WWE WrestleMania 33 Results: Highlights, Analysis and Grades

credit: wwe.com

WWE Cruiserweight Championship Match
Neville (c) vs. Austin Aries

Result: Neville defeats Austin Aries via pinfall.

Rating: 3.25 out of 5 stars

Our opener is Neville vs. Austin Aries for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship. It’s the first WrestleMania match for both stars, both of whom are 205 Live stars.

It seemed like these two were somewhat feeling each other out for the first few minutes. The slow start didn’t matter, though, with the crowd invested in wanting to see Aries succeed (he had a few big “Austin Aries” chants).

Neville kept things grounded for the first half of the match, until he went for a move off the second turnbuckle, missed and allowed Aries to get his big comeback. He hit a great forearm off the top rope and a big dive through the ropes to get a near-fall.

Aries took a ridiculous bump with a snap German suplex, landing right on the back of his head. That looked ugly for a second, with the King of the Cruiserweights and the referee giving him time to recover. A second one even looked like he hit the back of his head into the mat. Ouch.

Aries started breaking out and getting the crowd fired up with a Frankensteiner, 450 splash and the Last Chancery. It made the crowd electric, until Neville went for the previously-injured eye of Aries.

A little surprised Aries didn’t get the title win to open the show. His time in the picture for the belt clearly isn’t over, though. We’d assume he gets another one-on-one chance, potentially at the next pay-per-view.

Overall, a very good match to kick off WrestleMania 33. Not a bad way to set the tone with the cruiserweights getting the chance to shine and having the focus placed on them. Kickoff Show or not, they did a good job.