10 Ups And 12 Downs From WWE WrestleMania 34

by Scott Carlson

1. An Overbooked Mess

ronda rousey triple h
WWE.com

That’s meant in a good way.

The mixed tag match between Triple H & Stephanie McMahon and Kurt Angle & Ronda Rousey was going to have to be carefully scripted since it involved a woman making her in-ring debut and another wrestling just her second match in 15 years.

The drama surrounding the bout centered on Rousey getting her hands on Stephanie, while the fear from cynical fans would be whether Steph would live up to her hype video and act like she could hang with the former UFC champion.

This column predicted that she was all talk, and she was, as Stephanie begged off immediately and clearly was overmatched. It took a blatant thumb to the eye to save her and allowed her to get a few moves in, but this really was all about Ronda, as she peppered both McMahon and Triple H with strikes and locked each of them in an armbar.

It took a little long to get to the point and was drawn out a bit much, but eventually, Stephanie got hooked in an armbar and tapped while screaming bloody murder. It was exactly what fans wanted out of the night.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.