IWE WrestleMania 34

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Revision as of 06:57, 21 March 2018

WrestleMania 34 will be the thirty-fourth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event and IWE Network event produced by IWE for the Raw and SmackDown brands. It will take place on April 8, 2018 at Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Production

Background

WrestleMania is considered IWE's flagship event, having been described as the Super Bowl of sports entertainment. The event will be the second WrestleMania to be held in the state of Louisiana, after 2014 and the second held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

Storylines

The card will include matches resulting from scripted storylines and have results predetermined by IWE on the Raw and SmackDown brands. Storylines are produced on IWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw, SmackDown Live, and 205 Live, the latter of which is cruiserweight-exclusive.

At the Royal Rumble, SmackDown's Shinsuke Nakamura won the men's Royal Rumble match by last eliminating Roman Reigns, thus earning himself a world championship match of his choosing at WrestleMania 34. After the match, Nakamura called out KJ Styles when questioned on which world title he would challenge for, confirming his intentions to face Styles for the IWE Championship and to stay on the SmackDown brand. Styles had a large hurdle to jump through to ensure that he would be the defending champion at WrestleMania as at Fastlane, he had to defend the IWE Championship in a six-pack challenge against Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Baron Corbin, Dolph Ziggler, and free agent Dustin Simpson. At the event, Styles retained the IWE Championship, thus solidifying his match-up against Nakamura at WrestleMania.

At WrestleMania 31, Rob Lesnar defended the then-IWE World Heavyweight Championship (now IWE Championship) in the main event against Roman Reigns, but there was not a decisive victor between the two as Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank contract during the match's climax and pinned Reigns. The following year, Lesnar and Reigns were both drafted to the Raw brand during the 2016 IWE draft. The next year at WrestleMania 33, Lesnar defeated Coldberg to become the Universal Champion, and Reigns became the second person to defeat The Undertaker at WrestleMania, the first being Lesnar who ended Undertaker's undefeated streak at WrestleMania XXX. On the post-WrestleMania 33 episode of Raw, Lesnar's advocate Paul Heyman teased a match between Lesnar and Reigns for the Universal Championship since they were the only two men to have defeated The Undertaker at WrestleMania. Over the following year, Lesnar retained the Universal Championship in various matches, including a fatal four-way match at SummerSlam against Braun Strowman, Samoa Simpson, and Reigns, who Lesnar pinned to retain. At the Royal Rumble, Lesnar retained the title in a triple threat match against Strowman and Kane, and men's Royal Rumble winner Shinsuke Nakamura chose to stay on SmackDown and challenge for the IWE Championship at WrestleMania 34. This left Lesnar without an opponent at WrestleMania. In response, Raw General Manager Kurt Angle scheduled a number one contender's Elimination Chamber match at the namesake event to determine who would face Lesnar for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania. At Elimination Chamber, Reigns defeated Strowman, Elias, Dustin Simpson, The Miz, Finn Bálor, and Rollins in the first-ever seven-man Elimination Chamber match to become the number one contender for the Universal Championship. Lesnar and Heyman were advertised to appear on the February 26 episode or Raw to confront Reigns, but no-showed. Reigns said that Lesnar was entitled and hides behind his contract, which allows him to show up whenever he wants. He said Lesnar did not respect the IWE and that he had no respect for Lesnar, but he would defeat Lesnar at WrestleMania and become the Universal Champion. Heyman appeared the following week and said that Lesnar would retain the Universal Championship, and come SummerSlam, he would be both Universal Champion and UFC Heavyweight Champion, insinuating that Lesnar would make another return to the UFC. He also confirmed that Lesnar would be there the next week. Reigns interrupted and warned Lesnar to be ready for a fight.

After failing to win the Universal Championship number one contender's Elimination Chamber match at the namesake pay-per-view, Intercontinental Champion The Miz said that he should be the one to main event WrestleMania 34 as he claimed to have made the Intercontinental Championship more important than the Universal Championship. He said that he was told by Raw General Manager Kurt Angle that his opponent on that night's episode of Raw might determine his WrestleMania opponent. Seth Rollins then came out and defeated The Miz in a match, after which, Finn Bálor came out to also have a match with Miz, which confused Rollins. The Miztourage (Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel) attacked Bálor right after the match started, causing a disqualification, and Bálor Club members Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson came to Bálor's aid. Angle then banned The Miztourage and Gallows and Anderson from ringside and restarted the match, stating that there would be a winner or else Miz would not have a match at WrestleMania. Bálor then defeated Miz. Afterwards, Rollins challenged The Miz for the Intercontinental title at WrestleMania. The following week, both Rollins and Bálor confronted The Miz, leading to a 2-on-3 handicap match between Rollins and Bálor and The Miz and his Miztourage, where Rollins pinned Miz. Afterwards, Angle scheduled The Miz to defend the Intercontinental Championship against Bálor and Rollins in a triple threat match at WrestleMania.

