WWE WrestleMania 34 Discussion Thread - April 8, 2018 from New Orleans, LA

[The Icon 152]

Yeah I mentioned in another thread that backstage gossip says they asked Rey. Wonder if he accepted.

[Kam 243]

The stage looks STUNNING!

[The Icon 152]

There is picture proof online showing Bobby Lashley and Undertaker at the WM arena. So both will be at least backstage at the show if not on camera.

 

Also at the arena are iWGP champion Kazuchika Okada and Rey Mesterio. Okada might be a paying attendee.

Edited April 8, 2018 by The Icon

[Kam 243]

I think having Cena sitting in the crowd rather than having a match is going to annoy the Cena haters even more! How many times are they going to keep showing his reaction during the matches! :lol:

[Guest Kingpin165]

Matthew has a new article up on COW:

 

WWE WrestleMania 34 Anti-Hype: Temper your expectations!

 

To check out some of our previous WrestleMania feature articles, click here.

 

 

 

There have been rumours of it being Rey Mysterio which could be good, he got a great reaction at the Rumble and WWE loves the whole little/large team dynamic.

 

I’m hoping to see Lars called up. Those two would be unstoppable

[Kam 243]

ASUKA :sad:

[Guest MissRattlehead]

So dissapointed in the final match. Realy sick of Brock right now.

[The Icon 152]

Well that show managed to be great and disappointing in almost every match. Somehow at the same time the matches were good to great yet were booked in bizarro fashion.

 

I enjoyed all the matches bar the SD tag squash which was too short and the Brock & Roman match which despite many big spots was boring.

 

I didn't necessarily enjoy the results. Why have Askua lose? At least Nakamura turned heel after his loss. Why have Jinder win? To bore the fans to sleep like when he was world champ? Why squash Cena in 2 minutes?

 

Overall I still recommend the show, but ask me tomorrow it might be a no.

[Guest MissRattlehead]

Thinking the Cena and Taker might lead to a proper feud and hopefully to a retirement match. I thought it was good up until the styles nakamura match. Also thought Braun getting a kid as his partner was silly. I was really bad at predicting results. They kept surprising me.

[The Icon 152]

Braun getting a kid was silly, but hey the live crowd liked it.

 

Also it might lead somewhere.

 

The kid is Nicholas Cone. John Cone one of the senior WWE refs is his father.

[Guest Kingpin165]

I’m not happy about Asuka’s loss. I’m not upset that it happened, I’m upset in the execution.

You’re telling me that Asuka, one of the most resilient women on the roster, and a submission expert, couldn’t figure out how to counter a figure 8 that was missing a post?

[Guest Kingpin165]

ASUKA :sad:

The only other finish booked that poorly all weekend was Baszler/Moon

[Zack T 171]

So I watched WrestleMania itself last night, watched the preshow this morning.

 

Andre Battle Royal - I just KNEW Matt Hardy was winning. I felt it was between him and Ziggler, and when Ziggler went out, I was like "That's it, Matt's winning". I didn't call Bray helping him though, that was neat. Also, I dunno what was with delayed winning music for both battle royals, but it was especially poignant on this one. Made us go "wait is Bray in the BR? Is he not? Is he? ...Oh he's not, ok". Kinda deflated the moment.

 

Cruiserweight Match - Mustafa looked cool. Decent match, they didn't have as much time but they did fine. I'm tired of these "We're best friends!" storylines when they make 2 faces fight each other. Most of the time when they do that, it's with 2 dudes who, before the feud, barely had any interaction and it really kills the story for me.

 

Women's Battle Royal - This was pretty good. I was mad at someone in the middle of it for making me doubt myself and change my bet to Becky Lynch because I thought Sasha or Bayley would win it. But then we both ended up being wrong and Naomi gets a weird out of no where win that really made no sense and kinda stomped all over Bayley's moment. Should've been Sasha IMO.

