Wrestlemania: Show Presentation Over Show Quality

[ABMorales787]

Wrestlemania 27 and 25 have something in common that have me believing it will be a recurring theme and problem for a good time in this event. Time constraints. They both had an advertised match fall from the card to become a dark match due to this. But why? What was it that cased that issue? It's a four hour show. Both shows had 9 scheduled matches but only showed 8. Meanwhile WM 24 had 9, WM had 11 and 21 had 8 with a large amount of promo's. Clearly 4 hours are enough. What's going on? See, as the decline of match time and even the number of matches itself (this year featured no MITB match leaving even more time free) there's a huge increase on the reliance of major entrances and such.

When HBK ziplined down to the ring so many years ago, it did not become a major feature to have wrestlers enter in more dramatic fashion than usual. However at Wrestlemania 22, the main event featured Triple H first appear on a throne in a warlord costume to one theme (King Of Kings) before changing to his second (The Game) and him walking down the aisle. This was immediately followed by John Cena. First airing a documentary on the days of Chicago's post-WWII gangs followed by an the entrance of men dressed in similar fashion with car and all. Finally Cena emerged with a gimmicked Tommy Gun. The following year had Donald Trump come out and drop money over Ford Field and John Cena drive a Ford Mustang to the building and even MVP coming with cheerleaders and out through a paper entrance like in other sports. 24 stepped it up too with Cena coming out in a football theme with a band included, the amount of pyro used through various entrances and such. 25 featured Kid Rock in a 10 minute mini-concert as the Divas entered for a battle Royal, Shawn Michaels and The Undertakers "Heaven and Hell" entrances, Triple H's (pre-taped) entrance through shattered glass, John Cena and his "Cenation" coming out to "Basic Thuganomics" before walking down. This is the point where matches are cut from the main card. The next year, Wrestlemania 26 proved something else. As far a fancy entrances go, Rey Mysterio was gonna come out with his old springboard entrance (which was botched) and John Cena came out to Marines with a gun-show presentation. Simply but, there wasn't much reliance on fancy entrances and more focus on the matches. As such, the card ran properly and featured a good amount of promo's, fixing all the issues present in the previous year. This year, however... Well, the main event was about as long with entrances as the match itself. Triple H's own entrance was pretty time consuming itself. Add to that the fact that yet again a title match is removed from the main card and the odd placement of the matches (the Royal Rumble winner and World Champion opening the show) and you know something's wrong. Too many matches? How?! WM 22 had 11. Not enough time? WM 22 was 4 hours long and had 11 matches!! What's going on?!

Simple. The presentation of the show is slowly overclouding the show's wrestling quality. And unfortunately it still draws. Grossing approximately 6.6 mil this year as well as allegedly breaking the attendance record set by WCW. While the glamor may be nice, in my eyes, the fan's suffer over the loss of match quality. As shown this year by fan's booing on occasion. However for there to be haters, there has to be lovers. So I ask, do you think this is a major issue, a small one or no issue? Agree or disagree? And why?

 

[Castanedaa99]

What's wrong is Vince being more about presentation than actual wrestling. He rather, we be "amazed" at entrances than in the actual wrestling. While I think some special entrances in the past have been pretty cool, it shouldn't become the norm as year's go by. I would rather see WMania cut back to 3 hours with 6 really good matches, than 4 hours of crap that can be put on Raw or SD.

I was deeply disappointed in the Sheamus/Bryan match being cut, and even the Corre match being down in time, just to make time for a backstage Snoop vignette, and longer entrances for HHH, Miz and Cena. But then again, that is the price the actual wrestling fans are paying.

I've always been a WWE fan since the late '80s, and most likely will continue to be. Hopefully, this next year sees a lot of great changes.

 

[ITALIAN NYC]

WrestleMania 27 pay-per-view featured 1 hour, 41 minutes and 6 seconds of in-ring action. The 2011 Elimination Chamber pay-per-view had just over 1 hour and 30 minutes of in-ring action.

Its amazing to be that a 4 hour show can have less then 2 hours of wrestling. IF they would have put the dark match and gave more time to some matches , the ppv would have been that much better. Vince doesnt even care about the wrestling anymore. Hes wants entertainment value. I also believe the place was micd extremely bad. Am I the only one who thought it wasnt micd well so we wouldnt hear more cena sucks chants or boos during the event?

Sometimes they need to cut back on how many fans they can fit in and just have a quality wrestling show. Im beginning to think the only time your going to see WM in a arena again is at MSG. Besides that, vince even stated he doesnt want it anymore. It seems he cares more about the 70,000 watching there, then the million watching at home. Vince is OBSESSED with making wrestlemania exactly like the superbowl , and he wants everything mainstream to pick it up, from newspapers to sports shows. I really think he believes if he takes out the wrestling, and wrestling name in the company, people will take them more seriously. I love the grand stage kind of aspect of mania, and i love all the effects he puts on, but id rather have it watered down with an amazing wrestling show. Perfect way they did it was with WM19 imo. Again though, with the big places, it comes off as if the crowd isnt into the show cuz of the sound.

