- More time needed for Balor-Lashley, less for HHH-Batista.

- Main event was really good, but fell short of being great. Still better than most WM main events in recent past. The shock of the surprising 3-count took away from a monster pop for Becky's win. Crowd drained at that point to be paying 100% attention. They did not expect that at that point.

- 12:30 a.m. EDT is a ridiculous time to end a show. They aren't going to cut back on the length of the show anytime soon. They just need to move the start time of everything back at least one hour.

- Alexa's silver dress ... damn. Alexa's green dress ... well, Ron Simmons sums it up best.

 

Here's a stat of the day for Wrestlemania 35.
Of the 78 matches combined in the first six Wrestlemanias, only 14 lasted longer than 10 minutes. None were more than 20 until Warrior-Hogan (22:51) in the main event of WM6.
Last night, 12 of the 16 matches went longer than 10 minutes and three were longer than 20 minutes. That's not even counting Rollins-Lesnar, which was only 2:30 officially but probably 10+ when you factor in the pre-match beatdown.

THAT, folks, is how you wind up with a 7 1/2-hour show.

 

Somebody allegedly didn’t want Ronda Rousey to tap to Becky Lynch

This could be Vince or Prichard rather than Ronda. On the WM10 pod, Bruce said Bret pinned Yoko because a submission seemed like a lame way to end Mania. It came up on the WM 20 pod too. I forget if he said that was his own feeling or Vinces but either way.

Becky needs a credible finisher thats a pin, same way Cena and AJ Styles have both “moves” (AA, clash, forearm) and subs (stf, calf crusher). Charlotte sort of does. Becky needs it, both to avoid this kind of nonsense and because the disarm-her kinda blows anyway

 

One thing is that the pacing of most of the matches is pretty similar. Start out with the headlocks and working of body parts. Babyface does a high spot. Finishers get teased. Heel takes over. Babyface gets a hope spot. Heel shuts it down. Babyface makes comeback. Finishers get kicked out of. Frantic finish ensues.

After a while, it all kinda repetitive.

 

All in all, after finally finishing watching the show, I give it a B.

There wasn’t any results that were illogical (I’m fine with the Iconics winning because they can be entertaining with a short title reign.). Shane/Miz was fine, and the ending was good. Thuganomics Cena was a nice surprise. Kofi winning was awesome. Becky’s win will continue the storyline. Charlotte’s entrance was a nice callback to one her dad did by helicopter at a Great American Bash 30-odd years ago.

The criticism comes with the Andre, which was totally predictable and a waste of Braun.Trips-Batista would have been fine for 12 minutes, not 25. And of course, the show is way too long.

 

Lots of Wrestlemanias have ended via submission, though. The last one was WM30, but that's mostly been a function of Roman Reigns having a stranglehold on the main event the past few years. Looking from 20-30, there were about a half-dozen submission victories in the main event with Benoit, Cena, Undertaker and Bryan.