WWE WrestleMania 33: Unsung Heroes of Raw and SmackDown Who Deserve Mania Moment
WWE WrestleMania 33 is fast approaching, and all of the most important people on the roster seem to have their plans set in stone.
There's still room to play around with the card a little here and there, but for the most part, if you're someone like Roman Reigns, John Cena or Kevin Owens, you were factored into plans months ago and have nothing to worry about.
However, what about those Superstars who were working just as hard—if not harder—during that same time frame WWE seems to be ignoring?
WrestleMania season is the time of year when many part-time wrestlers come in and scoop up prime real estate on the card.
Meanwhile, the talents who were workhorses during the rest of the year suddenly stop being valuable to WWE and are pushed aside, with their efforts going unrewarded.
Without those men and women, there would be no momentum for the bigger stars to capitalize on, which makes it a shame to see them sit unnoticed on the sidelines.
When looking back over the past year and comparing it to the lineup for WrestleMania 33, several unsung heroes stand out as Superstars who are unfortunately not likely to receive a WrestleMania moment this year despite all their contributions to getting WWE to this point.
Braun Strowman
1 of 9
How has Braun Strowman gone from being one of the potential winners of the Royal Rumble to the sidepiece of Roman Reigns' feud with The Undertaker?
This guy was a huge star in the making for months on end, toppling every foe in his way until he reached Reigns, who was able to give him his first true loss.
Since then, all he's done is back away from The Undertaker and attacked Reigns.
Strowman could have been fighting for the Universal Championship if a few things had gone differently, and he is certainly well within the range of the United States title, yet he stands without a match.
Why has he not at least been announced for the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal?
Even that would be a step down from his level considering the rest of the contenders who will make up that contest, but it would still be a step up from being a stepping stone for Reigns to beat up while WWE keeps him away from The Undertaker.
The Monster Among Men needs to at least be a dominant winner of the Battle Royal for it to appear as though he didn't lose all of his momentum when Reigns defeated him at Fastlane.
WWE can't just ignore him in favor of Brock Lesnar and Goldberg, only to pick up exactly where things left off a week or so after WrestleMania. By that point, fans will already think that he's been diminished.
This goes to show you that even the big men in WWE are sometimes overlooked despite the fact it seems it is the little guys who aren't valued as much as they should be.
Sami Zayn
2 of 9
Speaking of the little guys, Sami Zayn seems to be stuck in a rut that sees WWE forced to rely upon him and then chuck him out of the discussion the moment he's no longer filling in for somebody else.
He's been a staple midcarder since moving up to the main roster last year, consistently having good to great matches each and every week but having nothing to show for it.
Most recently, when Seth Rollins went down with an injury, Zayn was thrust into a feud with Samoa Joe as a replacement, naturally losing as Joe was the more important person to establish.
They're continuing to fight, but it comes off as stretching out the filler rather than building an actual rivalry.
Now that Finn Balor has returned and is obviously cleared for in-ring action, it wouldn't be surprising to see Zayn ignored, tossed into the Battle Royal with all of the other miscellaneous wrestlers and Balor to get a match against Joe instead.
Zayn is popular with the crowd and a great performer, so what is it that WWE doesn't want to capitalize on?
If it's his mic skills, there's plenty of hypocrisy to point out with other Superstars with the same problem who don't seem to be suffering from a lack of exposure.
If it's a scenario in which there are more important people taking up those spots, then why does it feel like there's a lack of established names on Raw every week? Where are these people who aren't around when WWE feels the need to bump Zayn up the card?
It's doubtful there would be much if any backlash against a United States Championship reign for Zayn, and it was well within his grasp just around a month ago, when he was being set up to have a title shot against Chris Jericho.
Once it was decided that Goldberg and Brock Lesnar needed the Universal Championship for whatever reason, Jericho and Kevin Owens were pushed down the hierarchy and kept the United States title on the line as a secondary option, leaving Zayn as the odd man out.
WWE officials must know that Zayn isn't a waste but clearly refuse to give credit where it is due. This year at WrestleMania, don't get your hopes up that he'll do anything but get tossed out of the ring in the Battle Royal.
Samoa Joe
3 of 9
It's hard to imagine WWE brought Samoa Joe up from NXT to the main roster to have him attack Seth Rollins in alignment with Triple H, fight Roman Reigns, beat Sami Zayn and then fade into obscurity, but it's questionable what is going on with his plans for WrestleMania.
