Mania Weekend 2022

I signed up for Peacock to watch the Super Bowl and never bothered to cancel, so I suppose I'll check out at least some of Mania. Truth be told, Edge/AJ is the only match I have any real interest in. AJ might have slowed down a bit over the past few years, but he can still go when he wants to and I think he'll be motivated to deliver a classic against a guy who in WWE canon at least is regarded as an all-time legendary worker. Also, like everyone else, I'm excited for Cody's return mainly to see how badly they'll fuck him up. It's hard to imagine what WWE could do that would be worse than the Codyverse, but I'm sure they'll come up with something.

Far more interesting to me than any of the weekend's scheduled matches is the question of an ultimate Wrestlemania card. If I were to construct an ideal ten-match card using matches from previous Manias with one world title match, one secondary singles title match, one tag title match, and one women's title match and each wrestler only able to be used once (so you couldn't have, say, both Bret/Owen and Bret/Austin), it would look something like this:

Daniel Bryan vs. HHH (WM30)
Mickie James vs. Trish Stratus (WM22) (women's title)
TLC 2 (WM17) (tag titles)
Funks vs. Tito Santana/JYD (WM2)
Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat (WM3) (IC title)
Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin (WM13)
Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker (WM25)
Hulk Hogan vs. The Rock (WM18)
Big Show vs. Floyd Mayweather (WM24)
Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns (WM31) (world title)

A few of those matches aren't necessarily geared toward my personal tastes, but that's the kind of card that has something for everyone while feeling like a Mania-worthy spectacle. By the way, count me among those who now want to rewatch the Bret/HBK iron man match. That post by jamesap may be the greatest post in the history of wrestling message boards for accomplishing the seemingly impossible feat of having people interested in revisiting that match.

I'm not a big Cody guy but it's so obvious that Shane McMahon being the replacement because WWE can't get a deal done will be one of the biggest facepalm moments in wrestling.

If the Cody deal really fell through, here's what I'd do: Shane comes out to accept the challenge but is taken out by Veer Mahaan, who then proceeds to squash Seth like a bug. Veer's already become something of a meme, so their best shot at getting something out of him is probably to hope WWE fans meme him into stardom the way AEW fans did with HOOK.

At this point the only way Cody makes sense is if It’s the Raw after.

Unless a deal really did fall through, it really says just how creatively bankrupt WWE is in debuting Cody. They literally could have had him come out and do a face-off with Rollins a few weeks before the show. That gives you time to build up the match and hopefully sell more tickets/boost ratings.

I'm not sure i'll this Mania watch live. Only the women's matches interest me(I'm not an AJ guy).
I'll probably watch the ROH show and dive through some old matches.
On Sunday I'll be attending a local show that looks promising(My country has a very small wrestling scene so almost every attempt at establishing something semi-serious gets my attention).

First and foremost, for those who haven't seen it, check out Moxley vs Biff if you can get your hands on it. There is a version with the audio just slightly off on bilibili. That is going to be tough to beat for my match of the weekend.

As for mania, I am into for Brock v Reigns, the Austin/Steen segment, and the potential shock (expected as it might be) of seeing Cody on WWE TV. I am hopeful both women's matches deliver despite builds that did not draw me in and I have faith that Zayn does something fun with Knoxkville. For a two night card that is really damning with faint praise and I still feel like I am being optimistic. I'm in it for the banter. I have a buddy coming over Saturday for night one and we will mostly laugh and talk about good wrestling.

I'm genuinely pretty excited for ROH tonight. They recently announced Chavo would be in Bandido's corner though and that makes me fear politics driven shenanigans in the main. Still, there should be plenty to sink one's teeth into on that card.