10 Mistakes WWE Never Recovered From

7. Neutralising The WrestleMania Aura

Steve Austin, Vince McMahon, WrestleMania 17
WWE.com

For a glorious stretch of time, WrestleMania was special. Even if WWE was creatively bankrupt throughout the year, there was the feeling that everything would come together on the Grandest Stage of Them All, as a creative team dragged its few remaining cells together to put on a special show on the company’s most special night. Lapsed fans would tune in, casual fans would pay attention, even non-fans would stay up late into the night to become wrestling lovers for one night.

WrestleMania was special, because it was all about quality over quantity. The card would usually feature eight or nine matches, the best of the best. Having a match at WrestleMania was a career milestone for performers. It mattered. It was a big deal.

But then, WWE decided that WrestleMania was going to feature anyone and everyone. The entire roster would be shoehorned onto the card in a variety of battle royals, meaningless matches and forgettable segments. WrestleMania went from being a Showcase of the Immortals to a conveyor belt of mediocrity.

I’m not begrudging anyone getting a big payday. Quite the opposite, in fact. The men and women under contract to WWE should be bleeding that bloated corpse for every dollar they can get. As a fan, the diminishing of WrestleMania as a spectacle robbed fans of the best night of the year. If nothing is special, why bother paying attention at all?

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.