WrestleMania 41 (2025): Two Great Matches, One Historic Title Change, and a Finish That Ate the Weekend

WrestleMania 41 begins with the correct winner and a match that spends sixteen minutes trying to convince everyone the journey is more important than the mechanics.

Jey Uso has the crowd before the bell. His entrance through Allegiant Stadium turns a familiar television ritual into a stadium event, and the championship challenge has obvious emotional weight. Gunther enters as the wrestler Jey has repeatedly failed to solve.

The match smartly uses that history. Gunther controls with chops, power and the sleeper. Jey survives, gradually steals pieces of Gunther's offense and eventually uses the champion's own logic against him. The finishing stretch has Jey hit a powerbomb, multiple splashes and then a sleeper rather than another pin attempt.

Gunther taps. That finish is both the match's strongest idea and its most divisive one. The story is clear: Jey has learned enough to beat Gunther at his own game. The execution feels abrupt because Gunther's submission comes before the hold has the struggle normally associated with his biggest losses.

Still, the emotional result works. Jey becomes world champion, Jimmy joins him after the match, and Allegiant Stadium gives the moment the sound WWE wanted.

The wrestling is good. The coronation is better.

New Day against War Raiders is the sort of match that becomes more disappointing the more you remember where it is happening.

The work is fine. Erik and Ivar bring power, New Day bring timing and opportunism, and Ivar provides the biggest athletic flashes. The heel version of Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods is developed enough that the crowd understands what the title win means. But the match receives barely nine minutes and never escapes the feeling of a Raw championship segment placed inside WrestleMania.

War Raiders create the stronger physical sequences. Ivar's movement remains absurd for a man his size, and the champions generate several moments where a longer match appears ready to begin. Instead, the finish arrives quickly. New Day use their double-team offense, Kofi assists illegally on the pin, and the titles change hands.

The result is reasonable. New Day needed tangible success after turning on Big E, and another championship gives their new personalities credibility.

The problem is the scale. WrestleMania has two nights and fourteen matches. A tag division with this much talent should not have to make its largest annual appearance feel like an appointment squeezed between commercials.

Jade Cargill and Naomi arrive with a stronger story than many matches on the card and deliver a solid match without quite turning the feud into something exceptional.

Naomi's heel turn gave the rivalry a clean emotional structure. She attacked Jade, hid the truth, replaced her beside Bianca Belair and then admitted what she had done. Jade returns looking for revenge. Nobody needs a flowchart.

That directness helps the match. Naomi works around Jade's power rather than pretending she can overpower her. She uses speed, counters and veteran positioning to create openings. Jade's best moments come when she can simply look overwhelming, particularly the powerbomb counter that changes the match's momentum.

The crowd is interested, but not molten. There is always a sense that Jade is supposed to win, and the match never quite creates the nearfall or reversal that makes another result believable. Jaded ends it cleanly.

For Jade, that matters. WrestleMania gives her a major singles victory without interference or ambiguity. For Naomi, the match confirms her value as the opponent capable of making Jade work rather than simply stand across from her. It is competent, physical and useful. It is also unmistakably the third-best version of what this feud might have produced.

This is the first Saturday match that feels as though both wrestlers understand they have ten minutes and no interest in wasting any of them.

Jacob Fatu's first WrestleMania match is built around the obvious question: can LA Knight find enough offense to stop a challenger who looks like he can absorb almost anything? Knight answers by hitting him with everything.

He survives Fatu's explosiveness, creates openings with timing rather than raw force and produces the match's best nearfall when he catches a moonsault attempt with the BFT. Fatu reaches the rope, which matters because Knight's finish is protected without making Fatu look vulnerable for long. Then Fatu takes over.

The closing sequence is exactly the showcase he needs. A top-rope Samoan Drop and consecutive double-jump moonsaults transform the match from competitive title defense into an arrival. The audience is not merely watching a new champion; it is being told that Fatu's physical ceiling is different from most of the roster.

Knight loses without looking diminished. Fatu wins without Solo Sikoa handing him the result. The championship changes hands cleanly. The match could use another few minutes, but unlike several bouts on the weekend, the compressed runtime creates urgency rather than incompleteness.

Rey Fenix was not supposed to be here. Rey Mysterio was.

That late change explains some of the match and excuses none of the missed opportunity.

Fenix and Chad Gable, hidden beneath the El Grande Americano mask, are too athletic to produce something dull. They exchange quick counters, aerial offense and lucha-inspired sequences with the ease of wrestlers who could comfortably fill twice the allotted time. They receive about eight minutes. The result is a trailer for a better match.

