10 Things We Learned From WWE WrestleMania Weekend 2022
Tony Khan shoots on WrestleMania Weekend, everybody hates Gunther and Undertaker doesn't retire!
WrestleMania Weekend (or, at this point, week) 2022 was destined to be steeped in history.
WWE had stubbornly attempted to make 2021’s ‘Show Of Shows’ feel like the spectacle everybody had desperately missed during the pandemic, but had only been partially successful. Splitting it into two nights again made for an excellent viewing experience but the socially distanced crowds and undeniable unease still festering in a time still mostly without vaccinations made for a less-than-effective return to normality.
Global travel wasn’t really an option either. Unlike in 2022 when, with a mixture of joy, relief and minor trepidation, the wrestling world descended upon Dallas, Texas for several days of action, activities and adventure undeterred by what remains of the ongoing global pandemic.
WhatCulture.com had staff present for WrestleMania SmackDown, the Hall Of Fame, NXT: Stand & Deliver, both nights of WrestleMania and the Raw After WrestleMania and had just about kicked the jet lag by the time the SmackDown After WrestleMania aired.
But what - other than just how criminal it is to use “WrestleMania” four times in one paragraph - did we learn?
10. NXT 2.0 IS For Kids, Even When It's Not
NXT Stand & Deliver was a perfectly passable wrestling show when things hit, even if nothing even remotely approached the level of an old TakeOver.
A relatively small crowd greeted the roster inside the American Airlines Center, made up of a not insignificant amount of children. This matters to WWE - fans they create young may well stay fans forever - even though a show with an extremely child-friendly gimmick such as Cora Jade had a follow-up segment with Indi Hartwell and Persia Pirotta arguing over whose boyfriend was better at penetrative sexual intercourse.
It's that blunt, that blatant and that dissonant.
Your writer witnessed two separate sets of parents either look away or look totally awkward as the nonsense wrestling show they’d kindly taken their child to descended into contemporary Carry On farce. Worse than that in fact - the innuendo was less hidden than Barbara Windsor’s breasts used to be.
NXT 2.0 has still never fully established its audience profile nor precise purpose (more on that later), and live, this was a stark and bewildering reminder.