What is your level of anticipation for WrestleManiA this year

[Everlong]

Looking forward to it? Not really caring? How does it measure up to previous years?

[Hanley!]

Due to some of the talent involved, this will be far from the worst Wrestlemania ever. I imagine it'll be a pretty decent show. Maybe even a very good show. My level of excitement, however, is probably lower than it has ever been.

Wrestlemania season has never felt like it was going through the motions as much as this year. There's so little buzz, there's so little hype. Most of the people on the WWE shows aren't even acting like we're coming up to the biggest show of the year. There seems to be a lack of confidence in the event to truly deliver that's being felt by just about everyone from Vince McMahon down to the most casual of fans.

With such a poor build up and the card they're giving us, even if WWE do everything right on the night and put on a full complement of great matches, the best score it seems even possible for them to earn on the night is an 8/10. That's the best case scenario by now. They can't even try for a perfect 10 with a card this weird and excitement levels this low.

[Str8Shooter]

I'm pretty excited, I think it'll be a good card and the spectacle of seeing that huge At&T Stadium with a spectacular set and the fact they've legit sold over 84000 tickets already, it should be fun. It's going to the biggest legit crowd in WWE history.

The build up could be better, which we've said for years now, but ultimately, it's freaking Mania weekend man!! If you're a wrestling fan in any way you have to at least be somewhat excited for it. Not to mention the whole weekend is fun, NXT should be outstanding and might be the best Takeover ever, then Mania and the Raw after Mania which is always a blast.

[Hanley!]

The way they've turned Wrestlemania week into an event really does help to build excitement, for sure. I couldn't really give a fuck about Wrestlemania itself this year, but I can't wait for Takeover. The Hall of Fame is always worth a look. That kind of lead-in always makes the main show feel a little more enticing, if only on the day itself.

I do think they hide behind the spectacle now though, and it's been to the detriment of the shows over the last few years. I'd rather a good show than a grand show. Though a combination of both would be even better.

[Viazon]

I had no much hope when they hit this huge injury crisis. However, some of the matches that have already been made could be pretty decent, so my interest in it has gone up slightly. I'm still not holding out much hope though.

I like Dean Ambrose and glad he is getting a high profile match. Him vs Brock Lesnar could be great. I just wish he appeared more. Dean Ambrose and Triple H have two of the highest profile matches at Wrestlemania. Yet, their opponents barely appear and they in fact seem to be feuding with each other.

I don't think Reigns is the right man to be main eventing Wrestlemania, and I have no idea what Triple H is doing anywhere near the main event in 2016. But I still think it could be a good match. Not the best on the card but still good.

Shane vs Undertaker could be really entertaining if done right. It's just exciting to see Shane back in the WWE. The women's match looks better that it has done at Wrestlemania for a long time. And I am excited at the prospect of Sami Zayn vs Kevin Owens, which I hope happens. There is still more matches to be announced. I think this Wrestlemania could surprise us.

[Hanley!]

^^ It's looking pretty clear that Zayn vs Owens won't be a one on one match. On Smackdown, Neville threw his hat in the ring too, and there's been a lot of talk about it being a multiple man ladder match or something.

And yet Kalisto vs Ryback is rumoured to be a singles match for the US title. I don't get this company sometimes.

[Str8Shooter]

^^ It's looking pretty clear that Zayn vs Owens won't be a one on one match. On Smackdown, Neville threw his hat in the ring too, and there's been a lot of talk about it being a multiple man ladder match or something.

And yet Kalisto vs Ryback is rumoured to be a singles match for the US title. I don't get this company sometimes.

Does anybody know why the hell they would make Ryback vs Kalisto a singles and Owens vs Zayn and others multi man? It literally makes no sense. Owens and Zayn have personal history, both men are over. Ryback just turned heel, and Kalisto is a lame duck US champ who still wrestles in a tag team. It's baffling. The only saving grace is that I'm sure we're going to get some badass Zayn/Owens matches after Mania on PPV likely.

[Hanley!]

Does anybody know why the hell they would make Ryback vs Kalisto a singles and Owens vs Zayn and others multi man? It literally makes no sense. Owens and Zayn have personal history, both men are over. Ryback just turned heel, and Kalisto is a lame duck US champ who still wrestles in a tag team. It's baffling. The only saving grace is that I'm sure we're going to get some badass Zayn/Owens matches after Mania on PPV likely.

