The History of WWE WrestleMania: IV

Continuing with Enuffa.com's History of WrestleMania, today I'll be covering the one edition that featured a championship tournament.  And it ended up kind of a bloated mess....

Trump Plaza - 3/27/88

'Mania IV was assembled with the intent of giving us the biggest edition to date, with the centerpiece being the first-ever WWF World Title tournament, the result of a controversial Hulk Hogan-Andre the Giant match on NBC that saw Hogan screwed out of the Championship only for Andre to turn around and sell the belt to Ted Dibiase.  WrestleMania IV featured a huge roster and was expanded to three-and-a-half hours to accommodate the sprawling 16-match card.

Unfortunately this show suffered from simply having too much going on, not to mention some absolutely terrible booking.  The tournament involved 14 men and all by itself necessitated 11 matches.  As a result almost none of the tourney matches, including the final, were given enough time to be very memorable.  The venue is also a far cry from the Silverdome, Trump Plaza being a rather cavernous arena where the crowd consisted largely of Donald Trump's business associates who showed almost no enthusiasm for the four-hour wrestling bonanza.

This was goofy fun

The undercard featured a battle royal (which was fun but of little importance except as a way to turn Bret Hart babyface after he was doublecrossed by Bad News Brown), Ultimate Warrior vs. Hercules in a clash of powerhouses (which was so short as to barely warrant a mention), a British Bulldogs/Koko vs. Islanders/Bobby Heenan six-man tag, nowhere near as good as the previous year's Bulldogs-Harts match, which ended in similar fashion with the non-wrestler pinning one of the Bulldogs.  Those poor Bulldogs....

There were also two title matches - I-C Champion The Honky Tonk Man faced the wildly popular Brutus Beefcake in a brief and forgettable DQ loss, while Strike Force and Demolition was one of the few strong matches on the card, ending with Ax murdering Rick Martel with Mr. Fuji's cane in a finish very similar to the WrestleMania I Tag Title match.  Thus began Demolition's record-breaking title run.

The WWF Title tournament itself was fine in theory but very poor in execution.  Only four of the 14 participants really had a chance of leaving 'Mania as the Champion, and two of them were eliminated in their first match.  The Hogan vs. Andre quarterfinal bout marked the first time a WrestleMania featured a rematch from the previous year.  Sadly where their 1987 encounter was extremely memorable and has achieved legendary status, its 1988 threequel was little more than a throwaway designed to get both men out of the tournament (via a clumsy-as-shit double disqualification after Hogan hit Andre with a chair, then Andre hit Hogan with the same chair).  Really the only standout match in this entire tourney was the first-round match between Ricky Steamboat and Greg Valentine.  Everything else was either too short (Bam Bam Bigelow vs. One Man Gang for example, which ended when OMG refused to let Bam Bam back into the ring and the referee inexplicably counted Bigelow out), inoffensive but instantly forgettable (Dibiase vs. Don Muraco), or yawn-inducing (Jake Roberts vs. Rick Rude, which took place after their feud-inciting angle involving Jake's wife was taped, but before it aired).

AEW Revolution 2026 Preview & Predictions

It's March and you know what that means!  It's time for AEW's first PPV of 2026, Revolution.  This here is a stacked AF lineup....

Revolution is almost always one of the best PPVs of the year, no doubt partly because there's a two-plus month gap in AEW's PPV schedule beforehand.  Thus there's plenty of time to build a strong show full of meaningful matches.  As much as I tend to love AEW's PPV events, I wouldn't necessarily be sad if they cut the schedule from nine a year to eight, just to spread the April-December schedule out a bit more.  

Anyway, Revolution has ten main card matches scheduled, plus apparently a Big Boom AJ appearance (Wikipedia lists it as a match with opponent TBA, but WON's website says "appearance"), though I can't remember it ever being mentioned on Dynamite.  There are also two big pre-show matches, both for championships.  This roster is massive, isn't it?

AEW's signed another slew of excellent talent over the last few months.  Andrade (who's doing the best work of his career thus far), Gabe Kidd, Clark Connors, Lena Kross, Tommaso Ciampa, and now David Finlay (who everyone expected to go to WWE, but WWE were gonna stick him in developmental, or as it's now known, Hard Cam Academy).  It's an embarrassment of riches to be sure, and it's always dangerous to sign more wrestlers than you have room for, but man is there a fuckton of great talent in AEW right now... 

I've got a bone to pick with Tony though.  Why THE FUCK did you have to put this show head-to-head with the Oscars??  Couldn't it have been the night before?  Or during the afternoon?  I get that it's in L.A. and would have to start at like noon, but goddammit.  Looks like I'll have to wait till Monday evening to watch this, which means a 24-hour media blackout a la Ted Mosby on How I Met Your Mother.

Anyway let's get to the predictions...

Zero Hour AEW National Championship Blackjack Battle Royal

So is this the same as a Casino Battle Royal?  Did they change the name?  I assume it's the same rules since it's 21 guys.  Thus far the only names announced are the champion Ricochet and Tommaso Ciampa, but Mark Briscoe's gotta be a lock for it since he and Ciampa are feuding.  And Jack Perry is still chasing Ricochet so he'll be in it too.  A title change in this type of match seems weird but I could see Jack finally getting it.

Pick: Jack Perry, if he's in the match.  If not, Ric retains.

Oscar Film Journal: Lion (2016)

Welcome to another entry in the vaunted Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  When I started this project five years ago I'd seen 214 Best Pic nominees, and since that time I've viewed an additional 150.  Pretty cool, huh?

We're headed back to the mid-teens for one of the less-talked about Best Picture nominees of 2016, one that I kept putting off for whatever reason, the Garth Davis-helmed biographical drama Lion, starring Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman.  Based on actual events, Lion is the tale of a boy named Saroo from a tiny village in India, who in 1986 got separated from his family when he fell asleep on an empty train one night, waking up hundreds of miles away in a different region of the country with an entirely different language.  After months of living on the streets he was brought to the police by a concerned citizen and placed in an overcrowded orphanage, and ultimately adopted by an Australian couple.  Twenty years later as an adult, Saroo is on his way to a promising career in the hotel business, but finds himself suddenly obsessed with reconnecting with the life he'd left behind.  The problem is he never learned his mother's full name, nor the correct name of his village, and the train stop he remembers is one of hundreds in the region.

