What we learned from WrestleMania 33

The short version: WrestleMania 33 was far, far better than WrestleMania 32, thanks to better matches, better matchups, and superior pacing. The long version? Well, that’s what the rest of this recap is for. We’ve got seven eight hours and 13 matches to cover, so let’s get into it.

The crowd was hot for this match, owing to the build and also the performers themselves. Neville shoved his thumb right into the reconstructed eye socket of Aries, breaking the submission he was held within and giving Neville the opportunity to hit his finisher, the Red Arrow.

What we learned: Cheating to win? Busting out the finisher you only reserve for huge moments because you want to rob the fans of it otherwise? Neville might fear Aries a little bit, even though he’ll never admit it, and his tactics might result in a rematch somewhere down the line.

These two have done some real work to elevate the still-young cruiserweight division and the accompanying show, 205 Live. By WrestleMania next year, having the division’s title on the main card instead of the pre-show could happen thanks to the trajectory Aries and Neville have it on.

Match favorite Braun Strowman eliminated a former ‘Dre winner, the 7’0 Big Show, but then literally everyone else still in the ring — a number of wrestlers in the teens — eliminated Strowman together. So, Strowman didn’t get a chance to win, not even close, but it took a village to bring him down, and that sort of thing matters.

With Strowman and Show gone, the match broken down into a number of smaller fights, and Mojo Rawley inevitably came out on top after Jinder Mahal made the mistake of throwing Rob Gronkowski’s brewski at him. Yes, that Gronk, who is friends with former the former NFL player, Rawley.

What we learned: Mojo Rawley isn’t everyone’s kind of wrestler, but he’s a fun face and a big, strong, charismatic dude who should be winning matches like The ‘Dre at this stage of his career. Like Baron Corbin last year, this could be an omen that Rawley is going to be heavily featured between now and the next Mania.

Corbin and Ambrose wrestled with intensity after being demoted to the pre-show, not letting the movement of their match off of the main card result in a dip in effort. That’s not to say it was expected that they’d care less — it’s more just taking a moment to appreciate that the two dudes still brought it even after an unfortunate audible likely caused in part by what was to happen in the show’s main event.

What we learned: Corbin ended up losing when Ambrose escaped End of Days by flipping backwards out of it, then hitting Corbin with his own finisher, Dirty Deeds. That’s a counter that certainly works, and is basically the only way to get out of the End of Days, but Ambrose being the one to pull it off was a nifty surprise that made for a great finishing sequence.

Corbin got real close to winning his first title in WWE, though, and this is unlikely to be the end of their feud for the belt. If anything else, it’s going to escalate.

THIS WAS SO STUPID AND I LOVED IT SHANE KEPT DOING MMA SUBMISSION STUFF AND THE TWO OF THEM WERE TRYING TO OUTBUMP EACH OTHER TO DEATH AND SHANE MISSED A SHOOTING STAR PRESS, WHICH, WHAT ARE YOU DOING, SHANE

BUT IT RESULTED IN THE PROPER FINISH TO THE MATCH AND THAT’S WHAT MATTERS

What we learned: Ahem.

No, Shane McMahon was never the perfect guy to wrestle AJ Styles, who is the best wrestler in the world, full stop. AJ Styles was the perfect guy to wrestle Shane McMahon, though, and it resulted in a thrilling opener to the main show of WrestleMania 33 featuring ridiculous feats of athleticism combined with Shane landing on his face one too many times for his own good.

With Styles victorious, he can likely now reenter the WWE World Championship scene. And if his last match with Randy Orton is any indication, we are all in for a treat.

The dissolution of the friendship of Owens and Jericho was the best thing RAW had going heading into Mania, and the match itself delivered on that feud. The two knew each other so well from their better part of a year together that it was a battle of constant counters, and one seeking to gain even the slightest edge over the other. Owens eventually wore Jericho down when he finally connected with a pop-up powerbomb to the ring apron, tilting the scales in his favor.

