WWE WrestleMania 33 Results: Top Highlights and Low Points
Every year, WrestleMania is promoted as being the show above all over shows—the biggest event WWE will produce, where the level of magic is unparalleled.
As per usual, WrestleMania 33 had its fair share of hype, boasting a card that featured a wide range of talent, ranging from the up-and-comers to older, more tried-and-tested stars.
The nigh-unstoppable Goldberg was set to end his feud once and for all with The Beast Incarnate, Brock Lesnar, clashing for the Universal Championship.
Over on the SmackDown side of things, Royal Rumble winner Randy Orton sought to snatch the WWE Championship away from his former brethren and master, Bray Wyatt.
The Road to WrestleMania saw Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho's friendship broken, The Phenomenal One nearly lose his job and The Undertaker's legacy called into question.
All of this was a great pitch, but how much of it was bark, and how much was bite?
Now WrestleMania 33 is over and done with, the results paint a picture of what WWE was able to accomplish with all that potential.
Were there more positives or negatives? Was the show an overall success, or was it swamped with too many flaws that prevented it from being a fun six hours?
It's time to look back on what happened at WrestleMania 33 and single out the biggest highlights and low points of the evening, presented in order of appearance.
Highlight: The Set and Stage
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Every year, the sets for WrestleMania get better and better, with this year's being the best one yet.
Not only was the Universal globe tribute expertly crafted, but everything surrounding it was top notch as well.
The lighting throughout the night set the mood, and the pyro was always giving some beautiful accents for entrances and wins.
One of the best ways to utilize the stage area were the video screens on the entrance ramp, as evidenced by Seth Rollins setting it afire and Randy Orton traveling with a snake by his side.
If it had only made one appearance, the in-ring effect with the maggots and bugs for the WWE Championship match might have felt a little more special, as it happened enough times to undercut how cool the original shot was, but it was still a cool concept.
The only real downside was how the ring atop the true ring wasn't utilized throughout the night, but it still looked great regardless.
With this caliber of set construction, it's hard not to be excited about what WWE has in store for next year too.
Kickoff Pre-Show Breakdown
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The pre-show for this year's WrestleMania had plenty of ups and downs over the two hours and during the matches themselves.
Here is a breakdown of the positives and negatives of those three segments that started the night.
Highlights
- Neville and Austin Aries had a solid match to warm up the crowd.
- It was great to see that nobody was cut from the Battle Royal, as this might be the only time throughout the entire year some of these wrestlers appear on a pay-per-view.
- WWE will no doubt get the media coverage they want with Rob Gronkowski's appearance, so that mission has been accomplished.
- Moving the SmackDown Women's Championship match off the pre-show was a good sign of faith on WWE's behalf to prove the women on the blue brand are worthy of the main card.
- If you noticed the security guard who didn't know Gronkowski was supposed to jump the barricade, you were in for a good laugh.
Low Points
- Big Show and Braun Strowman being eliminated super fast was an unpleasant shock, particularly considering how this might be Big Show's last WrestleMania.
- The downside to putting the SmackDown women's match on the main card is that the Intercontinental Championship bout was bumped to the kickoff. That title and those two guys also deserved to be on the main show, possibly over the Raw Tag Team Championships match.
- Since Samoa Joe didn't make any appearance later on in the night, he should have at least been involved in the Battle Royal.
All in all, it wasn't a bad pre-show by any means, but it's not likely to go down as the most memorable in WrestleMania history.
While a lot of people will forget what happened by the end of the night, the main purpose of this was to get the ball rolling, and it accomplished that task.
Highlight: Shane McMahon vs. AJ Styles
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Despite all the criticism from fans who thought AJ Styles deserved a better opponent than Shane McMahon, these two ended up having a fantastic fight.
All of the classic staples found their way into the mix, including the Coast to Coast trash-can spot and the elbow drop on to the table.
On top of that, McMahon was able to pull off a beautiful Shooting Star Press, even if it didn't land the way he had intended.
The right man won in the end, and the journey to get to that point was fun all the way through, so there's nothing to complain about anymore.
Highlight: United States Championship Match
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Jeri-KO has been one of the absolute best things in WWE for the past year, so for the two former best friends to go up against each other at WrestleMania, how could it have been anything other than good?
While the finish was a bit underwhelming, everything leading up to it was textbook wrestling and a good follow-up to the Styles and McMahon match that preceded it.
If Jericho is leaving WWE for a while, it makes sense for Owens to take the United States Championship so that it doesn't stay off screen for the next few months.
Having that title change take place at WrestleMania is a bigger deal than if it had happened on Raw or even Payback, so it's hard to argue against the booking decision.
Here's hoping this feud can continue a little while longer, as these two have great chemistry.
Highlight: Raw Women's Championship Fatal 4-Way Elimination Match
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Speaking as someone who wasn't interested in this match to begin with, this ended up proving me wrong quite a bit.
Nia Jax was the biggest hindrance of the foursome, but her appearance was kept at a minimum, and the way she was utilized was well done, with the three others ganging up on her.
After she was taken out of the running, we saw some highlights like Charlotte Flair's corkscrew to the outside and Sasha Banks' elimination after being rammed head-first into the exposed turnbuckle.
It was off to a bad start, with Charlotte coming out last instead of champion Bayley, and looking like a peacock in the process, but the overall package was entertaining.
