WWE’s WrestleMania 41 is now in the history books. And it was certainly one of the WrestleManias of all time. And easily one of the weakest in modern history. With way too much of the show dedicated to advertisements, sponsorships, and just how many celebrities were in the crowd. For reference, Saturday’s show has a runtime of 3 hours and 36 minutes. And a total combined match time of 1 hour and 45 minutes. Meaning there’s nearly two hours without wrestling.
Drew McIntyre’s entrance, sponsored by Doom
The lead up to WrestleMania wasn’t very good either. With a lot of matches lacking the intensity, long-term setup, or dream match factor that makes a match feel WrestleMania worthy. In fact a lot of the matches felt like the second or third choice for the wrestlers involved. But that’s not to say the show was uneventful.
New champions were crowned. John Cena made history. The current TNA World Champion competed. And we saw potentially the worst WrestleMania opener of all time. But more on that later. WrestleMania 41 is unquestionably the weakest WrestleMania under Triple H’s direction. Sitting far below WrestleMania Goes Hollywood and WrestleMania XL. But let’s see how the matches stack up against each other.
Gunther vs. Jey Uso – World Heavyweight Championship
I won’t sugarcoat it. I hated everything about this match from start to finish. My expectations were low after Gunther couldn’t get anything halfway decent out of Jey Uso at Saturday Night’s Main Event a few months back. But this managed to be somehow worse. And not only because the wrong man won.
The two men have no chemistry together. And Gunther can drag a solid match out of almost anyone. It was a slow, boring slog of heatless movement with no passion or purpose. You wouldn’t know Gunther made Jey watch helplessly as he beat his brother to a bloody pulp just a few weeks ago.
Jey Uso takes the fight to Gunther
And the sheer audacity to have Gunther’s most definitive loss come at the hands of a walking catchphrase who can barely hit a good spear was a sledgehammer to The Ring General’s credibility. And the psychology leading up to his tap out loss made no sense. Jey’s series of offense targeted Gunther’s midsection. So why did he go for a submission targeting the head? And why did Gunther tap immediately?
Awful business from bell to bell. We didn’t know it at the time, but it was a harbinger of what was to come. Without a doubt the worst match of WrestleMania 41, and one of the worst WrestleMania openers of all time. May even be one of the worst WrestleMania matches of all time.
Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez vs. Lyra Valkyria & Becky Lynch – Women’s Tag Team Championship
No matter what happened in this match, it was always going to be overshadowed by the rotten stench of disrespect toward Bayley. One of the hardest working, most respected, and talented female superstars of all time who continues to find herself being shafted by the company. Having her WrestleMania 41 spot pulled the day of the show for an obvious Becky Lynch return.
Becky Lynch & Lyra Valkyria celebrate their newly won titles
The match itself wasn’t even that good. It would’ve been a fine enough Monday Night Raw match. Not even 9 minutes of Lyra Valkyria taking moves until it came time to tag in Becky Lynch and almost singlehandedly win the whole thing. A pretty sad conclusion to Liv Morgan’s past year, and a huge slap in the face to all the hard work both her and Bayley put in week in and week out.
Seeing Becky Lynch come back was cool, and I love Lyra Valkyria so I won’t complain about the glorious bird lady becoming a double champion. But there were so many better ways they could’ve gone about this. Especially in a way that didn’t disrespect two of the hardest working women in the company.
The War Raiders vs. The New Day – World Tag Team Championship
A common criticism with a lot of matches on WrestleMania 41 is “this does not feel like a WrestleMania match.” And that feeling was no stronger than it was here. As two teams with no momentum who have been feuding for less than a month fought over the championships of a nearly lifeless division for less than ten minutes.
Xavier Woods gets into it with George Kittle
The New Day had the eyes of the pro wrestling world on them when they betrayed now-former teammate Big E. But the follow-up, or lack thereof, has wasted all of that. Had this match happened a few weeks after that moment instead of a few months, it probably would’ve been a lot better. The War Raiders aren’t much better off. The tag team scene on Raw is so dead they barely get anything to do. So I can’t blame people for not caring.
