WWE: Was WrestleMania 32 or 33 Worse?

WrestleMania 32

WrestleMania 32 was the nadir of WWE’s creativity in many ways. There were eight matches on the main card and every single one of them had some kind of critical flaw that prevented it from being a success. Let’s look at each one of these matches one by one.

Chris Jericho defeated A.J. Styles clean in Styles’ first WrestleMania. From a creative standpoint, this didn’t make any sense since Styles was the younger and more popular star that was going to be booked into the world title picture going forward.

Since that was clearly the case in the subsequent months, why was Styles booked to lose this match? Jericho didn’t need the win in this match, nor was he given as important a position as was Styles. This decision reeked of backstage politics intending on slowing the momentum and popularity of a rapidly-rising star whose international popularity was alive and going strong in WWE.

Of the seven wrestlers in the Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match, Zack Ryder was the most surprising and least-anticipated. The whole story here was that Ryder was meant to finally get his WrestleMania moment and celebrate with his dad.

But this moment wasn’t a genuine celebration, nor did it lead to anything significant. Less than 24 hours later, Ryder was made to look like a chump in the ring, losing the Miz. Just like that, Ryder’s dream was over, any hopes he had of elevating himself on the roster disappeared, and he returned to the exact same spot he was in before WrestleMania. He was made to look like a complete geek whose win was a fluke, which ruined the importance of that match.

Meanwhile, there were several other wrestlers in that match that could’ve benefitted from winning it. Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Stardust, The Miz, even Dolph Ziggler were all better choices for champion. Any one of those five men would’ve gotten a strong reaction either way, which would’ve given the audience something to which they could react. Instead, Ryder’s victory was given five minutes of fame and celebration, before fading into oblivion the following night.

The League of Nations, defeated the New Day in a non-title tag team match at WrestleMania 32. Not only did this devalue the titles by not defending them on the most important show of the year, but the champions lost in what amounted to a throwaway match. The League of Nations couldn’t possibly be taken seriously by anyone, especially since they had all been decimated by Roman Reigns single-handedly on several occasions between Survivor Series 2015 and WrestleMania 32.

Since New Day were pushing as a historic and record-breaking team, the logical decision would’ve been to have them win. Instead, the bookers decided on a random, last-minute ‘swerve’ to try and prevent the show from being predictable.

But this was one of those situations whereby being predictable was the smarter decision and would’ve led to a better reaction from the audience. It also didn’t help either side that both the LoN and the New Day were attacked by a trio of retired wrestlers.

Shawn Michaels, Mick Foley and ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin stood triumphant over a foursome of heels that were supposed to be dangerous and menacing to the entire roster and the tag team champions, who were celebrating at WrestleMania despite having lost what was supposed to be a big matches mere minutes prior to these retired legends appearing.

Thus, everyone in this segment that wasn’t a legend from the past was made to look like a complete geek. The young talent looked inferior to the top stars of the past, thus further perpetuating the idea that nobody on the present roster will ever be as big of a draw as those of yesteryear.

The match between Brock Lesnar and Dean Ambrose had proper build-up. It was a feud that people wanted to see because it was fresh and had the potential to be exciting. Dean was a crazy man to want to fight Brock Lesnar.

There was hope that this would be Ambrose’s crowning achievement, the moment whereby he’d finally get a big win and prove he belonged in the main event. What we got instead was an enormous disappointment. Lesnar and Ambrose didn’t do anything that hadn’t been seen before from either man. Lesnar kept it safe with his German Suplexes and a few chairshots, while Ambrose got relatively little offense in.

Ultimately, Lesnar won decisively, and the only reason this couldn’t be called a squash match was because Ambrose got enough offense to break Lesnar’s momentum on more than one occasion. In a subsequent interview, Ambrose called Lesnar ‘lazy’ over this match, which really hurt Ambrose’s chances at having a good match.

Charlotte, Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch wrestled for the re-established WWE Women’s Championship, but their match was disappointing. This match took place at a time when many people still knew them from their awesome matches in NXT, but this match didn’t have any of the crazy moves, excitement or daredevil approach that match had.

It was made even worse by Ric Flair’s involvement, which completely ruined the match. The audience wanted Sasha Banks to win do desperately, but Charlotte won instead. Now, this was a good decision because it led to her PPV undefeated streak, but the manner in which she won left fans with a bad taste in their mouths.

The Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon was another disjointed mess. In fact, this was probably the worst match on the entire card in terms of storyline. The build-up had many flaws and plot holes in it, making its storyline justification paper-thin.

Had Shane won this match, what was stopping him from reversing Vince’s forcing the Undertaker to never re-appear? When Shane lost, why did Vince just give him power anyway, and why did Shane never mention the ‘lockbox’ which supposedly contained damaging information about Vince?

In terms of actual action, this match was slow and plodding, especially since the combined age of these two wrestlers was over 90. This match was begging for someone to interfere on Shane’s behalf to add to its drama. But nothing happened; it was a slow, plodding affair that didn’t set the world on fire, or even light a single candle, for that matter.

In the end, absolutely nothing mattered in this match 24 hours later, proving that WrestleMania was very much a ‘end of the year’ match, which meant that the following night was something of a soft reset in terms of storylines.

But in this case, that approach did not make sense at all, because Shane still ended up in power despite losing. This only made people further alienate WWE, because one of the most heavily-hyped matches didn’t have any consequences a day later. If WWE is supposed to be about storylines making sense and furthering a narrative, they clearly didn’t show that with this match.

After a Battle Royal that at least had a logical winner, we got the Rock standing around with a flamethrower for five minutes. Literally, he just walked side to side for five minutes holding up the flamethrower, as if he was deliberately stalling for time on an already-exhausting show. It took him five minutes to announce the ‘record-breaking’ attendance, and then he was confronted by Bray Wyatt.

But instead of Wyatt – a rising star- getting an advantage, he and his partner Eric Rowan were destroyed by the Rock and John Cena, who was nursing an injury at the time. That’s correct, Bray Wyatt and his Family were soundly defeated by a Hollywood star and an injured part-timer. At the time, people were sounding the death knell for Wyatt’s career, he had been destroyed so badly in this match. That he’s still around, active and popular over a year later is a downright miracle.

Then we had the main event match between Triple H and Roman Reigns. HHH put in all the effort imaginable to make this match work, but the audience was having none of it. Reigns was soundly booed at every opportunity, with the only cheers coming when he speared Stephanie McMahon (herself a terrible heel character of whom the fans were tired).

But Reigns’ victory was met with thunderous boos, boos so loud that not even the most powerful of sound editing could silence them. For the first time possibly ever, the audience at WrestleMania went home angry.

The audience was upset with how WrestleMania ended, to the point that Triple H and Stephanie – the heels – tried to placate the audience afterward, to no effect. They chanted the names of other wrestlers throughout this show and especially during this match, which was proof of their downright rejection of Roman Reigns as champion.

Ultimately, WWE deserved the scorn and backlash they got for this show. The majority of booking decisions were done in a way that suggested that Vince and his inner circle were spiting the very same people that forced him to change his plans at the previous two WrestleManias. Even if that might sound like tinfoil hat conspiracy theory, the evidence supporting it is both plentiful and compelling.