WWE WrestleMania 33 review: What we learned, takeaways, future projections

WWE Universal Championship Match

Goldberg (c) vs. Brock Lesnar

What we learned: We learned here that Goldberg actually does know how to take some bumps.

If I had told you at the beginning of the night that the WWE Universal Championship match between Goldberg and Brock Lesnar would be better than the WWE Championship match between Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt, you likely would have been lining up to punch me in the face. But that’s exactly what happened, and it’s not as if this was a five-star classic.

The squash was put to bed early as Lesnar avoided the initial charge and hit two quick German suplexes on Goldberg and then a third but Goldberg came right back with two spears on the inside. But before he could get to the Jackhammer, Lesnar rolled to the outside and Goldberg followed him out and hit a huge spear through the barricade. That was actually pretty awesome.

Back on the inside, Goldberg set up for the Jackhammer but Lesnar turned it into an F5 attempt. Goldberg was able to fight that off and hit yet another spear (yeah, he really doesn’t have much else) and finally hit his finisher. But Lesnar was able to kick out. Goldberg set up for another spear but Lesnar jumped over him (pretty impressive leap) and Goldberg went crashing into the turnbuckle, thus allowing Lesnar to hit seven more Germans and then an F5 to finally get his win. This was the best match these two have put on, even with the whole thing going only about five minutes.

What’s next: To the best of my knowledge, this was the end of Goldberg’s contract and he’ll thankfully just be going away. But now we’re stuck again with the part-time Lesnar being the main champ on Monday night. They certainly wouldn’t go into something with him and Reigns right away, would they? Or does Owens go after the title? Does Lesnar even wrestle at Payback? We’ll know a lot more tonight.