WWE Wrestlemania 41 Night 1 is in the books, and for the most part WWE’s signature event was (outside of the main event) a fairly pedestrian affair. Nothing on here was egregiously bad, nor was anything (again outside of the main event) particularly great.
This felt like an episode of Monday Night RAW, except it was set in a football stadium and not an arena.
Matches, for the most part, lacked the juice and emotion of the previous Wrestlemanias. This felt like matches for the sake of having a match, and the crowd seemed to respond in kind. They did their usual pops for entrances, signature spots and finishes, but there were long periods of time where they seemed bored out of their minds. And there’s a good reason for that — so many of these matches felt like TV matches with bigger production values. No stakes, no emotion.
Again, the main event is a different animal. The three-way dance between Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and CM Punk had a big fight feel and the men in the ring (and Paul Heyman) delivered. So, simply put, this was a one match show. Let’s get into the results of WWE Wrestlemania 41 Night 1.
“Main Event” Jey Uso defeats “The Ring General” Gunther to become the new WWE Champion
Gunther kept Jey Uso in this match, and unfortunately it felt like too often “The Ring General” was wrestling down to “The Main Event.” Gunther’s patented thunderous chops felt and sounded very muted. Spots felt very spammy and overdone. However, since this opened things up the crowd was ready to eat up even the most lukewarm of action. The idea of having Jey use Gunther’s moves against was actually pretty clever … until he quickly tapped the champ out with a sleeper. Way too easy, and it made Gunther look pretty weak.
The New Day beat The War Raiders to become the new WWE Tag Team Champions
The crowd went mild for this one outside of the finish. The “New” New Day heel turn was excellent, but unfortunately they turned heel on Big E — someone who cannot wrestle. Since then their heel run has been fairly mediocre as they have no one with any juice that they can work against … including The War Raiders. Ivar showed out big time with his big man agility. However, everyone else in the match never got out of first gear. The New Day seemed way slower than normal, maybe that’s their new heel style. Unsurprisingly, The “New” New Day cheated to win, and the crowd gave a courtesy pop. Easily, could’ve been saved for RAW.
Jade Cargill beat Naomi
Another TV match given a Wrestlemania spot. This match makes zero sense. Jade was taken out by Naomi. Jade got revenge on Naomi not once, but twice. So why are we having this match? Naomi’s new entrance is great, while Jade’s is essentially her AEW one. This match was fairly generic with little crowd noise. They then did a few spots where Jade countered Naomi’s offense with power counters which the crowd enjoyed. This included the end when she powered out of the Rings of Saturn, viciously powerbombed Naomi and then hit Jaded. If you’ve seen Jade Cargill once, you’ve seen this match before. It was okay at best. Naomi deserves better as she’s now once again beaten and directionless.
Jacob Fatu beat LA Knight for the US Title
Jacob Fatu was always going to win this. However, the big issue was that this match went way too long and LA Knight got in way too much offense. This felt a bit counter-intuitive … shouldn’t the babyface be working from underneath, not the heel challenger? The other issue is that LA Knight’s offense is from your standard WWE punch kick with one big move pack. He doesn’t have the dynamic moves to be a threat to Fatu, so the crowd didn’t really buy Knight in control. When Big Jake got control back the crowd came alive. He’s destined to be a WWE world champ by year’s end.
El Grande Americano (obviously Chad Gable) defeated Rey Fenix
So WWE announces they purchased the lucha libre promotion AAA (totally not a knee jerk reaction to AEW announcing they’re running Arena Mexico in June). They talk about how important the promotion is, and feature the former owners and its biggest star Vikingo before the match. So do they do? They have a white guy doing a luchador impersonation defeat the brand new hot luchador and former multi-time AAA title holder Rey Fenix with a loaded mask. Classic WWE. This match could’ve been great and “Americano” hit a great 450 senton. Otherwise, this felt like another TV match given too big of a stage, and the results were mid as hell.
Tiffany Stratton beat Charlotte Flair to retain the WWE Women’s Title
This one was bowling shoe ugly in the most positive way possible. The ugliness and messiness of the match really leant to the hatred and vitriol between these two. Tiffany definitely will need dental work after this one. Charlotte still needs to work some of the rust off, but she did a solid ass job here. Stratton more than proved she can hang and lay it in. It was truly a shock to see “The Queen” not come out on top here.
Seth Rollins defeated Roman Reigns and CM Punk
Match of the Night. Was it a low bar for them to hurdle? Yes, it was. However, that doesn’t mean this match wasn’t good. Now, was there too much monologuing by Roman Reigns in the match? Yes. Were there a bit too many histrionics from Paul Heyman? Yes. However, this match still delivered on its hype. This felt like a match between three guys who hate each other, want to hurt each other and want the win in order to score bragging rights over the other. Easily, this was CM Punk’s best WWE performance to date. Seth Rollins can do this stuff in his sleep; he’s that naturally talented. Roman in the role of a chief without a tribe was excellently done and I loved his desperate violence throughout (the ultra white teeth do bother me though). The end was a bit melodramatic, but I liked that the melodrama was weaponized by Heyman when he turned on Roman. Seth committing another “robbery” of Reigns in a Mania main event will make for good TV and hopefully a big one-on-one between the two.
WWE Wrestlemania 41 Night 1 is now streaming on Peacock.
