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The worst of Wrestlemania


DA Baracus

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Wrestlemania! Usually pretty good, often excellent, sometimes fucking brilliant.
However there have been some abysmal ones as well.


Can't be fucked with a top 5 so instead this thread is for worst Manias overall as well as shite moments and matches.

A few of the most recent ones have been disappointing shows with some atrocious stuff. 33 had some good matches (and the Hardy Boyz return was a genuine ‘moment' rather than one of the many they try to manufacture) but the bad stuff was howling. Shane McMahon taking AJ Styles to the limit was a disgrace. Cena and Bella vs Miz and Maryse sucked. Bray Wyatt vs Randy Orton was fucking dog shit and one of the most stupid matches ever. Taker vs Reigns was the worst though. It was just sad and massively diminished both guys. Horrible.


Mania 32 was appallingly dull. Again there were some good matches but the bad stuff was so immensely bad. The League of Nations being a thing was bad enough but their match was shit. Brock Lesnar didn't give a shit opposite Dean Ambrose and it showed. Shane McMahon had no right to be up against the Undertaker, and even the Hell in a Cell stipulation could  not magically make him a good wrestler. The segment with the Rock was dreadful. It took ages and then squashed the whole Wyatt family. The main event was the most boring match I think I've ever seen and made folk hate Reigns more. I think it ended just last week. I fell asleep during it. It did nothing to help Reigns. Take it to f**k.


Mania 9 is probably the worst Mania ever. Everything about it is shite. The setting is bollocks. The presentation is amateur. Folk in togas and Todd Pettingill ensure a terrible start. Ironically the first match, an average house show standard between HBK and Tito Santana is the best match on this horrible card. The rest was dreadful trash. Taker vs Giant Gonzalez was horrific. Hogan winning the title was an abomination.


27 was a piece of trash. There were a couple of good matches (most notably Taker vs HHH) but the rest was laughable. The 8 man tag that lasted two minutes. Cole vs King. Morrison, Stratus and Snooki vs Ziggler and Laycool. All atrocious that would have been booed out of a house show. However the worst was the main event, specifically The Miz being in the main event. So, so bad. He should never have been anywhere near the main event.


Mania 16 (or 2000 as they insisted on calling it) was pish. There were zero singles matches. The tag title and IC/Euro matches are worth watching but that's it. The main event is all about the McMahons. They would have been as well as just having the 4 of them speaking in the main event and the actual wrestlers having the night off.
 

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I agree with the majority of the post but I loved Wrestlemania 2000. Admittedly. it wasn't as good as pretty much any PPV around that time, but it holds up against most PPV's these days and the main event despite being ridiculed wasn't that bad. It wasn't quite wrestling 101, but it was an entertaining match with 4 of the biggest WWF stars at the time. Can't complain.

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Shite moments and matches for me off the top of my dome:

HHH going over Sting in his first wwe match, even with all the NWO/DX lolfest around about it, and Cole giving it the big one about the MNW being finally put to bed, was total bullshit.

Jericho beating Styles at his first Mania was also bullshit.

I feel like Michaels v Hart at 12 and Michaels v Austin at 14 were garbage.

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2000 might be the best year in all of WWF/E for PPVs, and Backlash 2000 features my favourite match of all time (HHH vs Rock).

Mania was easily the worst PPV of 2000. Absolutely nothing happened on it save the McMahon shite. The main event was irrelevant and they could have achieved the McMahon nonsense with a promo.  A massive waste of what could have been a great main event.

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Just now, Jeff Venom said:

Shite moments and matches for me off the top of my dome:

HHH going over Sting in his first wwe match, even with all the NWO/DX lolfest around about it, and Cole giving it the big one about the MNW being finally put to bed, was total bullshit.

Jericho beating Styles at his first Mania was also bullshit.

I feel like Michaels v Hart at 12 and Michaels v Austin at 14 were garbage.

HBK vs Hart at 12 was boring but HBK vs Austin at 14 was good, especially the post match stuff and especially because it was Austin's first WWF title.

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Mania 2000 was shocking when you compare it with pretty much every other PPV that year. 27 & 25 are both absolute guff, the latter saved by one of the best matches ever. I’ve not gone back through and watched them all but there is A LOT of shite on pretty much every Mania from 1-13.

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I'd nominate Mania 2000 as a worst of 2000 but never in a worst of Mania. There's a good number of worse Manias over the years.