What we learned: Owens might be the reason this friendship imploded, but now he’s also the victor and the new holder of the United States Championship. With RAW’s top men’s title, the Universal Championship, in the hands of a part-time wrestler, Owens now has the chance to elevate the United States title in the way that John Cena previously did, by making it a signature piece of the show instead of something Jericho or Roman Reigns happened to be wearing while on-screen.

Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks, and Bayley all worked together in order to defeat Nia Jax using tandem offense, as well as a pin that was literally just the three of them stacked on top of each other in the hopes it would be enough to hold the powerhouse down. This only happened because of the elimination format of the match, which created a temporary alliance that otherwise would not have existed, and it helped make this match memorable all on its own — even before you take into account Bayley paying tribute to Macho Man Randy Savage en route to a successful title defense at Mania.

What we learned: This match told the story of RAW’s women division wonderfully. While Charlotte Flair is supremely confident in her own abilities, she’s not an idiot: she worked together with rivals Sasha Banks and Bayley to take out the seemingly unstoppable Nia Jax, because it was necessary for her own survival. Charlotte is a horrible person to everyone on RAW ... except Nia. There is a respect there that comes from a place of fear, as Charlotte always knew that one day, Nia would come for her, and the longer she could put it off, the better it would be for Flair.

Bayley, given the chance to fight Charlotte in a straight-up one-on-one setting following the elimination of Nia and Sasha, took her offense to the next level in order to defeat the Queen. With Bayley retaining and Charlotte suffering consecutive championship losses for the first time in, well, ever, RAW’s women’s division can now move in a new direction.

DELIGHTFUL. The Hardy Boys (not with a Z anymore, y’all, this isn’t the 90s) came back to WWE, and immediately showed their opponents where all that fame for ladder matches came from. This match was so much fun, and the Hardys showing up in their Broken form that they perfected outside WWE is promising both for them and RAW’s tag division going forward.

What we learned: Well, for one, the rumors that the Hardys were coming to WWE were true, and also we now know which show they will be featured on. This also likely means that SmackDown Live will be getting one or both of the superb tag teams that are ready to graduate from NXT, so both shows will have stronger tag divisions following Mania in large part due to the return of the Hardys.

So much fun. John Cena has dominated the talking portion of this feud compared to his girlfriend, Nikki Bella, but Nikki almost always got in the last, violent word and mic drops of their dual promos against Miz and Maryse. A similar theme ran through the match itself, with Cena in the ring for the bulk of it, but Nikki being the one to put an end to Miz and Maryse.

This wasn’t as simple as Cena happening to tag Nikki in so she could finish the job, either. No, Cena actually struggled against Miz for most of their time in the ring against each other, but Nikki took Maryse down with ease, opening up the opportunity for tandem finishers and a double pin.

Then John Cena finally asked Nikki Bella to marry him after relaying a super cute story about their relationship to 70,000 people in the stadium and everyone watching at home.

What we learned: D’aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw

So, here’s a huge surprise. This match was expected to be a mess of interference, with Triple H’s Beef Squad of Samoa Joe and Kevin Owens getting involved on his behalf, and Seth maybe finding out he has allies in either his former Shield brothers or Sami Zayn. Instead, we got a relatively straight-forward affair that told the story of how dangerous it was for Seth Rollins to be fighting Triple H in his condition.

What we learned: Seth was coming off a major knee injury from January that occurred in the same knee that caused him to miss WrestleMania a year ago, and it turns out that like 90 percent of Seth’s offense stems from his knees one way or another. He fought through this, though, and thanks to an inspired finishing sequence that you can basically describe as Pedigree-based chain wrestling, Rollins came out on top and proved to the world that he can thrive without Triple H making sure it happens for him.