I have thought of one half decent explanation. And it really is only half decent, don't get me wrong, I'm not making excuses for them. But it could be a time constraints thing. If Owens and Zayn were given a match on the card, people would expect 12 minutes at the very least, so that they could put on a top quality match. People wouldn't expect that from the Ryback. A five minute match from him and Kalisto wouldn't seem that unusual. So it's possible they just don't think they have room for another lengthy singles match on the card.

That being said, I'm sure they're going to have a lot of fluff on the Wrestlemania card. They always do. I'm sure they could find room for a really good grudge match that fans would genuinely want to see, by cutting some of the excess shit that doesn't matter. Zayn vs Owens is one of the few matches on this card that I could actually get excited for. One of the few matches where I could really cheer for the face and invest in him in a very visceral way. That's worth finding a spot for.

It does seem crazy that after all the talk of who Kevin Owens's opponent would be at Wrestlemania (Undertaker, Lesnar, etc.) he probably won't get a singles match ... and yet the Ryback will. Because his last singles Wrestlemania match was such a hit, I guess.

[The Legend]

I'd actually disagree with Hanley that they aren't really building the show and creating storylines for the show. I actually think they have done a better job creating some compelling stories than they have in recent years.

The main event is actually a well told story at this point. Disdain for the people involved are clouding judgement on the story itself. A guy trying to break through, against the odds, a flawed guy that isn't universally liked, but is trying his best to do what's right and overcome evil forces at the same time.

The Divas title match is the first triple threat that doesn't feel tedious and like they shoe-horned someone into a one vs one feud. I think they've done almost everything perfectly with this feud, with the small exception of the song and dance routine of the #1 contender matches.

Ambrose vs Lesnar has been an awesome story early, Lesnar's part time status has hurt it, but I'm still excited to see what happens.

I don't love the idea of a Shane vs Taker match, but the story has been a good one with the McMahons and Taker involved.

I'm actually enjoying everything about the IC match build, even if it isn't a Zayn vs Owens match. For the first time in what feels like forever they are treating the IC title like it matters which is brilliant.

[Hanley!]

The main event is actually a well told story at this point. Disdain for the people involved are clouding judgement on the story itself. A guy trying to break through, against the odds, a flawed guy that isn't universally liked, but is trying his best to do what's right and overcome evil forces at the same time.

I won't argue with you on the other stories you mentioned, as I can see what someone would like about them, even if I think they haven't been developed nearly enough. But I can't even begin to understand what's good about the main event story.

For starters, we're three weeks out from Wrestlemania and they haven't even been bothering to tell the story for a couple of weeks. They segwayed into an Ambrose vs Triple H main event feud instead for a while there. The main event feud was so unimportant that they interrupted it right before Wrestlemania.

The babyface and the heel both suck at their roles. When Triple H is actually facing off against Reigns, he always adopts face traits and plays to the crowd so he'll be cheered. Reigns is horrible at getting sympathy and the fans just don't want to like him because he's so clearly the company guy.

What we're left with is your standard Authority figure vs "babyface" feud that we've been seeing constantly for the last 20 years. And a really stripped down, bad version of that story.

Take the Daniel Bryan story as a comparison. The authority figures didn't want him as their champion because he was small, and looked weird and wasn't the sort of clean-cut, attractive champion that they'd typically want. He didn't have a lot of charisma (in their minds) and wasn't a larger than life figure. But the fans rallied behind Bryan because he was a great wrestler who had been working hard to get to the top for years. That and his size made him the ultimate sympathetic underdog.

Or then there's the Austin story. The company didn't want him as their champion because he wasn't politically correct. He was a beer-drinking, ill-tempered redneck. One of the least corporate choices you could imagine. And fans rallied behind him because he was doing what they wished they could do - standing up for himself and telling the boss to go fuck himself. That made him a great badass anti-hero.

Then there's Reigns. The company don't want him as their champion because ...

Because ...

Umm, because ...

