Welcome to the “WrestleMania weekend supersized” edition of The Wrestling List. WrestleMania 42 from Las Vegas is a wrap and in the record books. I’m just going to go over my overall thoughts on the weekend instead of giving detailed happenings of the matches. Overall, I thought it was a good and solid WrestleMania. The main event of CM Punk and Roman Reigns was an all time great WrestleMania main event. What I will remember of WrestleMania 42 is that main event, a whole lot of commercials, some matches going too short, the Paige return as a big Paige fan here, AJ Lee’s return to WrestleMania, the fun ladder match, and TKO pricing tickets way too high. It’s been so interesting to watch TKO just blame everything on the lack of tickets sale except on them charging a house for tickets. We also remember that this show was supposed to take place in New Orleans. Full announced. Merch out there. Then, they decided they thought they could make more money in Las Vegas and they went back to Vegas. Then, they charged wayyyyy higher ticket prices than they did last year. The problem with the struggle of ticket sales was not the product. I’ve been very happy with the lineup and the build for this show. Well, except when TKO decided that the problem with ticket sales was let’s add Pat McAfee into the show. Let’s just shove him in with no reason or purpose. It made me less excited for the show. I’ll get more into Pat later when we get to the night one main event. What we need to expect every single year now is that TKO is going to say hey, we know how to do wrestling and let’s do this while it hurts the product. TKO is clearly Jim Herd from WCW 1991. Every single year since they’ve taken over, they’ve done something to mess with WrestleMania that the show has to then overcome. This year was Pat McAfee.
Night one was the night I was looking the most forward to cause more of my favorites were on this night such as AJ Lee and Bayley so I’m biased Then, the addition of the surprise of Paige. Night one had its issues for sure. Match times and the insane amount of commercials were a major criticism of the show from many fans including myself. There was a whole lot of commercials. I have not liked this ESPN deal. I don’t like the ESPN app. It’s one of the worst apps I’ve ever used. I go through the Disney Plus app which does do better. If you’re straight up paying for the ESPN Unlimited plan at $29.99 a month, not only are you paying more to watch WWE shows, you are getting more commercials as a result. Peacock commercials were completely reasonable. Again, not a fan of the WWE ESPN deal. I know they’re getting paid a ton of money but the fan experience is probably the poorest it’s ever been as far as trying to watch the product. Let’s get into night one. John Cena opens the show in a full suit including even a suit version of him up on the screen with his intro video. He did say when he retired that he would be retiring the gear as well. First thing he said to Stu on camera is I’m not running. LOL. But as he headed down the ramp, his instinct of his body kept being to run which I thought was great. Good to have Cena there for the show in any sort of form and he was also front row at the Hall of Fame on Friday night. Opening hour was shown on ESPN 2 as a simulcast along with the rest of us watching on ESPN Unlimited. First match was the six man tag with the Usos and LA Knight against Theory, Logan, and IShowSpeed. This was what I expected it to be and it was solid. I was hoping for some spots to highlight Speed’s athleticism. We got it with the table spot. I wanted to see more of him after I saw him do that full run and leap full over someone spot on Raw recently. The story of the match was Speed cost them the match. They get mad at Speed who has the sympathy story of this anyway as he was reluctantly in this match anyway and had gotten forced into it. Logan and Theory start hammering on Speed. The Usos and Knight return to help Speed. They set Paul on the table and tell Speed to go up to the top. Speed then jumps from the post with a frog splash on to Paul on the table. Looked incredible. Second match was the unsanctioned match with Drew and Fatu. This was the brawl we expected it to be. Fatu gets the win. Good match. Women’s tag team championship match up next with the four way with Nia and Lash (loved their tribute to Demolition) defending against Bayley & Lyra, Alexa & Charlotte, and…..The Bella Twins. Well, we’ve had the question for weeks now on whether Nikki would be cleared to compete. She walks out with a crutch and the answer is clear then. She announces that she isn’t cleared and that she made a call to an old friend to team with Brie. Paige’s music hits! Such an awesome moment seeing Paige walk out! Big Paige fan here! Such a smile on my face seeing the arms out bouncing down the aisle signature