Arkansans Packed I-30 for Wrestlemania 38

Now that it's over, what are they going to remember from this bucket list experience?

Kent Smith | Apr 4, 2022

ARLINGTON, Texas — As a father who was gifted a bucket list opportunity from my wife to take my then 10-year-old daughter to the last Wrestlemania to take place in Dallas at AT&T Stadium in 2016, I know as well as most the thousands of Arkansans who made the 3-6 hour trek there are a limited amount of specific memories that stick with you.

For us, it was Zack Ryder's completely unexpected ladder match win, feeling the heat from the pyro for Undertaker's entrance no matter how high up we were, the concern that Shane McMahon had legitimately injured himself in front of his kids by jumping off the top of Hell In A Cell to the floor, and getting to see the only group my daughter cared about,

The New Day make their entrance out of a 20-foot box of Booty-O's cereal as if they were the old-school toy prize inside.

So when a new generation of fathers and children, good buddies, and possibly even a certain "Committee" down in Mena headed to the DFW Metroplex for their own bucket list moment at WrestleMania 38, what happened that will stick with them forever.

The obvious answer should have been the unification match between Universal Champion Roman Reigns and WWE Champion Brock Lesnar that the WWE kept bludgeoning over the head as the biggest match of all time.

However, after putting so much time into hyping the overall main event match that would cap the two-night epic event, WWE officials forgot to build, and in some cases even schedule until the last possible second, other matches ,while also blowing off the go-home Raw and Smackdown episodes (they literally cut the third hour of Raw and just ran a documentary).

Even still, with everything riding on this one match no imagination or thought went into it.

Anyone who has ever seen these two fight know what happened without watching it. Roman Reigns with a series of spears and Superman punches.

Then Lesnar with a series of suplexes possibly broken up with an F-5. Rinse, lather, repeat until you've covered your match time and then have Reigns's 13th or 14th spear be the one that slays The Beast.

Coincidentally, the newest episode of Young Rock bemoaned the trap of doing the exact same thing as the family and wrestlers struggled with having the exact same matches where they do the exact same thing each week.

Instead of learning from a sitcom harping on the mistakes of the early '80s, Vince McMahon allowed his fighters to fall into a disappointing trip 40 years in the making.

The one moment where they deviated from up the two moves of doom for each wrestler came when Lesnar briefly snapped in a kimura lock.

It was enough to make fans long for John Cena's famed "Five Moves of Doom" so they could get 250% more variety in their boring championship bouts where everyone knows who is going to win.

WWE champion Brock Lesnar takes Universal champion Roman Reigns to Suplex City at WrestleMania 38 with one of several belly-to-back suplexes that have become Lesnar's signature moves since introducing it in a squash match against John Cena many years ago. — Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Vince spent nearly a decade shoving Reigns down everyone's throat against the fans' will before Reigns finally figured out to be less what writers were putting on paper and be more himself to get over. Both WWE and Fox are too invested in Reigns to have him drop the belt.

Just imagine all the Fox money that would have quickly evaporated if they had made a different call.

But if the super fight was a retreaded pile of meh, what are fans who were there going to be talking about besides the high cost of parking around AT&T Stadium?

In the end, Becky Lynch and Bianca Belaire put on a solid match, Charlotte vs. Rhonda Rousey carried its weight for the most part, Stone Cold Steve Austin basically just showed up to shoot a two-part commercial for his line of beers that should have included firing McMahon for taking a stunner so poorly that Austin couldn't help but break character laughing, and "The American Nightmare" Cody Rhodes was there too.

However, for a Wrestlemania that had such poor long range planning, it was fitting that the three matches that sent fans home with permanent memories were three no one expected to be good, yet they managed to steal the show.

We will reveal them as we break down each match in its own story here on allhogs.com over the next 24 hours in an order not intended as rankings.

SHOW-STOPPER: SATURDAY NIGHT

SHOW-STOPPER #1: SUNDAY NIGHT (COMING SOON)

SHOW-STOPPER #2: SATURDAY NIGHT (COMING SOON)

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Published Apr 4, 2022

KENT SMITH

Kent Smith has been in the world of media and film for nearly 30 years. From Nolan Richardson's final seasons, former Razorback quarterback Clint Stoerner trying to throw to anyone and anything in the blazing heat of Cowboys training camp in Wichita Falls, the first high school and college games after 9/11, to Troy Aikman's retirement and Alex Rodriguez's signing of his quarter billion dollar contract, Smith has been there to report on some of the region's biggest moments.