NEW YORK, NY — That wasn’t a WrestleMania two-night spectacle and WWE annual event of the year this past weekend in Las Vegas.
To begin, here are a few reasons why this pro wrestling grand daddy of them all can’t compare to a legacy that the disposed Vince McMahon created—too many commercials that pay for the product on ESPN with the WWE stockholders of TKO Endeavor teamed together on a multi-billion dollar agreement.
A fabricated two-night attendance figure at Allegiant Stadium of 106,102. Compare that with the one-night WrestleMania III, a pay-per-view event at the old Pontiac Silverdome and a sports entertainment attendance record, 93,173. Two nights of matches of limited substance.
Once WrestleMania matches were 15 minutes or more in length with significant outcomes.
The matches on Saturday and Sunday for WrestleMania 42 combined for less than two hours of wrestling. Not to be a pessimist, but I am. The main event Sunday saved WrestleMania as Roman Reigns and CM Punk put on a classic for the world championship.
Their title fight over 20 minutes in length compared to this:
Oba Femi-Brock Lesnar: 5 minutes
Six man ladder match: 15 minutes (I can deal with that)
Trick Williams-Sami Zayn: 9 minutes (US title match)
The Demon-Dominik Mysterio: 13 minutes
Becky Lynch-A.J. Lee: 8 minutes (Women’s Intercontinental title match)
Liv Morgan-Stephanie Vaquer: 7 minutes (WWE Women’s title match)
Not worth mentioning other matches, just about similar times. Though fans were saved with WWE champion Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton and the WWE championship belt remaining with Rhodes after a match of 22 minutes.
And why was ESPN celebrity and host Pat McAfee put into the picture? In the buildup with Rhodes and Orton, McAfee got an RKO from Orton.
McAfee said Orton was going to save the WWE from a resentment of fans who are not into this new product that TKO/Endeavor has created, then again creative control according to President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Shapiro, is his.
It’s not in the hands of Triple H (Paul Levesque) who married in the McMahon family and with the title—Chief Content Officer, who organizes the scripts.
The only good storyline was Brock Lesnar losing and passing the torch to Femi, a NXT superstar, along with Williams who quickly moved up the ladder from the NXT training ground of WWE. Lesnar dropped his trademark hand and ring gear to the mat and saluted the WWE Universe in potentially his last match.
Don’t believe the outcome, though reports say the Lesnar ending was unscripted.
And like a pro fighter who retires and returns, you can count on Lesnar with a final and ceremonial retirement match with an eventual induction into the WWE Hall of Fame.
Oh, the Hall of Fame ceremony, Friday night at midnight eastern time and if you were still awake, had to log on to the ESPN APP that continued to encounter technical issues and freezes and for two nights of a WrestleMania, that goes down as an all-time bust.
My Grade: D and that’s being nice.
So why the negativity, no I am not a cynic. Traditionalist I am, perhaps not into this new era of streaming and technology. But pro wrestling and WrestleMania in April has been a tradition of anticipation and speculation of who and what will transpire.
WrestleMania in Las Vegas this past weekend did not live up to what many were expecting with an extended amount of commercials and fights that included little to no buzz – Image Credit: WWE
We had none of that tradition. Yes, the buzz was there for weeks with buildups of the encounters that culminated into nothing and brevity of the matches. I have worked on a few of these WrestleMania spectacles over the years, got to meet and interview many of the superstars, including the legendary and late Hulk Hogan.
I witnessed Hogan defeat Andre The Giant at the Silverdome and still that slam of Andre to the mat remains a part of history and talk with fans and the entire pro wrestling industry.
I recall the entertainers that played a role then, not the celebrity fanfare, we had again this time just to sell their image and offer nothing to the spectacle. As one former superstar said to me over the weekend: “This was not WrestleMania.”
Indeed, it wasn’t and get used to this, it will never be the way it once was. It will never be the legacy that Vince McMahon created with a risk that he turned into a billion dollar empire. It will never return to the wrestling spectacle and event of the year for sports entertainment.
Yes, this was purely entertainment and not pro wrestling. Yet the sponsors and commercials tell you that we are in a new era, but not WrestleMania.
Rich Mancuso is a senior writer and columnist at LatinoSports.com with coverage of MLB, boxing, and MLS – X:@Ring786, Facebook.com/Rich Mancuso
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