Csonka’s 6 Sins of WrestleMania Weekend

WrestleMania weekend is over, and it was a hell of a weekend filled with a lot of good, but with the good there comes the bad. I had a great time watching all of the action, and discussing the best matches from a wide variety of skilled performers. But now, now we have to look at the bad, the “sins” of the weekend. I am sure someone will just say, “WrestleMania!” and be done with it. I get it if you feel that way, but we’re going to look at some more individualized items in today’s column. Thanks for following all of my WrestleMania coverage, and make sure to share some of your Mania weekend sins in the comments section. One last note, I won’t be talking Reigns vs. HHH, the match or the outcome; I already wrote about the poor booking of the feud and the “Triple H epic” too many times already. Vince stuck to his guns, they worked the match I expected and got the action I expected. It’s low hanging fruit at this point for me. Onto other things!

They literally just played this during the match in an attempt to wake up the crowd. My god. pic.twitter.com/frXsHdm0HM

— All Hail The King~! (@TheFrayMovement) April 4, 2016

WWE Begging For Audience Participation

WWE did something this year that took a lot of folks by surprise, and no I am not talking about the 17-hour WrestleMania broadcast. In an effort to keep an energetic vibe going at the giant event, the company turned into a variety stage show and was basically begging for participation with glorified applause signs and more. Through out the course of the evening, WWE constantly used the gargantuan scoreboard in the Jerry-Dome to try and manipulate their audience. They used the sign through out the evening, and not only did it become a distraction for many in attendance, but it quite honestly came off as desperate. WWE was so afraid of the crowd reactions not going the way that they wanted that they made a deliberate effort to mold the reactions of the audience through out the evening. It wasn’t enough to put 1000,000 people in there, make $17 million and go against the grain with the booking, they actually tried to tell the audience what to say and think. Come on WWE, you should be better than that.

The Fall of Timothy Thatcher

I have been a fan and supporter of Evolve Champion Timothy Thatcher; I thought he had a great 2015 as far as how he was booked and the great matches he had. Thatcher is a polarizing performer, which was understandable as not everyone likes the style he works, but I was a fan. He had a rough go of it heading into the Mania weekend, as in March he had back-to-back lackluster outings at Evolve 56 (against Matt Riddle with a bad finish) and Evolve 57 (a seemingly 21 hour long match against Caleb Konley). It was a mix of odd booking choices and match layouts that did not succeed in front of their audiences. We headed into Mania weekend and I hoped that things would get back on track, and that the Timothy Thatcher that was awesome in 2015 would return. Unfortunately he didn’t. The Evolve 58 match with Riddle was another failure, as they did an injury angle with Thatcher, leading to him retaining. If you needed Thatcher to retain, then Riddle gets DQ’d for being an asshole and breaking the rules, quite simple. The crowd chanted “what the fuck?” at this. That was the third flat Thatcher title match in a row, and the booking was another copout finish so that Riddle doesn’t really lose and Thatcher keeps the title. They booked themselves into a corner, and the results have not been good. Evolve 59 played off of his injury, where he lost a non-title match to Marty Scurll. Scurll tapping out Thatcher was exactly what I would have done there; it plays off of the injury well and also puts over Scurll as a player. I wish Thatcher would have sold it more, and that they would have went shorter and made it more of an out of nowhere win for Scurll, but overall this was the right thing to do; it was Thatcher’s best match in several shows but well below the mark he set for himself in 2015. Unfortunately the match at Mercury Rising also fell well below expectations. He worked a near 17-minute match with Sami Callihan that just didn’t work. It felt long, they worked a match that was not working or engaging the audience at all and worse than that they never tried to correct course. It started before the weekend, but Thatcher went from a guy I felt was must see to a guy I felt as if I didn’t need to see for a long time. It may be all part of the story, but when the weekend was over, all I could think was that Drew Gulak would be a much better choice as the champion; he can talk, he can work the grapple style the company has moved too and more importantly Gulak can adapt and change on the fly much better than almost anyone on the roster. I don’t want to go with the cliché “so and so was exposed,” but I’d belying if I said I thought Thatcher had a strong weekend.

Lucha Underground Misses a Unique Opportunity

One of the running themes in season one of Lucha Underground was Dario Cueto and his “unique opportunities” he would present to the wrestlers. Lucha Underground was presented with a unique opportunity as a promotion, as there were rumors that they were going to run live events during the Mania weekend. But for whatever reason the higher ups involved with Lucha Underground decided against this. There were plenty of chances to run shows, Thursday night was almost completely wide open, post Mania would have been good; there were chances. We keep hearing that they need to raise exposure and capital, to book their guys to get to a possible season four, they need to do live shows at least occasionally and they need to sell merchandise. This weekend was essentially Vahalla, so many wrestling fans with so much money ready to shell out for shirts, 8x10s and anything with a gimmick on it. But the people involved with Lucha Underground opted out, for one reason or another, to sit out the weekend. They did allow some of their talent to work the weekend, small lucha shows and WrestleCon. Do you know what happened? According to live reports, these men were essentially mobbed all weekend, selling merchandize, signing for fans and treated like HUGE stars on the shows they worked. I have no idea why the company decided not to run this weekend, but with the following they have, the fans base that was attending the weekend and how their guys were treated by the fans, they made a mistake by skipping out.