move of Paige with her entrance. Good match here. Paige got the hot tag to end the match and her and Brie go on to win the tag team titles. I did not expect a tag title win for them. Felt like a throwback cause we know Paige has history of winning championships on debut type nights like when she won the Divas title on her first night on the main roster. Next match was AJ Lee defending the Intercontinental title against Becky Lynch. First thing I have to say is like 8 minutes??? That’s all they got???? That was my biggest disappointment was that they got such a short amount of time. Their match at Elimination Chamber in Chicago was awesome so I was really looking forward to a repeat. The two of them did everything they could with that 8 minutes. I thought the finish was well done with the ref distraction and Becky cheating to get the win. I’m bummed to see AJ lose the title obviously. I wasn’t sure if they would book her to beat Becky for the 4th time or not. Loved the AJ entrance with her skipping down to the ring with the girls with some of them being her nieces. She said that was symbolic of a tribute to all the fans who have been with her since the beginning since she didn’t get to say goodbye last time. Seth Rollins and Gunther had their match with a returning Bron Breakker taking out Seth with a nasty looking spear by the barricade. That helps Gunther get the victory. Next is another match that went way too short. I couldn’t believe how short that Liv Morgan and Stephanie Vaquer match was. Such an intense build up and then they got a whole like eight minutes too. I hadn’t even settled into the match yet and then it was over. Judgment Day got involved and Liv wins the title. I did feel like Liv would win the title back. With the main event, I did not know at all on which way this would go. Randy Orton vs Cody Rhodes. The Pat McAfee stuff really took a lot of punch off this match for me as it just made zero sense for him to be involved. The person that was needed to bring out the old Randy Orton was….a former NFL punter and a commentator. He needed Orton to be this so he would save the WWE which is the same storyline on Cody last year where Cena was trying to save wrestling. Pat needed Orton to win to go back to the attitude era despite the fact that Randy Orton wasn’t in the attitude era. Pat has been cutting really bad shoot style promos that would have been annoying in the actual attitude era. Anytime I hear the word marks used in a promo, I just zone out. Boring. Pat blamed ticket sales on Cody but Cody has wrestled in the main events of the last several Manias and business was big. Kudos to Punk for going out and cutting a promo on that ticket nonsense saying to TKO to cut the ticket prices on why tickets sales aren’t what they want them to be. And back to Pat, WHY WOULD YOU EVER go on TV and say hey ticket sales are low??? So opposite of what WWE has ever done in that situation as they always go out of their way to cover themselves on anything like that. They never point out anything like that so for him to just go out and say something like that was just dumb. Anyway to the match. LOL. When they took out McAfee first thing at the beginning of the match, I said they fixed that quick. LOL. Just take him full out before the bell even rings and let’s get back to where we were. The booking of this match was odd. So, they’ve went to all this work to make Orton a heel. At the beginning of the match, Cole mentions on commentary that Orton is dealing with back issues and isn’t 100%. So, he just gets beaten down for a long part of the match. I said geez, he looks like a sympathetic babyface here to. me with how this match is being booked with that injury mention on commentary. That was odd. How are they wanting to present Orton here was my question. I enjoyed the match itself even with Orton not being at 100%. Cody was going heel-ish too. The finish had McAfee returning with a neck brace and a referee’s shirt. He then tries to make a count to help Orton win after the ref had taken a bump and was down. Now, from a logic perspective, we learned earlier in this decade in the pandemic era that according to Vince booking that you could put a referee’s shirt on and you are now the ref. So, there is precedence for that nonsense booking. LOL. The finish had Orton turning and taking out McAfee with a RKO and then Cody took advantage of it finishing off Orton to get the win. It was a reverse of the Elimination Chamber where Orton took advantage of Cody paying attention to someone trying to interfere and getting a win. So that was a nice throwback to Cody paying back Orton. After the match, Orton attacked Cody with the belt and then finished him off with the punt kick with a gasp from the crowd. We’re clearly not done with this feud. And how nasty was Cody’s eye after the match???? GEEZ.
