WWE WrestleMania 33: Results and observations from the show

It was an eventful evening at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla. Sunday night, as WWE presented the 33rd edition of its sports and entertainment extravaganza, WrestleMania.

As most people reading this know, a lot usually happens at WrestleMania and this year's was no different.

We saw four new champions crowned, an NFL tight end help his friend win a battle royal, but most importantly, we saw what looked the end of one of the most iconic careers in the history of professional wrestling.

All of this played out in front of what WWE announced as 75,245 spectators, which was a Camping World Stadium record, according to WWE.

Overall, I thought the show was good. It was far better than last year's show, but not in the elite category of WrestleMania 17 or WrestleMania 30. Despite that, it gets a passing grade from me.

Before I delve into my analysis — and I have a lot of it — here are the full match results from WrestleMania:

- Kickoff match – WWE Cruiserweight championship – Neville def. Austin Aries

- Kickoff match – Mojo Rawley won the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal

- Kickoff match – WWE Intercontinental championship – Dean Ambrose def. Baron Corbin

- AJ Styles def. Shane McMahon

- WWE United States championship – Kevin Owens def. Chris Jericho

- WWE Raw Women's championship – Bayley def. Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks & Nia Jax

- WWE Raw Tag Team championship (Ladder match) – The Hardy Boyz def. Enzo Amore/Big Cass, Luke Gallows/Karl Anderson, Sheamus & Cesaro

- John Cena & Nikki Bella def. The Miz & Maryse

- Unsanctioned match – Seth Rollins def. Triple H

- WWE championship – Randy Orton def. Bray Wyatt

- WWE Universal championship – Brock Lesnar def. Goldberg

- WWE Smackdown Women's championship – Naomi def. Alexa Bliss, Becky Lynch, Mickie James, Carmella & Natalya

- Roman Reigns def. The Undertaker

The Undertaker's last ride

It will always be reflected in the record books that The Undertaker and Reigns closed out WrestleMania 33 and that Reigns handed The Undertaker only his second defeat at the show of shows, bringing his stellar record to 23-2.

What will be forgotten as time goes on was the quality of the match, which was not very good.

One could be quick to lay blame one way or the other, but at the end of the day, most of the blame should lie with father time, as it has clearly caught up with the 52-year-old Undertaker.

The Undertaker's character is all but immortal. He has been dead for more than two decades, according to the WWE mythos. However, the man behind the character, Mark Calloway, is very much mortal and it was painfully obvious Sunday night.

Years of ravaging his body in wrestling rings from one side of this planet to the other has obviously taken its toll on The Undertaker's body, as he could not perform up to his or Reigns' usual standard at WrestleMania.

The match was slow and felt out sorts at multiple points of the match. The fans tried to light a fire under The Undertaker by cheering him on, but The Undertaker's body would not allow him to instantly revert back to 1997 … or even 2007.

Instead, it was firmly standing in 2017. The Undertaker's body is 52 years old, but it is probably in the shape of someone that is nearing 72.

Reigns defeated The Undertaker to cap off his third consecutive appearance in the main event of WrestleMania, but this had nothing to do with him. It did not feel like a true passing of the torch like WWE had intended.

Not even Jim Ross' commentary could make this a match worthy of being in the main event of WrestleMania. But this wasn't even about the match. This was about The Undertaker having his final moment in the ring.

Reigns did what he could with The Undertaker and left, leaving the ring to the future WWE Hall of Famer.

Once Reigns was gone, The Undertaker put on his iconic hat and overcoat and stood in the ring while the fans chanted his name. He looked around at the fans before starting to leave the ring.

The Undertaker stopped and went back to the center of the ring, where he slowly took off his gloves, hat and coat and placed them all in a pile in the ring in what looked like a symbol that he was finally calling it quits.

He then left the ring and kissed his wife and former WWE superstar, Michelle McCool. He then went to the spot in the 80-yard ramp he ascended to before the match, put his fist in the air and held it up, as he descended into his post-wrestling life.

The Undertaker's last showing at WrestleMania was nowhere near his best, but it happened where it should have happened, and that was in the main event of WrestleMania, which was what The Undertaker deserved after all he has meant to WWE and to the fans for more than two decades.

My words alone can't do any justice to what The Undertaker has meant to myself and countless others during his WWE career. He meant so much that I almost don't even care about how lackluster his match with Reigns was Sunday night.

