By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
WrestleMania 41 Night Two Hits
Iyo Sky vs. Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley in a Triple Threat for the Women’s World Championship: The best match of the night and one of the best women’s matches in WrestleMania history. I suspect that a lot of us would be feeling differently about this show today had they reversed the match order and closed with this gem. Belair taking the pin is interesting in that it likely moves her a step closer to a heel turn. I continue to wonder if she will align with Naomi even though the reunion didn’t occur over the weekend. The goal seemed to be to elevate Sky to the same level of stardom as Belair and Ripley. Only time will tell whether they pulled it off, but she clearly came out of this match stronger than she was going in.
Drew McIntyre vs. Damian Priest in a Sin City Street Fight: The most physical match of the night and a good win for McIntyre. The build to the match laid out how Priest had McIntyre’s number going back to WrestleMania XL, so it was the right call to have McIntyre come out on top. With the draft approaching, I wonder if McIntyre will end up on the same brand as Jey Uso and become his first challenger to the World Heavyweight Championship. Of course, it may not even require the draft, as the creative forces don’t seem to have much interest in enforcing the rules of the brand split.
Bron Breakker vs. Penta vs. Dominik Mysterio vs. Finn Balor in a four-way for the Intercontinental Title: The WrestleMania crowd decided that Dom was their guy and seemed thrilled when he broke up Balor pinning Breakker by frog splashing Balor and then pinning him. It’s a great win for Dom that should lead to the end of The Judgment Day faction, at least in its current form. It was cool to see Penta work on the big WrestleMania stage for the first time. Breakker dropping the title without being pinned is the right call, and hopefully it means he’s going to move into the mix for one of the world titles.
Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez vs. Becky Lynch and Lyra Valkyria for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles: This match was not as good as I expected the women’s tag title match to be before they did the Bayley injury angle. But there’s no denying that Lynch’s return was a big moment for the live crowd. The Lynch and Valkyria characters didn’t show any signs of friction while winning the tag team titles, but I continue to wonder if Lynch is going to join her husband as a heel. I agree with Jake Barnett, who stated during our same night audio review for Dot Net Members that it’s hard to believe that someone who is so passionate about the creative direction of her character is going to be satisfied with a simple tag team title reign.
TNA World Champion Joe Hendry vs. Randy Orton in a non-title match: More of an in the middle than a Hit or a Miss. It was cool to see Hendry appear on the big stage at WrestleMania. There’s plenty of people who feel otherwise, but I don’t think that Hendry losing to Orton in just over three minutes is going to change the way that anyone looks at TNA. If their business numbers start to slip, it’s probably due to the booking decline that has occurred over the last few months, not because Hendry lost to Orton. All of that said, I could have done without Orton mocking Hendry’s pose after the match.
WrestleMania 41 Night Two Misses
Cody Rhodes vs. John Cena for the WWE Championship: The coolest part of the match was Cena making his entrance with his name spelled out in white letters on the black screen. It was downhill from there. Cena clearly has a lot of mileage on his body, and there’s only so much that Cody could get out of him. I don’t have the “work rate is everything” mentality, but it is hard to be excited about Cena’s title defenses after seeing his performance in this match. I get that Travis Scott is a huge celebrity and that I’m not in his target demographic. But for being such a big star, it sure seemed like the only reason the fans popped when he came out was because they anticipated that The Rock would follow. Time stood still as Scott made the long walk to the ring, and what he did once he arrived at ringside was lousy. WWE had a great thing going with Cody Rhodes as the babyface champion. All good things must come to an end, but it feels like they sped up the process of the fans turning on him by putting him in the tough position of having to face a legend who made a long-awaited heel turn. So now we’re left with a new champion who appears to be running on fumes in the ring, and a former champion whose popularity has taken a hit. Cena’s win may pay off in the short term, but I’m more concerned about the potential long-term damage that was done. I don’t know if The Rock meddling in the booking of this match would have made it better, but it’s hard to imagine how it could have made it any worse.
