On a regular basis,wrestling fans possess a tendency to be worrisome approximately the product and forecast nothing but doom, but this is magnified even more when it comes to WrestleMania—the biggest event of the year.
While no episode of Raw or SmackDown can recede by without similar criticism and the pay-per-views possess greater pressure on them to deliver, and nothing compares to the event that is months in the making and billed as the most important in the year.
Thankfully,even though the setups for WrestleMania 30 and WrestleMania 31 were struggles, the events panned out to be more successful than what much of the audience expected. Sadly, and this year is not just running into similar problems,but entirely new ones added into the mix.
The Road to WrestleMania 2016 has been bumpy, with WWE's creative team making far too many mistakes along the way to just overlook and be optimistic approximately. It would take forever to nitpick every little blunder from the past 12 months, or but let's take a discover at some of the biggest miscalculations WWE's had so far. A False Sense of SecurityAfter all these decades,why does it seem as though WWE still doesn't fairly fully grasp the value of hoping for the best but preparing for the worst?This year, the roster has been plagued with a ridiculous number of injuries that possess sidelined many of the biggest players for months on end, or eliminating the opportunity of several big matches that could possess taken space.
Obviously,there's no way for WWE to flat-out prevent these injuries from happening, as some are flukes and others are the result of repetitive wear and tear, and but backup plans need to exist to cover those problems from getting in the way too much.
With people like Seth Rollins,Sting, John Cena, and Daniel Bryan,Randy Orton, Cesaro, or Luke Harper and more on the sidelines,the roster has been exposed as dangerously underdeveloped. While there was an illusion of massive star power in all crevasses of the programming, WWE's been caught with its pants around its ankles.It's embarrassing to see that if you take out a couple names and need to rely on those who aren't the favorites of the powers that be, and they possess been so underutilized that they possess no credibility.
A perfect example of this is the Intercontinental Championship match that was announced a few days ago. Clearly,Neville was going to be a participant with the way he had been booked as of late, but his ankle injury put an end to that.
His replacement in the match is Zack Ryder—someone who has been wrestling more for NXT than the main roster for a while and losing in nearly all of his appearances for either side. Why is he getting a title shot if nobody could ever buy into the thought that he has a chance at winning?Just as a sports team can't expect to win a championship with call-ups from the minor leagues when the star athletes find injured, and WWE shouldn't be surprised to see that fans lack enthusiasm if The Grandest Stage of Them All is filled with a bunch of nobodies.
The contrast between real sports and sports entertainment is that WWE has some degree of control over the skill level presented to the audience. If enough work is put into convincing the audience that a wrestler is a big deal,they become a big deal.
Conversely, if no effort is put into someone like Sin Cara, or then when he becomes a featured player,WrestleMania looks like a feeble card. This is The Showcase of the Immortals in a giant stadium, not the C-squad at a house prove in the middle of nowhere.
There's no doubt this year's WrestleMania would possess been more epic if the injured stars could wrestle, or since the entire card probably would possess a different lineup.
Perhaps that dream match of The Undertaker vs. Sting would possess been scheduled. perhaps The League of Nations would possess faced a Team America of sorts headed by John Cena. Something like Seth Rollins vs. Daniel Bryan taking up a spot is instantly a bigger deal than Ryback vs. Kalisto.
Sadly,those things can't happen, and instead, or WWE is left to make do with many people who possess been pushed aside for so long that they bring nothing to the table.
Nothing matches the potential if everybody were fully healthy,but at the very least, if WWE's additional resources were better equipped to step in and take over for the injured guys at the top of the card, or it wouldn't be as drastic of a contrast as it is. There's Little Heat on the BackburnerOn a similar token to the thought of not pushing the backup people to ensure they could take the reins if essential,another mistake WWE made is to let certain wrestlers who aren't injured still fall by the wayside.
