GDT: WWE Wrestlemania 34 (8th April 2018)

Falco Lombardi

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Nov 17, 2011
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I have said it for the better part of a year now: Shinsuke Nakamura has not connected or shown up the way he’s been advertised.

He had the banger of a match against Zayn, but since then, he’s been kind of underwhelming.

It’s been blamed on his booking, it’s been blamed on his opponents, it’s been blamed on pretty much everything except Nakamura.

Hell, last month he was getting less pops than his opponent in Rusev. He was/is less over than AJ Styles.

There were no excuses tonight. I thought they absolutely made the right call. Didn’t ever think I’d see them do it and never would have predicted it, but I think AJ retaining was the right call. Hopefully the heel turn works for Nakamura because “dream match” just isn’t enough to make it work.

As for the rest of the card, Seth winning made my night. Biased as he’s my favorite star in the company, but I thought he was the right guy to put over.

I was floored Asuka lost. I don’t know if it was the right call, but I do know that I’m happy the streak is gone. They’re limiting and take away the intrigue from the matches. Is Charlotte the right person to end it? Probably so.

Rousey was outstanding. The match I thought would probably be the worst was arguably the best of the whole show. I can’t wait to see more from her. Kudos to Steph.

I love Braun and thought he winning alone was a fun idea, but the execution fell flat for me.

Nia winning was the right call but this took too long.

I have no idea what the plan for Reigns and Lesnar is. Obviously Roman isn’t going anywhere as he kicked out of FIVE F5s but what was the point of putting him in this spot if he wasn’t going to win?

Overall, I loved the show. If you can tell me you know what’s happening tomorrow night, I’d say you’re lying and the intrigue alone will have me tuning in.
 
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GKJ

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Feb 27, 2002
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Going to watch the mixed tag right now again. Such an unexpected highly entertaining match. Never thought it would be as good as it was. A definite highlight of the evening.
The clearly worked hard to make sure it was good and nobody blew their spot. But when you get into the ring you still have to execute and Ronda definitely delivered. She surely looks motivated to want to be good at this.
 
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ColePens

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This card is and will be better than Takeover.

There i said it.

I wanna go back to this post and see what TLF thinks now. Honestly Takeover DESTROYED Wrestlemania. And it's not even close. And this is coming from a guy who isn't a big indy guy and prefers entertainment to just wrestling.

The only matches that maybe could have even made it to the Takeover card, in terms of value, were the IC title match and Asuka/Flair match. But the Flair/Asuka match had such a bad result. Flair will forever be a main eventer. She has the name, the skills, and put in the matches. Asuka was really gaining steam with that mystique on the main card just to come crashing down. Now it's gone. And quite honestly - it's going to hurt her. She needed that match.

But interested in your thoughts. IMO Takeover destroyed Mania. And i'm the furthest thing from an indy fan.

And I'm interested in @M.C.G. 31 and @Emperoreddy watching NXT and trying to figure out how these are even the same company. The simple booking, the intelligent usage of wrestlers, the match booking itself, the quality of matches, etc. I know it can't be the same exact show, but if they even booked matches/results similar, they'd make more stars and make fans a lot happier.
 

y2kcanucks

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Aug 3, 2006
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I didn’t think the show was bad either. I never really got bored or felt like the show was never going to end unlike last year. But you do get to the point where there’s 5 matches left when it should be 2. It would help if the show was on earlier so that it didn’t go to midnight. I’m up, I want to talk about the show but it’s almost 2am.

That’s reasonable. It was long, but that’s Mania. What match(es) would you have cut?
 

GKJ

Global Moderator
Feb 27, 2002
185,669
37,463
That’s reasonable. It was long, but that’s Mania. What match(es) would you have cut?
Well, for one, I thought Nia Jax should've squashed Alexa within 2 minutes. And Roman/Brock should've been cut by half at least. I didn't need that ridiculousness in the Raw tags either.

Just make the show earlier. They should want the show to end early enough so that they can get buzz or press after the show instead of everyone going to bed.
 

Emperoreddy

Show Me What You Got!
Apr 13, 2010
129,839
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I wanna go back to this post and see what TLF thinks now. Honestly Takeover DESTROYED Wrestlemania. And it's not even close. And this is coming from a guy who isn't a big indy guy and prefers entertainment to just wrestling.

The only matches that maybe could have even made it to the Takeover card, in terms of value, were the IC title match and Asuka/Flair match. But the Flair/Asuka match had such a bad result. Flair will forever be a main eventer. She has the name, the skills, and put in the matches. Asuka was really gaining steam with that mystique on the main card just to come crashing down. Now it's gone. And quite honestly - it's going to hurt her. She needed that match.

