10 Signs That WrestleMania 36 Could Be A Crushing Disappointment
6. Shayna Baszler Vs. Becky Lynch Part I Wasn't Great
Great professional wrestlers do not automatically produce great WrestleMania performances.
There is a different, advanced psychology to manipulating the vast reaches of a stadium crowd. Shawn Michaels grasped this brilliantly by intensifying and projecting the melodrama of his big matches. To become Mr. WrestleMania, he pulled anxiously at his hair in moments of doubt, and stamped the ground with exaggerated, burdened movement to extract from the crowd the most bittersweet of reactions. To tell an effective story at WrestleMania is a difficult balancing act; the big moments must be registered, but the pace can't dip for too long; the scope of everything is so bright and stunning that it's too easy for live fans to lose themselves in the mythology of it all just by looking, which is so much more grandiose than, for example, Randy Orton taking four days to complete the Garvin stomp.
Shayna Baszler Vs. Becky Lynch Vs. Bayley from Survivor Series wasn't over.
It was a strange, enervated match badly lacking in personality, and if the Triple Threat dynamic compromised the most interesting part about it, there's much to suggest WrestleMania isn't the venue for Baszler's superb, systematic joint work.