WRESTLEMANIA BACKLASH

Tampa

SHEAMUS vs. RICOCHET (7:10): A couple years ago, Ricochet faced Will Ospreay in the NJPW Super Jr.'s tournament. The match was basically just a bunch of gymnastic flips and was awesome to some of us and shockingly obtuse to some old school fans. I was thinking of that match because those were two exciting up and comers and everyone was talking about them and you thought they'd end up huge, popular stars eventually. Will Ospreay is the New Japan champion and just had the match of the year in the main event of Dontakau night 2 against Shingo Takagi. It was a 45 minute epic and Ospreay is pretty much undoubtedly the best wrestler in the world. So what happened to the other dude that was in that memorable BOSJ match? Well...Ricochet is losing to Sheamus on the pre-show of a random WWE PPV. It's kind of sad, really, because Ricochet was just as good as Ospreay on the night back then. The WWE hasn't done anything with Ricochet. Why they haven't is one of the world's great mysteries. Another sad fact is that Ricochet is still exciting and still does most of his high flying acrobatics. Ospreay of course learned over the years to add to his arsenal by competing with the world's best and given the opportunities to thrive and grow and learn. This was actually a good match, although forgotten, forgettable. I'll never forgive the WWE for chewing up and spitting out Ricochet like he's day old meat. **1/2

RHEA RIPLEY vs. CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. ASUKA (15:20): Charlotte wasn't at Wrestlemania. She was taken off TV supposedly because a doctor thought she was pregnant (she wasn't). Then she might have had the corona virus. I think she was just sidelined because her husband (Andrade) asked for his WWE release and got it and they wanted to secretly punish her. Either way, she's back. Not wrestling at Wrestlemania probably isn't a big deal for her because she's one of the few WWE wrestlers that make over a million bucks a year. With Flair gone they gave Rhea Ripley the title at 'Mania. Rhea Ripley has the look of a star (she's tall, menacing, fierce) but she's a dull wrestler and it's kind of hard to tell if she's supposed to be a heel or a face. They seemed to make this a three way so Charlotte could lose without getting pinned. That ended up not really making sense since on RAW the next night, Asuka pinned Charlotte in a singles match. Baffling! But that's par for the course in the WWE. Nothing ultimately makes sense. Did I mention yet that this show had a match with zombies? Jesus, that should have been the first thing I wrote about this show. This was a good match but fairly pedestrian. The show was actually a pretty good one, at least for WWE standards. Charlotte did her top rope moonsault. Ripley pinned Asuka. Typical fare. **1/2

REY MYSTERIO & DOMINIK MYSTERIO vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER & ROBERT ROODE (17:00):

This match only went 17 minutes but it felt like it went 30. That's never a good thing. Dominik was beat up backstage earlier in the show so Rey went out to do the match himself. Of course a crippled, hobbling Dominik came out eventually and they ended up winning the tag titles. The early part of this match when just Rey was there was exciting. Then by the end there was some drama...but in between this just seemed to go on for ages and ages. Rey Mysterio has to be the last of the Monday Night War wrestlers still around and wrestling, isn't he? It's shocking since he's still actually a really good wrestler. I remember he faced Psychosis in ECW and they were body slamming each other on cars in the ECW Arena parking lot back in the mid 90's. How old is this dude? Like 50? **

DAMIAN PRIEST vs. THE MIZ "ZOMBIE LUMBERJACK MATCH" (7:00): Well this match will go down in the history books as one of the stupidest things the WWE has ever done. And that's saying something. This was a lumberjack match...but the lumberjacks were zombies. They didn't even mention this before the PPV. The reason they did this was to promote the Netflix zombie movie that has Dave Batista in it, Army of the Dead. The huge problem is that they did the match like the zombies were actually real zombies. So when The Miz lost, the zombies came in and attacked him, presumably eating him and killing him. So he's dead. Or a zombie. Who in the WWE thought that this was a good idea? Yes, we know wrestling is fake, but there's a limit. The WWE seems to forget this by burning The Fiend to death, having Braun Strowman be tossed off a building to his death, Sami Zayn crushed to death in a trash compactor. It's ridiculous. How can you take anything serious when zombies are killing off wrestlers who just show up the next night perfectly fine? They might have been able to salvage this if they played it off as a joke and the announcers had a good time with it. Maybe. But they played it off as it being a serious match with real zombies. What the fuck? I can't believe I actually watch this shit. -No Stars-

BIANCA BELAIR vs. BAYLEY (16:05): I mentioned that I didn't think Bianca Belair was that good of a wrestler...and then she had a great match with Sasha at 'Mania. Sasha is awesome, though, so that probably helped. This match was a bore. Bayley as a heel has never worked. Eh. *

BOBBY LASHLEY vs. BRAUN STROWMAN vs. DREW McINTYRE (14:15): This match was fantastic. It was all big moves, all action. They broke the announce table. Lashley retained the title by pinning Braun. ***

ROMAN REIGNS vs. CESARO (27:35): This match was exactly what I've always wanted from a WWE PPV main event and never get. A championship match. No gimmicks. No ref bumps. No outside interference. A long match. Near falls. Drama. Why do they never do this? Because it was great. The only thing that could have made this better is if Cesaro won and there were fans in the building to cheer his win. After Vince told 'Stone Cold' on that podcast that Cesaro just doesn't have "it"...the boy is finally wrestling for the title. It's kind of crazy that this happened. After Vince said that a few years ago, I'm surprised Cesaro didn't quit. Cesaro has always been one of the WWE's better wrestlers, it's just too bad it took them this long to realize that. Remember that great Sami Zayn/Cesaro match on the first NXT Takeover show? That was 7 or 8 years ago and was probably the last time Cesaro was in a big singles match and given the time to breath and show his strengths. The best thing they did was to give Cesaro multiple moments of near-winning which heightened the drama. It seems like most Roman Reigns matches these days use the Brock Lesnar playbook: beatdown, short failed comeback by loser babyface, more beatdown and victory. But this match was more 50/50, which was great. After the match, Jey Uso came out to beat up Cesaro which ruined everything the match had achieved. So at least for one night, the WWE delivered a NJPW-esque main event. Which was shocking...and spectacular. ***