A Letter to the WWE: I’m Not Watching WrestleMania 32
Dear World Wrestling Entertainment,
Much like John Cena and Seth Rollins, I will be missing out on this year’s WrestleMania. More importantly, this will be the first time since I began watching wrestling in 2011 that I will miss WrestleMania. Now you may be thinking, why are you missing it? Will you be too busy with other things to get a chance to watch it? No. I will be choosing not to watch WrestleMania 32 this year, just as I have chosen to avoid any and all WWE programming since the 2016 Royal Rumble.
Now I realize that sounds like a very “smarky” thing to say. Oh he just didn’t like the fact that Triple H won and he’s a Reigns/Ambrose mark. You’re partially correct. There will be a video uploaded to The Suplah’s YouTube channel soon that will explain my reasoning for hating that Royal Rumble, but the reason I stopped watching WWE and cancelled my Network subscription that day is because I knew the “Road to WrestleMania” was going to be a poorly constructed mess filled with potholes, and from what I’ve been hearing, I made the right decision.
This year’s event has been built up like a 6-year-old’s sandcastle at the beach on a rainy day: it shouldn’t have happened to begin with, but Timmy insisted on making “the best sandcastle ever” and in the end he just made a goopy mess that, if you squint and turn your head, slightly resembles a sandcastle. At it’s base, you have matches like Shane McMahon vs The Undertaker, which will probably be really fun to watch, but you have to question why it’s there. In the middle of this wet sand pyramid, you have Kevin Owens defending his Intercontinental Championship in a multi-man ladder match, which isn’t going to be as well received as Shane McMahon and that should be considered criminal, but it’s WWE’s own fault for failing to put stock into the new talent. Then at the top of this pile, which is now starting to resemble the “big pile of shit” from Jurassic Park, you have what’s meant to be the icing on the cake, the garnish, and also the main course to this gourmet meal, but in reality its just a twig with a leaf on it that Timmy halfheartedly stuck into the sand: Roman Reigns vs Triple H (c) for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Listen up Timmy, you need to have a strong base to your sandcastle, but you also need to keep it fortified all the way up, otherwise some asshole kid is just gonna come along and kick it over…Oh hey New Japan, how’s it goin- AWWW!
Now of course I know that not everything about this year’s card will be terrible. In fact, I’m sure most of these matches will be pretty good, but it’s what they stand for and represent that kills me. At the end of 2015, we saw a part of Roman Reigns that we had never seen before, a side of him that crowds actually liked. After he won the World Title from Sheamus on the December 14th, 2015 episode of Monday Night Raw, the fans were actually supporting him. Crowds were cheering for Roman Reigns, the conquering hero who rose above the Authority and accomplished his goal! But then WWE did what WWE does best, they had the new hero defeat every challenge without breaking a sweat.
Sheamus? No problem. Vince as the special referee? Piece of cake. Literally the entire League of Nations? More like the League of Social Outcasts. And so on, and so forth. This is where the crowds became worried. They saw visions of green T-shirts and baseball caps. Their nightmares were filled with the sight of Roman Reigns waving his hand in front of his face saying “You can’t see me!” And so they rejected him again, more violently than ever before. To the point where Triple H won the title from him in the Royal Rumble match, and yet people will cheer for Mr. H over Reigns. Hunter will walk onto the ring on Raw, shit talk the entire audience, and they will still support him as long as he’s fighting Roman Reigns. This, ladies and gentlemen, is called a problem.
At this point in time, there’s nothing WWE could do to salvage the card. The event is this Sunday and everything is set in stone. The outcomes don’t matter to me, it’s all about the build-up, and what it means. Ambrose vs Lesnar will probably be awesome, but it’s the byproduct/leftovers of another failed Roman Reigns story. Shane vs Undertaker might be great, but it’s Vince McMahon sending a formerly-independent zombie slave to murder his son…what? Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn will put on a great show in that ladder match, but the rest of the match is comprised of “people who have nothing better to do on Sunday.” The New Day will be there, and that’s awesome, but so will the League of Nations, and that’s way less awesome. The only match I can’t complain about at all is the Diva’s Triple Threat between Charlotte, Sasha Banks, and Becky Lynch. You go, girls.
In summation, this year’s WrestleMania will probably be fine, but the clear lack of intelligent writing, the failure of character development, and the obvious lack of effort in a lot of places is what will prevent me from supporting WWE during this Road to WrestleMania. And with that being said, these are my final words to Vince McMahon and the WWE: I know you won’t miss me, but I’ll certainly miss you.
Sincerely,
A wrestling fan.
Follow The Suplah
