Category Archives: Pro Wrestling

WWE Wrestlemania 42: Sunday Night

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Night two was so much better than night one. I do not want to downgrade Saturday night at Wrestlemania 42, because I did enjoy more there than I did not. However, Sunday night was just fabulous.

This is my match order for the night.

#1. Roman Reigns defeated CM Punk for the World Championship.

#2. I-C Ladder match won by Penta.

#3. Oba Femi defeated Brock Lesnar; Brock Lesnar retired.

#4. Demon Finn Balor defeated Dirty Dom Mysterio

#5. Trick Williams defeated Sami Zayn to become US Champion.

#6. Rhea Ripley defeated Jade Cargill for the Women’s World Championship.

Rhea vs. Jade may be my sixth place match, but it was a really great match too. It was one of the best matches I have ever seen from Jade Cargill.

Other moments

  • Danhausen with the Miz, Kit Wilson, John Cena and a bunch of littlehausens. Comedy break.
  • Brock’s retirement came from out of nowhere. It was surprisingly emotional. The hug between Brock and Paul Heyman was so real.
  • The Demon’s entrance was sensational.
  • Crowd felt much more active tonight than on Saturday.
  • Only two champions retained over the weekend: Cody Rhodes and Penta.
  • JD McDonagh took a Mexican destroyer to a ladder, head first. JD was the man in the ladder match.
  • Je’Von Evans showed his skill too with the insanity that he pulled off in the ladder match.

An excellent night of wrestling tonight. The criticism of Saturday with the short matches and too many commercials, was not a problem on Sunday as the pacing of the night was much better (and with fewer matches too). There were commercials, but they did not overpower the matches like they seemed to do on Saturday.

Night Two grade: A

WWE Wrestlemania 42 Weekend: Saturday Night

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Well, night one of WrestleMania 42 is in the books. It was a fine night, with some mixed responses online (but isn’t that always the case?). Here are my thoughts.

Bets Match of the night: Seth Rollins vs. Gunther. Hard hitting. Tense battle. Saw the return of Braun Breakker. Seth and Gunther proved that they could bring it even with a limited time for build.

Worst Match of the Night: Liv Morgan vs. Stephanie Vaquer. It was just too short. They needed another ten minutes of action to really sell this, and the ending with the Judgment Day and their “numbers advantage” is an old fallback to use in this big of a stage.

Best Moment: Return of Paige. Her return had been spoiled, but it did not damage the impact or the pop for the returning Diva.

Worst Moment: Too many commercials. Is this going to be the pay off for being on ESPN? Matches were too short and there were too many ads.

Best entrance: Cody Rhodes: Memories of the Past. His series of outfits led beautifully into the all gold one he came down to the ring in. Special shout out to Seth Rollins literal smoking jacket.

Worst entrance: Liv Morgan. Without a doubt the biggest, most cringe-worth moment was her lip synch of the new song she recorded. The dance moves were okay, but hard to listen to.

Match Order for me

  1. Gunther defeats Seth Rollins
  2. Cody Rhodes defeats Randy Orton- gets punted for his troubles
  3. Jacob Fatu defeats Drew McIntyre
  4. Paige and Brie Bella win Women’s Tag Team Championship
  5. Becky Lynch defeats AJ Lee
  6. The Usos and LA Knight defeats the Vision with iShow Speed.
  7. Liv Morgan defeats Stephanie Vaquer

Other standout moments

  • iShow Speed and his face turn, splashing Logan Paul through the announce table from the top of the post.
  • Randy Orton RKOs Pat McAfee after a failed pin attempt. Why didn’t Pat deliver a fast count?
  • Jelly Roll gave Pat an elbow drop through the announce table before main event gets started.
  • The Hall of Fame class is introduced. Sid Vicious’s kid is there despite the scathing post he put on X
  • Seth’s black contact lenses. They were cool.
  • Bianca Belair returned to announce that she was pregnant! Congrats to Bianca and Montez.
  • John Cena was solid in his two moments. Need Cena and Danhousen before Wrestlemania 42 is over.
  • The Danhousen blimp flying around Allegiant Stadium.

