Rather than doing a full nerd review of a very long two day match card, we thought we would bring you a much more concise takeaway article from 10 of the WSBF crew. What was good, what was bad and most importantly - what was FUN.
1. SHAFI
I stopped watching weekly WWE shows years ago because I felt like I was constantly being punished for making the 'mistake' of being loyal to the product and having a longer attention span than the writers to whom continuity was a foreign concept. Watching the Firefly Fun House Match was the complete opposite.
For the first time in a long time I felt that I was rewarded for being a lifelong wrestling fan. I enjoyed and understood every reference, layer and nuance in a way that a newer fan who hadn't lived through those times couldn't. This match was booked for us and it was proof that WWE is not ignorant to what many of us older fans want, but rather that they actively choose to create a product that they know alienates us and drives us away in favour of a younger, more casual viewer.
This match was the wrestling equivalent of break up sex, it was great but the rest of the show reminded me why we are not supposed to be together anymore.
2. DANIEL
Firefly fun house, on paper, should never have worked but it did. What an absolute trip it was.
3. JCH
Moment of the night - my boy Gronk (and I will buy that jacket if it goes on sale) out Darbying, Darby and taking home gold. Winner.
4. PETE
The NXT women’s championship match was great and the only wrestling match that lived up to the wrestlemania calibre. The cinematic matches were awesome but WWE will run them into the ground quickly. We shouldn’t see another until Summerslam.
5. BRUM
I've always thought of wrestling as an art more than a sport, and the people at a wrestling show as just an audience.
And such, like The Nutcracker; Waiting For Godot; or Tosca, the people in the stalls are there to watch the performers, and applaud when required.
But I've been very, very, very wrong. Wrestling is more sport than art, and the people watching are not an audience, but rather fans; intrinsically linked to the spectacle as if they were watching football on a terrace, or baseball in the bleachers.
And without them, the tree falls in the woods and no one is there to pop, hence the tree doth not exist. This light on my idiocy, dormant for 35 years, shone from the shitty lighthouse that was WrestleMania 36. So, if I can thank it for anything, I can thank it for that.
6. DOM
Cesaro hit the UFO and then I got drunk for 48 hours.
7. MATT CONNOLLY
Charlotte might be the best bell to bell wrestler the company has. Nobody in that company can tell stories within the WWE style of things like her. For evidence just see how her and Rhea told a compelling story with nobody there. Grab a limb & tell a story. She's impeccable.
8. ROSS
My takeaway comes from match length. I was sad to see Edge and Orton fail to grab my attention for the full duration of the 36 minutes. It was boring in places. Despite this, the match hit many great beats and told a good story in parts.
On the other hand the two main title matches lasted a combined time of six minutes and left me even colder. Basically stored finisher video game matches which made me fail to care about the outcome.
It made me wonder, what is the perfect match length? Or does it not matter and as long as the story being told is good and the action is compelling, that is all that matters.
Perhaps so - but the Boneyard Match and the Firefly Fun match and the Charlotte v Rhea match were largely the three positives and succeeded at both. They had very similar 'match' lengths at around 20 minutes.
Maybe that is my sweet spot. The Aleister Black v Apollo Crews banger on RAW this Monday was 27 minutes apparently too. Maybe I'm onto something.
9. NINETIES MIKE
So there was nobody there. But did it matter? To me, yes. To the fairweather fan? Probably. To the wrestlers? Definitely.
Put yourself in the shoes of either Edge, on the precipice of the most improbable comeback after 9 long years away, or Drew McIntyre, potentially due to overthrow The Beast Incarnate and climb to the top of the mountain for the first time.
Would they rather do it in front of 80,000 rabid, screaming fans? Of course. And yet they, along with the vast majority of the roster, acted like nothing was different, as if this Mania was like every other.
Even if a few of the matches were not to your taste, can you really say anybody phoned it in? That any of the performers let the situation get to them? Not at all. You could arguably say that a couple of them put in the performances of a lifetime (Hello Rhea!)
Despite my original misgivings (that I still stand by), the WWE Superstars involved made the best of a bad situation by pretending it was just another day at the office.
10. ROB
My new favourite category of wrestler is empty arena specialists. The kind of smack talking son-of-a-gun that can chunter away relentlessly in an attempt to make up for 80,000 missing people. And as far as I know, there are two. Sami Zayn and Bayley, the low-key Wrestlemania 36 MVPs.
The pops weren't there. The atmosphere wasn't there. But thank god, the phrase "you better run you little dance machine" was. You can have your Boneyards, your Funhouses and your first British champs. I just want little dance machine.
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