6 Ups And 4 Downs From WWE WrestleMania 37 - Night 1

3. Vamping For Time

Titus O'Neil Hulk Hogan
WWE.com

WrestleMania 37 offered its own unique first to the pile Saturday night, when the opening of the PPV was delayed for about 25 minutes due to weather.

To cover for the delay, WWE didn’t have video packages or planned-out segments ready. Instead, they had wrestlers give impromptu promos backstage, rotating through about 10 superstars. And while it wasn’t bad, PromoMania did reveal the deficiency of some wrestlers at delivering an entertaining on-the-spot interview.

If you grew up watching Tough Enough or the contest version of NXT, you know that WWE previously has touted the importance of being able to deliver an unscripted promo. But here, the professionals just seemed to regurgitate lines from previous interviews. Again, this wasn’t bad by any stretch, but after 13 months without a live crowd, it felt like the wrestlers were out of practice at firing up a crowd.

What really made matters worse was that after a half-hour rain delay, Mania co-hosts Titus O’Neil and Hulk Hogan then ran their mouths for several pointless minutes, pushing back the start of the action even further.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.