8 Ups And 11 Downs From WWE WrestleMania 33

2. Ultimate Thrill Ride Goes Off The Rails

WrestleMania 33
WWE.com

For the first half of the PPV, WrestleMania was looking like it was going to be a pretty damn good affair. The Cruiserweight Championship and United States Championship matches were entertaining, and opening bout and Raw women’s title match were both good.

But after the Hardys returned and shocked the world, the wheels fell off Mania pretty quickly. When you’re looking at the clock and realizing that there have been more than four hours of wrestling and you still have two world title matches, a women’s title bout and an Undertaker match to go, you know things aren’t right.

If the last few matches really delivered memorable (in a good way) moments, then a lot could be forgiven, but instead, we got completely forgettable WWE World Championship and SmackDown Women’s Championship matches, an abridged WWE Universal Championship contest and an underachieving bout between Taker and Roman Reigns.

The “ultimate thrill ride” became a yawner by the end, part due to the length, part due to the content. It’s a shame they couldn’t carry the momentum from the first half to the second.

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Contributor
Contributor

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.