ROH Gets Left Behind

Did you know that Ring of Honor put on two events during the WrestleMania weekend? They did, they certainly did. Did you know that they in fact put on these shows in the Dallas area where most of the wrestling world was focused on? Again, they did. Did you know that they sold these shows out in advance, before even announcing matches? This is also a truth. Unfortunately these shows, in the hub of wrestling for the week, in front of the most passionate fans that paid for shows without even a notion of a card, were not available on PPV, iPPV, podcast, RealPlayer or anything that could deliver these events in real time. The shows were held on a Friday and a Saturday; these shows were not available the next day for VOD ordering. As of Monday morning these shows were not available for VOD ordering. As I write this portion of the column on Tuesday night, these shows are not available for VOD ordering. ROH is arguably the #2 company in the US at this point, they have TV, they put on a lot of events, they sell tickets and they make money. But they also make extremely foolish decisions when it comes to their business. I am all for smart moves, for not reaching beyond yourself and for not making moves that cost you tons of money; but you arrived at wrestling’s Christmas party without a gift this year. The company “reportedly” put on good matches and shot a big angle with Colt Cabana that would have made a lot of fans happy. But there’s no way to see these shows in a timely fashion. I hate to say it, but when it comes to events like these and the VOD, you have about three days for me and I move on because I have too many other things to cover and too many things to do with the family. ROH missed the party by not doing iPPV/PPV, and they got completely left behind by not having at the very least the first show up on Monday.

Forgetting to Check Your Internet Connection

While WrestleMania 32 was the biggest event of the weekend, hell it’s Mania weekend for a reason, the WWNLive universe as also a huge part of the weekend as they delivered several shows via iPPV. WWNLive put on shows from Evolve, SHIMMER, CZW, Kaiju Big Battel and their own super show with matches from the promotions under the WWNLive banner. It was a HUGE weekend for the company, as they drew crowds of over 1000 for the two Evolve shows and the Mercury Rising Super Show. Not only was it a success in growing the brands with big live crowds and reportedly big iPPV numbers, but they also delivered several of the best matches of the entire weekend. It’s taken years for them to carve out their place, and I was looking forward to these shows even more than Mania itself. Unfortunately it was not all sunshine and roses for the WWN brand, because the iPPV boogeyman returned. This came at the absolute worst time for the company, as they have put on quality events and have had almost no issues with the streaming for a very long time. Trust me, I am the very first to discuss these issues and bring them to light, but their track record had been nearly spotless for a very long time. Unfortunately the Evolve events were hit hard with these issues, especially Evolve 59. To say that this was a disaster and embarrassment is an understatement. For WWN Live, coming on the biggest weekend of the wrestling year and in front of their biggest paying crowds ever, you simply cannot have like this. They had more eyes than ever on them, and I felt so bad for them. WWNLive has been delivering so much quality wrestling, that at the end of the day I simply felt bad for them. As a wrestling fan, I want to see them succeed, I want to see them grow and I want as many healthy and quality wrestling companies out there as possible. I sincerely hope that the issues of Mania weekend do not stop fans from testing the product in the future, because Evolve has been on a roll and have been putting on great pro wrestling shows and matches at a fair price point. I hope that what ever the issues were are clear, that the company can learn from this and make sure that it doesn’t happen again. I for one will still be supporting the product.

#WM32 #WrestleMania @IAmJericho pic.twitter.com/QGeZ2L6N29

— LARIATOOOOO!!! (@SenorLARIATO) April 3, 2016

AJ Styles Loses

And now we close things out by going back to WrestleMania. Not the main event, not the Hell in a Cell match, we’re going to discuss the Chris Jericho vs. AJ Styles match. I was not a fan that we were already going to a fourth Styles vs. Jericho match. It felt like too much too soon, repeating just for the sake of repeating. The Jericho vs. Styles matches were good, but disappointing as a whole to this point. But then I thought, sure, why not. Jericho and Styles both need places on the card, both will want to steal the show and Styles will get the big win to really cement him as a player within the company. None of that happened; the match was flat, Jericho won and Styles lost his first WrestleMania. The Styles vs. Jericho ‘feud” has been under whelming and I felt the Mania encounter reflected that. This was a match where Jericho got “Triple H Syndrome,” he wanted to lay out a classic, but overestimated his planning and it failed. The match felt labored at times, felt too long and like the other matches it felt as if Styles had t slow himself for Jericho. I have previously discussed Jericho as a performer, he’s still good, and he is still valuable but he’s still trying to work like it’s 2001. I have watched Styles since 2001; I have watched him work classics with a wide variety of performers, many lesser skilled than Jericho, he was not the problem here. But on top of the disappointing match, AJ Styles lost. I don’t know about you, but I don’t sign a top tier in ring performer for a high dollar figure and then have him lose at his first WrestleMania to a part time performer who is not a good as he still thinks he is. It made no sense, other than the old Vince coming out and doing the “LOL WE SHOWED WE’RE BETER THAN TNA/NJPW” when Styles I snow HIS guy. Honestly what made it worse was the fact that Styles became the top contender the next night on Raw. From a booking standpoint, it makes more sense for Styles to win against Jericho at Mania; the “new kid” wins on the company’s biggest stage, and then the next night on Raw he scores another big win to ear the title shot. Styles is on a roll, he has momentum coming out of the biggest weekend if the year and that is something you can build off of. Instead Styles, like Kane and Ryback in recent years, loses at the biggest show of the year and then ends up the top contender. I know that some feel all was fixed on Raw, but there was no real reason for Styles to lose at Mania. Like a good friend of mine always says, it is what it is…

In case you missed them….

– Csonka Reviews The Mania Main Events (8-Part Series)
– Evolve 58 Review
– Evolve 59 Review
– WWN Live Mercury Rising Review
– CZW Welcome to the Combat Zone Review
– SHIMMER 80 Review
– NXT Takeover: Dallas Review
– WrestleMania 32 Review
– Csonka’s Top 14 Mania Weekend Matches