Americano's loaded-mask gimmick gives the finish a clear heel mechanism. The metal plate turns a headbutt into a weapon, and the diving headbutt produces the win. As character work, it is consistent. As WrestleMania booking on the same weekend WWE publicly celebrates its move into Mexican wrestling through AAA, having Fenix lose decisively to a parody luchador is an awkward image. The wrestling itself is good enough to survive the choice.

Fenix's speed makes several sequences pop. Gable can meet him technically and athletically, which prevents the comedy character from turning the match into comedy wrestling. The problem is not what they do. It is how quickly they are told to stop.

Nineteen minutes should be enough time for Tiffany Stratton and Charlotte Flair to settle into something substantial. Instead, the match spends long stretches looking like two talented wrestlers negotiating the same space.

The physicality is real. Flair chops hard, Stratton answers with athletic offense and neither woman appears interested in making the match gentle. There are impressive individual sequences: powerbombs, countered moonsaults, Natural Selection attempts, Stratton's rolling attack and the eventual Prettiest Moonsault Ever.

The problem is connection. Transitions sometimes feel like separate ideas placed next to each other rather than a match gaining momentum. The crowd is interested in the personalities and frequently hostile toward Flair, but the wrestling struggles to transform that emotional energy into escalating drama.

The clean finish is the most valuable part. Stratton counters the spear, hits the rolling senton and lands the moonsault to retain without outside help. WWE gives the younger champion a direct WrestleMania victory over the most decorated woman in company history.

That is a meaningful result and a strong vote of confidence. The match itself is harder to praise. Nineteen minutes make the lack of chemistry more visible rather than solving it.

WrestleMania 41 Saturday finally becomes WrestleMania in the main event. CM Punk, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins carry so much shared history that the match could have collapsed under exposition. Instead, the history gives every major sequence an extra layer.

Punk is receiving the WrestleMania main event he never got during his first WWE run. Reigns is entering his tenth. Rollins has betrayed Reigns before, fought Punk for years and understands better than either man how to turn a WrestleMania ending into theft.

The wrestling is appropriately excessive. They brawl through the crowd, trade finishers, use tables and repeatedly interrupt each other's best moments. A sequence in which Punk hits Rollins with the GTS, Reigns spears Punk and Rollins rebounds into a Stomp on Reigns distills the entire match into seconds. Then Paul Heyman chooses.

He hands Punk the chair, betrays Punk with a low blow, gives the chair to Reigns, and appears to restore the old alliance. Then he betrays Reigns too. Rollins receives the chair, recreates the emotional outline of The Shield breakup and stomps Reigns to win. It is wrestling opera, which is not an insult.

The finish requires performance more than surprise, and Heyman performs it brilliantly.

The best match at WrestleMania 41 lasts fourteen minutes and wastes approximately none of them.

IYO SKY enters as champion and, somehow, also as the woman most likely to be overlooked. Much of the story centered on Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley staring through Iyo at each other. The match turns that disrespect into its engine.

Iyo attacks early, interrupts constantly and refuses to disappear from her own title defense. Belair supplies explosive power. Ripley supplies force and presence. Iyo supplies movement and timing. Because all three are distinct, the triple-threat structure never becomes three people waiting politely for the next sequence.

The final stretch is outstanding. Ripley blocks Iyo's moonsault with her knees. Belair immediately hits the KOD on Iyo, only for Ripley to break the pin. Belair then escapes Riptide, uses the braid and hits KOD on Ripley. She appears to have the match won.

Iyo arrives from above. Over the Moonsault lands on Belair, and Iyo pins her to retain.

That finish is not merely spectacular. It resolves the entire story. Belair and Ripley remain obsessed with beating each other, and the champion wins by understanding the match better than either challenger. This is athletic wrestling with narrative discipline.

Drew McIntyre and Damian Priest have spent enough time hurting each other that a normal singles match would almost feel dishonest. The Sin City Street Fight solves that problem.

This is not complicated violence. Chairs, stairs and tables appear quickly. McIntyre turns the steel steps into both weapon and landing surface. Priest answers with power offense and uses the table as something closer to structural engineering than furniture.

The best part is that the weapons mostly serve the feud rather than replace it. McIntyre's selfie callback is exactly the kind of character-specific nonsense a street fight can afford. Priest uses Razor's Edge through a table, a nod to Scott Hall that fits him rather than feeling imported. McIntyre's Future Shock onto the steps looks miserable for both men.

The closing stretch escalates correctly. Priest crashes through tables on the floor. McIntyre finally uses a chair as the frame for the winning Claymore. The match is violent without becoming long, which is a significant advantage on a WrestleMania weekend already approaching eight hours.

McIntyre wins decisively enough to move the rivalry forward while Priest loses after absorbing a level of punishment that protects him naturally.

Ten minutes should not be enough for four wrestlers to do this much without turning the match into noise. Somehow, it is.

