Disclaimer: This piece is the opinion of the writer, and does not necessarily represent the views of Sportskeeda
This week, the WWE aired their WWE 24 documentary on the WWE Network, which focused on the stories behind the show that was WrestleMania 32. It took the fans behind the scenes, while the superstars were allowed to break character and speak candidly.
WrestleMania 32 was presented as the greatest show on Earth, and although it may have been a great spectacle, the show was certainly not critically acclaimed. While WWE 24 likes to tell its own story, let’s take a real look at the show that was WrestleMania 32.
I first attended WrestleMania in attending WrestleMania 21 in 2005. Since then, I have attended every WrestleMania, with the exception of WrestleMania 25 and WrestleMania 32.
Unlike WrestleMania 25, where I had mixed feelings about missing the show, solely due to the Undertaker-Michaels encounter, I have never had any regrets about missing WrestleMania 32.
I have watched the show three times now, once in preparation for this article, and I have a greater appreciation for the work-rate and match quality after the second viewing, as the poor booking and nonsensical finishes had clearly soured my opinion the first time around.
However, judging the card on the whole, taking into consideration the booking, entertainment value, match quality and shock value, the show failed to deliver on most aspects.
Also read: WWE WrestleMania 32: Major records broken at WrestleMania 32
WrestleMania 32 was nothing more than a solid house show witnessed by 94,000 people, with special appearances thrown in to aid WWE's public image.
It was clear that this WrestleMania had reverted back to its infomercial format, much like WrestleMania 29 - be it Michael Cole's E! Channel-style "this is what they are wearing" comments every match, to the use of Snoop Dogg and Shaq, to using the image of The Rock to announce their fake attendance record.
Even Renee Young was bumped from backstage duties so the annoying Maria Menounos could take over her role.
In addition to that, current WWE stars were fed to "stars you might recognise if you watched WWE before and might be watching this PPV on a free trial" so that they could pull on the nostalgic strings of old and casual fans, to once again buy back into this stale, boring and out of touch product. Or another way of putting it, "the actual stars."
If you look at where the road to WrestleMania 32 started and then look at where it ended, nothing has changed or progressed.
Roman entered Royal Rumble as Champion and left WrestleMania as Champion, despite utter resistance and hate from the WWE fans. The Authority were still in charge, meaning that they had been the top heels now for nearly four years.
However, most concerning of all was that John Cena, Steve Austin and The Rock still came across as the biggest draws, as the show highlighted how making or elevating new stars wasn’t a priority during WrestleMania season.
The booking at WrestleMania 32, of Owens, Ambrose, Styles and The Wyatt Family, stars who the fans were solidly behind, was simply abysmal and utterly baffling.
Owens needlessly lost his belt, Ambrose was beaten with one F5 and Brock had no weapon-based offense, AJ was beaten by Chris Jericho, who once put over Fandango at a WrestleMania, and The Wyatt Family were soundly buried.
Taking all that on board, WrestleMania 32 achieved nothing and will have to go down as forgettable, irrelevant, disappointing and a huge failure.
Overall, I hated nearly everything about the show. Ryder winning meant nothing, other than burying Owens and the belt. Styles’ defeat was nonsense. The New Day match was just an entrance before the old stars stole the show.
Brock vs Ambrose was a huge letdown. The Divas match was good, but even that continued the trend of WWE not giving the fans any winners that they wanted. This was the perfect time to crown Sasha Banks, however, they blew it, and Sasha has rapidly gone downhill ever since.
It was at this point that I wondered if the whole show was a deliberate attempt to piss the fans off. The Shane McMahon and Undertaker storyline was rendered irrelevant by the result and proved that it was a last minute desperation call, which I will outline in a future article here on Sportskeeda.
The stunt was a cool moment, but it followed 20 minutes of poor non-believable action. In addition to that, it’s worth mentioning that NUMEROUS full-time superstars have requested permission to do a “Cell bump” over the years, and all of them have been refused.
However, Shane McMahon was allowed to do so, which benefited NOBODY.
The Battle Royal was junk. And finally, the stupidity of placing Reigns vs Triple H last and having Reigns win as a face was beyond clueless booking. The egos of Triple H and his idiotic wife were highlighted more by their ludicrous entrance than anything I can write here.
That was the true story of WrestleMania 32. Stay tuned to my podcast, “The Dirty Sheets” as we move towards WrestleMania 33, where we hope for a much better show.
Although WWE have a much better roster this year and nowhere near as many injuries to overcome, it appears that WrestleMania 33 is suffering from some of the same issues as WrestleMania 33 - a guy called Vince McMahon, who doesn’t listen to, understand or care about what people want to see.
It is time to accept that WrestleMania nowadays is merely a big nostalgic spectacle for the WWE’s potential investors and advertisers, and nothing more, basically one big WWE commercial.
Send us news tips at [email protected]
