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Jack Likes Wrestlemania And Grown Men Sobbing Over The Results Of Wrestling Matches: Wrestlemania 30

March 28, 2015 | Posted by Jack Stevenson
8.5
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Jack Likes Wrestlemania And Grown Men Sobbing Over The Results Of Wrestling Matches: Wrestlemania 30  

WRESTLEMANIA 30

The show begins with a hyper cool in ring segment, with Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin and The Rock all in the squared circle at the same time! There wasn’t much of a purpose to this beyond having these three legends interact with each other and talk about how radical Wrestlemania is, but hey, that’s a darn fine purpose in and of itself! It was a good time, such a fun way to begin the show.

MATCH 1- WINNER GETS A WWE CHAMPIONSHIP SHOT IN THE MAIN EVENT- DANIEL BRYAN VS. TRIPLE H

The Yes Man gets off to a strong start, kicking away Hunter’s offer of a handshake and rolling him up for a flash two count. Tornado DDT on the floor! Suicide dive! Bryan’s ready for war! Another dive to the floor doesn’t work out as well for him though- he makes some contact, but Triple H is able to deflect him into the barricade. Bryan’s arm is heavily taped after an assault from a couple of weeks ago, and unsurprisingly Triple H targets it for the duration of the match, though not before faking Bryan out by seeming to work over the leg, only to drive him arm first into the announce table to spectacularly confirm that yes, he will be mainly focusing on mangling the already injured limb. He brings out some pretty interesting moves in order to wear Bryan down, going back to a crossface chickenwing a few times and nearly getting a submission victory out of a regular crossface. Plus, he uses a tiger suplex! Such a cool move! D-Bry starts to make his comeback, peppering HHH with corner dropkicks, but then Hunter just roars back with a spectacular clothesline! The fan favourite is of course eventually able to make a more sustained comeback, and makes the most of it with wicked kicks to the chest and a missile dropkick. He smashes into the King of Kings with suicide dives until the big man falls. Back in the ring Bryan looks for the running knee, but Hunter counters it into a spinebuster! Pedigree! Bryan kicks out! No way! Triple H tries for it twice more but Daniel keeps wriggling free, and eventually gets the time and space to land the running knee! Hunter is out! Bryan’s going to the main event! **** ¼. Delightful opening contest. It’s one of the better technical wrestling contests there’s ever been at a ‘Mania, with Hunter in particular digging deep into his warchest and finding things like the tiger suplex! It was a superb display by Triple H, really really impressive. They also seamlessly integrated a bit of brawling to remind us all that these two weren’t all that fond of one another, and the finishing stretch was red hot and not overloaded with near falls and tiresome finisher kick outs. Everything was so well timed as well, Bryan’s initial flurry of offense, Triple H taking over, Bryan’s brief comeback, Bryan’s real comeback, the finishing stretch, all of it just seemed to click together to create such a satisfying whole. Perhaps Bryan didn’t take the arm injury as seriously as he might have done at times, but other than that this was a total peach. Post match, Triple H attacks from behind and mauls the injured arm of Bryan with a chair to put his championship dreams in jeopardy.

MATCH 2- THE SHIELD VS. KANE & THE NEW AGE OUTLAWS

This is terrific. The Shield just annihilate Kane and the Outlaws, it’s a thorough dismantling. A bad night for the bad guys began when the Hounds interrupted Road Dogg’s little preamble before he’d even finished it, and things get even worse in the ring. Reigns crushes Kane with a spear, The Outlaws get dropped with a double triple powerbomb, and Rollins makes the cover while his teammates begin celebrating. **. One of the finest flattenings you’ll ever see. Each member of the Shield got to show off their strengths, Reigns with his power, Rollins’ aerial ability, and Ambrose’s coked up brawling, and they did it all in under three minutes and just waltzed through a team that were credible, but not so credible that their loss felt a bit silly or out of place. Tremendously booked.

MATCH 3- THE ANDRE THE GIANT MEMORIAL BATTLE ROYAL

You know how Battle Royals go. Lots of wrestlers, some of whom you’d forgotten were even employed by WWE, meander round the ring punching their opponents until all but one of them has fallen over the top rope. In a jaw-dropping spot, Cesaro elevates Kofi Kingston clean over the top ropes and the ring post, bringing him crashing down on the steel steps! Kingston tumbles to the floor, but is able to keep his heels on the steps, so technically he isn’t eliminated! He then shuffles his way up the steps, back to his feet, and into the ring! Amazing. It comes down to Cesaro and the Big Show- Show comes close to winning but can’t quite get his foe out the ring, and then the Swiss Superman hoists Big Show up with a bodyslam and dumps him over the top rope to win the match as the crowd go completely bananas! ** ½. Much of the match was the typical mush of aimless punching and kicking, but the two big spots were really great. Do you know, I think it’s rather a shame that they didn’t do more with Cesaro after this…

