NXT being a combined 4.5 hours? This was cool. I don't know how well it would work financially as a fan when trying to attend a Mania week in person, but as a person watching at home, it felt much better than these Marathon Manias that have been going down over the last few years.

My love for Killer Kross is documented. I dig his whole thing and he's gonna be a hard person to beat. And he fits right into the hoss generation thing WWE has going.

Don't nobody say nuthin bad about WALTER. He's basically my Mrs. Jenkins. That mfer MOVES when the time comes and when he hits a move, IT FUCKING HITS. Love him. Yet another WWE hoss.

As for Mania:

Like we all keep saying, Night 1 was a party. I'll get wild and say Night 1 alone ranks at least in the top half of all Manias. Yeah, I'll stand with that..top 15 or so? Yeah..the shit was grand. Killer opener, one shaky cooldown match that might get some folks sent to back to the PC, and a killer women's main event with a new star getting made and an established star being cemented as someone who is big enough to make someone else. And Shane showed up to fall off of something and lose. And they got it all in under 4 hours even with a half-hour of delays and at least another half an hour of breaks and bs that allowed me to go grab a sandwich or a bathroom break.

To me, it seemed like someone in the back cussed a lot after the first hour of Night 2 and everyone after came out with pep all up in their steps. But there's no way around it: that first hour was HORRIBLE. 30 minutes of bullshit for that wet fart lame ass opener that basically no one could vouch for in Orton/Wyatt..that shit was bad enough that Bray might get shelved and I wouldn't care while Orton has to tiptoe back to Edge or a tag team maybe. And then, the tag match was fine enough, but it was supposed to be a cooldown match. But they got handed maybe the coldest crowd a 2nd match has gotten in the last decade since this was the format. Really really bad.

But then Sami and Owens came out and did a match that they'll be able to do together 20 years from now because they're so fucking excellent at rasslin. I hope they finally get a big shit moment one of these years so that they can throw out EVERYTHING they can do (Brainbustaaaaaaaaaahhh!) and make it clear to the few who still don't know that they are top shelf workers. We talk about stealing shows a lot. I'll say that Sami and Kevin SAVED this show and allowed the rest of the badass hossery we got for the last 2 hours to shine. Sheamus and Bro killed it. RR and Asuka did well. Big E and Crews validated their spots on the card (I hope Big E main events in the next few years).

And that mfin main event was a showdown for that azz. Another match that will probably age super well and rank really high on lists years from now. It was historically PHYSICAL. Reigns went through as much hell as you could without Taker/Kane around. He got some help from Uce Uno as expected. And he made it out of there with his belt after basically having to kill Bryan and Edge to do it. Everyone looked legendary and excellent. And bonus: anyone could've won and it would've been credible. We don't always get that in our main events. I'll take it. I also love that the 'older' guys played their roles to the max and then BOTH laid down like adults when the time came. We don't always get that either. I love it more and more every time I think about it.

Side: Jericho Interview

I watched the shit out of it Sunday afternoon. I'm a sucker for those types of interviews anyway so maybe I'm not the right one to ask but I liked it. It felt honest enough, Jericho didn't overly shill for any company, and I left it with an impression of how Jericho has seen the whole rasslin situation at several key times. He's openly high on himself and its easy to want to give him the business for that, but really...that SOB has had a helluva career and he's managed to be very good and important in a lot of ways for a really long time. He's fading now but its fine. He's still basically a miracle at his size. My money was on Eddie and Benoit being something like what Jericho ended up being. OOPS. Still, Y2J has made good and our wrestling worlds are better with him than without. He has managed his relationships well enough that he can show up anywhere. I like that better than the alternative: some salty dude who was great but basically can't show up anywhere ever because of burned bridges.