Good Roster, Weak Show... WrestleManias That Could've Been Better?

[DANJ!]

Sometimes, the F/E just had a wack-ass roster to deal with, but some Manias had all the right components and the wrong booking. Despite the roster, certain Manias just prove that without the right matches, even a great bunch of talent can put on a weak show.

1st example: WrestleMania IV... The tournament was a nice idea, but it forced a lot of matches to be rushed, and some of the wackest finishes ever. The roster was stacked at the time- Hogan, Savage, DiBiase, Andre, Rude, Jake, Steamboat, Hart Foundation, Strike Force, Demolition, Bulldogs, Bigelow, Duggan, Valentine, Beefcake, Honky Tonk, Muraco, One Man Gang, Bad News, Warrior, etc., etc... with a better setup, this card prob. still woulda been packed but much better than it turned out to be.

WreslteMania 13 is another one... they got it right with Bret/Austin... but a show with Undertaker, Sid, Mankind, Vader, Owen, Bulldog, LOD, Ahmed, Faarooq, HHH, Rocky, and Goldust had no right sucking as much as it did.

And Mania 28 is the most recent. Probably because they stuck most of their best midcard/upper-carders in a fukkin' 12-man tag match that meant nothing three months later and did nothing for anyone involved. There coulda been a good top-to-bottom show with the talent they had, but anything outside of the main events/title matches, they didn't seem to give two shyts about.

 

[Alexander The Great]

Wrestlemania 2000, had the chance to be really good.

should have been Rock vs HHH single match for the WWE Title. Since Mankind was "retiring" the Hell in a Cell match should have been Undertaker vs Mankind.
instead of the triple threat could have had Beniot vs Angle single
and have Big Show vs Jericho as a separate match

 

[Ed MOTHERFUCKING G]

4 missed out on a steamboat/savage rematch and had some ass matchups in the tournement.

Savage should have had to go thru honkey, steamboat, and dibase



Sent from Seattle, by way of Ann Arbor on Tapatalk: The Remix

 

[Ed MOTHERFUCKING G]

Wrestlemania 2000, had the chance to be really good.

should have been Rock vs HHH single match for the WWE Title. Since Mankind was "retiring" the Hell in a Cell match should have been Undertaker vs Mankind.
instead of the triple threat could have had Beniot vs Angle single
and have Big Show vs Jericho as a separate match

Its ironic because they knew they fukked up and did that shyt in subsequent ppvs and had hhh/rock a month later



Sent from Seattle, by way of Ann Arbor on Tapatalk: The Remix

 

[DANJ!]

Wrestlemania 2000, had the chance to be really good.

should have been Rock vs HHH single match for the WWE Title. Since Mankind was "retiring" the Hell in a Cell match should have been Undertaker vs Mankind.
instead of the triple threat could have had Beniot vs Angle single
and have Big Show vs Jericho as a separate match

Of all the matches on the card, you woulda changed the Jericho/Angle/Benoit match? And had Jericho go against Big Show instead?

Rock/HHH would've been fine by itself, but it would've need some kind of special attraction to it... they'd faced eachother numerous times on TV and PPV in the year leading up to it. Iron Man Match maybe?

I remember reading that Taker was due to return before Mania 2000, but had re-injured himself the morning of the Royal Rumble, which killed a plan they had. Wonder if he would've been coming back to get revenge on Big Show, leading to a Mania match...

And yeah, I agree on that show as a whole. With the roster and popularity they had, AND the great writing on top of it, that was an underwhelming show they came up with. shyt, Fully Loaded was better than that joint.

 

[Alexander The Great]

Of all the matches on the card, you woulda changed the Jericho/Angle/Benoit match? And had Jericho go against Big Show instead?

Rock/HHH would've been fine by itself, but it would've need some kind of special attraction to it... they'd faced eachother numerous times on TV and PPV in the year leading up to it. Iron Man Match maybe?

I remember reading that Taker was due to return before Mania 2000, but had re-injured himself the morning of the Royal Rumble, which killed a plan they had. Wonder if he would've been coming back to get revenge on Big Show, leading to a Mania match...

And yeah, I agree on that show as a whole. With the roster and popularity they had, AND the great writing on top of it, that was an underwhelming show they came up with. shyt, Fully Loaded was better than that joint.

you know what my fault, I forgot taker was out.

that triple threat match wasn't anything special for those guys(angle/benoit/jericho) so splitting it up wouldn't have hurt it. any combo of the 2 would have put on just as good, if not a better match.

