9 Match Star Ratings For WWE WrestleMania 36 (Night Two)
6. Otis Vs. Dolph Ziggler
Virtually every pro wrestling match needs a crowd, but this match badly needed a crowd.
The storyline was so melodramatic that it could only descend into soapy farce without one. It needed the booing and the hissing to spark into something barely resembling life, and it's a shame. This wasn't a mid as hell undercard match involving two opponents with no prior connection. This was quintessential big dumb WWE fun that peaked at the perfect time; a cracking daft storyline that deserved more.
In this empty arena context, certain spots look so dumb that they make the audience at home actively resent the talent performing them. Otis doing the Caterpillar just made him look like a complete moron, particularly since it was countered. He wasn't drawing on the support of the crowd, so why did he do it? Once this question is posed, the answer becomes too revealing: because it's all a load of scripted nonsense that is impossible to take seriously, that's why.
This was a theoretically fun and well laid-out match with a wholesome happy ending, even if Otis spent rather too long staring at Mandy's t*ts. Savage didn't do that with Elizabeth, mate. Time and place.
It wasn't theoretical, is the problem.
Star Rating: ★★½