98th Academy Awards Preview & Predictions

Well it's that time again.  Man, seems like we just did this, hard to believe the Oscars are already upon us again.  This is the eleventh time Mr. Drinan and I go head-to-head in predicting the ceremony.  Let's get to it!

Glad to see Conan O'Brien is back to host again, he did a great job last year, particularly in his opening musical number "I Won't Waste Time."  Cracked me up.  Conan is one of the kings of stupid humor and I'm totally here for it.  

There are some fine films on the docket to win some gold, a few of them pretty important ones given the current state of affairs in this dump.  The world, particularly America, needs movies that make a statement perhaps more than it ever has.  So it's good to see some of these films get the recognition they deserve.  Oh, and to everyone whining about the winners making political statements in their acceptance speech?  Waaaaah.  The only reason you're crying about this is because they aren't making statements you agree with, and you know it.  Art is quite often political and it has the power to change the world.  Either come along for the ride or don't, but don't bitch about it.

Sinners has made Oscar history with a staggering SIXTEEN nominations, breaking All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land's shared record of fourteen.  Quite an historic feat, particularly for a horror film.  The last horror movie the Academy took such notice of was The Exorcist.

I cannot thank the Academy enough for passing over Avatar: Fire and Ash so I don't have to watch it.  Jeezus H. Christ, those movies are fucking boring.

We also have a brand new category this year in Best Casting.  Good to see those folks finally acknowledged.  Years ago I had friends tell me I should've been a casting director when I predicted Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne and Edward Norton as Bruce Banner.  Apparently I have a gift for casting characters named Bruce.

Anyway, let's get to the picks..... 

Best Picture

Bugonia

F1

Frankenstein

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

The Secret Agent

Sentimental Value

Sinners

Train Dreams

Justin: I'm in pretty good shape going into this, having seen seven of the ten.  Hamnet is now on Peacock so I'm hoping to catch that before Sunday.  Marty Supreme will be on HBO Max but not until May it looks like, and I have no idea when The Secret Agent will be free to stream.  Anyway this looks to be another case of the Academy actually agreeing with me on what the best film of the year is, as all signs point to Paul Thomas Anderson's fourth (by my count) masterwork, One Battle After Another taking home the big one.  This film is fantastic and a much needed kick in the ass to our current status quo.  It's on HBO Max so go watch it if you haven't.

Pick: One Battle After Another

Mike: THE DRAMA STARTS EARLY FOLKS! One Battle After Another has certainly been the popular pick for this award ever since it was released, and for good reason. It’s a great film; dramatic yet hilarious, tense and ridiculous, emotional yet politically sharp. The movie has steamrolled all the pre-cursor award shows and is set up with one of the most historically impressive award winning resumes going into the Academy Awards. HOWEVER! Sinners possesses a small data point that makes this award intriguing. It won the SAG Ensemble award, ACE Award, and is probably going to win the WGA Original Screenplay. No film has had those three awards and lost the Best Picture category, with the lone exception being CODA. I loved both movies, but I felt as if I had seen films like One Battle After Another before. Sinners? I felt as if I had never seen that kind of movie before. It’s splitting hairs at this point but I have to follow my heart on this one.

Pick: Sinners

Oscar Film Journal: The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

And we're back with another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com!

Strap in for a trip to the 1940s, specifically the first year of that decade, for a look at John Ford's acclaimed adaptation of John Steinbeck's Pulitzer-winning novel, The Grapes of Wrath.  Starring Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell and John Carradine, TGOW is the story of a family of Oklahoma sharecroppers who lose their farm to mechanization and are forced to relocate to California to find work.  Like the novel, this film is rife with sociopolitical commentary and takes a staunch pro-worker stance, depicting as its antagonists uncaring landowners, brutal deputized police, and a system that chews up and spits out the little guy.  Some classics never age.

We begin the story with Tom Joad (Fonda), one of the family's adult sons, who's just been released from prison on parole after accidentally killing a man in a bar fight.  He hitchhikes home to find his farmhouse deserted, and a neighbor informs him the wealthy landowners have run everyone off their farms to make way for new, more efficient machinery.  Tom finds the rest of his family nearby at his uncle's house, but that house is also set to be bulldozed the next day.  The family loads up their dilapidated jalopy and heads west to California, having received a handbill advertising hundreds of available farming jobs.  Of course they soon learn that thousands of those handbills were distributed, and jobs in California are now just as scarce as in Oklahoma.  

The History of WWE WrestleMania: III

The one edition that's totally critic-proof....

Pontiac Silverdome - 3/29/87

Now we're talkin'.  WrestleMania III was, and possibly still is, the biggest wrestling supercard of all time.  Arguably no single wrestling match has carried the sheer magnitude or mainstream appeal of Hogan vs. Andre.  There's a consensus among wrestling fans who grew up with this show: When it comes to WrestleMania III, star ratings need not apply.

Let's be honest, Hogan vs. Andre is a terrible, terrible match from an in-ring standpoint.  Had that been Dan Spivey vs. Big John Studd performing the exact same match, it would've been booed like X-Pac and ranked high on the all-time DUD list.  But somehow the mediocre Hogan and the damn near immobile Andre captured the imagination of everyone on that night, and delivered the best and most memorable awful match in history which climaxed with The Bodyslam Heard 'Round the World.

On the other end of the workrate spectrum lay the #2 draw of the night, Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat.  What can I say that hasn't been said already?  It's an all-time classic; a near-perfect match that has stood the test of time and then some. 'Mania 3 is remembered just as much for this match as for Hogan-Andre, and it became the prototype for the WWF-style five-star match.  Sadly Steamboat's planned long-term Intercontinental Title run was derailed when he asked for a reduced schedule to focus on his newborn son, and this would be his last great WWF match.

Goddamn this match is 17 kinds of awesome.

The History of WWE WrestleMania: 2

For the first and only time, WrestleMania emanates from multiple venues....

Nassau Coliseum/Rosemont Horizon/L.A. Sports Arena - 4/7/86

'Mania 2 was possibly the strangest of them all.  It took place from three different locations on a Monday(!) night.  The multi-venue format was clearly in response to Jim Crockett's Starrcade '85 being broadcast from two venues a few months earlier.  Three is bigger than two I guess, so Vince opted for a live one-hour card from three different time zones.  Unfortunately this made for a rather uneven show, and worse, the commentary suffered as the A-crew was split up and paired with B-level commentators and/or celebrities who knew nothing about the product.

