Since this a review, spoilers for Wrestlemania 34 follow below.
You’ve been warned.
Well, that was a Wrestlemania. And I’ve been searching for a word to describe it, and the best one I have is bizarre.
The Undertaker came back and squashed John Cena, Asuka’s streak ended, Brock Lesnar beat Roman Reigns in a match everybody was sure would be Reign’s coronation as a worse Cena, AJ Styles had a somewhat disappointing match and Ronda Rousey may have had the match of the night.
Bizarre indeed, as most of my expectations and predictions for the night were shattered. This time we’re gonna do something different, as I’ll post a TL;DR and the quick match results.
Just for fun, I’m gonna start giving matches the proverbial star ratings, but they won’t be stars. Don’t take these seriously, if you thought the match was better or worse than me, than it was. These are just for fun.
Also as a disclaimer, I did not watch the pre-show, as I finished the main card at 2 a.m. and called it a night.
TL;DR: The first half of this Mania was a lot of fun, then right around Styles vs Nakamura the show became a little underwhelming. Most of the matches were good in ring, but the many questionable booking decisions leave me kinda stumped on where the stories go from here. Definitely better than the last two Wrestlemanias.
Match Results:
- Seth Rollins pins The Miz after a curb stomp to win the Intercontinental Championship in a triple threat match also involving Finn Balor.
- Charlotte Flair retained her Smackdown Women’s Championship by making Asuka tap out to the figure eight, ending Asuka’s two and a half year undefeated streak.
- Jinder Mahal beat Rusev, Randy Orton and Bobby Roode in a fatal four way match for the United States Championship.
- Kurt Angle and Ronda Rousey beat Triple H and Stephanie McMahon by armbar in a mixed tag team match
- The Bludgeon Brothers beat The Usos and The New Day in a triple threat tag team match to win the Smackdown Tag Team Championships.
- The Undertaker beat John Cena in three minutes.
- Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon beat Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens via Yes Lock. With this Owens and Zayn are still fired from Smackdown.
- Nia Jax beat Alexa Bliss by top rope Samoan Drop to win the Raw Women’s Championship.
- AJ Styles beat Shinsuke Nakamura to retain the WWE Championship. After the match, Nakamura turned heel by hitting Styles below the belt and kicking him in the face repeatedly.
- Braun Strowman and 10 year old fan Nicholas beat The Bar to win the Raw Tag Team Championship
- Brock Lesnar beat Roman Reigns via 6 F-5’s to retain the Universal Championship, with no interest from the live crowd.
So now, on to the full, long detailed review of Wrestlemania 34:
Intercontinental Championship Match: This match was awesome and was definitely the best “wrestling” match on the show. All three guys got time to do their stuff, with the Coup De Grace pin breakup by Finn, and the mid-pin attempt curb stomp by Rollins.
Miz actually looked good in defeat, as he wrestled straight up and had a few long stretches of dominance. Plus the entrances were cool. I was hoping Rollins would win and complete his Grand Slam, making all three Shield guys hold this honor. Awesome match with a lot of cool moments and a good ending.
Rating: 4 Seth Rollins swinging the title belt over his head out of 5.
Smackdown Women’s Championship Match: This was another good wrestling match, with so many nice counters and reversals of moves that made it look like anyone’s match. Asuka working on the shoulder of Charlotte was good ring psychology, and the moonsault counter was tremendous. It was a really well worked match and was only just barely beaten by the previous match.
But what is gonna stick with people is the ending of this one. The finish came when Charlotte made Asuka tap out to her Figure 8 submission the first time she applied it, breaking Asuka’s two and a half year streak. I guess it was better to end it at Wrestlemania than at a smaller show, but Charlotte has already got most of the big women’s accolades, why did she need this one too?
Also, Asuka didn’t struggle long enough to break out of the hold, she should’ve been in it much longer, or the match should’ve got five more minutes with multiple Figure 8 attempts to show how tough both women were. But I digress, as it was still a great match until the ending.
Rating: 4 glittery face masks out of 5.
U.S. Title Fatal Four Way: This match was pretty good. There were some good exchanges between all four guys with Rusev looking like a star, with the whole crowd chanting for him. I zoned out a little during this match, but was disappointed with the ending. Jinder winning another title? Now we’re gonna see him fight Randy Orton, again.
The one guy who I didn’t want to win won, and we have to suffer through another title reign of boring matches, the same boring promos, and matches that will all have the same ending of Singh brother interference and Khallas.
Rating: 2.5 Machka kicks out of 5.
Rousey and Angle vs The Authority: This was the shock of the night. Rousey entered with a Roddy Piper inspired attire, and Triple H and Stephanie rode in on a motorcycle parade, just like last year.
The match was good, telling the story of Stephanie trying everything to avoid Rousey, by taking cheap shots and taking advantage of situations where the ref was distracted. The match was kinda in autopilot until Rousey came in, and blew everyone away. She was fast, and pretty crisp at doing the few moves she had to do.
She also sold pretty well for Stephanie’s offense, and had an awesome moment when she lifted Triple H on her shoulders for a bit. The match was pretty long, but didn’t feel like a 20 minute affair, and I was invested in seeing what Rousey would do next.
