WWE Must Give Creative Direction to WrestleMania Losers

On Sunday night, a number of WWE's top stars got to experience their "WrestleMania moments."

However, for every victor, there has to be a loser. There were some performers who left Levi's Stadium licking their wounds of war and pondering their next steps.

It's easy for WWE Creative to book the winners of WrestleMania season. Often, they will move onto bigger and better things. Losers are much harder to book.

This is the conundrum that faces the future work of Rusev, Bray Wyatt, Stardust and many others after their losses at the Show of Shows.

The otherwise excellent post-WrestleMania episode of Raw this week was a perfect case study of this problem.

Stardust lost in a short squash match to the surging Damien Mizdow, Bray Wyatt was completely absent and Rusev regressed to the kind of squash victory he was booked in months ago. None of those competitors have a clear feud going forward.

It's vitally important that Superstars such as these are thrown a bone by WWE Creative in order to prevent them from becoming lost in the shuffle and slipping down the card.

This is precisely what happened to Wyatt last year. After his loss to John Cena at WrestleMania XXX, Wyatt was thrown into a lackluster feud with a returning Chris Jericho which seemed to be an afterthought for Creative and sent Wyatt tumbling down to the midcard.

This year, there are obvious ways to utilise WrestleMania's losers.

Stardust could renew his dormant rivalry with his brother, Goldust. The feud still had plenty of mileage after the bizarre finish at WWE Fastlane and it's a match that could suit the kind of gimmick match that dominates the forthcoming Extreme Rules event.

Rusev simply must continue to pursue Cena in an attempt to regain the United States Championship. Now that Cena has the honour of smashing the Bulgarian Brute's undefeated streak, there's no reason he can't put over the dominant young star at Extreme Rules.

Wyatt is a slightly trickier proposition, but there's no reason that the Eater of Worlds couldn't pursue main event babyface stars such as Randy Orton in the coming months. A feud with Roman Reigns would give the cult leader an elevated card position, while a run at old rival—and new Intercontinental Champion—Daniel Bryan isn't out of the question either.

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Stardust, Rusev and Wyatt are future main event talents in WWE and should be treated as such. It would be foolish of WWE Creative not to utilise these men in the manner that they deserve.

WWE did a great job at WrestleMania, showcasing veterans whilst giving new stars a chance to shine.

It's important that they continue to elevate the performers of the future, regardless of whether they are currently riding the momentum of a victory on the big stage.