 

Intercontinental Title Match - I knew Finn wasn't winning as soon as he came out NOT as the Demon. Kinda stupid. It's the biggest stage of them all, but let's NOT have Finn do the cool ass thing that's helped him get over. ... Kinda glad they didn't though, just because I don't want the demon to lose. Seth winning was fine, I did want Finn to win, but oh well. Seth's grand slam champ now, and that means all 3 members of the Shield are now grand slam champs so that's cool. Pretty alright match.

 

Charlotte/Asuka - Good match, surprised it was so early in the card but it was real solid. Absolutely shocked that Asuka lost, and via submission no less. I was expecting her to fight out of the Figure 8 somehow, I mean no one has yet but I figured if anyone could find a way it'd have been Asuka. Or hell, at least endured in it for a bit longer. After all the punishment she took in NXT, you'd think she'd have lasted longer in it. But it is what it is, and honestly Charlotte beating Asuka doesn't bother me. Charlotte's probably the most legitimate opponent she's ever had in WWE so I'm alright with it, at least we didn't get Carmella cashing in on Asuka and winning. That'd have been super stupid. Also, LOL @ Cena running up the ramp in the middle of Charlotte's victory walk. Charlotte sees him run by and says "That was John Cena" and Asuka looks on like wat lol

 

US title Match - Honestly I thought this was fun. You take most of these guys 1 on 1 and the match will probably be a bit boring, but the 4 of them together meant enough action to keep it going. Rusev looked great and he was over as hell, Jinder looked like a darker Tony Nese for most of it. Jinder winning was just...surprising. Also ironic that Jinder has taken both the WWE and US titles away from Randy Orton. Oh damnit, this means we'll get Randy vs Jinder again 1 on 1 for Randy's rematch here soon.

 

Rousey/Angle vs HHH/Steph - This went on long, but it was actually really surprisingly good. Stephanie and Rousey especially both impressed me. Stephanie is clearly in great shape and did her physical parts well but what really impressed me was her psychology. It makes sense, she should be very on point, but it's just like...come on. When Stephanie, who has wrestled only a handful of matches in her life, has better psychology than a lot of both men and women on the roster, maybe the rest of them should step up. Anyway, Rousey was quite impressive too in her execution and her intensity. I also LOVED that they finally were like "SCREW IT" with the male/female violence and actually had Triple H get a little handsey with Ronda AND Kurt DELIBERATELY getting physical with Stephanie. Triple H backing the ref into the corner and telling him to just let it go so he could fight Ronda was awesome and it made perfect sense. Ronda was in a great position here to be carried by 3 people with high psychology and it paid off.

 

Undertaker/Cena - I loved Elias coming out when he did, what a jerk move. I also loved how Cena reacted to everything Taker did. I loved that he finally started to try and get going, get that 5 knuckle shuffle and just fell down in fear/surprise the way he did, that was grade A awesome. That chokeslam he got was insanely wicked, and 1 Tombstone later it was over. I think the point of this match was to give Taker a win to go out on, instead of a loss to Roman. You can thank Cena for wanting to make sure Taker didn't go out that way. This wasn't meant to be the epic match we'd all like to see and honestly I don't know that we'll ever get THAT match, given Taker's age now. It's not like the loss is gonna hurt John at all anyway.

 

Smackdown Tag Titles - New Day's stuff was hilarious. Sadly I expected a short match, but I'm glad they at least got one. Bludgeon Brothers winning felt blah though but here we are.

 

DBry/Shane vs KO/Sami - I legit had tears in my eyes for DBry's entrance and for him finally getting legally in the match and the reactions and him winning it for them, so happy for him and he's wonderful and back and all is right in the world. As for KO/Sami, my guess is this is gonna lead to them going to Raw.

 

Nia/Alexa - Didn't expect this to be super awesome, but it served it's purpose to give the crowd a chance to breathe while we prepare for WWE title match. Expected Nia to win, kind've would've preferred more of a squash, but whatever. I don't think the audience in general is really accepting Nia as this heroic female role model just yet though. She was portrayed as a monster bully for the entirety of her NXT and WWE career and all of a sudden she starts getting called fat and stupid by Alexa Bliss and her feelings get hurt and she cries and just takes it for a few weeks? I get what they were trying to accomplish but the method made no sense.