2000 was a great PPV year for the WWE, but the funny thing is Mania wasn't even close to being the best for the year. like literally EVERY PPV that year was great EXCEPT for mania

 

[DANJ!]

2000 was a great PPV year for the WWE, but the funny thing is Mania wasn't even close to being the best for the year. like literally EVERY PPV that year was great EXCEPT for mania

Yup!

I had a lil' lightweight regret about droppin' $50.00 on that joint... cause I also got that All-Day special But I recall Royal Rumble, Backlash, Judgment Day, Fully Loaded, SummerSlam (ESPECIALLY SummerSlam), and Armageddon all being better than Mania.

 

[Marlo]

For Mania 2000, they should have had HHH vs. Rock with Austin doing what he did at Backlash, but I guess Austin wasn't ready at that time. Plus you know Vince just loves getting his whole family involved.

Wrestlemania 15 was pure ass except for Rock/Austin. Taker/Bossman was trash, and none of the other matches really mattered except for maybe x-pac vs shane cause HHH turned heel.

 

[TrueEpic08]

I was going to post about this in the WM XIX thread, but this is a better place for it.

WrestleMania XXVI was good, but really should've been better than it was considering what was on it.

Beyond the Hart/McMahon atrocity, there were some really good matches on here that delivered on expectation: Taker/Michaels (Though anyone saying this was better than the WM 25 encounter is severely mistaken. Still better than the last two Taker/Hunter WM matches) and Cena/Batista (Shockingly. These two seriously have some great chemistry even though they're not all that good individually. The Anti-Hunter/Michaels, really) were both really good to great matches. And then you go on, and you mostly get disappointment.

-Money in the Bank was an overstuffed clusterfukk in which the wrong guy won (And we should be thanking WWE for building a PPV around this match so situations like this, where guys are trying to cram 30 minute spotfests into 14 minutes would never happen again at WM)

-Randy Orton, in that phase where he had just turned face, had great face heat, but wasn't actually a good babyface wrestler yet, going up against two guys whose characters had been jerked around and made to look stupid in a nothing triple threat (A decent nothing triple threat, but still)

-A blah Hunter match where the wrong guy went over (Who'd have guessed that one? :tellmemore: )

-Rey Misterio and CM Punk having to cram what could've been a classic 15-minute WM show stealer into merely one of the best 6 and a half minute sprints I've ever seen, just to make more time for Hart/McMahon shenanigans (Seriously, find this match. They've only had one better than it, and that was a SmackDown match they had in Jan 2010. These guys were fukking ON here)

-Edge, back LONG before he should've been from his Achilles tear (Idiot came back in 6 months for the Royal Rumble, and instead of just resting until WM, actually started wrestling regularly on it. :jadawtf: No wonder he pretty much never had another good match after this) had a plodding, semi-heatless match with Chris Jericho, in which his momentum was fully shot to pieces and bean a year long trainwreck of stupidity and aimlessness for Edge.

By no means is this a bad show (it could be argued that none of the matches I highlighted were actually BAD matches), but this was a great card on paper that only really made it to good.

 

[Popi]

Wrestlemania XV, hands down

- Height of the Attitude Era and ONE great match on the entire card, Rock v. Austin

- Wasted a Hell in the Cell on Undertaker v. Big Boss Man, a match in which the Bossman was HUNG but showed up on the next Sunday Night Heat and ended up being in the Corporate Ministry anyway later on

- Butterbean And Bart fukking Gunn....

- An EXTRA forgettable match between Big Show and Mankind

- Even more forgettable IC and Hardcore Title Matches

- Dlo Brown and Test won a battle royal to challenge Double J and Owen...its almost like they forget about the Tag Titles until the Saturday before threw that shyt together

The swere with Triple H And Chyna reuniting only to join the Corporation was dope and the Xpac/Shane was good...and the main event was a classic...but besides that...

God. Awful.

 

[El Guapo]

Wrestlemania 2000, had the chance to be really good.

should have been Rock vs HHH single match for the WWE Title. Since Mankind was "retiring" the Hell in a Cell match should have been Undertaker vs Mankind.
instead of the triple threat could have had Beniot vs Angle single
and have Big Show vs Jericho as a separate match

I remember reading a long time ago that when Big Show first signed he had it in his contract that he had to main event the next WrestleMania. I still don't if that's true or not, but I still find it baffling that it wasn't Rock vs. HHH one on one. Backlash did more than make up for it though.