Csonka’s Winners & Losers of WrestleMania Weekend

– I am back again to take a look back at the long and fun weekend that was, WrestleMania weekend! It was the busiest Mania weekend ever. And just like every Mania weekend, there are a fair share of winners, and unfortunately losers once all is said and done. I am looking at the weekend in terms of what I watched and covered, enjoy. If you missed my coverage over the weekend here is a list of the Mania weekend shows I covered.

* EVOLVE 80.
* EVOLVE 81.
* Joey Janela’s Spring Break!
* PROGRESS: Orlando
* SHMMER 91.
* ROH Supercard of Honor.
* Beyond Wrestling: Caffeine.
* NXT Takeover.
* WWN Supershow.
* WrestleMania 33.

WINNER – PROGRESS Wrestling: PROGRESS Wrestling made their big US debut over the weekend; the name and a lot of the roster is familiar to hardcore fans, but they knocked it out of the park. While there were some iPPV issues from WWN, they delivered a well laid out, extremely consistent and exciting show; one of the best of the weekend. The product is very welcoming to new fans, established talents like Riddle, Seven, Dunne, and Bate delivered as expected, but the South Pacific Power Trip (TK Cooper & Travis Banks) were the breakouts of the weekend, delivering two of the best matches of the weekend. On top of all of that, the promotion had on of the better selling live gates of the weekend showing that there is demand for the product. I hope that it translates into new fans finding them and even subscribing to Demand Progress.

WINNER – Keith Lee: Keith Lee came away from the weekend a winner to me, he had one of the very best matches of the entire Mania weekend against Donovan Dijak, a well as a handful of good performances against a wide variety of opponents. When Chris hero left the independent scene, Matt Riddle slid into his role, working everywhere against anyone and having a ton of great matches. But now Galloway is McIntyre again and is heading back to WWE, and he will need replaced; Keith Lee is the man that kicked his ass at the Supershow, and looks primed to take his place. ROH didn’t see Keith Lee as a singles star, they thought his partner Shane Taylor was the one to invest in and allowed Lee to walk. WWN took the risk, rolled the dice and not only signed him but made it be known that he was going to be presented as a singles star. He’s had great performances, looked like a star over the weaken and the departure of McIntyre is going to be great for Lee, who will likely slide right into his place in the company. I want to see Monster Keith Lee go on a “Mark Henry like” Hall of Pain run, where he just fucking wrecks people with ease.

WINNER – The Hardys: There is no doubt I my mind that The Hardys were the biggest winners of the WrestleMania weekend. On Saturday night, the brothers faced the Bucks of Youth in a ladder match at the ROH Supercard of Honor show, a show that drew the biggest live gate & crowd in ROH history, based largely off of the star power of The Hardys and the online fanbase the Bucks have built. Not only was it a financial success, with The Hardys putting over the Bucks as the greatest tag team they had ever faced, but it was the best match of the weekend. he Hardys short ROH run was fucking great, with a very good match at Manhattan Mayhem with the Bucks, a good TV match with the Briscoes on ROH TV, the awesome street fight with the Bucks and Roppongi Vice, helping to draw this huge crowd in Florida and then, one last time, taking a trip in the wayback machine to recapture some of their old magic in this match. This had all of the wild and crazy spots you’d hope for, some great drama and the Hardys pulling off another big time performance, and the Bucks doing everything in their power to help them do so. This was four guys, killing themselves for 25-minutes to steal the show, and the weekend. They stole the show. And then, 24-hours later those crazy, beautiful and broken (quit literally) bastards made their WWE return, got the pop of the night, won the tag team titles and gave us a fun an entertaining Mania moment that didn’t feel forced and or manufactured like most are. Seeing the brothers fall into almost obscurity, having to battle their personal issues, and then not only completely reinvent themselves, become hot free agents and then get a heroes return at the biggest show of the year. The Hardys will add a ton of fresh matches to the WWE roster and come out of this weekend as huge winners on several levels, and I am glad they got the moment after all of the work they did to reinvent themselves; this was a genuine feel good moment.

