In this WrestleTalk News, the main event of WrestleMania night one revealed, an update
on Bray Wyatt’s WWE status and Tempest’s review of Smackdown.
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Ever since WrestleMania transformed into a two night extravaganza one of the fun little
games we all play is trying to predict what matches will go where and more importantly
what match will serve as the main event of night one.
Usually, night two’s main event is a shoe-in and this year is of course no different with
Cody Rhodes vs Roman Reigns always set to take that spot. But what of night one?
In yesterday’s news, we reported that there were rumors that the Smackdown Women’s Championship
match between Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley was set to take place on night two, according
to WRKD Wrestling via Twitter. However, this seems to have been partially disproved by
the Wrestling Observer Newsletter who suggested that Ripley and Flair will not only take place
on April 1st rather than 2nd but it looks set to take top billing on the show.
Curiously, the WON cited the reason for the selection of Flair and Ripley as “political”,
with WWE keen for a women’s title match to close the first night’s proceedings,
and Ripley vs Flair is reportedly seen as the stronger option rather than Bianca Belair
vs Asuka.
HOWEVER, this STILL cannot be confirmed as Fightful Select is now reporting that the
main event of night one is still undecided after all. The reason for this seems to be
that neither Charlotte or Ripley have been informed that they will be closing Mania night
one, which is something that Fightful notes suggests that WWE have not landed on a definitive
choice yet.
As for the ‘political reasons’ noted in the WON, Fightful notes that these stem from
the fact that last year’s night one of Mania 38 was not closed by a Women’s Title match,
instead seeing Kevin Owens vs Steve Austin finish the show.
Also confirmed by Fightful was the fact that WWE had at one point planned for the Sami
Zayn and KO vs The Usos Tag Title match to close night one. A decision that reportedly
still has a lot of supporters in WWE.
So, yeah that would be a real shame for Sami, who’s run towards Mania seems to warrant
a Mania main event slot, however saying that Flair vs Ripley is a great choice also. What
match would you rather see get the main event? Let us know in the comments below.
While we’re all theorizing over what match will land where over the two nights of Mania,
there is one that is causing a similar amount of speculation, but not as to which night
it will take place but instead for whether the match will happen at all.
The match in question is of course the teased clash between Bray Wyatt and Bobby Lashley.
Lashley and Wyatt’s Mania paths seemed set to collide following week’s of teases on
Raw and Smackdown however, fans began to notice that the build was rather one-sided with Bobby
carrying the feud (along with Uncle Howdy) while Bray was largely absent.
Bray would then reportedly miss a Madison Square Garden house show last Sunday 12 March,
despite being advertised to appear, furthering speculation regarding his WWE status. Despite
rumors circulating that Wyatt’s absence was due to creative disagreements, Fightful
would later clarify that the absence was instead due to an unspecified “illness” that Wyatt
had been suffering from.
Then, this week’s Raw passed and there was again no sign of Wyatt, or Lashley for that
matter. And last night’s Smackdown… nothing.
Or was there?????
Well, eagle eyed viewers may have noticed something during a backstage segment involving
LA Knight (Yeahh), that being Wyatt’s logo clearly visible over the shoulder of Kayla
Braxton.
This was picked up on by WrestlingNews.co who tweeted an image of the potential tease.
So, was this a tease by WWE, is Wyatt set for Mania? Is he not done with LA Knight or
is it unrelated?
All questions we don’t have as of yet. However, if this tease was in fact deliberate from
WWE it would suggest that despite the Lashley feud seemingly going cold, perhaps Wyatt may
play a role at WrestleMania after all.
So we open this show with some intense storyline progression. Cody Rhodes comes out and says
he is going to beat Roman Reigns at WrestleMania but that’s not what this segment is about.
This is about friendship! This is about reconciliation! Cody calls out Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn to
join him in the ring and I am grateful everyday for the return of Sami’s music.
Cody peels back the curtain and says when he left WWE in 2016 Kevin Owens was the one
who helped him by getting him in contact with some of his friends. Who is he talking about,
Sat?! Cody then opens the floor for Sami and Kevin and Sami gives his pitch as to why Kevin
needs to set aside this animosity so they can be the ones to take down the ones. Sami
also says what I’ve been thinking, that being that after all these years of betrayals
what makes this one so different. But Kevin still isn’t budging, and says why would
he fight alongside someone who doesn’t even want to be his friend. This is a fabulous
segment made even better by Sami catching up to Kevin in the parking lot and saying
that no matter what happens they will be brothers before Kevin drives off. I am still curious
as to why Kevin can’t handle one measly lil betrayal after all this time but hey I
guess he takes this sort of thing personally. 5/5
We then had Dominik and Rhea Ripley taking on Santos Escobar and Zelina Vega in a mixed
tag match. As just a match this wasn’t anything too special, some bits were kinda clunky but
on the plus side Rhea did hit one of the best Riptides she has ever hit on Zelina for the
finish. After the match, however, Dominik continued to berate Rey Mysterio prompting
Rey to come down to the ring and say if another punk kid called him out at WrestleMania he
would beat their ass but he won’t ever fight his son. Aside from Rey saying he hypothetically
would beat Dom’s ass, this segment was a rerun. ⅗
We’re then told we’re gonna get a qualifying match for a fatal fourway showcase match at
WrestleMania and the first two teams are Raquel and Liv Morgan taking on Emma and Tegan Nox.
