WrestleMania 37 Night Two 4/11/21

Pretty hard shoes to fill after last night's show, and this lineup does a lot less for me on paper. Still, I'm excited for Asuka/Ripley and a couple others, but there is always the huge Fiend landmine bobbing around...and these waters also have a Hulk Hogan pirate promo which sounds like him hosting a shitty regional children's show. The Hogan calls the crowd scalawags and they go into this kind of gross routine of Titus playfully scolding Hogan for using bad words and Hogan doing a "Don't make me walk the plank!" bad wittle boy routine. So this is starting terribly. 

Randy Orton vs. The Fiend

ER: Oh man they're leading with Fiend. Has Orton always had full skull sleeves? I think I might have liked that Fiend entrance if I knew it wasn't leading to a Fiend match. It's probably much better for the crowd to get iced out in the first match, because then they can always get their energy back. Putting this on towards the end risks killing everybody's reaction and everyone wrestling in silence. This whole thing was really bad, but it went mercifully quick at least? They walk around slowly for awhile, and Fiend is moving slow enough that I'm not sure if that's part of his character or if Wyatt has two wooden legs. He was walking weird up on his jack in the box and he just moves so damn slow in the ring. The rope hang DDTs don't look great, the crowd chanting Holy Shit at Alexa Bliss's headgear leaking oil made me laugh, and I was happy to have this out of the way. 

Tamina/Natalya vs. Shayna Baszler/Nia Jax

ER: I'm weirdly excited for this one. The Baszler/Jax team was a slow starter but they've finally been jelling as a team the last month or so. Tamina has more momentum than she's ever had with a great short hoss fight with Nia a couple days prior, and Tamina also finally has a proper wrestling look. They had a great interaction in the Royal Rumble too, let's see what they do on the grandest stage! The early Tamina/Nia exchanges were good, thought the headbutt battle looked good and the off balance striking was a nice look. This got really good when Baszler and Nia were cutting Natalya off from Tamina. Baszler looks like she breaks Natalya's jaw with a knee lift, and Natalya's selling was really strong during the control segment, yelling and actually garnering sympathy while Shayna worked over her knee in painful ways. But Tamina is a beat late on a save and then whiffs the hot tag, Natalya makes dumb faces while waiting too long to catch a Tamina crossbody, and the match drifts on a little too long. It built nicely and kind of overshot the mark, but I also like that they were treating the title shot like a big deal. Tamina is still a little rigid in spots, but the energy is there and she actually does feel fresh out of nowhere. It's amazing what a new look will do to someone. Nia did a great job feeding and selling for her, Shayna came off punishing, and the match overall was perfectly fine. 

Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens

ER: Zayn has been really entertaining in ring the last several months, but this is a pairing we've seen a lot now. Not sure what they're going to have to do to make this iteration of the match interesting. And this match really didn't work for me. It felt like a condensed version of them at PWG, nothing but corner suplexes, apron brainbuster, drivers, more suplexes, moves dropped onto knees, all 2006 indy offense and no heart. This felt so cold and mechanical, just some big spots with no juice. Sami throwing short body blow punches in the corner made me hopeful it was taking a little left turn into something different, but we came back pretty quick. Sami has been working like a deranged Buck Robley the last year, and this was he and Owens going back and sleepwalking their way through one of their old singles. Logan Paul involvement was a total nothing, dude looked bored out their the entire time (although, to be fair to Paul, sure). He takes a great stunner, so I guess that's something. 

Sheamus vs. Matt Riddle

ER: So Matt Riddle has become a pretty unbearable personality huh? Sheamus has been awesome since coming back last summer, and I think he's been the most consisted in ring guy of 2021. Riddle's stock has never been lower. But if they beat the hell out of each other it wouldn't take much for this to be really good. And they DO beat the hell out of each other, but I thought they went too far into Riddle just kicking out of everything. The match had a lot of stiff strikes and big spots, but it felt a little uninspired and perfunctory. I'm always going to flip for spots like Riddle flipping over the ropes into a KO knee lift, but after the close Riddle kickouts down the stretch you could hear the crowd not into it, not buying what they were going for. I appreciate them going for a couple of big top that spots, actually thought Riddle was going to hit some crazy Candido style top rope powerbomb, but it's a shame Sheamus slipped off the ropes for what was surely the match finishing top rope White Noise. If that top rope kneedrop was an improv, it's a cool thing to throw into a match. I'm glad Sheamus got the title off Riddle, the guy deserves to have some belt, and I kind of think Riddle needs a retooling and some time away. 

