John Cena celebrates with rapper Travis Scott after defeating Cody Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Championship at WrestleMania 41. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
(Ethan Miller via Getty Images)
WWE WrestleMania 41, Night 2 from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas closed the door on the promotion’s biggest weekend of the year, with John Cena fulfilling his promise to become the last WWE real champion. The wrestling leader saved its big surprise returns — Joe Hendry, Becky Lynch and Travis Scott — for Night 2, while Dominik Mysterio may have been the biggest winner of the night.
Advertisement
Advertisement
As we digest everything that happened, here are our five biggest takeaways from WrestleMania 41, Night 2.
Between Cena’s monotone entrance to the in-ring product, Cena vs. Rhodes didn’t quite live up to the hype. The fan reactions felt akin to The Rock battling Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania X8 — no matter how much Cena distanced himself, the roars of approval were deafening. Cena stayed the course, though, refusing to give fans even an ounce of what they wanted.
Cena slowed the pace to an agonizing crawl, taking in every moment from his last WrestleMania match. In the end, it was a low blow in a match that seemed intentional in getting Cena his record-breaking 17th world title in the most disgraceful way possible.
After Kevin Owens’ unfortunate and untimely injury, Randy Orton was left without an opponent just two weeks out from WrestleMania 41. The approach to Orton’s 20th WrestleMania appearance left an unpredictable element to Sunday with an obscure open challenge.
Advertisement
Advertisement
The easy route would have been Solo Sikoa mixing it up with Orton. The unexpected path could have been anyone from Nick Aldis to a returning star like Rusev. It’s hard to imagine anyone could have expected TNA Champion Joe Hendry would be the one to answer the call.
Randy Orton delivered an RKO to remember against Joe Hendry. (Andrew Timms/WWE via Getty Images)
(WWE via Getty Images)
Hendry and Orton gave fans everything you’d expect from that match. It wasn’t a long, back-and-forth brawl. Hendry got his stuff in, hit his poses, and took an RKO before the pinfall loss. If anything, it solidified that Hendry absolutely belongs on the big stage and could almost certainly feature in a future WrestleMania.
Considering that she is consistently one of the top stars of the women’s division, Bayley’s exclusion from WrestleMania 41 was head scratching. Although a match with Lyra Valkyria would have made sense, she didn’t have a clear path to the show from the beginning. Instead they were thrown together to challenge for the Women’s Tag Team Championships until Bayley was abruptly removed from the match Saturday evening.
Advertisement
Advertisement
It had to be a huge name returning in her place — and Becky Lynch certainly fits that bill. While it’s great to see Lynch back in the ring full-time and you could see the moment meant a great deal to her, it’s unfortunate it had to come at the cost of Bayley’s WrestleMania spot.
Three women at the top of their game — Iyo Sky, Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair — opened WrestleMania Sunday with something to prove. The argument can be made that this one could have main-evented WrestleMania 41, either Night 1 or Night 2, purely from a wrestling perspective.
Iyo Sky, Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair tore the house down in the opening match of WrestleMania 41 Night 2. (Andrew Timms/WWE via Getty Images)
(WWE via Getty Images)
It felt different from most triple-threat matches from the opening bell. There weren’t extended periods of rest time outside of the ring for any of the individuals, and the pace of the match was perfect as the opener. Each of them had their respective moments to shine with big moves, big moments and false finishes. There isn’t one thing that felt missing or should have changed from start to finish. All around this was one of WWE’s most logical decisions and about as good as it gets from a booking perspective, with Sky again taking advantage of Belair and Ripley’s obsession with each other to retain her title.
Across roughly 20 minutes, Dominik Mysterio went from being one of the most booed men of the night to one of the most heavily cheered. As a member of the Judgement Day, he was met with crowd responses filled with vitriol. That changed on Sunday night — and all it took was him turning his back on Finn Bálor to get fans roaring in his approval.
Suddenly the biggest hero in the building, Mysterio’s win gave him an authentic WrestleMania moment, the Intercontinental Championship and a path up the card. His celebration was as genuine as it gets, and as cameras cut off and the show went to commercial, fans continued to serenade him with “Dirty, Dirty Dom” chants.
