After an historic night one, the WWE returns to Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the second straight night of Wrestlemania 40 action. In the main event, following on from Night One’s celebrated tag team main event, Roman Reigns will defend the WWE Undisputed WWE Universal Championship for the second straight year against two-time Royal Rumble winner, Cody Rhodes. However, as Rhodes lost the main last night, tonight’s Championship bout will be contested under Bloodline Rules, which means anything goes for the defending Tribal Chief, Roman Reigns. At the other end of the card in the opening contest, Seth “Freakin'” Rollins will defend his World Heavyweight Championship against Drew McIntyre, in a match that has become very personal, very quickly, especially as McIntyre seeks to finally win a World Championship in front of a live audience. Complicating matters further, CM Punk will be on commentary for this match, as Punk’s intense history with both Rollins and McIntyre continues to develop. Iyo Sky will be in action when she defends her WWE Women’s Championship against the Winner of the 2024 Women’s Royal Rumble, and former partner in Damage CTRL, Bayley, while Social Media Megastar Logan Paul will defend his United States Championship in a huge triple threat, when he faces both Randy Orton and Kevin Owens, with the championship on the line. Finally, LA Knight will go one-on-one with AJ Styles after weeks of back and forth confrontations, and Bobby Lashley will lead Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford into battle against The Final Testament, the trio of Karrion Kross and the Authors of Pain, in a Philadelphia Street Fight.
+ Roman Reigns (c) (w/ Paul Heyman) vs Cody Rhodes (Bloodline Rules for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship): obviously this was good to watch, but there is something to be said about how much it might have been better if it was just a normal match. So much happened, especially in the (either incredible or disastrous, depending on how you want to look at it) final ten-ish minutes that it’s almost hard to rate this as a straight-up wrestling match. Roman Reign has that aura that only comes with years of being treated the way he has, and Cody has that fire that you can only get when someone like Roman exists. This was a spectacle, this was an event, and this was a moment. I’m not entirely convinced it was a good wrestling match, but Wrestlemania has never really been about wrestling
+ Iyo Sky (c) vs Bayley (WWE Women’s Championship): with no mention of the ending or winner, I felt so good for Bayley watching this match. It’s about dang time she got given this spotlight after so long and a good match against the ultra bad guy Iyo Sky is a great way for it to happen. Iyo Sky is really great, even if she does something struggle to complete the things she attempts. The match felt quite short, but I have not checked an official time, though I don’t know whether short is good or bad in this instance. I enjoyed this match a lot
+ Logan Paul (c) vs Randy Orton vs Kevin Owens (WWE United States Championship): much like the NXT show a few nights earlier, a triple threat was the match of the show. This was fantastic, with Logan Paul once again impressive far beyond what anyone could have ever known. Owens is a fantastic brawler, and Orton has the star power that he can do his greatest hits and be guaranteed a reaction. The ‘teaming up’ against Logan Paul was fun, and this continuing story of Logan Paul having buddies with him as mascots is working for me. I loved this match
+ LA Knight vs AJ Styles: I enjoyed this quite a lot. This was a verd good professional wrestling match between two professional wrestlers. AJ Styles has long been one of the all-time greats, but it is clear his career is closer to the end than the beginning. LA Knight, meanwhile, is real life older, but is still a fun new thing to experience in the WWE. This was the kind of match all shows need, as two professionals do what they do best. Of note, Styles had some new music which was a bit hard to hear clearly, but on first hearing it was not a good change
+ Seth “Freakin'” Rollins (c) vs Drew McIntyre (World Heavyweight Championship): this match was okay, but it peaked in the first six seconds. Rollins has been a good to great first champion, but even this match never made it feel like anything more than the consolation title while Roman Reigns held the real prize. I’m a big fan of Drew McIntyre, so he was my heroic underdog in this match which made for a fun dynamic of feeling like I was against the live audience. This was a good way to kick off the main show with a fun ending and aftermath. CM Punk on commentary was a lot of fun
– The Pride (Bobby Lashley, Montez Ford & Angelo Dawkins) (w/ B-Fab) vs The Final Testament (Karrion Kross, Akam, and Rezar) (w/ Scarlett & Paul Ellering) (Philadelphia Street Fight): this was very poor, and I’d call it a waste of time that didn’t help anyone look good. Certainly not the two women, Scarlett and B-Fab
Should you watch this event: I am so late to this review that by now you’ve either seen it or not. But this second night was such a grand improvement over the first I can recommend it top to bottom. Maybe knowing the Street Fight is not very good will somehow make it better, and if you skip the fluff between the matches you’ll be done in just an couple of hours. That’s a good tradeoff.
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