The Disturbing Truth Behind The WWE WrestleMania Main Event
And, while there was as such only one viable outcome, Randy Orton Vs. Daniel Bryan Vs. Batista, cheap tropes and all, did a fabulous job of building the drama. Even before the Heist of the Century, Brock Lesnar Vs. Roman Reigns was an utterly fantastic, brutal and distinct main event at WrestleMania 31: the big and the fight in "big fight feel". Triple H Vs. Roman Reigns was a horrendous exercise in making the babyface look bad at WrestleMania 32 - or a major success, depending upon how cynically one approaches Paul Levesque. Roman Reigns Vs. The Undertaker, at WrestleMania 33, was at best an emotional exercise in rare pathos - but the Undertaker becoming mortal in defeat absolutely wasn't the intention. Roman's third consecutive disaster unfolded at WrestleMania 34. His ultra-violent and shocking loss to Lesnar would have ruled, had the crowd given even the slightest iota of a sh*t. With anti-Roman sentiment at its most fierce, they instead lobbed beach balls around. Sadly, at WrestleMania 35, Becky Lynch Vs. Charlotte Flair Vs. Ronda Rousey was a tame, botched effort that still may peak - but the show hasn't finished yet.
The Boneyard match on night one of WrestleMania 36 was well-received, but while not everything is some tedious WWE Vs. AEW war, the first Stadium Stampede did throw into sharp relief that a cinematic match could also be a great match. On night two, Drew McIntyre went over Brock Lesnar in an empty gym. A lot of latitude was extended towards it at the time, but it was a clichéd Paul Heyman layout, albeit a stiff one. Given the financial failure and ultimate abandonment of the WWE Network (viewership of which was never specified), you could make the argument that the 31 to 36 stretch lives and dies by its artistic successes, which were few and far-between.
WrestleMania 37 yielded two utter triumphs at the dawn of the Peacock era: the emotive, special war between Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair, with its iconic and brutal finishing sequence, and one of the best and most creative Triple Threats ever in Roman Reigns Vs. Edge Vs. Daniel Bryan. WrestleMania 38 was more mixed; Steve Austin Vs. Kevin Owens on night one was pure magic, a great blend of smoke and mirrors and actually violent brawling, but night two's Reigns Vs. Lesnar match could have been booked by feeding ChatGPT a prompt for a Paul Heyman layout. WrestleMania 39 may depend on how XL unfolds; the Usos Vs. Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens was a great blend of vibes and action, and while Cody Rhodes Vs. Roman Reigns was so spellbinding that they could have taken an hour, it will only work in retrospect if Cody "finishes the story".
Using this loose criteria of commercial success, critical reception and general fan sentiment/consensus, the following result is yielded:
CONT'D...(4 of 5)