But as much as I, along with many others, don't want to see The Undertaker finally hang up his wrestling boots, Sunday night was evidence that he definitely should.

The best part about this was that The Undertaker went out on his terms. It was not the best of terms, but it was his and he more than deserved that.

Brock Lesnar finally redeemed himself

Fans probably had tears in their eyes at the end of the night, but that have been crying and whining long before that about the prospect of another short encounter between Lesnar and Goldberg.

To no one's surprise, the match was rather short for a championship bout, clocking in at about four minutes and 45 seconds, but it was fantastic while it lasted.

Instead of dragging out a 20-minute epic, Lesnar and Goldberg got to the heavy stuff right away. Lesnar immediately gave Goldberg a one-way ticket to Suplex City and tossed him through the air a total of 10 times during the match.

Just when Lesnar looked like he was going to dominant, Goldberg came out of nowhere with a spear and hit him with one more before driving Lesnar through the barricade outside of the ring with a third one.

Once they were back in the ring, Goldberg hit a fourth and even landed the jackhammer, but Lesnar kicked out. Goldberg set up for a fifth spear, but Lesnar leaped over Goldberg and resumed his destruction of the incumbent champion.

Once Lesnar reached 10 suplexes, he picked up Goldberg for the F-5 and pinned him to win the Universal championship.

The same fans that had bemoaned this match for weeks were standing and applauding by the time it was over. Essentially, Goldberg and Lesnar did their jobs.

They built up a big championship match and delivered when it came time to get it done in the ring. You can't ask for much more than that.

The expedition of gold comes to WWE

Other than The Undertaker's retirement, the biggest headline coming out of the night was the return of the Hardy Boyz to WWE.

One night after losing the Ring of Honor Tag Team titles in a ladder match to the Young Bucks, Matt and Jeff Hardy surprised everyone by inserting themselves into the ladder match for the Raw Tag Team titles.

Even more surprising was that they procured the titles, meaning that the expedition of gold continues into WWE.

The ladder match was sure to deliver in some ways, but this was definitely helped by the presence of the Hardy Boyz.

Now that Matt and Jeff Hardy are tag champs, the only question is whether they will continue their broken brilliance in WWE. As many of you probably know, the Hardy family, including Matt's wife Reby, has been embroiled in a legal battle over the broken characters with Impact Wrestling.

This has played out on public, as Reby Hardy has not been shy about her stance on the matter on Twitter.

Although Matt Hardy had the white streak in his hair, the Hardy Boyz were not totally broken at WrestleMania. They came out to their classic theme music, which made sense being that it was recognizable to the fans.

There were no references to Brother Nero or anything like that. The only thing I recall hearing was Michael Cole making a broken remark when the Hardy Boyz were making their entrance.

That was definitely a wink to what the Hardy Boyz have been up to for the last year, but I'm not sure it was an indication it was definitely making its way to WWE.

Matt and Jeff Hardy did do delete chants after the match, but they weren't acknowledged by the commentary team.

Needless to say, I am very excited to see what comes next for the duo. Even if they aren't able to be broken, it is still good to see Matt and Jeff Hardy back in WWE.

At the very least, WWE has a great creative mind in Matt Hardy and a former top star in Jeff Hardy back under its umbrella.

Styles vs. Shane McMahon exceeded expectations

Another match fans whined and cried about for weeks leading into WrestleMania was Styles facing Shane McMahon.

By the end of the match, which opened the main portion of the event, they weren't complaining anymore. It was arguably the best match on the entire show.

Styles was his usual phenomenal self and Shane McMahon took his usual daring risks, including a shooting star press.

Most importantly, Styles defeated Shane McMahon, which was obviously the right call.

Now that Styles has vanquished McMahon, he can get back to facing actual wrestlers.

Orton vs. Wyatt was very underwhelming

A match that fell far below my expectations was Orton versus Wyatt.

I liked the storyline pairing of Wyatt and Orton, but the in-ring pairing does nothing for me. I think the problem was that they are too similar in their pace.

They are both methodical wrestlers, which do not mix well together, especially in 2017. I believe that if they faced a wrestler that worked at a quicker pace, it could have been much better. Contrasting styles tend to work better together than similar ones.

It also did not help that Wyatt lost yet again despite gaining his sister's supposed super powers and did so while projecting images of insects onto the mat whenever he did one of his creepy poses.

