Background in
New Orleans, Louisiana.
WrestleMania is
WWE's flagship
professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and
livestreaming event, having first been held in
1985. It was the company's first pay-per-view produced and was also WWE's first major event available via livestreaming when the company launched the
WWE Network in 2014. It is the longest-running professional wrestling event in history and is held annually between mid-March to mid-April. It was the first of WWE's original four pay-per-views, which includes
Royal Rumble,
SummerSlam, and
Survivor Series, referred to as the "Big Four". WrestleMania is ranked the sixth most valuable sports brand in the world by
Forbes, and has been described as the
Super Bowl of
sports entertainment. Much like the Super Bowl, cities bid for the right to host the year's edition of WrestleMania. Announced on January 9, 2017, WrestleMania 34 was scheduled to be held on April 8, 2018, at the
Mercedes-Benz Superdome in
New Orleans,
Louisiana. It featured wrestlers from the
Raw and
SmackDown brand divisions. The event was the second WrestleMania to be held in the state of
Louisiana and the second held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, which previously hosted
WrestleMania XXX in 2014. tickets went on sale on November 17, 2017, with individual tickets costing from $35 to $2,000. American duo
Chloe x Halle performed "
America the Beautiful" to kick off the main card of WrestleMania. Since 2014, WWE attempted to establish
Roman Reigns as their top
babyface and the next "
face of the company", but a significant portion of fans rejected Reigns in this role, taking issue with his perceived special treatment, real-life demeanor, wrestling moveset, speaking skills, and character presentation. This
resulted in Reigns being
booed while he wrestled in the main events of
WrestleMania 31, and
WrestleMania 33. and it was also anticipated that while doing so, he would be again received negatively by the WrestleMania crowd.
Storylines The event comprised 14 matches, including three on the Kickoff pre-show, that resulted from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portrayed heroes,
villains, or
less distinguishable characters in scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows,
Monday Night Raw,
SmackDown Live, and the
cruiserweight-exclusive
205 Live.
World championship matches After
Brock Lesnar won the
Universal Championship at
WrestleMania 33, he seldom defended the title, which was often criticized, especially by
Roman Reigns. As the 2018 men's
Royal Rumble winner chose SmackDown's world championship, Lesnar's WrestleMania 34 opponent was determined through the
Elimination Chamber match, which was won by Reigns. Despite being advertised, Lesnar did not appear for several episodes of
Raw. When Reigns nevertheless appeared on
Raw to confront Lesnar, he was arrested by
U.S. Marshals. The handcuffed Reigns assaulted the Marshals, but was then attacked by Lesnar. Heyman then declared that should Lesnar lose, they would not re-sign with WWE. Their match was scheduled as the main event, which would be the first Universal Championship match to main event WrestleMania. At the
Royal Rumble, SmackDown's
Shinsuke Nakamura won the men's Royal Rumble match, earning a world championship match of his choosing at WrestleMania 34. Nakamura chose SmackDown's
WWE Champion AJ Styles. At
Fastlane, Styles retained the WWE Championship in a
six-pack challenge, thus solidifying the Styles-Nakamura match at WrestleMania. The two expressed respect for each other, but Styles warned Nakamura to not take him lightly this time, bringing up their
previous encounter in
New Japan Pro-Wrestling in January 2016, where Nakamura had defeated Styles.
Undercard matches After failing to win the Elimination Chamber match,
Intercontinental Champion The Miz demanded a WrestleMania challenger. Seth Rollins then came out and defeated Miz, followed by
Finn Bálor, who also defeated him. At the Royal Rumble, Raw's
Asuka won the women's Royal Rumble match. As a result, Asuka earned the right to challenge for a women's championship of her choosing at WrestleMania. until both women's champions had defended their titles at Elimination Chamber and Fastlane, respectively. Following
Charlotte Flair's successful defense at Fastlane, Asuka appeared and challenged her for the
SmackDown Women's Championship at WrestleMania. she formed a friendship with
Nia Jax, who also had championship aspirations. Jax failed to earn a title shot at the Royal Rumble and also lost to Asuka at Elimination Chamber in a match that would have added her to Asuka's WrestleMania championship match. Rousey eventually appeared at the end of the event, confirming that she had signed full-time with WWE. Zayn explained that he acted out of disappointment about not getting the expected opportunities at SmackDown and realized that Owens was right all along in his questionable actions.
Owens and Zayn continued their feud with Shane, including attacking him at Survivor Series and Shane threatened to fire them if they lost their match at
Clash of Champions, while SmackDown General Manager
Daniel Bryan seemingly favored the two by giving them WWE Championship opportunities at the Royal Rumble, when AJ Styles retained his title in a
handicap match Later, Bryan fired Owens and Zayn for their attack on Shane and was attacked himself. In response, Bryan said he regretted favoring them and scheduled a tag team match featuring himself and Shane against Owens and Zayn, with the latter duo being rehired if they won. On the March 27 episode, after the team of Mahal and
Rusev defeated the team of Orton and Roode, Rusev demanded to be added to the title match since he pinned Orton. The match was subsequently changed to a fatal four-way. but came up short in both attempts. A separate general manager was then appointed for
205 Live, which was previously controlled by the Raw General Manager, to address the situation. On the January 30 episode of
205 Live, new general manager
Drake Maverick scheduled a 16-man single elimination
tournament to crown a new WWE Cruiserweight Champion, culminating with the finals at WrestleMania 34. The tournament took place over the next several weeks, with
Cedric Alexander and
Mustafa Ali advancing to the finals at WrestleMania's pre show for the vacant title. Like the men's match, the winner received a trophy, and both the men's and women's battle royals were scheduled for the Kickoff pre-show. The main storyline going into the women's match was the increasingly strained friendship between
Bayley and
Sasha Banks. At Elimination Chamber, Banks turned on Bayley in the namesake match. Banks then was the first to note her participation in the battle royal on the March 19 episode of
Raw. A week later, Bayley confirmed her participation and was confronted by Banks, resulting in a backstage brawl. On the final
Raw before WrestleMania, Banks saved Bayley from a post-match ambush by Absolution's
Sonya Deville and
Mandy Rose. Banks expected Bayley to be grateful, but the two instead fought. == Event ==