April
11, 2016 - YOUR Wrestlemania 32
Herb Meltzer Memorial Technotronic Hybrid Dorkrate Report
Wrestlemania
32 happened, and it was a thing, and it was like
nineteen hours long, and as such, this thing is going to be long as
hell. So let's
dispense with the introductory paragraphs and plow forward.
INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPHS ARE FOR SUCKERS.
Pre-pre show thing that was shown on the WWE Network and somewhere
else, probably:
1.
U.S. Title: Kalisto beat Ryback
The
Players:
Kalisto is a lil
masked fella who does flippity-floppity things in the lucha libre
tradition. Ryback is THE BIG GUY, a giant mid-2000s throwback
forged from raw pharmaceuticals who used to be a man of the people who
was way into self-help books, (no really) but who has now surrendered
to his destiny as EVIL FAKE BILL GOLDBERG.
The
Pageantry: Ever since
becoming Dark Side of Ryback, The Big Guy has largely eschewed
all
pieces of flair, even ditching his old Fake Rob Van Dam ring
attire. Kalisto, however showed up dressed like a damn dragon, and
according to announcer extraordinaire Mauro Ranallo, he was wearing
colors that represented his hero and yours, the late Hayabusa, and he
seems like a dude who doesn't just make shit up. For his efforts, the HERB
MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000, a rating system
that we here at terrible violence dot com spent many years and untold
millions to develop, which is comprised of a vast network of extremely
advanced computer-type devices that you would never be able to
understand, gives this a Pageantry Rating of TWO
(2) STACKS OF DUBBED FMW VHS TAPES.
The
Match:
Look, this was just
north of being a dark match, they didn't get much time, and most of the
eventual audience was still trapped outside the stadium, so they
weren't gonna go all out. Kalisto did some flips and some flops, and he
flipped well, as is his way, and Ryback didn't accidentally murder him,
despite HOSSING him around like a DANG HOSS. For real, Ryback kind of
has the reputation of being the WWE's Lennie Small, and any time he
gets through a match without hugging his little friend until they don't
move no more, you count it as a win. Wasn't much, but it was all it
needed to be. SO according to the HERB
MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 technology, this
match gets a rating of TWO
(2) 1994 HONDA CIVIC DEL SOLS
Regular
pre-show that was only on the WWE Network:
1. Ten Diva Woman
Tag Match: Team Total Divas (Brie Bella, Paige, Natalya,
Alicia Fox, and Eva Marie) beat Team B.A.D. and Blonde (Naomi, Tamina
Snuka, Emma, Summer Rae, and Lana)
The
Players:
Shit, gonna plow
through this as fast as I can: Brie Bella is the lesser Bella Twin,
Paige is ghostly pale and worse at wrestling than her mom, Natalya is
Jim Neidhart's kid, Alicia Fox is the Bella Twins' friend, Eva Marie is
all red and terrible at everything, and these five represent a reality
show. Naomi got fired from Total Divas for being a normal person,
Tamina is Superfly Snuka's kid, Emma is the Australian Secret Best
Wrestler who once got fired for accidentally stealing an iPhone case,
Summer Rae is the secret Fifth Horsewoman of NXT, Lana plays a Russian
and a pro wrestler on TV, but is neither in real life, and these five
just got thrown together willy-nilly.
The
Pageantry and the Match: There
really wasn't much in the way of pageantry, because they had a limited
time to just rush ten damn people out there. I dunno, I guess Tamina
and Natalya both made slightly greater efforts to look like Sindel from
Mortal Kombat? Anyway, considering that Eva Marie is an historically
bad wrestler who once forgot that you had to kick out of a pin if
you're supposed to win the match, and Lana had literally never wrestled
before, this should have been the most fabulous of disasters. But they
both executed the one move they know and got the hell out of there,
before anyone could slip on any banana peels, so it's all good. This
match ended in the most predictable way possible, with Brie Bella using
one of Daniel Bryan's moves, but it might have been the best Yes Lock
ever, and she gets to retire and have his weird goat babies now. Before
that, she did that thing where she yells "BRIEEEE MOOOODE" and it never
hit me how funny that sounds before. Like the pre-revolution stock WWE
Diva gimmicks have always been some variation/combination of "gyrating
seductress," "gyrating popular girl who doesn't want you sitting at her
table in the cafeteria," or "gyrating cartoonishly exaggerated
psychopath," but between the squeaky "BRIE MODE" and the way she can't
say a word longer than two syllables without garbling or omitting at
least one of them, Brie would have worked much better as a loveable
doofus character. Other highlights included Naomi doing a thing where
she just kicked the shit out of Natalya like a hundred thousand times
in a very not-humanly-possible "mashing the low-kick button repeatedly
on Street Fighter 2" way, and Lana yelling insults at her opponents in
an
extremely American accent, making me wonder if her status as a
Ravishing Russian is one of those things they'll just sort of slyly
back away from, like Kane being a mute burn victim, Triple H being a
foppish old-money aristocrat, or the Undertaker being an admitted
double-murderer. After the match, Nikki Bella made a surprise
appearance that was kind of hilarious, as she was wearing her full
wrestling attire, despite still being in a neck brace from potentially
career-ending injuries. Maybe the move to an allegedly kid-friendly
product also came with a mandate that they go back to Hulk Hogan's Rock
N Wrestling cartoon reality, where ring gear is the only suit of
clothes any of them own? This has to be awkward though, when Nikki has
to go to a funeral or a christening or something while wearing a
baseball cap and literally less than underwear. But anyway,
between the match being okay overall, neither Eva nor Lana triggering
"Yakkity Sax," and Brie finishing her career on a high note, the HERB
MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 gives this a
combined match/pageantry rating of TWO
(2) "CONGRATION YOU DONE IT" CAKES, plus a
supplemental TRASH
rating for whoever decided to cut away right as everyone was
triumphantly hoisting Brie onto their shoulders after the match. Like
seriously, they were in mid-hoist.
