Why the WrestleMania 33 kickoff matches are okay

WrestleMania 33 kickoff show poster

As of earlier this week, WWE planned to have the SmackDown Live Women’s Championship match as one of the three matches on the pre-WrestleMania 33 kickoff show. It was set to join the Austin Aries vs. Neville contest for the Cruiserweight Championship and the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal.

In all fairness, with the number of matches slated for this year’s WrestleMania spectacular, the matches chosen for the show before the show did make sense.

One could argue that the only other match that would fit on the kickoff show would be Dean Ambrose vs. Baron Corbin for the Intercontinental Championship, as that match has received very little on-air build and hasn’t seen the most inspired storyline leading into Sunday’s bout.

Their final confrontation was a split screen interview where they spent 5 minutes telling each other to shut up like a couple of 5-year-olds.

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The Cruiserweight Championship

The Cruiserweight Division has been improving as of late in terms of what WWE has been doing with them, but with the necessity of putting something on the kickoff show, the Aries-Neville match makes sense.

The CW roster has been seeing very little airtime, and until the Gallagher vs. Neville match at Fastlane, has also been given very little time to tell stories in their matches outside of their own show on Tuesday nights.

Despite the strong reactions Austin Aries, and to a lesser extent, Neville, have been receiving over the past month, when there are other matches that have been built for a longer period of time, those matches need to make the main card.

It would be great to see this match featured on the main card, and if you remember, when the Cruiserweight Title was last defended at WrestleMania people were up in arms about the stipulation.

It was WrestleMania XX, over 13 years ago, and it was defended in the Cruiserweight Open, which was a king of the mountain style gauntlet match that saw 9 eliminations out of a field of 10 wrestlers in an 11-minute match.

That was on the main card. The only other time the CW Title was defended at WrestleMania was the year before at WrestleMania XIX, at which Matt Hardy successfully defended his title in the opening match against Rey Mysterio. It was only a 5-minute match, and people were upset about that one as well.

Is it right that the Cruiserweight Championship has been treated as a second-class championship since its initial run in WWE? Of course not.

All titles should be perceived to be prestigious and worth fighting for. But in the grand scheme of things, this was to be expected. Something has to go on the kickoff show, and there wasn’t enough room on the main show for this match to make the cut.

Austin Aries said it best, noting that he isn’t being relegated to the kickoff show. The kickoff show is being elevated because he’s being featured as a part of it. That is the best way to look at a situation like this one.