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Wall Banger/Professional Wrestling/Wrestlemania

Wrestlemania has generated many tropes, YMMV tropes and moments of awesome.

However, there have also been some disappointing WrestleMania moments:

  • Wrestlemania 2 was just as experimental as its predecessor, being simulcast in three cities: Los Angeles, CA; Uniondale, NY; and Rosemont, IL. Weak matches with sub-par workers (a few which lasted less than fifteen moves) and cheap finishes, combined with an overreliance on celebrity power and many viewers who didn't fully understand the product, led to an overall bland show. This overreliance on celebrity power even went into the main events, in which the main event of the New York portion was a boxing match between Roddy Piper and Mr. T, and the main event of the Chicago portion was a 20-man Battle Royale composed of 14 WWF superstars and six NFL players in which Andre the Giant last eliminated Bret Hart. And Susan St. James saying "Uh-oh..." to the point where it became a Verbal Tic for her.
    • On the bright side however, the two best matches on that card were the British Bulldogs vs. the Dream Team for the Tag-Team Titles, and the Funk Brothers taking on Tito Santana and the Junkyard Dog.
    • In another idiotic move, the show aired on a Monday night and the Pay-Per-View buyrate suffered for it.
  • WrestleMania 9 is widely considered one of the most disappointing WrestleManias in the event's history; in addition to an underwhelming undercard (which included a stinker of a match in which The Undertaker defeated Giant Gonzales), the main event saw Bret Hart lose the WWF Championship to Yokozuna...who then lost the title just mere minutes later to a returning Hulk Hogan.
    • That Undertaker vs. Gonzales match? Undertaker won by disqualification, because Gonzales (billed at 7-foot-9) used a chloroform soaked rag on the Undertaker (who was noticeably shorter than Gonzales). Granted, Gonzales had no ring ability whatsoever, but chloroform? Really?
    • Originally, Yokozuna was booked to win, the first heel to win the title at Wrestlemania, but Hogan contested that it would anger the fans, that a face HAD to win. However, instead of Bret just winning, Hogan convinced the brass that he should run in and squash Yokozuna at the end for the belt. Supposedly, he agreed to drop the belt back later to Bret in a "pass the torch" moment but Hogan reneged on the deal once he got what he wanted, infuriating everybody. Thus, Yokozuna squashed him at King of the Ring for the belt. Bret was particularly angry about the whole thing given he felt he, being the best wrestler in the company, deserved the belt more than Hogan who he felt was an overblown politician and didn't deserve the belt.
    • And don't get us started on that WWF played the whole Roman theme Up to Eleven, being that Wrestlemania 9 was at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas (this was also the first Wrestlemania to be held outdoors), and WWF made all the commentators and announcers wear Roman togas.
      • Granted, a lot of folks at the 'F seemed to enjoy doing something this out-there, but it still was incredibly silly.
  • Wrestlemania 11. Seriously, does anybody remember anything that happened at Wrestlemania 11?
    • Well, I remember Lawrence Taylor beating Bam Bam and then it blanks.
      • There was that Bret Hart vs Bob Backlund "I Quit" match that Bret referred to in his autobiography as his worst match ever.
        • Taker beat...someone King Kong Bundy.
    • Owen Hart won his first WWF title (the Tag Team Championship).
  • WrestleMania 15 featured what is considered the worst Hell in a Cell Match in WWE history, as The Undertaker defeated The Big Boss Man in a plodding, boring, forgettable match; after the deed was done, Undertaker had The Brood slip a noose down through the roof of the Cell so he could "hang" Boss Man after the match. The match was so bad that a DVD set dedicated to the Hell in a Cell Match didn't even mention it. (Clips from the match are still used in video packages detailing Undertaker's undefeated streak.) And to top it all off, Big Boss Man suddenly showed up on Raw the next night as if nothing happened, and the whole thing was never mentioned again. Undertaker's Ministry of Darkness attire and entrance was probably the best part of the whole thing.
    • Considering it was the third Hell in a Cell Match ever, the first two having become rather infamous, it had a lot of hype to live up to. It may not be the worst Hell in a Cell match ever anymore, now that WWE has dedicated an entire PPV to them and none of them were very memorable.