I honestly have no idea why they don't want him as their champion. That story hasn't been told. He's a big guy, he's a good looking guy, he's working with charities, he has family ties to other wrestlers, including one of the most popular in the company's history. He's young, he's been in the main event scene ever since he arrived in the company and even in storyline he's had everything handed to him on a silver platter.

Reigns is just about the most obvious corporate choice you could possibly make now. And that's not even factoring in the backstage politics, I'm only considering his character and what we've been seeing on screen. That makes him a horrible anti-hero. He's a large, muscular, handsome, young, ass-kicker who was accepted into the main event from day one. That makes him a horrible underdog. And therefore it's unsurprising that he is horrible in this storyline. It doesn't work. Fans have no reason to get behind Reigns. Which is largely why they don't. This is the worst version of the Authority storyline that WWE could possibly tell. And we've already seen every other damn version, which makes it even worse.

And they're not even telling this bad idea for a story well. They're compounding their horrible decisions by presenting them to us badly. The Authority didn't want Reigns to have the belt because reasons, so they made him defend it in the Royal Rumble. Fair enough. But then when he lost it, they just gave him an opportunity to earn a rematch. Why? He didn't have to fight for it, he didn't have to coax it out of him, he didn't have to threaten them. They just gave it to him. The very night after they managed to win the belt from him, they gave him a chance to get it back. Why? It makes no sense.

Sorry, this story sucks. It just does.

[The Legend]

First you have to consider they've been telling the main event story and developing it in various ways for more than a year. Going all the way back to the break up of the Shield. The Authority don't want Reigns as champion because he can't be bought, which was told when Rollins was the only one in the Shield that resorted to joining the Shield. They don't want him to be champion because they can't control him, as was shown when he attacked Vince and HHH. They don't want him to be champion most of all because he isn't their type of guy, he doesn't want to brown nose to them and suck up to them just to be their friend. They don't want him to be champion because he doesn't feed the huge egos of HHH and Stephanie, all of those things have been shown on multiple occasions.

Only if you factor in the backstage politics and the scripted nature of wrestling can you draw conclusions of why they want Reigns to be champion. He does charity work, so what? The evil managers of WWE don't care about charity, if you can't make it on your own and pull yourself up by your bootstraps then you should perish would be their attitude. The characters of HHH and Stephanie don't give a shit about how big and how good looking they are.

I would dispute him having everything handed to him in storyline mode, this is the guy that only lost the belt because he's the only person in the history of WWE that was forced to defend his belt in the Rumble, a belt he had to chase for a year because the Authority handed the opportunity to their hand picked guy when they let him get interjected into the main event last year.

He earned the shot at winning the belt back by winning a triple threat. He was in the triple threat because they knew he's a dangerous guy to not give him an opportunity at what he wants because then he goes around attacking HHH and Vince and others like he had just done a few weeks prior.

[KaiserGlider]

The Authority did want Reigns as their champion, but he turned them down. Source:



It's like when Cena was feuding with the Authority years ago and everyone seemed baffled as to why they didn't want him as their champion, even though Cena dissed them every chance he got.

[Hanley!]

That doesn't make this a strong feud though. That's the point.

The Authority story will always work better if the heels have a reason to fight against the hero and keep him down. If he represents something completely opposed to them. Those kinds of character conflicts are what make for good rivalries. And they give us a real reason to rally behind the hero.

As I said already, we've seen the Authority story over and over again for the last 20 years. Doing a more stripped down, less compelling version of it is far from enough at this point.

Reigns is the perfect guy to run with the Authority, so the crowd isn't inclined to like him. He had the opportunity to side with the Authority and didn't take it. That doesn't automatically make the crowd more likely to get behind him. I mean they could tell that story, and make it work. If we saw Reigns have to fight tooth and nail for every slight opportunity, while being reminded constantly that he could skip right to the front of the line if he was to just to side with the Authority, that would make a compelling story. That would make Reigns a compelling hero. But they're not telling that story. He's still mostly getting everything given to him pretty easily, and the conflict between the two sides seems very contrived.

And to be honest, even if the story was being told well it's a story that would still work better with someone who isn't Reigns. Someone who seems ideologically opposed to the Authority in some obvious way.

Because when it comes right down to it, Reigns isn't the only person who refuses to side with the Authority. Half of the roster does. It's called being one of the babyfaces. So I still think they need to have a better reason to be so against Reigns.

