WWE WRESTLEMANIA 38

Dallas

Night 1: Saturday, April 2nd

THE USO'S vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA & RICK BOOGS (6:55): This was a huge week of wrestling. I didn't watch everything, as no mortal man could, but I caught a lot of stuff. I watched some of AAA's show, the Wrestlecon Mark Hitchcock Memorial Show, and GCW's Joey Janela's Spring Break Part 1 on Thursday. I watched some of Smackdown, some of the NJPW show, some of Rampage, and some of the Ring of Honor PPV on Friday. Then came two nights of 'Mania. Jesus Christ. GCW had 3 other shows I never got around to watching, nor did I watch the Bloodsport show. I watched the NXT PPV from Saturday afternoon a few days later. Out of everything, out of all of this, the best show of the weekend was The Briscoe's vs. FTR from the ROH show. That match was fantastic. The best thing about either night of 'Mania was Cody's entrance and match. That was cool & he and Seth had the best match of either night. Does Cody know what he's getting himself into, though? The WWE product is stale as week old bread. Wrestlemania is always kind of polishing a turd, as the saying goes. Or lipstick on a pig. What's more apt? Wrestlemania was great because of the atmosphere, the big stage, the big entrances. It wasn't great, as usual, because of the matches or storylines or feuds. I harked for years about Wrestlemania being too fucking long. They listened and cut the show into 2 and yet it's still too fucking long. Each night was four hours long plus a two hour pre-show. And it's not like these shows are stacked with great matches. Ricochet, one of the WWE's best wrestlers, wasn't there (neither was Finn Balor). This match was for the Uso's Smackdown tag team titles. Boogs injured his knee when both Uso's jumped on his back and he was maybe attempting to slam both of them at the same time. So the match was cut short. It's so sad seeing Nakamura these days when it was only a few years ago he was perhaps the world's greatest wrestler in Japan. The WWE is a shredder of great wrestlers. Just ask Kushida, Walter, Ricochet, Pete Dunne, Ciampa, etc. Sigh. *1/2

DREW McINTYRE vs. HAPPY CORBIN (8:35): McIntyre was beating Brock Lesnar in the main event of Wrestlemania two years ago. Last year he was in the opener on night 1 against Lashley in a championship match. Now he's wrestling Baron Corbin in the middle of the show for nothing. Man, what the hell happened? The big thing was after the match, McIntyre swung his sword at Madcap Moss and missed but sliced the ring ropes and they all fell around the ring. So lame. I will say that in the video package previewing this match, I laughed when they mentioned that Corbin was such a loser and in such bad shape that a homeless man gave him money. Of course in storyline he won all his money back in Vegas so he's Happy Corbin now. And speaking of video packages...this show was on Comcast's Peacock. Unlike Netflix or regular PPV...Peacock has commercials. This meant that between every match there was at least 10 to 15 minutes of video packages and commercials. So while the show was 4 hours long, the matches might have only made up 2 hours if that. That made the show drag. 1/2*

THE MIZ & LOGAN PAUL vs. REY & DOMINIK MYSTERIO (11:15): Logan Paul looked good. He got a ton of heat for doing Eddie Guerrero's Three Amigo's move. He also did a decent frog splash. It was kind of surprising that the heels won this match, although afterwards The Miz turned on Logan Paul. The problem with that is that no one on Earth is ever going to cheer Logan Paul...so why would they make him a babyface? Logan Paul got famous for doing Jackass type videos on youtube. He's a millionaire now and even boxed Floyd Mayweather on PPV last year in an exhibition. The first time I heard about him was because he filmed a youtube video in Japan where he visited the famous Suicide Forest and filmed a real dead person. This was amidst a video of him doing pranks in Tokyo and stuff. So yes, dude's a millionaire for that. And you wonder why he's loathed. **

BIANCA BELAIR vs. BECKY LYNCH (19:10): This was a good match and one of the better matches on either night. Watching this match just made me question why AEW can't figure out their women's division. The WWE is a fucking trainwreck, yet they have stellar women's matches like this once in a blue moon. Belair won the title here from Lynch and Belair was voraciously cheered throughout. It reminded me of last year's 'Mania when Belair won the title and was voraciously cheered. Fuck...are they out of ideas? Maybe make Lynch a babyface again since, you know, she was the most popular wrestler in the company before maternity leave. ***

