What many understandably considered the main selling point of the Wrestlemania 41 weekend, the anticipated Cody Rhodes/John Cena championship bout, took center stage for night two of the event, but did it truly live up to the hype?
The show opened with the triple threat match for the Women’s World championship, and as repetitive as this might sound since I write about it more often than not for the pay-per-view matches in the female division, this segment proved once again that the women’s division is the most consistently quality aspect of WWE programming. Iyo Sky is one of the best in-ring workers anywhere in the business and this victory takes another step toward establishing her star power. Truth be told, and this is meant as a compliment as to how over she is as a star, Rhea Ripley doesn’t need the championship to maintain her popularity. That’s not to say that she shouldn’t be involved in the title picture in the future, as it’s always wise to have something at stake for major storylines, but for this particular contest, she’s not going to get over any more than she already is if she won the belt again, which is a credit to her talent and popularity. On the flip side, Iyo can get more established from this victory since it put her in the mix with two major stars of the division and it gave her the spotlight on the major platform of Wrestlemania.
Much of the same that can be said for Ripley can be said for Bianca Belair, she’s already over, and as I wrote about yesterday, I think there’s a lot more to the storyline between Jade Cargill and Naomi so Belair probably has an angle based around personal animosity on the horizon so she didn’t need the championship either. The match itself was really entertaining stuff and they worked the triple threat aspect very well with a lot of action during the 15-minute segment. Also as I wrote yesterday, not everything has to be a 30-minute Tokyo Dome classic to be successful, and this was proof of that, as it was a great way to kick off the show. Iyo retained the title with a moonsault at the conclusion.
Thankfully, outside of the main event, the card stayed away from weapons on Saturday and only one other table bump on this show, which is what allowed Drew McIntyre and Damien Priest to have a street fight that stood out among a line-up that had 14 matches over the course of two days. It was in a different way than the women’s title match, but this street fight was another quality segment. They made what they did count and their selling allowed for each spot to maximize its effectiveness. Drew landed a DDT on the steps, but took a nasty bump in the process and had a small cut on his back. These were two quality pros that took what could’ve been forgotten by the end of the night, considering that it’s a four-hour marathon show and made it something memorable. Not to take a jab at AEW, but there’s a rhyme and reason to how this pay-per-view was structured, which is why each segment had its place on the card. Drew got the win, but I don’t think a defeat hinders Priest too much since this segment showcased both performers.
While the event was a four-hour marathon, the US title match was a 10-minute sprint. Since there were four competitors, the segment seemed a little rushed, but perhaps that was by design. This was action packed and thus kept the pace of the card moving, which is important because it must be taking into account that the viewers, both in the stadium and watching on Peakcock already watched four hours of wrestling on Saturday. Similar to the two prior contests, this match was structured well, as it gave each performer a portion of the spotlight, and the finish was a possible indication of the direction for a few of the competitors. The crowd was trying to be ironic getting behind Dominik Mysterio, something that I think was reserved for just the diehard travel crowd for these types of events, but it was also a way to acknowledge that he has made a lot of progress within the past five years on the roster. Dominik getting the win allows him to continue to progress as a character on the show, and booking a title switch that gave a reason to change the championship without Bron Breakker being pinned puts him in the position to move up the card. This isn’t anything ground-breaking, but as I’ve written before, Breakker has the talent and the potential to be a future WM main eventer so this was probably a key piece of the puzzle in that journey.
It was a surprise that TNA world champion, Joe Hendry answered the open challenge of Randy Orton after his original opponent, Kevin Owens was sidelined with a neck injury that required surgery. However, it wasn’t a surprise that Hendry was made to look silly in the process. The WWE might be in a new era in terms of its wiliness to work with other companies, but make no mistake about it, they will still take every opportunity to make every other wrestling entity look secondary. The match itself was only two or three minutes and was rather slow paced so Hendry didn’t get much offense, and the way the finish was booked, he was made to look foolish. If a young champion was given the opportunity to compete against Randy Orton at Wrestlemania, would he really be so concerned with posing that he decided to pose two or three times in the span of just a few minutes? This made Hendry look like an amateur and it certainly didn’t do anything to showcase TNA. They couldn’t get Austin Theory or Grayson Waller to do the exact same thing without taking a cheap shot at the smaller organization? Orton wins with the RKO, and Joe Hendry’s “Wrestlemania moment” was that he was made to look silly.