So I have to give all four involved a lot of credit. I wasn’t really looking forward to this match, but by the end of it, it was my match of the night, in terms of entertainment value.
Rating: 4 Rousey hurricanranas to Triple H out of 5.
Smackdown Tag Titles: While short, this was a good match for what it was. All three teams got to get some good offense in, and Harper and Rowan looked like absolute beasts. Nothing really else to say, just a solid match that accomplished its purpose.
Also, The New Day’s entrance was fantastic, the little people in pancake outfits throwing flapjacks into the crowd was awesome!
Rating: 3 pancake throwing little people out of 5.
Undertaker vs John Cena: This was bizarre. Cena gets the signal that Taker’s in the building and heads to the ring, only to be interrupted by Elias. He performs (great as always) and gets beat up and hit with an AA by Cena for his troubles. Taker still doesn’t come down. Yet when all hope is lost and Cena walks to the back and is interrupted by the entrance of the deadman.
The match that followed was three minutes of Taker moving better and faster than he has in years, with him destroying Cena. It’s always so strange to see Cena get defeated so easily. Cena lost after one Chokeslam and one Tombstone piledriver. An interesting sight to see, but not a very good match.
Rating: 2 goofy John Cena runs up the ramp out of 5.
Owens and Zayn vs Bryan and Shane: This was a pretty standard tag team match. Bryan gets hurt beforehand, and the heels beat on Shane for a while. Then Bryan comes in for the save and hits all his signatures on Owens and Zayn to win the match.
However, this match was special since it was Bryan’s first match in almost three years, in the same arena where he won the WWE title in the main event of Wrestlemania four years ago. The crowd loved Bryan, and he looked like he hasn’t missed a step, while working a safer style. A great moment for Daniel Bryan fans.
Rating: 3 weird Shane McMahon groans out of 5.
Raw Women’s Championship: This was a decent match. All the spots were done well and it told a nice story of Alexa using her cunning to go toe to toe with Jax. The Samoan Drop off the top rope looked cool, and the right person won. While I would’ve preferred a shorter squash match, it was still solid. Nothing offensively bad here.
Rating: 3 lifeless Mickie James lying on the floor out of 5.
WWE Championship: I lowered my expectations for this match beforehand, because everytime a match is labeled as a “dream match” or “show-stealer” before it happens, it isn’t going to live up to the hype.
This was the case here, as it was slower than their New Japan match, and just didn’t have a good flow, as whenever the action would get going, it’d be stopped by a rest hold or extended period of selling. There were still some good moments. The final counter to the Styles Clash was really cool, as was the forearm countered into the Landslide.
And finally, the heel turn at the end was executed really well. I actually didn’t see it coming, and all the repeated kicks to the head and back of Styles looked like they hurt. A good match, but nothing compared to what it was hyped up to be, which brings it down in my eyes.
Rating: 3 Nakamura jackets out of 5.
Raw Tag Team Championship: This was a nice moment. Sheamus and Cesaro entering on the Mardi Gras float was funny, Strowman destroying the float was even better, and the site of all the Mardi Gras characters running in fear was funny.
While I was hoping James Ellsworth would be Strowman’s partner, it was still a good twist to see it be a fan at ringside. The match was short and sweet, with Strowman looking like a beast, even though beating both men by himself made The Bar look like chumps.
But this was meant to be a moment more than a match, and for that it did its job well.
Rating: 2.5 crashed Mardi Gras sets out of 5.
Universal Championship: Well this was certainly a match that happened. It was a worse version of the main event from Wrestlemania 31, with Reigns taking a beating and being all resilient about it. But it was slow and plodding, with Reigns kicking out of a ridiculous five F-5’s and 10 different suplexes. It was like Rock vs Cena from Wrestlemania 29, but worse.
It didn’t help that the crowd didn’t care at all about this match, chanting “boring,”
“CM Punk,” and the first “This is awful” chant I’ve ever heard. There were also many beach balls being tossed around.
To top it all off, Reigns lost. The guy that’s main evented four straight Manias lost his big coronation match. The whole point was to take the title off Lesnar so he could go back to UFC and the Universal title could be on Raw every week. A whole year of Lesnar showing up 10 times was all for naught. Boring match, bad ending and a crowd that was apathetic to the whole thing. Not a good way to end the biggest show of the year.
Rating: 2 crimson masks out of 5.
This Wrestlemania had a lot of moments. Taker’s return, the Rousey match, Nakamura’s heel turn, the streak breaking, all the entrances and the shock of Lesnar retaining. Yet so many of those decisions just didn’t seem like the right ones that fit in with the story. If you’re gonna do the story of the main event and have the resilient babyface lose, what was the point?
So overall, this was an ok Wrestlemania with some good moments, good wrestling but strange booking. Better than Wrestlemania 32 and 33, but there are still many ahead of it. Now I’m just curious what happens next, which was maybe the point of all the weird choices.
Overall show rating: 3 beach balls out of 5.
That was Wrestlemania 34, and now we start on the long trek to next year’s event. So keep it here for more Wolski’s Wrestling Ramblings.
Henry Wolski
Executive Editor