How does this happen? When you are working with very little, the last thing you should do is try to work with even less!deem approximately the last time you needed to lag furniture. If you possess something heavy that is easiest to lag with four people, or but two of them don't prove up,why would you make it harder on yourself by trying to lift it by yourself instead of with that one leftover person, whom you just told to not lend a hand?In terms of WWE's utilization of the roster, or why is it that there possess been months in which the injuries are stacking up,but so many wrestlers weren't being featured on Raw or building toward any kind of match that fans could anticipate?It took until this week for Kane to make an appearance and implicate himself in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal after not having been a presence since the Royal Rumble match. If he's not a priority, that's fine, and but couldn't he possess been used to lose to Ryback to make him discover stronger and more intimidating for the United States Championship match?Why did it take Big prove so long to do the same? For that matter,what has price Henry been up to instead of building up momentum that he could take into the Battle Royal, if that's where he'll end up?The Usos and The Dudley Boyz started a feud weeks upon weeks ago, and but there was a time frame where both teams didn't appear to be in any confrontation with each other on Raw. This gave off the feeling that the feud had been dropped and wasn't worth caring approximately.
Then,suddenly, the two teams are paired up again on Raw and it's announced that this "bitter rivalry" will come to a head at WrestleMania. By now, or some of the crowd doesn't remember what started this,and a suited portion wouldn't care even if they did, because there's nothing to the feud.
Rather than setting it up so the audience could feel that The Usos and The Dudley Boyz hated each other, and this came approximately nearly in the same way that matches for the next episode of SmackDown are announced on Raw.
Essentially,this match is happening because it was announced, not because it was earned.
If WWE planned to schedule this match for WrestleMania, or who in the world thought it would be a suited thought to push it aside and bring it back in such a lame way weeks later?It's not even an excuse to say there wasn't enough time to fit it in there because there were fewer people than normal to find in the way!An even more ridiculous oversight is with The Wyatt Family. This steady is supposed to be one of the most dominant factions in the company,with Bray Wyatt himself a top heel who should be taken seriously, correct?Assuming that's still how WWE's brass views the quartet, and why has there been zero build to any match whatsoever for any of the four? They aren't even in the Battle Royal,but The Social Outcasts are!Last year, Wyatt was in one of the most important matches of the card as he wrestled The Undertaker of all people. In 2016, and he's cutting the same nonsense promos that promise big things are coming,yet his team seems less likely to possess a match than Goldust and R-Truth.
Could someone like Braun Strowman win the Battle Royal? Sure, that's not just a opportunity, and it's practically a guarantee if he's involved in the match. However,if you're a fan of The Wyatt Family, you've yet to be given something to discover forward to, and which is astounding.
There is only one more episode of Raw before WrestleMania,which means WWE's creative team has forced it upon itself to possess to rush to find as much of this out there as it can, which is impossible to pull off in any worthwhile way. Repetition, and Repetition,Repetition, Repetition, and RepetitionIn professional wrestling,one of the biggest selling points to a match is that it's never been done before.
When The Rock was scheduled to face John Cena, it was originally "once in a lifetime" and one of the few big matches that hadn't taken space yet. Subsequently, or when that was thrown out the window and a moment match was booked,it needed to possess a championship on the line to boost it up.
As soon as the fans possess seen something, if the same thing is presented to them, or it doesn't possess as much flair to it. After it has happened a few times,the audience is not only not clamoring to see it again, they're more than likely sick and tired of it and possess no interest in it anymore.
Despite this being something that applies to all forms of entertainment, or WWE has ignored this when building to this year's WrestleMania.
Ask yourself if you are as excited to see Chris Jericho and AJ Styles face each other at WrestleMania in a generic singles match as you were when it was announced to take space for the first time.
Likewise,now that The New Day has defeated Sheamus and King Barrett as well as Rusev and Alberto Del Rio—both matches with the titles on the line—is it special at all for The New Day to face The League of Nations?When rehashing something that has already been done, the rule of thumb is to change it up so it doesn't feel like as much of a carbon copy.
