8 Ups And 11 Downs From WWE WrestleMania 33

1. Lather, Rinse, Repeat If Necessary

WrestleMania ROman Reigns Undertaker
WWE.com

Four spears. Four Superman punches. A bunch of chair shots. A drive-by dropkick. And a Samoan Drop. That might have been the entire arsenal of offense that Roman Reigns used during his third consecutive main event WrestleMania match, this one against the Undertaker.

Reigns closed out what had started out as a really good Mania with a wounded duck of a match, a slow, plodding affair that didn’t make Taker look like an old gunslinger. It made him look like a shell of his former self. And Roman was the jerky “hero” who took his spot.

If it wasn’t for the end and the postscript, there’s no way this should have closed out WrestleMania. It was a troll job of every fan who’s booed Roman consistently for the past two years, as he’s shown zero character development since then, but we’re supposed to love him now that he’s defeated the Phenom. Plus, it simply wasn’t a good match.

Sorry if you disagree, but it objectively wasn’t a good match, and it was the wrong dynamic. If you have a guy you view as your babyface of the future who gets booed more than cheered, having him beat an all-time legend into retirement isn’t going to make that situation better. Period.

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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.