Soap operas for men, ballet for blokes, you can call professional wrestling many things. With a name like Wrestlemania XXX for the biggest event of the year, it will no doubt leave at least one viewer confused and feeling like he is not watching what he paid for.
However when it comes to sporting melodrama, pro wrestling’s biggest night of the year, WWE’s Wrestlemania, is a sporting spectacle you should be paying attention to.
Unlike any of the ball sports we so love in Australia you will never get an anti-climactic blowout, a penalty fest or bemoan the lack of character sportsmen show the crowd when it comes to April in the pro-wrestling world.
Instead in one night, this Monday for us, we will see all the best sporting twists, turns and tales rolled out for your pleasure: the ultimate underdog triumphing over authority and adversity, two legends colliding in a long-awaited, much-hyped battle, an icon of the sport looking to hand his mantle on to a new up and comer.
And all of it with only the slight dirty aftertaste of knowing it was all pre-planned.
So if you enjoy copious amounts of fireworks, enough baby oil to deep fry a bucket of chicken and a good old fashioned sporting cliche then join me as I strip myself of all sense of credibility and settle in as we review the matches that matter in The Roar’s only Wrestlemania 30 preview.
Batista v Randy Orton v Daniel Bryan/Triple H for the WWE Championship
Every Wrestlemania has ‘a moment’ which grows to symbolise and eternally link itself to that night.
For crowd favourite and all around good guy Daniel Bryan, these two matches are shaping up to be his Wrestlemania moment.
Despite not being your typical oiled up body-builder (a stereotype that fits all three of the men he will be facing), Bryan’s years of dedication honing his in-ring craft in the indie wrestling wilderness and his everyman attitude have helped him forge a bond with the crowd that has been impossible for the company brass to ignore.
At Wrestlemania he has a chance to break the mould of what a champion should look and fight like as he takes on three veterans of the company.
He must beat company head honcho Triple H in his first match to gain entry into the main event for the coveted WWE Championship.
If he can break that mould and hoist the belt high after two hard-fought battles, then expect the crowd to explode in a moment of pure catharsis.
If not, he is so popular right now you may be lucky enough to witness a rare time when the WWE loses control of its audience – either way it will be ‘a moment’ worth remembering.
Brock Lesnar v The Undertaker
The Wrestlemania season would simply not be complete without a match from the Undertaker, whose legendary winning streak at the industry’s night of nights reads 21-0.
Despite the fact his ‘Deadman’ character is as cooky as they come and he is now more or less an old aged pensioner who has to ride a scooter to the ring, the fans will always have a special place in their heart reserved for one of the absolute icons of the sport.
The only problem lately has been finding someone with equal gravitas to face him when his annual match rolls around.
Enter 2014’s lamb to the slaughter, Brock Lesnar, who many of you may remember from his days as UFC World Heavyweight Champion. Before he wrestled for real, Lesnar made his name in the WWE with a series of brutal matches against the ‘Taker.
Expect nothing less than both men to give their complete all, in safe knowledge they will be resting in ice baths and not be back on the road in the weeks and months after this match.
Andre The Giant Inaugural 30-Man Over The Top Battle Royal
Hosted by Hulk Hogan and featuring anyone else on the roster who didn’t make the rest of the show.
For those unschooled in wrestling folklore, Wrestlemania 3’s main event with Hulk Hogan beating Andre the Giant is widely regarded as a seminal moment in the sport’s history and the development of Wrestlemania as a must see event.
To celebrate Hogan’s return to the WWE, the company has thrown together this match to simultaneously honour one of it’s greatest pieces of theatre and give the rest of the guys on the roster something to do for the night.
As far as the actual match goes, with 30 men in the ring all at once, there will be a lot happening and it will most likely end up a bit of a shambles.
However it is still worth watching just to see the more athletic participants try to one up each others’ attempts at dangling over the ring ropes, even if the sensible strategy would be to simply lie as flat as possible on the canvas in the middle of the ring until everyone else falls out.
The Rest
Watch for the crazy character, Bray Wyatt, who is currently on a fast track to the big leagues and is sure to turn it on against John Cena, a man who occupies one of the absolute top positions in the company’s roster.
Also interesting should be The Shield, the three-man team that has ganged up to take down some of the biggest stars of the WWE but is now ready to implode on itself.
So like William of Rubruck, trying to bring Catholicism to the Mongolian Kahn in the 1200s, here I stand ready to be torn to spreads for preaching pro wrestling heresy on a ‘real sports’ site.
But before you slam me for writing about a ‘fake’ sport, take a moment to enjoy Wrestlemania as an annual celebration of cheesy, cliched, sporting goodness.
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