2.
Lita brings out the New WWE Women's Title belt
Well, it
turns out, that last match might have been symbolically the
end to more than just Brie Bella's wrestling career. .This was a thing
that had kind of been rumored in the weeks leading up to the show but
never confirmed or officially announced, as far as I knew, at least.
Anyway, WWE Hall of Famer and Someone You Recognize From the late
90s/early 2000s (which will become a theme of the night, as with every
recent Wrestlemania) Lita comes out to more or less confirm that OH
HOLY SHIT, they actually are going to start making an actual effort
with the WWE women's division, beyond it just being used to promote sad
nerd boners and reality TV shows. The Divas Championship is being
disbanded, the pretty insulting term "WWE Diva" is itself getting
tossed out in favor everyone just being a "Superstar" now, and there's
a brand new WWE women's title, with a belt that's basically a red/white
version of the men's title. And the thing here is that it's a
completely *new* championship. Like in addition to its lineage not
including the Divas Title, but this one isn't even related to the
original NWA/WWF/WWE Women's Title that goes back to the 1950s or
whenever. At a glance, it seems kind of weird to just throw out several
decades of history, but if you really think about it, it's a pretty
startling admission that most of that history was very,
very bad.
So while it's a bummer that the fancy new white belt isn't the same
title that Wendi Richter or Bull Nakano held, it's fucking fantastic
that it's also not the one that's been held by Candice Michelle, Sable,
or Downtown Bruno dressed in drag. Not to mention that the new
championship also doesn't exist under the same Sauron-like 50-year
shadow of The Fabulous Moolah, who was probably one of the greater
real-life absolutely monstrous human beings in a business that's been
defined by its monsters. And as for the actual physical belt, this is
awesome, because it at least symbolically puts the women's title on
equal ground with the WWE World Heavyweight Title, and while I'm a
sucker for ornately-carved championship belts, the old Divas butterfly
belt was fuckin' garbage. It looked like a Barbie accessory, as the
highest prize for what's theoretically a combat sport. Seriously, if
Hulkamania hadn't been a disorder mainly carried on the Y chromosome,
and Mattell had decided to supplement the "Barbie and the Rockers" toy
line with a "Barbie and the Wrestlers" one, that's pretty much what
Barbie's title belt would look like. And this all comes with the caveat
that I don't trust the modern WWE to not royally fuck up anything they
touch, but hopefully, we can now move past the years of jealous bitches
catfighting over boyfriends and the Malibu Dream Belt, and the women's
division will actually matter now. The HERB
MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 gives this TV
segment the extremely high marks of THREE
(3) MILDRED BURKES, TWO (2) AKIRA HOKUTOS, and a bonus
craftsmanship grade of TWO
(2) TIM DOG CHAMPIONSHIPS.
3.
The Usos (Jimmy and Jey Uso) beat the Dudley Boys (Bubba Ray and D-Von
Dudley )
The
Players: Bubba (formerly
"Buh-Buh") and D-Von are two guys that peaked creatively when I was
like sixteen years old, which was literally over a thousand years ago,
and they like throwing other wrestlers through cheap tables, which they
no longer light on fire due to concerns for the TV-PG rating. The Usos
are members of the enormously gigantic Anoa'i Wrestling Dynasty, more
directly being the twin sons of Rikishi, (who was originally Fatu, if
you're hella-old and spent the 2000s in solitary) and they are
history's most boring exciting tag team. The
Pageantry and the Match:
This... This match was nothing. Nothing happened, there were no special
extra efforts related to this being THE GRANDEST STAGE OF THEM
ALL, and I had to go back and watch again to recall who won. In
fact, I think this match even happened again the next night on Monday
Night Raw, and something actually
happened
that time, officially signaling a new, twisted reality where the
post-Mania Raw is officially more important than Actual Wrestlemania,
which some morons spent $70 to see in high-def. This match was some
mailing-it-in-for-a-weekend-show shit, and just made me sad.
And according to the scientific methods employed by the HERB
MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 deems this match
in all aspects to be the merest of
TRASH.
WRESTLEMANIA 32 PROPER
1.
SEVEN MAN LADDER MATCH FOR THE INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP:
Zack Ryder beat Kevin Owens (reigning
champ), Sami Zayn, Dolph Ziggler, Sin Cara, Stardust, and The Miz
The
Players:
Kevin Owens is a
heavyset Canadian man who loves his family very much, and that means he
FUCKING HATES ALL OF YOU. Sami Zayn is a ska enthusiast who has avoided
Vince McMahon sticking him with a Muslim terrorist gimmick based on
being gingery enough to pass for Irish so far, and is subject to
persistent, ugly rumors that his mentor, El Generico, was actually just
the same guy wearing a mask. Zack Ryder is the guy who figured out how
the internet works and used it to literally be more popular than John
Cena at one point, and for some bizarre reason, he's been savagely
punished for such audacity, to the point where I'm pretty sure
Wrestlemania 32 was his first televised match of consequence in like
five years. Dolph Ziggler is a former World Champion who used to be a
male cheerleader, and then he was Fake Billy Gunn, and now, he's Fake
Shawn Michaels, and we all need to just let go of the thought of him
ever being a main event level dude again. Sin Cara was originally the
legendary luchador Mistico, but he kept getting hurt and being a giant
baby about it, so they shipped him back to Mexico (where I'm pretty
sure he's known as something like "Mxyzptlk" now) and put Some Other
Guy under his mask, with mixed results. Stardust is an intergalactic
super villain who is totally not Cody Rhodes, NOOOO SHUT UP SHUT UP DO
NOT SAY THAT NAME IN MY PRESENCE, WE ARE STARDUST NOW. And the Miz is a
former reality show contestant Mike Mizanin, who is so astoundingly
good at being slimy and hateable on a pro wrestling level, that
everyone has forgotten to suspend our disbelief, and we all literally
despise him as a real-life human being now.
The Pageantry:
Wrestling-based pageantry is usually relegated to the entrances, so
there's not much to speak of here, in no small part due to them having
to run seven guys out there without taking an hour to do so, and the
champ Kevin Owens being of a staunchly anti-pageantry
aesthetic, pretty much wrestling in my older brother's lounging
clothes. But Sin Cara came out in some crazy shoulder pads, and I'm not
sure if the all-white look was intended to remind me of El Santo, but
it totally did, so I'm giving it credit for that. Meanwhile, Stardust
went all out, decked out head to toe in black with yellow polka dots,
much in the style of the former Cody Rhodes's dad Dusty, and if that
weren't enough, he had "HARD TIMES" emblazoned across his back, and
brought out his own special polka-dotted ladder at one point. Because
even as a fiendish arch-villain, deep down he is still A Dude Who
Misses His Dad, and oh god, here come the damn feelings again. Talk
amongst yourselves; I'll give you a topic, which is how the HERB
MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 gives this match a
Pageantry Rating of TWO
(2) MOTHERSHIPS, ONE (1) CAN OF PORK 'N BEANS, AND ONE (1) SEVERED HEAD
OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST.
The
Match:
This was not the
most spectacular multi-dude ladder match ever, nor was it the shittiest
one ever, and was like the Baby Bear Just Right Ladder Match, in that
dudes were flying everywhere and being idiots and smashing into ladders
and jumping off of shit, but they seemed to have *just* enough of a
concern for themselves that it didn't just turn into ghoulish
spectacle. I was able to go "ooohhhhh daaaaang," without immediately
having Real-Ass Thoughts about how someone just shaved like two years
off their life. Also, the ending was the best thing ever, where they
spent a month building up the idea of Owens and Zayn as Blood Rivals
Forever who would be the focus of things, and that this was going to
mainly be Sami Zayn's WWE Main Roster Coming Out Party, and then OH GOD
DANG WHAT THE HELL ZACK RYDER WON WHOOOOOOOAAAAAA. It was a complete
surprise, where the prime example of a dude who was only in the match
because half the roster was injured ended up raising his arms in Golden
Victory, and it was a legitimate feel-good underdog moment of
redemption for the most downtrodden and abused wrestler to ever be
astoundingly popular while being in such a position. And (spoiler alert
if you're magically reading this from the past) even if it did end up
being a one-night reign that was used to introduce a new Total
Divas
cast member, (yeah, I know) Poor Ol' Gil finally got his Wrestlemania
Moment, and if they plan to actually move the story forward from here,
I'm invested all-the-hell-in on The Hero's (Heroeski's?) Journey of
Zack Ryder now. Don't fuck this up, WWE. Anyway, this match and
everything
surrounding it ruled, so the HERB
MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 has scientifically
rated this match with a score of
THREE (3) WOOS AND ONE (1) YOU KNOW IT
2.
Chris Jericho beat A.J. Styles
The
Players:
Chris Jericho is a
dude that I hate when he tries to be our good guy Cool Dad, but who is
a bad guy now, which paradoxically makes him infinitely more likeable.
Also, he's up in his forties now, and I'm pretty sure his torso is
melting. A.J. Styles is the Forsaken Hero We Didn't Know We Needed,
signed by WCW right before they went under in 2001, but never picked up
by the WWF/WWE until now, meaning he's had to spend his prime years
wandering the wastelands of TNA, playing second fiddle to Jeff Jarrett
and the withered husk of Hulk Hogan, when he rightfully should've been
playing second fiddle to Triple H and John Cena during that span. He's
also the guy we clown on endlessly for that time he was all "THE GAY
COMMUNITY!?" and that is a joke that will never get old, even when its
origin has finally been lost to the mists of time.
The Pageantry: Kinda
disappointing here, as A.J. didn't embrace the spectacle of THE BIGGEST
NIGHT IN THE HISTORY OF OUR SPORT whatsoever, and Jericho just wore
slightly more bedazzled wrestler panties and greaves than usual. (I
know they're supposed to be called "kick pads" or whatever, but I'm an
American and I pay my taxes, so I'mma call them shits greaves if I want
to) Still, even if it's his normal everyday entrance attire, some
slight credit has to be given to Jericho's blinky light-encrusted
jacket, so the HERB
MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 has awarded this
with a Pageantry Rating of ONE-HALF
(1/2) LIGHT-EMITTING DIODE.
The Match: This was good!
Nothing particularly mind-blowing went down, but it was two masters of
the art making art masterfully, and told a coherent-ass story of A.J.
being super good, but Y2J being the Wily Old Veteran who is The Best at
What He Does, so he had every move scouted. A lot of folks got pissed
that Jericho won, but it made sense to me. The WWE rightfully gets a
lot of shit for only knowing how to write a rasslin' feud that goes
"two guys fight each other nd alternate wins and losses until they just
stop fighting each other," but this actually did a good job of setting
up future considerations, and this was too good a thing they had going
to blow it off in one month. Not every fan favorite losing a wrestling
match can be classified as a "burial," ya fuckin nerds. Anyway, this
wasn't an all-time classic, but it was still super good, so according
to the HERB
MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000, it gets a rating
of THREE
AND A HALF (3.5) GAY COMMUNITIES.
3.
