Nintendo loves to make game announcements in rapid succession, and even a day notorious for literally unbelievable news isn't enough to deter a parade of updates and trailers. The most recent Nintendo Direct just aired on April 1, with a slew of new info and reveals that shouldn't be missed. But what if you don't have an hour to spend scrubbing through the looking for the breaking news? That's where we come in.

What follows is a list of the biggest announcements from the Nintendo Direct, with all the really good stuff front-loaded for your convenience. Check out what you might've missed, then let us know in the comments which games and new amiibo you're personally pumped up for. You can even imagine us speaking in the same dulcet tones as Satoru Iwata or Bill Trinen, if you like.

We still don't have a title for the new Fire Emblem game on 3DS, but we do know that it's . Alongside the release window, Nintendo revealed a ton formation about the game's single-player campaign, which casts your created character as the star (rather than as a companion to the real hero of the story). That doesn't just mean more dialogue - your character will literally determine the entire course of the campaign.

Early on, you must make the choice between fighting for the peace-loving Hoshido faction or the warlike, revolutionary Nohr faction. Striving to preserve peace with Hoshido will provide a more traditional Fire Emblem experience that's also more welcoming to newcomers, while fighting for glory with Nohr will make for difficult battles and a more complex narrative. Sounds like a pretty awesome excuse to play the game twice, whichever side you decide to start with.

The Nintendo Direct had no shortage of updates on and 3DS. First off, the Mewtwo DLC will be out this month. If you registered both games on Club Nintendo, you’ll be getting a download code on April 15. Everyone else will be able to buy the character on April 28, costing $4 on either version, or $5 if you want the Legendary Pokemon on both platforms.

But that’s not all. This June, Mother 3 protagonist Lucas will join the game as a downloadable fighter for a yet-to-be-named price. Additionally, new costume packs are coming for the Mii fighters, all as paid DLC on April 15. There are themed costumes for Legend of Zelda and Mega Man, plus cute animal outfits that are 75 cents separately, or $6 in a bundle.

Ready to write a 500-word treatise on why Ridley absolutely, positively belongs in the Super Smash Bros. roster? Get your thinking cap ready, because Nintendo is about to let fan demand influence who might be the next DLC character.

By hopping over to , you can fill out a survey suggesting who deserves to join the Smash Bros. cast next. Who knows how long it'll be until this survey is botted out of control, but it's a nice sentiment for Nintendo to let the fans make direct suggestions. If we all type in Goku, do you think it’ll finally happen?

After it was teased more than a year ago, we were told little about this crossover game beyond a few facts: It's on the Wii U, is being developed in tandem by Atlus and the Fire Emblem team at Intelligent Systems, and brings together two of the most hardcore series in gaming. The was finally shown during the Nintendo Direct, and it blends the SMT and Fire Emblem influences into a dazzling, anime-riffic display.

As in most Shin Megami games, the main characters are Japanese teens with special abilities, and they look to be battling monsters in a near-future version of Tokyo to the tune of a catchy theme song. From the Fire Emblem side of things, the turn-based battles show classic FE characters helping out the the team. No official date or title has been given to the game in North America; it’ll be out this year in Japan with a title that roughly translates to Illusory Revelations#FE. The rest is still a mystery, but hopefully we’ll hear more around E3 this year.

Amiibo are fun and all, but Marth and Wii Fit Trainer break way too easy when you try to cuddle with them. Thankfully, Nintendo plans to get out ahead of the snuggle issue with a new line of amiibo planned to release alongside - one green, one pink, and one light blue.

Aside from being oh-so soft, squishy, and lovable, the Woolly World amiibo will let you play as Double Yoshi when you tap their little bottoms to the GamePad. You control both characters at once, letting you slurp up the second Yoshi into an egg, toss him to new areas, and run around with him once you get there. You'll also be able to swap between the difficulty-determining "Classic" or "Mellow" modes in the middle of a level, the latter of which gives your Yoshi wings… if you can ever stop cooing at the figures long enough to play, anyway.

Because people will buy up amiibo figurines faster than bottled water before an impending earthquake, you know Nintendo isn't about to stop making them any time soon. The newest wave of Smash-themed amiibo is now know, with Dark Pit and Palutena coming this July, and Olimar, Zero Suit Samus, Bowser Jr., Ganondorf, and Dr. Mario set to debut in September. That noise you just heard was your wallet screaming, by the way.

