X

WrestleMania memes: Ronda Rousey, Daniel Bryan rule the night

Bryan's WrestleMania 34 comeback sent fans into overdrive, and Rousey doesn't miss MMA. Plus, John Cena ran like Forrest Gump. RUN CENA RUN.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, and generational studies Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
See full bio
Gael Cooper

For non-wrestling fans, Sunday night was just a regular evening. But for those in the know, the much-anticipated WrestleMania 34 was like the Super Bowl meets the Oscars meets Christmas morning. The seven-hour event at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans produced plenty of action and surprises, and naturally, a few memorable moments turned into social media memes.

Perhaps the funniest meme came from John Cena. The WWE star was sitting in the crowd in civilian clothes when a uniformed official whispered something in his ear (NOT STAGED AT ALL), and suddenly Cena was off like a prom dress.

Fans had many ideas as to why Cena was running, and the snarky captions flew.

No oven timer, no Infinity War screening (we've got a new TV spot, though). Instead, Cena was racing to a match with the out-of-retirement, 53-year-old Undertaker. And in just a few minutes, the Undertaker undertook to take him under.

In other matches of note, Ronda Rousey, former UFC women's bantamweight champ, made her WWE debut with a tribute to the style of her idol, the late "Rowdy" Roddy Piper.

Rousey and partner Kurt Angle defeated Stephanie McMahon and Triple H. CBS Sports dubbed Rousey "WWE's newest full-time superstar," and fans had plenty to say, too.

But perhaps the biggest reaction of the night came when Daniel Bryan made his WWE return after battling years of injuries and health problems. Is Bryan back? One word for that: