WrestleMania 40: Winners and losers

Showcase of the Immortals has concluded for the 40th time. For 40 years, WWE has planned WrestleMania as their version of a season finale, and this year’s one did not disappoint. From the opening bell of NXT Stand and Deliver to the finale of WrestleMania night two, the match had both importance and gravity. Let’s take a look at some of his Immortals winners and losers this week.

Winner: Cody Rhodes vs. Night 2 Main Event

WWE held its own version of “Avengers: Endgame” in the main event Sunday night, with Cody Rhodes facing Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship in a “Bloodline Rules” match. In other words, anything and anyone can disrupt it. From the moment the bell rang, it felt like this was going to be a big fight. Rose and Reigns’ orchestral entrance had the grandeur of a superhero finally facing off against a great villain in a fateful rematch, and the two did not disappoint in the ring. It’s clear that both men know each other’s wrestling styles, and Reigns’ ability to physically pace the match while talking trash is the perfect heel move. Rose is phenomenal as a babyface and a good guy who won’t stop fighting despite all the obstacles.

Now let’s talk about interference. Rose and Seth Rollins lost a tag team match on night one, so anyone could interfere and help Reigns or Rose. We essentially got a character from Bloodlines lore in the run-in. Will Jimmy Uso come to the rescue of the Tribal Chief? Jey comes out and knocks Jimmy off the WrestleMania stage through a table. Will solo chicoa make its presence felt? John Cena jumped out and avenged his loss to Sicore at Crown Jewel last year, when he was tabled by Sicore. The Rock, Seth Rollins, The Undertaker. All appeared during the match and united to help or defeat Bloodline.

Along the way, my favorite moment of WrestleMania weekend comes. Reigns gets in the ring with a chair, but she faces two options. Either he punches Cody Rhodes or he punches Rollins to get revenge for 10 years of suffering. Reigns chose Rollins, confirming that her hatred led to his ultimate downfall. Rose wins and the story ends. This was a movie from beginning to end, with every intervention and movement telling the story. That’s a terrible way to do a main event.

Loser: Seth Rollins

This has nothing to do with losing to Drew McIntyre in a world heavyweight title fight. It was always going to happen. Drew, who is in the midst of a bloody feud with CM Punk, didn’t plan on quitting just because he didn’t win the belt.

For me, the worst part of Rollins’ weekend happened during the second night’s main event, and more specifically, how flat his big moments felt. During this crazy overbooked procession of everyone and their brothers getting into the ring to save Roman or Cody, we had The Shield’s music hit like a ton of bricks.

Now, deep down we knew Jon Moxley wasn’t going to be in it, but that music still carries a lot of weight.Rollins has more history with Reigns in WWE Anyone No matter who was involved in that main event, it was a complete mess due to mixes and surprises, sloppy camera work, and bad timing.

All we saw was Rollins slide into the ring in his old Shield gear and get a chair thrown in his face. That was it. Seth received the same treatment as a sad opening act who starts running to the music but falls into laughter within three seconds. It was made even worse by the fact that Seth appeared to be seriously injured on the spot, but also because his eyes were swollen and completely closed as he stood to celebrate Cody’s victory. It was barely visible on camera.

Rollins is one of the most muscular and charismatic men WWE has ever put in the main event picture. He’s a self-starter in a way that a lot of top-level manufactured talent aren’t. The Rock, Cena, and Undertaker ended up being in the match (for some reason) because he deserves a lot more than being put on the back burner in that match.

Winner: Sami Zayn

In a perfect world, this would be Sami Zayn defeating Roman Reigns to win the championship in 2023, but I’m going to seize his WrestleMania moment by taking the Intercontinental Title from Gunther. .

I was able to write a novel out of respect for Sami as a wrestler and as a man. At a time when many people are deathly afraid of hurting their meal ticket, he’s unabashedly dignified outside the ring and isn’t afraid to stand up for what he thinks is important. . The Sami for Syria movement as a whole has carried out important work to reach refugees, children and humanitarian aid into the country. And he continues to stand with the Palestinian people and raise awareness of the harm being done to innocent civilians in Gaza.

