BRM Reviews WWE WrestleMania XXXVII: Night 1

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews WWE WrestleMania XXXVII: Night 1

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 11th, '21, 12:31

WWE WrestleMania XXXVII: Night 1 (4/10/2021)- Tampa, FL


VINCE GIVES A SPEECH- I’d normally be fine with something nice like this, but from a guy who has constantly ignored the fans over the past decade (and especially the past six years or so), it comes off as completely phony.

WE PAUSE FOR A WEATHER DELAY- This is why you don’t do important shows in outdoor stadiums. What are you going to do if it starts to pour in the middle of a big match? Are you going to rush the finish?
They filled time with interviews. Drew showed up to interrupt Lashley’s and turned it into his own interview after they were separated. Big E. snuck up on Kofi and Xavier and was a goof. Braun was not very good (he promised to KILL Shane). Owens was excellent. The others were varying degrees of okay.
Sarah Schreiber seemed strangely nervous during these interviews, as if she had magically summoned the bad weather and was worried someone would find out.

TITUS O’NEIL & HULK HOGAN PROMO- They say the same sh*t Vince did about being back in front of fans (and Xavier also talked about this during his promo, and I’m sure others did, too). The fans have been sitting, waiting, for over half an hour. Was it really a good idea o waste time with this?

WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Bobby Lashley(c) (w/MVP) vs. Drew McIntyre- 7.5/10
There were some good counters in here, but given the spot and how much these two have been built up, I didn’t think they clicked the way people were hoping. This felt almost like a normal WWE TV match. Having the babyface get smothered to death in a Full Nelson is a pretty deflating way to start the show, too, and double so when it is set up by Drew getting distracted by MVP on a distraction that I didn’t even see when they tried to show it to me on a replay. Hopefully they’ll click next months, as you know that finish means that this feud will continue.

BAYLEY IS ANNOYING BACKSTAGE WITH TITUS O’NEIL AND THE n.W.o- I barely recognized Hall because he looked so old, and didn’t recognize Waltman at all due to his new haircut and beard. This was terrible. Bayley, who they built their women’s division around more most of the past year, came off like the female equivalent of a 24/7 geek, getting snubbed by the celebrity of the week.

TAG TEAM TURMOIL MATCH TO DETERMINE THE #1 CONTENDERS TO THE WWE WOMEN’S TAG TEAM TITLES: Naomi & Lana vs. Billie Kay & Carmella vs. the Riott Squad vs. Mandy Rose & Dana Brooke vs. Natalya & Tamina- 4.25/10
Bllie Kay & Carmella pinned Naomi with some sort of ridiculous sunset flip where Carmella was supposedly adding additional leverage illegally but in a way that didn’t make any sense. They lost to the Riott Squad after the referee caught them doing this, setting up for the Riott Squad to hit their stuff.
Mandy Rose tripped on her way to the ring. The Riott Squad and Team Blonde went for a few minutes. Liv reversed a small package of Dana’s into one of her own for the pin. Greg Hamilton f*cked up the call. Nattie and Tamina came in and pretty much dominated the Riott Squad. If Nattie & Tamina vs. Baszler & Nia was the match they wanted to build to, why the hell did they book this mess instead of just building that up? There are angles you could build up quite easy (Ronda Rousey has given Baszler inside info on Nattie… or the other way around, if you want Ronda to be a babyface, Tamina is jealous that Nia is the Samoan female Rock cousin getting all of the success… or perhaps, disrespecting the family name with her actions, depending on who you want to be the babyface and who you want to be the heel, etc.). These fourteen minutes would have been much better spent on the two world title matches and Rollins vs. Cesaro.

GOOFY OLD SPICE COMMERCIAL- goofy
Is this one of the adds I’ll get to skip if I pay the extra five dollars, or is that just the Draft Kings BS?

SETH ROLLINS vs. CESARO- 7.75/10
The story was all about the Cesaro Swing, to the point where Cesaro winning the match felt secondary, which hurt the announcers’ attempts to portray this as “the biggest win of Cesaro’s career.” The dude kicked out of a freakin’ PEDIGREE and it didn’t feel like that big of a deal because so much of the focus was on going for the Cesaro Swing, which is a move that doesn’t really help you win too much (I don’t understand how you don’t become just as dizzy as the opponent). Whoever came up with the idea to push this result that way should have been flogged, as it buries all of the title Cesaro has won, some of which will be defended later tonight and tomorrow.

RECAP OF THE ANDRE THE GIANT MEMORIAL BATTLE ROYALE- Mere moments after telling me that beating Seth Rollins in a random singles match at WrestleMania was the biggest win in the career of inaugural Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royale winner Cesaro, because he had never won a singles match at WrestleMania, the announcers then tried to tell me that Jey Uso winning the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royale was a big deal.

