6 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE WrestleMania 42 - Saturday (Results & Review)
1. A Night That Won’t Age Well
Watching Saturday’s offering of WrestleMania live, the show was not that bad on the night.
However, this is likely to be a show that isn’t going to age well. Short, inoffensive matches might play well live, but it’s not the kind of event that you’re going to go out of your way to watch again. Aside from the unsanctioned match between Drew McIntyre and Jacob Fatu, and the bout between Seth Rollins and Gunther, the action was average at best and disappointing or boring at worst.
That is a damning indictment for the biggest weekend of WWE’s year. Four of the seven matches lasted less than nine minutes, which again is insane for WrestleMania. A couple of short matches is more than fine – and probably preferred – but more than half the card? And two other matches clocked in at about 15 minutes.
From a pacing standpoint, the first three matches lasted about 30 minutes, which is less than the gap between the end of the Women’s World Championship match and the start of the WWE Championship match. How do you have more downtime between two matches than your first three contests? Again, that’s just ridiculous.
Time will tell, but odds are that people won’t be clamoring to fire up the ESPN app in a few years to rewatch this night from start to finish.