Your Burning WrestleMania Questions Answered

In this edition of The Wrestling Estate roundtable, we enter the WrestleMania lightning round answering age-old questions.

Do you prefer WrestleMania indoors or outdoors?

James Klonowski: Outdoors because it always has that special look that makes it feel different and unique to everything else on the WWE calendar.

John Corrigan: Indoors. More cities would get the chance to host and WrestleMania could return to The Garden.

Juan Bautista: I like to have a nice balance of both.

Chad Gelfand: Outdoors.

Steven Jackson: Outdoors.

Jack Goodwillie: Indoors. I’m nostalgic for it, and it’s just the more practical option.

A local Detroit news report on WrestleMania III….. I had never seen this before and it’s awesome!!pic.twitter.com/opP41aC2yX
— Richard Land (@maskedwrestlers) March 2, 2020

What do you believe was WrestleMania III’s attendance?

Klonowski: Close to 90,000. But seriously, who cares? The crowd looked huge, the event was an incredible success and the main event is still talked about all these years later.

Corrigan: 93,173, brother.

Bautista: The Silverdome was jammed packed, it’s just a matter of if you think 73,000 or 93,000 paid and how many got in with comped tickets.

Gelfand: 80,000.

Jackson: 75,000 fans. 93,000 seems too many.

Goodwillie: North of 80,000, but this will forever be one of wrestling’s greatest mysteries. There’s no wrong answer.

Would you have paid Mike Tyson to come in or fulfilled Bret Hart’s contract?

Klonowski: Paid to have Mike Tyson come in because he helped usher in the Attitude Era, which in turn helped WWE win the Monday Night War with WCW. Whereas Bret Hart, as good as he was between the ropes, just didn’t draw enough eyeballs to the product.

Corrigan: Tyson, but Bret Hart makes a great point about what WWE lost by having him gone. We missed out on him vs. Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Batista, and on and on. He could have helped train at least two generations of stars by now. And perhaps his influence on the creative team would have spared us much of the “entertainment” part of sports-entertainment.

Bautista: Bret Hart’s contract, but I would have tried both. Shawn Michaels is going be gone either way, so business would’ve got done with him out of the picture.

Gelfand: I love Bret Hart, but bringing in Tyson was huge for the company.

Jackson: Fulfilled Bret Hart’s contract.

Goodwillie: History says I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Happy accident.

What’s your favorite WrestleMania commentary team?

Klonowski: Jim Ross and Paul Heyman. J.R. and The King are obviously incredible, but there was such dynamism between Heyman and Ross that connected with the masses. The partnership was cut way too short, but they did get to announce the greatest WrestleMania of all time.

Corrigan: Gorilla Monsoon & Jesse Ventura. As much as I love Heyman & J.R. calling Mania X-7, Gino and “The Body” are a large part of why I’ve rewatched those early WrestleManias so often. Ventura is the greatest color commentator ever.

Bautista: Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan.

Gelfand: Paul Heyman & J.R.

Jackson: Paul Heyman & Jim Ross.

Goodwillie: J.R. and The King. Loved how JR’s voice would be completely shot by the end of the show. The raw emotion really shines through, pun intended.

TLC or Money in the Bank?

Klonowski: Money in the Bank. At least the wrestlers are competing for something instead of just a reckless TLC bout for a title no one cares about. It’s always fun to guess who’s going to win the briefcase, too.

Corrigan: I miss when Money in the Bank was part of WrestleMania. Like The Streak, it was another attraction for the show. When you take all those attractions away, you’re left with a generic pay-per-view like this year’s WrestleMania.

Bautista: Money in the Bank.

Gelfand: Money in the Bank.

Jackson: TLC.

Goodwillie: Money in the Bank, but certainly not as a substitute for Backlash in late-April.

WrestleMania: two nights or one night?

Klonowski: One night. Shrink the run time down to four hours while we’re at it because seven hours is simply far too long. Isn’t a weekly three-hour dose of Raw enough punishment?

Corrigan: One night, four hours, that’s good shit, pal!

Bautista: One Night Manias. Every match doesn’t have to be 30-40 minutes.

Gelfand: Two nights.

Jackson: One night. I hate shows over two days. No need for it.

Goodwillie: Ideally, one night. In 2021, two nights.

What was the worst celebrity appearance at WrestleMania?