CODY RHODES vs. SETH ROLLINS (21:40): This was the best Wrestlemania match on either show. Cody coming out was great since it's shocking and new and something most people probably didn't expect to ever see. And the match was really good. Cody pulled out all of the stops. This does often happen before a wrestler ends up stuck in the mud doing WWE "style" matches. Cody will eventually get there and be doing lame, boring, yawn-inducing WWE "style" matches in a year. But Cody still has the indie/AEW high-throttle intensity and action-orientated style coursing through his blood so this was a much better match that what you usually see in WWE. We all wondered if Vince would bury or push Cody. So far he's pushing him. I feel really bad for Cody, though, because in a few months creative is going to be a nightmarish farce for him. ***

CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. RONDA ROUSEY (18:30): This match was not very good and very sloppy and also the heel Flair won and retained the title which was kind of lame. Supposedly the WWE is doing a bunch of big stadium shows this year so perhaps Rousey will win the title on one of those. *1/2

'STONE COLD' STEVE AUSTIN vs. KEVIN OWENS "NO HOLDS BARRED MATCH" (13:55): So this is the big problem with WWE and it seems like it's never going to go away. It has to, though, eventually, right? The Rock and Austin and Vince and Goldberg and The Undertaker can't keep showing up and wrestling forever, can they? When New Japan has their biggest show of the year it's known for how great the wrestling matches are. But when WWE has the biggest show of the year it's known for what past-glories they can pull out of the dusty closet. Why the fuck is this the main event? Yeah, it's nostalgic to see Austin drinking beer and giving stunners, but the guy can barely wrestle or walk so it's like watching a great be less great. Why would I want to see that? At least not in the main event. I want to see a title match with young guys that can put together a great 30 minute title match...not this zombie show. It's not 1998, folks. It's fucking over. **

Night 2: Sunday, April 3rd:

RK BRO vs. THE STREET PROFITS vs. ALPHA ACADEMY (11:30): It's probably saying something about the whole show when you consider the best match was the Jackass match. I really thought that this match, the AJ/Edge match, and the main event would have been a lot better. The crowd was really into RK Bro and popped huge for the RKO's but this was short and there wasn't much to it. I know that RK Bro is over and everything but it still pisses me off that Matt Riddle isn't a singles wrestler in the main event/title hunt. Does Cody realize what they've done to Matt Riddle, the excellent UFC fighter turned indie wrestler? He's a fucking joke now when a few years ago he was in 4 star matches in places like PWG. I love the "aura" of Wrestlemania and it's cool to see the bigger to life schtick it encompasses...but, man, the WWE does so much wrong in terms of actual wrestling it's pathetically sad. *1/2

BOBBY LASHLEY vs. OMOS (6:35): Vince loves tall wrestlers. I don't get it, either. Remember Giant Gonzalez? Dude was stiffer than a lump of coal yet he was pushed to the main event. Omos might actually be worse than Giant Gonzalez. Omos had a Goldberg-esque undefeated streak going that was broken by...Bobby Lashley. Huh? The whole point of building up an undefeated streak is so you could make a rookie beat him and get momentum and an instant push. WCW failed to do that with Goldberg (Nash beat him). Did Lashley need a push? No. He held the WWE title for a chunk of 2021, was in multiple main events, is already one of WWE's bigger stars. I guess it's because they're still building up that Lashley/Lesnar match that culminated from Lesnar winning Lashley's title in the Elimination Chamber even though Lashley left the match because of an injury. And, yes, this match was terrible. -No Stars-

