Wwe Wrestlemania 21 Match Card
Owoeye Heatley
WrestleMania 34 was the 34th annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw, SmackDown, and 205 Live brand divisions. The event took place on April 8, 2018, at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, and was the second WrestleMania held at this venue after XXX.
The card comprised fourteen matches, including three on the Kickoff pre-show. In the main event, which was the main match of the Raw brand, Brock Lesnar retained the Universal Championship against Roman Reigns. The main match from SmackDown saw AJ Styles retain the WWE Championship against Shinsuke Nakamura. Other matches saw Ronda Rousey make her WWE debut and Daniel Bryan return to the ring after nearly three years of absence. Rousey teamed with Kurt Angle to defeat Triple H and Stephanie McMahon in a mixed tag team match, while Bryan teamed with Shane McMahon to defeat Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. Also, The Undertaker defeated John Cena in an impromptu match.
Also on the card, Charlotte Flair retained the SmackDown Women's Championship against the 2018 Women's Royal Rumble Winner Asuka, ending Asuka's undefeated streak. A 10-year-old named Nicholas (son of referee John Cone) became the youngest champion in WWE history when he teamed with Braun Strowman to defeat Cesaro and Sheamus for the Raw Tag Team Championship. It was also the first time that the SmackDown Tag Team Championship was defended at a WrestleMania.
The US Championship was contested in a fatal-four-way match featuring Randy Orton as the champion, Bobby Roode as the previous champion, Rusev accompanied by Aiden English, and Jinder Mahal accompanied by Sunil Singh. Jinder came out on top via pinfall on Rusev.
WrestleMania 34 received mixed to positive reviews from fans and critics, with the world title matches being subjected to more negative responses. The main event between Lesnar and Reigns particularly received heavy criticism and was decried by some as one of the worst main events in WrestleMania history.[2][3] Despite this, other aspects of the show, such as the return of Daniel Bryan, the Intercontinental Championship and SmackDown Women's Championship matches, and the debut performance of Ronda Rousey, were widely praised.
WrestleMania is WWE's flagship pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event, having first been held in 1985. It was the company's first pay-per-view produced and was also WWE's first major event available via livestreaming when the company launched the WWE Network in 2014. It is the longest-running professional wrestling event in history and is held annually between mid-March to mid-April.[4] It was the first of WWE's original four pay-per-views, which includes Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, referred to as the "Big Four".[5] WrestleMania is ranked the sixth most valuable sports brand in the world by Forbes,[6] and has been described as the Super Bowl of sports entertainment.[7] Much like the Super Bowl, cities bid for the right to host the year's edition of WrestleMania.[8]
Announced on January 9, 2017, WrestleMania 34 was scheduled to be held on April 8, 2018, at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. It featured wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brand divisions.[9] The event was the second WrestleMania to be held in the state of Louisiana and the second held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, which previously hosted WrestleMania XXX in 2014.[9] On October 30, 2017, traveling packages for the event were sold;[10][11] tickets went on sale on November 17, 2017, with individual tickets costing from $35 to $2,000.[10]
The four official theme songs for the event were "Celebrate", "New Orleans" (both by Kid Rock), "Let the Good Times Roll" (by Freddie King) and Devil by Shinedown.[12][13][14] On April 8, prior to the start of WrestleMania, WWE and Snickers held the WrestleMania Block Party at the Champions Square plaza. The tailgate event included appearances from Alundra Blayze and Ric Flair as well from active competitors Tamina and R-Truth.[15]American duo Chloe x Halle performed "America the Beautiful" to kick off the main card of WrestleMania.[16]
Since 2014, WWE attempted to establish Roman Reigns as their top babyface and the next "face of the company", but a significant portion of fans rejected Reigns in this role,[17] taking issue with his perceived special treatment, real-life demeanor, wrestling moveset, speaking skills, and character presentation.[18] This resulted in Reigns being booed while he wrestled in the main events of WrestleMania 31,[19] WrestleMania 32,[20] and WrestleMania 33.[21] The perception that Reigns was the "company's chosen one" led to widespread expectations that Reigns would triumph in the main event of WrestleMania 34 to become WWE Universal Champion;[22][23] and it was also anticipated that while doing so, he would be again received negatively by the WrestleMania crowd.[24]
