Well, Ronda Rousey made Steph tap, Nicholas had a Big Day Out and Brock retained to widespread apathy at a 5 hour WrestleMania that burned out the crowd long before the end came.
I'm skipping the pre show which included a men's battle royal won by Matt Hardy,a women's battle royal won by Naomi and a Cruiserweight Championship match won by someone you've probably never heard of and don't care about because no one watches 205 Live (though the show is quite good these days).
The night proper started off very strongly with two excellent matches. First was a Triple Threat match for the Intercontinental Title, the champion (and new father: congratulations!) Miz putting the belt on the line against Finn Balor and Seth Rollins. They have a fast and fun match that went for 10-15 minutes and was won by Seth. Perfect opener. Next up saw Charlotte Flair retain the SD Women's Championship in a great match, arguably the best of the night, against Asuka, ending her 200+ match winning streak in the process. A few people annoyed by Charlotte ending the streak, but personally I've always felt that you need to end long winning streaks before you put the belt on someone. It just detracts from the title reign otherwise. Case in point: Bill Goldberg. And Charlotte has earned her spot as the top woman in the company and lost the title to Carmella two days later on SD, so stop complaining.
In a comedy piece, John Cena, who'd made a series of challenges to the Undertaker coming into the event and was sitting in the crowd, not officially booked for a match, gets a message from a referee and sprints out the back. Looks like Taker is in the building.
Next up we have a 4 way match for the US Title, Champion Randy Orton putting it on the line against Bobby Roode (whose WM debut this was) JInder Mahal and Rusev. They have a short match to calm the crowd down. Mahal pins Rusev and that's about it.
Next we have the real Main Event and it delivered big time as former UFC fighter Robda Rousey made her in ring debut teaming with Kurt Angle against triple H and Stephanie McMahon. This. Was. Great. All 4 looked great and Rousey's greenness was well hidden. Satisfying end as she hits a brutal looking arm bar on Steph forcing het to tap.
Next up we had another calm-the-crowd match as the Bludgeon Brothers squashed New Day and the Usos to win the SD tag titles. Then we had our comedy piece as John Cena came to the ring for his match with Taker. Lights went out Elias came out instead. After a brief concert from the Drifter, Cena kicked his ass, Then out comes Taker and Cena spends the nest 3 minutes bumping around like a cartoon character, complete with doubling back in shock and falling over after the Undertaker sat up following his only offensive move of the match, This was a match you would expect Bobby Heenan to have with the Undertaker, not John Cena. Complete waste of time.
Next up we have Daniel Bryan coming back after 3 years out with injury, teaming up with Shane McMahon against Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens. This was a good match, but they made a bad mistake with the booking with hurt the crowd reaction. Bryan was taken out early and the crowd died for 10 minutes as Shane went 1 on 2 against the heels. And, while Bryan got a nice reaction when he tagged in and ultimately forced Zayn to submit to the Yes Lock, it was not what it could have been.
Next up Nia Jax defeated champion Alexa Bliss to win the RAW Women's Championship in a perfectly acceptable match. AJ Styles and Sinsuke Nakamura than had what was, technically speaking, the best match of the night, though I feel it should have gone at least 3 minutes longer with a few more bear falls to really build to the finish. The match was criticized for not living up to their Wrestle Kingdom classic, but I question how many in WWE's audience know what Wrestle Kingdom is, let alone what type of match they had there. Anyway, Styles wins with a Styles Clash. Nakamura then turns heel, low blowing Styles after handing him the belt. This was awesome.
Next we had a waste of time, Braun Strowman picking a kid out of the audience named Nicholas to team with him so he could win the RAW Tag titles from Sheamus and Ceasaro on his own. Both guys deserved better.
Brings us to the main event in which Brock Lesnar, in a big surprise, retained the RAW Championship against Roman Reigns in a good match. But the real story was the crowd's utter apathy to what was going on. Chants of "Bring Back NIcholas", "This is Awful" and "We Want Beach Balls" rang out. No one reacted at all when Reigns kicked out of an F5 for the first time, a spot they'd been building for a year. Like I said though, it was actually a pretty good match. Reigns bumped like a mad man and got busted open by an elbow. Lesnar's frustration at Reigns' resilience was well conveyed. This crowd wanted none of Reigns and then popped big time for Brock's eventual win. And they were smart about it. Rather than booing him, they just ignored him and ruined the match, which creates a lot more issues for the WWE aesthetically and may actually force a rethink about how they're using Reigns.
