On Sunday, April 19th, WWE concluded the two-night event of their biggest show of the year, WrestleMania 42, with their big event, WrestleMania Sunday. Sunday’s edition of WrestleMania 42 was headlined by CM Punk putting his World Heavyweight Championship on the line against the 2026 Men’s Royal Rumble winner, Roman Reigns, in a rivalry that has become very personal between two of WWE’s biggest stars around today.
We also saw Jade Cargill put her WWE Women’s Championship on the line against Rhea Ripley, “The Demon” make his return as Finn Balor took on Dominik Mysterio, Sami Zayn put his United States Championship on the line against Trick Williams, Penta put his Intercontinental Championship on the line in a six-way Ladder match, and a dream match between Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar kicks it all off. So, what were the top three moments of the show?
Honorable Mention: Trick Williams wins the United States Championship
Since coming up to the main roster, Trick Williams has become one of the most popular talents on the blue brand. At his first-ever WrestleMania, he had a chance to make history and become a champion on the main roster for the first-time ever. While Sami Zayn had been a fan favorite. He has not been making many friends recently as he dethroned Carmelo Hayes for the United States Championship. Fans were not happy at all about this move, and this just helped Williams to become more popular. On Sunday, Williams dethroned Zayn and won his first-ever championship on the main roster with help from Lil Yachty. Williams deserves a nice, long reign with the title to help cement it as a viable mid-card title again, similar to what Gunther did with the Intercontinental Championship after years of neglect by creative.
3. Rhea Ripley Fends Off Jade Cargill
Since going up to the main roster, Rhea Ripley’s name has been synonymous with main roster gold. She is already a two-time Women’s World Champion, an NXT Women’s Champion, an NXT UK Women’s Champion, a two-time WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion, and even won a Royal Rumble back in 2023 to punch her ticket to WrestleMania 39, where she went on to defeat Charlotte Flair to win the WWE Women’s Championship.
She had another tall task in front of her as she looked to knock off the powerful Jade Cargill. Cargill surrounded herself. with “baddies” as she calls them, Mia Yim & B-Fab, as somewhat of an insurance policy. However, they proved to be pretty useless on Sunday when Ripley’s best friend, Iyo Sky, had other plans for them. This was a one-on-one match, and when the playing field is even, Ripley’s most dangerous.
Jade put up a tremendous fight and really looked excellent in most of the match. This may have been her very best match to date. However, at WrestleMania, Ripley is unstoppable. Ripley countered Jade’s finishing move and turned it into a riptide which won her the match and the WWE Women’s Championship. She celebrated with Iyo Sky in the ring. Ripley is truly becoming Ms. WrestleMania. While it remains to be seen where we go from here, Ripley now sits atop the SmackDown women’s division.
2. Oba Femi Dominates Brock Lesnar, Brock Lesnar retires?
Kicking off all the festivities on Sunday, we saw Oba Femi battle Brock Lesnar in one of the biggest matches that WrestleMania has ever seen. Since being called up to the main roster, similar to Trick Williams, Femi has just gotten extremely popular with the fans. He has more than endeared his march down to the ring and his whole character to the WWE Universe on the main roster, and has all the tools to be the next big mega star.
However, if he looked to continue his ascension, he had to get past Brock Lesnar on Sunday night. That’s no easy feat for anyone, regardless of how big you might be. However, Femi is not a normal WWE Superstar. If his time in NXT showed fans anything, it’s that he doesn’t go down easily. Hell, he didn’t even drop the NXT Championship before coming up to the main roster; he relinquished it because truly nobody could beat him.
His match with Lesnar was damn-near perfect. It was under five minutes long, but it got the point across perfectly. Oba dominated from start to finish and did things to Brock we’ve never seen before. However, the bigger story comes after the match as Lesnar leaves his boots and gloves in the ring, seemingly retiring. Is that it for Brock? Is the end here, or is it right around the corner after a potential other dream match with Gunther in his home state at SummerSlam? While he’s still young, with his trajectory, Oba Femi may be the biggest star WWE has ever seen.
1. The OTC Reclaims His Spot
The main event of WrestleMania 42 saw CM Punk put his World Heavyweight Championship on the line against the 2026 Men’s Royal Rumble winner, the OTC, Roman Reigns. After his historic reign came to an end two years ago at WrestleMania 40, Reigns has stood away from the championship picture, as he had to tend to bigger things with his family, and so much more. Realistically, he deserved a break from being the champion and carrying the company on his back.
However, it appears that the break is over as he once again looked to capture a championship he’s never won before, the World Heavyweight Championship from a bitter rival. Punk has been a fantastic World Heavyweight Champion, but a changing of the guard was desperately needed to freshen up the matches and make that dream match with Bron Breakker come that much closer for Roman. That’s exactly what happened.
This was an instant classic from the very start. Punk and Reigns threw everything they had and more at each other. By the end of the match, both men were spent. However, Reigns was able to dig down deep enough and hit a massive spear on Punk to win the match and the World Heavyweight Championship. While it remains to be seen when we may see Punk again, Reigns confirmed he’s going to be a “full-time champion.” So, who’s going to be first to challenge Reigns for his title? It should be very interesting.
Overall, this was a much better show than Night 1. It was night and day. Night 1 was borderline unwatchable, with many matches that were short and just not great. As for Night 2, there wasn’t a bad match on the whole show. The moments were plentiful, and more importantly, the wrestling was top-notch. The main event between Punk and Reigns could be put on a Mount Rushmore for WrestleMania main events. Top-to-bottom, Night 2 delivered and felt like a WrestleMania.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next time
– Scott Mitchell
You can follow me on X (Twitter) and Instagram @Scott44Mitchell