Apollo Crews vs. Big E

ER: I'm already not into the Saba Simba-ing of Crews, but I cannot believe they actually have an entire Fela Kuti percussion section's instruments at ringside. Like what are we doing here? There are at least 9 conga drums at ringside, and not a single one of them get used in any way during this Nigerian Drum Match. It's just cane shots everyone. The stip really weakened the usual strong Big E singles match layout, and it took Crews taking a couple of Jeff Hardy level bumps to really make this pick up. Crews takes a uranage from the apron to the ring steps and misses a great frog splash through a table. But this all felt more underwhelming than it should have felt, like a Smackdown match with a hastily thought out gimmick that's not as good as the match they had on Smackdown already. Babatunde's debut would have been way better if they leaned further into having him be Giant Idi Amin (since it appears they're just treating African as its one large nebulous country). Babatunde's jacket didn't fit and his gear came off more Marching Band Leader than Ruthless Dictator. Still excited for Big E/Babatunde. 

Rhea Ripley vs. Asuka

ER: This match has an uphill battle trying to find the right tone, as nobody is going to root against Asuka, but Ripley isn't exactly a heel and even gets her full entrance song performed live by a woman who sounded like she couldn't hear where the 1 and 3 were coming in. So the fans don't really know how to react to Ripley while they cheer Asuka. This didn't really feel like the big Rhea match they wanted it to. be, and it wasn't the match I wanted it to be either. It wasn't bad, but Rhea's personality came off a little lethargic, and maybe she was having a tough time being the default heel in a Defining Babyface Moment. Tough spot to make work. Asuka looked great, and I loved that Ripley kick she caught and turned into sick heel hook, but again it came off more like a cool babyface catching a heel, and that's not what the finish wanted. Ripley's bump off the apron the Asuka's DDT was awesome, looked dangerous, but I wasn't into the finish. I don't think the moment was there, and I think Ripley losing wouldn't have been bad. Her challenge build felt rushed anyway and it wouldn't be difficult to build her more effectively into a rematch.  This didn't feel like it built well enough to its result. 

Daniel Bryan vs. Edge vs. Roman Reigns

ER: Edge is a somewhat compelling work around to have in a match in 2021, a real test for Bryan and Reigns, a difficult component of wrestling Dogme 95. "Work Edge into your heated feud as a third" is tougher than an all location shooting obstruction. And sadly, this match ain't it. Last night was a real upbeat, brisk show with a high floor. Night Two has been dragging a lot more and it's not because of "too much wrestling". The match pacing is different on Night Two and really only the women's tag match felt like it was worked with the right vibe. And now, I think we have to start talking about how Maybe There is a Problem With the Main Event Big Dog. Reigns newer Head of the Table work is starting to seem outright boring, and I don't think any of his slow paced show closers have landed with me. He's a guy who has been wrestling mostly on PPV, meaning his wrestling these days can only be judged on these over long slow main events. I actually think Edge was holding up his end of whatever this was, as if I am going to sit through an Edge match in 2021 the least he can do is make the stupidest faces of his stupid faced career, and absolutely stick Bryan with the spear. Check. Daniel Bryan was expectedly the glue to this one, and he did a really good job at it. He was better at integrating Edge and Reigns into things, and his sequences were the matches' high points. But it's a Bryan match wasted on something like this, which wasn't memorable and felt a level below for everyone involved. And that's kind of the story of Night Two, is that almost everything on the show - outside of the women's tag maybe - felt a level below everyone involved. 

This was not an insultingly bad night of wrestling, but this was a kind of boring night of wrestling. I don't think it had to be this boring, and while I was expecting it to be not good, I wasn't expecting boring. This one fell flat with me, and only a good-not-great women's tag saved this from being mostly a snooze.