It was the WrestleMania I had least looked forward to.  The WrestleMania I was barely interested in watching.  The WrestleMania which, for the first time since 1993, I almost forgot was even happening.  But watch it I did.  Considering that it took place a week after the fun show that was AEW Dynasty and just three days after Darby Allin shockingly beat MJF for the AEW title on Dynamite, it had a very high bar to meet as far as wrestling excitement goes.  The deck was stacked against it…but would the market leaders in sports entertainment manage to woo me back into fandom with their flagship spectacular?

Although the marquee tells us that John Cena is the host, the role of WWE pay-per-view host is a curious one, with very few legitimate hosting duties.  The true host of WrestleMania, in my eyes, was Lin-Manuel Miranda, who’s excellent introductory video set a great tone for the start of the showcase of the immortals and genuinely welcomed us to the event before Cena ever hit the stage.  I like Cena, but really think anyone but him should have been chosen for the gig so soon after his retirement.  A returning Cena in 2027, or 2028, or even 2029 would be money.  Nostalgia we’d all be up for.  But to see the guy just four months after he lost his career to GUNTHER didn’t feel special, it felt desperate by WWE.  Like when Ric Flair showed up in TNA following his supposed in-ring retirement forever.  It sort of took something special away from the day Cena could have returned after an absence long enough for us to miss him.

Anyway – after all the pomp and grandeur of kicking off ‘Mania we get to our first match.  Your opener sets the tone for the show ahead and, unfortunately for WWE, this stinker of an opener did just that for ‘Mania Night 1. The tone here was WWE caring only about one thing: online chatter.  The quality of wrestling didn’t matter.  What mattered was that Logan Paul and IShowSpeed were wrestling together in a lame trios match that had little crowd engagement and was clearly used merely as an opportunity to go viral early.  (As a sidenote on this, I happened to be in London the day of ‘Mania Night 1 and got caught up at Euston with the crowds heading to Wembley for some influencer sporting event – Allstars vs Sidemen.  I don’t really know what it was, but I do know that it involved KSI and a lot of fans were asking questions online about the whereabouts of both Paul and Speed, meaning their names were already trending pre-WrestleMania, allowing WWE to jump on that bandwagon of mentions and ride the coattails of a prior event.  But I digress…)

Admittedly, it was funny to continue the IShowSpeed fails theme when he hit Paul by mistake, got hit by Austin Theory and cost The Vision the match.  It reminded me of the weird series of WrestleManias where every year disgraced baseball star, Pete Rose, used to try and attack Kane and fail.  But even that long-term continuity idea was tossed away quickly for the WWE’s thirst for online clout.  Speed got his revenge on an angry Logan Paul with the help of the Usos and hit the “Maverick” with an “IShowSplash” through a table, simply to go viral.  

It worked – at the school where I work the following Monday, all the students who know I am a wrestling fan but don’t watch wrestling themselves asked me about the spot, which they had seen in their feeds.  But the problem for me is that they also asked me about the time Speed got speared to hell by Bron Breakker.  Their seeing it online didn’t translate into viewership of the product then, and it won’t now.  It’s just a lame desperation for the company to appear relevant that keeps them doing it.  Even Drew McIntyre was tweeting DURING his match in the next segment (on his brother’s phone) in a bid to drive traffic online.  Sadly for Drew, that was the only moment of note I remember from his match with Jacob Fatu.  Apparently the two fighters have a feud so intense that they required an unsanctioned match, but it was at this point in WrestleMania that I realised WWE hadn’t shown any videos before either match to bring casual viewers up to speed with the storylines.

In a post-AEW world, bloodless violence just doesn’t cut it. The idea that this tame battle between bitter rivals was so violent it had to be unsanctioned by WWE just made me scratch my head in confusion given some of the completely sanctioned ultra violence seen weekly on the rival show.  For an AEW match to become an unsanctioned “Lights Out” match, we know we’re going to see something sick.  McIntyre / Fatu didn’t come anywhere close to sick.  I found myself growing bored and wondering about what I might make for lunch. 

The women’s tag title four-way was next though, and I had heard the rumbles online.  Nikki Bella was injured with a bad ankle and would have to be replaced.  The rumours were true – WWE is Paige’s house once again.  In fact, she and Brie Bella won the tag titles.  

