10 Things We Learned Attending WWE WrestleMania 40 Live
5. The Difficulty Of A Certain Style
Because WrestleMania is held in a ridiculously cavernous stadium setting, there's a very good chance you won't have an ideal view of the ring. You'll probably find your line of vision drifting between the ring and the big screen. That's the trade-off for the extravagantly awesome aesthetic: you can't really see.
And, because you can't see, the more subtle and intricate the in-ring action is, the harder it is to track. It's often said that a really good match is elevated by the WrestleMania Effect, but equally, a really good mat-based battle driven by limb work is very hard to get over in a stadium - hence why it took IYO Sky Vs. Bayley a decent amount of time to develop into something great.
Conversely, Logan Paul's exaggerated smug facial expressions and glorified spot-fests absolutely rule in that setting. As clichéd and repetitive and cringeworthy as the finisher kick-out/shocked kick-out face is, you can see why the producers opt for it more often than not. It gets a reaction when getting a reaction is difficult. A show needs range, but the byproduct of the technical slow-burn is low volume.
It is unavoidable.
- MS