Decent show, went downhill after the mixed tag. They killed the crowd at the start of the Daniel Bryan match and never really won them back from there on.
I'm skipping the pre show which included a men's battle royal won by Matt Hardy,a women's battle royal won by Naomi and a Cruiserweight Championship match won by someone you've probably never heard of and don't care about because no one watches 205 Live (though the show is quite good these days).
The night proper started off very strongly with two excellent matches. First was a Triple Threat match for the Intercontinental Title, the champion (and new father: congratulations!) Miz putting the belt on the line against Finn Balor and Seth Rollins. They have a fast and fun match that went for 10-15 minutes and was won by Seth. Perfect opener. Next up saw Charlotte Flair retain the SD Women's Championship in a great match, arguably the best of the night, against Asuka, ending her 200+ match winning streak in the process. A few people annoyed by Charlotte ending the streak, but personally I've always felt that you need to end long winning streaks before you put the belt on someone. It just detracts from the title reign otherwise. Case in point: Bill Goldberg. And Charlotte has earned her spot as the top woman in the company and lost the title to Carmella two days later on SD, so stop complaining.
In a comedy piece, John Cena, who'd made a series of challenges to the Undertaker coming into the event and was sitting in the crowd, not officially booked for a match, gets a message from a referee and sprints out the back. Looks like Taker is in the building.
Next up we have a 4 way match for the US Title, Champion Randy Orton putting it on the line against Bobby Roode (whose WM debut this was) JInder Mahal and Rusev. They have a short match to calm the crowd down. Mahal pins Rusev and that's about it.
Next we have the real Main Event and it delivered big time as former UFC fighter Robda Rousey made her in ring debut teaming with Kurt Angle against triple H and Stephanie McMahon. This. Was. Great. All 4 looked great and Rousey's greenness was well hidden. Satisfying end as she hits a brutal looking arm bar on Steph forcing het to tap.
Next up we had another calm-the-crowd match as the Bludgeon Brothers squashed New Day and the Usos to win the SD tag titles. Then we had our comedy piece as John Cena came to the ring for his match with Taker. Lights went out Elias came out instead. After a brief concert from the Drifter, Cena kicked his ass, Then out comes Taker and Cena spends the nest 3 minutes bumping around like a cartoon character, complete with doubling back in shock and falling over after the Undertaker sat up following his only offensive move of the match, This was a match you would expect Bobby Heenan to have with the Undertaker, not John Cena. Complete waste of time.
Next up we have Daniel Bryan coming back after 3 years out with injury, teaming up with Shane McMahon against Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens. This was a good match, but they made a bad mistake with the booking with hurt the crowd reaction. Bryan was taken out early and the crowd died for 10 minutes as Shane went 1 on 2 against the heels. And, while Bryan got a nice reaction when he tagged in and ultimately forced Zayn to submit to the Yes Lock, it was not what it could have been.
Next up Nia Jax defeated champion Alexa Bliss to win the RAW Women's Championship in a perfectly acceptable match. AJ Styles and Sinsuke Nakamura than had what was, technically speaking, the best match of the night, though I feel it should have gone at least 3 minutes longer with a few more bear falls to really build to the finish. The match was criticized for not living up to their Wrestle Kingdom classic, but I question how many in WWE's audience know what Wrestle Kingdom is, let alone what type of match they had there. Anyway, Styles wins with a Styles Clash. Nakamura then turns heel, low blowing Styles after handing him the belt. This was awesome.
Next we had a waste of time, Braun Strowman picking a kid out of the audience named Nicholas to team with him so he could win the RAW Tag titles from Sheamus and Ceasaro on his own. Both guys deserved better.
Brings us to the main event in which Brock Lesnar, in a big surprise, retained the RAW Championship against Roman Reigns in a good match. But the real story was the crowd's utter apathy to what was going on. Chants of "Bring Back NIcholas", "This is Awful" and "We Want Beach Balls" rang out. No one reacted at all when Reigns kicked out of an F5 for the first time, a spot they'd been building for a year. Like I said though, it was actually a pretty good match. Reigns bumped like a mad man and got busted open by an elbow. Lesnar's frustration at Reigns' resilience was well conveyed. This crowd wanted none of Reigns and then popped big time for Brock's eventual win. And they were smart about it. Rather than booing him, they just ignored him and ruined the match, which creates a lot more issues for the WWE aesthetically and may actually force a rethink about how they're using Reigns.
Decent show, went downhill after the mixed tag. They killed the crowd at the start of the Daniel Bryan match and never really won them back from there on.