Logan Paul vs. AJ Styles: A minor Miss. The wrestlers worked hard and had a pretty good match, but the generic build made it difficult to get invested in the outcome. The Karrion Kross finish was flat, and unfortunately, the same can be said for his feud with Styles so far. Paul still gets great heat, and yet it feels like his stock is down to some extent. He might even be at risk of drawing go away heat. Paul needs to be involved in something meaningful to help get his mojo back. It would also be nice to see him shake things up and avoid the tired spot of having one of his entourage members get involved in his matches. They probably mean something to Paul’s fans, but it doesn’t seem like the average WWE fan cares.
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Night one was a far more compelling main event. The crowd split was 70/30 cena I’d say. Generously maybe 65/35. You’re 100% correct. Everyone expected the rock to follow that weed stick figure so that was incredibly deflating. Real ‘wtf, that’s it??” Vibes in the are arena. Yeah, fans were happy to see 17 for Cena but for all the drama and story telling and ‘cinema’ we’ve grown accustomed to, a crap celebrity, a nut and belt shot was very underwhelming.
Crotch shots determined the winners of both nights’ main events.
The AJ Styles match ended the same as the main event, with the hero making the choice not to cheat. Then losing.
Lazy and uninspired booking. Did no one confer?
Wade was great on commentary, the women’s division delivered, some great wrestling matches and feel good moments. Punk finally main events, but loses, which is perfect for his blue collar character, something to build on story-wise.
And please keep that rapper Little Rock off of my WWE.
Good list can’t really argue with anything. I thought the Iyo Sky match was the best of both nights without a doubt, and what made it even better it was an unexpected finish.
I thought that both nights were good but your basic WWE Wrestlemania and PLE, one or two match shows.The show of the weekend might have been NXT stand and deliver which is wild.
I’m not sure the Rock showing up in the main event would’ve made it any better, I admit I didn’t care for Travis Scott showing up,but they accomplished tying up that loose end. Keep in mind the Rock never asked Cena for his soul so i’m not sure an alliance between them would make any sense although they still could create a faction if they wanted to, or now that cody has lost everything he could rethink the Rocks offer(so many possibilities) but to be honest never was a big fan of the story from the beginning (even through all the changes) and I’m not quite sure all their main events need convoluted endings with twists and turns with surprise appearances, sometimes it’s nice just to have a match, even in this case if the match wasn’t great.
I guess I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one miss and that’s the use of motorized vehicles LOL. Steve Austin crashes into a barricade and then WWE officials transporting Dom via a golf cart crash into another femsle spectator, you can’t make it up.
The Karen’s reaction in the front row… the “holy shit” bump from the golf card… I should have put it in the Hit section. Those incidents were way better than the main event.
I could’ve sworn the wrong Khan was in the building last night with some of that booking.
Lol
I have to TOTLLY disagree with you. Mr. Powell. I have watched WWF/E for many years and one thing that USED to frustrate me was the predictability of it. Well, there was no predicting this. I thought there was NO WAY they would put the belt on a guy who might only have a handful of matches left. It was fun to be surprised.
Cena was the favorite in the betting odds, but to each their own.
Raw needs a water cooler moment tonight to make up for last night’s main event disaster.
That main event was pathetically bad and the whole event reminded me why I stopped watching WWE for a long time. Vince may be gone and certain aspects of the programming may have improved as a result, but this is still a corporation that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. I think next year I will just watch QVC for 8 hours instead, it’s basically the same thing.
Just to end on a positive though – hats off to all three women in the terrific opening match.
No-Sell Iyo Sky has been pushed for years and never reached the level that Lazy H wants to hand over to her. Bianca should have won with help from Naomi to complete the heel turn. Plus having Bianca lose her WM streak just like that threw future money matches away. Lazy booking that won’t benefit the women’s division at all.