Each hour of the show featured a main event match, preceded by three undercard matches (some of which were oddly truncated to the point that their inclusion at all is rather baffling).

The Nassau portion of the show was easily the weakest, headlined by a worked boxing match between Piper and Mr. T.  There is little in the sports-entertainment business that is less exciting to me than pretend boxing.  It simply doesn't work, especially when neither participant is particularly good at it.  Neither of them looked like legitimate fighters and the match was little more than a barrage of pulled punches.  An actual wrestling match could have been much more entertaining.

Wow, this stunk...

The first third of the show was notable for the WrestleMania debuts of Randy Savage and Jake Roberts, neither of whom really got to show what they were capable of.  The opening match on this show was probably the most disappointing, as on paper Don Muraco vs. Paul Orndorff looks pretty good.  Sadly they were only given about 4 minutes and they went to a rushed double countout.  Savage's match was by default the best of the Nassau portion, but it was little more than a comedic spectacle as his opponent George "The Animal" Steele was so uncontrollable.

The History of WWE WrestleMania: I

Hello and welcome to this special Enuffa.com blog, The History of WrestleMania!  This series will discuss and dissect all 36 previous installments of the annual supercard and determine what I feel were the highlights and lowlights each year.

WrestleMania season is usually one of my favorite times of the year, and I always find myself reflecting back on the storied history of this great spectacle.  I think about some of my favorite 'Mania matches, what makes a great 'Mania card, and why some shows were so successful while others really don't deserve to fall under the WrestleMania banner.  For the record, I'm writing this piece completely from memory, which should give you some idea of how sad and twisted I am.

So without further prattling on, let's get to it.

Madison Square Garden - 3/31/85

This of course was the show that started it all.  The great McMahon gamble that paid off not in spades, but truckloads of money.  This was one of the first truly mainstream wrestling events on a national scale, and the hype allowed the WWF to break into the pop culture vernacular.

Surprisingly though, the inaugural 'Mania card more resembled a house show than a true supercard.  For one thing, having a tag team match as the main event rather than a WWF Title match seems like such an odd choice.  Hulk Hogan's ongoing feud with Roddy Piper was such a draw it seems like a singles match for the belt would be the natural main event.  However the WWF put that match on MTV that February as a way to hype 'Mania.  Clearly it worked, but it made for kind of a watered-down main event for the supercard.  Hogan/Mr. T vs. Piper/Orndorff was fine for what it was, but I hardly consider it a classic.

I always dug this poster for some reason.
These two guys together would beat Rocky Balboa's ass!

This match also began the trend of celebrities getting involved in big money matches as actual competitors.  It occurs to me that the match would've been greatly improved by swapping T out for Jimmy Snuka.  But I suppose seeing T wrestle was part of the draw.  Mr. T certainly looked like he could hang in the ring with the actual wrestlers but I've always felt that having celebs wrestle damages the business somewhat.  More on that later....

The show was also not very stacked for such a marquee event.  To be fair, the WWF's roster would expand considerably after this show (Savage and Jake would arrive, the Hart Foundation and the British Bulldogs would form).  Elsewhere on the card we had Andre the Giant vs. Big John Studd in a bodyslam challenge (again, this felt watered-down since it wasn't a traditional wrestling match but ended when one man bodyslammed the other) which aside from the spectacle was just two nearly immobile guys plodding through a short match.

The first 'Mania also inexplicably featured several glorified squashes.  Tito Santana vs. The Executioner opened the show and was roughly the kind of match you'd see on Wrestling Challenge.  King Kong Bundy vs. S.D. Jones and Ricky Steamboat vs. Matt Borne also fell into that category.  Hardly worthy of the biggest show of all-time (at that point anyway).

First match in WrestleMania history

Oscar Film Journal: Sentimental Value (2025)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  Seven 2025 nominees down, three to go...

Today I'm looking at Joachim Trier's latest opus, Sentimental Value, a Norwegian family drama of strained parent-child relationships starring Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard, and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as a father and his two adult daughters who become reacquainted after the death of the mother.  We learn via the film's engaging prologue that the parents spent a lot of time screaming at each other, severely damaging the older daughter Nora (Reinsve), who now has trouble getting close to anyone.  The father (Skarsgard) left, only occasionally reconnecting with his children over the following decades, and not very successfully.  

In the present, Nora is now an accomplished theater and television actress, her younger sister Agnes (Lilleaas) did some acting as a child, having starred in one of her father's acclaimed films, but has since left the business.  The father Gustav has enjoyed a long directorial career but hasn't made a feature in fifteen years and now wants to reclaim the family home (which technically on paper still belongs to him).  Not only that, he's written a new screenplay, the best of his career, and wants Nora to star in it.  But Nora rejects the olive branch, refusing to even read the script, and Gustav ends up instead casting famous American actress Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), while also agreeing to several artistic compromises in order to get Netflix to finance the project.  

WWE Elimination Chamber 2026 Preview & Predictions

It's February and that means WWE is offering its annual Elimination Chamber PPV.  Elimination Chamber incidentally is what I call my toilet.  "Hold my calls, I'll be in the Elimination Chamber for the next 20-30 minutes."

Man has it been refreshing to watch WWE's own audience begin to turn on their product over social media, while behind the scenes Triple H and friends are scrambling to put together a WrestleMania lineup that will sell like the last three.  They've even, shockingly, offered discounted tickets to try to close the 18% gap below the 'Mania 41 sales at this point on the calendar, to little avail at all.  They're even cockblocking local Vegas venues from showing it on TV for their patrons to try and encourage said patrons to shell out hundreds of dollars for tickets instead.  Talk about sad desperation.  Turns out that when you put most of your eggs in the basket of a retiring 48-year-old for an entire year (and totally clusterfuck that run), your audience loses interest once he's actually gone.  Who knew?

Anyway so far we have CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns as a confirmed WrestleMania main event, plus Stephanie Vaquer vs. Liv Morgan as the one confirmed Women's Title match, so this show will fill in two more slots on the card.

Let's take a look...

Women's Intercontinental Championship: Becky Lynch vs. AJ Lee

They're in Chicago so both Punk and AJ are featured heavily.  Becky and AJ have wrestled each other in tag matches and have been feuding since September, but I believe this is the first one-on-one match of their feud.  I haven't seen any of AJ's matches post-return since I don't have ESPN Unlimited and don't plan to get it.  I assume this will be fine.  Becky as a heel still doesn't work for me.