This just confused the audience more than engage them further in the story, as it looked like we were all watching something on National Geographic instead of a WWE championship match.

I think I understood what WWE's intentions were, but it didn't come across well at all.

Triple H, Rollins had an unsanctioned match with an official

I think WWE is confused when it comes to the meaning of unsanctioned. An unsanctioned match means just that, it is a match that a governing body of some sort has not approved of. Therefor, it has no part in it.

However, in WWE an unsanctioned match comes complete with fancy graphics an even a referee to count to three or check for submissions.

That made zero sense to me. If a boxing commission has chosen not to sanction a fight, it would not send a referee and a doctor to the bout. I understand that boxing is a sport and this is supposed to be strictly entertainment, but logic still has to play a part, does it not?

Regardless, Rollins and Triple H put on a good effort Sunday night. The only problem was that the match seemed like it went on forever, which I think hurt the quality of it.

I know fans seemingly believe that the longer the match goes, the better it will be, but this match and the WWE title bout proved that length is not sole ingredient to a good match.

Goldberg and Lesnar were in the ring for less than five minutes and put forth a more memorable effort than this match and the WWE title bout combined.

The highlight of the match for me was Triple H inadvertently knocking Stephanie McMahon off the ring apron and through a table. That was crazy.

I always complain about no one getting one over on Stephanie McMahon and technically, no one did here, as Triple H was the one that knocked her off the ring apron.

With that said, I was not expecting something like this. Stephanie McMahon deserves kudos for that one.

Cena, Bella win and then get engaged

We all saw this coming.

We all knew that Cena and Bella were going to defeat The Miz and Maryse.

Quite frankly, I don't think anyone truly cared about the match. What made this fun was the segments all four produced leading up to this event.

We also all knew that Cena was going to propose to Bella after the match to finally put an end to everyone's jabs at Bella for Cena never proposing.

While love is a beautiful thing and I am happy for the newly engaged couple, it also confirmed pretty much everything The Miz and Maryse said about Cena and Bella leading into the match.

The Miz and Maryse accused Cena and Bella — mostly Cena — of only doing things for cameras. They all but claimed that he was not a genuine person and was only concerned about his brand.

When Cena pulled out the big rock out of his jean shorts Sunday night, The Miz and Maryse's sentiments essentially rang true.

Bella had to pretend she was somewhat surprised by all of this when we know nothing happens on WWE television without prior approval from someone high up the food chain, and since this involved Cena, that approval probably came from Vince McMahon himself.

It was a bit corny and cheesy, but also fitting given the story that WWE has told with Cena and Bella for months.

At the end of the day, this is all entertainment, right?

Raw women's match let me down

Another match on the card that sort of let me down was the Raw Women's title match.

The match itself was fine, but I expected so much more from these four women. Instead, we got a rather pedestrian match with a couple of unceremonious eliminations.

The best part for me was simply seeing Bayley at her first WrestleMania. Fortunately for her, she got to cap off her first WrestleMania with a win.

Naomi reclaims her Smackdown throne

The Smackdown Women's title match was nothing to write home about neither, but it did put the spotlight firmly on Naomi, as she regained the Smackdown Women's championship in her hometown.

Naomi got to enter the match last and had a bunch of production added to her already glowing entrance. See what I did there?

Rob Gronkowski helps out his pal

WWE got its ESPN moment in during the kickoff show when New England Patriots tight end and America's favorite meathead, Rob Gronkowski, helped his pal Mojo Rawley win the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.

I understand having Gronkowski involved helps land WWE in some mainstream headlines Monday, but this seemed like a match tailor-made for Bruan Strowman. Heck, even for someone like Sami Zayn.

Instead, it was Rawley. Rawley is talented in his own right, but it was obvious that this was about getting Gronk in the ring. It was obvious to everyone except the security guard that tried to prevent the All Pro from hopping the barricade and entering the ring.

WrestleMania looked amazing

Fans can lambast WWE for many things, but one thing they cannot get on the promotion for is its production, which once again proved it was top notch Sunday night.

WrestleMania 33 was one of the most aesthetically pleasing WrestleManias I have ever seen. The stage was epic with its theme park motif.

The only negative was the ramp was extra, extra long. I'm pretty sure one of the commentators said at one point that it was more than 80 yards. That's nearly a football field.

It wasn't just long, but it was high above the end zone seats, meaning the wrestlers essentially walked down into the stadium to get into the ring.