Other bad moments

  • Wonder Years performing Becky Lynch’s theme. Lip synch?
  • Too many commericals.
  • Matches too short
  • Crowd in Las Vegas was not great. They had their moments, but they were not consistently strong.

The second night card always looked stronger and I do think it will deliver at a higher level than night one. WWE really needs to drop the commercials and give their talent more time to shine.

Overall grade for Night one: B

WWE Wrestlemania Weekend: Hall of Fame

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It is Wrestlemania weekend and I am here at my house, waiting for the show to begin. Wrestlemania 42 is in Las Vegas for a second consecutive year.

The weekend always kicks off with the Hall of Fame ceremony. This year, it was on ESPN Unlimited.

The inductees in the class of 2026 were Stephanie McMahon, AJ Styles, Demolition, Dennis Rodman, Sycho Sid, and Bad News Brown. The bodyslam of Andre the Giant by Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania III was inducted as a Moment.

This was on real late last night so I had to go to bed and watch the remaining part of the event on replay on ESPN this morning.

Stephanie McMahon gave a great speech (although the appearance of Linda McMahon nearly made me want to turn the show off). The Demolition, Axe and Smash ( aka Bill Eadie & Barry Darsow) were inducted finally. They have been deserving for years, but conflict with the company prevented their induction until just now. AJ Styles kept his speech short after a long event.

This Hall of Fame ceremony may not have been the most emotional one for me, but it is always fun to see the inductees who always look incredibly full of gratitude, and the WWE superstars in their best outfits.

Bring on Wrestlemania Saturday

WWE Unreal S2

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Last year’s Documentary of the Year at the EYG Year in Review was the first season of WWE Unreal on Netflix. Unreal season two just dropped the other day on the streaming service and it continues to be a fascinating show to watch.

One of the things that is most intriguing is how several of the big individuals featured on this show has specifically spoken out about how tough it is for them to deal with the idea of Unreal. Seth Rollins, CM Punk, Paul Heyman, Cody Rhodes have all spoken on how “old school” they were and how difficult it was for them as performers to accept the idea of Unreal. After years of protecting the secrets of the business, it comes as a hard thing for them to show so much from behind the curtain.

Yet, they were all right there, front and center during this five episode series.

The path from Wrestlemania to SummerSlam was winding, and that was the period of time this show followed. There was a major event that happened during that time… Seth Rollins blew out his knee on Saturday Night’s Main Event. Or did he?

Watching how this secret was worked behind the scenes, with few people actually being “smartened” up about it was amazing. The lengths that they went to in order to fool the world was tremendous. The long term storytelling of the work was next level and to hear the actual moment when it was brainstormed in a creative meeting was something that I did not expect to hear.

The words of Seth and his wife, Becky Lynch, punctuated the storyline. Becky telling how much she hated having to lie to everyone for months, and even confronting Triple H in the ring at one point, chastising him for making her lie, was so fabulous.

Becky Lynch was a definite star of this series. Her moments were engaging, entertaining and emotional. When she was telling the story about returning to the arena where he father had seen her before he died was very powerful.

I especially enjoy hearing the agents such as Michael Hayes, Chris Park, Shane Helms, Jason Jordan etc. and how they work a match backstage. This is one of the best parts of this series.

They also showed moments where the action in the ring did not go the way it was supposed to and we saw the aftermath: from LA Knight not executing the closing sequence in the Money in the Bank ladder match as it was planned to Lara Valkyria’s flubs during the no holds barred match with Becky at SummerSlam. It is a peak behind the curtain which can explain some questions. You may not have noticed anything wring with the ending of the MitB match, but you now can see perhaps why it has taken LA Knight a long time to reach the level the fans want him at.

The stories of Jelly Roll and his path to his first match, R-Truth and his subsequent release and return, Chelsea Green and her rise and fall of a US Champion, Naomi’s new character as a heel, Rhea Ripley and Iyo Sky, the arrival of Penta, among other stories that were highlighted here made this quite the variety.

They announced that Unreal will be coming back in the summer to do a set of episodes dealing with the last few months of John Cena’s career. Sounds great.

WWE Unreal S1 E4, E5

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Spoilers

So I wrapped up the final two episodes of WWE Unreal tonight with two episodes that I thought were the best ones of the series.

