11 Biggest Missteps On The Road To WrestleMania 38
Plots with potholes, stories with speedbumps, dead-end angles. And yet, here we are.
Let’s let everyone in on a secret: WrestleMania 38 itself is probably going to be a really fun time for most fans. There’s going to be a lot of glitz and glam, a ton of pyro, big entrances, flashy presentations, and yes, some good wrestling sprinkled in.
But none of that means that the road to get to WrestleMania is enjoyable, logical or well-constructed. In fact, several of the paths are laden with potholes, speedbumps, detours and outright “road closed” signs, to continue the metaphor. If you’re a fan who doesn’t care about the journey, just the destination, then you’re probably OK with this and willing to overlook a lot of the crap.
For fans who remember the long build of angles and matches in the weeks and months prior to each year’s Mania, watching stuff get slapped together in a loose haphazard way can be maddening. Hearing one wrestler complain they can’t get booked on Mania while others just get added to bouts by existing defies any logic. Teasing an encounter with a legend where expectations are questionable leaves you confused. Having celebrities booked above your actual champions in mind-boggling.
Sure, there have been some successes in the lead-up to WM 38, but this isn’t the article for those. These are the shortcomings that WWE is hoping its fans will quickly forget once the pomp and circumstance of Mania begins.
Let’s get to it…
11. WrestleMania SmackDown (And Raw)
A recent phenomenon for WWE, the company apparently has
decided that not only is WrestleMania too big for one night, two nights aren’t
big enough to contain everything.
Enter: WrestleMania SmackDown. What could only be described as a desperate way to make fans care about the last show before the big PPV – er, PLE – now sees WWE booking an Intercontinental Championship match and the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal for the blue brand go-home show rather than finding space over the course of two nights.
The go-home show should be the hard sell for Mania, tying up loose ends, and possibly adding some late stakes to any other matches. At worst, any matches on that show should have ramifications for Mania. Instead, it looks more and more like a spillover for the excess of WM 38 and less like something of importance.
For God’s sake, the Andre battle royal, once a 30-man match that produced the near-iconic moment of Cesaro slamming Big Show out of the ring, now consists of 17 men because “budget cuts” have shrunk the rosters to the point where you can’t even get to 20 viable entrants.
And of course, we also got “WrestleMania Raw” this Monday,
so the Mania branding continues to expand.