WrestleMania 38 Night Two Live Blog 4/3/22

ER: I tuned in just in time to listen to one of the most abysmally growl-vocaled takes on America, the Beautiful that mine ears have heard. I do not know if this singer is famous or a locally known Texan or what, but when she puckered up her lips on an Ooo-woo-woo I knew we were in this thing. 

HHH looks like a guy who got really into mountain biking over the pandemic and is attending his first wedding since getting into mountain biking. 

1. Randy Orton/Matt Riddle vs. Street Profits vs. Otis/Chad Gable

ER: Three way tag worked as triple threat match is always a weird format but I could see these teams kind of thriving within it? It becomes more of a Good Timing match and all six guys are good at timing matches. I liked everyone's bumps to the floor during the early ring clearing, and Ford's big dive over the ringpost looked great and was filmed perfectly. Otis looked so good working over Riddle. He's got his contouring facial hair and has gotten so good at maximizing impact on his offense. Alpha Academy are such a fun team. Otis takes a great ringpost bump to take him out of the match and Gable really took Riddle's jumping knee on the chin; Dawkins' back elbow didn't look great, but his timing was, so his execution didn't really matter as much. The Orton hot tag was fine but I really do not like Orton and Riddle as a tag team. They get a deserved good reaction, but I just do not like their work together. Dawkins tope con giro and crash landing after bouncing off Otis ruled, with Otis taking it like he was a boulder that Dawkins had just shoved down a hill. Some of the move chaining showed too many seams, and I'm mostly over people finding new ways to jump into Cutters, but this was exactly how the opener should have been worked. 

2. Omos vs. Bobby Lashley

ER: This is the Night Two match I'm most excited for, but I still can't fathom how they don't know how to film Omos during his entrance. You are in a stadium with 70,000 people. He is literally the biggest person in that sea of 70,000 people. You do NOT need to zoom in on him and film up from his dick. Any time they would cut away to him from a distance, he looked so huge on that ramp. Lashley is a great heavyweight bumper, meaning he's an ideal opponent for Omos. Omos has made the mistake of doing more running spots, which I think he should avoid. He doesn't look good running. The cross up on the missed shoulderblock in the corner wasn't because he is a bad runner, but it didn't help. There was a spot where they sent up a Lashley running block by having Omos run at him, and it looked absurd to see Omos run at Lashley from a standing stop. This match isn't working. I don't think it worked. Omos was getting a bit too close to Giant Gonzalez arm wave selling, and they made the snap suplex look way too easy. Sure the visual of Omos landing from a suplex is going to look cool regardless, but a slower float would have made the spot so much stronger. Now, I haven't actually seen any 2022 Omos other than his Rumble Match appearance, but this was his weakest match that I've seen. It's like how Ronda looked like a total rookie last night. This was the most "rookie" I have seen Omos look. His ring debut at WrestleMania not even one year ago made our MOTY list and he was a big reason why. This guy was not that guy. 

3. Sami Zayn vs. Johnny Knoxville

I love Knoxville and I love Sami starting this by kicking him in the face. The prospect of Dark Shark involvement had not crossed my mind and now that I know he's there I'm going to need more Dark Shark involvement. Knoxville takes a strong guardrail bump and leans directly into every single thing Zayn does. Johnny Knoxville has taken plenty of punishment to his dick and body, and he clearly has a Gypsy Joe style approach to flexing his neck and leaning into every trash can swung at his head. Smart move using Pontius as distraction to let Knoxville refresh his gas tank. Cole reveals to everyone that he has never seen one second of Jackass when he responds "What are you trying to tell us" in response to McAfee talking about how much he's seen Pontius's ass. Cole pretends to know who Wee Man is and does a weird shrill voice "Puppies" voice to show his excitement. Whatever, Wee Man leans into Zayn's Helluva kick like a Big Man. Nice progression on the prop spots, loved the build to Zayn getting slapped by the big hand and taking a fantastic bump through the mouse trap table. The gigantic mouse trap finish works about as well as the set up to the board game Mousetrap, but this was a win. Love these boys, and this was a feather cap Zayn performance. 

4. Sasha Banks/Naomi vs. Rhea Ripley/Liv Morgan vs. Shayna Baszler/Natalya vs. Carmella/Zelina Vega

ER: Are any of these women tag teams actual tag teams? It feels like 8 singles wrestlers separated into 4 tag teams, but none of them really feel like tag teams. Baszler/Natalya isn't a bad pairing but only in the hypothetical situation of Natalya working her style up to Baszler's, which doesn't feel wholly out of reach. Banks/Naomi pair well but this also feels like a real under-utilization of Banks. The chained offense sections aren't great and feel a bit slow, but Zelina's moonsault into Ripley on the floor will do just fine. This is being worked like a scramble and Officially Fucking Sucks. Natalya's rope running always telegraphs how every spot is going to go. She runs totally different when she's going to be interrupted. It's like how Hebner counts his 2 counts differently than his 3 counts. Sasha is somehow managing to stand out in a match where everything is rushed and everybody is everyone else's equal. The was fast paced but nothing but completely empty calories. A way to get most of the remaining important women on the show and making them all seem lesser in the process. 

