Are Fans Losing Interest In WrestleMania 29?

Today, March 24th, 2013 marks the two week countdown of WrestleMania 29 coming to us live from Met Life Stadium in New York. The main event for the annual marquee show is The Rock putting the WWE Championship on the line against the #1 contender John Cena. Historically, WrestleMania has made it a point to elevate the interest of not only wrestling fans, but the general public as well. So with that being said, with the biggest show of the year being only two weeks away, why is the general interest of this show so low?

It’s really hard to tell exactly what the issue is in terms of the low interest since fans have a different perspective of the reason. But there are a few elements that cannot go unrecognized. For starters, the buildup for the show has taken a backseat to other priorities by the WWE. A few weeks ago, the WWE had the old school Raw, which was a very odd time to hold a gimmick show. This would’ve been more appropriate to save for the summer since viewership is low. The next couple of weeks after, Raw put more of its focus on advertising their film products, resulting in WrestleMania being an afterthought.

Currently, there are only six official matches that are scheduled for WrestleMania, three of them title matches. The steam that is behind these matches is significantly low, considering the event. It could be that three of the six are rematches, two of the matches occurred within the last year. The drama that is being built for these matches is incredibly lackadaisical and lacks a mountain of creativity. The Undertaker and CM Punk match reflects this perfectly since the WWE feels the need that the story for their match must be built on the death of Paul Bearer. Taker and Punk do not need that sort of an angle to sell the match as both of them are supreme ring generals. Is the WWE only using this angle because they are trying to appeal to a more mainstream audience? If true, this is doing more harm than good since it is a way to insult the intelligence of fans.

Elevating matters even more, there are not any mid card titles on the line at the event, not helping the theory that both the Intercontinental title and the United States title have lost meaning. Past WrestleMania’s have given us some classic mid card title matches: Randy Savage vs Ricky Steamboat, Roddy Piper vs Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels vs Razor Ramon. What is the motivation to continue to shelve good storied matches coming from the mid card? Does the WWE not want to adequately build up their stars for tomorrow? Are they lacking confidence in their roster?

Is the WWE not investing in building up a show because they feel the show will do just fine without sufficient story building? If this is the case, this is very unfair to the fans who have invested their time and money into this product to lead us to Mania. Having six matches, three rematches and only three title matches announced are direct ways to ensure that fans will be turned off. If you want WrestleMania to be special, make these matches mean more to us than just a mere ordinary pay per view match. Make them bigger than life. The WWE is already at a disadvantage by having half of the card being just rematches, so don’t the fans deserve more than just lazy booking? After all, if the WWE doesn’t care, then why should we?

Maurice D. Proffit is a Writer for Rant Sports