WrestleMania is a lot like the Super Bowl. They are both their respective industries’ biggest events.
Yet, as a hardcore WWE/professional wrestling fan, and as a hardcore NFL/football fan, neither events are my favorites.
While they are huge, while they celebrate their respective industries, they are both designed more for the casual fan then they are for the hardcore fan.
There’s nothing wrong with that. Both the WWE and the NFL are businesses and they need to do what’s best for business.
After all, you can’t have an event as big as WrestleMania Before continuing, I should probably define a hardcore professional wrestling fan.
There are people who have done some fanatical things in the name of professional wrestling, but I think we can define a hardcore professional wrestling fan, at least for the purposes of this article, as someone who will watch a match between any two performers, anytime, and anywhere.
A hardcore fan doesn’t need huge stadiums, jumbotrons, or entrance music to enjoy professional wrestling. A casual fan does.
There’s nothing wrong with being a casual fan. There’s nothing wrong with only watching one PPV a year and there’s nothing wrong with that PPV being WrestleMania.
With that being said, the way WrestleMania favors the causal professional wrestling fan is the reason why WrestleMania isn’t my favorite WWE event of the year. If you’re a hardcore professional wrestling fan, it’s probably not your favorite event either.
Exactly how does WrestleMania cater to the casual fan? I have four words for you: Goldberg vs Brock Lesnar.
Nothing against either one of those guys, I like them both, but I’d rather see about ten other matches than that one. Even worse, it’s for a belt.
Will that match be counted in seconds or minutes? With either wrestle perform a hold? Afterwards, will confetti drop from the sky like it did for Daniel Bryan in 2014?
Also, the Undertaker and Shane McMahon have matches. Triple H will probably do something with Seth Rollins.
Nothing against any of those gentlemen—Triple H is my favorite wrestle and every time Shane is in a match he does something crazy awesome—but those guys are not wrestling week in and week out.
They basically are just getting the trunks out of mothballs to appear at WrestleMania and make it truly “The Showcase of the Immortals”.
Meanwhile, Dolph Ziggler, Sami Zayn, Rusev, Braun Strowman, Luke Harper, Kalisto, and Sin Cara aren’t on the card or will be regulated to the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.
Women grapplers get two matches, each one involves like half the division. I suppose it’s the best way to get as many female competitors onto the card as possible.
I’d rather the women be given two single matches featuring Bayley, Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair Neville takes on Austin Aries for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship in a match that will be surely be held during the kickoff show.
At least Kevin Owens is on the card.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy WrestleMania. It’s fun to watch and it’s fun to attend.
It’s sort of the ipso facto end of the WWE season and therefore the reset buttons are usually pressed for RAW and Smackdown.
I like it, it’s just that WrestleMania is not my favorite wrestling event of the year. I like my wrestling PPVs with more… how should I say it?… wrestling. My guess is a lot of hardcore wrestling fans agree with me.
