10 Things WWE Got Right At WrestleMania 33
The Ultimate Thrill Ride lived up to the hype.
With a seemingly unimpressive match card and very limited build for the vast majority of feuds, expectations were pretty low going into WrestleMania 33. The rollercoaster set was an impressive spectacle, and there were some potential sleeper hits lying in wait throughout the night, but most were anticipating that ‘The Ultimate Thrill Ride’ would be the kind that makes you scream “let me off!”
How wrong we were.
While WrestleMania 33 was still an incredibly long, emotionally draining event, it was jam-packed with fantastic storytelling, some great matches, shocking returns, and some of the most memorable and arguably timeless WrestleMania moments in the show’s impressive history.
Sure, there were certainly some bolts loose on The Ultimate Thrill Ride’s framework, and the night took some strange turns that will be picked apart and heavily scrutinized over the next few days (hint: one of them rhymes with Hobo Crawley), but all in all, this was a bombastic and surprisingly dynamic event. It had wrestling of all stripes, theatrics, showmanship and grandeur, and might have washed away an awful lot of the ill will caused by last year’s disappointing slog.
For the most part, WWE really pulled it out of the bag on The Grandest Stage of Them All.
10. New Day Rocks (From A Distance)
A choice that could have gone horribly wrong, WWE handpicking The New Day to host WrestleMania actually wound up working perfectly. Kofi, Big E and Xavier Woods lent their magnetic presence to the event, without ever getting in the way of the matches or stalling the show with meandering skits. There were no overlong New Day Pops adverts eating into match time, nor were there bizarre sketches involving The New Day and some D-list celebrity unknown to anyone outside of the United States.
They made an entrance, cracked some jokes, and the crowd enjoyed it, and only appeared again to announce the Citrus Bowl’s attendance record being broken.
And of course, The Hard Boyz.
It turns out ‘The Day of New’ served as the best possible way to introduce The Hardy Boyz into the Tag Championship ladder match. You could see the glee on their faces as they signalled the return of one of the greatest tag teams of the last twenty years. The moment might not have been as special, had it simply been JoJo announcing the match change.
It does speak volumes, however, that The Rock can host WrestleMania and wind up physically interfering with (and ‘burying’) current roster members, but active Superstars who wear unicorn horns are made to show restraint while doing the same job.