WrestleMania 33 has come and gone since I last wrote here, and we’ve also had the Raw and Smackdown superstar shake up, so figured I’d give a brief WrestleMania recap as well as a state of the union for WWE and pro wrestling in general. And hopefully this will be more entertaining than this year’s mediocre WrestleMania was.

Well, if you happen to be the type of person who likes to be able to pick the winner of every match before some of them are even announced, then WrestleMania 33 was right up your alley. Lesnar beats Goldberg, obviously, Goldberg can’t wrestle anymore and WWE had no plans to work with him after WrestleMania. Orton beats Wyatt, again obvious. Bray Wyatt is essentially the big name jobber who loses every major feud. It’s surprising enough that they let him walk into WrestleMania as champion, they certainly weren’t going to let him walk out with it. Owens beats Jericho for the U.S. title. Perfect, keep gold on K.O. while simultaneously keeping him out of the main event picture, and now Jericho can go off and play with his shitty band.  Rollins beats Triple H. Well of course he does, they’ve only been building up this obvious feud with this obvious outcome ever since Triple H screwed Rollins way back when K.O. won the title. What could possibly be the benefit of having old ass talent developer Triple H beat the guys he’s put the most effort into developing? Bailey beats everybody in the division because let’s face it, everyone loves Bailey, she’s probably the most over female wrestler of all time and she does it using innocence instead of sexuality.  What’s not to love?  Reigns beat Undertaker in what some may have found surprising, but with all the rumors floating around that the Undertaker would retire after this match, it only makes sense that he would go out on his back just like all the great ones do.

The only real surprise of the night was when the Hardys showed up and won the tag team titles. Now for those of you not familiar with Broken Matt era of the Hardys, it is decidedly singular and I could probably write pages about the pros and cons. But for the purposes of this article suffice to say that Matt Hardy has created a gimmick for himself and his family that is so ridiculously over the top that it is both horrifying and amazing to watch at the same time. It’s massively over and brought a lot of fans to TNA. What makes the move so surprising is that The Hardys had only recently left TNA for Ring of Honor. They wrestled one match against the Young Bucks where they won the ROH tag championship, and then wrestled one more for Ring of Honor literally the day before WrestleMania at Supercard of Honor, losing to the Young Bucks.  It’s almost hard to imagine that a tag team lost the Ring of Honor championships one night, then walked into WrestleMania and won the WWE championships the next night. So from the WWE’s perspective we can assume one of two things, either they wanted the Hardys really bad, or they really didn’t want anyone else to have the Hardys. Only time will tell, but after two weeks, I’m already beginning to suspect it’s the latter.  The signs are all there.  They’re being called the Hardy Boyz instead of the Hardys, and they are coming out to their old entrance music, and they have yet to cut a live promo.  The crowd is just waiting to chat “Delete! Delete! Delete!” (which is their catchphrase for some reason), but the WWE doesn’t seem to want the new Broken Matt and Brother Nero that have gained substantial popularity over the past couple years, they want the same old Hardy Boyz they fired years ago. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t want Matt and Jeff jumping around like a couple of goth kids like it’s 2002 again, I want Matt talking in a strange, unidentifiable accent, Matt’s wife playing abstract piano music, and Jeff singing about being obsolete.  They were obsolete, now they’re relevant. Please WWE, don’t make them obsolete again.

In other WWE news, the only man who can make an arena full of wrestling fans sing along to violin music, Shinsuke Nakamura, finally made his Brand debut after WrestleMania when he appeared on Smackdown. He walked in, moved around oddly, and walked out, like he does, and the crowd went wild. Imagine when he actually wrestles. This writer is a huge Nakamura fan and was overjoyed to see him finally brought up from NXT, even though it meant having to watch him lose to Bobby Roode at NXT Takeover the night before WrestleMania. But his loss was a good thing, as it meant his inevitable promotion, and that NXT will be left in the capable hands of Bobby Roode, who is main roster ready now and should have no problem holding down the fort until Raw or Smackdown is ready for another quality heel. It appears that Nakamura is going to squash Dolph Ziggler in his first match/rivalry, but hopefully he’ll be in the title picture sooner rather than later. Keep your wrists crossed 😉

Finn Balor made his return from injury after being laid up since his Universal Championship win at Summerslam. It’s unclear as to whether or not he’ll be back in the title picture anytime soon, since Paul Heyman alluded to a match between Lesnar and Reigns. If like me, you’re sick to death of Roman Reigns and a bored at the mere thought of a match featuring Roman Reigns vs. anyone bores you to tears, you’re not alone. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone booed as mercilessly as Reigns the night after WrestleMania. He faced a barrage of negative chants, including my favorite, the simple yet effective “Go away! Go away!” Priceless. What’s even more priceless was Michael Cole and the others trying to explain away the chants, by telling us that people come from all over the world for WrestleMania and stay for Raw and Smackdown afterwards, and that its crazy fans who are so hyped they boo for people they’d normally cheer and cheer  for people they’d normally boo. What a ridiculous load of bullshit. Here’s the reality: most shows just get the local crowd, a mixture of casual and diehard fans who generally cheer and boo who they’re supposed to. WrestleMania, and the Raw and Smackdown afterwards, get mostly diehard wrestling fans from across the country and the world. Most diehard fans dislike Roman Reigns, yet WWE still wants him to be a face, so they feed the casual fans a load of bullshit to explain away the boos.