Episode 4 featured the heel turn of John Cena, including the parts of the story involving Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Episode 5 was Wrestlemania 41.

There were a lot of cool moments in these episodes. I did enjoy listening to the planning behind the Elimination Chamber where what exactly they wanted to do with the Rock/Cody story was determined. With it leading to John Cena’s heel turn, the writer’s room was pretty cool.

I did enjoy hearing CM Punk give the idea for the ending of the men’s Elimination Chamber where Seth stomps Punk and Cena puts him into the STF. It went exactly as Punk had laid out and hearing that was an awesome moment. Especially with all six participants surrounding Triple H in the planning. It showed how professional these men were.

My favorite part of the entire series was seeing how emotional CM Punk was over finally main eventing Wrestlemania. He had tears in his eyes before heading out for the match. Triple H told him that he had always been a main event performer and you could see how much that meant to Punk. The tears after the match were so powerful too. He spoke about how he had accomplished his lifelong dream and it was not just a written promo. This was Phil Brooks (CM Punk’s real name) speaking from his heart.

The show did mention some of the negatives that lead up to Wrestlemania, such as Jey Uso’s troubles where we saw a ZOOM meeting where creative had discussed not putting the title on him because of his malaise. They also addressed the Charlotte Flair-Tiffany Stratton promo that had gotten too real on an episode of Smackdown.

It still felt as if there could have been more that we saw, but, perhaps the dirt sheets that report all these things, do not necessarily get things correct. The relationship between Rock and Triple H is supposed to be very bad, but there was no even slight example of that in this docu-series.

This was an interesting docu-series and I do believe it was well put together. It was certainly produced carefully, but it was fun seeing the backstage parts.

WWE Unreal S1 E1-E3

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Spoilers

The new docu-series dropped on Netflix today called WWE Unreal. It was a series that takes the audience behind the scenes to see what happens to create the magic of the WWE.

The show focused on the time period starting around the Netflix debut of RAW through Wrestlemania 41.

WWE has always been great at documentaries and there was some definitely controversy about WWE pulling the curtains back. I did enjoy this, but I am going to say that Unreal was clearly too clean… too produced.

What I mean is that we do not really see any negative things that might happen or that was rumored to happen. They did not mention Seth Rollins’s absolute hatred of CM Punk, which feels like would be a major piece of what happened backstage.

However, I did like the few looks into the writer’s room with how they were putting together ideas for the matches.

The first three episodes featured in on CM Punk, Rhea Ripley, Chelsea Green, Charlotte Flair, Bianca Belair, Jey Uso, and Cody Rhodes (in particular with his matches against Kevin Owens).

What we got was fun, but it did feel very homogenized. I like seeing the wrestlers backstage out of character and how they bond with each other. Watching the group of female wrestlers heading out for the Elimination Chamber match praying together was fascinating.

The show did continue to show that this was not just scripted material, but that these men and women truly put their careers on the line every night they go out to perform. They talked about injuries to Rhea Ripley, CM Punk and Charlotte Flair. One of my favorite moments was when Kevin Owens was discussing a spot he had with Cody Rhodes during the ladder match when he gave Cody a fisherman’s buster off the second rope into a ladder. KO was worried because of the way the ladder had been set up and he was afraid Cody’s neck would be injured.

Another great moment was watching the backstage agents dealing with the matches. Chris Park, who used to wrestle under the moniker of Abyss, was in charge of the Netflix RAW debut main event CM Punk vs. Seth Rollins. The match is a great match and will be on a list of the best of the year, but Park was facing pressures because the match was running long. Park, trying to get approval from Bruce Prichard, who was pushing him to get the match to go to the finish. I felt for Chris Park because it felt like he was in trouble despite this being a classic match.

There are two more episodes of this docu-series that have dropped. One of them is focused in on the John Cena heel turn and another one on Wrestlemania 41. Both could have some major news, including an original match lineup for Wrestlemania 41 before things get switched around. This list was released as news from the series so I look forward to finishing up the series.