Pick: AJ wins the belt

Oscar Film Journal: The Verdict (1982)

Still pluggin' away at these old movies, so let's do another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com!

The year is 1982, the director is Sidney Lumet, the genre is legal drama (coincidentally the same as the film that put Lumet on the map), the star is Paul Newman, the film is The Verdict.

Based on a 1980 Barry Reed novel and adapted by vaunted playwright-turned-screenwriter David Mamet, The Verdict tells the story of deadbeat ambulance chaser Frank Galvin, who once had a promising career as an attorney but lost that and his marriage to the bottle.  He now scours the Boston Globe obituary section looking for opportunities to convince the bereaved to pursue wrongful death suits.  When we first meet Frank, this strategy is going very badly for him and he is kicked out of a funeral home for attempting to solicit work.  He spends most of his waking hours at a local Irish bar, pounding shots of whiskey and occasionally hitting on women (one of whom, played by Charlotte Rampling actually succumbs to his charms, but isn't quite what she seems).  One day his former partner Mickey (Jack Warden) sends him a medical malpractice case involving a woman admitted to a Catholic hospital during labor, who was seemingly administered the wrong form of anesthesia, leaving her in a coma and on life support.  The woman's sister and brother-in-law have filed suit against the church and the doctor in charge, hoping to land a significant settlement, of which Frank stands to retain one third.  

Oscar Film Journal: Erin Brockovich (2000)

Welcome to Oscar Film Journal entry #138, I think.

Time to take a trip back to the year 2000.  Hey remember when we all thought the year 2000 was gonna be this super-futuristic era with flying cars and no racism?  Good times.  

Anyway we're looking at Best Picture nominee Erin Brockovich, the remarkable true story of an ordinary single mom of three who used her natural savvy, tenacity and charisma to become a high-powered paralegal and activist.  Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the film stars Julia Roberts as the title character, in an Oscar-winning tour-de-force.  I was skeptical going into this about whether Roberts' performance would be anywhere near the level of say, Ellen Burstyn's harrowing turn that year in Requiem for a Dream, and while I still think Burstyn's was the superior performance, Roberts' work here is definitely Oscar-worthy.  In fact she's so captivating she more than makes up for the film's script shortcomings.  The structure is pretty standard "scrappy unlikely hero makes good" fare, the dialogue is sometimes hamfisted, and certain relationships are underwritten, but Roberts is so much fun to watch and so squarely the focus of the story that the films works quite well overall.

Oscar Film Journal: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

Welcome to another entry in our Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Still chippin' away at the 1970s and a film against which I've long had a bit of a grudge simply because it beat out the timeless masterpiece that is Apocalypse Now in the Best Picture category that year.  I'm talking about Kramer vs. Kramer, written and directed by Robert Benton (based on Avery Corman's novel) and starring Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, and in a performance that made him the youngest Oscar nominee of all time at age eight, Justin Henry.  

Kramer vs. Kramer is a domestic drama about a couple going through a divorce and the effect this change has on their young son.  Ted Kramer is a work-obsessed NYC marketing exec, so detached from his home life he doesn't even know what grade his son Billy is in, and so emotionally distant from his wife Joanna that she decides one day to pack up and leave them.  Ted is so wrapped up in his own stuff he at first thinks she's joking and then barely reacts once she actually exits.  The next morning he haphazardly makes Billy breakfast and just barely gets him to school on time, and we really get a sense of how ill-equipped he is at parenting.  But over the next year he and Billy become very close, and with a little help from the Kramers' neighbor Margaret, Ted develops the skills he needs as a father (illustrated perfectly by a later scene where Ted is making Billy the same breakfast, calmly and adeptly).  Suddenly though, Joanna returns after a year in Los Angeles and asks for custody, and an ugly legal battle ensues.

Oscar Film Journal: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Welcome to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  Strap into the DeLorean and let's head back to the 1970s, specifically to the year of my birth (in fact this film had its NYC premiere the day before I was born)....

Today's subject is the Best Picture winner for 1975, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, starring Jack Nicholson in a role that won him his first Oscar and helped define his storied career.  Directed by Milos Forman and based on Ken Kesey's novel, Cuckoo's Nest takes place in a psychiatric ward in Oregon, where a multi-time petty criminal named Randle McMurphy has finagled a transfer out of the prison system to avoid hard labor.  The administrator suspects McMurphy is faking mental illness but reluctantly agrees to keep him on a trial basis.  McMurphy quickly finds himself in a power struggle with the ward's icy, domineering head nurse Mildred Ratched, ultimately inciting a rebellion among the other patients.

This film was in development hell for over a decade, originally set to star Kirk Douglas, and eventually the property found its way into his son Michael's hands instead.  After thirteen long years of development (and a successful Broadway adaptation), the film was finally made in early '75 and became an instant sensation, finishing second at the box office that year, garnering nine Oscar nominations, and going on to be the second of three films ever to win the five major awards - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best (Adapted) Screenplay.  In pop culture it's been referenced countless times, for example inspiring Metallica's "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" and Stone Cold Steve Austin's iconic match ending moment at WrestleMania 13 where he fought Bret Hart's inescapable Sharpshooter before ultimately passing out (Austin cited Nicholson's attempt to lift an impossibly heavy water fountain as his impetus for that match finish).   

Top Ten Things: Megadeth Albums, Ranked

Welcome to a special extended edition of Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com, where I rank stuff.

Today it's the 40-plus-year album catalog of speed metal titans Megadeth!  That's right, I'll be ranking all seventeen albums released by the former Metallica founding member and his revolving door of backing musicians - of the Big Four thrash bands, Megadeth has been the most prolific, despite their colleagues having a two-year head start.  Man, back in high school and college I lived for Megadeth, holding them higher even than Metallica for several years.  I got my first taste of the band in early 1990 with the purchase of Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? and from then I was hooked (in mouth).  Dave Mustaine was my guitar (and hair) hero, and I spent way too much time copying his playing style (my voice at the time was more suited to Hetfield's so I became a wannabe amalgam of the two).  The release of a new Megadeth album became a long-awaited event every couple years and it was a common occurrence for me to purchase the album and give it multiple listens on the first day.  Sadly as with all 80s metal bands, the mid-to-late 90s were not kind, and Megadeth lost a lot of their cool factor around this time.  They experimented heavily with different sounds and styles with varying results, before returning to a traditional metal timbre in the early aughts.  But while most Megadeth fans fully welcomed the band's thrashy 21st century output, I found myself quite underwhelmed by most of it; to me it sounded like a copycat band trying to recreate Megadeth's signature sound rather than Megadeth returning to form.  So be warned, the bottom half of this list is heavily skewed toward Megadeth's recent work.  But enough blathering on, let's get after it....