The League of Nations (Sheamus,
Rusev, and Alberto Del Rio, with King Barrett) beat The New Day (Tag
Team Champions Big E, Kofi Kingston, and Xavier Woods)
The
Players:
The League of
Nations are four dudes whose goods the WWE damaged so much that they
had to just throw them together as a team of EVIL FOREIGNERS and use
them for cannon fodder for wrestlers that still have hope in this
world. Sheamus is super pale and hella-Irish, Rusev is a Bulgarian
Brute who used to pretend to be Russian and is secretly the all-time
greatest pro wrestler, Alberto Del Rio is the sad shadow of a man who
got real-life fired for confronting racism and came skulking back for
huge sums of cash, and Wade Barrett is the saddest boy of all. The New
Day are three dudes who got stuck together in a shitty Smiling Black
Dudes who Always Lose Because Racism is Outta Control three-man team,
and then quit giving a shit and started just goofing off until it
became literally the best (and sometimes only) reason to watch the WWE
more often than not.
The
Pageantry: The League
provided Zero Pageantry on this evening, but it didn't matter, because
OH SHIT the New Day, you guys. THEY CAME OUT IN A GIANT BOX OF CEREAL
THAT TIPPED OVER, REVEALING THEM TO BE DRESSED AS DRAGONBALL Z DUDES. I
know some of you haven't been blown the fuck outta your chairs by that,
so I'll repeat:
. This is a thing that
actually happened:
I am saddened to announce that the super computer used to determine HERB MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID
RATING SYSTEM 2000
has caught on fire and subsequently exploded, killing several good
people, and will require a repair time of however long it takes me to
type up the match part of this review. So just assume it was OFF THE DAMN CHARTS.
The Match: It... Wasn't great?
I dunno. It just felt like a random match from Smackdown or something,
up to and including the part where the tag team champs lose a non-title
match to set up future considerations. I mean, everyone did their jobs
well and whatnot, and it wasn't necessarily bad or anything, but it was
just the opposite of memorable once the bell rang. Or maybe my Inner
Tiny Baby Child is just mad that my favorite dudes lost? I dunno. But
the HERB MELTZER MEMORIAL
TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 has been repaired just in
time to rate this match as TWO (2)
BOOTIES.
4. The League of Nations Get Beaten Up
By Nostalgia
I am torn on this one. After the match, the League announces that
they
can beat any three-man team there's ever been, which triggers the Bat
Signal to bring out Shawn Michaels, Cactus Jack, and Stone Cold Steve
Austin. And for some reason, HBK is wearing his ring gear, despite
being retired and not being scheduled to compete in a match, but I
guess it's because he's only been retired a few years, so he's still
close enough to the modern era of Wrestlers Not Actually Owning Street
Clothes. I guess Mick is wearing his rasslin gear too, but by the end,
sneakers and sweats were his go-to outfit, so it doesn't really count.
(Also, he's apparently dropped like fitty pounds recently, and is
looking way less like The Great Antonio than he has in years) Anyway,
they handily beat up the League, once again hammering home the modern
WWE narrative that All Our Current Guys Suck, and the New Day come back
to celebrate with them, despite having the double-humiliation of being
beaten by the guys who just got washed by three middle-aged men. On top
of all this, THAT SCOUNDREL Steve Austin hits Xavier Woods with a Stone
Cold Stunner for no reason, and I now hate Stone Cold forever for
destroying God's Most Perfect Angel. ALL HE WANTED WAS TO BRING
SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL INTO YOUR UGLY LITTLE WORLD, AND YOU STUNNERED HIM
FOR IT. I don't know, I want to hate this
so much, but it's The Heartbreak Kid and The Hardcore Legend and the
Texas Rattlesnake, you know? Also, for real, Xavier probably shoulda
known better than to try and make Stone Cold dance in public. But
anyway, the HERB MELTZER MEMORIAL
TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 shares my mixed feelings
on this, and gives it THREE (3)
SHITTY CRAFT BEERS THAT FOLKS PRETEND TO LIKE WHEN THEY GET TOO UPPITY
TO DRINK STEVEWEISERS ANYMORE.
5. NO HOLDS BARRED STREET FIGHT: Brock
Lesnar beat Dean Ambrose
The Players: Brock Lesnar is a
walking Chuck Norris Joke; the most cartoonishly, unrealistically
insurmountable human being there ever was. Dean Ambrose is a dude who
looks like the scuzzy guy reeking of vodka who shows up at a little
suburban kid's birthday party with a really shitty present, and who
gets pushed off to another room by the super respectable soccer mom and
gets yelled at for like ten minutes, because she has a good life now,
and she doesn't want little Skyler to know what a shithead her
biological father really is, and
doesn't want him showing up and ruining things for her all the time.
Also, he's CRAZY.
The Pageantry: There really
wasn't any. I guess it makes sense, because Dean Ambrose is just a
dirty ol' bastard and Brock is too busy eating huge piles of meat to
think up an elaborate entrance. I did like the way Paul Heyman insisted
on introducing MY CLIENT BROCK LESNAR himself rather than letting some
piss ant announcer do it, and he was probably more hyperbolic than
usual. So with that and my undying love of anything that reminds me of
Extreme Championship Wrestling, the HERB
MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000,
possibly out of pity, has bequeathed this with a Pageantry Rating of ONE-HALF (1/2) THE NIGHT KIMONA WANALAYA
DANCED ATOP THE ECW ARENA.
The Match: Welp. This was the
match we all had the highest hopes and expectations for, and the one
that was supposed to save the show when Taker vs. Shane and Trips vs.
