17 Ways WWE Has Changed Since It Was The WWF
10. The Protected Few
WrestleMania 35 wasn’t a perfect cure for the modern ’Mania, but the 2019 ‘Show Of Shows’ thankfully only boasted one match that was entirely reliant on talent from a bygone era. Seth Rollins may have slayed a ‘Beast’ in the opener, but the entire roster deserve credit for finally slaying the long-dormant dragon that has scorched the earth for close to a decade.
Showing itself in plain sight in 2011 when The Rock returned for WrestleMania XXVII on a show that featured Triple H wrestling The Undertaker because they’d both acknowledged that nobody else was at their level, Alberto Del Rio losing a match to a soon-to-retire Edge, CM Punk falling short on the ‘Grandest Stage’ undercard all before ‘The Great One’ himself gobbled up The Miz’ WrestleMania moments.
As a reflection of the main roster as a whole, the stars became protected to a fault in ways mirroring their own blocked ascents years earlier. Special guests were almost always given special treatment, rather than stopping by to actually enhance the aura of the existing losers, with the trapped-in-time Saudi Arabia shows set to be living monuments to the darkest timeline for the next decade at least.