In addition, Iwata assures us that amiibo toys for Smash Bros. DLC characters like Mewtwo and Lucas are also on the way, alongside the aforementioned Yoshi's Wooly World and Splatoon amiibo sets. You'll also be able to boot up demos of classic games with the amiibo tap: Nintendo's Greatest Hits app, which releases this spring on Wii U as a free download. By tapping your amiibo to the GamePad, you'll gain access to a limited demo of a randomly selected game from Nintendo's storied archives. It's basically like a , only better.

For Western fans of Fatal Frame, who haven't seen a localized release in the snapshot-happy horror series for ten years, it may feel like this franchise has one foot in the grave. But apparently Nintendo has a resurrection planned, with a U.S. localization of Fatal Frame 5: Oracle of the Sodden Raven set for release later this year.

Little is known about the title as of yet, aside from the standards common to every Fatal Frame game: you play as a (presumably) teenage girl stuck in a haunted locale and use a camera to protect yourself against homicidal specters while trying to solve the mystery of their deaths. What makes this Wii U release special is the use of the GamePad, with the inlaid screen functioning as the only access you have to your life-saving camera. And you thought these games were nerve-wracking before.

If you've had your fill of space battles, planting flowers, global conquest, and battling ghosts, Nintendo has a pair of new games to freshen up your StreetPass Plaza. Ultimate Angler sees your Mii travelling to the StreetPass Islands to bag more than 150 varieties of fish, using bait that they receive from fellow travellers. Meanwhile, Battleground Z lets you engage in action combat with hordes of zombies using weapons pulled from each Mii's hobbies.

The two games will be available on April 16 together for $7.99, or separately for $4.99 each. "StreetPass Mii Plaza Premium" will also launch on April 16, letting you store designated Mii characters in a VIP room and set StreetPass birthdays for your virtual travelers on a new calendar. StreetPass Mii Plaza Premium will be sold separately for $4.99.

Do you enjoy collecting amiibo, but wish they were easier to fit in your pocket? That’s what the upcoming amiibo cards are for. They function similarly to the figures, meaning the cards are scanned via NFC to unlock features, and the first set is themed around Animal Crossing. As it so happens, a new Animal Crossing spin-off will launch alongside the cards by the end of the year.

Called , the game focuses on the series’ indoors action, making players do some interior design to the desired specifications of their animal neighbors. And you get unique assignments by scanning different amiibo cards for characters like Isabelle. The game and cards launch this fall, along with the long-promised NFC add-on that allows non-New 3DS handhelds to scan amiibo and add the content to their games.

Go-karts are fun, but as far as racing goes, they're not actually all that fast… unless you drop an even bigger engine and some Super Mushrooms in there. Nintendo plans to add a 200cc racing class to in a free downloadable update on April 23, enabling a new, super-speedy mode on all tracks. Get comfortable with tapping that brake button, because taking corners at full speed is about to get a whole lot trickier.

The free update will release alongside DLC Pack 2, which adds three new characters (Animal Crossing's Villager, Isabelle, and Dry Bowser), four new vehicles, and eight new tracks, giving you plenty of new wheels and pavement to tear up as you zoom around at ludicrous speeds. You do have to pay $8 for the DLC pack, mind you.

It may not have the established fanbase of series like Smash Bros. or Fire Emblem, but is shaping up to be a fun, inventive shooter that still retains Nintendo's classic sense of whimsy. Two online modes were shown off during the Nintendo Direct: Ranked Battle, with 4v4 matches that determine your (what else) rank, and Splat Zones, a king-of-the-hill style melee where everyone's fighting over one central location. Offline multiplayer will also be available in the Battle Dojo mode, a 1v1 skirmish that puts one player on the TV and the other on the GamePad in a race to pop balloons.

Being that it's a relatively big game for Nintendo, you knew there had to be some amiibo involved. Three Splatoon amiibo will be available starting on May 29th: an orange humanoid Inkling girl, a blue humanoid Inkling boy, and a green Inkling in squid form. You can buy the humanoids separately, or pick up all three in one convenient pack.

Super Mario Bros. is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and Nintendo revealed has a bunch of surprises in store for the occasion. Thankfully, Mario Maker's release date is no longer one of them: it will finally democratize the piranha plant placement process in September.

The Wii U game / level-creation workshop will feature four different visual themes pulled from across the 2D Mario canon: the original 8-bit goodness of Super Mario Bros., the classic look of Super Mario Bros. 3, the SNES-talgic Super Mario World style, and the 3D-rendered visuals of New Super Mario Bros. You'll be able to swap between the four at will and easily share all of your creations online. No better way to celebrate Mario history than by making some of your own, right?