Roman both shat the bed. But the thing is, a street fight is a match
based upon and fueled by violence. Harsh, bloody, nasty violence, pure,
visceral, heart-felt violence of the soul; the sort of blindly-enraged,
A Man Doing What a Man's Gotta Do, blood lusting TERRIBLE VIOLENCE
that's left the planet
Earth a cratered hellscape full of starving people, but is part of what
makes Fake Wrestling great. And in the modern corporatized and
homogenized WWE, that's just not allowed anymore. Don't get me wrong
here, in terms of our humanity and the general health of our souls,
this is a good thing. But the side effect is that we get a no-rules
match between History's Greatest Beast and a dude who was willing to
get his face mangled by a Sawzall in CZW, and it turns out to be just
some mild swinging of kendo sticks wrapped around kind of a boring
normal match. And honestly, Brock's normal matches have been SUPER
boring since the fateful day when he uttered the phrase "Suplex City,"
some marketing guy figured out that would sell some shirts, and it's
just been Brock Lesnar repeatedly German Suplexing a dude until he
decides to stop ever since. Brock's been reduced from a video game
character with a God Mode cheat code enabled to being the kid playing
Tekken 2 who doesn't know any of the moves and just sweeps the leg
repeatedly until everyone else gets pissed and throws their controllers
down. And after weeks of buildup where the Hardcore Legends of the past
bestowed Dean with their Legendary Weapons, Dean never used Mick
Foley's Enchanted Barbed Wire Baseball Bat, and he couldn't even get
Terry Funk's +2 Chainsaw of Deforestation to start. And while the Major
WWE Match is defined as one where you know it's a Major Match because
dudes keep kicking out of each other's finishing moves, Dean died after
one single, solitary F5. This... This match sucked real bad, you guys.
Well, I'm not sure if it sucked so much as it wasn't very good, after
having the highest possible expectations around it. So with all this in
mind, it just narrowly avoids the dreaded TRASH rating, and instead the
HERB MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC
HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 gives it a grade of ONE
(1) DROPPING HINTS ALL YEAR THAT YOU REALLY WANT TECMO SUPER BOWL AND
GETTING ALL EXCITED TO SEE AN NES CARTRIDGE-SHAPED PRESENT UNDER THE
TREE, ONLY TO OPEN IT ON CHRISTMAS MORNING TO FIND OUT THAT IT'S JOHN
ELWAY'S QUARTERBACK INSTEAD.
6. The Thing Where they Bring Out All
the New Hall of Famers (Sting, The Fabulous Freebirds, The Godfather,
The Big Boss Man, Jaqueline Moore, Stan Hansen, Joan Lunden, and Snoop
Dogg)
Look, this was just kind of a little thing they did where they ran
everybody out to wave to the crowd real quick, but I had to give it
some sort of mention, because depending on the dude's retirement plans,
it's quite possibly the last time we'll ever see BY GOD STANG show up
on a live televised rasslin' event. So for that momentous reason alone,
the HERB MELTZER MEMORIAL
TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 rates this segment with TEN (10) SCREEN SHOTS OF STING BEING BEATEN
UP BY THE FOUR HORSEMEN.
7. WWE WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH:
Charlotte (Reigning and Final WWE Divas Champ) beat Sasha Banks and
Becky Lynch
The Players: Charlotte is the Genetically Superior Diva
Superstar, in that her dad is *literally* Nature Boy Ric Flair, the
wheelin', dealin', kiss-stealin', etc. son of a gun. Sasha Banks is a
Legit Boss who is pretty much the Next Great Superstar of WWE, if they
manage to not screw this up as much as they usually do. And Becky Lynch
is the self-described Lass Kicker, in the she is an Irish lass who
enjoys kicking people, as she is really into puns as well as the
steampunk aesthetic, and if no one has used the word "steampun" to
describe that, then by god, I'm doing it now.
The Pageantry: Much has been
made of the fact that Sasha Banks's decision to go into pro wrestling
was made as a tiny baby child, when she was taken to the show where
Eddie Guerrero defeated MY CLIENT BROCK LESNAR for the WWE Title by her
older cousin, who is *literally* Snoop Dogg. To commemorate this, she
came out wearing a simulation of Eddie Guerrero's pants, while her
cousin, again *literally* Snoop Dogg - Mr. O.G. D-O-double-G, L.B.C. himself -
added some verses of his own to her entrance music in a way that was
quite laid back, despite his ongoing monetary concerns. Not to be
outdone, Charlotte brought her dad with her, who again is RIC WHOOOO BY
GOD FLAIR, and did this while wearing a fancy-ass robe, which was
itself crafted from the one Ric wore before Shawn Michaels declared his
love for him and then kicked his face straight to hell a few years
back. Also, Becky Lynch, well, bless her little heart, her entrance
sure had a lotta steam. Perhaps she might have won if she was only
fighting Sasha and Charlotte, and was not also fighting the frizzies?
Who can say. Anyway, all of this was truly a spectacle worthy of
Wrestlemania, so the HERB MELTZER
MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 gives this
match's pageantry the highest marks of TWO
(2) BLUNTS, ONE (1) RAIL OF BLOW, ONE (1) EDDIE GUERRERO SCARFACE
T-SHIRT, AND EXTREMELY HEALTHY PORES.