It was a great, feelgood moment, and I can already see the Nikki Bella heel turn coming soon.  Bitter that she came back to wrestle full time and then her sister gets the belts without her; with Paige!  I just hope that Paige’s run here goes better than her disappointing spell in AEW.  I think a lot about the weird way she won the AEW women’s title at Wembley just for the occasion (a Brit winning in Britain) only to sort of fade away off TV, lose the title soon after, and generally not be utilised well there.  Hopefully WWE can do her more justice as she deserves better and has always been one of my favourites.  It was Paige’s matches in NXT back in the day which kept me watching when I was already growing bored of the stale WWE product.

Speaking of back in the day, another returner, AJ Lee, was up next, defending her Intercontinental Title against Becky Lynch.  Another moan as a casual viewer these days: I love AJ Lee, always have, but I feel all I’ve seen since she came back is different versions of her fighting Becky Lynch.  Wikipedia tells me she fought Bayley on Raw once too, but it would be nice to see her move on from Lynch on PPV.  

I was excited when I saw The Wonder Years were there to play Becky Lynch out to the ring live, but soon grew disappointed to see that they were clearly lip-synching as the song sounded exactly as it always does and Dan Campbell seemed to miss his first cue as vocals were heard without his mouth moving.  I might be wrong, and they might just be that tight that there is no differentiation between a live performance and a recording, but classic WrestleMania performances usually involve some sort of indication of liveness from the vocalist, even if the rest of the instruments are from a taped track.   

The annoyance continued with the bullshit ending to the match.  Given the sheer number of times the two had already fought, it was never going to end any other way. As soon as the ref bump happened, it was clear what shenanigans Lynch would use in the corner as it had already been telegraphed.  I found myself thinking about food again…maybe a snack of some sort before lunch?  Especially as the next match was Seth Rollins vs GUNTHER.  I like both wrestlers, but found this match up unexplained and pointless.  Not only was there a lack of video to give any context, but last I knew Seth was feuding with The Vision after the faction he started destroyed him.  Then, for no clear reason, I’m hearing that this was the match for a returning Rollins rather than anything with the group he was embroiled with before the injury.  Secretly I hoped there was some hidden reason for the madness.  Not that I wished ill on the man, but perhaps Rollins had actually been told by a doctor that his injury was too severe.  That he would have to hang up his boots?  Then GUNTHER could win and kill off another career, continuing that gimmick on the grandest stage of ‘em all.

Instead, the two just had a good match that ended, frustratingly, with the returning Bron Breakker reminding us all just how pointless the booking was because he, not GUNTHER, is Rollins’ real rival.  Breakker’s two spears were fun to watch, but at the end of the day, given both opponents seemed medically cleared enough for physicality, why the two we actually wanted to see fight weren’t fighting was made all the more peculiar.

Again though – it was clear WWE doesn’t care about reasons.  I’m sure the missing video packages laying out why we should care about the match before us are all to be found in the pre-show, but a casual fan is already investing about 4 hours into watching Mania (8 across two nights), they’re not going to kill additional hours watching a lengthy hype show for a thing they’re already interested in.  This was a real error for WWE throughout the weekend.

Speaking of errors, Liv Morgan came out to a brand new song she had recorded and possibly explained The Wonder Years fiasco.  Liv put on a great performance trying to lip-synch a live video to her new track, but whoever was doing the sound for WrestleMania seemed to forget (and possibly for The Wonder Years too) that sound spreads in a stadium and not all parts of the bowl receive sound at the same time unless it is carefully miked and amplified.  Liv’s lips did not sync to the lip-sync (sashay away!) because whatever she was hearing was out of step with what we heard on TV.  It was a shame because the song is fun.  I hope for her sake they could sort it out later on video and line things up right so she can use it to promote the song.

After the big entrance it felt likely Liv would topple Stephanie Vaquer, but when she did the win felt rushed and with no real drama.  I’m not sure what happened, but usually a big title change feels like the emotional climax of a match and fans are on the edge of their seat.  Here it felt like we needed about five more minutes to get there…and then it was over.  New champ.

The feelgood moment of the night happened when Bianca Belair came out and announced her pregnancy…though I never know how “feelgood” it is to learn that a great wrestler will be out of action for at least a year, even if it is for a very good reason.  You sort of want to cheer for the family, but also boo for selfish reasons.  I remember how great Naomi was doing when her pregnancy announcement came, derailing the run.  Bigger picture – the run is unimportant.  But as a fan, and not a member of their families, it is undeniably a double-edged sword with a tinge of disappointment in every clap.