If you've been pulling your hair out waiting for for the day you could play Super Mario 64 on glorious new-gen tech, then yank no more! , starting with Super Mario 64 and Yoshi's Island DS, which are available immediately - yeah, right now! Go get them! Other titles you can play on your Wii U in the coming months will include Donkey Kong 64 and Mario Kart DS, and we can undoubtedly expect more nostalgic goodness in the future.

In addition, Nintendo has shown off a slew of games for the eShop that'll be released throughout the next year. The headliner is Pokemon Rumble World, a free, simplistic brawler starring toy versions of pocket monsters. And in addition to previously announced games like Don't Starve: Giant Edition and Runbow, games like forma.8, Dementium Remastered, and Starwhal will join Nintendo's collection of indie offerings.

Phew! Of all those announcements, which are you the most excited for? Do you plan on diving headfirst into the JRPG goodness of Fire Emblem and SMTXFE (the best acronym ever, pronounced 'smit-ze-fee')? Or are you gearing up to take part in the battle for those precious amiibo? Let us know in the comments below.

And if you're looking for more, check out .

NXT, Hall Of Fame, Axxess, WrestleMania, Raw: even for the most ardent of WWE Network addicts, the hottest weekend on the wrestling calendar can be a challenging one to keep up with. For four days, an entire city becomes over-run with 6 ft beastmen, beautiful divas and passionate fans, all wanting their super-sized slice of the sumptuous WWE cake. And as you’ll very shortly learn, that cake is an actual thing.

See, GamesRadar headed to San Jose ostensibly to talk video games with the likes of Xavier Woods and Sami Zayn, but couldn’t help noticing numerous happenings that go far beyond the realm of WWE 2K15, Monday Night Raw, and Seth Rollins’ shocking title win at ‘Mania. Here, then, are the 13 must-read secrets from our time spent in Silicon Valley – including Ronda Rousey’s love for Dragon Ball Z and Paige’s admission that she too is a secret glutton…

The New Day hasn’t done much of note since its debut last year. Despite that, trio member Xavier Woods might have just anointed himself GamesRadar’s favourite wrestler. Away from the ring, he’s living his WWE dream exactly as we would. “I have a briefcase that I carry with me when I travel, with a built-in 19-inch TV,” he reveals. “My PS4 straps inside along with the controllers and cords. When I get to hotels I pop that open, I get on the internet, and I play Final Fantasy XIV until I pass out.”

“I wasn’t very social as a kid, but video games were a good way for me to connect with other kids. I was obsessed with everything from Nintendo onwards – Mario, Duck Hunt – and I still have my regular NES. I even had a Virtual Boy – but that thing gives me migraines, so I had to get rid of it.” His favourite game ever? “Mario Kart: Double Dash on the Gamecube. If they put all the options from that into modern Mario Kart, the online game would be unreal.”

WWE wrestlers were housed in the Fairmont Hotel, eight miles from the hosting Levi’s Stadium, for the weekend. To enjoy a drink at the bar on any given evening was to live out every fan’s dream: Bret Hart and Natalya catching up with family and friends, The Miz and Maryse beaming with Hollywood smiles, John Cena’s dad enthusiastically congratulating Rusev and Lana on their bout with his son in the hours after Mania. And then there was… the cake.

Specially commissioned by the hotel and designed to mimic the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, this calorific wonder greeted wrestlers and fans alike upon entry to the building. It contained 50 pounds of dark chocolate, with red fondant and gold and silver dust added for that final jewel-like flourish. And it was being sold off after the show to raise money for Leukemia Lymphoma Society, at a cool $1500. Presumably delicious, /and/ made for a good cause? That is our kind of elevenses.

Friday night saw San Jose State University host a three-hour NXT show featuring what WWE hopes will be its WrestleMania headliners of the future. Japanese import Hideo Itami and Irishman Finn Balor got understandably loud reactions from the 5,000 strong crowd (who seemed especially well-fuelled thanks to an unconventional 10pm start time), but it was New Jersey trio Enzo Amore, Colin Cassidy and Carmella that popped the audience loudest. The trio's call-and-refrain entrance shtick echoes The New Age Outlaws, packing in more catchphrases than Roy Walker. Booked right, this unconventional trio can be huge on the main roster.

