Irksome Roman Reigns Win Can't Spoil Splendid WrestleMania Spectacle

On Sunday night, I went to my first WrestleMania. In no particular order, these are my observations.

1) We’ll get to the Roman Reigns negativity soon enough, I promise. But, this has to start with what a positive experience this all was. From people dressed as pro wrestlers past and present everywhere you look to the collective gasps and cheers and boos that are magnified with the stakes this high to the random celebrity frivolity, everything was so much fun.

I know that there were some issues getting people into the building, and there was a frustrating bottleneck of people when I went in during the tail end of the pre-show. Nevertheless, one thing that WWE does a great job with is its inclusiveness. You could get into Jerryworld for $20 on a standing room ticket, which makes the event profoundly accessible for both casual fans and people who aren’t gazillionaires. (Standing room for a regular season Blackhawks ticket, for example, runs 4-5 times that.) The result is a racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse crowd, which is a fun thing to be a part of.

WWE then upsells these people on merchandise. They also know that the kids who get in there at those rates may very well become the adults paying thousands of dollars for seats close to the ring.

2) Everyone I was rooting for to win last night did not. This was obviously most consequential in the main event, where Roman Reigns won for what feels like the millionth time in a row. Dating back to last year’s Royal Rumble, I’ve been writing about how annoying this is. Blame for this is at least as attributable to the storytelling as to anything Reigns has done wrong, but they refuse to bump him down to the midcard and let him refine his microphone skills before again pushing him to the moon.

When Stephanie McMahon introduced her husband Triple H, she basically called all the fans dumb mindless sheep, which is a regular tool of hers to draw heel heat. The crowd proceeded to vociferously boo Triple H’s opponent, Roman Reigns, each and every time he had any offense. In addition to the fans’ continued rejection of the storyline, this match was a sleeping pill. And this was before Reigns won.

Whether or not this is part of a longer term story plan that will be improved from what it’s been, the fact is that many of WWE’s most engaged fans left the building on the program’s biggest night of the year dissatisfied with the last thing they saw. Everybody who watches wrestling has a love/hate relationship with the product, but there’s an unspoken agreement that the masses leave WrestleMania happy with the result of the main event, and this wasn’t the case here.

3) It was also disappointing that Sasha Banks didn’t win. The crowd would’ve gone berserk. If they weren’t going to throw us a bone with a swerve ending for Reigns-Triple H, they could’ve at least done us a solid there. Yes, I know how silly it sounds to whine about the results of scripted competition. Even while acknowledging the irrationality of feeling this way, it’s the reality of being emotionally attached to the genre. Vince McMahon has outsized influence on the moods of wrestling fans, and he’s not always benevolent with that power.

4) The match that got the crowd the most engaged was Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon. Shane’s dive off the top of the cage was at least as obscene live as it must have been on television. Was having this debate with my friends: Would it have hurt him more to land on Taker instead of missing and going straight through the announce table?

5) I watched the event with my friend Jared, and his friend Drew, behind the endzone that was opposite the entrance ramp. I reckon that 80% of the time I was watching the matches on the screen as opposed to in the ring, but it was still awesome to be there and live and die (mostly the latter, as we’ve discussed) with the match results.

I also had four friends who aren’t wrestling fans who went with standing room tickets. Three of them had a great time, because, as mentioned before, WWE does a really good job making Mania accessible to casual observers from a price and product standpoint. Cameos from Mick Foley, Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, DDP, Shaq, and Snoop Dogg – and a long segment from the Rock – go a long way for helping that. They said they’d go again. (The fourth didn’t have a good time because he was still savagely hungover from the bachelor party we were at in Austin the past few days.)

6) Hope that Baron Corbin, the NXT product who surprisingly won the Andre the Giant memorial battle royal, is up on the main roster for good with that victory. He has high upside.

7) That Dean Ambrose-Brock Lesnar match did not live up to expectations. Why even introduce the Terry Funk barbwire bat if it’s never going to land a blow?

8) Returning to Roman Reigns, I’m not even sure what they should do about him now. He’s generating legitimate reaction, which is half the battle, but it’s the opposite of what they’re writing it as. I guess we don’t get as mad when it goes the other way, like with Kevin Owens, who is a heel that gets pops because everyone appreciates how artful he is at that craft, but Reigns getting repeatedly booed is a clear signal that we dislike what we are being sold. This reaction feels less split than it was for the years where the fans were either pro or anti John Cena. I reckon that was about 50/50, while anti-Reigns feels 80/20 now. His adversity never lasts more than five minutes. How do you get behind a babyface when there’s not really anything substantive for him to overcome?

For weeks, it seemed like there would have to be a carrot or swerve in line for us with this match. There had to be. There wasn’t. Maybe there will still be one – like they take the title away because he speared Stephanie or something? – but having it be last night instead of down the line would have been more satisfying. The best way to do that, IMO, would have been for him to come out of nowhere to spear The Rock (his cousin) during the segment right before the main event. That would have been insane. Instead we got a boring match and the fourth or fifth coronation of somebody who we’ve been begging away from since the first. We’re all this kid:

I just re-watched the finish on WWE Network, and the announcers misled viewers about what reaction was like inside the building (where there was, after loud boos the whole match, followed by a brief pop, followed by more boos). Michael Cole continued to sell Reigns as a face. JBL said it was a “celebration all over the world.” Is this showmanship, dishonesty, or delusion?

9) Anyways, even with Reigns’ never-ending push being annoying, there’s a lot of good things about the product looking forward. Sasha, Becky, and Charlotte are transcendent, and Bayley and Asuka are waiting in the wings in NXT to join them. Finn Balor and his stable will be formidable immediately. Enzo and Cass as well. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn are already killing it on the main roster. The New Day, which should be getting stale by now, is not, because their characters are fantastic. John Cena, Cesaro, and Seth Rollins should all be back from injuries relatively soon. Maybe one day Bray Wyatt will win a feud?

WWE’s midcard is the strongest it’s been in perhaps five or ten years. Hopefully some of the promise will be fulfilled, and they can make the main event picture great again.