For the first time in several years, we not only saw a “real” WrestleMania—twice—but had a real WrestleMania week.
COVID-19 moved the 2020 WrestleMania into the company’s gym. In ’21, capacity restrictions at Raymond James Stadium limited WrestleMania to around 20,000 fans each night. And while there were other shows that week in Tampa, it was a far cry from prior years.
That includes more than WWE itself. Usually about three-quarters of the WrestleMania fans come from out of the home market. With the city filled with tens of thousands of wrestling fans on vacation, companies from all over the world congregate, as do independent promoters. You could see nearly any style of wrestling you wanted. You can see the outrageous gimmick matches, comedy-oriented shows, simulations of real fighting styles, Japanese strong style and lucha libre from Mexico.
By no means could this year rival pre-pandemic years in Orlando and New York. In the case of the former, there were more than 100 shows during the week. In the case of the latter, you had many of the top promotions from Japan, Europe and Mexico running shows.
You didn’t have the European groups this year, with that scene way down from its peak. You also only had one Japanese promotion, given how COVID-19 has ravaged the popularity of pro wrestling there. But you did get the top promotion from Japan (New Japan Pro Wrestling) and the top company in Mexico (AAA) this year. You also had the third, fourth and fifth biggest U.S. groups—Impact, Ring of Honor, and Game Changer Wrestling—with only All Elite Wrestling not represented, a business decision the company has made since its inception.
WWE drew approximately 65,000 fans and then claimed a number about 13,000 larger, for both nights, selling more tickets than any weekend in company history.
The shows featured actual unadvertised wrestling matches with Steve Austin for the first time in 19 years and Vince McMahon for the first time in 12. Because WrestleMania until 2019 had been one show, by doing two shows the company sold more wrestling tickets this past weekend than the last time in Dallas.
While they didn’t wrestle each other, Austin and McMahon was a nostalgic return to the period from mid-1998 until early 2001, the hottest era in WWF history. The two squared off one more time, and hopefully for the last time, with 57-year-old Austin giving 76-year-old McMahon what was supposed to be a stunner.
The stunner, had it been with any other two people, would have been a disaster because it was probably the worst one in history. But people understood McMahon’s age and were just happy with the idea they saw the two interact. Plus, just before, Austin Theory took a stunner bump for Austin. Moments later, WWE announcer and former NFL star Pat McAfee, who McMahon had pinned earlier, seemingly fulfilled a life's dream of taking a stunner from the biggest wrestling star when he was a kid watching the business during its cultural heyday.
The babyface and heel who highlighted the boom period were hardly the only major story. You had key debuts. Cody Rhodes, who until three months ago, was an executive vice president for All Elite Wrestling, couldn't come to terms on a new deal with owner Tony Khan, and left the company. It was obvious where he was going.
Seth Rollins vs. Rhodes was never advertised, only that Rollins would have a match against a mystery opponent. But it had been reported for weeks that Rollins vs. Rhodes was on the show. And it certainly seemed that most fans were expecting it. The big question was what would be the fan reaction to the Rhodes surprise.
The reality is that every surprise (or even non-surprise) debut of a name wrestler gets a huge reaction. AEW had loaded up its roster with ex-WWE talent, and everyone got a large reaction on Day 1, but the reaction in Week 12 is far more important.
Still, Rhodes was different. First, he was the first major name attached to AEW, and one of the faces of the company from day one. When his AEW music hit (the rights to which he, and not the company, owned, so there was no legal issue involved), and basically copied what had been his AEW entrance, the crowd erupted. He didn’t get the boos he was getting in AEW. He felt like umpteen times bigger of a star than when he left WWE six years ago. He had arguably the best match of either night with Rollins, who proved to be one of the company's best all-around performers.
This came 24 hours after something similar had happened with AEW, although not in AEW. Samoa Joe, who first made himself into a cult favorite in the early days of Ring of Honor more than 15 years ago, was the surprise Khan had teased days earlier before the revival of that group.
