WrestleMania 37 night one: Three things WWE got wrong

As underwhelming as the build to WrestleMania 37 was, WWE deserves some props for pulling off a good-to-potentially-great first night of the company’s hallowed supercard event, even the weather delaying things a bit.

Still, WrestleMania was far from a flawless show, and not just because so many fans elected not to wear facemasks in lieu of tempting fate in the face of a deadly pandemic.

As a whole, there were fewer dim moments compared to most WWE pay-per-views, which will make picking out those lowlights a lot easier than normal.

These are the three things WWE got wrong on the first night of WrestleMania 37.

3. Jerry “The King” Lawler and Booker T as guest commentators

Listen, WWE commentary is already insufferable enough without adding two people from the equally irritating pre-show to the mix.

Jerry “The King” Lawler’s “comedy”, which always comes across as someone who found a children’s joke book in the literature section of the grocery store, made watching an already-boring Braun Strowman vs. Shane McMahon match even less of a pleasant experience. Booker T constantly saying “Come on, Bunny! Suck it up!” like a washed youth football coach during the Bad Bunny and Damian Priest vs. The Miz and John Morrison match later in the evening wasn’t much better.

Look, I get it: it’s WrestleMania, and WWE wants to add some legends to the broadcast to give the show more gravitas. But next time, could they find some legends who are, you know, good at announcing?

2. Shane McMahon’s annual WrestleMania big bump

These need to stop. I know Shane McMahon always does stunts like these — Braun Strowman hurled McMahon off the top of the cage near the conclusion of their match — to compensate for his less-than-stellar workrate and that he probably does them to justify his place on the card (and this horrid “Brains vs. Braun” storyline’s existence), but it’s 2021 and McMahon is now 51 years old. Enough is enough.

Furthermore, this highspot only served to make a tedious match only slightly less so. And sure, you could argue that it put Strowman over as a monster (it didn’t), but the spot where Strowman ripped open the cage to keep McMahon from escaping accomplished that goal in a far better, less contrived way.

These spots get more self-aggrandizing and less impactful by the year, and the fact that this got a spotlight instead of, say, a Bayley singles match says everything about WWE’s priorities.

1. Hulk Hogan

The audacity of this company to not only bring this dude back (again!) but to also give him co-hosting duties alongside Titus O’Neil as a means to launder his reputation — a laundering that is very much unearned, by the way — is only matched by its grossness.

I know WWE doesn’t think too highly of its fanbase in general, but the fact that they really thought people would be okay with them putting Hulk Hogan on the show and tokenizing O’Neil as some sort of a seal of approval was as infuriating as it was seeing him get brought back in the first place.

At least a significant portion of the Tampa, Fla. crowd booed him the second he started doing his schtick (turns out that being a racist, a homophobe, AND scapegoating the entire city as part of your “apology” will lead to some backlash). Hopefully, WWE will take the hint for next time (though they definitely won’t).