BRM Reviews WWE WrestleMania XXXVII: Night 2

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews WWE WrestleMania XXXVII: Night 2

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 12th, '21, 00:06

WWE WrestleMania XXXVII: Night 2 (4/11/2021)- Orlando, FL


HULK HOGAN & TITUS O’NEIL ARE DRESSED LIKE PIRATES- did someone add something to that Pizza I had earlier?
They said pirate things. Hogan asked Titus if he was going to make him walk the plank. I would have popped if Titus shoved him off the stage right there.

Between America The Beautiful, video packages, the aforementioned Hogan/Titus silliness, and entrances, the opening bell for the first match on tonight’s show rang well over twenty minutes after the show started.

RANDY ORTON vs. THE FIEND (w/Alexa Bliss!)- DUD!
So… we’re getting this one out of the way early. Good to know that it won’t be hanging over my head for the next few hours, interfering with my enjoyment of the other matches. The Fiend came out of a jack-in-the-box at ringside. He jumped off of it onto Orton to start the match. The announcers claimed that Orton was caught off guard because he was “mesmerized by this entrance,” (which just makes Randy seem pathetic, because it really wasn’t that impressive) and “was not expecting The Fiend to return in this form.” Hasn’t The Fiend been back for a month now? And don’t tell me Randy was expecting a different mask. It’s just a f*cking mask. And even if it wasn’t, are you really going to be surprised when someone’s burns heel when you’ve already seen them COME BACK FROM THE DEAD AFTER BEING BURNED ALIVE?
They had a pretty normal (albeit slow and short) wrestling match. The Fiend got the advantage and set up for Sister Abigail… and then Kane’s pyro went off and Alexa was covered in gunk on top of the box. This distracted Fiend, allowing Orton to hit an RKO and win. Yes, just one RKO. Randy left, and Alexa and Fiend started at each other. Then magic happened and they disappeared. The crowd booed.
Based on the way I usually do things, it’s possible that a more fair rating would be “no rating, bad segment,” as I assume that the idea here was that Alexa just turned on The Fiend, but I’m giving I’m a DUD anyway because 1) this feud has been terrible, and this is more of the same bullsh*t, 2) they’ve built up to this big match… and when the match comes, they give us a short match that ends with the heel’s valet turning on him for no reason, meaning that not only did the babyface not get satisfying revenge, but now we’re now never going to see him get that revenge because the heel is now a babyface?
But on the bright side for WWE, at least there weren’t the sustained “THIS IS STUPID!” chants that I was expecting.

BAYLEY BOTHERS HULK HOGAN, ERIC BISCHOFF, & TITUS O’NEIL BACKSTAGE- Bayley has no dignity left at this point if she has agreed to do this.

WWE WOMEN’S TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax(c) vs. Tamina & Natalya- 4.75/10
So we had to kick Shelton and Cedric out of the Hurt Business because of the fear that Lashley might get cheered against drew, but this heel vs. heel match is perfectly fine? They did stuff. The announcers made a big deal out of Tamina slamming Nia. Also, people were chanting Tamina’s name, which might be a first. Isn’t she a heel who is barely on TV? Did I miss some news report where she saved a pupped from a burning building or something? Why is this happening?
Nattie lost when she locked in the Sharpshooter on the non-legal woman and wouldn’t let it up, allowing Baszler to come in from behind and choke her out. What a dummy.

KEVIN OWENS vs. SAMI ZAYN (w/Logan Paul)- 7.25/10
JBL did guest commentary for this match. He was annoying.
Both wrestlers worked on the other’s head with scary suplexes. Owens won clean with the Stunner.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- dumb, bad, and pointless
Logan Paul is apparently a bandwagon fan, as he changed his allegiance from Zayn to Owens after the match. Sami was upset by this, so Paul shoved him down and Sami left. Paul raised Owens’ hand. Owens eventually hit Paul with a Stunner, seemingly just because the crowd was booking Paul, which makes Owens look like a jerk, too, so no one comes out of this looking good.
Speaking of people not looking good…

MATT RIDDLE IS A GEEK ON HIS SCOOTER BACKSTAGE- He sees The Great Khali and Ranjin Singh backstage. He is impressed by how big Khali’s hands are. RVD showed up. Matt Riddle was happy to see him. Instead of letting them make veiled pot references, RVD apparently can translate from Punjabi now, and they make an unfunny and not veiled pot reference. This was pointless and stupid.

WWE UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: Matt Riddle(c) vs. Sheamus- 7.5/10
This was a lot more than Riddle has been allowed to show on WWE TV, but still very “pro wrestling” rather than the MMA-esque stuff that plays more into Riddle’s skillset and makes him stand out in the ring. The finish was awesome, thought I’m pretty sure Riddle got legit busted open on it. Sheamus won clean. It was nice to see Riddle get his comeuppance for being so f*cking annoying on TV every week.

TRIPLE H & BAD BUNNY MEAT IN THE MIDDLE OF A ROAD- This was Bad Bunny announcing a tour for next year. It was weird. I guess he just rides around on the top of the truck?

NIGERIAN DRUM FIGHT FOR THE WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE: Big E.(c) vs. Apollo Crews- 5.75/10
WWE has provided weapons for these two, including several tables with drums on them. I really hope those drums are Nigerian, or else it would be false advertising.
This started out as a good weapons match, but the finish was frustrating. Said finish was Big E. hitting the Big Ending, but then an unnamed Babtunde/Dabba-Kato, dressed in what was supposed to look like some kind of army uniform, attacked Big E. and pulled Crews onto him for the pin. I don’t like the interference finish, but I’m not going to say that a promotion isn’t allowed to do it every once in a while. But if you’re going to do this, don’t have Big E. hit his finisher right before the interference. All you’re doing his making Crews look like a loser before you put the belt on him. Not being beaten fairly is protection enough for Big E., as he’s beaten Crews three or four times already this feud.
And why can’t Babatunde/Dabba-Kato have a name? I immediately recognized him, so people who work with him not knowing his name is ridiculous. I’m not saying they have to call him Dabba-Kato. I can pretend that it’s a different dude. But they need to have somename to call him by. If you’re at the point where you’re ready to introduce a character, you should have a f*cking NAME ready.

