WrestleMania 40 Night 1 Review: A Great Start And Great Ending

Night 1 of WrestleMania 40 is officially in the books, a show that had some interesting decisions, questionable pacing, great, good and lacklustre action in between, overall it was a fun show to watch, it had the highs and lows that any big show can have so here’s our review of WrestleMania 40 Night 1.

Women’s World Championship: Rhea Ripley vs Becky Lynch

IMG Credit: Sporting News

Becky’s entrance shows snippets and voice bits from her new book, Rhea gets a live performance of her theme from Motionless In White. Rhea controlled the match early but Becky targeted Rhea’s injured left hand, Lynch hitting big moves to Ripley outside the ring, Rhea uses her strength to counter Becky’s attempts to attack her injured arm. Becky locks in the Disarm-Her, Rhea reverses with an electric chair to the outside of the ring, great back and forth in the closing stages, Rhea wins with a Riptide into the turnbuckles and then another Riptide in the centre of the ring to get the pin and remain champion. Great call to have Rhea win clean with no shenanigans, there’s some bigger matches for her down the road, suspect Becky could be going off TV for a while, very good opener.

Match Rating: 4/5

Six-Pack Ladder Match for the Undisputed Tag Team Championship: The Judgement Day vs #DIY vs New Catch Republic vs The Awesome Truth vs A-Town Down Under vs The New Day

IMG Credit: The Independent

Fun filled ladder spots with every team given a chance to showcase, Bate & Dunne doing simultaneous moonsaults off the ladder to everyone, R-Truth cosplaying as John Cena was amazing, had the entire crowd eating it up, Waller & Theory chickening their way to win the SmackDown titles was a genius move. Kofi delivering a dive to everyone off the ladder, Gargano & Ciampa delivering big finishers through tables and off the ladder, R-Truth wins the RAW titles the result the crowd wanted. It was what it was, nothing truly spectacular, it was mostly a spot filled match that had good moments in it but nothing too memorable but overall a decent showing with two clever choices of winners and absolutely the right decision to split the Tag Team titles.

Match Rating: 3/5

Rey Mysterio & Andrade vs Dominik Mysterio & Santos Escobar

IMG Credit: Yahoo

Huge double crossbody from the top to the outside from Rey and Andrade, heels work over Rey for a while, good callbacks to Rey/Dom’s Mania match from last year, Rey gets beat down until Andrade gets the hot tag and takes control, chaos between the factions outside the ring, including some big dives from everyone, finish sees Dom’s attempts to use a chair thwarted by two huge men in masks, revealed to be Jason Kelce and Lane Johnson of the Philadelphia Eagles, Rey hits a double 619 and a splash on Dom to get the win. The finish seemed very abrupt and out of nowhere, also curious that there was no surprise turn from Carlito which was heavily hinted at, maybe that’ll be saved for down the road, a decent match.

Match Rating: 3/5

Jey Uso vs Jimmy Uso

IMG Credit: Sony Liv TV

Jey jumps Jimmy before the match starts and dominates most of the match showing his development of his character over these years in this story, showing as being able to stand on his own without the Bloodline, batters Jimmy with super kicks for days. Jimmy tries to beg off and sucker Jey into a trap by apologising to him. But in the end Jey finishes Jimmy off with an Uso splash, nice to see they didn’t drag it out into a long affair for the sake which they have fallen into the trap of doing in recent years. This will definitely divide opinions, some might say it underdelivered, the fact they essentially used the same moves on each other didn’t help, but the story was clear, in that Jey has elevated himself and created his own career while Jimmy has been left in the past. I can understand if some felt it was a bit underwhelming action wise but overall a solid showing from both.

Match Rating: 3.5/5

Damage CTRL vs Bianca Belair & Naomi & Jade Cargill

IMG Credit: New York Post

A simple match but it was done with one job in kind and it achieved that. This was a showing for Jade Cargill, Damage CTRL picked off Bianca and Naomi for most of the match and would always get cut off when they would try a comeback and then as soon as Jade tagged into the match, the match turned on it’s head. All the babyfaces hit their big moves including Bianca landing a massive whiplash of her hair on Asuka that was heard by everyone, Jade picks up the win hitting her Jaded finisher on Dakota. Jade was clearly presented at the star and it’s obvious they’re shooting her too the moon, the crowd was super into her too, she had the star attraction and presence about her and hopefully big and better things to come and have mega matches against Bianca and many others in the future.

Match Rating: 3.25/5

Intercontinental Championship: Gunther vs Sami Zayn

IMG Credit: Daily Mail

The Rocky story they’ve been doing between Sami Zayn and Chad Gable was brilliant including the backstage interactions before the match, the interactions with Sami’s family and Kevin Owens showed how much belief Sami’s family and friends have in him. Gunther battered Sami most of the match, lethal chops from the start, then just hit powerbombs and splashes from the top rope, taunting Sami’s wife at ringside, until Sami did the massive comeback, Sami’s selling the whole match was so believable, same applies to Gunther, he makes everything so believable with every move he delivers, the building frustration at not putting Sami away just built to the ending sequence so well. Sami busts out the brainbuster from the top rope which was insane, Sami hits back-to-back Helluva Kicks, Sami Zayn wins the IC title and ends Gunther’s reign as champion at 666 days. Great match and Sami pulling out the amazing win was a genuine surprise but it was brilliantly done, take a moment to appreciate Gunther delivering the greatest IC title reign in history, hopefully he slowly now transitions into the World title scene later this year.

Match Rating 4.25/5

Cody Rhodes & Seth Rollins vs The Rock & Roman Reigns

IMG Credit: Hindustan Times

Great main event, went at their own pace and slowly built up the tension and stakes into the match, Rock didn’t look out of place or out of breath considering it’s his first real wrestling match for 11 years and more than held his own, Cody/Seth/Roman delivered as we’d expect them to do. Felt like an old school attitude era PPV main event match, refs giving some leeway as they brawled on the outside, heel Rock is simultaneously hated and beloved in equal measures, there were enough story elements and teases for night 2, mostly the spear from Reigns on Rock which will absolutely come into play at some point, Cody had Roman beaten twice in the match before Rock stopped him, first by pulling the ref out of the ring and then right at the end they replay the finish of Roman/Cody last year when Cody hits the double Cross-Rhodes and goes for the 3rd one but Rock lashes Cody with the weight belt to prevent Roman from losing. Roman then spears Cody but Rock insists Reigns tag him in, which he eventually does, then Rock hits Cody with a spinebuster and then gets the win with the People’s Elbow. Rock winning the match pinning Cody is what everyone felt would happen, it’s seems a sure sign that Cody wins on Night 2, we hope and pray, and that Cody/Rock title feud is surely set for later in the year, maybe at SummerSlam.

Match Rating 4.25/5

Overall Thoughts:

A fun show for the most part, the opener was great and the last two matches were both fantastic for different reasons. The middle portion of the show did fall a bit flat but nothing was bad or ruined the show, a very good Night 1. For the first in the two night era of WrestleManias, Sunday has a shot at being the better show than Saturday, it should be an absolute barn burner and Roman/Cody is going to feel like a movie and please, please… Please WWE, get the ending right this time and… Finish The Story.

Overall Rating: 3.5/5