I mean, you've never seen us both in the same place.

Your BFF did really good. I wasn't expecting anything from that match and absolutely loved the entire 5 minutes of it.

@Poit

I am glad you had an amazing time! I had a feeling you would.

:)

Chad Gable's parents live in Northern California. They were at a comedy show I was at a few months ago. I know because there was a middle-aged woman in the crowd wearing an American Alpha shirt and I thought "That's odd" and lo-and-behold, it was his mom.

Cena and HHH are very much 'larger than life' as is Brock and all three are still with WWE

Give Roman a few years and he will be 'larger than life' too most likely

Yeah, Cena and Brock still have the "larger than life" vibe.

I don't know about Triple H.

And forget about the main roster.

The future is bleak.

Thanks again for the Takeover ticket. :love:

No prob my dude!


https://68.media.tumblr.com/237fce38...tub6o1_540.gif

(that gif looks 'sad' but I found it when I googled 'BRO HUG')

(Wrestling Observer Newsletter quote from 1999)

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">While the Hardyz were risking their bodies to entertain the hardcore audience, they were chanting &quot;We want ho's.&quot; [7/99]</p>&mdash; Meltzer in the 90s (@ObserverQuotes) <a href="https://twitter.com/ObserverQuotes/status/848701809543843840">April 3, 2017</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Cole said something like "things are about to be broken!" when the Hardys appeared. Don't jump to conclusions.

What?

Misses mania due to lost info but I saw on Facebook the hardy are back so does this mean no broken Matt and brother Nero?

Can confirm. Bathroom lines were ridiculous during the... musical interlude? I'll be nice and call it that.

How did the Bray Wyatt maggot magic come off live?

Just as long as you don't try to recruit my kids :y::y:

Congrats Poit

This was an awesome Mania, like really, really enjoyable. There will always be things to pick out that weren't great etc... But i was thoroughly entertained the whole way through.

Aries/Neville - Right guy won, it was a good match and there is still mileage in the feud.

Battle Royal - Big negative on Strowman, but who really cares? It's throwaway and meaningless.

Corbin/Ambrose - Neglected feud shoved in preshow. Prob the right decision.

AJ/Shane - It was entertaining and the right guy won. Hoping AJ returns to world title contention now.

Jericho/Owens - Should have been so much more, disappointing to me, but was a fine match for what it was. I think this deserved more attention

Raw Women - It was fine too. Charlotte is so good, and this has done Bayley a massive favor and legitimised her. Nia was protected too, all good!

Tag Titles - Brilliant surprise and swerve from New Day. Totally marked out here and took me back 15 years. Absolutely loved it.

Miz/Maryse vs Cena/Nikki - hate that Miz lost, but proposal was a big deal and a nice moment. Ladies seemed to love it and it served its purpose. Hard to say that wrong guy won with the proposal.

HHH/Rollins - Hunters entrances are hilarious. Rollins is the right guy winning again. Main card has all right guys winning up to this point. It was well documented he was injured and not only did they cover it well, but HHH/Stephanie put him over huge with her comeuppance and a clean win. Brilliant stuff

Wyatt/Orton - Only match i would say they definitely got wrong. Wyatt looks incredibly stupid and changes of him becoming a special attraction in his own right are all but gone. He has a streak alright, but the opposite of what was needed.

Brock/Lesnar - This couldn't have been more perfect. Superman/Zod was a great call from Graves. This was two superhuman guys just exploding and this feud has made both of them look amazing in the end. I doubted it so much, but great story, well told. Brilliant stuff again.

Smackdown women - Too short, but again, right girl won. I think she is unique, extremely athletic and brings qualities that the other girls don't. Great stuff for Naomi and the right winner once again.

Reigns/Taker - Beautiful and emotional end for one of the greatest of all time. An all time great Mania moment if he sticks to it. The fact that he wasn't good enough was a theme (both on purpose and by accident) of the match and it feels like he has gone on a match too long and paid for it.

My only gripe is that Reigns is now THE star of the company and he is not good enough. He is athletic, but thats it. Here, he was going up against a performer, capable of nuanced reactions, timing and just the correct measure of emotion at certain moments. Undertaker has been so successful because he is such a great performer.

Reigns is not. He is an athlete with no charisma and no real connection to the crowd. He doesn't know how to work them and his reactions and facials seem forced and the timing is completely off. It has denied Taker what HBK and Flair had before him - a performer fitting enough to create that match and that moment together with him.

People will talk about his merchandise sales, but i think wwefan hit the nail on the head when he said, kids will like anything that is presented to them in a strong way. He is the "best" and wins all the time, so buy his shirt.

It is sad because it means that he may never have the need to learn from guys like HBK and Taker on how to become a better performer, capable of bringing the crowd into the match and making them feel something. I think the company are doing him a disservice too by forcing the issue. The fact he has retired a truly great personality is ironic and sad at the same time.


In spite of that though, it is still the best Mania I have seen in a long time with so many good decisions and cool moments. It was fantastically entertaining and they deserve the plaudits that come with it. Big thumbs up from me.

I appreciated the wink wink by Cole but WWE cut to replay the second they started the DELETE chants after the match and posted an interview with them in which they were talking completely normally and talking about how honored they were to get the chance to come back and meet new people.

I'm glad they got that moment after turning themselves relevant. But I'm pretty sure they're just the Hardys again.

If they do end up going the Broken route, WWE probably to control the whole narrative hence they need to go from normal to broken again instead of just returning as crazies

Random predictions for this week's TV. Some are pretty obvious with a few "out there".

