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Follow @TheDocLOP QUESTION OF THE DAY: What did you think about WrestleMania 32 overall? What was your favorite match? How would you rank WM32 against its peers historically? Let me first say about WrestleMania 32 that it was an incredible live experience. As a fan who is fueled by happenings surrounding wrestling's greatest show every year, I could not have asked for much more as one of the nearly 102,000 people in attendance. It was the ultimate spectacle; a completely exhausting experience the length of which yours truly was unaware until the event pushed organically to WrestleMania XX levels of run-time. I had a blast! When you attend WrestleMania in person, there can be no complete separation of what you witnessed when surrounded by that gigantic crowd and what you may witness when watching a replay; the following review will, nevertheless, attempt to be as fair as possible all things considered. The Ladder Match for the Intercontinental Championship was a great opener. Seven men suggests a stunt brawl edition of the gimmick, driven to success on the strength of its creativity in spot development and less on its story; call it a roughly 70-30 split percentage-wise. Last year's opener was good but never pushed for greatness because it seemed to meander between wanting to be a Ladder Match that told a story and a stunt brawl but couldn't decide which it wanted to be. This year's got the balance right and succeeded to a much greater degree accordingly. It was not as good as the recent standard set back at TLC last December, but it pushed itself to be. Everyone played their role quite well and there several memorable spots throughout before they switched gears to storytelling-mode during the climax. They played that final four beautifully with Owens and Zayn and then Miz and Ryder. Zack's gear reminded me of Macho Man's from WM7; his win shocked the world but I have no problem with him winning out of nowhere (especially given his heartfelt speech backstage that should remind all of us why we're wrestling fans). (*** ¾) Replay Review - Actually, this was a little bit better on TV than it was live; those guys worked their tails off to deliver one of the better, more creative Ladder matches of this variety in recent memory. One really glaring issue for me that prevents me from calling it "4-star caliber" was the early spot where Miz started climbing a Ladder that wasn't fully opened, blatantly waiting for two guys to come support it. Hence, I'll stick with the rating; in time, I may bump it up to 4-stars I couldn't help but compare WM32 in the first hour to WM31 given that the Ladder Match was followed by a featured mid-card match with a good story behind it. Orton vs. Rollins, one of the all-time great WM mid-card matches, Chris Jericho vs. AJ Styles was not. However, Y2J vs. AJ IV was a very good match. Live, it watched as a bit off on some of the key sequences, which lowered the critical ceiling for their match on PPV in February too (should AJ ditch the springboard Scorpion Death Drop?). Just like at Fast Lane, though, they overcame the awkwardness at times and delivered another borderline-but-not-quite great match. I plan to revisit the show in its entirety later in the week and suspect that I could end up liking this match a lot more on TV. As it stands right now, I thought they delivered another really good match on-par with their previous offerings, varying it up just enough to feel fresh (*** ½). Replay Review - Sticking to my guns on this one; really good but the awkward moments are obvious and hard to ignore. Most of the dance was spot on, but the momentary lapses in choreography, so to speak, briefly draw you out of the presentation Last week, I was a guest on “A Freak Accident” podcast and was asked about my opinion, conceptually, of New Day vs. League of Nations. I said, point blank, I will judge my entire opinion of this feud on how the New Day are presented at WrestleMania. Their defeat didn't bother me since it was cheap, but I loved their entrance – that was hilarious – and I thought highly of their interaction with Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, and Mick Foley after the match. So, I'd call this a win for the New Day even though they lost. Average match, but their presentation made them look like big stars (**). Replay Review - One thing about this Mania that's becoming more focused is that every segment and match was treated as something important Dean Ambrose vs. Brock Lesnar is a perfect example of the saying I've become so fond of: “Judge wrestling for what it is rather than what you want it to be.” I had sky-high expectations for Ambrose-Lesnar, calling it a match that would be disappointing if it didn't challenge for Match of the Year. Well, it certainly didn't challenge for Match of the Year; I'm not even sure it challenged for Match of the Night, frankly. That