9 Ups And 11 Downs From WrestleMania 32

6. Knocking Current Stars Down A Peg

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Don€™t worry, there will be praise for these surprise appearances later, as it was an awesome moment. However, first a criticism for the Hall of Fame beatdown of the League of Nations at WrestleMania.

Having three men in their 50s who have been retired for a combined 20-plus years beat up four men who were compared to the Four Horsemen just 15 minutes earlier really is an indictment more of the current generation of wrestlers than anything else. Sure, we could talk about how it€™s holding down the stars, but more importantly, it€™s an admission that WWE hasn€™t built this current generation up enough.

Try to imagine during the Attitude Era if Bob Backlund, Jake €œThe Snake€ Roberts and the Ultimate Warrior came out to beat up the Hardy Boyz and Edge & Christian. That might not be an entirely fair comparison, but the point is that you didn€™t see long-retired stars come out to beat up active wrestlers like this.

But for WWE today, the retired superstars are the biggest bullets the company has in the chamber. While it€™s great seeing them (and more on that later), this is simply reflective of a bigger problem, when a team knocks off the Tag Team Champions and then immediately is beaten by three 50-somethings. Tomorrow, the three Hall of Famers will be at home, and the League of Nations will have to show up to work.

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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.