What makes it worse is that SmackDown had a much better tag title match to offer the show of shows. We missed out on The Street Profits vs. Motor City Machine Guns vs. DIY in a Tables, Ladders, & Chairs match for the WWE Tag Team Championships instead of this empty nothing match.
AJ Styles vs. Logan Paul
AJ Styles has had 9 WrestleMania matches now. And, somehow, his best is still with Shane McMahon. This match had a lot of potential to be something surprising. But it wasn’t. It felt soulless. Like two athletes running through moves. Not like a fight on the biggest show of the year.
Logan Paul and AJ Styles square off
You know there’s a problem when the biggest crowd reaction of the match belongs to someone who isn’t even in it. Karrion Kross singlehandedly carried this feud, and the crowds noticed it too. And Logan Paul is in desperate need of some character development. It’s no longer surprising that he’s good at wrestling. This was his 4th WrestleMania match. It’s time to move past “Wow! Who would’ve guessed he’s so good at this??”
AJ Styles may be the modern Shawn Michaels, but he’s the anti-Mr. WrestleMania. It’s a shame that all of his WrestleMania matches fail to live up to the hype surrounding them, or the level you’d expect considering the talent involved. It really didn’t help that AJ lost this match, either. Considering Logan consistently got the better of him.
Cody Rhodes vs. John Cena – WWE Championship
In the immortal words of The American Nightmare: “Hey Rock! Go f*** yourself.” This had so much potential to be something special. Between everything that had been set up, and the whole concept of this being a battle to save wrestling as a whole. However, we got none of that.
The American Nightmare makes his grand entrance
All we got was a slow, boring main event match that felt like it came from 20 years ago. Nothing that matched the intensity of Cena’s vicious betrayal from Elimination Chamber. Cody wasn’t fighting with a burning desire to protect the industry from someone who wants to ruin it. The match would’ve greatly benefited from a spectacle of a third act, but it barely got into a second act.
And the real kicker was absolute radio silence from The Rock. A guy who seemingly shows up when he wants to and forces the company to bend to his whims. Instead of The Final Boss coming out to weigh the odds in Cena’s favor, we got skinny rapper Travis Scott coming out to his truly awful song that was used as the WrestleMania theme. All the fighting Cody had to do to finish the story. All the odds he had to overcome. And it ends because of Travis Scott. No thank you.
Randy Orton vs. Joe Hendry
It’s a shame that we couldn’t get Randy Orton vs. Kevin Owens. And heartbreaking that Kevin will be out for over a year. But this was a fun “WrestleMania Moment” that worked for me. Especially after Triple H’s explanation for why he chose the TNA World Champion as Randy’s opponent. Opting to swing the pendulum firmly in the other direction and have a fun, crowd pleasing match instead of the intense war KO and RKO were set for.
Joe Hendry appeared at WrestleMania
However, TNA Wrestling’s top champion probably should’ve got more than 3 minutes. I get the mindset that simply being at WrestleMania does a lot for Hendry and TNA. Similarly to him being in the Royal Rumble match. But surely him actually having a good showing in those matches would do more. I won’t argue with him losing. Randy needed a win, and will probably be John Cena’s first title challenger. But I would’ve liked a few more minutes.
I’d like to really quickly recap Joe Hendry’s insane WWE career so far. Show up in NXT to be eliminated from a battle royal in seconds. Return a few weeks later for a brief feud with Gallus. Return a month later to challenge for and fail to with Ethan Page’s NXT Championship. Compete in the Royal Rumble. WrestleMania match against Randy Orton. A self-made star who has more than earned all of this.
Rey Fenix vs. El Grande Americano
This match wasn’t even bad it was just entirely pointless. Rey Fenix just made his WWE debut a few weeks ago, and his first loss comes at the hands of a joke character meant to be a parody of lucha libre. It sucks that Rey Mysterio had to be pulled last minute due to injury, and props to Rey Fenix for stepping up, but surely they could’ve changed the outcome and given the new star the win.
