John Pollock & Wai Tingreview WWE WrestleMania 35 from the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
We discuss our live experience attending the longest show in WWE history featuring Becky Lynch defeating Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair in the first women’s WrestleMania main event, Kofi Kingston defeats Daniel Bryan in one of the best moments in WrestleMania history, Seth Rollins defeats Brock Lesnar in the show opener, and much more.
Plus, we discuss our reactions to this morning’s POST Wrestling Live in NY Q&A, problems getting to and leaving MetLife Stadium, and your feedback from the POST Wrestling Forum.
Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso patrons can watch a special behind-the-scenes video of this recording from our NYC hotel room. Watch the archived recording here.
This podcast is sponsored by Grappl, the new wrestling rating app available for free on Google Play and App Store.
WWE WrestleMania 35 Sunday, April 7th, 2019 MetLife Stadium East Rutherford, NJ
*WWE RAW Women’s Title / WWE SmackDown Women’s Title: Charlotte Flair (c) vs. Ronda Rousey (c) vs. Becky Lynch *WWE Title: Daniel Bryan (w/ Rowan) (c) vs. Kofi Kingston (w/ Big E & Xavier Woods) *WWE Universal Title : Brock Lesnar (w/ Paul Heyman) (c) vs. Seth Rollins *No Holds Barred: Batista vs. Triple H *Kurt Angle’s Retirement Match: Baron Corbin vs. Kurt Angle *Falls Count Anywhere: Shane McMahon vs. The Miz *Drew McIntyre vs. Roman Reigns *AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton *WWE SmackDown Tag Team Title: The Usos (Jey Uso & Jimmy Uso) (c) vs. Aleister Black & Ricochet vs. Rusev & Shinsuke Nakamura (w/ Lana) vs. The Bar (Cesaro & Sheamus) *WWE Women’s Tag Team Title: The Boss ‘N’ Hug Connection (Bayley & Sasha Banks) (c) vs. Beth Phoenix & Natalya vs. Nia Jax & Tamina vs. The IIconics (Billie Kay & Peyton Royce) *WWE United States Title: Samoa Joe (c) vs. Rey Mysterio
*WWE Intercontinental Title: Bobby Lashley (w/ Lio Rush) (c) vs. Finn Balor
They surprised me again this year, while the build up was really poor, mania was actually great.
Loved everything on the kickoff. It was pretty much everybody from the state of new york winning their match. The andre battle royal was entertaining also.
As for the main card, loved that they decided to give the three big feel good moments with seth, kofi and becky winning their respectitve matches. Love the surprise wins with the iiconics winning the tag belts and corbin beating angle(mostly because i know a lot of the hardcore fans are angry and will trash wwe for that decision) and the main event while long was pretty good.
Tonight they proved that they can deliver a really good mania without having taker in a match and that’s a good sign.
First off, thank you guys for all of your excellent coverage this weekend. You guys really killed it going to all of these shows and working around the clock to get us timely recap shows and daily diaries.
My thoughts on Wrestlemania: Wrestlemania was pretty good, but at about the point the McIntyre/Reigns match hit serious fatigue set in with me. I was no longer caring as much about match quality and was just mainly for matches to go 10-15 minutes so the card could end. This is not something a loyal fan should be rooting for, but I was wrestled out.
The match I enjoyed the most was Seth vs. Brock. I felt Seth really took a hell of a beating and garnered some good sympathy with a hot comeback.
The biggest disappointment for me was the women’s main event. It wasn’t even a bad match, but for all of the hype I would just call it slightly above average. I thought Ronda Rousey took a nasty looking bump on the floor early on that impressed me. Ronda was the star of that match and was bruised all over her legs. The finish came out of no where, and I hope this isn’t Becky’s Sting Starrcade '97 moment. Did Ronda really have to have her shoulders up? It made Becky’s win seem more like a fluke than an actual decisive victory she needed.
Great podcast @johnpollock & @wai0937. Thanks for staying up late to record. I’m really glad you talked about your experience as media. It sounds like it was a headache for everyone getting in but it’s interesting to hear how the setups have been different at each wrestlemania.
I thought it was a good show. And what gets forgotten about is that wrestlemania for the last five years have been good shows. Not many great matches, but lots of big moments. But because the shows are 7 hours long we don’t revisit them often and are seen in hindsight as much worse than they really were.
Specifically in regards to WM35, maybe the key to a seven hour show is to have lots of feel good moments throughout. Seth, Kofi, Becky, AJ, Ryder & Hawkins, Strowman, Balor all winning make up for the inexplicable Angle loss and did seem to keep the fans happy all night.
