“This Is Wrestling” Is A Dumb Chant, Plus I Finally Talk About Mania

It’s been a while, so let us talk some wrestling.

I’m watching NXT, and the crowd brought to mind something I’ve been meaning to mention. Can we please knock off the “this is wrestling” chants? It’s one of the stupidest chants I’ve ever heard. We all know what we’re watching. We don’t need you to tell us, audience. I sincerely doubt that anyone has ever wandered into a wrestling event or flipped to it on TV, heard “this is wrestling, clap clap clap clap clap” and said to himself “This is wrestling? Shit, I was looking for the hockey game!” Nobody else does this anywhere. Have you ever heard a this is movie chant break out in a cinema? Or a this is concert chant in a stadium? No, because everybody but wrestling fans seem to know where they are and what they’re doing. And before you give me the whole we’re just expressing our love for what we’re seeing and telling the powers that be that this is what we came for business, shut up. That’s what “this is awesome, clap clap clap clap clap” is for.

Also on the subject of NXT, boy is this show ever a reminder of why I avoid spoilers like the plague. They’re doing an episode based around the tournament to earn a spot in the Andre the Giant Battle Royal at Wrestlemania. There’s all sorts of great action going on right in front of my face, but here I am hardly paying attention because I know who wins and how he kinda got tossed out like a geek somewhere in the middle of the match. When I was younger spoilers didn’t bother me. Sometimes they even got me excited to see how something I heard about came off. But once WWE had no competition for a while that feeling came to a grinding halt and I’ve never gotten it back.

Alrighty, time for some Fact or Fiction.

1. The ending to WrestleMania 31 was the best way to book the finish.

Brock killing Roman to death and pinning him would have been fine, but Seth cashing in while the match was at it’s highest point was much better. It was something that had never been done before. I fully expected Reigns to win and then get cashed in upon, so this was a great surprise to end an entertaining night.

2. The WWE will book the secondary titles strongly as long as they are on Daniel Bryan and John Cena; but once they lose those titles, the booking will return to poor form.

Cena will be fine because he’s Cena, but history tells us that WWE doesn’t mind fucking with Bryan, so I have very little faith that the IC Title won’t be a worthless piece of shit again 2 or 3 weeks from now, possibly less.

3. After their performances at WrestleMania 31, you have no desire to see Sting or The Undertaker wrestle ever again.

Taker has definitely lost a lot of Mania appeal with me now that the streak is over, but let’s be honest, he’s still the Undertaker. As long as he wants to come back now and then and isn’t sad and embarrassing, I’ll watch. As for Sting, Mania simply cannot be his only wrestling appearance in WWE, because it was bullshit on toast. He says for months that he’s hear to take out the dastardly Triple H and his evil Authority, loses the match when evil man is evil, and then shows respect to him after the fact? The fuck, man? Garbage. Just garbage. That right there was almost enough to undo all the good that HHH has done with NXT and send me back to 2003 fuck this guy mode.

4. Monday’s Raw was the most enjoyable Raw they have put on in along time.

The Raw to which they are referring is the one the night after Wrestlemania that was full of wrestling matches, a crowd that was happy to be there and Brock Lesnar killing everything in sight, so duh. It’s not even close. Next question.

5. Sting’s WWE run has been a horribly booked mess.

It didn’t start out that way, but they sure fixed that in a hurry. See above.

6. WrestleMania 31 is one of the five best WrestleMania events of all time.

I’ve heard this show called everything from the best Mania ever to one of the best WWE shows of all time. Both of those statements, in my eyes, are crazy talk from people coming off the high of a night that way over delivered. Was it good? Definitely. Was it great? Possibly. It certainly had its moments. Any time you can watch essentially 6 straight hours of WWE and come away annoyed by only 1 or 2 things, it’s a job well done. But best ever? Top 5? I hesitate to call it either one without rewatching a few, then watching this one again once we see whether or not WWE has any sort of plans to follow it up. And other than the ending, what are we going to remember forever the way we remember Savage Steamboat, Hogan Andre, Hogan Savage, Hogan Warrior, Savage Warrior, Austin Rock and on and on and on? Again, it’s going to take time for history to sort those things out. Right now I’d be willing to put it in the top 10, but top 5 is pushing it.

And that’ll be that. I’ll be back later with something or other, possibly even another one of these. Pretty sure I have one sitting here somewhere. Everything is sitting here somewhere.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.