WWE WrestleMania 34 REVIEW: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

WrestleMania 34 has just concluded and…well, it was a WrestleMania, alright. For what felt like the tenth Mania in a row, the crowd tuned out of the main event and turned on those involved. You could suggest that maybe the crankiness created from sitting through a combined seven hours of wrestling didn’t help things, but it had been building from strange decision after strange decision.

A WrestleMania that started off so well -even the Kick-Off was great fun- 34 will inevitability go down as a missed opportunity. In their efforts to surprise the fans, it looks like WWE just ended up leaving them jaded. There’s nothing wrong with being predictable sometimes.

Let’s take a look back at WrestleMania 34, what worked, what missed the mark, and what just absolutely shit the bed.

 

The Good

Ronda rouses up a surprise hit
Nobody was expecting Ronda Rousey’s debut to be as fun as this. Sure, some of the wrestling itself was a little basic and the logic somewhat contrived, but it’s hard to deny just how much fun it was. Based on this performance, Ronda is going to do just fine in WWE.

The Intercontinental title
It’s become something of an unofficial rule that WrestleMania has to open with a clinic, and the bout between The Miz, Seth Rollins, and Finn Balor continued that tradition. There was some wonderful storytelling in amongst all the action, no more so than the final member of The Shield not to get his grand slam doing just that.

The Nexus get their revenge vicariously through Taker
We all knew that Taker would turn up at some point, but the way it was paced out had the entire audience guessing. Elias’ appearance was a hilarious “fuck you” to everyone and further proof that his nuclear heat won’t go away soon. Best of all, though, has to be Taker absolutely running through Cena in almost record time. Expect a rematch at next year’s Mania.

Shinsuke turns heel
I had doubts that Shinsuke vs. Styles could ever really live up to the hype; WrestleMania isn’t exactly the best place for that kind of match. With a now heel Shinsuke, however, the sky’s the limit for future matches. With the scores at 1-1, expect the next match between the two to actually live up to the hype.

No Kid Rock performance
Yes! Yes! Yes! and so on.

Daniel Bryan returns
Yes! Yes! Yes! and so on.

 

The Bad

Daniel Bryan returns (in a badly booked match)
All they needed to do was send Bryan and his knees out and wrap things up quickly. Instead, a tiresome Shane McMahon did his terrible punching for far too long to try to make Bryan’s eventual return to action even more exciting. It didn’t work. Plus, didn’t that weird package beforehand make you feel a little uncomfortable inside?

This Jinder thing again, huh?
On Rusev Day, of all days. Jinder claiming the US title was arguably the beginning of the dramatic downwards turn for WrestleMania 34 and is clearly just going to set up the same old tired program of the antagonistic foreigner that tuned so many out of SmackDown Live before. Rusev deserves much better; one of the easiest booking decisions WWE had to make.

A flat end
Asuka’s streak is over. While it ending here is not necessarily all that terrible, the way in which it happened was somewhat…uninspired? It’s as if WWE wanted to add to the mythos of the Superdome and its hatred of streaks without much forward thinking. Who’s going to challenge Charlotte now and be anywhere near as worthy an opponent?

 

The very ugly

Nicholas
WrestleMania is all about moments, and so on and so on. Yes, I hear your justifications, but I don’t buy them. WWE are too guilty too often of not looking at the long-term picture with their Mania booking. While a child winning the tag titles makes for some great memes, memes do fade away and any prestige that the beleaguered belt had with it.

Brock bores, Reigns is lame(s)
As terrible as what you just read above may be, it sums up the main event perfectly. With a seemingly wantaway Lesnar and a infuriatingly over-pushed Reigns as the show-closers, it was pretty obvious where it was going to go, especially with the irritations of the fans rising. For 90% of the match, it was a slightly more complex version of their WrestleMania 31 bout with a random bit of bleeding thrown in for good measure.

In a vacuum, this might have been an entertaining match, but with the fans totally not interested (beach balls and Mexican waves were frequent) and the pace so painfully slow, it was looking like topping Goldberg vs. Lesnar’s first tussle as the most hated Mania match of all-time. The only save? Reigns didn’t walk away with the title. Who knows where that leaves the Universal title. One thing’s for certain, though: Reigns is never going to be the guy Vince wants him to be.

Those graphics
Jesus Christ, who has been watching The Lawnmower Man lately?

If he didn’t make you too mad, be sure to check out the best Nicholas memes.