WrestleMania 36 (2020): The WrestleMania That Should Not Have Worked Somehow Changes the Format Forever

Bliss, Cross, Asuka and Kairi Sane open the pay-per-view portion of WrestleMania 36 with fifteen minutes that feel unusually normal for a show about to become anything but normal. The absence of a crowd hurts the rhythm, yet Asuka supplies enough noise and personality to keep the Performance Center from sounding completely abandoned. Cross works effectively as the emotional accelerator, while Sane absorbs the decisive sequence after Cross lands the Purge and Bliss follows with Twisted Bliss. The title change gives the first real match a clean payoff and the teams remain active throughout. It is not a classic, but it is competent, energetic wrestling under circumstances that make even basic crowd interaction impossible.

Elias and Corbin are asked to make nine minutes of midcard grudge wrestling feel like WrestleMania with nobody in the building to reward the effort. That is a difficult assignment, and the match never discovers a reason to become more than functional. Corbin controls much of the pace, Elias survives, and the finish arrives when the referee catches Corbin using the ropes before Elias capitalizes with a roll-up. The reversal gives the babyface a small measure of satisfaction without producing anything memorable inside the ring. In a stadium this might have been harmless breathing room. In the Performance Center it feels like a television match that accidentally wandered onto WrestleMania.

Lynch and Baszler enter with enough storyline heat to produce something violent and definitive, which makes an eight-minute match ending on a cradle feel like a strange choice. Baszler works aggressively and repeatedly pulls the action toward submissions, while Lynch fights with the urgency of a champion who understands she cannot win a prolonged grappling contest. The Kirifuda Clutch appears to be the natural climax, only for Lynch to counter the hold into a pin and escape with the championship. The finish is clever in isolation but undercuts the monster presentation Baszler received at Elimination Chamber. The work is sound; the booking keeps the match from feeling like the major WrestleMania confrontation it should have been.

Zayn and Bryan spend the first half turning avoidance into the match's central idea, with Zayn repeatedly escaping while Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura form a moving wall around the champion. Once Bryan finally gets sustained contact, the match becomes much more physical, and his strikes make Zayn's desperation feel earned rather than theatrical. Drew Gulak helps neutralize the outside numbers long enough to create a genuine championship contest. The finish is excellent: Bryan launches himself toward Zayn and gets intercepted in mid-air by a Helluva Kick. The bout could use more uninterrupted wrestling, but the character logic is strong and the decisive counter gives Zayn a memorable title defense.

The illness-related removal of The Miz turns a planned six-man tag ladder match into one representative from each team, and the improvised format becomes one of the weekend's better conventional matches. Morrison, Uso and Kingston do not have a live crowd to gasp at the ladder risks, so they compensate by keeping the match compact and visually inventive. The final sequence is especially clever: all three men reach the suspended titles together, fight while holding the hardware and fall in different directions, with Morrison landing on a bridged ladder while still clutching the belts. It is exactly the kind of finish a ladder match should chase — unusual, understandable and tied directly to the object everyone has been fighting over.

Owens and Rollins effectively wrestle twice, first ending in a disqualification when Rollins uses the ring bell and then restarting under No Disqualification rules after Owens refuses to accept the cheap escape. That restart gives the feud the aggression it has been missing and allows both men to work with a level of urgency that survives the empty building. Owens' dive from the WrestleMania sign is the signature image, a reckless-looking leap that creates the kind of spectacle the Performance Center cannot provide on its own. The Stunner finish is decisive and satisfying. This feels like a grudge match that understands WrestleMania still requires escalation even when there are no fans in the room.

Strowman versus Goldberg is less a wrestling match than a two-minute exchange of finishing moves forced into existence by Roman Reigns' understandable withdrawal. Goldberg lands Spears, Strowman survives, and then the challenger answers with repeated powerslams until the Universal Championship changes hands. The result itself is defensible because WWE needs a champion and Strowman finally receives the world-title victory that had eluded him. The presentation is the problem. With no crowd, no meaningful build between the actual participants and almost no connective wrestling, the title change feels like a contingency-plan bullet point rather than a WrestleMania moment. History remembers the outcome much more readily than the match.

The Boneyard Match takes every weakness of an empty-arena WrestleMania and simply leaves the arena behind. Undertaker arrives on a motorcycle, AJ Styles emerges from a coffin, Gallows and Anderson bring reinforcements, fire appears on command and the entire fight unfolds like a supernatural western made by people who have watched a lot of wrestling and at least three action movies. Most importantly, the format lets Undertaker be charismatic and dangerous without asking his body to produce another thirty-minute stadium match. He buries Styles, rides into the night and, as history later confirms, ends his in-ring career on an image worthy of the character. It is not conventional wrestling, but as a WrestleMania main event and career coda, it is extraordinary.