Also evident from the show: divas Charlotte, Sasha, Bayley and Becky Lynch are already good enough to compete believably with big stage ladies Paige, AJ Lee and Nikki Bella; Itami's future looks secure now that he's reclaimed the GTS finisher ‘borrowed’ by CM Punk; and Rhyno, the former ECW favourite defeated by Baron Corbin mid-way through this particular card, still has plenty of gore in the tank.

With former indie favourite El Generico – now better known to NXT fans as Sami Zayn – hotly tipped for a main roster debut on Raw which never materialised, GamesRadar was surprised to hear him cut a promo on Friday night in which he stated he was sticking around to reclaim the NXT title from Kevin Owens. Yet he categorically refuted our suggestion that he’s content to stay on the main roster’s periphery.

“I’m not in a rush. This time last year, everyone was telling me ‘I can’t wait until you’re on the main roster’, but this year I’m hearing much more of ‘I love you on NXT’,” he explains. “But I’ll never be happy being sedentary. As long as I’m with NXT my goal is to be champion and leave a void here that when I leave either can’t be filled or is very difficult to fill. The goal is always to move forward.” GamesRadar’s prediction? A WWE call-up and secondary title run (imagine an Intercontinental showdown with Daniel Bryan) at Summerslam.

WWE Axxess at the San Jose Convention Center featured Superstar signings (and ginormous queues for Superstar singings) with close to the entire roster, in addition to the ability to step inside the 16-foot high, ten-ton Elimination Chamber (although security was stepped up after one attention-seeking twonk decided to climb the structure). Its big pull, however, was a curtained-off Hall Of Fame showcase, packed with items familiar to fans young and old.

The casket bearing Brock Lesnar’s name which went up in flames before his WM30 contest with Undertaker was there, next to the real European and Smoking Skull title belts, and countless outfits worn by Randy Savage – most of them signed. Fans also delighted in being photographed next to a daunting life-sized statue of Andre The Giant. Most humbling were the many items taken from Ultimate Warrior’s always kaleidoscopic wardrobe, including – poignantly – the coat he wore for his final Raw appearance, just two days before his untimely passing last April.

Wrestling fans have long accepted that WWE merch is a bit naff. Shirts with noisy (and often senseless) slogans on the rear – made of heavy material that takes on twice its own weight the instant you add a single drop of sweat – have been a company mainstay for longer than Howard ‘The Fink’ Finkel. It never stopped us from buying them; but you had to accept a cloud of existential sadness would accompany every wearing.

Well, not this year. Packed with more than 600 items, the WWE Superstore in downtown San Jose showcased an array of shirt designs that could be worn in public without the threat of city-wide laughter. (The Mecha Powers tee featuring AI versions of Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage? Oh goodness, yes.) Not only that, the $35 tees on show boasted a lighter, thinner material which enabled us to enjoy Mania in comfort //as well as// looking relatively normal. It was an experience almost as miraculous as that main event finish.

WrestleMania weekend tends to be a festival of cosplay. Spotted at Axxess alone were a pint-sized AJ fan wearing matching garb who could have passed for her sister (it felt un-PC to request a photo), and three huge dudes in full-on Shield attire – including bandanas across their mouths – who’d have been arrested for intimidating the public if they went out dressed like that in Croydon.

42-year-old Danny from Sacramento was our favourite, however. In addition to looking (a bit) like Macho Man, he had the voice and mannerisms down pat. He’s been attending events as a Randy Savage looklike for ten years, and has seven Macho-style outfits, all of them self-created. “It takes about two months to make one outfit, and it’s not as expensive as you think. It’s the belts that are expensive.” Do we sort of want him to make us one ahead of Mania 32 in Dallas next year? Ohhhhh yeeeah.

Though some mock its legitimacy – the Bushwhackers, really? - WWE’s annual Hall Of Fame ceremony has become a fixture of WrestleMania weekend. Glitz and glamour is laid on thick, with wrestlers and divas kitted out in all manner of designer suits and expensive gowns. The thing you don’t see on camera: their front row seats are reserved using nothing more than names on pieces of paper, just as yours might be at a local theatre for an amateur production of Battlefield: The Musical.

While we might lament Luke and Butch’s induction, one Hall Of Fame entrant deserves every last ounce of recognition. Connor ‘The Crusher’ Michalek, a young wrestling superfan who passed away from brain cancer at just eight years old, was inducted via a series of moving speeches from Ultimate Warrior’s wife Dana, Daniel Bryan, and his father Steve. It was a stirring reminder of how this fake sport touches very real lives, with the male bravado so commonplace among wrestling fans replaced by humility and tears throughout much of the speeches.