RIP Hulk Hogan

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I was coming out of the comic shop in Bettendorf this morning when I saw a YouTube notification for John Rocha’s channel. It said “Hulk Hogan is Dead.” I was shocked and immediately started looking though my phone to see what this meant. It was a strange way of putting it so I thought maybe it was that he was metaphorically dead. But I found other articles about the Hulkster’s death from cardiac arrest in a hospital in Florida.

I found myself feeling very strange. I have not felt like this in a long time. When I was young, Hulk Hogan was one of my favorite wrestlers. I would have been a Hulkamaniac for sure. The years in the 1980s helped cement pro wrestling as one of my favorite things to do.

I went to the closed circuit broadcast in Davenport at the Palmer Auditorium for Wrestlemania 3 when Hogan wrestled Andre the Giant. I was so into this match and I was emotionally invested.

However, then I grew up. I started seeing Hogan as not just a character, but a performer who was an asshole. He was racist. He was a politician backstage, keeping others down. Someone who went into the WCW and helped bring that organization down.

I found myself disgusted with Hogan. When he came to RAW on Netflix in LA earlier this year and the crowd booed him out of the building because of his choices that he had made. Some blamed his support of Donald Trump, who he spoke for at the Republican National Convention, for the reaction of the liberal LA crowd, but I think that is too easy of an excuse. I do think the issues from his racist comments to his sex tape to other choices he made is what led to the booing.

Either way, I felt sad and confused about my thoughts of Hulk Hogan.

RIP Terry Bollea.

WWE Evolution (2025)

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It has been well known that the WWE has some of the greatest women wrestlers in the world today. I have sat watching RAW or Smackdown thinking about the sheer number of awesome female performers the company could put out.

They only solidified that by having their all-female PLE Evolution on Sunday night. They had done an all-women PPV (at the time) in 2018 and it was a fun night, but this was at such a level that some are claiming that it is the best show of 2025 so far for the WWE.

There were complaints about the build to the show as the WWE only had two weeks of build and nothing of real note had happened. The WWE was also building to Saturday Night’s Main Event, The Great American Bash and SummerSlam during this stretch so the time was limited.

It just goes to show how remarkable the women of the WWE truly are that they can put on arguably the best event of the year with little background.

Lots of credit goes to the Atlanta crowd because they were hot all night long and that is a key to having a great event.

Show kicked off with a triple threat match for the Intercontinental Championship with champion Becky Lynch defending against Bayley and Lyra Valkyria. It was the match that had the best story behind it and I had even heard some people say that this should main event the show. The three wrestlers had amazing chemistry with each other and it was a spectacular match. All three of them delivered and the first match on the card threatened to steal the night. Becky did this amazingly smooth roll-up finish that I had never seen before. It was so good.

NXT has claimed that they have the best Women’s division in all of wrestling, and they got a chance to show it with NXT Champion Jacy Jayne defending against Jordynn Grace. They had a banger of a match that ended with a heel turn from the newly arrived Blake Monroe. I saw that one coming from the pre-show, by the way. I smelled the heel turn.

The four way tag team title match saw the Judgement Day retain their titles against the Kabuki Warriors, Charlotte Flair & Alexa Bliss and Sol Ruca & Zaria. This was a lot of fun too. The Atlanta crowd was hot for Charlotte, even chanting “We Want Charlotte” at one point. That was amazing considering how hated Charlotte Flair had been since her return. It was a wonderful moment for sure.

This tag match also had one of my favorite sequences of the night as Sol was holding Alexa so Zaria could spear her only to wind up getting speared herself when Charlotte pulled Alexa away at the last moment. The timing on that was impeccable and it looked so great. I also loved how Charlotte held Alexa in the corner and mouthed “I got you” to Alexa even though their gimmick has been that they were not friends. The Charlotte and Alexa pairing has been sensational so far and has helped get Charlotte cheered.

Tiffany Stratton defended her WWE Women’s Championship against the Hall of Famer Trish Stratus in a solid match. Tris is almost 50 years old and she looks amazing. She still has it to as these two put on a really entertaining title match.

Anything went in the next match between Jade Cargill and Naomi. This feud had been going for months and this felt like a blow off. There were a bunch of cool spots in this match including the ending sequence of Jade putting Naomi through a table from a top rope Jaded. It looked great.