Klonowski: Blimey, too many to count. There’s only ever been a handful that have been any good, but the worst? That’s a long list. If I had to choose, I’d opt for Snookie From WrestleMania XXVII. She had no business being in the ring.

Corrigan: Morton Downey, Jr. If there was ever a Roddy Piper WrestleMania segment that needed to be erased…

Gelfand: Kid Rock.

Jackson: Donald Trump. For many reasons.

Goodwillie: It’ll be Bad Bunny at WrestleMania 37.

If you could change the result of one match, would it be Booker T vs. Triple H or Sting vs. Triple H?

Klonowski: Booker T vs. Triple H, without question. I actually agree with the Sting outcome the way it played out. It made sense that Triple H was able to defeat a man almost 20 years his senior. Booker T definitely should’ve won the World Title at WrestleMania XIX. At the very least, he should’ve kicked out of that first Pedigree.

Corrigan: Sting vs. Triple H. There’s no reason Sting should have lost his WrestleMania debut. Triple H didn’t need to be “kept strong;” he’s bulletproof. As for Booker T, I had zero doubt he was losing.

Bautista: Booker T vs Triple H. Now that NBC is having WWE content edited, the match itself will be the only evidence that they even had a match because of how racist the angle got.

Gelfand: Booker T. It was the worst storyline in wrestling history.

Jackson: Booker T.

Goodwillie: Sting vs. Triple H. Booker T’s title win would have been vastly overshadowed by the most insane WrestleMania card ever, and there was absolutely no harm in giving Sting the rub on that particular night. They didn’t, because, “reasons.”

Ironman match at WrestleMania XII: classic or snoozefest?

Klonowski: Snoozefest. But that’s par for the course for all Ironman matches, with very few exceptions. Triple H vs. The Rock and Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle are the only two I can think of that were any good. Hart and Michaels stalled far too long for my liking.

Corrigan: Snoozefest. A full hour without anyone losing was a bad idea.

Bautista: For that time, it’s a classic because compared to today, the argument is the match had issues shifting gears.

Gelfand: Classic.

Jackson: Classic.

Goodwillie: Classic! Two of the five or six best wrestlers of all time for 60 minutes in the WrestleMania main event? Sign me up.

We all know who is Mr. WrestleMania, but who is Miss WrestleMania?

Klonowski: Charlotte Flair. She always delivers when called upon, her matches are always good to great and she brings with her that big fight feel that’s needed on the biggest stage.

Corrigan: Charlotte. She won the Women’s Title at WrestleMania 32, ended Asuka’s streak at WrestleMania 34, didn’t get pinned in the historic main event of WrestleMania 35 and had the best non-cinematic match of WrestleMania 36.

Bautista: Right now, it’s Charlotte.

Gelfand: Becky Lynch for now since she won the first women’s WrestleMania main event.

Jackson: Charlotte Flair. She might not have won every match, but she’s always delivered.

Goodwillie: Right now, you can probably make a case for Charlotte Flair. In three, four or five years, it won’t be a debate.

Should CM Punk have main evented a WrestleMania? If so, when?

Klonowski: Yes. WrestleMania 29 was the obvious one – he should’ve been inserted into the main event of John Cena vs. The Rock. Maybe if that had happened, Punk would never have left.

Corrigan: Take your pick. Could have replaced Miz against Cena at WrestleMania XXVII, could have been added to Rock-Cena at WrestleMania 29 or could have been figured into Batista vs. Orton someway at WrestleMania XXX since Daniel Bryan clearly wasn’t the plan in January.

Bautista: WrestleMania 29. Rock and Cena are in a separate, non-title program. Punk bites off more than he can chew and loses to The Undertaker.

Gelfand: 29. Triple Threat Match with The Rock and John Cena.

Jackson: CM Punk should have main evented WrestleMania XXX had he not left the company.

Goodwillie: WrestleMania 27. Yes, Punk was at his best during the Cena-Rock WrestleManias where, simply put, nobody else could have main-evented, but the Punk we had come to know and love had already shown himself at WrestleMania XXVII when he fought Randy Orton. That WrestleMania is historically panned for its main event (Cena-Miz), so if you fast-track the Summer of Punk by three months, you get the Money in the Bank match in the main event of WrestleMania, and that sounds like great business to me.