WrestleMania 33 "Live" Blog!

1. Austin Aries vs. Neville

ER: It's wild to see Aries working in front of a crowd this gigantic. Good for him. Pretty sure I remember him being rejected from Tough Enough just a few years ago. And this was a real fun opener. They matched up nicely, and Aries hits his killer low tope (with Neville taking a springy bump back into the rail) and a huuuuuuge axe handle to the floor. WWE cameras are being real limp dick so far, cutting angles way too early. Seeing Aries land the big 360 elbow on a big stage was awesome to seeAries awkwardly hits his 450, and then later moves closer to the ropes for the red arrow, leading to him eating knees instead of him taking it flush.

2. Andre the Giant Battle Royal

ER: I love battle royals more than most humans and I thought this was a good one. There were a lot of very confusing choices, as I strongly assumed this was going to be the Braun Strowman show. We got the Braun/Show standoff earlier than I expected, and then it was all over. I assumed we would get Braun running wild and destroying 15 dudes. Yet somehow Hot Cop Tyler Breeze lasted longer. All battle royals have fun moments if you look for them. Apollo Crews took a violent elimination, Big Damo somehow lasted to the final three (and really should have won at that point), Tian Bing is somehow a person, Luke Harper looked awesome (and also would have made a more interesting winner), Sami Zayn went right after Braun in an awesome way, Goldust should have stayed in longer than he did as he's the ace battle royal guy on the roster, and the Gronk spot was good for what it was (though Mahal botched the drink toss. You need to do more of a wrist whip so that the drink sloshes all over the person. He just bounced a cup off his shoulder. Obvious a man who has never watched Dynasty). I'm still not sure this means anything, but I like battle royals. What was up with all that stuff on Mojo's body? Was that melting self tanner? HD is getting too HD.

3. Baron Corbin vs. Dean Ambrose

ER: I really love Corbin working over Dean's back, sliding him into the ringpost, and then jamming his boots over and over into his midsection. Ambrose looks really bad in this. like a total joke. You have Corbin taking a huge bump into steps, grimacing in pain, and Ambrose is hitting these floaty elbows and looked like a complete goof.

4. Shane McMahon vs. AJ Styles

ER: I'm actually really REALLY liking this. That Shane/Undertaker match was something so embarrassing on all fronts, that everybody should have felt bad. But I really liked this. Shane's punches all looked wildly stiff and great, mixed up to the face and body. His punches used to be that combo of "really stiff while looking terrible", but now they just look like clunking shots. He misses 1/3 of them which kind of makes them seem better to me, makes them come off more reckless. To the shock of everyone, Shane takes some stupid bumps. He flies back over the announce table in lunatic fashion, flipping ass over elbow, and back in the ring AJ is working stiff too. Shane's face looks all purple and AJ is throwing clonking shots to the temple. AJ sells a lot for Shane, but he kind of needs to for the match to work. Shane is established as a megastar no matter what any of us think, so AJ needs to sell big and he does. The ref bump spot was cool with AJ missing a kick and catching the ref in the chin, Shane takes trademark silly bumps through the table and foolishly goes for a shooting star press at the age of 47. AJ doing the one arm Styles Clash was a pretty incredible spot, and this whole thing worked for me. Totally exceeded my expectations.

5. Kevin Owens vs. Chris Jericho

ER: I missed a portion of this but enjoyed the build up to this feud. "Why is my name on this list?" was handled wonderfully. Owens seemed like he worked hard, and I liked Jericho catching the cannonball into the Walls. I'm sure this was fine.

6. Bayley vs. Nia Jax vs. Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte

ER: Camera man totally blew the Tube Men entrance, cutting back after they had already gone off. Come on, guys. I like all the entrances (Sasha's jacket was the best) and it was really smart to do eliminations, and the only lead to weirdness when Bayley had to sell for ages on the floor while Charlotte and Sasha worked. Charlotte's twisting press to the floor was nuts, and I thought the eliminations were a good order. Charlotte is built up as pretty much the top echelon, so she's kind of billed bigger than the champion. Sasha's elimination was nasty with her flying chin first into a turnbuckle, and Bayley going over clean was nice. It's weird that there really aren't tons of classic babyface females that little girls can cheer. Bayley is sexy without being billed as sexy and it's odd that doesn't happen more. This is also where I notice that this is almost totally the feel good WrestleMania. Starting here we got a lot of feel good "sorry about last year" results.

7. Tag Ladder Match

ER: I really wasn't expecting a Hardys return. A friend was convinced it was going to happen and I was convinced it wouldn't happen until at least Raw the next night. So then it happened. And now I have to pretend that I was just working my buddy Patrick, so that the surprise would still be real to him. I was protecting his enjoyment by keeping kayfabe. Hardys return as themselves, not their broken versions, which is a shame as I wanted to see Reby perform on a big stage. Or see Vanguard 1 zipping around the stadium. But we got the old Hardy Boys, which are the same Hardy Boys you've seen for 20 years now, and that's fine. Jeff still is fine taking a dumb bump, and he drops through a ladder a bit short which means he smooshes right through Cesaro. His trust fall bump off the apron looked fun, but I also completely weenied out of the one trust fall I was ever a part of (I bent my knees instead of falling just straight back. I was immediately disappointed in myself, but really the fear and distrust of those catching me outweight my pride. I no longer regret botching my one attempt at a trust fall. I did somewhat better during the team building ropes course). Plenty of fun spots in this, with plenty of men taking ill-advised flops off the ladders, Cesaro memorably nailing Enzo with an uppercut, and the Hardys still being crazy over. And Matt making Broken Matt faces while WWE wanted them working as normal Hardy Boys.