So within the first couple of weeks after WrestleMania, we should have a clear idea of what the upcoming title feuds are going to be. Instead this year we got a roster shake up and a giant mess of a ppv coming up in Payback. So this is supposed to be a Raw exclusive ppv, but you’ve got Kevin Owens, who is now on Smackdown for some reason, defending his U.S. Championship at Payback against Jericho, who is still on Raw.  Also, for whatever reason, Bray Wyatt is now on Raw and gets his title rematch at Payback against Randy Orton in some sort of bizarre haunted house match. Combine that with the expected Lesnar vs. Reigns match and you’ve got a crapfest that won’t be worth watching even if you get the WWE network. Let’s just hope Rollins, Balor, and Samoa Joe get some decent matchups and maybe can fix this mess. And by the way WWE, please get the title off of Lesnar asap. Sure, it’s better than on Goldberg, but the WWE has tried having Lesnar as Champion before, and having a champ who only wrestles ppvs and rarely appears on TV doesn’t work for very long. Put the title on Reigns if you want, but can we all just admit that he’s a heel now? Then he can feud with Balor, Rollins, or Raw’s newly acquired Dean Ambrose, who basically just completes the U.S. title for Intercontinental title swap.

The other notable brand swap between Raw and Smackdown was Charlotte to Smackdown and Alexa Bliss to Raw. This makes sense as Smackdown needs a strong female heel right now more that Raw does.  Although I do contend that splitting up the women’s division is a bad idea. One brand should have the cruiserweights, the other the women, but I’m going to save most of my take on that for another article.

Before I move on to other promotions, I’d like to do a quick section of WWE cheers and jeers. Cheers to the Undertaker. He was cool in his first match at Survivor Series when I was a kid, and he was cool on April 2 when he wrestled his last match. He put over mid card wrestlers when no one else would, and carried the promotion when no one else could. Jeers to Enzo & Cass. I’ve been a fan of these guys since NXT, and when I first saw them there, I wondered why the hell they hadn’t been brought up yet. After a few months I figured it out.  Neither one of them can wrestle well enough to match their gimmick. They’re both barely mediocre in the ring, and their long ass catch phrase is getting a bit old.  Cheers to Aiden English a former half of the Vaudevillans who is not only an excellent wrestler but also a highly trained actor and singer. Unfortunately he’s been stuck with Simon Gotch, who the WWE have looked down on for some time. This week they finally put him on his own and gave him part of an in-ring promo.  He got cut off and lost in a squash match, but it’s a step in the right direction. And finally, jeers to Randy Orton, for being shoved down our throats again. It was nice when they paired him with the Wyatts, made him interesting and got him out of the way, now he’s back in the main event picture poised to join the list of everyone who’s been put over Bray Wyatt.

In other wrestling promotion news, if you didn’t catch the New Japan Pro Wrestling Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega match at Wrestle Kingdom 11 in January, find a way to watch it. I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve seen a better wrestling match in my life. Okada somehow always finds a way to win clean and yet make all of his opponents look better. A rare gift in pro wrestling. Katsuyori Shibata won the New Japan Cup and challenged Okada for the IWGP Championship on April 9. Shibata dominated the match and looked excellent doing it, yet Okada won clean, and established a new feud with Bad Luck Fale, which Okada will no doubt win. In less notable news, Trevor Mann, aka King Ricochet, who I’ve been keeping my eye on for some time now, is moving up in the world of NJPW and will be challenging Hiromu Takahashi for the Jr. Heavyweight Championship at an upcoming event. He probably won’t come out on top, as NJPW is high on Takahashi right now, but it’s good to see him moving up the ranks. In Ring of Honor news, Christopher Daniels got his first taste of the World Championship at the tender age of 47 when he defeated Adam Cole of the Bullet Club at the 15th Anniversary ppv.  In Rev Pro news, the British Pro Wrestling promotion, the held their first show in the U.S. on the Friday before WrestleMania in Orlando, no doubt trying to pick up the excess tourists. Zack Sabre Jr., Marty Scurll, and Will Ospreay, the top 3 Brits wrestling today, all had great performances, reminding us all again why the WWE makeshift promotion of lesser British wrestlers is never going to take off. You can’t start a brand based on a country then not get the best three guys from that country.  Either fork over the money for these guys or relegate the entire British Division to NXT and leave it at that.

That’s all I got for now, thanks to anyone who may have read this. Until nxt time…

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