But interested in your thoughts. IMO Takeover destroyed Mania. And i'm the furthest thing from an indy fan.

And I'm interested in @M.C.G. 31 and @Emperoreddy watching NXT and trying to figure out how these are even the same company. The simple booking, the intelligent usage of wrestlers, the match booking itself, the quality of matches, etc. I know it can't be the same exact show, but if they even booked matches/results similar, they'd make more stars and make fans a lot happier.

I don’t understand how the same company can book storyline so well in NXT, and fail so badly at it on the main roster. It is truly baffling. I don’t even need to see this Takeover to know that, because it happens every Big 4 weekend.

NXT gets wrestling to a tee, while Vince and Dunn increasingly look out of touch.

And I don’t even think this was an overall bad show. It really wasn’t. It just had more bizzare choices that just fell totally flat. Vince seems to just want to swerve us for the sake of the swerve. Screw basic storytelling, common sense booking, and actually building towards something people care about. The best main roster PPV in months was the Rumble because they actually used common sense to book the show. What a novel concept.

The main roster is absolutely going to ruin Johnny and Ciampa despite being the best thing story going. They are going to destroy Dream despite being one of the freshest acts in ages. Insane.

Also let tonight’s show be a lesson that match orders and main events DO matter. You can’t just throw anything on last and expect it to be ok. End this show on the Mixed Tag match, and the whole show gets bumped up half a grade because at least you sent the crowd home happy.

f*** it end it on Cena’s scooby doo acting and it would have been a better ending.

I can’t for the life of me understand what possessed them to put Brock/Roman on last. They had to know how it would go over.
 

Falco Lombardi

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Nov 17, 2011
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St. Louis, MO
I wonder when the decision to have Roman Reigns lose was made because nothing about the build made sense for him to lose this match tonight.

Yeah it sucked that it was going to be Reigns in the spot but it at least made sense.

If he wasn’t winning, then there’s zero reason for that to go on last. It’s 20/20 hindsight but Ronda Rousey’s debut should have gone last.
 

Virtanen18

SAMCRO
Jan 25, 2014
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I mean, Reigns is going to win the title in like a month right? Maybe they just didn't want the result shit on today by the crowd. But they've fed anyone and everyone hot to Lesnar for ages now and Reigns is the only one constantly built up as a threat and it took 43 F5's to finish him off.

Don't really believe they'll give it to anyone else. Unless this god awful reign is just going to continue.
 

GKJ

Global Moderator
Feb 27, 2002
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It's always going to be the same result. You'll get a pop for a title change because that's what people do. We even did that in Philadelphia. Well, I didn't. But for some reason it made people think he was getting over until Triple H got a standing ovation for beating him to a bloody pulp.

It's never going to be what Vince wants. It's just never going to happen.
 
Oct 18, 2011
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Ronda Rousey selling for Stephanie is one of the most embarrassing things I have ever seen, the entire audienceknew it was BS. That woman's ego must be gigantic
 

Sacha Baron Corbin

Registered User
Jan 19, 2011
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I guess at this point our best hope is that Vince focuses more and more on the XFL than WWE and Hunter can finally start doing his thing with the main roster.

I don’t know how they don’t see it already, everything Hunter touches booking wise turns to gold, NXT, CWC, 205 Live resurrection while Roman’s push continues to fall completely flat on the main roster among other bizarre booking choices
 

GKJ

Global Moderator
Feb 27, 2002
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wrestling observer review is posted. I might sleep tonight
 

Blitzkrug

Registered User
Sep 17, 2013
25,785
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Winnipeg
Bleh, i know some people think it wasn't a bad show but for 4 hours and it being a WrestleMania, that ****ing sucked.

Rollins/Balor/Miz - 3 stars: Absolutely fine choice to open the show. High energy, two big match performers in Rollins and Balor, and hell even the Miz looked good right in there with them. Balor's little nod to the LGBT community was kinda nice too.

Auska/Flair: 3.5 stars - great as well. solid storytelling between two great wrestlers.

Orton/Jinder/Roode/Rusev: 1 star. Bunch of moves happened, no one cared, and continued to do so after Jinder won

New Day/Wyatt family repackage attempt #24/Usos - 2 stars: Short, uneventful

Ronda and Angle/Triple H and Nipple H: 3 stars. Had no business being as fun as it was especially with angle and haitch gassing it up at first. Ronda looked like she belonged and that's probably a good thing going forward.

