10 Expectations Vs. Reality For WWE WrestleMania 38
The WWE WrestleMania 38 card looks terrible, but will it actually BE terrible...?
WrestleMania creates such a vast expectation of quality that matches automatically become better than they really are because they happened at WrestleMania.
To WWE fans, it's the biggest night of the calendar year. To lapsed fans who once loved WWE but despise it now, it's the one night per year that they actually watch. Everybody that retains a passing interest in professional wrestling watches WrestleMania because it is WrestleMania.
The build to last year's event was truly abysmal. Edge dilly-dallying over which title to pursue, can-they-co-exist bullsh*t repeated about four times, AJ Styles doing lamer segments than Bobby's Sisters and Old Day: it was horrendous, and yet, the magic of WrestleMania still glowed despite Bayley's cruel burial and box-like structures.
But how true is that in 2022?
WrestleMania 38 is a weird hybrid of a freak show and TV-quality undercard fare so mundane and repetitive that WWE has had to resort two at least two mystery opponent storylines, all but admitting that they can't tell stories. Isn't...isn't that what the "bad" promotion relies on? Constant "surprises"?
Half the friggin' card is a surprise at this point.
So what can be expected of it, really, and will it match the reality...?
10. The Undercard
Expectation:
It's WrestleMania, and the first "proper" WrestleMania since 2019. The crowd is going to be massively up for the occasion - so much so that the more inessential-seeming "attractions" will be elevated by the return of sports entertainment's most gorgeous, big-time backdrop. Yes, much of WrestleMania might look like a bit drab on paper, but you'll all get lost in the spell.
Reality:
This article will take a remarkably positive turn momentarily, but not here. That undercard is an atrocity that the novelty of WrestleMania won't do a f*cking thing to solve. Sasha Banks might be the most mishandled talent in the modern history of the company. She's in a meaningless multi-woman tag. The undercard will be as depressing as it is drab.
What a sh*tty line-up of matches that in the context to which they truly belong - filler episodes of television - would end after a maximum of nine minutes in a disqualification. Rick Boogs might draw a pop by squawking, and Randy Orton and Riddle doing a stereo RKO spot will raise the roof after 15 minutes of something that's been done to death on RAW of late, but what are Drew McIntyre and Happy Corbin going to do?
12 punishingly dull minutes of f*ck all, that's what.