WWE WrestleMania 33 Results: Highlights, Analysis and Grades

Follow along with our review of WrestleMania 33.

On Sunday night, WrestleMania 33 will finally be here. This is WWE’s biggest event of the year, which brings out almost everybody from the roster. They get the chance to compete for titles and be part of a show that takes place in front of over 60,000 people. It should make for quite the atmosphere for six or seven hours at the Camping World Stadium in Orlando, FL.

WrestleMania 33 will be headlined by two top title matches — one for the Universal and the other for the WWE Championship. Goldberg and Brock Lesnar will battle in the former, while Bray Wyatt takes on Randy Orton in the latter bout.

Roman Reigns vs. The Undertaker is another critical match to the card. This is a one-on-one contest of the “Big Dogs,” who will look to claim their yard at the Grandest Stage of Them All.

AJ Styles, who was unpleased about being out of the WWE Championship match, is facing SmackDown Commissioner Shane McMahon. Styles took his frustrations out on McMahon, as he felt management kept him away from the title picture.

These matches and more can be seen below. There are 13 taking place at WrestleMania 33.

WWE Universal Championship Match
Goldberg (c) vs. Brock Lesnar

WWE Championship Match
Bray Wyatt (c) vs. Randy Orton

Elimination Match for the Raw Women’s Championship
Bayley (c) vs. Charlotte vs. Nia Jax vs. Sasha Banks

Non-Sanctioned Match
Seth Rollins vs. Triple H

WWE United States Championship Match
Kevin Owens (c) vs. Chris Jericho

Ladder Match for the Raw Tag Team Championship
Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows (c) vs. Enzo Amore and Big Cass vs. Cesaro and Sheamus

WWE Intercontinental Championship Match
Dean Ambrose (c) vs. Baron Corbin

Six-Pack Challenge for the SmackDown Women’s Championship
Alexa Bliss (c) vs. Becky Lynch vs. Carmella vs. Mickie James vs. Naomi vs. Natalya

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

Roman Reigns vs. The Undertaker

AJ Styles vs. Shane McMahon

John Cena and Nikki Bella vs. The Miz and Maryse

Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal

Next: 25 Greatest WrestleMania Moments

Follow along with our review of the show, which begins at 5:00 p.m. ET with the Kickoff. Then, at 7:00 p.m. ET, the main action starts.

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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.

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Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal

Result: Mojo Rawley wins the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

This Andre the Giant Battle Royal was interesting, to say the least. We saw Big Show and Braun Strowman get the only big entrances, but they were eliminated minutes into the match, with about 20 people remaining. As shocking a result as anyone could have expected, especially with Strowman being a favorite to win this.

Then we saw things breaking down, with everyone else’s favorites being eliminated. This included Luke Harper and Sami Zayn. So just who was actually left when it was all said and done?

Well, the final three had Mojo Rawley, Jinder Mahal and NXT’s Killian Dain. A bizarre trio to close things out, but it meant something moments later, as NFL star Rob Gronkowski jumped into ringside. He had been taunted by Mahal.

So, we ended up getting the typical celebrity moment that usually happens at WrestleMania. This saw Gronk get physical by demolishing Mahal with a shoulder tackle. Rawley eliminated Mahal and Dain, and won the battle royal.

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WWE Intercontinental Championship Match
Dean Ambrose (c) vs. Baron Corbin

Result: Dean Ambrose defeats Baron Corbin via pinfall.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Surprisingly, Ambrose vs. Corbin for the Intercontinental Championship got moved to the WrestleMania 33 Kickoff Show. This comes after the SmackDown Women’s Championship match went from the opening two hours to the main show. Fans voiced their displeasure on social media for the latter and when the former happened on Sunday night. There are consequences for some things, though, even when speaking out and getting what you want.

This match had a frantic, chaotic start. Ambrose and Corbin looked like they were going 100 MPH off the bat, which you can tell meant they didn’t have much time to tell their story. That became the case, as they only had about nine minutes to wrestle. Could they have had more on the main show, even with Alexa Bliss’ title defense on there? How about getting rid of the musical performances that mean nothing?