JOHNNY KNOXVILLE vs. SAMI ZAYN "ANYTHING GOES MATCH" (14:25): This was the match of night #2 by far. It was super entertaining, humorous, wild, and the crowd roared with approval throughout. They used a bunch of silly gimmicks like a giant mouse trap, a table with mouse traps on it, a tazer, a fire extinguisher, etc. Chris Pontius came into the ring to dance and took his clothes off revealing a thong. Wee Man came out from under the ring. Perhaps the biggest pop of the night came when Wee Man gave Sami Zayn a suplex ('Stone Cold''s music hitting probably got a bigger pop...but it was close). This was just dumb fun and it was fantastic. ***

NAOMI & SASHA BANKS vs. CARMELLA & QUEEN ZELINA vs. LIV MORGAN & RHEA RIPLEY vs. NATALYA & SHAYNA BASZLER (10:50): This was so forgettable I forgot it. Sasha Banks was in the main event of Wrestlemania night #1 last year. My how the mighty have fallen. She's still the WWE's best women's wrestler. Why did they shoehorn her into a tag team, anyway? At least they gave her the tag titles here, defeating the previous champs, Carmella and Queen Zelina. 1/2*

EDGE vs. AJ STYLES (24:05): Considering Edge had some fantastic matches last Fall against Seth Rollins...I really thought that they would go all out and have an excellent match. Nope! This was a total fucking bore. Maybe these two just don't mesh. I mean...obviously they don't. This didn't work at all. Maybe...maybe the last five minutes or so were decent and worked when they started to actually do stuff. The first ten minutes or so were as slow as molasses. This actually baffled me, as usually these two are great wrestlers and are old enough to know what works and what doesn't. This didn't work! *1/2

SHEAMUS & RIDGE HOLLAND vs. THE NEW DAY (1:40): This match was scheduled for night #1 but was cut because they had to show 2 hours of commercials and video packages. Why they still had this match only to give them 2 minutes to wrestle is beyong me. -No Stars-

PAT McAFEE vs. AUSTIN THEORY (9:40)/ VINCE McMAHON vs. PAT McAFEE (3:45): McAfee had a really good match against Adam Cole years ago in NXT. This match was not as good, although Austin Theory is no Adam Cole of course. McAfee wowed the crowd with a few of his stellar moves. A moonsault. A moonsault landing on his feet. A jump to the top rope to give Theory a superplex. So McAfee won the match and then Vince, who is Austin Theory's mentor these days, got into the ring to wrestle McAfee for no good reason. Vince is 76 years old. The only bump he took was a botched stunner from 'Stone Cold' later on. In his match against McAfee he did some clotheslines then kicked a football into McAfee's ribs and pinned him. Maybe Vince thought that since he hasn't wrestled in 12 years the crowd would be all into this. They weren't. The crowd did not want to see a 76 year old man 100% dominate someone. I wonder if that surprised Vince, that the crowd absolutely didn't want to see him win a match. I'm not even sure why they did it. Vince's ego, I guess. They could have just had him and Theory beat up McAfee until Austin showed up. I'm not sure why Vince had to beat McAfee in a match. Austin Theory's music hit...which I'm not sure why...but Vince looked up startled...which gave away that someone else was coming out. Vince is, after all, 76 years old, and so doesn't understand or comprehend things as well as younger people do. Sure enough Austin's music hit and Vince was shocked. The stunner delivered to Theory was great. The stunner delivered to Vince was another classic botch. That made me laugh. I'd much rather have seen just a stunner and a beer bash last night than a full, boring match against Owens. **

ROMAN REIGNS vs. BROCK LESNAR (12:15): This was disappointing, and not just because they built up Lesnar to win only to have Reigns win and the crowd go home sad and the show end on a sour, deflating, negative note. I figured that Lesnar could lose, considering he's been on TV so much lately and he's not a full time regular so after 'Mania he'd probably leave for awhile, anyway. And why would you give the title to a guy that's going to leave? But the match wasn't very exciting. I'm surprised because usually Brock Lesnar matches are full action and big moves and exciting. Nope. Maybe because it went too long and Lesnar had to sell too much. This just wasn't very good. And, shockingly, this was the 3rd time these two wrestled at 'Mania. I don't even remember their 2nd match. Their first was the one where Seth Rollins cashed in the briefcase. No one has had a 4th 'Mania match together. Dear, God, don't let it happen. No. **