Battle Royal followed this and it was fine. The best part was the win by Stephanie Vaquer, who now gets a title match at Clash in Paris. Vaquer is one of the newer stars in WWE, but she is known worldwide and she is one of the best going.

Then, what has a chance to be the Match of the Year. Iyo Sky defended her WWE World Championship against Rhea Ripley. We have seen this match several times, but, honestly, it never gets old and this match was brilliant. These two have such chemistry together and are so special in the ring that they stole the entire weekend that had been loaded with wrestling.

Then, after a beautiful Spanish fly maneuver, the big shock happened. Naomi, fresh off of getting beaten up badly in the match with Jade, came down with her Money in the Bank contract and cashed in, making the match a triple threat. Iyo and Rhea had killed each other so much that they were easy picking for Naomi and she became the new Women’s World Champion.

An unbelievable moment with a shocking cash in. I, like many, figured Naomi was cashing in on Tiffany or Jade after their match at SummerSlam, but instead, she cashed in on Iyo and made a historic moment.

There should be no doubt that the WWE women could put on a show like this. Their amount of riches they currently have is an embarrassment of riches. This was even without the currently injured Liv Morgan, who is one of the best of the division.

WWE Women’s Division has come a long way from the Bra and Panties matches of the past. They are now the main events and the bangers that were once exclusively the male’s area. Congrats to the WWE Women’s Division on a massively successful show that exceeded expectations.

Wrestlemania 41 Weekend: The Raw After Mania

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The Wrestlemania weekend continued tonight on Monday Night Raw, which has become known as the Raw After Mania. It is a night where they reset stories, debuts some new talents and have a general amount of chaos.

John Cena spoke about his plans to leave with the belt after his final 27 dates scheduled. I’m still not sure how this was going to “ruin wrestling” as he claimed. We saw the next opponent for Cena as Randy Orton gave him a RKO out of nowhere.

Rusev made his return after five years and attacked the Alpha Academy, who were getting ready to take on the New Day. Rusev looked really great.

Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez regained the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship by defeating Lyra Valkyria and Becky Lynch. Afterwards, Becky flipped out and attacked Lyra. Did not seem to be the same person who went to the press conference last night after night two with her daughter on her lap.

Iyo Sky came out to celebrate her World title defense and she was interrupted by NXT Women’s Champion Stephanie Vaquer, who wanted to congratulate Iyo and fight her. Then we got an impromptu match between them. They are two of the best women wrestlers in the world and they were having an awesome match until they were disrupted by Roxanne Perez and Giulia, resulting in a DQ.

Dirty Dom, the new IC Champion, pinned Penta. Yes, I typed that. There was interference from a returning JD McDonagh, but still. Of course, I would have hated to see how the crowd would have turned on Penta if the WWE would have done the one-day title reign to Dom.

Jey Uso came out to celebrate and Sami Zayn joined him. I was afraid that Sami was going to turn heel on Jey the entire time they were out there, but it did not happen. I do not want heel Sami. He is just too good of a babyface.

Gunther took this celebration badly as he was there after the commercial, confronting Michael Cole for comments Cole had made. He put Michael in the sleeper, but Pat McAfee broke it up. Then, Gunther grabbed Pat and choked him out while a bunch of security and backstage people tried to get him to stop. Pat sold this like he had been nearly killed.

Bron Breakker joined up with Seth Rollins and Paul Heyman and they destroyed CM Punk and Roman Reigns as the show went off the air.

Wrestlemania 41 Weekend: Night Two

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Night Two of Wrestlemania 41 was considerably stronger than night one. There may not have been anything quite like Punk-Rollins-Reigns match, but there were a couple that came close.

John Cena won his 17th championship when he defeated Cody Rhodes with help from Travis Scott and by hitting Cody with the title.

The crowd in Las Vegas was much better tonight than they were Saturday. They were in the matches all night. However, some of their reactions were weird. They cheered for Cena. They booed Cody. They cheered wildly when Dom Mysterio became the new Intercontinental Champion. The crowd was bizarre.