17. Endgame

This album got a lot of praise on its release (and ever since) but I think it's probably the band's worst album.  Yes it's heavy and yes it's full of thrashy riff shredding, but Dave apparently had somehow lost the ability to write a vocal melody in the mid-2000s, as nearly all of his vocal parts on this album involve shoehorning lyrics obviously written without a clear melody in mind.  And rather than hone them it sounds like he just slapped on whatever meandering melodic idea would fit the number of syllables.  Aside from the choruses of "1320'," "Head Crusher," "How the Story Ends," and "The Right to Go Insane," there isn't a strong vocal idea on this album, and Dave's range here is nonexistent; when did he lose his upper register?  Couple that with technically impressive but joyless instrumentals (I feel like nearly every lead guitarist/drummer combination since Friedman and Menza has been largely devoid of personality in their playing), and Endgame is a chore to sit through, like a tribute band trying to approximate a Megadeth album.  4.5/10

Key Tracks: "1320'," "Head Crusher," "How the Story Ends"

16. Dystopia

Megadeth's 2016 album may be technically really impressive and convey a bit more enthusiasm than the handful of records before it, but aside from "The Emperor" and "Post-American World" there isn't a memorable song in earshot.  The songwriting is simply not there, nor is Dave's voice up to the task of matching the music's aggression and complexity.  I was into just about every song until his vocals came up.  Also at a certain point the whole "Everything's going to hell," conspiracy-minded right-wing subject matter feels disingenuous coming from a guy who's been rich and famous for the last thirty-five years - what exactly are you rebelling against at this point?  Lyrical gripes aside, if I want to hear a recent metal album that's both aggressive and bursting with technical wizardry I'll pop in Haken's Vector, not this.  5/10

Key Tracks: "The Emperor," "Dystopia," "Conquer or Die!"

 

Movie Review: Frankenstein (2025)

Here's a film I've been rabidly anticipating for a long time.  Guillermo Del Toro's long-planned adaptation of Mary Shelley's iconic novel Frankenstein has hit theaters for a limited run before its Netflix debut on November 7th.  Starring Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, and Mia Goth, the film is a stylish, tragic epic about ambition, ego, forgiveness, and accountability.  As expected it includes outlandish GDT visual hallmarks, big performances, and lavish production values, and like his 2022 Pinocchio adaptation it is closely inspired by the source material while also veering significantly from it.

Upon the first viewing I had very mixed feelings about this version.  As a decades-long devotee of Shelley's original novel (which I've read four or five times) I've been salivating at the prospect of a film version that faithfully brings her near-perfect story to life, and for some reason no film adaptation thus far has really done that.  Even the 1994 Kenneth Branagh-directed version took unnecessary narrative liberties that distracted from the story rather than enhancing it (not to mention that film is just a hot mess of an exercise in schlocky melodrama).  But when I first saw the trailers for this version it looked like GDT was going to hew very closely to the book.  And in some aspects he's done that, but in others he strayed so far I once again found myself asking "Now why'd he go and change that?" instead of being immersed in this new take on the story.

Oscar Film Journal: Nebraska (2013)

And we're back with yet another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com!

I'm circling back to the 2010s, to a film I meant to watch at the time but never got around to, it's Alexander Payne's comedy-drama Nebraska, starring Bruce Dern and Will Forte.  Nebraska is a road movie of sorts, about a crotchety septuagenarian named Woody who's convinced he's won a million dollars through the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes and insists on traveling from his home in Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska to collect the winnings.  Initially he thinks he can make the trek on foot, but the police pick him up wandering down the freeway, and despite numerous attempts by his two sons (Forte and Bob Odenkirk) and his hilariously fed up wife Kate (a brilliantly cast June Squibb) to convince him it's all a scam, he refuses to let it go.  Thus his younger son David agrees to drive him to the company's headquarters and find out for sure (Woody doesn't trust the mail system so that's a non-starter).  David knows there's nothing at the end of this particular rainbow but sees the trip as a chance to spend quality time with his emotionally distant father.  Woody quickly lets his drinking get the better of him, falling and hitting his head, and the pair decide to hole up for a few days in Hawthorne, NE, with Woody's brother Ray.  While in Hawthorne they run afoul of Woody's ex-business partner-turned nemesis Ed (a slimy Stacy Keach, recalling his turn in American History X), who upon learning of Woody's alleged newfound wealth attempts to extort David out of some cash (For that matter, so do several of Woody's relatives).

Oscar Film Journal: Casablanca (1943)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

We're looking at the 1940s today, specifically the year 1943 and the Best Pic winner from that year, one of the most beloved films of all time, Casablanca.  Directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, plus Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and Conrad Veidt, Casablanca is based on an unproduced play called Everybody Comes to Rick's and set against the backdrop of World War II, in Nazi-occupied Morocco.  The film's macguffin is a pair of transit authorization letters hidden in Rick's Cafe Americain, brought to Rick by an acquaintance, a petty crook named Ugarte (Lorre), who is quickly arrested after unloading the letters (Said letters allow their bearers passage to Portugal and freedom from German occupation).  Rick is of course Bogart's character, who spends his nights running the most popular nightclub in town and drinking heavily.  One night an old flame visits the club, Ingrid Bergman's character Ilsa, accompanied by her resistance leader husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Heinreid), and this chance meeting dredges up all the old feelings, including Rick's reluctant sense of moral duty, despite claiming he has no dog in the WWII fight.

Oscar Film Journal: Rain Man (1988)

Welcome to another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com!  Heading back to my early teen years, the late 1980s.....

Today's subject was the first Best Picture winner I ever saw prior to its coronation; I went to see it with my parents in the theater at age 13, coincidentally on the same day I shaved for the first time (using an electric razor on my developing sideburns).  Don't ask me why I remember tidbits like that, but I guess it's an apt coincidence considering the film in question.  I'm talking about Rain Man, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman, in one of his most famous performances.