Let’s move on to night two. Match lengths on night two were definitely better. Maybe they listened to the criticism of night one or they just always planned this for night two. Show opens again with John Cena doing the hosting duties. We would see him later as well. The first hour was simulcast on ESPN with the show opening with the highly anticipated Oba Femi vs Brock Lesnar match. Oba was mega over! This match was awesome. Just two monsters going at each other. You had the moment of Oba taking big offense from Brock and not going down which made him look even more like a monster. Brock does get on the offense and ends up hitting a F5 which Oba gets up on his feet from and then destroys Brock with his powerbomb finish. Oba slays the beast. I’ve worn this comment out over the last few weeks but Brock made Oba look like a monster with how much he sold for him over this whole feud. It was the new beast type moment where Brock had met his match. After the match, we got the huge surprise of Brock taking off his ring gear which we know means retirement. The whole crowd reacted of oh my goodness as did we watching. Looks like Brock is done with his in ring career and what a way to go out with putting over someone so huge on the way out. Next up is the ladder match craziness. This match was so fun and it was the crazy spot fest we expected. That Penta Mexican destroyer on the ladder was insane as was the west coast pop on to Rusev through the ladder. Everyone worked really hard in this one with Penta retaining the Intercontinental title. Sami Zayn and Trick Williams was up next as we move solely to ESPN Unlimited. This was an interesting match as I said they might do a double turn here with how they’ve been building to it. The booking of Sami has made the crowd turn on Sami slowly over the last few weeks. I don’t know if that was their intent on purpose or not. Sami has been getting boos. Trick has been getting cheers while trying to be a heel. Trick is just so ready for launch with popularity. As the match goes on, Sami attacked Lil Yachty on the floor and I said well that’s definitely heelish with beating up the celebrity. Boos get louder for Sami. Puts sympathy on Lil Yachty and gets the crowd behind Trick for the comeback. Lil Yachty does later get back involved trying to help Trick win. Sami overcomes but goes for his charge finish but catches a knee from Trick to a monster pop. Trick makes the pin and wins the U.S. title. Crowd goes nuts. Double turn indeed and well done. Trick is going to be a big star for this company. So, we’ve had two big moments so far for the future with Oba and Trick. Next up was Dominik vs The Demon Finn Balor. I’ll say it again. If you are undefeated as the Demon, wouldn’t you always wrestle as the Demon? This match was fine and was a street fight. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it was just straight up regular Finn vs Dom. I’ve just never been into the Demon character version of Finn but I know I’m way in the minority. Balor prevails in the match. Smackdown women’s title on the line next with the biggest match of Jade Cargill’s career as she defends against Rhea Ripley on the biggest stage. I thought the match was solid. We had Michin and B-Fab get involved and then Iyo runs out to a big pop to take them out. Rhea and Jade go back to battling each other and Rhea hits the riptide to win the women’s championship. John Cena returns to announce the attendance for the night which was 55,255. They had around 50,000 on night one. The Miz and Kit Wilson interrupt as Miz wants his WrestleMania moment. I never tire of Cena and Miz segments. This brings out Danhausen who gets involved with his own group of Danhausens. Lots of hijinx and comedy here. Miz ends up taking a five knuckle shuffle from Danhausen after Cena gives his approval to do it. Moment of the segment for me was Danhausen giving the you can’t see me to Cena along with the pop of smoke where it’s his bad magic gone wrong again where he’s supposed to disappear in the smoke but instead still stands there where it didn’t work right. LOL. He ducks and runs. Cena got what looked like a legit big laugh out loud of it too. I love the Danhausen stuff where it’s usually the lights go off and then come back on before he is completely gone and you see the back of him running. LOL. Main event time with CM Punk vs Roman Reigns. I absolutely loved the Punk entrance with the throwback to his ROH days. His old ROH music along with the images throughout his career and building to this epic moment of getting to main event WrestleMania in a one on one match. I also loved his tributes on his jacket to several WWE crew members that passed away recently and also honoring Harley Race. Also of course Larry The Dog. This match was just awesome. We finally got to the point where both could barely stand. It felt like the winner was going to be who just fell and crumbled on top of the other for the pinfall. Punk hit a GTS but then crumbled under the weight trying to hit a second one. Reigns missed a spear. They battled some more. Reigns did hit a massive spear to get the pin and win the championship. Both guys just gave it their absolute all. I’m a Punk fan so I was hoping for a Punk win. Bummed to see Punk not get the win but what a match that was! They put on an absolute show.
