7 Reasons Why I Regret Staying Up To Watch WrestleMania 32

3. Sullying The Memory Of Andre The Giant

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WWE.com

For the third year in a row, the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal took place on the Show of Shows. The previous two had been surprisingly enjoyable matches, more so than battle royals should be, both helped by well-told and fairly easy to get into stories.

At WrestleMania XXX, Cesaro evoked memories of WrestleMania III by power-slamming the giant (Big Show) and winning the trophy. Last year it was all about the end of the relationship between The Miz and Damien Mizdow. Big Show took home the trophy, as he should have at some point, but the Miz-Mizdow story was the true focus.

At WrestleMania 32, there was no story going into the battle royal. What this meant was that for 10 minutes, a host of WWE superstars took part in an utterly pointless battle royal. Sure, the initial stand-off between Big Show and Shaq was an impressive sight, but once they had been eliminated (taking a criminally underused Damien Sandow with them), all interest ended.

It's not as if there were difficult stories to tell either. Mark Henry is likely to retire this year, and this was his final WrestleMania in his home state. If you're giving WrestleMania moments to long-time employees, that story tells itself. If you're giving Baron Corbin the win and the rub, give him a dominant performance in the match itself, not a sneaky victory over a distracted Kane.

Instead, this represented 10 turgid minutes towards the end of a show that had long since outstayed its welcome.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.