WWE WrestleMania 2017 Results: The Undertaker and the Biggest Stars of the Night

KEVIN WONG
APRIL 2, 2017

Credit: WWE.com
WrestleMania 33 is in the books. And once the dust settles and all the articles are written, this will rank somewhere near the middle-bottom of all the WrestleManias.

The show started off strongly, but about midway through the evening (around the time of that horrendous Pitbull performance), the energy started tapering off. And two of the matches with the best buildups had the worst payoffs.

The Miz-Cena/Maryse-Nikki rivalry ended with a whimper and the most awkward marriage proposal known to man. The Triple H-Rollins match just dragged on and on. And Samoa Joe, who was once so central to that feud, was nowhere to be seen.

Even the final match, between Undertaker and Roman Reigns, was a mess, with a botched Tombstone reversal and a botched Hell's Gate.

The highlights of this 'Mania were not the planned, big matches but the odd things that surrounded them. Here are the biggest stars of the night.
Shane McMahon
1 OF 7

The opening match was a complete, pleasant surprise. It seemed like a slap in the face to AJ Styles when he was removed from the main event. It seemed even worse when he was was paired with Shane McMahon, whose main gimmick is to fall off tall things. And it didn't seem to make sense when they were booked in a normal, non-stipulated match. How could Shane do the types of high-risk spots that he was famous for?

But lo and behold, this was a competitive, back-and-forth affair, with tons of high spots and crowd-pleasing power moves.

Of course AJ performed well; he always performs well. But the real revelation of this matchup was Shane, who fights better at 47 than he ever did as a young man. He performed a Coast to Coast. He performed a Shooting Star Press. But most importantly, he performed some nice chain wrestling combos, and he ran the ropes like a proper wrestler.

Part of the reason why Shane looked so good was AJ's selling; the Phenomenal One had some sharp snaps on multiple back bumps. But McMahon held up his end the entire time and turned in an incredible match to start the show.
Chris Jericho
2 OF 7

A veteran who hit his prime over a decade ago once again dug down deep and delivered a masterful performance. Jericho capped off a banner year with this latest match against Kevin Owens.

It started off slowly, with Owens and Jericho working in the center of the ring. But it slowly built into something much more. The action slowly escalated into the power moves, then into high spots and eventually into finishers.

It was the traditional, WWE-style match, told slowly and deliberately. And Jericho was clearly the leader in that effort. Owens has a tendency to work quickly with a ton of flashy spots. Jericho slowed things down, creating a great sense of rhythm to an otherwise conventional match.
Charlotte Flair
3 OF 7

The Raw women's title match was shorter than it should have been, but it stuffed a lot of storytelling into its running time.

The Nia Jax elimination was done very well and made Jax look strong; the other women needed to deliver a triple power bomb to finish her off. The Sasha Banks elimination was also done well by being unexpected; too often, wrestlers only get pinned by finishers. The slingshot into the turnbuckle was a surprise, and Sasha sold it well. And then Bayley made the great comeback with a tribute to the Macho Man Randy Savage.

What was the common element in all three eliminations? Charlotte Flair, who has grown so much over the past year. At one point, she was an awkward collection of power moves, with no sense of cohesion or narrative flow. But since she split from her dad, Ric Flair, she's become a more dominant, more fluid performer. Less shtick, more technical prowess. Sunday was more of the same. That corkscrew moonsault was a thing of beauty.
The Hardy Boyz
4 OF 7

The other tag teams in this Fatal 4-Way would have every right to be pissed. Here they are, busting their humps year-round, traveling the road and filming horrible Snickers commercials, and then along come the Hardy Boyz to steal their thunder. This should have been Enzo and Cass' night to shine.

On the other hand, boy, was it nice to see the Hardy Boyz back in WWE! They did a run-through of all their classic moves. The Twist of Fate. The Whisper in the Wind. The Swanton Bomb. They even brought back the little touches like the double suplex and the double leg drops. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.

Time will tell, though. If they don't put over the younger tag teams in the next couple of weeks (and if they can't get legally cleared to use their "broken" gimmicks), their act is going to get stale in a hurry.
Bray Wyatt
5 OF 7

Bray Wyatt fought his type of match: a hard-hitting, physical affair. Randy Orton looked abnormally sluggish, and Wyatt's twitchy movements and facial expressions compensated for the lack of energy.

Unfortunately, none of that was good enough, and the end result was horrible misstep. The Eater of Worlds is 0-3 at WrestleMania. He's 0-4, if you want to include the beatdown skit from last year, when The Rock called him fat before teaming with Cena to beat him into the ground.

The light-projected Wyatt theatrics did help things along, though. They might have looked a little awkward and campy in the more reality-based WWE of today, but they worked well in the context of this matchup. Wyatt needed some gimmicks to get the crowd invested this late into the evening. Maggots and earthworms were certainly one way to get it done.
Goldberg
6 OF 7

This match was short but effective, and it told a clear story. Lesnar needed to overcome his Achilles' heel in the form of Goldberg. And this time, he dodged enough Spears and Jackhammers to get the job done.

That wasn't for a lack of trying, however. For a guy with two moves, Goldberg delivers them with a lot of emphasis. He was responsible for one of the highest-impact spots of the night—a hard, stiff spear through the barrier that sent metal frames flying and rattled both men's brains.

Goldberg probably stayed in WWE for the exact, right amount of time. And before the fans get sick of him, he gets to leave the company as a superhero.
The Undertaker
7 OF 7

The match between Roman Reigns and The Undertaker was not good, and WWE missed another golden opportunity to turn Reigns heel. But everything that came after the match will go down in history.

Without saying a single word, The Undertaker seemingly retired, leaving his gloves, coat and hat in the center of the ring. He then got out of the ring, kissed Michelle McCool (a rare moment of breaking kayfabe) and walked back over to the ramp, where he descended through the floor. The last thing the viewers heard was the bell tolling.

It was probably the saddest possible way that WWE could have ended WrestleMania. But it was moving and effective, and it gave Undertaker the epic sendoff that he deserved. Even at his age, 52, clearly in pain and moving slowly, the Deadman could still command a crowd. He's left some massive boots to fill.
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