If he's just wrestling Zayn again, that seems underwhelming, doesn't it? No effort is being put into making the Underdog from the Underground look like a credible opponent, and they've already faced each other at Fastlane, so there's no mystique behind it.
There's a possibility Finn Balor makes his return to take the fight to Joe, but we're running out of time to add more elements to that feud to make it more interesting than just those two names in front of a graphic of a sun.
Nobody else on the Raw roster seems to be a fitting opponent. Even then, whoever that might be has had zero interactions with Joe.
What gives? Was Joe just a tool used to further the Rollins-Triple H feud and WWE didn't think about what to do with him after the fact, or is there a bigger plan in place?
If it's the former, that shows a lack of foresight. If it's the latter, it's also indicative of poor planning, as whatever happens will be rushed just one or two weeks before the big event.
While Joe hasn't had the same run on the main roster as other people on this list, his time as the headliner of the NXT brand more than makes up for it, so he shouldn't be treated like a disposable midcarder along the lines of The Vaudevillains and Titus O'Neil.
Here's hoping WWE has a plan and that not only is it a good one but the execution is as well.
Dolph Ziggler
4 of 9
The Showoff isn't even on the show yet, which is quite odd considering there was a deliberate tease of him being involved in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.
When Mojo Rawley announced he would enter the fray, Dolph Ziggler confronted him about it and seemed to also throw his name in the hat.
Over a week has passed and Apollo Crews, Big Show and Curt Hawkins have been named as official entrants, but Ziggler is missing from that list.
Is this a purposeful omission or an oversight?
This is Dolph Ziggler—a former world champion and future Hall of Famer. He is perhaps the most talented in-ring performer who can be trusted to go out there and put on as good of a show as he can each and every week.
Why was he saddled with a meaningless feud with Crews and Kalisto that went nowhere for weeks on end that fizzled out with no resolution and left Ziggler's status for WrestleMania up in the air?
When the brand split happened last summer, Ziggler started to receive a legitimate push again, wrestling in main event matches and having one of the best feuds of the year against The Miz.
What does he have to show for that? A count-out loss to Rawley? That is a pathetic footnote during the time when the biggest amount of momentum should be gained.
Ziggler should be going into WrestleMania as a hot heel in at least the upper-midcard range, fighting for the Intercontinental Championship or involved in at least some kind of decent feud, not someone who is busying himself losing to Zack Ryder's buddy whom nobody takes seriously.
American Alpha
5 of 9
Every single title on both brands has a match announced for WrestleMania save for the SmackDown Tag Team Championships, which means American Alpha—one of the most popular teams WWE has—is being left out in the cold.
Two weeks ago, Jason Jordan and Chad Gable were absent from SmackDown, only showing up on Talking Smack to momentarily vent their frustrations about how The Usos were stalking them backstage. If you didn't see that show or you don't follow The Usos on Twitter, you would have no idea that this feud was even continuing.
The following week, nothing happened regarding either team—not even on Talking Smack!
The latest episode of SmackDown did have a segment dedicated to the two teams facing off, but the crowd was completely dead for it. Several times throughout, WWE kept cutting to footage in the backstage area of commissioner Shane McMahon walking around aimlessly.
After a lackluster finish, The Usos were declared possible contenders to the tag titles with nothing official spawning out of it, no enthusiasm to the segment, no announcements for a title match at WrestleMania on Talking Smack or anything of the sort.
It's as if the writers realized they had forgotten about the SmackDown Tag Team Championships and tossed this on to the show without trying to craft a storyline around it, as the most basic play in the book is to have someone beat the champions in a non-title match to earn a title shot later on.
Is anybody going to care if these two teams face off at WrestleMania? Of course not! They just had a match several weeks earlier, and the feud has no stability.
This screams of a match that will not only be forced to live on the pre-show but could possibly be the most likely candidate to be bumped from the card entirely if WWE officials think the show will run too long and need to trim the fat.
If that happens, it spits in the face of the two tag teams who have kept SmackDown running since the brand split and have been doing great work when they get an opportunity to shine.
SmackDown's tag team titles are being treated like a nuisance rather than something to actually strive for.
James Ellsworth
6 of 9
It sounds odd to say WWE's resident punching bag should be given something decent to do at WrestleMania when time is being allocated to the likes of Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, The Undertaker, Triple H and other legends.
