10 Times Unlikely Wrestlers Stole The Show

Expectations were mixed ahead of WrestleMania 34's marquee mixed tag match attraction.

Clearly, the match was mapped out and practised, move by move, as Ronda Rousey trained in earnest at the Performance Center for several months. As it should have been: with so many eyes fixed on their major signing, WWE left no scope whatsoever for embarrassment...

...to an extent. Wrestling being wrestling, a convoluted art form derailing even the most seasoned of professionals, one mistimed sequence may have precipitated a domino effect of disaster. Consider the second match in last year's disappointing series between two of the best and most tenured performers in the entire company, Kevin Owens and AJ Styles. The layout required a certain (read: monumental) stupidity on the part of referee Ryan Tran as a platform for the blowoff. This stupidity was infectious; Styles botched the finish by failing to lift his shoulder up at the conclusion of a match that had already suffered from hesitancy at key moments. It was a spluttering performance from which there was no coming back: the centre couldn't hold, the damage was done.

Rousey was jittery in the build-up to 'Mania, mistiming line readings and performing awkward judo throws. Without the level head needed to recover in the event of a confidence-draining mishap, scope for embarrassment was high. Everybody is a winner in training.

On the night itself...

Rona Rusey's performance at WrestleMania 34 was mesmerising. Already reviewed twice on this author page, this list was pitched in part as an excuse to revisit the magic for a third time in just over a week.

Her debut performance clicked in such an indefinable way that we can only apply the 'X-Factor' platitude. Ronda, as became gloriously apparent, simply gets pro wrestling - astonishingly, both the mechanics and the minutiae. By the time she, with a terrifying intensity, charged at Stephanie McMahon and flung her over the tope for a long-overdue battering, the fans in the Superdome, to a man, erupted in astonishment and adulation. After destroying Steph by throwing her around by the hair, Rousey plucked those hairs from her fingers with an oh-well grin. She transmitted badass body language so naturally that fans instantly took to her as the heroine promoted.

Stephanie's performance was sensational, too; even as she eyeballed husband Triple H, after he nearly knocked her off the apron, there was a hidden expression of pure panic in her eyes. She wanted no part of Ronda Rousey.

And with good reason: Not once did Ronda not time anything to perfection, nor did she let the performer mask slip. She constantly performed in character, gauging the crowd's appetite for a broken arm with an outward gaze.

She should have known, really: she worked them into that frenzy like an old pro.