Raw
-Finn Balor returns
-Sasha turns heel to set up Bayley's next program
-Emma returns only to announce that she's going to SmackDown
-DIY debut in a cruiserweight segment and work a tag match against Daivari/Dar or Nese/Gulak
-The Hardys will get another huge pop and will play to the DELETE chants, but they won't cut a promo unless they're keeping the Broken characters as this is the type of crowd that will immediately turn on them for talking normally
-Hardys/Club and Owens/Jericho feuds continue to the next PPV as per the tradition of holding rematches
-Kurt Angle is named new GM

SmackDown
-Much like Raw, the Orton/Wyatt and Bliss/Naomi programs carry on for rematches at the next PPV
-The Revival debut and attack both The Usos and American Alpha, coming across as badass tweeners
-Tye Dillinger debuts against Dolph Ziggler
-Emma coming to SmackDown COMING SOON
-Nakamura knees Miz in the face to close the show

Random trivia that I'm totally not ashamed of knowing: Brock Lesnar is the first person to ever defeat Goldberg clean.

This doesn't include any non-televised losses, especially before his main WCW debut, as I have no knowledge of any of these and can only go by on-air matches.

First half of the main show and Cruiserweight match was good. Guess I'll be watching Raw again until they fuck up the Hardys. Maybe for a few weeks.

Brock/Goldberg was what it needed to be too, but the rest though, yeesh. Guess they let you get an early night if you wanted it.

Didn't they have a snapchat promo where they were saying "DELETE" and "OBSOLETE" after winning?

Goldberg never lost off-air.

Yup, that's why I upped my estimate to 3 weeks instead of tonight.

During those parts, the overhead ring view was shown on the screens, so I presume it came across live as well as it did on the broadcast.

Thought it was a good mania, though the event was too long.

I have no idea what the point of Randy Orton winning was. Every time Bray gets a little closer they do something stupid. He should have walked into Mania as champ and left Mania as champ.

Orton/Wyatt match was pretty boring. The whole maggots thing was quite interesting and came off well on TV, but the ending was very lackluster and "out of nowhere" no pun intended. But not in a surprising way, either.

Cole's line was a good enough reference for me. They are not going to acknowledge TNA totally and I thought that did the job. As long as Matt has the steak in his hair I'll assume he's still Broken. The promo afterwards was kind of emotional for both of them and Matt did his Broken voice a bit but if they are going to do it he needs to be fully committed or else it won't work.

My biggest worry was that they would get the same treatment that the Dudley Boys got. With the Hardys winning they have already eased that worry for me. DELETE chants should be loud tonight.

I got to thinking last night and I think they should use the Hardys to unify the tag division. We've already see that the Smackdown tag titles are least valuable to the company and even on Smackdown they are barely featured. Let the Expedition of Gold continue.

I honestly think they've given up on trying to make Mania a "great" show in how us smarky little fuckers define a great show.

Now it's a chance to fill a huge fucking stadium, do a marathon show, get lots of publicity and give everyone possible a payday. It's the experience, not the actual delivery.

I don't like it but be that as it may it is what it is.

The Hardy Boyz! <3

Forgot that I skipped the Wyatt match. Glad to see I missed very little.

I really enjoyed this show. It wasn't perfect, and a didn't like some of the results, but I was entertained throughout.

Even if it was too goddamn long, I had fun.

Going to have to watch the preshow matches, Styles / Shane and maybe Rollins / HHH today because I missed them due to being late to our Wrestlemania showing

My quick thoughts on Mania:

Pretty much like what others said, maybe C+ B range. I don't think it was superb, but wasn't horrible either.

-Styles/Shane was better than I thought and hands down made my MOTN after a second watch.
-Owens/Jericho should have had more impact and higher on the card.
-Glad Lesnar/Goldberg was longer than the previous match, that's about it.
-Roman/Taker honestly wasn't that bad outside of the 2 major botches.
-HHH/Rollins was a solid effort, nothing special, but nothing horrible
-Raw Women's match seemed more like a TV Raw match than a WM match.
-SD Women's match was crap. Honestly, WTF? They made so much progress with the women over the last 2 years and it had the looks of a Divas match from 5 yrs ago.
-Tag Ladder Match was pretty good. Nice return of the Hardys, though would have rather seen them return tonight or not win the match last night. I'm sure the latter was a stip in their new nice money contract.
-Orton/Wyatt was below average compared to what it could have been. Harper should have been added to it.
-Cena match was completely pointless after the hype. They should have kayfabe'd the whole thing. Had Nikki say no, turn on Cena, join a stable with Miz & Maryse, then have Nikki "realize her mistake" down the road and then do the marriage thing. This is wrestling guys, keep that personal life stuff out of the ring. Doesn't work these days.
-Battle Royal sucked. Don't do it anymore
-Ambrose/Corbin was flat for most, but completely surprise Ambrose retained.
-Cruisers was solid, but nothing I would say impressed me.

So like I said, okay, not great, not horrible. Much better than last year. I couldn't even remember the main event from last year. Had to look it up, that's how much of an impact it had on me.

Gets worse in about 2 years if the sheets are correct since it might be just Triple H by then.

Next year is hinted to be Lesnar's retirement match and then the following year being Cena's with Reigns hinted as the opponent for both.

I still wanna know why Samoa Joe was not at WM and why Sasha Banks too the cart down the ramp

Where would you have placed Joe?

at very least, the Battle Royal

But since Reigns isnt suppose to get the belt for a while, why not set up the Samoan vs Samoan feud?