MATCH 4- JOHN CENA VS. BRAY WYATT

The first thing that Bray does is kneel before Cena, stretch out his arms, and offer John the chance to let his dark side out and win the match straight away. It’s an intriguing strategy, but Cena doesn’t rise to the bait, utilising a side headlock takedown instead to signal his intention of wrestling the match properly. The bout that ensues is a strange affair, which features periods where the guy getting beaten up is delighted about it and the guy doing the beating seems in peril. Generally, that’s not how wrestling matches work! They suffer a little for doing the coolest bit of the match when they’re only midway through- Cena attempts the Five Knuckle Shuffle, but Wyatt crab walks his way to safety, freaking the heck out of his foe! His signature guillotine legdrop is countered into a spiky powerbomb from Bray. The pacing of Bray’s matches is pretty cool, he always lets his opponents build up all this pace and momentum and then stops them in their tracks with these sharp, sudden, painful moves. Cena heads up top again, presumably to try another leg drop, but instead he flies onto the floor and takes out Harper and Rowan! I like it when wrestlers mess with conventions and they’re doing a fair bit of it here. Cena is sorely tempted to bash Bray’s brains out with the steel steps, but in the end he remembers his morals and discards the weapon. Back in the ring, the Attitude Adjustment only gets two and they’re drifting into cliched finisher kick out territory a bit. Luke Harper tries to get involved and is speared through the barricade for his trouble! Cena returns to the ring to be hit with Sister Abigail, but it’s only good for two. Wyatt again offers Cena the chance to go rogue by handing him a steel chair, but Cena settles for whacking Rowan with it, and then a flash Attitude Adjustment allows him to sneak out a win. *** ¼. An unusual match that was up and down in quality, but I liked more parts of it than I didn’t. Bray’s mind games were really interesting, and while Cena’s response to them were often marred by over-acting, they still comprised the most tense parts of the bout, the parts that were easiest to care about. Some of the near falls were exciting and some of them were repetitive and disconnected. It seemed to move in waves as well, you’d get a couple of minutes of exciting finishing stretch and then a couple of minutes that were clogged with finisher kick-outs. This could have been much worse though, Bray turned in an excellent performance and it helped lift this bout to comfortably above average.

MATCH 5- THE UNDERTAKER VS. BROCK LESNAR

Despite everything, I’m still of the opinion that having Lesnar end the streak here was a brilliant and brave move from WWE. The match itself is really bad and that’s partially why I think the end result was the right call, the step down in quality of the Undertaker’s performance between this and even the bout with Punk the previous year is noticeable and saddening. The Deadman had time and logic and the cumulative effect of year upon year of getting your arse kicked every night for so long, finding it within him to give us legendary matches and moments long after the people who he broke into the business with had retired with drug problems and hip replacements. Here though his whole body seemed on the brink of collapse when he was trying for Old School, he could barely propel himself through the air for Brock’s’ German suplexes, his attempt at a Last Ride looked weak and shaky. There is no way that year upon year, he could have delivered the calibre of performance that had come to define the latter days of the streak, that had led to such classics with Michaels and Triple H and Punk. Having surrendered it to Lesnar, the pressure’s off him somewhat, expectations have been lowered for the match with Bray Wyatt and if he can still carry an aura about him and do a decent rendition of his finishing moves I think people will be happy. People were not happy at the result of this match. That is the other big reason I’m so in favour of it. Not because I have any particular desire to get a good chunk of grief with my wrestling matches, but because having the streak end up abruptly and unpredictably drew genuine emotional responses from people, and wrestling doesn’t do that enough. I wish I’d been alive when people in the crowd would cry when Ricky Morton couldn’t tag in Robert Gibson, and this is the closest I think I might ever come to experiencing what that must have been like. Watching at home I was figuratively in a daze, I was so sad and confused. Apparently people in the arena were so angry they were walking out, or just crying in their seats. Men, women, children, all of them crying. That is so fucking cool! I can’t believe in this day and age of pro wrestling, where it often seems like we’ve seen everything there is to see in a wrestling ring, something as simple as a guy losing a match can generate such a tidal wave of misery. The build up to the match was really not so good and didn’t convince anyone that the outcome of this match was in any doubt, but that almost worked in its favour, because if people had been able to brace themselves even for the slightest possibility that the streak would end, the emotion wouldn’t have been as real. There’d have been more of a performance, people would have composed a thunderous and perfectly synchronised “THANK YOU TAKER!” chant rather than the meek one that poked its head above the cloud of gloom alongside some scattered protests of “bullshit!” and it would have been artificial. What actually transpired was as real as pro wrestling gets. If Reigns beats Lesnar tonight, maybe this result will lose some of its power, to see the guy that beat the streak get beaten a year later by someone who blatantly isn’t ready, but I hope not. As it stands, for me this is a top five Wrestlemania moment, even though the match itself was below par, wrestled at a snail’s pace and full of near falls no one was buying. **.