17 minutes, 23 seconds. That’s the total amount of time it would take for you to sit through Ronda Rousey’s catalogue of UFC fights, all of them wins. It’s unsurprising, then, that the most dominant woman on the planet got a near-deafening reaction from the 70,000-plus crowd when shown on the big screen at WrestleMania. But this was a mere hint at what was to come.

Rousey later joined The Rock in the ring to send cocky ownership duo Triple H and Stephanie McMahon packing – and she did it wearing a Dragon Ball Z T-shirt. As reported by , away from the Octagon Rousey is a huge World Of Warcraft fan, and also used to moderate a Pokemon forum. There’s always been a crossover between wresting and games, but this goes down as the most high profile example ever. The only way it can be topped? Goldberg returning at Summerslam in a Cloud Strife tee.

Anyone who’s seen the fantastic Fighting With My Family doc showcasing the Knights of Norfolk will be aware of Norwich lass – and two-time Divas champ – Paige’s initial struggles with homesickness on arrival in Orlando. “I’d lived by myself in England, but here it was so different,” she tells GamesRadar. “I’m different from the rest of the girls, and they weren’t very nice to me for the first six months. They were very territorial. I got a lot of crap, and was crying every night on Skype.”

She says the turning point was realising she wasn’t here to make friends, and in the 18 months since has grown to love her adoptive homeland. “Great food, great company, great people. You get to see so much more than in the England. Desert, mountains…. and the weather’s a little bit better, isn’t it?” As for the American thing she loves most: “I enjoy the junk food, I’m a big cheesecake fiend. When I came over here I put on 40lbs of cheesecake weight.” If only we could look similarly svelte after a twelve-pack of Krispy Kremes.

At a Fairmont Hotel conference call to promote WWE 2K15 on Monday morning, Hulk Hogan openly told journalists that he was meeting Kevin Nash and Scott Hall in the afternoon to go over plans for that night’s Raw. But when the time came, both his NWO troupe and rivals DX – who’d received huge ovations from the crowd when interrupting Sting vs Triple H at WrestleMania – were absent. So too Trips, Undertaker, The Rock, and Bret Hart, all of whom had appeared the previous night.

Instead, on what is essentially the start of a new WWE season, younger bucks and beauties were given a chance the shine, with sparkling results. Every match delivered. Lucha Dragons and Geordie high-flyer Neville’s aerial prowess shone through on their official debuts; both title bouts (Bryan vs Ziggler and Cena vs Ambrose) could believably have headlined most pay-per-views; and despite some unnecessarily base chants regarding their sexual preferences, the six-woman tag bout showcased particularly strong work from Natalya, Naomi, Paige and AJ, proving that the #givedivasachance hashtag has turned heads backstage. A sign that WWE finally recognises wresting fans love /wrestling/? We can but hope.

A full four days after the San Jose State University show, city-wide fan love for NXT showed no sign of dying down. GamesRadar saw more grown men wearing Bayley T-shirts than those bearing many main roster stars, even before AJ Lee adorned that particular purple-and-yellow garment on Raw. Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens merch was omnipresent, too.

Then there were the chants outside hotels, while waiting to head inside Mania and the Hall Of Fame, and – incredibly – throughout the six-man main event of Raw. Bayley, Zayn and Owens were clamoured for alongside Hideo Itami, Tyler Breeze and Sasha Banks, as veterans Big Show and Kane looked exasperated (and Randy Orton furious). But while the big names mightn’t like it, this fan love for its next wave of stars is exactly what WWE needs. Adam Rose and Bo Dallas floundered on the main roster as NXT’s cult-like popularity hadn’t reached wrestling fans’ wider conscience. Now the opposite is true, and names like Owens and Finn Balor should be instant stars as a result.

WWE announced the live attendance as 76,976, which, to our eyes, seemed slightly exaggerated. The stadium was sold out, but one entire side of it housed three massive video screens and the entrance way. Including the pre-show, 39 men and four ladies competed, 9 of them pulling double duty. With 23 matches and 22 wins Undertaker remains the most experienced, and successful, WrestleMania combatant. 11 wrestlers or divas actively participated at Mania for the first time, among them Sting, Paige, Rusev and Hideo Itami.