The triple threat match with Bianca-Rhea and Iyo Sky was an amazing match to kick off the show. Iyo won and retained, and I am so happy about that. She had been shown as a third wheel of the build for this match and it seemed as if there was a lot of disrespect for Iyo. The crowd did love her, and her big victory was awesome. This is in the conversation for Match of the Year when December comes around.

I am also happy Drew McIntyre won the Street fight with Damian Priest. However, it looked liek Damian was injured. They apparently carted him off after the match, off camera.

Logan Paul defeated AJ Styles cleanly (for the most part). That was a sad moment of the night, though it was a really strong match.

Somebody must have said his name… because Joe Hendry answered the Randy Orton challenge. Of course, the TNA World Champion was defeated by the RKO, but Joe Hendry got a really great response from the crowd. It was short and sweet, but it was fun. Randy liked Joe Hendy’s theme song too, you could tell.

Becky Lynch returned as Lyra Valkyria’s partner and they became WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions by defeating Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez.

I had heard some rumors that they might be considering putting the IC title on Dominik Mysterio, but I never thought they would do it. Yet, it happened when he hit a frog splash on Finn Balor. Bron Breakker was not involved in the final, and he looked like a phenomenon during this match.

The whole cheering Dirty Dom blows my mind. I do not know where it came from. Same way the boos for Cody seemed to just materialize.

Night two was really great.

Best matches of the weekend (Not necessarily in this order)

  1. Rollins vs. Punk vs. Reigns
  2. Oba Femi vs. Je’Von Evans vs. Trick Williams
  3. Rhea vs. Iyo vs. Bianca

Wrestlemania 41 Weekend: Night 1

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Saturday Night at Wrestlemania 41 is in the books.

The main event, where Seth Rollins defeated Roman Reigns and CM Punk with the help of the Judas Paul Heyman, was a fantastic match.

The rest of the card, while nothing was egregiously bad, was okay, at best.

Jey Uso became the World Champion. Jacob Fatu became the US Champion. The New Day became the new World Tag Team Champions. Tiffany Stratton retained her title. El Grande Americano defeated Rey Fenix, who replaced the injured Rey Mysterio. Jade Cargill defeated Naomi. This was all fine. The Stratton/Flair match was pretty rough. Cargill and Naomi was pretty good.

The main event is absolutely the standout match of the night. Roman Reigns is just an amazing performer as his facial expressions are so good that they add so much to the match. Paul Heyman betrayed CM Punk first, with a nut shot. Then he betrayed Roman with another one. Paul Heyman aligned himself with Seth Rollins. Many had predicted that this is what was going to happen (including me at the EYG predictions) but to actually see it play out is surreal. The evil look on the face of Heyman as he and Rollins went up the aisle was chilling.

The crowd was great for the main event and for the opening match with Uso/Gunther, but were pretty dead the rest of the way.

I was 5-2 in the first night. I missed the LA Knight match and the Tiffany match.

Sunday night is next up.

Wrestlemania 41 Weekend: NXT Stand and Deliver

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  • NXT Championship: Oba Femi vs. Trick Williams vs. Je’Von Evans
  • NXT Women’s Championship: Stephanie Vaquer vs. Giulia vs. Jordynne Grace vs. Jaida Parker
  • Women’s North American Championship: Zaria vs. Kelani Jordan vs. Sol Ruca vs. Izzi Dame vs. Lola Vice vs. Thea Hail
  • North American Championship: Ricky Saints vs. Ethan Page
  • NXT Tag Team Championship: Nathan Frazer & Axiom vs. Hank Walker & Tank Ledger
  • The D’Angelo Family vs. Darkstate
  • Fatal 4-Way Elimination Match to determine the #1 contender for the WWE Women’s Tag titles: Jackson & Lash Legend vs. Fallon Henley & Jacy Jayne vs. Gigi Dolin & Tatum Paxley vs. Cora Jade & Roxanne Perez (pre-show)

Gigi Dolin & Tatum Paxley won the Fatal 4-Way.

Tank and Hank defeated Fraxiom for the NXT Tag Team Championship

Ricky Saints defeated Ethan Page to retain North American Championship.

Sol Ruca won the Women’s North American Championship in ladder match

Darkstate defeated D’Angelo Family when Channing “Stacks” Lorenzo turned on The Don.

