Written by Tyler Yasembousky | All Yaz Wrestling
WrestleMania 42 Night 1 took place Saturday, April 18, 2026, at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada in front of over 50,000 and it might just have been the most “MID” Night one ever? The whole show felt like a glorified Saturday Night’s Main Event, with a few title changes and returns.
Here are my live reactions and thoughts to everything that happened during each match.
Cody Rhodes def. Randy Orton to retain the WWE Undisputed Championship (22:40).
- I loved both men’s entrances for Wrestlemania – even though I wish Orton’s entrance had been more special, the viper animation was absolutely sick.
- I’ve been a Randy Orton mark since day one and 14-year-old me thought that 2004 Randy Orton was the man in Evolution.
- I hate that TKO involved Pat McAfee in this because Randy and Cody didn’t need the nonsense.
- Cody fought fire with fire – he used an eye poke and a low blow to get even.
- The commentary team kept making it clear that he was justified in his actions, making it clear that at no point was this a “heel” turn.
- Except for a few kickouts and finisher spots, there was nothing exciting about the match—nowhere near WrestleMania main event caliber.
- The most important part of the match was once it was finally over.
- Randy hit Cody with the WWE championship and hit him with a punt to the head.
- Hopefully with Randy hitting a RKO on Pat, that means we won’t get that stupid celebrity tag team match at Backlash.
- I’m hoping with the attack after the match we are about to see a more serious feud and we get another Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes Match with Orton most likely walking out with the belt.
- I think this feud will continue throughout the summer, ending ultimately at Summerslam is my guess.
Liv Morgan def. Stephanie Vaquer to become the new Women’s World Champion (6:50).
- AND NEW!
- We got that horrible new theme song… but I did love Liv’s entrance.
- I felt like Steph and Liv was either gonna be a disaster or gonna be really good. It felt like it could legit be either one.
- Somehow, it somehow was neither and it was mediocre.
- My hopes weren’t even that high, but it was still an underwhelming match.
- I can’t believe a World Title feud at WrestleMania is getting only about six minutes.
- Anyway, congrats to Liv—she deserved this win after all the work she’s put into her character over the past couple of years.
Becky Lynch def. AJ Lee to become the new Women’s Intercontinental Champion (8:18).
- AND NEW!
- The Wonder Years played Becky’s theme “live.”
- They played the track before the band was ready as they were apparently supposed to lip-sync, so the band got frantic and started “playing.”
- Same opinion as all the matches so far unfortunately—not a bad match but still not a WrestleMania caliber match.
- It feels like these matches are straight out of a random special episode of RAW.
- Becky winning was obvious here.
- Hopefully, we will get the most anticipated Becky vs. Jessika Carr feud too, because how much longer can we keep hinting at it?
Fatal-4-Way: Brie Bella & Paige def. The Irresistible Forces, Charlotte Flair & Alexa Bliss, and Bayley & Lyra Valkyria to become the new Women’s Tag Team Champions (8:33).
- AND NEW!
- Paige pins Alexa for the win.
- I love Paige, but I hate they just gave her a belt right off the bat.
- They did so good with the women’s tag division this year, but every year they just put the belt on a random put together team at Wrestlemania.
- What’s the point of trying to make this division if every year, a makeshift team is just going to win it anyway?
- I would have been good with any other team winning honestly.
- With that said, I’m very happy for Paige as she got a well-deserved pop tonight.
Gunther def. Seth Rollins via referee stoppage with an assist from Bron Breakker (15:47).
- MATCH OF THE NIGHT
- Gunther and Rollins was fantastic
- Even with the Bron Breakker spot not making sense because the ref should have seen it.
- He wouldn’t have been checking on Gunther for that long.
- Even with that it was still good!
- They didn’t waste one minute of their time, they got the action started immediately and went at that high pace throughout the match.
- I wish the match had gone 20+ minutes with no interference (with Bron returning on RAW), but I guess they couldn’t give Seth a clean loss in their mind.
- I’m a big fan of both guys and this match completely delivered in my opinion.
- Now the ending of the match went a little off the rails.
- Bron was gonna spear Rollins in this “epic” spear, but they didn’t connect right and it looked ridiculous.
- There was too much time and it looked like Seth could have moved at any moment.
Unsanctioned Match: Jacob Fatu def. Drew McIntyre (14:08).
- Underwhelming match honestly.
- I was expecting more but I knew because it was placed on ESPN 2, they wouldn’t do anything too extreme.
- The biggest win of Fatu’s career.
- He will probably go after the World Title post-Mania.
- It was a good match, but I still expected more, considering it was an Unsanctioned match and essentially a blood feud.
LA Knight and The Usos defeat IShowSpeed and The Vision to kick off WrestleMania 42.
- I think starting with this match was actually the best decision.
- This match wasn’t anything special, but it got IShowSpeed over as a babyface.
- While it wasn’t anything to write home about, it did have the biggest spot of the entire night.
- Logan Paul is furious and turns on Speed after the match.
- The Usos and Paul make the save.
- They set up Logan Paul on the announce table and Speed hits a huge frogsplash on Paul to get him through the announce table.
- I think we might even get a Logan Paul vs. IShowSpeed match down the line.