This background is important because in the old WWE, this kind of thing could be taken off the card suddenly. Instead, he got the biggest win of his WWE career.

It also helped that Sami vs. Gunter was an absolute banger. It was the best pure wrestling match of the weekend and both men looked like a million bucks. This would allow Sami to remain an important fighter at the top of the middle card, while also giving Gunther the opportunity to pursue a world title, which seems like the logical next step for him. It seems to me.

To me, this was the #1 match of Mania and was more emotional than Cody winning the title.

Loser: The Rock

This is James. He mentions it as a preface because he doesn’t want to drag down his hatred for JP.

era of attitude was The Rock for me. Most of my teenage friend group gravitated toward Austin, but The Rock was always my buddy. I still have the tattered Brahma Bull shirt and the weird jersey from when WWE made sports jerseys out of all their wrestlers.I mention it to say it Really I love The Rock…most of the time.

Everything The Rock did this weekend was bad for me.

It has nothing to do with The Rock being a heel leading up to this or how transparent and manufactured it felt. This whole injection of Dwayne felt as if it happened because he was a WWE executive and the company needed a mainstream pop in the main event.Not because he actually does it. I wanted To participate in this.

Everything The Rock did was uninspired and soulless. His match on night one was great, but lacked any real intensity. On the second night, he almost endured a smoldering look and a chokeslam than what his eyes showed. I was particularly offended by Pat McAfee’s exaggerated and exaggerated commentary on “The Final Boss,” when in reality he was an old wrestler trying to disguise his interest in what he really wanted to be. The idea was to strip the belt from Roman, who just felt it, but the fans hated the idea so much that they couldn’t go through with it.

This didn’t work for me, sorry.

Winner: NXT 2.0

NXT 2.0 was initially met with harsh reviews. It wasn’t the black and gold NXT of old, which was made up of independent wrestlers signed to the WWE brand. This NXT was primarily made up of former college athletes, and the hope was that with the time and care given to them in NXT, they could become the next Roman Reigns or Bianca Belair.

Well, that gamble paid off in a big way this weekend, as NXT 2.0 stole the show on Saturday. His second brand of WWE, highlighted by Trick Williams (football player in South Carolina), had cards packed with fun matches and unique WrestleMania moments. Williams and his former friend Carmelo Hayes co-main evented, becoming the first black men to main event on a WrestleMania weekend card. Oba Femi (who threw shot put at the University of Alabama) defended his title in a fun triple threat match with some big guys hitting hard. Roxanne Perez, one of the former NXT 2.0 stars, has regained the Women’s NXT Title. Finally, Eva Reign (whose father is the famous Brahma Bull) introduced the new NXT Women’s Midcard Title, another belt on the ever-growing roster. This weekend proved that the risk they took to change NXT was an overall success.

Loser: Drew McIntyre

Imagine being a hater so focused on hate that you lose the title seconds after winning it. You just remembered Drew McIntyre, who defeated a bruised and battered Seth Rollins to win the World Heavyweight Championship. Instead of celebrating with his family and friends like he originally did, he walked up to the commentary and started badmouthing CM Punk, who was commentating during the match. The two had some beef, but McIntyre went one step too far, allowing Punk to beat him up. The Judgment Day music was a hit, and just minutes after McIntyre finished, a new World Heavyweight Champion was crowned. Let this be a lesson to our children. Try not to get too far ahead of your main goal.

Winner: Jason Kelce and Lane Johnson

Wrestlemania is Had made Moments like the one we saw on Night 1 where two legendary Eagles players became luchadores for a night and helped Rey Mysterio win. I put it that way because “Jason Kelce helped Rey Mysterio beat his son” sounds really dark.

This is exactly how I want WWE to feature surprise guests. We don’t need people to wrestle full matches that don’t require them to be in the ring, but we want small, iconic moments that mean everything to the host city and will be remembered forever. Kelce and Johnson taught us that.

There were reports before Mania that Kelce was in contact with WWE, but it was still a really fun surprise.

10/10 — No notes.