This was the lone dud on the WrestleMania 33 card. It wasn’t an outright bad match, and it had some real cool spots and also mystical projections of maggots and other insects showing up on the ring, which was helped considerably by Randy Orton being super creeped out by them. This match confirmed a fear, though: Orton and Wyatt, for all their talent, just don’t have the same kind of in-ring chemistry that they have outside of it.

What we learned: Orton won his 13th WWE World Championship, putting him one behind Triple H and three behind both Ric Flair and John Cena on the all-time list. While he’s likely to have a rematch with Bray before long, the likely direction from here on out seems to be AJ Styles given what went down prior to Mania. Unlike with Bray, Styles is someone Orton has obvious in-ring chemistry with, so this is a great time for him to be champion even if it’s disappointing that he won the title the way he did against Bray.

Lesnar finally got offense in against Goldberg first, but it didn’t seem to matter as Goldberg immediately got up from two German suplexes to spear Lesnar yet again. Unlike the last times they met up when a spear ended things, though, Lesnar got back up, and hung in the fight until he could finally avoid a spear, causing Goldberg to harm himself in the corner. From there, it was Lesnar’s game to win, and he did, defeating Goldberg and becoming Universal Champion in the process.

What we learned: This was short and to the point, but also totally worth the time invested in it. It’s still a little weird that it needed the Universal Championship, but hey, now getting it off of Brock Lesnar is a plot point for someone besides Goldberg to solve, so in the end, it works.

This match was also short, but not in the insulting, incoherent way that women’s matches in WWE used to be. This was a logical, albeit brief story that centered heavily around Naomi as the former champion who didn’t lose the title but gave it up due to injury, and it was bell-to-bell action as nearly everyone tried to keep her from getting it back.

Despite this, Naomi was the one who came out of all of the chaos by tapping out Alexa Bliss to join her as the second woman to win the blue brand’s Women’s title twice.

What we learned: Naomi’s knee is healthy enough to wrestle, but maybe not quite healthy enough that she or WWE wanted to risk using her actual finisher (a split-legged moonsault off the second rope) to win. Still, she showed off a submission finisher that made it look like she could pop Alexa Bliss’ head right off, and now we can move on to the Naomi vs. Bliss one-on-one feud we were expecting before it turned out Naomi needed some time on the disabled list.

This match was uncomfortable to watch. It’s not really anyone’s fault, either: Undertaker had hip surgery in 2016, and it seems as if the 52-year-old never recovered from it in the way he had to in order to put on one last WrestleMania classic. Roman Reigns carried this match as well as just about anyone could, and plenty of people are going to boo the decision to have him win rather than boo him for any actual action he took in the match, but that kind of misses the point that, at this point, Taker visibly has difficulty walking, never mind wrestling, and Reigns is in peak physical condition and nigh unstoppable in-character.

All logic pointed toward Reigns winning, and the match itself only furthered that.

What we learned: This wasn’t initially supposed to be Taker’s last match. At least, it never seemed that way. In the last few days before Mania, though, rumors swirled that Jim Ross was being brought back in to call it, and that it was going on last, and then not only did these things occur, but Undertaker’s wife, former WWE wrestler Michelle McCool, showed up to watch this match behind the commentary desk.

While the match itself is totally forgettable — again, hard to fault anyone for that except for the ravages of time — the moment it created, with Taker slowly taking off all the signature items of his character to leave them in a pile in the ring before exiting to a chorus of chants thanking him for his decades in WWE, is something that will stick with everyone who saw it. Thank you, Taker.

WrestleMania 33 was a ton of fun, even with a downer of a last match and a dud of a WWE World Championship bout. There were eight mostly successful hours here, and it seems as if WWE learned from the mistakes of WrestleMania 32 by speeding the entire event up and also making sure The Rock didn’t show up to waste everyone’s time for no good reason at all.

It feels as if both RAW and SmackDown have fascinating places to go to following Mania, and other than being entertained by the event itself, that’s kind of the point of the event, yeah?