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS DOLPH ZIGGLER & BOBBY ROODE- pointless and annoying
They brag about retaining the tag titles last night on Smackdown. Kayla asks them for a prediction on tonight’s tag title match. They put over AJ and Omos. Do you know what would have been a better way to build this match up? By having AJ AND OMOS talk about it! And even better would be to do this on the TV shows leading up to the PPV so you’re not wasting time trying to sell me a match I’ve already paid for.

WWE RAW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods)(c) vs. AJ Styles & Omos-6/10
This one of those weird matches where they basically purposely reversed the normal tag team psychology and we had AJ Styles as the “heel in peril” building up to the hot tag to Omos, who then came in and obliterated the New Day with little effort. They told their story well, but I will admit to being more than a little annoyed that once again the tag champs were sacrificed to get over one guy. At least they had the courtesy to dress it up as a tag match this time.

STEEL CAGE MATCH: Braun Strowman vs. Shane McMahon (w/Jaxson Ryker & “The Drifter” Elias Sampson)- 6.5/10
Jerry Lawler did guest commentary for this match because they want someone to constantly call Braun stupid on commentary. At least Lawler was relatively entertaining.
Ryker and Elias attacked Braun with weapons before the match. They got Braun into the cage and Shane beat him up with a chair. Braun actually sold his leg pretty well. He got the chair away from Shane… but then Shane just started out-striking him. Braun fired up and shoved Shane down so Shane started to climb out. Braun grabbed him, but Shane “ripped a piece of metal” (that isn’t usually there, by the way) off the top of the cage to hit Braun with. Braun stopped Shane from exiting through the door and finally took over. He controlled for a while until Shane hit some moves and tried to climb out (with help from his friends) but Braun stopped them all.
Shane tried to climb again, and this time found a toolbox on top of the freakin’ cage and hit Braun with it. Shane climbed to the outside and could have won, but he stopped on the way down to taunt Braun. Braun go up and grabbed his hand through the cage, then pulled the fencing down and pulled Shane back in. That was kind of cool, plus there is some poetic justice that Shane could have won but he did something stupid and it cost him. Braun dragged Shane to the top and shouted “WHO’S STUPID NOW?!” and I was terrified that they were about to have dumbass Braun throw Shane down to the floor, resulting in Shane winning, but instead he threw Shane back into the ring, hit his finisher, and pinned him. This was a lot better than I was expecting.

BAD BUNNY & DAMIAN PRIEST vs. JOHN MORRISON & THE MIZ- 5.5/10
Miz & Morrison sang their dumb song and had a bunch of people in rabbit suits hopping along for their entrance. Bad Bunny entered riding on top of a truck. Michael Cole said that this was “incredible.” That set a bad tone for the commentary, and it was only made more by the revelation that Booker T had joined the commentary team for this match.
Bad Bunny did not embarrass himself. He did some stuff, then got beaten up into he was able to make the hot tag. He also got to do a dive, get the pin on a Doomsday Crossbody, and hit a Canadian Destroyer. Michael Cole claimed to have no idea what that move was, which only makes him look ignorant, as I’m sure that even people who only watch WWE are familiar with the Canadian Destroyer at this point, even if just through gifs on Twitter. This went a lot longer than it needed to (it went over fifteen minutes, and was the third longest match on the show).

WWE SMACKDOWN WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Sasha Banks(c) vs. Bianca Belair- 8.25/10
After so many “they’re making history!” platitudes about this match, it was nice to hear Cole actually explain WHY this was historic (the first time two Black wrestlers have main evented WrestleMania) so it doesn’t get dismissed as the usual WWE bullsh*t “making history.”
Even if she weren’t the cocky heel, Sasha’s hair alone would be reason enough to root against her. This was an excellent back-and-forth match that was the only thing on this card that really felt like a big WrestleMania match. They did a great job with their nearfalls and building things up, and I thought the finishing sequence in particular was really great.


This was a decent show from WWE. The opener was definitely something of a disappointment and I wish Rollins and Cesaro had gotten more time, but some of the other matches were pleasant surprises, considering my low expectations going in. The crowd didn’t seem very loud, but that’s always a problem for a stadium show (and especially an outside show). The biggest strike against this show, though, was that it didn’t feel that big of a show. I know that this isn’t a new take, but a two-night WrestleMania, while still better than one seven-hour show, is not the answer. They need to get back to five hours max, and no bullsh*t. This isn’t summer camp where everyone gets to play. You pick ten matches that you’re building up, you build those up well, and give them all the appropriate amount of time. People getting a WrestleMania bonus for performing on the show is irrelevant. The company could just give people who don’t wrestle on the card a bonus anyway (didn’t they used to have a percentage of the gate specifically set aside to go to people who didn’t work a show?).

One night down, one to go…


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. First Michael Cole and then Samoa Joe referred to Drew hitting a Northern Lights Suplex as “innovation.”
They even called the move by name. That should be a f*cking clue that it’s not really innovative! And it’s not like he hit it from some sort of unusual position, either.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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