It is awful, which is what makes it so damn good. It seriously fuckin' owns. This should have been every WM match.
I'm guessing we get something similar with Cena and Fiend tomorrow. Really could have done it with a few more matches too
Every match should have been a weird gimmick like that. Would have made WM great all around. Kabuki Warriors fighting on an actual ship, etc.
It was like an average American remake of a great foreign film. Sure it has much better production values and well known actors but lacks all the originality, weirdness and heart that makes the original version so good.
So consensus on night one is that this would have been a top-ten Mania (again, so far) had it been in a stadium with a crowd...but then again maybe not because that AJ/Taker match would have been much more traditional. Every other match did really well (except for Goldberg) and would have killed it live with a crowd.
I think Braun and Goldberg would’ve done great live. Just two large men slapping meat. Elias match was a clunker, women’s tag was a bit sloppy but yes a very good mania with awesome ladder match, bone yard match and Rollins/KO was fantastic.
I really struggled to maintain interest even during the strong matches with no crowd, really a shame for a guy like KO who'd had some disappointing Mania showings previously but killed it last night
I was thinking a few days ago how the matches likely to be the best were the ones featuring former indie guys like KO/Rollins and Zayn/Bryan. Those guys know how to work with little to no crowd. The match I expect to end up disappointing the most is Edge/RKO, which might've been the best match on the card had it been done live with a crowd.
A better question is how will Vince even tape TV. Sounds like they have Raw and NXT taped. No idea where they will be able to tape Smackdown on Friday. Meanwhile AEW taped enough material to get through May.
So Vince used Bianca Belair, Rhea Ripley and Shayna in the build to Mania in order to....get Becky and Charlotte over at Mania instead of making a new star. Same old shit. Charlotte one is worse, at least Becky and Shayna you could argue NXT is still kind of the "minor leagues" and Shayna just showed she isnt quite ready to compete at the very top. Charlotte going over the NXT champion is just an FU to NXT, the main roster women can just go back down and win the title whenever they want because they are still better than you.