WrestleMania 32 Featured Many Good Moments That WWE Got Right

By Nicholas A. Marsico

The general consensus among the outspoken masses online following WrestleMania is that the show was very disappointing. The main problem wasn’t necessarily due to match quality (or lack thereof), because there were really only two stinkers, but due to confusing outcomes and winners and losers that just didn’t seem to make any logical sense. Not that anyone is accusing WWE of ever applying logic or common sense thought to their booking process, but WrestleMania felt especially egregious.

That said, there’s a reason why this is by far not the worst WrestleMania of all time. While it is unequivocally the worst since WrestleMania 27, the show cannot be placed in the lower echelon of shows like WrestleMania IX, WrestleMania XI or even IV, 13, XV and WrestleMania 2. All of those were bad in their own ways, but the merit of match quality puts the 32nd annual “Show of Shows” above at least 7 other iterations of the event.

As alluded to above, there were some really good matches at WrestleMania in Dallas. The ladder match, while it should be retired for a lengthy period of time, at least as a multi-man match, was great fun and the finish with the shocking victory of new Intercontinental Champion Zack Ryder was a truly great WrestleMania moment. It was better than the kind of moment that Michael Cole keeps trying to manufacture by screaming, “WrestleMania moment!” at the top of his lungs.

Not only did Ryder win, but the events of the match and the eventual fallout between Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn promises to be great. The crowd loved Zayn and hated Owens, and the fact that neither one of them took home the gold actually enhances their blood feud rather than detracting.

Judgment on Chris Jericho‘s victory over AJ Styles should be held back until we see what happens on RAW because maybe there’s a method to that madness. The match itself started slow but built up to become a very strong contest and now the men are tied at two wins apiece.

Brock Lesnar‘s suplexes were awesome and although it wasn’t shown on the broadcast, there was actually a suplex counter for the live crowd on one of AT&T Stadium‘s ginormous video screens. The match was very disappointing, but that was great.

The entrance set was simple looking but cool, Stephanie McMahon looked great as did the entire entrance, even though it was hokey for a pair of 40-somethings who usually wear suits and visit cancer patients and kids. And kids who are cancer patients. But they are evil and Stephanie is Skeletor. That didn’t compute. Either be a bad guy or a good guy. Enough with the mixed signals.

Shane McMahon’s fall was pretty awesome even though the match was about 20 minutes longer than it needed to be.

Stone Cold Steve Austin, Mick Foley and Shawn Michaels danced with The New Day, and Austin hit an awesome Stunner on Xavier Woods. That was almost Scott Hall-level awesome from Woods.

Finally, the Women’s Championship match was great. It was easily the match of the night. Calling the women ‘superstars’ instead of ‘divas’ just feels right. The new belt looks amazing, and Charlotte winning was actually not a bad result. Yes, even with Ric Flair, a man, being a major part of the finish. Charlotte is the heel. She was born to keep the title at all costs, even if that means taking advantage of the help of a man in a match that is supposed to define the WWE Women’s Movement. That was great.

In the end, WrestleMania was a very interesting show. At times it felt like it would never end (and it did end up going almost a full five hours (not including the two-hour kickoff) but other times it was just an oddly entertaining event. It wasn’t a failure of a show, and Monday Night RAW should hopefully make sense of some of the nonsense from last night.

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