Ambrose winning is fine for him. It’s not one that’s going to put him on another level, as this match was just okay. Corbin, though, may be hurt from this. Where does he go from here after having his pushes stalled twice in four months?

So an alright way to close the WrestleMania Kickoff Show. Let’s see what happens on the main part!

New Day Opens WrestleMania 33

Our hosts, the New Day, open WrestleMania 33. They have a cart, which is hopefully filled with New Day Pops.

Big E, Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston start talking about how they were chosen as hosts of the show. They hyped up the event and got the fans going.

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AJ Styles vs. Shane McMahon

Result: AJ Styles defeats Shane McMahon via pinfall.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

Our leadoff (kind of) match is Styles vs. McMahon. Interesting choice over the ladder match, which has taken this spot during the past two years.The talk around this has been Styles “not getting the opponent he deserves.”

The talk around this has been Styles “not getting the opponent he deserves.” While that’s not the worst argument, the guy can put on something great with just about anyone. Did he do that here with McMahon?

Remember all that criticism we just brought up? Well, Shane did some wrestling moves. He may not be able to punch to save his life, but he looked alright there.

For all the talk of McMahon not being able to keep up either, he played up a decent pace through the first half of the match. It may not have been going at a crazy pace, but it took a bit to build up to a proper story. This is a 46-year-old man we’re talking about here too, one that doesn’t compete often.

Not sure how to feel about McMahon kicking out of the Styles Clash. However, WWE made it clear a long time ago that the Phenomenal Forearm is the finisher for the former WWE Champion, so the move that made him dangerous in NJPW can be deemed secondary.

Man, was this match something or what? These two nearly died out there like 10 times (not really, but they went all out). This match exceeded expectations by a country mile, making for an amazing opener to WrestleMania 33.

No more criticism can come the way of this bout, which received its fair share. McMahon proved he had plenty in the tank and Styles did his usual, phenomenal thing. The right man won in Styles, who’s the full-time performer of the two, but Shane O’Mac held up his end of the bargain. Go back and watch this after the show.

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WWE United States Championship Match
Chris Jericho (c) vs. Kevin Owens

Result: Kevin Owens defeats Chris Jericho via pinfall to win the WWE United States Championship.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

One of WrestleMania 33’s “blood feuds” is Jericho vs. Owens. They started as best friends, until one Festival of Friendship segment came along and saw KO end their working relationship. We saw this coming from miles away, but the match still had plenty of anticipation on Sunday.

Owens and Jericho stayed on even footing for the first 5-10 minutes of this match, with neither going ahead by too much. However, the challenger did get a cut above his eye, drawing our first blood of the evening.

How about Jericho hitting a top rope Frankensteiner? He may be past 45-year-old, but can still do things like the cruiserweights.

Owens took a few hard bumps midway through. He had a Frog Splash and Swanton countered by Y2J, with knees to the gut and back. That’ll make for a bruise or two.

Then, how about the Pop-Up Powerbomb-Codebreaker transition by Jericho? An incredible sequence by him. That became his last positive moment, though, as Owens quickly took over and won the United States Championship.

This may be the official send-off for Jericho, unless he is brought back for at least the next few weeks. That could include a rematch for the title, before going on his way with Fozzy.

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Elimination Match for the Raw Women’s Championship
Bayley (c) vs. Charlotte vs. Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax

Result: Bayley defeats Charlotte, Sasha Banks and Nia Jax to retain the Raw Women’s Championship.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

This pitted the top four members of the Raw Women’s Division in a match. It seemed like a good idea, but something about this just didn’t work.

At first, things went fine, as Charlotte, Banks and Bayley teamed up to take out Jax. She had been running through everyone, so it only made sense to team up and get her out of the match. The Shield-esque triple powerbomb was a nice touch to eliminate her.