After all, he's a jobber who couldn't possibly win a match, and his act has grown stale as of late, so why waste time on him?
If WrestleMania is the end of a wrestling season, so to speak, when you look back on what has transpired over the past year, James Ellsworth deserves a tip of the hat.
Somehow, he was one of the focal points on SmackDown virtually every week for months on end.
Keep in mind that he did that while not even being an official member of the roster for a good portion of it!
This guy was a local enhancement talent brought in to get squashed by Braun Strowman before he had more screen time and more storyline influence than nearly half the roster on the blue brand.
How does someone go from being the biggest crutch of the writers' room to not being factored into the card in the slightest bit?
At the very least, he should do something noteworthy in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal or have a backstage comedy segment with a legend so he can say he had some variation of a WrestleMania moment.
He may never get another chance to do something like that again in his life.
Heath Slater
7 of 9
Speaking of people who were instrumental in the brand split's success, Heath Slater had the breakout storyline coming out of the draft that had people buzzing.
Slater's time in WWE has been a lame roller coaster on which he doesn't get enough highs to be able to build momentum for the crushing lows to be fun to watch.
Instead, he tends to stay at the bottom with a few tiny ripples here and there, never breaching the level of jobber at the weakest point of the WWE hierarchy.
He was a lackluster member of NXT, a loser in The Nexus and The Corre despite winning some tag team gold, a joke as the One Man Band and in 3MB along with The Social Outcasts. His career was going nowhere.
Then, the draft took place. He was suddenly the only person not to be picked by either Raw or SmackDown—the proverbial story of the kid nobody wants on their team in gym class.
This was not only the weakest he had ever looked, but it also spun into one of the most entertaining post-draft storylines, as he tried to secure a contract on either show.
Week after week, Slater would prove his lack of usefulness until suddenly, he became half of the SmackDown tag team champions with Rhyno.
This was the first time in years he could win matches—let alone championship gold—and for a longer time than most expected, he held on to that belt before dropping it to a credible tag team in The Wyatt Family.
Now, what is he up to?
He's been discarded, and he'll be lucky if he's even in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, where he undoubtedly won't shine in any capacity, even as a lovable loser.
Slater helped keep SmackDown interesting during a time when nobody watched the B-show, but instead of being rewarded for his efforts, he's no longer considered useful.
TJ Perkins
8 of 9
It can be argued that there would be no cruiserweight division if it weren't for TJ Perkins, who has been entirely skipped over when it comes to representing 205 Live on the WrestleMania card.
Perkins helped jump-start an entire new section of the company by winning the Cruiserweight Classic and becoming the first cruiserweight champion in this new era.
Nowadays, he's lucky to continue his feud with Tony Nese on the sidelines Tuesday nights.
While it makes sense to prioritize Neville and Austin Aries, who are bigger stars, it's sad to see someone as talented as Perkins fall from grace without even doing anything bad.
His title reign was more important than Brian Kendrick's or Rich Swann's, yet he went from spearheading this new division to someone who likely won't be wrestling on the WrestleMania card.
A bad champion could have killed this whole cruiserweight resurgence from happening, and Perkins should at least be able to do something at WrestleMania other than watch it from behind the curtains.
Daniel Bryan
9 of 9
If Daniel Bryan claims that he's able to wrestle and will do so when his contract expires in a year-and-a-half, WWE should just go ahead and let him do it.
At the very least, why is there nothing set up for him to do at all, in any capacity, even outside of being able to wrestle a full match?
Talking Smack could have easily become as pointless as the Raw pre-show and SmackDown pre-show, but The Miz put it on the map via his interactions with Bryan.
However, what was the payoff for that? They never had any kind of resolution.
This could have boiled over to the point that something needed to be done to settle the score, and if Bryan couldn't wrestle on his own accord, Shane McMahon should be stepping in to fight on his behalf.
Since they are the two figureheads on SmackDown Live, McMahon should want to stand up for him. That would have also left room for AJ Styles to be doing something better.
All parties would have been satisfied with Bryan doing something minor, as far as action goes: interfering to give McMahon the win, shutting The Miz up and having the chance to pose victorious with his commissioner.
The way it's looking, Bryan will be lucky to have a backstage segment in which he just talks about how great the action is or pop up on the kickoff panel to say he's excited.
If that is it, then that is simply not good enough.
Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.
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