Stephanie Vaquer retained her NXT Women’s Championship

Oba Femi retained his NXT Championship.

At least two Match of the Year contenders in this event, with the match between Oba Femi, Trick Williams and Je’Von Evans being astounding. The second MotY contender is the tag match between Hank and Tank and Fraxiom. Absolutely breathtaking.

All of the matches were excellent though. Another wonderful Stand and Deliver from NXT.

Wrestlemania 41 Weekend: Hall of Fame

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The Hall of Fame ceremony was scheduled this year in Las Vegas and they were having it a couple of hours later than Smackdown. That meant it was going to start on Peacock at midnight, my time. I know how long the Hall of Fame ceremony can run, so I decided that I would watch this Saturday morning instead.

I am aware how some people online view the WWE Hall of Fame. They consider it a joke, lacking credibility. There is no brick and mortar Hall of Fame (which I wish they would have) and, for years, only one person admitted the inductees. Are there performers that I believe should have been inducted years ago? Of course (Demolition, Miss Elizabeth, Bam Bam Bigelow etc.) To all that criticism, I say that you can see the emotion in the wrestlers’ faces, eyes, tears… and it is clear that this honor means something to them. As far as I am concerned, that makes this an important event.

This year, the inductees included Triple H, Lex Lugar, Michelle McCool, and The Natural Disasters (Earthquake & Typhoon). Then, they inducted Ivan Koloff, Dory Funk Sr. and Kamala in the Legends wing.

It was kind of funny how long Triple H’s speech was. I’m sure he’ll catch some criticism online for that, but he was clearly emotional and grateful for his induction.

Best induction of the night: Easily Shawn Michaels, who was emotional, funny, and was given more time than some of the others. Shout out to CM Punk who inducted the Austin-Hart Wrestlemania 13 match. He did not have much time, but he was able to present the match with a lot of sincerity. You truly believed that Punk loved this match.

Best Speech of the night: Triple H’s was great, but I am giving it to Michelle McCool. She was really solid and thanked plenty of people during the time she was allotted.

Lookie there: I spotted Zack Ryder in the crowd! Of course Zack Ryder, real name Matt Cardona, is married to Chelsea Green, who is a current performer and would be required to be there.

Awkward Moment of the Night: Triple H thanked Vince, calling it “complicated.” You think?

Best Joke: Triple H said about how long he was talking said he was sure Shawn was fuming backstage because he had a call time for NXT Stand and Deliver in 15 minutes.

Ugh: Linda McMahon. Nuff said.

Wrestlemania Weekend: Smackdown

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Friday Night kicked off the Wrestlemania weekend with Smackdown on the USA Network. Three hour show (Smackdown was better when it was two hours, just saying) filled with fun promos and exciting action in Los Vegas.

Seth Rollins started the show off with a fantastic in-ring promo, sitting in the middle of the ring much like his rival CM Punk would do, delivering a scathing promo on the Saturday night match against Roman and Punk. Rollins is just one of the best all-around performers in the WWE. He threw even more gas on the fire of this match.

The Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal was won by Carmelo Hayes, which I found shocking. I expected Rey Fenix to win the battle royal, but El Grande Americano showed up and cost him the match. Funny, Chad Gable was in the battle royal and had been previously eliminated. It came down to Carmelo and Andrade and they have amazing chemistry with one another.

Smackdown tag team champions the Street Prophets do not get on Wrestlemania card, which was a shame, but they defended against Motor City Machine Guns tonight. However, Gargano and Ciampa interfered causing a no contest and they stole the title belts. Nick Aldis got them back and announced a TLC match next week.

LA Knight and Braun Stroman defeated Solo Sikoa and Jacob Fatu. Knight had injured Tama Tonga before the show. He was taken to the infamous “Local Medical Facility”.

Selina Vega pulled an upset against Chelsea Green in a non-title match.

Cody Rhodes and John Cena had a face off in the ring. Cena delivered another strong promo, and the crowd seemed to boo Cody when he started his retort, but Cody pushed on and seemed to win them back afterwards. Both men are great on the microphone. Cena may be right about the crowd and how fickle they are.