The Match: I'm not gonna
overreact and say that this was the best WWE women's match ever, (I see
you, Alundra Blayze and Bull Nakano from 1994) and I'm not gonna say
that this was better than a lot of the matches they had with each other
back in WWE NXT. But I am pretty confident in saying that this was the
best women's match ever at a Wrestlemania, which was all it really
needed to be. Things were a little too "aw Christ, they're only going
to give them five minutes, aren't they?" at first, with what felt like
seventeen-thousand attempts at flash pins to start the match, but
eventually, they slowed things down, and Sasha was busting out all
sorts
of Eddie tribute moves, and Becky was suplexing the living shit out of
people, and Charlotte does a moonsault outside the ring at one point
that I'm sure Jim Cornette would've described as "the damnedest thing
you ever saw" if he wasn't too busy ranting online about how the
industry has been destroyed by dudes not working a headlock for twelve
minutes or whatever. In the end, Ric Flair cheats to help Charlotte win
and trade her old shitty title belt in for the cool new one, because he
is THE DIRTIEST PLAYER IN THE GAME, and he taught her all she knows. I
keep seeing a lot of people on teh intarnets who really hated this, all
upset about how she had to have A DAMN *MAN* help her win or whatever,
and seriously, y'all need to calm down. You're reading too much into
shit that's not much deeper than what's on the surface, and a lot of
you have been buried way too deep inside your little Indie Wrestling
Nerd Bubble, where every Big Match has to have the same Big Match
Ending: A squeaky clean finish whereupon blood rivals suddenly forget
their blood rivalry and it's all handshakes and hugs and tears and big,
emotional speeches about "the boys in the back busting their asses
night in and night out" and Green Lantern Fan in the front row checking
his stopwatch, while the rest of the crowd tries to formulate an
over-complex and way-too-meta chant that probably thanks the promoter
or uses the wrestler's real names. And that's some stupid bullshit
right there. You know what happened here? RASSLIN' HAPPENED HERE. Ric
Flair interfering wasn't some nefarious anti-feminist plot by Kevin
Dunn to subvert the Revolution, it was Charlotte being THE BAD GUY. And
bad guy wrestlers will often employ what you call a heater, someone to
do dirty deeds behind the ref's back and make you hate the bad guy for
having them there. Ric Flair in 2016 is to Charlotte what Baby Doll was
to Ric Flair a hundred years ago. So don't be real-life mad at the WWE
for putting Ric Flair there, be fun, fake-mad at Charlotte for bringing
him with her, and super-fuckin-pumped to see her get her comeuppance at
the hands of Sasha or Becky (or, dare I say... Bayley?) sometime
between now and Wrestlemania 33. For actual women's wrestling to be
mainstreamly-accepted, it's gotta turn the corner and become RASSLIN',
and they did it, you guys. And as the Match of the Night, the HERB MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID
RATING SYSTEM 2000 awards this the highest marks of TWO (2) MILDRED BURKES, TWO (2) BULL
NAKANOS, ONE (1) SUSAN B. ANTHONY DOLLAR COIN, and bonus grades
of ONE (1) MANAMI TOYOTA each
in honor of Becky Lynch's straightjacket suplex and Charlotte's
crazy-ass moonsault, and ONE (1)
"EDDIE GUERRERO IS MY FAVORITE WRESTLER" T-SHIRT to commemorate
Sasha's various Eddie-isms throughout. Now hopefully, they can keep
this up and find a way to keep Kevin Dunn
from oozing up to Vince McMahon, all Grima Wormtongue-like, and
planting the idea in his head that things need to revert back to
2005-style
lingerie titty-fights or whatever.
8. HELL IN A CELL MATCH FOR CONTROL OF
MONDAY NIGHT RAW: The Undertaker beat Shane McMahon
The Players: Shane McMahon
is the begotten son of one Vincent Kennedy McMahon, and was once
presumed to be the heir to his Sports Entertainment empire, until his
daughter married a much more muscular dude. He is also completely not
an actual pro wrestler. The Undertaker is a super old, old, old man who
was once an undead Amish mortician, but has since transitioned in and
out of phases of being a Satanic lord of darkness and a
motorcycle-ridin' American Badass, until he has finally landed in his
current role as vaguely supernaturally-themed cowboy/mixed martial arts
poseur. And he literally started wrestling when I was four years old,
people.
The Pageantry: Shane McMahon came out as Shane McMahon is wont
to do; he did his weird little shuffle dance and wore a Shane-O-Mac
baseball jersey, because even though Chinese Corporate Personal
Trainers have him built not unlike a brick shithouse, he is dedicated
to his original gimmick of being uncomfortably pudgy-thin. Also, he
brought his children out, presumably as an appeal to the Undertaker's
undead sense of humanity to not physically murder him on this night, and
he had fake million dollar bills with his face on them raining down
upon the arena. HE LITERALLY MADE IT RAIN, FOLKS. Meanwhile, the
Undertaker came out to his stock "darkness and black lights" entrance,
but that was fine, because an outdoor show in the Pacific Time Zone
robbed us of any sort of Taker Entrance last year. It just doesn't work
with the sun blazing overhead, and the only way Wrestlemania 31 could
have been more awkward would have been if some squirrels followed him
out and a couple bluebirds had placed a wreath of flowers on his head. But
we were indoors this year, so for one shining (well, rather dark)
moment, he was The Phenom again, and we all got to forget that he was
literally fifty years old and that this match was doomed. So for all
this, the HERB MELTZER MEMORIAL
TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 decrees that this match
be given THREE AND A HALF (3.5)
CONSPIRACY THEORIES LINKING OUR CURRENCY TO THE OCCULT for the
pageantry involved.