Everything started to fall apart afterward, though. The failed removal of the turnbuckle, only to have Banks get hit off it to be pinned, didn’t get over well. The fans weren’t happy, either, as they voiced their displeasure.

Then, we had Bayley vs. Charlotte to close, which is something we’ve seen far too many times since December. It didn’t bring us anything new and nothing that we’ll go back to the WWE Network to watch, unfortunately. Maybe a bigger tease of action with the Boss would have worked better, then trigging a heel turn on Raw. Even going head-to-head with Jax would have been better.

Besides the criticism, Charlotte was the star of this match. Her corkscrew moonsault could have meant so much more, if this bout had gone to another level. She looked great and like the top player, WWE has made her to be.

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Ladder Match for the Raw Tag Team Championship
Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows (c) vs. Cesaro and Sheamus vs. Enzo Amore and Big Cass vs. The Hardys

Result: The Hardys win the Raw Tag Team Championship.

Rating: Broken, Deleted and 3.75 out of 5 stars

No, that is not a typo — Matt and Jeff Hardy returned to WWE in this match! New Day brought them out as the fourth team and sent Camping World Stadium into chaos. What a moment.

Wow, where to begin here.

Every team played a great role in this match. It was a spot fest, but just about every ladder contest is, which is fine. These teams did their thing and put on something incredible fun, something that only exceeded expectations when the Tag Team Specialists came into the fray, and with ladders too? It was perfect.

Then, with the Hardys winning the Raw Tag Team Championship — it feels like we’re in 2000 again. An incredible WWE comeback and moment for these two, as they’ll rule the Raw Tag Team Division for the foreseeable future. I can’t wait to see what we’re in store for on Monday.

It seemed like this would be Enzo Amore and Big Cass’ moment… at first. They’ll have to wait another time, which is fine because their buildup to the title scene hasn’t exactly been crisp.

So, let’s top that!

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John Cena and Nikki Bella vs. The Miz and Maryse

Result: John Cena and Nikki Bella defeated The Miz and Maryse via pinfall.

Rating: 2.25 out of 5 stars

After what just happened, how do you follow it up? Even with the build for this mixed-tag match being great, it’s still difficult to top future WWE Hall of Famers returning to win championships.

Much of this match had Cena and Miz going head-to-head. Not a big surprise, as Bella has a neck injury and Maryse hasn’t wrestled in about five years. However, these two male Superstars kept things entertaining, as they needed to after the tag title match.

How about the Fearless One with a dive through the ropes with her hurt neck? Not too shabby.

This was a pretty standard tag match that you’d see on TV, though. It was fun, will generate some headlines and be something for them to remember. You can place an emphasis on “remember” too.

After the match, Cena got on the microphone and proposed to Bella in the middle of the ring. He got down on one knee, took out a ring and showed it off. She said yes right away and they kissed, before walking off.

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Unsanctioned Match
Triple H vs. Seth Rollins

Result: Seth Rollins defeats Triple H via pinfall.

Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars

From the start of this match, the focus would be on Rollins’ knee, which has been the story of this feud. It wasn’t intentional at first, until Rollins reinjured it in February, adding a monstrous layer to their WrestleMania 33 encounter.

Triple H dropped elbows to the knee, hit it with a chair and worked a number of holds on it. This went further when Rollins went for the sunset flip powerbomb that hurt him at a live event in 2015, which wasn’t filmed. Nice touch!

Almost anything the Architect did hurt his knee, which played up how he wasn’t “okay” heading into this match. It may have been much at times, but it mostly worked.

The good ol’ sledgehammer eventually got broken out, something we hadn’t seen in a long time. Triple H got it after Rollins threw it out from under the ring,

Things picked up big time at the end with an excellent finish. We saw a table set up for a while, but it didn’t really come into play. Then, Triple H inadvertently went into Stephanie McMahon, who fell and through the table! This allowed Rollins to hit the Pedigree and see the Game lose with his own finisher.