said, it was still quite good. Brock Lesnar's “Beast Mode” style depends almost entirely on his opponent to achieve something memorable; Ambrose was good in his role but not great. My thought had been that he would come out of WrestleMania as a sure bet to get to the next level of his career based on the quality of that match and his performance in it, but what we got instead was a rock solid addition to the card in the bottom of the second hour that got a great crowd reaction from where I sat, made Ambrose look good, kept Brock looking strong, and that was that. It reminded me a lot of last year's Ladder Match in the sense that it was going to achieve great things only if it stepped outside the box and tried new things, but it didn't achieve great things because it stayed very much inside the box; what was inside that box, mind you, was still very valuable (*** ½) Replay Review - You really should watch this again once the pre-match expectations have worn off. This is the X-Men: First Class of wrestling matches; the hype skewed the actual presentation quite negatively in the quality department but, once that wears off, you'll find it was a thoroughly enjoyable, rewatchable performance. Ambrose looked good here. He took a lot of punishment but kept finding ways to dish it out too. The finish wound up watching like a logical conclusion instead of an abrupt ending I posed a question early last week on social media, “Can the women steal the show?” The consensus was that “yes, they can if they get enough time.” So, here's the thing. The manner in which the women were presented was the manner in which I figured Ambrose-Lesnar would be. It was flip-flopped – Ambrose-Lesnar was the solid addition and wasn't presented in any way as anything but, while the women were given every opportunity to shine and made the most of it. As a result, they stole the show. For the first time ever, the best match at a WrestleMania was the women's match. Bravo, ladies. Sure, it was a little off at times like Jericho-Styles, but it was also an insanely paced match with a 16-minute length that flew by. Hell, even the stuff that didn't perfectly connect still managed to turn out more than OK (Sasha flipping into her suicide dive and the German suplex spot out of the corner was positioned just so that Banks could catch up and get the roll-up to work). The bottom line is that, from Lita's pre-show promo introducing the new Women's Championship belt (awesome) to the pre-match promo (awesome) to Sasha's entrance (awesome) to Charlotte's entrance (awesome) to the work that Becky, Charlotte, and Sasha put in (awesome), we bore witness to what I felt was the true start of the Women's Revolution in WWE. I loved that match (****). Replay Review - OK, this was actually a classic. When you consider the pressure on them that was amplified during the pre-show (i.e. new title, rebranding), this watches as a turning point moment in wrestling history. This is a Top 5 match in 2016 in all likelihood given what it could mean to WWE lore; plus the work was outstanding You know what I ended up really liking that I merely expected to tolerate? Shane McMahon vs. Undertaker. I have read up on some of the criticisms and I get every single one of them (except for thinking that Shane's dive sucked because WWE decided to kindly place an inflatable pad under the announce table); I can appreciate that people didn't care for Super Shane and that he didn't sell very well. I get that. Here's the thing: Shane vs. Taker was exactly what it needed to be. It told a good story, riding its huge stakes for its entirety. Much of Shane's actions could be explained through willing himself to do things he couldn't do under a different set of circumstances. I loved the little touches of character at the very end when Taker gestured in response to Shane's urge for him to “bring it on” earlier by mocking it and then patting him on the head before the match-ending Tombstone. Of course, we also saw Shane remind us of his legacy with the greatest spot of his career and one of the greatest stunts of all-time. Nobody would dare jump off the top of the NEW Cell, right? Wrong! That crazy S.O.B. really did that. I couldn't believe it. I purposefully talked myself out of thinking he would before the weekend. Nobody is that stupid, surely. Well, stupid or not, I appreciate him doing that for us; that was an amazing moment. I'm glad Taker got to work this kind of match at Mania – it was like Vince vs. Hogan on steroids – and I thoroughly enjoyed it (*** ¾). Replay Review - You know, I actually loved this match on replay. This match was all about spectacle and entertainment; not psychology or believability. I can't believe it lasted 30-minutes; it didn't seem like it to me. I'm surprised that people didn't overhype the heck out of this match instead of undersell its quality within the context of what it was intended to do. Who cares who