    • The boxing match (yes, at Wrestlemania) between Butterbean and Bart Gunn was easily the least entertaining and the most pointless match of the night, however. There was little build-up and it ended pretty quickly with Bart Gunn being knocked out. At least Roddy Piper and Mr. T were able to pull off a much better boxing match at Wrestlemania 2.
      • The difference was that the Piper/T match was worked, while Butterbean/Gunn wasn't. This is why real competition has no business on a wrestling show.
  • Wrestlemania X8 had one of the biggest matches of all time between The Rock and Hulk Hogan, which turned into a true Wrestlemania classic. Only one problem, it didn't go on last. Yeah, one of the biggest matches of all time and the headlining matchup of Wrestlemania didn't close the card. Instead it ended with Triple H vs Chris Jericho. Don't remember it? Hardly anyone does. The whole build-up was terrible, centering around a lame divorce storyline between HHH and Stephanie while Jericho, who was already booked as a fluke joke champion(despite being the first Undisputed champion), took a backseat along with the title. The "highlight" of the feud was Jericho running over HHH's dog.....accidentally. The match itself was terrible, with Jericho just working on HHH's quad and Stephanie interfering, with HHH overcoming the odds, pedigreeing Stephanie(which they played up as being HHH's primary goal along with winning the title) and beats Jericho to win the title, as everybody and their grandmother expected. The "excuse" for putting this crap on last over Rock vs Hogan? "The title match should always go on last". Even though non-title matches have closed over title matches numerous times, hell it even happened a few times at Wrestlemania itself. Not to mention the title was barely a factor in HHH vs Jericho, as it was more about HHH getting revenge on Stephanie and pedigreeing her, with the title being more of a "bonus". It was just an undercard "grudge match" that they threw the title in as an excuse to put it on last, which wasn't a good enough on anyway. The truth is because HHH was dating the boss's daughter in real life and used his pull to try and become the top Face of the company(despite Austin and Rock still being around) and have his WM moment at X8 no matter what. Thing is even IF they booked HHH vs Jericho the best way possible, it STILL is nowhere nearly as big as Rock vs Hogan and should just take it's deserved place in the undercard. HHH's attempts to steal the spotlight from Rock vs Hogan wound up backfiring big time, as Rock vs Hogan became a WM classic and everyone considers it the main event of Wrestlemania X8, while everyone has forgotten about HHH's "moment". Almost a decade later and it seems HHH still hasn't learned though, as he reportedly tried to get his father-in-law Vince McMahon to cancel Rock vs John Cena and has taken Spotlight-Stealing Squad Up to Eleven with the COO angle. We can only hope that Vince himself learned his lesson from this Epic Fail.
    • To add insult to injury, HHH immediately dropped the title to Hogan at just 35 days later at Backlash.
  • Kurt Angle's well-known neck problems were flaring up going into WrestleMania 19, and it was believed that his insistence on performing at the event anyway could lead to the end of his career. Ironically it was Angle's opponent that night - Brock Lesnar - who nearly broke his neck at the event. Attempting to give the fans a WrestleMania Moment, Brock attempted a Shooting Star Press (a diving backflip splash off the top rope), a dangerous maneuver that he hadn't performed since his time in WWE's feeder league OVW. Brock did not complete the rotation and landed squarely on his head, but luckily ended up with only a mild concussion (and later became known as the Shooting Star Neck Breaker, Shooting Star Self-Piledriver, or Shooting Brock Press). Angle quickly led the dazed Lesnar into an improvised finish to the match.
    • Actually, Brock had placed Angle too far from the corner, and though he did in fact rotate perfectly for the press, Angle's distance resulted in Brock almost breaking his own neck ON ANGLE.
    • It's a shame, because if it weren't for that, Angle vs. Lesnar would have been a five star match. Their Iron Man Match on Smackdown almost made up for it, but people will never forget that Brock Lesnar almost broke his neck that day.
  • Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg at WrestleMania 20; what should have been a dream matchup between WCW's legendary powerhouse and WWE's "Next Big Thing" was ruined by Lesnar's surprise decision to quit WWE to try out for the NFL. The smark-filled audience at Madison Square Garden jeered and heckled Lesnar, yelling "You sold out!" at him, while he and Goldberg (who was leaving WWE due to his contract being up) put on one of the worst WrestleMania matches ever (Goldberg seemed to think the whole thing was a joke). The only cheering was for Stone Cold Steve Austin, the guest referee of the match, who delivered a Stunner to both Lesnar and Goldberg after the match.
