Let me save you the diplomatic framing: WrestleMania 42 was not one event. It was two nights with completely different identities, different energy levels, and wildly different levels of quality. Night 1 was a glorified SmackDown taping that happened to take place in Allegiant Stadium. Night 2 was the WrestleMania everyone came to Las Vegas to see. The problem is WWE keeps packaging these nights together and calling it a complete show, and this year it was not. Not even close.
Night 1 had issues from the opening bell. The six-man tag between the Usos, LA Knight, and the makeshift team of Logan Paul, Austin Theory, and IShowSpeed was fine for a Thursday night in February. As the opening match of WrestleMania, it was a joke. Seven minutes. No real near-falls. No real drama. Speed was fine for a streamer trying wrestling for the first time, and the post-match splash through the table gave the crowd a moment, but that pop belonged to the post-show angle, not the match itself. The match was nothing. Putting that on the grandest stage of them all as your opener told you everything you needed to know about how Night 1 was going to feel.
Then there was Jacob Fatu against Drew McIntyre in the unsanctioned match, which delivered on the violence but not much else. These two clearly hate each other in kayfabe, and the stipulation was appropriate for the level of animosity built into the feud. But the match peaked where it should have been building. McIntyre kicking out of the moonsault was a strong moment, and Fatu winning was the right call, but the whole thing felt more like a pay-per-view mid-card brawl than a WrestleMania showstopper. Good match. Not great. Not memorable in the way these things need to be.
Seth Rollins and Gunther was the best Night 1 had to offer outside of the main event, and it was still not the transcendent performance either man is capable of on this stage. Both of them have had five-star outings at WrestleMania before. This was not that. Gunther winning was the right outcome, and Rollins had his usual bag of tricks working, but the crowd energy was inconsistent and the match never truly hit the level you know they can reach together. Good. Not great. Which is a strange thing to say about two of the best workers on the roster sharing a WrestleMania ring.
And then there was the Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton main event, which should have been better than it was. These two have nearly two decades of history to draw from. Instead, the match got muddied by the Pat McAfee involvement and dragged through a slow first half that the crowd never fully bought into. Rhodes retaining was the right call. Orton betraying McAfee after the match was well-executed and gave the night its most memorable post-match moment. But this was not a WrestleMania main event that anyone will be quoting for years. It was fine. And fine is not good enough when you are closing Saturday night in Las Vegas.
The commercials during Night 1 did not help either. Multiple reviewers clocked only about 1 hour and 22 minutes of actual in-ring action across a four-hour broadcast, which is an indefensible ratio for the biggest show of the year. Momentum got cut repeatedly, and in a live wrestling environment momentum is everything. You cannot build a crowd and then drop them into an ad break and expect to get them back at the same level. It happened more than once, and it was maddening.
Night 2 was a completely different experience from the first match. The Intercontinental Championship ladder match featuring Penta, Je’Von Evans, Dragon Lee, JD McDonagh, Rusev, and Rey Mysterio was an absolute barn burner. Every single person in that match had their moment. Evans was electric, bouncing around that ring like a pinball and delivering an OG Cutter to Rusev off the top of a ladder that will be on highlight reels for years. McDonagh took a Mexican Destroyer off the top of a ladder from Penta that could have legitimately ended him. Rey Mysterio, at 51 years old with bad knees, performed like he was 30. Penta retaining was the right call, and with that win he became only the second man ever to retain the Intercontinental Championship in a WrestleMania ladder match, joining Razor Ramon from WrestleMania X. That match was one of the best ladder matches WWE has put on in a very long time, and it set the tone for a Night 2 that never let the crowd down.
PENTA RETAINS THE IC TITLE!!! 🏆 @PENTAELZEROM
The FIRST HOUR of #WrestleMania is LIVE RIGHT NOW on ESPN!
— WWE (@WWE) April 20, 2026
Going into the main event, Reigns set the tone himself. No long video packages. No 20-minute promo. Just a single tweet that told you exactly what Sunday night was going to be.
No More Words. No More Lies. No More Hypocrisy. Tonight We Just Fight. #WrestleMania
— Roman Reigns (@WWERomanReigns) April 19, 2026
The Roman Reigns and CM Punk main event was the match of the year. There is no debate on that. These two went out there and had a legitimate epic, the kind of match you remember exactly where you were watching when it happened. Punk bled. Reigns nearly went down multiple times. Punk threw everything at him, including a low blow that told you how desperate things had gotten, and Reigns absorbed it all and hit a spear to walk out of Las Vegas as champion. The storytelling was immaculate. The pacing was perfect. Reigns doing it without any outside interference made it feel earned in a way his previous reigns never had the chance to be.
The payoff was the post-match social media exchange, where Reigns dropped the character work for long enough to actually credit Punk for what they built together.
Despite All The Shit You’ve Put Me Through Over The Years, I Can Honestly Say Under Those Bright Lights… We Made Magic. I Still Hate You, But Last Night Will Live Forever. ☝🏽 #WrestleMania
— Roman Reigns (@WWERomanReigns) April 20, 2026
I’ll be honest: I was not happy about Reigns winning initially. After everything Punk has been through to get to that main event spot, part of me wanted to see him walk out with the belt. But then Raw the next night happened, and Jacob Fatu showed up to immediately challenge Reigns for the title. If that is the direction we are headed, with Reigns as a motivated, present champion taking on fresh challengers, suddenly the result makes a lot more sense. A fully engaged Roman Reigns at the top of the card is one of the most compelling things WWE can put on television, and the potential feuds in front of him, whether that’s Fatu, Oba Femi, Seth Rollins, or Gunther, are all genuinely exciting.
WrestleMania 42 is not a simple grade. If you only watched Night 1, you felt ripped off. If you only watched Night 2, you were thrilled to be a wrestling fan. The gap in quality between the two nights was enormous, and WWE needs to reckon with the fact that the two-night format only works when both nights bring the same level of effort and execution. Night 2 did its job and then some. Night 1 felt like a placeholder. That is not good enough for the biggest show of the year, and the passionate wrestling fan in me wants WWE to hold itself to a higher standard than what Saturday delivered.
Night 2 saved WrestleMania 42. But it should not have needed to.