WINNER – Drew McIntyre / LOSER – EVOLVE/WWNLive: It’s hard to know the exact timeline here and when who knew what, but I know two things and they are that McIntyre looks like a big winner here, and on the surface, EVOLVE & WWNLive look really bad (the next part is be looking at this from the outside) because we don’t know the inner workings. McIntyre looks great because he won his matches on iPPV, and then got out of the main event before he had to do a job, and then showed up at NXT. McIntyre completely rebuilt himself following his WWE release; his work had been great in TNA, the US independents and in the UL been great, he made it look like WWE really missed the boat on him, and earned his way back. Now to make things clear, it is only fair to add that WWE has been working with EVOLVE, they are letting McIntyre finish his dates in April, and once again sent scouts to WWN seminars over the weekend. WWN has also released talents under contract in the past so that they could go to WWE. This maybe have been a lovely afternoon tea with Regal politely asking, WWN saying sure and then everyone was cool about it. But from the outside looking in, it looks as if EVOLVE/WWNLive got worked and screwed in the whole deal. I had a feeling the WWE return was possible, maybe even very likely, so I was really glad that I got to write this and get it out there early.

LOSER – World of Sport & ITV: You may be wondering how “World of Sport & ITV” are losers when they weren’t even in Orlando. They aren’t here because of anything they did, they are here because while they were chilling with Jeff Jarrett and Impact wrestling, the WWE came in and robbed their house. WWE brought back Jim Ross to ensure that he wouldn’t be the voice of World of Sport (this is also a shot a NJPW, as if they were going to air more and possibly live content on AXS TV, Ross would have been on the call.). They then brought in a ton of UK talent, some that they didn’t have under a deal, to work AXXESS and get an up close look at then and offer some of them contracts. This again was done to try and take possible talent away from the World of Sport show. Finally, WWE brought back and locked up McIntyre, someone that all of the UK promotions were fighting over because he’s been a star and draw there. WWE took full aim at World of Sport & ITV, they sneaked into their house, hit them and hit them hard, and took all of their cool toys.

LOSER – Impact Wrestling: I keep hearing that “Impact Wrestling” wants to change the perception that many fans have of them, which is an admirable goal; I also hear that they want to make money. So they want some positive buzz, they want to make some money, the biggest weekend of the year rolls into your backyard and you do NOTHING? You run no shows, you tape no TV in front of hard-core fans, and your only association with the weekend was RENTING OUT YOU TALENT to everyone else. Are you shitting me? WWE rolled into town, bulldozed your garage, grabbed a beer from the fridge, came in the side door, made sweet and passionate love to your wife as you watched cradled up in the fetal position; they then took your wallet to tip her and then your dog and kids left with them. It’s lovely that Impact is working with ITV, NOAH and groups in Mexico, but to opt out of the biggest weekend of the year in the town you run out of is simply pathetic. This was a huge missed opportunity for Impact Wrestling, one I am surprised that they did miss considering the deals they’ve been making yesterday; they had a chance to run some shows with talents no one else had access to.

LOSER – Roman Reigns: In all honesty I feel bad for Roman Reigns, last year he worked a stinker in the annual Triple H masturbatory invitational, which was not a good main event. Now this year, WWE decided to book a 52-year old man with severe hip issues in a 23-minute match like this; this needed to be half as long at most. The opening stretch was strong, but it then started to fall apart (at the tombstone botch spot) and actually became sad to watch as Taker struggled through the rest of the match; it never recovered and in all honesty, it was a bottom five all time worst Mania main event. Reigns tried, but he wasn’t exactly a ring general out there. Like a lot of his run, the company didn’t put him in a position to succeed, leading to another flop on the biggest stage of the year. And he can’t win with fans, one side thinks he’s the second coming, while another thinks he’s the drizzling shits; in my opinion he’s a good, but flawed in ring performer that works hard, but has never really felt like the man they want him to be, largely due to creative failures. One thing I was critical of in regards to New Japan’s Guerrillas of Destiny team was the fact that the coasted on being in Bullet Club and the sons of Haku; it wasn’t until the summer that they embraced their mean streak and stared to feel as if they were taking control by force and really embracing who they needed to be; I hope Roman can find that.

– End scene.

– Thanks for reading.

“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”