I really hope we get some more wrestling time on the one. It takes away from the whole feel of it. Wrestlemania is the only PPV of the year that i expect to see some amazing quality wrestling matches, but were slowly starting to see that were not getting that. The snoop dogg type things are not needed. I mean there wasnt even any interviews with wrestlers back stage this year. Has that even happened before?

 

[LoudClearVoice]

I agree with all of you.

I think there needs to be a good balance. Special entrances, definitely for the main events but for everything else, they don't need to waste time.

Also, the backstage "comedy" or "nonsens" segments should be totally eliminated.

I have no problem with a quick backstage promo if it's related to a match later in the night or the match coming right up.

We can't forget though, that wrestlemania is all about showcasing all aspects of professional wrestling from the actual in ring technical wrestling to the promos, to the presentation and even some shock value.


I think recently Vince McMahon has started to turn Wrestlemania more into gimmicks rather than showcasing his product.

 

[Wickpeeka]

What pissed me off the most was the immensely pathetic "Saturday Night Live" beginning to the show. It wasted a good fifteen minutes.

Can someone also confirm that this is the FIRST Wrestlemania in years that they ran out of time to put on a "Wrestlemania highlights package" at the end of the show?

 

[Zigglerfan227]

While I enjoyed the show, it was disappointing. It seemed too short. There were not many matches, and some of them seemed really rushed (and they were). The Corre was devasted in a super short match. There was something strange about this Wrestlemania. They had 4 freaking hours and they failed to fit everything in correctly. I wanted to see Sheamus and Daniel Bryan! Plus, I wanted to see A good match between Cena and the Miz.

What did the WWE do wrong? Something obviously was wrong. I love having the huge entrances and pyro and all of the nice theatrics, but I also love the WRESTLING MATCHES!!! I want to see both the fancy entrances AND the Great matches!!!! Come on WWE!!! I understand that Vince wants to be an entertainment company, but that does not mean that he has to destroy the talent and the matches and the legacy of Wrestlemania!!!!

It is a rather large issue, not a small one.

 

[Wickpeeka]

All weekend we heard rumor after rumor of timing issues. It escalated to at least two an hour on Sunday. Even matches that weren't blatantly obviously shortened by the eye of the casual fan (Punk Vs Orton) had complaints coming from the wrestlers (at least Orton and Punk seemed to have his back on it).

There was a pair of squash matches that had longer entrance times than match times (or what seemed like it) with the 8-man tag match and the Snookimania match.

They ran a couple of things that lasted OVER 20 minutes combined that would have been criticized had they been on RAW let alone Wrestlemania (the opening Rock promo that to be brutally honest served absolutely zero purpose apart from putting Rock on screen) and the Snoop backstage garbage (although admittedly part of it made me laugh).

I had no problems with the videos for the Miz and Cena match but the Blake Griffin choir was annoying and took away from the damn video rather than adding to it.

Whoever said that Vince has been looking at the Superbowl and comparing it to the WWE is absolutely spot on. What Vince is forgetting, however, is that aside from the commercials, the pregame and halftime show (which admittedly combine for their share of time) the game itself has an amazing amount of substance to it. In fact, if it weren't for the actual game of football there would be no commercials, no pregame and halftime shows. Vince seems to be forgetting that.

Vince might be getting his 70k+ crowd attendances but at the cost of plummeting buy rates. The longer he's gotten away from putting the effort into the SUBSTANCE part of the show (the actual wrestling) the worse the WWE has become and the worse the ratings have been. I can't remember the last time we got an Angle Vs Benoit caliber type of match that the entire freaking crowd gave a standing ovation to. Yes, we've gotten Shawn/Trips Vs Taker and they've been special (although few and far between) but it's been less substance.

Give me more meat and potatoes. You can save the dessert, Vince. It's good for when I'm well nourished.

Yours truly,

Third World Wrestling Fan.

 

[ugotpwned999]

I agree vince cares way to much about the appearance of Wrestlemania. Its not just the 5 minute, uneeded entrances(of course there good every now and again for big main event matches)its also the boring, pathetic backstage segments, which ofcourse had to feature mainstream celebrities and go on for like 20 minutes.

Ofcourse we get used to the usual backstage confrontations but what was the point of the long drawn out Snoop Dogg talent show etc... You could have fit atleast a 20-30 minute long match instead of those stupid segments. But of course Vince would rather have segments instead of Decent wrestling.

To answer your question, Yes, vince cares alot more about the presentation of 'mania over the quality of matches.