wrestling / Columns

Botched!: Undertaker’s Boot, AJ’s Championship, More

April 14, 2018 | Posted by Steve Cook
Undertaker's Undertaker WrestleMania 34 Image Credit: WWE

Hi, hello & welcome to the column that nobody in the world of professional wrestling wants to be in: Botched! WrestleMania Weekend is over & done with. So much stuff happened on so many shows that we probably have enough material for the rest of the year. I decided to focus on the stuff that got the most attention: WrestleMania itself & NXT TakeOver.

Oh, and before anybody else mentions it, I’m aware I had my own botch in the Report Card when I mentioned Dana White tricking Vince McMahon into keeping the title on Roman Reigns. In my defense, that show was like fifteen hours long. Credit to anybody that got through 5,000 words & saw it.

1. Enough with the reverse ranas!: One move I’ve always hated is the reverse hurricanrana. A regular rana is pretty cool & always a good way to pop a crowd. The reverse will pop a crowd too, but it’s either extremely dangerous or ends up looking terrible. Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa had themselves an NXT classic Saturday night at TakeOver, but there was one flaw: the dreaded reverse hurricanrana.

I don’t know who started this blight against humanity, but people need to cut it out.

2. Undertaker “kicks” Cena: I’ve said my piece on Undertaker vs. John Cena. It wasn’t my cup of tea. Plenty of people liked it, and it’s not like it took up too much time, so I’m not mad about it. They do get a spot here though.

Dang wind off the Undertaker’s boot caught Cena there. Happens to the best of them.

3. AJ Styles = Universal Champion?: I gotta admit that the last match I thought would appear twice in this column this week was the AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura match. I had a feeling it would be a letdown due to the high expectations, but I didn’t expect there to be blatantly obvious flaws.

I was proven wrong before the match even started.

AJ Styles is in fact the WWE Champion & not the Universal Champion. I would be fine with him holding both championships, but I don’t make these decisions.

4. Botch or No Botch: Was it a 3.5 count?

At 1:04 in the video Nakamura hits Styles with the Landslide. Referee Mike Chioda drops down for the count & his hand appears to strike the mat three times before Styles kicks out. You hear it strike twice, though it’s possible that one may have been drowned out by Tom Phillips’ call. The explanation I’ve seen from several people is that Chioda was checking AJ’s shoulders when he initially dropped down, so the first arm motion wasn’t a count. Judging from how the story continued on Tuesday, it wasn’t meant to be a story-telling point.

What do you guys think? Botch or No Botch?

5. Brock dumps Roman on his head: Let’s be honest: the whole WrestleMania main event was a damn botch. Our focus here is a bump Roman Reigns took off a Brock Lesnar suplex that had me jump out of my chair like I was Mauro Ranallo or something.

Dude bounced off his head! If only Brock had done that eight more times, the match would have ended sooner.

Thanks for reading! If you see (or hear) anything wrong in the world of wrestling, let me know via Twitter or e-mail at [email protected]. My Twitter feed is also great for Nashville Predators takes. Have a good weekend!