WWE WrestleMania 42: Biggest Winners & Losers

WrestleMania 42 has come and gone. It was an enormous, two-night, ad-filled affair that saw titles change hands, the retirement of Brock Lesnar, and two very slow predominant events. We have already discussed what happened on the night 1 and night 2 results pages, and there is been loads of loving and hating for each nights as well. Which implies that each one that’s left to do is assign some winners and a few losers.

There have been loads of losers, the truth is, a whole night’s value, but more on that later. Winners aren’t all the time winners. Sometimes a winner is a loser, and sometimes a loser is a winner, and sometimes things are exactly as they appear.

Enough of my bloviating, though, let’s get into the largest winners and losers from WrestleMania 42.

Cam’ron completely destroyed WrestleMania Saturday when he dressed down Jey Uso, turning “WrestleMania Saturday” right into a pejorative. It was funny before WrestleMania, however it was especially funny after WrestleMania since the crew that composed the Saturday show was downright goofy and dire. I mean, just take a look at that lead image. Have a look at the dweebs in The Vision and their streaming buddy. 

That was the overall vibe to WrestleMania Saturday.

The matches were too short, the ads were too long, and just about everyone in Las Vegas and at home was sitting on their hands, waiting for the WrestleMania Sunday folks to place the WrestleMania Saturday folks of their place. The very best the night could do was a reasonably boilerplate match between Seth Rollins and Gunther, and an undercooked Becky Lynch/AJ Lee match that ended just because it was beginning to get good.

The predominant event made no sense. The largest moment of the night was the reveal of a baby bump. It felt like everyone involved in WrestleMania Saturday was trapped on the longest pre-show in company history.

While this 12 months’s show-closing predominant event was slightly slow for my liking, it’s near-universal praise from the wrestling world needs to be a feather within the cap of CM Punk. Punk has been asking, begging, pleading for a probability to shut WrestleMania with a correct match, and the general public sentiment just about speaks for itself: He nailed it.

“Stand Up For WWE” accounts were linked arm-in-arm with Dave Meltzer and other wrestling luminaries, singing the praises of Punk’s match with Roman Reigns. It’s got to be a pleasant feeling. The match was ultimately about legacy, and Punk has assured that, should Reigns ever eclipse him in WWE all-time greats, he’ll still should be in conversation as certainly one of “The Tribal Chief’s” best opponents, much in the way in which Roddy Piper or Paul Orndorff were for Hulk Hogan.

I’m unsure even Punk’s biggest defenders could’ve imagined the heights he’d reach in his second WWE tenure. Sunday’s predominant event was a capstone moment for a legendary profession.

He’s been world champion, he’s been the longest reigning Intercontinental Champion, and he’s retired three separate legends inside a calendar 12 months. There’s nothing left for Gunther to realize. He has done all of it. He could win the WWE Championship, however it kinda seems like splitting hairs, as he’s been world champion.

Gunther is the B+ player that WWE likes to pretend Sami Zayn is or Bryan Danielson was. He’s an amazing in-ring performer, and he’s got a solid enough character, but there’s something missing from Gunther. WWE has been capable of fill that hole with accomplishments thus far, but they’re running out of things for him to win. All that is left now’s to beat the Seth Rollinses of the world and lay down every time they’ve a brand new star they intend to make. I don’t know what WWE would want to do to make him transcend his place in the corporate.

After retiring so many stars, the construct to his Mania match was “You recognize that this will likely be a superb match,” and I worry that will likely be Gunther’s area of interest from here on out. 

Danhausen is doing pretty alright for himself. He went from barely with the ability to get a second of TV time in AEW to doing WrestleMania bits with John Cena and The Miz. It is the sports entertainment equivalent of a man like Roderick Strong going to AEW in order that he could do what he does best and have a showcase match a couple of times a month with a hungry talent. Danhausen is a living cartoon, and stuff like that thrives in WWE.

It also helped that the plethora of advertisements cut down on the same old variety of WrestleMania segments, meaning it was just about as much as Danhausen and John Cena to make the non-wrestling moments feel special, and damned if the shenanigans of the Minihausens didn’t do exactly that.

I’ve all the time appreciated Danhausen’s schtick, but in WWE it really does just sing. It’s as if he’s finally found some brains backstage who’re as demented as he’s, and willing to throw money at t-shirt cannons and blimps.

Pat McAfee is a grating presence on a superb day, but as a Vince Russo-esque Smart Mark heel, he’s just insufferable. Thankfully, it seems that his reign of terror is over, as McAfee has bid farewell to the wrestling business, after being involved in probably the most confusing angle of any modern WrestleMania.

McAfee has develop into something of a logo for TKO’s have to meddle within the affairs of WWE creative. Cody Rhodes will go on to raised storylines. Randy Orton’s legacy is largely bulletproof. I’m pretty sure Jelly Roll goes to either salvage his repute or do something much more embarrassing in his future WWE appearances. McAfee is the just one who will likely be saddled with the memories of that ugly, convoluted predominant event on Saturday. That match is McAfee’s legacy. He began in WWE as a form of lovable doofus who took to the wrestling part surprisingly swiftly, and he’ll end as an albatross across the neck of a match that ought to’ve been a slam dunk, considering the history and the pedigree of the particular wrestlers within the match.

Jade Cargill may not be champion anymore, but she’s come a great distance from being the greenest AEW prospect anyone has ever seen.

I’m unsure what I used to be expecting from Cargill’s WrestleMania outing with Ripley. I figured Ripley would win, but I didn’t think that Cargill would -for lack of a greater term- make me into such a believer. She’s often been in comparison with Lex Luger, since he was also a superathlete who spent a number of his early days in over his head in wrestling, but like Luger, she is growing right into a confident powerhouse, who’s aware of her own limitations.

Strong women in WWE could be very hit and miss, but Cargill is proving that she comes from the Chyna/Jazz ass-kicker vein of powerhouse, and as her confidence grows, so to do her abilities. There have been quite a few times I used to be prepared for Cargill to get the win, and perhaps someday down the road she’s going to. She’s an ideal foil for Ripley, as many ladies cannot stand toe-to-toe along with her the way in which that Cargill can, and there have been glimmers in her match on Sunday that showed she may very well be sticking across the business quite a bit longer than her critics predicted.