Where WWE goes from here will be interesting, as anything involving these four women continuing to fight will just seem like its retreading familiar territory. For Sunday, though, this was great.
Highlight: Raw Tag Team Championships Ladder Match
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When The New Day came out to announce that this would turn into a Fatal 4-Way, this match was already a step up from what it was before, but the swerve with The Hardy Boyz alone made this a highlight of the night.
That pop from the crowd will go down as one of the best in WrestleMania history, with good reason.
On top of this, the match itself was as much of a spotfest as fans should have expected for a ladder match.
The Swanton Bomb Jeff Hardy pulled off was perhaps the strongest highlight of the match, even though we've seen it before.
In one fell swoop, the Raw tag team division was revitalized with more momentum than it's had since last summer's brand split.
Who feuds with The Hardy Boyz next? How long will they stay in WWE? Will Enzo and Cass ever get the titles?
These are questions we'll have to continue tuning in to find out the answers to.
Low Point: Mixed Tag Team Match
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Building up to this match was an incredible ride, but the match was as generic as it could have been.
Starting this off with Al Roker was just strange, particularly when he referred to himself as "chocolate thunder" for some reason.
After going through the motions for a few minutes, the inevitable double pinfall ended the match and led into the easily predictable proposal we all saw coming from a mile away.
Sure, it's a nice moment for the couple and for the company to show in recaps in the future, but after seeing so many better segments throughout the night, this just didn't live up to the others.
Highlight: Seth Rollins vs. Triple H
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Considering how touch-and-go this whole match was just a few weeks beforehand, it seems like Seth Rollins wasn't injured whatsoever, as it didn't hinder the quality of his performance at all.
That injury played well into the storyline of the contest, both as something Triple H could target and an obstacle for Rollins to overcome.
While this didn't have the same amount of spots as the Raw Tag Team Championships match, it did have one that stood out, which was Stephanie McMahon falling through a table.
By the end of this, it felt like Triple H got solid-enough comeuppance for Rollins to move on to another feud, which is all we could have ask for.
Low Point: WWE Championship Match
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By this point in the night, it seemed like the fans were too tired to care all that much about the WWE Championship match between Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt.
Given how it was nothing special, it's understandable it seemed to just come and go without much fanfare.
The WWE title changing hands should be a bigger deal, yet the way this ended was more with a whimper than with an uproarious celebration, as Orton hit one of his least entertaining RKOs ever.
Even the interesting gimmick of having the bugs inside the ring was overdone enough times to make it seem less fun than if it had just happened once.
Perhaps these two suffered from poor placement on the card or a lack of energy in general, but since this was the byproduct of both the Royal Rumble and the Elimination Chamber matches, it just didn't live up to the hype.
Highlight: Universal Championship Match
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Going into this with low expectations was the key to viewing it as a highlight rather than a low point because if you were hoping it would be anything but a quick repetition of suplexes and spears, you'd have been disappointed.
With the right mindset, though, this was more entertaining than their previous encounters.
Everybody knew this would end with Brock Lesnar coming out on top, so the predictability factor hurts it, but the bigger story is going to be how WWE handles the fallout from this.
Will Goldberg hang up the tights? Will Lesnar disappear until SummerSlam? If that's the case, this will be looked back on with less optimism than as if this is the start of something great.
All things considered, though, this could have been significantly worse, and it was highly unlikely it could have been much better than what we got.
Low Point: SmackDown Women's Championship 6-Pack Challenge Match
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When this match was being crafted, the mystique of a return or a call-up from NXT was one of the most interesting things about it.
Eventually, that would be thrown out the window, which meant there was already a disappointment going against it.
Things started to look up when the match was moved from the pre-show to the main card, but in retrospect, it would have been a better idea for it to stay where it was, as it would have had more time.
This felt super rushed, and before the dust settled on their entrances, Naomi was winning the championship.
While it's a good thing Naomi has the title back, as she can pick up her title reign where it left off, these women are so much more entertaining on a weekly basis, and they didn't have the opportunity to show that off.
Don't be surprised if they're given a rematch on SmackDown just to get a chance to do what they would have done if they had been allowed to breathe a bit and add several more minutes to their time in the ring.
Low Point: The Undertaker vs. Roman Reigns
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If you weren't invested in this match, one way or another—pro-Undertaker or pro-Reigns—you might need to rethink how big of a wrestling fan you are.
The intensity of this wasn't the action itself but the aura surrounding it all. Even having Jim Ross on commentary helped contribute to that mystical feel behind it.
If you're viewing the match with the eyes of someone who judges purely on what is in the ring and nothing else, then sure, this was disappointing in many ways.
A good portion of this was mostly punches, and there were definitely moments that were bothersome to watch, like the botch when Reigns was unable to pick Undertaker up for an attempt at a Tombstone.
It's also disappointing for fans of The Undertaker to have to see Roman Reigns win, but at the same time, it's something we all should have expected and come to terms with a while back.
If you separate your fan appreciation from the business side of things, you can see more positive aspects, but it's a hard pill to swallow.
Seeing The Phenom lose twice at WrestleMania is something most of us never would have wanted to experience, no matter what the circumstances.
While this might be a highlight when we look back in the future, the loss and the potential for The Deadman to never wrestle again is just too sour a note to say it's anything but a low point.
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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