The Bar/Strowman and a literal child: 1.5 stars. Braun is great but man, put him against someone and let him put on a match instead of this nonsense 2 v 1 stuff

Cena/Taker: -1 star: Literally what was the point? Cena the almighty face of WWE gets buried by Undertaker because Vince doesn't like him getting attention from Hollywood? Go the **** away already, Taker. Also shoutout to killing Elias for no reason

Bryan and Shane/Owens and Zayn: 1.5 stars. Shane gets gassed, Bryan is used as the hot tag because of course he can't take bumps silly, this is WWE! Nice to see Bryan back, but still yawn. Even more hilarious considering they made Shane carry the match after he had surgery.

Nakamura/AJ: 2 stars. This is probably low balling but man this match did not deliver. Stupid awkward pacing, Nakamura was made to look weak imo and then it just...ended. I'd say Tanahashi and Okada probably feel stupid for hopping a plane to watch this, but i'm pretty sure they were in town for ROH anyway. Also concerning is how people have been accusing Nakamura about not giving a damn since after his first takeover. If he can't get up for a main event match at Mania, he's done as a main card attraction.

Nia Jax/Bliss: -1 star: Nia is bad and WWE should feel bad for putting the belt on her. You had like probably 3 better options than her but nope. Yes, the midget heel bullys the monster face. Makes total sense.

Reigns/Lesnar: 1 star: 5 F5's. 5 god damn F5's and Lesnar still wins anyway. All this means is Reigns is simply too powerful to be stopped and this nonsense will drag out for a while. Still no actual champion for raw (as in one that's there consistently) and the Reigns main event meme will continue. Lesnar needs to **** off too

Worst mania since 25 imo.
 
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Oct 18, 2011
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I am so sick of the Undertaker, comes back to work a 5 minute match after doing nothing to build the match. What was the point? Sadly the marks still cheer for it.
 
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Fish on The Sand

Untouchable
Feb 28, 2002
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I am so sick of the Undertaker, comes back to work a 5 minute match after doing nothing to build the match. What was the point? Sadly the marks still cheer for it.
A 5 minute match he didn't even bump for. The sad thing is he looked in great shape. He was moving around the ring way better than he was last year. Presumably, with the right pacing and a little effort to prepare for the match they could have put on a strong 10-15 minute match.
 
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xtra

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May 19, 2002
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At this point is there even anyone they have that can take down lesnar? They build up Roman and he loses.

My only thoughts are “demon” Finn (demon vs beast”) Braun (stripped of tag titles) or Daniel Bryan switching to raw as he’s over enough to win.

Or maybe lesnar resigned with wwe and will work more dates


Also did anyone else see No way Jose in the crowd as Braun was looking for his partner?
 

Fish on The Sand

Untouchable
Feb 28, 2002
60,203
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Canada
At this point is there even anyone they have that can take down lesnar? They build up Roman and he loses.

My only thoughts are “demon” Finn (demon vs beast”) Braun (stripped of tag titles) or Daniel Bryan switching to raw as he’s over enough to win.

its-clobberin-time-gif-6.gif
 
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Blitzkrug

Registered User
Sep 17, 2013
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Lesnar also looked legit pissed off by the end of that match. Left even before the celebration stuff.

That belly to belly into the table was a sign he didn't give a damn tonight.
 

NewAgeOutlaw

Belie Dat!
Jul 15, 2011
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Fell asleep during AJ-Nak. Reading through the thread to catch up was quite amusing.

I still can't wrap my head around the booking decisions with Rusev and Asuka. Now, I read that Reigns lost as well. As much as I dislike the Reigns character, it is just so strange to do that entire build and have him lose. I really think WWE is too obsessed with "swerving" the audience. It's like they think surprises make a good wrestling show.

Every once in awhile, having a surprising finish can be awesome. Having 3 "WTF" finishes in one show is just taking it wayyyyyyyy too far.

Part timer season is now over and they booked the show so that none of the full time talent has any momentum moving forward. What do they do from here?
 

MetalheadPenguinsFan

Registered User
Sep 17, 2009
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Watched a few matches on YouTube as I can't sleep. This was the first Wrestlemania I've watched matches of since like '99 so forgive my ignorance.

Has it been 100% established yet that Nicolas is indeed a Make A Wish kid?? I'm assuming he is, but I also read something on another forum saying that he's actually the son of one of the refs. So who knows??

Also, aside from "Deadman nostalgia" what the f*** was the point of that Cena and 'Taker match?? Especially since 'Taker "symbolically" left his Deadman apparel in the ring last year. So why have him come back to "destroy" Cena for under 5 mins. Is Mark Callaway really that hard up for cash these days?? He's what...52...53??
 
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