The disclaimer on this post should inform all of you that I'm a lifelong WWF/E and wrestling fan in general, I'm in the know to all the nuances that wrestling/WWE is "scripted" (though athletic), and there is one man in his 70's that makes all the decisions as to who should hold what title, for how long and who he should beat up to keep that title.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I noticed there is no Wrestlemania discussion on the forum, so I figured I'd go ahead and get the ball rolling.
Wrestlemania 34 was held in the Super Dome in New Orleans, LA. Announced attendance was over 78K, the gate was over 14 million dollars.
The show itself ran 5 hours and 10 minutes. Not sure where that ranks all time, but that is a long event for sure.
I won't do a match by match breakdown or anything, I'll just touch on a few things and if anyone else wants to discuss any other part of the event, feel free.
Overall, I don't think I hated this Wrestlemania, but I for sure think the WWE left far too much on the table in terms of opportunities to make it a better event. There was a serious opportunity to elevate a lot of guys, especially given the card and talent available, but it appears like Vince just told everyone to go out and do the status quo and not try and steal the show.
Honestly, the best match on the card was the Ronda Rousey/Kurt Angle vs. HHH/Stephanie and that was only because I truly thought Ronda was going to make a fool of herself, but she actually did a nice job. I take my hat off to her.
The Intercontinental title triple threat match intrigued me the most because I'm a huge Miz fan, but even that match was pretty flat for me. Had a few okay moments, but overall just nothing super memorable from it.
I liked the Charlotte/Asuka match a lot. I think given expectation they did really well, and that was probably the most solid/best match on the entire card.
Nakamura/AJ Styles didn't live up to the hype, but there was no way it could with everyone calling it a dream match. I thought it was pretty solid, but it just came off, in the end, as another mid-card match that was just kind of.. meh...
Lesnar/Reigns was exactly like every match Brock Lesnar has had since he's been back, and it was exactly like the Lesnar/Reigns match from Wrestlemania a few years ago. Just nothing spectacular, bell rings, Lesnar rushes in, shoulders to the stomach, some German Suplexes, punches, kicks, some F5's, that's it. I was hoping Reigns would win so he could at least bring the Universal title back to Raw and defend it on every pay-per-view (as it should be), but Vince McMahon won't even give me a chance to root for my least favorite wrestler in WWE.
Overall I think this Wrestlemania falls pretty far down the list of my favorite Wrestlemania events. It's for sure in the bottom half. Was it awful? No, not awful, it was just very mediocre, very status quo.
