WrestleMania 41 Night One Thoughts and Feelings

The first night of WWE’s WrestleMania 41 event concluded last night, otherwise known as WrestleMania Saturday, and I wanted to check in on how I did with my predictions. Even though I’ve been watching wrestling for more than 30 years, I have never considered myself great at predicting outcomes, partly because my predictions are a mix of what I think will happen and what I think should happen, and partly because pro wrestling can be unpredictable! I’ll also be peppering in my thoughts, feelings, and reactions to each match as I go along.

Gunther came in as the World Heavyweight Champion defending against Jey Uso. My prediction was Jey Uso, and indeed, Jey Uso won! After Jey won the Royal Rumble, and with the story they’ve been telling that Jey can’t match up to Gunther and was already 0-3 against him, there was no way Jey was losing. Still, I never would have predicted that Jey would win by making Gunther, of all people, tap out to the sleeper submission hold. I liked the story they told in the match of Jey mirroring Gunther’s offense, including the sleeper, to beat Gunther. What I didn’t particularly like was how quickly Gunther tapped out once in the sleeper. They should have played into that drama longer. Also, while the match was quite good, I’m not sure it hit that extra gear to really pull me in emotionally, even to the same level their Saturday Night’s Main Event match earlier in the year did. All of that said, I was so happy for Jey to go from being a twin (“which one are you?”) in perhaps the greatest WWE tag team of all time, the Usos, to being a break-out singles star and now, world champion.

The War Raiders came in defending the World Tag Team Championships against The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods). I predicted that the War Raiders would retain on account of Big E, the exiled and rejected member of New Day that Kofi and Xavier turned on to close 2024, costing New Day the match. In other words, I expected that heel turn in December to be paid off here finally. Instead, Kofi and Xavier won by cheating with no Big E involvement. Obviously, that insinuates Big E is not medically cleared to be involved yet. This was a very good Monday Night Raw match, again, not so much a tag team match that reached that next WrestleMania gear, a theme I’ll be harping on as we go along.

Jade Cargill against Naomi is the first women’s single’s match without a title on the line and without archaic stipulations (“bra and panties” matches, for example) in WrestleMania history. I was so happy for those two to get that spot, and it was a well-built story. My prediction was Jade because there was no way Jade was losing her first single’s match at WrestleMania despite Naomi creating this new “use caution” character, which has been great. Jade won, of course. A fantastic match that I hope won’t be forgotten about.

LA Knight defending the WWE United States Championship against Jacob Fatu. I predicted LA Knight because I expected Solo Sikoa to actually cost, whether intentionally or inadvertently, Jacob the match. I know that means I had two screwy finishes on the undercard before we even reached the shenanigans of the main event (which I didn’t predict shenanigans for that finish interestingly), but with the story they’ve been telling with Jacob and Solo, and with Solo not on the card himself, I thought it made sense. Alas, Jacob won clean in his first single’s championship match and his first WrestleMania match to become WWE United States Champion. It was a great 10-ish minute match.

El Grande Americano was originally scheduled to face Rey Mysterio, but Rey was injured the night before on WWE SmackDown. He was replaced in the match by the recently debuted Rey Fenix. I had Rey Mysterio winning, but was unsure where it would go with Fenix. The reason I had Rey winning: Rey would win, establish true lucha libre status, and perhaps unmask El Grande Americano to reveal Chad Gable once and for all. Alas, El Grande Americano won in what has to be one of the better short matches in WrestleMania history (just shy of eight minutes). Of course, he cheated to win, too, using that metal plate in his mask.

Tiffany Stratton came in as the WWE Women’s Champion defending against Charlotte Flair. I expected Tiffany to lose because she would be better on the chase against Flair and it would help Tiffany better establish her babyface character. Instead, she won, defeating Charlotte and retaining the WWE Women’s Championship. I’m not sure about that move. What does Charlotte do now? What does Tiffany do now? Does the feud continue? Also, for those who think Charlotte is selfish and egotistical, she put over the two biggest rising stars at WrestleMania, Rhea Ripley at WrestleMania 39 and now Tiffany here. I’m already seeing people being negative about the match; I thought it was great. Nonetheless, despite being 19 minutes, I’m not sure it reached that next gear to be a show-stealer like the Rhea/Charlotte match was, but I enjoyed it.

Seth Rollins against Roman Reigns against CM Punk (with Paul Heyman by his side paying off the “favor” from November), and I predicted Rollins and was correct in that prediction, albeit, I definitely did not predict how his victory would come to pass. I thought Seth would win by virtue of being the “third wheel,” which is to say, Reigns and Punk would be distracted by their animosity toward each other and focus on Heyman that Rollins would be able to ultimately win. Instead, what happened was Heyman low-blowed Punk and seemed to realign himself with Reigns only to then low-blow Reigns (!!) and align himself with … Rollins?! That effectuated Rollins’ heel turn (and Heyman’s, of course). Heyman betrayed Punk, his longtime friend, and Reigns, the tribal chief, also effectively ending the nearly 5-year Bloodline storyline. Rollins got the last word on the go-home SmackDown prior to WrestleMania and his last words were echoing Heyman, “… that’s not a prediction, that’s a spoiler.” Brilliant. I can’t wait to see where this all goes. I think it was the right direction to go in to give everyone involved a fresh coat of paint, as it were, and I’m exceptionally happy for Seth to not only get another WrestleMania Saturday main event, but to come out victorious. This was an all-time match and in the conversation with the other great triple threat main events at WrestleMania.

Overall then, you’ll notice the two themes threaded throughout my predictions and thoughts: there was nothing bad on the show, only matches that didn’t get an opportunity to hit another gear to be WrestleMania-level great, and two (maybe three) of the matches had outcomes that weren’t exactly memorable or moved the story forward in an interesting way (New Day, Jacob, and Tiffany). Consequently, this is also the first WrestleMania Saturday where I didn’t come off it thinking, “Good luck following that, WrestleMania Sunday.” I think WrestleMania Sunday has the goods to top this. That said, I can already see and sense that this show will be underrated. Again, it was very good with an exceptional main event. I could see it, incidentally given how that one ended, becoming like WrestleMania 31, where people look back on it more fondly as time passes.