Cruise plays hotshot independent car dealer Charlie Babbitt, whose business is in trouble because he's imported four Lamborghinis but is struggling to get them approved by the EPA so he can sell them.  Charlie learns that his estranged but wealthy father has just died, and he travels to his old home in Cincinnati for the funeral.  Much to his chagrin he learns his father only left him some prized rosebushes and an antique car, while the rest of the $3 million estate has been left to a trust.  After doing some digging he discovers the executor of the estate is a doctor at a nearby psychiatric hospital, a close friend of the father's.  He also learns, even more shockingly, that he has a much older long-lost brother named Raymond, a patient at the hospital who will end up being the sole beneficiary.  Raymond is autistic with incredible savant abilities, such as total recall of baseball stats and airline accidents, and the ability to instantly solve complex mathematical problems.  Charlie decides to effectively kidnap Raymond and take him back to Los Angeles to try and gain custody of him, thus giving him bargaining power over the inheritance.  But of course the two brothers form a much deeper bond during their road trip across the country.

AEW Grand Slam Australia 2026 Preview & Predictions

We're just a couple days away from AEW's latest PPV-quality free TV show, Grand Slam Australia 2026!

Holy shitballs, this lineup.  Last year's GSA was an excellent show but it wasn't stacked like this one.  AEW Title match, Continental Title match, TNT Title match, Women's Tag Title match, #1 Contender's match, Hair vs. Hair match.  This thing is more loaded than Trump's diaper.  Speaking of that turd, supposedly WBD executives shied away from featuring anything having to with Brody King on this week's Dynamite, lest the crowd once again chant "Fuck ICE" (which they did a little bit anyway).  WBD denies it of course, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were true.

Anyway enough of that shit, let's talk about this lineup.  This is Clash of the Champions 1 quality stuff.

Hair vs. Hair: Toni Storm & Orange Cassidy vs. Marina Shafir & Wheeler Yuta

Toni and OC have incredible chemistry together and I love that they're running with what was supposed to just be a one-off pairing.  Great things have historically happened in wrestling based on unexpected hits, and it's always nice to see a promotion pay attention to that.  The build for this has been quite enjoyable, with both Toni and OC expressing some buyer's remorse about the possibility they could lose their prized locks.  But of course all signs point to Wheeler getting the shave, and there's no better chickenshit heel to fill that role.  The crowd will go bananas when the Death Riders' answer to Tully Blanchard gets humiliated.

Pick: Toni and Orange

Oscar Film Journal: Midnight Express (1978)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

We're taking a trip to the late 70s to look at a harrowing film that was controversial for its less than truthful version of real-world events but nonetheless considered an effective prison drama, Alan Parker's Midnight Express, starring Brad Davis, John Hurt and Randy Quaid.  Based on Billy Hayes' 1977 memoir about his experiences in, and escape from, a Turkish prison, the screenplay was written by the ever-sensationalistic Oliver Stone, winning him his first Oscar. 

In 1970, Billy Hayes attempts to smuggle a couple kilos of hashish out of Turkey, gets caught, gets convicted and sentenced to four years, and stays on his best behavior under the assumption he'll get out in three.  But the Turkish courts, under pressure by the Nixon administration, come down exceptionally hard on drug smugglers and Billy's original sentence gets thrown out in favor of a thirty-year stint.  His objective now becomes taking the "midnight express," or escaping prison.

First the positives.  The film is gorgeously photographed by Michael Seresin, who provided the signature Alan Parker backlit look, similar to that of Ridley and Tony Scott, lending weight and atmosphere to the bleak storytelling.  A later passage in particular when Billy is transferred to the wing for the criminally insane is bathed in shadows and diffused light, immersing us in his hopelessness.  Shot in actual locations in Malta, this movie feels quite authentic and we feel very much out of our element.  

Oscar Film Journal: F1 (2025)

Alright I'm six for ten of the 2025 Best Picture nominees, so let's dive back into the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Movie #6 is the Joseph Kosinski-helmed car racing action-drama F1, starring Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, and Kerry Condon.  Pitt's character Sonny Hayes is an aging car racer who blew his big chance at superstardom thirty years ago in a fiery crash, and now bounces from circuit to circuit just to satisfy his love of driving, while living in a van (down by the river?).  His old friend and teammate Ruben (Javier Bardem in a odd bit of wasted casting) shows up one day to recruit him for his F1 team - it's late in the season and they're doing so poorly Ruben is in danger of losing team ownership.  The team's top driver is a cocky young fella named Joshua Pearce, who has talent but lacks the experience to exploit the rules of the track and eke out some wins.  The cars designed by technical director Kate McKenna (Condon, in an overachieving performance) are also less than ideal and aren't getting the top speeds necessary to win.  Sonny shakes things up and despite initially butting heads with the crew, earns their trust and builds a rapport with both Joshua and Kate, and the assignment provides him with one last shot at glory.  Plus there's a whole lot of car racing.

NJPW The New Beginning in Osaka 2026 Preview & Predictions

It's a new year and a new era, and that means it's time for a New Beginning in Osaka, courtesy of New Japan Pro Wrestling!

The first PPV of the Yota Tsuji era is just a couple days away, and there are some fresh matchups on tap, plus a sendoff for one of the company's biggest-ever Jr. Heavyweight stars.  There's also a really odd choice of main event that seems to be a real sink-or-swim test for the company's new Ace.  Undercard-wise this show looks much stronger than WrestleKingdom.  Main event-wise not so much.

Hiromu Takahashi & Taiji Ishimori vs. United Empire

We're starting things off with Hiromu's final match as a member of the NJPW roster.  Where he's headed we don't know yet, but like his former LIJ stablemates Naito, Sanada, Evil and Bushi, the Time Bomb is moving on.  Wild times.  Anyway I imagine Takahashi will be doing the honors on his way out.  Makes the most sense to me.  Give Francesco Akira and Jakob Austin Young the win.

Pick: United Empire

Shingo Takagi & Drilla Moloney vs. Great-O-Khan & Henare

This is a match of meat warfare.  Shingo works great with both UE guys, Drilla is becoming one of the better slugfest wrestlers on the roster.  Should be a lot of fun if it gets adequate time.  I'll go with Shingo and Drilla.

