WrestleMania 40 Night 1 kicked off the festivities of the two-night sporting extravaganza in Philadelphia. WWE’s Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque welcomed over 72,000 fans to the biggest night in sports entertainment.
Saturday’s show featured seven matches. Several major title contests went down as well. WrestleMania 40 Night 1 featured Rhea Ripley, Gunther, Becky Lynch, Roman Reigns, The Rock, and Cody Rhodes among others.
Let’s revisit all the action and drama that went down this past Saturday.
Becky Lynch versus Rhea Ripley kicked off WrestleMania 40 Night 1
One of the best things about WrestleMania is the epic entrance. Women’s World Champion Rhea Ripley arrived to the ring with a live performance of her theme song by Motionless in White. Mami has been a lifelong fan of the band and it was cool to set them rock her out to a major match of her career.
This turned out to be terrific opener to WrestleMania. Both women displayed incredible chemistry. Becky tried to disengage Rhea’s momentum with some great submission work. The commentators put over the challenger for working the show after battling extreme sickness.
The nearfalls and falls finishes were executed at the right moment. The closing moment of the match saw Rhea hit Becky with a riptide on the top turnbuckle followed by a second riptide to retain her Women’s World Championship.
Six-pack ladder match for the RAW and SmackDown Tag Team Titles
They finally split the tag team titles. The second match of the night saw The Judgment Day defend their Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship. The RAW and SmackDown tag team titles were hung separately. Fans knew they were getting new champions.
Damian Priest and Finn Balor went up against Austin Theory and Grayson Waller, DIY, Awesome Truth, New Catch Republic, and The New Day. There were some high-risk spots, including the DDT through the table.
Theory and Waller unhooked the SmackDown Tag Team Championship. The Miz and R-Truth, on the other hand, took home the RAW Tag Team Championship. The future of the tag team division is in great hands.
Rey Mysterio & Andrade vs. Dominik Mysterio & Santos Escobar
I am echoing fan sentiment when I say Andrade and Escobar should’ve had more exchanges in this match. Dominik did a great job of getting the crowd to hate him. He’s a heat magnet. Rey worked as the obvious veteran in this match.
The surprise intervention from Jason Kelce and Lane Johnson made for some entertaining viewing. The duo donned lucha masks to help the babyfaces defeat the heel. The double crossbody and Wilde’s tope spots were incredible.
Jey battled Jimmy at WrestleMania 40 Night 1
This was, undoubtedly, the weakest match of the night. Jey and Jimmy have incredible chemistry as a tag team. For some reason, however, they fail to click against each other here. The lack of crowd response made for an underwhelming interaction.
This will go down as one of those feuds that had a strong start but failed to deliver. Jey can now finally focus on having matches with people he has great chemistry with. As for Jimmy, we’ll have to watch SmackDown to see what’s next in store for him.
Six-woman tag team match
The entrances were probably the best part about the match. Asuka and Kairi Sane jamming to Bianca’s theme song was hilarious. This match makes me question Triple H’s booking of Damage CTRL even more.
You spent two years building Damage CTRL as an unstoppable faction only for Jade to solo them. Make it make sense. Also, we might have to wait before we get Jade Cargill in singles action because this match struggled to hide her limitations as an in-ring performer.
Gunther vs. Sami Zayn for the Intercontinental Championship
I am not a fan of Sami Zayn ending Gunther’s historic champion run. It should’ve been Chad Gable or someone who’d benefitted from the win in the long run. I like Sami but he had his moment at WrestleMania 39.
I know WWE likes to create feel-good moments but I stick by my word when I say Gunther should’ve retained against Sami. That being said, the match was brilliant and probably one of the better matches of the night.
Sami paid homage to his indie roots with a brainbuster on the turnbuckle followed by a helluva kick to win the title. We should probably get ready for the Ring General’s world title run because that’s the only title he needs to go after following his loss.
The chaotic main event of WrestleMania 40 Night 1
This match certainly lived up to the hype as the “biggest tag team match in the history of WrestleMania.” The Rock levelled up his entrance by stepping into a fire engulfed brahma bull logo with the People’s Championship on his shoulder.
Rocky and Roman Reigns took on Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins to determine the stipulation of WrestleMania 40 night 2’s main event. They took their time to build the match and to prepare the fans for the chaos that followed.
The tag team session with Gallus definitely helped Rocky, who looked like he hadn’t missed a step. That being said, even The Great One couldn’t survive the slippery canvas during his spot with Seth Rollins.
I correctly predicted when I said somebody was going through the table. It was the Final Boss, courtesy of Rock Bottom from Cody. We also saw double supericks, double pedigrees, and what not in the epic main event – which clocked at 44 minutes and 34 seconds with a win for The Bloodline.
Did you enjoy WrestleMania 40 Night 1? Sound off in the comments section below!
Also read: The Rock: There Might Be More Big Matches For Me, We’ll See
