Wrestledrunk: Let's Watch WrestleMania XL

The first time I've sat down to watch wrestling in over 10 years

My first memory watching wrestling was with the old AWA. I’m from St. Paul, Minnesota, so pretty much everyone my age and older from that area can remember Baron Von Raschke, Mad Dog Vachon, pre-Model Rick Martel, pre-Perfect Curt Hennig, and a pre-WWF world. It wasn’t until we got cable in early 1990 that the WWF really got my attention, for three reasons.

1, Cablevision was our cable company at the time. They had a channel dedicated to pay-per-view previews for movies and events. The WWF had a three minute promo for Wrestlemania VI, hosted by Mean Gene Okerlund, and he sold the *hell* out of it, making Hulk Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior sound like the biggest match ever. It’s title for title! The Ultimate Challenge!

2, the WWF’s production value was just as good, if not better, than the big four major sports. Seriously, check out CBS’s NBA production at the time, then look at what the WWF was doing. They were ahead of the curve. No more armories or bingo halls with bad lighting. The WWF just *looked* like a big deal.

3, Wrestlemania VI was what everyone on the school bus was talking about. I didn’t get to see the event, but I got to pick my friend Tyler’s brain about who won and who lost. From that point on, I was watching Wrestling Challenge every week, and my dad was picking up the occasional WWF Magazine. This is all to say, me and rasslin’ go back a ways.

After a break from how dreadful wrestling had gotten from ‘93 to ‘95, the NWO and Steve Austin brought me back, to the point that I was watching both Raw and Nitro every single week for years. It wasn’t until around 2007 when my interest began to wane. I still popped in once in a while to check out the 2011 Summer of Punk, and Daniel Bryan’s run a couple years later, but for about roughly 10 years, I’ve been completely out of the loop on wrestling.

Until now. One stubborn contingency I’ve had throughout the past decade was: as long as Vince McMahon is still running the show, I have no interest in watching. Things were never going to have the chance to truly change if he was involved in any capacity. For years, I’ve wanted to fast forward to the post-Vince WWE. Well, we’re here. So I figured, let’s jump in cold and check out the biggest event of the year. I have not watched anything leading up to this year’s Mania. I don’t know 80% of the roster, and I don’t even know what the matches are. Bad idea? Probably. But, I’m giving it a chance to see if it can reel me in like it used to.

Wrestlemania XL is coming to you LIVE from The Linc in Philadelphia. This won’t be a long, boring blow-by-blow review, just various thoughts and observations as everything unfolds. This behemoth is over 8 hours long spread out over two nights, so we’ll see how long it takes for me to go from “actively watching” to “barely paying attention as it’s on in the background.” So here we go.

Women's World Championship: Rhea Ripley (c) vs. Becky Lynch

• One thing that’s definitely changed over the years is that it used to be just the marquee matches that got these massive long-ass entrances. Now *everyone* gets them. Lynch quotes her own autobiography during her entrance, and Motionless in White “plays” Ripley to the ring, although the camera accidentally catches them wandering around not playing their instruments as the music plays. Whoops.

• Michael Cole, on commentary, constantly alludes to Lynch being sick all week, which is usually code for, “She’s jobbing.”

• Ripley is winning me over bigtime with her strength spots. I love a good “power out of an armbar by slamming someone to the mat three times” move. She also has this crazy looking inverse Texas cloverleaf submission.

• There’s a great spot where Ripley has Lynch on her shoulders, they both tumble over the top rope to the floor, with Ripley still hanging onto Lynch. Oh, you’re still up there? Lynch gets *dropped* on the floor. That’s quality.

• Ripley hits her pump-handle slam finisher to successfully defend her title in a solid 15 minute opener. I guess that’s one thing about Wrestlemania being 99 hours long — matches like this get a decent amount of time. The crowd got really into this which helps a lot.

Six-Pack ladder match for Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships: Judgment Day (Damian Priest & Finn Bálor) vs. Awesome Truth (The Miz & R-Truth) vs. DIY (Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa) vs. New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods) vs. New Catch Republic (Pete Dunne & Tyler Bate) vs. A-Town Down Under (Austin Theory & Grayson Waller)

• Enough random dudes for ya? It’s the old time honored tradition of, “Cram as many guys into one match as you can to make sure they get some shine at the biggest show of the year.” There’s 12 people in this match and I’ve heard of 4 of them: Truth, Miz, and New Day. To complicate things further, there’s four belts hanging above the ring, instead of just two.

• Immediately I’m thinking, I’m not the right audience for this. I’m used to the Hardys, E&C and the Dudleys killing themselves, and it’s hard to come back from that. I know what those guys were doing wasn’t sustainable, but WWE still insists on doing these car-wreck matches. There’s some good spots here, like the DDT through a table outside the ring, and the powerbomb through a breakaway ladder, but overall this fell totally flat for me. I’m left wondering if the outdoor venue threw these guys off because of the wind.

Rey Mysterio and Andrade vs. Santos Escobar and “Dirty” Dominik Mysterio

• Dominik’s Eddie Guerrero hairstyle is on point, and the crowd hates him, so I’m a fan. I’m super impressed with both Escobar and Andrade, the latter doing a top rope moonsault, adjusting mid-air to land on his feet, then doing a standing moonsault instead, which seriously looked cool as fuck. Later, Joaquin Wilde (one of the guys on Rey’s side) gets launched 15 feet down the aisle onto a bunch of dudes, as I’m thinking, this has better spots than the ladder match.