Bron Breakker supplies the impossible acceleration. Penta supplies the sharpest transitions. Finn Bálor supplies the timing. Dominik Mysterio supplies the crowd reaction that changes the entire emotional direction of the match.

The audience wants Dom. That fact would have sounded absurd during the height of his heat, which is why it matters. The match understands the transformation and allows the crowd to participate rather than arguing with it.

Breakker is the physical centerpiece. His double suplexes and running offense make him look like the most dangerous wrestler in the match even as the championship slips away. The spear across the commentary tables through Carlito is the visual highlight.

Penta and Balor repeatedly create winning openings. Nobody is parked outside for so long that the structure feels mechanical.

Then Balor hits Coup de Grace on Breakker. Dominik does what Dominik does.

He flies in with the Frog Splash, pins Balor and steals the Intercontinental Championship while the crowd cheers the theft.

It is efficient, athletic and perfectly cast.

Randy Orton's WrestleMania match disappears when Kevin Owens needs neck surgery, so WWE turns the problem into a surprise.

Joe Hendry answers the open challenge. That is the match.

Hendry arrives as TNA World Champion, the crowd sings, Orton looks amused, and everyone understands that three minutes is not enough time to pretend this is a competitive epic. The simplicity is a virtue.

Hendry gets a few recognizable moments. Orton avoids embarrassment. The RKO ends it quickly. Afterward, Orton gives Hendry a show of respect, lifts his arm, spins him around and hits another RKO because Randy Orton has been Randy Orton for longer than some fans in the stadium have been alive.

As wrestling, there is almost nothing to grade. As a WrestleMania interlude, it works. The surprise creates a connection between WWE and TNA, gives Hendry an enormous stage and lets Orton appear on the card without manufacturing a replacement feud at the last second. Sometimes three minutes of exactly what the audience wants is enough.

AJ Styles and Logan Paul produce the kind of good match that becomes frustrating because the ingredients suggest something better.

Paul remains absurdly comfortable for his experience level. He moves like a wrestler who has spent years doing this rather than someone whose schedule still resembles a celebrity's. Styles is Styles. The physical execution is not the problem.

The match has athletic sequences, counters and escalating offense. Paul borrows familiar moves, including a Styles Clash, while AJ repeatedly threatens to turn the match into something more technically complete. The missing piece is heat.

The crowd never fully invests in the rhythm. Karrion Kross and Paul's entourage create a side story around brass knuckles, but Styles rejects the shortcut and attempts to win clean. That is sensible character work. It also interrupts momentum the match has spent considerable time trying to create.

Paul eventually lands the knockout punch and Paulverizer to win. The result is clean enough to matter, and the match is too well executed to dismiss. It simply never becomes the showcase many expected from two performers whose athletic reputations practically advertise spectacle.

The entrance matters more than the match. Bayley is removed after a backstage attack, Lyra Valkyria needs a replacement partner, and Becky Lynch returns after nearly a year away. Allegiant Stadium reacts accordingly.

Once the bell rings, the structure is straightforward. Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez isolate Lyra. Becky waits for the hot tag. The champions control enough of the match to make the return meaningful without threatening to turn the bout into a long title epic.

When Becky finally enters, the pace jumps. Her familiar offense gives the crowd the release it has been waiting for, Lyra returns to contribute, and the challengers close quickly. Becky hits the Manhandle Slam and wins the titles with Valkyria.

In the larger story, the title change is almost temporary scaffolding. Morgan and Rodriguez regain the championships the next night on Raw, and Becky attacks Lyra afterward, revealing the beginning of the program that follows.

That later turn makes the WrestleMania moment more interesting historically than the wrestling itself.

The match does its job. The return is excellent. The wrestling is average.

John Cena wins world championship number seventeen in a match that should feel monumental before anyone reaches for a weapon.

The first half is deliberately slow. Cena works as the heel, Cody as the defending standard-bearer, and the match builds around the idea that Cena cannot simply outwrestle the champion.

There are good nearfalls. Cena lands multiple Attitude Adjustments, including one from the ropes. Cody answers with Cody Cutters and Cross Rhodes attempts. The crowd remains interested because the outcome matters even when the pace does not. Then the match begins adding pieces.

The referee goes down. Travis Scott arrives. Cody appears to have Cena beaten after Cross Rhodes, but Scott pulls the referee out. Cody attacks Scott. Cena tries the title belt. Cody stops him and briefly hesitates.

Cena kicks low. The belt shot ends Cody's reign and gives Cena the record.

Heel Cena cheating is not the problem. The problem is proportion. The most important championship victory of Cena's career is ultimately presented as a celebrity-assisted escape, and the celebrity spends enough time in the sequence to become part of the historical image. Cena winning matters enormously. The match does not rise to meet the result.