Ripley and Flair open Night 2 with the weekend's strongest conventional championship wrestling. The match is physical from the beginning and steadily becomes a battle over Ripley's left leg, with Flair attacking the limb until the Figure-Eight becomes a believable ending rather than a finish applied because the script requires one. Ripley responds with power and intensity, and the twenty-minute runtime allows both wrestlers to build multiple credible swings without rushing. Flair eventually forces the submission and wins the NXT Women's Championship, a controversial booking direction but a very strong match. In a full stadium, the crowd could have pushed several exchanges even higher. The wrestling is good enough to survive without it.

Black and Lashley are two wrestlers with enough physical presence to make a short match interesting, but they arrive without the story necessary to make it matter. Lashley works from strength, Black waits for openings and the empty Performance Center removes the crowd reaction that might otherwise turn their collisions into something larger. The finish is clean and sensible: Lashley charges for a Spear and runs directly into Black Mass. Black gets the win and Lashley loses without being dismantled, which is useful television booking masquerading as WrestleMania content. Nothing is especially bad, but very little about the match feels specific to the biggest show of the year.

Otis and Ziggler are not chasing technical greatness; they are paying off a soap-opera storyline involving Mandy Rose, a sabotaged Valentine's date and Sonya Deville's betrayal. For that purpose, the match mostly succeeds. Ziggler controls the wrestling, Deville tries to tilt the outcome, and Rose finally arrives to neutralize her former friend before returning the low-blow favor to Ziggler. Otis hits the Caterpillar, wins and gets the kiss that the entire storyline has been building toward. The empty building makes the payoff feel smaller than it should, because this is exactly the kind of uncomplicated crowd-pleasing moment that would have received a huge stadium reaction. As wrestling it is modest; as story resolution it works.

Edge's first singles match since 2011 should feel urgent, emotional and dangerous. Instead, the Last Man Standing stipulation stretches the feud across nearly thirty-seven minutes and seemingly every room in the Performance Center. There are strong images: Orton's cameraman disguise, the gym fight, the production-truck setting and Edge's conflicted expression before the final Conchairto. The problem is the space between them. Without a crowd, every referee count and long walk to the next location becomes more obvious, and the match repeatedly drains its own tension before rebuilding it. Edge winning is the correct emotional result, but a match this personal should not make viewers check how much time remains.

The Street Profits, Garza and Theory are another group asked to produce WrestleMania energy in a setting that gives them almost nothing back. The champions provide the speed and charisma, Garza adds polish and Theory works capably despite being inserted after Andrade's injury changed the original plan. At just over six minutes, the match has no chance to develop beyond a quick television title defense. Ford's springboard Frog Splash creates the decisive opening and Dawkins pins Theory to retain. The post-match attack matters more than the bout because Bianca Belair arrives to neutralize Zelina Vega, creating a family-and-allies visual that points toward future television. Fine wrestling, minimal event weight.

The five-way elimination match succeeds primarily because Bayley and Sasha Banks give the structure an internal story beyond simply surviving four challengers. Tamina is removed through group cooperation, Naomi falls to Banks, and the relationship between the champion and her best friend becomes increasingly unstable as the field shrinks. Bayley accidentally strikes Banks, then fails to save her from elimination, creating exactly the suspicion the long-term story needs. Banks ultimately returns and helps Bayley defeat Lacey Evans anyway, preserving the alliance while making it more fragile. The match is not spectacular, but the eliminations progress logically and the championship survives with future tension attached.

The Firefly Fun House Match barely qualifies as a match in the traditional sense and works precisely because WrestleMania 36 has already abandoned normal rules. Wyatt drags Cena through a hallucinatory tour of his career, reframing the Ruthless Aggression debut, the muscle-bound company prototype, the WrestleMania XXX victory over Wyatt and even an nWo version of the hero Cena never became. The segment uses WWE's own history as ammunition, forcing Cena to confront the persona he spent years protecting. The Fiend eventually finishes him with Sister Abigail and the Mandible Claw while Bray counts the fall. It is wrestling as psychological video essay: bizarre, self-indulgent, funny and far more thoughtful than anyone could reasonably expect from an empty-building WrestleMania.

McIntyre defeating Lesnar is one of the most important results of the weekend and one of its saddest missed opportunities. The structure is deliberately stripped down: Claymore, F-5s, kickouts, more Claymores, title change. That keeps the match intense for four and a half minutes, but it also means the first British-born WWE world champion wins the biggest match of his career in a room with no fans and almost no journey between the opening bell and the finish. McIntyre kicking out of the F-5 at one is the strongest competitive statement, and three Claymores make the victory decisive. The moment matters enormously even though the match itself is little more than a compressed main-event outline.