5. AJ Styles vs. Edge

ER: AJ is my boy, arguably still the best guy in WWE, but they'll really have to win me over with this one. I've enjoyed comeback Edge more than I thought I would, but every man has his limits of Big Match Edge. Still, Edge vs. AJ has an Alternate Timeline Smackdown Six Only Old possibility and that's fun. AJ knows how to maximize spots which keeps the pace more deliberate, but it works because the payoffs land. AJ's sliding knee on the apron looked killer in replay, and AJ's 450 into Edge's knees was a classic Styles crash and burn. I always thought it would have been Danielson, but AJ is the 2001 guy who became closest to Bret. As I typed that last sentence, AJ took a sternum first bump into the turnbuckles, and that's eerie but not even what I meant. Styles knows how to execute to his opponent and knows how to take the same ingredients and make a bunch of different recipes with whatever's available. It's hard to picture him as a bad stylistic match for anyone. He takes a great chest bump into the corner and then takes an even better bump into the second buckle, sliding in chin and neck first at high speed. Like I said, the payoffs to each sequence has been great. It's tough to maintain that kind of steam, and they aren't totally sticking the landing as Edge's chest starts heaving, but it's staying good. Edge taking a superplex on the ring apron feels at least as risky as Austin taking a vertical suplex on the concrete last night. What makes 2022 Edge better than 2010 Edge is that he looks fried. Edge working as post-coma exhausted Jordan Peterson is more interesting than hair smoothing trademark offense babyface. I liked the finishing stretch and thought the late kickouts were well done. AJ looked like such an all time great here. He's been on a helluva sustained Man Older Than Me run. 

6. Sheamus/Ridge Holland vs. The New Day

ER: New Day sporting the Big E style singlets is such a sweet tribute. Good dudes. I liked everyone's kicks in this, liked the energy, but I was left wanting too much. The Trouble in Paradise fakeout ending was good, the Sheamus and Holland kicks looked good, but damn under 2 minutes at Mania almost always suuuuucks. Their brother had his neck broken man, give 'em a fucking match. The odds of Big E getting his halo shaken like Pitbull Gary Wolfe just increased. 

7. Pat McAfee vs. Austin Theory/Vince McMahon

ER: McAfee had a good match with Adam Cole so it's safe to say he's a super worker. Also, just when I think I haven't fallen that far out of the loop on WWE, I get confronted with completely left field things like Austin Theory being a McMahon pet project. Austin Theory is likely going to be the last guy Vince works a program with. Vince, sitting at ringside grinning at Theory like Emperor Palpatine, starring at his weirdest protege since Mr. Kennedy. I think McAfee has a very good grasp on what pro wrestling is and has a lot of great delivery on some complicated things. But on the other hand it is baffling that he hardly has any kick or kneelift offense. Have you seen McAfee's form on his punt? It's incredible. Picture that form doing a Mr. Wrestling II kneelift and you'd have a super soldier. It would be weird to see Mike Tyson do a match but just do a bunch of rope running and no punches. The McAfee superplex was outstanding, but I'm not going to lie: I marked out for black tank top Vince. 

Vince's facials during the build up were really great, knew good beats to hit while building up the Will He, Won't He. Head faking away from the ring but then turning back and revealing the black tank top was some incredible If Superman Was a Villain shit and 76 year old Tank Top Vince suddenly looks so much more vibrant than Business Suit Vince. Vince McMahon wrestles exactly like old man Rusher Kimura, throws lariats the same, moves the same. The Vince/McAfee stuff goes on long enough that it gets into a bit of that surreal Vince territory, where he does this long bit feigning punting a football into the crowd before booting into into McAfee. Honestly a 76 year old doing something that could immediately throw off their fleeting balance has some drama around it. I wouldn't bet on myself going 1 for 1 on a punt in front of 78,000 people, and Vince risking whiffing on a kick and/or falling on his ass was a risk I'm glad he did not take. Maybe he'd be able to recover from it. He somehow didn't kill himself from shame after tearing both quads on live PPV, one of the damndest things to ever happen to any athlete in an All Eyes on Me scenario. Maybe he can save face after breaking his hip missing a punt, but I'm glad he knew that. This was weird and unexpected and whatever it was I enjoyed it all. Old Vince has similarities to Old Andre as you get to see more of a bare bones look at their strengths, relying on different body language than they used to. 

8. Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns

ER: This is a match that we get too often at this point, but they've also created some real special pro wrestling against each other and you always have at least some possibility of that happening again. Circumstances are different and it's harder to keep reinventing the wheel. Brock moving at freight train speeds always looks great but this feels a bit beneath their average match. The major highlight is Brock's selling. Brock's full body selling is among the greatest in wrestling history, and he's excellent at occupying himself while getting into position for Roman's offense. Brock's selling drives this story and there's a cool/weird spot where he stumbles into the way of a spear that Roman lands into his kidneys, and it looked like Brock's kickout was more muscle memory than an active choice. Brock very believably got dismantled by Reigns, making each spear look like knocked the wind out of him, and the Brock flash kimura reversal was some peak purple face screaming Lesnar. I loved Reigns panicked mutterings about his shoulder being dislocated, but the ending still didn't feel quite as big as it should have. These guys have wrestled a lot of big matches, at least a half dozen, and this felt more towards the bottom. But I also thought it had several good Brock moments and always think his selling gives a match a high floor.