WrestleMania 34 at the Mercedes Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana was all about comebacks: Daniel Bryan returned to the ring after almost three years to stand alongside Shane McMahon Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. The Undertaker also responded to John Cena’s challenge. Ronda Rousey also made her WWE debut alongside Kurt Angle against Triple H & Stephanie McMahon.
Winner: “Woken” Matt Hardy. In a match without surprise participants, the cameras repeatedly focused on John Cena, who, as announced, sat in the audience as a fan waiting for a possible answer from the undertaker. The last three in the match were Hardy Baron Corbin and Mojo Rawley.
When the two ex-footballers formed a brief alliance against Matt, the lights suddenly went out and Bray Wyatt was then in the ring. He helped Hardy eliminate Rawley and then took End of Days. A little later, Hardy also eliminated Corbin. After the match they hugged each other and celebrated together in front of a visibly shocked Cena.
The match was completely focused on the new alliance, all other participants were just filling material. As Jeff Hardy is about to make his comeback, they now have a potential three-man team with Matt as the leader. It remains to be seen whether this will result in a huge push for the Woken One, or whether it will simply result in winning the Tag titles.
Winner and new WWE Cruiserweight Champion: Cedric Alexander per Lumbar Check: It was the expected strong wrestling match between two faces, at which Alexander was finally allowed to crown his great development. There was no heelturn here, so 205 Live will probably start with two top faces to WrestleMania, next challenger on Cedric’s title is the heavily pushed Buddy Murphy.
For Alexander it is the deserved push, after he should have lost the title already Enzo Amore, while also Ali could score a lot in the title tournament. 205 Live is on an excellent way to reinvent themselves, also thanks to Drake Maverick, who is well integrated in the match as a concerned GM. If the product continues the upward trend of recent months, fans of high-class wrestling will continue to enjoy it.
Winner: Naomi. In contrast to their male counterparts, they relied on various NXT participants – forcibly, since the main roster is no longer available: Peyton Royce, Kavita Devi, Taynara Conti, Dakota Kai, Bianca Belair and May Young Classic winner Kairi Sane took part and sometimes worked closely together.
Carmella was the first to drop out after posing with her Money in the Bank suitcase and taking a huge beating from the other participants before Sonya Deville sent her over the top rope. The alleged last two in the match were Sasha Banks and Bayley, after the latter had eliminated Sarah Logan. Under a proper pop of the fans, the Bo$$ offered the handshake to her former best friend, but she eliminated her instead.
While she thought she was the winner, Naomi, who had never been eliminated, suddenly reappeared in the ring, missed Bayley’s rear view and then sent her over the top rope. Naomi certainly had hardly anyone on the slip of paper, it’s the next big WrestleMania success after her SmackDown title win last year.
The former Funkadactyl had recently achieved little worth mentioning and was supposed to regain some urgently needed impetus in the weakly booted SmackDown-Women’s Division. At the same time, the Banks/Bayley feud was skilfully fueled and six NXT wrestlers were given the chance to present themselves on the big stage. It remains to be seen how many of them will receive the call-up in the next few days, but Royce and her budgetary partner Billie Kay are overdue.
Winner and new Intercontinental Champion: Seth Rollins per Blackout against The Miz. Before the match Miz sent his Miztourage back to the backstage area to play this match alone. This was followed by an excellent and exciting triple-thread match, where anyone could have felt like winning before Rollins finally eliminated Balor and then Miz via blackout.
It was Seth’s first IC title win and at the same time he crowned himself Grand Slam Champion. The suspicions in the run-up that Rollins will be the next challenger to the Universal Championship are off the table, the architect will probably spend at least the next months in the midcard and hopefully upgrade the title further.
With Miz, Balor and his ex-day partner Jason Jordan returning from his injury in the not too distant future, there are enough potential war opponents.
Page 1: All eyes on John Cena
Page 2: Rousey forces McMahon to surrender
Page 3: The Return of the Undertaker
Page 4: Lesnar and Reigns fight bitterly