Kind of a slow match that never really got off the ground, and played too much to the knee. It never felt like the technical wrestling fun it could have been, as the “unsanctioned” part of this made it a little wacky. A psychological battle here may have been better.

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WWE Championship Match
Bray Wyatt (c) vs. Randy Orton

Result: Randy Orton defeats Bray Wyatt to win the WWE Championship.

Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

Perhaps the match with the most interesting build of them all, Wyatt vs. Orton began back in August 2016. Mind games, alliances and arson highlighted this feud, which had WrestleMania 33 written all over it. They had faced off once before this, but the Show of Shows took this to another level.

Weird mind games played through this match, as Wyatt had worm visuals appear and cover the squared circle. Bizarre and something I can’t say I’ve seen before. It was made to replicate Orton burning down Sister Abigail’s resting place.

All of this was unique, but the crowd never felt into this. They were burned out after Triple H vs. Rollins and the music, which is unfortunate. This match also came five-and-a-half hours into the show.

However, this never really got off the ground. It didn’t go to the next level that plenty of the other matches did, which brings down its grade. This even had a title change, but it felt abrupt with how it went down.

Orton doesn’t really need a title reign at this stage of his career, and ending Wyatt’s after six weeks seems too soon. It’s one of those strange, safe booking techniques WWE tends to use at WrestleMania. They hadn’t really throughout this show, but it was glaring in one of the biggest ones of the night.

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WWE Universal Championship Match
Goldberg (c) vs. Brock Lesnar

Result: Brock Lesnar defeats Goldberg via pinfall to win the WWE Universal Championship.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

Well, we knew it was going to be short? How long, though? We have an unofficial match time of 4 minutes, 46 seconds.

Lesnar winning the Universal Championship seemed like a formality from the beginning. Goldberg’s WWE stay was going to end at some point, and with Lesnar still around for at least one more year, it only made sense to have the title change hands.

The Beast Incarnate now holds a belt for the first time since WrestleMania 31, where he lost the WWE World Title to Roman Reigns. It’s going to be interesting to see how often he appears on Raw with it and who faces him. Kevin Owens is owed a rematch, so could he be next? Will Goldberg bother going for his own second chance?

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SmackDown Women’s Championship Match
Alexa Bliss Defends in a Six-Pack Challenge

Result: Naomi wins the SmackDown Women’s Championship.

Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

This was mostly a chaotic match with all six women’s wrestlers. They didn’t have much time to work with, as getting squeezed between two mega matches never helps.

Naomi getting the win here allowed her to reclaim the title she never lost and celebrate in front of her hometown crowd. Not a bad way to return from injury and make an impact.

As for the others involved, the only one who will stick around in the title scene, for now, is Bliss. She’ll get a title rematch soon, maybe on Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown Live. There’s an opportunity there to have a good singles bout, which can make up for the up-and-down booking of the Women’s division heading into WrestleMania 33.

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No Disqualifications Match
Undertaker vs. Roman Reigns

Result: Roman Reigns defeats and retires The Undertaker via pinfall.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Wait a second, wasn’t this match billed as a standard singles? Yes, it was, until the last-second announcement (as Reigns made his entrance) that it would be No Disqualifications. Can you smell something fishy here?

Undertaker and Reigns went right at it, with the WWE legend chasing his challenger out of the ring multiple times. He even yelled “my yard.”

The match had a fun pace to it, as Taker seemed fresh and moved around as good as a 52-year-old could. They worked spots at ringside and put on something solid. Then came the spear through the table, leading to this starting to spiral downward.

Undertaker looked his age, not moving around well and barely being able to stand up. Reigns just bullied him with offense, including about half a dozen Superman punches and a handful of spears.

Taker had the ultimate send-off to close the show, which we’ll be discussing more on our website. It was a heartfelt farewell from one of WWE’s greatest stars of all time and left everyone teary-eyed. Maybe he didn’t put on the best match ever, but it was enough to send him out after a long show.