I liked the show overall but it had its expected low points. I was disappointed with the end to the main event. Having Becky win with a roll up pin was disappointing as a way to end Mania. I wish she had tapped Ronda, or maybe broke out a new finisher to pin her clean. With the roll up it I felt that an in character Ronda would have beat her down during her celebration. I know they wanted the Becky holding up the titles moment but a pissed off Ronda just leaving the ring was a let down. Have her attack Becky and Becky fight her off if you want that moment. I get putting the women last and I wanted it, but given the endings of both Matches the Kofi match would have felt better as an ending with his Kids and the New Day in the ring celebrating. The roll up makes Becky winning seem like a fluke, and not a proper ending. I would have preferred Becky raising the titles and the Ronda attacking her and the show ending with Ronda standing over Becky (assuming they are going with the disputed finish). I liked the Match but the finish was lacking.
Agree with some others. I understand why and how the women’s match got the main event spot. But if it hadn’t already been announced publicly and treated like such a huge deal, I think the right call as of Sunday would have been Kofi vs. Bryan as the main event. It was ultimately the match with the best build and it had the best “Wrestlemania moment” finish.
Then again, I don’t know that a Flair/Steamboat '89 match could get the crowd response it deserves at the end of a 7+ hour show.
I think women could have been fine if the ending was booked differently with either Becky truly Trimphant over Ronda, tapping her out or pinning her clean (knocked out, etc not rolled up), not with it looking like a fluke win with Ronda upset. Or if you go the fluke win have Ronda lose it and kill Becky in frustration. As it is it was disappointing.
When I woke up at 5:30am to check for the podcast and saw that it wasn’t uploaded, I knew you guys had a late night and a long chat after the show. Fantastic coverage this week!
According to Metzler the uncertain finish wasn’t planned. It was supposed to be a pin and Ronda just wriggled at the wrong time, probably not on purpose, and the zoomed in camera caught it.
Otherwise it was a solid main event that wasn’t flashy but the women honestly beat the shit out of each other. And most importantly that image of Becky holding up two titles will be immortal now. She will always be the woman who beat Charlotte and Ronda at wrestlemania. She’s in her rightful place at the top of the company. The only problem is that if Ronda is leaving she doesn’t have many good contenders to feud with and keep her hot.
It was more the roll up finish that bothered me than the “kick out”. It made it seem like a fluke win by Becky instead of a statement victory. Similar to when she won the beat the clock. Ronda looked dominant and tapped out Sarah Logan, and Becky best her time catching Liv Morgan with a roll up after getting beat up. It makes her look crafty I guess but not strong. You are right about the women in general, as it seems most have been defined down to build up this main event.
As for opponents I can see a few they could build up.
1.) Asuka - “I tapped you out at Royal Rumble.” She has been defined down a bit since then, but she has a claim for a match.
2.) Lacey Evans - not ready yet but her gimmick seems the perfect counter to the “Man” gimmick. Becky isn’t a real lady etc. Not a huge match, but it could work ok.
3.) Nia - face breaker, I don’t really want to watch this but the story is built in.
4.) Shayna Baisler - if she get called up she could be a great heel to face Becky, especially with the horse women (though they are not ready to be more than thugs for interference). Have her come out and hurt Becky, choke her out etc.
That is what I can see right now without things changing big time (Sasha/Bailey turning heel, long build up for one of the Riot squad or Mandy/Sonya)
Just finished watching the main card tonight after watching the pre show yesterday.
The show definitely peaked with Bryan v Kofi and never really got going againafter that. Basically if Wrestlemania had consisted of the Pre show and everything up to the Bryan v Kofi match and then immediately followed by the women’s main event and placed Roman v McIntyre after the women’s tag match. I would have been happy with that as a Wrestlemania.
The match order in the second half didn’t help either. First an injured Mysterio, followed by Reigns coming off leukemia, followed by two near 50 year old former wrestlers duke it out in slow motion for 25 minutes, followed by a sad past it Kurt Angle, followed by a nothing demon match, followed by a decent womens match which suffered from a few botched sports and a very tired crowd. I was exhausted and the second half of the show was a chore to get through and it seemed that way to the crowd. A lot of the second half of the show could have been cut down or cut out.
It was anti-climatic that a 7 1/2 hour show (or whatever it was) ending with a botched crucifix pin. It was a very flat ending.
The show is too long. Way too long. It hurts the performers, the matches and the crowd. Reigns and McIntyre had a pretty good match but the crowd were exhausted after basically having two world title changes in the first half of the show. How can a mid card grudge with minimal stakes have any hope of following that?