    • It was also the first Smackdown! vs. Raw! crossover match since the two brands split - it had been built for about 3 months and featured two of the biggest stars in the business with an even bigger one refereeing. It had everything going for it....and it sucked monkey balls.
  • WrestleMania 25 should have had the defining moment of the Colon Brothers, Carlito and Primo, who defeated John Morrison and The Miz to become the first Unified Tag Team Champions. However, their victory was relegated to taking place before the actual card, to make room for a musical performance by Kid Rock (worse, the concert was taken out of the DVD release of the event).
    • And the following Divas' battle royal had several older past divas returning such as Sunny, Molly Holly, Torrie Wilson and Victoria, but instead the divas had no entrances for that match and came out dancing to Kid Rock. So no introductions for the past divas and on the DVD with the concert edited out, they're just already in the ring. And the division was completely undermined by giving the win to Santino Marella in drag.
    • And of course, there was the IMMENSELY underwhelming performance in the main event between Randy Orton and Triple H.
      • It wasn't all their fault. The fans wanted to see them murder each other with nothing holding them back, but the count-out and disqualification stipulations ruined it.
        • And the crowd was absolutely drained after Undertaker/Michaels.
  • WrestleMania 26 featured Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon in a "No Holds Barred" Match. A decade ago, this might have actually been an interesting confrontation; in 2010, with Vince in his 60s and Bret in no shape to actually wrestle (thanks to the combined effects of his career-ending concussion and a stroke he suffered a few years later), this was destined to be little more than Bret vs. Vince with a ton of outside interference thrown in for good measure. What we got in the end was Bret and the Hart family giving Vince an over-ten-minute beatdown; Bret teased the Sharpshooter several times, let the Hart family give him a beatdown outside of the ring, and delivered 12 chairshots to a downed Vince (one for every year he was out of WWE following the Montreal Screwjob) before finally putting Vince in the Sharpshooter like everyone wanted. The match was widely panned by wrestling critics, especially for its length - it was believed that, had the "match" not been as long as it was, several other matches (like CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio, Jr.) could have gone on longer and had the chance to become true WrestleMania classics.
    • Another handicap in the match was the new PG rating. Just about all of Vince's entertaining matches are just because he's willing to let the other guy do anything to him. Without the option to all but murder Vince, it's infinitely harder for him to pull off an entertaining fight.
    • The divas match was only slightly less of a trainwreck than the Bret/Vince match. It was a 10 diva tag with Vickie Guerrero (a non wrestler) on the heel team. The match amounted to the faces slapping Vickie around, a big rush of finishers and Vickie trying to do a Frog Splash on Kelly Kelly. Even worse was when Vickie went to pin her, she lifted her shoulders right off the match so she had to splash her and pin her again. There were several divas that could have wrestled a somewhat decent match if Bret/Vince had been shorter and Vickie hadn't been involved at all.
  • Wrestlamania 27 was extremely lackluster, with many last minute changes, including scrapping the Daniel Bryan vs Sheamus match so they could give The Rock a 20 minute promo (it also reduced the length of the other matches). A large amount of time was spent making skits; people joked that someone accidentally switched Wrestlemania's script for the next Raw script.
    • The Big Show, Kane, Santino Marella, and Kofi Kingston vs The Corre was a squash match won by the faces even though the Corre had the Intercontinental Champion and the Tag Team champion. Like turning the U.S Champion match into a dark match that ended in a no contest, this kept the night's theme that actually owning a title was completely meaningless.
      • This feud with The Big Show The Corre was having was the second largest feud of Smackdown going into the event. Which just makes this even more moronic.
    • Jerry Lawler vs Michael Cole. It's a match that really writes itself: Jerry Lawler beats the shit out of Michael Cole, Jack Swagger intervenes, Cole gives the Ankle Lock, Lawler powers out, Swagger gets beat, and Lawler continues for the win. Which is more or less what they did. However, WWE decided for some reason to make Cole look like he actually had a shot at the beginning, with Swagger getting a cheap shot in and Cole beating on Lawler for close to ten minutes. To say that the crowd did not enjoy this would be an understatement. The end of the match then had the RAW GM retroactively disqualify Lawler because Guest Referee Stone Cold Steve Austin got involved in the match.