Three belts changed hands: Daniel Bryan scored his first Intercontinental title victory, while John Cena’s US Championship triumph kicks off his fourth reign with that particular strap. The total wrestling time on the show was two hours, six minutes and 51 seconds, with Sting vs Triple H having the longest match from bell to bell, at 18 minutes and 36 seconds.

That then, was WrestleMania weekend. We’d love to know your views on the event itself, as you saw it back at home. Match of the evening? To our eyes, the honour goes to the Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns main event, chiefly for the impromptu, unconventional title-winning introduction of new world champ Seth Rollins. And that ladder match. Good Lord, that ladder match...

Want more wrassle-related content? Check out our interview with .

NXT, Hall Of Fame, Axxess, WrestleMania, Raw: even for the most ardent of WWE Network addicts, the hottest weekend on the wrestling calendar can be a challenging one to keep up with. For four days, an entire city becomes over-run with 6 ft beastmen, beautiful divas and passionate fans, all wanting their super-sized slice of the sumptuous WWE cake. And as you’ll very shortly learn, that cake is an actual thing.

See, GamesRadar headed to San Jose ostensibly to talk video games with the likes of Xavier Woods and Sami Zayn, but couldn’t help noticing numerous happenings that go far beyond the realm of WWE 2K15, Monday Night Raw, and Seth Rollins’ shocking title win at ‘Mania. Here, then, are the 13 must-read secrets from our time spent in Silicon Valley – including Ronda Rousey’s love for Dragon Ball Z and Paige’s admission that she too is a secret glutton…

The New Day hasn’t done much of note since its debut last year. Despite that, trio member Xavier Woods might have just anointed himself GamesRadar’s favourite wrestler. Away from the ring, he’s living his WWE dream exactly as we would. “I have a briefcase that I carry with me when I travel, with a built-in 19-inch TV,” he reveals. “My PS4 straps inside along with the controllers and cords. When I get to hotels I pop that open, I get on the internet, and I play Final Fantasy XIV until I pass out.”

“I wasn’t very social as a kid, but video games were a good way for me to connect with other kids. I was obsessed with everything from Nintendo onwards – Mario, Duck Hunt – and I still have my regular NES. I even had a Virtual Boy – but that thing gives me migraines, so I had to get rid of it.” His favourite game ever? “Mario Kart: Double Dash on the Gamecube. If they put all the options from that into modern Mario Kart, the online game would be unreal.”

WWE wrestlers were housed in the Fairmont Hotel, eight miles from the hosting Levi’s Stadium, for the weekend. To enjoy a drink at the bar on any given evening was to live out every fan’s dream: Bret Hart and Natalya catching up with family and friends, The Miz and Maryse beaming with Hollywood smiles, John Cena’s dad enthusiastically congratulating Rusev and Lana on their bout with his son in the hours after Mania. And then there was… the cake.

Specially commissioned by the hotel and designed to mimic the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, this calorific wonder greeted wrestlers and fans alike upon entry to the building. It contained 50 pounds of dark chocolate, with red fondant and gold and silver dust added for that final jewel-like flourish. And it was being sold off after the show to raise money for Leukemia Lymphoma Society, at a cool $1500. Presumably delicious, /and/ made for a good cause? That is our kind of elevenses.

Friday night saw San Jose State University host a three-hour NXT show featuring what WWE hopes will be its WrestleMania headliners of the future. Japanese import Hideo Itami and Irishman Finn Balor got understandably loud reactions from the 5,000 strong crowd (who seemed especially well-fuelled thanks to an unconventional 10pm start time), but it was New Jersey trio Enzo Amore, Colin Cassidy and Carmella that popped the audience loudest. The trio's call-and-refrain entrance shtick echoes The New Age Outlaws, packing in more catchphrases than Roy Walker. Booked right, this unconventional trio can be huge on the main roster.

Also evident from the show: divas Charlotte, Sasha, Bayley and Becky Lynch are already good enough to compete believably with big stage ladies Paige, AJ Lee and Nikki Bella; Itami's future looks secure now that he's reclaimed the GTS finisher ‘borrowed’ by CM Punk; and Rhyno, the former ECW favourite defeated by Baron Corbin mid-way through this particular card, still has plenty of gore in the tank.

With former indie favourite El Generico – now better known to NXT fans as Sami Zayn – hotly tipped for a main roster debut on Raw which never materialised, GamesRadar was surprised to hear him cut a promo on Friday night in which he stated he was sticking around to reclaim the NXT title from Kevin Owens. Yet he categorically refuted our suggestion that he’s content to stay on the main roster’s periphery.

