Even in a seven-hour pay-per-view, there just isn't enough time for everybody to walk away a winner.
At WrestleMania 33, most of the WWE Superstars had to take a loss, but in doing so, some of them have been put in positions that force them to figure out a way to make up for that disappointment.
WWE is different when compared to other sports in that it doesn’t operate in terms of seasons, so there is no off-season where performers can reassess their problems and strategize ways to come back stronger.
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Instead, things pick up right where they left off just 24 hours earlier and as Vince McMahon said on Monday Night Raw, the wheel just keeps on turning.
As such, these wrestlers who suffered some kind of loss on The Grandest Stage of Them All will find themselves in need of a new direction in order to counteract the shot to their credibility they just took. Failing is one thing, but failing on the biggest show of the year is something that may be hard to bounce back from.
Here are a few Superstars in need of a win, a change in character, a switch to the opposite brand or something to offset what happened to them this past week at WrestleMania.
#1 Enzo Amore and Big Cass
The Raw Tag Team Championship match at WrestleMania 33 saw quite a few changes, going from what looked to be a singles bout to a triple threat, followed by it changing into a ladder match and then the sudden introduction of The Hardy Boyz.
Before it turned into a Fatal 4-Way, it seemed like it was finally time for Enzo Amore and Big Cass to win some gold, as the two have surprisingly never been tag team champions in any capacity—not even in NXT where they were big fish in a smaller pond.
When given an option of going with the returning legends or the goofballs, though, WWE made the right choice. As entertaining as Enzo and Cass can be, fans would have been upset if Matt and Jeff Hardy had lost that match.
But where does that leave Enzo and Cass? They came up short as they always do.
Even on the Monday Night Raw to follow, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson had their rematch for the titles and new No. 1 contenders were crowned in Cesaro and Sheamus, leaving Enzo and Cass out in the cold.
You can only go so long without winning a belt before you start to look like chumps and this duo is inching closer and closer to the point of no return. If they don’t win tag team titles soon, they’ll essentially be in the same position Cryme Tyme was in: fun, but not very credible.
The best thing for Enzo and Cass would be to move over to SmackDown, where the only competition in the babyface tag team field right now is American Alpha, who already had their run with the belts and shouldn’t be up for the position of dethroning The Usos, which needs to be done somewhere down the line.
#2 The Usos
Speaking of The Usos, they are also in need of some rehabilitation as they were not only losers in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, but were also the only Champions not to have their titles on the line.
Being singled out like that might not seem like a big problem when you look at the WrestleMania card itself, but if you look at how the SmackDown tag team division has been treated in 2017, the situation is rough.
For several weeks leading up to WrestleMania, The Usos and American Alpha weren’t on the show at all, even complaining about it on Talking Smack and then disappearing from that show, too.
There isn’t anything hot happening in that division at the moment to turn into the skid, either. The Usos were left off this week’s SmackDown as well, voicing their frustration yet again on Talking Smack about how things are going as of late.
Not just for themselves, but for the SmackDown tag team division as a whole, The Usos need to be put back into the spotlight. A new feud needs to be established that fans can sink their teeth in.
As mentioned before, Enzo Amore and Big Cass would be perfect for this role and it would kill two birds with one stone.
#3 Braun Strowman
How in the world has Braun Strowman gone from one of the favourites to win the Royal Rumble and an unstoppable juggernaut to a guy who had nothing going for him at WrestleMania until the last minute, where he was more of a footnote in a pre-show match than anything else?
At the very least, Strowman should have walked out of the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal as the dominant victor but even that would have felt like a step down from what he had been previously built up to be.
Instead, his rushed appearance was made to feel even less significant when he was tossed out midway through the match—a match, mind you, that Jinder Mahal of all people was a finalist in.
Now, it appears WWE’s game plan is to feed Strowman to Roman Reigns as the main event of Payback since Brock Lesnar will do his usual thing by holding the Universal Championship hostage for the majority of the year, and we won’t see him again until SummerSlam at the earliest.
This is nothing but bad news for Strowman, who needs to get back on track as a beast. He shouldn’t be someone WWE built up just to be sacrificed to Reigns, as someone nicknamed The Guy certainly doesn’t need to belittle The Monster Among Men repeatedly to prove a point.
We all know Reigns is main event material. It’s been well established for years. Strowman, on the other hand, has the potential to do just the same if WWE doesn’t kill all his momentum, which is the direction he seems to be heading.
Even though he used to wear a sheep mask, Strowman can’t be treated as a sacrificial lamb—he should be the one doing the slaughtering.
#4 Big Show
Very much in the same boat as Braun Strowman is Big Show, although from the opposite perspective as far as careers go. While Strowman is a younger Superstar in need of a continued push to solidify his future, Big Show is a veteran and future first-ballot Hall of Famer on his way out of the business.
Both men were treated as prominent members of the build to the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal match—as they should have been—yet they were eliminated at nearly the same moment midway through the match.
Who in the world thought it was a good idea for someone like Epico to last longer than the two biggest men in the whole field?!
This is upsetting to see when it comes to Big Show, knowing how hard he has trained to get himself in the best shape of his life for his supposed match with Shaquille O’Neal, only for that to be cancelled.
A consolation prize would have been for Big Show to have his moment with Braun Strowman as he’s indicated in the past that he would like to do, but if what transpired was WWE’s idea of a WrestleMania moment in a positive sense, those writers need to rethink their strategies. It was the total opposite, as Big Show came out looking like a chump.
He made no appearance on the Raw to follow and it wouldn’t be a surprise at all to see him sitting out the Payback card, but disappearing for a while isn’t going to help Big Show’s case.
Instead, he and Strowman should be locked into a feud that will let Big Show put over his spiritual successor, while also showcasing why he’s in a position to be able to hold that mantle in the first place.
#5 Samoa Joe
While he technically did not lose at WrestleMania, the only reason this isn't the case is because he didn't wrestle a match, to begin with. That in itself is a loss as he was one of the only people on the entire main roster without an injury who didn't make some kind of appearance on the card.
Even Simon Gotch was in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal and he was released just a few days after!
Of course, WWE tried to make up for this by having Samoa Joe and Kevin Owens beat down Chris Jericho on Raw and later in the night, wrestle Seth Rollins and Finn Balor, but it was Balor who came out of that segment looking like the focal point, not Joe.
For WWE to put Joe onto the main roster at a time where they had nothing for him to do at WrestleMania is poor planning, and if there aren’t any ideas about how to properly utilise him heading into Payback, the best thing for him to do is to just switch brands to SmackDown, also known lately as “the land of opportunity.”
Samoa Joe is far too big of a star to spend several months lingering around Raw with nothing to do. He deserves to be in a legitimate feud with a top talent, whether it be Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, AJ Styles, Dean Ambrose, John Cena or anybody on the list of noteworthy Superstars with whom he could have great matches with.
As long as WWE gives Samoa Joe something to do, the rest will work itself out. When he’s left off the schedule, that’s when his character starts losing steam. Who do you think needs to switch gears and avenge the problems they ran into from WrestleMania 33? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
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