Good Lucha things courtesy of Rey Fenix & El Grande Americano
This match didn’t even go eight minutes, but the two very talented performers were able to fit in a lot of fun stuff. Though nothing they did every really made the match feel like it belonged at WrestleMania. And then El Grande Americano just won. No payoff to the iron plate in the mask. No big unmasking to reveal it’s Chad Gable and then move on. Just a heel win, and that’s it. What was even the point?
And how did this storyline get Chad Gable on WrestleMania, but naturally becoming an incredibly popular underdog with audiences the world over rooting for you to be the one to end Gunther’s legendary Intercontinental Championship run couldn’t get him on the show last year? This company is so backwards sometimes.
Tiffany Stratton vs. Charlotte Flair – WWE Women’s Championship
Unlike seemingly everyone else, my hopes weren’t high for this match. Even back when people were first imagining it when Tiffany was still in NXT. Plus, I’m not a fan of either woman. So getting me to care was always going to be a tall task.
Charlotte Flair looks to make Tiffany Stratton tap out
And then the feud utterly failed to deliver in pretty much every regard. From Charlotte trying to be sympathetic and genuine before turning on the crowds because we’re all tired of her coming back to win titles then leaving as soon as she loses them. To Tiffany begging Charlotte to fight her. To the awkward promos where it constantly felt like Charlotte was going into business for herself. Nothing clicked, and that was reflected in the match.
The two women either had no chemistry, or someone was sandbagging. Because nearly everything they did looked sloppy and rough. I don’t know how to wrestle. But I can tell when a planned move doesn’t go right. And it was all over this match. Nearly 20 minutes of awkward connections and rough spots, with a solid enough match occasionally breaking out in between.
Jade Cargill vs. Naomi
Fun fact: This is the first-ever regular one on one non-title women’s match in WrestleMania history. Yes, it took 41 of them for that to happen. The closest thing we had before that was Liv Morgan vs. Natalya on the WrestleMania 36 pre-show. Before that it was Torrie Wilson vs. Candice Michelle at WrestleMania 22 in a Playboy Pillow Fight. Or Terri Runnels vs. The Kat in a Catfight at WrestleMania 2000. The industry has come a long way.
Naomi tries to quell the storm
Naomi was absolutely the MVP of the whole feud. Cutting heel promos so passionate and refreshing after watching her spend the last 8 or so years as the same stale character that never went beyond “Likes blacklight, has friends.” Fully committing to a delusional and dangerous heel who wholeheartedly believes she was right to drop Jade on a car windshield. Though the feud was hampered by Jade’s character lacking depth, and the removal of Bianca from the story.
However, the match delivered for what it was. It was never in question that Jade was going to win in pretty dominant fashion. But the rather brief road getting there was enjoyable. Jade’s raw strength and power played perfectly against Naomi’s speed and agility. But the match lacked the intensity a feud of this style needed. Hopefully they have a few rematches to reach that next level.
Drew McIntyre vs. Damian Priest – Sin City Street Fight
Drew McIntyre deserved a bigger WrestleMania match after the 2024 he had. I know WWE perceives Damian Priest as a big deal, and the match makes sense given the history between the two last year. But the simple fact is that no one watching wanted this for Drew McIntyre. His one week interaction with LA Knight following the Royal Rumble was more interesting than anything Drew and Damian did.
Drew McIntyre takes a selfie and posts it on X mid-match
However, the two men managed to deliver a fun enough Street Fight that gave Drew a much needed big win. Even if there was nothing “Sin City” about it. No neon signs, roulette wheels, slot machines, none of that. Those extra details would’ve gone a long way, but what we got was far from bad. Despite the fact that Damian Priest has cooled off massively as a result of his truly awful and entirely one-sided feud with Finn Bálor that just refused to end.
It was a fairly standard extreme rules style match that can’t hold a candle to some of the better extreme matches in WrestleMania‘s history, or Drew McIntyre’s bloody war with CM Punk inside Hell in a Cell at Bad Blood last year. Or even Damian Priest’s Street Fight against Bad Bunny from Backlash in Puerto Rico a few years back. Not great, but far from bad.
