It’s WrestleMania season, and that can mean only one thing: sources confirming concrete WrestleMania plans on Monday, then confirming that they’ve changed on Tuesday.
The latest version has Vince McMahon suddenly realizing that putting Roman Reigns into a singles match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in the main-event of WrestleMania two months after holding The Rock’s hand couldn’t get him cheered might be a bad idea and calling an audible. Via SEScoops:
According to Dave Meltzer, Vince McMahon recently changed his mind about the WrestleMania main event, with Daniel Bryan being added as the third person in 3-way match. The feeling after the Royal Rumble was that Vince McMahon would not want to do another triple threat match to headline their biggest show of the year, since they went that route last year. However, Vince McMahon heard the fan backlash to Roman Reigns loud and clear, held a meeting with top WWE officials and decided on Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns vs. Daniel Bryan.
Here’s where I’m at with it.
Social media and going public have turned WWE into a weird co-op. They can’t decide if they want to be autonomous or controlled by the whim of the people. They tell you that nothing matters more than the WWE Universe, then act upset or confrontational when people don’t like what they’re doing. They end up somewhere in-between, writing FAN SERVICE across a chalkboard in big letters with one hand and erasing it with the other. The Royal Rumble isn’t about wondering who’s gonna win a big battle royal anymore, it’s a stressful conversation about the direction of the company and who “deserves” it. It’s like a reward for our vague idea of what makes someone “good” or popular. Everything between the Rumble and Mania is trying to fix it in both directions, and by the time we get to the The Grand Daddy of Them All, it’s an awards show. We’ve put the controller on CPU and get mad when the wrestlers don’t do what we want them to do.
From a fan perspective, Daniel Bryan is great, and I absolutely think he deserves another shot at being on top. Do I think he needed to get tossed into a WrestleMania main-event as soon as he returned from injury? I’m not sure. Do I think we need to add a guy dorks like me like to the already planned WrestleMania main-event to stop crowd complaints? I don’t know. In my head, the better idea is to put the thought and effort into writing all the weekly shows before and after your pay-per-views so it doesn’t get to this point, and we don’t feel cheated or let down by the constant starting and stopping of stories and directions. The problem with the Roman push has never been Roman. It’s about the lack of effort on all sides, including (in some ways) ours.
If we have to land somewhere in the middle, I guess my official stance is, “good luck Daniel Bryan, and I hope you aren’t just there to take the pin and protect somebody’s ego.”
