Last night I decided to dip my toes back into the world of WWE after not being into it over the past few years. Mainly because of the WrestleMania 41 main event on Sunday, I gave Peacock my $8 a month and we were off. After watching the main event of last nights Wrestlemania 41, I realize I am not missing anything great and I should ask for a refund!
Growing up, I was a die-hard wrestling fan. I’m an old fart so I remember watching the WWF then the WWE and WCW and loved what I saw. From the late 80’s into the 90’s they had great characters and awesome storylines!
Who could forget during the 90’s the wars between the WWE and WCW on Monday nights?. I remember switching TV channels back and forth to see what was going on during both shows. It was awesome. Checking out who was joining the NWO from the WWE each week was must watch.
Yes, I stayed through the Attitude era, enjoyed the Steve Austin versus Mr McMahon feud. Kinda even enjoyed the Rock as well. But as time went on for me wrestling just was not the same. It was not a must-watch for me on Monday nights, and I became disinterested in Pay Per View Events.
That all changed with what I was hearing about this new feud between Cody Rhodes and the legend John Cena. I have watched Cena’s career mainly as a baby face. When I heard he was retiring and had become a heel for his last Wrestlemania match, how could I not tune in.
And tune in I did. Not for the first night, I only cared about night two. I sat down at 7pm and looked ahead to a great night of action and hopefully some surprises as well. The first few matches were really good, especially the women’s triple threat match. But I was only waiting for the finale to come along, so I stayed with it til the end. After over a 3-hour wait, the match I was looking to had arrived!
Cody Rhodes is very likable. His whole family is as well. From his dad, the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes, to his brother, Dustin, better known as Goldust, I have always liked them. Cody has been a great WWE champ for about a year, and most assumed he would stay on top.
Cena, was a 16-time world champ, tied with the legendary Rick Flair for the most titles in WWE history. A win against Rhodes would leave him standing alone on top. You knew it would be an intense match. Maybe not filled with authentic wrestling moves, but it would be fun to watch.
For most of the match, it was as if the two men went toe to toe. You just knew eventually something was going to happen to dictate the result. Would there be a surprise appearance by The Rock, who was instrumental in turning Cena heel in the first place? Nope, that did not occur, Ok well, someone else would surely interfere, maybe Flair would come out to stop Cena, maybe Golddust could show up out of nowhere and turn on his brother? Either of those would have been great. What we got, however, may have been the worst ending to a WrestleMania main event ever!
After battling for over 30 minutes entrance music began to play from the back. Of all people who walk out, but rapper Travis Scott. I know you are saying Travis Who? Has this two-bit rapper’s 15 minutes of fame ended yet? If you were me, as well as many other wrestling vets watching this take place, you would have thought it was some random fan in baggy pants who snuck out from the backstage. This guy is not someone who will one day be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so I am sorry, but this started to become a joke.
WWE in years past has had a lot of celebrities at their big event. Men like Mike Tyson come to mind. But Travis Scott, I mean, are we that desperate? Anyway, back to the match, so now this guy Scott starts walking down to the ring. When I say walking, I should have said crawling, as it took him like 5 minutes to get to the ring. Talk about a way to kill any kind of momentum the match may have had at that point. Everything just stopped, even the wrestlers just stopped as if they were having a time-out or a water break.
Scott walks to the ring with a man-made championship belt. He distracts Rhodes who could have kicked his ass, and wiped the ring mat with him. Instead, it led to a distraction, which eventually led to Cena taking charge. As Rhodes grabbed this stupid man-made belt and was gonna hit Cena with it, Cena begged for mercy. Rhodes gets caught off guard, not knowing what to do, but Cena knows. A swift kick to the family jewels, and it was all she wrote. Cena pins Rhodes for title number 17. Somewhere in the US, Flair must have been shouting WOOOOOOOOO loud, seeing how he lost co-leadership of the world title lead by this ending.
Why, oh why did we need some rap “star’ to be the main distraction in this match? WWE could have done so much better, and if you are on the social media sites today, you will see most fans agree. What a terrible end to an otherwise fun night of wrestling. Seeing the way the guy Scott ruined the match made me ill. I know he wrote a song for Wrestlemania, but who cares about that today? To be honest, it would have been a better ending if I had seen Doink the Clown interrupt the match.
However the only clowns on this night were the higher ups in WWE who wrote this lame storyline. The other clowns were people like me who got dragged back into watching with the hopes of seeing storylines like the old days. What we got, however, was such a farce, I may never go back to wrestling again. Peacock, I want my $8 back, please!
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