Pick: War Dragons

Oscar Film Journal: The Awful Truth (1937)

We're officially in the thick of Oscar season, so let's add another page to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Still in the weeds of the 1930s (YouTube is a treasure trove of old public domain stuff), specifically the year 1937 and a screwball comedy by Duck Soup director Leo McCarey.  It's The Awful Truth, starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant.  Based on a 1922 play, The Awful Truth is a simple story about a wealthy couple who have fallen out of love, and each is convinced the other is fooling around.  The husband, Jerry, returns home after a bender with the guys, having told his wife he'd be in Florida (He gets a fake tan to add to the subterfuge).  Meanwhile Lucy spent the night, apparently platonically, with her voice teacher Armand, triggering Jerry's jealousy.  The distrust has reached a breaking point and the couple decide to get a divorce.  Lucy goes to live with her aunt, whose neighbor Dan (Ralph Bellamy) is a rich, unmarried oil man.  Lucy and Dan begin dating and eventually get engaged.  Meanwhile Jerry has been granted visitation rights to his wife's dog Mr. Smith, giving him an avenue to cockblock Lucy and Dan's relationship.  Then later in the film Lucy gets some payback when Jerry starts dating a rich heiress, crashing her parents' dinner party in the guise of Jerry's sister.  Lots of comedic misunderstandings in this film, some of it reminiscent of the Marx Brothers.  The upshot of course is that Jerry and Lucy realize they still have feelings for each other, just as their divorce is being finalized.

Oscar Film Journal: Lady for a Day (1933)

Welcome to another page in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Still in the 1930s weeds (Hey, there's a veritable treasure trove of public domain films on YouTube), and today it's an early Frank Capra talkie, Lady for a Day, starring Warren William and May Robson.  Based on a short story called Madame La Gimp, LFAD centers on a destitute fruit vendor named Apple Annie, who lives in a tiny apartment in Depression Era New York City.  Annie has a daughter Louise who's lived in a Spanish convent since she was a child (We're never told who the father was or why Louise was taken away), with whom she keeps written correspondence, under the pretense that she's a well-to-do dowager.  But one day Annie gets a letter saying Louise is engaged to the son of a wealthy Spanish count who insists on meeting his in-laws before he'll agree to the marriage, and that the three of them are en route to NYC by boat.  Terrified of being found out, Annie begs one of her customers, a gangster and gambler named Dave the Dude, to set her up with a room in the fancy hotel where he lives.  Dave initially refuses but Annie's fellow street peddlers convince him to help with the charade, and Dave himself doesn't want to lose Annie as a vendor because he thinks her apples bring him luck.  Thus Apple Annie becomes Mrs. E. Worthington Manville.  But things get a little complicated when reporters start asking questions, and Dave and his henchmen are forced to kidnap them for a little while.  The scheme must go off without a hitch despite everyone involved being a phony, and Dave and his goons must also evade the snooping police department...

Oscar Film Journal: Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

And we're back with another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  Time to head back to that grand decade known as the 1990s!

Today it's the British rom-com Four Weddings and a Funeral, directed by Mike Newell from a script by Richard Curtis, and starring Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Simon Callow.  Inspired by a period in his own life when Curtis went to literally dozens of weddings, this film is your garden-variety meet-cute story, told in an inventive manner, mostly through the titular events.  

Hugh Grant plays Charles, a handsome but socially awkward bachelor, whose group of unmarried friends and relatives routinely gets invited to various nuptial ceremonies en masse.  Charles and his roommate Scarlett are chronically late to these events, usually dashing in just before the bride makes her entrance.  We're introduced to numerous characters and get a sense of their various quirks and relationships to each other, but the exposition is kept mostly organic; we don't even learn what any of them does for work, as Curtis felt they wouldn't be having work-related conversations at these events.  

Oscar Film Journal: I'm Still Here (2024)

What's up, Enuffa.com fans?  Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal!

Doin' a little catch-up from the 2024 slate of Best Pic nominees, today we're looking at I'm Still Here, directed by Walter Salles and starring Fernanda Torres in an Oscar-nominated turn.  This film is a political biopic about one of thousands of families affected by the abhorrent Brazilian military dictatorship that controlled the country from 1964 to 1985.  Dissenters were arrested, silenced, tortured, murdered and/or disappeared.  It's estimated that over 400 people were either killed or went missing, while over 20,000 were tortured, and it should be noted that the inciting coup for this regime in '64 had the full support of the United States government.  We sure do love spreading "freedom" across the globe, don't we?

Anyway, the film depicts the struggles of the Paiva family, led by former Brazilian Congressman Rubens and his wife Eunice.  Rubens has returned to civilian life as an engineer but still surreptitiously aids the resistance without his family's knowledge.  One day men with guns take him away for questioning, while others stay at the house to monitor the family.  Then they take Eunice and her daughter Eliana away as well, keeping Eunice imprisoned for twelve days before sending them both home again.  However Rubens is still missing, the government denies any wrongdoing (of course), and Eunice will have to spend literally decades trying to find out what happened to her husband.

Oscar Film Journal: Bad Girl (1931)

And now it's time for another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com!

Back to the Depression era we go, with 1931's Bad Girl, an adaptation of the hit 1928 novel by Vina Delmar.  Directed by Frank Borzage and starring relative newcomers Sally Eilers and James Dunn, the film faced significant pushback from the infamous Hays Office for its subject matter.  The novel was a fairly explicit cautionary tale about premarital sex and accidental pregnancy (considered so lurid it was banned in Boston), and the uptight censors felt the story was unfilmable as-is.  But Fox Film Corporation came up with a treatment that cleaned up the story and made it more about an unlikely couple falling in love, getting married, getting unexpectedly pregnant, and worrying about money and each other's commitment level.  Still the studio hedged their bets and only granted a $100,000 budget (equivalent to a scant $2 million today), and cast two unknowns as the leads.  Amazingly the film was a critical and commercial smash hit, pulling in over $1 million and making stars of Eilers and Dunn, who'd be cast together in several subsequent projects.

The History of WWE Royal Rumble (2025)

The 38th WWE Royal Rumble was a solid show, better than it had been in a handful of years anyway.  There wasn't anything great on the show but nothing bad either, aside from one booking decision that proved to be a flop in the end.  Picking a best match and worst match is tough because everything was in the 3.5 to 4 star range.  I had some gripes about some things but we'll get to that.  It was definitely too long a show, that's for sure.  Having two Rumble matches on one show is a lot, and I'm not sure what the solution is.