8. The Miz/Maryse vs. John Cena/Nikki

ER: Gotta hand it to Miz for taking this match and running with it. Maryse is basically a non-wrestler at this point, and Nikki didn't get too involved, but this seemed like a Miz master class in rubbing his normal, successful relationship in Nikki's face. All the vignettes building up this match were pretty great and Maryse had some Nikki Total Divas mannerisms down pat during these: the awkward hair playing, and the almost...condescendingly incredulous expression she tends to make. But Miz brought all the shtick to this and made the match far more interesting than just a straight Miz/Cena match would have been. I'm not really sure how to feel about the proposal. Nikki really wants to be married with babies, John Cena has weird rules about what kind of clothing people can wear to his dinner table, and it seems like something that was expected but also like one person wants more than the other? I dunno, I wish them well, and I guess I'm most happy that no kewl crowd members tried to make the proposal about themselves. Wedding proposals: still sacred to the worst of us!

9. HHH vs. Seth Rollins

ER: HHH got to ride a big trikey to the ring!! He looked slightly cooler than Trump in his big boy truck photo op, but old man supped-up tricycle isn't as cool as Game of Thrones warrior on the scale of "stuff Paul wrote in his grade school notebook". My friend Josh thinks he should keep growing the beard and embrace his leaner physique and move into more of a wizard mage larp character. And this match was what it was. HHH would injure Rollins' knee, and then Rollins would do a move that would injure his knee, and then HHH would work over his knee, and Rollins would gut through it to do a move that would injure his knee, and it took around 20-40 minutes. It makes sense within the crossfit lifestyle to push through the pain and continue doing something with poor form, so I think I understand the Seth Rollins psychology. I did enjoy the moment where Rollins was grabbing weapons from under the ring just to throw at him, it was a silly almost Bugs Bunny moment. And I liked Steph's table bump, as it was genuinely surprising just because she typically doesn't show much ass. The bump itself was a good one though.

10. Brock Lesnar vs. The Goldberg

ER: This was just about what it should have been. Goldberg had been spamming Brock with spears, which at least is a pretty decent storyline move to take down a man with diverticulitis. Brock is always great at selling the spear, and they go crashing pretty spectacularly through the timekeeper's area. Eventually Brock awesomely leapfrogs over a spear, which is essentially like countering Bald Bull's Bull Charge, and finishes him off with 10 or more suplexes. Goldberg is a loon for taking so many suplexes. But this was a pretty simple story, man underestimates other man, keeps getting caught, figures out way to finally avoid thing catching him. All the moves looked impressive, and this was good fun.

11. Womens 6 Pack Challenge

ER: Carmella had her makeup gun set to "clown whore" and I'm pissed we didn't get her entrance show as I realllllly wanted her moonwalking all the damn way down that long ass entrance ramp. This has to be the longest ramp they've ever used, when else will we get the opportunity for a moonwalk that long? Match was mostly a mess. Does Becky ever actually hit her spinning mule kick? I don't think I've seen it land, but some wrestlers weirdly choose offense they can't actually do very well. But yeah this whole thing was pretty rushed and made sure some more people got paydays, and I like Naomi so it was a cool moment for her. Alexa probably deserved more for all the excellent work she's been doing on Smackdown. Her promos and especially facial expressions are terrific.

12. Roman Reigns vs. Undertaker

ER: I hadn't actually realized how little Taker has worked in the last 7 years, literally working just 17 matches from 2011 thru present, which means I reallllly wish I could ask questions about why they booked Taker/Sheamus vs. Wade Barrett/Damien Sandow at a house show a couple years ago. Talk about a match that doesn't make sense at all a couple years removed. That's wasting a few of your last bullets before a boss battle right there. And Taker looked rough in this one. He took an eternity (but what is time to a dead man?) to get to the ring, and that was with him getting to start halfway down, and I truthfully expected some kind of special entrance. I mean jeez HHH gets to ride a giant trike to the ring and the man who can't really walk who actually USED to ride a bike to the ring...he has to walk? Like some sort of poor person, or man with DWI? Anyway, this was not great. It had good moments (I really liked Taker catching Reigns trying to do the drive by kick), but I kind of just felt bad for Undertaker. He looked hurt and in pain. There were a few moments that looked like he was outright sandbagging Reigns, but I don't think it was intentional. But a couple of them felt like something HHH would be accused of doing against an online favorite, to make them look bad (like when Taker was supposed to catch Reigns in a choke but didn't, and Reigns also didn't fully throw his punch since he was supposed to get caught...so we just had an uncomfortable moment). So there was clunkiness and ugliness, and I did like Taker's "Terminator reaching for his shotgun" selling, and the "you don't have the balls" moment was a good one. It was underwhelming, but more than anything I hope this was actually the match Taker wanted to go out on. You wrestle over 2000 matches for a company over almost 3 decades, and you should get to choose your last match. I don't know that this was it for him, but regardless, the man has earned his retirement.


It was a fun show this year. Long as hell, but didn't feel as interminably long as last year. The company was good at my house, the food was good, and the laughs were there. No real classics, though I liked AJ/Shane probably more than I should have, and there was enough offered during the night that I was never bored. Good times.

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