I understand why AJ Styles was the opponent picked for Logan Paul, as the former TNA franchise guy is such a solid pro that he can have a good match with anyone and he’s going to be safe with everything that he does in the ring. At 47, he’s at the latter stage of his career so doing the job to the social media star doesn’t really hurt his status. That said, after a decent star to the contest, this segment became really tedious with a very deliberate pace throughout most of it. Basically, this match went too long, and instead of 20 minutes, it probably could’ve accomplished the same thing in 12 or 15 minutes. Karrion Kross’ involvement makes sense, as it gives something for Styles to do going forward, especially since Logan Paul is a part-time performer. Paul gets the win, but this was somewhat of an underwhelming match.
There’s not really much to say about the women’s tag team title match. Becky Lynch’s return was well-known, and given that she’s already accomplished almost everything in the WWE, a tag team run, while smaller in scope, makes sense. The bout was only about six minutes so there wasn’t too much to takeaway from it other than Becky is back in the fold. Becky Lynch and Lyra Valkyria won the titles after Lynch pinned Liv Morgan.
As we know, the main event was very anticipated and rightfully was what sold the bulk of the tickets to this event. Sure, the brand itself sells to a certain extent, but the names at the top of the marquee matter. That being said, as disappointing as it is to say this since this was the match I was looking forward to the most of the weekend, the John Cena/Cody Rhodes main event was underwhelming. It wasn’t terrible, just not anywhere near what I thought they could’ve achieved given the storyline and the scenario of Cena’s retirement tour. Maybe it was ring rust, but for whatever reason, most of the match was very disjointed and just never got into second gear. There was a series of moves, but it never built any legitimate drama, let alone the type of drama that is possible with performers of this caliber on this stage.
The main event was only twenty minutes, including the shenanigans toward the conclusion, but it still felt slow and plodding during at least half of it. I know some fans have already complained that The Rock wasn’t there, and don’t get me wrong, I think the majority of The Rock’s work this year has been subpar, as he uses the crutch of excessive swearing in promos as a substitute for substances, and some of his appearances had no apparent point to them, but it only made sense that The Final Boss played a role in this bout. The reason being is simple, The Rock’s offer to Cody was the entire basis for this feud with Cena, and the heel turn saw Cena posing with Dwayne Johnson so they undoubtedly aligned just a few months ago. The notion that anything that involves The Rock is better because he’s The Rock is misguided, his flimsy promos this year have proved that, but there was definitely a logical reason for him to be involved at Wrestlemania.
Instead of one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, Travis Scott, who I only knew was a singer prior to his involvement in WWE, but nothing else, was used as the key to the finish of the match. This was a miss for whatever they were going for, and almost emphasized the fact that The Rock wasn’t there. Is Travis Scott really that popular that his appearance is going to make a notice different for the main stream reaction to Wrestlemania? He looked like a fan, completely with carrying around a cringe worthy replica title, that was allowed to show up at ringside. This looked like the office was indulging the markish celebrity than trying to accomplish series business at the biggest show of the year. Plus, this was the guy that was so reckless that he legitimately broke Cody’s ear drum in February so should he really be allowed in the ring again?
John Cena won the title, which sets up for a compelling storyline for Cody to chase the belt to save the championship before Cena retires with it, but I have to be honest, I’m a lot less optimistic about the potential of the storyline now than I was when the angle started at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view. Unfortunately, the biggest takeaway from night two of Wrestlemania was that the main event was woefully underwhelming and that’s probably what will be the most memorable about the event.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
E mail [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