LA Knight vs. Jacob Fatu – United States Championship
I was really looking forward to this match, even if it didn’t really feel WrestleMania worthy. LA Knight remains one of the most popular stars in the whole company who can bust out a great match at any time. And Jacob Fatu is a superstar in the making. And the match delivered.
Jacob Fatu and LA Knight ready to fight
The two men were fighting an uphill battle from the start, as the crowd were dead quiet after going through about two hours of WrestleMania without a good match to speak of. And most of that time being advertisements. However, they were able to win the fans over with intensity that hadn’t been seen up to that point in the night. Including a killer spot where The Megastar caught The Samoan Werewolf with a BFT mid-moonsault.
The outcome of this one was never in question, but no one seemed to mind. As Jacob Fatu more than earned this title win. And this match was further proof of that. Good stuff all around.
Bron Breakker vs. Penta vs. Finn Bálor vs. Dominik Mysterio – Intercontinental Championship
This match was just a blast from start to finish. Four great wrestlers going full sprint for ten minutes in WrestleMania‘s first Intercontinental Championship fatal four way. A perfect showcase of why the Intercontinental Championship is the “Workhorse Title.”
It was at this moment, Carlito knew…
I can’t really describe how good this match was without just listing all of the different moves and spots. But the beating heart of the match was the entire crowd firmly latching onto Dominik Mysterio as their pick to win. And the eruption when he actually did. A huge moment for one of the most promising stars of the future.
Bron Breakker and Penta had a WrestleMania debut they can both be proud of, and Finn & Dominik walked one step closer to the inevitable Judgment Day split that’s months overdue. A great match from start to finish, though another five minutes would’ve brought it to another level.
IYO SKY vs. Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley – Women’s World Championship
You could flip these last two and I don’t think anyone would argue with you. WrestleMania 41 provided us with two all-timer triple threat matches, and I think this one is just slightly less good than the other. Though I’m sure personal preference relies heavily on how you weigh in-ring action against storytelling and dramatics.
IYO SKY poised to strike Rhea Ripley
IYO, Bianca, and Rhea are three of the greatest women’s wrestlers in the world, so it’s no surprise they tore the house down in their opening match on Sunday. Even if the story getting there was a little less than desired at times. All three women looked like megastars in Las Vegas, and showed why they all belong in the positions they’re in. And IYO SKY winning was absolutely the right call.
Triple threats are really WrestleMania‘s secret weapon. This match. The next match. Gunther/Sheamus/Drew from WrestleMania 39. Miz/Rollins/Bálor from WrestleMania 34. Charlotte/Sasha/Becky from WrestleMania 32. Orton/Batista/Bryan from WrestleMania XXX. HHH/Michaels/Benoit from WrestleMania XX. And this one may have been better than all of those.
CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins
They really struggled to build up to this match for some reason. A match featuring three of the biggest stars in wrestling, but the story just wasn’t clicking. Everything they did made someone feel like the odd man out. And the weird pivot from Seth Rollins believing CM Punk needed to be exterminated and Roman Reigns kept getting in his way, to whether Paul Heyman likes Roman or Punk more, was strange.
There’s always a Plan B
But none of that mattered as soon as the bell rang, because all three men killed it. Wrestling with the intensity and sheer hatred that makes for a great WrestleMania main event. Piling on big move after big move, spot after spot, all while leaving time in between to breathe and tell all the different stories of the three men involved. Seth Rollins continuing to be reliably great. CM Punk showing he isn’t taking his first WrestleMania main event lightly. And Roman Reigns showing off just how good he is at making us forget how good he is.
And then the twist at the end. Paul Heyman betraying his best friend, and his Wiseman. Aligning with Seth Rollins as he sells his soul to “protect the future of wrestling.” WWE so often sacrifices match quality for the sake of a story, but this was the perfect marriage of the two. An instant classic of a match that we’ll be feeling the fallout of for months to come.