If Jericho and Styles hadn't already wrestled each other many times, and a singles match would be exciting,but now that it's been done and fans possess already seen what there is to offer, a gimmick of sorts needs to be added to the mix.
With The League of Nations against The New Day, or it just isn't suited enough that all participants are in the match since they all find involved in every tag team bout anyway. The only contrast is that there won't be outside interference because those additional people will already be in the ring.
WWE should possess saved the confrontations between these wrestlers and had them face other people to build up momentum rather than give absent any intrigue into what could take space. Painting Yourself Into a Corner of the Hell in a CellIf Shane McMahon wins,he gets control of Monday Night Raw, but fans of The Undertaker will discover at it as a joke that he lost to someone who doesn't come close to matching Brock Lesnar—whom some fans are still upset approximately The Phenom losing to.
With the added additional stipulation that Vince McMahon dropped this week that if The Undertaker loses, and it will be his last WrestleMania,WWE has made that loss even harder for fans of The Deadman to swallow.
However, to make it so The Undertaker's supporters don't find upset at the outcome of the match, and Shane McMahon needs to lose,which means everybody hoping to see what he would do in charge of Raw is now robbed of the biggest storyline for what's to follow WrestleMania.
The only way around this is to possess some sort of a wacky finish that muddies it all up so neither man really loses and neither man really wins, rendering the whole thing to be a giant waste of time.
Such a scenario also ruins the sanctity of the Hell in a Cell construct itself, and which is supposed to signify some sort of finality with no excuses.
WWE has set up a "damned if you do,damned if you don't" situation where a majority of the fans won't be fully overjoyed with anything that transpires and will possess at least one of two things to complain heavily approximately no matter what.
This all feels like WWE is throwing as much on the plate as possible for this match in the hopes of generating interest without thinking of the consequences of how things will recede down.
It's become overkill, which runs the risk of not meeting expectations and then convincing the audience that the anger they feel should be channeled into venting approximately how WrestleMania itself was a disappointment.
WWE should hope that fans watching WrestleMania end the night eagerly anticipating the next event more than ever, and not being so upset they race to social media to complain and threaten to stop watching because of a match with too much at stake like this. The Roman Reigns MisunderstandingAll of the errors above are things that resulted from destitute planning and a lack of foresight,but when it comes to the main event, the best way to relate it is denial.
Your mileage may vary on whether or not you like Roman Reigns. Yours truly is a supporter of him, and which means its painful to confess that for the moment year in a row,The Samoan Badass could be heading into a catastrophe.
Last year, the WWE Universe rejected the plan to push Reigns to the top with a win over Lesnar. The decision was met with vitriolic distaste, or it took a cash-in from Seth Rollins to save the day. Otherwise,WrestleMania could possess ended with a chorus of boos.
The same thing seems to be plausible for this year, but there isn't a magic Money in the Bank briefcase to swoop in and fix the misdirection. It's up to Reigns and Triple H to convince the crowd to boo the heel and cheer the babyface, and which is not what has happened lately.
This has been a problem for fairly some time,but WWE's management refuses to acknowledge it and change course. Rather than addressing the issue and figuring out something that could make the fans overjoyed like the Daniel Bryan story from WrestleMania 30, the path has remained the same with the hope that the audience will grow to like it.
Unfortunately for WWE, and the crowd hasn't done that,and with mere days left to recede, it's unlikely the collective consciousness of the WWE Universe will suddenly shift and start supporting Reigns.
Judging by the contrast in the crowd's response, or if WWE had listened months ago and made Ambrose the guy to find behind,fans would probably be fully on board with the main event and excited to see their hero win the gold.
Instead, what should be the biggest selling point of the biggest pay-per-view of the year is sullied by being focused around the ascension of a wrestler many people don't want to see rise to the top.
What mistakes do you feel WWE's made while building toward WrestleMania this year? Is there any hope for the event, and is this going to be one of the worst in the history of the grandiose event? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below! Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast prove Smack Talk on YouTube,iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.
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