Tonight’s Raw was the post Mania show and here are the happenings. Show opened with Oba Femi walking out to a monster reaction and keeping it short and sweet on the mic declaring that the ruler has arrived. Iyo and Rhea get a farewell of sorts teaming up against Kairi and Asuka. Iyo and Rhea get the win and we later got a segment of them saying their farewells as Rhea heads to Smackdown as the new Smackdown champion. Ethan Page and Sol Ruca were both called up to the main roster tonight. Ethan Page got a match with Je’Von Evans. Rusev got involved in the match and attacked Je’Von. That helped Page get the win. Penta ran into make the save for Je’Von. Page was sitting back watching but then stepped in putting a stop to Penta and leaving Penta for Rusev. CM Punk came out and cut a promo talking about the loss that he’s had in the last six months whether it’s people close to him, Larry the Dog, and crew members and how it’s been rough while thanking the fans for helping him heal every time he’s out there. It was also awesome to watch the crowd one by one start standing and applauding as Punk put over the crew members who have passed and also putting over the current crew who work so hard behind the scenes. Punk put over that he is also dealing with the loss from last night as well. Cody walks out and they have a nice back and forth as friends talking of their weekend. Nice moment at the end with Punk telling Cody to keep fighting and keep being this champion despite the pressure of being champion. Punk said that he himself is free as a bird now but that he isn’t taking a vacation saying that you never know when a championship opportunity may fall out of the sky while staring at Cody’s belt. Punk walks off and Cody stops him saying “just say when”. Punk continues walking with a smile on his face. Liv Morgan had her victory segment walking out with Judgment Day but she’s interrupted by the freshly called up, Sol Ruca. We get a match between the two of them. Fun match. The match ends with Zaria attacking Sol on the floor. Sol is able to get back in the ring before the 10 count but gets hit with the finish from Liv as Liv wins the match. As Liv walks to the back, a furious Stephanie walks out to face off with the new champion. Paul Heyman cut a big promo with a lot of emotion to it talking about Brock Lesnar and his retirement. He then brings Bron Breakker out. Seth Rollins runs in from behind and nails Bron with a chair. The numbers catch up to Seth very quickly as he is taken down. We then get a surprise as the Street Profits run out to help Seth. Finn Balor defeated JD in a match followed by a run in attempt by Dom but Finn takes out Dom. The close of the show had a Bloodline segment with Roman and the Usos being back on the same page with Roman telling them that he wants to work together with them. Jacob Fatu shows up and challenges Roman for Backlash saying that he wants what Roman has and take himself to the next level to provide for his family. Roman tells him to think about it for a week to see if he really thinks he’s ready for that. Says we’ll see next week. Roman tells the Usos as the show is going off for them to talk to Jacob.
Other notes from Raw. That insane elbow from Kairi to Rhea on the floor was well, insane. Just awesome. Speaking of spots, Sol Ruca with the soul snatcher and then followed by the backflip out of the ring had the crowd in the palm of her hands. I wonder how many of those fans haven’t really been exposed to her yet so this was quite the coming out party for her with those fans. Good stuff. Sol did mess up on her promo where she meant to say Royal Rumble but instead said Battle Royal. Joe Hendry apparently appears to be called up to Raw with a graphic promoting a Hendry concert next week on Raw.
The Hall of Fame took place on a Friday night late nighter running from 11pm to about 2:30am here. I enjoyed the show overall. The Stephanie McMahon produced video was so well done including them bringing back her old Drowning Pool theme into it. The induction speech was really good with her daughters doing such a good job up there speaking. Stephanie’s speech was also very good with her going through acknowledging so many throughout her career and telling stories. Demolition was a huge highlight for me as I’ve waited decades for them to go into the Hall of Fame. Long overdue. Another well produced video starting with their theme music. One of my top five all time theme songs. Perfect people to induct them with having Arn Anderson, Haku, and The Warlord. Three members from three tag teams of some of their biggest rivals during their championship runs. Loved all that including their speeches. The Dennis Rodman induction was kind of a hot mess but if you know Rodman, you know what you get with Rodman speaking live. Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman did the induction of him. Bad News Brown and Sycho Sid Vicious were the inductions into the legacy wing of the Hall of Fame. Two absolute legends there. Their families were shown on camera following a produced video of each but did not speak which has received criticism obviously. AJ Styles closed the show off with Gallows and Anderson doing the induction for him. AJ joked that his speech will probably set records with being shorter. AJ isn’t a big talker so this was indeed a short acceptance speech. Enjoyed his speech.
A few extra things I watched this week that were really good. The Stephanie McMahon podcast with Triple H interviewing her about the Hall of Fame and her career. A lot of good stories told during that and they watch some old segments and matches too. John Cena on the live Undertaker podcast from WWE World is a fun watch and it’s funny that they still highly disagree about their opinion of their five minute match at WrestleMania. Cena puts it over as perfect. Undertaker wanted longer. Vince wanted five minutes like Cena did to just have Cena squashed. Undertaker’s point is that he worked harder than ever to get himself in shape to have a long match only to find out he was getting five minutes the day of the show. Cena said no, me running my mouth and then getting squashed was perfect to show that I shouldn’t have messed with Undertaker and it makes you look like a monster again. They tell a funny story of Taker going into Vince’s office the day of and asking Vince what they’re doing. Vince says you squash him in five minutes. Taker said what, excuse me? LOL. Taker then goes to get Cena thinking that Cena will back him up and Taker is saying tell Cena what you told me. Vince says five minutes and Cena basically says perfect. LOL. Taker looks over with a look of what do you mean, perfect? LOL. It’s such a funny back and forth discussion with them talking about that match and I loved it. Lastly, the Shawn Michaels documentary on Peacock is something I really enjoyed. I hope to talk more about it in the future. I’ve also heard the Triple H and Shawn Michaels sit down interview is really good but I haven’t seen it so I will be watching that soon.
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