And then we were on to our main event.  

My wife and I have always joked about how slow Randy Orton walks to the ring.  His entire “entrance” is basically slowly ambling and occasionally stopping to look around, and whenever we have a ramp the length of a WrestleMania ramp, we know it’s an opportunity to do a few household chores before he gets between the ropes.  We each popped to the loo.  I finally made that lunch for us I’d been thinking about and my wife sorted out some laundry to put in the wash.  By the time we returned to the lounge, Orton was looking at the steps and considering walking up them into the ring.  By the time Pat McAfee and Cody Rhodes had also come out, twenty-five minutes of TV time had passed.

The idea of McAfee’s involvement in this match had been panned online in the weeks before the event and the problem was dealt with quickly.  Again, a symptom of WWE’s desperate need for online relevance (no publicity is bad publicity…except the Janel Grant lawsuit) McAfee was taken out by fellow celebrity, Jelly Roll, early doors so that the match could return to what it always should have been: a solid one-on-one match between a former protégé and his mentor.

Unfortunately, despite having an enjoyable match (very WWE, but not in a bad way), the end totally missed the vibe of the crowd and fell flat.  McAfee returned and when Randy Orton dropped him with an RKO to a huge cheer (because even Randy Orton seemed to hate that he’d been lumbered with McAfee), Rhodes took the opportunity and smashed Orton with the Cross Rhodes to retain.

Orton was super over with the crowd, and it would have been great to see him win.  Worse still, him not winning but then doing a post-match beat down of Rhodes made the whole PPV end like an episode of TV rather than one of the biggest events of the year.  Like maybe next week Orton might win, or Rhodes would get his revenge.  Well there is no next week at WrestleMania – it’s now or never.  This was the moment.  The return of the punt kick was a good moment, but would have been a better moment if it happened in the match and cost Cody his title now.  Instead, we got a screwy finish and a sense that we might have just wasted four hours of our life.  Certainly Darby Allin beating MJF on free TV a few days before felt more important than whatever this was.

Hopefully, Night 2 would be better?

I didn’t hold out much hope.

Lin-Manuel did his thing again and then it was time for Oba Femi vs Brock Lesna.  Oba Femi is immense. What an entrance and walk gimmick. It was a huge start to Night 2 and an immediate tone shift from the dross start of Night 1.  Lesnar comes out next and, boy, no one looks adoringly at their charge as a manager like Paul Heyman does.

This opener was epic.  Not just because Femi got the shock win, defeating the Beast, but because, once defeated, Lesnar left his gloves and boots in the ring, seemingly retiring from the sport to the shock of everyone.

The problem with wrestling (also its delight) is that you never know what is real and what is fake.  The addition of WWE Unreal as a program makes this doubly difficult for WWE.  Was Lesnar’s impromptu retirement really unexpected, or was it staged to appear unexpected on a future episode of the behind the scenes show?  I guess we’ll never know.  But it was certainly a “WrestleMania Moment”, arguably the first of the 2026 edition.

But the fun didn’t end there.  The ladder match for the Intercontinental Title was brilliant. It was hard not to be with that talent. J D McDonagh being Mexican destroyed on the ladder was brutal, and the storyline logic of Penta having zero fear and choosing to defend his title like this (and doing it successfully) was great.  Cero miedo indeed!

As always, the general rule of thumb at WrestleMania is that the person with the most flashy Mania entrance is probably the one who’s going to win.  Trick Williams was clearly the favourite to win his match with Sami Zayn just because of the length of his jacket’s train.  An amazing fashion moment on the ramp.  But it was nice that he won properly, countering the Helluva Kick with a Trick Shot rather than because of the Lil Yachty interference that preceded it.  I enjoyed the match and continue to think Williams is a talent.  Zayn too, but that goes without saying.  He’s the underG.O.A.T from the underground.

Shit – I was thoroughly enjoying Night 2!  I wasn’t even slightly thinking about dinner.  I was just excited to see the Demon Finn Balor return.