was booked to win? We were the winners here. I've modified my rating for it; this was great theatre! The Rock segment also involving The Wyatt Family and John Cena was quite engaging. I won't spend much time on it, suffice to say that I enjoyed his interaction with Bray and his moment with John. He was also the right guy to announce the new attendance record, for whatever that's worth. Replay Review - I've read a lot of negativity about this segment, but it didn't bother me. Rock verbally put over Wyatt, then annihilated Rowan. I get that the recent downgrade of the Wyatts to tropical storm from hurricane amplifies the ill feelings toward seeing them get owned by Cena and Rock, but I ask: is it better to do nothing on the show than get bested by two of the top 5 stars of the WrestleMania Era? I went to the bathroom during the Andre Battle Royal entrances and got back in time to see Shaq vs. Show. That was cool. I'd much prefer they utilize the Andre Battle Royal at Mania to do those sorts of things (DDP included) than to do that at Royal Rumble, which should rightfully be taken much more seriously. I'm not high on Baron Corbin. He's got a long way to go. I can't rate this match given how I watched it. It was fun for what it was. Let's see if Corbin does something with the “honor.” Roman Reigns vs. Triple H is match I honestly need to see again before judging it. The whiny-poos were out in full force in my section. We had one guy and his buddy trying to start a wave for half the match. Such a turd. Equally smelly were all the people talking about how much this match sucked before it started and throughout the course of its run-time. I did my best to tune them out, but I found it difficult to be frank. Here's a couple of highlights from me: the video package was stellar, the presentation pre-match did an awesome job of setting the stage for the story that they wanted to tell, and the work in between the ropes was really good. I would almost go so far as to say that this will end up being my favorite match of the night when all is said and done and future viewings have been completed (if you can believe that, no pun-intended). Recall from last year that I was a huge fan of the Reigns vs. Wyatt matches; stripped of what I found (and still find) to be inane negativity toward Double R, they were psychologically sound, varied, extremely well worked matches that proved both men's strength of in-ring character. That pretty well describes how I felt about WrestleMania 32's main-event. It was very smart, it told a strong story, and it was well-performed across the board. Replay Review EDIT - It was pretty good, but not on the level of the Wyatt-Reigns matches. I need to verify that because, at this point, I can't rate it using my usual scale. I really liked it, though. This entire time, WWE was building to the story that unfolded last night while others decided they were telling some other story (see Bryan vs. Authority II). I said on “The Doc Says” last week, “Let them tell the story they intend and judge them on that.” I'm happy to judge the match itself as a success. Stay tuned for a rating (and updated ratings for everything else). (*** ½) Replay Review - Though I still enjoyed the match and liked the story they told, I cannot deny that the crowd checked out. It hurt the presentation. WWE hopefully learned something from this, as I'm not sure there's anything that could've been done to save this match except to not have it at all. I'll likely remember it similarly to WM25's Orton vs. Triple H match - one that was quite good for what it wanted to be, but not good enough to be everything it should've been. All in all, WrestleMania 32 is hard to rate. There were no MOTY candidates; a first for Mania since 1999. I thought everything on the card that mattered was good, though. How do you compare a show like that to its peers? I'm not sure yet. I'll chew on that through the week and get back to you, but right now I'm inclined to say that while certainly not a Top 5, all-time great WrestleMania, it was a Top 10 contender and one of the best examples in Mania lore of the variety show that it was perhaps originally intended to be. There was something for everyone; and, as someone whose wrestling tastes are extensive, I enjoyed every bit of that five hours. Replay Review - I'd actually call the women's match a borderline MOTY candidate, so I subtract that previous comment. I still felt everything on the card was good and I definitely think that the Cell match is world's better than most of the critical community is letting on. When you open with a borderline 4-star match, peak with a classic match, dot the rest of the show with 3-star or better matches, and take into account the "WrestleMania Moments," I think this show is most comparable to WrestleMania XIV, only a better version of that solidly unspectacular event.
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