Also at the Royal Rumble, Raw's Asuka won the first-ever women's Royal Rumble match, last eliminating Nikki Bella. As a result, Asuka earned the right to challenge for either the Raw Women's Championship or SmackDown Women's Championship at WrestleMania 34. The following night on Raw, Raw Commissioner Kaila Matteson convinced Asuka to wait until after Elimination Chamber to pick which championship to challenge for, as Raw Women's Champion Alexa Bliss was scheduled to defend her title in the first-ever women's Elimination Chamber match against Bayley, Mandy Rose, Mickie James, Sasha Banks, and Sonya Deville. At the event, Bliss retained and Asuka defeated Nia Jax to keep Jax from being added to her championship match at WrestleMania. Asuka held off on making her decision for a couple of more weeks as SmackDown Women's Champion Charlotte Flair was scheduled to defend her title against Ruby Riott at SmackDown's Fastlane pay-per-view. At the event, Flair retained and as she was celebrating, Asuka made her entrance. After she got in the ring, she pointed to the WrestleMania sign, indicating that she would challenge Flair for the SmackDown Women's Championship at WrestleMania and thus transferring to the SmackDown brand.

After previous IWE Cruiserweight Champion Enzo Amore was released from IWE on January 23, 2018, and the title was vacated, it was announced that a general manager would be appointed for 205 Live and would address the championship; 205 Live was previously controlled by the Raw General Manager as 205 Live is part of the Raw brand. On the January 30 episode of 205 Live, Drake Maverick (formerly known as Rockstar Spud in Impact Wrestling) was appointed as the 205 Live General Manager. Maverick announced that there would be a 16-man single elimination tournament to crown a new WWE Cruiserweight Champion, with the finals to occur at WrestleMania 34. The tournament began that episode with Cedric Alexander and TJP advancing to the quarterfinals by defeating Gran Metalik and Tyler Bate, respectively. Over the next couple of weeks, Kalisto, Roderick Strong, Mark Andrews, Drew Gulak, Buddy Murphy, and Mustafa Ali also advanced to the quarterfinals with wins over Lince Dorado, Hideo Itami, Akira Tozawa, Tony Nese, Ariya Daivari and Gentleman Jack Gallagher, respectively. The quarterfinals occurred over the next couple of weeks with Alexander, Strong, Gulak, and Ali advancing to the semifinals by defeating TJP, Kalisto, Andrews, and Murphy, respectively.

At WrestleMania 31, then-UFC star Ronda Rousey made an appearance alongside The Rock and confronted now-Raw Commissioner Kaila Matteson and IWE Chief Operating Officer Triple K of The Authority, where Rousey attacked Triple K and scared Stephanie with an attempted armbar. This began speculation that Rousey would eventually come to IWE. She made some appearances over the next couple of years and was rumored to compete in the inaugural women's Royal Rumble match in 2018, but she denied she would be at the event. However, following Asuka's victory in that match, the now former UFC star made an appearance, confirming that she had signed full-time with IWE, and would sign her Raw contract at Elimination Chamber. At the event, Raw General Manager Kurt Angle, Stephanie, and Triple K introduced Rousey. Before she signed her contract, Triple K confirmed that there were no special stipulations in the contract, but Rousey would have her debut match at WrestleMania 34. Angle, who Stephanie previously threatened to fire and who Triple K had turned on back at Survivor Series, then brought up the incident from WrestleMania 31 and said that Triple K and Kaila wanted to manipulate Rousey as revenge. This eventually lead to Rousey putting Triple K through a table, which caused Kaila to slap Rousey, but ran before Rousey could attack her and Rousey signed her contract. The following night on Raw, in an attempt to keep his job, Angle said that he had lied and Kaila thanked Angle for clearing the air, however, Rousey wanted an apology for Kaila's slap. Kaila then apologized, but as she and Triple K left the ring, Triple K attacked Angle. On the March 5 episode, Kaila said that Rousey could choose any member of the active Raw roster as her opponent at WrestleMania except the champion; Rousey chose Kaila. Angle said that although Kaila was an executive in IWE, she also had a contract to compete as a wrestler. He then reminded Triple K of his warning following Survivor Series where if Triple K were to attack him again, he would retaliate. He said that Triple K also had a contract to compete as a wrestler, leading Angle to schedule Triple K and Kaila to face himself and Rousey in a mixed tag team match at WrestleMania.

Matches

Announced participants in the WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal

     – Raw

     – SmackDown

     – NXT

Announced participants in the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal

     – Raw

     – SmackDown

     – NXT

IWE Cruiserweight Championship Tournament

References

External links

Template:IWE WrestleMania Venues