On the road to WrestleMania 40 last year, WWE struck gold with Roman Reigns, The Rock, Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins at the centre. The months-long buildup led to a memorable show where Rhodes finally “finished the story” by ending Reigns’ almost four-year reign of terror and winning the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.
This year’s road to WrestleMania 41 has, in comparison, been rockier. Perhaps, 2024 set the bar too high. That’s not to say that the buildup has been terrible, but rather relatively lackluster outside of the main event scene where CM Punk, Rollins and Reigns will close night one and Cody vs John Cena will main event night two.
Women’s division lacklustre
The two-night event will feature four women’s matches: three title matches and one grudge match. This is the first time in 19 years that a non-title women’s match will be a part of WrestleMania, with the last one being a Playboy pillow fight between Torrie Wilson and Candice Michelle at WrestleMania 22.
But Jade Cargill and Naomi’s story has been interesting in the last few months. The former partners became enemies once Naomi turned out to be Cargill’s secret attacker.
Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez will battle Bayley and Women’s Intercontinental Champion Lyra Valkyria for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships. Valkyria and Bayley wrestled each other two weeks ago on Monday Night Raw for the former’s gold, and put on an absolute clinic. It was truly a WrestleMania calibre match. Since then, their chemistry has developed and the match against the tag champions Morgan and Rodriguez. The only downside would be that the newly established Women’s Intercontinental Championship won’t be defended at WrestleMania.
Unfortunately, the women’s world title pictures have been an absolute disaster. The continuous disrespect of the Women’s World Champion Iyo Sky, who’s stuck in a feud between Rhea Rhipley and Bianca Belair, has undermined the champion. That is the story WWE is telling, that the champion is also sick of being disrespected on a weekly basis. But it still hurts the champion’s image to see the three women in a poorly acted corny story. All three wrestlers are main event players but the story hasn’t done them justice this year.
Another disaster WWE has on hand is Charlotte Flair. The legendary Ric Flair’s daughter has been a liability for over six years and WWE is now beginning to realise it. They still messed up big when awarding her another Royal Rumble win this year, which was an undisputedly undeserving victory over wrestlers who have worked harder all year round.
The cycle of Charlotte’s stories in the last few years has looked like this: Get injured, return, win a title, get injured and repeat. And no woman has benefited from wrestling her in years, despite the fact that she is undoubtedly talented in the ring.
This year, Charlotte’s unprofessionalism and dead-in-the-water character work and mic skills were fully exposed by her opponent WWE Women’s Champion Tiffany Stratton and the Chicago crowd a couple of weeks ago. After being booed out of the building by the crowd who wouldn’t let her speak, Charlotte tried to deliberately bury Stratton by mocking her voice and calling her own choice to fight the champion a ‘charity’. But Stratton answered back in an equally personal attack about Charlotte’s multiple divorces, which clearly got under her skin.
It was a disaster of a promo segment, courtesy of Charlotte, who has acted unprofessionally, onscreen and off, numerous times over the years. There is no choice for WWE but to go with Stratton as the winner as Charlotte’s decade-old stagnant shtick is way past its course and the roster doesn’t need her anymore. There are plenty of other women ready to shine and build the division.
Main Event and World Titles
Jey Uso’s Royal Rumble victory shocked everyone in February. His road to WrestleMania has been full of doubts, just like ours, over whether he can defeat the monster World Heavyweight Champion Gunther. Their buildup was underwhelming until the champion destroyed Jey’s brother Jimmy Uso and bathed in his blood. It’s an interesting story where Jey needs to come out on top to solidify his solo run, especially since he has never been able to defeat Gunther before.
The most satisfying moment of WrestleMania this year has to be CM Punk finally fulfilling his dream and wrestling in the main event of the show. The man has wanted and deserved this moment for over a decade and there is going to be no better sight than seeing him walk down the ramp alongside his conflicted best friend Paul Heyman and possibly defeat the former Shield members.
Cena’s heel turn last month shocked the world. However, his limited appearances following the turn and the subsequent promos have been interesting but not exactly earth-shattering as they should have been. In over a month, the turn has already almost been forgotten.
That’s not to say that it’s dead. WWE has plenty of time to slow burn this character, but the threads have been hanging loose and the interest has somewhat waned so far. Still, knowing that it’s WrestleMania, the match dynamics will surely be off the charts with Cena vying for his last and record-breaking 17th world title against Rhodes, who’s been the champion for a year. Watch out for twists and any new tricks by the Final Boss at ‘Mania. Who knows, we might see Cena become the ultimate villain after winning the world title.
Undercard
The new beast on the block Jacob Fatu fights LA Knight for the US title while Bronn Breaker defends his IC title against Penta, Dominik and Finn Balor. The War Raiders defend the World Tag titles against the New Day. Damien Priest vs Drew McIntyre settle their year-long score in a street fight, whereas AJ Styles battles Logan Paul and Rey Mysterio fights it out with El Grande Americano, who is absolutely not Chad Gable under a mask (don’t believe whoever says it’s Gable).
Kevin Owens’ unfortunate neck injury took him out of action, which has led to his match against Randy Orton being cancelled. The rumour, however, is that Aleister Black might make a return and be Orton’s surprise opponent.
Rest assured, it might not be WrestleMania 40, but it’s still a stacked card. WWE, as usual, might have a few surprises up their sleeve to make the weekend even more memorable.
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