Khan’s purchase of ROH left him with a pay-per-view date already on the books for Friday night in Garland, Texas, about a half hour away from the hub of wrestling, in Dallas. It was an unreal night of competition. WWE had both its live SmackDown on Fox and its Hall of Fame ceremony on Peacock. AEW had its own Rampage show, taped two days earlier, airing on TNT. Impact, New Japan and Game Changer Wrestling all had shows at the same time in Dallas proper, and all were also on pay-per-view, splitting the audience in multiple directions. Still, Khan said that the early streaming pay-per-view numbers looked promising and were likely among the best ROH had ever done in its history.
Joe had been fired after WWE had decided to revamp its Tuesday night NXT show, eliminating both the television character and the scouting position Joe held. He showed up as a surprise, making a run-in at the end of Friday’s show.
This led to the announcement of his first appearance on AEW television Wednesday. Similarly, WWE for Raw on Monday, was building around Rhodes' first television appearance.
As far as bests of the week:
Best performer: “Speedball” Mike Bailey
Bailey, who is under contract to Impact Wrestling, wrestled nine matches in three days, doing a wide variety of styles. His opponents were future New Japan superstar Yuya Uemura, doing a more realistic style in Bloodsport; Bandido from Mexico, doing a PWG-style match quality showcase; gay cult favorite Effy; heel extraordinaire Jay White of New Japan; technical masters Davey Richards and Alex Shelley; the underrated tag team of JD Drake and Anthony Henry, and rising independent names Cole Radrick and Jordan Oliver. Having so many good matches, wrestling multiple styles, and having what is generally considered to be the best independent match of the week with Bandido make him the pick even if single match performances by Rollins and tag teams FTR and the Briscoe Brothers could all be considered.
Best performance by a non-wrestler: Pat McAfee
This was the province of WrestleMania, with McAfee, Logan Paul, McMahon, Johnny Knoxville and most of the crew from Jackass. Paul was very good in his debut, even if the attempt to turn him babyface backfired. He was better than a lot of people with years of experience and on the high end of WrestleMania celebrities as far as being in a match. But still, McAfee, for his third WWE match with Austin Theory takes this. However his second match of the night, with McMahon, was the worst of any on a major show.
Best show: WrestleMania Saturday night
While WrestleMania is the show that brings everyone to town, it is almost never the best actual show of the week. In recent years, it wasn't even the best WWE show, as the NXT Takeover shows were routinely better than WrestleMania, with higher quality matches and hotter crowds. And many of the stronger independent groups routinely put on matches that put WrestleMania matches to shame. But with Rhodes vs. Rollins and Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair, and the surprising Austin vs. Kevin Owens match, it had the wrestling and the atmosphere.
Best match: FTR vs. the Briscoe Brothers
While there were many qualifiers and arguments over which match belongs in second place, FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler) winning the ROH tag team titles from Jay and Mark Briscoe was a step above everything else. It was a first-time-ever meeting of two of the best tag teams in the last 20 years. They had a match that will be talked about heavily when people debate their match of the year ballots. Based on both team’s performance that night, one could make the strong case that they are two of the four best tag teams in the world right now, along with the Young Bucks and Penta and Rey Fenix. The Young Bucks made a surprise appearance on the ROH show, attacking the Briscoes after they had lost. The idea of a three-way program looks incredible on paper. Whether that’s possible is still a question given reports that Warner Media doesn’t want the Briscoes on AEW television due to homophobic remarks made by Jay in 2011 and ’13. While he apologized numerous times, including very shortly after the ’13 tweets, the comments eliminated their shot at WWE many years ago. AEW hadn’t touched them. They were used on the ROH show, a company just purchased by Khan. But that may have been a way to just get the ROH tag team titles away from them and build toward FTR vs. Young Bucks on AEW television on Wednesday.