The Match: Shane McMahon
isn't a pro wrestler, and it shows. All he can do is throw weird little
dainty baby-punches and hope his opponent can carry him until it's time
for him to jump off of something. Meanwhile, the Undertaker is
literally fifty years old, and he ain't carryin' shit no more. So this
was just a horrifyingly wretched display of two middle aged men
pretending they knew MMA for a while, so Shane did his weird baby shit
for a while that the Undertaker had to humiliatingly pretend to be hurt
by, and it sucked. Low points were Shane doing something that I think
was supposed to be a triangle choke to the Undertaker, but he did it so
mind-bendingly wrong that he had a free hand just dangling out there,
doing nothing. Like if martial arts ever figures out a hold that
can end a dude while leaving one hand free to punch the other guy in
the face or flex for the crowd or whatever, it's going to be amazing,
but this was not that instance. He followed it up with the worst
Sharpshooter ever, and the whole time all this was going on, the
Undertaker was sucking wind and sweating his fake tan all over Shane's
baseball jersey, and I was literally convinced he was having a heart
attack at one point. Then, well, Shane ate shit jumping off the cage,
and the ghouls went home happy. So taking all of this into
consideration, the HERB MELTZER
MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 gives the match
an overall rating of TRASH,
with a supplemental Airborne Human Sacrifice Rating of THREE (3) NEW JACKS. (who would then
presumably dump out the trash and use whatever was in there to beat up
Shane and Taker)
9. ANDRE THE GIANT MEMORIAL TROPHY
BATTLE ROYAL: Baron Corbin beat The Big
Show, Shaquille O'Neal, Kane, Heath Slater, Adam Rose, Curtis Axel, Bo
Dallas, Konnor, Viktor, Tatanka, Goldust, Mark Henry, Diamond Dallas
Page, R-Truth, Jack Swagger, Damien Sandow, Darren Young, Tyler Breeze,
and Fandango
The Players: Fuck you, that's
like twenty guys, I'm not doing this. I will say however, that it
featured four surprise competitors: Diamond
Dallas Page
is a master of yoga and probably the one good thing to come out
of the horrifying latter years of World Championship Wrestling. Tatanka
was one of the more cringe-worthy gimmick wrestlers of the WWF "New
Generation" Era, who despite the ravages of time (and presumably
depression-related alcoholism from watching the white man steal and
subsequently destroy his ancestral lands, coupled with a life of
hardships on The Rez) turning him more and more into a sentient,
walking beer gut, can actually still FUCKIN GO when placed inside a
wrestling ring. Shaquille O'Neal is
Shaquille O'Neal, and if you don't know who that is, you don't deserve
to know who that is. Baron Corbin,
the Lone Wolf of NXT, is a dude making his WWE main roster debut, who
is a surly, balding young man who beats up people smaller than he is,
and might either be a Secret Werewolf, or possibly the Undertaker's
Large Adult Son. This creates a possible scenario where Man From the
Dark Side Undertaker and American Badass Undertaker were actually two
separate versions of the same guy from two alternate universes, but who
made a noble sacrifice to repair the space-time continuum, at which
point they were fused into modern MMA Cowboy Undertaker. What I'm
saying here is that Baron Corbin is the son of Biker Taker, Mordecai
is the son of Satanic Undertaker, and one day, their ultimate battle of
The Final Undertaking will chase the sun from the sky and destroy us
all.
The Pageantry: It was twenty
guys, and they'd be out their goddamn minds to give everybody an
entrance, so not much to speak of. It would have been fitting, since
Andre himself never had a fancy entrance, but they fucked it up and
gave individual entrances to Shaq, DDP, Big Show, and a few other guys.
Also, they still haven't figured out that they should delete that "IT'S
ME, D! D! P!" shit from Page's music and put the old "SELF HIGH FIVE"
back on there instead. Also, I legit think the Andre trophy is made of
plastic. The HERB MELTZER MEMORIAL
TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 deems this Pageantry to
be TRASH.
The Match: It was fun! Shaq Daddy briefly did Shaq Fu in a
Shaqtastic manner that some might describe as Shaq Diesel, but it ended
in a Shaqtastrophe, as he and Big Show both got dumped early, and are
allegedly setting up a match for Wrestlemania next year. Tatanka did
his weird little dance stuff, R Truth did the splits for no dang
reason, Barry Corbin ended some folks' days, all the Social Outcasts
got hossed around by some big ol' hosses, and a lot of dudes got to
have a Wrestlemania payday while most of us went to the bathroom. It
was the cool-down before the main event that they used to use the Divas
matches for, and no one had any expectations for this, so by default,
it exceeded them all. Good job. HERB
MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID RATING SYSTEM 2000 gives
The Dre a rating of ONE AND A HALF
(1.5) PUFFY SHIRTS and ONE(1) DENNIS STAMP
10. THE ASSASINATION OF THE WYATT
FAMILY BY THE COWARD DWAYNE JOHNSON: The Rock Beat Erick Rowan
The Players: You know who the
Rock is already, as well as John Cena. If you don't, you're a fuckin'
fool for having wasted your time reading this far. The Wyatt Family are
a pseudo-Satanic, swamp-based cult of possible serial killers led by
Bray Wyatt, and they would be the coolest thing the WWE has ever done
in a group of villains, had they not pretty much had them lose every
match they were involved in for like two years now. Erick Rowan
specifically is a gigantic Viking looking motherfucker who is somehow
the least of all four Wyatts, because wrestling is weird.
The Pageantry: This began as a
thing where the Rock would come out and announce that they did indeed
break the rasslin' attendance record and had like 101,000 folks in the
building, and it started out with THE WORLD FAMOUS DALLAS COWBOYS
CHEERLEADERS, and finished with Rock coming out with a dang
flamethrower and set some giant letters that spelled out ROCK on fire
with it, and if they had really been edgy, he woulda done that on Stone
Cold's lawn in 1999. Then, the Wyatts come out, and they didn't do
anything specifically special, but the way everybody holds up their
smart phone flashlights during his entrance is FUUU-HUUUUCKIN
AMAAAAZING
when it's a six-digit number of people doing it. Also, John Cena shows
up at one point. So for the sheer pageantry of the proceedings, the WORLD FAMOUSHERB MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID
RATING SYSTEM 2000 gives this a rating of FOUR (4) CLAP IF YOU LOVE DYNAMOS
The Dang Bullshit: I am a Bray
Wyatt fan. The dude is good, he wrestles good, he talks good, and he
came up with quite a fine little wrestling gimmick for himself and a
few others. The problem is that his whole thing, as well as the Thing
of the entire four-man group (which was a three-man group on this
night, as Luke Harper's knee betrayed him, and he's out for a while) is
that it has to be taken seriously. It has to be threatening and scary,
and much like TERRIBLE VIOLENCE, there is no room for scary threats in
the modern WWE. Furthermore, the company is run by real-life intensely
awful people who don't know how a narrative's good guy is supposed to
act, so the WWE's main Good Guys tend to arrogant, verbally abusive
bullies who are completely dismissive of any potential threat looming
from their opponents, of which Rocky was the original of this type. So
when the presumably scary, threatening Wyatt Family marched out and
outnumbered him three-to-one, and Bray said some scary shit, the Rock
didn't care, and just verbally destroyed them all, and did the one
thing I had been terrified of for like two years now, the one thing
that was pretty much going to be a death-blow to the Wyatt Family as a
meaningful entity. I can remember thinking, "man, this Wyatt thing is
cool, but it's going to be dead in the water as soon as Cena or
somebody starts making fat jokes." And while Cena managed to stay his
tongue, the Rock could not, and with the words "Eater of Hot Pockets,"
the Wyatts are now officially toast. They were reeling after that
disastrous feud where they lost all those three-on-one matches to Cena,
they were in critical condition after spending an entire year being
beaten by the Undertaker and Kane, and now, they're basically just
laying there motionless, while Republicans argue that it would be
murder to mercifully pull the plug. Everything is terrible, you guys,
and hopefully things will pick up when Windham Rotunda and Big Rig
Brodie Lee find new beginnings in either NXT or New Japan Pro
Wrestling. Oh yeah, also, this all led to a match, where the Rock beat
Erick Rowan in SIX SECONDS, if it weren't obvious enough that
wrestling exists only to bring sadness to our lives. The HERB MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID
RATING SYSTEM 2000 deems this COMPRESSED
TRASH.
11. WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT
CHAMPIONSHIP: Roman Reigns beat Triple H (champ)
The Players: Triple H is
a dude who started out as a snotty aristocrat, who later fell into
degeneracy, but managed to pull himself up into being a dominant
million-time world champion that married into the McMahon Family and
now at least partially runs the company as the son that Vince never
had. He's also been at the center of a "the WWE's leadership is
a corrupt and evil force of pure malignance that has never and will
never come out on the losing end of anything in the long run, but you should still watch our show"
storyline that's literally being going on for almost twenty years at
this point. Roman Reigns was the third best member of a three-man team
called The Shield that everyone liked because he was a quietly cocky
dude who would whomp people's asses, so the WWE broke the team up and
tried with a startling lack of success to remake him in the image of
John Cena and The Rock, before making a third, even more astoundingly,
overwhelmingly fan-rejected attempt at making him the face of the
company by pretending that he's the new Daniel Bryan. This has all
conspired to make him possibly the most hated man in wrestling history,
despite announcers insisting he's a fan favorite, beloved by all.
Meanwhile, no one seems to have noticed it, but he's gotten really good
at the wrestling match part of pro wrestling, and his match with Brock
Lesnar a year ago was probably one of the greatest Wrestlemania main
event matches of all-time. Also, he's pretty much the sexiest man
alive, fuck all y'all, I'm secure enough to say it. YOLO.
The Pageantry: First, Roman
Reigns failed this on all levels. He's still wearing his old The Shield
clothes and using his old The Shield music, (which sounds like some
generic Create-a-Wrestler shit, honestly) and he doesn't even do his
one unique thing of coming out through the crowd anymore. (Presumably
to prevent him from getting ripped to pieces by an angry mob, like the
High Septon.) But Triple H's entrance, OOOHHHH GOD DAAAAAMN, it
was the Final Wrestlemania Entrance, the Entrance to End Them All.
There are al these freaky-ass videos of dystopian shit going on, and
Stephanie McMahon shows up dressed like some sort of Satanic Beyonce
with Triple H's Evil Skull Mask that he usually wears during his Mania
entrances, and she gives the MOST EVIL GODDAMN SPEECH EVER about how
all hope for us is gone, and Triple H comes out flanked by an army of
EVIL SKULL MEN WITH REPLICA TITLE BELTS, and it was kinda hilarious
because even with them stopping just short of hoisting up a huge,
flaming sign that said "THIS IS THE EVIL MAN THAT YOU SHOULD BOO," the
crowd still cheered him like a hero, because they just hated Roman so
much, and it was all so FUCKIN DAAAAAAARK, and I think I just peed a
little. As always, the WWE is good at locking shit down online, so all
I could find was where someone had filmed their TV, (and cut off the
first couple minutes) but for real, y'all gotta see this crap right
here:
Maaaaaan, that was wild. And the increasingly nihilistic HERB MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID
RATING SYSTEM 2000 agrees, giving that the highest possible
Pageantry Rating of FOUR
(4) VIGO THE CARPATHIANS, TWO (2) AUNTY ENTITYS, ONE (1) ADOLF HITLER,
TWO (2)SAURONS, AND ONE (1) EVIL SKULL KING GUY FROM THAT NEWEST
ANTHRAX VIDEO THAT I ONLY WATCHED ONCE, ON ACCOUNT OF IT'S SUPER GORY
AND I GOT DELICATE SENSIBILITIES.
The Match: The subject of
debate in the weeks leading up to this seemed to be just what sort of
extra judicial craziness they had planned to try and save this. Was
Seth
Rollins going to make a surprise return? Was this going to be the main
roster debut of Finn Balor, presumably with some version of The Bullet
Club in tow? Hell, I dunno, was the Wyatt Family going to do something
meaningful finally? In the end, they swerved us all, and absolutely
nothing happened. We got a boring, dry-ass match where nothing of note
went down, Roman won like had been foretold in the scrolls so many
centuries ago, and the WWE production guys had to just throw their
hands up in defeat and completely mute the crowd from the broadcast to
hide all of the booing that was going on. This was a fucking disaster.
The technicians tasked with running the HERB MELTZER MEMORIAL TECHNOTRONIC HYBRID
RATING SYSTEM 2000
all succumbed to The Sadness and committed ritual suicide before the
machines could be started and the calculations begun, but as their
final act before the life left their bodies, they used their own
entrails to spell out The Final Rating: MINUS TRASH.
So there you have it. Given a week to cool down from how much I
haaaaaaated most of the latter parts of the show, it was actually
better overall than my initial reaction to things. Anyway, that's my
review, and sorry I broke your computers by putting like 9 terabytes
of image files on one page. Till next time, y'all be good.