The event comprised 14 matches, including three on the Kickoff pre-show, that resulted from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portrayed heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands,[25][26] while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw, SmackDown Live,[27] and the cruiserweight-exclusive 205 Live.[28]
After Brock Lesnar won the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 33,[21] he seldom defended the title, which was often criticized, especially by Roman Reigns. As the 2018 men's Royal Rumble winner chose SmackDown's world championship, Lesnar's WrestleMania 34 opponent was determined through the Elimination Chamber match, which was won by Reigns.[29] The two had also previously fought at WrestleMania 31 in March 2015 over Lesnar's WWE World Heavyweight Championship (now WWE Championship), but without a decisive winner as Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank contract and pinned Reigns.[19] Despite being advertised, Lesnar did not appear for several episodes of Raw.[30][31] Reigns repeatedly criticized Lesnar[30] and also questioned WWE Chairman/CEO Vince McMahon, for which he was temporarily suspended.[31] When Reigns nevertheless appeared on Raw to confront Lesnar, he was arrested by U.S. Marshals. The handcuffed Reigns assaulted the Marshals, but was then attacked by Lesnar.[32][33] Heyman then declared that should Lesnar lose, they would not re-sign with WWE. Their match was scheduled as the main event, which would be the first Universal Championship match to main event WrestleMania.[34]
At the Royal Rumble, SmackDown's Shinsuke Nakamura won the men's Royal Rumble match, earning a world championship match of his choosing at WrestleMania 34. Nakamura chose SmackDown's WWE Champion AJ Styles.[35] At Fastlane, Styles retained the WWE Championship in a six-pack challenge, thus solidifying the Styles-Nakamura match at WrestleMania.[36] The two expressed respect for each other,[37][38] but Styles warned Nakamura to not take him lightly this time, bringing up their previous encounter in New Japan Pro-Wrestling in January 2016, where Nakamura had defeated Styles.[39]
After failing to win the Elimination Chamber match, Intercontinental Champion The Miz demanded a WrestleMania challenger. Seth Rollins then came out and defeated Miz, followed by Finn Blor, who also defeated him.[30] The following week, both Rollins and Blor confronted Miz, leading to a 2-on-3 handicap match between Rollins and Blor and The Miz and his Miztourage (Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel), in which Rollins pinned Miz. Afterwards, Raw General Manager Kurt Angle scheduled The Miz to defend his championship against Blor and Rollins in a triple threat match at WrestleMania.[40]
At the Royal Rumble, Raw's Asuka won the women's Royal Rumble match. As a result, Asuka earned the right to challenge for a women's championship of her choosing at WrestleMania.[35] On the advice of Raw Commissioner Stephanie McMahon, Asuka postponed her decision[41][42] until both women's champions had defended their titles at Elimination Chamber[29] and Fastlane, respectively. Following Charlotte Flair's successful defense at Fastlane, Asuka appeared and challenged her for the SmackDown Women's Championship at WrestleMania.[36] Asuka explained that she chose Flair as she wanted to challenge the best women's champion in WWE,[31] while Flair vowed to end Asuka's undefeated streak.[a][37][43]
After Alexa Bliss won her second Raw Women's Championship in August 2017,[44] she formed a friendship with Nia Jax, who also had championship aspirations. Jax failed to earn a title shot at the Royal Rumble and also lost to Asuka at Elimination Chamber in a match that would have added her to Asuka's WrestleMania championship match.[29] After Asuka defeated her in a rematch on Raw, Bliss consoled Jax and said she deserved a title match.[40] When Asuka explained her reasons for challenging Charlotte Flair, Bliss and Mickie James confronted her and called out Jax to wrestle Asuka, but Jax did not appear. Later during Jax's match, Bliss and James, who were unaware of the live microphone, were heard disparaging Jax, who was upset by this.[31] The following week, Bliss issued a fake apology and continued to insult Jax, who chased off the champion. When Bliss complained to Raw General Manager Kurt Angle, he scheduled her to defend the Raw Women's Championship against Jax at WrestleMania.[32]
After defeating The Revival (Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson), Raw Tag Team Champions Cesaro and Sheamus said they had defeated every tag team on Raw and issued an open challenge to any tag team to face them at WrestleMania.[40] On March 12, General Manager Kurt Angle scheduled a tag team battle royal with the winning team receiving a championship match at WrestleMania. Braun Strowman interjected himself into the match without a partner and won.[31] The following week, Angle decided that Strowman would receive a Raw Tag Team Championship match at WrestleMania as long as he found a partner. Strowman said that he did not need a partner, but would have one. He defeated both Cesaro[32] and Sheamus in singles matches, but did not reveal his partner prior to the event.[33]
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