“I’m not in a rush. This time last year, everyone was telling me ‘I can’t wait until you’re on the main roster’, but this year I’m hearing much more of ‘I love you on NXT’,” he explains. “But I’ll never be happy being sedentary. As long as I’m with NXT my goal is to be champion and leave a void here that when I leave either can’t be filled or is very difficult to fill. The goal is always to move forward.” GamesRadar’s prediction? A WWE call-up and secondary title run (imagine an Intercontinental showdown with Daniel Bryan) at Summerslam.

WWE Axxess at the San Jose Convention Center featured Superstar signings (and ginormous queues for Superstar singings) with close to the entire roster, in addition to the ability to step inside the 16-foot high, ten-ton Elimination Chamber (although security was stepped up after one attention-seeking twonk decided to climb the structure). Its big pull, however, was a curtained-off Hall Of Fame showcase, packed with items familiar to fans young and old.

The casket bearing Brock Lesnar’s name which went up in flames before his WM30 contest with Undertaker was there, next to the real European and Smoking Skull title belts, and countless outfits worn by Randy Savage – most of them signed. Fans also delighted in being photographed next to a daunting life-sized statue of Andre The Giant. Most humbling were the many items taken from Ultimate Warrior’s always kaleidoscopic wardrobe, including – poignantly – the coat he wore for his final Raw appearance, just two days before his untimely passing last April.

Wrestling fans have long accepted that WWE merch is a bit naff. Shirts with noisy (and often senseless) slogans on the rear – made of heavy material that takes on twice its own weight the instant you add a single drop of sweat – have been a company mainstay for longer than Howard ‘The Fink’ Finkel. It never stopped us from buying them; but you had to accept a cloud of existential sadness would accompany every wearing.

Well, not this year. Packed with more than 600 items, the WWE Superstore in downtown San Jose showcased an array of shirt designs that could be worn in public without the threat of city-wide laughter. (The Mecha Powers tee featuring AI versions of Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage? Oh goodness, yes.) Not only that, the $35 tees on show boasted a lighter, thinner material which enabled us to enjoy Mania in comfort //as well as// looking relatively normal. It was an experience almost as miraculous as that main event finish.

WrestleMania weekend tends to be a festival of cosplay. Spotted at Axxess alone were a pint-sized AJ fan wearing matching garb who could have passed for her sister (it felt un-PC to request a photo), and three huge dudes in full-on Shield attire – including bandanas across their mouths – who’d have been arrested for intimidating the public if they went out dressed like that in Croydon.

42-year-old Danny from Sacramento was our favourite, however. In addition to looking (a bit) like Macho Man, he had the voice and mannerisms down pat. He’s been attending events as a Randy Savage looklike for ten years, and has seven Macho-style outfits, all of them self-created. “It takes about two months to make one outfit, and it’s not as expensive as you think. It’s the belts that are expensive.” Do we sort of want him to make us one ahead of Mania 32 in Dallas next year? Ohhhhh yeeeah.

Though some mock its legitimacy – the Bushwhackers, really? - WWE’s annual Hall Of Fame ceremony has become a fixture of WrestleMania weekend. Glitz and glamour is laid on thick, with wrestlers and divas kitted out in all manner of designer suits and expensive gowns. The thing you don’t see on camera: their front row seats are reserved using nothing more than names on pieces of paper, just as yours might be at a local theatre for an amateur production of Battlefield: The Musical.

While we might lament Luke and Butch’s induction, one Hall Of Fame entrant deserves every last ounce of recognition. Connor ‘The Crusher’ Michalek, a young wrestling superfan who passed away from brain cancer at just eight years old, was inducted via a series of moving speeches from Ultimate Warrior’s wife Dana, Daniel Bryan, and his father Steve. It was a stirring reminder of how this fake sport touches very real lives, with the male bravado so commonplace among wrestling fans replaced by humility and tears throughout much of the speeches.

17 minutes, 23 seconds. That’s the total amount of time it would take for you to sit through Ronda Rousey’s catalogue of UFC fights, all of them wins. It’s unsurprising, then, that the most dominant woman on the planet got a near-deafening reaction from the 70,000-plus crowd when shown on the big screen at WrestleMania. But this was a mere hint at what was to come.

