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Credit: WWE.com
WWE WrestleMania 34 has come and gone and in its wake, as left a handful of Superstars recognized as both winners and losers from the explosive night of action.
New champions were crowned, shocking outcomes were plentiful and the future of the WWE product was setup as the creative team put forth an effort that was oftentimes uneven.
Charlotte retained her SmackDown Women’s Championship by becoming the first woman to defeat Asuka but Elias was relegated to tackling dummy for John Cena. Daniel Bryan made a triumphant return but Roman Reigns was left a bloodied, beaten mess following one of the most curiously booked matches in WrestleMania history.
Relive Sunday’s broadcast and find out who joins those Superstars as the most buzzworthy, for better or worse, from the 2018 edition of The Showcase of the Immortals with this recap of WrestleMania 34.
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The streak is over.
Sunday night, Charlotte made headlines by becoming the first Superstar in WWE history to defeat Asuka, ending a nearly three-year winning streak that spanned both NXT and the main roster.
The Queen once again reigned supreme on wrestling’s grandest stage, adding to her considerable resume by tapping The Empress of Tomorrow out with the Figure Eight.
Not only did she match her opponent’s ferocity, she one-upped her drive and desire to win and in the end, did just that.
There will be some who question the decision or the manner in which it went down but Charlotte becoming the first woman to end the most storied undefeated streak in pro wrestling history was a pat on her back and coronation of her as the face of women’s wrestling in North America.
A crowning achievement, perhaps even more so than her victory in Dallas two years earlier.
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Credit: WWE.com
Elias has been a genuine breakout star for WWE since his call-up to the main roster. Since the beginning of 2018, he has become an integral part of the Raw roster and while some will point to the fakeout that signaled his arrival to the WrestleMania stage Sunday night as a brilliant bit of heel booking, everything that followed threatened to unravel the momentum he had on his side entering the show.
Elias cut a quality promo on John Cena as he strolled to the ring but once he got there, he found himself the victim of Cena’s frustrations.
He was grounded, ate the Five Knuckle Shuffle and was dispatched of with the Attitude Adjustment in a manner that suggested he was several notches below the mighty golden boy of WWE.
Rather than leaving the show continuing his delightfully surprising run on the main roster, he was smacked down and reminded of his place in the grand scheme of things.
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Ronda Rousey’s first match in a WWE ring was going to go one of two ways: it was either going to be extraordinarily good or spectacularly bad.
The former was the case Sunday night as the rowdy one turned in a performance that far exceeded expectations and led to the best match of the entire seven-hour broadcast.
Rousey was fearless between the ropes, hitting her marks, taking bumps and showing the proper emotion as she teamed with Kurt Angle in a victory over Triple H and Stephanie McMahon.
Under the brightest lights and on the biggest stage, she was simply phenomenal and the outcome was a prime example of sports entertainment at its wildest, most chaotic best.
The future is bright for Rousey, especially if she can continue to grow and evolve as a performer and WWE Creative can appropriately protect her aura and image.
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Anyone expecting the epic encounter between The Undertaker and John Cena Sunday night was sorely disappointed by the final product.
Even if it made total sense within the context of the story.
Undertaker defeated Cena in two minutes, forty-five seconds.
That is hardly the epic encounter longtime fans pining for a showdown on wrestling’s grandest night expected.
Yes, it made sense within the context of the story being told. Cena talked trash and got his comeuppance in short order. Undertaker reminded everyone why he is the greatest phenom in WWE history an all was right with the world.
Considering the match could have taken place as long as 11 years ago, though, one cannot help but feel underwhelmed by the match that played out in New Orleans.
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Daniel Bryan wrestled his first match in nearly three years Sunday night.
Ring rust be damned, though, because Bryan recovered from an early apron powerbomb to explode into the match and take the fight to Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.
Never missing a beat, he was crisp and demonstrated the timing of a wrestler who has regularly competed since 2015. He looked like the same Daniel Bryan fans knew and loved when he was forced to step away from the squared circle, hitting all of his signature offense without as much as a hiccup.
When he finally launched himself across the ring and blasted Zayn with a running knee before tapping him out to the Yes Lock, fans erupted with joy, not only over Bryan’s victory but the fact that the Superstar before them was every bit as good as he was the last time he competed in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome at WrestleMania 30.
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Braun Strowman selected a 10-year-old child named Nicholas to be his tag team partner Sunday night. Together they defeated Sheamus and Cesaro to win the Raw Tag Team Championships.
Keep that in mind when you remember that The Revival, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows, Rhyno and Heath Slater and Titus Worldwide were all relegated to the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal Sunday night. None of them were deemed worthy enough of challenging The Swiss Superman and The Celtic Warrior for the tag titles but WWE Creative decided the best route to take was for Strowman and a kid to challenge for the titles.
Worse yet, it decided to book Strowman and his useless partner to defeat Cesaro and Sheamus in short order, essentially killing the credibility the champions had built for themselves for two years prior.
The entire tag team division was done a disservice Sunday night.
There may be some who tout the angle that played out as “cute” or a “moment” but at some point, WWE Creative must take a look at the long-term health of its division and realize it cannot keep making impulsive decisions without hurting its product.
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Shinsuke Nakamura may not have won the WWE Championship from AJ Styles Sunday night at WrestleMania but The King of Strong Style earned himself status as the night’s biggest winner by turning heel and brutalizing The Phenomenal One in the aftermath of his defeat.
Nakamura has waded through the mediocrity of the creative surrounding his character for the last year. He has never been able to gain much in the way of momentum for himself, even after winning the Royal Rumble.
As a babyface on SmackDown, his entrance was over but beyond that, there was nothing about his character for fans to invest themselves in.
After his shocking heel turn, complete with an intensity from the competitor WWE fans have not yet witnessed, Nakamura has more momentum on his side than he has had at any point since his main roster call-up a year ago.
How WWE Creative follows up the shocking actions in the weeks and months to come will decide whether or not the heel turn was worth it and, more importantly, if Nakamura will ultimately be considered a success in WWE.
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Roman Reigns should have defeated Brock Lesnar to become WWE champion Sunday night in New Orleans.
Instead, he became the latest Superstar to endure endless suplexes and six F-5s while bleeding all over the squared circle to get a match over that never once hit its stride.
Reigns is still the face of WWE right now but the idea that the booking of that main event would somehow benefit him in the long run, or generate the sympathy for him management likely hoped for, is asinine. He was tossed around in a match that was never once dramatic, then survived an onslaught by Lesnar that went on longer than it ever should have and even managed to insult the intelligence of the audience.
Everything fans hate about Reigns was on full display Sunday, except for the win they were absolutely certain was coming.
And therein lies the problem.
Reigns should have won. This is the one time where it made sense that he beats Lesnar and becomes the undisputed face of professional wrestling in North America. It was the outcome WWE has worked for since Seth Rollins interrupted the first Reigns-Lesnar match in 2015.
Trying to be too fancy with the finish and allowing the match to descend into what it did only hurt Reigns and handed the audience further ammunition in their vocal war against The Big Dog.
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