A team that has literally NEVER WRESTLED TOGETHER. Tag team amnesia man its going around. This
was another short, match where my only real takeaway was Michael Cole calling Liv Morgan
side codebreaker the Code Red. Even after 25 years of doing this he still doesn’t
know wrestling moves. Raquel and Liv got the win after they both hit their finishers and
the crowd did not react. Blah ⅖
Charlotte Flair then came out to speak and she says the more things change the more they
stay the same. She says this is her 7th WrestleMania and in all of them she has walked in as the
champion or the challenger. I think I’ve found why these matches feel stale to me.
She says that Rhea couldn’t beat her 3 years ago and she can’t beat her now adding that
until she beats Charlotte she will never be a star. Rhea comes out and says Charlotte
is right and she can’t be a star until she beats her. Rhea says everyone in the back
fears her except Charlotte but after WrestleMania Charlotte will learn to fear her. They then
brawled for a long while and boy does this ever not feel like a WrestleMania main event.
Its fine but it just doesn’t have any of the emotional stakes that a main event of
WrestleMania should have. ⅗
Sami Zayn is backstage and says that someone who considered him a brother just left him
in the parking lot and another person who considered him a brother is gonna confront
him tonight and maybe he brought all of this on himself. This Bloodline stuff is the reason
to watch this show, truly.
We then got Xavier Woods vs. LA Knight and boy was this a short match. They did some
moves. A DDT, a falcon arrow, a missile dropkick, but eventually Knight just went for a suplex
and Woods rolled him up with the backwoods and got the win. LA Knight has only won a
single match all year and I’m just kinda over it. ⅖
After the match Knight is walking backstage and find Rey Mysterio signing autographs and
says he’ll fight Rey’s son for him in LA and Rey punched him. Yeesh.
Sheamus then took on Drew McIntyre in our IC title number one contenders match. WALTER
and the rest of Imperium was at ringside for this match and I loved WALTER’s brief moment
on commentary when Wade asked him about wanting to face Drew or Sheamus and WALTER simply
said he will fulfill his duty at WrestleMania. This man only cares about the love of the
game. It took a little while for the crowd to get into this one but once they got into
the nearfalls this match was rolling. The two ended up in a double down and the ref
was going to count them both out but WALTER stopped him and told both Drew and Sheamus
to get up only for Imperium to attack both, ending the match in a double DQ. Adam Pearce
popped up on the screen and told WALTER that because of his actions he has been forced
to make this title match at WrestleMania a triple threat match. A lame finish to this
match but it gets the job done, the ends will justify the means when this is one of the
best matches of the year. ⅗
And then we got our main event segment, that being the confrontation between Jey Uso and
Sami Zayn. Thankfully they cut it out but this crowd doing the WHAT chants during THIS
segment was going to make me unleash a fucking fury upon this review. Thankfully they cut
that shit out and what we got was the best segment on the show. Sami said this is how
Jey wants it so how are they going to do this. Jey said that from the start he didn’t like
Sami, didn’t trust Sami, and as soon as he let his guard down Sami turned on him and
made him look stupid in front of the whole family. From the start Sami has been a fake
ass Uce. Jey said he didn’t have a choice in any of this and Sami said that Jey always
had a choice. Sami loved the family too but he wasn’t going to take Roman’s abuse
like Jey does. Sami says he thinks the only reason Jey is so upset by Sami hitting Roman
with a chair is because Jey wanted to do it first. Jey finally snaps and brawls with Sami
with Jimmy coming out to fight with his brother but then KO’s music hit and he cleared the
ring with Sami, ending the show with the two finally reuniting with a hug. To old ships
and new ships and ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are friendships because
they will always be. 5/5 love prevails.
Once again outside of the bloodline bits there isn’t a lot to recommend from this show
but the bloodline bits were especially good this week and I cannot in good conscience
give a show with these kind of opening and main event segments anything less than a ⅘.
That just about wraps things up from me but before I go make sure to check out the return
of Monday Night War over on partsFUNknown! Season 3 has kicked off with WWE2K23 as Luke
and Pete battle for brand supremacy, you can watch Draft Day right now on PFK and after
you’ve done that you can watch episode one early at patreon.com/wrestletalk! I’ve been
Tempest and that was friendship.