[DBSoT]

The story would work a lot better if Reigns wasn't in the main event scene from the time he debuted. If Reigns had a history of having to spend a couple years developing and adjusting through the mid-card, then I could see the fans getting behind him once he rejects the Authority. I could even see them getting behind him completing his journey to the WWE championship. The problem is, Reigns is now a 2 time WWE champion and has been at the top of the card for quite awhile. There is no long journey for the fans to back. This is like choosing between Tom Brady (Reigns) or Roger Goodell (HHH). Goodell is a corrupt guy who wants the NFL to be in his image of football. He has tried to work with Brady, but once Goodell tried to suspend Brady due to Deflategate, Brady rejected him. Naturally, Patriot fans were getting behind Brady because they felt he was getting screwed, but the average fans couldn't feel any sympathy for a guy who won multiple titles and was basically the face of the NFL. Those fans just became annoyed by the fact that they had to choose between a glory boy or the corporate doofus. The same thing is going on here. Reigns has won multiple WWEWHC in a short period and hasn't really lost a feud since he became the top face. So now that he is going against the Authority it feels like the same Glory boy vs corporate doofus situation. Reigns fans want him to overcome because they were with him from the start, but the rest of the crowd is just annoyed that they have to watch the golden boy win another title.

[The Legend]

I won't argue that the story would be better if Dolph Ziggler was in the role of Roman Reigns. It's not ideal, and I'm not trying to say it is perfect, but there's a lot of landscape from not ideal to steaming pile of crap and most of that landscape falls into territory that I can sincerely enjoy the story.

[Hanley!]

I also think that the crowd's standards are automatically going to be high for a story they've done 100 times. If they actually tried some new stories, I think fans would be a lot more lenient, being happy that we're at least seeing something different. If we're seeing the same story they always do, then people are going to demand that it's done really well because otherwise there's not much point.

It's like watching a movie sequel that takes the exact same plot from the first film but does a much worse job of it. It always feels like a bit of a waste of time afterwards.

[The Legend]

Maybe I feel different, simply because I like the story. I like the story because it's an outlet. I fell in love with pro wrestling and still do to this day, because it's a chance to see people that behave despicably get their ass kicked in a way they never get their ass kicked in the real world. I despise the greedy corporate billionaire that holds people down, so even if its scripted in a way, I'll eat that up every time.

[Daz]

I'm not that excited but I rarely am these days. I think the card has shaped up better than it had any right to considering the injuries. AJ//Jericho, Diva's Triple Threat, Lesnar/Ambrose will all be good matches. I'm disappointed they're doing the US title matches and IC title matches backwards. Owens vs. Zayn has build behind it and heat, and is a match people want to see. Instead they're gonna wind up doing it as a multi man clusterfuck. Meanwhile Kalisto/Ryback is a match just about nobody gives a toss about, and is getting the one on one treatment. Makes no sense.

The Main Event matches are really lacking in appeal. Reigns/Triple H will be a good wrestling match, probably a great one. Both can work, both will do what they can to make this watchable. The problem is, the crowd is gonna shit all over it, we know it going in. Reigns as champion isn't particularly appealing as long as they continue to book him the way they book him.

Shane/Undertaker has intrigue to it, just because it could be a complete car crash. I like Shane, I know he'll work as hard as he can to make this fun, but I don't hold much hope. Also, despite a good start to the storyline, typical WWE have failed to capitalize or expand upon it and with two weeks left, it's not looking likely that it'll happen at all.

The card looks better than last years did, on paper at least, and that show was far better than it had any right to be. So I have hope.

[Messiah]

Eh. I mean, I think it will be an okay show, but I'm not excited for it. I don't see any way this show doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth. Roman Reigns, in his current state, is not a good WWE World Heavyweight Champion but he will walk out just that.

NXT Takeover: Dallas, on the other hand...

[Daz]

Eh. I mean, I think it will be an okay show, but I'm not excited for it. I don't see any way this show doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth. Roman Reigns, in his current state, is not a good WWE World Heavyweight Champion but he will walk out just that.

NXT Takeover: Dallas, on the other hand...

Takeover is gonna be ridiculous.