After weeks of speculation, the plug was pulled on UFC 249 by Mickey fucking Mouse. Dana White held up his end of the bet, putting an amazing fight card together and was ready to go next Saturday from Tachi Palace, a Native American casino in California. News broke Thursday night that executives at Disney, which own ESPN, forced the organization’s hand in postponing all events. The New York Times reported that the California Governor, Gavin Newsom, pleaded with Disney to get the show canceled.
This just flat out sucks. Caving to outside pressure so easily, I wish we can go back to the old days before the UFC got in bed with these big corporations, when MMA truly didn’t give a fuck. The virus that has only left us professional wrestling seems to be improving and even my guy President Trump wants sports to lead the country’s push into coming back. Dana White’s brash attitude that I love, made him and the UFC an easy target by the mainstream media. Hopefully he learned that sometimes it’s better to fly under the radar like Vince McMahon and Tony Khan have done during this time.
It’s hard to even speculate about anything at this time. Dana says that UFC Fight Island is still under construction and without any government intervention I can see ESPN being fine with letting events run there. In an interview with Bret Okamoto, White said he still wants to be the first sport to return to a normal schedule, and expects his island to be ready in a month. White also said the UFC will fulfill its contracted 42 events with ESPN this year. I’m sure there will be a lot more to this story to come.
The next event on the sports calendar that looks to be a go is the NFL Draft. However, I’m already anticipating Joe Douglas is going to continue to ignore our biggest hole and not get Sam Darnold his number one receiver. Why would we want to get CeeDee Lamb or Jerry Jeudy to replace Robby Anderson when we can be cheap and get Breshad Perriman and Josh Doctson instead. I pull my hair out thinking how we haven't drafted a first round receiver since Keyshawn and are always surprised our offense sucks. Much like Larry David’s friend Carl, after the last 24 hours I can’t take any more disappointment.
The unprecedented circumstances around Wrestlemania 36 forced WWE to think outside the box and helped deliver a unique experience. The men and women behind the show did a great job of bringing some normalcy back and worked their asses off in a tough situation. Mania should be graded on a curve as I think history should look back fondly on this event.
Night One
This was my favorite of the two shows by a pretty wide margin. The show started slow with Alexa and Nikki winning the tag belts and Baron Corbin losing to Elias. Business picked up with a physical match between Becky Lynch and Shayna Baszler. The finish was anticlimactic after Lynch rolled through the kirifuda clutch to pin Shayna. Becky had a similar fluke finish against Rousey last year at Mania, so I think there is more to come with this story.
Sammy Zayn retained the Intercontinental Title over Daniel Bryan in a fun match that saw interference from Drew Gulak, Nakamura, and Cesaro. The 3 Man ladder match between John Morrison, Jey Uso, and Kofi was my favorite of the whole weekend. The match was edited together well as they took some creative liberty on some spots to take advantage of the show being pretaped. Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens was good also, but would’ve been better if it was No DQ to begin with and didn’t have to restart it. KO got his Wrestlemania moment jumping off the giant Wrestlemania pirate flag sign and splashing through Rollins on a table for the win.
Braun Strowman got his first heavyweight title with a win against Goldberg. I’m sort of getting tired of the spamming your finish match and it especially didn’t work in an empty arena. The Boneyard match was a great main event. The Undertaker and AJ Styles shot a movie action sequence in a graveyard that saw the return of the American Badass, with new Metallica entrance music (was Fred Durst too busy?). I don’t need to see Taker in a squared circle again, but this should become his new Wrestlemania tradition.
Night Two
The second night opened with Charlotte winning the NXT Women’s title over Rhea Ripley. The match was technically sound, but I don’t think a regular match should be going over 15 minutes in an empty arena. I still don’t understand why Aleister Black and Bobby Lashley got added to the main card except to just have 8 matches on each night. Otis finally got the girl after beating Dolph Ziggler. This has been one of the more entertaining storylines in the company and Mandy and Otis finally kissing would have gotten a huge pop.
I’m torn on the Last Man Standing match between Edge and Orton. It was the best match of night two, but it seems to drag on a little too much as they brawled all over the Performance Center. WWE has a crutch with these matches where you do a big spot and wait 9 seconds for the guy to get back up. After 36 minutes Edge won with some poetic justice hitting Orton with a con-chair-to. The Street Profits and Bayley retained their respective belts in pretty forgettable matches.
Forgettable is not a way I’d describe the Firefly Funhouse Match with John Cena and Bray Wyatt. Doing some research and watching it a second time, I understood the concept a little better and what they were trying to achieve. Check this out if you’re looking to see a more in depth explanation. This was a journey through John Cena's subconscious. The match is never really a match, instead scenes that tell the story of Cena's career. From his debut against Kurt Angle to Thuganomics, to Vince’s desire to make him another Hulk Hogan babyface. However, in this story when Cena beat Wyatt at Wrestlemania 30 he turned heel like when Hogan joined the NWO. That’s when The Fiend appears and wins with the mandible claw. When Cena cut his promo on Smackdown saying he’s putting an end to "the most overrated, overhyped superstar in WWE history", he was talking about himself and not Wyatt. I wouldn’t say this was “such good shit” like the Vince puppet but it was different and made you think.
The main event saw Drew McIntyre go over Brock in the usual Brock match. Having Paul Heyman at ringside adds so much to this style match and Brock’s selling is great when he’s putting someone over. I’m still not convinced McIntyre is the guy but it’ll be interesting to see some change in the main event picture.
WWE is taping another marathon session this weekend, starting with Friday’s Smackdown. It’s unknown if this will cover all TV leading to Money in the Bank on May 10th. The Raw after Wrestlemania was pretty weak, but I give them a pass since it was the last thing they taped several weeks ago. Hopefully the time off and the reaction to the more cinematic matches got Vince’s wheels turning and we get some good stuff in the coming weeks. It was also confirmed AEW has plenty of stuff in the can to keep churning out Dynamite through the end of May. It’s still unclear if they’re planning to have Double or Nothing continue as an empty arena PPV. In a world where all other sports are cancelled even bad pro wrestling is better than nothing.
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