PRESENTATION OF THE HALL OF FAME CLASS- Kane is building tonight. So he did set the pyro off during the opener, or did Alexa do it?

WWE RAW WOMEN’S TITLE: Asuka(c) vs. Rhea Ripley- 7.5/10
Another match that didn’t get the time it should have, although at least this one got thirteen minutes (yes, they gave these two less time than the match featuring both Nia Jax and Tamina). This was a good, back-and-forth match, with Rhea playing the big bully heel. She won clean, which absolutely had to happen or else her character would have been dead in the water.


RECAP OF THE ORTON VS. FIEND MATCH- Why is happening? Did we really need to shortchange everyone on time for this sh*t?

MORE DUMB SH*T WITH HOGAN, TITUS, & BAYLEY- Seriously… we’re short-changing matches on f*cking WRESTLEMANIA for THIS?! The Bellas came out. Bayley was rude to them and tried to attack them so they beat her up. Sh*t like this pisses me off so much. What purpose did this serve? Who could possibly want to see this? I’m sure there are people out there who really love the Bellas, but is it really worth it to throw a bone to fans of people who aren’t involved with the company anymore when it comes at the expense of one of your current stars and at the expense of matches on WrestleMania being better?
The crowd rightfully booed this, but I’m sure when they replay it on Smackdown on Tuesday, they’ll have edited the reaction to what they want it to be. And this old f*cker had the nerve to go out there yesterday and say that the fans make WWE what it is. F*ck you.
Reading Bryan Alvarez’s Twitter thread, he seems to be implying that it was originally supposed to be Becky Lynch in the Bellas’ spot, but word got out so they changed it to Bellas. If that’s true then WWE is dumb for 1) wasting a big moment just because some people figured out/got word of the surprise 2) not just nixing the whole segment they weren’t going to do the Becky thing, and 3) not coming up with a better way to have Becky Lynch return.

TRIPLE THREAT MATCH FOR THE WWE UNIVERSAL TITLE: Roman Reigns(c) (w/Paul Heyman & Jey Uso) vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Edge- 8.75/10
The crowd about 43-37-20 for Bryan, Reigns, and Edge respectively. The match was an excellent culmination of this feud, bringing in it’s various elements and calling back to things and so forth, while still telling a coherent and exciting story on its own. As you’d expect given the participants, the match was awesome. But it’s more awesome than that. This match was so awesome that they even found a way to make that stupid spot where someone stops a submission finish by stopping the opponent’s hand from hitting the mat make sense (Edge had Roman in a crossface using a broken bar from the bottom of a chair, so that bar was in Roman’s mouth so Roman couldn’t submit verbally when Bryan stopped his hand from hitting the mat). They also did a great job of building things up, with the match getting more and more vicious as time went on.
I do have two complaints, and both related to the finish. The first is the fact that it wasn’t clean. If Roman is going to be a strong heel, let him win clean. Has he had a title match yet where his victory wasn’t tainted in some way?
The second was the actual pinfall itself, where Roman dragged Edge on top of Bryan and pinned both of them. Why would you do that and kill off a potential singles match between Roman and the guy who he wouldn’t have pinned? Also, if you want to be technical about it (and I do love my technicalities) the unconscious Edge was also pinning the unconscious Bryan. Maybe the idea here is that Edge will use that to claim that he deserves a title shot at Backlash, but if Roman vs. Edge is the direction for next month, why wouldn’t protect Edge by having Roman only pin Bryan?


For any other show, this would have been quite good, but for WrestleMania, this was rather disappointing. Too many bad finishes, too many matches not getting the time to deliver (only the main event passed the fifteen-minute mark), and far too many matches that felt thrown together rather than like matches that had WrestleMania-worthy build to them (and some of the ones that did, like Fiend vs. Orton or Big E. vs. Apollo were then damaged by bad finishes and short time). WWE needs to do better.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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cero2k
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Re: BRM Reviews WWE WrestleMania XXXVII: Night 2

Post by cero2k » Apr 12th, '21, 21:46

RANDY ORTON vs. THE FIEND (w/Alexa Bliss!)- DUD!
So… we’re getting this one out of the way early. Good to know that it won’t be hanging over my head for the next few hours, interfering with my enjoyment of the other matches. The Fiend came out of a jack-in-the-box at ringside. He jumped off of it onto Orton to start the match. The announcers claimed that Orton was caught off guard because he was “mesmerized by this entrance,” (which just makes Randy seem pathetic, because it really wasn’t that impressive) and “was not expecting The Fiend to return in this form.” Hasn’t The Fiend been back for a month now? And don’t tell me Randy was expecting a different mask. It’s just a f*cking mask. And even if it wasn’t, are you really going to be surprised when someone’s burns heel when you’ve already seen them COME BACK FROM THE DEAD AFTER BEING BURNED ALIVE?
I saw a pictur and loved that wwe is perfectly ok burning people on tv or having the pedo-fuel Bliss out there, but the pentagrams on the box, those can't be upside down, that'd be satanic! Pedo-fuel is ok, but let's not alienate our sponsors with satanic pentagrams!

.....wait, maybe the pedo-fuel IS to please the sponsors.
Image

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