MATCH 6- DIVAS INVITATIONAL FOR THE DIVAS CHAMPIONSHIP

There are 14 Divas in this match and a sizeable proportion of them are completely interchangeable. Despite that handicap, and the fact that they’re following the dizzying shock of Undertaker losing his streak, there are still a couple of nice moments in this. Natalya shows plenty of ambition in trying to Sharpshooter three opponents at once, but she’s mercifully interrupted before the impracticality of her plan can be revealed. The Bella Twins wipe out a whole heap of bodies on the floor with synchronised suicide dives, before turning on each other in the ring. In the end, AJ taps Naomi out with the Black Widow to retain in a noble effort from all involved. * ¾.

Roddy Piper and a zanily mustachioed Paul Orndorff bump into Hulk Hogan and Mr. T backstage and get into a confrontation about their Wrestlemania I main event. Pat Patterson even drifts into shot in a referee’s outfit, which is such a cool touch! In the end, they decide to bury the hatchet rather than fight it out. This was really fun, and probably would have gone down better were the crowd not still reeling from the Undertaker match.

MATCH 7- TRIPLE THREAT MATCH FOR THE WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP- RANDY ORTON VS. DANIEL BRYAN VS. BATISTA

They get everything just right in this match. Daniel Bryan may have seen off Triple H earlier in the evening, but Hunter and Stephanie still haven’t given up on crushing the dreams of their nemesis. When Bryan seems on the brink of making Orton tap to the Yes Lock, the most gruesome of twosomes sneak through the crowd and drag Mike Chioda from the ring. His replacement is Scott Armstrong, who the Authority paid off to fast count a Bryan victory against Orton back in September, giving them the perfect excuse to smear Daniel’s good name and strip him of the championship. This time, though, Armstrong won’t co-operate with the Authority’s sinister scheme, and when Batista drops Bryan with the Batista Bomb, he delivers a regular, respectable two count. It’s all for naught anyway, as Bryan kicks him in the face and takes out all the invaders with a suicide dive! Triple H tries to use the sledgehammer, but nothing’s going right for him this evening, and Bryan knocks him down with it! Finally, Batista and Orton come good, as they save the day for the Authority and force our hero to succumb to the number’s game. They do this with a Batista Bomb/RKO combination right through the announce table! Orton looked to take an uncomfortable fall right on a monitor in doing that, but it’s nothing compared to the state that Daniel Bryan is in. It looks like he’s fucking died. The medical team wheel him out on a stretcher while Batista and Orton continue the match, delivering moves in a faintly relaxed manner now they know they’ve taken that pesky D-Bry out of action. But wait! Bryan’s not giving up! He still seems on the brink of expiring, but he’s dragging himself back to the ring! He’s dragging himself back to the ring to deliver Yes Locks a plenty! Batista and Orton keep breaking them up, the swine, and Randy drops David with a RKO for two. He tries for a punt kick on his supposed ally, but Bryan intercepts him with the flying knee. Batista tosses Bryan from the ring and steals the cover on Orton! One, two, not quite three! A side effect of the Lesnar win is that it feels entirely believable that Batista or Orton could have won this match to send the crowd home in utter despair. Nothing seems sacred any more. Bryan flies back in to the ring with the knee to Batista! Yes Lock! Batista taps out! Bryan is the champion! Hooray! Hooray! **** ¼. This was such a cathartic match to watch, and reassuringly formulaic after the upheaval of Taker/Lesnar- Triple H did indeed get yet more comeuppance, a Spanish announce table was definitely broken, and Bryan won in emphatic fashion to become one of the most deserving WWE champions in history. They stuck to the traditional WWE main event structure and it worked brilliantly for them. They created a huge, satisfying, melodramatic main event, and Bryan’s victory over everything the forces of evil could throw at him was emotional as anything. Just lovely.

8.5
The final score: review Very Good
The 411
A fabulous, baffling Wrestlemania that will live long in the memory of anyone who got to witness it live. There have been Wrestlemanias with better matches, although the two Daniel Bryan bouts that bookend the show are pretty fucking top, but with just seven matches this is one of the leanest, most focused 'Manias there is, and that helps it a lot. The Streak ending is one of the craziest and most maudlin things you'll ever see in a wrestling ring, but the triumphs of Bryan and Cesaro and the Shield ensure this show also bristles with hope. It's a show that has aged better over the past year than I thought it might, and remains well worth checking out for anyone who missed it last year. It might be nice to just watch it in place of Wrestlemania 31 and pretend it's live and happening again and WWE is resetting itself to where it was nearly 365 days ago.
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wrestlemania 30, Jack Stevenson