WrestleMania 38 was this weekend and it was pretty good! The biggest WWE show of the year is now a two-day extravaganza, and this particular edition had just enough good moments to justify four-hour straight shows. On Saturday, Bianca Belair won the Raw Women’s Championship in a spectacular match against Becky Lynch. On Sunday, Sami Zayn lost with the help of Johnny Knoxville Chris “Party Boy” Pontius and Wee Man. It was that kind of spectacle; maybe not the best wrestling in the world, but certainly the biggest and dumbest.
The biggest part of the show was undoubtedly Stone Cold Steve Austin’s return to in-ring competition. The 57-year-old legend hadn’t fought in WWE since 2003, but he returned for what appeared to be a quick farewell match against Kevin Owens. Instead, Austin actually went to work, and the pair had a pretty solid match, with Austin even getting a painful-looking suplex right on concrete:
If you have Stone Cold Steve Austin available, use him as much as possible, which is why the Texas Rattlesnake went around and his finisher, the Stone Cold Stunner, hit as many people as possible. Over the two nights, Austin delivered five stunners to five different men. The recipients of these stunners all sold the move in different ways, from overly over-the-top flop to…well, just the opposite of that. In this sense we classify them.
5. Vince McMahon
To be honest, if I ranked these sales by how much I enjoyed them, that would easily be number 1. For reasons too stupid to go into, 76-year-old Vince McMahon found himself with his old nemesis back in the ring and trying to take a stunner to send everyone home happy. Instead, McMahon managed to take what is now definitely the worst stunner of all time, beating his wife Linda and his wife’s former employer, Donald Trump. This is perfect and I have no notes.
4.Kevin Owens
If there was a true WrestleMania 38 MVP, it was Kevin Owens. After building up to a talk show segment pretty much on his own over the last month, Owens was able to lead a very athletic Austin to a passable match, despite the 57-year-old being made of tissue paper at this point in his life. So it’s somewhat unfortunate for me to say that his sales of the stunner were lacking. It’s not bad, but it’s not particularly memorable. Given Austin was one of Owen’s inspirations growing up, I’m sure he’ll remember it anyway.
3.Byron Saxton
The funniest deathless comedy WWE has ever released for my money came during one of the early Raw episodes of the COVID-19 era: Austin tried to get audience reaction from the empty Performance Center at 3:16 on day, only to get one to get from Byron Saxton:
Whoever says WWE can’t have long-term storytelling clearly wasn’t watching Saturday when Saxton walked into the ring to have a beer with Austin after his win, only to bounce off the mat. This is a classic stunner oversell, and as such it sits perfectly in the middle of this ranking.
2. Pat McAfee
Pat McAfee is very good at professional wrestling. I didn’t know for sure until he made his WrestleMania debut Sunday night, but in his match against Austin Theory, the ex-player brought on his work shoes and put on one hell of a performance. After the win, he was forced into another match, this time against the aforementioned and older McMahon, who defeated him with some help from Theory. This led Austin to stun everyone, including McAfee during a post-game beer toast.
Credit where credit is due: McAfee fucking sold the stunner, falling backwards while shooting beer out of his mouth like a fountain. Bonus points for his continued sales on the floor while still chugging a beer:
1. Austin theory
However, the best stunner sale of the weekend and one of the best ever came from Theory. The second Stone Cold’s glass-shattering theme song hit, I expected it to stun Theory, and I similarly expected the bouncy and dramatic Theory to oversell it to hell and back. He did just that, taking inspiration from The Rock and the late Scott Hall to play ping-pong off the mat and hop lots of feet in the air. It’s perfect and utterly stupid. It’s the best for that because it really shows how entertaining WWE can be when it tends to be the dumbest show in the best possible way.