Rousey later joined The Rock in the ring to send cocky ownership duo Triple H and Stephanie McMahon packing – and she did it wearing a Dragon Ball Z T-shirt. As reported by , away from the Octagon Rousey is a huge World Of Warcraft fan, and also used to moderate a Pokemon forum. There’s always been a crossover between wresting and games, but this goes down as the most high profile example ever. The only way it can be topped? Goldberg returning at Summerslam in a Cloud Strife tee.

Anyone who’s seen the fantastic Fighting With My Family doc showcasing the Knights of Norfolk will be aware of Norwich lass – and two-time Divas champ – Paige’s initial struggles with homesickness on arrival in Orlando. “I’d lived by myself in England, but here it was so different,” she tells GamesRadar. “I’m different from the rest of the girls, and they weren’t very nice to me for the first six months. They were very territorial. I got a lot of crap, and was crying every night on Skype.”

She says the turning point was realising she wasn’t here to make friends, and in the 18 months since has grown to love her adoptive homeland. “Great food, great company, great people. You get to see so much more than in the England. Desert, mountains…. and the weather’s a little bit better, isn’t it?” As for the American thing she loves most: “I enjoy the junk food, I’m a big cheesecake fiend. When I came over here I put on 40lbs of cheesecake weight.” If only we could look similarly svelte after a twelve-pack of Krispy Kremes.

At a Fairmont Hotel conference call to promote WWE 2K15 on Monday morning, Hulk Hogan openly told journalists that he was meeting Kevin Nash and Scott Hall in the afternoon to go over plans for that night’s Raw. But when the time came, both his NWO troupe and rivals DX – who’d received huge ovations from the crowd when interrupting Sting vs Triple H at WrestleMania – were absent. So too Trips, Undertaker, The Rock, and Bret Hart, all of whom had appeared the previous night.

Instead, on what is essentially the start of a new WWE season, younger bucks and beauties were given a chance the shine, with sparkling results. Every match delivered. Lucha Dragons and Geordie high-flyer Neville’s aerial prowess shone through on their official debuts; both title bouts (Bryan vs Ziggler and Cena vs Ambrose) could believably have headlined most pay-per-views; and despite some unnecessarily base chants regarding their sexual preferences, the six-woman tag bout showcased particularly strong work from Natalya, Naomi, Paige and AJ, proving that the #givedivasachance hashtag has turned heads backstage. A sign that WWE finally recognises wresting fans love /wrestling/? We can but hope.

A full four days after the San Jose State University show, city-wide fan love for NXT showed no sign of dying down. GamesRadar saw more grown men wearing Bayley T-shirts than those bearing many main roster stars, even before AJ Lee adorned that particular purple-and-yellow garment on Raw. Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens merch was omnipresent, too.

Then there were the chants outside hotels, while waiting to head inside Mania and the Hall Of Fame, and – incredibly – throughout the six-man main event of Raw. Bayley, Zayn and Owens were clamoured for alongside Hideo Itami, Tyler Breeze and Sasha Banks, as veterans Big Show and Kane looked exasperated (and Randy Orton furious). But while the big names mightn’t like it, this fan love for its next wave of stars is exactly what WWE needs. Adam Rose and Bo Dallas floundered on the main roster as NXT’s cult-like popularity hadn’t reached wrestling fans’ wider conscience. Now the opposite is true, and names like Owens and Finn Balor should be instant stars as a result.

WWE announced the live attendance as 76,976, which, to our eyes, seemed slightly exaggerated. The stadium was sold out, but one entire side of it housed three massive video screens and the entrance way. Including the pre-show, 39 men and four ladies competed, 9 of them pulling double duty. With 23 matches and 22 wins Undertaker remains the most experienced, and successful, WrestleMania combatant. 11 wrestlers or divas actively participated at Mania for the first time, among them Sting, Paige, Rusev and Hideo Itami.

Three belts changed hands: Daniel Bryan scored his first Intercontinental title victory, while John Cena’s US Championship triumph kicks off his fourth reign with that particular strap. The total wrestling time on the show was two hours, six minutes and 51 seconds, with Sting vs Triple H having the longest match from bell to bell, at 18 minutes and 36 seconds.

That then, was WrestleMania weekend. We’d love to know your views on the event itself, as you saw it back at home. Match of the evening? To our eyes, the honour goes to the Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns main event, chiefly for the impromptu, unconventional title-winning introduction of new world champ Seth Rollins. And that ladder match. Good Lord, that ladder match...

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