Friday 10 April 2020

Wrestlemania 36 Part 2 Review

The second night of Wrestlemania took place on Sunday 5th April at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. The first night wasn't too bad so let's see how the second night goes.

The Kick Off Show featured Natalya taking on Liv Morgan. Natalya uses her experience to get the advantage. However, after a few minutes, Morgan manages to get the win. The match wasn't great.
Winner: Liv Morgan

The first match of the night is one that I was really looking forward to seeing: Charlotte Flair challenging Rhea Ripley for the NXT Women's Championship. Charlotte taunts Ripley early on but Ripley hits the Riptide to get a 2 count. This gives her the chance to get the advantage. However, Charlotte injures the left knee and focuses her offence on it. Ripley gets back into it and almost gets Charlotte to submit with a standing cloverleaf. However, in the end, Charlotte gets Ripley to submit to the Figure 8 and become the new NXT Women's Champion, This was a really good match and I'm interested to see how they handle Charlotte on NXT. As for Ripley, she has been awesome over the last year and I'm confident that she'll bounce back.
Winner: Rhea Ripley

The next match is Aleister Black taking on Bobby Lashley. Lashley avoids a moonsault and hits an overhead belly-to-belly suplex to get the advantage. Lashley hits power moves to keep Black down. On Lana's recommendation, Lashley goes for a pear. However, that turns out to be a bad idea as he runs into a Black Mask, which gives Black the win. The match was pretty good and it looks like it's set the foundations for the break up of Lana and Lashley.
Winner: Aleister Black

We now get Otis taking on Dolph Ziggler. Otis uses his weight against Ziggler but Ziggler's quickness quickly gets him the advantage. Otis catapults Ziggler into the turnbuckle and this gives him the opportunity to make a comeback. Otis goes for the caterpillar but Sonya Deville distracts the referee and Ziggler hits a low blow. This prompts Mandy Rose to come out and bitch slap Deville and roll her into the ring. When the referee tries to get Deville out, Rose hits Ziggler with a low blow. Otis then hits the caterpillar and gets the win and the girl. The match wasn't a masterpiece but it was fun to watch.
Winner: Otis

Next is Edge's first singles match in 9 years as he takes on Randy Orton in a Last Man Standing match. Orton disguised himself as a cameraman and he surprises Edge with a RKO. When Edge recovers and the bell rings, Orton hits another RKO and he goes on to dominate the early going. The match goes all over the Performance Center and ends up on top of a trailer. Orton goes for the one man con-chairto but Edge puts Orton him in a choke hold then hits him with the con-chairto to get the win. Except for the beginning and the end, I found this to be a disappointment. The match is the 2nd longest match in Wrestlemania history and it was far too long. This match had a really good build and I feel like the match didn't live up to it.
Winner: Edge

After Ron Gronkowski pins Mojo Rawley to become the 24/7 Champion, we get the RAW Tag Team Championship as AOP Andrade Austin Theory(?) and Angel Garza challenge The Street Profits. After Theory throws Angelo Dawkins out of the ring, Graza super kicks him while the referee is distracted to give his team the advantage. Dawkins avoids a clothesline by Garza to get the hot tag to Montez Ford. In the end, Theory hits a TKO on Dawkins but Ford breaks up the pin by hitting a frog splash. Dawkins then pins Theory to get the win. Garza, Theory and Zelina Vega don't take the loss well and beat up The Street Profits. This prompts Bianca Belair to come out and make the save.This was a fun match to watch.
Winners: The Street Profits

The next match is a Fatal 5-Way Elimination Match for the Smackdown Women's Championship as Lacey Evans, Naomi, Sasha Banks and Tamina challenge Bayley. The first woman to be eliminayed is Tamina as they all team up to pin her. Banks gets Naomi to submit to the Banks Statement but she gets eliminated thanks to a Women's Right by Evans. In the end, Banks returns and hits Evans with the back stabber. Bayley follows that up with the Rose Plant to get the win. The match was pretty decent.
Winner: Bayley

The penultimate is a Firefly House Match between John Cena and Bray Wyatt. The basic story of the match is Wyatt referencing parts of his and Cena's wrestling history such as his debut against Kurt Angle and Cena being the Doctor of Thuganomics, and Wyatt's gimmick when he debuted on the main roster. We then get a NwO reference as Cena then attacks Wyatt. Wyatt turns into a puppet and The Fiend then hits Sister Abigail and technically pins Cena to get the win...? This was batshit insane and it was fun to watch in a way. It was also quite thought provoking if you really look at it and probablyt the most unique thing that WWE have ever done. I think that this would have been a disaster if Cena wasn't involved. I don't think where both guys go on from here but I'm interested to see what happens.
Winner: Bray Wyatt

The main event is Drew McIntyre challenging Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship. McIntyre hits the Claymore Kick almost immediately to get a 2 count. Lesnar goes to hit 3 German suplexes and a F-5 but McIntyre kicks out at 1. Lesnar hits 2 more F-5s but McIntyre kicks out each time. McIntyre goes on to hit 3 Claymore Kicks to get the win. This match wasn't great as it was just finishers and suplexes and it had the same format as the Strowman/Goldberg match from the night before. Having said that, McIntyre is the first Scotsman to become the WWE Champion and, as a fellow Scotsman, I'm really happy for him.
Winner: Drew McIntyre

I thought that Wrestlemania was pretty decent over the two nights. The circumstances surrounding the event did lead to some things that you couldn't do with a live crowd. However, there are some great moments in the event that are hurt because of the lack of crowd reaction. That's quite sad. As for the foreseeable future, Florida have issued a stay-at-home order (finally!) yet WWE have taped some shows and are planning to have their Money in the Bank event in May. I'm quite torn that the WWE are still doing some shows but I don't think they should be building to another PPV. Let's see how they will handle it.

No comments:

Post a Comment