Having Raw and SmackDown at the Performance Center is one thing, but WrestleMania 36 taking place there just didn’t work for me. WrestleMania is an event built on spectacle, and without the grand entrances, the fireworks, and a wild audience, it felt lifeless to me.
A number of the matches were good, but underwhelming given the real-world circumstances we are all experiencing at the moment, which witnessing an empty venue continually reminded me about. Then you add the fact the Goldberg vs. Strowman was one of the worst WrestleMania matches ever, and the show was ruined for me. Or so I thought because WWE had indeed saved the best for last with the Boneyard match main event of The Undertaker vs. AJ Styles. Not only did it save the show, but it became one of my favorite WrestleMania matches ever.
With the match taking place at an alternative location to the Performace Center automatically made it the best thing on the show. Still, WWE outdid themselves, giving us a real movie production, produced by Michael Hayes.
I found it to be one of the most entertaining matches of all time. It wasn’t perfect, I could have done without the jobber druids, and The Undertaker teleporting out of the grave. But everything else was great, especially AJ’s coffin entrance, The American Badass Metallica entrance, the chokeslam off the roof, the constant trash-talking, and the twist at the end where The Undertaker makes it seem he wouldn’t bury AJ but then giving him a big boot into the open grave, and finally the gravestone reveal. The match probably lives in a world where star ratings don’t apply, but personally, I see it as a five-star match. If you haven’t seen it, I strongly suggest you do. It was obviously heavily inspired by Matt Hardy’s Final Deletion but played seriously.
I can’t imagine The Undertaker will ever have a better match than this again, and given two of his recent outing against Goldberg and DX were duds, this match might be the right way for his career to go out, main eventing WrestleMania with a match of the year contender.
I now wait to see if the Firefly Funhouse match between The Fiend and John Cena can save night 2.