The show kicked off with the women's Rumble, and I think this was the most fun match for me.  Despite less star power than the men's, this match had a lot of exciting young talent, many of them from NXT, and the match cut a good pace that kept everything moving.  Iyo Sky, Ivy Nile, Lash Legend, Jordynne Grace, and Stephanie Vaquer all looked very good.  Nia Jax got to be the Kane of this match and eliminate 9 women.  I was surprised Becky Lynch didn't return, but instead we got Alexa Bliss.  As expected Charlotte Flair ended up winning, last eliminating Roxanne Perez of all people.  Also Iyo, Roxanne and Liv Morgan all beat Bayley's record from last year, which has really gotten out of hand.  If you keep breaking the longevity record it becomes meaningless.  They certainly didn't need to do it three times in this one match.  Both Rumbles went excessively long, this one at 70 minutes.  Charlotte would go on to have a very bad feud and forgettable 'Mania match against Tiffany Stratton.

The History of WWE Royal Rumble (2024)

The 2024 WWE Royal Rumble was....a show.  Some stuff happened, there were some winners and losers, and the ending was the right one.

Whereas 2023's Rumble show, while not a great PPV, felt purposeful and featured one of the best Rumble matches of all time in the men's edition, 2024's felt rather obligatory and pretty bereft of memorable events, some surprise entrants excepted.  Both Rumble matches where just kinda there, and the crowd responded as such.  The hot San Antonio crowd from 2023 was sorely missed, as the St. Petersburg audience sat on their hands for a lot of the show, which dragged down large chunks of the two Rumble bouts.  The two non-Rumble matches likewise failed to light up the fans, no doubt in part because the results were a forgone conclusion.  Even CM Punk's return to a WWE ring for the first time in a decade didn't land the way it should have (which just further points to AEW executing his return better).

The History of WWE Royal Rumble (2023)

The 2023 Royal Rumble was a large improvement over the previous year's, where two deserving winners earned their WrestleMania title matches (sadly only one actually got their win at 'Mania but that's another conversation), and a major angle took place at the end of the show to set up the main event at Elimination Chamber.

For the first time in seemingly forever, the men's Rumble match had actual stories woven throughout and was designed to set up numerous WrestleMania matches, which is really the bare minimum that should be expected for any Rumble match.  If you just spend a little time creating and/or furthering individual conflicts and sprinkle those things across the hour-long Rumble match, that automatically makes it stand out from the others.  It gives everyone a reason to become invested and makes the 60-plus minutes fly by.  WWE did this in the men's Rumble in 2023.  This Royal Rumble was for me a top-five Rumble match, boosted by the work of Gunther, who entered at number one and was the last man eliminated, breaking the longevity record for a 30-man Rumble (Bryan Danielson still holds the overall record but that Rumble was a 50-man field).  Brock Lesnar entered surprisingly early and after a dominant few minutes was even more surprisingly ousted by Bobby Lashley, thus setting up their Elimination Chamber singles match (which sucked).  Rey Mysterio no-showed his number 17 entrance and it became apparent when his son Dominik entered at 18 wearing Rey's mask that he was attacked backstage (in reality Rey was injured the night before on Smackdown, but this was a pretty good way to cover it up).  Other standouts included Sheamus and Drew McIntyre, who teamed up for most of their time together and looked dominant, Ricochet and Logan Paul, who provided one of the coolest-looking spots ever in a Rumble match, a simultaneous springboard leap that resulted in a massive midair collision, and of course Cody Rhodes, who made his triumphant return at number 30 and survived a brutal seven-minute finale with Gunther to win the whole thing.  This is how you book a Royal Rumble match.  Sadly it was the opening contest and the show never reached these heights again.  

Participants: Gunther, Sheamus, The Miz, Kofi Kingston, Johnny Gargano, Xavier Woods, Karrion Kross, Chad Gable, Drew McIntyre, Santos Escobar, Angelo Dawkins, Brock Lesnar, Bobby Lashley, Baron Corbin, Seth Rollins, Otis, (Rey Mysterio), Dominik Mysterio, Elias, Finn Balor, Booker T, Damian Priest, Montez Ford, Edge, Austin Theory, Omos, Braun Strowman, Ricochet, Logan Paul, Cody Rhodes

Final Four: Cody Rhodes, Gunther, Logan Paul, Seth Rollins

Long Man: Gunther (1:11:40)

The History of WWE Royal Rumble (2022)

Ah WWE circa 2022, a company without highs or lows, where every PPV (ahem, premium live event, a phrase no real human being should ever use in actual conversation) is steeped in mediocrity and there's no reason to get invested in anything because the company will just screw it up anyway.

The 2022 Royal Rumble fits the above description to a tee.  A bunch of just-okay matches, in one ear, out the other, the details of which will all be forgotten by WrestleMania.  No one gets over except the one or two established stars the company wants to push, thus both Rumbles felt like everyone involved was just killing time.  Was it a reasonably entertaining way to spend four hours?  Sure.  Was anything here even close to being a great match or having any historical significance?  Nope.  Even the first-time WWE Title match with a big-fight feel was more of the same ol' shit with repetitious action and a bad finish.  WWE could fuck up a can of Pringles.

Speaking of bad finishes, the show started with Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins, in a very well-worked Universal Title bout where Seth, dressed in his old Shield gear and entering through the crowd to the group's classic theme, resided fully in Roman's head.  No matter how badly Roman beat him down, Seth kept smiling and asking for a fist bump.  Roman couldn't stay on his game and Seth dominated much of the bout.  They did the old spot from 2016 where Roman went for a spear and Seth countered into a Pedigree for a near fall.  This was a very good match.  And then the finish happened.  Roman locked in a guillotine choke, Seth struggled to get to the ropes but fell short and went limp.  The referee lifted Seth's arm for one, two, and on the third drop, Seth's hand fell on the bottom rope.  Yes, the referee inadvertently put Seth's hand on the rope, and then demanded Roman break the hold.  Ummm, what?  How can that be a rope break if the referee is the one who put his hand there?  Roman, the heel, rightly refused to break the choke and was disqualified.  So Seth got legitimately beaten and Roman did something stupid to cost himself a sure victory.  Who was this designed to get over?  This was yet another very good WWE match ruined by stupid WWE booking.  And sadly it was the best thing on the show.