There’s nothing like the Demon version of Finn.  Not least of all because he’s possibly the only person I can think of who regularly blacks up on television and gets away with it.  (Reece Shearsmith’s Papa Lazarou was the last one).  A genuine reminder to the “you can’t say or do anything these days without offending someone” crew that you absolutely can if what you are doing isn’t intended to be offensive.  Balor is a demon.  Black, blue, and red.  His blacking up is not about race, it is about being a terrifying supernatural being different from himself.  That said, it does make me wonder why he can’t go a little less heavy on the black and maybe go a little redder with the face to make it a bit less…not okay.  It does sometimes take me out of it.

That said, Dirty Dom got his just desserts (I assume – once again, there was no video to explain why all this was happening) and we all got to “whoo” along with that great entrance music of Balor’s.  The pink smoke in the entrance was especially effective.  

We’re four for four!  There’s no way the next match can be good too?

But it is!  Rhea Ripley is just so fucking watchable and that entrance song never fails to get the juices flowing.  Her vs Jade Cargill is the sort of match that WrestleMania was built for and it is great to see how much improved Cargill is in the ring these days.  I always loved her in AEW, but there was no denying her greenness in those early days.  Who wouldn’t put her on TV anyway?  But sometimes the in-ring was a bit questionable.  There was none of that here.  Just a great match against Ripley.  Cargill even hit Kenny Omega’s one-winged angel move as a nod to her former employer, but in the end she was bested by Ripley, which felt right.  I loved this match and realised at its conclusion that this night was what WrestleMania should be.  It made me think that if you don’t actually have enough quality stuff to fill two nights, you shouldn’t run a two night event.  If WrestleMania 42 was just Night 2, it might go down in history as a classic.  But Night 1 was so mediocre it undoes so much of the good of Night 2.

To cleanse our palette before the Main Event, John Cena came out to conflate the attendance figures of both nights (including Bianca Belair’s unborn child in the figures, suggesting the numbers we got also included those people backstage as well as the people in the seats?) but was delightfully interrupted by The Miz and Kit Wilson, which could only mean one thing: Danhausen!  Deservedly, the very nice, very evil, one got a WrestleMania Moment of his own with his entourage of littleHausens and an altercation with The Miz that ended with a Five Knuckle Shuffle and a hilarious “you can’t see me” bit involving a smoke-bomb and a clearly visible Danhausen fleeing from the ring and “hiding” himself (slowly) under the mat.  It was brilliant.  Very nice, very evil, and very funny.

Time for the main event!

Unlike the Night 1 main event, Punk / Reigns definitely had a big fight feel and felt like a main event in a way that the Pat McAfee atrocity simply didn’t.  A personal issue between two fighters we wanted to see get resolved; it even had a supporting video package to fill us in on the feud.  And the match itself…well it made the show six for six.  One of the best WrestleMania main events in a long time.  Punk and Reigns just have great chemistry together and they threw everything at each other to try and win.  Although I remain a loyal Punk fan, I acknowledge that Roman winning made sense.  His last reign as champion was multiple years long.  It feels scary to think of the possibility of that happening again, which also means we might be intrigued enough to watch what happens next.  Could this one be a shocking flash in the pan, lost at first challenge, or will the OTC do it again and hold onto the gold across successive future WrestleManias?  Time will tell.  Punk lost valiantly, with a little bit of comedy at the end, turning his dramatic exhaustion which cost him the belt into slapstick ringside fun as the show came to a close, and it seemed like he was having the time of his life having finally achieved his dream of a proper WrestleMania main event match (not that garbage Night 1 main event spot they gave him last year). 

In the end, despite the let-down of Night 1, I ended up feeling happy I had bothered with WrestleMania after Night 2.  I even watched the Raw after Mania the next day and was glad to see the usual NXT call-ups and post-Mania promo fun and games that set the scene for the next season of WWE.  

But then Roman Reigns came out with a rehash of the old Bloodline gimmick and, despite the Jacob Fatu of it all, I was reminded that WWE can’t help itself but trend towards the predictable.  Meanwhile, over on AEW, we have a new champion we haven’t seen before in Darby Allin, with exciting new match combinations in our future, the best wrestlers bell-to-bell from around the world, storylines that build patiently and are explained to us logically, things that make sense and characters that show diversity and creativity and not just a one-size-fits-all approach to stardom.  Good as WrestleMania Night 2 was, it didn’t bring me back to the fold.

Until next time…

DaN McKee

www.everythingdanmckee.com

My book, Anarchist Atheist Punk Rock Teacher, is available from Earth Island Books and wherever you get your reading material. You can also buy a copy of Hardcore Horror there and read my short story “a dull boy”.

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