Tuesday, 19 April 2016

Then, Now, Whatever Episode 3: WWE Wrestlemania 32


We're back again, with the culmination of our coverage of Wrestlemania season 2016: Wrestlemania itself.




General production notes: As I mentioned in my introduction, we had a bit of a technical boo boo and my laptop used its own mic to record the show, not my Blue Yeti. I'm still not quite sure what happened there. So yeah, apologies if the audio goes a bit wishy washy on occasion. I did everything I could in the edit to eliminate any noise between us talking. Thankfully it was still clear enough to make out what we were saying to each other. Even though Mania itself was disappointing, we still had loads of fun with the material it offered us.

Anyway, below are some little footnotes, visual aids and time stamps for coverage of specific matches which I hope you find useful.

Intro

 With my love of the intro music of Manias VI to VIII and my addiction to my Vince impression, I thought I'd pastiche the old style of Wrestlemania intros. I had to stand away from the mic to record that, I was loud enough to distort the audio on previous attempts!


WWF WRESTLEMANIA 7 by sportsvipwiner

PROGRESS Wrestling are an independent promotion here in Britain. They're London based but have been running shows in Manchester every couple of months as of this year. I've been to two of those shows now and both have been full of great wrestling. If you'd like a sample of what they're capable of, their Chapter 13 show is available for free on Youtube here.

Going back to what Kyle mentioned about the fans turning face on Triple H out of respect for coming back from his first quad tear, just check out his return to Raw in Madison Square Garden. One of the most phenomenal ovations I've ever seen. Jim Cornette can talk all he wants about Hunter being "the guy that was there with the guys that drew the money" but the fans were clearly desperate to see him return at this point.



US Title Match

 Just to give you an indication of how empty the stadium was when the match started


And here's the ref for the match

Look at the pythons on that zebra!

 10 Diva Tag

Notice Emma's gloves.


For the benefit of anyone who doesn't follow football, John Terry is the captain of Chelsea. When they were last in the Champions League Final, he was suspended. However, he still turned up for the presentation of the trophy, in his kit and everything, to claim it as club captain. This turned into a meme where people would photoshop Tezza into other trophy and awards ceremonies to claim the awards himself.

Usos vs Dudleyz

 Kelsey Grammer is of course most famous for playing Dr Frasier Krane in Cheers and Frasier.
"Legends who bankrupted Gawker (brother)" - just in case you've been living under a rock...

 IC Title Match

 This is going to go a bit "Oscars" looking at the parade of outfits here. So, we have...
Sin Cara in a banana thing
Ryder in a great overcoat

Sami in his "golfer lad" get up

Miz in his solar panel
First Trimester Question Time

 Normally I'd have put the promos we talked about here, but I spliced a couple of them (most of Austin's awesome Whataburger promo and the concluding back and forth between Jericho and Rock on Jericho's debut) into the actual episode to give you a break from the "Skype from 2010" quality of our recording. Kyle also alluded to DX invading WCW (but it got edited out for time) and Shawn superkicking everyone. Going back to the Whataburger promo, January 2002 was one of my favourite times for promos. Austin, Rock and Angle were all brilliant in this time period. Rocky especially, taking the piss out of Coach and cameramen.

 AJ vs Y2J

 I think this is a good shot for illustrating our confusion at Y2J's tights...



 "Stick it in Hermie!" - at some point in 2000 Rock thought Kevin Kelly was a hermaphrodite and started calling him Hermie. At one point he made him pick his own nose.



As he promised, Zack found Razor and grabbed a photo.





 New Day vs The League

 New Day's outfits were incredible (White Ranger and Dragonball Z inspired). I used the "Wild Pokemon Battle" music for the bed as I talked through their entrance.



Also, that sell of the Stunner by Rusev...




 Brock vs Dean

 I'll just leave this here...


Women's Title Match

 Here's Lita, overwhelmed by the weight of her microphone.


Great side by side comparison of Sasha and Eddie's gear here. I'm sure you'll know by now because commentary brought it up, but Eddie was Sasha's favourite wrestler and she was actually in the Cow Palace to see him win the title at No Way Out 2004.




"Would you like a schmoke and a pancake Shasha Banks?" - Austin Powers Goldmember reference, naturally. Harping back to my DVD reviews, I'd use him in the verdict because his I always wind up using his "That's a keeper!" line.

Sign Watch

 The opening bed was the theme tune to BBC show Crimewatch. "You can't sit with us!" as I mentioned is a line from Mean Girls (one of my favourite movies). Again, for non-sporting people, Bobby Zamora is a striker who plays football for Brighton & Hove Albion. Owen Coyle is a former manager of Bolton Wanderers. He was in the midst of getting Burnley promoted to the Premier League for the first time at the time of Wrestlemania 25.

 Hell in the Cell

 Linda at ringside!

"Shaaaane. Jump off the fucking ceeeeellllllll."
Incidentally, the next episode of Raw after recording, Shane was given control AGAIN, so I've really no idea what they're doing.

 Andre Memorial

 It was August 2009 they had Shaq guest host, it's so strange to think they've been waiting all this time to pay off his interaction with Show.



 I can't be the only one who thinks if you take the rosy cheeks of Bo Dallas...


...and add the saucer eyes of Edge...


...then you get Baron Corbin (or Barry Corbz for short - hi WEnxt Podcast)



"Rock vs Rowan"

 Just look at Cena's neck!!
Rock = beast, Cena = old man neck
And yes, The Wyatts genuinely were at the New York Stock Exchange to ring the opening bell.
The fastest match in Mania history before this was actually Chavo Guerrero vs Kane at 24. Bundy's match at Mania 1 had actually been bested several times since it happened (including by Bryan and Sheamus actually).

 Main Event

 "Unless they were saying boo-urns"

The Simpsons Season 6 "A Star Is Burns"
"He was flanked by loads of Ingobernables types" - the skulls and suits combo reminded me of New Japan's Los Ingobernables de Japon faction, headed up by recently crowned IWGP Champion Tetsuya Naito.

As far as Steph's outfit goes, I'll just leave this here...




Next Time

 As we mentioned at the end, our next episode will rewind things to 10 years ago, as we check out Wrestlemania 22. Clearly there are a lot of comparisons to be made with the main event of that show and this one, but maybe we'll find they have even more in common with each other.

So we'll be with you again very soon. But in the mean time you can keep in touch with us on Twitter and Facebook. We are now also on Stitcher, where you can find all our latest episodes as they are released, just as you can by subscribing to us on Soundcloud.

See you soon.




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