• Suddenly, two masked dudes wander out of the crowd to ringside to help Rey and allow him to get the win. The masked guys reveal themselves to be Jason Kelce and Lane Johnson of the Philadelphia Eagles. Vince is gone but we still have the “local famous guys show up to make the crowd react” routine. Kelce wearing what look like steel-toed work boots in the ring is a really funny visual, at least.

Jimmy Uso vs. Jey Uso

• Someone please tell Jimmy to stop blatantly slapping his leg when doing literally anything. Crowd lets Jimmy know that he sucks, which makes me happy.

• With all the “Bloodline” talk, this match needed blood.

• STOP SLAPPING YOUR DAMN LEG. Both these guys now. If you’re doing it *every single move,* it kinda loses its effect.

• The crowd carried this match. This felt like an In Your House undercard match, which is not to discredit either of these guys, who both busted their tails. Literally, their own tails, with the constant slapping. I kid, this was okay, but the slapping to me is as bad as loudly calling your spots Ken Shamrock style.

Bianca Belair, Naomi & Jade Cargill vs. Damage CTRL (Dakota Kai, Asuka & Kairi Sane)

• Michael Cole whining about the cold is cracking me up, considering these women are performing in front of thousands wearing their normal gear.

• The nonstop elaborate entrances remind me of the old Wrestleline CRZ Raw recaps, “The World Entrance Federation!” I’m loving Asuka dancing along to her opponent’s entrance theme, and that’s all that’s required to win me over. That’s the kind of crazy I can get behind.

• Okay now I’m a huge Jade fanboy. The way everyone just stops when she gets the hot tag is both hilarious and cool as shit. She catches Kairi Sane coming off the top rope, then snaps her over her knee like it’s nothing. She gets the three count after demolishing everyone and god damn, THAT is how you introduce someone to a loser flyby watcher like me. This reminds me of the old Barbarian vs. Tito Santana squash matches you used to see, but this was way better.

Intercontinental Championship: Gunther (c) vs. Sami Zayn

• This is my first look at what the IC Title looks like now, and I can’t lie, it looks cool as shit. The typical “let’s make this belt worth something” montage is well done, but only because I get to hear Curt Hennig say, “YOU HAVE TO BE PERFECT.” He was just the best, man. Never mind the fact that every single person in this montage is from at least 30 years ago. The easy way to make this title worth a shit is if you reference someone from, ya know, a time that people might actually know and remember.

• Gunther is Austrian Steve Regal. He comes out with two guys that look like GI Joe figures. I love this dude. He looks like a jacked Lance Storm. He looks like eastern European pro wrestling in the 80s.

• I just want to note here that my expectations are super high right now. It’s the IC title, it’s Wrestlemania, this match better be good.

• Sami has some great Mick Foley energy, and Sami’s wife has some great Shelley Duvall energy.

• This is the only match so far where I wish I’d seen more of a certain guy beforehand. Gunther is a GREAT heel. But the announcers are leaning way too hard into “THEY NEED TO STOP THIS,” just shut up, guys. We can see it.

• When you can get an entire football stadium into your comeback, you have made it. Bigtime props to Zayn. This wasn’t a great match, but a fantastic showcase of both guys. Hearing a ring announcer say the “NEWWWWWWWW CHAMPION” never gets old.

Roman Reigns & The Rock vs. Seth Rollins & Cody Rhodes

• I was ready to declare Cody as the champ of the World Entrance Federation, but Rock’s entrance is gloriously over the top, so I have to give him the nod.

• Jfc, do we really need 30 minutes of hype and entrances and introductions?

• Heel Rock is soooo much better than Face Rock. I can’t believe this dude is 51.

• Rock gets sent into the Prime Hydration Station while Rhodes and Reigns fight near the Dude Wipes Ringpost and fight down the Summer’s Eve Douche Entrance Ramp and I only made one of those sponsors up.

• Very slow and plodding match. The crowd sounds bored and I can’t say I blame them. I’m now realizing that I’m going to have to do a Part 2 of this. Remember when IYH PPVs were only 2 hours?

• Reigns always looks to me like he’s wearing Haggar slacks. Rollins has kind of a Randy Savage-ish, Chris Jericho-ish vibe. I’m running out of steam here so I’m just saying non-sequitur nonsense. Dried mango from Trader Joe’s is the greatest snack in the world. Tullamore Dew is a solid whiskey for the price. I like the color blue.

• Finally we start to get some action with a few hot tag teases, and Rhodes is able to get the crowd back into it. Rock jaws with Cody’s mom at ringside who screams “BULLSHIT!” at him. Bless her heart.

• Reigns accidentally spears Rock, who sells it like absolute death. Rollins and Rhodes hit stereo pedigrees and okay, they got me, I thought that was it. Cody nails Rock with a Rock Bottom through the announcer’s table, and two seconds later Reigns spears Rollins through the barricade. Both of those spots looked *brutal.* Rhodes eats a Rock Bottom and a People’s Elbow and *finally* this is over. Take 20 minutes off this and it’s a classic, but as is, it was a bit of a mess.

That wraps up night one of Wrestlemania, I’ll be back soon with more food hot takes (Trader Joe’s peanut butter pretzels are also amazing), and more rasslin’ stuff. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great rest of your day!

-Alex