I’m still stunned by what happened last night. The matches are still going through my mind, and I’m wondering “How? What the holy hand grenade fuck?”
If you haven’t heard by now, Brock Lesnar defeated The Undertaker, after a slow paced match that was really painful to watch. Now reports are coming in that Taker had his bell rung early in the match, and had to be taken to the hospital afterwards with a head injury. That explains why he didn’t use several of his aerial moves, such as the tightrope walk and the suicide dive. In hindsight, he looked dazed through most of the match, and afterwards as well. Did a Brock botch end the greatest streak in sports entertainment?
If this was planned (and I think it was) they messed up in a big way. I’m not against ending the streak. Ending the streak would be one of the most epic moments in wrestling. What I’m angry about is that he jobbed to Lesnar. Brock Lesnar is a part-time wrestler. He doesn’t deserve the honor of ending the streak. Any full-timer would’ve been a better choice. Heath fucking Slater would’ve been a better choice (I do love me some Heath Slater).
On the other hand, the WWE just made Lesnar the most feared opponent in the ring. He’s the new legend killer. He’s the monster at the end of this book (sorry Grover). He’s Galactus. He’s Darkseid. He’s Apocalypse. Now, whenever they need someone to face the metaphorical dragon, they bring in Brock.
What they did was sacrifice this WrestleMania (which I don’t think they meant to do) for future storytelling. In that way, it was a great move. This was the first time in a long time that I was truly shocked by an outcome. Now nothing is sacred, anything can happen. Holy fuck, the WWE just beheaded Ned Stark!
What they did wrong had to do with the timing. They set the match after a terrible bout between Cena and Bray Wyatt, that sucked the energy out of the crowd (man, did it suck). The Taker/Brock match was also very slow, perhaps due to the now-revealed head injury. They must’ve known how the crowd would react. The crowd never regained interest, now even for a very good main event between Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton, and Boo-tista. If they had made the match earlier in the show, perhaps before the battle royal, the crowd would’ve recovered by the main event.
Let’s talk about that main event for a minute. First of all, Bryan gets the match of the night for throwing down with HHH. Trips still got it, he even busted out a Tiger Suplex! I’ve never seen him use that move before. He also took 3 German suplexes in a row, a notoriously hard move to take. Even though I knew Bryan would win, I still marked out.
I was still in mourning for The Streak when the main event came on. Slowly, I got back into it, if only for the quality of the match. Of course, we had a Trips and Steph run in, but they handled it pretty well. Steph even took a bump from a suicide dive.
Orton tapped out. Good to see Bryan go over clean.
Bryan’s victory was the culmination of a long, well done, story arc. They “buried” him so hard, that fans actually took to the internet to demand his victory. The writers made it look like the fans “won,” even though I’m sure that this was the intended ending anyway. It was a swerve inside a swerve, giving a push but making it look like a burial, giving the fans false power and then “bending to their wishes.” They knew what was best for business all along, and it was Daniel Bryan.
But it was too close to the Taker/Lesnar match. They blew the timing, and therefore blew the whole show.
So was this the worst WrestleMania? No, but it was the biggest disappointment. There was so much potential there, and they just booked it wrong. It just goes to show that in a live show, anything can happen, and it’s not always good.
Taking the Jobber by the horns. 
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