WWE’s Wrestlemania 32 ended with Roman Reigns defeating Triple H to become the WWE Champion to a chorus of ‘boos’. Oli Davis thinks The Undertaker vs Shane McMahon in Hell in a Cell should have ended the night, and has a few ideas on how to tweak its finish…
Well that was a weird Wrestlemania. The Rock set fire his own name, Tatanka somehow broke into the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, and Zack Ryder is the Intercontinental Champion.
The most strange thing, but not unexpected, though, was the crowd’s reaction to the main event. Roman Reigns beating Triple H to become the new WWE Champion was met with an overwhelming roar of boos. Send the fans home happy, used to be the mantra behind most Wrestlemanias. But here they left with a bitter taste in their mouths. Here’s how Wrestlemania 32 should have ended…
I’m usually in favour of WWE Title matches going on last, but nobody really wanted to see this match. Stephanie dressed up as a dominatrix – yes. That’s the real main event. But not so much Triple H and Reigns.
So you don’t put that on last. You end with Shane McMahon vs The Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell.
This feud had been built up in a very bizarre way, with the storyline and promos hinting at something completely different to what we got – The Undertaker beat Shane.
This was odd for two reasons. Number 1 is that this feud was really between Shane and Vince McMahon – a father/son struggle that had all the makings of an Oedipal epic. Taker was just Vince’s pawn, and he frequently seemed like he was going to rebel. Narratively, you’d expect this to be building towards some sort of Vince interference in the Wrestlemania match, and maybe a Taker face turn, siding with Shane. But we got none of that.
Secondly, control of Monday Night Raw was on the line. In Shane’s promos, he talked about how bad the show has become – losing ratings, mounting injuries, the Authority’s strangle hold. It was building towards a Shane victory, because if he didn’t win, the WWE were effectively saying ‘you know how rubbish Raw has been for the last six months, yeah, it’s gonna stay that way.’
The WWE had booked themselves into a bit of a corner by adding that if Taker lost, this would be his last Wrestlemania – meaning the crowd didn’t really want Shane or Taker to lose. So how do we get from this point to creating an amazing closing Wrestlemania moment.
Watch the video below to find out how Wrestlemania 32’s Undertaker vs Shane McMahon Hell in a Cell match should have ended…