      • What made this really stupid is that Austin's "involvement" consisted of pushing Cole after Cole pushed him first. Furthermore, Jack Swagger managed to actually intervene in the match, slapping an ankle lock on Lawler early in the match. So, if anyone deserved to be disqualified, it was Cole. So, the GM chimed in basically just to crap in the audience's punchbowl whether it made sense or not.
      • BookerT and Josh Mathews got Stunners without doing anything - likely just an excuse to get J.R. and King back together on commentary for the rest of the show.
      • An extreme What the Hell, Hero? moment, as two supposed babyface wrestlers beat up a defenseless impartial commentator, even if Mathews was in Tough Enough.
    • The Mixed Tag Match between Lay Cool and Dolph Ziggler vs. Trish Stratus, John Morrison and Snooki may as well have been Trish in a handicap match for all that her partners and Ziggler did.
      • The saving grace was that Snooki actually managed to hit a somewhat tricky move, making her celebrity match participation far less terrible than ones of the past. Still doesn't excuse Ziggler and Morrison being underused though.
      • That's all Morrison to blame. He repeatedly snubbed Trish's ideas in the weeks leading to the event.
    • The Main Event between Miz and John Cena was a slow, boring match that lead to a double countout. Cena was off his game and The Miz was much worse than usual, even by his standards. The Rock came out and ordered the match to continue, but it ended again about 5 seconds later with The Rock hitting the Rock Bottom on Cena and Miz retaining. The Rock then gave Miz the people's Elbow so the night ended with a semi-retired wrestler standing over Cena, WWE's currently most popular wrestler, and The Miz, the WWE Champion. Truly awful.
      • The main event for WrestleMania 27 served as nothing more than a Sequel Hook for the main event for WrestleMania 28: Rock vs. Cena.
    • It also spit on the face of the youth movement that WWE's going through, because the only new guy that actually looked strong was Cody Rhodes over Rey Mysterio, Jr.. Everyone else, CM Punk, Alberto Del Rio, The Corre, and The Miz, even though he won his match, were made to look like complete and utter tools. This was the first Wrestlemania whose Main Event didn't feature any wrestler from the Attitude era or before, so it doesn't give much hope for the future (specially because, like it was stated above, an Attitude Era wrestler was the last man standing in the end).
    • Even when not taking the match quality into account, the booking itself was just plain weird and WTF inducing, the prime example being the WHC Title Match as the match to start the show. Even if the matches delivered, if it was put in the same order it would have still been fairly awkward.
    • Undertaker vs HHH was fairly good but the build up was moronic. They threw out Undertaker avenging himself for being buried alive by Kane and the Nexus, pretended that HHH and 'Taker had never wrestled before, and 'Taker said he had "beaten 19 men" at Wrestlemania, when he had faced Kane and ShawnMichaels twice.
      • He had been counting the streak like that for a couple of years ('Taker even says "18 men have come...." on the promo for his match on the last one).
    • The worst part of this Wrestlemania was that the WWE Heavyweight Championship match between Alberto Del Rio and Edge, was inexplicably the first on the card. Edge retired soon after, with his Wrestlemania main event bout wasted on a card opener.
      • Rumor has it that if the WWE had known about his injury, they would've made a bigger deal out of the match.
  • Wrestlemania 28 starts out with the WHC match between Daniel Bryan and Sheamus. A highly anticipated bout that lasted only 18 seconds. The disappointment in the fans were felt throughout the remainder of the event, with "YES!" and "Daniel Bryan" chants breaking out periodically during matches, and needless to say, the IWC made their wrath felt. This... wasn't a great way to start off what otherwise was an solid Wrestlemania.
    • But on the other hand, this one's put Bryan over and given rise to the "YES!" chants as a mainstream audience-participation phenomenon, as a combination of "What?!" (reacting to promos) and "Woo!" (reacting to moves, specifically the Bryan/Punk stiff kicks).
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