 

Shinsuke/AJ - While I did like the match, it didn't feel as epic to me either. And I think part of that falls on my TV for not being loud enough to really channel the crowd through as much in WrestleMania. But it was a good match, and AJ retaining was real surprising but not unwelcome. I did think it was gonna be Shinsuke's night, but I felt AJ deserved the win too. But having Shinsuke turn on him afterwards is beautiful, I think Shinsuke needed that. He just hasn't really done that great since debuting on the main roster and I think his persona and his in ring style will make him an excellent heel and that'll likely lead to him winning the belt.

 

Raw Tag Title Match - This was super silly and I loved it. I'm sure they picked the kid out beforehand, but who knows, maybe they didn't? I haven't looked it up to find out just yet. Either way, Braun just went full face and it's ridiculous, like most everything Braun does. But it works, and I had the same thought that other people did on another forum - Braun just goes from town to town asking random kids in the audience to be his partner. His partner isn't truly Nicholas, it's the "WWE Universe". But now that I see someone else mentioning the kid is a ref's son, they might end up featuring Nicholas town to town, who knows.

 

Brock/Roman - I hate this match. Brock/Roman from WM 31 was way better than this. This, it started off good. I liked the intensity at the start, I liked the back and forth it had, but once we got to the "I'm gonna keep hitting F5's and Roman's gonna keep kicking out" part, it just lost me. It was just dumb, and I mean it did play to all of our expectations that Roman was gonna go full on superman and miraculously overcome Brock, but the swerve of Brock finally putting him down with the 6th or 7th F5 made me pop hard. However, it was still stupid because why the hell are you gonna build up the F5 for a year to make it that everyone goes down with just 1, even Braun Strowman and even Roman Reigns at Summerslam, but now tonight Roman kicks out of 5 of them (1 of them even through the announcer's table)? It was just bad booking and lazy wrestling. I don't understand it. I don't know where we go from here though - Brock is going back to UFC with no doubts, that's been publicly announced. So maybe he's gonna do both? They've shown that no one in WWE can beat Brock Lesnar 1 on 1 right now, not even Braun or Roman. So either Brock's gonna keep the title, or they're gonna take it off him on a way that he doesn't have to lose, like a triple threat or fatal 4-way. Or hell, maybe he'll leave and say "Screw it, I don't need this anymore, bye" and relinquish the belt.

 

 

 

Overall, I was very sports entertained.

Edited April 9, 2018 by Zack T

[Kam 243]

@Zack T has pretty much covered most of my feelings during the event but here are a few random thoughts/observations:

 

- I've been expecting Bray Wyatt to team with Hardy ever since he was put in the 'Lake of reincarnation', think they'll make a nice duo. Plus it means Jeff and focus more on his own thing

 

- The Women's Battle Royal should have finished with Sasha/Baley - the Naomi thing was such a let down

 

- I thought Bianca Belair looked great in the Battle Royal, wished they let her use her hair whip more :)

 

- I was expecting more from Cedric/Ali - the match was good, but I was hoping for better

 

- As nice as the meaning/gesture was behind it I thought it was a bit random having members of the LGBT community just standing on the stage as Finn walked out

 

- Asuka deserved a better entrance - have to admit it annoyed me a little to see Charlotte get a great entrance with fireworks and Asuka get nothing. I was fully expecting Asuka to win but am not that fussed Charlotte was the one to beat her - but as others have said, would have preferred a less clean (easy?) victory

 

- I was hoping for a Rusev win, would have been a great sight to see the crowd going nuts over it. I imagine the fans are going to be even louder come Smackdown

 

- The mixed tag match was better than I was expecting, Ronda impressed me, am looking forward to seeing her in action more!

 

- Am glad Nakamura turned on AJ

 

- Kudos on the fans for sitting through SEVEN HOURS! I watched 3 hours yesterday and 4 today o_O

[Guest Queenie]

What a match. I was glad to see Rhonda Rousey win in her first match in the "big" ring. Stephanie gave her a run for her money but I sure liked watching her go down. Didn't you?