Worst of Mania? II, IV, IX, XI, XV, 27 and 32 are the standouts really. I think the rest at least have enough decent stuff on it to set them apart from that... umm... special lot.

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I'm going to have huge gaps in my knowledge, and miss some of the truly terrible ones from yesteryear, as I only really got back into wrestling just after 29 I believe, so have only really seen the "good" earlier ones.  To be honest though, any WM post 31 have been pretty poor.  They're just far too bloated these days with them trying to get as many as possible on the card.  4 hour shows are no stranger now, but since last Summer they seem to be trying to fill these larger shows with matches that get a little longer, and that people actually want to see.  Since Survivor Series the cards have been at least solid, and at times brilliant.  The last few years they seem to have put all their eggs into main event matches that people just don't really want to see.  And even if they do, personally I've always felt so unbelievably burnt out by the time 4am rolls around and you've still got 3 matches to go.

Main Events since 32 - Reigns vs Lesnar (shite and confusing), Reigns vs Undertaker (shite and sad), Reigns vs HHH (just...boring).  It's going to be interesting if they go all-in on Rousey vs Becky (vs Charlotte) for the main event, because actually having a match most want to see in that spot could change the atmosphere of the show.

But anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying that 32 was the worst.  33 probably got saved by a few stand-out moments, and the fact that Lesnar vs Goldberg was 3 minutes of absolute madness, but it did have that absolute car-crash with Taker/Reigns.  34 had promise, but the final hour saw it fall well over a cliff.

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Sheamus beating Bryan in 8 seconds for the WWE strap at WM28 has to be up there.  That was clearly Vince giving it the 'This muscle-bound 6footer plus is no match for this skinny Indy darling'.  

Terrible booking.  Was like a Vince Russo match, with the kiss from AJ distracting him etc.

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5 minutes ago, forameus said:

To be fair, it'd distract me too.  BANTER.

It's like why would Bryan agree to an 8 second squash in the biggest wrestling show of the year?  The only thing I can think of is Vince promising him a big push in 2013 if he did this one favour for him.  Which actually did absolutely nothing for Sheamus' career.

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2 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

It's like why would Bryan agree to an 8 second squash in the biggest wrestling show of the year?  The only thing I can think of is Vince promising him a big push in 2013 if he did this one favour for him.  Which actually did absolutely nothing for Sheamus' career.

Oh absolutely, don't disagree.  I'm sure they thought it was a brilliant idea at the time, maybe they had a plan for how it was going to go but didn't.  Or maybe they just hated Bryan.  Nobody will really know apart from Big Mad Vince. 

In the end though, it was probably the best thing that could've happened.  It ended up turning the tide for Bryan and led him to the very top before it looked like it was all going to end.  It gave him that huge babyface run that means he can have absolutely tremendous fun in his current guise.  Would he have had all that if he'd just had a standard, boring 12 minute match?

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5 hours ago, FifeArab said:

I'll ask a question.

WM 30 which I thought was overall pretty good.

Brock v Taker.  How did you feel after Michael Cole's 'The streak.... Is over'.

I couldn’t focus the full rest of the show, even for Bryan.

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HHH politicking his way to beating Booker T for the WWE Championship at mania 22 (was it 22?).

The entire premise of 'people like you can't be a champion' was a total build up to the feel good moment of redemption for Booker that everyone was after and was planned. 

HHH was in full swing by this point in his career though and legitimately talked his way into getting booked a clean, centre of the ring, decisive victory for his horrible, sleazy, maniacal and borderline racist character. 

A mental decision! 

Edited by djchapsticks
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52 minutes ago, djchapsticks said:

HHH politicking his way to beating Booker T for the WWE Championship at mania 22 (was it 22?).

The entire premise of 'people like you can't be a champion' was a total build up to the feel good moment of redemption for Booker that everyone was after and was planned. 

HHH was in full swing by this point in his career though and legitimately talked his way into getting booked a clean, centre of the ring, decisive victory for his horrible, sleazy, maniacal and borderline racist character. 

A mental decision! 

Ugh. That's easily one of the worst HHH burials. If the racist heel got his comeuppance then it would have been a great story.

However it was a short match where the racist heel pinned Booker a full 21 seconds after hitting the pedigree.

A win for the racist heel was bad enough  but a win for the racist heel in a short match where a single finisher put Booker out for 24 seconds (minimum, as I don't know long he stayed down after being pinned) was a disgrace.

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